Night time political summary
- Cabinet is meeting right now but will they discuss citizenship? Last week, Tony Abbott said it was not necessary to go back to cabinet but with the allegedly new “automatic” citizenship stripping proposal - which has not been sighted - the ministers would surely want to give it a tick. Anyway, it will be a matter of quick sticks as it certainly has to go to the party room meeting tomorrow to get it into the parliament as promised by Wednesday before the winter break.
- A leak from a discussion paper under the department of prime minister and cabinet caused a bout of tail chasing by the government. One of the ideas included charging wealthy parents fees for public schools. After breakfast, Abbott praised creative solutions to school funding including but shortly after, education minister Christopher Pyne knocked it on the head. By question time, Abbott still left the way open for states to pick up the proposals. We won’t do it, said Abbott but it’s a matter for the states.
- Larissa Waters drew the ire of National party senators in question time when she asked whether Tony Abbott - as a committed Catholic - would support the pope’s encyclical on climate change. Waters was called a “bloody bigot” and asked whether she was married. George Brandis called her question disgusting.
Tomorrow, the day will be bookended by party room meetings in the morning and the final instalment of the ABC series The Killing Season in the evening. In the middle, we will have Lenore Taylor’s interview with Julia Gillard.
Thanks to Mike Bowers, Daniel Hurst and Shalailah Medhora for their input.
Goodnight.
P.S. Most politicians practice in the mirror.
In the interests of accurate reporting, there were people there. But they were sitting well back.
Updated
Tell it to Pitcairn Island Dr Jensen. Associated Press reports:
Pitcairn Island, a tiny speck in the Pacific that is home to just 48 people, has passed a law allowing same-sex marriage, but has no gay couples wanting to wed.
As we had eyes on the federation chamber, Daniel Hurst captured the nub of Liberal MP Dennis Jensen’s arguments against same sex marriage.
Lib Dennis Jensen speaks re #MarriageEquality Fed Chamber. "Proponents make..a v.fundamental error.They believe marriage is only about love"
— Daniel Hurst (@danielhurstbne) June 22, 2015
Lib Dennis Jensen on #MarriageEquality: "I love my siblings, I love my children, I love my parents.Does that mean that I should marry them?"
— Daniel Hurst (@danielhurstbne) June 22, 2015
Environment minister Greg Hunt has turned up at the federation chamber to speak to government funding for science, research and innovation. Hunt says MacTiernan’s motion on cuts to science funding were plainly wrong.
He said the government has invested in “practical applied environmental work”. He does not touch on Bjorn Lomborg’s consensus centre.
Stop: This is a lazy and dangerous piece of legislation, says Ludlam
WA Labor MP Alannah MacTiernan is in the federation chamber, which is a secondary forum to the house, moving a private members motion on funding for science, research and innovation. She wants to know how climate contrarian Bjorn Lomborg’s consensus centre was funded by the federal government at the University of Western Australia. Albeit briefly. (The UWA decided not to go ahead after academics protested.)
Liberal MP and physicist Dennis Jensen is speaking vehemently against MacTiernan’s motion on the grounds of freedom of speech. He says the UWA academics who protested were all “social scientists” rather than those from the “hard sciences”.
Updated
Stay tuned, indigant harrumphers, JG is going to vent
Heads up for Lenore Taylor’s exclusive with Julia Gillard, coming tomorrow.
Here is a taste.
I am mindful of having a luxurious freedom, tempered with one self-imposed constraint, as I outline my thoughts. Being beyond politics, I am able to examine the role of the media without worrying about the indignant harrumphing that emanates from many journalists and commentators when you do so. For a profession that holds dear both the ability to vivisect politicians in prose and the expectation that these carved-up subjects will not complain, the media is horribly thin-skinned and vengeance-seeking when on the receiving end of criticism.
Senator Scott Ludlam is batting away, trying to get amendments through on the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) bill 2015.
The bill:
Amends the Copyright Act 1968 to enable copyright owners to apply to the Federal Court of Australia for an order requiring a carriage service provider to block access to an online location operated outside Australia that has the primary purpose of infringing copyright or facilitating the infringement of copyright.
The Greens amendments generally seek to allow challenges or reviews to blocking online locations for third parties.
Labor, Liberal and the National party senators are opposing, though not all of them need to turn up, given the small number of senators supporting Ludlam’s amendments.
Ludlam is generally only getting the support of Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm, independent Glenn Lazarus and Motoring Enthusiast senator Ricky Muir.
Connie Fierravanti-Wells is taking questions in place of George Brandis.
The Senate is still on the online infringement bill. Connie Fierravanti-Wells is answering questions for attorney general George Brandis, who we believe is in cabinet.
The Senate is debating the definition of a VPN right now.
— Josh Taylor (@joshgnosis) June 22, 2015
Updated
Richard Colbeck, the parliamentary secretary to the agriculture minister, calls the deaths of dolphins caught in factory fishing trawler nets “disappointing and unfortunate”.
Factory fishing trawlers have been banned from working in an expanse of ocean off the New South Wales-Victoria coast as a result of the latest death.
The Australian fisheries management authority (Afma) has closed “zone six” of a small fishery zone following a declaration by the 95-metre vessel Geelong Star that its dolphin death toll has reached nine since it began operating in mid-April.
“All fishing poses risks to the marine environment that can sometimes lead to the unintentional harm of marine mammals,” Colbeck said.
“The only way to completely eliminate interactions with marine mammals would be to stop all fishing, which is unrealistic and would eliminate one of the world’s most important sources of protein.”
Updated
Bernard Keane of Crikey has written an interesting piece on Tony Abbott’s prime ministership. Keane’s thesis is rather than progressing reform as PM, Abbott has morphed into a “super opposition leader” since the leadership crisis in February.
Abbott’s approach to national security isn’t actually intended to stop terrorism — as we explained last week, in fact he is making it worse — but is focused on applying the same successful slogan-based negative approach that worked in other areas in opposition. With the citizenship-stripping proposal (which, despite the fuss occasioned by it, will have minimal real-world deterrence for terrorists — how many suicide bombers fret about losing their citizenship?), Abbott is in effect saying “stop the terrorists”. They are to be left offshore, even if they were born and grew up in Australia, and never allowed to come back here, just as no asylum seeker arriving by boat will ever be settled here. Except, worse than our willingness to dump the problem of a global surge in asylum seekers onto other, usually poorer, countries to cope with, in fact we’ll be dumping our own problem, home-grown terrorists, onto other countries.
The copyright amendment (online infringement) bill is in committee stage in the Senate, but not enough senators have turned up so the quorum bells are ringing.
In the House, the social services legislation on youth employment and other measures is being debated.
Other than that, it is strangely quiet in the parliament.
I smell citizenship.
Updated
No sacrifices here please.
You want proof that parli was designed as a pagan temple? The solstice sun shines straight down the Senate corridor. pic.twitter.com/jv3cM1D740
— Tim (@Tim_Beshara) June 22, 2015
The Greens have established a Senate inquiry into the video games industry following the closure of the $20m Australian Interactive Games Fund.
Senator Scott Ludlam says it will examine what the government should be doing to “support Australia’s games industry and the employment, economic and creative benefits it delivers to the nation”.
The inquiry will be conducted by the Senate Standing Committee on Environment and Communications and is due to report in April 2016.
Updated
A little bit of free advice.
Bigots, marriage and climate change. A day in the life of the Senate.
Greens senator Larissa Waters has raised Pope Francis’s encyclical on climate change, drawing howls of outrage from the government benches and a dubious intervention about Waters’ marital status which so far eludes me.
Waters asks Brandis:
I refer to the teaching letter, or encyclical, from Pope Francis, which calls for an urgent moral response to the scientific reality of global warming, rampant environmental destruction and extreme poverty and condemns indifference, denialism and obstructionism. Forty-two per cent of the Abbott cabinet is Catholic, including the prime minister himself who once trained to be a Catholic priest. This government has rolled back our effective price on carbon pollution, and today in the Senate it is seeking to slash our clean energy target. The PM has failed to listen to scientists. Will now he listen to the leader of his own church and abandon his reckless attack on clean energy?
During the question, Nationals senator Matt Canavan declares Waters a “bloody bigot” before he agrees to withdraw.
The Nationals senator Barry O’Sullivan interjects to Waters, to ask, “Are you married?”
No, I’m not and that’s an irrelevant question. My marital status is nothing to do with this chamber, says Waters.
Attorney general George Brandis is not impressed.
I think Senator Waters, for you to reflect on the religious beliefs of any member of this parliament, whether they be in the government or whether they occupy any other office in this parliament, is disgusting.
But Waters follows up with two more questions:
The pope said we cannot solve the climate crisis without addressing the interconnected problem of extreme poverty. Rising seas and more extreme drought will hit the world’s poorest hardest. Does the government still believe that “coal is good for humanity” and would they be willing to repeat this directly to the low-lying islands of Tuvalu and Kiribati at the global climate negotiations in Paris?
The pope’s encyclical said: “We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world ...” Today in this building faith leaders representing Australia’s Buddhist, Anglican, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish and Catholic communities have endorsed Pope Francis’s call to action. Will the government set its global climate goals in accordance with the science or continue to shirk our global responsibilities, and continue to be an international climate pariah?
Updated
Social services minister Scott Morrison gets a Dixer on pensions, allowing him to talk about Labor’s opposition to pension changes.
It’s interesting to note that those opposite today voted against a pension increase for those with a low and modest level of assets. But it wasn’t only that that happened, because we read in the Australian today, as Labor tossed and turned over these issues, that the dynamic duo that now forms their economic team – the member for McMahon [Chris Bowen] and the member for Watson [Tony Burke] – were rolled in the shadow [expenditure review committee] over this.
Updated
Tony Burke asks Tony Abbott: When the PM’s department worked up options to cut Australian government funding to public schools was there any consultation with the cabinet?
Pyne again takes the question.
I talk to all my colleagues about it. Because the cabinet is absolutely gripped by what we are trying to do in school education.
A government question to the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, on the success of turnbacks of asylum-seeker boats.
(The debate over paying people smugglers seems to have disappeared off the political agenda altogether.)
Updated
Just on that point regarding Labor ripping $1.2bn out of school funding. This was a result of three Coalition state/territory governments not signing up to the Gonski funding package which was negotiated just prior to the 2013 election.
My colleague Daniel Hurst did a story here.
Another Labor question to Abbott: The federation green paper states “the Commonwealth would no longer provide a funding contribution to government schools”. Can the PM outline the options for states to make up the difference in the federation green paper?
Abbott flicks the question to Christopher Pyne.
I do appreciate the opportunity to talk about the Australian government’s record of achievements in school education.
Updated
Coalition hearts ABC
A government question to Christopher Pyne on trade unions: Will the minister update the House on the importance of maintaining transparency – transparency and accountability – in the union movement? What stands in the way of achieving this vital reform?
I was very pleased to be watching Insiders yesterday from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation – we are very pleased that they run such a great show – and saw Barrie Cassidy manfully attempting to get out of the leader of the opposition a straight answer about his knowledge of what happened with Winslow Constructors...
Mark Dreyfus tries to take a point of order three or four times. Madam Speaker threw him out, Dreyfus remained and Bishop relented, with a warning.
Updated
Butler to Abbott: When the PM’s department worked up options to cut Australian funding to public schools, did the department model how much more Australian families would pay under the PM’s secret plan to cut school funding?
Abbott flicks the question to Christopher Pyne.
All the member for Port Adelaide is doing is exhibiting the hypocrisy of Labor’s position by focusing on school funding when he is from the political party that cut school funding by $1.2bn when they were in government and that is now attacking this current government for a so-called shortfall of $30bn in the future. But they have not committed to putting that money back in.
So on the one hand, the government is arguing that there are no such cuts.
On the other hand, the government is arguing Labor must say where the money must come from to replace the cuts.
A government question to foreign minister Julie Bishop: Will the minister advise the House of the importance of strong border protection policies in stemming the flow of boat rivals from Iran? Why is a consistent approach to this issue so important?
Bishop provides an answer to remind all and sundry that “Labor cannot be trusted on border protection”.
Updated
How could I forget the education minister?
Shorten to Abbott: I refer to reports today about the government’s proposal to have parents pay a school tax. Under the government’s proposal, which the PM has praised today as creative thinking, how much more will Australian parents have to pay to send their children to school?
Let me repeat again and again and again for the leader of the opposition, who is a slow listener, if not a slow learner, the government’s position, which is there is no such proposal, none whatsoever. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.
Updated
I would like on indulgence to congratulate the member for Melbourne (whose wife has just had a baby), says Palmer.
No indulgence from Madam Speaker.
Shorten to Abbott: The NSW treasurer has today described the PM’s $30bn worth of cuts to schools as “not sustainable’. Why does the PM continue to deny his $30bn of cuts to schools, when the PM’s own Liberal colleagues are publicly criticising him for those cuts?
There are no cuts, says Abbott.
Black is the new white.
Updated
Red socks. Red tie. Rats in the ranks.
Serial enthusiast and small biz minister Bruce Billson is asked about the small business tax cuts.
Plibersek to Abbott: A paper circulated by the PM’s own department suggests a schools tax could be imposed on parents with children at public schools. Is this new schools tax designed to make up for the Abbott government’s cuts to states and territories for public school funding?
There have been no cuts. Funding goes up every single year.
(The cuts were to indexation, which is why this claim can be made. The total amount still increases but by a lesser amount.)
If she [Plibersek] thinks $30bn has been cut, will she put it back, Abbott asks.
Plibersek tries to table the budget, but Speaker Bishop sits her down. (You can’t table a public document.)
A government question to Joe Hockey about small business cuts and the success of the free trade agreements.
Madam speaker rules out a Clive Palmer question because it offends on every level.
I think that question offends on every Standing Order in the book and it’s out of order, says Bishop.
Palmer loses the call. Here is his question:
In 2009, the member for Wentworth [Malcolm Turnbull] lost the support of the Liberal party and ultimately opposition leadership because the Treasury official lied to the Senate. Is it OK, PM, that an Australian citizen could lose his citizenship because the government official lies or makes a mistake? And the citizen has no way of correcting such lie or mistake? Does the PM understand the separation of powers and the Magna Carta and what they’re all about?
Updated
Mark Butler to Christopher Pyne: As a result of the $30bn of cuts to schools locked in by this year’s budget, the Catholic Education Commission has said, “Fees will increase, schools could close and the quality of education will be compromised.” Given the PM’s $30bn in cuts are just the start of his plan to cut all Australian government funding to schools, what extra damage will his secret and extreme plan do to Catholic schools?
Pyne admires the “audacity” of Labor claiming they were putting back “rivers of gold” into school funding.
Pyne points to Jay Weatherill’s comments:
We’ve been asking them to canvas the broader range of options. There’s a broad debate going on about Commonwealth/state relations, which is a good thing.
Updated
A question to Warren Truss on the northern development white paper.
The South Australian premier has entered the debate, according to the education minister.
Good on @JayWeatherill for admitting that 'a discussion paper' is just that and eschewing the opportunity to bag the Australian Government.
— Christopher Pyne (@cpyne) June 22, 2015
Bowen to Abbott: Given the PM has said that, if the states impose a schools tax that is a matter for them, what action has the government determined to take should any state or territory impose a schools tax?
It is not the Commonwealth’s policy and what the states and territories do in respect of public schools is entirely a matter for them. Unlike members opposite, who are always trying to raise yet another scare campaign, there are some Labor leaders who are prepared to talk seriously about our future.
Updated
Shorten to Abbott: Did the PM’s own department circulate the federation green paper that provides an option that would see the Australian government walk away from any responsibility for funding public schools?
Abbott leaves it open to the states:
The Australian government does not and will not support a means test for public education, full stop, end of story. If the states and territories want to charge wealthy parents fees for public schools, that is a matter for them. Charging wealthy parents for their children to attend public schools is not this government’s policy.
Which would seem to leave it open to the states. So if the feds take out funding for health and schools in the first budget, then praise the states for “creative” solutions, is the policy coming from the Commonwealth or the states?
Updated
Bill Shorten supports the service and the permanent memorial.
Question time coming up.
Tony Abbott advises the House “on indulgence” that the government will hold a national memorial service in Canberra on 17 July for the first anniversary of the downing of flight MH17 in Ukraine.
There will be a permanent memorial to the people who lost their lives in the House of Representatives garden. All families of victims will be invited to the service.
Updated
Hezbollah’s secretive “external security” branch will remain listed as a terrorist organisation in Australia after security agency advice that the group is still involved in the “planning, coordination and execution of terrorist attacks”.
The parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security regularly reviews the organisations on the list, which Hezbollah’s external security organisation (ESO) joined in 2003.
ESO operatives have been accused of several terrorist attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets, including the 1994 bombing of an Argentinian‑Israeli mutual association in Buenos Aires that killed 85.
Three years ago it was accused of blowing up an Israeli tourist bus in Burgas, Bulgaria, killing six. An Australian was among the Hezbollah agents suspected of involvement.
Clive Palmer is perhaps gazing into the crystal ball.
We need eliminate career politicians who hang around this place for 30years @ceda_news #auspol
— Clive Palmer (@CliveFPalmer) June 22, 2015
We need to remove politicians super entitlements to be the same as the rest of the community. #auspol #son2015 @ceda_news Share if you agree
— Clive Palmer (@CliveFPalmer) June 22, 2015
Lunchtime political summary
According to blogging laws, herewith your lunchtime summary:
- We awoke to news the government was considering proposals to charge wealthier families fees for public schools. Until we learned through education minister Christopher Pyne via Twitter that they are not. Except the door was left ajar by Tony Abbott. So we can’t place bets yet.
- Citizenship laws could contain some sort of “automatic” declaration which would get around the tricky business of constitutionality. No text has been sighted yet.
-
Labor MP Tim Watts got people on both sides of the House to say nice things about the Racial Discrimination Act, more particularly 18C.
Updated
The Medical Research Future Fund legislation allows for $1bn of uncommitted funds from Kevin Rudd’s Health and Hospitals Fund to go towards the MRFF. Labor opposes this, which health minister Sussan Ley suggests is evidence Labor does not support medical research.
The House is now dividing.
Updated
We have duelling bills here at the big house. In the House, Labor’s shadow health spokeswoman, Catherine King, is trying to amend the Medical Research Future Fund bill. The House has divided and, barring divine intervention, the vote will go down.
Updated
Isn’t the Senate lucky to have someone of Senator Ludlam’s expertise, says Macdonald.
No one knows more than Senator Ludlam, Macdonald says. As this is recorded for Hansard, I am saying this with irony.
Updated
The lower house is onto the Medical Research Future Fund. Meanwhile in the red house, Senator Scott Ludlam is speaking on the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) bill 2015.
My colleague Monica Tan wrote this report, which described the bill.
If it is passed, copyright owners would be able to apply for a federal court order requiring internet service providers to block overseas sites whose primary purpose is infringing copyright or facilitating the infringement of copyright.
There has been a little tête-â-tête between the Liberals and the Greens. Liberal senator Ian Macdonald made some remark about Ludlam as presenting a view from the fringes. Ludlam shoots back. I can’t wait for Senator Macdonald’s contribution.
Ludlam is suggesting a second reading amendment, that the debate should be adjourned.
(The bill) combines elements of laziness and it is dangerous ... I call on Labor to actually be the opposition and try to hold this government to account for a change.
Updated
The Coalition/Greens pensions bill just passed in the house 82-51.
Christopher Pyne is doing a live interview on Sky News in his office, rather than running the press gallery gauntlet to the Sky studios.
He is defending his stance making policy statements on Twitter, which Tony Abbott has called “electronic graffitti”.
One of the only uses of Twitter is getting a message out very quickly.
I could see the debate was being conflating on school funding and I wanted to make it absolutely certain that the government remains committed to increasing school funding every year for the next four years.
Pyne goes on to urge Labor to support the registered organisations bill, which set up a new registered organisations commission to monitor the conduct of unions and business groups. Christopher is in full flight.
Labor is marooned on an island of political irrelevancy.
Fellow indie Cathy McGowan is also speaking on the pension bill. She makes a similar point to Wilkie’s, that “people are trying to get their affairs in the long term” and constant changing around retirement incomes makes it difficult for her constituents.
She also protests that when the changes were made last week in negotiation with the Greens, nobody told the crossbench, “which causes enormous confusion in our community”.
McGowan has a quaint notion of consulting with her electorate on legislation.
She says unless ministers give notice to the crossbenches regarding a change in proposed laws, it is impossible to go back and consult with her constituents.
The house is voting on the bill now.
Updated
Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie is speaking against the Coalition/Greens pension changes.
He says current pensioners should not be adversely affected. He would be more likely to vote for the changes if the cuts were grandfathered, affecting those who were say, 10 years out from retirement.
Make these changes something for the future.
Updated
Scott Morrison has been speaking to the pensions changes, which Labor’s Jenny Macklin is opposing.
Clive Palmer is also opposing the bill in the house, as an “attack on those who can ill afford it”.
Cutting pensions for people on modest incomes is a negative incentive to save for our future, says Palmer.
We don’t just love our children ... we love our grandparents as well ... Why doesn’t the Liberal party become the party of Bob Menzies that looks after everyone ... Bob Menzies would be rolling in his grave ... we have to all vote against these measures.
Updated
Back to citizenship.
As we understand the legal advice to get around the constitutional issues, the automatic revocation power under a defined process would come into play at the point at which a “decision” is made.
That is, if a fighter tries to exercise their citizenship right (for example, to come home or get a new passport) a court will decide at that point in time.
As Lenore reported, this is a more acceptable version to critics within the government and Labor.
Liberal MP Andrew Laming has passed an opinion, reports Sky News’s Laura Jayes.
.@AndrewLamingMP "Should high income earners be paying to attend state school? My view is firmly yes! Most importantly a price signal"
— Laura Jayes (@ljayes) June 22, 2015
Updated
The rich get richer, the poor get the picture
I have been remiss not mentioning Lenore Taylor’s report on the Australian Council of Social Service (Acoss) study into incomes. The gap is getting wider, people.
Australia’s rich are getting richer, and while inequality here is not as extreme as in the US or the UK, it is heading in that direction, according to a new study by the Australian Council of Social Service.
Australians earning in the top 20% of incomes receive five times as much as those in the bottom 20%. A person with accumulated wealth in the top 20% has 70 times as much as a person in the bottom 20%.
The bottom line is we are heading away from the OECD and towards the United States.
In Australia, the top 10% owns 45% of wealth, while the bottom owns 5.1%.
In the US, the top 10% owns 76% of wealth while the bottom 40% owns less than half a percent.
Updated
Racial Discrimination Act: Total liberty for the wolves is death to the lambs
Labor backbencher Tim Watts has moved a private member’s bill in the House to acknowledge the 40th anniversary of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 and recognise:
- the important role the Act plays in Australia’s human rights framework;
- the importance of Section 18C of the Act in protecting Australians from racist hate speech;
- the important role the Human Rights Commission plays in administering the Act.
Regular watchers and hand-wringing left-leaning lawyers will remember the ill-fated attempt by the artful George Brandis to change 18C.
When the government was swept away by an avalanche of opposition in the form of submissions and lobbying from multicultural communities, Abbott and Brandis backed down on the grounds that they had to build bridges with said communities on new national security laws.
In a week when parliament will be dominated by a debate over stripping citizenship, Watts said it was important to support the RDA and the HRC. OMG.
Liberal MP for Bennelong John Alexander spoke to the motion. His electorate, formerly held by John Howard and Maxine McKew, has a large Asian population.
Liberal MP Craig Laundy placed “on record” his support for the role of the HRC.
Labor MP Michelle Rowland spoke in favour, noting:
While I've been talking c/ship today, Dad reminded me that my late mum, Marie became an Oz Citizen on this day in 88. pic.twitter.com/qMIw3Dxvc2
— Michelle Rowland (@MRowlandMP) June 22, 2015
Labor MP Michael Danby talks about the history of the government’s desire to change 18C, which goes all the way back to a judgement against broadcaster Andrew Bolt.
Danby quotes Isaiah Berlin:
Total liberty for the wolves is death to the lambs.
Then Danby notes:
I have been banned from the Andrew Bolt program. The great irony ...
But then he is out of time and the microphone is cut off.
Updated
Policy or electronic graffiti?
Consistency has not been a strong suit of this government. Witness the schools funding story this morning.
We awoke to the news that a Prime Minister and Cabinet discussion paper was considering a range of options, including charging wealthy families for public education.
After brekkie at 8am, Tony Abbott suggested school funding was a matter for states.
Thirty minutes after, Pyne knocked it off.
Charging wealthy parents for their children to attend public schools is not the government's policy. I don't support it. #auspoI
— Christopher Pyne (@cpyne) June 21, 2015
Two minutes later, perhaps once he had received the PM’s transcript, the minister said:
If the states and territories want to charge wealthy parents fees for public schools that's a matter for them. #auspoI
— Christopher Pyne (@cpyne) June 21, 2015
At the same time on Sky, the assistant education minister, Simon Birmingham, said the proposal had prompted a “hysterical overreaction” from several quarters and that the government did not want “to pre-empt the outcome” of the federation white paper. The Commonwealth is trying to reduce duplication in school spending, Birmingham said.
Then Pyne followed up with another:
The Australian Government does not and will not support a means test for public education. Full stop. End of story. #auspoI
— Christopher Pyne (@cpyne) June 21, 2015
Remember the main education points in the Commission of Audit:
- A transfer of all policy and funding responsibility for schools to states.
- The commission questioned the funding increase under the Gonski model.
- All Commonwealth funding should be delivered in three non-transferable buckets: government schools, private schools and Catholic systemic schools.
- Annual per student funding from 2018 – indexed by weighted average of Consumer Price Index and Wage Price Index. (This bit was done in the first Abbott budget.)
- Require states to publish how they allocate school funds, more national and international testing, publish student outcomes consistently.
- University students should pay 55% of the cost of an average bachelor degree, compared with the 40% they pay currently.
So whether it is on the table or off the table, remains unclear. The last word goes to Scott Morrison, who when asked about the proposal, said he would let the education minister deal with it.
I’m always backing Christopher Pyne.
Updated
The one thing worse than a fiddler? Hand-wringing left-leaning lawyers
On matters of ministerial discretion, in case you were wondering, Scott Morrison says ministers work hard to make decisions properly.
There’s a very significant process which you engage in as a minister to ensure you make these decisions properly and I would envisage a very similar process.
Morrison says he’s very pleased to have “got to this point” given he first moved the changes as immigration minister. (Moi.)
Then he proceeds to take the mickey out of barrister Mark Dreyfus, whom he says is running a “bring them home campaign”.
I mean he’s got his silks at the dry cleaners waiting to defend them when they come back and I think that really betrays the heart of Labor on many of these things ... Mark Dreyfus wants a lawyer’s picnic over these things and bringing these people back.
Ray Hadley:
This is the problem minister, he can’t forget he’s a lawyer, he can’t forget this, you see and that’s a dangerous thing. Particularly if you’ve got a hand-wringing left-leaning lawyer as your shadow attorney general.
Morrison:
I don’t think it inspires confidence.
I wonder if “hand-wringing left-leaning lawyers” applies to his fellow cabinet members who famously split on the issue.
Updated
Scott Morrison is discussing the latest version of the legislation to strip dual nationals.
He likens this latest idea, of making an “automatic” declaration under section 35 to strip citizenship on the basis of membership of a terrorist organisation, to visa cancellations.
Morrison gives the example of Alex Vella, the Rebels motorcycle club national president who had his visa cancelled last year under character provisions in the Migration Act.
I am really struggling to understand the “automatic” nature of this new law. Vella may have been easy to identify but presumably terror suspects don’t flash their Isis membership cards around like a badge at the MCG. What is the test?
In a fog of confusion, I can only offer you this picture of Joe Hockey representing the trajectory of Sydney property prices.
Not really. He was speaking at Ceda.
Updated
Back to Scott Morrison’s regard for Richard Di Natale compared with his predecessor:
At least he can sit in a room and have a sensible conversation about these things ... whether I have exhausted the set of issues we can agree about, we’ll find out. I imagine we’re close.
Updated
The conversation between Ray Hadley and Scott Morrison is quite distracting. They were just criticising the shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, for acting like the lawyer he is, by insisting on sticking to the letter of the law around stripping citizenship.
I will bring you more quotes in a mo.
Updated
Sometimes it’s the last place you look. @cpyne was on Twitter declaring federal education policy.
The Australian Government does not and will not support a means test for public education. Full stop. End of story. #auspoI
— Christopher Pyne (@cpyne) June 21, 2015
ScoMo is talking to 2GB and while it may be the kiss of death, the social services minister has praised the new Greens leader, Richard Di Natale, as being easier to deal with than his predecessor, Christine Milne.
Updated
Sky News is reporting the education minister, Christopher Pyne, has ruled out means testing in public schools. We are still trying to track down where Pyne delivered his missive.
Patience people.
Thanks to Twitter corros Marie McInerney and Leroy Lynch for the link to the original Centre for Independent Studies report by Jennifer Buckingham which raised the idea of charging wealthy families for public education.
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For those concerned with details, parliament is due to sit at 10am today.
Elements on the notice paper include the bills:
- to cut pensions to wealthier pensioners
- to establish the Medical Research Future Fund
- to extend the waiting period for the dole to people under 25.
There is also a report from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security into a review of the re-listing of Hezbollah’s external security organisation.
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Caffeine did deliver a brighter PM than the man in the message last night.
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The health minister, Sussan Ley, was on the ABC earlier and was asked about stripping citizenship from dual nationals and whether it would get support from the party room.
They deserve the worst possible ramifications when it comes to breaking that promise with Australian society.
Just to be clear, Ley was speaking there about terror suspects, not the Coalition party room.
We meet today and then I understand the legislation will be referred to a parliamentary committee on intelligence and security. And again, another layer of scrutiny and the party room itself will thrash out the questions and answers that individuals may reasonably have about what this legislation means.
The citizenship legislation has not yet been sighted.
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Our gallery colleague Matthew Knott at Fairfax has a scooperoo about some pretty radical fiddling regarding schools. The concepts come from a discussion paper developed within Abbott’s own Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. Knott reports the paper includes:
- giving the states and territories full responsibility for all schools;
- making states and territories fully responsible for funding public schools while the federal government funds non-government schools;
- reducing Commonwealth involvement in schools, but without significant structural change; or
- making the federal government the dominant funder of all schools.
Under the fourth option, the federal government would provide funding for all students “adjusted for student need and the ability of families to make a contribution”.
The first question to Abbott is around this issue, regarding universality of public education – yatteh yatteh – and the PM deadbats it as a states issue.
We have no role at all in the running of public schools, public schools are absolutely the business of the state and territory governments, and whether state or territory governments choose to change the way schools are funded in their states and territories is absolutely a matter for them. Obviously there is a federation reform white paper process taking place now. I think it’s good that some of the states and territories at least are thinking creatively about how they can responsibly fund their operations. But any question of how you fund public schools in terms of what contribution parents might be expected to make is absolutely a matter for the states and territories.
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This government ... needs more sleep
Citizenship is the key issue of this last week of parliamentary sitting afore the break. Lenore Taylor has the new development, designed to get around pesky lawyers inside and outside government who insist on peripheral issues like constitutionality. This is Lenore:
The government has modified the plan – proposing to amend section 35 of the Citizenship Act which automatically revokes the citizenship an Australian dual citizen who “serves the armed forces of a country at war with Australia” to include those who take up arms with a declared terrorist group. This would not involve ministerial discretion, and if anyone losing their citizenship in this way tried to re-enter Australia or reapply for a passport a court could review all the facts behind the revocation as well as the process by which the decision was made. There is no precedent for making decisions under section 35 because it has never been used.
And this is your prime minister this morn:
Obviously we have had legal advice from a number of sources and we are confident that this legislation can minimise constitutional risk. But the main point, and this is the point I want to stress, our message to people who leave Australia to fight for terrorist armies in the Middle East is that we don’t want you back. If you are a dual national, we won’t let you back because the first duty of government is to keep our country safe and the last thing any of us want to see is terrorists loose on our streets.
Tony Abbott has delivered his usual video message and the main point would appear to be that he needs a lot more sleep to complete the complicated business of government.
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Good morning punks and fiddlers.
The day has dawned on the last sitting week before the winter recess and I can report from the long trek into the nation’s capital that the fog is lifting to reveal a severe frost.
The week will be dominated by the citizenship issue, which I will get to in a moment.
But as I dropped my not insubstantial baggage on the office floor, Tony Abbott took to the stage at the National Gallery for a Canberra Business Chamber breakfast.
Abbott was spruiking the small business tax write-offs and giving a plug to Harvey Norman, which has set aside great swathes of the store to sell stuff.
Elsewhere around the country, the PM says:
waves of confidence are lifting up businesses large and small.
And then Abbott segues into something that smells like a campaign speech, mentioning
- the tax reform white paper about “lower simpler taxes” and
- the federation white paper which is apparently about
government that knows its place.
His three broad points of differentiation with Labor:
- we are not going to fiddle with super because it’s your money
- we are not going to fiddle with negative gearing because the last time Labor did that it caused a rental crisis.
- we will never reintroduce a carbon tax even though we want to do the right thing by the environment, our children and grandchildren.
We won’t go “clobbering” Australia with a fixed or floating tax, the PM says.
Onwards and upwards. Tony Abbott is now doing a doorstop. Join us on the Twits @gabriellechan and @mpbowers.
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