Tag Archives: Gilmore

13 Things That Happened in the Last Three Weeks (January 20 to February 9)

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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 Week That Was – November 23 to November 29

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The Palmer United Party has split. Jacqui Lambie has left, and become an independent. There are still two PUP Senators for now, five months after they started in the Senate. Clive Palmer has been accusing Lambie of fraud and generally does not seem to be taking the split well, given he started hurling insults at Lambie via the mainstream media. Lambie has indicated that she is willing to negotiate with the government, mainly on Defence pay, but will be blocking changes to university fee deregulation. This now makes the Senate a little more difficult to deal with as there are more groups to negotiate with, especially if Ricky Muir keeps himself independent of the PUP.

This week also saw the ABC announce the cuts it has to make in order to survive the government’s funding cuts – or “efficiency dividend” as the government is calling it. You can read what is going to be cut here. Mark Scott, the ABC’s managing director explained that it was a sad day and that he was upset that he had to sack 400 people. Meanwhile Tony Abbott admitted during question time that he had promised not to make cuts to the ABC or SBS. Mind you, either the ABC executives doing the cutting are very cunning or it was an incredible coincidence, because the five regional outposts being cut are in Liberal or National held seats. The Nowra, Wagin and Port Augusta posts are in the Liberal-held seats of Gilmore, O’Connor and Grey respectively, while the Nationals hold the seats of Gippsland and Flynn, where the outposts of Morwell and Gladstone are based. There were protests at Parliament the next day, while Christopher Pyne bemoaned the ABC’s decision to cut the Adelaide-based production unit, while Australian tweeters called him a hypocrite and trolled his petition.

The ADF has been in the news this week for multiple reasons. First, Tony Abbott has agreed to review the ADF pay issue, to see if there is anything he can do. There is no plan to meet with Jacqui Lambie at the moment, thou, and Abbott has pointed out that you can’t always get what you want. Meanwhile, the Defence Minister, David Johnston, has got himself into hot water over a comment made in the Senate about the Australian Submarine Corporation (ASC), in which he said he would not trust the ASC to build a canoe. That obviously upset the ASC’s staff, as well as the opposition, with people calling for his resignation. It doesn’t help that the government is trying to sell the ASC, and saying something like that, kind of devalues it. Staying with defence, the ADF has released a report into sexual assaults at ADFA. The report says that many senior officers who were told of the allegations either did noting or did not believe the cadets. Some are even calling for a Royal Commission into ADFA and its culture.

Freya Newman, the young woman in court over the leaking of information regarding Frances Abbott’s scholarship to the Whitehouse art school, has been sentenced to a good behaviour bond, with no conviction recorded. This is good for her, however now that the case is over, people have been asking why Newman sent the information to The New Matilda and not the NSW ICAC.

The government has said that a boat carrying Sri Lankan asylum seekers was turned back to Sri Lanka two weeks ago near the Cocos Islands, while the UN committee that looks into torture has condemned the government’s treatment of asylum seekers. Meanwhile, refugee legal services are being inundated with clients wanting clarification over a clause in the “Code of Conduct” they are required to sign. The clause basically tells them that if they engage in anti-social behaviour that disrupts the peace of the Australian community, they can be deported. This makes the refugees concerned, because many fear that if they make an innocent mistake, they could be kicked out of the country.

Finally this week, medics are finally headed to West Africa to join the fight against Ebola, Medibank was listed on the ASX, Clive Palmer was in court to deal with allegations from a Chinese company that was part of a joint venture, Bronwyn Bishop has broken the  record for the most members thrown out in one sitting of the House of Representatives – 18, and the $7 co-payment may be binned.

Tweet of the Week

https://twitter.com/JamelleWellsABC/status/536682521421836288

Things I’ve been looking at Online

Where Mark Latham got it wrong on mothers – AFR

Annabel Crabb on Mark Latham – SMH

23 Things Australians can thank the ABC for – BuzzFeed

Broadcast Battleground