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.
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Kara L 