This week saw the centenary of the armistice following the First World War, with commemorations across Australia. Scott Morrison spoke at the War Memorial in Canberra and the Governor-General, General Sir Peter Cosgrove, attended services in France.
Melbourne is recovering from the apparent terror attack on Bourke Street, with Dan Andrews offering the family of the deceased victim, Sisto Malaspina, a state funeral – which they’ve accepted. Meanwhile the Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton have been speaking tough on extremism, saying the community, especially the Muslim community, needs to keep an eye on radicalisation and report it – which has somewhat upset the Muslim community because they’re being tarred with the same brush. There are also questions now over whether the attacker, who died after being shot by police, was also mentally unwell, separate from his radicalisation – something that Scott Morrison did not like the idea of when asked about it in an interview on Channel 10.
This week also saw Prime Minister Scott Morrison at his first regional summits. First, to Singapore, where he attended ASEAN meetings. He was received well, however both Indonesia and Malaysia have concerns about the Israel Embassy decision, which is yet to made. This has lead to the delay in signing the free trade agreement with Indonesia, which was supposed to happen this week. Morrison says the decision will be made in “a little while”, but won’t say exactly when – although the aim seems to be before Christmas.
Morrison also attended the APEC conference in Papua New Guinea this weekend, during which there has been a lot of announcements about joint projects. Most of these are designed, it seems, to counter Chinese influence in the Pacific region. The first is a joint infrastructure venture between America, Japan and Australia, which is meant to be an alternative to the “Belt and Road” infrastructure initiative offered by China.
The other of these is a Joint Naval base on Manus Island that will house Papuan, Australian and American naval forces. Again, the plan is to counter Chinese influence in the region by setting up a naval base close to Australia before China did. Australian Defence members have also bee brought in during APEC to help the Papua New Guinean security forces with security and protection for the conference, as Australia knows a thing or two about APEC security having hosted in 2007.
The closing date for opting out if the MyHealth Record system was November 15 – or at least it was until the website crashed in the days prior as people rushed to opt out or get more information. This has lead the Health Minister Greg Hunt to announce that there will be an extension to the opt-out timeframe. If you are yet to opt-out (if you so wish) you have until January 31.
Also this week, the ABC investigated itself on Four Corners over the sacking of Michelle Guthrie. Guthrie essentially accused the board of failing to act when she brought up instances of former Chairman Justin Milne interfering politically in the running of the public broadcaster. Guthrie also accused Milne of “inappropriate touching”, saying that he rubbed her back, which made her feel uncomfortable. She reported it to another board member but refused to make a formal complaint. Many people can understand why that’d make you uncomfortable, but it did feel a little bit like she was throwing that in at the eleventh hour to save her job.
This has lead to calls for the ABC Board to be entirely replaced, but also lead to several former and current politicians to support the ABC and the work they do – with former Deputy PM Tim Fischer saying regional Australia would “be like Siberia” if not for regional ABC programming.
Finally this week, in an epic display of “policy gymnastics”, the government announced a cut to Foodbank, ostensibly to share the money with two other food rescue organisations, SecondBite and OzHarvest, before deciding instead to increase the food rescue industry budget after facing public backlash.
Tweet of the Week
Things I’ve Been Looking at Online
A year after the vote, the LGBT community are still recovering – ABC Online
Morrison’s government brings back memories of McMahon’s – ABC Online
Kara L 