So long and thanks for all the fish
One more from Stefan's chamber portfolio from today. This one is rather delightful too.
Speaking of photography, I'm very excited that Mike Bowers will be back on Politics Live from next week. Longtime readers will know Mike and I collaborated on this project last year. He's had a break but I'm delighted the hiatus is now at an end. I know readers will welcome him back, and also welcome back my colleague and friend Gabrielle Chan who will be driving the live blog next week while I gather my brain cells.
The political day is at an end so let's say goodnight.
But first, today's key events:
- We gave $5m to Iraq for humanitarian relief, and the government turned the spotlight on the Australians currently fighting with the jihadists in Syria and in Iraq. We are watching, was the general warning.
- The foreign minister continued her efforts to clean up the East Jerusalem mess by telling Arab Ambassadors Australia had, a) not changed policy (despite the prime minister saying only a few days ago that we had); b) Australia of course agreed East Jerusalem was in fact occupied and would go on describing the territory as such provided the description appeared with a lower case "o" rather than an upper case "O". (That's called making the best of a bad lot.)
- The government trumpeted without trumpeting that it had been six months without any asylum boat arrivals. The prime minister said things were so tops that the boats had not only stopped arriving, they had stopped leaving Indonesia. Immigration minister Scott Morrison cleaned that one up pronto. The boats might leave but we would continue to repel them. So it was all good.
- The High Court dealt another blow to the chaplaincy program – creating a serious headache for the government. Canberra will now most likely have to fund the chaplaincy scheme through the states to not offend the Constitution.
That will do, I think. You've been so great this week, thanks for your company.
Be safe and be well until we meet again.
I do love Stefan Postles' photography. Isn't this chamber shot tops?
Hyper-polarity in a single image.
An out-of-touch “alliance of Greens, gays and atheists” is behind the campaign against the national school chaplaincy program, the Coalition backbencher Andrew Laming has argued.
The Queensland MP made the comment on Thursday morning before the high court's decision to uphold a legal challenge against the program’s federal funding arrangements. Laming, one of the MPs who lobbied the former prime minister John Howard to introduce the chaplaincy program, suggested the legal challenge was “frivolous and futile”.
“I look directly in the eyes of the loose alliance of Greens, gays and atheists who have mounted this continuous campaign against chaplaincy: you are clearly out of touch,” Laming said as he entered Parliament House on Thursday.
Daniel Hurst's news story is here. OooooOooooo.
Oh dear I'd missed (until now) the comments on the chaplaincy issue from Queensland Liberal Andrew Laming. He said Greens, gays and atheists were responsible for efforts to dismantle the program.
God spare us, seriously.
Incidently is it a Green Army if it's a green army? (Issues of the day.)
Terribly sorry – I neglected to mention that the government's Green Army proposal has cleared the Senate this afternoon. Now no weed shall live in poverty. (Silly I know but I'm inclined to laugh everytime this army is termed a "standing" Green Army, which it often is. Would it be a lesser Green Army if it sat down periodically? Would it breach its national service duty?)
There goes the House, it's adjourned for the week.
My colleague Lenore Taylor has been following through all the implications of the government's creep back to "occupied" in relation to East Jerusalem. She reports that foreign ministers from 57 Islamic nations are expected to condemn Australia’s apparent decision to refer to East Jerusalem as “disputed” rather than “occupied” and called on their governments to “take necessary action” in response. The statement from the foreign ministers of the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC) meeting in Saudi Arabia came at the same time the Australian foreign minister, Julie Bishop, was insisting to ambassadors from many of the same countries, in Canberra, that there had been no change in the Australian position.
Lenore also has this quite delightful snippet from tdoay's meeting between Bishop and the Arab Ambassadors.
Small "o" occupation – nooo sweat.
The head of the Palestinian delegation to Canberra, Izzat Abdulhadi, told Guardian Australia that Bishop had explained to the ambassadors at Thursday’s meeting that (the attorney-general George) Brandis had been “talking about occupied with a capital O as a noun and part of East Jerusalem’s name, which the government did not support”.
She said she was happy to say East Jerusalem was occupied with a small “o” as a description.
Updated
In the mode of taking legislative stock – the government introduced a bill to repeal ARENA Act yesterday – (ARENA being the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.)
The Coalition wants to axe this agency as part of the overall repeal of Labor's clean energy package.
The selection committee in the Senate have sent the abolition bill to the Senate's Economic Legislation Committee for review and report by the 4th of September. The government tried to bring forward the reporting date of that inquiry to July 7 – but the move failed.
This week the government secured its first double dissolution trigger when the Senate twice rejected the government's plan to scrap the CEFC – the clean energy finance corporation.
I think we can all relate to the plight of the Member for Moore this afternoon. Keep an eye on Ian Goodenough over the shoulder of his colleague.
Let he/she who has not indulged in a micro-nap after an exhausting parliamentary week cast the first stone.
Peace in our time is breaking out everywhere this afternoon. Well, not really. But you can't fault the foreign minister Julie Bishop for working overtime trying to clean up the mess that is East Jerusalem.
This afternoon she's politely carpeted the attorney-general George Brandis by telling the Arab ambassadors that his recent comments about the status of East Jerusalem were about nomenclature, not about legality. Brandis recent objection to the use of the description "occupied" East Jerusalem "was not a comment on the legal status of the Palestinian Territories. In a letter to the Arab Ambassadors which she's published, Bishop says:
I emphasise that there has been no change in the Australian government's position on the legal status od the Palestian Territories including East Jerusalem.
That's quite some backtracking.
Updated
I'll work through my various updates one at a time. First – could the Cold War be .. over?
My colleague Lenore Taylor says the no speakies between Clive Palmer and Tony Abbott is reaching a natural use by date.
Clive Palmer says he and the prime minister will meet next Thursday, the day after he intends to reveal his party’s final position on the carbon and mining tax repeals and crucial budget measures.
The prime minister has called time on proceedings. Madam Speaker has just sat down Liberal MP Mal Brough for attempting to ask her a procedural question. Quite a funny little exchange.
I have a million things to catch both you and me up on – hang five, I'll be back to bring us all up to speed with the political world beyond the chamber.
And we are back to Question Time. Christopher Pyne gets the last go on the deregulation of higher education.
The government evidently is not of a mind to tolerate the procedural theatrics they deployed so often in the last parliament. There are gags and divisions at twenty paces.
Running slightly behind real time here – bear with me.
The foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop had a Dorothy Dixer in order to repeat most of what the government has already said about Iraq today.
Now Labor is moving a censure motion.
Shorten:
I seek leave to move the following motion: 1. That the House censures the prime minister for repeatedly and deliberately misleading the parliament and the Australian people by claiming that the PM's budget is an honest budget; 2. Claiming that the PM has not broken any of the promises he clearly made to the Australian people before the election; 3. Promising there would be no new or increased taxes and then introducing a new GP tax, a new petrol tax; and 4. Claiming that there are no cuts to schools, no cuts to hospitals and pensions, despite the PM's own budget papers showing that the Government is indeed cutting $80bn from schools and hospitals, and cutting pension indexation; and 5. For his dishonest budget which is hurting Australians.
Manager of government business, Christopher Pyne.
This is a parliament, not a picket line and I move the member be no longer heard.
Back to the House.
Shorten:
Q: On 20 November 2012, the prime minister promised Australians, 'we are about reducing taxes, not increasing taxes. We are about getting rid of taxes, not imposing new taxes.' So why do his own budget papers on page 17 show that the government is taking $2.2bn from Australians by taxing them more every time they fill up their family car?
Indexation #qt pic.twitter.com/zgKEVxjGtx
— Katharine Murphy (@murpharoo) June 19, 2014
The prime minister:
They are absolutely hysterical today. Madam Speaker, let me take two points. We are eliminating taxes, we are scrapping the carbon tax, we are scrapping the mining tax. If members opposite would like us to keep that promise they can pass the legislation.
Madam Speaker, we are reducing the tax burden. The overall tax burden reduces by $5bn as a result of decisions taken by this government. So, Madam Speaker, I'm pleased, I'm really pleased that the leader of the opposition has reminded people of what I said in 2012 because we have absolutely delivered on those commitments.
My colleague Daniel Hurst is watching Senate Question Time to keep an eye on updates concerning the High Court's chaplaincy decision.
The attorney-general George Brandis has told the chamber the High Court's decision did not deal with the merits of the program and did not decide that any other Commonwealth program was invalid.
Brandis described as "erroneous and ignorant" a statement by Labor's finance spokesman, Tony Burke, that the decision could affect a range of other commonwealth initiatives.
As for the chaplaincy decision, Brandis explained:
It follows from the court's judgment that commonwealth payments to persons under the school chaplaincy program were invalidly made. The effect of the decision is that these program payments totalling over $150m are now debts owing to the commonwealth under the financial management and accountability Act. However, under that act, the minister for finance has the power to approve a waiver of debt of an amount owing to the commonwealth which totally extinguishes that debt.
I'm advised by my friend Senator Cormann that he has today agreed to waive the program payments made to date. That decision will provide certainty to funding recipients these debts will not be recovered in consequence of that decision.
A Dorothy Dixer on carbon price and mining tax repeal, which gives the government the opportunity to point out Labor has been rather all over the shop on the mining tax. Treasurer Joe Hockey points to comments from the retiring Labor Senator Mark Bishop about the undesirability of the mining tax.
Carers is the next theme. Shorten points to a $7.7m redirection of funds from the national respite for carers program.
Q: For all of this week, the prime minister has claimed and I quote, 'There are no changes to carers as a result of this budget,' so why does page 206 of his own budget papers reveal a cut of $7.7m to the national respite for carers program in this financial year?
The carer's saving #qt pic.twitter.com/V7dpwBuvWp
— Katharine Murphy (@murpharoo) June 19, 2014
(Sorry for my random apostrophe. Too much multi-tasking.)
Abbott reminds Labor that they attempted in 2008 to scrap the carers bonus.
Okay? Do you remember that?
They attempted to scrap the carers bonus. They only failed to do that because the opposition successfully opposed it. I want to make it very clear that this government is the best friend that the carers of Australia have ever had.
Surly mood down in the Reps today. There have been ejections. Madam Speaker speculates that some MPs want to catch the early plane home.
The treasurer Joe Hockey has blasted the hypocrisy of Labor blasting away at the budget when in government they bumped 60,000 single income parents off the single parents pension.
There are objections to hypocrite and hypocrisy as unparliamentary. Hockey withdraws.
For those interested in the #qt savings debate, p203, Budget Paper No. 2 pic.twitter.com/vdK20YkPqX
— Katharine Murphy (@murpharoo) June 19, 2014
Another Dorothy Dixer on boats. Then another attempt by Shorten to get Abbott to own the $449m saving in his budget papers relating to the new indexation arrangement for pensioners.
Abbott says pensions will go up. He says the indexation arrangements to apply post 2017 are the same indexation arrangements that Labor applied to family tax benefits.
The prime minister:
Stop trying to scare the pensioners of this country, stop trying to curry political favour on the basis of a scare.
A Dorothy Dixer allowing the prime minister not to congratulate himself against on stopping the boats.
Then Shorten is back on pensions. Why does the prime minister keep saying there's no cuts to pensions when the budget papers confirm there is?
Abbott clings to the formulation the pensions go up every year and ducks the indexation point. The prime minister then quotes Shorten back to Shorten.
Out-bid us on the quality of your ideas, not the strength of your negativity.
The House roars laughing at that notion.
Well, one side of the House, in any case.
Updated
Question time
Labor is opening Question Time on pensions. The opposition leader Bill Shorten points to a pensioner rally at the weekend. Will the prime minister finally admit he's hurting pensioners?
Tony Abbott:
Madam Speaker, I can confirm that pensions will go up every six months under this government. Madam Speaker, this government has absolutely delivered on its commitment not to change pensions in this term of parliament. We have absolutely delivered on our commitment.
The prime minister acknowledges the government has not continued with a national partnership agreement on pensioner concessions.
We thought this was a small price that the states could pay to the task of budget repair – a small price for the states to pay for the price of budget repair – and I am pleased to say so far every single state has undertaken to continue to maintain the value of pensioner concessions.
Question Time will be on us in just a moment. Last one of the week. Reckon I can make it. Hope you can also.
Immigration minister Scott Morrison is on ABC24. It's a bit rude of Morrison to call the prime minister silly, but that's apparently the price of cleaning up Abbott's overly optimistic notion that the boats have stopped departing Indonesia.
Morrison:
They've stopped for a while, but the point I made also at that press conference is I don't assume that will continue.
That would be foolish.
We are always ready if anyone wants to try it on and they'll find the same people to stop them tomorrow as yesterday.
PS: we will always be out there. Waaaaay out there. (Unless you vote Labor, that is.)
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty and it's certainly the price of secure borders. We will always be out there under the policies of this government.
The only thing that will change on our borders would be if there was a change of policy. That would only happen by a change of government. The only thing Labor would turn back is our successful policies.
As deflections go, this one is pretty lame. The shadow finance minister Tony Burke is trying to make the chaplains story a budget story.
Burke:
Australians are still reeling from the government’s unfair budget and Tony Abbott should not use today’s (High Court) decision as an excuse to cut deeper.
His point is the ruling could well impact other Commonwealth programs funded via executive orders, and the government needs to commit that it won't sneakily scrap programs that are not entirely legally sound.
In terms of the legislative fix being a botch up – Burke's line to the Coalition is stop whinging, you voted for it:
The legislative amendments were an interim measure designed to ensure the validity of funding for a large number of Commonwealth programs, while further work was done to strengthen the legislative framework for these programs. These legislative amendments received bipartisan support in the parliament in 2012.
There are four bills being introduced today in the House of Representatives giving effect to the indexation of fuel excise. Two deal with that measure specifically, and another two bills deal with hypothecating the revenue raised for roads funding.
(It's the latter point that Christine Milne objects to. She doesn't mind a defacto carbon tax on petrol. She does mind the the dollars going to roads, as opposed to better public transport or bike paths or the like.)
Rhapsody of non-self congratulation in blue.
With apologies to Gershwin.
It remains a bit unclear whether the Greens will vote with the government on the restoration of fuel excise indexation.
The Greens said initially they would, but the party has been backing off this proposition more recently. You can follow the shifting line of arguments in these remarks just now from Greens leader Christine Milne in a press conference just a couple of minutes ago.
On the fuel tax, what can you clarify what the Greens position is on this?
Milne:
The Greens position on the fuel excise will be determined when we have a look at the legislation. It is only just been introduced and we will be looking at it very soon.
What I have said is that it makes no sense if you put a fuel excise straight into more road funding. The whole point of a fuel excise ought to be as a transformational signal to move Australia into investing in much more public transport, getting people to drive less and when they drive more efficiently and that is why we want mandatory vehicle fuel efficiency standards as well.
Is it fair to say you're less certain about the Greens support for the fuel excise increase than when you originally said you would support this?
Milne:
The government's decision to put all of the money from a fuel excise into road building and to actually make congestion in cities worse and make our dependence on motor vehicles worse makes it pretty clear that for them this is just a revenue raising measure, whereas for the Greens, we want to drive transformation in our cities and urban environment.
Back to chaplains and the implications of this morning's judgment. My colleague Daniel Hurst has been speaking to the University of Sydney's constitutional law professor, Anne Twomey.
We can summarise her arguments thus: the only way the chaplains program can continue on now is via the states; and the implications of the judgment are reasonably narrow. Probably.
Here's Daniel:
Twomey says the only way the federal government can now continue to fund the chaplaincy program is to reach agreements with state governments "and fund it through grants to the states under section 96 of the constitution, often known as tied grants".
"It's basically coming back to basic principles of federalism," she told Guardian Australia. "The commonwealth can by all means give the states money in relation to it, but can't do it itself."
Twomey said the federal government would be "breathing a sigh of relief" that the ruling did not have any specific impact on other federal government grants programs – including funding to councils for road upgrades and money to community organisations for local projects.
"What the High Court could have done is knocked down the whole legislation [passed in 2012 to put such funding beyond doubt]. That could have caused major problems for the commonwealth but it didn't do that," she said.
Twomey said the commonwealth would gain the "benefit of inertia" in the sense that it could keep funding these other programs until such time as someone mounted a successful challenge against those schemes.
Groups did not usually object to receiving money, she said.
Lunchtime summary
I'm going to grab this slightly quiet minute (if you ignore clanging division bells) in a concerted attempt to conform with the strictures of best live blogging practice for the first time this week.
Dammit, I'm going to give you a lunchtime summary.
Thursday, thus far, is Iraq, boats and chaplains.
- Foreign minister Julie Bishop has confirmed Australia will give Iraq $5m in humanitarian assistance. She's also confirmed that 150 Australians are currently participating in jihadist insurgencies in the Middle East, including an unspecified number in Iraq. Immigration minister Scott Morrison has not ruled out cancelling the passports of fighters to prevent their return to Australia. Prime minister Tony Abbott says there will be increased surveillance of suspicious persons at the border. On the conflict more generally, Abbott has remarked Iraq is a "witches brew" which necessitates careful thinking before any pre-emptive action.
- The prime minister and the immigration minister have held a press conference in order to declare they are, a) most certainly not publicly congratulating themselves for six months sans asylum boats; and b) they don't intend to supply any actual facts regarding the operations to our north because facts could have all sorts of unintended consequences. Perhaps carried away with all the non-self congratulation, the prime minister has declared the boats have not only stopped arriving at our shores, they have stopped departing Indonesia. This prompted Morrison to correct the chap still standing beside him. In the event the boats did start departing (and boy, you never do know) our Operation Sovereign Border Force would be onto it like a rodent up a drain pipe. Because every day is just another day at the orifice at OSB(F).
- The High Court has thrown another largeish spanner in the works regarding the school chaplaincy program. The justices have ruled that a legislative fix imposed by Labor to underpin the program (when it was knocked out the first time) is also unlawful. So now the government will be back to taws on that one.
That's where things stand, more or less.
Updated
Catching up on a couple of things now.
Legislation to restore the indexation of fuel excise hits the House of Representatives today. If you were with me earlier in the week you might remember that I've flagged interest in whether there will be further government breakouts on this issue as the proposal moves to substantive debate. (If Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi planned to abstain on the debt tax because it was a tax increase, and he's opposed to tax increases, then surely he'll have to protest on this proposal as well. Fellow Liberal Ian Macdonald requested that treasurer Joe Hockey undertake specific modelling to work through the implications of the excise increase on rural Australians. That's a big hint about his restiveness. Interesting to see how it all pans out.)
The other issue I haven't quite got to yet is the Northern Land Council (NLC) has abandoned its push to locate a national nuclear waste dump on Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory.
Let's take a couple of minutes to remind ourselves why mission accomplished is always a really terrible idea.
Interesting to note that Morrison swoops at the end of the joint press conference to try and clean up the prime minister's optimism that the boats have stopped trying to leave Indonesia.
(I did think this was a very brave call by Abbott, and Morrison has basically confirmed my instinct.)
Morrison, winding up the press conference:
One point on the people smuggling issue. It is true we haven't seen departures out of Indonesia for some time but our assumption remains they will always attempt and that's why Operation Sovereign Borders has stood up and always stands at the ready to deal with any such venture that may attempt.
So those who may think about it offshore know that the same people will be out there tomorrow, they're out there today and have been out there for last six months.
Q: How important is it that the US is not left to deal with Iraq alone?
Abbott:
This is a witch's brew of difficulty and complexity and while we should be ready to do what good we can, we should be careful about anything that might make a bad situation worse.
And that's why it's important to consult, to consider, and to plan, rather than to act pre-emptively in a very difficult situation, such as is unfolding in Iraq right now.
Updated
The prime minister has some harsh words for the government of Iraq.
We are disappointed that the Iraqi government has not been better at ending sectarianism inside Iraq. Nevertheless the al-Maliki government is the nearest thing to a legitimate government that a country like Iraq currently has.
Abbott says (harking back to the 150 fighters nominated by Julie Bishop this morning) that efforts are being "redoubled at the borders to try to ensure that jihadists do not gain access to our country." He says suspicious people will be monitored.
Q: Will the government rule out revoking citizenship for the fighters currently engaged in the Middle East?
Morrison:
Nothing is ever ruled out on these matters and they're always subject to continued discussion.
Updated
Abbott for the moment bats away questions on the High Court judgment on chaplains. The government won't make substantive comment until it's across the implications but obviously as the architects of the chaplains program, it would be good if it can be salvaged is Abbott's general rationale.
Updated
Q: Are you concerned at recent political developments in PNG – I'm talking about the sacking of the attorney-general and the deputy police commissioner the disbanding of their anti-corruption task force. Does Prime Minister O'Neill have your total confidence?
Abbott:
The political situation in PNG is a matter for the people and the government of PNG. Obviously we want to work closely and cooperatively with the government of PNG in so far as we have shared ventures and shared interests. And the shared ventures and the shared interests that we have are being cooperatively prosecuted by the two governments.
Q: Mr Morrison, we've learned that some of the data that was released on your web site about asylum seekers was downloaded in some of the countries from which the asylum seekers had come. Does that have any ramifications for the processing of those asylum seekers?
Not necessarily. Every single individual case of a person's asylum claim is assessed on its individual merits and any factors that are relevant to that assessment are taken into account. The extent to which those matters may be relevant will be considered at that time. There've already been a number of cases where that issue has been raised and has been dismissed.
Q: In question time a couple of days ago, you said Labor could not be trusted with national security. Was that a reference to border protection or was it something broader?
Look, principally, border protection. But if you do look at Labor's record on defence spending, for instance, I think there was a $25 bn cut. Defence spending as a percentage of GDP had shrunk to its lowest level since 1938, and if anything, the events of the last week or so in Iraq have reminded us that this is an uncertain and rather dangerous world.
And it's important that we maintain our preparedness and our capability not just our military preparedness and capability, but also our intelligence and security preparedness and capability. That's certainly what this government will do.
Abbott makes a significant call. He says the boats have not only stopped arriving in Australia, they've stopped leaving.
Q: You say the boats have stopped arriving. Can you at least say they've stopped leaving?
Yes, I can say that, because the whole point of a boat leaving another country is to arrive in Australia. If they don't arrive in Australia, sooner or later they stop leaving other countries.
(Remembering the context that the government has called a press conference this morning to congratulate itself on six months without boats.)
Q: Do you regard this as a signature achievement and do you rank it above what else you've been able to do in your first nine months of government?
Abbott:
Well the last thing you're going to get from from this government is self-congratulation. Or trumpet-blowing.
Great, could we have some facts perchance?
Er, no.
Q: Now that you've reached this six-month milestone can you finally tell the public how many boats have been turned back – how many people have been turned back?
Abbott:
The last thing I want to do is to compromise the effectiveness of our operations by giving out information that will just be used by those who would cause us difficulties.
A full account of all of this will one day be given, but not yet.
We are deep deep blue in the Blue Room this morning. (The Blue Room is the prime minister's press conference room.)
The prime minister:
What I can say is today marks six months since the last successful people smuggling venture to our country.
I'm not declaring victory.
There's no hint of mission accomplished about today.
(Given that didn't work out so brilliantly for George Bush, that seems a sensible move by Abbott.)
Abbott thanks Morrison, our brave boys and girls in Customs and Defence, that nice Angus Campbell, the regional partners Nauru and Manus; Indonesia, Malaysia and Sri Lanka "in particular for the cooperation that we continue to get from them to end this evil people smuggling trade."
Morrison – apparently holding a press conference broadcast on live television to suggest that there's actually nothing to see here:
Today is just another day at the office at Operation Sovereign Borders.
Updated
The prime minister and the immigration minister are due to address reporters in Canberra shortly.
Presumably trumpets will be sounding on a milestone: six months, no successful person smuggling ventures. Woo hoo. Stay tuned.
The social services minister Kevin Andrews is, naturally enough, pointing the finger at Labor for mucking up the administrative law "fix" after the first negative High Court ruling.
Andrews says the government needs to consider the implications of the judgment before working through options for securing the funding.
It will be interesting to hear what the legal folks say on the broader implications (if any) of this judgment. Chaplains is not the only commonwealth program in this position.
The High Court's judgment summary goes through the history of the two challenges to the chaplaincy scheme.
This is the nub of the reasoning:
The Court held that, in their operation with respect to the challenged funding agreement and the challenged payments made under that agreement, none of the challenged provisions is a valid law of the Commonwealth.
The provisions are not, in their relevant operation, supported by a head of legislative power under the Constitution.
Essentially, the High Court is saying the payments under the scheme are unlawful because the changes to the financial management regulations enacted to deal with the first High Court ruling were a botch up.
Providing at a school the services of a chaplain or welfare worker for the objective described in the FMA regulations is not a provision of "benefits to students" within the meaning of s51(xxiiiA) of the Constitution.
The Court further held that the Commonwealth's entry into, and expenditure of money under, the funding agreement was not supported by the executive power of the Commonwealth.
The making of the payments was therefore held to be unlawful.
If you'd like to look at the full judgment, you can find it here.
Updated
Just a bit of background before I get into the judgment summary.
This challenge was brought by Queensland man Ron Williams, who objected to Commonwealth funding of the chaplains scheme.
This challenge today is in fact a second challenge from Williams concerning the validity of the chaplains scheme.
Two years ago, the High Court ruled the school chaplaincy program should not have been funded without the support of the parliament.
The Labor government then rushed through a change in the law to ensure that both the chaplains scheme, and other programs unsupported by enabling legislation, could continue.
As constitutional law professor Anne Twomey told the ABC this morning:
(This) legislation was rammed through the parliament. There was very little scrutiny of the legislation. And what had happened beforehand was the poor public servants in Canberra are up all night effectively told to bring out your dead – find all the programs that you fund through executive power that have no legislation supporting them and give us a list of them.
Williams in today's case challenged the validity of the law the former government enacted to deal with the consequences of the first judgment.
The court has sided with Williams. Details in the next post.
High Court sides with challenger to the schools chaplains scheme
The High Court has ruled in favor of a challenge to Commonwealth funding of the School Chaplaincy program.
— Simon Cullen (@Simon_Cullen) June 19, 2014
I'll bring you particulars as soon as the summary is posted by the High Court.
Speaking of medical matters, a group of parliamentarians in favour of medicinal marijuana use will hold an event this morning. It's multi-partisan – the spokespersons are Greens Senator, Dr Richard Di Natale, (former GP and co-convenor of the parliamentary group for drug policy and law reform); Labor MP, Melissa Parke (co-convenor of the parliamentary group for drug policy and law reform) and Liberal Senator, Sharman Stone (co-convenor).
This morning's event will also be attended by Dr Alex Wodak, president of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation, and Lucy Haslam, a retired nurse and the mother of Dan Haslam, a 24 year old young man from Tamworth who was diagnosed with terminal cancer and is receiving great benefit from using medical cannabis.
This issue has had a lot of coverage recently in NSW.
Just while we wait for the High Court judgment on chaplains, it's interesting to note just how hard the Australian Medical Association has been campaigning against the copayments in the May budget.
In a column published by Fairfax Media this morning, the AMA president Brian Owler does not mince words. The co-payment is unfair and unnecessary, he says. "Ideology has pushed this proposal too far. It is poor health policy. The prime minister should step in and scrap this policy. If not, it deserves to fail in the Senate."
This past weekend I spent some time with lovely people including a GP who works in western Sydney. She was absolutely ropable about the copayment – not only about the health impacts, which she veiwed as very negative – but she believes this particular copayment is extremely poorly designed. Her prediction is health costs will increase as a consequence of the measure, not decrease.
If the measure succeeds, her prediction is doctors will move as quickly as possible to put their patients on chronic health plans in an effort to spare them the brunt of their out of pocket costs – but the Medicare rebates for some chronic disease consultations are actually more generous than standard consultations. So rather than working as a price signal to save the taxpayer money, my GP friend is quite confident this measure will actually increase healthcare costs – and quickly. Interesting unintended consequence, potentially.
Updated
Coming to a letterbox near you – the prime minister apparently intends to communicate with pensioners about the budget changes. (Yipee).
As Lenore Taylor reports, the prime minister is likely to include a message in Centrelink’s “News for Seniors” publication to explain the unpopular budget and the “current financial situation” to 2.4 million pensioners and concession card holders.
(It's pretty obvious from the government's very emphatic (if truthy) messaging in the House of Representatives this week that they are quite worried about pensioners in this budget backlash.)
I've summarised it already but worth posting the full exchange between host Chris Uhlmann and foreign minister Julie Bishop on the Australian jihadists from the ABC's AM program this morning.
Q: How many Australians do you believe are fighting with the Sunni militants?
I had an intelligence briefing from our agencies this morning and our best estimate is that there are about 150 Australians.
Q: Which is extraordinary.
It is extraordinary. There are about 150 Australians who have been or are still fighting with opposition groups in Syria and beyond. In Syria it seems that over a period of time they have moved from supporting the more moderate opposition groups to the more extreme and that includes this brutal extremist group, ISIS.
Q: Apart from the damage they're now doing in Iraq, do they pose a clear a present danger to Australia should they return?
Of course. We are deeply concerned about Australians including dual nationals who are supporting or working with or actually fighting with this extremist group. These are brutal people. The executions and the killings and their boasting of it on social media makes this a particularly virulent form of terrorism. And these people are so extreme that Al Qaeda is even distancing itself from them. Now, we are concerned that Australians are working with them, becoming radicalised, learning the terrorist trade. And if they come back to Australia, of course, it poses a security threat. And we're doing what we can to identify them. I have cancelled a number of passports on the advice of our intelligence agencies. And we work with our partner intelligence agencies in the region to ensure that we can prevent this becoming a security threat.
Just a three other things to get across quickly.
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Paid parental leave
1. The Queensland LNP backbencher George Christensen has said again this morning he opposes Tony Abbott's signature paid parental leave scheme.
Christensen doesn't like the scheme, or Labor's scheme, because he believes parental leave payments discriminate against stay at home mothers. He says he's not sure he can go as far as crossing the floor – but he thinks he'll abstain when the legislation is presented.
That's what I'm thinking.
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High Court – chaplains
2. The High Court will later this morning hand down what will be a very interesting judgment in relation to the Abbott government's school chaplaincy program.
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The East Jerusalem shambles
3. In addition to managing Iraq, Julie Bishop is continuing to be dogged by the government's spectacular own goal on East Jerusalem.
She's meeting a group of concerned ambassadors today. The West Australian reports this morning that the Arab League has lodged an official protest with Australia over concerns the Abbott Government has become too pro-Israel.
If you've been with me all week you'll know what I'm talking about. If you haven't – the story goes like this. The attorney-general George Brandis announced somewhat abruptly that the government would no longer refer to East Jerusalem as "occupied" territory – it would instead be "disputed" territory, because that was much nicer.
Given this was a somewhat radical departure from rhetoric used by both sides of politics, the shift kicked a hornets nest with representatives from the Arab world.
Bishop has now been trying actively to contain this debacle for 48 hours. She's also walking Brandis back bit by bit. Her formulation now is policy hasn't changed at all – the government still advocates a two state solution. She's saying this morning the Coalition has "never" disputed the occupation in 1967. There has been no change in language.
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I mentioned there were two newspaper reports this morning about Australians in Iraq.
There's one general report in Fairfax Media, and The Australian names a specific individual, (although his presence in Iraq is presented a bit speculatively.) The Australian's Paul Maley says "convicted terrorist Khaled Sharrouf is thought to be among the thousands of ISIS fighters swarming across northern Iraq. Sharrouf made headlines earlier this year after he fled Australia for the battlefields of Syria using his brother’s passport."
The foreign minister in another interview on Sky News says the government does not know how many of the 150 fighters known to be in the Middle East are currently in Iraq. Precise numbers are hard to come by for obvious reasons.
Over on another ABC radio program, the shadow foreign minister Tanya Plibersek says Labor has been briefed on events in Iraq and stands ready to talk the the government in the event there is a specific proposal to consider.
Plibersek says the British prime minister David Cameron's remark overnight about the global security risks associated with Iraq sliding into a terrorist state is "not far fetched."
That said ..
I'm not sure that military action involving Australia is our first and best reponse.
Plibersek is also asked whether Labor will support government efforts to keep radicalised fighters out of the country. As I mentioned in the last post, Bishop pointed to the cancellation of passports to prevent jihadists posing domestic national security risks.
Plibersek responds to that notion positively, but cautiously.
We have to be very careful about revoking citizenship but we need to take this seriously as a threat.
Foreign minister says 150 Australians are fighting in Syria and beyond
Let's take stock on the events in Iraq. The foreign minister Julie Bishop – who had an intelligence briefing this morning – says advice from agencies is 150 Australians are fighting with opposition groups in Syria and beyond.
The Australian government for some time has been warning that fighters radicalised in the Syrian civil war will present a profound danger to Australian citizens when they return home.
Bishop has repeated this notion on ABC radio this morning.
We are concerned ... Australians are learning the terrorism trade.
Bishop says she's already cancelled passports of Australian citizens in order to minimise the national security risks.
Two newspaper reports this morning also indicate that Australian intelliegnce knows that Australians are fighting with the jihadists in Iraq.
Bishop this morning has also confirmed that Australia will provide $5m to Iraq in humanitarian assistance. She says no request has come from America for Australia to provide military support.
Good morning and welcome to Thursday in Canberra. It is relatively quiet and calm in the capital this morning for the last sitting day of the week, which may or may not be connected to the fact parliament's mid winter ball was held in the Great Hall last night.
You'll forgive me one tiny indulgence. My Guardian Australia colleague Lenore Taylor won the Paul Lyneham Award for Excellence in press gallery reporting, an award presented annually at the ball. We are, of course, enormously proud of her achievement.
Apart from that, it was a tame evening compared to some of the dramas and intrigues of balls past. I've just heard Ten Network political editor Paul Bongiorno say on the ABC Radio the best gossip of the night was whether or not the government might lose Liberals to the Senate crossbench. That's more or less right – although Liberals were playing down this prospect rather vigorously. The government probably feels it has quite enough on its plate without that.
Iraq is dominant in the news cycle given the prospect of imminent US action. Airstrikes are currently under consideration in Washington. I'll deal with the newest thoughts on that crisis in the next post.
The comments thread is now wide open and waiting for your insights. Be loud and proud blogans and bloganistas. You can also give me a shout on Twitter @murpharoo
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