As the finish line nears, Bill Shorten appears relatable and ScoMo gets egged (almost).

The week began with the Labor Party’s campaign launch in Western Sydney, with former Prime Ministers Paul Keating, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard putting aside their dramas to attend, along with a large majority of the Labor team. The party opted to have Penny Wong speak about the problems Labor sees with the current government and Tanya Plibersek spoke on Labor’s virtues and values.

The Opposition reiterated their policies on climate change, wage growth and health, along with several new promises – $200 million for youth mental health, $500 million for hospital emergency department upgrades, and tax credits for companies that hire under-25s and over-55s.

The only spanner in the works on launch day was Paul Keating. He started by surprising the ABC’s Andrew Probyn and Jane Nicholson who were hosting coverage from the launch:

That moment when a former PM surprises you on air@andrewprobyn: You snuck up behind me
Paul Keating: I've done that a bit of that in my life pic.twitter.com/cTFaVpT9xC

— Brett Worthington (@BWorthington_) May 5, 2019

Keating, who is famous for his use of words over the years (see here), then proceeded to call Scott Morrison “a fossil with a baseball cap”, and suggest that government security agencies were going “berko” over China. The latter statement gave the government something to grab onto to use against Labor regarding embracing China too openly – which sort of distracted from Labor policies during the week because people kept asking if the Labor front bench agreed with him.

The Labor Party also had Bill Shorten’s wife Chloe introduce him at the launch, where she talked about how wonderful Bill is as a human being – but a pretty terrible dancer (a reference to his “dad dancing” in Kiribati).  The aim of Chloe’s speech was to improve Shorten’s personal popularity, and that combined with some luck and the ability to capitalise upon in late in the week has shown Shorten to be far more relatable and human than he has been in the past.

Bill Shorten then appeared on Q&A on the ABC on Monday night by himself – Scott Morrison declined to attend, and opted to be interviewed on ABC 7:30 instead – allowing Shorten a further chance to speak about his values and policies. It also allowed him to make a few jokes and show his sense of humour. If you have a spare 70-80 minutes before the election, I recommend you watch the episode either on iView or below:

Whatever media or public speaking training Bill Shorten has had over the last 3-6 years has worked pretty well and it shows. He sounds like a reasonable, sensible human being and he’s explaining a lot of his policies in a very measured manner, treating the voters like intelligent humans. The humour at the Q&A appearance helped Shorten seem more personable and it makes a refreshing change from some of what we have seen with the government recently.

During the program he spoke about his mother and how she hadn’t been able to study law when she finished high school as she’d wanted. Instead she earned a scholarship to study education, and had stuck with it and she was able to provide for Bill and his siblings as children – the gist essentially was that Ann Shorten didn’t get all the opportunities because she was working class and Bill Shorten wants to make all opportunities available to all.

On Wednesday, the Daily Telegraph in Sydney published a story that implied that Bill Shorten had made up things or lied about his mother on the Monday Q&A appearance. As you would imagine, Shorten was very upset and in a press conference defending his mother, he cried in public.

This has served to make Bill Shorten appear even more ‘normal’, for want of a better word, as this show of emotion is something not really ever seen with Shorten in the past.

Scott Morrison also said that the Telegraph’s story was unfair, and there have again been calls to leave the parents, children and other family members of candidates out of the spotlight in campaigns – unless they are there willingly as part of the campaign, like Bill’s wife Chloe.

Scott Morrison and the government kept Sunday pretty low-key because of Labor’s launch but did announce money for e-Safety and anti-cyberbullying programs, as well as promising to increase prison time for those who abuse people online.

The week became a bit interesting for Morrison when he was the victim of an attempted egging while at a Country Women’s Association (CWA) event. A 24-year-old woman tried to egg Morrison’s head, but missed. Morrison’s security arrested the woman, and in the kerfuffle, knocked over an elderly CWA member at the event. Morrison assisted the member to her feet and checked she was alright, while the CWA ladies watched the young woman get taken away by security and police, with some telling her she was a “silly girl”. Morrison was unfazed by the incident, brushing it off by saying that the CWA knows what to do with eggs, and Bill Shorten has condemned the egging and any type of violence during an election campaign.

There was a third debate this week at the National Press Club, and it was an experimental model that the Press Club had never tried before. There was only one moderator – the Press Club’s President Sabra Lane – and the audience was made up of equal numbers of Coalition and Labor supporters, who asked the questions.

After weeks and weeks of nagging Labor has, in their own time, revealed the costings for their policies. Chris Bowen and Jim Chalmers presented the policy costings, which showed how much Labor intends to raise through tax changes and how they intend to spend taxpayer money while still maintaining a surplus over the next few years. Matthias Cormann and Josh Frydenberg were dispatched to rebut the costings, but all they could seem to come up with was “it’s a con job” and “Labor deception”, which does suggest to me that the Coalition is panicking a bit on how to deal with the reasoned and measured approach Labor is taking.

Other than the Keating issue Labor is having a little bit of trouble this week with tax policy as some on the right-wing of politics are suggesting that Labor will bring in a “Death Tax” at the behest of the Greens if they win the election. This is despite the consistent denials of Bill Shorten, Chris Bowen, Anthony Albanese and many other Labor figures. This non-existent policy that the right is trying to scare people with just won’t die (if there is a pun in that, it is totally intended) and it’s another distraction that is beginning to frustrate the Labor party a bit – there are a limited number of ways to say “there will be no death tax” before you start to get annoyed.

Also this week, Kerryn Phelps called in the Australian Federal Police after an email was circulated suggesting Phelps was pulling out of the race because she had been found ineligible to run in the seat under section 44. The email suggests that because she is Jewish, she has the right to Israeli citizenship. There are two key facts that prove this email wrong. First, while being Jewish makes you eligible to be an Israeli citizen, you do have to express a desire to do so and get a special visa (which she hasn’t done), or have parents who were Israeli citizens, the latter of which Phelps doesn’t have as she is a convert. Second, there are several other Jewish candidates and MPs, including Josh Frydenberg, Mark Dreyfus and Phelps’ opponent Dave Sharma, and they haven’t had problems with section 44 in regards to Israeli citizenship.

Finally this week, the Aged Care Royal Commission has been hearing evidence about the treatment of nursing home residents with dementia, and the evidence so far hasnt been pleasant. There are allegations that one patient’s dentures were left in her mouth for weeks, and that a patient was given such a high dose of anti-depressants that they were unresponsive to family when they came to visit on the patient’s birthday.

Before I go, interest rates stayed the same, although the word on the street is that they might be cut in the next few months, making people think the only reason they didn’t cut them this month is because of the election campaign.

Don’t forget to vote on May 18!

Tweets of the Week

https://twitter.com/MrsDzTB/status/1126681842319364096

What do you do when you’re an independent with limited resources – an interpretive dance:

How do you spread the word on your policies if you're a new independent candidate with limited resources?

Independent candidate for Wannon @AlexDyson has this unique approach. #Insiders #auspol #AusVotes pic.twitter.com/FzQiIWhYxp

— Insiders ABC (@InsidersABC) May 12, 2019

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Vote Compass results on penalty rates and the minimum wage – ABC Online

Could America get a gay president in 2020? – ABC Online

Laura Tingle on the differences between the Labor and Coalition campaigns – ABC Online

Debates, Policy Nitpicking and now the Candidates are Dropping Like Flies

With the public holidays now out of the way, the election campaign is finally gaining some steam and things are happening.

You may remember from last week, there was an anti-Adani convoy driving around Queensland and they’d arrived in a town that was fairly pro-coal mining. Well, in the early part of this week, while camped near the town there were reports of gunshots in the area. Even more shocking, during one of their rallies a man on horseback came tearing through the crowns and ended up knocking over a woman and injuring her. Organisers, including Bob Brown are very concerned about these actions, but they’re also somewhat relieved that more people weren’t injured, especially as there were children travelling with their parents on this convoy.

Meanwhile, people are trying to get clarity on Labor’s Early Childhood policies. Labor wants to increase the subsidies for parents sending their children to childcare, making it free for low-income earners and increasing the rebates for those on higher incomes. Labor has also said they will increase the income of Early Childhood Educators by 20%, apparently using taxpayer money. There will be no difference between the private and the public childcare centres however there are some questions over whether government intervention might stop private providers from raising their employees’ wages of their own volition. Labor says that it won’t finalise everything until they’re in government and they’ve consulted with everyone.

There were two debates this week, one on Monday in Western Australia aired on a Seven Network multichannel and the second later in the week aired on Sky News (a pay TV channel). Bill Shorten won the audience in both debates, which suggests his 80 or so “town hall” style events have also served as good practice for explaining things.

The second debate also gave us this moment:

Tanya Plibersek called it Morrison’s “Mark Latham Moment” – a flashback to the 2004 election and the rather aggressive handshake then Labor Leader Mark Latham (who is now a One Nation MLC in NSW) gave John Howard after leaving a radio studio that Howard was about to enter.

There have been a few things that have become apparent during these leaders’ debates. First, the government really has painted itself into a corner on their campaign points – all they appear to have is economic management and an anti-Labor sentiment, while the Labor party appears to have this war chest of promises, offers and policies. ABC Political Editor Andrew Probyn has suggested that the government’s campaign appears hollow and that they need to start inspiring voters rather than scaring them.

Second, the Labor party does need to be more clear on some of their policies. More than once, Labor has had to clarify a policy, and they are constantly questioned on the cost of some of their other policies. Now, as the Opposition, they do get cut a bit of slack when it comes to promises and their costs – but they have promised to release some costings in the next week.

Finally this week, eight candidates have either resigned or been disendorsed from their candidacies. It is now too late to replace any of them, and so they will still appear on the ballot paper. One Nation lost Steve Dickson over inappropriate behaviour at a strip club while on the infamous NRA trip to the USA. Al Jazeera, who put together the NRA sting say that the footage from the strip club was never part of the program because it wasn’t in the public interest. They also said that the footage from the strip club was aired without their permission. Regardless, Dickson is gone, along with another One Nation candidate Ross McDonald for inappropriate sexist Facebook posts.

Meanwhile Liberal candidates Jeremy Hearn, Peter Killin, Jessica Whelan have all resigned or been dumped for anti-Muslim and/or homophobic comments, and Labor candidates Luke Creasey and Wayne Kurnorth who have lost endorsement for sexist and anti-Semitic social media posts respectively. Finally the Katter’s Australia Party candidate for Dawson Brendan Bunyan has been disendorsed for comments that sort of cover all of the above. I’ll admit, Annabel Crabb’s election emails have helped me keep track of this, and you can sign up for the emails here.

Tweet of the Week

At the first debate, people were poking fun at the staging:

https://twitter.com/leachitup/status/1122789573082222592

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

If you haven’t done Vote Compass yet, give it a go – ABC Vote Compass

Vote Compass shows the key election split is now age, not left and right – ABC Online

Zoë Norton Lodge on winning your seat “like a man” – ABC Online

Gaffes, Controversies and that Pesky Section 44

And so the campaign has begun, with Scott Morrison visiting the Governor-General at 6:55 am on Thursday morning to ask for the election to be held on May 18. Unlike 2016, where we were stuck with eight weeks of what soon became turgid and frankly boring campaigning, this time it will all be over in a little more than five weeks!

There are 151 seats in the House of Representatives up for grabs, with the party that wins the election needing to win at least 76 seats. This is up from the last couple of elections, as the Australian Electoral Commission has added a new electorate in the Australian Capital Territory. There are also 40 of the seats in the Senate up for grabs, with those who drew the short straw after the double dissolution in 2016 campaigning to remain in the Senate.

The start of the campaign saw Scott Morrison painting the election as a choice between him and his government or Bill Shorten – a tactic taken up because polling suggests that while the Coalition is losing to Labor in polling, Bill Shorten is not the preferred Prime Minister, and not everyone likes him. This tactic, while taking aim at one of the Opposition’s main weaknesses, does paint the Coalition into a corner a little bit, as there’s not a lot you can do when your main campaigning point is “its us or them”.

On the other hand Bill Shorten has said the election is about people and health and education. He doesn’t seem to mind much that he’s not the preferred Prime Minister, as long as people stop using his name as a verb. Shorten has taken a different approach to the election with a great deal of his talking time devoted to policy, and when he is asked about Morrison and the Coalition, he tends to try to divert to policy rather tha personal attack. This approach is refreshing and a nice change from what I refer to as “petty school children” politics.

We’re only a few days into the campaign and already we’ve had our first major misstep in the form of the incumbent Member for Dickson, Peter Dutton. Dutton said in an interview with The Australian newspaper that his Labor opponent Ali France was using her disability as an “excuse” to not live in the marginal northern Brisbane electorate. France is an amputee, who after loosing her leg in a car accident in 2011, and while she has been using a prosthesis while out an about, uses a wheelchair at home. She currently lives two kilometres from the border of Dickson and has committed to moving to the seat if she wins – but in order for her to do that she does need to find a home that either suits or can be renovated to suit her needs.

It took Dutton a day to apologise, during which Scott Morrison tried to stonewall questions to him about Dutton’s comments, and gave the Labor party a bunch of free political advertising. Anyone in the seat of Dickson who didn’t know who Ali France was before the election was called certainly does now. It has also allowed for Labor to pick up on the hypocrisy of the Government who just announced a Royal Commission into abuse within the disability care sector, and Kristina Keneally has called Dutton “the most toxic man in the Liberal Party”.

We’ve also had the first controversy of the election with accusations that the government tried to politicise the work of the Treasury Department. On Friday the government brandished Treasury costings of the Labor party’s tax plans, or at least what looked like them. Labor, justifiably concerned, contacted the Treasury Secretary Philip Gaetjens and asked him to explain. As it turned out, before the election was called the Government asked the Treasury to cost some policies for them, as one in government has a right to do. It just so happens that these policies were similar to, if not the same as, those Labor had announced. Philip Gaetjens made clear to Labor (through a letter to Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen) that they were not asked to cost Labor’s policies specifically, and had that been the case Treasury would have refused the request. You can read Gaetjens’ letter to Chris Bowen here.

Meanwhile, there have been four early withdrawals from candidates this campaign, with Labor’s Melissa Parke in the West Australian seat of Curtin dropping out after comments on Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, and three Liberal Candidates in Melbourne – Kate Oski in Lalor, Vaishali Ghosh in Wills, and Helen Jackson in Cooper (formerly Batman) – over section 44 issues. Ghosh and Oski have been forced out over citizenship concerns, while Jackson has been revealed to be an Australia Post employee and is in the process of being disendorsed.

Top Tweet

There are a few seats the Coalition are yet to find candidates for….

I just want to let everyone know that if you don’t vote Julian Hill in Bruce you may still get Julian Hill, as the Liberals still haven’t got a candidate. 🙄

— Julian Hill MP (@JulianHillMP) April 13, 2019

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Kristina Keneally is on the rise – SMH

There are two major votes on May 18 – ABC Online

Things You Should Check Out

AEC Website – Remember you have until 8pm AEST to enrol to vote or change your details!

ABC VoteCompass – take the survey and see where you sit compared to the major players this election.

 

 

The Election Has Been Called!

So yesterday (April 11, 2019) Scott Morrison headed to the Governor General Peter Cosgrove and requested that an election be called for May 18, 2019. That request was granted and Australians are now headed to the polls.

I’ve listened to both Scott Morrison’s and Bill Shorten’s first speeches of the campaign, which have outlined what their campaigns will entail.

Scott Morrison painted this election as a choice between a strong economy, a good budget and low taxes if voters choose the Coalition or a weakened economy, poor money management and higher taxes if voters choose the Labor Party. Morrison also recalled his government’s achievements including the budget surplus – except that surplus is technically prospective, as the surplus is due not this financial year (2018-19) but next financial year (2019-20).

On the other hand, Bill Shorten has framed what he will be campaigning on. It was a slightly more complex speech, but he reiterated his pledge from his Budget Reply speech that a government he leads would ease the out-of-pocket costs of medical tests, specialist consults and treatments for cancer patients, as well as promising greater investment in education and health. He also reiterated a promise the Labor party has for quite a few years that they will remove negative gearing for new investment properties after January 1, 2020.

Here are the speeches, if you want to watch them yourself…

Scott Morrison

Bill Shorten

Stay tuned for more, as the election heats up – I’ll leave you with some helpful links..

The AEC Website – don’t forget to check your enrolment, you have until April 18 to change your details or enrol to vote!

ABC Elections – a place to find coverage of the election and the home of the extensive information that the inimitable Antony Green offers.

VoteCompass – a way to see where you stand in comparison to the major players at the election. It’s really interesting to see where you sit on the political spectrum.

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

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 Week That Was – February 24 to March 2

With the Federal Election due to be called sometime after the Federal Budget on April 2nd, politicians are getting ready for the battle ahead. The Coalition have announced their climate change reduction policy, which is a re-animation of Tony Abbott’s scheme, which essentially gave out grants for emissions reduction actions like not cutting down trees. This plan had no real impact last time it was implemented, with research showing that Australia’s emissions have continued to climb. On the plus side, the “Snowy Hydro 2.0” – basically an upgrade to the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme to improve its energy generation capacity.

Meanwhile the Labor Party have announced that they will continue with the Turnbull-era National Energy Guarantee (NEG) that they agreed to support before Turnbull was overthrown because of it. Labor is copping criticism for using the NEG, but they’ve been more consistent in their support for any sort of climate reduction policy that might actually work and is also feasible. Labor also announced a plan to support the building of several merchant ships that would be commercially operated, but could be seconded and captained by the military in a national security emergency. The government has framed this as the Labor party bowing to the MUA (the maritime industry union).

This week, two more ministers joined the stream of Liberal Cabinet ministers retiring from politics. Defence Minister Christopher Pyne and Defence Industries Minister Steve Ciobo have joined Nigel Scullion, Kelly O’Dwyer and Michael Keenan in deciding to leave parliament at the next election. Ciobo’s seat of Moncrieff on Queensland’s Gold Coast is safe Liberal (on a margin of around 14%), leaving some to suspect that the LNP may reshuffle their candidates and parachute Peter Dutton into the seat to keep him in politics. Pyne’s electorate of Sturt in South Australia is also safe Liberal (around 10%), and it appears the South Australian Premier’s chief of staff will run for pre-selection in the seat.

Ciobo also left his ministerial position, so Scott Morrison has replaced him as Defence Industries Minister with Senator Linda Reynolds, who is a former Brigadier. It has also been suggested that should the Coalition win the next election she will become the Defence Minister. While Reynolds’ appointment does increase the number of women in cabinet to the highest number ever, there is concern that her appointment was more a political point scoring exercise to get another women in cabinet and break the record for the most number of women in an Australian Cabinet ever. All of this change also gives the perception that these ministers are evacuating a sinking ship. The Labor party is also jumping on this perception, and I’m tempted to agree, if only because I’m inclined to believe that if my spidey senses are anything to go by the Coalition are likely to lose the next election.

Meanwhile, the Liberal Party have had pre-selection challenges for candidates in Kelly O’Dwyer’s electorate of Higgins and Michael Keenan’s electorate of Stirling. Dr Katie Allen has been selected for Higgins, and Vince Connelly has been selected for Stirling.

This week, the ABC announced that they had settled the unfair dismissal case with former Managing Director Michelle Guthrie. Meanwhile, the Government has announced the new Chairperson for the ABC’s Board as Ita Buttrose. The media doyenne, whose father was an executive at the ABC when her career in magazines was taking off, is the second woman to become Chairperson since Dame Leonie Kramer in 1982. Buttrose has said that she wants to stabilise the management at the ABC – they still need an MD – and that if the ABC does need more money, she’s not afraid to ask for it.

Finally this week, Cardinal George Pell was found guilty of historical child sexual abuse offences dating back to 1996 at the end of last year. The trial was not public knowledge because of an injunction placed on the case by the Judge, who felt that media coverage would not allow Pell a fair trial in a second case that was due to go ahead this week – but charges were dropped. He’s had his bail revoked and is now awaiting sentencing, with former Prime Minister John Howard announced as one of ten character witnesses for Pell’s sentencing.

Tweet of the Week

Here is an exchange between @leighsales and Cardinal George Pell from a press conference in 2012. #Pell was responding to the Gillard government’s decision to hold a royal commission into historical child sex abuse within institutions. #abc730 pic.twitter.com/6AZDXH4rs9

— abc730 (@abc730) February 26, 2019

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Those who feel Pell is being hard done by are disrespecting the justice system – SMH

The reaction of Pell’s defenders just displays their power – The Guardian

Both Steggall and Abbott will need to work to woo Warringah’s voters – ABC Online

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

16 Things That took Place in December

December is a busy time in retail, and so I’ve been very busy. So here’s a look back at December and we’ll get back to regular posting soon.

1. Labor announced it would maintain the current government’s boat turn-back policy and would continue offshore detention as a deterrent – but would support Kerryn Phelps bill to evacuate asylum seekers to Australia for medical reasons.
2. The Australian Labor Party held their national conference in Adelaide, which went relatively smoothly – minus some environmental and asylum seeker protesters who tried to interrupt Bill Shorten. All in all, it’s become apparent that the election in 2019 is Labor’s to lose and the party showed unity at their conference.
3. As house prices fall, there are concerns that the market could collapse. But the whole thing is weird because generally house prices fall when there are high interest rates, but this time that isn’t the case. For some people if the prices continue to drop, buying a home might actually become attainable.
4. The ACCC has called for data rights legislation, and for search engines to control traffic to news sites. The ACCC says this is so that journalists who break huge news stories get the credit for their hard work by having these search engines push readers to the original story, rather than to another news site that didn’t break the story.
5. Australia finally had two Joint Strike Fighters arrive, 20 years after ordering them (we’ve got more on the way)
6. There are legislation changes for casual workers. They can now ask that their role become permanent after 12 months, but while the business council believes this is a good thing, the unions are concerned that this could lead to casual workers being treated badly.
7. Scott Morrison had his first COAG meeting – which was “co-operative”, “collaborative” and “productive” according to the Prime Minister and State and Territory Leaders.
8. There is a push to sell regional universities to international students to relieve pressure on the major cities and share the money that streams in from international students more widely. However, there are concerns that if international students are forced to go to regional universities, they will vote with their feet and study elsewhere.
9. The government will set up an anti-corruption watchdog after a lot of to-and-fro. The Commonwealth Integrity Commission will have two arms – Law enforcement, which will look after the behaviour and integrity of the AFP, Border Force and other regulators. The other arm will look after the integrity of MPs, Judges, Departments and agencies.
10. Scott Morrison has recognised West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, which has made no-one happy. The Palestinians are annoyed that Australia has recognised Jerusalem whether in full or in part as the capital, while Israel doesn’t like the East-West division of Jerusalem.
11. The aforementioned announcement of West Jerusalem as the Israeli capital has put a trade deal with Muslim-majority Indonesia in jeopardy.
12. Australia will get a new Governor-General in 2019, in the form of current NSW Governor David Hurley. Hurley won’t take the role until after the federal election, because Hurley needs to keep an eye on NSW during and after the State Election in March, and almost straight after that is the federal election, so current Governor-General Peter Cosgrove will stay on to deal with that election.
13. Nationals MP Andrew Broad has resigned as Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister after it was revealed by New Idea magazine that he used ‘sugar baby’ services while on a work trip in Hong Kong. He will also not re-contest his seat of Mallee.
14. The Andrew Broad issue did distract from the MYEFO update. It’s been announced that Australia will have a $5 Billion deficit for the 2018-19 financial year, and a surplus of $2 billion in the 2019-20 financial year.
15. The NSW Liberal government has expressed their concern that the Federal Liberal government is out of touch on climate change. Other states believe this too but for the NSW government, who are due to go to the polls in March, it is of great importance to distance themselves from their federal counterparts if they want to save the furniture, let alone remain in government.
16. Australia has revoked the citizenship of Neil Prakash, an Australian fighter in Syria who was a major part of ISIS and is currently in prison in Turkey. Although there is some concern that the government has botched this. They revokes Prakash’s citizenship under the assumption that he had dual citizenship of Fiji, but it may be that he doesn’t have Fijian citizenship at all, and is now stateless.

The Year That Was – 2018

Leadership Spills: 2

Back at the end of August there were two spills in the same week, with the right-wing of the Liberal Party attempting to roll Turnbull. They were, the second time around, successful-ish. You see, the party knew that had Peter Dutton won the leadership (which was what the right wanted), the party would have been doomed, so Scott Morrison was the safer, more reasonable option.

Cabinet Reshuffles: 1

Just after the spill in August, the new Prime Minister Scott Morrison had to reshuffle the Cabinet.

Women in Cabinet: 6 (assessed by whether or not the role is bolded in the PMO’s Ministry List here.)

Julie Bishop is no longer in the Ministry, leaving:

• Marise Payne – now Foreign Minister
• Kelly O’Dwyer – Minister for Jobs and Industrial Relations and Minister for Women
• Melissa Price – Environment Minister
• Bridget McKenzie – Minister for Regional Services, Sport, Local Government and Decentralisation
• Michaelia Cash – Minister for Small and Family Business, Skills and Vocational Education
• Karen Andrews – Minister for Industry, Science and Technology

State and Federal Elections: 9 (by-elections included)

• South Australia – where after 16 years, the Labor party lost to the Liberals.
• Tasmania – where the incumbent Liberal Premier Will Hodgman maintained a majority. It’s also the first state election where more female than male members were elected – 13 women and 12 men.
• Victoria – where the incumbent Labor party earned another term with a massive majority.
• Wentworth – after Malcolm Turnbull was rolled from the Prime Ministership, he left Parliament. The by-election saw independent Kerryn Phelps win the election, with a swing of 19% and leaving the Liberals in minority government.
• Super Saturday – the five, yes five, by-elections held on one day in July, in order to solve four section 44 issues and replace one Perth MP retiring from politics.

Politician’s Kids getting involved in public debate: 1

Alex Turnbull, Malcolm Turnbull’s son – who lives and works in Singapore – got involved in the Wentworth by-election, telling people not to vote Liberal.

Scandals: 3

• We learned the reason why Barnaby Joyce’s marriage ended back in 2017…he’d taken up with a staffer of his, and she was expecting a baby.
• Barnaby Joyce was also accused of inappropriately touching a Nationals member at an event (which would not have been made public if someone wasn’t trying to smear the victim)
• Andrew Broad, just before Christmas, was discovered to have engaged the services of a “sugar baby” while in Hong Kong on a trip. He will no longer be a Minister and will no longer contest the next election.

The ABC’s Year in Review

 

The Two Week That Were – November 25 to December 8

The Victorian State Election saw the incumbent Labor government returned to power with a massive margin. Labor won seats they hadn’t held for decades, if ever, and this election results suggests that both the NSW and Federal Liberals have a big fight ahead of them in elections due in early 2019. NSW Liberal Premier Gladys Berejiklian says that the Victorian election was fought on local issues, and therefore the result bears no reflection on NSW, but I don’t think that’s entirely true – yes, a lot of the issues that got Labor over the line in Victoria were local, but the sentiment towards the Liberal party in general isn’t good. They’re seen by many to be homophobic, anti-women and climate denialists – and that is a problem for moderate Liberals who are trying to hold on to their seats.

This fortnight saw the final two sitting weeks of federal parliament, where the main focus was on national security, LGBTQ+ discrimination, and medical treatment for detainees on Manus Island. New Wentworth MP, Kerryn Phelps was sworn into the House of Representatives, and then Chisholm MP Julia Banks announced she was moving to the crossbench and would no longer be a Liberal MP, and would consider running in Chisholm as an independent at the next election.

Phelps introduced legislation during this fortnight that fulfilled her election promise to ensure the medical evacuation of detainees on Manus Island and Nauru when two doctors deem it necessary to do so. The Labor party and the cross-bench are on board, however, the Liberal party seems to be framing this legislation as a way to changing the way people are being processed (spoiler alert: it’s not), and lead the government to run out the clock on Thursday afternoon to avoid the legislation being voted on in the House of Representatives.

The government also moved to delay the vote on the Labor Party’s anti-discrimination legislation in the Senate. The legislation is to stop schools from being able to expel or refuse enrolment to LGBTIQ+ students, which the government referred to a Senate review committee, angering the Opposition. The Liberals then announced their own legislation that did the same thing yet allowed religious schools flexibility in order to reflect their beliefs – which kind of defeats the point of the legislation in the first place.

A parliamentary committee that was reviewing the Uluru Statement – a set of recommendations on constitutional recognition formed by indigenous scholars, politicians and indigenous elders – have recommended that many of the statement’s recommendations be implemented, including an “indigenous voice” to parliament, a truth-telling commission and a national resting place for indigenous remains. Labor has said if it wins the election in 2019, that implementing the recommendations, or at least seeing how they could be implemented, would be a top priority. The Liberal Party is yet to comment.

This fortnight also saw Prime Minister Scott Morrison attend the G20 Summit in Argentina, where he emphasised the need for the G20 member states to trade fairly and openly. Morrison met with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Donald Trump – all of whom I think were slightly confused as to who the new Prime Minister was. Merkel was seen with briefing notes on Morrison, while Trump asked the PM what happened to Malcolm Turnbull. It seems that the G20 was quite successful, with Morrison doing well on the international stage, and the Chinese and Americans agreeing on some trade rules.

The Banking Royal Commission has come to an end with the major banks’ CEOs and Board Chairpeople appearing at the Commission to (somewhat) admit to, and apologise for the banks’ bad behaviour. Commissioner Kenneth Hayne QC thanked the witnesses for their evidence, and especially to the victims of rogue banking practices who had to speak about their financials in public. Hayne’s report is due in February.

The ABC’s board members, as well as former Managing Director Michelle Guthrie and former board chairman Justin Milne, have appeared at a Senate inquiry into the sacking of Ms Guthrie. Guthrie reiterated her allegations of both inappropriate behaviour and political interference on Milne’s part, while Milne continues to deny both allegations. Meanwhile the board members have expressed confusion as to why Guthrie only brought up the interference issue at the last moment in what looks like an eleventh-hour attempt to stave off being sacked.

Also this fortnight , the Australian Border Force has had a $300 million budget blow-out and they have to cut costs, mostly through sacking casual personnel. The concern from the union and Labor is that frontline staff will be sacked, a concern the government says is unfounded. The other fear is that should frontline staff go, many might come from Australia’s airports, delaying holiday travellers as the Christmas period gets underway.

Finally this fortnight, students skipped school during the fortnight to protest the government’s approach to climate change, while the government suggested they should go back t school rather than engaging in politics, which would only lead to the dole queue. There are also concerns that there are major delays in registering religious organisations for the redress scheme with only 20 payouts so far from 2000 applications.

Tweet of the Fortnight

A message from the Coalition to students planning to protest.pic.twitter.com/YgLlyXrIyM

— Mark Humphries (@markhumphries) November 29, 2018

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Parliament House is designed for democracy, and dysfunction – ABC Online

Simon Royal on the career of ex-South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill – ABC Online