Tag Archives: Scullion

The Week That Was – February 24 to March 2

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With the Federal Election due to be called sometime after the Federal Budget on April 2nd, politicians are getting ready for the battle ahead. The Coalition have announced their climate change reduction policy, which is a re-animation of Tony Abbott’s scheme, which essentially gave out grants for emissions reduction actions like not cutting down trees. This plan had no real impact last time it was implemented, with research showing that Australia’s emissions have continued to climb. On the plus side, the “Snowy Hydro 2.0” – basically an upgrade to the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme to improve its energy generation capacity.

Meanwhile the Labor Party have announced that they will continue with the Turnbull-era National Energy Guarantee (NEG) that they agreed to support before Turnbull was overthrown because of it. Labor is copping criticism for using the NEG, but they’ve been more consistent in their support for any sort of climate reduction policy that might actually work and is also feasible. Labor also announced a plan to support the building of several merchant ships that would be commercially operated, but could be seconded and captained by the military in a national security emergency. The government has framed this as the Labor party bowing to the MUA (the maritime industry union).

This week, two more ministers joined the stream of Liberal Cabinet ministers retiring from politics. Defence Minister Christopher Pyne and Defence Industries Minister Steve Ciobo have joined Nigel Scullion, Kelly O’Dwyer and Michael Keenan in deciding to leave parliament at the next election. Ciobo’s seat of Moncrieff on Queensland’s Gold Coast is safe Liberal (on a margin of around 14%), leaving some to suspect that the LNP may reshuffle their candidates and parachute Peter Dutton into the seat to keep him in politics. Pyne’s electorate of Sturt in South Australia is also safe Liberal (around 10%), and it appears the South Australian Premier’s chief of staff will run for pre-selection in the seat.

Ciobo also left his ministerial position, so Scott Morrison has replaced him as Defence Industries Minister with Senator Linda Reynolds, who is a former Brigadier. It has also been suggested that should the Coalition win the next election she will become the Defence Minister. While Reynolds’ appointment does increase the number of women in cabinet to the highest number ever, there is concern that her appointment was more a political point scoring exercise to get another women in cabinet and break the record for the most number of women in an Australian Cabinet ever. All of this change also gives the perception that these ministers are evacuating a sinking ship. The Labor party is also jumping on this perception, and I’m tempted to agree, if only because I’m inclined to believe that if my spidey senses are anything to go by the Coalition are likely to lose the next election.

Meanwhile, the Liberal Party have had pre-selection challenges for candidates in Kelly O’Dwyer’s electorate of Higgins and Michael Keenan’s electorate of Stirling. Dr Katie Allen has been selected for Higgins, and Vince Connelly has been selected for Stirling.

This week, the ABC announced that they had settled the unfair dismissal case with former Managing Director Michelle Guthrie. Meanwhile, the Government has announced the new Chairperson for the ABC’s Board as Ita Buttrose. The media doyenne, whose father was an executive at the ABC when her career in magazines was taking off, is the second woman to become Chairperson since Dame Leonie Kramer in 1982. Buttrose has said that she wants to stabilise the management at the ABC – they still need an MD – and that if the ABC does need more money, she’s not afraid to ask for it.

Finally this week, Cardinal George Pell was found guilty of historical child sexual abuse offences dating back to 1996 at the end of last year. The trial was not public knowledge because of an injunction placed on the case by the Judge, who felt that media coverage would not allow Pell a fair trial in a second case that was due to go ahead this week – but charges were dropped. He’s had his bail revoked and is now awaiting sentencing, with former Prime Minister John Howard announced as one of ten character witnesses for Pell’s sentencing.

Tweet of the Week

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Those who feel Pell is being hard done by are disrespecting the justice system – SMH

The reaction of Pell’s defenders just displays their power – The Guardian

Both Steggall and Abbott will need to work to woo Warringah’s voters – 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.

The Week That Was – September 18 to September 24

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This week saw Malcolm Turnbull overseas in New York City to take part in the United Nations General Assembly. Turnbull visited the 9/11 Memorial, met with wold leaders to talk about asylum seekers at an invite-only migration summit run by Obama, and also met with US Defence Secretary Ash Carter to talk defence as well as US Congress members to convince them to pass the TPP.

While at the migration summit, Australia committed to an increase of $130 million to refugee programs in Australia, and will permanently increase the refugee intake to just under 19,000 after 2018. We will also take some Central American refugees, a decision which has confounded many. There are also questions as to whether Australia’s pledge was exactly what Obama was wanting.

The government is planning some major welfare reform. They’re thinking of going down the same route as New Zealand, with the aim of reducing the overall lifetime cost of welfare payments to people. There are concerns that some could be left behind, and it’s also a very confusing system to wrap one’s head around.

Meanwhile, parents and teachers are angry over proposed changes to the Gonski funding model. The plan, according to Education Minister Simon Birmingham, is to redo the entire education funding model, and it is believed that there will be cuts to some public education, while there are increases to private schools.

Finally this week, Australia was involved in a botched airstrike on Syrian forces; the government settled with the ship that ran aground on Douglas Shoal a few years ago; Nigel Scullion is meeting with Indigenous groups in order to repair the relationship between the government and the Indigenous community; and the National Gallery of Australia is returning two Indian artefacts that were believed to be stolen.

Tweets of the Week

https://twitter.com/MarkDiStef/status/779466847875760128

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Michael Fletcher on the NZ welfare model – The Conversation

Annabel Crabb on Pauline Hanson – The Age

The Week That Was – September 6 to September 12

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I’m looking at my notes this week and realising just how many times the word “refugee” comes up.

It was a pretty good week for Abbott, even if it ended with a gaffe and a leak that sent cabinet into a hissy fit.

As of this week, the Abbott Government has been in power for two years, and has one more to go until the next election. The government is not in a great place, with polls showing that if there was an election held this week, they would lose their majority. Abbott has been repeating his usual line of “taxes are down, I stopped the boats” when asked about his two years so far and he says that he hopes that when people vote next year they will remember his government’s victories. Problem is, there are bigger issues at the moment, and with the economy down, jobs sparse and no surplus as promised, the bad decisions and the gaffes mean that Abbott and his government are not in a good place right now, and they still may not be in 12 months time when the next election comes around. He also had a 15 minute interview on 7:30 with Leigh Sales, which had the inhabitants of my house arguing, laughing and “oooh”-ing at the TV.

However, this week has been good for Abbott, as he’s been able to announce that Australia will take in 12,000 Syrian refugees in a one-off increase in our refugee intake. Peter Dutton was sent to Geneva at the start of the week to ask what Australia could do, while the Opposition and the Greens call on the government to take in more refugees overall. Before the announcement people were pointing out that Australia has done similar things in 1989 after Tiananmen and in 1999 during the Kosovo crisis, so we should do the same.

However, there has been criticism after several senior ministers, including Eric Abetz and Julie Bishop made clear their focus was on the Christians escaping Syria. Now, it is likely that some of the refugees are from Christian minority groups, and they are likely to be the ones in the most danger from Islamic State, but you can’t just say “oh we’ll just take the Christian ones thanks guys”. The Opposition is criticising the government on its bias as are the Greens. Meanwhile, the government began talking about how taking in these extra refugees was a burden to be shouldered by all, and we were told Australia would also send aid to the countries bordering Syria that host refugee camps.

The Government also said that any Syrian refugees in offshore detention – basically those that arrived by boat – will not be included in this 12,000 strong cohort of refugees they are settling in Australia. This has angered the Greens who feel that not only should these boat arrivals be included, but the government should also put an end to offshore detention all together. Meanwhile Abetz reiterated the focus on letting in Christians – leading to some believing that this was a sort of rebirth of the White Australia Policy – if you don’t know what that is, Google it.

The week ended with Abbott meeting community leaders to plan how Australia would welcome the influx of refugees from Syria…and then the good week Abbott had ended not so well.

Peter Dutton’s joke offended Pacific Island nations’ leaders, didn’t make Bill Shorten laugh, and left Abbott trying to salvage his weekend in Canning where he is helping the Liberal candidate get elected in a by-election, calling the joke “lame” and praising Dutton for his hard work in Immigration.

Meanwhile there was a leak to Sydney’s Daily Telegraph newspaper in which it proclaims that there may be a cabinet reshuffle on the cards. It’s unclear whether the PM’s Office – who is close to the Tele – or someone who wants Abbott out of job is the one who spoke to the reporter, but either way it has sent Cabinet into panic, with rumours that at least eight ministers could be in the firing line, including Nigel Scullion, Eric Abetz and Andrew Robb.

Finally this week, the Commonwealth is celebrating the Queen, after she became the longest-serving monarch, usurping Queen Victoria, Australia will be taking part in airstrikes in Syria, and while they began flying over IS-held territory at the end of the week we don’t know if they launched any strikes or not, and there have been accusations of bias against Judge Street, who out of 254 asylum seeker cases has dismissed all but two before hearing any evidence

Tweet of the Week

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online.

I’ve had uni assessments due this week – so the material is not that erudite.

First Dog on the Moon on the PM’s “Twonyversary” – The Guardian

First Dog on refugees in Europe – The Guardian

Antony Green is made an Adjunct Professor – ABC Backstory