It’s been four weeks since the budget and we’re still talking about it – albeit a little bit less than in previous weeks.
But still, there are reports that the Liberals allegedly conned the Country Liberals, Nationals and anyone in the Coalition who represents a rural seat into accepting the changes to the fuel excise. It appears that they may have hinted that they would change the diesel rebate – something that helps miners and farmers pay for diesel fuel for their operations – and not the fuel excise. That scared the Nationals and other rural MPs in the coalition, because they might lose the next election and there could have been tractors on parliament house lawn and war with the miners. So the nationals supported the fuel excise and are now defending themselves, saying it was legitimately on the table. Treasury have said that they only did the maths for the fuel excise and never the diesel rebate, though. In public they’ve been friendly, but reports are that behind closed doors people are annoyed.
There is also concern from Universities Australia – the organisation that represents Australian universities – about whether or not the fee changes will lead to higher costs. Christopher Pyne says prices will be forced down because it will be competitive, while others believe that it will lead to prices at more “prestigious” universities rising. There is also conflicting information about who is paying what back when – but the legislation has to get through the senate first, and the Labor and Greens have said they will oppose it. Clive Palmer says his party won’t let anything through that doesn’t make sense to them, and that they want more staff to help them understand things.
Speaking of money, it was announced that two new navy ships will not be built in Australia, but in Spain and Korea. The government has said that the boats are too large to be built in Australia and it would seem it’s also very expensive too. The shipbuilding industry is understandably annoyed, as apparently there is a gap coming up where there will be more builders than ships to be built and these two ships would have covered that gap. Apparently some frigates will be built here soon – so we shouldn’t worry – but given the government has said that they want Australian-built ships, but not at any cost, I fear what will happen in the future when it becomes even more expensive.
This week has been full of the drama between Malcolm Turnbull and conservative commentators. Andrew Bolt has accused Turnbull of planning to overthrow Tony Abbott. Bolt cites Turnbull’s dinner last week with Clive Palmer, as well as attending an event hosted by Friends of the ABC. Wow, the Communications Minister went to an event related to the government-funded broadcaster, he’s totally planning to overthrow the Prime Minister. Turnbull said that “it borders on the demented” and even said it was “unhinged”.
It continued later in the week, when Turnbull was on 2GB radio with Alan Jones – who questioned him about his motives and if he was after the leadership. From what I’ve heard of the interview, Turnbull remained quite calm. Turnbull was also on 7:30 this week – the full interview is here.
This week, Tony Abbott is off to Indonesia, France, The USA and Canada. He’s met with Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Indonesia for the first time since the spying allegations, and Julie Bishop appeared to give Yudhoyono a demotion, calling him “Prime Minister SBY” – when she should have said “President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono” or “President Yudhoyono”. The PM’s flight was delayed because the plane they were originally going to use was broken, so they had to get a different one. The relationship does appear to be on the mend, so that is good. Abbott then went to Paris, where he met the Queen at the British Embassy, and talked with French business leaders before heading to Normandy for D-Day commemorations, where six Australian veterans became Chevaliers of the Légion d’Honneur – France’s highest honour.
Clive Palmer is in trouble this week for being rude to a senior Abbott staffer, Peta Credlin. Palmer said that the reason Abbott was bringing in a Paid Parental Leave Scheme was so that Ms Credlin could have her baby. But he’s also fighting with the QLD state government. He’s suing QLD Premier Campbell Newman for defamation, after Newman said he was buying governments. It’s now come to light that the Deputy Premier had referred Palmer to the CMC (QLD’s ICAC – but with no power) over allegations that Palmer asked for special treatment after the 2012 QLD Election that saw the LNP come to power.
Finally this week, Victoria’s in the middle of a constitutional crisis, the USA changed its emissions aims…now making them more active in the battle against climate change than us, and it turns out the Prime Minister gave a character reference to a priest who is accused of paedophilia – they met in the same seminary when Abbott was thinking of joining the priesthood. Oh, and the government might have lied to the World Heritage people about Tasmanian forests.
Tweet of the Week
Barnaby Joyce’s disconcerting photo out a plane window – I think his phone might have been upside-down.
Things I’ve been Reading/Watching/Listening etc
Introducing American cable viewers to Tony Abbott…
An introduction to OTPs: The flirtation between ABC2 and SBS2 – as chronicled by Buzzfeed.
Peppa Pig’s uncertain future on the ABC made one girl worried about her little sister – Canberra Times
Kara L 