The Week That Was – June 9 to June 15

It’s been a while since my notes have said “No politics” on more than one day! This mostly has to do with the fact that the country and the government are waiting for the results of the Senate count to be finalised, and there seems to be only one seat left in doubt, so it should not be long now. Once that happens, it’ll be back to politics all day, every day.

Monday was the Queen’s Birthday Holiday, and so came the Queen’s Birthday Honours. Father-daughter duo Jade and Paul Hameister, who completed the exploration known as “Polar Hat Trick” (North Pole, Greenland and the South Pole) together have received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM). Leigh Sales, Eric Bana and Elizabeth Chong, among others have become Members of the Order of Australia (AM). Former senator and anti-domestic violence activist Natasha Stott Despoja is now an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO); and former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, actor Hugh Jackman and ABC Chairwoman Ita Buttrose have received the highest honour, becoming Companions of the Order of Australia (AC). You can see the full list here.

It was revealed this week that the Home Affairs Department’s Secretary Mike Pezzullo called Centre Alliance Senator Rex Patrick after he said that the department and the Home Affairs Minister “hate media scrutiny” in a press release put out after least week’s raids on News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst and the ABC’s Sydney headquarters. Pezzullo allegedly called Patrick to ‘correct the record’ – which has concerned both Peter Dutton and the Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Morrison and Dutton have both said that the call concerns them, and they have advised Pezzullo that he really shouldn’t contact senators personally, even if Pezzullo thinks they’re wrong.

This week also saw drama amongst the unions, after CFMEU boss John Setka was accused of saying that anti-domestic violence campaigner Rosie Batty was infringing on men’s rights at a union meeting. Setka denies he said anything of the sort, and two other union bosses who were present at the meeting, the West Australian Secretary of the Maritime Union, Christy Cain and ACTU President Sally McManus have backed Setka up on that fact. However, Setka is not well-liked by some in the union movement and many conservative politicians and regular people, and McManus has urged Setka to step down, while federal Labor leader Anthony Albanese has requested that Setka be booted from the party, but Setka appears to be holding firm for the moment.

Adani’s new Queensland mine has passed another environmental assessment, which now means that Adani can start to build their mine. This has made many regional Queensland MPs, mayors and residents very happy, as there is promise of jobs – even though the number keeps changing. Environmentalists, on the other hand, are unimpressed, especially given that the Queensland government has given Adani a huge concession on their water management plan, that was off the table before.

Finally, this week the country farewelled former Prime Minister Bob Hawke, who died last month, at a National Memorial Service. Many former Prime Ministers, and former and current Labor figures attended the memorial along with Hawke’s family and members of the general public.

Tweet of the Week

Australia’s new AFP-approved news channelpic.twitter.com/1CYVM6xkYz

— Mark Humphries (@markhumphries) June 13, 2019

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

The Good Priest (who does CrossFit) – ABC Online

WA Liberals have their first female leader in Liza Harvey – ABC Online

 

Babies, Wombats and Resignation

Here we go again.

Sunday saw Tony Abbott unveil his Paid Parental Leave Scheme. Women will get up to 26 weeks leave at their current wage with super. If you were on the higher end of the income spectrum, you could get seven times the amount you would under Labor. However, it seems that some Liberals, not to mention most of the Nationals, do not like this plan. Joe Hockey said something along the lines of ‘I’m following Tony’s beliefs’ – which makes me think that he doesn’t like it.

Kevin Rudd says it will damage the economy, and people from the country aren’t happy about it either. Not only that, but the Business Council and the ACTU don’t like it either. It appears that the Greens might like it – although they think it needs fine tuning.

There were also some strange preferences going on – it’s a bit tough to explain, so if you want to look at how it works you can look at what Antony Green has to say about it here – he makes way more sense than I ever will.

On Monday, the opinion polls came out again. Despite dropping to a new low poll result for Kevin Rudd, he is still technically ahead. He was told by one old bloke “Them polls are a bunch of wombats!” – you can watch that here.

It’s come to the point in the election where repetition is constant and the trend is key words repeated three times – e.g. “cut, cut, cut”, “build, build, build” – and I feel like yelling, yelling, yelling.

CEOs have made their position on Abbott’s Paid Parental Leave Scheme clear – they don’t like it. Neither do economists – and when the economists think it isn’t a good idea because it may blow out the budget, you should be concerned. The experts have spoken. In related economical news, Joe Hockey didn’t do to well when interviewed about his budget recently.

On Tuesday, Abbott’s Paid Parental Leave was being criticised again. That was the least of his worries though, given that his candidate for the seat of Charlton (Greg Combet’s seat) has pulled out of the running after a website was unearthed. As the ballots are already printed, his name will still be on there, but he will not be campaigning and will essentially give the seat to Labor.

We are now halfway there.