Tag Archives: PM’s Office

The Week That Was – October 5 to October 11

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The week began with Tony Abbott at the NRL Grand Final – where he got booed.

Australia has begun airstrikes in Iraq, which has also led to the question of how to pay for the ‘mission’ (the government still isn’t using the word ‘war’). The Defence Minister believes the mission won’t last too long, but it will take time, in the belief that if they under-promise, it will look like they’ve kept it. However, they still need to pay for it, and it looks like they might have to raise taxes – well it did, until Tony Abbott ruled it out. They could also cut foreign aid, but apparently Julie Bishop has been telling cabinet there is no way she is cutting the foreign aid budget further. The opposition has suggested that Tony Abbott’s Paid Parental Leave Scheme should be scrapped to save money, while Joe Hockey has suggested that if Labor supports the mission to Iraq, then they should also support the Coalition’s Budget measures.

Staying with the Budget, it is getting closer to the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) due in December/January and the Coalition still hasn’t got many of their big ticket items through Parliament, which is important as they play into other budget cuts and spending. There are 16 sitting days left for the House of Representatives and 12 days left for the Senate, which doesn’t give the government long to get things through an unpredictable Senate, as Clive Palmer changes his mind at will. Also, the six month waiting period for welfare could be dropped after the government backflipped on the 40 job applications requirement in order to receive the dole. The PM says it isn’t a backflip, but a ‘response’ to consultation with businesses and community.

The Council Of Australian Governments (COAG) is meeting this weekend, with higher security than normal because of the increased terror alert. It was a “constructive and productive” meeting (the Premiers’ words not mine). They’ve agreed to look into changing the way federal money gets given to the states, and they will also be setting up a federal agency to help guide families through the surrogacy process, but just advice.

Which leads us to the latest surrogacy scandal, this time in India. An Australian couple, whose surrogate gave birth to twins, abandoned one of the babies in India, with accusations of money changing hands. There are concerns that senior Australian government officials tried to speed up the process, and now the PM’s Office, the Attorney-General’s Office and DFAT are looking into the allegations. The reason so many people go to Asia for surrogacy is because surrogacy is illegal in Australia. Bill Shorten is of the opinion that there should be one national law to regulate surrogacy, but Tony Abbott says there will be no changes to the legislation.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority is in trouble after losing people to redundancies and resignations. Morale is down in the agency apparently, especially after the decision to dump coal in the reef. Both stakeholders and the agency itself are concerned about the reef’s health.

A nurse from Cairns has been in hospital being tested for Ebola after going to hospital with a fever. The nurse, who travelled with the International Red Cross, has spent a month in Sierra Leone helping with the outbreak. She returned and quarantined herself in her apartment, only leaving to go to the hospital when she developed a fever. The local MP, Bob Katter, asked why she was in the community, and has demanded mandatory quarantine for anyone returning from the Ebola zone. As of Saturday the nurse is improving, and her tests thus far have been negative. Australia is sending financial aid to help fight Ebola, but won’t send actual medical staff until they have an evacuation plan in place. Meanwhile, an isolation pod to put potential Ebola victims in has arrived in Brisbane for use on the East Coast.

Finally this week, Brisbane practiced for G20 transporting a “delegate” around the city with all of the security staff (probably also practicing for a Chaser-like prank), the government will begin to flag “hate groups”, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics is having problem with job numbers, which is being blamed on budget cuts.

Tweet of the Week

https://twitter.com/xinwenxiaojie/status/520383886748966912

Things I’ve been Reading/Watching/Listening etc

Annabel Crabb and Leigh Sales talk cakes, politics and Annabel’s book – The Saturday Paper

Emma Alberici vs. Wassim Doureihi on Lateline – ABC Online

Where in the World is Kim Jong-Un?

The D-Day Stuff Up of 2014

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I first found out about this on Twitter…

and since then, it’s gotten awkward. The New Matilda has a summary of the story, and the PDF of the original speech is here.

Please tell me how a speech about following War Veterans to France for D-Day commemorations links into blatant political messaging about how getting rid of the Carbon Tax and telling the rest of the world that “Australia is open for business” is going to make anyone want to trade or do more business in Australia than they already do.

Somehow, I don’t think Tony Abbott is going to make any headway going around Europe and the Americas, telling people that “Australia is open for business” and that:

We welcome investment and we are making investment more attractive by scrapping the carbon tax and the
mining tax, cutting 50,000 pages of red tape and ending the “analysis paralysis” on major projects.

The “analysis paralysis”? What has this got to do with D-Day Veterans attending the 70th anniversary commemorations in Normandy to remember the beginning of the end of a deadly war?

This has been stirring up social media, and I can understand why – it was meant to be about the Veterans, not a chance to slip in a political message that at the moment is completely irrelevant. It shouldn’t have happened at all.

The video is still on YouTube (as at 10:55pm AEST on June 1)