In a parliament featuring a millionaire dinosaur theme-park owner and the man responsible for the world’s largest halal snack pack, it takes a special kind of magic to hold onto the title “maverick”.
Bob Katter showed why he was still No. 1 on Thursday in a testy interview on Sunrise with David “Least Politically Correct” Koch. It set off a media storm – not that the member for Kennedy would have known it.
Defending the taste and timing of a campaign advertisement in which he appears to shoot dead two representatives of the major parties (don’t make me explain: see for yourself), Katter confessed he was unaware of the weekend’s mass shooting in Orlando, which left 49 people dead.
“I don’t know what’s going on the media,” he said. “I don’t watch television. I get to bed at midnight every night. I don’t read newspapers.”
The veteran independent, who famously said he would “walk backwards to Bourke” if there were any gay people in his electorate, is right to be busy: the margin on his formerly safe seat crashed at last election to a measly 2%.
Katter maintains the advertisement is “screamingly funny”, but Malcolm Turnbull wasn’t laughing. “The advertisements were in the worst of taste and Mr Katter should apologise and withdraw them,” the prime minister said.
A very Parakeelia practice
Bill Shorten is ratcheting up pressure over the curious case of Parakeelia, a software firm and the Liberal party’s second-most generous donor. Last year Parakeelia’s owner directed $500,000 in donations to the Liberal party.
And fair enough, too: Liberal members are reliable Parakeelia customers, paying it more than $2,500 each in taxpayer funds to use Feedback, its database of voter information.
And who owns Parakeelia? Well that would be ... the Liberal party.
Turnbull has parried questions over the whether the company is recycling taxpayer dollars into donations, saying it is a matter for party administrators.
That isn’t good enough for Shorten, who said the prime minister had “questions to answer”, and must explain whether “he will either continue the scam and that he approves of it, or alternatively that he thinks it’s improper and will shut it down”.
Treasurer Scott Morrison told the ABC this morning the story was a “desperate witch hunt”. The Liberals’ federal director, Tony Nutt, issued a statement on Wednesday night saying Parakeelia complied with all relevant electoral laws.
#Parakeelia statement from federal Liberal director Tony Nutt. pic.twitter.com/PTpq96oS3v
— Gabrielle Chan (@gabriellechan) June 15, 2016
But still unaddressed is why Parakeelia is handing so much money back to the Liberal party. Julie Bishop’s explanation is that “payments are for services provided through the party [and] it’s entirely legitimate”.
Labor also pays a software company, Magenta Linas, to provide a similar service. With a difference: it doesn’t own the provider, nor receive generous donations from it.
@gabriellechan (Attenboroughesque tone) Here we see the camouflaging instinct of the blue crested #Parakeelia... pic.twitter.com/UvrY5VMs3K
— The Matt Hatter (@MattGlassDarkly) June 16, 2016
No Whyalla wipeout
Thursday’s campaign spotlight fell on South Australia, where Penny Wong and Christopher Pyne held one debate, and Kate Ellis and Simon Birmingham another. If that wasn’t enough, Shorten pledged a $100m bailout for the troubled steel town of Whyalla, whose biggest employer, Arrium, was placed into administration in April, threatening 3,500 jobs.
The promised funding will go to whichever company purchases the plant from administrators, and is contingent on the future buyer maintaining local steel production and jobs.
I love the days when there is news allowing me to redistribute this #ausvotes #arrium https://t.co/vTDsgnxm9J
— Stephanie Anderson (@stephanieando) June 15, 2016
Morrison declined to match Shorten’s offer, telling the ABC he wouldn’t “get into a political auction on this before an election”. Intriguingly, he floated the possibility of drawing on the Clean Energy Fund to support Arrium’s next owner. Some might say funding a steelmaker is a little outside the mandate of a green energy fund, but the treasurer was unworried.
Best of Bowers
Malcolm Turnbull was agile as ever at the Qantas innovation day in Sydney.
Further reading
- Is there a luckier man in politics than Rob Mitchell? The Labor member for McEwen is sitting on a razor-thin 0.2% margin. Fairfax reports today that his main opponent, Liberal Chris Jermyn, may have broken electoral laws by claiming to live in a house that didn’t exist. It was Jermyn’s penchant for leaving angry reviews about restaurants (“Instead, I sit here hungry”) that might have given away his real address, a long way from his electorate.
- Malcolm Turnbull has stared down the latest stirring from backers of his predecessor, Tony Abbott, to give the former leader a seat in the next cabinet. “I can tell you what my ministry will be if we win, it will be the ministry as it is today,” Turnbull said.
- And if you’re finding this Parakeelia yarn a little tough to comprehend, I don’t blame you. The ABC has published this handy, straightforward explainer.
And if today was a pop song ...
Katter is falling out with Kochie; rancour is rising around the Parakeelia controversy; poor service is leaving Chris Jerymn all steamed up. But on the upside, Taylor Swift has reportedly found love with British man of the moment, Tom Hiddleston. So let’s make today’s song one of Tay’s: Bad Blood from her album 1989 sums it up nicely.
Never miss another catchup: If you’re reading this in the Guardian app, tap on ‘Australian election briefing’ at the top or bottom of this page, then tap on ‘Follow series’ to get an app notification as soon as the Campaign catchup publishes every afternoon.
