The Two Weeks That Were – July 21 to August 4

Sorry, this might be a bit longer than normal…

Parliament was back this fortnight, but the main focus was the maiden speeches of new members like Zali Steggall and Helen Haines. As there aren’t any particularly controversial people in parliament right now, there was not much to report on. If you’re desperate to know what the new members said in their speeches, you can always check out Hansard. However it wasn’t just maiden speeches in parliament in the last two weeks: the government wanted to push through two major pieces of legislation, and avoid pressure on a few other issues.

The first was legislation to create a “Future Drought Fund”, which did end up passing the House of Representatives. The bill essentially means that the government will put aside $3.9 million to draw on when there is another drought, with additional money added to the fund over time. So far it is not clear what the money will be spent on (when the time comes) but farmers are just relieved that steps are being taken to help out in the next drought, even if not much can be done during the current drought. The Labor Party is willing to support the Future Drought Fund but they’re slightly concerned over where the money will be drawn from or what the money will be spent on.

The other legislation involves foreign fighters (mostly those who went to Syria), and whether they or their stranded families should be temporarily banned from entering the country, despite the fact many of these people are citizens. While many in parliament agree that they do support the temporary bans, based on legislation in force in the UK, there is disagreement over who should have the powers.

Despite a joint committee recommending that the bans be fully overseen by a retired judge – a model the Labor Party supports – the government has decided the powers should be held by Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, and later reviewed by a retired judge. The Opposition is wary to give all the power to Dutton – as are many others. With Labor not agreeing in full, or having concerns with both pieces of legislation, the government has been painting them as “not on the right side”, with many government ministers saying in interviews this week that Labor needed to “decide whose side they’re on”.

The Labor Party is mostly unperturbed by this criticism, with suggestions that the government is using Labor’s relatively reasonable concerns as a wedge issue to distract from the internal divisions on other concerns. There are divisions amongst not only the right and left factions of the Liberal Party, but also between the Liberals and their coalition partners, the Nationals, mostly on the topic of a welfare payment for job seekers known as “Newstart”.

It appears that many Nationals MPs would like to see an increase to Newstart as many of their constituents on the welfare payment are struggling, especially as the drought continues to take hold. Barnaby Joyce’s is an unlikely supporter of a rise in Newstart, sparked by his recent epiphany that if he’s struggling to support two families (the family he had with his ex-wife and the family he has now with former staffer Vicki Campion) on just over $200,000, then he can’t imagine how hard it is to keep afloat on just under $300 a week.

The problem here is that the government, and to a lesser extent, the Opposition are reluctant to make this much-needed increase to Newstart until revenue levels are certain and there is a guarantee that a budget surplus can be delivered this financial year. This infatuation with a surplus is worrying – the fact that the government is so desperate to have a surplus on their record means that many important and vital that will improve the quality of life for many Australians are being delayed or ignored.

On the topic of welfare, it seems that the Centrelink robo-debt system is getting out of hand. In the last two weeks stories have emerged regarding the robo-debt system. In one case, an elderly man on the aged pension for the last 20 years, who himself admits that he is “obsessive” in updating his income to Centrelink, was told he had a debt of $67 from 1998. He was determined to clear his name because he was so convinced that he did not have a debt, and went to a great deal of trouble to do so. Despite calling Centrelink multiple times, he was unsuccessful until the ABC contacted Centrelink to ask them about his debt for their news story.

In a second case, Anastasia McCardel, the mother of Bruce McCardel, a man who died in November last year, was sent a letter from Centrelink claiming Bruce had an almost $6,750 debt, and then another letter thanking him for checking his income information. Ms McCardel said that she knew Bruce was very careful with his Centrelink information, and was unlikely to be in debt, and was also unsure how he could have checked his income information if he was dead. Again, it was only when the ABC broadcast the story that the debt was waived, and this time the Minister for Government Services, Stuart Robert, delivered the apology.

Moving on, a forensic accountant from the University of Sydney has looked into Adani’s reports to ASIC and has found that Adani is potentially operating insolvent. Adani does not have enough money to cover its upcoming costs, and the accountant argues they shouldn’t be operating at all – especially given operating insolvent is illegal. However, it appears that auditors signed off in it as “a going concern” as Adani have said that their parent company will pay for the costs that they encounter until they actually start mining the coal in the mine that they’re currently building. However, if Adani does go out of business, it is likely that their parent company, who is basically loaning the money to pay for all the mine preparations, will be the first creditor in line.

The Liberal Party’s culture is under the spotlight again, after allegations that the party has not done enough to help two female staffers who allege that they were sexually assaulted by their male colleagues. One of the women is a federal staffer and the other is a staffer for the Victorian Liberals, and they say their complaints fell on deaf ears. The official line from the Liberal Cabinet was that they should go to the police. That combined with the announcement that there will be a national Code of Conduct for Liberal MPs and Senators, following the review into the spill that installed Scott Morrison in August last year. Part of the review looked into claims from female MPs that they had been bullied into signing the spill motion petition – which is why the code of conduct has been introduced.

Meanwhile, Oliver Yates, a Kooyong candidate that lost to Josh Frydenberg, and an elector in the seat of Banks have taken legal action in the Court of Disputed Returns. They’re arguing that some posters put up on election day by the Liberal Party at polling places in both seats were misleading. The posters, which were written in Chinese, said that the ‘correct way to vote is to put a ‘1’ next to the Liberal candidate’. These posters were in the AEC’s colours of purple and white and were placed next to official AEC signage, such as the “Polling Place Here” signs.

The argument is that these posters were misleading, as they looked like official AEC signage (except for a teeny tiny notice at the bottom that said it was a Liberal Party sign). Furthermore, there was a concern that voters in Kooyong and Banks who are of Chinese descent (there’s quite a few of them), who might be new to voting in Australia and how the process works, might have thought that the AEC was telling you the “right” way to vote.

In another court case during the fortnight, lawyers for the ABC were in court to argue that the information, documents and other evidence that was taken during the raids on the broadcaster a few months ago should not be unsealed. Other than the fact that the warrant for the raid was signed off on by a Local Court registrar, the ABC’s barrister Matt Collins argued that the warrant was “legally unreasonable”, “excessively broad” and “misstated the terms of the suspected offences”. Collins argued that the stories, known as the Afghan Files, were in the public interest and that the journalist who published them, Dan Oakes, also had the right to protect his sources. A lawyer has publically admitted to being the source of the leaks, even before the raids, which Collins also drew attention to saying it was extraordinary that the AFP’s response to that fact, when mentioned in a press conference, suggested that they thought the lawyer might’ve been lying.

The Garma Festival also took place, with Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese, Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt, and Governor-General David Hurley in attendance. All three called for the Indigenous community to rally behind the constitutional recognition referendum that will occur in three years, reminding them that almost no referendum defeated in Australia’s 120-ish year history has ever been resurrected.

Finally this week, Amber Holt, the woman who attempted to egg Scott Morrison during the election has been sentenced to community service and a good behaviour bond; and Labor is pressuring the government to ban Raheem Kassan from entering the country to speak at a right-wing political conference that will also include Tony Abbott, Nigel Farage, Mark Latham and Senator Amanda Stoker as speakers.

Tweet of the Week

This week a second former High Court Chief Justice made the argument that an Indigenous voice to Parliament could be incorporated into the constitution quite easily, says @annabelcrabb.

"There's a lot of room for some leadership in Canberra." pic.twitter.com/IYsJnyQcys

— News Breakfast (@BreakfastNews) August 1, 2019

 

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 Week That Was – November 18 to November 24

The week began with the last days of APEC for Prime Minister Scott Morrison, where he announced several plans for involvement in the Pacific, mostly with the aim of countering Chinese influence. In particular, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the USA are working together to invest money into Papua New Guinea’s electricity grid so that more people in PNG have reliable electricity. But while Morrison had a relatively good showing at APEC, all was not smooth sailing, with Chinese officials marching into the PNG Foreign Minister’s office to demand changes to the wording of the joint communiqué, and wouldn’t leave until security was called. The USA and China appeared to have had a lot of disagreements at this APEC, and while some officials did try to find compromise, it was unsuccessful. For the first time in a long time, APEC did not finish with the release of any joint communiqué

The Banking Royal Commission is heading into its final days, with Westpac, Commonwealth Bank and ASIC on the stand. ASIC has promised to punish and prosecute banks more, while Westpac has admitted that they don’t really know how many people were charged fees for no service, as there are insufficient records. Their explanation is that some very rich people are happy to pay for the relationship, where it’s at their discretion. On the other had, the Commonwealth Bank’s CEO Matt Comyn was attempting to make it seem that he was trying to fix things when he was in charge of the retail bank, and that the former CEO Ian Narev was trying to stop him from doing good things, which he then stopped doing to wait to see what the Royal Commission recommended.

The CommBank’s board chairperson Catherine Livingstone got into a spot of bother at one point, suggesting that she had brought up a concern at a board meeting, but there was no record of it in the board minutes. So, either Livingstone was trying to make herself look good, or she did genuinely bring up the issue, but the bank’s board broke the law by not keeping accurate minutes of the meeting.

Scott Morrison, in the wake of both the Bourke Street attack and some anti-terrorism raids this week, has announced a plan to strip the Australian citizenship from convicted terrorists if they have citizenship of another country, or if they have some sort of entitlement to it. Other than the logical question of whether a country is going to give citizenship to a convicted terrorist, no matter how entitled they are to it, there are also concerns about the legality of the policy should it actually come into law. As it could render people stateless, it may also lead to detaining those who lose their Australian citizenship in detention centres because they’ll become “illegal aliens” all of sudden.

Morrison and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton also want legislation to force technology companies hand over information on users during police investigations, as it will make it easier for the cops to find evidence when carrying out surveillance on terror suspects, but one you have the power you could theoretically use the powers for anything, so again, there are concerns about civil liberties. Labor isn’t saying much on Morrison and Dutton’s policy plans, other than their insistence that while security is important, the legislation must also be correct.

Labor has also been working on announcing their climate policy this week, which is essentially using Turnbull’s National Energy Guarantee (NEG), which got him rolled in August, but with added subsidies for implementing renewables such as solar panels and wall batteries. They will also give the Clean Energy Finance Corporation more investments and push for a 45% reduction in emissions, based on 2005 levels. The Liberals, it seems are against the policy, despite the fact it was originally their idea, mostly because it’s Labor that is now announcing it. From the perspective of the intelligent life forms in my house, Labor is somewhat pushing this as a wedge issue, because the Liberals are then damned if they reject the policy and are damned if they support the policy.

Also this week, Victoria had a State election. It was originally thought that it could be quite a tight race, given the incumbent Labor government could have gone into minority government if they lost two seats, but as of Sunday lunch it’s looking as if it could be the biggest win for Victorian Labor in a very long time, with seats that haven’t been in Labor hands for decades falling to them with massive swings.

Finally this week, Jim Molan has pulled out of a Q&A appearance on the ABC this coming Monday, saying he cannot bring himself to defend his party after being placed in an unwinnable spot on the Liberal-National Senate ticket for NSW. Molan joined the senate in February this year, taking up the seat left vacant by National Senator Fiona Nash who got caught by section 44, and has ended up as one of the unlucky ones. He ended up drawing the short straw for the senators who got the three-year terms after the double dissolution election in 2016. He’s been placed in an unwinnable place on the Senate ticket, which has left him feeling a bit ripped off – which is understandable.

Tweet of the Week

Malcolm, Lucy and Alex Turnbull are all among the first 100 followers of a new Instagram page campaigning to vote Tony Abbott out. pic.twitter.com/zLriY0WgQv

— Denham Sadler (@denhamsadler) November 20, 2018

The Week That Was – September 16 to September 23

The Liberal Party is still dealing with allegations of bullying and sexism against women, with Gilmore MP Ann Sudmalis announcing she will not contest her seat at the next election. She’s citing bullying from NSW State MP Gareth Ward and branch stacking in her electorate. This, combined with Julia Bank’s decision not to re-contest her seat, Lucy Gichuhi being placed in an unwinnable spot on the Senate ballot paper in South Australia, Jane Prentice loosing her pre-selection battle earlier this year, and the suspicion that Julie Bishop may not re-contest her seat of Curtin, has the Liberal’s pool of women dropping from its already low numbers. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced internal processes to investigate some of these allegations, however there is little information on these internal machinations and women in the party, especially Kelly O’Dwyer, are calling for these investigations to be independent.

Meanwhile there a continuing calls for there to be quotas in the Liberal Party, which most of the men in the Liberal Party don’t think necessary; and Centre Alliance MP Rebekha Sharkie has said that she will withdraw support for the government if they don’t sort out the women’s issue by the Wentworth by-election.

Speaking of the seat of Wentworth, the Liberals have a serious challenger in Independent Dr Kerryn Phelps. Phelps, a Sydney City Councillor, GP and marriage equality campaigner, says that if she wins, she would guarantee supply in order to keep stability. It’s thought Phelps could have a decent chance at the seat, despite Wentworth being held by the Liberals at 17%. This is because a lot of that margin is attributed to Malcolm Turnbull’s personal popularity, and many in the seat of Wentworth are unhappy about how Turnbull was treated. This combined with the fact that the Liberals didn’t choose a female candidate, and Kerryn Phelps is a “local”, could result in a large swing against the Liberal Party. To give context on the whole “local” thing, while there is no law that says you have to live in the electorate you’re representing, in Sydney if you’re not from the area in which you’re running (at least somewhat) you’re not considered to be a “local”. So Dave Sharma, who lives on the North Shore, on the other side of Sydney Harbour to Wentworth, isn’t considered to be a “local”. He is apparently thinking of moving to the electorate, but I have a suspicion that he’d want to wait to see if he’ll actually get the seat.

It got a bit weird though this week, when Scott Morrison didn’t show up for a press conference with Dave Sharma, instead opting to visit a school and talk about school funding. It appears Morrison’s people didn’t tell Sharma he wouldn’t be coming, so Sharma was left standing around, only to have the lectern gate-crashed by Kerryn Phelps, announcing that she would preference the Liberal Party over the Labor Party – doing a backflip on her announcement the day before that she would be putting the Liberals last and Labor ahead of them.

It has been revealed that two media moguls got involved in the Liberal instability during the week of the spill that saw Morrison become Prime Minister. Kerry Stokes, the head of SevenWest Media and Rupert Murdoch, the head of NewsCorp, have been named as getting involved. According to multiple retellings (mostly from Malcolm Turnbull since he headed off to NYC), Turnbull contacted Stokes to ask him whether NewsCorp was actually out to get him, so Stokes obliged and spoke with Murdoch, who confirmed that he had told NewsCorp to editorialise against Malcolm Turnbull and push for Peter Dutton. Funnily enough, much like most of the country and the Liberal Party, Stokes didn’t think Dutton as PM was such a good idea, so instructed editorials be written in favour of Scott Morrison and Julie Bishop. One should take this story with a grain of salt given that it’s been retold quite a few times and has come from a quite bitter Malcolm Turnbull.

The government has announced that they will prevent a number of people with outstanding welfare debts from travelling out of the country. These people have either been accidentally overpaid or they are deliberately defrauding the government, and are yet to pay back their debts despite repeated attempts to get them to pay the money back. The concern is however, that this could end up the same way at that debt collection debacle (which happened nearly two years ago, and I wrote about it earlier here), and there are also concerns about whether these travel bans will only ever be used as a last resort.

The Prime Minister has announced that there will be a Royal Commission into Aged Care. This is partially due to a two-part Four Corners investigation into the industry, and preempted the broadcast of the show by 24 hours. There are no costings or terms of reference yet, but the announcement has garnered support from the opposition, who says that there needs to be better pay for aged care workers and more doctors and nurses. There are calls for there to be nationally legislated minimum staff to patient ratios at aged care homes, like there are at childcare centres, which the industry says isn’t necessary.

The Banking Royal Commission is looking into home insurance this week, with Youi admitting it failed to provide “awesome service” (their words) to two clients. In one case, it took 18 months for Youi to arrange for the repair of a roof damaged after a freak hailstorm in Broken Hill, and in another, Youi is yet to organise the repairs on a home damaged by Cyclone Debbie. Meanwhile, Suncorp has admitted to showing “insufficient compassion” to a long-term customer, and AAMI (owned by Suncorp) have admitted to misleading advertising and failing to cover the complete cost of he repairs of a bushfire ravaged home.

Also this week, there were concerns over the conflicts of interest of Margie McKenzie, a board member of the Marine Park Authority. McKenzie’s husband Col, almost completely owns the Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators, and is a board member of the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre. Both of these organisations received money from the Marine Park Authority, which was funded to a company called Gempearl, which is contracted to eradicate the crown-of-thorns starfish in the Barrier Reef. Gempearl is owned by both McKenzies, meaning that there is a massive conflict of interest on Margie’s part. She has said that she abstained from voting on those issues, however with a change in legislation, she may soon be ineligible to sit on the Marine Park Authority’s board. However, this will no longer be a concern, as McKenzie resigned over the weekend, following the story’s broadcast.

Finally this week, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is going to visit Darwin in November for trade meetings. It’s been revealed that Infrastructure Australia refused to give NSW money for their light rail project, as they felt it would have little benefit and would worsen congestion in the Sydney CBD; and the government has increased the maximum penalty for food tampering from 10 years to 15 years, in order to bring the full force of the law upon whoever is putting needles in fruits (Queensland Health says strawberries are safe to buy, just keep cutting them in half). Also, Catholic and Independent schools have earned themselves a $4 billion payment over ten years to transition to the Gonski funding program, closing one battlefront and potentially opening another in the form of public schools.

Tweet of the Week

Seriously, who doesn’t like strawberries but does like eating a raw onion like it is an apple? https://t.co/OraMggMdOP

— Tanya Plibersek (@tanya_plibersek) September 19, 2018

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

WA Parliament still has a ban on breastfeeding in the chamber – ABC Online

How leaders work hard at being “normal” – ABC Online

The Week That Was – August 26 to September 1

This week was Scott Morrison’s first week as Prime Minister and he rather quickly announced his cabinet. Mathias Cormann and Peter Dutton, have kept their roles – although Immigration is now no longer part of the Home Affairs portfolio.  A number of cabinet members have also stayed in cabinet or kept their roles, regardless of who they supported during the drama of last week. However, there has been a bit of a reshuffle and two backbenchers have been pulled out of relative obscurity into the ministry, with Melissa Price becoming Environment Minister and Karen Andrews becoming Minister for Industry and Science. Michaelia Cash has been moved sideways to become the Minister for Small Business and Skills, and Kelly O’Dwyer is now Minister for Jobs and Industrial Relations. Steve Ciobo seems to have lost his Trade portfolio to Simon Birmingham, and Dan Tehan is now Education Minister.

Julie Bishop has left the front bench, and will be replaced by Marise Payne as Foreign Minister, so Christopher Pyne is now Defence Minister. The big thing here though is that Bishop has left the ministry and the deputy leadership of the Liberal party after eleven years. One of the most senior and experienced women in the Liberal party is no longer in the ministry, and that’s a heck of a lot of expertise no longer on the front bench. Part of this seems to be because of a group text conversation on WhatsApp between some moderate Liberal MPs and Senators calling themselves “Friends of Stability”. It appears one of them uncovered an alleged plan from the Dutton camp to stick some WA votes behind Bishop in the first round of voting during the spill, in order to knock out Morrison so Dutton would win. Poor Christopher Pyne was left to very respectfully warn Julie Bishop of this plan to use her to get Dutton as PM.

Julie Bishop has said that she will contest her seat of Curtin at the next election, and there are whispers that she could be the next Governor-General as she is respected on both sides of the political divide.

This is not the only issue involving women in the Liberal Party and the spill of last week. Julia Banks, the Member for Chisholm, has announced she will not contest the next election in her marginal Melbourne seat. She cites bullying and sexist behaviour from parliamentary Liberal Party, especially during the week of the spill, where she alleges three MPs and Senators (who are thought to be some of Dutton’s numbers men) engaged in intimidation tactics to try to get her to vote their way.

https://twitter.com/juliabanksmp/status/1034597677017718784

Two other members of parliament, Sarah Henderson MP and Senator Linda Reynolds have also alleged poor behaviour on the part of these “numbers men”, with Henderson apparently being promised a ministry or some other worldly goods, and Reynolds feeling intimidated by the actions of her party – something she spoke about in the Senate to get it into Hansard.

Prime Minister Morrison spent a lot of his first full week as PM not in Canberra. He toured drought affected Queensland at the start of the week and learned more about the effects the drought is having on families. At the end of the week he travelled to Jakarta and met with Indonesian President Joko Widodo. Originally the trip was for Malcolm Turnbull, and many expected it to be postponed after the spill, however, Morrison went over and spent time with Widodo, and they seemed to get on well, and Morrison did represent us well on his first international trip as Prime Minister. Australia is about to sign a Free Trade Agreement with Indonesia, eight years in the making, so the relationship is now more important than ever.

Meanwhile, Peter Dutton is facing criticism over what is being dubbed the “Au Pair Affair”. It’s understood that a couple of years ago, Peter Dutton allowed a 27-year-old French national into the country on a tourist visa, despite the fact that she had admitted to Border Force officials that she would engage in work as an au pair for the McLachlan family. The McLachlan family are well-known South Australian pastoralists and are related to AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan – who knows Dutton from when he was Sports Minister. It appears Gillon McLachlan linked his relatives to Dutton’s office so they could plead the young woman’s case. It’s also understood that he has helped a former cop colleague in the same situation whose potential au pair was detained at Brisbane airport, along with one other au pair – but that last one hasn’t been talked about much.

The Catholic Church has responded to the recommendations from the Child Abuse Royal Commission, saying it will take all but a few of the recommendations on board. They have stated that they won’t be breaking the seal of confession to report child abuse, but they will apply to the Vatican to consider making celibacy a voluntary aspect of being a member of the clergy. Meanwhile, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory are continuing in their push to make it illegal to not report child abuse revealed to priests in the confessional, against the wishes of the Catholic Church.

Finally this week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Barnaby Joyce will be a Special Envoy for the Drought, and Tony Abbott will be Special Envoy for Indigenous Affairs (which is going down really well amongst the Indigenous community); Chelsea Manning, the US Army intelligence officer who leaked thousands of documents to WikiLeaks, was banned from entering Australia, but she will be allowed to enter New Zealand; the NAPLAN results came out and while Primary school results are improving,  the high school results aren’t as positive; and Australia probably won’t get visited by US President Donald Trump, instead we’ll get a visit from Vice-President Mike Pence.

Tweets of the Week

https://twitter.com/BevanShields/status/1034259584221736960

Christopher Pyne has just been sworn in as Minister for Defence.
I repeat: @cpyne now has weapons.

— Annabel Crabb (@annabelcrabb) August 28, 2018

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Annabel Crabb on Julie Bishop’s savage one-liners – ABC Online

Mark Latham’s defamation defence dismissed (it’s awesome) – Federal Court of Australia

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 – May 14 to May 20

It was looking like a quiet, relatively calm week for federal politics this week. Then cam the ATO scandal.

The scandalous part of this whole tax office thing is that the Deputy Commissioner Michael Cranston has been stood down and will be appearing in court in the next few months for allegedly accessing and giving his son Adam confidential information that he shouldn’t have – in relation to an alleged conspiracy to defraud the Commonwealth. It’s especially awkward given he’s theoretically the most senior tax cop the country has. Cranston’s son, Adam, and daughter, Lauren, have also been arrested in relation to the matter, as have seven or eight others. It’s believed Cranston was unaware of what the information he allegedly gave was used for, but he did allegedly abuse his position. The government went for the angry and disappointed reaction – but to avoid screwing up the case against the accused they haven’t said much else.

Before the ATO drama broke this week, the regular post-Budget selling trip was looking relatively boring. This budget has been mostly well-received, with only a few issues really being hit on by the opposition and cross bench. I say mostly because the post-Budget opinion poll puts Labor in front of the Government by a few points in the two-party preferred. The tax issue is still the main point of contention. Australia has a progressive tax system, which means that the 80% of Australians that earn less than $80,000 per year, contribute around a third of the country’s tax revenue; while the other 20% who earn over $80,000 per year, contribute 70% of tax revenue.  While the Liberals wanting an increase in tax for everyone, no matter their salary, Labor only wants to increase taxes for those on high incomes.

Treasurer Scott Morrison is also annoyed with former Treasury Secretary Ken Henry – who now works for NAB – because Henry has said that banks will have to pass on the bank levy (applicable to the Big Five – Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, St George, NAB and ANZ) to customers, and he also criticised the tax. Morrison would like for the banks to just take the levy and not affect customers, but this is unlikely to happen. The Treasurer is also calling Ken Henry a hypocrite, because Henry once supported a previously floated bank tax.

The Navy has some issues with two relatively new ships – the HMAS Adelaide and the HMAS Canberra. It appears that the foreign designed and built ships have propulsion issues – and they’re unlikely to be fixed in time for war games with the United States in a month. The experts behind the ships have been called in and there appears to be a major design flaw in the systems causing problems.

Finally this week, some media companies are wanting the cross media ownership laws to be loosened; a Senate Inquiry is looking into research funding into low survival cancers such as brain cancer; and the Australian Medical Association says that same-sex marriage has positive health effects on those in same-sex relationships.

Tweet of the Week

 

Buzzfeed’s international offices get sassy during Eurovision…

Buzzfeed Germany has no chill #Eurovision pic.twitter.com/IImerAzlg4

— elif (@victuuris95) May 13, 2017

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Juanita Phillips on what she doesn’t worry about as a single mum – SMH

Stan Grant on the “great divide” getting wider – ABC Online

 

The Week That Was – May 7 to May 13

First, apologies for the sudden few weeks off, but when your internet dies and the family ends up having to use a pocket wi-fi device for two weeks, you end up having to decide what is the best use of what little wi-fi there is available.

But I came back in time for Budget Week! Yay! I’m not normally a fan of maths and economics and finance, because it makes my head hurt, but in the last couple of years I’ve warmed to it. Modern technology also helps, as people can now make graphics to simply explain “winners and losers”.

The theme for the budget this year was “Fairness, Opportunity and Security”, with the aim of differing between good and bad debt (borrowing for paying bills = bad; borrowing to build infrastructure = good) and making things fairer. The big things in this budget include the funding for Snowy Hydro 2.0, Gonski 2.0, Badgery’s Creek Airport and other infrastructure. The AFP will get a $320 million boost in funding, and

There will also be an increase in the Medicare levy to pay for the NDIS, as well as an increase in tax for most, if not all, taxpayers. There is also a restructure to schools funding, which is causing a bit of drama, because several schools will lose some money. In NSW (because that’s what version of ABC News I get) several independent and public schools will lose between $500,000 to $2.5 million in funding in 2018, making the State Education minister, as well as the NSW Department of Education boss Mark Scott (who used to run the ABC) very mad – although more about the public schools than the independent ones.

The ‘big four’ banks (ANZ, NAB, Commonwealth Bank and Westpac) are going to be taxed by the government, with the aim of rasing $6.2 billion over the next four years. The banks are not happy, and walked out of meeting with the government this week, convinced the tax is unworkable. Scott Morrison and Malcolm Turnbull have both encouraged the banks to take the pain and not pass on the costs to the consumers. There is also a plan to allow first-home buyers to salary sacrifice money into their super in order to help them afford the deposit on a home. There are still no mentions of changing negative gearing.

The government has also decided to randomly drug test Centrelink recipients, which has been met with mixed reviews. Some support it, mainly in areas where the jobs involve drug testing in order to be allowed onto site, while others are concerned it will push those on the dole who may be just barely getting by into homelessness when their payments are cut off. Jacqui Lambie has decided that she will only support it if politicians are drug tested as well (which will be unlikely in my lifetime).

Bill Shorten and the Labor party are in a bit of hot water this week after an advertisement touting Labor’s plan to ‘hire Australians first’ – with a cast of, well, white people in work uniforms. The party has been criticised for not reflecting the diversity of the country, with Shorten and the party apologising for the advert, which will likely never be played again ever.

Finally this week, the Prime Minister has revealed he is considering an American request to send more troops to the Middle East, a decision he will be making without Dennis Richardson, a long-serving public servant and advisor, who retired on Friday; and the death of ABC radio journalist and presenter Mark Colvin shocked and saddened politicians and the media.

Tweet of the Week

I love Budget Day. What else apart from long-haul flight delivers the solid excuse to switch phone off for 6 hours?

— Annabel Crabb (@annabelcrabb) May 9, 2017

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Leigh Sales’ tribute to Mark Colvin – ABC Online

ABC journalists remember Mark Colvin – ABC Online

How Brigitte Macron is different from other French presidential spouses – ABC Online

The Week That Was – April 17 to April 23

The week began with Parliament being recalled, with three weeks for the Senate to pass the ABCC legislation, before Malcolm Turnbull calls a double dissolution election. The Senate didn’t let Turnbull wait long, rejecting the legislation a second time and giving Turnbull his trigger. Most media outlets are so certain that there will be a double dissolution, they’ve started using their “Australia Votes” graphics already, even without the actual campaign.

The issue is however, that while a double dissolution would have been great for Turnbull and the Liberals a few months ago, there is now a risk of either a hung parliament or a win to Labor. While there is still a decent chance of return of Liberal government, albeit without a couple of marginal seats that were always going to swing to Labor, that chance is reduced. Part of that is due to complacency from the Liberal Party, in thinking that their very popular leader would help them coast through, as well as limited change from the previous Abbott government’s policies and the fact that it became so obvious earlier this year that a double dissolution was on the cards that Bill Shorten was able to plan and get ahead of the Liberals in the policy-selling stakes.

The week also began with several Canberra rallies for and against the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal (RSRT). Those against it are owner-drivers and small trucking business owners, concerned they will be priced out of the market, supported by the Liberal Party. Meanwhile, Bill Shorten and Labor, along with other truck drivers, usually employed by bigger trucking companies have argued the benefit of it, in that it keeps drivers safer. The government also added the legislation to remove the RSRT in the Senate this week, and that was successful.

The politics over banks has continued, with Bill Shorten and Labor still talking about having a Royal Commission into the industry while Turnbull and the Liberals came up with the alternative of making those who ASIC investigates foot the watchdog’s bill. There has also been some drama over dental health funding, with the Liberals announcing a $5 billion injection of funds into state run dental clinics. However this is at the cost of a $3 billion children’s dental care voucher program.

South Australia also got some attention this week with the government announcing that South Australian ship builders will be involved in the building of offshore patrol vessels and frigates, with patrol boats being made in Perth when it comes time for the South Australian to make the frigates. There are concerns though about whether or not that promise will be kept, and if the submarines will be made in SA, once the government finally picks a model – although it probably won’t be long now.

It’s been announces that the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) was hacked, presumably by Chinese People’s Liberation Army agents, back in December. The Bureau has links to the Department of Defence, and it is believed that it cost hundreds of millions to re-secure the Bureau’s systems. But that’s not all, recently the USA informed Australia that Parliament House had been hacked and that China could see all emails, from the PM down. Oops. It’s also been confirmed that the Australian Signals Directorate has the capability to hack other nations too.

Johnny Depp’s wife Amber Heard appeared in court this week over the drama last year involving her dogs, Pistol and Boo. Heard plead guilty to falsifying her quarantine document, was given a good behaviour bond and made a video with Depp about Australia’s quarantine laws, which makes for some interesting viewing…

Meanwhile, Bronwyn Bishop lost preselection for the seat of Mackellar and Jason Falinski will now be the Liberal candidate in the blue-ribbon (i.e. almost always safe Liberal) seat. There was also some major drama and controversy in Parliament house when Tanya Plibersek’s hand was not shaken by the Governor-General, and Labor’s Stephen Conroy got a bit too riled up about it, and suggested Australia become a republic and that Governor General Cosgrove was akin to Sir John Kerr.

Finally this week, Clive Palmer’s company Queensland Nickel will be liquidated and Palmer and his nephew will likely be pursued in the courts by creditors and/or the government; Malcolm Turnbull has said the Channel Nine journalists were “most unwise” to have gotten involved (including paying) in the ‘retrieval’ of two kids from their father in Lebanon, which resulted in their arrest; and Australia signed the Paris Climate deal, and now need to ratify it in Parliament, which they will do along with the second part of the Kyoto agreement.

Tweet of the Week

https://twitter.com/workmanalice/status/722360331079581696

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Calling things Marxist is the new political correctness – The Guardian

Leigh Sales (of ABC’s 7.30) on the ‘vibe’ of the 2016 election – ABC The Drum

Annabel Crabb on political discipline and the election – ABC The Drum

I watched my lesbian girlfriend marry a gay man – The Guardian