This was the final week of campaigning for the Wentworth by-election, which got a bit nasty towards the end (but more on that in a moment). The Liberals kept going on about how if the Liberal candidate Dave Sharma didn’t win the election there would be instability because there would be a hung parliament. Meanwhile, Kerryn Phelps has been talking about keeping parliament stable should she win. Sharma and Phelps are the two frontrunners and between them the polling has been neck and neck. The candidates had an event for the public earlier in the week where they spoke to people from the electorate about issues important to them. Sharma has made clear that he was just as shocked and upset by the rolling of Malcolm Turnbull as most of the electorate was.
However, Malcolm’s son Alex Turnbull has been telling people to vote for anyone but the Liberal Party. Kerryn Phelps became the victim of a vicious email that suggested she was pulling out of the race because she’d been diagnosed with HIV and that people should vote for Sharma. Phelps has forwarded the email to the AEC to be investigated, and Sharma has condemned the email.
Meanwhile the Liberals appeared to get a tad desperate this week, by announcing something that was apparently meant to get some of the Jewish vote for Sharma. Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that he was considering moving the Australian Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv – like Trump did with the American Embassy. According to Morrison, the suggestion came from Sharma himself, but the timing for the idea is a little odd. As Peter van Onselen pointed out on Insiders, most devout and potentially Orthodox Jews in Wentworth who support that policy are also strict observers of the Sabbath on Saturdays, and generally pre-poll vote, meaning they would have already voted without that policy on the table influencing their vote. Furthermore, ASIO documents have been leaked to the media, suggesting that if Australia were to follow the American’s example and move the Embassy to Jerusalem, Australia there would be some serious implications (mostly violent protests according to the documents).
Anyway, election day came and both Sharma and Phelps were unable to vote for themselves because they don’t live in the electorate (Sharma lives on the North Shore of Sydney and Phelps lives near Wentworth, as she was a Sydney City Councillor before running for Federal Parliament, but not exactly in the electorate). Sharma instead spent his day touring the polling booths and at one point was followed by a bunch of anti-coal protesters, while Phelps also toured around talking to people. By 7:20pm on Saturday night, with 9.4% of the vote counted, the ABC’s Election Analyst (or psephologist if you want to get technical) Antony Green called the election for Phelps, with a then swing of 23.6% against the government.
As morning came on Sunday, the gap between Sharma and Phelps was narrowing slightly, as postal votes and pre-poll votes were also counted, and the swing has narrowed to 18.4% as of the last update on the ABC website on Sunday morning – which I think may be the biggest swing ever in a by-election.
And then, Antony Green had to update on Twitter as I hit publish on this post 🙂
This by-election result has topped off a pretty bad week for the government. First, they suggested they might let people leave Nauru and settle in New Zealand – although they want some way to stop these refugees from coming to Australia, even as tourists. This has Labor, the Greens and the New Zealand government concerned, as Labor thinks it’s economically stupid to ban tourists from New Zealand, and New Zealand doesn’t want to have a group of people in their country who would essentially have second-class citizenship.
The government was also humiliated by their Senators somehow “accidentally” voting in favour of a Pauline Hanson motion that said it was “ok to be white” – which has its roots in right-wing white supremacist movements in the USA. The government’s Senators demanded a re-vote in which the summarily condemned the motion. But still, from the perspective of an outsider like me, it looks really bad.
Environment Minister Melissa Price is in hot water this week, after approaching the former President of Kiribati (pronounced Ki-ri-bas), Anote Tong, at a restaurant in Canberra. Pat Dodson, a Labor Party senator, was dining with Tong when Price approached, as were several other including the Director of the Edmund Rice Centre (a climate justice organisation that brought Tong to Australia). They allege and confirm that the Environment Minister said to Tong at the table:
I know why you’re here. It is for the cash. For the Pacific, it is always about the cash. I have my cheque book here. How much do you want?
Price denies that she said anything of the sort, but with Tong, Dodson and several other diners confirming she said something to the effect of the above quote, she’s not very convincing. Labor and the Greens have been appalled by the Environment Minister’s behaviour, saying she is the “worst Environment Minister ever”.
The other thing that’s been big this week (but not necessarily political) has been the royal tour to Sydney by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and his wife Meghan. The tour is mainly focused on the Invictus Games in Sydney, which Harry started to help his fellow servicemen who were returning from military service in the Middle East, but will also visit Fiji and Tonga while down in this part of the world. They flew in on a Qantas flight on Monday morning, and spent the day recovering from their long trip at Admiralty House where they’ll stay while in Sydney. Kensington Palace then announced on Monday night that the Duchess of Sussex is pregnant with the couple’s first child, due in the first half of next year.
Highlight of their trip so far have included Prince Harry spotting Daphne Dunne, a lady in her 90s who has met him multiple times. He chatted to her again, before introducing her to Meghan. The Sussexes went to Dubbo where they met school children (and got a hug from a 5-year-old boy who got to stroke Harry’s beard) before meeting with a drought affected farmer and talking about mental health at a picnic. They also went to Melbourne, where the Duchess of Sussex had a go at some AFL skills, and the couple went to a restaurant where they learned about indigenous ingredients. Another highlight was the Duke of Sussex climbing the Harbour Bridge with Invictus representatives and the Prime Minister Scott Morrison to plant the Invictus Games’ flag atop the Bridge.
Youth mental health network Headspace, will get an extra $51.8 million, to hire more staff and increase online services for those in regional areas in order to reduce wait times for young people reaching out for help.
Concerns have been raised about “alt-right” (those on the extreme right of the political spectrum) and their infiltration into the Liberal and National parties. One group in particular, the Young Nationals, seem to have been joined by some of these alt-right people. There was apparently some sort of plan to change the views of the mainstream parties, which has been somewhat unsuccessful, given the Young Nationals have cottoned onto the issue (potentially through the ABC telling them when they went to ask the party about it) and has asked one Young Nats member to leave, while two others have been suspended and two more have been asked to explain. The federal Nationals President has said that extremism is not welcome in the Nationals Party.
Finally this week, the former Managing Director of the ABC Michelle Guthrie is suing the ABC at the Fair Work Commission, claiming the board had no reason to trigger the termination clause in her contract, and the terror charge against the Sri Lankan student accused of planning a terror plot to kill Malcolm Turnbull because the police have admitted the handwriting in the notebook that has his name on it (and is their only evidence) is not his. Also, the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Glenn Davies, has defended Anglican schools, saying that they never asked to have the ability to expel LGBTIQ+ students in their submission to the Ruddock religious freedom review.
Tweets of the Week
Elections means Antony Green – made even better by the fact that parts of Wentworth are on Green’s morning cycling route.
Things I’ve Been Looking at Online
Jessica Martin on the fall of women’s magazines – ABC Online
Tony Walker on moving the Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem – ABC Online
Kara L 