Tag Archives: Parliament House

The Week that Was – September 13 to September 19

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It’s been quite a week in Australian politics.

Sunday saw rumours of a spill the end of the year, with internal chatter and backbenchers and ministers speaking out. There were also fears of a double-digit swing in the Canning by-election. Then Monday happened.

I did a whole evening of coverage on this blog and tumblr, but long story short, Malcolm Turnbull turfed Tony Abbott in a spill 54 votes to 44, in what Annabel Crabb called an “epic frontstabbing”.

#libspill updates: 6:50pm    8:35pm    9:55pm    11:05pm     Next day

In Turnbull’s first day as Prime Minister, he paid tribute to Abbott as PM and did a lot of interviews. He’s expected to announce his new cabinet early next week, and is expected to have more women in it. It’s believed that Joe Hockey will lose the role of Treasurer, but could be given another ministry – maybe Communications. Meanwhile others are trying to keep their jobs, with Kevin Andrew saying he should keep his because changing the Defence Minister would not be good from a security point of view. Turnbull also signed NDIS deals with New South Wales and Victoria, as well as spending the week warning news cameramen not to walk into the furniture at Parliament House as they walk backwards while filming him. It wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine for Turnbull though, with someone leaking to media about some statistics. Apparently Turnbull had a poor record of promoting women to board positions while in the corporate world – the leak is believed to be the work of a disgruntled Abbott supporter.

On an international front, many leaders have welcomed Turnbull to the job, with some countries appearing to be overjoyed at the change in leadership, especially Indonesia. The Jakarta Post is reported to have used the term “good riddance” in reference to Abbott in an editorial. Meanwhile, others have watched on in confusion as we acquired the fifth Prime Minister in as many years.

Labor, on the other hand is not as impressed with the new Prime Minister. It was believed that because the Abbott Government was so hated that Labor would have an easy go at regaining a majority in the House of Reps, and throwing out a first term PM – something that would have given Bill Shorten a pretty good legacy as the saviour from Abbott. With Turnbull, who is one of the most popular people in Australian politics, Shorten and Labor have more work to do, and it makes their job a lot harder.

This week was dominated by the spill, and it meant that a lot of Abbott supporters, especially Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones, Ray Hadley and Rowan Dean, were not happy with the change of leadership. They’ve not only called Turnbull a traitor but also anyone who voted for him. While Scott Morrison has publicly said that he voted for Abbott, there has been speculation that some sort of background deal may have been made. It lead to an exchange on Ray Hadley’s 2GB show in which Hadley demanded that Morrison swear on the Bible that he was telling the truth. Morrison, who is Christian and attends a church affiliated with Hillsong, was understandably offended and upset by the whole thing.

Meanwhile, the Canning by-election was held this weekend and won by the Liberal Party’s Andrew Hastie.

Tweets of the Week

https://twitter.com/leighsales/status/643645563691360256

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

David Marr on the leadership change – The Guardian

Annabel Crabb on the leadership change – ABC The Drum

The BBC’s Australia correspondent reflects on the change – BBC

The Taiwanese Animators made a video about the spill

The Week That Was – September 21 to September 27

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On Sunday, in cities across Australia there were climate change protests as part of international protests in the lead up to a UN Summit on Climate Change in New York. World leaders like Obama attended, but Australia sent Julie Bishop, instead of Tony Abbott.

However, I feel like most of this week has been about terrorism and terror laws and stuff like that, and I case you were wondering, no, the budget has not yet been passed in full. Tony Abbott spoke to parliament about the new terror laws, which make specific nations or regions no go zones, punishable by 10 years in prison (unless you have a good reason to be there, like being a journalist or an aid worker – but you have to prove it), ASIO and the police get more powers and international evidence can be used against you in Australia, as long as it wasn’t obtained through torture. There has been criticism though, from people who think the laws go to far, as well as those who think the laws don’t go far enough.

One of the main stories this week is about an 18-year-old being shot by a Victorian Police officer outside a police station. The young man was asked to come to the station to be interviewed after his passport was cancelled and concerns were raised about him being radicalised. He was met by two officers, one from Victoria Police, the other an AFP officer. The young man allegedly stabbed them before the Victorian officer shot the man, killing him. There were reports suggesting he was looking into the Prime Minister’s movements, which have since been debunked, and it is also believed that he was following the Islamic State fatwa declared at the start of the week, which his family has denied. Either way, he scared the authorities enough that they’ve upped security at Parliament House. Tony Abbott told the country that there were obviously people in Australia who weren’t nice and are essentially out to get us – mind you this is also the Prime Minister who keeps giving people a checklist of things for a terror attack (a knife, an iPhone and a victim, apparently), which has been the source of both amusement and concern in my house.

Unfortunately with these new laws, as well as the aftermath of the terror raids and the young guy being killed, people have started to be quite horrible to the Muslim community. At least four mosques in Sydney have received threatening letters, and people in the community are being threatened, taunted and assaulted. It also doesn’t help that an Australian Defence Force officer reported that he had been assaulted by two men of Middle-Eastern appearance, only to withdraw the claim 24 hours later. Then you have those in politics, namely Cory Bernardi and Jacqui Lambie, who seem to have decided that we should universally discriminate against the Muslim community by banning the burqa, or force Muslim women to remove their burqa in Parliament House – despite the fact I’m under the impression that they’re using burqa as a universal term for all head coverings.

Moving on, the US-led coalition against Islamic State (IS – aka ISIS/ISIL) began strikes on Syria this week, with help from regional partners like Jordan and Saudi Arabia. They’re trying to help Syrian Kurds fight IS. Australia was not part of the airstrikes, but may well join in soon as Cabinet is due to decide in the next few days, now that Abbott’s been at the UN and talked with Obama about it all.

Speaking of Tony Abbott going to the United Nations, he went to talk with world leaders, vote on resolutions to fight back against IS, and talked about how economic growth makes the world a better place – or something like that. He chatted with Iraq’s Prime Minister, as well as meeting with Egypt’s President Sisi to talk about Peter Greste – according to Abbott, Sisi is a “reluctant jailer”. He also checked out the FBI and NYPD offices before heading home.

This week there were two major developments in the realm of asylum seekers. First, in a deal with Clive Palmer, the government has brought back Temporary Protection Visas (TPVs) for 30,000 refugees in detention centres in Australia and on Christmas Island. No one from Manus Island or Nauru will be eligible and the refugees that are will have to move to regional areas, or at least that’s what I took from the announcement. Second, a Memorandum of Understanding has been signed with Cambodia to allow the resettlement of refugees in Cambodia. Australia will give Cambodia $40 million in the next four years, for the voluntary program, with no cap on the number of refugees to be resettled. The money will be used to pay for a resettlement package, paying for housing, language lessons and other start-up costs the refugees will have. Australians are not the only ones upset by this move though. Protesters demonstrated outside the Australian Embassy in Phnom Penh, saying that Cambodia doesn’t have the resources to look after their own people, let alone asylum seekers.

Finally this week, the Royal Commission into Child Abuse looked into the Retta Dixon home in the Northern Territory, Sydney Airport had a security scare thanks to a passenger ambling around distracted by a tablet, Peter Slipper was sentenced to 300 hours community service for his issue of travel vouchers, and a Islamic School in Sydney went into lockdown after a guy with a knife threatened staff at the office.

Tweet of the Week

Things I’ve been Reading/Watching/Listening etc

Student democracy protests continue in Hong Kong – South China Morning Post

Christopher Pyne (the politician not the actor) wins an Ernie Award – Daily Life

Hamish Macdonald on how the West has reacted exactly as ISIS wanted them to – The Guardian

The Week that Was – December 1 to December 7

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I think that having Tony Abbott as Prime Minister is making each week incredibly hectic.

First there was the backflip on Gonski, they said they would, then they said they wouldn’t and now they are again – all in the space of three days. Lovely. The state politicians are happy now – if not still a little irked that they’ve been doing policy gymnastics.

Again, there have been international tensions between Australia and it’s allies this week as well – first there was a raid on the offices of the lawyer representing East Timor. Attorney-General George Brandis ok-ed it on national security grounds. Obviously the lawyer isn’t impressed – he’s representing East Timor in the Hague over a resources deal with Australia a few years back. The Timorese believe that the Australians spied on them so that they could have the upper hand. Either way, I don’t see how raiding the office of a lawyer in an international court case protects national security, but what’s done is done. Julie Bishop got a talking to in China over Australia’s criticism of China’s air defence zone. Before she could even reply the media was bundled out of the room.

The Coalition has also made clear that it doesn’t really like the ABC much. With Senator Cory Bernardi saying they should have their funding cut during a party meeting. Tony Abbott on the other hand was a little more civil when it came to being critical. He said they had poor judgement for running the story on spying on Indonesia as well as name-dropping the Guardian. You can see that here.

Abbott is also annoyed with the senate because they didn’t pass his Carbon Tax repeal. He’s threatening to keep them sitting through Christmas but that doesn’t really work given that the Senate has its own calendar and I don’t think Tony Abbott really wants to spend his Christmas yelling at the Labor party – I’m sure he’d much rather spend time with his family. I could be wrong here, but I think it’s an empty threat.

Also this week, the High Court reserved it’s decision on the ACT Same-sex marriage law, meaning that this week saw some of the first same-sex marriages in Australia – despite the fact that they could be void next week. It seems that some don’t care and have even said they will marry as many times as is necessary. A West Australian State politician, Stephen Dawson, got married in front of Parliament House in Canberra just after midnight on Saturday as did many other couples across the ACT.

So, the ACT is the first Australian state or territory to have same-sex marriage, while also this week, Hawaii became the 15th US State to allow same-sex marriage. That’s 12.5% of Australia allowing same-sex marriage, compared with 30% of the US.

Tweets of the Week

https://twitter.com/JezFernandezABC/status/409448014701273088

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

Anton Enus (who was born in South Africa) on Mandela’s death – SBS Online

Adam Spencer left 702 ABC Sydney this week – 702 ABC Sydney

The ABC Camera guy who cooked after Typhoon Haiyan – Manila Bulletin