The Week That Was – April 22 to April 28

The Banking Royal Commission is still revealing more and more illegal and unconscionable conduct by banks and financial advisors. This week the ANZ Bank revealed that nearly a quarter of their financial planners had been disciplined for giving inappropriate advice that potentially benefitted them rather than their clients. Not only that, but the regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), has been a toothless tiger. ASIC requires that companies report the fact that they may have broken the law within 10 days of the discovery of such information – and it theoretically has the power to prosecute if companies report later than that, but hasn’t. In fact, during this royal commission bank officials have admitted to knowing of potentially illegal actions and have not reported them to ASIC for years.

The government is also struggling with the Royal Commission issue, initially not wanting to admit they shouldn’t have resisted calls for a commission in the first place – something the backbench was getting irritated with because they can’t claim victory for starting up the commission until the senior MPs and ministers admit the mea culpa. Later in the week Malcolm Turnbull eventually admitted that there should have been less resistance and an earlier start to the commission.

Malcolm Turnbull spend the earlier part of the week finishing off his European trip, visiting Germany and France. In Germany he met with Angela Merkel and discussed the bilateral relationship and the potential for closer trade and security ties with Germany and the European Union post-Brexit. Then in France, Turnbull travelled to the town of Villers-Bretonneux where Australian soldiers fought off the Germans in the First World War. There he opened the Sir John Monash Centre (the brainchild of former PM Tony Abbott) on the centenary of the battle on ANZAC Day.

On ANZAC Day, the country commemorated the day with dawn services across the country, including at the Australian War Memorial, the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney’s Martin Place, as well as at Gallipoli and Villers-Bretonneux. There were other ceremonies and commemorations, with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle attending the New Zealand War Memorial in London, as well as a memorial service at Westminster Abbey (where Prince William was caught trying not to fall asleep).

The Government has also announced that they no longer plan to raise the Medicare Levy in order to pay for the NDIS program, saying they have other ways to pay for it. What those ways may be are unclear at the moment. Those using the NDIS are not so sure of and are now concerned about how their programs will be funded.

Also this week, Professor Clinton Fernandes has taken ASIS (Australia’s international spy agency) to court to get them to release 40-year-old intelligence documents regarding what Australia knew in the lead up to the Indonesian invasion of Timor-Leste. Fernandes, a university professor and historical advisor to the historical movie Balibo is trying to get the documents released in order to tell the whole story.

Finally this week, the Anglican Church has announced it may sell some of their church land in order to pay for the Institutional Abuse redress scheme in states that have signed up; Trump has decided to send the guy who was supposed to be the US Ambassador to Australia to help out with the North Korean peace thing – the government doesn’t see it as a snub but as a useful person being sent to a place where they’ll be useful; and AGL has got at least some of their Liddell coal power plant replacements – with a gas plant to be built outside of Newcastle and another plant to be built between Sydney and Wollongong (pending government and community approval).

Tweet of the Week

Senate Estimates have been taking place at the moment too… (N.B. the BCA is the Business Council of Australia)

https://twitter.com/KKeneally/status/988658604088545281

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Who has what information on you on the internet? – ABC Online

Kim Jong-Un is in it for the money – ABC Online

15 Things That Happened in the Last Three Weeks – April 1 to April 21

When I end up working a few Sundays in a row it sort of messes up the whole “posts every Sunday” thing, so here is a recap of the last three weeks:

1. Easter happened, which meant that there was a bit of a lull for the first two weeks – but there was still political stuff happening, just less dram a than is normal.
2. Greens Senator Jordan Steele-John brought awareness of the fact that the 1980s era Parliament House is not really built for people with wheelchairs – especially the MP’s offices
3. Former Labor Opposition Leader Kim Beazley will become the new WA Governor, after returning from Washington DC  where he was the Ambassador to the United States.
4. Alinta Energy is offering to buy the Liddell power plant off AGL. Alinta has said they won’t ask for money from the taxpayers, but AGL is unlikely to sell the ageing plant as it is vital to its 2022 transition plans.
5. The GST distribution between the states is being redistributed, with WA getting some more money, while money is being taken away from the (richer) East Coast.
6. The Australian Taxation Office is in trouble for abusing their powers and being heavy-handed in their actions, with allegations that the motive was revenue raising rather than enforcing compliance.
7. Kelly O’Dwyer then announced that there would be an investigation into the ATO’s practices.
8. The National Broadband Network is still causing trouble with complaints about fibre to the node (FTTN) links (with some people returning to copper wire links) and concerns about the difference in service for people with FTTN, fibre to the premises (FTTP), and the new fibre to the curb (FTTC) plans.
9. Malcolm Turnbull hit what the media dubbed the “Dirty Thirty” – as it has been thirty consecutive Newspolls lost to the Opposition, which Turnbull used as a measure to topple Tony Abbott. Turnbull says he regrets using thirty Newspolls as a measure of failure now, but used the attention to highlight his economic leadership.
10. There was thought that if someone did use “Dirty Thirty” to try to topple Turnbull it’d probably be at the hands of Peter Dutton and Julie Bishop – however there really isn’t a viable alternative to Turnbull right now so we’re stuck with him 🙂
11. There are new concerns about live sheep exports to the Middle East after footage was released of sheep dying of heat stress on one of the export ships. This has led the cross-bench and backbench MPs to either call for bans or changes to the live export trade.
12. There was a rumour that Vanuatu was in talks with China to host a Chinese military base on the archipelago. Vanuatu has denied this strenuously, and Vanuatu’s Foreign Minister reportedly had no idea about any plans or talks.
13. The Banking Royal Commission continued over the last three weeks and it has been shocking – banks and financial advisors have admitted to knowingly giving poor financial advice to customers and knowingly charging “fees for no service” that they were not entitled to, even charging fees to someone who was dead (and had been reported dead to the bank already).
14. It has also been suggested that if Commissioner Hayne were to approach the Government and ask for an extension for the Royal Commission, he would likely get it, as the Government has realised that the banking sector has been very, very naughty.
15. Malcolm Turnbull began his European Tour in London, attending the Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting (CHOGM) where the Queen made clear her “sincerest wish” that Prince Charles become the next Head of the Commonwealth – as the Queen’s headship of the Commonwealth of Nations is not hereditary.

 

I’ll be back to regular posting on Sundays this coming week.

The Week That Was – March 25 to March 31

The NSW and Federal Governments are gearing themselves up for elections next year – NSW is going to the polls in March(ish) 2019, and the country will vote in mid-2019, which seems like a really long time to hear people talk about what they’ll do when they’re elected next year, but to be fair, we’ll probably only hear little tidbits for the next few months, so I think we can all cope for a while.

The government is trying to convince the Senate cross bench to help pass their company tax cut – but it’s leading to some concern that the Liberals are willing to do anything for this tax cut policy to pass the Senate. Derryn Hinch is still on the fence, and there are rumours that the Liberals told new South Australian Senator Tim Storer (he’s replacing Nick Xenophon) to ‘name his price’.

Australia has kicked out two people from the Russian Embassy, alleging they’re undeclared intelligence officers. This is mostly in response to the poisoning of Yulia and Sergei Skripal in the UK, as over 20 other countries including the UK and the USA have booted diplomatic staff as well. Russia, of course, responded with the booting of two Australian diplomats – it’s essentially a typical diplomatic tit-for-tat.

Finally this week, Parliament will have a review into franchising; Tasmanians are freaking out over the fact that their government wants to relax gun laws, which could be in breach of the National Firearms Agreement; the Labor party has tweaked their franking credits refund policy thing, exempting most pensions; and early childhood workers went on strike to protest their very low pay – which they want the government to help pay so parents don’t have to.

I hope you have a good Easter long weekend.

Tweet of the Week

https://twitter.com/workmanalice/status/979213430505664512

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

The ABC sussed out the April Fools headlines – ABC Online

Michael Jensen on the musical The Book of Mormon – ABC Online