The Week That Was – November 22 to November 28

The week began with Anti-Islam and Anti-racism protests in most capital cities and while there was some fighting between the groups, most people were well behaved and the police kept each group as far away from each other as possible.

Meanwhile, Malcolm Turnbull completed his first World Tour with a trip to Malaysia for the ASEAN East Asia Conference. Turnbull met with the Malaysian PM, discussing the battle against Islamic State as well as trying to encourage China to play nice in the South China Sea. Upon his return to Australia, Turnbull was in Parliament, where the government and the opposition made speeches of condolence to the people of Paris as well as talking about keeping Australia safe.

Turnbull has also been questioned by the media over the wording in some of his speeches as well as whether or not he has a grip on the more conservative faction of his party. Furthermore, there has been calls from Labor that Mal Brough should either stand down or be sacked from his ministry due to a police investigation into Brough’s role in the Peter Slipper scandal back in 2011-2012. Then, at the end of the week, he flew to Malta for the CHOGM meetings, where he met Queen Elizabeth and apparently made her chuckle when he spoke of Prince Charles’ visit to Australia a few weeks back, and then he will travel to Paris for the Climate Conference.

Climate Change was a big thing this week in the lead up to the Paris conference, with concerns that Turnbull is heading to France with Tony Abbott’s old, and somewhat sub-par climate plan. Labor has come out with an alternative, suggesting a 45% reduction by 2030 and a carbon neutral economy by 2050. This is based off the exact same model that the Liberals are using for their climate plan too, so it should be interesting to see the reaction.

Domestic Violence came to the fore this week for Wednesday’s White Ribbon day, with Malcolm Turnbull telling the country that there must be change and it will have to be lead by men, while surveys are showing that young men are more likely to blame others for their problems and play down their aggressive behaviour, while young women are more likely to blame themselves as well as justify the aggressive behaviour of their partners.

The government has changed the terrorism warning system indicators from High, Low, Moderate etc, to a simpler system suggesting the likeliness of an attack.

The new terror attack warning system. (from: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-26/national-terrorism-threat-advisory-system-graphic./6976880)

 Under this simpler system the current warning is the second-lowest “probable”, so we’re pretty safe for now.

There are still national security concerns over foreign investment in Australia, with the US Ambassador meeting Australian officials to get more information on the Darwin Port deal, angry that they were not consulted. However, Defence Minister Marise Payne says that she was abroad with Julie Bishop when the decision was made and that as soon as it was, someone was dispatched to the Pentagon to tell US officials.

Finally this week, the coalition against Islamic State have completed more airstrikes on ISIS strongholds; the government wants the states to increase their trading hours to increase choice and the help the economy and Hillsong’s Brian Houston has been found to have had a conflict on interest over his father’s abuse of a young child at the Royal Commission into Child Abuse.

Also, if you live in the electorate of North Sydney, don’t forget you have a by-election on December 5!

Tweet of the Week

https://twitter.com/nthsydneyvotes/status/669365995148972032

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

First Dog on Bill Shorten’s dismal poll numbers – The Guardian

First Dog on White Ribbon Day – The Guardian

SBS2 The Feed’s retrospective for 2015

 

The Week That Was – July 26 to August 1

The ALP Conference finished last Sunday, with an agreement for a conscience vote on marriage equality for the next two parliamentary terms, a promise to introduce a marriage equality bill within the first 100 days of government if they win the next election, and an agreement to make climate change policy one of the key issues at the next election. Commentators believe Shorten has come out of the conference alright, but needs to prove himself as an alternative PM to non-ALP members. Meanwhile, Tony Abbott has been scaremongering on the proposed ETS that the ALP is taking to the next election, saying it is a big scary tax, only for Malcolm Turnbull to point out that the RET is technically a tax too.

Bronwyn Bishop is still under fire, originally for not apologising and going to Sophie Mirabella’s wedding on the taxpayer purse, then apologising because the PM’s office told her to, and then for a $6000 charter flight to seniors’ events and fundraisers two weeks after the $5000 chopper flight that started it all. There also appears to be some sort of link between the Ms Bishop and the charter company she’s been using, but it is not clear what that link is. Meanwhile Labor has announce that it will only support the government in condolence motions in Parliament, Meanwhile Christopher Pyne and Abbott are still supporting the Speaker, while Malcolm Turnbull has been tweeting about the trains he’s been taking and joking about justifying the $4 train ticket.

EDIT 5PM August 2 – Bronwyn Bishop has resigned.

After the Labor Party agreed to have a quota of 50% women in parliament in the next couple of years, which has sparked discussion about why women don’t go into politics, with some suggesting that Question Time has something to do with it. Senior Liberals are not in favour of targets despite the fact that the general belief is that the Liberal Party has problems with women.

The Royal Commission into Child Abuse looked into Jehovah’s Witnesses, where it was revealed that church elders investigated abuse claims internally, and never reported any cases to the police. Members of the church also admitted to destroying notes.

Finally this week, the guy who came back from Syria last week has been charged with terrorism offences, paperwork acquired by the ABC through Freedom of Information shows the ATO was worried about people rorting the small business tax breaks, they may have found a section of the MH370 washed up on the French overseas department of Réunion, and Russia vetoed a UN Security Council Resolution to have a tribunal look into the downing of MH17, which made Julie Bishop angry.

Tweet of the Week

.@InsidersABC host @barriecassidy reckons Bronwyn Bishop yesterday looked like an old lady who'd had her handbag stolen.@BreakfastNews

— Michael Rowland (@mjrowland68) July 30, 2015

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Barrie Cassidy on the Bishop and Goodes Sagas – ABC The Drum

Stan Grant on racism and being Indigenous – The Guardian

SBS2’s The Feed – Douche of the Week

The Week That Was – March 2 to March 8

This week began with the Australian missionary arrested in North Korea being released after he apologised, although it was mainly because of his age. Also, both Tony Abbott and the government are warning Russia not to invade Crimea in Ukraine, so he does have some diplomacy skills. It also happens to be the 6-month mark for the Coalition government.

Qantas’ issues continue to divide the politicians, with debate over whether or not the government should get rid of the Qantas Sale Act, with one suggestion being that the international operations of Qantas remain Australian-owned, while having the domestic operations foreign-owned. Apparently there is no “Plan B” so to speak, despite rumours that Warren Truss had come up with an idea to have the government keep majority ownership of the airline, but increase the maximum number of shares a foreign shareholder can have. It may have been on the news, but apparently it was never an idea…oh well.

The other issue that arose early this week was the airline’s communications, with a message from Qantas on Monday saying the carbon tax had nothing to do with their problems. But on Wednesday, all of a sudden, the carbon tax was a factor – the Opposition were suspicious, and rightfully so. Labor also expressed concern that the virtually clean safety record of Qantas could be compromised, which then brings out the clip from Rain Man.

This week the Grattan Institute called for a change to health pricing, particularly surgery prices. They found huge differences in prices between hospitals, with one charging less than $10,000 for a specific surgery and another hospital doing the same surgery charging almost $25,000. Apparently it has something to do with the services given to you pre- and post-operation, so in some ways it adds up.

Still with health, it appears that Medicare is being defrauded by a few nasty people – apparently the vast majority of Australians are not rorting or misusing the system. But it is an easy system to defraud because people’s information is available at so many service providers.

The government is still trying to convince workers that they will be ok under the new government, but may have had a setback when the draft terms of reference for the Productivity Review Commission were leaked. They want the commission to see if penalty rates could be removed…I thought Work Choices was dead, buried and cremated.

Tweet of the Week

The internet turns 25 next week. Look at all we've achieved. http://t.co/PVX1fagYZF—
Modern Toss (@ModernToss) March 08, 2014

Faux Pas of the Week

Mattias Cormann, the Finance Minister, said that the issue of more women in cabinet was a “side issue” – it may not have caused so much fuss, if he hadn’t said it on International Women’s Day…Ooops.

What I’ve Been Reading/Watching/Listening etc

SBS2’s The Feed had fun spoofing 12 Years a Slave in the hope that the ABC might apologise for spelling their presenter’s name wrong, a là Solomon Northup and the New York Times.