Tag Archives: Phelps

The Two Weeks That Were – May 19 to June 1

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Well that was certainly not the result the country expected!

The election result was a bit of a shock, with government being returned with a slightly more solid majority than 2016. There was an epic swing toward the Coalition in Queensland, where it seems Labor’s lack of a concrete position on the Adani mine was their downfall. There has been calls from those south of the Queensland border that have suggested that the Sunshine State should secede, but I think they’re (mostly) joking. Regardless, Morrison appears to have pulled off a massive victory, and this gives him great authority.

Tony Abbott did lose his seat of Warringah this election, much to the joy of many both in the electorate and out of it. This will likely make the government more stable this time around, as both of Morrison’s predecessors, Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull, are no longer in Parliament. However, Kerryn Phelps has lost her seat of Wentworth to Dave Sharma, whom she defeated in last October’s by-election.

The Prime Minister then spent some time forming his new cabinet – which can now be fully his own. In order to keep stability when he took the reins last August, Morrison left most ministers and assistant ministers where they were, but now he can rearrange the ministry however he pleases. Frydenberg, Payne and Dutton were thought to keep their positions, and they have.

The cabinet now has seven women, including Melissa Price, who spent most of her time as Environment Minister in hiding (or so it seemed). Price will no longer be Environment Minister though, as she is moving to the Defence Industry portfolio. This is essentially a demotion to the outer ministry, while Sussan Ley has been reappointed to the inner ministry in the Environment portfolio. We will also see two Senators leave in the next six months, with Arthur Sinodinos heading to Washington DC to become the next Ambassador to the United States, once Joe Hockey’s term ends, and Mitch Fifield will head to New York to become the next Ambassador to the United Nations.

The government has also appointed Ken Wyatt as Minister for Indigenous Australians, the first Indigenous person to be appointed to the role. Many people in the indigenous community are happy to have one of their own responsible for the policies that affect them. However there seems to be confusion regarding how constitutional recognition and the “voice to parliament” that the indigenous community. The Prime Minister has announced a new agency within the Indigenous Affairs portfolio, and while information is sparse, there is concern that its purpose is to trump the plans for the “voice to parliament” – which is touted as an elected advisory body to Parliament, but some conservatives seem to see it as a third house of Parliament, which is not the case.

The government also plans to introduce their promised tax cuts as soon as possible, however they’ve kind of reneged on one of their promises already, which was to try get the legislation through before the start of the new financial year on July 1. This is because there is still at least one seat to be declared, as the seat of Macquarie is now so marginal they’re counting all of the preferences – earlier in the count there were less than 100 votes separating the Labor and Liberal candidates, but as of writing, Labor has pulled ahead by 282 votes.

Speaking of Labor, after their shock loss, Bill Shorten stepped down as leader, but has decided to remain in Parliament as an MP. The leadership race began, with Anthony Albanese (aka Albo) throwing his hat in ring. Tanya Plibersek considered running, as did Jim Chalmers and Chris Bowen, however all three decided not to, and Albanese was nominated unopposed, leading to the least bloody leadership battle the Labor Party has seen in a decade. As Albanese is from NSW and is from the left faction of the party, his deputy must be from another state and from the right faction – Richard Marles and Clare O’Neill both considered running, however O’Neill decided to step aside in the end, leaving Marles as the only contender.

All of this bloodless change was somewhat tainted when factional drama arose over who would be in Shadow Cabinet. Albanese had made clear publicly that he wished to have Senator Kristina Keneally in his cabinet, however it took a bit of drama to get there – and this is going to require a bit of explanation. In the Labor Party, in order to keep things equal and even between the left and right factions each side hands over a list of people to be in Shadow Cabinet and the leader chooses the positions each gets. However, the right faction’s list did not have Kristina Keneally’s name on it, let alone the name of any woman. So Ed Husic decided to give his spot to Keneally, allowing the former NSW Premier to be in the cabinet, and she will now be Deputy Leader in the Senate and will likely get a high ranking ministry.

Finally this week, Papua New Guinea has a new Prime Minister, which may have implications for the resettlement of refugees on Manus Island; and the Adani Coal Mine has passed another hurdle on the path to being approved. The Queensland Government has approved Adani’s conservation and protection plan for the Black Throated Finch.

Tweet of the Fortnight

https://twitter.com/shauncrowe/status/1133627072025260032

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

So, how do we pronounce Albo’s name then? – ABC Online

What challenges does Ken Wyatt face as Indigenous Affairs Minister? – ABC Online

 

As the finish line nears, Bill Shorten appears relatable and ScoMo gets egged (almost).

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The week began with the Labor Party’s campaign launch in Western Sydney, with former Prime Ministers Paul Keating, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard putting aside their dramas to attend, along with a large majority of the Labor team. The party opted to have Penny Wong speak about the problems Labor sees with the current government and Tanya Plibersek spoke on Labor’s virtues and values.

The Opposition reiterated their policies on climate change, wage growth and health, along with several new promises – $200 million for youth mental health, $500 million for hospital emergency department upgrades, and tax credits for companies that hire under-25s and over-55s.

The only spanner in the works on launch day was Paul Keating. He started by surprising the ABC’s Andrew Probyn and Jane Nicholson who were hosting coverage from the launch:

Keating, who is famous for his use of words over the years (see here), then proceeded to call Scott Morrison “a fossil with a baseball cap”, and suggest that government security agencies were going “berko” over China. The latter statement gave the government something to grab onto to use against Labor regarding embracing China too openly – which sort of distracted from Labor policies during the week because people kept asking if the Labor front bench agreed with him.

The Labor Party also had Bill Shorten’s wife Chloe introduce him at the launch, where she talked about how wonderful Bill is as a human being – but a pretty terrible dancer (a reference to his “dad dancing” in Kiribati).  The aim of Chloe’s speech was to improve Shorten’s personal popularity, and that combined with some luck and the ability to capitalise upon in late in the week has shown Shorten to be far more relatable and human than he has been in the past.

Bill Shorten then appeared on Q&A on the ABC on Monday night by himself – Scott Morrison declined to attend, and opted to be interviewed on ABC 7:30 instead – allowing Shorten a further chance to speak about his values and policies. It also allowed him to make a few jokes and show his sense of humour. If you have a spare 70-80 minutes before the election, I recommend you watch the episode either on iView or below:

Whatever media or public speaking training Bill Shorten has had over the last 3-6 years has worked pretty well and it shows. He sounds like a reasonable, sensible human being and he’s explaining a lot of his policies in a very measured manner, treating the voters like intelligent humans. The humour at the Q&A appearance helped Shorten seem more personable and it makes a refreshing change from some of what we have seen with the government recently.

During the program he spoke about his mother and how she hadn’t been able to study law when she finished high school as she’d wanted. Instead she earned a scholarship to study education, and had stuck with it and she was able to provide for Bill and his siblings as children – the gist essentially was that Ann Shorten didn’t get all the opportunities because she was working class and Bill Shorten wants to make all opportunities available to all.

On Wednesday, the Daily Telegraph in Sydney published a story that implied that Bill Shorten had made up things or lied about his mother on the Monday Q&A appearance. As you would imagine, Shorten was very upset and in a press conference defending his mother, he cried in public.

This has served to make Bill Shorten appear even more ‘normal’, for want of a better word, as this show of emotion is something not really ever seen with Shorten in the past.

Scott Morrison also said that the Telegraph’s story was unfair, and there have again been calls to leave the parents, children and other family members of candidates out of the spotlight in campaigns – unless they are there willingly as part of the campaign, like Bill’s wife Chloe.

Scott Morrison and the government kept Sunday pretty low-key because of Labor’s launch but did announce money for e-Safety and anti-cyberbullying programs, as well as promising to increase prison time for those who abuse people online.

The week became a bit interesting for Morrison when he was the victim of an attempted egging while at a Country Women’s Association (CWA) event. A 24-year-old woman tried to egg Morrison’s head, but missed. Morrison’s security arrested the woman, and in the kerfuffle, knocked over an elderly CWA member at the event. Morrison assisted the member to her feet and checked she was alright, while the CWA ladies watched the young woman get taken away by security and police, with some telling her she was a “silly girl”. Morrison was unfazed by the incident, brushing it off by saying that the CWA knows what to do with eggs, and Bill Shorten has condemned the egging and any type of violence during an election campaign.

There was a third debate this week at the National Press Club, and it was an experimental model that the Press Club had never tried before. There was only one moderator – the Press Club’s President Sabra Lane – and the audience was made up of equal numbers of Coalition and Labor supporters, who asked the questions.

After weeks and weeks of nagging Labor has, in their own time, revealed the costings for their policies. Chris Bowen and Jim Chalmers presented the policy costings, which showed how much Labor intends to raise through tax changes and how they intend to spend taxpayer money while still maintaining a surplus over the next few years. Matthias Cormann and Josh Frydenberg were dispatched to rebut the costings, but all they could seem to come up with was “it’s a con job” and “Labor deception”, which does suggest to me that the Coalition is panicking a bit on how to deal with the reasoned and measured approach Labor is taking.

Other than the Keating issue Labor is having a little bit of trouble this week with tax policy as some on the right-wing of politics are suggesting that Labor will bring in a “Death Tax” at the behest of the Greens if they win the election. This is despite the consistent denials of Bill Shorten, Chris Bowen, Anthony Albanese and many other Labor figures. This non-existent policy that the right is trying to scare people with just won’t die (if there is a pun in that, it is totally intended) and it’s another distraction that is beginning to frustrate the Labor party a bit – there are a limited number of ways to say “there will be no death tax” before you start to get annoyed.

Also this week, Kerryn Phelps called in the Australian Federal Police after an email was circulated suggesting Phelps was pulling out of the race because she had been found ineligible to run in the seat under section 44. The email suggests that because she is Jewish, she has the right to Israeli citizenship. There are two key facts that prove this email wrong. First, while being Jewish makes you eligible to be an Israeli citizen, you do have to express a desire to do so and get a special visa (which she hasn’t done), or have parents who were Israeli citizens, the latter of which Phelps doesn’t have as she is a convert. Second, there are several other Jewish candidates and MPs, including Josh Frydenberg, Mark Dreyfus and Phelps’ opponent Dave Sharma, and they haven’t had problems with section 44 in regards to Israeli citizenship.

Finally this week, the Aged Care Royal Commission has been hearing evidence about the treatment of nursing home residents with dementia, and the evidence so far hasnt been pleasant. There are allegations that one patient’s dentures were left in her mouth for weeks, and that a patient was given such a high dose of anti-depressants that they were unresponsive to family when they came to visit on the patient’s birthday.

Before I go, interest rates stayed the same, although the word on the street is that they might be cut in the next few months, making people think the only reason they didn’t cut them this month is because of the election campaign.

Don’t forget to vote on May 18!

Tweets of the Week

https://twitter.com/MrsDzTB/status/1126681842319364096

What do you do when you’re an independent with limited resources – an interpretive dance:

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Vote Compass results on penalty rates and the minimum wage – ABC Online

Could America get a gay president in 2020? – ABC Online

Laura Tingle on the differences between the Labor and Coalition campaigns – ABC Online

13 Things That Happened in the Last Three Weeks (January 20 to February 9)

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I know, I know, I got behind again, and that isn’t great in an election year, but once everything gets back to normal at work, I’ll get back to regular programming…

  1. Australia Day was celebrated on the 26th of January, with various events across the country. The day was also mourned by Indigenous communities, with several “Change The Date” Rallies, attended by Indigenous leaders, political leaders and the general public.
  2. The election is likely to happen in May this year, and so the ‘pre-election revving’ (I call it this because it feels like race cars revving up before a race) has begun. Labor has been making promises on education and health; as well as subsidising swimming lessons for children. Meanwhile the Liberal party is promising to create 1.25 million jobs in five years, and are saying a Labor win at the election will lead to a recession – something a large portion of the electorate has not faced in their working lives – Labor just says it is scaremongering.
  3. The Liberals are also facing the resignations of two more current or former ministers since Kelly O’Dwyer announced she was leaving parliament to spend more time with her family. Michael Keenan will be leaving to also spend more time with family, while Nigel Scullion is retiring – and plans to go fishing a lot more often.
  4. The Liberal Party has had “Captain’s Call” with Scott Morrison parachuting Warren Mundine into the marginal seat of Gilmore on the NSW South Coast. Mundine is a former Labor President (yes, Labor, you did read that right) and he left the party recently after he felt they weren’t going in a direction he liked. He’s now a Liberal Party member. His parachute into the seat has left the originally pre-selected candidate Grant Schultz unimpressed. He’ll now run as an independent. The Nationals will also run a candidate in Gilmore, and a former NSW State Minister Katrina Hodgkinson will run for pre-selection.
  5. Former Olympic Skier and barrister Zali Steggall will run as an independent in Tony Abbott’s seat of Warringah. She’s fiscally conservative, but socially progressive and believes more should be dine for climate change. This is similar to Kerryn Phelps – and it’s believed some of those who worked on Phelps’ campaign are going to help Steggall. Julia Banks will also return to the campaigning at the next election – she won’t be contesting her marginal seat of Chisholm, but Greg Hunt’s seat of Flinders (as an independent)
  6. The My Health Record opt-out deadline was January 31 – so if you didn’t choose to opt out, you will have a record created for you. There were concerns about people’s private information being safe, and there are also concerns about how much information will be put on the records and which medical professionals can access them.
  7. In South Australia, a Royal Commission into the Murray-Darling Basin has reported back, with the Commissioner Bret Walker QC (a NSW jurist) saying that it appeared that the Murray-Darling Basin Authority was either “unwilling” or “incapable” of acting lawfully. He ruled that the water buyback levels were not chosen based on science but on what would make people happy with the Basin Authority. Walker has called for the Basin Plan to be overhauled completely and that water buybacks should take preference over efficiency measures. However it is unclear if any of the recommendations will be accepted or acted on.
  8. The Banking Royal Commission report was released, with Commissioner Kenneth Hayne making 76 recommendations, including banning cold-calling for insurance sales and banning commissions for financial advisers. Hayne also singled out the National Australia Bank (NAB), whose Board Chair Ken Henry, and CEO Andrew Thorburn quit at the end of the week the report was released.
  9. The government is trying to prevent a bill from passing that would allow the medical-evacuation of refugees from detention centres after assessment from two doctors. This would make transfer the decision-making from bureaucrats to medical professionals. This something that Kerryn Phelps, who brought the legislation to parliament, and Labor are supporting. This recently led the government to release classified information from intelligence agencies that suggested this legislation could be risky to National Security.
  10. Three years after the Federal Government took over the management of Norfolk Island, there are calls for a rethink. Most Norfolk Islanders did want more input and assistance from the Australian Government, but were expecting to go into negotiations for some kind of agreement rather than the full-on takeover that took place. There is now an Inquiry by human rights lawyers, including Geoffrey Robertson looking into whether there has been a breach of political and democratic human rights of Norfolk Islanders.
  11. Australia’s Parliament House was the target of a cyber attack recently, with suspicions falling on a foreign government actor, most likely China. It is unclear if anything was stolen during the attack, but the system hacked is used by thousands of politicians and their staff to share who is doing what, as well as dirt files and other sensitive information.
  12. Thailand is under pressure to release refugee Hakeem al-Arabi. He’s been living in Australia for nearly five years after fleeing Bahrain and was arrested on an incorrectly issued Interpol alert. Thailand doesn’t seem to budging, despite appeals from Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne and more recently the two Aussie Thai Cave rescue divers. They haven’t released the letter publicly but it is understood that they don’t expect this to be a quid-pro-quo thing, but rather hoped their voice would be taken into consideration.
  13. New South Wales is gearing up for a State Election on March 23 this year (lucky NSW are getting two elections in three months), and it looks like a tight race with a recent Newspoll result showing that the Coalition and Labor are neck-and-neck. There is a potential for a hung parliament, with One Nation and the Shooters Party agreeing not to run candidates in seats that the other party might be able to win, leading them to hold the balance of power.

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

The difficulty of acting on the Royal Commission’s recommendations – ABC Online

Mark Humphries is not a member of the Liberal Party.

16 Things That took Place in December

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December is a busy time in retail, and so I’ve been very busy. So here’s a look back at December and we’ll get back to regular posting soon.

  1. Labor announced it would maintain the current government’s boat turn-back policy and would continue offshore detention as a deterrent – but would support Kerryn Phelps bill to evacuate asylum seekers to Australia for medical reasons.
  2. The Australian Labor Party held their national conference in Adelaide, which went relatively smoothly – minus some environmental and asylum seeker protesters who tried to interrupt Bill Shorten. All in all, it’s become apparent that the election in 2019 is Labor’s to lose and the party showed unity at their conference.
  3. As house prices fall, there are concerns that the market could collapse. But the whole thing is weird because generally house prices fall when there are high interest rates, but this time that isn’t the case. For some people if the prices continue to drop, buying a home might actually become attainable.
  4. The ACCC has called for data rights legislation, and for search engines to control traffic to news sites. The ACCC says this is so that journalists who break huge news stories get the credit for their hard work by having these search engines push readers to the original story, rather than to another news site that didn’t break the story.
  5. Australia finally had two Joint Strike Fighters arrive, 20 years after ordering them (we’ve got more on the way)
  6. There are legislation changes for casual workers. They can now ask that their role become permanent after 12 months, but while the business council believes this is a good thing, the unions are concerned that this could lead to casual workers being treated badly.
  7. Scott Morrison had his first COAG meeting – which was “co-operative”, “collaborative” and “productive” according to the Prime Minister and State and Territory Leaders.
  8. There is a push to sell regional universities to international students to relieve pressure on the major cities and share the money that streams in from international students more widely. However, there are concerns that if international students are forced to go to regional universities, they will vote with their feet and study elsewhere.
  9. The government will set up an anti-corruption watchdog after a lot of to-and-fro. The Commonwealth Integrity Commission will have two arms – Law enforcement, which will look after the behaviour and integrity of the AFP, Border Force and other regulators. The other arm will look after the integrity of MPs, Judges, Departments and agencies.
  10. Scott Morrison has recognised West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, which has made no-one happy. The Palestinians are annoyed that Australia has recognised Jerusalem whether in full or in part as the capital, while Israel doesn’t like the East-West division of Jerusalem.
  11. The aforementioned announcement of West Jerusalem as the Israeli capital has put a trade deal with Muslim-majority Indonesia in jeopardy.
  12. Australia will get a new Governor-General in 2019, in the form of current NSW Governor David Hurley. Hurley won’t take the role until after the federal election, because Hurley needs to keep an eye on NSW during and after the State Election in March, and almost straight after that is the federal election, so current Governor-General Peter Cosgrove will stay on to deal with that election.
  13. Nationals MP Andrew Broad has resigned as Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister after it was revealed by New Idea magazine that he used ‘sugar baby’ services while on a work trip in Hong Kong. He will also not re-contest his seat of Mallee.
  14. The Andrew Broad issue did distract from the MYEFO update. It’s been announced that Australia will have a $5 Billion deficit for the 2018-19 financial year, and a surplus of $2 billion in the 2019-20 financial year.
  15. The NSW Liberal government has expressed their concern that the Federal Liberal government is out of touch on climate change. Other states believe this too but for the NSW government, who are due to go to the polls in March, it is of great importance to distance themselves from their federal counterparts if they want to save the furniture, let alone remain in government.
  16. Australia has revoked the citizenship of Neil Prakash, an Australian fighter in Syria who was a major part of ISIS and is currently in prison in Turkey. Although there is some concern that the government has botched this. They revokes Prakash’s citizenship under the assumption that he had dual citizenship of Fiji, but it may be that he doesn’t have Fijian citizenship at all, and is now stateless.

The Year That Was – 2018

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Leadership Spills: 2

Back at the end of August there were two spills in the same week, with the right-wing of the Liberal Party attempting to roll Turnbull. They were, the second time around, successful-ish. You see, the party knew that had Peter Dutton won the leadership (which was what the right wanted), the party would have been doomed, so Scott Morrison was the safer, more reasonable option.

Cabinet Reshuffles: 1

Just after the spill in August, the new Prime Minister Scott Morrison had to reshuffle the Cabinet.

Women in Cabinet: 6 (assessed by whether or not the role is bolded in the PMO’s Ministry List here.)

Julie Bishop is no longer in the Ministry, leaving:

  • Marise Payne – now Foreign Minister
  • Kelly O’Dwyer – Minister for Jobs and Industrial Relations and Minister for Women
  • Melissa Price – Environment Minister
  • Bridget McKenzie – Minister for Regional Services, Sport, Local Government and Decentralisation
  • Michaelia Cash – Minister for Small and Family Business, Skills and Vocational Education
  • Karen Andrews – Minister for Industry, Science and Technology

State and Federal Elections: 9 (by-elections included)

  • South Australia – where after 16 years, the Labor party lost to the Liberals.
  • Tasmania – where the incumbent Liberal Premier Will Hodgman maintained a majority. It’s also the first state election where more female than male members were elected – 13 women and 12 men.
  • Victoria – where the incumbent Labor party earned another term with a massive majority.
  • Wentworth – after Malcolm Turnbull was rolled from the Prime Ministership, he left Parliament. The by-election saw independent Kerryn Phelps win the election, with a swing of 19% and leaving the Liberals in minority government.
  • Super Saturday – the five, yes five, by-elections held on one day in July, in order to solve four section 44 issues and replace one Perth MP retiring from politics.

Politician’s Kids getting involved in public debate: 1

Alex Turnbull, Malcolm Turnbull’s son – who lives and works in Singapore – got involved in the Wentworth by-election, telling people not to vote Liberal.

Scandals: 3

  • We learned the reason why Barnaby Joyce’s marriage ended back in 2017…he’d taken up with a staffer of his, and she was expecting a baby.
  • Barnaby Joyce was also accused of inappropriately touching a Nationals member at an event (which would not have been made public if someone wasn’t trying to smear the victim)
  • Andrew Broad, just before Christmas, was discovered to have engaged the services of a “sugar baby” while in Hong Kong on a trip. He will no longer be a Minister and will no longer contest the next election.

The ABC’s Year in Review

 

The Two Week That Were – November 25 to December 8

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The Victorian State Election saw the incumbent Labor government returned to power with a massive margin. Labor won seats they hadn’t held for decades, if ever, and this election results suggests that both the NSW and Federal Liberals have a big fight ahead of them in elections due in early 2019. NSW Liberal Premier Gladys Berejiklian says that the Victorian election was fought on local issues, and therefore the result bears no reflection on NSW, but I don’t think that’s entirely true – yes, a lot of the issues that got Labor over the line in Victoria were local, but the sentiment towards the Liberal party in general isn’t good. They’re seen by many to be homophobic, anti-women and climate denialists – and that is a problem for moderate Liberals who are trying to hold on to their seats.

This fortnight saw the final two sitting weeks of federal parliament, where the main focus was on national security, LGBTQ+ discrimination, and medical treatment for detainees on Manus Island. New Wentworth MP, Kerryn Phelps was sworn into the House of Representatives, and then Chisholm MP Julia Banks announced she was moving to the crossbench and would no longer be a Liberal MP, and would consider running in Chisholm as an independent at the next election.

Phelps introduced legislation during this fortnight that fulfilled her election promise to ensure the medical evacuation of detainees on Manus Island and Nauru when two doctors deem it necessary to do so. The Labor party and the cross-bench are on board, however, the Liberal party seems to be framing this legislation as a way to changing the way people are being processed (spoiler alert: it’s not), and lead the government to run out the clock on Thursday afternoon to avoid the legislation being voted on in the House of Representatives.

The government also moved to delay the vote on the Labor Party’s anti-discrimination legislation in the Senate. The legislation is to stop schools from being able to expel or refuse enrolment to LGBTIQ+ students, which the government referred to a Senate review committee, angering the Opposition. The Liberals then announced their own legislation that did the same thing yet allowed religious schools flexibility in order to reflect their beliefs – which kind of defeats the point of the legislation in the first place.

A parliamentary committee that was reviewing the Uluru Statement – a set of recommendations on constitutional recognition formed by indigenous scholars, politicians and indigenous elders – have recommended that many of the statement’s recommendations be implemented, including an “indigenous voice” to parliament, a truth-telling commission and a national resting place for indigenous remains. Labor has said if it wins the election in 2019, that implementing the recommendations, or at least seeing how they could be implemented, would be a top priority. The Liberal Party is yet to comment.

This fortnight also saw Prime Minister Scott Morrison attend the G20 Summit in Argentina, where he emphasised the need for the G20 member states to trade fairly and openly. Morrison met with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Donald Trump – all of whom I think were slightly confused as to who the new Prime Minister was. Merkel was seen with briefing notes on Morrison, while Trump asked the PM what happened to Malcolm Turnbull. It seems that the G20 was quite successful, with Morrison doing well on the international stage, and the Chinese and Americans agreeing on some trade rules.

The Banking Royal Commission has come to an end with the major banks’ CEOs and Board Chairpeople appearing at the Commission to (somewhat) admit to, and apologise for the banks’ bad behaviour. Commissioner Kenneth Hayne QC thanked the witnesses for their evidence, and especially to the victims of rogue banking practices who had to speak about their financials in public. Hayne’s report is due in February.

The ABC’s board members, as well as former Managing Director Michelle Guthrie and former board chairman Justin Milne, have appeared at a Senate inquiry into the sacking of Ms Guthrie. Guthrie reiterated her allegations of both inappropriate behaviour and political interference on Milne’s part, while Milne continues to deny both allegations. Meanwhile the board members have expressed confusion as to why Guthrie only brought up the interference issue at the last moment in what looks like an eleventh-hour attempt to stave off being sacked.

Also this fortnight , the Australian Border Force has had a $300 million budget blow-out and they have to cut costs, mostly through sacking casual personnel. The concern from the union and Labor is that frontline staff will be sacked, a concern the government says is unfounded. The other fear is that should frontline staff go, many might come from Australia’s airports, delaying holiday travellers as the Christmas period gets underway.

Finally this fortnight, students skipped school during the fortnight to protest the government’s approach to climate change, while the government suggested they should go back t school rather than engaging in politics, which would only lead to the dole queue. There are also concerns that there are major delays in registering religious organisations for the redress scheme with only 20 payouts so far from 2000 applications.

Tweet of the Fortnight

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Parliament House is designed for democracy, and dysfunction – ABC Online

Simon Royal on the career of ex-South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill – ABC Online

The Week That Was – October 21 to October 27

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The by-election result in Wentworth is not yet fully finalised, but it definitely looks as if Kerryn Phelps will be the new Member for Wentworth. The counting of postal and pre-poll votes has narrowed her lead on Liberal Party candidate Dave Sharma, and a couple of polling booth recounts during the week have seen some preference errors fixed up and extended her lead to about 1600 votes. With Phelps now highly likely to become the Wentworth’s MP, she’s begun speaking about what she wants to work on when she reaches parliament. For many people in Wentworth, the issues that this election was fought on were value based, such as getting children out of detention in Nauru, action on climate change and LGBTIQ+ issues – things the government haven’t been focusing on as much recently.

Phelps is acutely aware that she doesn’t have much time to act in parliament – the next federal election is due in the first half of next year – but it’s the Government that will also have a tough time in the next six or so months. With Phelps winning the seat, we now have a hung parliament, which Scott Morrison said would make governing hard. He seems to think that all the cross-benchers will try to destabilise the government. Given most cross-bench MPs – like Rebekha Sharkie, Andrew Wilkie, Adam Bandt and Cathy McGowan – tend to judge each motion or piece legislation on its merits and also discuss things with the government, it is unlikely they will intentionally band together to overthrow the Prime Minister and the government.

This week also saw the National Apology for victims of child sexual abuse from Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten. The apologised for the government’s inaction on child abuse in the early days, as well as for abuse suffered in facilities run by the states, churches and charities. Julia Gillard came to Canberra for the apology, and received lots of cheers and applause, as she was the one that announced the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses into Child Abuse. The government also didn’t hold Question Time on Monday, out of respect for the victims and attendees at the apology in order to show that the day was about them, not about politics.

Meanwhile there are continued calls for the government to remove and resettle all the refugees detained in detention centres on Manus Island and Nauru. Earlier in the week, eleven children (and presumably their families) were removed from Nauru and brought to Australia for urgent medical care. However, many adults and children are still in detention. There are suggestions to resettle some refugees in New Zealand, which has been offered multiple times by our neighbours in the last decade – but the New Zealand government understandably wants more information, especially given Australia still hasn’t decided whether they’re going to let people settled in NZ come to Australia at all, even as tourists. There are also thoughts about sending migrants to regional centres in Australia, which is all well and good but you must have the infrastructure and services to make that work. There were also rallies in Sydney and Melbourne this weekend, calling for detention on Manus Island and Nauru to be ended.

The plan to move the Australian Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was a key issue covered in Senate Estimates this week, with revelations that it was a bit of a captain’s call. Foreign Minister Marise Payne didn’t know about the plan until she was asked to notify Australia’s neighbours, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade wasn’t consulted, and the Chief of the Defence Force, Angus Campbell, found out through the media instead of being notified by the government, which Campbell felt wasn’t ideal.

The government announced this week that superannuation would be modified, such that there would be caps of fees paid, and making the life and income insurance cover optional for those under the age of 25 and in inactive super accounts. While the fee caps are being received pretty well, there are mixed reactions to the potential insurance cover changes – super funds feel that a change would leave thousands of young people without cover, and some people who have ended up needing to use their superannuation’s automatic life insurance or income protection has been very useful.

This week saw the Duke of Sussex attending Invictus Games events on Sunday and then unveil a plaque on Fraser Island on Monday, while the Duchess of Sussex rested. They spend the middle of the week in the Pacific, visiting Fiji and Tonga, before returning to Australia on Friday night to attend the Australian Geographic Society Awards, and attend the Wheelchair Basketball finals and the Invictus Games Closing Ceremony on Saturday. They’re now headed to New Zealand, where they will spend the rest of their trip before heading back to England.

The Government has announced that they will start an investment fund to help drought-proof regional areas for future droughts, while at a summit on farming and the drought, held at Old Parliament House. There won’t be any money for two years though, and the full amount promised wont be fully given our for a decade after that – which is a good long-term plan perhaps, but it relies on the Coalition being returned to government at the 2019 Federal Election, which may not happen. Some farmers though are also suggesting that the government needs to look at programs to help farmers for whom an exit from farming would be the best option rather than helping drought-proof their farms.

Also this week, Fraser Anning has been dumped by the Katter’s Australia Party, after he brought a motion to have a plebiscite on non-European migration, which is something Anning thinks should be stopped. Meanwhile, Malcolm Turnbull has returned to Australia after spending some time in America – while also facing criticism for not helping the Liberal Party during the election campaign.

Finally this week, Scott Morrison announced that returned service members would be able to get discounts on things they buy with the new veterans card coming out early next year. Also, there is a push for more intergenerational care programs, particularly between young children in childcare and the elderly in aged care. Evidence shows that it teaches young children to be comfortable around older people and in turn, it helps the older people feel they have a purpose and a greater feeling of self-worth.

Tweet of the Week

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

VICE Australia’s new “Dolly Doctor” for the social media age – Walkley Magazine

Laura Tingle on how the Liberals are dealing with the Wentworth result – ABC Online

Parties urged to be honest about businesses paying for political access – The Guardian

 

The Week That Was – October 14 to October 20

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This was the final week of campaigning for the Wentworth by-election, which got a bit nasty towards the end (but more on that in a moment). The Liberals kept going on about how if the Liberal candidate Dave Sharma didn’t win the election there would be instability because there would be a hung parliament. Meanwhile, Kerryn Phelps has been talking about keeping parliament stable should she win. Sharma and Phelps are the two frontrunners and between them the polling has been neck and neck. The candidates had an event for the public earlier in the week where they spoke to people from the electorate about issues important to them. Sharma has made clear that he was just as shocked and upset by the rolling of Malcolm Turnbull as most of the electorate was.

However, Malcolm’s son Alex Turnbull has been telling people to vote for anyone but the Liberal Party. Kerryn Phelps became the victim of a vicious email that suggested she was pulling out of the race because she’d been diagnosed with HIV and that people should vote for Sharma. Phelps has forwarded the email to the AEC to be investigated, and Sharma has condemned the email.

Meanwhile the Liberals appeared to get a tad desperate this week, by announcing something that was apparently meant to get some of the Jewish vote for Sharma. Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that he was considering moving the Australian Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv – like Trump did with the American Embassy. According to Morrison, the suggestion came from Sharma himself, but the timing for the idea is a little odd. As Peter van Onselen pointed out on Insiders, most devout and potentially Orthodox Jews in Wentworth who support that policy are also strict observers of the Sabbath on Saturdays, and generally pre-poll vote, meaning they would have already voted without that policy on the table influencing their vote. Furthermore, ASIO documents have been leaked to the media, suggesting that if Australia were to follow the American’s example and move the Embassy to Jerusalem, Australia there would be some serious implications (mostly violent protests according to the documents).

Anyway, election day came and both Sharma and Phelps were unable to vote for themselves because they don’t live in the electorate (Sharma lives on the North Shore of Sydney and Phelps lives near Wentworth, as she was a Sydney City Councillor before running for Federal Parliament, but not exactly in the electorate). Sharma instead spent his day touring the polling booths and at one point was followed by a bunch of anti-coal protesters, while Phelps also toured around talking to people. By 7:20pm on Saturday night, with 9.4% of the vote counted, the ABC’s Election Analyst (or psephologist if you want to get technical) Antony Green called the election for Phelps, with a then swing of 23.6% against the government.

As morning came on Sunday, the gap between Sharma and Phelps was narrowing slightly, as postal votes and pre-poll votes were also counted, and the swing has narrowed to 18.4% as of the last update on the ABC website on Sunday morning – which I think may be the biggest swing ever in a by-election.

And then, Antony Green had to update on Twitter as I hit publish on this post 🙂

This by-election result has topped off a pretty bad week for the government. First, they suggested they might let people leave Nauru and settle in New Zealand – although they want some way to stop these refugees from coming to Australia, even as tourists. This has Labor, the Greens and the New Zealand government concerned, as Labor thinks it’s economically stupid to ban tourists from New Zealand, and New Zealand doesn’t want to have a group of people in their country who would essentially have second-class citizenship.

The government was also humiliated by their Senators somehow “accidentally” voting in favour of a Pauline Hanson motion that said it was “ok to be white” – which has its roots in right-wing white supremacist movements in the USA. The government’s Senators demanded a re-vote in which the summarily condemned the motion. But still, from the perspective of an outsider like me, it looks really bad.

Environment Minister Melissa Price is in hot water this week, after approaching the former President of Kiribati (pronounced Ki-ri-bas), Anote Tong, at a restaurant in Canberra. Pat Dodson, a Labor Party senator, was dining with Tong when Price approached, as were several other including the Director of the Edmund Rice Centre (a climate justice organisation that brought Tong to Australia). They allege and confirm that the Environment Minister said to Tong at the table:

I know why you’re here. It is for the cash. For the Pacific, it is always about the cash. I have my cheque book here. How much do you want?

Price denies that she said anything of the sort, but with Tong, Dodson and several other diners confirming she said something to the effect of the above quote, she’s not very convincing. Labor and the Greens have been appalled by the Environment Minister’s behaviour, saying she is the “worst Environment Minister ever”.

The other thing that’s been big this week (but not necessarily political) has been the royal tour to Sydney by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and his wife Meghan. The tour is mainly focused on the Invictus Games in Sydney, which Harry started to help his fellow servicemen who were returning from military service in the Middle East, but will also visit Fiji and Tonga while down in this part of the world. They flew in on a Qantas flight on Monday morning, and spent the day recovering from their long trip at Admiralty House where they’ll stay while in Sydney. Kensington Palace then announced on Monday night that the Duchess of Sussex is pregnant with the couple’s first child, due in the first half of next year.

Highlight of their trip so far have included Prince Harry spotting Daphne Dunne, a lady in her 90s who has met him multiple times. He chatted to her again, before introducing her to Meghan. The Sussexes went to Dubbo where they met school children (and got a hug from a 5-year-old boy who got to stroke Harry’s beard) before meeting with a drought affected farmer and talking about mental health at a picnic. They also went to Melbourne, where the Duchess of Sussex had a go at some AFL skills, and the couple went to a restaurant where they learned about indigenous ingredients. Another highlight was the Duke of Sussex climbing the Harbour Bridge with Invictus representatives and the Prime Minister Scott Morrison to plant the Invictus Games’ flag atop the Bridge.

Youth mental health network Headspace, will get an extra $51.8 million, to hire more staff and increase online services for those in regional areas in order to reduce wait times for young people reaching out for help.

Concerns have been raised about “alt-right” (those on the extreme right of the political spectrum) and their infiltration into the Liberal and National parties. One group in particular, the Young Nationals, seem to have been joined by some of these alt-right people. There was apparently some sort of plan to change the views of the mainstream parties, which has been somewhat unsuccessful, given the Young Nationals have cottoned onto the issue (potentially through the ABC telling them when they went to ask the party about it) and has asked one Young Nats member to leave, while two others have been suspended and two more have been asked to explain. The federal Nationals President has said that extremism is not welcome in the Nationals Party.

Finally this week, the former Managing Director of the ABC Michelle Guthrie is suing the ABC at the Fair Work Commission, claiming the board had no reason to trigger the termination clause in her contract, and the terror charge against the Sri Lankan student accused of planning a terror plot to kill Malcolm Turnbull because the police have admitted the handwriting in the notebook that has his name on it (and is their only evidence) is not his. Also, the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Glenn Davies, has defended Anglican schools, saying that they never asked to have the ability to expel LGBTIQ+ students in their submission to the Ruddock religious freedom review.

Tweets of the Week

Elections means Antony Green – made even better by the fact that parts of Wentworth are on Green’s morning cycling route.

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Jessica Martin on the fall of women’s magazines – ABC Online

Tony Walker on moving the Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem – ABC Online

The Week That Was – September 16 to September 23

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The Liberal Party is still dealing with allegations of bullying and sexism against women, with Gilmore MP Ann Sudmalis announcing she will not contest her seat at the next election. She’s citing bullying from NSW State MP Gareth Ward and branch stacking in her electorate. This, combined with Julia Bank’s decision not to re-contest her seat, Lucy Gichuhi being placed in an unwinnable spot on the Senate ballot paper in South Australia, Jane Prentice loosing her pre-selection battle earlier this year, and the suspicion that Julie Bishop may not re-contest her seat of Curtin, has the Liberal’s pool of women dropping from its already low numbers. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced internal processes to investigate some of these allegations, however there is little information on these internal machinations and women in the party, especially Kelly O’Dwyer, are calling for these investigations to be independent.

Meanwhile there a continuing calls for there to be quotas in the Liberal Party, which most of the men in the Liberal Party don’t think necessary; and Centre Alliance MP Rebekha Sharkie has said that she will withdraw support for the government if they don’t sort out the women’s issue by the Wentworth by-election.

Speaking of the seat of Wentworth, the Liberals have a serious challenger in Independent Dr Kerryn Phelps. Phelps, a Sydney City Councillor, GP and marriage equality campaigner, says that if she wins, she would guarantee supply in order to keep stability. It’s thought Phelps could have a decent chance at the seat, despite Wentworth being held by the Liberals at 17%. This is because a lot of that margin is attributed to Malcolm Turnbull’s personal popularity, and many in the seat of Wentworth are unhappy about how Turnbull was treated. This combined with the fact that the Liberals didn’t choose a female candidate, and Kerryn Phelps is a “local”, could result in a large swing against the Liberal Party. To give context on the whole “local” thing, while there is no law that says you have to live in the electorate you’re representing, in Sydney if you’re not from the area in which you’re running (at least somewhat) you’re not considered to be a “local”. So Dave Sharma, who lives on the North Shore, on the other side of Sydney Harbour to Wentworth, isn’t considered to be a “local”. He is apparently thinking of moving to the electorate, but I have a suspicion that he’d want to wait to see if he’ll actually get the seat.

It got a bit weird though this week, when Scott Morrison didn’t show up for a press conference with Dave Sharma, instead opting to visit a school and talk about school funding. It appears Morrison’s people didn’t tell Sharma he wouldn’t be coming, so Sharma was left standing around, only to have the lectern gate-crashed by Kerryn Phelps, announcing that she would preference the Liberal Party over the Labor Party – doing a backflip on her announcement the day before that she would be putting the Liberals last and Labor ahead of them.

It has been revealed that two media moguls got involved in the Liberal instability during the week of the spill that saw Morrison become Prime Minister. Kerry Stokes, the head of SevenWest Media and Rupert Murdoch, the head of NewsCorp, have been named as getting involved. According to multiple retellings (mostly from Malcolm Turnbull since he headed off to NYC), Turnbull contacted Stokes to ask him whether NewsCorp was actually out to get him, so Stokes obliged and spoke with Murdoch, who confirmed that he had told NewsCorp to editorialise against Malcolm Turnbull and push for Peter Dutton. Funnily enough, much like most of the country and the Liberal Party, Stokes didn’t think Dutton as PM was such a good idea, so instructed editorials be written in favour of Scott Morrison and Julie Bishop. One should take this story with a grain of salt given that it’s been retold quite a few times and has come from a quite bitter Malcolm Turnbull.

The government has announced that they will prevent a number of people with outstanding welfare debts from travelling out of the country. These people have either been accidentally overpaid or they are deliberately defrauding the government, and are yet to pay back their debts despite repeated attempts to get them to pay the money back. The concern is however, that this could end up the same way at that debt collection debacle (which happened nearly two years ago, and I wrote about it earlier here), and there are also concerns about whether these travel bans will only ever be used as a last resort.

The Prime Minister has announced that there will be a Royal Commission into Aged Care. This is partially due to a two-part Four Corners investigation into the industry, and preempted the broadcast of the show by 24 hours. There are no costings or terms of reference yet, but the announcement has garnered support from the opposition, who says that there needs to be better pay for aged care workers and more doctors and nurses. There are calls for there to be nationally legislated minimum staff to patient ratios at aged care homes, like there are at childcare centres, which the industry says isn’t necessary.

The Banking Royal Commission is looking into home insurance this week, with Youi admitting it failed to provide “awesome service” (their words) to two clients. In one case, it took 18 months for Youi to arrange for the repair of a roof damaged after a freak hailstorm in Broken Hill, and in another, Youi is yet to organise the repairs on a home damaged by Cyclone Debbie. Meanwhile, Suncorp has admitted to showing “insufficient compassion” to a long-term customer, and AAMI (owned by Suncorp) have admitted to misleading advertising and failing to cover the complete cost of he repairs of a bushfire ravaged home.

Also this week, there were concerns over the conflicts of interest of Margie McKenzie, a board member of the Marine Park Authority. McKenzie’s husband Col, almost completely owns the Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators, and is a board member of the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre. Both of these organisations received money from the Marine Park Authority, which was funded to a company called Gempearl, which is contracted to eradicate the crown-of-thorns starfish in the Barrier Reef. Gempearl is owned by both McKenzies, meaning that there is a massive conflict of interest on Margie’s part. She has said that she abstained from voting on those issues, however with a change in legislation, she may soon be ineligible to sit on the Marine Park Authority’s board. However, this will no longer be a concern, as McKenzie resigned over the weekend, following the story’s broadcast.

Finally this week, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is going to visit Darwin in November for trade meetings. It’s been revealed that Infrastructure Australia refused to give NSW money for their light rail project, as they felt it would have little benefit and would worsen congestion in the Sydney CBD; and the government has increased the maximum penalty for food tampering from 10 years to 15 years, in order to bring the full force of the law upon whoever is putting needles in fruits (Queensland Health says strawberries are safe to buy, just keep cutting them in half). Also, Catholic and Independent schools have earned themselves a $4 billion payment over ten years to transition to the Gonski funding program, closing one battlefront and potentially opening another in the form of public schools.

Tweet of the Week

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

WA Parliament still has a ban on breastfeeding in the chamber – ABC Online

How leaders work hard at being “normal” – ABC Online