Tag Archives: Frydenberg

The Two Weeks That Were – May 19 to June 1

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Well that was certainly not the result the country expected!

The election result was a bit of a shock, with government being returned with a slightly more solid majority than 2016. There was an epic swing toward the Coalition in Queensland, where it seems Labor’s lack of a concrete position on the Adani mine was their downfall. There has been calls from those south of the Queensland border that have suggested that the Sunshine State should secede, but I think they’re (mostly) joking. Regardless, Morrison appears to have pulled off a massive victory, and this gives him great authority.

Tony Abbott did lose his seat of Warringah this election, much to the joy of many both in the electorate and out of it. This will likely make the government more stable this time around, as both of Morrison’s predecessors, Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull, are no longer in Parliament. However, Kerryn Phelps has lost her seat of Wentworth to Dave Sharma, whom she defeated in last October’s by-election.

The Prime Minister then spent some time forming his new cabinet – which can now be fully his own. In order to keep stability when he took the reins last August, Morrison left most ministers and assistant ministers where they were, but now he can rearrange the ministry however he pleases. Frydenberg, Payne and Dutton were thought to keep their positions, and they have.

The cabinet now has seven women, including Melissa Price, who spent most of her time as Environment Minister in hiding (or so it seemed). Price will no longer be Environment Minister though, as she is moving to the Defence Industry portfolio. This is essentially a demotion to the outer ministry, while Sussan Ley has been reappointed to the inner ministry in the Environment portfolio. We will also see two Senators leave in the next six months, with Arthur Sinodinos heading to Washington DC to become the next Ambassador to the United States, once Joe Hockey’s term ends, and Mitch Fifield will head to New York to become the next Ambassador to the United Nations.

The government has also appointed Ken Wyatt as Minister for Indigenous Australians, the first Indigenous person to be appointed to the role. Many people in the indigenous community are happy to have one of their own responsible for the policies that affect them. However there seems to be confusion regarding how constitutional recognition and the “voice to parliament” that the indigenous community. The Prime Minister has announced a new agency within the Indigenous Affairs portfolio, and while information is sparse, there is concern that its purpose is to trump the plans for the “voice to parliament” – which is touted as an elected advisory body to Parliament, but some conservatives seem to see it as a third house of Parliament, which is not the case.

The government also plans to introduce their promised tax cuts as soon as possible, however they’ve kind of reneged on one of their promises already, which was to try get the legislation through before the start of the new financial year on July 1. This is because there is still at least one seat to be declared, as the seat of Macquarie is now so marginal they’re counting all of the preferences – earlier in the count there were less than 100 votes separating the Labor and Liberal candidates, but as of writing, Labor has pulled ahead by 282 votes.

Speaking of Labor, after their shock loss, Bill Shorten stepped down as leader, but has decided to remain in Parliament as an MP. The leadership race began, with Anthony Albanese (aka Albo) throwing his hat in ring. Tanya Plibersek considered running, as did Jim Chalmers and Chris Bowen, however all three decided not to, and Albanese was nominated unopposed, leading to the least bloody leadership battle the Labor Party has seen in a decade. As Albanese is from NSW and is from the left faction of the party, his deputy must be from another state and from the right faction – Richard Marles and Clare O’Neill both considered running, however O’Neill decided to step aside in the end, leaving Marles as the only contender.

All of this bloodless change was somewhat tainted when factional drama arose over who would be in Shadow Cabinet. Albanese had made clear publicly that he wished to have Senator Kristina Keneally in his cabinet, however it took a bit of drama to get there – and this is going to require a bit of explanation. In the Labor Party, in order to keep things equal and even between the left and right factions each side hands over a list of people to be in Shadow Cabinet and the leader chooses the positions each gets. However, the right faction’s list did not have Kristina Keneally’s name on it, let alone the name of any woman. So Ed Husic decided to give his spot to Keneally, allowing the former NSW Premier to be in the cabinet, and she will now be Deputy Leader in the Senate and will likely get a high ranking ministry.

Finally this week, Papua New Guinea has a new Prime Minister, which may have implications for the resettlement of refugees on Manus Island; and the Adani Coal Mine has passed another hurdle on the path to being approved. The Queensland Government has approved Adani’s conservation and protection plan for the Black Throated Finch.

Tweet of the Fortnight

https://twitter.com/shauncrowe/status/1133627072025260032

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

So, how do we pronounce Albo’s name then? – ABC Online

What challenges does Ken Wyatt face as Indigenous Affairs Minister? – ABC Online

 

Two Weeks (and a bit) That Were – March 24 to April 10

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The Liberal Party ended up winning the NSW election – just. They’re going to have a margin of two seats. Michael Daley, the Labor leader said he would stay on as leader, but within days he was announcing a leadership ballot for after the federal election (so as not to distract from Federal Labor, who are looking really good in the lead up to the federal election), and then announced that he wouldn’t contest the ballot. This makes Daley the shortest serving Labor Opposition Leader in nearly 100 years in NSW.

One Nation is also in hot water after an undercover investigation by Qatari news network Al Jazeera English (AJE) revealed that One Nation had approached the National Rifle Association to see if they could provide financial and strategic support. The AJE journalist Rodger Muller spent almost three years pretending to be a pro-gun activist and befriended Pauline Hanson’s chief of staff James Ashby (currently banned from Parliament House after having a punch-up with Brian Burston) and One Nation’s Queensland Leader Steve Dickson. They travelled to the USA where they met with the NRA and other pro-gun groups, explaining that donating millions to the party would help One Nation gain 8-20 seats in parliament and would allow them to negotiate what they wanted from the government of the day.

The NRA donations never came to fruition, as foreign donations to political parties are now banned. Regardless, Hanson, Ashby and Dickson are very upset that they were duped and caught out and have accused Al Jazeera being an agent of Qatari interference in Australian politics. They’re also a tad annoyed at the ABC, who broadcast the Al Jazeera investigation on Australian TV. It should be noted that the ABC had no involvement in the program – they just bought the rights to broadcast it in Australia.

Meanwhile, Labor has begun to furnish its war chest in preparation for the election. They’re reiterating their promise to change the rules around negative gearing, announcing that any investment property bought after January 1, 2020 would not be eligible for negative gearing. They’ve also announced they will legislate a minimum wage, but haven’t said what that will be – and small business are concerned as to whether they’ll be able to afford a legislated minimum wage.

The government is being asked to prove that the NDIS has been underfunded, after announcements from some NDIS providers that they were going to increase their fees. They’re increasing their fees in part because they’re only being paid to see their clients but not to fill in all the paperwork that comes with it. There has also been concerning revelations about abuse in the disability sector – with a Royal Commission announced to look into the abuse in the sector. However, Greens Senator Jordan Steele-John, who uses a wheelchair, has concerns that two of the commissioners have worked in the sector and have a conflict of interest. He’s also helped reveal that in NSW and South Australia alone there have been almost 1,500 reports of abuse to the NDIS watchdog, 62 of which have been sexual abuse claims.

There are also calls to for the government to help the children of now-deceased ISIS fighter Khaled Sharrouf, who are stuck in a camp in Syria after fleeing the now defunct caliphate. While the eldest daughter is now an adult, she and her four siblings (although two have died in Syria) were all underage when their parents took them to Syria with them when they went to fight for ISIS around five years ago. Their grandmother, Karen Nettleton, wants the government to provide the children (and the eldest daughter’s toddlers) safe passage to Australia. However the government hasn’t said much about it because they don’t want to be seen to be supporting terrorists but they also don’t want to be seen to be mean because they won’t help a couple of children.

We also had the Budget, where Josh Frydenberg announced that Australia is “back in black”, which isn’t exactly right. For the financial year 2018-19, there is a deficit of $5.2 billion and the surplus for 2019-20 of $4.1 billion is prospective, and based not on particular savings within the budget but the government’s savings account and the Future Fund, which is supposed to help pay public service pensions.

Meanwhile the Opposition’s Budget in Reply, announcing that their budget would invest in health and education, as well as $2 billion to reduce, if not eradicate the out-of-pocket costs of the tests, consultations and treatments for cancer. They’ve also announced that they will provide incentives for companies to make more electric vehicles by 2030, so that half of cars on sale by then are electric – which led the government to blatantly lie to the public, saying Bill Shorten was going to take their utes away.

So began what I call the Budget Grand Tour, where the government and the opposition travel around the country, selling their budget, or their alternative budget.

Except given the election could be called at any minute, it’s also like a pre-election campaign…..

Tweets of the Fortnight

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Annabel Crabb on the Budget – ABC Online

First Dog on the Moon on the Budget “Lock-Up” – The Guardian

 

The Week That Was – January 13 to January 19

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This week, politicians started to come back from holidays, and given it is an election year, the pre-election rev-up has begun. Both Bill Shorten and Scott Morrison headed to the Northern Territory where they both announced nearly $220 million worth of investment into Kakadu National Park and the township of Jabiru. Labor’s plan includes money to seal a number of unsealed roads in the park, while the Government’s plan is not totally clear.

Meanwhile in the lead-up to the election, Minister for Women, Jobs and Industrial Relations and MP for Higgins, Kelly O’Dwyer has announced she won’t contest her seat at the next election, as she’s made the decision to spend more time with her family. She’s also revealed that she and her husband would like to have another child, and that they needed to be realistic about whether could happen if she’s still in Parliament, and O’Dwyer and her husband have decided the answer to that is “no”. O’Dwyer has insisted that a woman would be the Liberal candidate in Higgins, but we don’t know who that is yet.

Also, Cathy McGowan, the Independent MP for the seat of Indi, has announced that she won’t contest the seat at the next election. She’s decided it’s time to move on and let a new person take her place, with McGowan’s supporters choosing a nurse and health researcher Helen Haines – it’s not exactly a party thing per se, but (from what I can gather) a community group that helps McGowan at elections and with her community meet-ups in the seat of Indi.

This week also saw a the continued anger over a fish kill in the Murray-Darling River Basin at Menindee in early January. After heat wave conditions, the temperature dropped rapidly and algal blooms in the Darling River de-oxygenated, suffocating the fish. There are concerns that given the heat in the last couple of days, there could be more fish kills on the river where the algae is blooming if the temperature drops suddenly again. Many locals believe the algal bloom and the fish kill could have been better prevented by government policy, and again blame is being placed on the poor management of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in NSW.

Meanwhile, on the topic on environmental management, the National Audit Office has released their report into the contentious $443 million grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation for protecting the Great Barrier Reef. The Audit Office found that the minister at the time, Josh Frydenberg, made decisions based on information the department gave him, but that the Environment Department should have placed the foundation under greater scrutiny and taken into account the high administration costs of the foundation and their subcontractors. Current Environment Minister, Melissa Price, says that the government is proud of the grant they gave the organisation and that they won’t be asking for the money back.

This week also saw the start of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, with The Honourable Richard Tracey AM RFD QC and Lynelle Briggs AO in charge. They’re facing a bit of an issue in that only 80-ish aged care providers have provided the commission with documents, out of the 2,000 or so providers in Australia. They’re going to spend most of their time in South Australia, but will soon travel around the country to hear submissions.

Scott Morrison headed to Vanuatu this week to meet with leaders and promises to invest more money in Vanuatu and the Pacific in general. This is mostly due to the fact that China has been getting involved in the Pacific with infrastructure investment – evidenced by the fact that the tarmac that the Prime Minister’s plane landed on was built by a Chinese company, as was the building Morrison met the Prime Minister of Vanuatu in. However, Pacific nations are not getting one of the big things they want out of Australia, which is for the government to take more action on climate change.

Scott Morrison is under fire because he’s trying to force local councils to hold citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day, because while most councils do hold them, there are a small number of councils that do not. It appears to be some sort of way to counter councils not wanting to hold ceremonies out of respect to indigenous people, however most of these councils don’t hold citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day because the cost-to-benefit ratio is low. Only two Melbourne councils have ever publicly said they don’t hold ceremonies on the 26th of January out of respect to Indigenous people – and they’ve had their right to hold citizenship ceremonies stripped from them by the government already.

Also this week, the NSW Government has announced their new Governor will be Justice Margaret Beazley, taking over from David Hurley in May, when he becomes Governor-General.

Finally this week, Saudi Arabian refugee Rahaf Alqunun spoke with the ABC, saying that all she wanted was a safe country to live in and that the UNHCR chose Canada over Australia because the Canadian government approved her case faster than Australia did.

Tweet of the Week

Annabel Crabb on the Gillette masculinity ad

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

ABC political journalist Laura Tingle on the possibility of an early election – ABC Online

Tomic and Kyrios are distracting from our Aussie women players – ABC Online

The Gillette “toxic masculinity” advertisement:

 

The Revolving Door of Leadership Rotates Again… (August 19 to August 25)

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We had another leadership spill, and that’s literally what took up the entire week.

After Turnbull removed the emissions target from the National Energy Guarantee, and the addition of more carrots and sticks to encourage the energy companies to keep prices down, it became apparent that Turnbull was desperately trying to appease the right of the party, and it really wasn’t working.

So much so, the questions on his leadership started on Monday and they didn’t stop.

Malcolm Turnbull walked into the weekly party room meeting on Tuesday morning and sprung a leadership spill on the Liberals, winning 48 votes to 35 against Peter Dutton. That’s not entirely good for Turnbull, given it was only a margin of seven votes. It led many experts to suggest Turnbull could be gone within weeks, if not days.

Then the resignations began, with Peter Dutton, James McGrath, Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, Michael Sukkar, Angus Taylor, Steve Ciobo, Greg Hunt starting things off. Turnbull refused all offers to resign, except for Dutton and Fierravanti-Wells, before James McGrath insisted Turnbull accept his resignation too.

It then gets throughly confusing, to the point where even I am unsure as to what happened. Essentially, so many ministers resigned, that I don’t think Australia really had a proper cabinet government for at least 24 hours. This, combined with the right-wing of the party circulating a petition to get another party room meeting for a leadership vote gave the impression that the Liberal Party was tearing itself apart.

However, Turnbull played hard ball – and quite rightly too – as he made several caveats on his allowing a meeting. First, Dutton had to prove that he was eligible under section 44(v), as there are suggestions that two childcare centres owned by the Dutton family trust might be benefitting from the government. Second, Turnbull wanted to see the petition with 43 signatures (a majority of the party room) before he called a party meeting; and third, there would be a spill motion and if that passed then Turnbull would step down as PM, and potentially from parliament altogether.

By Friday morning, the 43 signatures were found. Once the party’s Chief Whip Nola Marino checked that all the people whose signatures were on the petition had signed it, the party met at 12:20pm and carried the spill motion. And from that vote, Malcolm Turnbull ceased being our Prime Minister.

There was then a vote for leader, between Julie Bishop, Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton. Bishop was knocked out of the first round, and Scott Morrison won the vote against Peter Dutton 45 votes to 40. We now have a new Prime Minister in Scott Morrison, and a new Liberal Party deputy leader, Josh Frydenberg.

Morrison and Frydenberg now have an epic challenge facing them. First they must unite and heal a bruised and divided party, which some think may not happen and the party may be irreparably split. They also now have to contend with an angry, frustrated public who just watched another government spend a week focusing on their own infighting rather than running the country, as they did in 2010, 2013 and 2015. To their credit, Frydenberg and Morrison weren’t directly involved in the infighting, and this will be of benefit to them while dealing with the public backlash to this sixth change of Prime Minister in eleven years.

It also appears that Turnbull and his allies outmanoeuvred Petter Dutton and the conservative wing of the Liberal Party. There was also the fatal mistake from the Dutton camp in assuming that the 43 signatures put down to have the party meeting were also an indication of support for Dutton himself, and it’s believed that many in the Liberal Party couldn’t stomach the possibility of Prime Minister Dutton.

On Saturday, Morrison spent his day getting briefed on all the important things he needs to know, as well as fielding phone calls from the likes on Donald Trump. Meanwhile, the rest of the country started wondering when Turnbull would leave parliament, and who might replace him in his electorate of Wentworth.

Christine Forster, Liberal Councillor for the City of Sydney Council, and same-sex marriage advocate (who is also Tony Abbott’s sister) is considering a tilt at the seat, as are Katherine O’Reagan a former Deputy Mayor and the former Ambassador to Israel Dave Sharma. However, this by-election must happen soon, as no-one wants to force the people of Wentworth to vote three times in six months. Already, the state of NSW is due for an election in March 2019 and the next Federal Election is due mid-way through 2019.

Hopefully, we’ll be back to some semblance of normalcy next week, but we will have to see – and with Julie Bishop no longer Foreign Minister and may leave Parliament at the next election.

Tweet of the Week

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Annabel Crabb on the Liberals ridding themselves of Turnbull – ABC Online

Stan Grant on the Liberal Party’s “civil war” – ABC Online

Philip Williams on Julie Bishop and her future – ABC Online

The Tonightly’s take on the politicians infighting… (Be warned – coarse language)

 

 

 

The Week That Was – March 12 to March 18

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The West Australian election saw a changing of the guard with the Labor party winning the election. It a larger than expected success for the party, with 18 seats changing. There are now questions over what caused the loss for the WA Liberals. The belief is mostly jsut that West Australians just got annoyed with the Barnett Government and wanted change, although the preference deal with One Nation appears to have been somewhat of a contributor. Barnett will now step down from the Liberal leadership and a new leader will be voted on – as soon as the Liberals know just how many people will be in the party room. The Nationals, both West Australian and Federal are warning the Liberals to never make a preference deal with One Nation ever again, but neither the Prime Minister nor the NSW Premier (NSW is having some by-elections right now so the premier has been out and about) have specifically ruled a deal out.

There are concerns that some of the NDIS staff that are involved in the rollout have not recieved adequate training in order to understand what kind of treatments and plans are appropriate for people on the scheme. This, in addition to states preemptively cutting their funding to providers has left people unable to access providers and treatments that benfit them. One person affected by this change, who has cerebral palsy and autism, did have several treatmets that aided in his quality of life (like remedial massage, which was helping with some of his paun) removed from ghis treatment plan. Another concern is that providers are having trouble applying to be part of the scheme, while others are having trouble recouping money from the scheme.

South Australia had a pretty nice week in the power stakes, with their power plan announced and Elon Musk suggesting he put some (non-domestic) Tesla batteries in SA, and would do it for free if it took more than 100 days. It appears however that some other South Australian companies were already making batteries too. Other parts of the SA plan include having a gas plant backup just in case the power goes out in the state again.

It was also energy week for the federal government, firsly covering the concerns concerns over both a gas shortage and the price of gas in Australia. Gas companies on the eastern coast of the country tend to send most of the gas overseas cheaply, and at a loss meaning that the prices go up in Australia. This sending abroad also means that unless more is saved for use here in Australia, we’ll run out soon. Meanwhile, Malcolm Turnbull announced an expansion to the Snowy Hydro in southern NSW. The idea is that they’ll increase the capacity of the hydro-electric plant by 50%, as well as pump water up to the dams to make sure there’s enough water for peak times, all at the low price of $2 billion. It’s hoped that the NSW and Victorian governments will chip some money in for the (at least) four year long projects but Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who said he was a “Nation Building Prime Minister”, says the federal government will be happy togo it alone.

But the week of energy and power (in the sense of electricity anyway) wasn’t over yet.

In what can only be described as one of the best political smackdowns I have ever seen in my 23 years on earth, South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill crashed Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg’s press conference and gave him a telling off for hating on South Australia. Many even recalled the Love Actually press conference scene.

Also this week, there were calls to look at reform in order to help with housing affordability. There are again calls to reform negative gearing and capital gains tax, while people also suggested allowing people to dip into their superannuation to help them buy a house. The Greens also had their idea costed by the nerds this week, in which they propose changing the one-off stamp duty charge that is paid as soon a you buy a home with an ongoing land tax, which would reduce costs, but also reduce one of the state’s biggest cash cows for a few years.

Finally this weeks, the unemployment rate rose by 0.2% in February; Peter Dutton told CEOs to back off from the same-sex marriage debate; the craft beer industry wants changes to the way kegs are taxed; Bill Leak was farewelled at a memorial servoce; and there is a lot of to-ing and fro-ing about the Adani mine in Queensland, with concerns there is a Cayman Islands bank account.

Tweet of the Week

This is the look German Chancellor Angela Merkel gave when Trump said that he and Germany had wire-tapping in common

https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/843231346046644225

Annabel Crabb on workplaces v parliament for women – SMH

Lessons on love from a Divorce Lawyer – TIME Online

How Insiders is beating Today and Sunrise in ratings – The Age

The plan for when the Queen dies – The Guardian