The Week That Was – October 25 to October 31

For the first time in a long time, Australian politics was quite calm and sensible.

This week a Senate Enquiry was based in the far-western NSW town of Broken Hill, where locals told Senators that the drought and the Murray Darling Basin Plan mean that the town is running out of water. The Darling River is stagnant and there are suggestions that the water was taken too early from Broken Hill’s part of the Murray Darling Basin in order to help those further downstream.

Former Treasurer and MP Joe Hockey’s seat of North Sydney (I live in the electorate) will be going to the polls on December 5th to elect a new member. The seat is safe Liberal, however it has fallen to independents in previous elections. There was drama at the start of the week when a story on 7.30 on the ABC suggested that the guy tipped to be the Liberal Candidate, Trent Zimmerman, was going to get the candidacy because the part executive, including Zimmerman himself, had rejigged the rules meaning that the grassroots members would have no say. He did get pre-selection in the end, which I discovered when Malcolm Turnbull’s voice in a robo-call told me I should vote for Zimmerman. So far, Zimmerman is running in the seat, as is Fred Nile’s wife Silvana Nero for the Christian Democrats and Arthur Chesterfield-Evans will run for the Greens. Labor will not run a candidate, and other prospective candidates have until November 12 to nominate.

Zimmerman spent some time in Chatswood on Saturday with Gladys Berejiklian talking with voters and with the media. Zimmerman is pro-marriage equality and wants more public transport in the electorate. If he wins the seat Zimmerman will become the first openly gay member of the House of Representatives.

While on the topic of elections and voting, Bill Shorten has announced that the Labor party will move to decrease the voting age from 18 to 16. His argument is that at the age of 16 you can join the army, own a gun and some even pay tax, yet they have no say over how the country is run. The Coalition believes that this is a stunt, and a number of vox pops on the ABC News on Saturday night from 16 and 17 year olds suggest that they don’t know much about politics and many said they wouldn’t know who to vote for – and hey, neither do I half the time!

Environmentalists are calling on the government to commit to reducing coal power considerably in time for the Paris conference at the end of the year. The Liberal and Labor parties don’t seem so thrilled with the whole idea, while the Greens are all for it and are arguing the only way to help deal with climate change is if coal is significantly reduced.

Tony Abbott made headlines again this week, speaking at an event at the Margaret Thatcher Centre on what some are calling his “Stop the Boats World Tour”. He spoke about needing to fight ISIS in order to end them and then went on the say that Europe is making a mistake by allowing asylum seekers in, especially those that came by boat. This is despite the fact that the current European Refugee Crisis is on a larger scale than Australia’s refugee issues and critics are encouraging the world to ignore him.

Finally this week, there has been some drama at the Trade Union Royal Commission; Australian doctors had a “day of action” to protest the fact that there are still children in detention, and are also refusing to discharge refugee children in their care, as they are likely to go back to detention; there are debates on whether or not a nuclear waste processing site will be built in South Australia; and Malcolm Turnbull is still a popular people person.

Tweet of the Week

As the North Sydney By-Election begins, I found an amusing and snarky Twitter account that has been giving updates.

https://twitter.com/nthsydneyvotes/status/658419221597065216

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

First Dog on the Moon covers “Biff Bootface” and his trip to ‘Guano Island’ – The Guardian

First Dog on the Moon talks about Abbott’s Margaret Thatcher Centre speech – The Guardian

SBS2’s The Feed’s “Douche of the Week”

The Week That Was – August 24 to August 30

This government may be record holders. It’s been over three months since the budget was announced and they’re yet to get their big-ticket items through Parliament. Admittedly, they’ve got appropriation bills through, but they just keep everything up and running. Key ministers and figures have been threatening that they will start doing things that don’t require legislation to save money, which the Opposition is calling blackmail and it appears that the co-payment could be waived when children go for vaccinations. For some reason, this government likes equating the current economic situation with things like bushfires and melanomas, as if that is going to scare us or the opposition into accepting the changes. Meanwhile, the Opposition continues to demand the government drop the budget entirely and start again and some government backbenchers have spoken out against the co-payment and other budget measures they don’t like. Speaking of the co-payment, Clive Palmer has announced his party will not support it, and will not compromise. He’s also apologised to China for his comments last week.

The government announced last week plans to allow around 4,000 Iraqi and Syrian refugees to come to Australia “through the front door”, however concerns have been raised about who will be allowed to come. There are a large number of Iraqis and Syrians in Australia who still have family in the region, who want the government to allow their family members to come, and other concerns have been raised over the fact that the 4,000 or so spots are part of the 13,000 yearly quota set by the government and not an addition to the quota.

Australia may also help the US with strikes against the Islamic State (IS – formerly known as ISIS/ISIL), with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) mobilising and the PM and Defence Minister both saying that while we haven’t been asked yet, we’ll be happy to help. The bulk of the Opposition supports this but there are a few Labor MPs and senators as well as the Greens, who are not so sure about military action.

University Open Days began this weekend, and understandably, prospective students are concerned about the future costs of higher education. There is concern that the Group of 8 Universities might drop nursing degrees, which don’t make much money. This has been denied, as has the possible price hike, with universities saying that they aren’t trying to gouge money from people, they just want to keep a high standard of education. The Nationals are also concerned, with requests that if the money the universities make do go into scholarships, that more scholarships should be available to regional students.

Tony Abbott has done his fair share of annoying people this week, with his comment that the defining moment in Australia’s history is white settlement, saying British settlement made Australia what is today and equated the first Governor, Gov. Arthur Phillip, to George Washington. Abbott is also in trouble for using cancer patients to make it ok for him to go to a private function on taxpayers’ money. He was at a private function in Melbourne on Monday night and visited the cancer research centre on Tuesday morning, meaning he was late to a Cabinet meeting.  The Attorney-General George Brandis has also been annoying people. He went to a meeting with Muslim community leaders, was an hour late, and the community leaders felt their concerns about the terrorism law changes (mainly about the targeting of those in the Muslim community) weren’t really being heard.

Julie Bishop was in Indonesia this week signing the “Joint Understanding Code of Conduct” on the sidelines of something to do with the UN. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono watched on, and now it appears that both Australia and Indonesia are happy.

This week, the World Congress of Families held their event at Catch the Fire Ministries after being cancelled on by every other venue they’d booked. Kevin Andrews pulled out of his appearance, as did a Victorian State Liberal MP. There were protesters outside, and one even got into the hall where the meeting was being held. NSW State MP Fred Nile of the Christian Democrats was there, and was interviewed by an ABC journalist. He implied that the people inside the room were on God’s side and that the protesters outside were on the Devil’s side, then told the ABC and SBS that they had to make a choice about where they stand – despite the fact the ABC is meant to be impartial and have no views.

Finally this week, a memorial might be set up in the grounds of Parliament House for Australians killed in MH17, the Trade Union Royal Commission got interesting when it was revealed that Kathy Jackson from the HSU and the HSU’s barrister at the commission had an affair, Julia Gillard had been summoned to the Royal Commission and Tony Abbott was also at the National Party Council this weekend and said that the Coalition has “saved Australia”.

Tweet of the Week

The World Congress of Families event was on Saturday – and they mentioned NSW State MP for Sydney

A World Congress of Families statement referred to me as a "sexual radical"… Husband got excited #wcf

— Alex Greenwich MP (@AlexGreenwich) August 30, 2014

Things I’ve been Reading/Watching/Listening etc

With Gammy making world headlines, the partner of a surrogate in the US shared her story – The Advocate

Zach Stafford tries to make sense of the white cop shooting black men scenarios – The Guardian