Sitting year comes to an end
Rightio. Stick a fork in me. Done. The House and the Senate have adjourned.
That’s the end of another sitting year. It’s been a rollercoaster. Thankfully, I’ve only been trapped on it for the past week. That’s been more than enough, let me assure you.
Loyal readers, thank you so much for sticking with us throughout. Just want to pay tribute to the incredible Amy Remeikis, Mike Bowers, Katharine Murphy, Sarah Martin and Paul Karp. Feeding this beast is an almighty effort.
This week’s blog will have been a window into the steady disintegration of my mind. But it’s only been four days. Amy and co do it all year.
Just to recap the day’s events.
- Angus Taylor decided to double down on his fight with *checks notes* Naomi Wolf, calling for her to apologise for inferring he was antisemitic after he inferred she was at war with Christmas during their Oxford years. Wolf also doubled down, saying Taylor had his facts wrong and was peddling divisive lies about her.
- The government rammed its union bashing bill through the lower house this morning, gagging debate, and causing outrage all round by not letting the opposition speak on the bill. Anthony Albanese likened it to totalitarianism. Scott Morrison said unions were full of thugs, so who cares.
- There was continuing fallout to the repeal of medevac. Human rights groups continued to criticise the decision and Labor and the Greens continued to demand an explanation of Jacqui Lambie’s deal with the government. New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern said her offer of resettlement was still on the table but said Australia had not approached her government for talks in recent days.
- Morrison announced a raft of machinery of government changes, reducing the number of departments from 18 to 14 and getting rid of five departmental secretaries. The overhaul was criticised for concentrating power and undermining the cabinet system. It also saw the promotion of Andrew Metcalfe, Morrison’s old immigration secretary.
Thanks again.
Merry Christmas from the blog. Stay safe.
Updated
UN refugee agency condemns medevac repeal
The UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, has released a statement expressing its disappointment at the repeal of the medevac legislation on Wednesday.
It has also urged the government to accept the New Zealand offer to resettle refugees.
“Since its commencement earlier this year, the medevac mechanism had proven to be a timely, effective and often life-saving safeguard,” the agency said in a statement.
“After more than six years of uncertainty regarding solutions, UNHCR is extremely concerned that the health situation of asylum seekers and refugees will continue to deteriorate.
“In the absence of the now repealed medevac mechanisms, UNHCR urges the government of Australia to continue utilising pre-existing legislative processes in a good faith effort to evacuate individuals in need of urgent medical treatment.
“As Australia retains responsibility for people forcibly transferred under its offshore arrangements, UNHCR urges the government of Australia to find appropriate solutions including taking up the longstanding offer by New Zealand to resettle refugees and to prevent further harm.”
Updated
In spillover Senate estimates, jobs department officials have revealed that businesses which take a jobseeker on in a PaTH internship do not need to host for the full four weeks to be paid $1,000 for the placement – only five days.
The top five businesses providing PaTH internships are: Yacoub family trust, AHS hospitality, Coles, Woolworths and Hog’s Breath Café.
Officials said the employment rate (that is, the proportion of interns who get proper employment at the end of the placement) for those five businesses is 53.8%, compared with 60.8% for all providers offering more than 10 internships.
Updated
Anthony Albanese gives his version of the love-in speech. He signs it off with:
As Naomi Wolf would say, have a lovely Christmas.
Better things are happening in the Senate. Trust me.
Penny and Mathias #auspol pic.twitter.com/VbJ9103MDM
— Matthew Doran (@MattDoran91) December 5, 2019
Scott Morrison is summing up the year in the lower house as we reach the end of the sitting year.
He thanks the public for returning the Coalition to government and speaks of the great challenges Australians have faced in terms of natural disasters this year.
This is the time when everyone pretends to be nice to everyone else. So that we all leave with warm fuzzy feelings in our hearts. Yay.
Scott Morrison says to Anthony Albanese:
It is also fitting of this time of the year to extend to the leader of the opposition and his family my very best wishes for Christmas and the holiday season. Whether he’ll be watching re-runs of old footy games or I’ll be, who knows. But I do hope he has a wonderful Christmas and New Year period with his family... and a bit of rest.
Haha, yeah. Who knows? No one’s watching old footy re-runs. Don’t be ridiculous.
Updated
Labor’s Mark Butler is pointing out the bizarre nature of Angus Taylor’s statement on Naomi Wolf in parliament today. He tells the ABC:
I’m not sure who knows better than her where she was in 1991.
Instead Angus Taylor doubled down, he not only said she was there in 1991. He told question time that she’d been there since the mid-1980s until a few years ago.
Updated
The Liberal MP Trent Zimmerman and the Labor MP Anne Aly are on the ABC. They’re asked whether they think question time today was an edifying display. Spoiler alert: nah, it wasn’t.
Zimmerman says it’s the name calling and the heat that people object to.
I think question time generally is something most Australians struggle to come to terms with.
Aly says it fails at its core objective of actually getting answers.
I’m in that category of people who had never watched question time before I came to parliament. I went into my first question time with a pen and paper thinking we were actually going to get answers.
Updated
Wolf says she had never heard of Taylor before three days ago.
I’ve never met this man. I didn’t know who he was until three days ago when I was alerted to these lies about me.
Particularly at the time of her book’s release:
Respectfully to Mr Taylor, I wasn’t paying attention to him, whoever he is.
She’s asked if there’s a stalemate.
I didn’t pick this fight, [he] decided to say things about me that are simply and categorically not true. It’s up to him as an elected official to correct the record.
Updated
Wolf:
As a woman, I find it objectionable that I’m having to document my entire life.... he should apologise and more importantly, this is not about me, he should correct the record.
She sticks to her guns on the charge of antisemitism.
I do think that’s antisemitic. I stand by what I said.
She says the comments were clearly religiously divisive and false. Wolf responds to Taylor’s statement that his grandmother is Jewish.
I mean, respectfully, I’m glad he comes from such a diverse family. As I said earlier, I have no argument with his family. I do think it was inappropriate to say I was somewhere I wasn’t, doing something I wasn’t doing.
She insists she was not in Oxford, despite Angus Taylor’s repeated claim that he remembers meeting her there. She holds up a list of the bookseller list for that year, and it shows her book at No 13. She also refers to a friend who can confirm she was not in Oxford that year.
I shouldn’t have to identify where I was. He has said things that are completely, provably wrong. There are multiple eyewitnesses.
Updated
Wolf 'taken aback' by Taylor's demands she apologise
Naomi Wolf has conducted an interview with the ABC. She said her phone call with Angus Taylor’s office was not “heated”, but was firm.
I think that I was firmly requesting a correction because Angus Taylor has made statements about me in very public forums misstating that I was among graduate students at Oxford in 1991 who were campaigning against Christmas.
She says a profile in the Australian Financial Review on Taylor, which repeated the claim, is currently being corrected by the newspaper.
I wasn’t there in 1991, I was in New York, I had written what many people think is a very important feminist text. I was touring all over the world with it... and I’ve never campaigned against Christmas.
She continues:
I really object to my name and reputation being misused by an elected official to tell a false story.
Wolf responds to Taylor’s attack in parliament today. Taylor asked her to apologise for calling him antisemitic. She says:
I have to say I’m quite taken aback by what you’re telling me. I think it’s very inappropriate, and very wrong.
Updated
The government’s plans to merge the family court have hit a bit of a snag. The proposal to merge the federal and federal circuit courts was condemned by the Law Council of Australia and other legal groups which warned earlier this week that it risked “victims of family violence falling through the cracks”.
The Senate has set a reporting date on the legislation by November 2020. The shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, says this has “effectively put a one-year hold” on the plan. Dreyfus:
Mr Porter stunned many in the family court sector in May last year when he announced plans to destroy the family court on the basis of a six-week desktop review by a firm of consultants. Earlier this year, a comprehensive report by the Australian Law Reform Commission – which the government commissioned and is still to respond to – totally contradicted the attorney general by recommending the creation of an entirely new court system and greater specialisation in the family law system. The Morrison government has not responded to that ALRC report.
Instead Mr Porter reached agreement with One Nation to hold yet another inquiry into the family law system.
Updated
Albanese moves on to Angus Taylor. He wonders whether the Naomi Wolf scandal might “get up on TV tonight”.
I think it might, I think it might. Because the extraordinary attack on Naomi Wolf, who was in New York, not a roomie, at college in the United Kingdom at the time. At that very year she had the number one bestselling book in the world! Like, this wasn’t someone obscure, and what did he do? He ripped into her. Nothing to see here. She should apologise. To him! to him! Like he’s the victim... and this prime minister keeps running a protection racket for this bloke. It is the witness protection program that this man has.
Updated
Question time ends. Anthony Albanese leaps up to speak. He says Scott Morrison is acting as though he’s been on a “victory lap” since the election and had won 100% of the vote. We’re not a one-party state, he says. This is a democracy.
This is the greatest jackboot administration that we have seen, and today in sacking five departmental heads, what they have also done is centralised power at the centre. Because when you have multiple cabinet ministers with a single department... all power gets centralised to prime minister and cabinet. The fact is that this government regards democracy as an inconvenience, one that can be dismissed at any time.
Updated
Things are deteriorating here. Lots of anger, lots of bile. Lots of insults followed by withdrawals.
Urgh. Pull the plug already.
Forget the wine, just evacuate guys. Go #qt
— Katharine Murphy (@murpharoo) December 5, 2019
Taylor demands Wolf apologise for 'deeply offensive' attack
Mark Butler turns the attack to Angus Taylor. He asks a question that mentions allegations Taylor lied about going to Oxford with the US author Naomi Wolf, who Taylor spoke about in the context of students warring on Christmas and wanting to remove a Christmas tree from their common room.
Taylor comes out swinging. He reckons he did see Wolf at Oxford, despite her saying she was on the other side of the world at the time.
Of course I recall seeing and meeting Ms Wolf at New College in Oxford during my time there. She began her studies there in the mid-80s and she finished at Oxford only a couple of years ago. Now my speech to the parliament six years ago did not say she was involved in the war on Christmas. I want to say this, her accusation of antisemitism is wrong and deeply offensive to me and my family. Mr Speaker, my grandmother was Jewish and my belief in Judeo-Christian values is deeply held. I call for her to apologise for these unsubstantiated and outrageous accusations. The fact that the Labor party has attached itself to antisemitic accusations shows just how low they’re prepared to go.
The last bit provokes uproar. Anthony Albanese wants him to withdraw the accusation that Labor is antisemitic, which didn’t really make any logical sense.
Taylor withdraws.
Updated
The Prime Minister Scott Morrison arrives for the last #qt of 2019 @GuardianAus @knausc @murpharoo #PoliticsLive https://t.co/hEU6WqK8Ra pic.twitter.com/zHwNYioQ5F
— Mikearoo (@mpbowers) December 5, 2019
Battle of the football ties in #qt Sharks VS Rabbitohs @GuardianAus @murpharoo @knausc #PoliticsLive https://t.co/hEU6WqK8Ra pic.twitter.com/m6DNt0aOJl
— Mikearoo (@mpbowers) December 5, 2019
Morrison continues:
I understand the leader of the opposition is very angry, Mr Speaker, and he’s angry because the government is standing up for those who don’t want to see thuggery and bullying in their workplace, particularly against women, Mr Speaker.
He accuses Labor of attempting to attack his faith, which prompts uproar from Labor. Morrison:
That’s what you did, that’s what you did.
Tony Burke is furious and says that attack is “very personal” and should be withdrawn.
Updated
Labor’s deputy leader, Richard Marles, asks Scott Morrison why he doesn’t believe in integrity and accountability, before rattling off a series of examples. The treatment of the union bill this morning, misleading parliament, his phone call over the NSW police investigation into Angus Taylor, why he was sacked as chief executive of Tourism Australia, and why he invited Brian Houston to the White House.
The question prompts shouts of “smear”, “smear”, “no policy” and “muckraking” from the government benches.
Morrison repeats a line from earlier this week.
This is question time, it’s not smear time.
Updated
Tanya Plibersek asks why Scott Morrison has lied about reducing funding for Tafe. He responds:
As the member would know, funding for Tafe is provided by state and territory governments ... so the member can’t come and say things that are simply untrue.
Updated
Scott Morrison is asked a question on what he is doing to increase the number of nurses in aged care facilities.
I will take that matter up, and make sure I get an answer, Mr Speaker.
He speaks about the aged care royal commission.
It is very distressing what was reported in that report, and as that report reflected this deals with issues that have been endemic that have been in the aged care sector for a very long time and the government is seeking to address the issues in aged care, which are serious and substantial.
Morrison says they are increasing the number of aged care places, and reducing the use of chemical restraints and the number of young people ending up in care.
Updated
A couple of economic questions from Labor. The shadow treasurer, Jim Chalmers, asks why we have falling investment, a weakening economy, flat wages and rising unemployment, when the government promised to build a stronger economy. The treasurer, Josh Frydenberg:
The shadow treasurer referred to investment. I can confirm that under the Coalition that investment outside of the mining sector has increased 34% since we’ve come to office, or over 5% per year. Now under the Labor party, investment outside of the mining sector fell by 10% during their time in office.
Updated
Heaps of gesticulating for the dixers. Andrew Laming giving it a red hot animated go with his “down, down, Labor debt down” line to Josh Frydenberg.
Is it just me, or are backbenchers becoming increasingly animated in their delivery of dixers during #QT? So many hand gestures... #auspol
— Alex Beech (@AlexHBeech) December 5, 2019
Updated
Albanese asks again about the government’s rushing through of the union-busting bill this morning without debate.
Why does this prime minister not respect the democratic process?
Morrison says the bill was debated extensively last week.
This issue, this matter of dealing with thuggish, militant unionism is something the Australian people wanted us to address.
We stand up for what we believe in. This matter has been through this place before, it’s been up in the Senate before. It went through some 15 or 16 hours of debate in the other place, Mr Speaker.
He continues:
I will stand up against thugs, Mr Speaker. The Labor party stands up for thugs.
Last day of school vibes going on here. Couple of Labor MPs have been booted, including Joel Fitzgibbon.
Michael McCormack leaps up. He’s had a running war with Fitzgibbon all week.
Well the average IQ of the chamber just went up, see you Joel, have a nice Christmas mate.
Updated
Albanese asks the prime minister, Scott Morrison, why he has failed to bring on legislation following the banking royal commission but broke precedents to ram through the union-busting legislation this morning. Morrison said:
I introduced the laws that ensured the banking executives who did the wrong thing should be punted forever. That’s what I did, Mr Speaker, and those opposite sought to frustrate it.
He said “ugly militant unionism should have no place in this country”.
Updated
Morrison gets a tough one from his backbenches. Australia is the best country in the world, as we all know, so tell us why you’re so great etc etc.
Albanese starts question time with 'silent Australians' attack
Question time is upon us. Anthony Albanese says the government won’t support freedom of speech, won’t support freedom to protest and now won’t support debate in parliament. He refers to the union-busting legislation that was pushed through the lower house without debate.
When the prime minister talks about quiet Australians, doesn’t he actually mean silent Australians?
Morrison says:
On the night of the election, I thanked all those Australians who go about their lives honestly decently with their aspirations. They’re the Australians our government spoke directly to, Mr Speaker.
Morrison says Albanese has spent his political career focussed on the “bubble of this place” and the “tawdry drama of Canberra”.
Updated
The mystery of the missing bills, by Mike Bowers.
Uproar as the house was adjourned because there were no printed copies of the legislation they were voting on, it later turned out they had been there all along #Doh #lastsittingday2019 @knausc @murpharoo @GuardianAus #PolticsLive pic.twitter.com/5AuPol7GA8
— Mikearoo (@mpbowers) December 5, 2019
Updated
OK, I’m calling it. Speech of the week goes to Tim Watts. Hands down.
Watts is the Labor MP who last week tweeted about Angus Taylor’s first speech and its references to Naomi Wolf and a plot to remove a Christmas tree from their Oxford common room. The US author has since slammed Taylor’s speech as wildly inaccurate and ethnically divisive.
“The response was, well, unexpected,” he says.
“It was a cautionary tale straight [from] Aesop’s Fables that summed up the minister’s career to date. You could call it: the boy who cried Wolf.”
I’ll let Watts, who read from a mock book of fairy tales, do the rest.
Here’s how it goes.
Once there was a grasslands boy who wanted to be prime minister. One day for no comprehensible reason, the boy who wanted to be prime minister shouted ‘Wolf, Wolf, Wolf, Wolf, there’s a Wolf trying to steal Christmas’. But when people looked, there was no wolf.
Later, the boy who wanted to be prime minister sang out again ‘a man from Yass, a man from Yass, a man from Yass asked me to protect my grasslands from meddling environmental regulation’. But when the people looked, there was no man from Yass.
Later, the boy who wanted to be prime minister sang out again ‘a junketeering mayor, a junketeering mayor, a junketeering mayor spending millions of dollars on flights’. But when the people looked, there was no junketeering mayor.
One day, the boy who wanted to be prime minister was lying in his grasslands when a taskforce Garrad came upon him. The boy who wanted to be prime minister shouted ‘a smear, a smear, a smear’. But when the people looked, there was no smear.
One day, the boy who cried Wolf will tell the truth. But well, that bit hasn’t happened here yet. But if you believe in fairy tales, maybe one day it will.
Updated
Labor is moving a motion saying the government’s attempts to push the union-busting bill through without debate was “anti-democratic”.
Better still is this bit of the motion:
This is a prime ministerial tantrum, with the prime minister of Australia behaving like a juvenile schoolyard bully just because he didn’t get his way last week.
Yeah, dunno, but not sure the government will go for this one.
We’re now moving through the votes for the government’s union-busting bill.
A side note - this is the 100th division to take place in the House for this sitting fortnight.
— Australian House of Representatives (@AboutTheHouse) December 5, 2019
Public sector union slams changes
The Community and Public Sector Union, the main union representing public servants, said the changes announced by the prime minister today will do nothing to enhance service delivery.
The union says the major review of the public service, conducted by David Thodey, did not suggest creating new super departments, and instead suggested the opposite. The CPSU national secretary, Melissa Donnelly, said:
It is clear that the prime minister is out of ideas. First he borrowed Services Australia from the NSW government, now super-departments. Moving buildings and merging departments does not fix the service crisis created by his own government.
We know that since 2013 18,908 or 11.4% of public service jobs have been cut under successive Liberal governments, causing enormous damage to the capacity of the commonwealth to deliver policy and essential services that all Australians rely upon.
This change will not do anything to address the 48 million unanswered calls to DHS in 2017/2018 or the further 5.3 million calls abandoned out of frustration. These are not the actions of a good government. This won’t change the delays in the family court, and it won’t change the challenges our CSIRO face.
Updated
Rightio. Well, now the speaker has done a bit of digging. And it turns out there were in fact copies of the bills in the House, despite all of that. Speaker Tony Smith says:
I’ve been able to ascertain some facts, I realise emotions are running high. I can report that notwithstanding the view ... that there were no bills present. That was not correct. I have checked. There were bills present. I’m not going to have an argument about this.
Prior to the ringing of the bells there were 25 copies, Smith says. Another 40 copies were being brought in. More were being printed.
Enough for everyone!
Updated
Mike Bowers captured the government benches as they attempted to gag debate and pass union-busting legislation on the last sitting day of the year.
He’s still in the chamber and tells me the clerks and attendants are running around, pointing at to a pile on the desk, and saying they were there all along.
Anthony Albanese is responding to that mess in the House as we speak.
This is a prime minister who doesn’t want scrutiny from the media, he doesn’t want scrutiny from the parliament either. And we’ve seen this today.
Albanese likens the government’s actions to a “totalitarian state”.
We have now had the parliament shut down because the government is incapable of running a basic democratic process. Here they run in, they gag debate, they refuse to allow anyone to speak, to push through legislation. To what end? So that they can make a point that even though they lost in the Senate last week, they won in the House today.
Updated
Chaos in the house over union-busting bill
Right, well, that was a bit of a circus. My head is still spinning.
Just to recap:
- the government sought to move quickly on its union-busing legislation this morning, suspending usual business to get straight to it.
- then it tried to gag debate in a way Tony Burke described as “unprecedented”.
- then the vote was called. But the opposition said it had not seen a copy of the bill it was supposed to be voting on. The government said there were copies in the chamber, but Labor insisted it hasn’t seen them.
- it prompted uproar. Labor are and were outraged.
- All the while, MPs are unable to stand to speak during the division, so they’re sitting down with pieces of paper or books on their head as a signal they have the call.
- Speaker Tony Smith considers the issue momentarily. He decides that, yes, people probably should have access to copies of the legislation they are voting on. Fair, I would have thought.
- He suspends the vote for 15 minutes to get copies.
Anthony Albanese has called a press conference.
Updated
Speaker @TonySmithMP is considering the issue. He notes that he doesn't believe it's satisfactory for the House to consider a bill when copies are not present. The division on the closure motion has been called off, and the sitting is suspended until the ringing of the bells.
— Australian House of Representatives (@AboutTheHouse) December 5, 2019
The vote is being called off momentarily so we can all cool our heads. We’ve suspended sitting for about 15 minutes to sort it all out.
We’re now stuck in the lower house in a very bizarre situation. Labor are saying they do not have copies of the union-busting legislation they are voting on. The government says it brought 60 copies in yesterday.
The speaker, Tony Smith, initially demands legislation be brought in. Then there’s confusion because he receives updated advice saying the copies of the legislation were previously in the chamber.
Stay tuned.
Updated
Merry Christmas Facebook
There’s an interesting development in the Senate. Labor has moved (with government support I gather) to establish a new select committee into foreign interference in democracy through social media.
Chris and I (and other colleagues at Guardian Australia) have been very attentive to this fake news/misinformation phenomenon having looked deeply into the death tax campaign on Facebook during the May election. Here’s the meat of the motion that’s about to be moved by the Labor senator Jenny McAllister.
(1) That a select committee, to be known as the Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media, be established to inquire into and report on the risk posed to Australia’s democracy by foreign interference through social media, with particular reference to:
(a) use of social media for purposes that undermine Australia’s democracy and values, including the spread of misinformation;
(b) responses to mitigate the risk posed to Australia’s democracy and values, including by the Australian Government and social media platforms;
(c) international policy responses to cyber-enabled foreign interference and misinformation;
(d) the extent of compliance with Australian laws; and
(e) any related matters.
(2) That the committee present its final report on or before the second sitting day of May 2022.
This inquiry will be one to watch in the new year. Incidentally, Labor has also asked the JSCEM (the joint parliamentary committee on electoral matters) to look at the role of misinformation on the platforms as part of the inquiry it does every election cycle into the conduct of the last federal election.
Updated
Strange scenes in the lower house. Members are unable to stand to speak, so are signalling they want the call by placing a book or paper on their head.
During this division, Members are raising points of order relating to the use of closure motions. During a division, Members can't stand, so seek the call by placing a sheet of paper or book over their heads.
— Australian House of Representatives (@AboutTheHouse) December 5, 2019
Government returns union-busting bill, attempts to gag debate
Drama down in the house. The government is returning its union-busting “ensuring integrity” bill, which was defeated on Friday after a shock last-minute switch by One Nation. The bill is currently before the lower house again.
But the Coalition is trying to gag debate. It prompts uproar in the chamber.
Labor leader Anthony Albanese says the government is attempting to use gag orders that were never intended to limit debate for partisan or party political reasons.
It is my view that the government is using this provision to shut down democratic debate in this parliament and it is an abuse of our democratic processes.
Tony Burke says the government’s actions are unprecedented.
What is happening right now is a change in the role of this house... as to whether it is a parliamentary debating chamber or whether it is only here for the voice of the prime minister and his chosen ministers.
Albanese says Labor is being asked to vote on legislation it hasn’t seen.
We are being asked now to vote on legislation which I don’t have, there are no copies anywhere. how can we possibly do that. is it within standing orders for us to be voting on legislation, I don’t know what it is.
It is appropriate for us to be voting on this without having copies of it?
Reports in the Channel Nine newspapers this morning confirmed the government is pressing ahead with plans to privatise Australia’s visa processing services. The shadow assistant immigration minister, Andrew Giles, was out on the hustings this morning, saying the position leaves 2,000 workers going into Christmas in fear of losing their jobs.
This is isn’t good enough we know that this is a terrible idea. We know this because everyone has been saying so. This is an absolutely friendless proposal. Former secretaries of the immigration department have referred to the risks to the integrity of our system, risks also to national security. The Community and Public Sector Union has warned that this could be the new robodebt implemented. And we know what will happen in Australia, because we’ve seen what has happened in the UK with their visa system that has been privatised. We’ve seen massive cuts to services and the creation of a two-tier system, where people who can afford to pay get a fast track system. In Australia we’re not hearing enough about why the government is doing this.
Updated
Firefighters demand phase-out of coal
The United Firefighters Union was at Parliament House this morning speaking out about the effects of climate change and the extending and intensifying the fire season. From their statement:
The United Firefighters Union of Australia passed a unanimous resolution at its national council in Canberra demanding a national approach that would allow firefighting to operate seamlessly across borders, improving the compatibility and capacity of different state and territory services, and boosting the number of professional firefighters.
The national council of the UFU passed the resolution calling for an “urgent phase-out of coal, oil, and gas” because they are “driving more dangerous and intense fires”. The UFU national president, Greg McConville, said:
Now is absolutely the time to talk about climate change and the ever more intense fires being fought by our members.
We are stretched to breaking point. The fire season is longer and more intense than ever. We need to begin work now to boost the nation’s firefighting capacity and make it truly interoperable.
Updated
Interesting point on the machinery of government changes from Markus Mannheim.
These changes undermine the principles of cabinet government.
— Markus Mannheim 🌦️ (@MarkusMannheim) December 5, 2019
Each department should advise only one cabinet minister, so that the cabinet discussion is balanced by competing points of view.
Australia is drifting away from this model https://t.co/pHK4eEC5EF via @BWorthington_
Stephen Jones, the shadow assistant treasurer, is on Sky News saying Morrison should accept the New Zealand deal to get children off Manus Island and Nauru. He rejects the government’s insistence that there are no more kids there.
Jones urged Morrison to be “pragmatic” and take the NZ deal.
The politics of it are toxic and the humanity of it gets left out when the politics gets injected into it.
Updated
The new structure of departments and Secretaries, on 1 February 2020 #auspol pic.twitter.com/3K0HpR2dD2
— Political Alert (@political_alert) December 5, 2019
The PM announcing an overhaul of the public service, courtesy of Mike Bowers.
Updated
The PM’s office has just released a more detailed list of those changes. They will take effect from February. Here’s the full list:
The creation of the Department of Education, Skills and Employment, which will consolidate
- the current Department of Education; and
- the current Department of Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business.
The creation of the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, which will consolidate:
- the current Department of Agriculture; and
- environment functions from the current Department of the Environment and Energy.
The creation of the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, which will consolidate:
- the current Department of Industry, Innovation and Science;
- energy functions from the current Department of the Environment and Energy; and
- small business functions from the current Department of Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business.
The creation of the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications, which will consolidate:
- the current Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Cities and Regional Development; and
- the current Department of Communications and the Arts.
The Department known as Services Australia (formerly known as the Department of Human Services) will be established as a new Executive Agency, within the Social Services Department.
Just to recap on those machinery of government changes:
- the education and employment departments are being merged
- the agriculture department is combining with the environment department
- energy will be merged with the industry, innovation and science department
- The communications and arts portfolio is being merged with infrastructure and transport department
A few interesting tidbits there. Energy is being decoupled from environment.
But emissions reduction stays with energy.
Just to reiterate, the PM is proposing no costs savings and no job losses, aside from the five departmental secretaries.
Australia always 'very aware' of NZ resettlement offer
Morrison is asked whether the government will consider New Zealand’s offer to take refugees from Manus and Nauru.
We’ve always been very aware of the New Zealand government’s offer.
The government will continue to implement its policies as we’ve set them out.
Scott Morrison says he has full confidence in Angus Taylor.
What Angus has done in the past six months to get the big stick legislation through, to ensure the dodgy late payment fees that are charged by energy companies, they’re all gone.
The policy performance of Angus Taylor is not under question.
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Morrison says this is not a “savings measure”.
So department secretaries and others will undertake the normal things that they do in managing their budgets.
This isn’t about any cost saving measures. I expect frankly all departmental secretaries to be maximising efficiencies.
Morrison says there will be no change to ministerial portfolios.
I’m very pleased, very pleased, with the performance of all my ministers.
Morrison announces we’re losing five departmental secretaries as part of the shake-up.
Andrew Metcalfe gets environment in its new home with agriculture. (Was Morrison's departmental head in immigration). David Fredericks, who has environment now, moves out of that role #auspol
— Katharine Murphy (@murpharoo) December 4, 2019
One interesting element. Environment decoupled from energy. End of a short lived era there #auspol
— Katharine Murphy (@murpharoo) December 4, 2019
Morrison reduces number of government departments by four
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, is speaking to the media. He’s speaking about changes to the public service. The Australian reported this morning that he was “poised to put an axe through the public service today with plans to dramatically cut the number of government departments with another round of mandarins set for the chopping block”.
Morrison announces he will reduce the number of government departments from 18 to 14. He says the APS will need to provide services more “efficiently and effectively”.
This sounds very much like a standard machinery of government change. Departments being renamed and subsumed into others. You know, the type we do every few years for some reason.
Every time this happens, I can only think of all the corporate merchandise that’s suddenly become redundant due to departmental name changes. I’m weird, I know. But what do they do with it all? So many spare pens. We could use them over here at the Guardian, just FYI, if departments are feeling charitable.
So far he’s named changes to the education, agriculture, environment and industry portfolios. We’ll have a full list of changes shortly.
Morrison says he wants a public service that “is very much focused on implementation”.
They [public servants] should expect from us clear direction, and we should continue to expect from them being able to continue to discharge their duties in the incredibly professional way they do.
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Mick Keelty, the inspector general of the Murray-Darling basin water resources, spoke to ABC radio a little earlier about just what the government has asked him to do. Keelty was tasked with a review of water sharing arrangement amid damaging protests for the Nationals in Canberra this week.
He’s asked precisely what he’s actually going to do:
In plain speak, whilst there’s been a lot of attention focussed on the Murray-Darling basin plan, what the federal minister David Littleproud was able to broker this week, and to his great credit ... without jumping to a conclusion is what is happening now is the inquiry will actually properly define what the problem is. Is the problem the Murray-Darling basin plan and the operations of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, or is it something deeper than that?
Were the plans [the water sharing agreements] developed at a period of time where the inflows, particularly from the northern basin, were actually happening? And of course for the past two years, they haven’t been happening there’s nothing in the northern basin coming through and feeding into the system.
Keelty is asked how the protesters, previously furious at Littleproud and the Nationals, came away feeling comfortable with the result. He said the protesters were not promised any additional water as a result of the review.
Nobody has promised more water. There is no more water to give under the current rules. That has been exhaustively examined by both the commonwealth and the individuals involved. But there is water around.
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The prime minister has just called a press conference for 10.30am. Stick with us.
On the Murray Darling, Nationals MP Damian Drum is saying the water-sharing agreements between the states are outdated. He hopes the review by Mick Keelty, the Murray-Darling inspector general, will improve them.
These agreements have been in place for over 100 years. But the water regime that now exists ... so much of the water used to be used next to the storage, now the users of the water are 400km away from the storage.
Drum was out the front of parliament with Barnaby Joyce a little earlier this week, copping an earful from farmers. He says:
The Nationals have got to lead the way because people expect us to fix it. they don’t expect the Liberals to fix it, they don’t expect Labor to fix it, and they know the Greens will only make it worse.
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Greens senator Nick McKim urges the prime minister, Scott Morrison, to pick up the phone and talk to Jacinda Ardern for the “sake of humanity”.
In regard to prime minister Morrison, I think he needs to pick up the phone.
Make the arrangement with New Zealand. There is no need for him to wait until the US arrangements have concluded. You can walk and chew gum at the same time. I’d urge him to do that for the sake of humanity.
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Ardern is asked whether New Zealand would consider preventing asylum seekers who go to NZ on resettlement would be prevented from later coming to Australia. She says:
If that was a scenario to be created, it would be created by Australia and ultimately it would be in their own domestic policy ... It would be a matter for them.
During the interview, Ardern mentions multiple times the deportation of New Zealand citizens from Australia, an issue that has caused much angst across the Tasman. Ardern is asked whether she would want something in return for accepting refugees. She says:
That is not how we operate our relationship.
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NZ not approached by Australia on refugee deal, Jacinda Ardern says
New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has spoken to Sky News. She said NZ’s offer was still on the table.
Yes, that has not changed, but as I say the ball is obviously in Australia’s court.
She says Australia has not approached NZ about the deal recently.
No discussions at that level and as I say ... as far as I’m concerned we are still in the same status quo.
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On to other things. Adam Bandt is planning to move to suspend standing orders in the lower house. He wants the house to note that the medevac repeal deal was done in secret.
Here’s how your ‘right to know’ dies.
— Adam Bandt (@AdamBandt) December 4, 2019
I’m moving right now to force PM to explain the details of his secret deal with Jacqui Lambie to repeal Medevac and to release any letter he sent her.
And gov is gagging debate!
Gagging a debate about transparency!#Greens
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Yesterday, in the middle of the #Medevac debate, before the laws were repealed through a secret deal, I am advised ten people were approved for medical transfers.
— Kristina Keneally (@KKeneally) December 4, 2019
Ten people who signed their transfer papers.
I want to know what is going to happen to those ten people 🧵👇
Naomi Wolf is really going after Angus Taylor on this one. I’ll let her tweets do the talking.
Woke up today to see no correction from @AngusTaylorMP re my alleged war on Xmas tree in 1991 Oxford. Calling his office now. Thinking about how often women must put aside their own plans that day to struggle to correct some men's silencing actions/choices.
— Dr Naomi Wolf (@naomirwolf) December 4, 2019
Good morning, Australia. In 1/2 an hour I'll post call I had with @AngusTaylorMP's office in which his spokesman called my digital legislative company "Daily Crouch", blamed @FinancialReview for misreporting of my fake war against Xmas, and said maiden speeches r not challenged.
— Dr Naomi Wolf (@naomirwolf) December 4, 2019
@Apatrickafr, good morning. I asked @AngusTaylorMP's spokesman to correct detailed yet completely false account of my alleged campaign against Xmas tree in Oxford 1991 in his profile in @FinancialReview. I am afraid spokesman blamed your publication for the misreporting. Comment?
— Dr Naomi Wolf (@naomirwolf) December 4, 2019
Naomi Wolf pursues Angus Taylor over erroneous first speech
My colleague Helen Davidson has just filed on further developments in the unlikely stoush between Angus Taylor and the US author Naomi Wolf:
Naomi Wolf has reignited her stoush with Australia’s energy minister, Angus Taylor, publishing what she said was a transcript of a phone call with his office.
On Thursday morning the US author said she had recorded a call to Taylor’s parliamentary office requesting a “formal correction” to the Hansard record of his maiden speech, asking that Taylor “tell Parliament please that I was not campaigning against Xmas in any way?”
Taylor referred to Wolf in his maiden speech to parliament in 2013 while recounting an anecdote about “political correctness” and a dispute over a Christmas tree at Oxford University in 1991, when he was a Rhodes scholar.
When Wolf was alerted to the speech on Monday she pointed out that she was not at Oxford in 1991 and accused the minister of “antisemitic dogwhistling”.
On Thursday Wolf said Taylor’s staffer had told her that all media who had reported on the story had been given the advice that she was not campaigning against Christmas.
“Can I have evidence?” Wolf said. The spokesman responded: “I’m sorry, obviously we can’t prove that has been provided.”
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Rejection of NZ offer makes 'no rational sense'
The fallout is continuing from the Australian government’s repeal of medevac laws. Australia is now being urged to take New Zealand’s offer to accept 150 refugees from Manus and Nauru a year. We mentioned earlier that there is speculation that Jacqui Lambie was pursuing resettlement when she gave her vote to the government.
David Manne, executive director of the Refugee & Immigration Legal Centre, said there was no logic to the government’s refusal to accept the NZ offer. He described suggestions that it would create a “pull” factor for people wanting to come to Australia as “spurious”.
“It doesn’t make any rational sense,” he told Sky News.
Manne also dismisses the government’s figures showing that most of those who came to Australia through medevac are not in hospital. We’ve reported already that medevac is designed for assessment and healthcare, not just acute hospital care, so it’s not surprising. Manne makes a similar point:
When someone is sick, sometimes they’re in hospital, sometimes they’re not. You don’t measure whether someone is in need of healthcare ... by whether they are in hospital.
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The day to come
So what exactly are we expecting from today?
- Well, it’s another day of parliament, so of course we can expect another Angus Taylor controversy. And lo and behold, it’s not yet hit 8.30am, and there’s already something unfolding. Naomi Wolf, the well-known US author, is on the warpath against the minister over his misrepresentation of an alleged encounter they had at Oxford University in their student days. That encounter happened, in Taylor’s telling, at a time when Wolf was on the other side of the ocean. We’ll bring you a bit more about that in a moment. On another Taylor front, there were reports yesterday naming the staffer said to have obtained and distributed the document with dodgy figures about the City of Sydney council’s travel expenditure. Expect more of a pursuit on that from Labor.
- We’re also anticipating more fallout from the medevac repeal yesterday. The critical question remains: what did Jacqui Lambie secure from the government in exchange for her crucial vote? There’s been some suggestion that she’s won an agreement from the government to pursue the resettlement of refugees from Manus and Nauru. But she’s staying silent on the whole thing, and the government is insisting there is “no secret deal”.
- The Murray-Darling basin is continuing to cause headaches for the Nationals. The government has announced a review of water sharing in the Murray-Darling. The protesters have left Canberra with a sense of victory. But the question remains: what will the review actually achieve? How will it deliver more water for those without any? Have the Nationals actually resolved the issue?
- The poor school results out yesterday are still prompting reaction this morning. Tanya Plibersek has been out this morning saying the focus must be on teacher investment, through professional development and mentoring. The government says throwing more money at the problem is not working.
- There’s another report out this morning in the Sydney Morning Herald about Gladys Liu, reporting that she asked the Liberal party to give her back a donation of at least $100,000. The report claims Liu says the donation she gave was a loan.
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Happy last sitting day of the year!
It’s a momentous occasion. Who knows what else parliament can achieve today? It’s already denied doctor-led medical care to those we’ve condemned to remote islands for daring to seek asylum. Hard to top, even for this bunch, you’d think.
But I digress. Alongside the fallout from medevac, there’s plenty of issues on the boil. Angus Taylor. The Murray-Darling basin.The fallout from medevac. Chinese government influence.
Stick with us and we’ll get through it all together.
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