Monthly Archives: March 2014

The Week that Was – March 23 to March 29

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Where to start?

First to Operation Sovereign Borders. If you remember a while back there was this big thing over asylum seekers getting burned on engines, allegedly at the hands of Australian Navy members. Well some of the asylum seekers on that have spoken and told their stories. They say that they got upset when they realised what the Navy was doing (i.e. turning the boat around) and they decided to stand up for themselves. The navy crew pepper sprayed them while others tried to get into the engine room, and they say that they were punished by being pushed or forced to touch the hot engine so they got burnt. Other people on the boat are backing up the story while the government maintains that the claims are untrue and unsubstantiated.

Staying with Operation Sovereign Borders, the government says that there have been no asylum seeker boat arrivals in 100 days, those 100 days being from December until now. They say that compared with the same period under the Labor government (Dec 2012 – March 2013) there were 66 boat arrivals. That may be so, but, as a lot of people have been asking, at what cost – and that is a good question. Speaking of questions, Scott Morrison was asked if he would get a promotion from the Immigration portfolio given he has done his job so well…he never got to answer, because Tony Abbott made the fastest media save I’ve ever seen and stopped the line of questioning in its tracks. Labor wants Morrison to stay in the Immigration portfolio for the entire term of government.

Moving on now to possibly one of the most divisive policy plans the government has in its six or so months in office. They want to change Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. Put simply they want to take the words “insult, offend and humiliate” out and replace it with “vilify”. It is so divisive that members of the Coalition government such as Ken Wyatt are saying they will cross the floor (vote to oppose) if the reform makes it to a vote. The Liberal Premier of NSW has taken a swipe at the Attorney-General George Brandis over the proposed changes. I’m not going to say much more, because I’ll get too annoyed and start yelling.

Speaking of yelling, Question Time got quite its fair share of yelling this week, particularly when the Opposition moved a motion of no confidence in the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Bronwyn Bishop, who they believe has not been impartial and is favouring the government – and in the opinion of a few people I talked to about it, they agree. As of Thursday, when this motion occurred, the Speaker has made 99 expulsions of MPs – all from the Opposition.

This week also saw “Dames” and “Sirs” being returned to Australia’s Honours lists. The first two are Dame Quentin Bryce – the now former Governor General and Sir Peter Cosgrove, the new Governor General – he also has a “General” in there somewhere from his army days. The Opposition has been making fun of this addition, with Mark Dreyfus, the Shadow Attorney-General, asking if slavery was next. Dame Quentin Bryce has now left her position as Governor-General and Sir Peter Cosgrove has been sworn in. Cosgrove says he is agenda free, so lets hope he stays that way.

Also this week, Craig Thompson was sentenced to 12 months prison for his crimes, with 9 months suspended. He spent about an hour in jail before being released on bail after appealing his sentence. Medibank Private is most likely going to be sold off and you will be able to buy shares in the company when it does. Tony Abbott called the Egyptians and talked to them about Peter Greste, with Abbott saying he was only doing his job, and the Egyptians promising a free and fair trial – one hopes that more is done and Greste and his Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera colleagues are released. Oh, and before the university students come after me for not mentioning it – they protested this week over the government’s education cuts.

Tweets of The Week

People have been making fun of the Dames and Sirs thing – thanks in part to Peter FitzSimons encouraging people

https://twitter.com/paintsreads/status/450032774921977856

Things I’ve Been Reading/Watching/Listening

Waleed Aly on the change to the Racial Discrimination Act – SMH

Change the computer font, save money on ink – CNN

The Racial Discrimination Act, 1975. – AustLII

 

The Week That Was – March 16 to March 22

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This week was definitely crazier.

Sunday saw the “March in March”, an anti-Liberal protest that took place in all major cities, with the slogan “a vote of no confidence” – essentially, these people are not happy with the way the country is being run. There was a good turn out, with Melbourne having the largest protest, and Sydney had pretty high numbers too. Tony Abbott was in Sydney and was either poking fun or being a complete idiot when he replied to a reporter asking about the protests, saying “I thought the only rally today was the St. Patrick’s Parade,” with a grin. So I’m more inclined to think that maybe he was trying to be funny as opposed to being an idiot.

Tony Abbott was in Sydney to help announce a new roads project called the North Connex – a motorway and tunnel project to be built in north-western Sydney to help with congestion on Pennant Hills Road. The NRMA seems positive about it, mainly because the tunnel in this project is going to be high enough to clear large trucks (a problem we’ve been having for a while) and will cut travel time for many in the Hills District.

Moving on, the Royal Commission into the Insulation Scheme revealed that only two bureaucrats costed the scheme over one long weekend without much help and that the public servants and government knew about the risks and similar deaths New Zealand. While that probably is a pretty big thing to come out of the hearings this week, some are still calling it a witch hunt on Tony Abbott’s part to get back at Labor.

Keeping with Commissions, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) revealed the Liberal Senator Arthur Sinodinos stood to make $20 million from some dodgy deals that Sydney Water Holdings made while he was in charge of the board. Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party have been standing by him, but Labor wanted him to quit. He hasn’t – but he “stood aside” from his ministerial position (he may come back when and if he is cleared) of Assistant Treasurer, which could make life difficult the closer the Budget gets.

Manus Island has been in the news this week, with a judge in Papua New Guinea opening an inquiry into the conditions at the detention centre. The aim is to see whether or not the PNG Government is treating the asylum seekers in their care as they should be. A couple of the asylum seekers testified, saying they felt like they were in jail and the feel like humans for once, because this inquiry is letting them talk. They’ve also said that on a visit to the centre, Scott Morrison told the asylum seekers “don’t even dream of coming to Australia” because they weren’t going to be settled. The judge leading the inquiry travelled to the detention centre and allowed the media to come along – as if they would decline that opportunity. The ABC reported that there are still scars of the riots with broken windows and bullet holes in places. The dorms are packed and the bathrooms look pretty bad. According to the ABC journalist the asylum seekers kept asking the media to help them.

Still on Papua New Guinea, Tony Abbott has paid a visit to Port Moresby to discuss the deal with the asylum seekers, as the PNG Government is yet to process any of them. In return for speeding up, the Papua New Guineans will have more say in where the aid money they’re getting for taking the asylum seekers. Not only that, but Australia has to see if other nations will take our asylum seekers, because PNG can’t possible take all of them in. Tony Abbott did say something about the nations shouldering “their fair share of the burden” of the asylum seekers coming into the region, but that is a bit unfair – most countries have their own issues.

MH370 is still missing, and now an area around 2500km off the Western Australian coast is the main area for looking for the plane. They’ve found some chunks using satellites – and they’ve had ships and planes looking for them, but they can’t be found. There has been some great international co-operation though, so hopefully with some hard work they might find something.

Also this week, with the RBA considering changes to the Australian notes, the vision impaired are calling for tactile markings on the notes (like Canada does) to make it easier to tell whether they’re handing over $10 or $50.

Tweet of the Week

What I’ve Been Reading/Watching/Listening etc

A car crashes into the concrete fence/wall surrounding the Lodge – ABC Online

The US Media has trouble with Australian facts – News.com.au

The Week That Was – March 9 to March 15

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This week seemed less politically charged nationally, which is a nice change, but there were state elections in Tasmania and South Australia.

We begin the week with both Tony Abbott and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten being sombre about the missing plane belonging to Malaysia Airlines. The flight, MH370 (the flight number now retired) went missing early (2am Malaysian time) on Saturday morning and hasn’t been seen or heard from since. Tony Abbott talked with his Malaysian counterpart, and Australia has sent some Orion surveillance planes to search for the flight.

SPC Ardmona (you remember them?) have had a good week, signing a deal to give Woolworths supermarkets more fruit, not only in its capacity as an independent company with its own brands, but also as part of Woolworths’ home brand (Woolworths Select). Hopefully someone will think its a good idea to call the fruit products “Woolworth’s Select by SPC” such that the consumer can tell that the fruit is home-grown. SPC has also had a rise in sales due to the coverage of its bid to get some taxpayer money, so they are much happier down in Shepparton.

Meanwhile, the State election campaigns in South Australia and Tasmania have wrapped up, with Tasmania (at last glance) changing from a Labor Government to a Liberal Government. It looks like South Australia might have ended up with a hung parliament, but there are still pre-poll, declaration and postal votes to count, so we won’t know for a while, especially in some marginal seats. I don’t live there, so I don’t know much about it. You can read more in-depth on the ABC Elections website for both Tasmania and South Australia.

Other than that, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce fronted a Senate Estimates Inquiry, and the Western Australian Federal Senate re-election campaign began to gain momentum.

Tweet of the Week

What I’ve Been Reading/Watching/Listening etc

Tasmania’s State voting system explained – ABC Online

The YouTube ad revenue split – DailyDot

Ukraine – explained by author John Green

Scott Ludlam invites Tony Abbott to Western Australia

The Week That Was – March 2 to March 8

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This week began with the Australian missionary arrested in North Korea being released after he apologised, although it was mainly because of his age. Also, both Tony Abbott and the government are warning Russia not to invade Crimea in Ukraine, so he does have some diplomacy skills. It also happens to be the 6-month mark for the Coalition government.

Qantas’ issues continue to divide the politicians, with debate over whether or not the government should get rid of the Qantas Sale Act, with one suggestion being that the international operations of Qantas remain Australian-owned, while having the domestic operations foreign-owned. Apparently there is no “Plan B” so to speak, despite rumours that Warren Truss had come up with an idea to have the government keep majority ownership of the airline, but increase the maximum number of shares a foreign shareholder can have. It may have been on the news, but apparently it was never an idea…oh well.

The other issue that arose early this week was the airline’s communications, with a message from Qantas on Monday saying the carbon tax had nothing to do with their problems. But on Wednesday, all of a sudden, the carbon tax was a factor – the Opposition were suspicious, and rightfully so. Labor also expressed concern that the virtually clean safety record of Qantas could be compromised, which then brings out the clip from Rain Man.

This week the Grattan Institute called for a change to health pricing, particularly surgery prices. They found huge differences in prices between hospitals, with one charging less than $10,000 for a specific surgery and another hospital doing the same surgery charging almost $25,000. Apparently it has something to do with the services given to you pre- and post-operation, so in some ways it adds up.

Still with health, it appears that Medicare is being defrauded by a few nasty people – apparently the vast majority of Australians are not rorting or misusing the system. But it is an easy system to defraud because people’s information is available at so many service providers.

The government is still trying to convince workers that they will be ok under the new government, but may have had a setback when the draft terms of reference for the Productivity Review Commission were leaked. They want the commission to see if penalty rates could be removed…I thought Work Choices was dead, buried and cremated.

Tweet of the Week

Faux Pas of the Week

Mattias Cormann, the Finance Minister, said that the issue of more women in cabinet was a “side issue” – it may not have caused so much fuss, if he hadn’t said it on International Women’s Day…Ooops.

What I’ve Been Reading/Watching/Listening etc

SBS2’s The Feed had fun spoofing 12 Years a Slave in the hope that the ABC might apologise for spelling their presenter’s name wrong, a là Solomon Northup and the New York Times.

The Week that Was – February 23 to March 1

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So back last week, a guy died on Manus Island during riots. When Scott Morrison first talked about it, he said that the deceased asylum seeker was outside the complex when he was killed. It appears that this was not the case – the Iranian asylum seeker, who arrived after Kevin Rudd’s asylum seeker PNG resettlement plan, was inside the centre when he was killed. There have been calls for Scott Morrison to resign or for Tony Abbott to sack him. Abbott has said that he won’t sack him because we “don’t want a wimp running border protection” and that Morrison is “strong and decent”, despite the fact that Scott Morrison is the Minister for Immigration and not the Minister for Border Protection. Back on Manus Island, the locals have said they are rattled by the event and would very much like to know what happened that night. Fair enough, if a guy had died near my house, I’d like to know exactly what happened too. The Manus locals are blaming Australia for what happened and Papua New Guinean officials are saying that locals and PNG police weren’t very involved. They also said that the asylum seeker death was confirmed to have taken place in the complex very early on.

Craig Thompson, after having been found guilty in court last week, has this week been referred to the Privileges Committee to see if he deliberately lied to Parliament when he made a speech, denying he did anything untoward, and the Government has apologised to the people Thompson named in his speech. Labor allowed both motions through, and I guess, given Thompson was found guilty, it would look bad if they voted against it.

Stephen Conroy caused a major brouhaha (yes, brouhaha) this week, when he accused Angus Campbell of a political cover-up to do with Operation Sovereign Borders and what happened on Manus Island, which you can watch here. The Defence Minister wants an apology, which Conroy hasn’t given and Bill Shorten isn’t forcing him to. Conroy has however, withdrawn the comment, but the Liberals still want him sacked. In Senate Estimates hearings, it has been said that about $2 million has been spent on Operation Sovereign Borders, but they won’t say how much specifically they have spent on the orange lifeboats they’ve been using to send the asylum seekers back. Hmmm.

Aid for drought affected farmers also passed through parliament this week, with money for loans as well as handouts for those farmers who really and desperately need money and help. They are also setting aside $33 million dollars for mental health services to help farmers as well.

Speaking of aid, Qantas came back with its results, but it seems that the government is very reluctant to give it money, because there would be backlash from, well, a lot of people. However, they may still change the Qantas Sale Act so they can have more foreign ownership and make a bit more money. And while I don’t understand finance and economics that well, I can tell when shareholders are unimpressed. Qantas shares went down twice on Thursday, first when the $252 million loss was announced and then again when Alan Joyce said he was staying in his role as CEO…Ouch.

Tweets of the Week

A selection of tweets from the growing number of people who are taking part in a twitter campaign #notinmyname