The Two Weeks That Were – January 1 to January 14

With the start of 2017 came some new laws, including the backpacker tax, pension asset test changes, TAFE changes and an increase in the price of passports by $20. The new year also brought the release of Cabinet Papers from 1992 and 1993, which saw the government’s decision-making in the recession of the early 1990s as well as decisions to start offshore detention and indigenous rights.

Meanwhile the government had a pretty easy first couple of days, with the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull having tea with the Pakistani and Australian cricket teams. But a relaxing fortnight it wasn’t to be.

It began with accusations that guards in Papua New Guinea had beaten two asylum seekers. Peter Dutton, the immigration minister said he wanted to hear both sides of the story. It seems that the PNG police officers believed the two asylum seekers to be drunk and so arrested them, which the two men involved deny. The men have a court date in the next few weeks. Meanwhile in the region, Indonesia has suspended some aspects of military co-operation after they took offence to some training material at an SAS base in Perth, where the Australians help train the Indonesian version of the SAS. It appears to only be temporary, but for how long is unclear. This has happened without the involvement of Joko Widodo, and that is because the head of the Army in Indonesia is independent, and it seems that the man in charge at the moment didn’t appreciate Australia’s involvement in East Timor in 1999, and also seems to have political ambitions.

Speaking of East Timor (aka Timor Leste), they have called for the maritime treaty with Australia to be cast aside. Under the current treaty, Australia has slightly more territory than East Timor and they share the revenue of resources 50/50. There will be a renegotiation  soon, but several oil and gas companies just want to know who they have to pay rent to so that they can extract resources.

Centrelink is under fire for its debt recovery program. It involves a computer matching welfare recipients’ declared income to Centrelink, with information from the ATO, and this computer is about 20% wrong. This means that a large number of people are receiving debt collection notices from the government who don’t need to. It’s lead to criticism of the government and Centrelink, with demands that the system be stopped while the issue is fixed, but the government disagrees. It is not a good look for them given the last seven days of drama with Sussan Ley.

Health Minister Sussan Ley has had to resign in the last week after it was revealed that she charged taxpayers for a trip to the Gold Coast that, while originally for official policy business, involved her and her partner purchasing a luxury apartment. It then sort of blew up in the minister’s face when it was revealed that she’s charged taxpayers for many more trips to the Gold Coast, including trips to attend a swanky New Years Eve party. She started by standing down, but then resigned.

It’s lead to calls for the reform of politician’s expenses, with 27 recommendations from an Abbott-era review that was started after Choppergate being looked into by Turnbull. It looks as if we might be taking a leaf from the UK’s book, having an independent review board overlook and advise on MP’s travel expenses – with an emphasis on the word expenses rather than entitlements – such as whether or not you should charge the taxpayer for flights because someone invited you to the AFL Grand Final.

Finally this week, Rod Culleton’s spot in the Senate has been declared vacant by the President of the Senate Stephen Parry, after Culleton was declared bankrupt.

Tweet of the Fortnight

Past elections contested by Anthony Fels #wapol pic.twitter.com/wlAcKtLm63

— Antony Green – elections (@AntonyGreenElec) January 3, 2017

 

The Week That Was – August 9 to August 15

This week was a crazy one in politics.

The expenses saga came to an end, with Tony Smith being elected speaker on Monday. He says that he will be different, starting with the fact that he will not sit in on party meetings, and that he will help make real change in parliament. He also apologised to Tony Abbott, admitting that he had friends from the other side of politics. The thing is, Smith was not Abbott’s first choice, but Scott Morrison’s  – or at least that’s the rumour. Meanwhile the expenses inquiry is again being talked about, as the Greens call for an independent Integrity Commissioner and it becomes apparent that there is a disconnect between the politicians and the public.

Once the drama with Bronwyn Bishop was over, the Liberal Party had a marathon meeting on Monday night after the topic of same-sex marriage came up. The meeting, which some have described as poorly managed, resolved – with two-thirds majority – to keep the same policy to what Howard legislated in 2004 that defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Furthermore, Abbott apparently had a “captain’s pick” moment and announced that there would be a plebiscite or referendum on the issue at or after the next election. There are issues with this however both legal and political. Legally, it is pointless as our marriage laws are an Act of Parliament, not enshrined in our constitution, as Ireland’s was. Politically, as Malcolm Turnbull pointed out, it will continue to distract from the Liberal Party’s policies and reforms.

Another drama this week came when it was revealed that Justice Dyson Heydon, the Commissioner for the Trade Union Royal Commission agreed to attend and speak at a Liberal Party fundraiser. He has since dropped out of the event, however it has led to Labor pointing to perceived bias, if not bias itself. Justice Heydon has said that he did not know it was a party fundraiser, and released a statement saying that people in his office made it clear to organisers that if it was a party fundraiser, Heydon would not be able to attend. Labor wants to see this correspondence, and until they do, they’ll probably run the “of he not biased, then he looks it” line.

The costings for the Government’s environment policies are not due out until 2017, however some information has leaked out, suggesting that the 26-28% reduction will not affect coal industries and will most likely be done through the cheapest means possible. The IPCC is worried about the plans and Labor wants to see the government’s modelling before they show people theirs.

Abbott rounded out one of the worst week’s he’s possibly ever had by trying to make the upcoming 2016 election about trust and the environment, with Abbott talking about how “every election is about trust” and how we only have one planet. This was not received well by the people in my house, with comments about his competency and the agreement with the Labor speakers on the news that Abbott is trying desperately to save his job.

Finally this week, Abbott has had some trouble adjusting to the new speaker, as he referred to Smith as “Madam Speaker” at least once this week, it has been announced that the 2016 Census is going to be carried out primarily online, the Hutchison Ports Wharf workers are due to head back to work after the Fair Work Commission said that they’d been fired unfairly, the world celebrates the end of WWII in the Pacific and there is talk that we are to get involved in airstrikes in Syria.

Tweet of the Week

Abbott took part in the City2Surf last Sunday

https://twitter.com/MarkDiStef/status/630260742285955073

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

NSW and Victoria have a go at each other over Victoria’s new branding – Buzzfeed

New Media Adventures in Oz – ABC Radio National

Jacqui Lambie’s revelation about her son – ABC News

Penny Wong and Joe Hockey meet outside the ABC radio booth on Tuesday morning after the same-sex marriage decision in the Liberal Party room: