Tag Archives: LGBTQI

The Two Weeks That Were – October 28 to November 10

Posted on by

The National Party is reeling after a recent ABC report that claimed that several Young Nationals members were actually part of an alt-right plan to infiltrate the party. At least nineteen members have either resigned or been expelled from the party. Meanwhile, senior National Party officials have made clear that there was no place for extremism in the party.

New South Welsh politics got interesting this fortnight, with the announcement that former federal Labor leader Mark Latham will join the One Nation party and run for the NSW Upper House in March. Antony Green says that due to the way preferences work, Latham has a pretty good chance of getting a seat and potentially holding the balance of power.

This fortnight also saw NSW Opposition Leader Luke Foley resign from his post and be replaced by Michael Daley. Luke Foley was forced to quit after sexual harassment allegations were levelled at him. He’s accused of drunkenly groping an ABC journalist back in 2016. She didn’t want to report it, and it was only when Liberal MP David Elliot, used parliamentary privilege to air the allegations that the public truly became aware of them. The journalist, Ashleigh Raper, has since released a statement recounting the events of that night, and criticising the use of her situation to score political points. Now, Michael Daley has a few months to fix Labor’s image and prepare for the election in March.

Speaking of elections next year, there is also a federal election coming up, and Labor has changed their candidate in the marginal seat of Bennelong. The original candidate for the seat, Lyndal Howison, has stepped aside to allow high-profile neurologist and former AMA president Brian Owler to run in the seat. Owler is best known in NSW for appearing in road safety advertising in his scrubs (he’s the first one to appear in the video below).

Scott Morrison has also begun what appears to be a practice campaign in Queensland using a bus – the “ScoMo Express”, which got a bit odd. This is partially due to the fact that Morrison’s three-word slogan wasn’t fully formed – he had his three points, he just kept changing up the order. He also didn’t actually spend a lot of time on the bus either, at least towards the end. When asked why, his explanation was that Queensland was a big state and he had to get to an event before the bus so would be getting a plane.

Several prestigious and well-known Anglican schools in New South Wales have written a letter to MPs asking them not to change the laws to prevent them from sacking LGBTIQ+ teachers, or expelling LGBTIQ+ students. Ostensibly this is because a change in the law would prevent them from refusing someone they felt didn’t fit the ethos or beliefs of the school. Several schools, including Barker College, Abbotsleigh, St Catherine’s and Sydney Church of England Grammar School (Shore), have faced backlash from their current and former students.

Meanwhile, the government has announced that the Australian War Memorial will be renovated to add a new exhibition hall, a place for peace and humanitarian missions to be commemorated and a place of reflection for visitors. It does have bi-partisan support, but there is some criticism that at a time when other cultural institutions are having funding cuts, the War Memorial is getting a huge injection of funds for the renovations.

The fortnight ended with what police have said is a terrorist attack in Melbourne, where a man set fire to a car and stabbed three people, killing one, before being shot by police. Police say that the perpetrator, Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, had his passport cancelled because he tried to travel to Syria a few years ago, but that he was not considered to be a threat so was not being watched too closely. Scott Morrison said during a press conference that he felt that Islamic community leaders should do more to prevent extremism in their communities – which some took a tiny bit of offence to, as it did sound a bit like he might have been pandering to those on the right of politics.

Finally this fortnight, the AEC has officially called the Wentworth by-election for Kerryn Phelps, and Malcolm Turnbull appeared on Q&A on the ABC, and was asked why he was no longer Prime Minister, to which his response was that we should be asking Tony Abbott, Greg Hunt, Peter Dutton and Mathias Cormann. Also, some more of the children on Nauru have now been transferred to Australia for treatment.

Tweet of the Fortnight

ABC News Breakfast turned 10, and I think Michael Rowland and Virginia Trioli had a bit of fun making a behind the scenes…

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

First Dog on the Moon on the Anglican Schools’ Letter – The Guardian

Annabel Crabb on the Foley saga – ABC Online

The Week That Was – October 7 to October 13

Posted on by

This week saw the leaking of the report from the religious freedom inquiry run by Philip Ruddock, which suggested that all religious schools have the right to refuse the enrolment of or expel a student because of their sexuality, if it was against the schools doctrinal teaching. This sent people into an uproar about adults discriminating against children, and an argument over whether or not it was already illegal – and it actually depends on the state in which the school is. In Queensland and Tasmania it is illegal for religious schools to expel or refuse enrolment to LGBTIQ+ students, while in WA, SA, Victoria and the Northern Territory, the legislation is not clear, while in NSW and the ACT, it is legal.

This became something that caused problems for the government this week. There is a week until the Wentworth by-election, which was quickly dealt with by Scott Morrison, who promised to legislate to make it illegal nationally to expel or refuse enrolment to LGBTIQ+ students, and Labor has agreed to support the legislation.

Meanwhile taxes have been another niggly problem in which the opposition has been in agreement with the government. It did take a bit longer than the schools issue, Labor did agree to the government’s decision to fast-track the tax relief to small and medium businesses. They want to drop the tax rate from 27.5% to 25% – originally by 2025-ish, but the government seem to have decided that saying they’ll be doing it faster might be to their benefit electorally (both at the Wentworth by-election and in the next 6-9 months). initially sometime between 2018 and 2020 the tax rate for small to medium business will drop to 26% and then in 2020-2021 it will drop to 25%.

The Wentworth by-election has headed into its final week, with Malcolm Turnbull’s son Alex telling the voters of Wentworth not to vote for the Liberal Party, which is irritating Scott Morrison a bit, but that is the least of his problems, as polling shows Kerryn Phelps and Dave Sharma are neck and neck in the polls. Phelps has promised stability if she wins the seat, saying she’ll support supply (the money needed to run the country) – her winning the seat would deprive the government of their one-seat majority and turn them into a minority government – while Labor is way back in the polls. Labor isn’t necessarily giving up just yet, but they are telling the people of Wentworth to use their votes on October 20th to send a message to the government.

The Labor Party appeared to have some sort of launch event at the start of the week. I say some sort, because the election hasn’t actually been called yet. It’s thought that Labor decided to start campaigning a little bit after Malcolm Turnbull was rolled, separate from the Wentworth by-election. Bill Shorten has promised to be a Prime Minister “ambitious” for Australia’s future and its future generations. He has a five point plan – which could be dangerous, if you remember back to the 2013 Election when a Liberal Party candidate struggled to remember the “Six-Point Plan to Stop the Boats” – the highlights of which include school and healthcare investment, easing the cost of living and embracing clean energy. However, there is the small issue, where the Labor Party does have a chance of winning the next election, but Bill Shorten isn’t necessarily popular as a person. We shall have to wait and see.

There are plans to place conditions on some migrants moving to Australia, requiring them to move to regional centres as opposed to cities in order to address both overpopulation in the cities and labor shortages in regional areas. The only concern with this is some migrants are highly skilled and the kinds of jobs they would be doing are usually only in major cities. Without the jobs and infrastructure being available, this plan may not play out the way the government wants. Meanwhile, there is also a plan to require those on welfare in regional areas to work seasonal fruit picking jobs, or lose their payments (if they are capable of working). There are also concerns with this plan, such as the fact that a lot of people who want or need jobs in these regional areas want more permanent work rather than seasonal jobs.

The week also saw protests at the Opera House, over the use of the sails to project the barrier draw of the Everest Horse Race as demanded by Alan Jones. The sails have been used to show projections for the Vivid Light Festival, Remembrance Day and other events of public interest (like a national sports team winning). However, the sails have never been used to promote an event like The Everest before, nor has a prominent media entity pushed so hard for the advertising of something that they have a vested interest in.  It led to members of the Chaser satire group to project Alan Jones’ phone number on the Opera House sails on Monday, and the public (with some professional help) shining lights onto the sails during the draw.

Doctors and psychologists working for Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) were asked to leave Nauru last week, leaving the under-equipped local health authorities to deal with a large number of local patients and refugee patients with major physical and mental health issues. MSF staff held a press conference in Australia after leaving Nauru in which they told the media about the plight of refugees on Nauru, with some children suffering from Traumatic Withdrawal Syndrome, which is characterised by a semi-comatose state and incontinence, among other symptoms.

It was announced this week that the Royal Commission into Aged Care would be based in South Australia, and that the commissioners would be WA Supreme Court Judge Joseph McGrath and former Medicare CEO Lynelle Briggs. They’ve been given until 2020 to submit their final report with an interim report expected by 2019.

There are also calls for a program known as “Senior Smiles” to be implemented nationwide in aged care homes, in which a certified dental hygienist is employed within the care home to tend to the dental needs of the residents. University of Newcastle research has shown this to be beneficial to the residents’ health. There’s thought that perhaps the Aged Care Royal Commission can recommend a dental program to implemented as part of their report.

Finally this week, the IPCC has released a report that calls for coal use to be phased out by 2050, if not beforehand, in order to prevent a catastrophic 2ºC rise in global temperatures. The aim is to keep the rise in global temperatures to 1.5ºC, as the effects of a rise in temperature of that level will not be as catastrophic as those if the rise in temperature of 2ºC. However, the government doesn’t seem to perturbed, with Environment Minister Melissa Price suggesting 2050 is a long time away and by then there will be technology that will make coal use cleaner, while Price’s shadow minister Mark Butler has accused the Liberals of “blocking their ears and ignoring the signs”.

Tweet of the Week

 

 

The Week That Was – February 25 to March 3

Posted on by

Michael McCormack won the ballot for the Nationals leadership, almost uncontested, after George Christiansen staged a last minute attempt in the party meeting. McCormack is a former journalist, who wrote an anti-LGBT tirade when he was editor of a Riverina newspaper. He has since apologised profusely for the editorial and he did vote in favour of same-sex marriage in parliament, so he appears to have toned himself down a bit. Banarby Joyce hasn’t ruled out making a comeback, but for now, McCormack is Deputy PM.

Speaking of Barnaby Joyce, it was revealed in Senate Estimate Hearings this week that the Prime Minister asked the secretary of prime minister and cabinet to investigate Joyce’s conduct and it was then ended when he resigned. Estimates hearings this week were a bit insane, with Labor Senator Kim Carr suggesting Liberal Senator James Patterson would have been a member of the Hitler Youth. Also, Michaelia Cash, upon being asked about the qualifications of her new Chief of Staff, said she’d name all the young women in Bill Shorten’s office ‘because there are rumours’, which left many politicians on both sides angry and shocked. Tanya Plibersek wants Cash to go into Shorten’s office and apologise to every single young woman in the office, but that’s unlikely happen, given that Turnbull defended her saying that she was ‘provoked’. In my humble opinion, that’s a load of crap, and from the look on Turnbull’s face, he didn’t believe it either.

Malcolm Turnbull came back from Washington and welcomed the NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to Sydney. They shared the usual ‘Australia and New Zealand are best friends and we are closer than ever’ spiel before being asked about a couple of sore spots in the friendship, such as Ardern’s offer to take around 150 refugees from Manus detention centre which Turnbull keeps declining, and the fact that Australia sends Kiwi citizens back to New Zealand after they’ve served time for their crimes – only catch is, some of them had no idea they were New Zealand citizens and have spent their entire lives in Australia.

The Tasmanian election took place this weekend, with the issue of poker machines a big one in the state. Labor and the Greens said early on that they would get rid of pokies in Tasmania if they won the election, while the Liberals said they’d keep them. This has seen a large amount of money and support for the Liberal Party from the clubs and poker machine industry. While the Liberals did suggest at one point easing gun control, which made some people uneasy (Port Arthur, the location of Australia’s worst mass shooting, is in Tasmania), it appears they will win the election. Election day was marred by the passing of former Tasmanian Attorney-General Vanessa Goodwin from cancer.

Finally this week, Australia is trying to see if it can get an exemption of some sort after President Donald Trump announced a 25% tariff on steel and aluminium; the gun amnesty last year resulted in 57,324 guns being handed in – many will be destroyed, while some will be registered and returned to owners; and there are still funding issues with the NDIS, with people being kicked off their care programs after bills weren’t paid and providers being left with hundreds of thousands of dollars owed to them.

Tweet of the Week

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

MPs want Julie Bishop to declare her boyfriend – ABC Online

Michelle Grattan on Michaelia Cash’s outburst in Senate Estimates – ABC Online

The Week That Was – August 6 to August 12

Posted on by

This week was the first week back from Winter Holidays for politicians, and the Liberals found themselves coming in a day early to have an internal party vote on whether or not they should have a conscience vote for same-sex marriage in Parliament  or stay with their plebiscite idea. In the end, only seven voted for the conscience vote, so they sent the once-rejected plebiscite legislation back into the Senate, where it failed. Prior to doing so, the government announced that if the vote in the Senate failed they would run a postal survey through the Bureau of Statistics at a cost of $122 million.

Activist groups are challenging the survey thing in the High Court, arguing that the Treasurer can’t justify pulling $122 million out of his back pocket. The High Court will urgently hear the argument, starting next week, before holding a one and a half day hearing on September 5. Already people are joining sides, with former Prime Ministers Tony Abbott and John Howard joining the ‘no’ campaign. Abbott, in a doorstop on Wednesday, tried to frame voting no as a way to protect freedom of speech and religion, as well as protecting people from political correctness. It was bizarre. Meanwhile several MPs and Ministers have jumped on the yes train, Education Minister Simon Birmingham, George Brandis, Trent Zimmerman (who was one of the seven wanting a conscience vote) as well as most Labor MPs, and all Greens.

However, the “yes” campaign needs to be careful, and they need to unify soon, no matter how reluctant they are to have a postal plebiscite survey. Many believe this survey is just ridiculous, and it likely is, but this may be their chance to have same-sex marriage in Australia, and they need to join the campaign and encourage others to vote ‘yes’. As for concerns over hate speech and the safety of LGBTIQ youths and children of LGBTIQ parents, there appears to be a plan to get some rules legislated to protect them.

Moving away from one stupid thing to another, apparently we’re going to war with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (aka North Korea) if they attack US Territory, including the Pacific territory of Guam. In return if the DPRK decides to go after Australia, the US will come and help us. It’s all because of the ANZUS treaty between Australia, New Zealand and the United States, and Malcolm Turnbull spoke with Mike Pence during the week to pledge our support. Greens Leader Richard Di Natale has said that it is amazing that we’re being brought along by an “unhinged and paranoid” leader in Trump, who seems to be having a war of words with an equally paranoid and unhinged dictator.

 

Finally this week, public servants could lose their jobs for liking or appearing to support anti-government posts online; the Commonwealth Bank is in trouble for failing to report over 50,000 suspicious transactions to several government agencies until they were taken to court; former MP Bruce Billson is in hot water for being paid by his new lobbying job before he left parliament; and power prices are still a bit of an issue, and there doesn’t seem to be any sensible results coming from meetings between the government and power providers.

Tweet of the Week

German Newspaper Der Spiegel on Trump v Kim Jong Un

(The words under the cartoon read “Trump against Kim: The Comparison”)

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

ABC meteorologist Nate Byrne on the ‘weather girl’ stereotype – ABC Online

Annabel Crabb on Parliament House – ABC Online

Buzzfeed is still checking out Malcolm Roberts’ citizenship – Buzzfeed

Paul Kildea on the Same-Sex Marriage postal plebiscite survey thing – The Conversation

The Week That Was – September 11 to September 17

Posted on by

The week began with Malcolm Turnbull’s return to Australia, and his return to dealing with the Opposition and backbenchers, as well as the cross benchers. The week began with the Senate running out of things to do, leading to some strange speeches and discussions – including Bridget McKenzie forgetting the name of a candidate who ran in the election. Also during the week, Pauline Hanson gave her (second) maiden speech, in which she said we were being “swamped by Muslims”, leading to the Greens walking out of the Senate chamber.

This week also marked a year since Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister. The opposition and the government both gave Turnbull a ‘report card’. Since he became Prime Minister, there’s been an election and there are now 14 less Coalition members in Parliament. The opposition did give Malcolm Turnbull a gift though, negotiating and passing over $6 billion of budget savings. Additionally there was a backflip on superannuation, to cater to the Coalition backbench.

The same sex marriage plebiscite has been announced for February 11th, 2017. It will be compulsory to vote, will only require a simple majority to pass, and the yes and no sides of the debate will each get $7.5 million in funding. This however, is only going to happen if the Labor party pass the legislation for the plebiscite, which they are saying they will not do, because they believe it is unnecessary. Meanwhile, critics are pointing out that the ‘no’ campaigners will say things that are hurtful to the LGBTQI community, no matter how ‘civilised’ the government says they will be.

Meanwhile, Stephen Conroy has thrown his party and the country a curveball, resigning quietly on Thursday night, tabling his valedictory speech to the record without reading it aloud because he thought he’d get too emotional. He did it so quietly in fact, that Tanya Plibersek and Bill Shorten didn’t really know what was going on until the media brought it up. Now there’s a push for the person to fill the casual vacancy to be a woman, but we shall have to wait and see what happens in the next few weeks.

Finally this week, there are concerns over defemce uniforms being made in China; and there and questions about what kind of transport should be available to and from the new Badgery’s Creek airport.

Tweet of the Week

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Meet the ABC Port Moresby Bureau’s unofficial guard dog – ABC Online

 

The Week That Was – August 21 to August 28

Posted on by

The week began with a commemoration of the Wave Hill walk off fifty years ago, with the Lingiari and Mabo families meeting up together for the commemorations. It began the movement for Indigenous land rights in Australia, as well as Indigenous working conditions.

There are questions over whether the change in funding of sport is working after we only won half of the gold medals that we won in Sydney in 2000. As the Olympians returned from Rio, it was announced that there would be a review into the “Winning Edge” funding program and the falling medal tally.

Parliament has been interesting this week with the new Senators having orientation day, and police raids in the office of Senator Stephen Conroy over NBN leaks. Labor has claimed parliamentary privilege on some of the documents seized by the police, meaning the Senate has to vote on whether or not to allow the police to take them as evidence.

Meanwhile, Scott Morrison made a speech about no being complacent about the risk of a recession as the mining boom ends, Barnaby Joyce has announced an investigation nto the dairy industry, especially how pricing is determined, and Malcolm Turnbull is condending with an ambitious backbench and a possibly hostile Senate.

Also this week, the Greens have said they will not support the same-sex marriage plebiscite, as they believe it puts the mental health of LGBTIQ youth at risk, instead believing a parliamentary vote on the subject is a better course of action. They’ve also had a reshuffle, in which Sarah Hanson-Young has lost her Immigration Spokesperson role to Nick McKim.

Finally this week, there are concerns over the extent of Chinese involvement in Australia, with most Chinese language media toeing the Communist Party line, as well as Chinese state company donations to politcal parties; Man Haron Monis has been mentioned in is girlfriend’s murder trial, with the prosecution saying that he was the mastermind of the murder of his ex-wife; and the NT election looks to be in Labor’s favour.

Tweet of the Week

An interesting look at which countries allow foreign donations:

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Not much, recently, thanks to uni.

Questions over the “Winning Edge”funding system – ABC Online

The Week That Was – March 13 to March 19

Posted on by

This week was dominated by the drama in the Senate. The Senate voting reforms, which were always going to pass with the support of the Greens and Nick Xenophon, were debated for 40 hours (28 of which were uninterrupted) before being successful. While there were some legit questions in the debate, such as Family First’s Bob Day’s question about exhausted votes, but it was a very long night. At 9pm, Labor was giving Greens leader Richard Di Natale a hard time about his GQ Magazine photoshoot…

 

..and by 2am it had all got to the point where NSW Labor Senator Doug Cameron quoted Monty Python’s Holy Grail…

…David Leyonhjelm suggested that the government was acting like Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, and the Senate Chair was exhausted. It did pass the senate, however, Bob Day, with some support from Leyonhjelm and the Liberal Democrats, will now bring a High Court challenge over the whole exhausted votes thing, as Day’s amendment would have stopped people from putting “Just vote 1 for X party” on their how-to-vote gear.

Once again the Labor party still has a bit of an upper hand with the whole election talking thing – despite the minor distraction from WA involving former defence minister Stephen Smith – while Turnbull and the Coalition continue to deal with double dissolution speculation. It didn’t help that all of the Liberal MPs retiring from Parliament, like Theresa Gambaro, Bruce Billson and Ian McFarlane, began making their valedictory speeches – which is basically where they talk about their achievements and make some warm and fuzzy parting comments. Parliament now has a seven week break until the May 10 Budget – at least if it stays being on May 10, they might come back a week early – during which they’ll probably make some policy announcements and finalise their tax plans.

Religious leaders have announced that they will provide sanctuary to refugees due to be returned to Nauru once their medical treatment is completed. Several congregations across the country also pledged to assist their church in providing sanctuary, including preventing officials from entering their church. It’s possible that they risk arrest for their actions, but they don’t seem to be phased by that. They say they are not sure when they will need to provide sanctuary, but they will respond when the time comes.

This week, some people stormed and protested the Adelaide office of SA Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi over his issues with the Safe Schools Program. This week, the Education Minister Simon Birmingham announced some big changes to the program, with it only being used in High Schools, changing the content of a few of the lessons, requiring parental permission for each child to participate, and making some information only available to “certain students” and delivered by “qualified teachers” – essentially cutting some of the most crucial information that helps students understand what their LGBTQI classmates are going through.

Finally this week, the Iranians had their go at criticising Australia’s treatment of refugees; Concetta Fierravanti-Wells has been dropped to #2 on the Coalition Senate ticket in NSW; Australia might follow the UK’s lead and have a “sugar tax”; and former Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson has won preselection in outgoing MP Andrew Robb’s Victorian electorate of Goldstein.

Tweet of the Week

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

American colleges taking Aussie Rules players as kickers or something – Washington Post

Senate photo rules lead to a Buzzfeed Journalist’s phone being searched – The Guardian

A listicle on the weird stuff that happened in the Senate – Buzzfeed

An Open Letter to Joe Hildebrand

Posted on by

https://twitter.com/Joe_Hildebrand/status/488242408912465920

Joe Hildebrand you should be ashamed. It may have been humourous to you, but it wasn’t funny to most people.

You may have attempted an apology too:

https://twitter.com/Joe_Hildebrand/status/488259629655158784

Regardless of whether or not we suspected Ian Thorpe was gay, comments like that really aren’t appropriate. There are people who struggle for years and even decades coming to terms with their sexuality and for you to go around saying “Well duh!” doesn’t help. We never “knew” that Thorpe was gay. At best, we suspected and hypothesised and we could have been so, so wrong. We all live on the same planet, and while most of us may have suspected at one point or another, it’s up to Thorpe to tell us his sexuality, not us to label him. Just as much as it’s up to you to identify the way you wish and not have the general public decide for you.

https://twitter.com/Joe_Hildebrand/status/488276823126441984

You really don’t get it. It has nothing to do with how  “good it was that Thorpey came out”, although it is good that he did. It has to do with the fact that you don’t seem to understand the struggles that some go through coming out, something that only those who have been through that struggle will understand. Admittedly, I’m straight and haven’t been through those struggles, but at least I know they exist, have sympathy for those struggling and can acknowledge that some people never overcome their struggle and tragically end their lives. LGBTQI youth are six times more likely to attempt suicide and to know that someone as prominent as Ian Thorpe has gone through a similar struggle to come to terms with his sexuality will undoubtedly help them.

Comments like the ones you made are part of the problem. The people calling you out are trying to make you realise that, even if they are calling you an idiot, because you should know better.