Tag Archives: Anning

Ballot Draws, Preferences and #Watergate

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The week began with Easter Sunday – one of the agreed “days off” this elections campaign, although the media did follow both Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten to their Easter Services. Morrison and his family worshipped at his local church – Horizon Church in Sutherland – while Shorten and his wife Chloe attended his parents in-law’s church St Andrews in Indooroopilly in Brisbane.

The week also saw a pause in campaigning on ANZAC day, and only two retiring parliamentarians attended overseas dawn services – Liberal MP Christopher Pyne and Labor MP Michael Danby attended the dawn service in Villers-Bretonneux to represent the government and the opposition. This has meant that we haven’t seen a great deal of policy promises this week. The Liberals have promised more help for drought-affected farmers. And Labor has continued to talk mostly on their health policy.

The AEC ballot draw took place…and the results are interesting. On the Victorian Senate ballot paper, you’ll see the Liberals in the first column, and Labor in the 24th (and last) column. In Queensland, One Nation and the United Australia Party have ended up first and third on the ballot paper.

With these ballot positions clear, the preference deals between parties are starting to take shape. The Liberal Party has done a deal with Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party that seems to be in part, a way to sure up the Liberal party in the hope they might retain government, but could also give Palmer a decent chance at getting a seat in the Senate. Palmer has said that he also spoke with Labor – however Shorten said that if he were to agree to a preference deal with Clive Palmer, it would be on the condition that Palmer finish paying off his Queensland Nickel employees who are still owed entitlements.

Anti-Adani Mine protesters have a convoy travelling around Queensland at the moment, raising awareness about what they see as the detrimental impacts of the potential mine. Towards the end of the week they ended up in “coal country” where they were met with quite a bit of resistance from pro-mining locals and some of the unions. However, they’re unfazed and will spend a few days in the area holding rallies before moving on.

There are questions over the WeChat accounts of Scott Morrison, Bill Shorten and several other senior MPs. WeChat – the Chinese version of WhatsApp or Messenger – is being used to engage with voters in the Chinese community, but there are questions over who owns or has started these accounts on the Chinese mainland. Not only that, but WeChat users have to follow Chinese censorship rules, which has led some to question if Bill Shorten and Scott Morrison who have both done Q&A sessions on their accounts have censored themselves. Scott Morrison refused to answer, while Shorten said that the translators were the ones who chose the questions.

The saga that has been dubbed #Watergate by the Australian media has continued into this week. On Barnaby Joyce’s authority, the government bought back $80 million worth of water – that experts believe doesn’t actually exist – from a company registered in the Cayman Islands. The company formerly employed Energy Minister Angus Taylor – and while Taylor says that neither he nor his family have any links to the company at the time of the buy back, it doesn’t exactly pass the “pub test”. Barnaby Joyce was interviewed on the ABC by Patricia Karvelas, but it did not go well.

Finally this week, controversy has followed Fraser Anning into the election campaign, with one of his supporters allegedly assaulting a news photographer during Anning’s candidate announcement at Cronulla Beach.

Tweet of the Week

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Mark Humphries’ take on the #watergate issue – ABC

Michael Rowland on the rise of vitriol as the election campaign continues – ABC

What we can learn from fashion on the campaign trail – SMH

 

More Gaffes, Stonewalling and Alt-Right Infiltration

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Oops, a bit late with the posting…working in retail during holiday periods tends to lead to that.

I hope you had a restful Easter break.

Last week, we saw policy promises from both major parties around health, jobs and the economy. The parties both rallied their volunteers on Sunday, and so began a week of campaigning with tempered by truces on Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

This week saw another gaffe, with Bill Shorten saying there would be “no new taxes on superannuation” – except, well, he has one planned should he get into government. He apologised and said that upon reflection he should have said that there would be no new taxes on superannuation other than what had already been announced by Labor in the last few months. Scott Morrison has attempted to jump on this gaffe, but it feels overdone, mostly because he’s using the line he’s been using for the last ten days about Labor and Bill Shorten being liars.

When not selling their policies to the electorate, both Shorten and Morrison have been frustrating journalists (and voters) by stonewalling on certain questions. For example, when the Prime Minister was in the electorate of Deakin with MP Michael Sukkar, he was asked he felt confident in Sukkar’s support, given Sukkar had backed Dutton last August – and Morrison responded:

That is such a bubble question, I’m just going to leave that one in the bubble

Shorten on the other hand, got into a terse exchange with Channel 10 reporter Jonathan Lea, who asked about the costs of Labor’s emissions reduction target five time and didn’t get a “proper” answer – Lea was rightfully frustrated.

It is a worry that both leaders feel they can control what is put out by the media by stonewalling and avoiding questions. It doesn’t work, because we have a fairly independent and free press, which means that politicians or governments can’t control the story anyway. If anything it makes both leaders look like they’re hiding something, which one might think would be something they would rather avoid.

There weren’t a huge range of announcements this week due to the agreement to not campaign on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, but Labor has promised to give Indigenous community organisations more say in where money goes, combined with further promises to invest $115 million in indigenous health, and to make Pat Dodson the Indigenous Affairs Minister should Labor win the election. Otherwise, most of the week was spent either talking more about previous policy announcements, or debating whose policy costings were correct. There are so many millions and billions floating around, my head is spinning.

Meanwhile, Fraser Anning had been embroiled in some sort of alt-right conspiracy to infiltrate politics. It seems that at least one of his political staffers and some of his campaign staff have links to an ultra right-wing group that tried to infiltrate the Nationals (they were unsuccessful, after they were discovered and expelled from the party in October last year). However, it gets a bit weirder, as one of these alt-right guys worked for Clive Palmer a few years ago. He only worked for Palmer and his eponymous – but now-defunct – Palmer United Party, but only for three weeks. Palmer doesn’t see it as a big deal, he apparently fires people all the time.

Meanwhile, Clive Palmer is having another stab at politics – he is now running a new political party, the United Australia Party, and will be running for the Senate. Palmer was planning to contest the ultra-marginal Queensland seat of Herbert, but because he’s quite unpopular there, he’s decided to put someone else in the seat and try for the Upper House where he potentially has a better chance.

Many in the government now believe that George Christiansen’s electorate of Dawson in Queensland is going to be lost in the election, as he comes under more fire for being an “absent member” – he’s spending more time in the Philippines than in Australia, mostly because Christiansen has a Filipino girlfriend. The main concern for the electorate Dawson for both major parties is that the One Nation vote is generally quite high and they don’t really want a member of the Lower House from One Nation.

There are also questions surrounding Barnarby Joyce and Angus Taylor over the $80 million government purchase of water rights from two farms owned by a company that is domiciled in the Cayman Islands. If that wasn’t enough, the company did at one point employ Angus Taylor. Taylor denies that he or any family members have benefitted from the sale, and Barnaby Joyce was “out of range”.

Tweet of the Week

Election campaigns that have Easter in the middle of them means politicians take photos with the oddest of characters…

Thing’s I’ve Been Looking at Online

The logistics of the world’s biggest single-day election – The Interpreter

Annabel Crabb says we shouldn’t be distracted by the billions and millions – ABC Online

 

Four Things That Happened During My Hiatus (March 3 to March 23)

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I’m back! I took some time off work and then when I got back to work it was a bit hectic, so here are a few things that happened while I was away.

First, we saw yet another announcement from a Liberal MP that they would not contest the next election. This time it was Craig Laundy, MP for the marginal seat of Reid, in Sydney’s Inner West. Laundy was a minister in the Turnbull government, and he is considered to be a moderate Liberal, which many commentators attribute to his ability to hold onto the seat. There is currently a push for a woman or an equally moderate candidate to be placed in the seat in order to keep it in Liberal hands. The seat is likely to be one where the party will parachute a candidate into it given it is so close to the election (it’s expected to be called after the budget).

It’s also concerning that the party has already asked two people if they’d like to run, and they have both refused. These people were ABC Journalist Stan Grant, and former NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Nick Kaldas. This means that the candidate the Liberal party announces will be their third choice, and so far no women have been mentioned in rumours.

Second, New Zealand was rocked by a right-wing extremist terror attack on two mosques by an Australian citizen. It’s proved once again to the world and Australia that Jacinda Ardern is an awesome human being – just take her response on the day of the attack:

Once again there were calls for Jacinda Ardern to become Prime Minister of Australia, which isn’t possible because of Section 44, but whatever, we can dream.

The attack in NZ led right-wing senator Fraser Anning to try to blame Muslim immigration in Australia and New Zealand for the terror attack. Anning was widely criticised for his comments, mostly verbally. A teenage boy decided to smash an egg on Anning’s head while he was at an event – leading Anning to punch him in the face before Anning’s supporters tackled him to the ground.

The boy, Will Connolly, has since been interviewed by Channel 10. He admits that egging Anning was the wrong thing to do, and there is no denying it was, but he’s unapologetic because, well, he’s probably not the only one who has felt like smashing an egg on Anning’s head.

Scott Morrison also announced he was going to talk to social media companies about how they manage hateful content, and create legislation to make it illegal not to monitor and remove such content from these sites. This comes after the mosque attacker broadcast his attack live on Facebook, and while Facebook finally found it and deleted it, people kept reposting it.

Meanwhile, in New South Wales the state election took place, with it originally looking like the Liberal party would be in a minority government, mostly credited with the Labor leader Michael Daley’s comments about the Chinese community.

Finally, there was another round of school student strikes, with students campaigning to draw attention to climate change and their displeasure at the government’s action on climate policy, or lack thereof.

That’s it for now, back to regular posting this week.

The Two Weeks That Were – December 30 to January 12

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Happy New Year!

2019 started with the release of cabinet documents from 1996 and 1997 – the first two years of the Howard government. The 1996 Federal Budget was extremely tough, but cabinet documents reveal it could have been so much worse. Amanda Vanstone, who was then the Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs, prevented major cuts from tertiary education. Documents also showed the Howard decided not to cut welfare payments to people after 12 months of being on them. Cabinet documents also showed the government’s plans on their battle with the unions (especially the maritime unions) and the discussions that led to gun control reform after the Port Arthur Massacre.

Cabinet documents from 1997 show John Howard’s resistance to apologising to the stolen generations. Howard has always felt that Australians should not be made to feel guilty for something that happened in the past that they had no control over. This opinion upset and agitated many people at the time – and it’s part of the reason Kevin Rudd promised to apologise in Parliament if Labor won the 2007 election (a promise he kept).

Meanwhile, back in the current day…

…Independent Queensland Senator Fraser Anning is under fire for attending a far-right rally at St Kilda in Melbourne – where some of the speakers had criminal records and  several people were seen doing Nazi salutes and other unpleasant things. Not only did he go, but he charged the taxpayer $3,000 for it, saying that he attended in his capacity as a Queensland Senator because some of his constituents are concerned about African gangs there. It’s led to an unusual unity amongst many in Parliament, who are criticising Anning’s choice to attend rallies and charge the taxpayer to do so, and are urging him to pay the money back.

Similarly, Mathias Cormann is under fire for chartering an airforce jet to take him from Canberra to Adelaide, where he was negotiating tax legislation with cross-benchers, and then on to Perth where he lives. In total it cost taxpayers $37,000, mostly because after flying from Canberra to Adelaide and then to Perth, the plane then had to return to Canberra. Since Bronwyn Bishop’s infamous “chopper-gate”, Liberal politicians were encouraged to strongly consider whether the transport they were taking was value for money, which Cormann seems to believe is the case, despite the fact that only a fraction of the tax legislation he was negotiating got through parliament.

Labor has dipped toes into the whole teachers, teaching degrees and ATARs situation, as concern grows about the low ATARs some students are getting into teaching degrees with. Labor wants universities to increase the minimum ATAR for teaching degrees to around 80.00, saying they can’t dumb down the degrees. Universities have hit out at Labor’s plan, and the Liberals have pointed out that they made changes already, requiring prospective teachers to complete the LANTITE – an exam that assesses their numeracy and literacy to ensure teachers can actually teach those things to children. There is also a call to increase wages for teachers, as that will attract more people with higher ATARs who might be put off teaching because it doesn’t pay enough compared to medical and legal roles.

This fortnight also saw over thirty packages containing asbestos delivered to various consulates and embassies in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra. A few days later, a 49-year-old man was arrested and charged for allegedly sending the packages, some of which were not yet delivered. Thankfully, Australia Post does know where they are.

This fortnight also saw Australia’s Foreign Minister Marise Payne travel to Thailand to discuss the cases of two asylum seekers. The first, Rahaf Alqunun was in the news this week after fleeing Saudi Arabia via Kuwait, attempting to get to Australia. Saudi and Thai officials prevented her from travelling on to Australia – leading her to barricade herself in the airport’s hotel until the UNHCR ensured her safety and referred her asylum application on to Australia – until Canada ended up offering to take her. This is because Canada’s refugee processing can be done on Canadian soil, while Australia’s is more convoluted and apparently has to be done offshore.

Meanwhile, Payne also spoke to Thai officials about the incarceration of Hakeem al-Araibi, a Bahraini refugee that has Australian permanent residency. al-Araibi went to Thailand for his honeymoon, and the Thai government arrested him as he has an Interpol red notice based on a politically motivated vandalism conviction in Bahrain.

Finally during this fortnight, Peter Dutton has announced his support for a National Sex Offenders Register, which would make the names and postcodes of offenders available publicly, something Senator Derryn Hinch has wanted for a while; David Leyonhjelm has announced he will leave the Federal Senate to contest the NSW State Upper House. Australia is still in a row with Fiji over the citizenship of Neil Prakash, a former ISIS member, whose Australian Citizenship was revoked because he was fighting in Syria. This was under the assumption that he had Fijian citizenship, which according to Fiji he doesn’t have.

Tweet of the Fortnight

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

John Howard stopped a domestic dispute during the week – News.com.au

Mark Humphries on Fraser Anning’s St Kilda trip – ABC Online

 

The Week That Was – August 12 to August 18

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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 17 to June 23

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This week was all about tax, or at least that’s the way it felt.

This week marked the start of the last two weeks of sitting before the Winter Break. The Government desperately wants to get their tax changes through the parliament before this break – and they have succeeded, at least with the personal tax cuts.

These personal tax cuts have been a spot of contention, because while there is bipartisan support for the first two phases of the government’s plans, the Labor party does not support the final phase, which is not only many years away but is a nice (and slightly better) cut in taxes for those on higher incomes. Labor did want to split the bill, and put through the bits it did like to help those on low and middle incomes, who they feel deserve a cut but the Coalition was having none of it. After stalling in the Senate on Wednesday by tying the votes 34-34 (which negates a bill – I learned something this week) but the Government tried again after sweet talking Pauline Hanson and her one remaining One Nation senator, as well as the Centre Alliance (the party formerly known as NXT) senator.

The bill then passed on Thursday, meaning that our tax system will change. We will eventually loose the 37% tax bracket in the next ten years, with the bulk of the population paying 32.5% tax on income over $37,000. Australia’s tax system is progressive, in that you pay more tax if you earn more money, and this is theoretically meant to be a buffer on wage growth. Anyway, one of the big sweeteners for lower- and middle-income earners is that the government has promised that their rebate from these tax changes will increase when they do their 2017-18 tax return later this year – or at least that’s how it’s being touted.

It’s now starting to look like one of the big issues that the “Super Saturday” by-elections will be about on will be tax. Some in these electorates are happy for the rebate increase, but irritated that the higher income earners will eventually get a better deal than them within the next ten years. Many in the seat of Braddon in Tasmania, who work in what are classed as low- and middle-income jobs, feel a bit ripped off that they’ll only get about $10 extra a week with this rebate, despite the cost of living increasing and wages stagnating.

Farmers are angry that the Banking Royal Commission will only hear evidence for four days. Farmers argue that is not enough time to hear about how they have been treated by the banks with allegations of mismanagement of accounts. There is a chance that commissioner Kenneth Hayne could extend the hearings but this seems unlikely.

Meanwhile, there is now questions over whether there is going to be a Labor party spill with Anthony Albanese challenging Bill Shorten. It all stems from a speech Albanese made, in which he suggested the party was going in a direction he did not like. A spill at this point in the game seems unlikely to me, because for the Labor party to change the federal parliamentary leader they require a national vote of the rank and file members as well as the parliamentary caucus (the MPs and Senators), which costs money. I don’t remember if they revealed the cost of the vote back in 2016, but it’s bound to be a lot of money and this is an expense they’re unlikely to want to make in the run up to an election that could happen in the next six to nine months. There is also concern that with Super Saturday, Labor could lose either Longman or Braddon (which are held by margins of less than 2%) – or both seats, which could make Shorten’s life harder.

There has been further changes to Brian Burston’s Senate existence. After leaving the One Nation party last week, he’s suddenly joined Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party. He says he decided less than an hour before publicly announcing it – but ferreting by journalists suggest that it has been longer given an advisor to Burston was posting United Australia Party stuff earlier in the morning on the day of the announcement. Meanwhile one of the other One Nation defectors, Fraser Anning (who took over from Malcolm Roberts) has announced he’s joining the Katter Australia Party.

Meanwhile, the Liberal Party is reeling after a meeting at the Arncliffe (in Sydney) branch of the party ended with a brawl. Two people ended up in hospital, the police were called and there is now a police investigation and an internal Liberal Party investigation. It’s thought the brawl started around some sort of local council candidacy issue, while others suggest it may be tensions between Muslims and Coptic Christians – which the branch leader denies.

Finally this week, there are calls to crack down on “dark web” sales of opioids and calls to monitor some doctors who are helping opioid addicts get codeine after the restrictions placed upon their sale earlier this year; the rainbow crossing is returning to Surry Hills (although no longer on the main road); and house prices are falling (which might be a good thing for young adults trying to buy a home), with prices expected to fall a little more over the next 12-18 months.

Tweet of the Week

The employees of the ABC are getting tired of the politics surrounding them…

https://twitter.com/leighsales/status/1008512310707490816

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Muriel Porter on the Anglican Church’s position against same-sex marriage – ABC Online

Leigh Sales, the Logie Awards, and 7:30 – SMH

Emmanuel Macron reprimanding a kid is earning him brownie points – ABC Online

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

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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.