15 Things That Happened in the Last Three Weeks (December 17 to January 6)

For the first time in a while, Australian politics actually went on holiday. So, here’s what happened, in case you missed it.

1. A man was arrested in Sydney for allegedly acting as an economic agent for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (aka North Korea). Apparently he was trying to help them get WMDs, although the facts available are very basic given it’s a National Security issue.
2. John Alexander won the Bennelong by-election.
3. The first church services took place since the Royal Commission released their report.
4. Scott Morrison and Mathias Cormann presented MYEFO (Mid Year Economic & Fiscal Outlook) and revealed that we are to expect a surplus in 2021, and that they have made $3 billion in savings by capping university places, increasing the wait to three years for migrant welfare claims and cutting the rebate for after hours GP services.
5. Oh, but somehow Australia can still have personal and corporate tax cuts even though the government needed to cut some money from other things.
6. Chris Bowen, the Shadow Treasurer,  responded to the MYEFO announcements, saying that the Liberals have their priorities wrong.
7. A cabinet reshuffle – where several senior Nationals ministers were dumped in favour of some young blood, suggesting instability within the National Party.
8. The new cabinet the got sworn in – and Peter Dutton is the most powerful national security minister Australia has ever had.
9. George Brandis is going to be High Commissioner in the UK, so Christian Porter is the new Attorney-General and will have to keep Dutton on a tight leash.
10. Florence Bjelke-Peterson – former senator and wife of controversial QLD Premier Joh Bjelke-Peterson – died aged 97.
11. The replacement for Fiona Nash (who was caught up in Section 44 drama) was finally selected – Jim Molan. There are still questions surrounding whether he will get a 3-year or 6-year term in the Senate.
12. Christmas happened as usual, with images of Malcolm Turnbull helping out at the Wayside Chapel Christmas Lunch in Sydney and dancing with guests.
13. The end of 2017…
14. New Years Day 2018 saw the release of the 1994/1995 Cabinet Papers – revelaing that Keating was warned about allowing the Australian people to vote for the President if Australia becam a republic because we plebeians might pick someone “of the wrong calibre” (read: we might pick someone like Trump).
15. It was also revealed that after Sydney won the right to host the 2000 Olympics, that champion swimmer Kieran Perkin’s swimming record dating back to when he was 12 years old was used to argue for a 6-year funding plan for sport in order to increase the medal tally.

 

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

MYEFO Explained by ABC’s Emma Alberici

Huw Parkinson’s take on Australian Politics with some help from Harry Potter

The Week That Was – December 10 to December 16

With last week being the last sitting week before Christmas, so began the quieting of the fun and fantastic world of politics for the holidays. However, there were still three major events that took place.

The Bennelong by-election took place, and although the seat has been retained by Liberal John Alexander, there was a large swing against the party, pushing the seat back into marginal(ish) status. It got nasty this week, with Labor and Kristina Keneally accusing Malcolm Turnbull of being anti-Chinese (despite the fact his grandchild is half Chinese) and the Liberal party continually referring to Keneally’s time as NSW Premier. Both sides have probably not been entirely truthful to voters, because both sides have got some facts wrong either intentionally for scare-mongering purposes or purely by accident. There were multiple robo-calls and pamphlet drops in Bennelong in the last six weeks and it appears that the voters got pretty annoyed.

Sam Dastyari announced that he will be resigning from the Senate before sitting resumes next year – not immediately, which has made people think that Labor was waiting to see how Keneally went in the by-election and then see if she wanted Sam’s Senate spot if she lost. It’d be really nice if Keneally could prove these people wrong and not take the spot, as I (and some others in my house) feel that she is better suited to being an MP rather than a Senator – but that’s just us and my house has weird people in it, including me.

Meanwhile, further allegations related to the whole Dastyari debacle emerged this week, with suggestions that he attempted to talk Shadow Foreign Minister Tanya Plibersek out of meeting a Hong Kong democracy activist for fears it would “upset China”. Basically, the whole party became so annoyed with him and made clear his political career was over, so Dastyari now has no choice but to quit.

It should be noted that the Chinese businessman with links to the Chinese Communist Party that is at the root of the Dastyari saga is not just cozy with the Labor Party. He has donated large amounts of money to the Liberals as well. This is concerning given his Yuhu Group owns the Eastwood Shopping Centre, and there is a push to develop it into a larger shopping centre with a 13-storey residential unit block. The panel that decides on this development is chaired by the Prime Minister’s wife Lucy Turnbull. The panel said that she will not be a part of the panel that makes the decision, but it still looks dodgy to the average person.

Also this week, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse released its report after five long years of hearings. The Commissioners have refereed to the issue as a “national tragedy” and thanked those who gave evidence im both public and private hearings. They found that for most of the people who spoke, their abuse took place in the Catholic Church, followed by the Anglican Church. The Commission has recommended that the sanctity of the Catholic confessional should be voided if child abuse is confessed to, and that celibacy should be voluntary for Catholic priests – something the Catholic Church has said they will need to chat to the Vatican about. Other recommendations include making it a crime to fail to protect a child from abuse in an institution and to strengthen child grooming laws. There is also a push to ensure that all states and territories sign up for a National Redress Scheme, although there are disagreements over how that should be approached.

Finally this week, the Commonwealth Bank is in hot water for allegedly warning a terrorism suspect that his account was going to be closed; there are concerns that there could be institutional racism in the medical community, as it was revealed that very few indigenous people get on transplant lists; and NAPLAN results show stagnation in results and some shocking civics results, although there has been an improvement on indigenous results.

Tweet of the Week

https://twitter.com/janeenorman/status/941799549898711040

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Chat10Looks3 listeners recommend episodes of ABC Radio’s Conversations – ABC Online

Michelle Grattan on the “China Factor” in Bennelong and Australia – ABC Online

The Week That Was – November 19 to November 25

This week began with the Greens winning the Victorian State seat of Northcote in a by-election. The has lead the party to reveal its (potentially unachievable) goal of forming a federal government with the help of another party in a few elections time. They have their eyes on left-leaning capital city seats as well as some equally left-ish regional city seats like Newcastle. Labor is a little annoyed that the Greens are focused on fighting against other left-wing groups, rather than the conservatives, but the left is where the Greens need to fight for votes, so I don’t think Labor is going to get what they want.

The Greens also ended the week by choosing Mehreen Faruqi over Lee Rhiannon for the #1 spot on the Greens’ NSW Senate ticket. This essentially ends Rhiannon’s political career in federal politics, but she denies some of her beahviour this year is the result of her downfall.

The Bennelong by-election campaign continues with Kristina Keneally’s launch, and ancient footage of John Alexander making a joke in poor taste. They also had the draw for their ballot this week, putting John Alexander fourth on the ballot, and Keneally fifth. With 12 candidates vying for the seat, it’s going to be an interesting race, and Keneally being in that race makes it tougher for the Liberals to retain even with a 10% margin.

New England’s by-election campaign is nearing its end, with Barnaby Joyce having a cracker of a week, winning a $40,000 prize bank rolled by mining magnate Gina Rinehart. Originally, Joyce said he’s put the prize money towards his farm, before realising he should maybe donate to charity, before handing the prize back. He also missed several campaign events in New England to attend the event.

The Queensland Election campaign (yes, more elections) was in its final week this week, with Labor hoping to retain government in their own right, especially after promising they wouldn’t make any deals. At the time of writing this, Labor is ahead, but there are several seats that were too close to call last night. There are concerns that One Nation could have the balance of power, especially given the major changes to the the electoral system in Queensland this year. Full preferential voting is compulsory for the first time and there are 4 new electorates (making the magic number 47). There are also numerous boundary and name changes to electorates this year, and it turns out about a third of Queenslanders pre polled.

Malcolm Turnbull has irritated the opposition and some minor parties by cancelling sittings of the House of Representatives for the week of the 27th of November. Turnbull claims to be allowing the Senate to debate the same-sex marriage bill, but Labor believes that it has to do with the Liberals not wanting backbenchers to side with Labor on a Banking Royal Commission. It appears that the government is trying to keep their backbenchers chill by talking about having a compensation fund for people affected by financial scandals who can’t get their money back – however, there’s no real information on how that could work. The Prime Minister is also being asked about a dinner he had with a Chinese donor to the Queensland LNP, as the donor gave the party $40,000.

The Governor of the Reserve Bank has told off companies for approaching profits from a cost-cutting perspective, essentially keeping wages low. Meanwhile, the education union has called for higher ATAR limits and Masters degrees for prospective teachers. Younger techers are against the Masters degree requirement, saying it’ll leave teachers with larger HECS debt, and the Australian Catholic University is against increasing the ATAR limit, saying that prospective teachers with lower ATARs have value as they have other talents.

Finally this week, NXT Senator Skye Kakoshke-Moore has resigned by way of being a dual citizen; the government released their foreign policy White Paper; the Manus detention centre has been vacated by refugees, who have been moved to the new accomodation at Loringau; and South Australian and West Australian shipbuilders will be building the new German designed ships to replace the Armidale class Navy ships.

Tweets of the Week

As a student who has recently studied audio production, this brings me amusement.

.@RealBobKatter's audio levels maxing out as he tells reporters, "Parliament WILL SIT ON MONDAY". #auspol @abcnews pic.twitter.com/yF65Qd6QOX

— lucy barbour (@lucybarbour) November 20, 2017

And here, bear in mind it is Sally Sara and her producer who are doing all the filming for her coverage of Zimbabwe’s crazy few weeks.

https://twitter.com/sallyjsara/status/933192626106376192

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Greg Jennett on the shipbuilding deal – ABC Online

 

 

 

 

30 Things That Happened in the Last Three Weeks – October 29 to November 18

Uni kind of took over for a while (as did some extra work shifts) so here is a run through what happened in the last three weeks.

1. After the whole Citizenship thing in the High Court, more and more people are popping up as potential dual citizens, with Stephen Parry, John Alexander and Jacqui Lambie resigning from their positions – More on this in a post coming up later this week.
2. Questions are being raised over whether or not Barnaby Joyce and Fiona Nash’s ministerial decisions can be questioned in court given they made those decisions while in parliament, well, illegally. However, a litigant with some money will be needed to do it.
3. Queensland is holding their State Election on November 25, earlier than expected.
4. Sir Ninian Stephen, a former Governor-General from the 1980s passed away.
5. Unions are calling for a boycott of Streets brand ice cream products while Streets attempts to suspend the Enterprise Bargaining Agreement to pay their workers less money.
6. There will be more government funding for brain cancer research.
7. Because Barnaby Joyce is no longer in parliament and the PM (or acting PM) has to be in the Lower House, Julie Bishop became Acting Prime Minister while Malcolm Turnbull was overseas, first in Israel and then on his whirlwind Asian conference tour.
8. Turnbull went to Israel to the Beersheba memorial (a WWI battle on what is now Israeli soil 100 years ago) and to talk with Israeli and Palestinian officials.
9. Turnbull also went to Asia to show up at the APEC and ASEAN conferences in Vietnam and the Philippines respectively, and also swung by Hong Kong too.
10. The detention centre on Manus Island closed, but many refugees did not want to leave saying they don’t feel safe outside the centre. They’ve been staying there since it closed on October 31, with no running water, no medicine and only the small amounts of food locals are getting into the centre.
11. Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten finally agreed on a method to audit (but not audit) MPs’ and Senators’ citizenship statuses.
12. Stephen Parry is to be replaced by Richard Colbeck.
13. The Senate has had a small renovation to put in ramps for Scott Ludlam’s replacement Jordan Steele-John who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair.
14. The traditional owners of Uluru will ban climbing the iconic rock. After 2019, those caught climbing will be fined.
15. New Zealand’s new Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has offered to settle a couple hundred of the Manus detention centre refugees in NZ. Turnbull has said “not now thanks” which leaves the door open for him to say “yes please” in the future.
16. Telstra will pay compensation to around 42,000 customers who have not received the NBN internet speeds they paid for.
17. Sam Dastyari was accosted by two racists who called him a terrorist at a Melbourne university pub. He was hanging out with Gellibrand MP Tim Watts who will forever be known for asking the racists who were berating Dastyari “what race is dickhead?” 
18. Protests outside a fundraiser for Tony Abbott got somewhat out of hand, with Abbott’s sister Christine Forster, among other Liberal heavyweights, being accosted by the protesters. Forster’s “favourite” jacket was ripped in the scuffles.
19. Hollie Hughes, the person that was expected to replace Fiona Nash in the senate is not eligible to sit in the senate because she took a job after the 2016 election that is considered to be a “position of profit under the Crown”. Lambie’s replacement, who is the current Mayor of Devonport is also under a cloud but does not have the $15,000 left lying about to refer himself to the High Court.
20. Malcolm Roberts’ replacement in the Senate, Fraser Anning, has left the One Nation party within a day of showing up in Canberra – it’s unclear whether he left voluntarily or was pushed out after he had a disagreement with Pauline Hanson.
21. Scott Ryan has become the Senate President, at least for the time being.
22. The by-election in John Alexander’s seat of Bennelong has been shaken up with Labor running former NSW Premier Kristina Keneally. Liberals have already started the dirt throwing with allusions to Keneally’s corrupt ministers and the epic loss of the Labor party in NSW at the 2011 State Election. (Note that she wasn’t corrupt and she was found to be so by the NSW ICAC)
23. AUSTRALIA SAID YES TO SAME SEX MARRIAGE! 61.6% of the country voted to allow same-sex marriage. Now it just has to be legislated. You can see the makeup of the result and some more detailed numbers on the ABC website. Malcolm Turnbull has promised the legislation will pass by Christmas.
24. Penny Wong is embarrassed that she cried in front of the country. 
25. Legislation to allow same-sex marriage has hit the Senate, with Dean Smith introducing the bill. There are concerns from conservatives that there aren’t enough religious protections a la American cake bakers. See this SBS article to get what this is all about.
26. People are now pointing out the economic benefits of same-sex weddings, because if you do the maths…. 47,000(ish) gay couples multiplied by the average cost of a wedding means a lot of money will be poured into the weddings industry.
27. The Royal Commission into Juvenile Detention has recommended that the Don Dale correctional centre in the Northern Territory be closed, and that the age of criminal responsibility be raised from 10 to 12, among other recommendations.
28. Cory Bernardi and his Australian Conservatives party are planning on running a candidate in Bennelong.
29. 17 people are running in the New England by-election, and there are thoughts from Antony Green that more than that could run in Bennelong.
30. The NSW voluntary euthanasia bill has been rejected in the NSW Upper House, while the Victorian Upper House debate has been suspended for a few days after a Labor member collapsed in their office during the mammoth overnight session.