The Week That Was – August 5 to August 11

Drought now affects 100% of the state of New South Wales, as new assistance and tax breaks were announced by both the Federal and the NSW State Government. A lot of the money from the Federal Government is going to mental health phone support and topping up the “living on the farm” tax break that farmers already get (I don’t know what that tax rebate is actually called but that was how I understood it from the news). However some farmers fear they may miss out because their land is too large.

There is also a bit of angst from some farmers who have invested heavily in drought proofing or preparation, because they don’t feel that those farmers that haven’t prepared should get rewarded for it; however if the drought goes on for too long, those that made preparations may also need the assistance, and if it isn’t there now they’ll be angrier in the future when they need the help. In some towns, they’re running out of water and even Sydney’s water supply is dropping. While Sydney is not yet at strict water restrictions like it was back in the 2000s, there is a chance we will, even after the desalination plant kicks into action.

As the Garma Festival came to an end this week, there is further criticism of the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, as it appears he isn’t acting on or is simply rejecting suggestions that were made in the Uluru statement last year. One particular point of contention is the call for there to be an elected body of indigenous advisors to parliament, like a third house of parliament essentially, which Turnbull doesn’t want to even approach because he doesn’t think it will get through a referendum.

This week the banking Royal Commission has taken its focus to superannuation, looking into both industry and retail funds. Because super makes no sense sometimes, there will be no average people giving evidence, just experts and executives. The main focus has been NAB, who owns super fund MLC, and how they charged fees for no service (which is illegal) and then debated whether or not they should compensate customers and how.

Emma Husar’s political career will end at the next election, after she decided she would not re-contest her marginal Western Sydney seat of Lindsay. She said her reputation has been irreparably damaged. The awkward part in all of this is that the day after she made this announcement, the investigation into her conduct reported that while her management style is a little unusual and she can be heavy-handed, but in no way is she behaving inappropriately and she doesn’t need to resign from parliament.

The National Audit Office is looking into how the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, a small charity run by corporates, is using the money it was granted for Great Barrier Reef protection. There are suggestions that the money was potentially given to the foundation without a tender process. There are suggestions from former board members and employees that the organisation is less geared towards climate issues and that giving them such a large grant without much of a process.

Finally this week, ASIC will embed agents in financial institutions; Australia’s population hit 25 million sometime on Tuesday; the State and Federal Energy Ministers met this week to discuss lowering power prices while lowering emissions and keeping the energy reliable – which suggests we wont really get a lot of renewables in the mix for a while yet; and there are concerns over how providers are handling customers who go it alone paying to get fibre to the premises, and then when their neighbours decide they want it too, they don’t get any compensation, despite the fact they have made it cheaper for everyone else in the street.

Tweet of the Week

Cool history things. 🙂

The Bray Head fire combined with recent heavy rain has resulted in the "Eire" sign becoming visible from the air once more. The sign was made during the 2nd World War in order to warn Allied & German airmen that they were flying over a neutral country. #Wicklow #EIRE @barrabest pic.twitter.com/CYaXtpoRtS

— SkycamIreland (@IrelandSkycam) August 4, 2018

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Daniel Ziffer on the Banking Royal Commission’s look into super – ABC Online

Apparently Tony Abbott and the Greens are on the same side – ABC Online

The Week That Was – June 3 to June 8

Barnaby Joyce’s interview with Channel 7’s Sunday Night aired on Sunday and it appears that the only viewers were the Canberra Press Gallery – the interview didn’t really garner the attention or the rise in viewership. Even Scott Morrison admitted he was watching singing reality show The Voice. Joyce’s performance was all sorts of weird (from what I’ve seen from clips on the ABC) in which he disparaged some of his colleagues, implied his partner Vikki wasn’t an adult woman with a mind of her own, and admitted he knew that he was in trouble when Vikki got pregnant. People in his electorate seemed to have been forced by the local pubs to watch the interview, and as one younger viewer commented  to the ABC (we’re talking a 20-30 year old) thought Joyce was bit of a tool.

There are now questions over whether Joyce will be able to survive pre-selection this time around. Most MPs aren’t really commenting on it, although it appears that they wouldn’t mind if Joyce didn’t come back after next year’s election. Tony Abbott on the other hand, seems to be very supportive of Joyce, which could be a blessing or a curse – we shall have to see.

So while Joyce takes some time off, the rest of Australia can get on with their lives.

Malcolm Turnbull and local MPs across regional New South Wales and Queensland have been inspecting drought ravaged areas. He’s pledged assistance and help but it is not totally clear exactly what that help will be just yet.

The economy is doing alright at the moment, with GDP up by 1% in the March quarter, and up 3.1% for the year. It’s a positive picture, and a good start to 2018. However, it is mostly exports and predominantly to China, which isn’t necessarily an issue, but does suggest we’ll be in trouble if China has a slump.

The Public Service Commissioner, John Lloyd, who is responsible for public service pay and conditions, has quit. There have been questions over his conduct and independence, as he has links to the right-wing think tank the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA). He will leave the role in August, and it appears that quite a few people are relieved that he’s going.

This week marks 30 years since former Prime Minister Bob Hawke promised a treaty between the government and Australia’s indigenous population. There hasn’t been a treaty, and this leaves Australia as the only Commonwealth nation with no treaty with the Indigenous population. However three states – Victoria, South Australia and the Northern Territory – have begun the treaty process with land councils, with varying success. This week saw the Northern Territory’s Chief Minister sign Memoranda of Understanding with three Central Australian Land Councils. Bill Shorten has also announced that he will act on the recent Uluru Statement and implement a federal Indigenous advisory panel.

The Australian military’s special forces (SAS) is being investigated for their conduct and behaviour while deployed. This information has come through leaks to the media making some politicians concerned. While the SAS does get some latitude and secrecy given the nature of their missions, it appears that some of their behaviour may have been illegal – so Mark Binskin, the head of Australia’s armed forces, has asked that this investigation continue and finish quickly without interference.

While the Royal Commission wasn’t in hearings this week, the banks still had a bad time. First, the Commonwealth Bank has been fined $700 million for breaching money laundering laws. There were over 53,000 breaches where the bank knowingly let suspicious transactions take place and potentially let money go to criminal organisations and terrorist groups. The fine could have been a lot worse, so CommBank is very, very lucky.

Meanwhile, the ANZ, Citibank and Deutsche Bank have been charged with cartel behaviour. The important thing here is that these are criminal charges, not civil. This means that they have also arrested people – mostly former CEOs and executives. It involves the ANZ approaching Citibank, Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan to help them increase their shares. JP Morgan has not been charged in the case, because they are helping in the investigation and case and getting immunity in return.

This week has been an interesting one for Australia-China relations, with China getting anxious about the government’s plans to introduce foreign interference laws in time to protect ‘Super Saturday’ by-elections on July 28 – because apparently China is going to try to affect the outcome. From my perspective, it’s unlikely that China is going to get involved in five by-elections that are unlikely to dramatically affect the government’s standing in parliament – yes three more seats will make the Coalition more comfortable, but it’s not going to change the course of history.

Australia is also under pressure to get involved in freedom of navigation activities in the South China Sea, and it became really awkward when it became apparent that a suspected Chinese surveillance ship had been following HMAS Adelaide around the South Pacific, somewhat confirmed when they both pulled into port in Suva, Fiji.

Finally this week, technology companies are trying to figure out who the government is going to approach access to encrypted messages – essentially the government wants ways to access messages and informations on people’s phones when they are doing investigations; Qantas has bowed to Chinese pressure to label Taiwan as a region of China, making the government (potentially) a bit concerned; NBN quotes for people who are wanting to upgrade from fibre-to-the-node (or curb) to fibre-to-the-premises are ridiculously high and it’s unclear why that is the case; and eyes are now on a charity that has been named by an Australian teenager arrested in Lebanon for allegedly trying to join ISIS – he says the charity encouraged him to join.

Tweet of the Week

https://twitter.com/leighsales/status/1004875931134017536

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Laura Tingle on the political football that is the ABC – ABC Online

Lucy Barbour on Malcolm Turnbull’s ‘drought tour’ – ABC Online

 

15 Things That Happened in the Last Three Weeks – April 1 to April 21

When I end up working a few Sundays in a row it sort of messes up the whole “posts every Sunday” thing, so here is a recap of the last three weeks:

1. Easter happened, which meant that there was a bit of a lull for the first two weeks – but there was still political stuff happening, just less dram a than is normal.
2. Greens Senator Jordan Steele-John brought awareness of the fact that the 1980s era Parliament House is not really built for people with wheelchairs – especially the MP’s offices
3. Former Labor Opposition Leader Kim Beazley will become the new WA Governor, after returning from Washington DC  where he was the Ambassador to the United States.
4. Alinta Energy is offering to buy the Liddell power plant off AGL. Alinta has said they won’t ask for money from the taxpayers, but AGL is unlikely to sell the ageing plant as it is vital to its 2022 transition plans.
5. The GST distribution between the states is being redistributed, with WA getting some more money, while money is being taken away from the (richer) East Coast.
6. The Australian Taxation Office is in trouble for abusing their powers and being heavy-handed in their actions, with allegations that the motive was revenue raising rather than enforcing compliance.
7. Kelly O’Dwyer then announced that there would be an investigation into the ATO’s practices.
8. The National Broadband Network is still causing trouble with complaints about fibre to the node (FTTN) links (with some people returning to copper wire links) and concerns about the difference in service for people with FTTN, fibre to the premises (FTTP), and the new fibre to the curb (FTTC) plans.
9. Malcolm Turnbull hit what the media dubbed the “Dirty Thirty” – as it has been thirty consecutive Newspolls lost to the Opposition, which Turnbull used as a measure to topple Tony Abbott. Turnbull says he regrets using thirty Newspolls as a measure of failure now, but used the attention to highlight his economic leadership.
10. There was thought that if someone did use “Dirty Thirty” to try to topple Turnbull it’d probably be at the hands of Peter Dutton and Julie Bishop – however there really isn’t a viable alternative to Turnbull right now so we’re stuck with him 🙂
11. There are new concerns about live sheep exports to the Middle East after footage was released of sheep dying of heat stress on one of the export ships. This has led the cross-bench and backbench MPs to either call for bans or changes to the live export trade.
12. There was a rumour that Vanuatu was in talks with China to host a Chinese military base on the archipelago. Vanuatu has denied this strenuously, and Vanuatu’s Foreign Minister reportedly had no idea about any plans or talks.
13. The Banking Royal Commission continued over the last three weeks and it has been shocking – banks and financial advisors have admitted to knowingly giving poor financial advice to customers and knowingly charging “fees for no service” that they were not entitled to, even charging fees to someone who was dead (and had been reported dead to the bank already).
14. It has also been suggested that if Commissioner Hayne were to approach the Government and ask for an extension for the Royal Commission, he would likely get it, as the Government has realised that the banking sector has been very, very naughty.
15. Malcolm Turnbull began his European Tour in London, attending the Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting (CHOGM) where the Queen made clear her “sincerest wish” that Prince Charles become the next Head of the Commonwealth – as the Queen’s headship of the Commonwealth of Nations is not hereditary.

 

I’ll be back to regular posting on Sundays this coming week.

The Week That Was – October 22 to October 28

Apologies for the radio silence, uni assessments combined with work tend to take over around this time of year.

The main focus this week was the “Citizenship Seven” – the seven MPs and Senators whose position in the parliament was in doubt. On Friday, it was ruled that Senators Fiona Nash, Larissa Waters, Scott Ludlam and Malcolm Roberts were elected while ineligible for Parliament. Senators Nick Xenophon and Matthew Canavan were ruled as safe. The court decided that Xenophon’s potential UK overseas citizenship is so obscure that “taking all possible steps” to discover and get rid of it would be very difficult (Xenophon had already renounced his Greek citizenship when he first became a politician) and Matthew Canavan was ruled not to be a dual Italian citizen after his mother took out Italian citizenship.

If you’ve been counting, then you’ve noticed I’ve only listed six people so far. The seventh is Barnaby Joyce MP, the Member for New England, Agriculture Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. He’s been ruled ineligble for office as a dual Australian and New Zealand citizen. This means that New England is going to a by-election on December 2. Joyce, who has since renounced his NZ citizenship, will run for the seat. Tony Windsor, the independent that the media often thinks might run against him, has said that he won’t be.

There has been some drama though, as Labor has suggested that they might cause trouble in the last sitting week of the year now that Malcolm Turnbull has a minority government. There were also questions over who was going to run the country while Malcolm Turnbull went overseas to Israel, as the top two Nationals – Fiona Nash and Barnaby Joyce – were caught up in the citizenship issue. His options were Nationals Senator Nigel Scullion or Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. Given the constitution states that the Prime Minister must be from the House of Representatives, it had to be Julie Bishop. Meanwhile the government is attempting to maintain the image of stable government, but it’s not working very well for them given Labor is continuing to say that things aren’t stable. It also appears that some Liberal Party people are annoyed with the Nationals for causing these issues, putting strain on the Coalition.

Oh, and Labor is planning on challenging Fiona Nash’s and Barnaby Joyce’s decisions.

The Australian Federal Police has revealed that they’re somewhat understaffed – or at least that’s what appears to be the case. The equivalent of three investigative squads have been redirected to keeping an eye on the Prime Minister’s home at Potts Point (ICYMI – Turnbull lives in his family home in Potts Point, not at Kirribilli House) and protecting the PM himself. Several drug investigation cases have been handed to either the NSW Police or to overseas police forces. The Federal Police Commissioner says that this is the “normal” level of protection for the Prime Minister, but that the security climate has changed. Whether or not this is true, I don’t know, but it does seem like they might need to hire more people.

The Australian Workers Union’s offices in Sydney and Melbourne, over some sort of funding issue regarding GetUp! – I think it has to do with donation declarations. Anyway, the whole drama is that somehow, the media was there when the cops walked through the door to carry out their warrants, suggesting that either the AFP or the Employment Minister Michaelia Cash tipped the media off. The AFP said they didn’t, which leaves either Cash or a person in her office. Despite an office staffer talking the fall and resigning, there are still many who think Cash is behind the leak to the media. This has lead to calls for Cash to quit or be sacked.

Finally this week, there’s still more NBN drama; the building works at Parliament House are making it look pretty bloody ugly; and foreign policy bureaucrats are stopping Australia from getting into a China-run trade group due to national security concerns.

Tweet of the Week

https://twitter.com/RyanSheales/status/924376782349860864

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Michelle Grattan on the drama with Michaelia Cash – ABC Online

Julie Robert on ‘Physical Philanthropy’ – ABC Online

The Week That Was -May 22 to May 28

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

#ICMYI: Election 2016 ad tracker: How much are the parties spending? #auspol #ausvotes https://t.co/YwWkJUsqYk pic.twitter.com/q5xULycMnl

— ABC News (@abcnews) May 24, 2016

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 – December 8 to December 14

I’ve resigned myself to the fact that politics is going to be a lot busier with Tony Abbott at the helm – so I’ve started taking notes.

This week there was a new NewsPoll – the Coalition is down 48 to 52 against Labor in two-party preferred. Admittedly, given there is no election until 2016 – unless a double dissolution is called – the Coalition has plenty of time to sort themselves out. This week, after cutting a deal with the Greens – yes, the GREENS – the Coalition has abolished the debt ceiling. Labor wasn’t impressed, and they’ve been saying that the government is playing Russian Roulette with a loaded gun.

This week also saw Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten in South Africa for Mandela’s memorial service. Abbott said some decent, relatively sage things. While the Prime Minister was away, Warren Truss ran the joint and did pretty well. However, he may have contributed to a not-so-nice early Christmas present to the car industry.

Holden is leaving Australia by the end of 2017. Warren Truss was demanding an answer from Holden, and they replied. This will leave Toyota as the last car maker in Australia, and they could go to. It seems from some reports that Tony Abbott just assumes that Toyota will just stay forever, but I could be misunderstanding. The government cars (which are from Holden) are being replaced too. The new cars will be from BMW. If you ask me, the government should be buying cars from Toyota that are made in Australian factories. For now though, Tony Abbott is trying to put together a compensation package for the Holden workers and affiliated component makers.

The bad news keeps on coming. The High Court ruled that the ACT same-sex marriage law is at odds with the federal marriage law. The couples that did get a chance to marry are disappointed but they aren’t too bitter – they knew it was a possibility. If you remember last week, I did the maths and found that 12.5% of Australia allows same-sex marriage compared with 30% of the USA. Well, the USA is still at 30%, and Australia is back to zero.

This week also saw the Coalition wanting to take back money from Childcare to put into training instead of pay packets, a bit of COAG and the NBN or Coalition equivalent is going to take forever to come. Oh well, hopefully it will all settle down as Christmas gets closer…

Tweet of the Week

Kate Ellis (Labor MP for Adelaide) retweeted this:

There's more than one MP who cd spend a few hours with 2 or 3 toddlers to see what it's like. And then ask them abt taking a pay raise away.

— Stephanie Peatling (@srpeatling) December 10, 2013

What I’ve Been Reading/Listening/Watching etc.

Tea Party-like fun is not (yet) in Australia, thank goodness – ABC Drum Online

The Phobie Awards – The Advocate Online

The Debate, NoteGate, The Suppository and Sex Appeal

Well, It’s been an entertaining few days.

Sunday saw the debate, and while Tony Abbott ran the City2Surf in Sydney, Kevin Rudd went to church with his family. Mr Abbott had a press conference with Malcolm Turnbull at Bondi Beach. The debate ensued. You can find my account of it here.

Kevin Rudd had a bit of a problem when two candidates pulled out of the running for their seats. The one in Queensland was dumped for some unknown reason, and the one in Victoria pulled out after being rude to or about a disabled person a few years ago.

Tony Abbott still hasn’t talked about his budget plans or costings, which does put the Liberals in a tough position, and to be frank, I just wanted answers – and that was what the four random Queenslanders that the ABC talked to after the debate were annoyed about – there weren’t any. The only thing of note was Kevin Rudd’s pledge of a same-sex marriage bill within 100 days of his term if elected.

Of course, on Monday, came the controversy of all possible controversies – NoteGate. Kevin Rudd had notes! Why on earth would someone making a speech or taking part in a debate have notes or facts? Apparently they were only allowed to use the notepad given to them by the National Press Club, but if Kevin and/or Tony had a page or two of notes, I wouldn’t kick up a fuss. In fact, I’d be glad that they were prepared.

The amusement came from Tony Abbott saying:

“No one, however smart, however well-educated, however experienced … is the suppository of all wisdom”

Technically, that’s true, given that a suppository is a drug administered through the rectum. Not a nice image, is it? The general assumption is that he was meant to say “repository” – which is a storage vessel. Oops.

Also, there’s been some asylum seekers who nearly got through the Torres Strait – and Campbell Newman, at least according to the Labor Party, tried to scare people about it – and to be honest, if that’s the case, he’s not being a nice guy.

Then there was the NBN Debate on Lateline. Neither Malcolm Turnbull nor Anthony Albanese did very well at all. There are two very different broadband plans and I didn’t understand a word. The stellar performance came from Emma Alberici – the anchor of Lateline – and she earned herself a stiff drink.

Tuesday just got weird. The Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook (PEFO) was released and the Labor Party called for the Liberals to release their budget costings. Apparently the Treasury used the word “uncertainty” thirty times. Wow.

Then Tony Abbott was asked about how his female candidate for Lindsay compared to the candidate (who as also female) beck in 2010. He said that they both had sex appeal.

Oh well, we still have three and a half weeks of this to go!