Tag Archives: Money

The Week That Was -May 22 to May 28

Posted on by

The third week of the election began with Bill Shorten campaigning for the Labor candidate in Malcolm Turnbull’s seat of Wentworth, while Malcolm Turnbull announced $7 million for young people to get into clinical trials while at a food and wine festival. They’ve mostly talked taxes and parliamentary entitlements while people aren’t really paying attention. That’s probably because at this point in an average campaign, we’d be two to three weeks out and heading toward the home stretch.

There’s also been some drama over health policy, with Health Minister Susan Ley suggesting that she was not allowed by Treasury and other senior ministers to create the health policy she wanted, instead having to remain with a co-payment and a freeze on Medicare rebates. It led Labor to tell the public that Ley essentially believes that their health policy is better, while Turnbull and Scott Morrison are insisting that there needs to be sustainable spending.

The only other real issue has been the dispute over how costings are done. Both parties agree there is a deficit, and that spending needs to be sustainable. However, while Scott Morrison believes that the promises Labor has made will put a $67 billion hole in the budget. Labor’s Chris Bowen disputes this, suggesting the maths is incorrect, and one could argue it is, given that the Liberal Party has included policies the Labor party has blocked since the 2014 budget and other measures that Labor has disputed. Tony Burke slammed the coalition, saying they were consciously misinforming the public. It also didn’t help that Bill Shorten talked about a ‘spendometer’ when making a comment about the media while making some funding promises at a community meeting.

Two gaffes this week saw Barnaby Joyce suggesting Indonesia was behind the influx of asylum seekers coming by boat, after the Labor government halted the live cattle trade a few years ago after concerns about humane treatment, leaving Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop to do damage control. Meanwhile Mathias Cormann had a moment where he forgot who his Prime Minister was, saying Bill Shorten was a nice, caring, intelligent person, when he meant to say Malcolm Turnbull – Shorten jumped on the mistake, saying the Liberal scare campaign was ‘terminated’.

With Monday this week having been the cut-off for enrolling to vote, it was suggested that nearly 955,000 eligible people were yet to enrol, of which they believe 300,000 are younger voters. Parties are being reminded not to ignore the youth vote, because young people are not disengaged with politics. Others are suggesting that we need an easier and simpler enrolment system.

Finally this week, Bill Shorten and Malcolm Turnbull agree that more needs to be done for reconciliation and upset Mathias Cormann by suggestion that Australia still has issues with racism; there are concerns that the rural delivery of the NBN is and will be sub-par; and dairy farmers are angry after milk suppliers Fonterra and Murray Goulburn drastically cut milk prices, leading to massive public support with people purchasing name-brand milk over $1/L supermarket brand milks.

Tweet of the Week

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Labor should focus on policy, not Turnbull – ABC The Drum

Why Journalists should get off the campaign buses – ABC The Drum

Nova Peris shuts down racism – Buzzfeed

The Week That Was – March 16 to March 22

Posted on by

This week was definitely crazier.

Sunday saw the “March in March”, an anti-Liberal protest that took place in all major cities, with the slogan “a vote of no confidence” – essentially, these people are not happy with the way the country is being run. There was a good turn out, with Melbourne having the largest protest, and Sydney had pretty high numbers too. Tony Abbott was in Sydney and was either poking fun or being a complete idiot when he replied to a reporter asking about the protests, saying “I thought the only rally today was the St. Patrick’s Parade,” with a grin. So I’m more inclined to think that maybe he was trying to be funny as opposed to being an idiot.

Tony Abbott was in Sydney to help announce a new roads project called the North Connex – a motorway and tunnel project to be built in north-western Sydney to help with congestion on Pennant Hills Road. The NRMA seems positive about it, mainly because the tunnel in this project is going to be high enough to clear large trucks (a problem we’ve been having for a while) and will cut travel time for many in the Hills District.

Moving on, the Royal Commission into the Insulation Scheme revealed that only two bureaucrats costed the scheme over one long weekend without much help and that the public servants and government knew about the risks and similar deaths New Zealand. While that probably is a pretty big thing to come out of the hearings this week, some are still calling it a witch hunt on Tony Abbott’s part to get back at Labor.

Keeping with Commissions, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) revealed the Liberal Senator Arthur Sinodinos stood to make $20 million from some dodgy deals that Sydney Water Holdings made while he was in charge of the board. Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party have been standing by him, but Labor wanted him to quit. He hasn’t – but he “stood aside” from his ministerial position (he may come back when and if he is cleared) of Assistant Treasurer, which could make life difficult the closer the Budget gets.

Manus Island has been in the news this week, with a judge in Papua New Guinea opening an inquiry into the conditions at the detention centre. The aim is to see whether or not the PNG Government is treating the asylum seekers in their care as they should be. A couple of the asylum seekers testified, saying they felt like they were in jail and the feel like humans for once, because this inquiry is letting them talk. They’ve also said that on a visit to the centre, Scott Morrison told the asylum seekers “don’t even dream of coming to Australia” because they weren’t going to be settled. The judge leading the inquiry travelled to the detention centre and allowed the media to come along – as if they would decline that opportunity. The ABC reported that there are still scars of the riots with broken windows and bullet holes in places. The dorms are packed and the bathrooms look pretty bad. According to the ABC journalist the asylum seekers kept asking the media to help them.

Still on Papua New Guinea, Tony Abbott has paid a visit to Port Moresby to discuss the deal with the asylum seekers, as the PNG Government is yet to process any of them. In return for speeding up, the Papua New Guineans will have more say in where the aid money they’re getting for taking the asylum seekers. Not only that, but Australia has to see if other nations will take our asylum seekers, because PNG can’t possible take all of them in. Tony Abbott did say something about the nations shouldering “their fair share of the burden” of the asylum seekers coming into the region, but that is a bit unfair – most countries have their own issues.

MH370 is still missing, and now an area around 2500km off the Western Australian coast is the main area for looking for the plane. They’ve found some chunks using satellites – and they’ve had ships and planes looking for them, but they can’t be found. There has been some great international co-operation though, so hopefully with some hard work they might find something.

Also this week, with the RBA considering changes to the Australian notes, the vision impaired are calling for tactile markings on the notes (like Canada does) to make it easier to tell whether they’re handing over $10 or $50.

Tweet of the Week

What I’ve Been Reading/Watching/Listening etc

A car crashes into the concrete fence/wall surrounding the Lodge – ABC Online

The US Media has trouble with Australian facts – News.com.au

The Taxpayer Money Saga

Posted on by

That’s the ABC Online editor and radio presenter Jonathan Green’s take on this taxpayer money claiming scandal thing.

I don’t know what to call it. Scandal? Saga? Thing? Taxpayer-Money-Gate?

But Jonathan Green’s comment, using the stealing of a car, simplifies it into a few simple steps, which I have listed below.

1. Go to a wedding or on an equally dubious “work trip”.
2. Claim taxpayer money on transport, accommodation, food or all the above and pray you get away with it.
3. Once caught, pay it back, saying you were always intending to, because you are an honest person.
4. In interviews, blame the fact that regulations are very vague.

While I don’t think anyone stole cars, and nor should anyone take Jonathan Green’s suggestion seriously, it is a little concerning that this is going on.

First, what are the entitlements for?

Schedule 1 Part 1 of the Parliamentary Entitlements Act 1990 allows certain travel and accommodation to be reimbursed if it is related to ‘parliamentary or electorate business’.

That’s what it says on the Parliament House website. It also tells you the four reasons you can claim for overseas travel (N.B. I have cut out the additional explanations from the site):

1. Travel as a member of a Parliamentary Delegation, within a program approved for each calendar year by the Prime Minister.

2. Travel overseas for the purpose of undertaking studies and investigations of matters related to their duties and responsibilities as a member of parliament.

3. Representational overseas travel for parliamentarians who, with the approval of the Prime Minister, are representing Australia, a Minister, or the Government overseas.

4. Travel overseas on official business for Ministers as approved by the Prime Minister.

So, if you are going to a trade summit or the UN or something along those lines, then the claims for accommodation and travel are completely legitimate. I can totally understand the claiming of tax payer’s money if the politician is doing their job (for some that term is also ambiguous).

Not only are people claiming for weddings, but Tony Abbott has also claimed money for travel to Iron Man competitions, in particular one in the electorate of Port Macquarie, which he said was legitimate because back then the seat was “at the time, marginal”. He also claimed travel for his charity ride called the ‘Pollie Pedal’. He says he isn’t going to pay it back, and if he is travelling in his capacity (as in not on holiday, one hopes) he’ll claim the allowance.

I’m sorry Mr Abbott, but if going to sporting events and charity events, whether they are in a marginal seat or not, are “duties and responsibilities as a member of parliament” then I must be living on another planet. How is being in an Iron Man contest or a triathlon a responsibility as an MP?

I wonder if he’ll answer that question. Probably not.

Oh well, at least he’s paying some of it back. Which, if we are being honest is what Peter Slipper said he’d do about those dodgy CabCharge claims. But that doesn’t seem to be an issue, despite the fact the Mr Slipper is facing the courts over it, while Abbott is just paying some of the money back.

I don’t think we’ve seen the end of this.