What we learned today, Tuesday 30 November
That’s where we’re going to wrap things up today. Thanks for sticking with us. Here’s a recap of the day’s big stories:
- A long-awaited review of parliamentary workplace culture has recommended better leadership, a crackdown on boozing, a better gender balance, and codes of conduct. The Jenkins review found more than half the people working in commonwealth parliamentary workplaces have experienced at least one incident of bullying, sexual harassment or actual or attempted sexual assault.
- The review was sparked by the alleged rape of the former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins, who responded to the review today, saying: “I want to thank the many brave people who shared their stories which contributed to this review. I hope all sides of politics not only commit to but implement these recommendations in full”.
- Members of federal parliament didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory this afternoon, though, with “dog noises” and “growling” heard in the Senate and opposition leader Anthony Albanese telling Peter Dutton to “sit down, boofhead” in the House of Representatives. Speaker Andrew Wallace warned the parliament “the Australian public does not want to see this place descend into a political coliseum” and cited the Jenkins report’s focus on respect. The senator accused of barking, David Van, later offered an apology for his interjection, but he said he hadn’t been making an animal noise.
- National cabinet met this afternoon to discuss the response to the Omicron variant. NSW and Victoria announced 14-day quarantine requirements for arrivals from selected African countries and NSW increased fines for noncompliance, just hours after Scott Morrison urged premiers to “not get spooked” by the new variant.
- We still don’t know about the level of vaccine effectiveness with regards to Omicron. All six people who have been confirmed so far to have the variant in Australia are fully vaccinated returned travellers.
- Victoria’s controversial pandemic laws are set to pass parliament after the crossbench MP Rod Barton agreed to support the legislation, securing amendments to give parliament power to disallow pandemic orders. Debate was scheduled to begin at 3pm this afternoon and expected to run late into the night.
- Westpac has admitted it broke the law and agreed to pay penalties totalling $113m after the Australian Securities and Investments Commission hit the bank with six lawsuits over shoddy treatment of customers that included charging dead people fees and lambasted the bank for a “poor compliance culture” that needs urgent improvement.
- Human remains have been found in the search for missing Victorian campers Carol Clay and Russell Hill. The remains have not been formally identified yet but they were found in the bushland near Dargo that’s been the subject of an intensive search over the last few days.
Amy Remeikis will be back with you tomorrow morning. Enjoy your Tuesday night!
- This post was amended on 1 December 2021 to correct a reference to the NSW and Victorian 14-day quarantine requirements, which apply only to certain African countries, not all international arrivals.
Updated
The royal commission into defence and veteran suicide has been running again today, and heard that young defence force recruits trained to become fearless warriors are sometimes left tortured by the experience. AAP again:
Psychiatrist and PTSD specialist Andrew Khoo on Tuesday told the commission that military training aimed to make people “totally emotionally disconnected” so they could survive combat.
“But having done that, they were absolutely terrible at taking that warrior ... and making them a human again,” Khoo said.
Under questioning from counsel assisting the commission, Kevin Connor SC, Khoo said the “breaking down process” was a critical part of the training for young recruits who were routinely deprived of sleep and water, overexercised and demoralised.
The psychiatrist said at least one in four veterans would later suffer PTSD, and every one of the 2,000 veterans he had treated suffered from anxiety, the legacy of having shut down their emotions to survive.
“There is a culture in the military that you can’t show weakness ... you can’t talk about the terrible anxiety ... What they do is shut it all down,” Khoo said.
Mental health treatment for veterans, especially those with PTSD, remained patchy and inconsistent, due to a lack of specialist training among GPs, psychologists and psychiatrists, the commission was told.
Updated
The Liberal senator who was accused of making animal noises during question time, David Van, has apologised for his interjection but says he wasn’t growling or making dog noises. From AAP:
Labor senator Penny Wong sought to have the remarks withdrawn at the time but no senator claimed responsibility for the noise.
Van later came back to the chamber and owned up but rejected the characterisation of his interjection, inferring he did not make any growling or dog noises.
“I reflected on my behaviour in question time and I acknowledge that interjections are always disorderly,” he said. “I also acknowledge I was making interjections when senator Lambie was asking a question during question time. I commit to holding myself to the highest standards in the future.”
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said it was not appropriate for the noises to be made while a female member was on her feet, especially on the same day a damning review into the culture at Parliament House was released.
“If we are going to change culture from the top, that means all of us,” Hanson-Young told the Senate.
Updated
The question on everyone’s lips for the last 24 hours – or at least everyone with an eye on social media politics – answered by the excellent Matilda Boseley.
A former Australian human rights commissioner has called for a widespread audit of the use of automated software in debt collection after a scathing report found the New South Wales government had for years unlawfully taken money from financially vulnerable people.
Labelled “Robodebt 2.0” by the state opposition, the NSW Ombudsman report revealed the state’s debt recovery agency unlawfully used automated technology to issue garnishee orders over the accounts of thousands of people during a three-year period from 2016.
The report, tabled in the NSW parliament, found some vulnerable people’s bank accounts had been “emptied” by the scheme, which used automated technology to issue the orders to recoup unpaid fines.
Read the full story here:
The former prime minister Tony Abbott is heading on another trade trip to India, to “advance the significant Australia-India economic and trade relationship under the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership”, according to a press release from the office of the trade minister, Dan Tehan:
Mr Abbott will travel to India to meet valued stakeholders across business and government, further strengthening Australia’s trade and investment relationship with India.
The Australian government has supported Mr Abbott’s travel to India. Mr Abbott will not be remunerated for his work.
Here’s some background from Daniel Hurst on Abbott’s previous trip, for which the former Liberal leader signed a conflict of interest declaration, due to his role as a trade adviser to the British government:
Updated
Further to the case of the worker that was hit by a car today at a Victorian Covid-19 testing clinic:
We are also aware of an alleged incident of aggression against a COVID-19 testing site worker in Pakenham today. This did not result in injury, but will be reported to police.
— VicGovDH (@VicGovDH) November 30, 2021
BREAKING: the Victorian senator @VanSenate has told @newscomauHQ he did NOT make a dog noise at @JacquiLambie but unreservedly apologised for interjecting at her during her speech Which he says may have been misheard as a dog noise because he was wearing a mask. More to come pic.twitter.com/l6zVgIjQ6c
— Samantha Maiden (@samanthamaiden) November 30, 2021
Victoria also announces precautionary measures against Omicron
These basically mirror the requirements for international arrivals just announced in NSW, minus the bit about massive increases to fines.
The last few days are a reminder that this isn't over yet and our response needs to change as the virus changes.
— Dan Andrews (@DanielAndrewsMP) November 30, 2021
That's why - as a precaution - we're making changes to quarantine for some international arrivals to keep Victorians safe until we know more about Omicron. pic.twitter.com/uWuwmPQ1cD
Updated
NSW announces precautionary measures against Omicron
Basically, everyone who arrives in NSW who has been in South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia, Eswatini and Malawi during the 14-day period before their arrival must enter hotel quarantine for 14 days, irrespective of their vaccination status.
Everyone else coming from overseas must complete a PCR test and isolate for 72 hours. They can only leave isolation after 72 hours if they have received a negative test result, and then they must complete an additional PCR test on day six.
NSW has also increased penalties for non-compliance with the isolation, testing and quarantine requirements to $5,000 for individuals (up from $1,000) and $10,000 for corporations (up from $5,000). This will take effect tomorrow.
Media release: Precautionary measures to manage the #Omicron variant. #COVID19nsw #nswpol #auspol pic.twitter.com/M5R7bNCjy5
— Dom Perrottet (@Dom_Perrottet) November 30, 2021
Updated
The government says the first step will be consultation with the opposition, minor parties and independents, followed by provision of “every necessary resource and support required by the multiparty approach”.
The “existing supports” within parliament will continue: this includes the dedicated support unit, the independent complaints mechanism, the 24-hour support line and workplace safety training.
Updated
We’ve heard a bit from Scott Morrison this afternoon already on the Jenkins report, but the PMO has just released an official statement about it:
The Government welcomes the Independent Review into Commonwealth Parliamentary Workplaces, and thanks Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins for her leadership of this important review.
We thank the over 1,750 individuals and organisations who contributed to the Jenkins Review. These experiences, observations and insights will be crucial to driving the positive change that is required.
It is an important review with a series of findings and recommendations that the Government, Opposition, minor parties and crossbench must all carefully consider and respond to. These are problems we all own. And we all have a responsibility to fix this.
The Review was established with cross-party support because everyone believes the Parliament of Australia should set the standard for the nation and reflect best practice in the prevention of and response to any instances of bullying, sexual harassment or sexual assault.
Every single Australian has a right to feel and to be safe at work. However, the report highlights that people, particularly women, in Parliamentary workplaces have experienced bullying, sexual harassment and sexual assault.
It is clear that practical and cultural changes are necessary to make our Parliamentary workplaces safer.
Updated
Good evening. Thank you as always to the excellent Amy Remeikis. I’m Stephanie Convery and I’ll be with you for the next couple of hours as we await the outcome of this afternoon’s national cabinet.
It’s been another rough day in the parliament, where it hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory. There are two days to go.
The lovely Stephanie Convery will take you through the evening, like the absolute trooper she is, while I once again go question my life choices.
Let’s hope tomorrow is better. Given the history – doubtful.
The House has yet to get to voter ID, so if they don’t get there tonight, that will be one for tomorrow – the government wants it passed before the sitting rises.
There is also the national cabinet meeting which Steph and the Canberra team will take you through – Scott Morrison is determined that the domestic borders stay open. Tasmania has already announced it is closing its border to returned travellers (outside of the NZ south island) so there are some little moves afoot, but let’s hope there are no major changes coming our way.
A very big thank you to Mike Bowers and Katharine Murphy, Sarah Martin, Paul Karp and Daniel Hurst for all the work they do, as well as everyone in the Guardian team who keep everything ticking over.
And a very big thank you to everyone who followed along with us today – and all days – you do, I can not stress this enough, make it all worth it. There have been some meaty issues covered off today – I hope you are all taking some space for yourselves. It can be very rough, and it is OK to take a break, or not look. This is real life, not a game, and we all have to watch out for each other.
I’ll see you again tomorrow for the second last day. In the meantime – take care of you.
Updated
NSW confirms fifth Omicron case
NSW Health has just issued this statement:
NSW Health can officially confirm the traveller who recently arrived in NSW and is isolating at home on the Central Coast has been infected with the Omicron COVID-19 variant of concern.
The number of people with the Omicron COVID-19 variant of concern is now five.
The person, who is fully vaccinated, arrived in Sydney on flight QR908 from Doha to Sydney on 25 November and travelled by private car to the Central Coast. They had been in southern Africa.
NSW Health reiterates that everyone on the flight is considered a close contact and will need to get tested immediately for COVID-19 and isolate for 14 days, regardless of their vaccination status.
NSW Health is contacting all passengers and flight crew to advise them of their isolation requirements. They can also call NSW Health on 1800 943 553 for further advice.
Two more people who had been on the same flight, QR908, have now been confirmed as COVID-19 cases. Urgent genomic testing is underway for these travellers to determine if they have also been infected by the Omicron COVID-19 variant of concern. Neither of these two travellers had spent time in southern Africa.
NSW Health is awaiting the final results of genomic testing on a case now residing in Broken Hill, who also arrived on the same flight QR908. However, initial results indicate this person is unlikely to have been infected with the Omicron variant. This person is fully vaccinated and isolating at home. The results are expected tomorrow.
Updated
Mike Bowers was in the chamber as Sharon Bird was farewelled:
Updated
Labor’s Stephen Jones is asked on the ABC about whether Anthony Albanese calling Peter Dutton a “boofhead” was appropriate and he says that today’s question time was a particularly a mess, but on the whole, no, the language isn’t appropriate.
Updated
Independent MP Helen Haines has also responded to the Jenkins review into parliamentary culture:
After working as a nurse and midwife and as an academic, working outside politics, I was shocked by the lack of structure, guidance and management systems in place for the offices of Members of Parliament. I am glad to see that addressed in this report.
... Australia is better served when the Parliament reflects the true diversity of our society. And for years the power imbalances, lack of accountability, entitlement and exclusion and gender inequality have meant this place has not reflected the community at all.
Acting on this report will ensure we can work to becoming a more representative Parliament that people can be proud of.
Updated
Here is just some of what parliament looked like today (thank you to our amazing video team for quickly pulling this together):
Updated
Labor has responded to the Kate Jenkins review:
Labor welcomes the report on the Independent Review into Commonwealth Parliamentary Workplaces by Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins.
We sincerely thank Ms Jenkins and Australian Human Rights Commission staff for their diligent work.
We also thank all former and current staff, former and current parliamentarians, other building occupants, experts, and volunteers who made submissions to the review.
Labor called for the review and supported the participation of current and former parliamentarians and staff.
We are committed to working across the Parliament to improve working conditions for staff, parliamentarians, and other building occupants, and changing the culture of the parliamentary workplace.
Now the report has been tabled, Labor will carefully consider its findings and recommendations, and most importantly – we will consult with our staff on our response.
This is their workplace, and they deserve nothing less than a safe, respectful, and supportive environment.
Updated
Simon Birmingham was asked about the dog noises and growling in the Senate in response to Jacqui Lambie asking a question this afternoon while on Afternoon Briefing.
He tells Patricia Karvelas that Anthony Albanese also engaged in name calling today (he called Peter Dutton “boofhead” while Dutton accused Albanese of having “a glass jaw”).
Which isn’t exactly the same thing. For one “boofhead” isn’t gender specific like dog noises tend to be when directed at women. And it also doesn’t answer the question.
Updated
Sharon Bird, the member for Cunningham, is delivering her valedictory speech to the House.
She was first elected in 2004.
Updated
National cabinet is meeting at 4.30 this afternoon, so we should hear more about the domestic reaction then.
Updated
Tasmania closes border to overseas arrivals
Tasmania has closed its borders to overseas arrivals.
From the Tasmanian government website:
***Any traveller who has spent time in any overseas location (not including the South Island of New Zealand) on or since Sunday 28 November will not be permitted to enter Tasmania at this time. Any traveller intending to travel to Tasmania and who has spent time overseas in the 14 days prior to Sunday 28 November, will not be permitted to enter Tasmania unless approved as an Essential Traveller. To be assessed for Essential Traveller status, travellers must provide evidence of having returned a negative Covid-19 test result in the 72 hours before they are due to arrive in Tasmania. If approved, quarantine is required, other conditions also apply.
This measure is in addition to national restrictions and requirements in relation to travellers who have been overseas. See travel restrictions and exemptions for more information on Australian arrival information.***
International arrivals in Tasmania (other than from New Zealand) include international workers who are in Australia to work within the agricultural sector, Antarctic expeditioners who are transiting to Antarctica and people who return via repatriation flights.
Between 1 November and 14 December 2021, travellers who are approved to arrive in Tasmania within 14 days of being overseas (other than direct flights to Australia from low-risk areas of New Zealand, or approved Australian Antarctic Division travellers), will be required to meet the same requirements as domestic arrivals from high-risk areas.
Read more about Travel to Tasmania under Tasmania’s plan to transition our Covid-19 response.
Every precaution is being taken to make sure that international arrivals can be managed safely in Tasmania and our community can remain protected.
Updated
The “growling and dog noises” Jacqui Lambie was subjected to happened during her second supplementary question to Simon Birmingham.
Sarah Hanson-Young stood up on a point of order and was the first to call it out:
It happened. I don’t know who is responsible for it, but it is inappropriate and we are going to change culture from the top. That means all of us.
Penny Wong backs her when the president of the Senate, Slade Brockman, said he didn’t hear anything:
Well, I did because I in fact said who’s growling. And I would ask one of the senators at that end helps to do the right thing and withdraw. At least fess up.
Come on. Gee you are tough aren’t you.
... Growling, Mr President.
Brockman said he “did not hear it”.
Wong replies emphatically:
I did”.
Brockman:
I’m not challenging what you heard. I certainly did not hear. I cannot ask someone to withdraw something I did not hear.
Members of the chamber interject, causing Brockman to again say:
I did not hear the particular incident that you have raised. If it occurred, I would ask the senator involved to reflect upon it and to withdraw if they did do what has been stated. However, I did not hear the particular interjection myself.
The Senate moved on.
Updated
The Law Institute of Victoria says it now supports the Victorian government’s proposed pandemic management laws after amendments were introduced to increase parliamentary oversight. The Public Health and Wellbeing (Pandemic Management) Bill 2021 is currently being debated before the Victorian upper house.
The LIV had previously opposed the legislation. But president Tania Wolff said the latest suite of amendments, which cover many of the concerns the LIV had about the bill, have tipped the balance.
She said:
The LIV believes that the proposed amendments to the bill are an improvement and the government has come a long way in addressing the concerns raised by the LIV and other bodies who have been consulted. There are notable changes in important areas of independent oversight, scrutiny and review proposed. Given what we are seeing in these additional amendments, this is an improvement, and, on balance, the LIV would support this bill.
Updated
An executive from the cohealth community health centre in Melbourne, where a nurse carrying out Covid testing was hit by a car, has released a statement:
Nicole Bartholomeusz says:
I am distressed to report that this morning at the cohealth community health centre at 365 Hoddle Street, Collingwood, a testing clinic coworker was hit by a car as they were helping clients queueing for a Covid test.
The incident occurred outside the Easey Street entrance.
Emergency services attended the scene, and the coworker involved is now in hospital.
We are providing support and counselling to staff who were present when the incident occurred. We are also reaching out to clients and neighbours who may be affected to make sure counselling is available to them.
We have also made the decision to close the Collingwood Covid testing clinic until Thursday, though all other health services at Collingwood clinic will remain operating.
This is an incredibly distressing event, and our thoughts are with the coworker and their family.
As a police investigation is now under way, we are unable to comment further, however I can say that this incident has sent shockwaves through the cohealth community.
We hope to reopen the Collingwood Covid testing services soon and resume our work as a vital health partner of the community. The cohealth community is strong and resilient, and we are rallying together through this difficult incident.
Updated
Sarah Hanson-Young is speaking on what happened in the Senate now.
She says the noises “came from the government side of the chamber”.
I was appalled that only after a matter of hours that the prime minister was on his feet, growling was coming from his side of the chamber. It is a disgrace.
Updated
That was quite the question time, and a lot happened during it (and around it).
But it is worth revisiting what happened in the Senate.
On the same day the Kate Jenkins review into parliamentary culture was handed down, where the sex discrimination commissioner made a point of speaking on the issues that women in particular face because of the environment they work in – and her shock at what some women, including parliamentarians, were subjected to, Jacqui Lambie was subjected to dog noises in the Senate, while asking a question.
This is not normal workplace culture. A woman, in her workplace, doing her job, was greeted with growls and dog noises. And it was other women who had to call it out and ask for something to be done.
Scott Morrison spoke on the review at 12.15pm.
Jenkins held a press conference on it at 1.15pm.
It was still going when question time started at 2pm.
And then, not even an hour after Jenkins finished speaking, someone was making dog noises at a female senator as she asked a question.
We don’t know who it was – no one was identified. But that it even happened, and that so many people within the chamber were prepared to sit there in silence until women spoke up, speaks volumes about why the report was needed in the first place.
Updated
Just before question time, Labor’s Justine Elliot has just given a 90-second speech about the cashless debit card, which she described as a “cruel and unfair” measure that directs welfare recipients “where and when to spend their own money”.
Apparently, 45,000 people have now signed a Labor petition to scrap the card, a promise which it has attempted to enact with a private member’s bill by Julian Hill.
Elliot said:
We know the Morrison government wants to roll the cashless card out nationally. We know the Liberals and Nationals have already started forcing pensioners onto the card.
... At the next election – make your vote count. Vote Labor – because only a vote for Labor will scrap these cruel cashless debit cards for good.
The social services minister, Anne Ruston, has completely rejected the suggestion pensioners could be moved onto the card. The Morrison government has ruled it out. But Elliot keeps saying it – just will not be deterred from this scare campaign. It’s going to be a brutal election.
Updated
And for those who didn’t see question time (I assume most of you, because you are normal people with actual lives, who value how they spend their time), here is when Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanese went each other at the dispatch box:
#AnthonyAlbanese: "Sit down, Boofhead!" #Peter Dutton: "Glass jaw!"
— Hugh Riminton (@hughriminton) November 30, 2021
A moment of real intensity between two men who both want to be Prime Minister during #QuestionTime. @10NewsFirst pic.twitter.com/S1EJu9zTo8
Updated
Our video team has put together a quick video on how the Kate Jenkins review was handed down and greeted:
The CPSU, the public service union, has responded to the Jenkins report:
The CPSU welcomes the publishing of the Jenkins review, which lays bare issues that CPSU members have been consistently raising for years, such as the need for improved supports, mandatory training, and an independent complaints process.
The work our members do for our democracy is so important, but as reflected in this report the parliament has significant power imbalances, which allows bullying, sexual harassment, and sexual assault to fester and go unpunished.
Implementation for the review is in question, as zero funding was announced today by the prime minister, it is essential that there is practical application of key recommendations, and this requires more than words.
Many of the recommendations are the very same recommendations that CPSU members have been calling for, including:
- Training on respectful workplace behaviour, people management and inclusive leadership for all parliamentarians.
- Establishment of an independent human resources mechanism to oversee employment practices.
- Formation of an independent complaints process for informal/formal and anonymous complaints free from political interference, with ability to enforce code of conduct and sanctions including in relation to parliamentarians.
- Develop capability and professionalisation of MoPS workforce.
- Improve representativeness and inclusiveness of parliament and MoPS workforce.
- Proactive and preventative approach to worker health and safety.
Updated
Victorian nurse injured at Covid testing site
AAP has some more information on a nurse who was hit by a car at a Melbourne Covid-19 testing site:
The man, aged in his 50s, was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries after the incident that occurred just before 9.30am on Tuesday.
Police say he was hit by a white Holden station wagon near the corner of Easey and Hoddle streets and the driver then fled the scene.
A nearby nurse provided first aid to the Tarneit man until an ambulance arrived.
A short time later, police found the station wagon and arrested the male driver in Carlton.
He is currently being questioned by police.
It’s believed witnesses saw the vehicle driving erratically near the Melbourne CBD.
Police have called for anyone with information or dashcam footage to contact Crime Stoppers.
CoHealth, who runs the Collingwood testing site, has been contacted for comment.
Updated
While the first-glance reporting suggested Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions were on the slide, a closer look tells a different story.
Yes, national pollution is down if you look at the year to June and compare it with all previous years in the survey, the trajectory is lately, and the electricity sector has done most of the work.
However, if you take the quarterly data, the recent trend has been upwards. So the year to June was up about 2% from the year to March, and preliminary data for the September quarter suggest a slight increase or at least stabilising in the pollution.
And odds favour the December quarter likely having a further increase as private transport in the half of the country that was locked down probably increased, as did other activities in the economy.
Any increase in emissions, of course, is going the wrong way if we’re serious about heading towards net zero by 2050.
Updated
The Therapeutic Goods Administration [TGA] has fined someone $7,990 for allegedly advertising ivermectin and zinc lozenges to treat Covid-19 despite no strong evidence that the treatments work.
Ivermectin is a prescription-only medicine and cannot be advertised to the Australian public. The TGA has previously warned consumers and advertisers about illegal advertising relating to Covid-19.
The individual allegedly claimed on their website that ivermectin and zinc lozenges are effective in the treatment of Covid-19. It is also alleged that the individual claimed that ivermectin is “safe” when used for Covid-19. Under the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code the advertising of products for therapeutic use in humans must not claim they are safe, cannot cause harm or have no side-effects.
Updated
Victorian police say they have located human remains in search for missing campers
Stepping outside parliament for a moment, Victoria police have issued a statement:
Victoria police has located human remains in bushland near Dargo as part of their ongoing investigation into the disappearance of Russell Hill and Carol Clay.
The remains are yet to be formally identified and it is expected this process will take some time.
As this matter is now before the courts, we will not be facilitating any interviews in relation to the investigation.
We ask that you respect the privacy of the families at this time.
#BREAKING Victoria Police has located human remains in bushland near Dargo as part of their investigation into the disappearance of Russell Hill and Carol Clay.@9NewsMelb
— Reid Butler (@reid_butler9) November 30, 2021
Updated
Here is some of how Mike Bowers saw question time:
Updated
The great Yolŋu actor David Dalaithngu is being honoured by both Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese in the parliament.
There are two more left in the year (and possibly until after the election).
Updated
Question time ends.
Luke Gosling to Scott Morrison:
Does the prime minister’s model of a national anti-corruption commission have the power to investigate a cabinet minister’s decision to grant visas to au pairs for mates?
Morrison:
These questions go to the very heart, Mr Speaker, of why the model we have put forward in 349 pages of draft legislation – it is there, it is publicly available, Mr Speaker, on the attorney general’s website – to the issue of why, Mr Speaker, it’s important that an integrity commission which is introduced not to be used and weaponised for the sort of political stunts and game playing that we’re seeing here from the Labor party.
They don’t want an integrity commission, Mr Speaker, they just want to engage in the slurs. Mr Speaker, criminal corrupt conduct is the sort of conduct, Mr Speaker, that sent the former minister Ian MacDonald, Mr Speaker, to prison, which the leader of the opposition was a keen supporter of his ...
Anthony Albanese gets very, very angry and demands the prime minister withdraw.
Peter Dutton says he can make a personal explanation at the end of question time.
Andrew Wallace asks the prime minister to be careful, while also pointing out the question flies close to the wind.
Morrison continues, using the word ‘visa’ to talk about immigration more widely, so he can segue to the case of the disgraced former Labor MP Craig Thomson:
In relation to Mr Thomson, Mr Speaker, and what the leader of the opposition had to say about, Mr Speaker, he said he had complete confidence in Mr Thomson. Mr Speaker, as we know, we saw him on the beers with Mr Thomson. Mr Speaker, this is, Mr Speaker, the standard that the leader of the opposition said, Mr Speaker, when he was in government, they were indeed, the leader of government business in this House seeking to secure the vote of Mr Thomson, Mr Speaker, who has been shamed by his own actions. Mr Speaker, those opposite talk a big game on this issue.
As I said, more of their members are in the Silverwater branch of the Labor party ...
It is not the first time Morrison has used the Silverwater prison line – which is one of the reasons his attacks on Icac haven’t made sense, because Icac investigations were what led to some of the cases he has spoken about in QT being eventually found guilty in a court. But this time, Wallace asks him to withdraw the comment.
He does.
Updated
While Alan Tudge muddles his way through this dixer, Ben Butler has a titbit for you:
Two NSW men have been charged over allegations of involvement in a Ponzi scheme that took almost $200m from about 590 investors, mostly from Sydney’s well-heeled eastern suburbs.
Tony Iervasi of Tweed Heads, who was the sole director of Courtenay House, and Athan Papoulias of Brighton-Le-Sands, a contractor employed to promote investment in the business, appeared before the local court at Sydney’s Downing Centre today.
The charges follow a four-year investigation by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
Iervasi is charged with nine criminal counts of dishonest conduct and one of carrying on a financial services business without a licence while Papoulias faces one charge of dealing in the proceeds of crime.
Dishonest conduct carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years while the maximum jail term for dealing with the proceeds of crime is 25 years.
Updated
Tanya Plibersek to Scott Morrison:
Does the prime minister’s model of a national anti-corruption commission have the power to investigate the energy minister’s use of forged documents to attack the lord mayor of Sydney?
Peter Dutton tries to stop the question, but is not successful. Morrison sends the question to Paul Fletcher, who speaks about the ‘349-page’ exposure draft again, but the short answer is no, it does not.
Updated
Peter Dutton continued his attempt to tar Labor as weak on national security in the lead-up to the election. The defence minister took aim at the Fremantle MP, Josh Wilson, branding him “Comrade Wilson” over his comments about the potential impact of Aukus on the international non-proliferation regime.
Dutton was taking aim at Labor’s Josh Wilson over his comments about the potential use of a loophole in the international nuclear safety regime to acquire the submarines.
The AFR quoted Wilson as saying at a committee hearing on Monday it was an “interesting interpretation” that the government would try to qualify for an exemption from the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspection regime by claiming military submarines, which will be fuelled with weapons-grade uranium, were for peaceful purposes, adding: “If it was determined that was acceptable, we will have broken new ground in weakening the existing non-proliferation regime.”
Dutton was not amused, suggesting it was just Russia and China that had raised such concerns. Fact check: Indonesia has also raised concerns about the impact on the non-proliferation regime.
Anthony Albanese evidently had had enough of this, standing up and seeking leave to move a motion expressing support for the US alliance. Dutton declined to grant leave, saying he would not “grant leave to stunts”.
Updated
'Dog noises' and 'growling' greet Jacqui Lambie question in the Senate
In the Senate, the independent Jacqui Lambie has asked a series of questions about public housing and homelessness, prompting growling and dog noises from someone in the chamber.
The Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young alerted the president to the interjection, arguing that making “growling and dog noises” while a female senator is on her feet is not consistent with achieving “change from the top”, on the day the Jenkins report has been released.
Penny Wong also asked whoever was responsible to withdraw.
The Senate president, Slade Brockman, said at first he can’t ask senators to withdraw something he did not hear. Then Brockman asked them to “reflect and withdraw if they did do what was stated”, adding that he did not hear the interjection.
Senate question time continued – nobody has owned up so far.
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Peter Dutton has just done his daily defence dixer, which is just an excuse to call Labor “weak”.
This time, he refers to the Labor MP Josh Wilson as “comrade Wilson” and Anthony Albanese as “weak leader”.
Daniel Hurst will bring you more on that.
But Albanese is prepared and asks to move a motion saying the House “declares its support for our alliances with the United States and the United Kingdom”.
Dutton denies leave, saying:
We don’t grant leave to stunts, Mr Speaker, and I’ll tell you what, you could [speak] here all day and you wouldn’t convince the Australian public you’re strong.
So everything is going really well.
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Just for context, here is part of the constitutional expert Prof Anne Twomey’s conclusion on the government’s 349-page exposure draft (from her submission to the call for consultation on the draft):
In general, the bill is absurdly long and complicated. It is currently 347 pages in length. The definitions in Part 2 of the bill run to 10,765 words. That is around the same length as the Commonwealth Constitution, as originally passed … It is … evidence of a lack of conceptual clarity behind the bill and an attempt to make it do both too much and too little.
The excessive length, complexity and duplication also leads to mistakes.
And she concludes:
... If it is seriously being proposed that there be a Commonwealth Integrity Commission which cannot investigate most public sector corruption, and in those few areas in which it can, it has to hold all its hearings in secret, and then issue secret reports that the public may not know about, then you can expect justifiably high levels of public distrust in, and contempt for, the system.
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Anthony Albanese to Scott Morrison:
The 2022 parliamentary calendar the Morrison-Joyce government has in place only 10 sitting days for the House and five for the Senate before August. Doesn’t this show the prime minister has no intention of establishing a federal anti-corruption commission before the election?
Morrison:
The leader the opposition knows full well that we have 349 pages of legislation (it is an exposure draft, not legislation) and $150m, Mr Speaker, committed to this measure.
All it takes is for the Labor party to support it (again, the opposition doesn’t have to support legislation for the government to introduce legislation – something which happens all the time), which they don’t, they have a two-page policy.
Mr Speaker, we have 349 pages of legislation (exposure draft) which if they wish to support, Mr Speaker, we would welcome that, but I’m asked also about the parliamentary calendar, which is I know a topic that the leader of the opposition has been putting keen interest in now, Mr Speaker.
As the leader of the opposition may not be aware that in order to prepare a budget, Mr Speaker, next year, the normal practice is to ensure there are a set number of weeks before the preparation of that budget before the budget is delivered.
Now Mr Speaker, I’ve personally delivered three budgets as a treasurer and there have been three budgets as prime minister, Mr Speaker, and I have served seven years on the expenditure review committee, Mr Speaker. Now I can understand why the leader of the opposition would be unfamiliar with the time taken to prepare a budget because he’s never delivered one, Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, there are people who have been serving refreshments in the expenditure review committee longer than this person, Mr Speaker, the leader of the opposition spent in that chamber, Mr Speaker.
The answer then goes to the economy, manufacturing, economic management and other places – none of which are relevant, but here we are.
Tony Burke gets up for a second time to tell the speaker that the time on the prime minister’s answer expired “some time ago”.
Andrew Wallace does not look impressed.
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Uh huh.
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We are back to the ‘30,000 Australians would have perished’ line from Scott Morrison.
That is based on an OECD report about Covid deaths based on population (if there were no lockdowns or border closures).
So the prime minister, who has spent the last month telling people that the government needed to get out of people’s lives, is again crowing about how the government being in people’s lives saved Australians.
It is a little hard to keep up at times.
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Peter Dutton, who sued over a tweet, which was deleted (and won his defamation case), was just yelling “glass jaw” at Anthony Albanese across the chamber.
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Mark Butler to Scott Morrison:
My question is to the prime minister. In her national review of quarantine published this month, the prime minister’s handpicked quarantine adviser Jane Halton told him some quarantine settings, such as quarantine in a purpose-built facility, are better able to mitigate transmission risks, especially for high-risk travellers and in respect of variants of concern and further that, quote, the Centre for National Resilience at Howard Springs was not purpose-built for quarantine.
Why has the prime minister failed to establish a single purpose-built quarantine facility?
Morrison:
The member will be aware that that was a report that I commissioned, Mr Speaker, that I commissioned.
And Mr Speaker that led to the process to developing that report, to the decisions that were taken for the additional facilities, Mr Speaker, that are being completed in Victoria, in Queensland, Mr Speaker, in Western Australia.
Mr Speaker, those facilities are important, not just for what we may have to face next year for the more severe cases that might have to be taken.
And as we’ve discussed those with state governments, but for future pandemics that might present in the future, and that’s why we have invested in those facilities. So Mr Speaker, I would only encourage those opposite, as Australians continue to push through this pandemic.
And as we continue to face these new variants of concern, and Omicron is a variant of concern, but we’ve dealt with many before.
What I do know, from certainly the premier of NSW, and I appreciate the measures that they’ve taken in relation to this most recent variant, and I believe the view was also headed by the Victorian premier, that we don’t want to return to those arrangements that were put in place for those quarantine facilities.
That is in hotels, Mr Speaker, that they are moving now to home quarantine, home quarantine and isolation. And that is how we live with the virus and we live together with the virus. Now those opposite have been playing politics with this pandemic for 18 months.
Mr Speaker, Australians know that our government has worked closely with others to ensure that we have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world.
We are one of the strongest economies coming through this pandemic of the economies in the world. And we have one of the lowest fatality rates, Mr Speaker, of any country in the world from Covid.
So what part of those three results, what part of those three results, Mr Speaker, that many other countries, in fact most around the world, would happily exchange places with Australia to achieve?
Why is it that this opposition constantly throughout this pandemic has not sought to support but has only sought to undermine for their petty political benefit?
We told you he was back on that line.
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Josh Frydenberg still hasn’t worked out how microphones work.
Or that he doesn’t need to read out the LinkedIn profile of every backbencher who asks him a dixer.
The Greens leader Adam Bandt asks a question on emissions reduction and Scott Morrison turns it into a bit on a ‘Labor-Greens alliance’.
Eventually, Anthony Albanese gets up on a point of order and Peter Dutton gets up at the same time, but Albanese has the call and tells Dutton to “sit down”.
So there is an argy-bargy at the dispatch box, before Dutton sits down. Albanese doesn’t really have a point of order though, so then Dutton is back, but he also doesn’t have a point of order (it’s on ‘glass jaws’ if that gives you any indication) so he is also sat down.
Morrison returns to his bit.
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Brendan O’Connor to Scott Morrison:
The home affairs minister said today we do not need purpose-built quarantine because hotel quarantine had worked very effectively. How many state borders have been closed and how many lockdowns have occurred because of the prime minister’s reliance on hotel quarantine, instead of purpose-built quarantine facilities?
Morrison:
The commonwealth government has established and did establish the national resilience facility, Mr Speaker, and so that the questionnaire is an urge to the commonwealth has not established those embassies.
We indeed have, Mr Speaker, and they were there to support. They were there to support, Mr Speaker, the broader quarantine arrangements that were put in place necessarily with all the states and territories because the sheer volume of arrivals that would come back to Australia and needed to be accommodated in that way.
The Labor party seems to think that we would have somehow established facilities to accommodate 100,000 people around the country, Mr Speaker, and that’s simply absurd. So we came up with a practical, innovative solution, Mr Speaker, a solution that was actually followed by the New Zealand government.
And I don’t hear those opposite criticising the Labour government in New Zealand about having hotel quarantine, Mr Speaker, but they’re happy to criticise their own government for doing it, Mr Speaker, they’re happy to criticise the Australian government for taking exactly the same response to the New Zealand government. Which tells you everything about this Labor opposition when it comes to the handling of the pandemic.
Tony Burke has a point of order on relevance:
I put it that we’re at the point now, where it’s quite a deliberate breach of the standing orders from the prime minister. That he knows there’s no reference to alternative policies or alternative approaches. And every single time he has to pivot to an attack on the opposition.
Wallace tells Morrison to stay relevant to the question.
Morrison:
Mr Speaker, the leader of the opposition may wish to reflect on the chair and those comments. Mr Speaker, he may wish to reflect on the chair, Mr Speaker, that that goes to the nature of the leader of the opposition, Mr Speaker, happy to play political games in here every other day of the week.
Burke returns to the dispatch box:
Standing order 91, the prime minister’s disregarding your ruling.
Wallace tells Morrison to stay relevant to the question. Again.
Morrison:
I will resist responding to the sneering interjections of the leader of the opposition, Mr Speaker, because what Australians know is as a result of the response to this pandemic, Mr Speaker, more than 30,000 lives have been saved by the very arrangements we put in place with the states and territories.
Now those opposite might want to sneer at that and not support it, Mr Speaker. But this country has come through this pandemic and continues to move through this pandemic, particularly, Mr Speaker, in response to new variants, and we’re dealing with Omicron. Now in a common sense and sensible and balanced way we’ll deal with other governments on these issues. Because we know when it comes to the pandemic, the Labor party always plays politics before putting forward the national interest.
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Barnaby Joyce is back and still attempting to make words seem like sentences, but he is very stuck on how the opposition ‘sneers’ at regional areas, but he can’t quite get there.
Mark Butler to Scott Morrison:
The home affairs minister said today that Australia doesn’t need purpose-built quarantine because hotel quarantine has worked very effectively. Can the prime minister confirm that there have been almost 30 breaches of hotel quarantine which have led to closed state borders and statewide lockdowns?
Morrison launches into how Labor hasn’t supported the government during the pandemic and this is another example of that, going over his well-trodden ground, which doesn’t actually reflect reality, but then we are used to that.
Labor raises a point of order on relevance – Andrew Wallace, who I think has decided he will be sitting towards the Bishop end on the scale of Speakers, says he is being relevant, so we get three minutes of it.
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Question time begins
Anthony Albanese to Scott Morrison:
Kate Jenkins has made shocking findings in her report today. Does the prime minister agree that everyone working in this building, including staff, deserve a safer and more respectful place at work?
Morrison:
I’m sure I join with the leader of the opposition and the leaders of all parties represented in this chamber, including the members of the crossbench, the independents, the leader of the Nationals, in answering that question on behalf of all of us, which is yes, Mr Speaker, of course we do, because in this place, Mr Speaker, we are not just members.
We are also employers individually, each and every one of us are employers, and we have responsibilities as employers to make this workplace as safe as it possibly can be.
And so today, the report that commissioner Jenkins has provided to all of us, to the government, Mr Speaker, and happy to table that report, Mr Speaker, this report, I think, goes to the root causes here that we have had to address in our workplaces.
This is a challenge that, for those of us who have been in this place a long time, have known have been experienced over that course.
And it deals with the issues of power imbalances. It deals with the issues of gender imbalances. It deals with the issues of accountability. And independent complaint mechanisms, which I’m very pleased we have already taken action on as we have with the counselling support and other services.
We didn’t have to wait, Mr Speaker, for this report. Before taking the action. I commend again commissioner Jenkins and indeed have already commended Brittany Higgins, Mr Speaker, because it was her speaking up that has led to this chain of events, Mr Speaker, that has brought parties together in the multiparty process that has been working together to produce this set of recommendations, and I now look forward to us continuing to work together in a multiparty process.
The recommendations cover the full terrain, I think, of the issues that need to be addressed. And we need to come together now and work to those together to ensure that this place becomes a safer place and sets standards, Mr Speaker, for all who work in this building.
The surveys that are in this report don’t just relate actually to the staff of members of parliament and senators.
They, in fact, relate to all people who work in this building, whether it’s in the press gallery or elsewhere, Mr Speaker, amongst members, senators, and so it is important that we read this, reflect on it carefully to understand what commissioner Jenkins has rightly set out as the drivers.
I said earlier today, we have the great privilege to work in this place, and all of those who are here also have that privilege. But the significant matters of state and the importance of our work and the stresses that we work under are no excuse whatsoever, Mr Speaker, for inappropriate behaviour, for bullying, for harassment, for any of these things, Mr Speaker. There is no place for that in this workplace or any other, so I join with all members of this House, and I’m sure the leader of the opposition, in condemning that behaviour and doing all we can, Mr Speaker, to make this a safer workplace for everyone in this building.
And that that is also the truth for those who worked outside this building as well.
Updated
Both the Prime Minister and the deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, urged MPs to have a break over Christmas before the election in the new year.
Joyce told MPs that voters did not want to see them between Christmas and Australia Day, and urged them to connect with constituents before the summer break.
Joyce said there is “no such thing as a safe seat” and he had seen “tenacious” MPs hang on to seats by a small number of votes, and losses in safe seats when there are “massive swings.”
”So ask yourself, what’s my relationship with my electorate? How am I going with my volunteers? How am I going with my local mayors? Have I sent my Christmas cards? Have I rung them up? Don’t take anyone for granted because by the time the election is called, if you haven’t done the work, it is too late and they are highly cynical of you if you turn up just before the election.”
Morrison also told MPs to have a break over Christmas to come back feeling refreshed for “a fight we can win”.
“We need to get around each other and respect each other and the contributions that we all made.
“We will have a fight that we will win in the new year. So we need to take your time to reconnect and recharge over Christmas. “Election results change the course of nations.”
The Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, recounted a conversation he had at a recent dinner with senior members of the Carlton Football Club in which he was told the most important thing for success was the “character of the team over individual talent and a sense of purpose”.
“It’s no difference to politics. There are a lot of stars out there, but unless we pull together as a team and look after each other then we don’t have the successes that we should have.”
Scott Morrison has spoken to MPs about focusing on the issues of concern for Australians, saying the government had a “deep responsibility” to represent those who had elected the coalition.He said the pandemic would be here for the foreseeable future, and keeping Australians safe would remain his focus.
He said this would give
“the Australian people confidence in a time when they’re quite concerned and they’re uncertain and worried about their futures.”
He said MPs had supported Australians through the “greatest crisis since WWII”.
He also spoke about the importance of freedom, saying it was “a time when those freedoms cannot be taken for granted.”
The prime minister also spoke about the Jenkins review, saying it was a “serious problem that needs to be addressed.
“The issues and recommendations raised so need to be carefully worked through and responded to make this a better workplace for everybody.”
The transcription service, Tveeder, has been down since the prime minister’s press conference, so bear with me while I muddle through QT.
Question time is about to begin, so we will have to leave the Kate Jenkins press conference there.
We’ll come back to it once the worst of the hours is over
There was a lot in the question which was just asked, and repeating it might actually break some brains/re-traumatise people, so I won’t.
In response though, Kate Jenkins speaks on the toll speaking out has on victim-survivors. Jenkins says it is time for the community to step up.
I think the momentum is that as a community, we’ve got to stop asking these people to step up to share their trauma with us. We need to provide that if they want to speak we want to support them.
Is the parliamentary culture different to what we see in corporate Australia?
(Scott Morrison had said the cultural issues were some that many workplaces across Australia struggled with.)
Kate Jenkins:
We talked about the systemic risk factors that exist in parliament. So if I just give you kind of the overview of the five of them, you realise that it’s actually more risk factors than exist in many corporate workplaces.
So the first was just multiple workers in this one workplace, but we’ve unclear or inconsistent standards, so there wasn’t sort of one code of conduct or one clear standard expected in the workplace.
Second was the leadership or really a lack of people leadership skills, the lack of focus of particularly parliamentarians on their job as an employer, their focus absolutely on their job of representing us and as parliamentarians, so that’s the second.
Another one is the workplace dynamics that feel loyalty and particularly that sort of political dynamic that exists inevitably in parliament.
Other things were the social conditions of work, so this is a fly-in fly-out, 22 weeks you’re in Canberra, the rest of the time you’re at your location, irregular hours, high pressure, high scrutiny, lots of focus, really quite unusual.
You can’t really compare it to many other industries in that sense.
And then the final thing was the employment structures.
So in the main if you’d like to say the bosses are actually elected parliamentarians – they’re not employed, they’re not senior executives.
And then you have a whole category of people that are the members of parliament staffers who are employed and under their own act with their own particular circumstances.
And then you have the press gallery and you have the public servants.
Everyone’s employed them to different arrangements that have come about over time. So I know I’m giving you the long version, but there is just a bucketload of risk factors there that in combination particularly put young people, I would say young staffers, particularly the what’s called the mob SEC staffers, and in practice the female parliamentarians and women across the board at high risk – the need to sort of maintain your relationships and your reputation to get ahead when doing that can put you at personal risk.
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Is Kate Jenkins confident the recommendations will be implemented, en masse as she has asked?
One of my key observations about this is we were engaged to do this, with both the support of the government the opposition, the Greens and the crossbench.
We have had full parliamentary support as we have gone about the investigation which has been an incredible privilege, and I think unusual because of the nature of how government normally works.
And our recommendations really add to the whole parliament. So we wouldn’t look to an expectation that and we’re being informed that all parts of the parliament are taking these recommendations seriously.
So I guess I’m an optimist, but I’m also really certain that this pace of work reflects the voices of the people that work in there, including that 147 current and former parliamentarians who participated so there’s a really good ground for this to be implemented. And I will look forward to the response in due course.
Kate Jenkins on the gender imbalance in the parliament:
What we have recommended is what we know works in terms of advancing diversity. So to really underpin this, we did find the four key drivers in of this misconduct were power imbalances, gender inequality, lack of accountability and really a lack of diversity.
So when you look at those, there’s an urgent need to change.
And that’s why one of the case shifts is to get about bring to the Parliament, better diversity.
The reality is Parliament should match the community if there’s one workplace that should represent the community it absolutely is our parliament.
In considering what the best practice is, we did look at the name for targets and also public reporting so that we can both in the workplace and externally understand what’s happening, particularly also looking at positions so not only for parliamentarians, but within locks at staff so their parliamentarian staff is when you look at the spread of the workplace and that’s in the report.
You will say that whilst there are more women as parliamentary staff as their men, the majority of the senior roles are held by men so there’s a real imbalance.
Kate Jenkins:
So the issue of alcohol use was very consistent thing that came up across the inquiry. We have made a recommendation that the parliament sets for itself, policy and particularly looks at harm minimisation and work health and safety obligations. Now, what would that look like in practice, we did hear some officers actually have a no alcohol policy.
We also did hear that whilst alcohol was consumed in the premises, some of the most concerning conduct was pressure to drink outside of parliament in in social environments.
So we have given some guidance that there should be some restrictions and some governance around that relating to bring it in line with what happens in most workplaces in Australia now.
So those we’ve asked parliament to recommend what those standards will be. We’ve made a pretty clear picture on how that might work. So we didn’t come up with no alcohol because we this conduct isn’t caused by alcohol. It is one of the risk factors at play.
Kate Jenkins said she was “to some degree” shocked by some of what she learnt – particularly about what was happening with younger workers, and she was also shocked by what women, including female parliamentarians experienced.
(Scott Morrison said he was appalled but wish he found the results more surprising)
Jenkins:
Because I know what happens across Australian workplaces so that one in three Australian workers is actually experienced sexual harassment last five years, so to some degree, I wasn’t shocked.
But those 500 or so interviews that we did made us really hear in real terms how that works in practice, and then statistic of more than half have experienced one or more of bullying, sexual harassment and sexual assault was really concerning.
If I come to this specifics, to some degree, I was shocked at how the young workers who perhaps arrived really positive and enthusiastic and feeling privileged to work there, how quickly they become in an environment where this bullying and harassment is normalised.
I would say I was a little shocked even though I expected women to experience a more difficult situation, but certainly it’s really clear that our female parliamentarians have a much tougher time in that place.
Whether it’s through online abuse, direct sexual harassment, the rates were amongst the highest in the reporting and that was really shocking to me.
Kate Jenkins finishes her introduction with this:
Asking that our nation’s parliament should do no more than it expects from all Australian workplaces. This report describes how Parliament can create safe, respectful and inclusive working environments to ensure it can attract the best who can deliver the best for us. This is a firm basis for an historic legacy this parliament can leave creating a stronger parliament for the future.
Kate Jenkins warns that the recommendations “not be cherry picked for implementation” as they work in conjunction with each other:
In making our recommendations, we’ve sought to balance the need for better support with robust accountability, better support and includes systems and processes to guide people and set them up for success.
Improved accountability is achieved by clear standards and an independent report and compliance buddy to create a safe reporting environment and enforce those standards.
Drawing on lessons from other Parliament’s as well as high pressure high profile workplaces in sporting military business and education settings. The report breaks our proposed solutions down to five shifts that are required.
The first is leadership. recommendations have focused on strengthening leadership to foster safe and respectful work environments. This includes both institutional leadership and individual leadership with parliamentarians office holders and party leaders.
Leaders set the tone and leadership from the top is particularly important to set clear expectations and role model safe and respectful behaviour.
The second is diversity, equality and inclusion in line with corporate Australia all parties need to set targets and take specific actions for gender balance and diversity in the parliament and ratio regularly measure and publicly report on progress.
We know that what gets measured gets done the 30 systems to support performance.
Our recommendations are focused on ensuring parliamentarians and their staff have human resources, systems, processes and advice tailored to the specific needs of their context to support their important work and help them perform at their best
The fourth is standards reporting and accountability. We recommend establishing clear and consistent codes of conduct alongside an independent complaint body where it is safe to make a report. Standards are enforced and people are held accountable through sanctions.
The final shift is around safety and wellbeing. This includes a proactive approach to safety and well being including a focus on prevention to meet applicable withheld work health and safety duties. It also involves developing policies to restrict alcohol use, in line with harm minimisation and safety principles.
Brittany Higgins responds to the Kate Jenkins review
The woman who triggered the Jenkins review, Brittany Higgins, has made a short statement via the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at The Australian National University. Higgins said she was pleased to see the review deliver its report and hoped it “inspired immediate action”.
Brittany Higgins:
I want to thank the many brave people who shared their stories which contributed to this review. I hope all sides of politics not only commit to but implement these recommendations in full”.
The main message here is there is nothing to stop the parliament from upholding the standards we would expect in any other workplace.
Kate Jenkins:
Misconduct is often dealt with as a political problem, rather than as a people issue. As a result, we heard that people are often punished for reporting misconduct, while others are protected, rewarded or even promoted for engaging in misconduct. This permissive environment is reflected in the data from our review.
Over half that is 51% of all people currently in come along parliamentary workplaces have experienced at least one incident of bullying, sexual harassment or actual or attempted sexual assault.
Gender plays a significant role in shaping these experiences in these workplaces. Across all parliamentary workplaces 40% of women have been sexually harassed compared to 26% of men.
Some cohorts in the parliament are particularly involved were vulnerable with staffers and women parliamentarians at highest risk.
Women we spoke to told us they felt lucky when they had not directly experienced sexual harassment or sexual assault.
Kate Jenkins continues:
We heard that offices function better where their parliamentarians or chiefs of staff prioritise people leadership, ensuring people were clear on their roles and responsibilities and expected behaviour and felt safe to report misconduct.
However, parliamentarians and their staff largely do not come into these roles with the skills to lead teams effectively and are not set up for success.
High performing teams are essential to the important work of the parliament. Yet people leadership skills are not valued and systems to support people are inadequate, combined with the lack of accountability to make consistent standards and enforcement of those standards, and the absence of a strong human resources system to support performance. All these factors create a permissive environment where misconduct can and does occur.
Kate Jenkins on what she learnt from the parliamentary review:
There is sometimes a temptation to say that because of its role in national life, it is an exceptional workplace, to say that parliamentarians and their staff not like the rest of us that they live and work in a different world.
But this does them and us a great disservice. Being exceptional, does not mean we should make exceptions.
Our report sets out clearly what we heard about working in the hundreds of parliamentary workplaces across the country without identifying anyone.
We heard that there are unique characteristics in this workplace that create risks for bullying, sexual harassment and sexual assault to occur and go unreported.
We heard that parliamentary workplaces are characterised by the intensity and inherently political nature of the work, the pursuit of political power and advantage of win at all costs. [Also] the frequent blurring of personal and professional life and an expectation of intense loyalty to political parties.
Parliament is inherently about power, and that power runs in multiple directions. We heard that power imbalances and the misuse of power is one of the primary drivers of bullying, sexual harassment and sexual assault, gender inequality and a wider lack of diversity, particularly evident in the low representation of women in leadership roles, means women are more likely to experience misconduct.
Brittany Higgins has responded to the review:
.@BrittHiggins_ has responded to the release of the Jenkins review. pic.twitter.com/8XhxiBKxqg
— courtney gould (@heyycourtt) November 30, 2021
Kate Jenkins press conference
The sex discrimination commissioner, Kate Jenkins, is now holding her press conference on the report she has handed to the government.
She thanks Brittany Higgins as well as everyone who engaged with the report.
Jenkins:
We heard that there is no single parliamentary workplace or culture.
There are many individual workplaces and workplace cultures within the parliamentary system.
This includes a wide array of workers beyond parliamentarians and their staff. There are ComCare car drivers, Parliamentary Library staff, staff who work with parliamentary committees, public servants, journalists, security, planning, events and catering staff. We made every effort to ensure that we heard from people in as many of these different settings as possible and overwhelming sentiment shared by review participants was that working in these workplaces is an honour and a privilege, participants told us of both positive and concerning experiences. Many people shared distressing experiences of bullying, sexual harassment and sexual assault, sometimes for the first time they said these things could never be shared with anyone else.
Updated
Most of the pieces in the Gross Domestic Product pie are now in the public domain with the release today of the trade stats and a couple of others.
In short, net exports (that is exports minus imports, not actually nets) have ballooned thanks to rising demand for our minerals and farm products while supply-chain snarls curbed what we imported in the September quarter, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said.
The result is a record $23.9bn for the current account surplus, up about $1bn. The larger surplus magically will add about 1 percentage point to the GDP figures due out tomorrow.
That will come in handy because the market has already pencilled in a contraction for the quarter alone, or about 3%, the worst quarterly dive save for the 7% plunge in the June quarter of 2020 when the Covid chaos first descended.
Also out on Tuesday was data on public demand. According to Westpac, such demand expanded by 3.1%, an upside surprise compared with the bank’s forecast of an increase of 1.2%.
The result will be a 0.8 percentage point addition to the GDP growth number when it lands.
Still, with a bigger drop in September quarter inventories reported yesterday chipping off some of the growth propellant, Westpac is predicting a 2.5% quarterly contraction for GDP, while on a year-to-year basis the growth will come in at 3.2%, it predicts.
Of course, eyes are largely turned to the current quarter since the Victoria, NSW and ACT lockdown distorted so much of the July-September period.
Dwelling approvals in October extended their slide, dropping 12.9% for the month, compared with a 3.9% fall in September. Still, the October result remains a third higher than pre-pandemic levels in October 2019 thanks to government stimuli and record low interest rates, the ABS said.
Updated
Fifth likely Omicron case in NSW
NSW Health also confirmed a very likely fifth Omicron Covid case in NSW – as well as the reports the woman had been on the Central Coast before she was diagnosed – the woman arrived back in Australia BEFORE any restrictions were put in place
(you can find a list of places which were visited on the Central Coast, here)
NSW Health can confirm initial testing strongly indicates one more overseas traveller, who recently arrived in NSW and is isolating at home on the Central Coast, has been infected with the Omicron Covid-19 variant of concern.
When confirmed, this would bring the total number of confirmed cases of Omicron in NSW to five.
The traveller, who is fully vaccinated, arrived in Sydney on flight QR908 from Doha to Sydney on 25 November and travelled by private car to the Central Coast. The traveller had been in southern Africa.
Everyone on the flight is considered a close contact and will need to get tested immediately for Covid-19 and isolate for 14 days, regardless of their vaccination status. NSW Health is contacting all passengers and flight crew to advise them of their isolation requirements. They can also call NSW Health on 1800 943 553 for further advice.
NSW Health advises a number of venues were visited by the traveller in Sydney and on the Central Coast before NSW Health directed travellers from southern Africa to go into isolation.
Updated
While that presser was going on, the former South Australian attorney general (she stepped down last week) Vickie Chapman has been suspended from the SA parliament for six days.
BREAKING: Attorney-General Vickie Chapman has been suspended from Parliament for 6 days after being found guilty of contempt for misleading the house on 3 occasions #SAParli @abcadelaide
— Stacey Lee (@Staceylee_) November 30, 2021
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Scott Morrison also says he will be urging premiers to “hold their nerve” on borders when the national cabinet meets later today.
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Kate Jenkins will be speaking at 1.15 from Sydney.
Scott Morrison says “parliament awaits” and finishes the press conference.
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The NSW premier has said that he will be welcoming 250 international students next week. How is that consistent with the ‘pause’ the prime minister and his government have put in place?
Scott Morrison:
That is a separate matter that, because that is a pilot program that was already in place. We are not ceasing things we were already doing.
... The pilot programs we had discussed this with the premier yesterday, so that is entirely consistent.
It’s entirely consistent because it was already a measure that had been taken and it is under very controlled circumstances.
And as part of of that process, what we have done is not taken the next, we are just delaying postponing temporarily for two weeks.
And indeed if the information allows us to bring that forward again, great, tremendous, because in Australia we’re moving forward.
We’re not going back when it comes to this virus. We’re going to keep moving forward into Christmas and into 2022 and we’re going to open safely and we’re going to stay safely open.
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Scott Morrison moves on to the response to the Omicron Covid variant:
This is a prudent and temporary pause. We don’t know enough yet about it. And the advice that I received at the National Security Committee of cabinet for Covid, which my colleagues joined me on last night, was that this temporary pause will provide the opportunity to understand and learn more about this.
It is not a reason to step back. It is just [reasonable that we] momentarily pause and we seek further information before taking that next step, and that next step is obviously skilled migration.
Students coming as well as those on working holiday maker and humanitarian programs.
We will continue, obviously, in areas where we already have exceptions, like under the Afghan program and so on. But that said, this is just about a prudent and temporary pause.
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Credit belongs to strong women like @BrittHiggins_, Rachelle Miller, Dhanya Mani, Chelsey Potter & fabulous women in the Press Gallery, for the existence of the Jenkins report to make parli a safer workplace. All 28 recs must be adopted; cultural change is urgently needed #auspol
— Larissa Waters (@larissawaters) November 30, 2021
Scott Morrison again, on how the solution is one for everyone:
This is a multiparty process. This is just not a response of the Liberal party or the National party or indeed the government. This is a joint project because we have a joint problem when it comes to these issues of bullying and abuse and sexual harassment.
It is a problem in this building of all parties. It is a problem of the Labor party, the Liberal party, the National party, the Greens party, all the parties that are represented here.
We have been here a long time, we know that we all have a problem that we all have to own and we all have to deal with.
And I hope that we can deal with this in the most multipartisan, good faith way that we possibly can. And that that will enable us to move as we can on what is set out here.
And I don’t want to prejudice that approach.
Because I want to engage with everybody around the table in good faith to make sure that we can make that progress.
I don’t want to see this fall into camps. I don’t want to see this fall into any sort of partisan approach. I want us to stay around the table and get it done.
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How will any of the victims see justice?
Scott Morrison:
Well, we will continue to support the work of the Australian federal police and the courts, as the states and territories do.
And this is a challenge not just for us, but all levels of government. And of course we want to see offenders brought to justice.
Now that is done through our justice process and you won’t find a stronger supporter of Australia’s justice system than me.
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Does Scott Morrison think politics needs to change?
Morrison:
Well, look, I think we all have a role to play in that, don’t you?
There’s great interest in the conflict of this place.
And that is something that many of you write about constantly, and on occasions, perhaps ... encourage, perhaps.
That’s been the nature of politics, not just in this place, but many parliamentary democracies and we’re a robust democracy. But we’re all accountable for how we engage in the affairs of politics and how we report them and the environment in which we seek to communicate.
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Was Scott Morrison shocked by the findings in the report – one in three having experienced sexual harassment, while more than half of workers faced some form of harassment?
Like anyone who works in this building, I find the statistics that are presented there, of course appalling and disturbing. I wish I found them more surprising. But I find them just as appalling.
And that’s why the actions I think that are recommended do cover all the territory, that they’ve been able to take us forward. And what I’ve seen in has only reinforced my view about the actions that we’ve already taken.
What Kate Jenkins also recommended here, it is not just the accountabilities that are necessary for employers in this building, but supports and resources for employees to be better employees.
And that is a practice that employers are getting support from right across the country in the private sector and the public sector. And I think that’s a good thing.
And the report notes that one in three figure that you mentioned is similar to figures that we’ve seen in other workplaces. Now that doesn’t excuse it by any sense of the imagination. That’s not my suggestion. It’s simply to say that we’re dealing with issues here that are quite specific to this building.
In particular, that idea I was talking about before that just because we sit here and deal with national matters of state that in no way condones behaviour of that nature ever, under any circumstances, and care what your job is, or what you think your responsibilities are.
Nothing justifies that. I always take the approach, particularly when I deal with my own team, but also the members of the public service who I deeply respect in this place. You’ve heard me say expect and respect.
That is, I think, the right way to approach the engagement in this place with the work that we do. So it is a challenge I think all workplaces are dealing with but I want, as my colleagues do, and I have no doubt the leaders of the other parties in this place, to want this building to be a [new] standard set.
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Does Scott Morrison support gender equality within the political parties, given that is one of the recommendations, and how does the parliament police that, given it is a political party decision and not one of the parliament?
And what of the new bodies for the independent HR process, which is separate to political actors – such as political parties, ministers, MPs and the prime minister?
Scott Morrison speaks about the women he has appointed to cabinet, and how he will be pushing for more women candidates to be preselected (he does not commit to gender quotas though, which is how Labor got to gender equality once it began addressing the issue in the 90s – the Greens do it as a matter of course).
As for the independent HR process, Simon Birmingham says:
The office of parliamentarian staffing and culture is supposed to essentially operate as a human resources function to take on many of the current functions and responsibilities of the Department of Finance in that regard, to report and be responsible to parliament, rather than to the executive wing of government and to essentially oversee the operation of the Mops Act (the act which covers staffers) which is recommended for some particular changes as well as broader review under commissioner Jenkins’ recommendations.
The independent parliamentary standards commission is proposed to be the oversight mechanism to handle consistent responses and independent investigation in relation to complaints bullying, sexual harassment, sexual assault and other misconduct practices.
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Scott Morrison is again saying that fixing the culture is the job of everyone in the building – there is no one action which can make the changes spoken about in the report.
This government has taken actions on this issue like no other government has prior and that has been led by the events that took us to this place, and rightly it’s taken us to this place.
Has he spoken with Brittany Higgins since the report came out?
In relation to specific individuals in their briefing of the report, we have been taking advice on how this should be appropriately handled, as I’ve always had the view always happy to meet with people on these issues should they wish to but I don’t presume upon that.
And that’s why the briefings have been provided through the Human Rights Commission to [Brittany] and a number of others as I understand it, and we stand ready to work with anyone on this issue as we go forward.
But the appropriate actions we’ve taken and how we’re handling this report is we’ve been following the advice we’ve been receiving from the commission and how it’s released.
Should they wish to have further discussions certainly with me or my ministers, then I’m sure they would only be too happy to do so.
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Meanwhile, back in the Senate (the press conference has not moved to questions and answers yet, so we are moving between the two issues) the assistant minister, Amanda Stoker, has told the Senate no one is saying corruption is a good thing.
Stoker, opposing Rex Patrick’s attempt to suspend standing orders to bring on a debate and vote on an integrity commission, tells the chamber:
“Senator Patrick says he’s motivated in bringing this suspension motion by the accusation, the frustration that the government is running out of time to deliver its commonwealth integrity commission by the end the year. So in order to give effect to that frustration, he decides to attempt to derail the government’s legislative program in a game of competitive one-upmanship about who around this chamber most stands against corruption. The reality is there’s nobody in this room saying corruption is a good thing … everyone in this place stands against corruption.”
Stoker said the government had engaged in a detailed consultation to “deliver an institution that has the teeth it needs” while “learning the lessons” from other states where “they have gone horribly awry”.
Stoker is going through all the greatest hits. She talks about injustices “inflicted by a star chamber” in some states. She talks about slurs levelled in the “coward’s castle of parliamentary privilege”.
“Can you bear it? The hypocrisy of those around this chamber makes my eyes water.”
Earlier, Labor’s Katy Gallagher told the Senate that if a federal integrity commission were in place, “this government is at most risk from having that body”.
Gallagher also took aim at the government for next year’s sitting calendar:
“The Senate will sit for three days in the first half of next year … They are worried that they will continue to lose votes, because they have lost their way, they have no agenda and they have managed to divide this parliament.”
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Back to the press conference, Simon Birmingham is now addressing the media.
He again points to the supports in place and thanks those who took part.
This is a landmark document reflecting decades of problems, some of the findings and many of the stories that are told are distressing and reflect completely unacceptable behaviours.
To affect change, there are lessons for all of us to lead to accept responsibility to set the example and Commissioner Jenkins’s recommendations reflect those approaches.
The report provides a positive roadmap for change in behaviour, culture and practice.
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Over in the Senate, the independent senator Rex Patrick has moved to suspend standing orders to bring on debate about legislation to set up a federal integrity commission.
The Greens senator Larissa Waters welcomed the move, saying her party has been pushing for a federal corruption watchdog since 2009. “We don’t mind whose name is on the bill so long as it’s a bill with teeth.”
Waters took aim at the government for a lack of progress: “They are using shame consultation as a delay tactic.
“It’s just One Nation and the Coalition standing in the way of a watchdog with teeth.”
The Labor senator Katy Gallagher said Labor would also support the motion.
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Marise Payne, as the minister for women, is also addressing the report at this press conference:
I also want to say today that I know from the many conversations that I have had around this place and more broadly, since the beginning of this year, that the release of this report today may have an impact on people inside and outside this place.
On members, on senators, on staff and on others who work or who have worked in this building.
Please, if this is a difficulty for you, please seek the support that the prime minister has spoken to.
Payne also thanked Brittany Higgins.
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Scott Morrison on the response:
I’ve asked the minister of finance and special minister for state to consult with the opposition, minor parties and the independents on a way forward to respond to Commissioner Jenkins’ review.
Secondly, I’ve instructed my department to provide every necessary resource and support required by the multi-party approach.
This multi-party approach with the coordinating support of the department has already served the parliament will this year in implementing the significant reforms recommended by the foster your view.
And the success of this approach through the Foster review has delivered positive outcomes.
Third, the government will continue the existing supports that we already have in place the dedicated units support staff within the parliamentary workplace support service and the independent complaints mechanism 24-hour support line and the continued workplace safety training.
These important supports will keep running and adapt as necessary as parliament responds to these recommendations.
We did not wait to receive this report to take action.
We took action through the parallel commissioning of the foster report and implementing those recommendations.
So we now address these not from a standing start, but already underway, taking action together to respond to the very serious issues that have been highlighted in this place.
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One in three parliament staffers experience sexual harassment, review reveals
A long-awaited review of parliamentary workplace culture has recommended better leadership, a crackdown on boozing, a better gender balance, and codes of conduct.
The review, sparked by the alleged rape of former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins, found more than half the people working in commonwealth parliamentary workplaces (CPWs) have experienced at least one incident of bullying, sexual harassment or actual or attempted sexual assault.
The Australian Human Rights Commission review found 37% of people had experienced some form of bullying, one in three some form of sexual harassment, and 1% actual or attempted sexual assault.
The commission made 28 recommendations, including better leadership at many levels and a leadership “taskforce” to implement the recommendations.
It called for an acknowledgement of the harm done by abuse, an independent review of progress, targets to achieve gender balance, an increase in diversity and respect, better measurement and public reporting, better support, and tighter alcohol policies.
There should also be a new office of parliamentarian staffing and culture, a code of conduct for parliamentarians and one for their staff, as well as standards for others who work there including the press gallery.
The commission heard that “power, including power imbalances and the misuse of power, is one of the primary drivers of misconduct in CPWs” and that bullying is not only top down, but lateral and upwards.
Gender inequality was found to be a key driver of bullying, sexual harassment and sexual assault.
“The experiences of Grace Tame, Brittany Higgins, Chanel Contos and others, as well as a national conversation about consent, have also prompted renewed calls in the Australian context for an end to gendered violence,” the report noted.
One participant said: “It is a man’s world and you are reminded of it every day thanks to the looks up and down you get, to the representation in the parliamentary chambers, to the preferential treatment politicians give senior male journalists.”
The review, led by commissioner Kate Jenkins, began in March and spoke to 1,723 individuals and 33 organisations.
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Scott Morrison says a multi-party response has already begun and he has ordered his department to provide any resources needed.
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Scott Morrison:
The power imbalance, the gender imbalance, the lack of accountability for behaviour as well as understanding the challenging and demanding work environment using this building, but I want to stress just as I think Kate Jenkins does and I’m sure my colleagues support and people across this building, just because this is a challenging and demanding environment just because we work under great stress and strain and long hours had to deal with issues that are of great importance for the future of our nation ... but this is no excuse whatsoever, to normalise, inappropriate, unhealthy and unprofessional behaviour.
Just because what you do is important and stressful and demanding [it is never OK] to never normalise that behaviour [or to think it] has been somehow OK. It’s not OK and we all need to understand the drivers here – of course we do important things in this place. It’s a great privilege to be here and do those things.
That should only stress upon us the need for those highest standards.
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“We all share in the ownership of the problems which are set out in this report, but we all share in the solutions as well,” Scott Morrison says.
In the Senate, Rex Patrick is trying to bring on the federal Icac bill for debate again.
Daniel Hurst is watching that for you.
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Scott Morrison also thanks Brittany Higgins for her advocacy work (stressing he has no comment on the criminal case).
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Scott Morrison press conference
The prime minister is speaking on the Kate Jenkins review.
He starts with thanking her and her team for the “incredible sensitive way in which they undertook the review”.
He then thanks those who participated in the review.
There are 25 recommendations in that review. Here are the top five:
Recommendation 1:
Statement of Acknowledgement
The Presiding Officers should convene party leaders and the heads of the parliamentary departments to come together, agree and deliver a joint Statement of Acknowledgement to the Parliament. This Statement should acknowledge the harm caused by bullying, sexual harassment, and sexual assault in Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces and a commitment to action and shared accountability.
Recommendation 2:
Institutional leadership
To demonstrate institutional leadership to ensure safe and respectful Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces, the Houses of Parliament should:
establish a leadership taskforce, with oversight by the Presiding Officers, chaired by an independent expert and supported by an Implementation Group, to oversee the implementation of the recommendations made in this Report. It should have the following responsibilities developing and communicating an implementation plan with specific timeframes
defining and communicating common values which can drive cultural change across parliamentary workplaces
preparing an annual public report of progress made in the implementation of recommendations
tracking, on a quarterly basis, key measures of a safe and respectful work environment to monitor progress in implementation.
Recommendation 3:
External independent review of progress The Australian Government should establish a follow up external independent review to examine the implementation of recommendations made in this Report within 18 months of its tabling in the Parliament.
Recommendation 4:
Individual leadership
To strengthen individual leadership to ensure a safe and respectful work environment:
parliamentarians and senior Members of Parliament (Staff) Act employees, including chiefs of staff, should:
engage in regular discussions to set expectations of conduct and champion the Codes of Conduct
create a safe reporting culture, including supporting people who experience misconduct
take responsibility for discharging work health and safety obligations
attend training on respectful workplace behaviour, people management and inclusive leadership
support employees to attend relevant training
office-holders, parliamentary party leaders and leaders of parliamentary departments should:
engage in regular discussions to set expectations of conduct, champion the Codes of Conduct and create a safe reporting culture
demonstrate and reinforce the message that those individuals who engage in misconduct will not be protected, rewarded or promoted
parliamentarians, party leaders and office- holders should report annually to the Parliament on the actions that they have taken to ensure a safe and respectful work environment.
(b) convene an annual parliamentary discussion in both Houses of Parliament for office- holders, parliamentary party leaders and parliamentarians to share progress on the implementation of recommendations.
Recommendation 5:
Diversity among parliamentarians
To advance gender equality, diversity and inclusion among parliamentarians, parliamentary party leaders should lead and champion a 10-year strategy which includes the following elements
targets to achieve gender balance and specific actions to support the achievement of the targets
specific actions to achieve gender balance and diverse representation across all parliamentary roles and portfolios
specific actions to increase the representation of First Nations people, people from CALD backgrounds, people with disability, and LGBTIQ+ people.
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Kate Jenkins report into parliamentary culture launched
The Kate Jenkins review has been released.
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Anthony Albanese will hold Labor’s first campaign rally on Sunday, telling MPs that the opposition is kicking goals ahead of an election early next year.
“I said we would kick with the wind in the fourth quarter, well we are in the fourth quarter and we are kicking with the wind,” Albanese said.
“The government is fracturing to the right and to the left. This is a government that has run its course.”
Albanese said the party would continue to work on the three themes of a better life for working families, secure jobs, and a future made in Australia. MPs will meet again on Friday to discuss the party’s campaign strategy.
He compared federal Labor’s standing to other opposition parties in Australia and around the world, commending MPs for their discipline.
The government does not deserve a second decade in politics.
If elected, we will be the most experienced incoming Labor government in history.
Speculation is mounting that an election will be held in May after a revised sitting calendar scheduled a budget for March.
Albanese criticised the sitting calendar for 2022 and the limited sitting days planned for the first half of the year, and said a March election was still a live option.
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We reported two weeks ago that the department of prime minister and cabinet had breached freedom of information law by dragging out a request for documents related to the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins.The department had repeatedly missed legally-imposed deadlines and claimed the FOI request was “voluminous” and overly complex.
The request was, in fact, highly targeted and narrow, and identified only 20 documents in the department’s systems.
The information watchdog, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) made a series of recommendations to improve the department’s compliance with the law.
One of those was to appoint an information champion, tasked with providing “leadership, oversight and accountability necessary to promote and operationalise the department’s compliance with the FOI act”.
That was to be done by 5 November.But newly released documents strongly suggest the department has not acted on that recommendation.
An FOI lodged on 11 November asked for any document held by the department related to the OAIC’s recommendation that an information champion be appointed. The department told the FOI applicant that they held no such records.
“I have decided to refuse your request under section 24A(1) of the FOI Act, on the basis that the Department has taken all reasonable steps to locate the documents you have requested, and those documents do not exist,” the department told the applicant.
Labor caucus has determined its position on the religious discrimination bill:
- Labor will not adopt a final position on the bill until a parliamentary committee has completed an inquiry;
- In the unusual event the government attempts to bring the bill on prior to the inquiry completing, Labor will “pursue procedural measures to defer such a vote until Labor has adopted a final position on the bill”;
- In the event that the government succeeds in bringing the bill on for a vote in the house prior to Labor adopting a final position - Labor WILL NOT OPPOSE the bill in the house, while making clear the principles that will guide Labor’s position and the need for the government to deliver on its 3-year old commitment to protect LGBT students from discrimination.
The caucus discussed concerns including the implications of the bill on outsourcing government services to religious organisations; and how to ensure minorities within faith communities are heard.
The shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, said Labor should encourage submissions to the inquiry, but it is set to only have three public hearings. Dreyfus said he was “disappointed” the government had not used this moment for harmony and bringing people together; and that the government had let many communities down when it attempted to amend 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.
Keep in mind that journalists have not seen the review – it has been given to the government, but no one has seen it as yet, so asking questions will be a little tricky
Simon Birmingham will be standing up with the prime minister at 12.15 – so take that as confirmation that it will be on the Kate Jenkins review.
(as the finance minister, Birmingham is the minister responsible for parliamentary staff)
Parliament is due to sit at midday today (it is always later on Tuesday because of the party room meetings).
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The prime minister has announced a press conference for 12.15pm.
It’s in the courtyard.
That is presumably on the Kate Jenkins report into parliamentary culture, which has been handed to the government.
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The ABC has reported a fifth case of the Omicron variant of Covid has been confirmed in NSW – a woman who arrived in Sydney before the travel restrictions were in place. The ABC says the woman had visited several venues on the NSW central coast.
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Ben Butler has more on Westpac:
Westpac has admitted it broke the law and agreed to pay penalties totalling $113m after the corporate regulator hit the bank with six lawsuits over shoddy treatment of customers that included charging dead people fees and lambasted the bank for a “poor compliance culture” that needs urgent improvement.
The bank has admitted the allegations in the lawsuits, filed in the federal court by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, and in addition to the penalty will pay customers $80m in remediation.
Tens of thousands of customers were improperly charged tens of millions of dollars as a result of Westpac’s misconduct, Asic said.
The Labor caucus has made at least one decision
Update: Labor will reserve its position on religious discrimination until after an inquiry; then if govt forces a vote will aim to delay it; THEN if STILL forced it will "not oppose" in the lower house.@AmyRemeikishttps://t.co/7vhO8dePXJ
— Paul Karp (@Paul_Karp) November 30, 2021
This is coming very soon:
Media alert: Sex Discrimination Commissioner @Kate_Jenkins_ will today launch Set the Standard, the final report on the Independent Review into Commonwealth Parliamentary Workplaces. pic.twitter.com/utNNM7QteE
— Australian Human Rights Commission (@AusHumanRights) November 30, 2021
In the parliament, Simon Birmingham, as the minister who has carriage of parliamentary staff, is expected to take carriage of the report, although it would be expected that the prime minister also say something.
Either way, it will be an issue in question time.
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The political parties have broken from their meetings – we will bring you the updates on what was said in the rooms very soon
NSW Health has put out its release on the latest case numbers, which includes this:
NSW Health is investigating two Covid cases who arrived in NSW on flight QR908 on 25 November. Both are isolating at their respective homes. Urgent genomic sequencing is underway to determine whether these cases have been infected with the Omicron Covid-19 variant. All passengers on this flight must be tested immediately, regardless of previous test results and vaccination status, and isolate until a negative result is received.
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Activists have stopped an Adani train carrying a load of coal towards the company’s export port in north Queensland.
Adani says it will be exporting its first shipment from the Carmichael coalmine by the end of the year.
But the company remains cagey about the specifics and whether the train (which is branded with the logo of Adani’s subsidiary, Bowen Rail Company) stopped by activists near Bowen – on the line to the Abbot Point port – contains a first load.
The moment will be significant – and heavily stage-managed by both the company and climate activists – given the decade-long controversy about the mine’s construction and the unprecedented campaign to stop it proceeding.
Activists from the group Frontline Action Against Coal claim they have stopped the train on the outskirts of Bowen. Two activists have locked themselves to the railway line. Another two activists, a mother and daughter, used steel pipes to lock themselves to train wagons.
Police are in attendance at the two separate sites.
Images shared with Guardian Australia show the wagons fully laden with coal.
Earlier this month a Bowen Rail Company locomotive broke down on the shared section of railway, near Collinsville.
Adani said that the train was undergoing testing.
The company says: “Testing and commissioning on the trains has been underway for several weeks which has included transporting coal.
“As is the usual process for new pieces of equipment and infrastructure, this is expected to take a period of time as the new machines and infrastructure are tested.
“The Carmichael mine is on track to export coal in 2021.”
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The House of Representatives’ daily program for Tuesday is out.
A draft circulated on Friday suggesting the religious discrimination bill would come on for debate on Tuesday afternoon, but it has now been bumped down the program.
Good morning. The House will resume at noon. The day will begin with two committee reports being presented, after which debate will resume on the National Health Amendment (Enhancing the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme) Bill 2021. See the full program here: https://t.co/pWJxbQVHJK pic.twitter.com/1qNQhsbihn
— Australian House of Representatives (@AboutTheHouse) November 30, 2021
CORRECTION: An earlier post suggested it had been removed from the program. In fact, it has been bumped down the program (but not removed).
https://twitter.com/Paul_Karp/status/1465473698182287363
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Well this is a change:
#breaking - Religious Discrimination bill has been ditched from Tuesday's program.#auspol https://t.co/JpTvGNmx3n
— Paul Karp (@Paul_Karp) November 30, 2021
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Queensland extending vaccine mandate
The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, has announced an extension of the state’s vaccine mandates. Workers on the list will have to be fully vaccinated by 23 January (with at least one dose by 17 December).
BREAKING: Vaccinations will be mandated for people who work in schools, early childhood centres, correctional centres, youth detention facilities and airports. #covid19 pic.twitter.com/Akq3S8VQIG
— Annastacia Palaszczuk (@AnnastaciaMP) November 29, 2021
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Outside parliament and GetUp has organised a couple of events on the lawn.
One is calling for the government to pass a cultural heritage protection act and the second is on the hand over of a petition for a federal Icac.
The joint human rights committee has announced some details of its inquiry into the the three religious discrimination bills.
As Guardian Australia revealed yesterday, the chair, Anne Webster, is keen to keep the inquiry narrowly focused on the religious discrimination bills – not religious exemptions to other discrimination laws, such as the Sex Discrimination Act.
The committee said: “The committee has resolved that it will accept submissions strictly addressing its terms of reference: that is, relating to the religious discrimination legislative package.”
So, in effect, submitters are being told they can raise concerns about the effect of allowing religious schools to discriminate on the grounds of religious ethos, but should not raise the bigger concern about sacking gay teachers and expelling gay students, powers contained in the SDA.
The committee has set a deadline of 21 December for submissions, and announced public hearings on 21 December, 13 and 14 January. Merry Christmas stakeholders, MPs and senators.
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Anyone who isn’t very online may have missed the whirlwind of conspiracy theories that swirled around this photo – were the steaks actually cooked on the barbecue, when was it taken, it’s cold in Melbourne, where are the jumpers, the gas isn’t on ... it was a ride (that at least one federal government MP jumped on).
Anyways, now Daniel Andrews has addressed it in a press conference, because this is what Australian politics is about now:
The premier on THAT barbecue selfie with Albo: “The gas was on. Searing a steak before you put on the barbecue is not the most novel thing … The asparagus - I assure you we didn’t eat it raw. It was windy and not that warm so that’s why I have a jumper on”. pic.twitter.com/xQrvCsBhh4
— Benita Kolovos (@benitakolovos) November 29, 2021
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The committee looking into the religious discrimination review is due to report back on 4 February.
Which means it needs submissions by 21 December, with public hearings scheduled for mid-January (when most people are still on holidays/switched off).
The Human Rights Joint Committee has issued a media release regarding its inquiry into the Religious Discrimination Bill 2021 and related bills
— Australian Senate (@AuSenate) November 29, 2021
More information: https://t.co/JswKXtK8VB pic.twitter.com/A26GUgUjQz
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Probably not a surprise to anyone paying attention:
Federal government lags all Australian states on renewable energy action, new report finds https://t.co/wJbD8KMDnH
— Lisa Cox (@_LisaMCox) November 29, 2021
You can set your calendar to it. The Morrison government is required to release national emissions figures within five months of the end of a quarter.
So, lo and behold, on the final day, here we have the June quarter and fiscal year data on our greenhouse emissions.
Given the nature of the release, it’s perhaps apt that fugitive emissions fell the most in the June quarter, dropping 8.7%.
That’s a little bit surprising, though, as it implies gas and coal production was reduced during the April-June months by some margin.
Be that as it may, the headline figure is probably that for the year to June, Australia’s total emissions were under 500 million tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent.
That looks like the lowest annual rate since records have been kept, and was down 10.8m tonnes, or 2.1%, from a year earlier.
The government has made much of the fact national emissions are now at 20.4% below levels from 2005 – the baseline year for the 2030 Paris Agreement target.
Once again, emissions from the electricity sector led the falls. The surge in renewable energy, which arguably has been in deviance of many of the federal Coalition’s policies, helped shave 7.7mln tonnes, or 4.5%, from that national total.
If you exclude land use changes, the national story is a lot less rosy. The government booked a net sink of 24.4 mln tonnes - little changed from a year ago.
Excluding that sector, then Australia’s national emissions were 523.3m tonnes, the lowest at an annual rate since 2003.
As Guardian Australia has reported, there are good reasons to be sceptical about Australia’s emissions savings from the land sector.
In short, Australia’s emissions are probably on the downward trajectory, thanks mostly to the advance of zero carbon solar and wind farms but the rest of the economy is largely still chugging along.
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The ABC is reporting Hobart woman Susan Neill-Fraser has lost her second appeal against her murder conviction.
She has always maintained her innocence. She was allowed a second appeal after a change in Tasmanian law. Under the original sentence, Neill-Fraser is eligible for parole next August.
More than half of all Ambulance Victoria employees have experienced bullying at work and almost one in five experienced sexual harassment, an independent review by the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission has found.
The first part of the review, which included a survey of more than 2,000 Ambulance Victoria employees, was released on Tuesday. It found that 52.4% reported experiencing bullying, 47.2% said they had experienced discrimination in the workforce, 34% had experienced victimisation, and 17.4% had experienced sexual assault.
Commissioner Ro Allen said these experiences had a “profound” impact on many of the 255 who spoke in depth to the inquiry.
Allen said:
“The Victorian community rightly hold Ambulance Victoria in high regard, due to the incredible dedication and care that so many of us have experienced from the service.
“It is vitally important that that same level of care be extended to all who work for Ambulance Victoria, and that those within the organisation treat each other with the same level of respect and compassion that they give to the community.”
The report found that many members of Ambulance Victoria do not feel safe or valued in the workplace. One respondent told the commission:
“This organisation’s culture is unsafe for people who are not white males. It’s really bad.”
Ambulance Victoria’s chairman, Ken Lay, said the report was “both painful and confronting” and revealed a depth of discrimination, bullying and harassment in the workplace that was “deeply disturbing”.
The report made 24 recommendations, all of which have been accepted by Ambulance Victoria. In a statement, health minister Martin Foley said the behaviour and culture outlined in the report was “simply unacceptable and in no way meets the standards this government, and the broader community, expect of a workplace”.
Foley said:
“To anyone in Ambulance Victoria who has experienced discrimination, sexual harassment, bullying and victimisation of any kind – please know we hear you, we believe you and there will be immediate action taken.”
Volume two of the final report will be released in March.
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Daniel Andrews says the Omicron variant, at this point, doesn’t change anything.
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Daniel Andrews press conference
Daniel Andrews is holding a press conference after his government secured the votes it needed to pass its amended pandemic legislation.
He is asked about the vaccine mandates:
They won’t be here forever but they’re based on health advice and we’ll continue to follow health advice. Whilst we review all the rules and, because of the rules and the vaccinate rates, we’ve been able to achieve, just over a few weeks ago, we took all the rules off pretty much except for masks in a number of sensitive settings, really.
But we will continue to review continuously all of the rules and that includes the way the vaccinated economy operates.
But I will say this, we’ve got to get boosters done, we’ve got to get the paediatric vaccine done, and the last couple of days show us that this virus is not static. It’s going to keep changing. And our response will need to be nimble. And the inherent protections that come from encouraging everyone to get vaccinated, well, the hospitalisation numbers tell you all that you need to know. There are very, very few people, a handful in fact, that are in hospital, double jabbed, really sick.
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The political parties are holding their party room/caucus meetings today, which means the next few hours will be a little more quiet.
And so ends the press conference.
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Does the federal government have any idea on when the national plan will move from the third stage to the fourth, given the new variant?
Greg Hunt:
The position at the moment is right now we’re in the process of moving through the stages of border reopening. The last part of it would be up vaccinated arrivals.
We’re not at a point yet to make that decision. We’ve always set out the time frames for decisions and that will be considered at a later time.
Right now we have to work with the states and territories and we’re working with them cooperatively.
The national cabinet is meeting today and the health ministers are meeting collectively today and so the national plan is always under constant review at this point in time. The next phases are the students and the workers.
Then double vaccinated tourists and the progressive bubbles and then we’ll continue to follow the medical advice and when we believe that that’s safe we would look at unvaccinated arrivals. That’s not today.
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Prof Paul Kelly on the issue of boosters:
We need to be cognisant of the international evidence and international decisions but remember the northern hemisphere is in winter so boosters in winter make a lot of sense.
We’re more than six months away from winter. We know that respiratory viruses circulate a lot more in winter. It’s likely that that’s when we would want the boosters to to be totally actively working. There are some significant reasons behind the day of a booster more than three months but it’s a balance and that’s exactly the sort of issues that I discussed this morning with Atagi and they’ll look at that now.
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Karen Andrews goes through the declaration requirements of returning travellers:
Internationally, we have very high expectations and requirements of international travellers coming into Australia.
That requires them to have a negative PCR test before they are uplifted and there are quite heavy penalties for airlines should they choose to uplift someone who does not have the appropriate vaccination or does not have a negative PCR test.
So we have those protocols in place. On arrival, well, passengers are required to have filled in an Australia travel declaration indicating what their vaccination status is and the countries through which they have travelled to come to Australia.
A number of those requirements have been mandated now and there are significant penalties for false declarations, so that’s over $6,000 can be applied as a fine but also up to a 12-month prison sentence for people who do not declare and appropriately on the [arrival card].
In addition, if it is fraudulently filled out, then potentially there are offences under the criminal code that may well be enforced should they be determined to be appropriate and, of course, when passengers arrive here, the Australian Border Force takes a very active role in compliance to make sure that all the proper authorities are in place including the negative PCR test before they were uplifted and vaccination status.
How are vaccination rates going in Indigenous communities? Greg Hunt:
We’ve seen a strong spike in Indigenous vaccinations over recent weeks. There was a significant hesitancy. That’s the honest answer.
We’re now, as of today, at 74% Indigenous first dose and 62.6% Indigenous second dose and so I want to thank all of the Indigenous community leaders.
They’ve really stepped up. They’re working with commonwealth, state and territory governments as an implementation partnership signed with all states and territories for co-leadership in this space.
We’re seeing that initial hesitancy falling away. Northern Territory in particular is doing a great job. Western Australia is where we have to do the most work.
That’s just a fact, not a reflection, and all the states and territories are absolutely doing their best to provide encouragement.
There has been some, I think, fairly malicious targeting by some anti-vaxx groups of Indigenous groups and we’ve been fighting against that for a long while but we’re beginning to win that fight and I think the Northern Territory has been the model in the way in which we’re beginning to see very significant growth in Indigenous communities.
The change in Indigenous communities is because of the work so many Indigenous people have been doing to combat vaccine misinformation and anti-vaxxer campaigns, as well as working with community leaders to get to the people who need the information. The work they have done to protect their community has been above and beyond and needs to be acknowledged by anyone reporting on this issue.
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CMO: 'We don’t know still about vaccine effectiveness' against Omicron variant
Then we get to the chief medical officer, Prof Paul Kelly:
In terms of what we know, we now have five cases that have been diagnosed in Australia.
They’ve all been diagnosed quickly.
They’re all in quarantine, one in the Northern Territory at the centre for national resistance and the other four in New South Wales.
What do we know about those cases? And it’s similar to travellers in other countries in the world, almost all of them directly linked with southern Africa – they are young.
They’re doubly vaccinated. Several of them have had infection previously, either known or on serological testing.
And they have very mild or in fact no disease. That’s what we know so far.
In terms of transmission on from those people, the only case we really know about is the one we talked about on Saturday in hotel quarantine in Hong Kong where there was someone who had come from southern Africa and transmitted to another person from another part of the world across the corridor. So we know it’s transmissible.
We don’t know still about the vaccine effectiveness. We don’t know about severity and there’s mixed reports on that from South Africa itself – and I would echo Minister Hunt’s view that this has been a difficult time for them and their neighbouring countries, one of which, Malawi, I worked in myself, so I feel for that country and I still have links to there.
It’s difficult but they’ve been extremely open and helpful in relation to what they know.
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Karen Andrews is also at this press conference, where she speaks about the decision to delay the border reopening for skilled worker visa holders and international students (as well as the travel bubble with South Korea and Japan).
So this 14-day pause, as I’ve indicated, was taken as a result of the briefing by Prof Paul Kelly last night. It wasn’t a decision that the Australian government took lightly.
We have been very focused on doing all we can to open our international borders as safely and quickly as we possibly can do. I want to stress that this is a 14-day pause and we will be working to ensure that we will open our borders as soon as we possibly can.
We are acutely aware of the impact this will have on individuals, families and businesses here in Australia but I stress this is a 14-day pause. I would also like to commend the state and territory governments for their response to the issues relating to the Omicron variant. They have been calm, measured and responsible in their approach and I thank them for doing so.
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Greg Hunt press conference
As is his habit, Greg Hunt goes through information we already know – vaccination updates, what the government is doing, announcements which been made in the last little bit – before moving on:
I want to particularly single out and thank South Africa. South Africa has been very cooperative and transparent, both internationally and directly with Australia. Our High Commission has been working with South Africa, the deputy chief medical officer, Prof Michael Kidd, has been working being South Africa. And the advice is that this may – may – turn out to be a milder variant ... has come very much from the field evidence on the ground in South Africa.
We want to acknowledge and recognise it’s a difficult time for them but everybody is working together. Australia’s dealt with challenges and we’re ready for this. We’re able to deal with this and we want to give Australia that confidence.
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Greg Hunt has called a press conference to give the Omicron update – he’ll be up in just a few minutes.
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Victorian government secures votes for amended pandemic legislation
As Calla Wahlquist has been reporting, the Victorian government appears to have the votes to pass its amended pandemic legislation (by one).
The other crossbencher the government was negotiating with has said no:
Sustainable Australia MP Clifford Hayes says he’s not supporting the amended pandemic legislation. “I would argue that myself and my colleague, Rod Barton, fought hard and long for these changes but the final position of the govt was not enough to garner my support,” he says. pic.twitter.com/SjKWlrFzAf
— Benita Kolovos (@benitakolovos) November 29, 2021
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Victoria records 917 Covid cases and six deaths; NSW records 179 cases and three deaths
NSW and Victoria have reported their Covid data for the day:
NSW COVID-19 update – Tuesday 30 November 2021
— NSW Health (@NSWHealth) November 29, 2021
In the 24-hour reporting period to 8pm last night:
- 94.5% of people aged 16+ have had one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine
- 92.4% of people aged 16+ have had two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine pic.twitter.com/jvgNKwp8uJ
We thank everyone who got vaccinated and tested yesterday.
— VicGovDH (@VicGovDH) November 29, 2021
Our thoughts are with those in hospital, and the families of people who have lost their lives.
More data soon: https://t.co/OCCFTAtS1P#COVID19Vic #COVID19VicData pic.twitter.com/hflZSgmc00
The nine deaths across Victoria and NSW show that, for many, the virus is still having a massive impact on people’s lives.
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It’s that time of year again – when everyone argues over whether they have ever heard the word of the year.
Strollout chosen as Macquarie dictionary’s 2021 word of the year https://t.co/nRIt7ZSqDA
— Guardian Australia (@GuardianAus) November 29, 2021
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In case you missed this yesterday:
Geoffrey and Jane Smith have been friends to migrant workers functioning in slave-like conditions. What do they get in return? A home raid from the Border Force, who also cited Vanuatu's High Commissioner in their targets.
— Senator Tony Sheldon (@senator_sheldon) November 29, 2021
This is outrageous behaviour by the Morrison government. pic.twitter.com/YWkHjYbSRF
Sarah Martin has a story on an independent challenger for Liberal MP Fiona Martin in Reid:
A high-profile NSW Liberal woman is quitting to run as an independent at the next federal election, partly to protest the handling of an internal complaint in which she alleged “inappropriate” behaviour by some senior men within the party and government.
Natalie Baini, a lawyer and sports administrator who nominated as a Liberal candidate for the marginal Sydney seat of Reid in May, is withdrawing from the preselection process and quitting the party to run as an independent.
Her decision is also due to her concerns about the preselection process, with expectations growing the Liberals will not allow a ballot of members in the seat that would have seen her compete against the sitting moderate MP, Fiona Martin.
Baini, who advised the party on Monday that she would be withdrawing from the preselection race and cancelling her membership, told Guardian Australia she had initially decided to nominate after being approached by party faithful unhappy with their representation in Canberra.
Key crossbench MP agrees to support Victorian pandemic laws
Transport Matters MP Rod Barton has agreed to support the Victorian government’s pandemic laws in exchange for amendments including giving parliament the power to disallow pandemic orders.
In a statement released this morning, the Andrews government said the emergence of the Omicron variant showed the continued need for pandemic powers.
They said:
Over the past fortnight, we offered negotiations to the entire crossbench, giving them the opportunity to work with us on changes to this bill that would ensure Victoria has such a framework in place.
These were rigorous negotiations – and we thank Rod Barton who came to the table in good faith.
If this bill passes, we will have strengthened parliamentary oversight, with an independent joint investigatory committee and the ability for the parliament to revoke pandemic orders.
The amendments negotiated with Barton include creating a cross-parliamentary committee with the power to recommend the disallowance of pandemic orders. They also state that if such a recommendation is made, the orders can be disallowed by an absolute majority in a joint sitting of both houses of parliament.
It also replaces the current detention review officer panel with a new independent merits review for detention orders, and clarifies that complaints made about detention can be filed with the ombudsman.
The government will also remove the aggravated offence clause, and require that independent experts conduct a review of a pandemic declaration after 18 months of it being in operation.
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Again, you’ll hear a lot about “wedge politics” in the coming weeks and months – the religious discrimination bill is just one example.
“Wedge politics” refers to an issue which one side of politics raises in order to push the other side into a decision, in order to expose divides. It’s an issue for many reasons – one, it treats politics as a game, when it has real world impact on actual people, and two, it shows politics as being about staying in power, rather than trying to make lives better.
The issues used for wedge politics – climate, religion, sexuality, etc – have real world effects that are very important to a lot of people, not as some ephemeral concept, but for their life and identity. They should be treated with the respect they deserve.
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Paul Karp also has an update on Labor’s position on the religious discrimination bill:
Labor will aim to sidestep the religious discrimination stoush by reserving its position on the Morrison government bill until after a committee inquiry.
The shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, took that recommendation to shadow cabinet on Monday evening before Labor caucus will gather on Tuesday, its first meeting since Scott Morrison introduced the bill late last week.
On Friday, Morrison referred the bill to a joint human rights committee inquiry reporting on 4 February, despite previously calling for a Senate-only inquiry with no input from MPs.
Labor argues that having backed down from that position it would be highly unusual for the government to attempt to force a vote in the House of Representatives before the committee reports, and is seeking to enlist support from Liberal moderates to prevent it happening.
Murph has the latest on the the Scanlon Foundation Research Institute annual report – seems more Australians have actually had a look around:
Australians are increasingly aware that racism is a problem in their country, while positive sentiment about immigration and multiculturalism has also increased over the past 12 months, according to an authoritative survey on social cohesion.
The annual Mapping Social Cohesion Report from the Scanlon Foundation Research Institute, released on Tuesday, has charted a 20 percentage point increase in 12 months in response to the question “How big a problem is racism in Australia?”
Back in 2020, 40% of respondents thought racism in Australia was either a very big or fairly big problem. But in the 2021 survey of 3,572 respondents, 60% held that view.
The survey authors note “an increase of 20 percentage points in response to a general question of this nature is almost unprecedented in the Scanlon Foundation surveys”, which have been conducted annually since 2007. But they say there is no clear trigger or cultural catalyst explaining such a large shift.
Deputy chief medical officer Dr Sonya Bennett has had a chat to the ABC, reminding people to just get vaccinated (viruses, as we know, don’t really give a fig about borders, because they are viruses):
What we’re done in Australia is very proportionate and measured and the intent is to slow any spread of this new variant into Australia whilst we learn more about the virus.
We’re in a very good position here.
Our vaccination coverage is good.
The virus does appear to be showing indications it causes mild illness in vaccinated people.
So it’s really a reminder, whilst we have high vaccine coverage, we still have a large number of people who don’t have a single dose.
So it’s really a reminder for people to consider that. We won’t be able to stop this virus at the border.
It does look like it’s highly transmissible and we know even with the strictest mitigation measures with Delta, it’s a virus.
It will get through the borders at some stage and spread. So just a reminder to people really to consider both getting double-dose vaccination and, if you’re due for a booster, get that as soon as you can.
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The World Health Organisation has entered the conversation (via AAP):
Developed nations such as Australia have been warned slamming borders shut to countries reporting new Covid-19 variants could backfire.
The World Health Organisation says it could make countries less willing to share information about emerging strains.
“We don’t like to see that level of restriction because that really punishes [those countries],” WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris told Sky News on Tuesday.
“It makes other countries less comfortable about being so helpful to the rest of the world.”
Australia has delayed it reopening to international students and visa holders from Wednesday until December 15 to buy time to find out more about the Omicron variant that appears to be more transmissible.
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For those asking, there are five cases of the new Omicron confirmed in Australia – all are in quarantine.
There are four in Sydney (after two more were confirmed late yesterday) and one in the Northern Territory.
All five people had been vaccinated.
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Asic takes 'multiple' actions against Westpac
AAP has this update:
The corporate regulator has taken the unprecedented step of launching multiple legal actions at once against one of Australia’s big four banks.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has hit Westpac with six civil penalty proceedings in the federal court, which could draw a combined penalty of more than $100m.
The actions follow separate Asic investigations conducted in 2021, resulting in allegations of widespread compliance failures across multiple Westpac businesses.
These include its banking, superannuation and wealth management brands and the former general insurance business.
The alleged conduct – mostly involving “poor systems, poor processes and poor governance” – occurred over many years and affected many thousands of consumers, Asic said.
“It is unprecedented for Asic to file multiple proceedings against the same respondent at the same time,” Asic deputy chair Sarah Court said on Tuesday.
“However, these were exceptional circumstances ... and we decided to expedite those matters for consideration by the court at the earliest opportunity.”
Westpac admitted the allegations in each of the proceedings and would remediate about $80m to customers, Asic said.
Asic and Westpac will also submit to the court that combined penalties of more than $100m “are appropriate”.
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The Andrews government has been negotiating with crossbench MPs in an attempt to get the one final vote needed to pass its proposed pandemic laws in the final parliamentary sitting week of the year.
Debate on the Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (Pandemic Management) Bill was postponed earlier this month after former Labor MP Adem Somyurek belatedly declared his vaccination status in order to be able to return to parliament and vote against the bill.
The proposed legislation would replace the state of emergency, which is due to expire on 15 December. If it expires before the legislation is past, the Victorian government will not be able to enforce public health orders.
Labor had already gained the support of three upper house crossbench MPs – Reason party’s Fiona Patten, Greens leader Samantha Ratnam and Animal Justice party’s Andy Meddick – who negotiated a raft of reforms including a significant reduction in fines for breaching public health orders and a fully funded independent oversight committee.
It is now having to negotiate with two more crossbenchers, Transport Matters MP Rod Barton and Sustainable Australia’s Clifford Hayes, to secure the final vote. The pair have called for even greater parliamentary oversight than was negotiated by the other three crossbenchers, and further checks on the new powers.
Hayes told AAP late yesterday that negotiations were still ongoing:
“I understand the need for some kind of pandemic framework but if we do not achieve a result that withstands expert and community scrutiny, I will not hesitate to vote against the bill.”
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Solomon Islands province premier Daniel Suidani spoke to the ABC yesterday and said the Australian intervention was “not helpful”.
Karen Andrews was asked about that on the ABC and said Australia had made it clear it was not involving itself in the political situation in any way:
It was exactly the right move for Australia to make. Let’s be clear, we made that in response to a request from the Solomon Islands’ prime minister. We’re there supporting the Solomon Islands police force. This is a policing matter.
We made it very clear that we are not there to participate at all in domestic political matters. We are there to work with the Solomon Islands’ police force to restore law and public order as soon as possible.
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It was vile and unacceptable that ABC journalists were abused by anti-vaxxers on the weekend, ABC managing director David Anderson told Senate estimates on Monday night.
Broome ABC office this morning: anti vax protesters fire off air horns, mega phones, shout, faces pushed up against the glass. Inside staff working overtime to provide emergency bushfire warnings as fire threatens homes just outside town. pic.twitter.com/sTJFCAqQtY
— Matt Bamford (@BamfordMatt) November 27, 2021
Anderson said ABC journalists were increasingly under attack while out in the field and were also receiving abuse and even threats online which have been reported to police.
It is something that is happening at protests and alike.
It is quite confronting, it’s completely unacceptable. And it is vile what is happening to some of our people more regularly and more often.
We’re having to change the way we might cover a protest or change the way we’re putting people in some of these situations.
The minister representing communications minister Paul Fletcher at estimates, Jane Hume, said the government was not responsible for derogatory comments made by senators about the ABC managing director and chair.
Hume was asked if the government agreed with comments made by Liberal senator Ben Small to the Australian newspaper on Monday, which included him accusing Anderson of failing in his job.
A fish rots from the head, so the managing director needs to account for his leadership when the organisation is falling so short of any reasonable expectation.
Hume said Small was in the government but was “not in the executive” and his views “did not represent the views of the government”.
Hume also distanced herself from a speech by Queensland senator James McGrath’s last week in which he called for the ABC to be broken up and Triple J to be sold off.
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The new variant talk has turned attention back to quarantine facilities – Victoria and Queensland are building purpose-built quarantine centres, but the federal government hasn’t pushed ahead with any on its own (Howard Springs in the NT has been expanded).
Karen Andrews says there is no need for new quarantine facilities:
Look, not at all. Not at all. We have very high vaccination rates. Now, over 86%, in this country.
We have very much focused as a government on vaccinations and making sure that Australians are prepared. Purpose-built quarantine facilities are very limited in their capacity.
Now, Howard Springs has been very effective at managing international arrivals, particularly those from high risk countries. We’ve had around the country hotel quarantine working very effectively and the good thing about hotel quarantine is that you can manage it up and down as is required.
So purpose built facilities, particularly from the federal government’s point of view, have always had a limited life.
We have made it clear that any facilities that we will be involved in will need to be multiple purpose so they can be repurposed in the future, for example, if we needed to accommodate, house people, in a future pandemic, or if we particularly needed to look at where we were going to house people during a domestic crisis, which would include floods or bushfires.
(Both Queensland and Victoria say their facilities will be able to be multi-use.)
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What about domestic borders?
Karen Andrews:
Well, that’s a matter for the state and territory governments to determine. We have been very keen federally to focus on the international borders, because that’s our key responsibility.
Look, so far the state and territory first ministers have been very, very conscious of the impacts of the omicron variant but they’ve been taking advice and they’ve been excellent to deal with. They have made it very clear that they are focused on finding out more about this particular variant and what the impacts are.
So it has been a very measured response from everyone here in Australia. And that’s very positive.
The home affairs minister, Karen Andrews, is doing the media rounds this morning after the government announced it was pausing the border reopening for skilled worker visa holders and international students. That decision was announced late yesterday after a national security committee meeting.
We took the health advice from our chief medical officer last night. So that advice was given to the national security committee of cabinet. We listened very carefully to what Paul Kelly had to say. And the decision that was taken was that we would need to pause.
The decision we had already taken in relation to international students and skilled workers. The reason that we did that is because based on the health advice, more time was needed to make sure that we had all the relevant information in relation to that variant. But the good thing is here in Australia we have such a high vaccination rate, over 86% of eligible Australians are double vaccinated, so that does put us in very good stead to face Omicron and any other variant.
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For those who missed it yesterday, why is everyone talking about an election being held in May?
Because the government tabled its proposed sitting calendar for 2022 late yesterday, and it includes minimal sittings in the first four months of the year, and a March budget.
As Shane Wright from Nine newspapers pointed out (he tends to know these things) if the budget is held in March, it will be a first – previously the earliest a budget had been handed down was in early April.
So the thinking goes, a short February sitting (seven days) then three days of sitting in March for the budget, and then an election in May. (Which potentially means parliament may not sit again until August, given the traditional July break, and the month after an election is usually a rest/down tools time).
Scott Morrison has said he would like to hand down a budget. But in reality (except for public servants who have to work to the timetable set down, no matter whether it happens or not) Morrison can call an election whenever he likes (as long as it is before the statutory time period, which in this case for both houses, is 22 May). Which means there can be an election called at any time, no matter what the sitting calendar says.
There is nothing stopping Morrison, if he thinks the timing is right, calling an election after the summer holidays (politicians try not to annoy people by calling elections during holiday periods, plus they want you to be able to be in your electorate so you can vote). There could be an election in March, April or May.
So while the sitting calendar points to one outcome, it is not the only one.
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Good morning
Welcome to the third last sitting day of the year (and possibly before the election), where the government is trying for its latest reset.
Scott Morrison is back on the “won’t be distracted” train, where he waxes lyrical about knowing what Australians actually care about.
So the government is pushing its social media “reforms”, which are dressed up as protecting young people and women from anonymous trolling and online bullying, but really, is aimed at those looking at defamation action.
That legislation should be released today, where we will learn more, including whether the government plans on allowing public funds to be used for defamation action – something Peter Dutton, who sued over a (then deleted) tweet, floated just a short time ago.
The government’s voter ID laws, which have been roundly criticised as a solution looking for a problem, are also due for an airing today – despite not having Labor’s support (not having Labor’s support is one of the reasons the government says it is not introducing its integrity commission legislation).
But of course, it is all about the new Covid variant, with national cabinet to meet this afternoon to get an update. There is still a lot health experts don’t know about the new Omicron variant – on first impressions, it seems more mild than Delta, but just as contagious. A more mild version of the virus is potentially the first step to it becoming endemic, rather than a pandemic, and there is nothing to suggest that vaccine effectiveness is affected
Still, the government that was selling itself as “getting out of people’s lives” has paused the border reopening for skilled visa holders and international holders for two weeks while it works out what Omicron means. So far, that is the only major change. It’s a blow for those on visas hoping to return to Australia. As yet, there is no change for vaccinated Australian passport holders being able to return. There is also no changes for people wanting to leave Australia.
We will keep you updated on what happens as it does – including any changes national cabinet decides on. The health expert panel, Atagi, are also meeting to consider whether or not there is any need to bring forward the booster shots from six months to four months (for example), so if there is any decision there, you’ll be among the first to know.
Mike Bowers is out and about, and in the Canberra bureau you have Sarah Martin, Paul Karp, Daniel Hurst and Katharine Murphy. It being a parliament sitting, you have Amy Remeikis on the blog for most of the day and the entire Guardian team will keep you in the know on what is happening around the country. I hope you have had your coffee (or three).
Ready?
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