Tag Archives: Wentworth

The Week That Was – October 21 to October 27

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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 – October 7 to October 13

Posted on by

This week saw the leaking of the report from the religious freedom inquiry run by Philip Ruddock, which suggested that all religious schools have the right to refuse the enrolment of or expel a student because of their sexuality, if it was against the schools doctrinal teaching. This sent people into an uproar about adults discriminating against children, and an argument over whether or not it was already illegal – and it actually depends on the state in which the school is. In Queensland and Tasmania it is illegal for religious schools to expel or refuse enrolment to LGBTIQ+ students, while in WA, SA, Victoria and the Northern Territory, the legislation is not clear, while in NSW and the ACT, it is legal.

This became something that caused problems for the government this week. There is a week until the Wentworth by-election, which was quickly dealt with by Scott Morrison, who promised to legislate to make it illegal nationally to expel or refuse enrolment to LGBTIQ+ students, and Labor has agreed to support the legislation.

Meanwhile taxes have been another niggly problem in which the opposition has been in agreement with the government. It did take a bit longer than the schools issue, Labor did agree to the government’s decision to fast-track the tax relief to small and medium businesses. They want to drop the tax rate from 27.5% to 25% – originally by 2025-ish, but the government seem to have decided that saying they’ll be doing it faster might be to their benefit electorally (both at the Wentworth by-election and in the next 6-9 months). initially sometime between 2018 and 2020 the tax rate for small to medium business will drop to 26% and then in 2020-2021 it will drop to 25%.

The Wentworth by-election has headed into its final week, with Malcolm Turnbull’s son Alex telling the voters of Wentworth not to vote for the Liberal Party, which is irritating Scott Morrison a bit, but that is the least of his problems, as polling shows Kerryn Phelps and Dave Sharma are neck and neck in the polls. Phelps has promised stability if she wins the seat, saying she’ll support supply (the money needed to run the country) – her winning the seat would deprive the government of their one-seat majority and turn them into a minority government – while Labor is way back in the polls. Labor isn’t necessarily giving up just yet, but they are telling the people of Wentworth to use their votes on October 20th to send a message to the government.

The Labor Party appeared to have some sort of launch event at the start of the week. I say some sort, because the election hasn’t actually been called yet. It’s thought that Labor decided to start campaigning a little bit after Malcolm Turnbull was rolled, separate from the Wentworth by-election. Bill Shorten has promised to be a Prime Minister “ambitious” for Australia’s future and its future generations. He has a five point plan – which could be dangerous, if you remember back to the 2013 Election when a Liberal Party candidate struggled to remember the “Six-Point Plan to Stop the Boats” – the highlights of which include school and healthcare investment, easing the cost of living and embracing clean energy. However, there is the small issue, where the Labor Party does have a chance of winning the next election, but Bill Shorten isn’t necessarily popular as a person. We shall have to wait and see.

There are plans to place conditions on some migrants moving to Australia, requiring them to move to regional centres as opposed to cities in order to address both overpopulation in the cities and labor shortages in regional areas. The only concern with this is some migrants are highly skilled and the kinds of jobs they would be doing are usually only in major cities. Without the jobs and infrastructure being available, this plan may not play out the way the government wants. Meanwhile, there is also a plan to require those on welfare in regional areas to work seasonal fruit picking jobs, or lose their payments (if they are capable of working). There are also concerns with this plan, such as the fact that a lot of people who want or need jobs in these regional areas want more permanent work rather than seasonal jobs.

The week also saw protests at the Opera House, over the use of the sails to project the barrier draw of the Everest Horse Race as demanded by Alan Jones. The sails have been used to show projections for the Vivid Light Festival, Remembrance Day and other events of public interest (like a national sports team winning). However, the sails have never been used to promote an event like The Everest before, nor has a prominent media entity pushed so hard for the advertising of something that they have a vested interest in.  It led to members of the Chaser satire group to project Alan Jones’ phone number on the Opera House sails on Monday, and the public (with some professional help) shining lights onto the sails during the draw.

Doctors and psychologists working for Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) were asked to leave Nauru last week, leaving the under-equipped local health authorities to deal with a large number of local patients and refugee patients with major physical and mental health issues. MSF staff held a press conference in Australia after leaving Nauru in which they told the media about the plight of refugees on Nauru, with some children suffering from Traumatic Withdrawal Syndrome, which is characterised by a semi-comatose state and incontinence, among other symptoms.

It was announced this week that the Royal Commission into Aged Care would be based in South Australia, and that the commissioners would be WA Supreme Court Judge Joseph McGrath and former Medicare CEO Lynelle Briggs. They’ve been given until 2020 to submit their final report with an interim report expected by 2019.

There are also calls for a program known as “Senior Smiles” to be implemented nationwide in aged care homes, in which a certified dental hygienist is employed within the care home to tend to the dental needs of the residents. University of Newcastle research has shown this to be beneficial to the residents’ health. There’s thought that perhaps the Aged Care Royal Commission can recommend a dental program to implemented as part of their report.

Finally this week, the IPCC has released a report that calls for coal use to be phased out by 2050, if not beforehand, in order to prevent a catastrophic 2ºC rise in global temperatures. The aim is to keep the rise in global temperatures to 1.5ºC, as the effects of a rise in temperature of that level will not be as catastrophic as those if the rise in temperature of 2ºC. However, the government doesn’t seem to perturbed, with Environment Minister Melissa Price suggesting 2050 is a long time away and by then there will be technology that will make coal use cleaner, while Price’s shadow minister Mark Butler has accused the Liberals of “blocking their ears and ignoring the signs”.

Tweet of the Week

 

 

The Two Weeks That Were – September 23 to October 6

Posted on by

The school funding changes that the government wants to make to Gonski 2.0 may be derailed by some of the states and territories. The NSW and Queensland Education Ministers have said they don’t think the additional $4.5 billion earmarked for Catholic and Independent schools is fair. They want funding to be based on need such that the money goes to the schools with the most need, especially those in low socio-economic areas.

The earlier half of the fortnight saw an epic week of drama at the ABC. the Managing Director of the ABC, Michelle Guthrie was sacked from her role. While not much information was given by the board, other than Guthrie’s “leadership style” not fitting the direction in which the board wanted to take the Corporation, it appeared that some ABC staff, particularly those working in news and current affairs, were quite pleased to see her go,. It seems many felt that her lack of experience in public broadcasting, and focus on “platforms”was inappropriate, and staff morale was reportedly very low. There were also allegations that Guthrie had, when asked to what she would like to see on a future Four Corners program during a production meeting, she suggested positive puff piece profiles on business leaders, and stories about “happy” children detained on Nauru.

However, things kept on going. Someone then leaked documents from a board meeting held the week before, during which Guthrie had shown the board members emails from the Chairman of the ABC Board, Justin Milne, telling her to sack economics reporter Emma Alberici, whose story had angered the government (it also had some errors in it, but the story was revised and then republished). Guthrie also recounted a phone call from Milne in which she alleges he told her to ‘shoot’ ABC political editor Andrew Probyn, because the government didn’t like him.

Milne, as it turns out, is one of Malcolm Turnbull’s former business associates, and they are still quite good friends, which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing if it weren’t for the fact Milne’s actions look a bit like political interference. Even if it wasn’t, the perception thereof is damaging enough, and led to ABC staff across the country holding snap union meetings, during which they agreed to demand Milne’s resignation, which did end up happening towards the end of the week. Meanwhile, Communications Minister Mitch Fifield announced a departmental inquiry into the board’s knowledge of Milne’s actions, and Labor and the Greens have announced they will move to create a Senate inquiry into the situation as well.

The Wentworth by-election seems to have gotten a bit dirty recently with allegations of dirty tricks against the Liberal candidate Dave Sharma and his supporters. This is because posters belonging to Independent Kerryn Phelps, Labor candidate Tim Murray and Hinch Justice Party candidate Ben Forsyth, among other candidates were removed or turned away from view and replaced by posters of Sharma. These posters can cost quite a bit of money and volunteers spend hours sticking them up, so understandably, people aren’t too happy about this. Wentworth has also had a bit of a shock with former Liberal Party MP for the seat (and former Opposition Leader) John Hewson, telling the people of Wentworth to vote for anyone other than the Liberal Party, because of their stance (or lack of) on climate policy, which has made Labor’ Tim Murray and Independent candidate Kerryn Phelps very, very pleased.

The interim report from the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry has been released, and while it doesn’t have any explicit recommendations, many are implied. Commissioner Hayne was withering in his criticism of ASIC, which didn’t punish badly behaved banks appropriately. Hayne will deliver his final report in February 2019, but the Opposition wants Hayne to have more time. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said that he is not opposed to this and would gladly let Hayne have more time if he asked for it.

There is a push for there to be a review into the Family Law system, as cases continue to back up and be delayed. There is a concern that if the Law Reform Commission cannot find solutions to the issues, then we may need to have a Royal Commission. There are also concerns over the government’s plan to merge the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court in order to maximise efficiency. Those in the legal system aren’t on board, saying people are more concerned about the quality of the justice delivered, rather than the speed at which it is done so.

Labor has announced a $1.75 billion dollar childcare package that will be delivered should they win the next election. They say they will pay for it by winding back the tax breaks the current government has implemented, and the plan would see recognised preschool program funding extend to include the education of three-year-old children. This would increase the current number of three-year-olds in preschool, and bring us into line with other OECD nations.

Also during this fortnight, Malcolm Turnbull called Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd “miserable ghosts” for hanging around in parliament after they lost the Prime Ministership. The GST on sanitary products will be removed, making many women very happy, eighteen years after the GST was introduced.

Finally this fortnight, Labor announced that when they’re in government they’ll require companies with more than 1,000 employees to declare the differences in pay between men and women in an effort to reduce the gender pay gap. Scott Morrison has announce that there could be a new day for the recognition of indigenous people (but it’s literally a thought bubble, there is no other information as yet).

Tweet of the Fortnight

Former 7:30 Report presenter Kerry O’Brien on the ABC.

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Why Michelle Guthrie went (written before the Milne allegations came to light) – Meanjin

Mark Dapin on the ABC’s Acting Managing Director David Anderson – SMH

ABC presenter Jeremy Fernandez reads texts about a DJ set played on Triple J – Triple J

First Dog on the Moon on the banking royal commission – The Guardian

The Week That Was – September 16 to September 23

Posted on by

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

The Two Weeks That Were – September 2 to September 15

Posted on by

Politics returned to relative normalcy over the last fortnight, following a change in Prime Minister, however the Au Pair Affair and another of Peter Dutton’s problems remain. Dutton is still under fire over the thing with the au pairs, after he intervened in the cases of an Italian au pair stopped at Brisbane Airport, and a French au pair stopped in Adelaide Airport. Dutton was asked months ago during question time if he had a personal connection to either of these cases, which he denied was the case. However, the Italian au pair was destined to work for one of Dutton’s former police colleagues, and the French au pair was due to work with the McLachlan family – and AFL boss Gillon McLachlan , who knew Dutton from when he was Sports Minister, alerted Dutton to the situation.

The Senate Inquiry into the au pair affair has seen former Border Force boss Roman Quaedvlieg give evidence against Dutton, saying he intervened in these cases, in one case alleging that Dutton’s chief of staff Craig McLachlan (no relation to the McLachlan family mentioned above) asked Quaedvlieg directly what needed to be done to allow the Italian au pair into Australia. Meanwhile, Dutton is rebuking Quaedvlieg’s account of events, saying they’re untrue because at the time, his Chief of Staff was someone else. Dutton’s accused Roman Quaedvlieg of being a crazed, mentally ill liar and suggested he’s “Labor’s Godwin Grech” – a reference to a former treasury official who went to the liberal party in 2008 or 2009 with false evidence of then-Treasurer Wayne Swan and then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd abusing the OzCar scheme, which ended up backfiring on then-Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull.

It got to a point where Dutton, under parliamentary privilege, said that Quaedvlieg had been sacked for “grooming” a woman thirty years younger than him. Now, first thing is, the woman at the centre of the Quaedvlieg issues was 18, so while a tad creepy with the whole age gap thing, the relationship is totally legal. “Grooming”, which is essentially the act of making it easier to sexually abuse a child, is a crime. In NSW (because that’s where I live), under section 66EB of the Crimes Act 1900, it’s punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Quaedvlieg’s situation is different as the woman in question was at the time an adult, so Dutton’s trying to do some epic damage. Unfortunately for Quaedvlieg, parliamentary privilege is protected speech and so he cannot sue for defamation.

Add to this the further scrutiny of Dutton’s eligibility to even be in Parliament. Dutton and his wife have a trust, mostly controlled by his wife, that owns two childcare centres. It appears that with the recent changes to the way childcare is funded by the government means that the trust directly benefits from the commonwealth, which it didn’t do before. Sources told The Saturday Paper that when the childcare policy came up in Cabinet meetings, while he did make clear his conflict of interest, he didn’t offer to leave the meeting, something many Cabinet members felt he should have done.

Meanwhile Malcolm Turnbull is texting people from New York, telling them Dutton needs to be referred to the High Court.

While Dutton faces his many issues, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been making deals with the Catholic school system over the “Gonski 2.0” needs-based funding model. In return for going along with the funding program, the government will also give the Catholic school system a transition payment of $4 billion over ten years, which has left Labor unimpressed. He also dragged the parliamentary Liberal Party to a meeting in Albury – the birthplace of the modern Liberal Party – where he attempted to invoke Menzies. The speech also had elements of Christian evangelist preaching – unsurprising given Morrison is the member of a Pentecostal Church.

Morrison also had his first Parliamentary sitting week as PM. It went pretty well, with the exception of his and the party’s inability to explain why the Prime Minister had changed in the first place, and a social media gaffe with this video (Video from the Guardian because Morrison deleted the original from twitter)

The music is Be Faithful by Fatman Scoop – and while this section of the song that Morrison (or more likely a staffer) used is clean, other parts of the song contain sexual references and explicit language (see below).

https://twitter.com/workmanalice/status/1040187121397649408

The only other thing causing the Prime Minister problems is the fact that bullying accusations have continued for the last two weeks. Liberal Senator Lucy Gichuhi is being encouraged to name and shame under parliamentary privilege, and Kelly O’Dwyer has admitted that there was bullying during the week of the spill. It got a bit weird though, because Scott Morrison was being interviewed on 7:30 by Leigh Sales, and he said that Senator Gichuhi had said that in the context of the week of the spill Gichuhi had not been bullied which is in contradiction to her tweet earlier that day:

https://twitter.com/senatorlucy/status/1039317298543177728

So now the residents of my home wonder if the contradiction is the Liberals bullying Senator Gichuhi into silence or if Morrison is using tricky language to say that during the week of the spill Gichuhi was not bullied but she has been bullied generally in her career (as per her tweet) – if that made any sense at all. Julie Bishop has also spoken about the culture in the Liberal Party, and within politics itself, saying much of the behaviour would not be acceptable in any other workplace.

The Wentworth by-election has been set for the 20th of October, with the Liberals party trying to find a candidate that will hold on to the seat for them. Wentworth is currently held on a margin of about 17%, but a lot of that is Malcolm Turnbull’s personal vote, because people like him – Wentworth is one of the most progressive electorates and that combined with the anger at the treatment of Turnbull could see the seat leave Liberal Party hands. Christine Forster, Sydney City Councillor, marriage equality advocate and Tony Abbott’s sister, did not contest the pre-selection battle. However nine others did, until Malcom Turnbull-backed Andrew Bragg stepped out of the race, saying a woman needed to be selected as the candidate. That did not happen, as Dave Sharma, former Ambassador to Israel, was voted as the candidate after a seven hour meeting that ended in the early hours of Friday morning. Sky News reporter Kieran Gilbert was sent a copy of the results by one of the candidates:

There are also concerns about the potential date for the next Federal Election, as there are several factors to take into account. First, the Victorian State election is slated for November 24, 2018, and the NSW State Election is happening on March 23, 2019. Then the government needs to find five clear weeks, preferably without public holidays right in the middle of them, and avoiding school holidays. This means that the last possible date of May 18, 2019 is a bit awkward because the Easter weekend falls on April 19-21, which would be in the middle of a campaign. February and January election dates are not ideal because people tend to take most of their holidays then while their kids aren’t at school. A date in April before easter will result in doubled up campaigning for NSW, which they’d like to avoid as well. I don’t envy the person who has to sit down and figure out the date that works for everyone.

Also this week, the Banking Royal Commission looked at insurance companies and some of their tactics. Freedom Insurance admitted to cold call practices that resulted in a 26-year-old with Downs Syndrome buying life insurance and funeral cover he did not need. His father then fought with the company to cancel the policies, which revealed Freedom Insurance’s practice of not taking no for an answer, with 85% of cancellation requests being unsuccessful. Meanwhile Clearview Insurance has admitted to breaking the law over 300,000 times; CommInsure admitted to using outdated medical definitions; and insurer TAL admitted to having a private investigator trail a customer who was trying to claim for mental health issues which exacerbated the customer’s condition.

Finally this fortnight, the pension age will not rise above 67 for the foreseeable future after the Prime Minister announced the backflip on the Abbott-era policy to increase it to 70; childcare workers across the country went on strike for better pay; there are growing concerns over the health and wellbeing of some young children incarcerated on Nauru – with some apparently close to death; and the GDP rose 0.9% in the June quarter.

Tweets of the Fortnight

https://twitter.com/workmanalice/status/1040352699424755712

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Labor’s Muppet Show doorstop – ABC Online

Simon Smart writes about Scott Morrison being a Christian – ABC Online 

An anonymous White House staffer on working against Trump – New York Times

The Revolving Door of Leadership Rotates Again… (August 19 to August 25)

Posted on by

We had another leadership spill, and that’s literally what took up the entire week.

After Turnbull removed the emissions target from the National Energy Guarantee, and the addition of more carrots and sticks to encourage the energy companies to keep prices down, it became apparent that Turnbull was desperately trying to appease the right of the party, and it really wasn’t working.

So much so, the questions on his leadership started on Monday and they didn’t stop.

Malcolm Turnbull walked into the weekly party room meeting on Tuesday morning and sprung a leadership spill on the Liberals, winning 48 votes to 35 against Peter Dutton. That’s not entirely good for Turnbull, given it was only a margin of seven votes. It led many experts to suggest Turnbull could be gone within weeks, if not days.

Then the resignations began, with Peter Dutton, James McGrath, Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, Michael Sukkar, Angus Taylor, Steve Ciobo, Greg Hunt starting things off. Turnbull refused all offers to resign, except for Dutton and Fierravanti-Wells, before James McGrath insisted Turnbull accept his resignation too.

It then gets throughly confusing, to the point where even I am unsure as to what happened. Essentially, so many ministers resigned, that I don’t think Australia really had a proper cabinet government for at least 24 hours. This, combined with the right-wing of the party circulating a petition to get another party room meeting for a leadership vote gave the impression that the Liberal Party was tearing itself apart.

However, Turnbull played hard ball – and quite rightly too – as he made several caveats on his allowing a meeting. First, Dutton had to prove that he was eligible under section 44(v), as there are suggestions that two childcare centres owned by the Dutton family trust might be benefitting from the government. Second, Turnbull wanted to see the petition with 43 signatures (a majority of the party room) before he called a party meeting; and third, there would be a spill motion and if that passed then Turnbull would step down as PM, and potentially from parliament altogether.

By Friday morning, the 43 signatures were found. Once the party’s Chief Whip Nola Marino checked that all the people whose signatures were on the petition had signed it, the party met at 12:20pm and carried the spill motion. And from that vote, Malcolm Turnbull ceased being our Prime Minister.

There was then a vote for leader, between Julie Bishop, Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton. Bishop was knocked out of the first round, and Scott Morrison won the vote against Peter Dutton 45 votes to 40. We now have a new Prime Minister in Scott Morrison, and a new Liberal Party deputy leader, Josh Frydenberg.

Morrison and Frydenberg now have an epic challenge facing them. First they must unite and heal a bruised and divided party, which some think may not happen and the party may be irreparably split. They also now have to contend with an angry, frustrated public who just watched another government spend a week focusing on their own infighting rather than running the country, as they did in 2010, 2013 and 2015. To their credit, Frydenberg and Morrison weren’t directly involved in the infighting, and this will be of benefit to them while dealing with the public backlash to this sixth change of Prime Minister in eleven years.

It also appears that Turnbull and his allies outmanoeuvred Petter Dutton and the conservative wing of the Liberal Party. There was also the fatal mistake from the Dutton camp in assuming that the 43 signatures put down to have the party meeting were also an indication of support for Dutton himself, and it’s believed that many in the Liberal Party couldn’t stomach the possibility of Prime Minister Dutton.

On Saturday, Morrison spent his day getting briefed on all the important things he needs to know, as well as fielding phone calls from the likes on Donald Trump. Meanwhile, the rest of the country started wondering when Turnbull would leave parliament, and who might replace him in his electorate of Wentworth.

Christine Forster, Liberal Councillor for the City of Sydney Council, and same-sex marriage advocate (who is also Tony Abbott’s sister) is considering a tilt at the seat, as are Katherine O’Reagan a former Deputy Mayor and the former Ambassador to Israel Dave Sharma. However, this by-election must happen soon, as no-one wants to force the people of Wentworth to vote three times in six months. Already, the state of NSW is due for an election in March 2019 and the next Federal Election is due mid-way through 2019.

Hopefully, we’ll be back to some semblance of normalcy next week, but we will have to see – and with Julie Bishop no longer Foreign Minister and may leave Parliament at the next election.

Tweet of the Week

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Annabel Crabb on the Liberals ridding themselves of Turnbull – ABC Online

Stan Grant on the Liberal Party’s “civil war” – ABC Online

Philip Williams on Julie Bishop and her future – ABC Online

The Tonightly’s take on the politicians infighting… (Be warned – coarse language)