The Two Weeks That Were – May 19 to June 1

Well that was certainly not the result the country expected!

The election result was a bit of a shock, with government being returned with a slightly more solid majority than 2016. There was an epic swing toward the Coalition in Queensland, where it seems Labor’s lack of a concrete position on the Adani mine was their downfall. There has been calls from those south of the Queensland border that have suggested that the Sunshine State should secede, but I think they’re (mostly) joking. Regardless, Morrison appears to have pulled off a massive victory, and this gives him great authority.

Tony Abbott did lose his seat of Warringah this election, much to the joy of many both in the electorate and out of it. This will likely make the government more stable this time around, as both of Morrison’s predecessors, Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull, are no longer in Parliament. However, Kerryn Phelps has lost her seat of Wentworth to Dave Sharma, whom she defeated in last October’s by-election.

The Prime Minister then spent some time forming his new cabinet – which can now be fully his own. In order to keep stability when he took the reins last August, Morrison left most ministers and assistant ministers where they were, but now he can rearrange the ministry however he pleases. Frydenberg, Payne and Dutton were thought to keep their positions, and they have.

The cabinet now has seven women, including Melissa Price, who spent most of her time as Environment Minister in hiding (or so it seemed). Price will no longer be Environment Minister though, as she is moving to the Defence Industry portfolio. This is essentially a demotion to the outer ministry, while Sussan Ley has been reappointed to the inner ministry in the Environment portfolio. We will also see two Senators leave in the next six months, with Arthur Sinodinos heading to Washington DC to become the next Ambassador to the United States, once Joe Hockey’s term ends, and Mitch Fifield will head to New York to become the next Ambassador to the United Nations.

The government has also appointed Ken Wyatt as Minister for Indigenous Australians, the first Indigenous person to be appointed to the role. Many people in the indigenous community are happy to have one of their own responsible for the policies that affect them. However there seems to be confusion regarding how constitutional recognition and the “voice to parliament” that the indigenous community. The Prime Minister has announced a new agency within the Indigenous Affairs portfolio, and while information is sparse, there is concern that its purpose is to trump the plans for the “voice to parliament” – which is touted as an elected advisory body to Parliament, but some conservatives seem to see it as a third house of Parliament, which is not the case.

The government also plans to introduce their promised tax cuts as soon as possible, however they’ve kind of reneged on one of their promises already, which was to try get the legislation through before the start of the new financial year on July 1. This is because there is still at least one seat to be declared, as the seat of Macquarie is now so marginal they’re counting all of the preferences – earlier in the count there were less than 100 votes separating the Labor and Liberal candidates, but as of writing, Labor has pulled ahead by 282 votes.

Speaking of Labor, after their shock loss, Bill Shorten stepped down as leader, but has decided to remain in Parliament as an MP. The leadership race began, with Anthony Albanese (aka Albo) throwing his hat in ring. Tanya Plibersek considered running, as did Jim Chalmers and Chris Bowen, however all three decided not to, and Albanese was nominated unopposed, leading to the least bloody leadership battle the Labor Party has seen in a decade. As Albanese is from NSW and is from the left faction of the party, his deputy must be from another state and from the right faction – Richard Marles and Clare O’Neill both considered running, however O’Neill decided to step aside in the end, leaving Marles as the only contender.

All of this bloodless change was somewhat tainted when factional drama arose over who would be in Shadow Cabinet. Albanese had made clear publicly that he wished to have Senator Kristina Keneally in his cabinet, however it took a bit of drama to get there – and this is going to require a bit of explanation. In the Labor Party, in order to keep things equal and even between the left and right factions each side hands over a list of people to be in Shadow Cabinet and the leader chooses the positions each gets. However, the right faction’s list did not have Kristina Keneally’s name on it, let alone the name of any woman. So Ed Husic decided to give his spot to Keneally, allowing the former NSW Premier to be in the cabinet, and she will now be Deputy Leader in the Senate and will likely get a high ranking ministry.

Finally this week, Papua New Guinea has a new Prime Minister, which may have implications for the resettlement of refugees on Manus Island; and the Adani Coal Mine has passed another hurdle on the path to being approved. The Queensland Government has approved Adani’s conservation and protection plan for the Black Throated Finch.

Tweet of the Fortnight

https://twitter.com/shauncrowe/status/1133627072025260032

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

So, how do we pronounce Albo’s name then? – ABC Online

What challenges does Ken Wyatt face as Indigenous Affairs Minister? – ABC Online

 

The Promise of Australia, Voting for Change and Vale Bob Hawke

The last week of the campaign began with the Liberal Party’s official campaign launch, where Scott Morrison’s mother, wife and two daughters introduced him to the stage. It was mostly the “ScoMo Show”, although we did get a glimpse of the front bench in the audience, including the Environment Minister Melissa Price, who seems to have been let out of wherever she was being hidden for the bulk of the campaign. The policies announced at the launch included money for post-natal healthcare, and a subsidy for first homebuyers to help them make up the 20% deposit required to buy a home.

Morrison used the oft-used campaign slogan of “The Bill you can’t afford”, and then it got a tad weird because he has (or the spin doctors have) created a new slogan. Scott Morrison said he was going to “keep the promise of Australia for all Australians” – which left most of my household asking “what the f*** does that even mean?”. Labor on the other hand had a mostly low-key day, trying not to distract from the Liberal launch too much, although they did decide that the Liberal plan to subsidise deposits for first home buyers was a cool idea and adopted it.

Much of the week was dedicated to reiterating and explaining policies that have already been announced – basically ensuring that everyone knows what policies are on offer – although there was a push from Labor on wages and how they were going to try and increase them if they got into power.

A lot of the focus switched to the key battleground seats across the country. In NSW (where I am from) all eyes were some seats in Sydney: Reid, Lindsay, Bennelong and Warringah. We saw this week just how worried Tony Abbott is for his political life, as he had John Howard join him when he went campaigning around the local shopping centre saying he might just win, and the citizens of Warringah (including my grandmother) have been bombarded with robo-calls, texts and various political pamphlets from the Liberals.

It seems that many voters in Warringah want change. Abbott has been in the seat for 25 years and for the first time there is a suitable alternative in the form of Zali Steggall. She is a moderate conservative, but on some social issues is more progressive, especially on climate change and same sex marriage and this position more accurately represents the electorate.

Meanwhile, former PM Paul Keating (and his unique way with words) made another venture into campaign waters, encouraging the voters of Peter Dutton’s seat of Dickson to “drive a political stake through his dark political heart”. Dutton, somewhat rightfully, was offended by the remarks, and responded by saying that part of the reason he had joined the Liberal party was because Keating’s economic reforms and “mismanagement” nearly ruined his dad’s business.

Also this week, it was revealed that there has been a record number of pre-poll votes cast this election. Somewhere in the region of four million people voted early, which means that it could be a while before we know the results in some key marginal seats, as the ballot boxes can’t be opened until 6pm on election day. This high number of pre-poll votes is a concern, as it does delay the results in some seats, however the AEC has said that there is a parliamentary review slated once the election is over that will look into the pre-poll process.

Finally this week, former Prime Minister Bob Hawke has passed away at the age of 89. The former Labor PM, famous for introducing Medicare and introducing economic reforms (with his Treasurer Paul Keating) that has helped Australia avoid a recession for over 25 years. Hawke’s death distracted from the final day in the campaign, especially for Labor, as Bill Shorten changed his plans and went to visit Hawke’s widow Blanche D’Alpuget.

Then it was election day.

Tweet of the Week

Antony Green!

https://twitter.com/leighsales/status/1129202586660220930

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

The rise of the “religious left” – ABC Online

Politicians need a better understanding of Chinese-Australian voters – ABC Online

 

The Week That Was – February 17 to February 23

This week was the last sitting week before the Budget in April, and ostensibly the Election – and boy was it a cracker, as we found out Matthias Cormann hadn’t paid for flights to Singapore for a family holiday booked through the travel agency Helloworld. Helloworld is run by Andrew Burnes, the Federal Treasurer of the Liberal Party, and Cormann apparently booked the flights through him. Helloworld has taken the blame, saying an administrative issue meant that Cormann’s credit card wasn’t charged when the booking was made, but the fact that Helloworld had a lucrative deal with the government renewed shortly after Cormann’s trip with his family.

What’s more, it appears that Joe Hockey, former Treasurer and MP for North Sydney, and current Ambassador to the United States, may have also done Helloworld some sort of favour, getting their subsidiary QBT a contract with the government – it’s unclear what exactly the deal was but the head of the foreign service feels that Hockey’s actions were not in line with guidelines for how Ambassadors should act.

Meanwhile, Julie Bishop announced that she will be quitting parliament at the next election. She had said that she would stay on for stability, but many believed this would not be the case. Bishop has been in parliament for 21 years, eleven of those as Deputy Liberal leader under Brendan Nelson, Malcolm Turnbull (both as opposition leader and as PM) and Tony Abbott. She has stipulated that her replacement in her electorate of Curtin should be a woman, and I think the Liberals will probably make sure of that, or they’ll never hear the end of it.

This week Agriculture Minister David Littleproud was in hot water over comment he made regarding milk prices. This week Woolworths announced it would increase milk prices to help farmers, and when Coles and Aldi said they wouldn’t Littleproud said people should boycott the two supermarkets in favour of Woolworths. Only problem is at the start of the week David Littleproud held shares in Woolworths, which means that he would benefit from a boycott of other supermarkets. Littleproud sold his shares mid-way through the week when someone looked through his interests, and the money – about $750 – he made from that sale is going to drought relief.

There are questions over whether an arms manufacturer who receives grants from the federal government has been selling arms made under these grants to the Saudi Arabian government. The UK and US have restricted arms sales to Saudi Arabia after their military was accused of war crimes in the Yemeni civil war and after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but Australia has continued trade. There are concerns that the equipment the company was making will be used by Saudi forces in Yemen, and the Department of Defence and the company have not been able to guarantee that the Saudi military won’t.

This week the Aged Care Royal Commission revealed that those approved for Home Care packages are waiting up to two years and sometimes longer for service providers to get to them. These service providers also seem to be more interested in money rather than the care of their patients, with one company charging $2,100 a month just for ‘case management’. It was also revealed that the Federal Health Department froze aged care funding, suspicious that aged care providers were trying to over-claim for patients in order to take in more money, but no analysis was done to see if that was actually the case. The aged care industry body has also recognised that care could be better, and while they are on board with starting a register of workers in order to weed out problematic staff, they don’t want legislated staff-to-patient ratios.

Finally this week, Scott Morrison was in Auckland to meet with Jacinda Ardern, where the New Zealand government again offered to settle asylum seekers from Manus Island and Nauru, and again Australia declined. Ardern also said that the current policy of deporting New Zealand citizens from Australia, especially those who have only know life in Australia, was becoming corrosive in the relationship between Australia and New Zealand.

Tweet of the Week

The end of contrition #InsidersExtra #Insiders @barriecassidy #auspol pic.twitter.com/jTMo0gUpk1

— Insiders ABC (@InsidersABC) February 21, 2019

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Annabel Crabb on Julie Bishop – ABC Online

The issues surrounding $1 a litre milk – ABC Online

13 Things That Happened in the Last Three Weeks (January 20 to February 9)

I know, I know, I got behind again, and that isn’t great in an election year, but once everything gets back to normal at work, I’ll get back to regular programming…

1. Australia Day was celebrated on the 26th of January, with various events across the country. The day was also mourned by Indigenous communities, with several “Change The Date” Rallies, attended by Indigenous leaders, political leaders and the general public.
2. The election is likely to happen in May this year, and so the ‘pre-election revving’ (I call it this because it feels like race cars revving up before a race) has begun. Labor has been making promises on education and health; as well as subsidising swimming lessons for children. Meanwhile the Liberal party is promising to create 1.25 million jobs in five years, and are saying a Labor win at the election will lead to a recession – something a large portion of the electorate has not faced in their working lives – Labor just says it is scaremongering.
3. The Liberals are also facing the resignations of two more current or former ministers since Kelly O’Dwyer announced she was leaving parliament to spend more time with her family. Michael Keenan will be leaving to also spend more time with family, while Nigel Scullion is retiring – and plans to go fishing a lot more often.
4. The Liberal Party has had “Captain’s Call” with Scott Morrison parachuting Warren Mundine into the marginal seat of Gilmore on the NSW South Coast. Mundine is a former Labor President (yes, Labor, you did read that right) and he left the party recently after he felt they weren’t going in a direction he liked. He’s now a Liberal Party member. His parachute into the seat has left the originally pre-selected candidate Grant Schultz unimpressed. He’ll now run as an independent. The Nationals will also run a candidate in Gilmore, and a former NSW State Minister Katrina Hodgkinson will run for pre-selection.
5. Former Olympic Skier and barrister Zali Steggall will run as an independent in Tony Abbott’s seat of Warringah. She’s fiscally conservative, but socially progressive and believes more should be dine for climate change. This is similar to Kerryn Phelps – and it’s believed some of those who worked on Phelps’ campaign are going to help Steggall. Julia Banks will also return to the campaigning at the next election – she won’t be contesting her marginal seat of Chisholm, but Greg Hunt’s seat of Flinders (as an independent)
6. The My Health Record opt-out deadline was January 31 – so if you didn’t choose to opt out, you will have a record created for you. There were concerns about people’s private information being safe, and there are also concerns about how much information will be put on the records and which medical professionals can access them.
7. In South Australia, a Royal Commission into the Murray-Darling Basin has reported back, with the Commissioner Bret Walker QC (a NSW jurist) saying that it appeared that the Murray-Darling Basin Authority was either “unwilling” or “incapable” of acting lawfully. He ruled that the water buyback levels were not chosen based on science but on what would make people happy with the Basin Authority. Walker has called for the Basin Plan to be overhauled completely and that water buybacks should take preference over efficiency measures. However it is unclear if any of the recommendations will be accepted or acted on.
8. The Banking Royal Commission report was released, with Commissioner Kenneth Hayne making 76 recommendations, including banning cold-calling for insurance sales and banning commissions for financial advisers. Hayne also singled out the National Australia Bank (NAB), whose Board Chair Ken Henry, and CEO Andrew Thorburn quit at the end of the week the report was released.
9. The government is trying to prevent a bill from passing that would allow the medical-evacuation of refugees from detention centres after assessment from two doctors. This would make transfer the decision-making from bureaucrats to medical professionals. This something that Kerryn Phelps, who brought the legislation to parliament, and Labor are supporting. This recently led the government to release classified information from intelligence agencies that suggested this legislation could be risky to National Security.
10. Three years after the Federal Government took over the management of Norfolk Island, there are calls for a rethink. Most Norfolk Islanders did want more input and assistance from the Australian Government, but were expecting to go into negotiations for some kind of agreement rather than the full-on takeover that took place. There is now an Inquiry by human rights lawyers, including Geoffrey Robertson looking into whether there has been a breach of political and democratic human rights of Norfolk Islanders.
11. Australia’s Parliament House was the target of a cyber attack recently, with suspicions falling on a foreign government actor, most likely China. It is unclear if anything was stolen during the attack, but the system hacked is used by thousands of politicians and their staff to share who is doing what, as well as dirt files and other sensitive information.
12. Thailand is under pressure to release refugee Hakeem al-Arabi. He’s been living in Australia for nearly five years after fleeing Bahrain and was arrested on an incorrectly issued Interpol alert. Thailand doesn’t seem to budging, despite appeals from Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne and more recently the two Aussie Thai Cave rescue divers. They haven’t released the letter publicly but it is understood that they don’t expect this to be a quid-pro-quo thing, but rather hoped their voice would be taken into consideration.
13. New South Wales is gearing up for a State Election on March 23 this year (lucky NSW are getting two elections in three months), and it looks like a tight race with a recent Newspoll result showing that the Coalition and Labor are neck-and-neck. There is a potential for a hung parliament, with One Nation and the Shooters Party agreeing not to run candidates in seats that the other party might be able to win, leading them to hold the balance of power.

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

The difficulty of acting on the Royal Commission’s recommendations – ABC Online

Mark Humphries is not a member of the Liberal Party.

The latest independent candidate running in a blue-ribbon Liberal seat.pic.twitter.com/7SJDS4sg86

— Mark Humphries (@markhumphries) February 7, 2019

The Two Weeks That Were – September 23 to October 6

The school funding changes that the government wants to make to Gonski 2.0 may be derailed by some of the states and territories. The NSW and Queensland Education Ministers have said they don’t think the additional $4.5 billion earmarked for Catholic and Independent schools is fair. They want funding to be based on need such that the money goes to the schools with the most need, especially those in low socio-economic areas.

The earlier half of the fortnight saw an epic week of drama at the ABC. the Managing Director of the ABC, Michelle Guthrie was sacked from her role. While not much information was given by the board, other than Guthrie’s “leadership style” not fitting the direction in which the board wanted to take the Corporation, it appeared that some ABC staff, particularly those working in news and current affairs, were quite pleased to see her go,. It seems many felt that her lack of experience in public broadcasting, and focus on “platforms”was inappropriate, and staff morale was reportedly very low. There were also allegations that Guthrie had, when asked to what she would like to see on a future Four Corners program during a production meeting, she suggested positive puff piece profiles on business leaders, and stories about “happy” children detained on Nauru.

However, things kept on going. Someone then leaked documents from a board meeting held the week before, during which Guthrie had shown the board members emails from the Chairman of the ABC Board, Justin Milne, telling her to sack economics reporter Emma Alberici, whose story had angered the government (it also had some errors in it, but the story was revised and then republished). Guthrie also recounted a phone call from Milne in which she alleges he told her to ‘shoot’ ABC political editor Andrew Probyn, because the government didn’t like him.

Milne, as it turns out, is one of Malcolm Turnbull’s former business associates, and they are still quite good friends, which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing if it weren’t for the fact Milne’s actions look a bit like political interference. Even if it wasn’t, the perception thereof is damaging enough, and led to ABC staff across the country holding snap union meetings, during which they agreed to demand Milne’s resignation, which did end up happening towards the end of the week. Meanwhile, Communications Minister Mitch Fifield announced a departmental inquiry into the board’s knowledge of Milne’s actions, and Labor and the Greens have announced they will move to create a Senate inquiry into the situation as well.

The Wentworth by-election seems to have gotten a bit dirty recently with allegations of dirty tricks against the Liberal candidate Dave Sharma and his supporters. This is because posters belonging to Independent Kerryn Phelps, Labor candidate Tim Murray and Hinch Justice Party candidate Ben Forsyth, among other candidates were removed or turned away from view and replaced by posters of Sharma. These posters can cost quite a bit of money and volunteers spend hours sticking them up, so understandably, people aren’t too happy about this. Wentworth has also had a bit of a shock with former Liberal Party MP for the seat (and former Opposition Leader) John Hewson, telling the people of Wentworth to vote for anyone other than the Liberal Party, because of their stance (or lack of) on climate policy, which has made Labor’ Tim Murray and Independent candidate Kerryn Phelps very, very pleased.

The interim report from the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry has been released, and while it doesn’t have any explicit recommendations, many are implied. Commissioner Hayne was withering in his criticism of ASIC, which didn’t punish badly behaved banks appropriately. Hayne will deliver his final report in February 2019, but the Opposition wants Hayne to have more time. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said that he is not opposed to this and would gladly let Hayne have more time if he asked for it.

There is a push for there to be a review into the Family Law system, as cases continue to back up and be delayed. There is a concern that if the Law Reform Commission cannot find solutions to the issues, then we may need to have a Royal Commission. There are also concerns over the government’s plan to merge the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court in order to maximise efficiency. Those in the legal system aren’t on board, saying people are more concerned about the quality of the justice delivered, rather than the speed at which it is done so.

Labor has announced a $1.75 billion dollar childcare package that will be delivered should they win the next election. They say they will pay for it by winding back the tax breaks the current government has implemented, and the plan would see recognised preschool program funding extend to include the education of three-year-old children. This would increase the current number of three-year-olds in preschool, and bring us into line with other OECD nations.

Also during this fortnight, Malcolm Turnbull called Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd “miserable ghosts” for hanging around in parliament after they lost the Prime Ministership. The GST on sanitary products will be removed, making many women very happy, eighteen years after the GST was introduced.

Finally this fortnight, Labor announced that when they’re in government they’ll require companies with more than 1,000 employees to declare the differences in pay between men and women in an effort to reduce the gender pay gap. Scott Morrison has announce that there could be a new day for the recognition of indigenous people (but it’s literally a thought bubble, there is no other information as yet).

Tweet of the Fortnight

Former 7:30 Report presenter Kerry O’Brien on the ABC.

Kerry O’Brien takes us through ABC’s tumultuous week following revelations of political interference, and the importance of reporting without fear or favour. #TheProjectTV pic.twitter.com/XorAJdgrCi

— The Project (@theprojecttv) September 30, 2018

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Why Michelle Guthrie went (written before the Milne allegations came to light) – Meanjin

Mark Dapin on the ABC’s Acting Managing Director David Anderson – SMH

ABC presenter Jeremy Fernandez reads texts about a DJ set played on Triple J – Triple J

First Dog on the Moon on the banking royal commission – The Guardian

The Revolving Door of Leadership Rotates Again… (August 19 to August 25)

We had another leadership spill, and that’s literally what took up the entire week.

After Turnbull removed the emissions target from the National Energy Guarantee, and the addition of more carrots and sticks to encourage the energy companies to keep prices down, it became apparent that Turnbull was desperately trying to appease the right of the party, and it really wasn’t working.

So much so, the questions on his leadership started on Monday and they didn’t stop.

Malcolm Turnbull walked into the weekly party room meeting on Tuesday morning and sprung a leadership spill on the Liberals, winning 48 votes to 35 against Peter Dutton. That’s not entirely good for Turnbull, given it was only a margin of seven votes. It led many experts to suggest Turnbull could be gone within weeks, if not days.

Then the resignations began, with Peter Dutton, James McGrath, Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, Michael Sukkar, Angus Taylor, Steve Ciobo, Greg Hunt starting things off. Turnbull refused all offers to resign, except for Dutton and Fierravanti-Wells, before James McGrath insisted Turnbull accept his resignation too.

It then gets throughly confusing, to the point where even I am unsure as to what happened. Essentially, so many ministers resigned, that I don’t think Australia really had a proper cabinet government for at least 24 hours. This, combined with the right-wing of the party circulating a petition to get another party room meeting for a leadership vote gave the impression that the Liberal Party was tearing itself apart.

However, Turnbull played hard ball – and quite rightly too – as he made several caveats on his allowing a meeting. First, Dutton had to prove that he was eligible under section 44(v), as there are suggestions that two childcare centres owned by the Dutton family trust might be benefitting from the government. Second, Turnbull wanted to see the petition with 43 signatures (a majority of the party room) before he called a party meeting; and third, there would be a spill motion and if that passed then Turnbull would step down as PM, and potentially from parliament altogether.

By Friday morning, the 43 signatures were found. Once the party’s Chief Whip Nola Marino checked that all the people whose signatures were on the petition had signed it, the party met at 12:20pm and carried the spill motion. And from that vote, Malcolm Turnbull ceased being our Prime Minister.

There was then a vote for leader, between Julie Bishop, Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton. Bishop was knocked out of the first round, and Scott Morrison won the vote against Peter Dutton 45 votes to 40. We now have a new Prime Minister in Scott Morrison, and a new Liberal Party deputy leader, Josh Frydenberg.

Morrison and Frydenberg now have an epic challenge facing them. First they must unite and heal a bruised and divided party, which some think may not happen and the party may be irreparably split. They also now have to contend with an angry, frustrated public who just watched another government spend a week focusing on their own infighting rather than running the country, as they did in 2010, 2013 and 2015. To their credit, Frydenberg and Morrison weren’t directly involved in the infighting, and this will be of benefit to them while dealing with the public backlash to this sixth change of Prime Minister in eleven years.

It also appears that Turnbull and his allies outmanoeuvred Petter Dutton and the conservative wing of the Liberal Party. There was also the fatal mistake from the Dutton camp in assuming that the 43 signatures put down to have the party meeting were also an indication of support for Dutton himself, and it’s believed that many in the Liberal Party couldn’t stomach the possibility of Prime Minister Dutton.

On Saturday, Morrison spent his day getting briefed on all the important things he needs to know, as well as fielding phone calls from the likes on Donald Trump. Meanwhile, the rest of the country started wondering when Turnbull would leave parliament, and who might replace him in his electorate of Wentworth.

Christine Forster, Liberal Councillor for the City of Sydney Council, and same-sex marriage advocate (who is also Tony Abbott’s sister) is considering a tilt at the seat, as are Katherine O’Reagan a former Deputy Mayor and the former Ambassador to Israel Dave Sharma. However, this by-election must happen soon, as no-one wants to force the people of Wentworth to vote three times in six months. Already, the state of NSW is due for an election in March 2019 and the next Federal Election is due mid-way through 2019.

Hopefully, we’ll be back to some semblance of normalcy next week, but we will have to see – and with Julie Bishop no longer Foreign Minister and may leave Parliament at the next election.

Tweet of the Week

Not sure of the source but amusing. pic.twitter.com/grAcm9zwqY

— Antony Green – elections (@AntonyGreenElec) August 25, 2018

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Annabel Crabb on the Liberals ridding themselves of Turnbull – ABC Online

Stan Grant on the Liberal Party’s “civil war” – ABC Online

Philip Williams on Julie Bishop and her future – ABC Online

The Tonightly’s take on the politicians infighting… (Be warned – coarse language)

 

 

 

The Week That Was – August 12 to August 18

Politicians returned to Canberra this week after a two month break, with the government ready to tackle two major policy issues in the first few weeks: company tax cuts and the National Energy Guarantee – but more on that later. This week also saw the swearing-in of the five “Super Saturday” by-election victors – Susan Lamb, Justine Keay, Rebekha Sharkie and Josh Wilson, who fell victim to section 44 of the constitution, along with Patrick Gorman who is replacing Tim Hammond, who left politics for family reasons.

This week also saw the maiden speech by Fraser Anning. Now, bear with me, this is going to get a tad complicated… Mr Anning is new to parliament, because he replaced One Nations Senator Malcolm Roberts when Roberts fell victim to section 44 of the constitution. Anning, before being sworn in to the Senate, had a fight with Pauline Hanson and left the One Nation party to join up with Katter’s Australia Party.

Fraser Anning’s speech was, well, interesting to say the least – and a bit (or a lot) racist. He advocated for a return to the mid-20th century White Australia Policy, an end to Muslim immigration and may have in reference to these two issues, used the term ‘final solution’. This is a term which, for many, stirs up memories of the Nazis and the Holocaust. If it really floats your boat, you can go and look up the speech, but I’m not going to give it anymore airtime or attention.

Anning was widely criticised by all sides of politics – Liberal, Labor, and the Greens; along with Derryn Hinch, who upset Pauline Hanson by suggesting Anning’s speech was “Pauline Hanson on steroids.” It gets weirder though, because by some freak of nature, Pauline Hanson, said she was “appalled” by the speech, as you would assume this kind of speech would be somewhat up her alley. Meanwhile, Bob Katter thought Anning’s speech was awesome and was squawking about how it was what many in Australia were thinking but were too afraid to say… which I certainly hope isn’t the case. One positive out of all of this was the immense unity shown by both sides of politics, through speeches by Penny Wong, Malcolm Turnbull, Ed Husic and many more.

Company tax cuts are unlikely to be dealt with for a while, because negotiations still need to happen with senators, and they can be difficult people to deal with sometimes.

This week though, was all about the National Energy Guarantee (NEG). This guarantee is theoretically supposed to reduce energy bills, increase energy reliability and help reduce emissions by the 26% target set at the Paris talks. Turnbull first had to get his policy through the Coalition party room, which he did with only a few back benchers reserving the right to cross the floor. These people were Tony Abbott, George Christiansen, Andrew Hastie, and Tony Pasin. Basically the rest of the week was focused around the fact that key conservatives in the Coalition were apparently not totally on board with the whole NEG, and swirling leadership rumours – which lead to Turnbull backflipping on how the emissions target would be enforced. Originally it was to be legislated, but it will now be regulated, which means it’s unenforceable by law.

The Banking Royal Commission continued this week with their inquiry into superannuation. It is apparent that retail superannuation funds are just a little bit naughty, a lot of the time. Again, bear with me, this is complicated, but this week we learned that NAB and its superfund MLC, have not been telling the regulators ASIC and APRA – the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority – things they should have been telling them. Colonial First State, owned by the Commonwealth Bank, was still charging fees after the client had died, but also for no service which is illegal, and they were also forcing clients onto super expensive in-house CommInsure insurance. Meanwhile ANZ got in trouble for trying to sell superannuation through bank tellers, which is also illegal, because bank tellers aren’t actually qualified to give financial advice.

All of this was compounded by the fact that APRA revealed that they tended not to publicly pursue some of these transgressions, so as to avoid damaging confidence in the finance industry.

Also this week, there are concerns about the ATAR cut-offs for some education and teaching degrees. It appears that some universities are allowing students into these degrees with an ATAR of less than 20 – the maximum ATAR you can get is 99.95, so 20 isn’t great – which is understandably concerning to parents and politicians alike. Now, I am surrounded by teachers and pre-service teachers in my personal life, and they’re all quite irritated. My partner, a pre-service teacher in his second last year of study, is mostly irritated that the media, when they picked up this story, didn’t actually talk to students studying education degrees. Most of these degrees are now four years long, have become more specialised, and he’s seen many students drop out in the first year.

Finally this week, former Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson will face his 12 month sentence in home detention;  former Governor-General and former Anglican Archbishop Peter Hollingworth is being investigated for concealing abuse in the Anglican church, an issue which forced him to resign from his vice-regal post back in the early 2000s; and there are concerns that some people may be missing out on their medical care because of the out-of-pocket costs some doctors charge, despite a rise in bulk billing.

Tweet of the Week

Kristina Keneally is still having a go at the Great Barrier Reef Foundation… (you may have to click the tweet to see what Keneally has written)

https://twitter.com/workmanalice/status/1029222975101263872

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

An excerpt from Ed Husic’s speech in response to Fraser Anning’s speech – ABC Online

Bushfire seasons are starting earlier and lasting longer – ABC Online

 

The Week That Was – June 3 to June 8

Barnaby Joyce’s interview with Channel 7’s Sunday Night aired on Sunday and it appears that the only viewers were the Canberra Press Gallery – the interview didn’t really garner the attention or the rise in viewership. Even Scott Morrison admitted he was watching singing reality show The Voice. Joyce’s performance was all sorts of weird (from what I’ve seen from clips on the ABC) in which he disparaged some of his colleagues, implied his partner Vikki wasn’t an adult woman with a mind of her own, and admitted he knew that he was in trouble when Vikki got pregnant. People in his electorate seemed to have been forced by the local pubs to watch the interview, and as one younger viewer commented  to the ABC (we’re talking a 20-30 year old) thought Joyce was bit of a tool.

There are now questions over whether Joyce will be able to survive pre-selection this time around. Most MPs aren’t really commenting on it, although it appears that they wouldn’t mind if Joyce didn’t come back after next year’s election. Tony Abbott on the other hand, seems to be very supportive of Joyce, which could be a blessing or a curse – we shall have to see.

So while Joyce takes some time off, the rest of Australia can get on with their lives.

Malcolm Turnbull and local MPs across regional New South Wales and Queensland have been inspecting drought ravaged areas. He’s pledged assistance and help but it is not totally clear exactly what that help will be just yet.

The economy is doing alright at the moment, with GDP up by 1% in the March quarter, and up 3.1% for the year. It’s a positive picture, and a good start to 2018. However, it is mostly exports and predominantly to China, which isn’t necessarily an issue, but does suggest we’ll be in trouble if China has a slump.

The Public Service Commissioner, John Lloyd, who is responsible for public service pay and conditions, has quit. There have been questions over his conduct and independence, as he has links to the right-wing think tank the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA). He will leave the role in August, and it appears that quite a few people are relieved that he’s going.

This week marks 30 years since former Prime Minister Bob Hawke promised a treaty between the government and Australia’s indigenous population. There hasn’t been a treaty, and this leaves Australia as the only Commonwealth nation with no treaty with the Indigenous population. However three states – Victoria, South Australia and the Northern Territory – have begun the treaty process with land councils, with varying success. This week saw the Northern Territory’s Chief Minister sign Memoranda of Understanding with three Central Australian Land Councils. Bill Shorten has also announced that he will act on the recent Uluru Statement and implement a federal Indigenous advisory panel.

The Australian military’s special forces (SAS) is being investigated for their conduct and behaviour while deployed. This information has come through leaks to the media making some politicians concerned. While the SAS does get some latitude and secrecy given the nature of their missions, it appears that some of their behaviour may have been illegal – so Mark Binskin, the head of Australia’s armed forces, has asked that this investigation continue and finish quickly without interference.

While the Royal Commission wasn’t in hearings this week, the banks still had a bad time. First, the Commonwealth Bank has been fined $700 million for breaching money laundering laws. There were over 53,000 breaches where the bank knowingly let suspicious transactions take place and potentially let money go to criminal organisations and terrorist groups. The fine could have been a lot worse, so CommBank is very, very lucky.

Meanwhile, the ANZ, Citibank and Deutsche Bank have been charged with cartel behaviour. The important thing here is that these are criminal charges, not civil. This means that they have also arrested people – mostly former CEOs and executives. It involves the ANZ approaching Citibank, Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan to help them increase their shares. JP Morgan has not been charged in the case, because they are helping in the investigation and case and getting immunity in return.

This week has been an interesting one for Australia-China relations, with China getting anxious about the government’s plans to introduce foreign interference laws in time to protect ‘Super Saturday’ by-elections on July 28 – because apparently China is going to try to affect the outcome. From my perspective, it’s unlikely that China is going to get involved in five by-elections that are unlikely to dramatically affect the government’s standing in parliament – yes three more seats will make the Coalition more comfortable, but it’s not going to change the course of history.

Australia is also under pressure to get involved in freedom of navigation activities in the South China Sea, and it became really awkward when it became apparent that a suspected Chinese surveillance ship had been following HMAS Adelaide around the South Pacific, somewhat confirmed when they both pulled into port in Suva, Fiji.

Finally this week, technology companies are trying to figure out who the government is going to approach access to encrypted messages – essentially the government wants ways to access messages and informations on people’s phones when they are doing investigations; Qantas has bowed to Chinese pressure to label Taiwan as a region of China, making the government (potentially) a bit concerned; NBN quotes for people who are wanting to upgrade from fibre-to-the-node (or curb) to fibre-to-the-premises are ridiculously high and it’s unclear why that is the case; and eyes are now on a charity that has been named by an Australian teenager arrested in Lebanon for allegedly trying to join ISIS – he says the charity encouraged him to join.

Tweet of the Week

https://twitter.com/leighsales/status/1004875931134017536

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Laura Tingle on the political football that is the ABC – ABC Online

Lucy Barbour on Malcolm Turnbull’s ‘drought tour’ – ABC Online

 

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.