VOTERS REMAIN UNIMPRESSED
While the prime minister may have been pleased with so much of the government’s legislation being passed in chaotic fashion last week, it would appear voters are yet to be impressed.
Guardian Australia states its latest Essential poll shows “voters have given the Albanese government an F on containing housing costs and surprisingly little credit for increasing wages”.
Anthony Albanese and his cabinet have been keen to state amid the flurry of bills being rammed through Parliament in the final sitting week of the year that more still needs to be done to address the cost of living crisis. The PM insists Parliament will be back in February to work on more of the government’s agenda ahead of the federal election.
The Essential poll suggests Labor may well need that time, with 53% of voters polled rating the government’s performance as “poor” on “increasing the amount of affordable housing”, including 30% who said it had been “very poor”. Those polled also said the government was doing a poor job “increasing wages and workers’ rights”.
The poll also echoed reporting of the last few weeks — namely the widespread support for the government’s ban on children under 16 accessing most social media — despite the continuing question marks over how it will be implemented. Guardian Australia said the ban was most popular among over-55s, with 76% in approval. Of those aged 18 to 34, 55% approved.
In other polling, The Age flags a survey by research company Resolve Strategic found “most Australians think university fees should be cheaper and student loans should be lower”. The paper said the polling found 54% of voters think it’s a good idea for the government to cut debts by 20% for the millions of Australians with student loans. It reminds readers Labor has said if it’s reelected it will cut student debt and raise the loan repayment threshold to $67,000.
One of the policies the government failed to get over the line last week was its planned electoral reforms and changes to political donations. Guardian Australia also reports this morning that Climate 200 witnessed a surge in first-time donors last month “off the back of a donation-matching campaign comparing the Coalition and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to the politics of Donald Trump”.
The site reports Climate 200 claims to have raised $377,000 from 3,900 donations with Meta’s ad library reportedly showing it was driven by a pledge to double donations given in the days after Trump’s victory in the US election in November, “with adverts linking the Coalition to Trump on issues including access to abortion and questioning its commitment to net zero emissions by 2050”. The report flags Dutton has said previously there will be no change to the opposition’s policy regarding abortion despite the issue being raised by some within the Coalition.
Another piece of legislation that was shut down last week (by the prime minister), despite Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek closing in on a deal with Greens’ Sarah Hanson-Young, was the plan to set up a federal agency to protect the environment. The Sydney Morning Herald flags Albanese “absolutely” denied a feud with Plibersek during an appearance on ABC News Radio yesterday.
The paper reports the environment minister will try to revive the Nature Positive Bill in February, despite the Greens now saying they will demand new clauses to the legislation. It also says senior figures in the Labor caucus believe the prime minister had been “dismissive” of Plibersek and should have kept her involved in the decision to end the negotiations with the Greens.
SCAM TEXTS
In the government’s continuing focus on tech, new rules are set to be introduced which will require telcos to block scam messages. The AAP reports a “mandatory SMS sender ID register will be set up requiring telecommunications companies to check whether messages sent under a brand name correspond with that legitimate brand”.
The newswire says the mandatory industry standard, which will be enforced by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, will block the text message or include a warning if the sender ID doesn’t correspond with an ID on the register.
Guardian Australia quotes Communications Minister Michelle Rowland as saying: “The SMS Sender ID Register is an important tool to protect hard-working Australians from increasingly sophisticated and organised scammers.
“We’ve all received scam messages on our phones purporting to be from reputable sources — and it’s costing Australians millions of dollars every year. This mandatory register will enable these messages to be blocked or flagged as a scam — better protecting consumers from being cheated.”
AAP says around $10 million has been set aside over four years to launch and maintain the register. The Albanese government is aiming to have it open for registration from late 2025.
The government is also this week seeking to “placate business concerns about the potential exclusion of construction workers from an overhauled skilled visa system”, the AFR reports.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has told the paper that housing construction trades would be added to the “core” list within the three-tier skilled migration system in an attempt to ease the housing crisis. “The government is determined to tackle the skills shortage, especially in the construction sector. This is an important step to attract qualified workers to help build more homes,” he said.
Elsewhere, the AFR reports “former prime minister Paul Keating is in line for a payday of at least $40 million after the prepaid mobile phone business he co-founded with entrepreneur Peter Adderton was sold to sector giant Telstra”. The telecommunications company will acquire Boost Mobile for just under $140 million in cash, it adds.
Finally, Guardian Australia flags a father has written to the music streaming company Spotify to complain about gambling adverts allegedly being played while his children listened to Disney tunes. The unnamed father contacted ACT Senator David Pocock who said it highlighted the need for a ban on gambling ads.
The government has come under pressure to introduce a blanket ban on gambling ads and was criticised for not announcing any measures in the final sitting weeks in response to the bipartisan parliamentary inquiry chaired by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy which in June 2023 called for such a ban.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
A man who found a smooth Mars bar has received a mighty £2 (A$4) in compensation.
The BBC reports Harry Seager bought the Mars bar from a service station in Oxfordshire, England, on his way to a classic car show.
Upon realising it did not have the bar’s signature ripple, Seager posted a picture of it online “for a laugh”. His picture attracted over 11,000 reactions on the Dull Men’s Club Facebook group, the BBC added.
Last month a spokesperson for Mars Wrigley UK said the bar had “slipped” through its production line.
“The only reason I emailed [Mars] was because I was interested in what might have caused it to happen. That is all I wanted to know and they kept sidelining that question,” Seager said.
“I think £2 is great, it will be two free Mars bars. Maybe they could have sent me more but I’m not being ungrateful. I think it’s amazing after everything that’s happened that I got the £2 voucher.”
Say What?
In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.
Joe Biden
The outgoing US president released a statement regarding his controversial decision to issue an official pardon for his son Hunter, who was set to be sentenced in December on federal felony gun and tax convictions.
CRIKEY RECAP
To be fair, Fletcher floating a grand conspiracy theory is the most interesting thing he’s ever said. But his claims illustrate, quite perfectly, exactly why community independents like Boele are such a threat to business-as-usual political hacks like him. Far from being a product of a shadowy cabal of “left-wing political operatives”, community independents are the organic, authentic expression of the will of voters in traditional Liberal seats. Of course they look like Liberals — these are affluent, educated people who look askance at Labor and the Greens, who want a genuine Liberal Party representing them, and find only a husk of a party run by right-wingers and climate deniers, facilitated by pointless “moderates” whose job is to endlessly roll over to the ultras from Queensland and the Nationals.
If Fletcher seriously thinks he’s up against a sinister elite plot by leftists, he’s in even more trouble than he knows. His electorate is turning against the idea of politics he embodies so perfectly. A management consultant, political staffer and Optus executive, Fletcher rose without a trace to replace Brendan Nelson as Bradfield MP in 2009, thinking it was a safe seat to convey his political ambitions.
Now he finds, alarmingly, his own voters want someone who represents them, not himself, and he’s outraged. Boele has a tough ask, but removing this symbol of everything that’s wrong with modern politics would be a positive change, regardless of what happens in the other 150 lower house seats.
Voting to expel Malcolm Turnbull from the party has become somewhat of a tradition for NSW Liberals. This week they’re at it again, with conservatives in the Sutherland Shire planning to use a federal electoral conference meeting in Hughes to take a stand against the former prime minister.
The motion to expel, which Crikey understands will be brought by hard-right elements within the Shire branch, complains “little has come out of [Turnbull’s] mouth that has been positive to the party and its future” since he lost his prime ministership.
“In fact his comments have quite often been divisive with the intention to ‘white ant’ the future of the party and serve no purpose other than to try and make himself relevant again,” the motion reads.
It seems there is general agreement that Parliament’s final week — during which Labor rushed through 32 bills — was “a shambles”. Yet from an administrative perspective, the government can argue it managed to finalise a significant amount of legislation. But does the public really understand the arcane processes of policy-setting, legislation and its final translation into practical outcomes?
Our two-party structure clings to the belief that “business as usual” politics will communicate messages to the electorate. Grandstanding in question time and fine-tuning media “sound bites” remain popular for leaders and senior parliamentarians who consider it a job well done if they receive good coverage on the nightly TV news.
But the Australian electorate has changed. Who is watching free-to-air early evening news bulletins? Who is reading detailed accounts of parliamentary debate in newspapers — or even online? Millennials and generation X will have more influence than baby boomers in next year’s federal election. More thoughtful parliamentarians know it is essential to pitch in new ways to younger voters.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Landmark climate change case opens at the top UN court as island nations fear rising seas (Associated Press)
Global plastic talks collapse as oil states rebel (BBC)
Every time you use ChatGPT, half a litre of water goes to waste (The Sydney Morning Herald) ($)
French government faces collapse as left and far-right submit no-confidence motions (Reuters)
Best movies of 2024 (The New York Times) ($)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Angry workers, empty shelves put Woolworths in a bind — Elizabeth Knight (The Sydney Morning Herald): Woolworths, however, needs the millions of dollars it has invested into warehouse productivity to deliver a dividend. So it is difficult to see how Woolworths will accept UWU’s demand to scrap any form of measurement on the warehouse floor.
The supermarket operator controls one of the largest supply chains in the world and is required to build resilience into its distribution centres to accommodate for disruptions caused by anything from floods to railway track damage.
But for customers, the friction between workers and Woolworths isn’t their concern. They just want the shelves stocked with their favourite pasta and toilet paper.
In pardoning his son, Biden echoes some of Trump’s complaints — Peter Baker (The New York Times): Except that it will not stop here. Even some supporters of Biden said his decision opened the door for Trump to further warp the system by pointing to his predecessor’s own words and actions. Former Representative Joe Walsh, a leading anti-Trump Republican from Illinois who endorsed Biden for president, said the pardon was “deflating.”
“This just furthers the cynicism that people have about politics,” he said on MSNBC, “and that cynicism strengthens Trump because Trump can just say: ‘I’m not a unique threat. Everybody does this. If I do something for my kid, my son-in-law, look, Joe Biden does the same thing.’ I get it, but this was a selfish move by Biden which politically only strengthens Trump.”
