Night time politics
All sides have sought to take political advantage from the penalty rate cuts from the Fair Work Commission last week.
- Labor and the Greens have introduced private members’ bills that would hold or address any cuts caused by the penalty rate decision for some workers in sectors including hospitality, community and retail.
- The prime minister has accused Bill Shorten of backflipping on his support for the FWC as an independent umpire. Malcolm Turnbull spent question time reading out Shorten quotes underlining the importance of an independent process.
- Also in question time, Labor called on Turnbull to disavow the decision, a point Turnbull studiously avoided doing. All Turnbull would say is he supported the independent umpire.
- The morning was taken up discussing a conservative group who call themselves the Deplorables, led by Tony Abbott and his loyal deputy Eric Abetz. It is a factionette originally thought to be pushing a conservative agenda, however it fell apart after some erstwhile members felt they were being used to push a leadership agenda. Or even an agenda to get Abbott, Abetz and Kevin Andrews back into cabinet. One member, Andrew Hastie, said he supported Turnbull as his prime minister under God. I’m not sure what God had to do with it.
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George Christensen has kindly posted an article from the American Conservative on his Facebook page that is a great help to people like me who are having trouble defining Deplorables and Elites. In it, C Bradley Thompson writes:
The Ruling Elite are typically Ivy-educated. They have investments and disposable income and live in 5,000-square-foot homes in safe, leafy suburbs. They are high achievers who see their path to advancement through adherence to a system of perpetual virtue signaling. They have contempt for the Deplorables and their way of life, and they think that America is fundamentally racist, sexist, and homophobic.
The Deplorables, by contrast, may or may not have graduated from high school. They have debt and live paycheck to paycheck, residing in 1,000-square-foot homes or double-wides in unsafe neighborhoods. Their communities have high rates of unemployment and broken families, closed manufacturing plants or mines, unaffordable health care, and meth addiction.
Under that Deplorable definition, I’m not sure Abbott and his members fully fit the description.
- The other bit of news around was a Newspoll, which showed the Coalition trailing Labor on a two party preferred basis by 45-55%. The Coalition’s primary votes were bleeding to One Nation and Labor, with Pauline Hanson’s party up in the sample polled to 10% – on level pegging with the Greens.
- Malcolm Turnbull said the poll was as expected, given Abbott’s very strategic intervention critical of the government during the period the sample was taken. He lectured journalists to pay more attention to substantive issues and pay less attention to personality politics.
That’s your lot for the evening, people. Herewith, some final pics from Bowers on this Monday.
Goodnight.
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Labor’s penalty rate bill includes an extra provision that the Fair Work Commission’s penalty rate cut on 22 February would have “no effect” because it would be likely to reduce the take-home pay of workers in the four industries affected.
According to the explanatory memorandum, this will mean the bill has retrospective effect invalidating any determination the commission may make prior to the enactment of the bill.
That’s important because it means if the cut starts to be phased in on 1 July, Labor can still go into the next election promising to restore up to 700,000 workers’ penalty rates.
The Greens still have a query about whether annual wage increases could be used to argue that workers’ pay packets are still growing, providing room for the commission to cut penalty rates despite Labor’s bill, provided they’re phased in over a long enough period. They’re seeking advice from the parliamentary library on that point.
Party no birthday bash without balloons, says Coalition
In Senate estimates, senator Jenny Mcallister has been asking about what she called a “birthday party” for Julie Bishop, Josh Frydenberg and David Bushby on 17 July.
James Paterson and the attorney general, George Brandis, dispute that it was a birthday party.
There were no balloons and you can’t have a party without balloons, Paterson says.
Brandis said it was an event for about 100 Coalition parliamentarians and the trio’s birthdays were “acknowledged”.
A witness from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet said that birthday cakes were made in-house and sweets are usually served at such events so it was not out of the ordinary.
Mcallister moves on to a separate event at Kirribilli House, of which Brandis quips that the $2,000 odd price tag for booze amounted to $12 a head, making it “a rather Presbyterian event” rather than a knees-up.
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CAARP!
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Question time ended with an unusual condolence for the five people killed in the plane crash in Melbourne last week.
The PM spoke, recognising the experience of the pilot Max Quartermain and the victims and thanked the rescue/safety crew in very sombre tones. Then Bill Shorten spoke, underlining the serious effect of air crashes on communities and said he thought of Malcolm Turnbull. I assume that is a reference to Turnbull’s dad, who died in a plane crash, but I am not entirely sure.
Next government question to PDuddy, otherwise known as Peter Dutton immigration minister. It is about 457 visas and leads to ... Bill Shorten.
He calls Shorten a fraud and immediately is ordered to withdraw by speaker Smith.
He presided over an arrangement in relation to Cleanevent where those workers were entitled to $50.17 per hour under the award, the deal he brokered, as the union leader, pretending to be representing the interests of those workers. It ended in those workers being paid $18.14 an hour. Now, this man – this man, Mr Speaker, is the great – the great false pretender of Australian politics.
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Labor to Turnbull: My question is to the prime minister. Given the assistant minister to the treasurer has stated young Australians should get a high-paying job to buy their first home, why is the government now standing by and doing nothing while the wages of young Australians are being cut?
Turnbull flicks the question to Christopher Pyne, representing the employment minister, Michaelia Cash.
Pyne flicks the switch to vaudeville, referring to previous workplace agreements negotiated by Bill Shorten.
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The legislative and constitutional affairs committee has before it the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. Fractious and frustrating as ever. Just before the lunch break, Greens senator Nick McKim asked department secretary Mike Pezzullo about the escape from Lorengau prison (for the second time) of Joseph Kaluvia last weekend. Kaluvia is one of two men convicted of murdering Iranian asylum seeker Reza Barati inside the Manus Island detention centre in 2014.
PNG police commander David Yapu has said Kaluvia was a “high-risk” escapee and that he held concerns for the safety of the community and, in particular, two witnesses who gave evidence at his trial. Those two witnesses, Iranian asylum seekers, remain in the Manus Island detention centre. McKim wants to know why those witnesses weren’t informed by the detention centre operators that Kaluvia had escaped again.
It was taken on notice by Pezzullo, who says he doesn’t immediately see how that’s a contractual matter for the detention centre operators.
Earlier, there was much back and forth about the US refugee deal and whether Australia’s agreement to take central American refugees from Costa Rican refugee camps was a “people swap”.
It categorically is not, according to the assistant minister, Michaelia Cash, despite comments from minister Peter Dutton last week that Australia would not take any from the American camps until refugees had been resettled from Australia’s camps on Manus and Nauru.
Pezzullo said the two deals were “not linked”. He told estimates he expected refugees in the Australian-run camps to be resettled in America “in the foreseeable future”, an answer of such spectacular banality that even the committee’s curmudgeon-in-chief, Ian Macdonald, couldn’t hold back a smirk. Pezzullo later refined this timeframe to “movement within the next few, several months, indeed”. Crystal.
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Labor to Turnbull: The premier of Western Australia has said, “What I would like to see is reduce those excessive Sunday penalty rates”. Does the prime minister support the premier’s statement? Doesn’t the prime minister’s refusal to take action show that cutting penalty rates is now his government’s policy?
Turnbull is again careful to say he supports the independent umpire without explicitly supporting the cut to penalty rates.
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Kevin Andrew lines up Rudy Giuliani’s wisdom.
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Shorten to Turnbull: Why is this government giving big business a tax cut but doing nothing to stop workers getting a pay cut?
Turnbull says Shorten has consistently made the case for the independent umpire.
Labor’s Catherine King to Malcolm Turnbull: Can the prime minister guarantee the decision to cut penalty rates in the retail and hospitality industries will not lead to the pay of other industries, people like nurses who work late nights and weekends caring for the sick and injured? Why won’t the prime minister support Labor’s legislation to protect the penalty rates of all Australians?
So Labor is trying to extend the FWC penalties decision to other professions.
Turnbull arcs up, calling it another reckless scare campaign before King is turfed out of the chamber for interjecting. Turnbull obviously thinks better of it and says he has concluded his answer.
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Labor to Barnaby Joyce: PricewaterhouseCoopers analysis reported in the Australian shows wages in regional Australia have grown three times slower than in major cities. Given regional workers are already doing it tough, why is the deputy prime minister supporting pay cuts for regional Australians? Including up to 13,000 retail accommodation and food services workers in the electorate of Dawson and up to 16,000 in the electorate of Leichhardt?
Barnaby goes into a Joycean rave about how Labor had done nothing for regional Australia and the MP for Herbert, Cathy O’Toole, had done nothing to support the Hell’s Gate dam.
He does not go to regional wages or whether he supports the penalty rates decision by the FWC.
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Tanya Plibersek asks Turnbull: How many women will have their pay cut because of the penalty rates decision and what will this do to the gender pay gap in Australia?
Turnbull quotes figures for the different sectors including retail, hospitality and food sectors. He says:
There’s more female than males working in those sectors but it’s not clear in terms of those who were receiving the penalty rates that are affected by the decision, that the balance is markedly different between men and women.
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Greens Adam Bandt to Malcolm Turnbull: Newspoll today should be no surprise, young people are getting screwed over. Owning a home is out of reach, study is getting more expensive, work is getting more insecure and now many young people’s wages will be cut after the Fair Work Commission decision cheered on by your government to cut their penalty rates. Last year the Greens announced our plan to protect penalty rates in legislation and we’re pleased that others are now onboard. Prime minister, will you now join with the rest of the parliament in protecting the wages of hundreds of thousands of Australians, especially our youngest and lowest-paid workers by backing the Greens’ bill? Wouldn’t it be better to protect the young people’s wages rather than give the big banks a multimillion-dollar handout?
Turnbull has been quoting Jennie George, former president of the ACTU, who wrote to the Oz last week.
I worked alongside Iain Ross for several years at the ACTU. His diligence, competence, commitment and integrity was acclaimed throughout the union movement and by all who dealt with him. After working in the legal system, his appointment as Fair Work Australia president by the then Labor government recognised the qualities and widespread experience he would bring to this important position.
Of course unions should express concern about the impact of the decision on the wages of affected workers. I am sure this weighed heavily on the FWA members, who spent years examining the submissions and witness evidence. That’s why the bench has deferred consideration of the transitional arrangements to implement their decision, mindful of the potential effects on low-paid workers.
The door is open for the unions to argue for transitional arrangements that would minimise these effects. In addition, the relevant unions could try safeguarding their current penalty rates through enterprise agreements.
Be careful what you wish for. Bill Shorten was right to say before the election that he would accept the decision. An independent umpire has been the bedrock of our industrial relations system and should be beyond party politics.
Turnbull says:
There is always a balance between the rate of penalty rates and its impact on employment. It’s clearly a contentious matter. You have an independent body has determined it, they have considered it carefully, they have come to the conclusion.
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I’ve been taking a look at the Labor and Greens bills on penalty rates and in an earlier post said Labor’s bill would effectively stop penalty rate cuts by setting a very high bar to make award changes.
But it’s important to note the bill would only stop the most recent Fair Work Commission cut if it were legislated before orders are made (some time before 1 July).
The Greens’ bill actually locks in the rates at the start of 2017. So if their bill were ever legislated, it would unwind the most recent FWC decision.
Labor’s bill on its face prevents the cut but, by the time they are back in government and could actually legislate it, it would probably be too late for the 700,000 workers who are about to get a cut. I expect the Greens will push them on this point.
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Shorten to Turnbull: In April of last year, the prime minister legislated to overturn the decision of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, the independent umpire for safe rates in the trucking industry. And then, in October of last year, the prime minister again legislated to pre-empt the decision of the Fair Work Commission in relation to the Country Fire Authority. So why is the prime minister now refusing to legislate to stop this pay cut to 700,000 Australians?
Turnbull:
April was a notable month last year because that was the month in which the leader of the opposition gave his absolutely unqualified, unequivocal pledge to Neil Mitchell that he would support, commit to, abide by the decision of the Fair Work Commission on penalty rates.
Turnbull says the abolition of the RSRT was always Liberal policy and “we carried it out”.
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Next government question is on affordable energy, allowing Malcolm Turnbull to talk about Labor’s reckless renewable policies.
Labor’s employment shadow, Brendan O’Connor, to Malcolm Turnbull: Why is the prime minister standing by and doing absolutely nothing to stop nearly 700,000 Australians from having their pay cut by up to $77 a week?
Turnbull continues to read previous Shorten statements relating to the independent umpire, the Fair Work Commission.
In terms of dealing with penalty rates making from our side of politics, we believe the Fair Work Commission is the independent umpire, it should make the decisions and we should respect them. That used to be the position on the other side. Apparently in January, according to the member for McMahon, the leader of the opposition had some sort of thought cleansing experience when suddenly he was reprogrammed.
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First government question to Turnbull is on the visit by the Indonesian president, Joko Widodo.
It relates to the agreement with Indonesia to lower its sugar tariff on Australian sugar to the Asean level of 5% and longer-term agreements to permit a wider range of cattle both in terms of weight and age, to be exported to Indonesia.
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First question from Shorten to Turnbull: Last Thursday, the Fair Work Commission made a decision to cut the take-home pay of nearly 700,000 Australians. What is the prime minister going to do to stop this pay cut?
Turnbull is reading out Shorten’s previous comments talking up the independence of the Fair Work Commission. Turnbull quotes Shorten in 2012 on Meet the Press:
I think the best way, said the Leader of the Opposition, to protect Fair Work Australia is to protect its independence. It’s a statutory body. It’s doing its investigations and the argument which says that the government needs to intervene would undermine its independence. It’s an independent body. Well, that’s a bold statement - hard to connect to the remarks we just heard.
Help me out here. Did Senator David Fawcett just describe boat arrivals as fleas? #estimates #auspol pic.twitter.com/iWkjwc2eio
— Jackson Gothe-Snape (@jacksongs) February 27, 2017
Question time coming up.
@gabriellechan Hang in there... pic.twitter.com/UcYlvC6coO
— The Matt Hatter (@MattGlassDarkly) February 27, 2017
Labor has released its bill to protect the take-home pay of workers, including against the Fair Work Commission’s decision on Thursday to cut Sunday and public holiday penalty rates in four industries.
The bill says: “A modern award cannot be varied in a way that would, or would be likely to, reduce the take-home pay of any employee covered by the award.”
By banning changes that disadvantage any employee, the bill sets a very high bar for when the Fair Work Commission could change awards.
Although when Labor first mooted changes in January there were suggestions the commission could award other benefits such as an increase in base rates of pay to offset the cut, in practice that will be very difficult.
That’s because if all workers have to be compensated by the amount of the person who would be worst off under the decision, some workers would stand still and other workers would actually get a pay increase from an attempt by the commission to cut penalty rates.
The Greens’ bill simply freezes penalty rates at the levels at the start of 2017. In practice, Labor’s will have the same effect and goes further in protecting conditions like the span of ordinary hours.
Most crossbenchers and the government have rejected the proposals.
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Classic. The group that destablises a Coalition govt betrays its own members, turning them from the Deplorables into the Expendables #auspol pic.twitter.com/xXuM0BAX8w
— Ed Husic (@edhusicMP) February 27, 2017
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Voting patterns on penalty rate suspension.
Independents Katter, Sharkie, Bandt & Wilkie vote with Opposition, McGowan votes with govt. #suspension #fairWorkAct pic.twitter.com/D91mCZf1n7
— Mikearoo (@mpbowers) February 27, 2017
Canning Liberal MP Andrew Hastie, the man who named the conservative group The Deplorables, has stood by Malcolm Turnbull on Perth radio.
He is the prime minister under God – I consider that a sacred office and I would be loath to push a spill motion or do any of those sorts of things which people are somehow suggesting.
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Whither to for the Young Ones
Katharine Murphy has a story on the Deplorable Club which you can find here. But there is a lovely little detail in it:
One member of the group of conservative MPs told Guardian Australia on Monday the coordination between like-minded parliamentarians started as a narrowly focussed effort to revive the 18C debate, rather as anything more broad ranging, although there was a feeling that Abbott should return to the cabinet.
But according to this account, as time went on, younger conservatives involved in the discussions became irritated that the conversations turned to returning Eric Abetz and Kevin Andrews – two Abbott supporters moved on from the cabinet by Turnbull when he took the leadership in September 2015 – to ministerial roles. “This turned the young ones off,” said one participant.
Deplorable.
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Labor shadow Brendan O’Connor spoke in the house after Malcolm Turnbull. O’Connor said far from abiding by the umpire’s decision, the Coalition had previous chucked out umpire decisions, including the Victorian Country Fire Authority dispute, and in abolishing the road safety remuneration tribunal.
In the CFA dispute, the Turnbull government made changes to the Fair Work Act in August 2016 prohibiting terms of enterprise agreements that restrict emergency services organisations’ ability to deploy volunteers.
The Fair Work Commission hadn’t yet approved the EA so the government didn’t technically overturn an existing decision, it changed the goal posts in order to affect the outcome in a particular case.
In the case of the RSRT, the government abolished the body that set the rates independent contractors’ charged for work (and therefore their pay). In this case, the RSRT had already issued a pay order, and the government got rid of not just the order but the whole body.
Coalition types would defend the move because – unlike the Fair Work Commission which sets minimum pay for employees – the RSRT set minimum rates for independent contractors’, which arguably interfered with their ability to compete. But it is still an example of overturning the decision of an independent tribunal.
Liberal defence industries minister Christopher Pyne just told Sky:
The RSRT was a fit-up by the Labor party.
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Lunchtime politics
- Newspoll has the Coalition on 45% to Labor’s 55% on a two-party-preferred basis. The Coalition’s primary vote is bleeding to One Nation and Labor.
- This appears to have put Malcolm Turnbull in a mood, which has led to a stern lecture to journalists for getting distracted rather than focusing on the issues of bottlemakers and butchers.
- The prime minister also said the bad poll was Tony Abbott’s fault and the former PM’s intervention was specifically designed to inflict damage in the polling period.
- The poll didn’t put Barnaby Joyce in a mood though, because he actually said he reads polls. He is listening, says he.
- Treasurer Scott Morrison had batted off suggestions from Ray Hadley that he should a) listen to Tony Abbott on his policy prescriptions to stop immigration and dump the renewable energy target and b) not listen to Tony Abbott and hold the government line. Morrison suggested that Abbott’s policy to dump the RET was a sovereign risk. Labor environment shadow Mark Butler agreed with Scott Morrison and everyone cheered.
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Labor social services shadow Jenny Macklin is speaking against the omnibus/childcare bill and I will focus on a lunchtime summary.
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Labor lost the suspension motion to introduce its penalty rates bill.
Is that a berm?
Senate president Stephen Parry has told Senate estimates there was never a plan to build a moat around parliament house.
It was going to be a ditch called a ha ha, it was mooted for one section of the parliament house perimeter but it had serious technical difficulties. It was never going to be filled with water or crocodiles, it was just a ditch.
This was reported on last year by Michael Koziol at Fairfax:
Security agencies considered digging a channel similar to a moat around Parliament House as part of a controversial security overhaul, Fairfax Media can reveal.
The embankment, technically called a “berm” and commonly used as a defence against tanks, would have encircled the building as a way to keep vehicles off the hill.
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OK the lower house is now voting on Labor’s suspension motion.
Malcolm Turnbull is losing his voice as he rounds on Bill Shorten and his record with the FWC, saying,
- he started it
- he staffed it
- he defended it in advance
- now he tries to backflip.
Nobody has traded away more penalty rates than the leader of the opposition.
Malcolm Turnbull now goes to the substance of the issue.
All of us understand how hard this will hit those who work on weekends.
But Turnbull says the trade-off will be more hours worked, more jobs in hospitality and retail and workers will benefit.
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Malcolm Turnbull is speaking against the Labor suspension of standing orders.
Turnbull is talking about Shorten appointing the president of the FWC,
hard-handed capitalist Iain Ross.
He has worked in and around the unions for years, says Turnbull.
Bill Shorten says the Labor party had opposed any cuts to penalty rates in the Fair Work Commission.
Whereas the Coalition, having supported cuts to penalty rates previously, was now pretending it was Labor’s fault.
Proverbial dog that has caught the truck. It doesn’t know what to do.
Bill Shorten is moving to suspend standing orders on penalty rates in the lower house.
Stop the cuts!
Shorten wants to amend the Fair Work Act 2009 on penalty rates.
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Unity ticket from Coalition and Labor on Tony Abbott's RET policy
Labor Mark Butler has been asked about Scott Morrison’s suggestion that Tony Abbott’s plan to scrap the Renewable Energy Target presents a sovereign risk to Australia?
Butler said he did agree with Morrison and said Abbott had agreed not to touch the RET in the 2010 and 2013 elections after the Coalition voted for the policy in in 2009. Renewable energy companies invested in projects on that basis, only to find the Coalition had flipped.
I do agree with the treasurer on this matter … really, his [Abbott’s] backflip on his own legislation less than two years old can only be seen as the desperate cry of a man who is dealing with very significant irrelevance.
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Eric Abetz has continued his assault on the Department of Parliamentary Services for its proposed 70% rent hike for Aussies cafe.
The Tasmanian senator has asked why DPS has insisted on Aussies providing sales figures for coffees and its business plan, and suggests the department is “hopelessly conflicted” because it competes in sales of coffees in Parliament House.
DPS secretary Rob Stefanic replied:
The licence hasn’t been subject to market testing in 25 years. DPS has been criticised by [the national audit office] for not maximising the return to the commonwealth, hence the recommendation to develop a retail strategy. Do we just leave the existing licence in place?”
Stefanic suggests the Aussies owner Domenic Calabria should negotiate with DPS over the proposed rent increase, rather than apply pressure by speaking to the media and through Senate estimates.
The Senate president, Stephen Parry, said there is “no suggestion” DPS wants to compete with Aussies, because DPS catering services are not operating for profit.
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The head of the Bureau of Meteorology Andrew Johnson is questioned by Greens leader Richard Di Natale. He says it is problematic to attribute individual climate events to climate change.
But the frequency of climate events is increasing.
He will not speculate on the magnitude of heating and consequences for the world is but the Bom’s projections are on the record.
We know from the trends already observing...there are some parts of the country that is likely to be drier than they already are.
One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts is questioning the Bureau of Meteorology in estimates about its forecasts and has some very pointed questions about its temperature data, in contrast to the findings of a retired scientist in contact with Roberts.
Talk amongst yourselves.
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In the interests of consistency, Greens leader Richard Di Natale wants to know why the parliament is not an equal opportunity stunt zone.
Di Natale was just trying to show the damage being done to the Great Barrier Reef by coal-driven emissions when he held up a lump of coal and a lump of dead coral in estimates.
Apparently it’s acceptable for the treasurer to hand out a lump of coal on the floor of the house but not for me to draw the connection between dirty, polluting coal and the death of one of our greatest natural wonders, the Great Barrier Reef.
Emissions from coal are killing the reef but this government would rather prop up their cronies in the energy sector with subsidies to build new coal-fired power stations than address the real damage being done.
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I love you. I honestly love you.
In estimates, Eric Abetz is grilling the Department of Parliamentary Services about a report that it is trying to hike rent for the Aussies cafe in Parliament House by 70%, and order it not to use the name “Aussies”.
DPS secretary, Rob Stefanic, said there was no order to change the cafe’s name, only a clause in a draft contract that gives DPS the right to object if an unsuitable name is used. Nor does DPS want a veto over the Aussies menu, he said.
Stefanic said Aussies currently pays $87,000 a year in rent (excluding GST), and DPS has proposed increasing its rent to about $150,000. So, the proposed increase is in the order of 70%.
He said Aussies has refused to provide an independent valuer with details of its turnover, so the valuer had to make an estimate.
Stefanic said he “recognises the value of Aussie’s as an institution”, which led Abetz to quip “that’s reassuring” given the proposed 70% rent hike.
Abetz suggests DPS wants to “fleece” Aussies because the department is in competition with the popular cafe. DPS provides catering services at parliament’s other cafe known as “The Trough”.
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The Department of Parliamentary Services is currently being grilled about the terms and conditions of Aussies cafe in the parliamentary building.
This is cafe that services pollies, press and other poseurs who inhabit the building. As Liberal pollster Mark Textor wrote in 2014:
Hanging out at Aussies cafe in Parliament House gives “poli-tourists” a version of the cool they never had at school. Returning home to the wife to tell tales from the big house of how he told the minister this, and that provides the influence-affirmation his money can’t attain in Sydney or – if he’s a leftist – what his wit can’t attain online.
The AFR’s Joe Aston reported this morning:
Last week, without warning or explanation, DPS hit Aussies’ proprietor, Domenic Calabria, with a 70% rent hike (from $94,000 to $160,000 per annum), a new tenure-by-licence arrangement granted on a month-by-month basis and, most outrageously, has ordered him to stop using the name “Aussies”. The new conditions also give DPS a right of veto over the contents of the menu and its prices, and require Calabria to establish key performance indicators for his part-time staff, which include his mother and sister. Yep, DPS wants to file a performance review for Mamma Calabria’s tomato soup. Can you believe it?
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The Andrew Wilkie ending the rorts bill does the following with politicians travel claims:
- The bill provides for a retrospective audit of all members’ and senators’ travel claims from the period following the 2013 federal election to the present and requires annual audits to take place in the future.
- It requires parliamentarians to list the substantive activities – both work-related and personal – undertaken on official travel so the public can have confidence that commonwealth-funded travel is being undertaken in accordance with both the law and community expectations.
- It also provides a mechanism for law enforcement agencies to be contacted when there has been misuse of work expenses.
It will not receive support from the major parties.
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No poker face, this PM.
Denison independent Andrew Wilkie is speaking to his parliamentary entitlements amendment (ending the rorts) bill.
He is listing former disgraces in the name of parliamentary entitlements. It is like the greatest hits of parliamentary travel rorts.
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The environment and communications estimates committee has just been suspended after Greens leader Richard Di Natale held up a lump of dead coral and a lump of coal. Liberal chair Linda Reynolds threatened to throw him out. Di Natale does not normally do a lot of estimates.
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Penny Wong’s eyebrow has entered the Senate estimates hearing.
In finance and public admin estimates, Wong has asked for a letter Tony Abbott wrote to the Speaker of the House and president of the Senate about a possible extension of the ministerial wing at Parliament House.
Stephen Parry will not produce the letter, relying on the fact the co-addressee (Bronwyn Bishop) hadn’t approved it and disputes that the extension was under consideration.
Acting clerk of the Senate, Richard Pye, said the Department of the Senate is hiring extra staff to cope with an increased workload including more Senate committees. He said it would be a shame to “artificially constrain” the number of committee references because of the workload.
Wong then raised an answer on notice from the Department of Parliamentary Services that there are “daily instances” where parliament security has been short-staffed.
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Malcolm Turnbull: media is too easily distracted
Malcolm Turnbull’s frustration is showing with the media and Tony Abbott.
Would you say those messages aren’t getting through to the public, this isn’t the first Newspoll that’s been a bad result for the government?
The important thing for me to do is to focus on the task at hand. If I may, with great respect to all of you in the media, you’re very readily distracted by personalities in politics.
You’re much more entertained by conflict and personalities than you are by jobs. You don’t seem to have a great deal of interest in the cane growers or the cattle producers or the bottlemakers or the data centre owners or the butchers who need the support of the government to ensure that they can have the export markets to reach out to and the affordable energy that they need to keep their businesses going.
Now, you can focus on the personalities if you wish, that’s up to you, but I’m focused on jobs, I’m focused on economic growth, I’m focused on ensuring that as hard-working Australian families can get ahead, and on that note we must return to parliament.
Malcolm Turnbull gets the poll question first up.
A poll is a snapshot of opinion at one particular kind. The election is two years away and what we saw was an outburst on Thursday and it had its desired impact on the Newspoll. It was exactly as predicted and calculated.
Is Tony Abbott the reason for this?
As I said, he knew exactly what he was doing and he did it. I’m not going to be distracted by that, it’s a fact of life,
The PM's head is printed on a drink bottle during a tour in Hume this morn. @gabriellechan @GuardianAus pic.twitter.com/S09oJWnI0E
— Mikearoo (@mpbowers) February 26, 2017
Meantime, Scott Morrison is talking about Labor’s failings on the migration front.
They set up a visa factory for undesirables.
The House sits at 10am. With private members’ bills on first thing, we could expect the Greens and Labor penalties bills.
After that, Omnicuss.
Otherwise known as the social services legislation amendment (omnibus savings and child care reform) bill, which rolls up savings measures in childcare reforms that increase and simplify subsidies.
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Treasurer Scott Morrison is speaking to Ray Hadley on 2GB. First question is on the Newspoll.
ScoMo says the government is trying to get the message across.
It’s not resonating, says Ray, who has been thinking about these polls since early morning.
Ray wants the treasurer to nail the renewable energy target.
Morrison pushes back. Changes to policy causes sovereign risk.
Hadley says his listeners feel the Coalition should stop attacking Tony Abbott – the messenger – because his policies are correct. The government is bleeding votes to the Right.
Hadley gives him some advice. Tell the peeps not to react to Abbott.
Hold the company line ... if your colleagues didn’t respond to it, there wouldn’t be a blue.
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Before the election, Bill Shorten’s did make a very clear promise, as reported in the Conversation, to abide by the Fair Work Commission on penalty rates.
The piece by Michelle Grattan sets out the various tensions at play before the election.
Shorten was doing the dance of the army surplus blankets, trying to guarantee penalty rates would stay the same while still abiding by the umpire’s decision.
[In April 2016] 3AW’s Neil Mitchell asked Bill Shorten whether he would accept the findings of the FWC review. Shorten gave a succinct “yes”. Pressed on whether he’d do so even if the finding was to reduce Sunday rates, Shorten replied “I said I’d accept the independent tribunal”.
Labor’s shadow employment minister, Brendan O’Connor, was asked about supporting the independent umpire on the ABC this morning. He said Labor did support the independence of the FWC
Of course we support the independence of the commission, you know, generally speaking. But this decision is so untenable we had to respond by saying we cannot support its effect.
My daughter is currently funding uni life with a bar job. She will lose penalties from the decision. But I can see major problems once Labor departs from FWC decisions. Would they be happy with the Coalition legislating in a future minority parliament against a pay-rise decision by the FWC?
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Breaking from Barnaby Joyce: politicians read polls
In a refreshing change, deputy PM Barnaby Joyce has stated the bleeding obvious.
POLITICIANS DO READ POLLS.
Some people say polls go up and polls go down. I’m not a fool. I’ve read them and what they are is a motivation to me that people have concerns. They want to be heard, and that’s precisely what I do in my job, and I intend to keep doing. We have to sell the message. We have to tell people how hard we are working and I intend to do that because we are.
Then Joyce makes the point he does not drive under the building to escape journalists waiting at the doors when the government is having a bad day.
I come through the front door because I want to talk to you, because I think it’s your right to be heard. I could duck into the basement on a bad day, but I don’t. It’s a tough day, I go through the front door.
Stories are starting to wind up ahead of the May budget. As the government sings the usual rein in the spending song, the Australian Council of Social Services (Acoss) has released its helpful annual list of what-to-cut-if-you-don’t-know-what-to-cut.
- Halving the capital gains tax discount from 50% to 25% over 10 years ($500m)
- Abolishing negative gearing for new investments ($300m)
- Taxing private trusts ($1.5bn)
- Taxing income retained in private companies ($1.2bn)
- Abolishing the private health insurance rebate ($3.5bn)
- Superannuation contributions reforms ($1.3bn)
While Peter Martin at Fairfax reports:
All high-income Australians would pay the 1 to 1.5% Medicare levy surcharge under a budget proposal that would raise a breathtaking $4bn per year, more than six times the net amount saved in the first Turnbull budget.
At present only high-income Australians without private health insurance are made to pay the extra levy.
Extending it to all families earning more than $180,000 per year and all individuals without children earning more than $90,000 per year would raise at least $900 per year more from each high-income Australian with private health insurance, and would offset the removal of the high-income temporary budget deficit repair levy, which expires in the middle of this year.
The finance minister, Mathias Cormann, who terminated his former leadership fave Tony Abbott last week, has commented on the Newspoll.
Look, clearly, the debates that were initiated on Thursday night don’t help.
He has had a private conversation with Abbott since Abbott’s intervention but he will keep it private.
Cormann also made these points about Bill Shorten’s stance on the cut to penalty rates:
Bill Shorten is a complete and utter hypocrite.
The Fair Work Commission was set up as an independent body by the Labor party.
The people that made the decision were appointed by the Labor party.
Bill Shorten himself gave the reference and asked the Fair Work Commission to review penalty rates.
It was Bill Shorten who asked the Fair Work Commission to review penalty rates.
The reason we have a decision on penalty rates on Sundays is because Bill Shorten specifically amended legislation so the Fair Work Commission had to do this job.
Before the election, he said he would respect the decision of the independent umpire and he is clearly feeling the political heat from Anthony Albanese.
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While the House of Representatives is sitting today, the Senate has a storm of estimates committees right across the board. This is a live blogger’s blessing and curse because juicy tidbits are always thrown. But keeping across the committees while simultaneously watching the parliament and the doorstops will send you screaming down the corridors eventually.
We will do our best, dear reader.
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The Labor and Greens bills have support from Jacqui Lambie.
Apart from the fact that the proposed decrease in Sunday penalty rates will hit Tasmanian battlers the hardest … the extra money made by workers on a Sunday through penalty rates very quickly finds its way back into the local economy and small business community.
But One Nation’s Brian Burston, the Justice party’s Derryn Hinch and Nick Xenophon all back the Fair Work Commission on the grounds it is the independent umpire.
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Last week’s decision by the Fair Work Commission to cut penalty rates by up to 50% in the retail, pharmacy, hospitality and fast-food industries for Sundays and public holidays will be front and centre for Labor and the Greens today.
Both parties are bringing legislation to overturn the decision of the FWC.
- The Greens bill would lock penalty rates in at 2017 levels so that penalties cannot fall below the current levels.
- Labor says their bill will effectively prevent the decision from taking effect by requiring that penalty rate cuts cannot result in a cut in take-home pay. In other words, if other conditions are improved, penalties could be decreased.
The Greens have released their bill but we have yet to see Labor’s bill. The Greens seems the more straightforward one at this stage.
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Good morning deplorables, we are all splitters now
There is an embarrassment of riches in federal politics today. I feel like a beagle in a rabbit plague, not sure which tail to chase.
Firstly there is the Newspoll in the Oz, which will go off like a cracker in the party room this week. From our report:
The Coalition has taken another hit in the polls after a week of infighting, with Labor leading 55% to 45% on a two-party-preferred basis in the latest Newspoll.
As support for the government tumbles, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation has doubled its primary vote to 10% since November, now matching the Greens.
Labor extended its two-party-preferred lead from the 54-46 finding of the previous month’s poll after a week in which the former leader Tony Abbott openly attacked the record of his successor, Malcolm Turnbull, and was in turn savaged by his party colleagues as “self-indulgent” and “destructive”.
Here are the primary votes:
- Coalition: 34%
- Labor: 37%
- One Nation: 10%
- Greens: 10%
There is a separate poll that explains LNP dissident George Christensen’s wing-fluffing.
A separate poll in George Christensen’s seat of Dawson put One Nation level-pegging with the LNP on primary votes, the ABC reported. The ReachTEL poll gave the LNP 30.4% of the vote, compared with 30% for One Nation, in the Queensland seat held by the rightwing LNP MP.
Of course, the Newspoll was taken after the bespoke intervention by Tony Abbott when he gave Malcolm Turnbull the fantasy Abbott agenda which he himself failed to implement in office.
Peter Van Onselen has reported in the Oz that Abbott and his charismatic deputy dawg Eric Abetz have set up the Deplorables.
A group of conservative Liberal MPs calling themselves “the deplorables” held regular phone hook-ups after last year’s close election result to co-ordinate a strategy to attack Malcolm Turnbull on several policy fronts and to get Tony Abbott back into cabinet.
The hook-ups throughout the second half of last year were instigated by Mr Abbott and Eric Abetz via calendar invites and group texts, with the pair chairing meetings that included directives to junior MPs to use the media to pressure the Turnbull government on issues such as Safe Schools and amending section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.
They also sought to position conservative MPs for a fight over same-sex marriage if Mr Turnbull moved to a free vote once the plebiscite was defeated in parliament, arguing any change of policy would be a leadership issue.
The other MPs involved included Kevin Andrews, Michael Sukker, Rick Wilson, Andrew Hastie, Zed Seselja, Ian Goodenough, Cory Bernardi, Nicolle Flint, Jonathon Duniam, Craig Kelly, Scott Buchholz and Tony Pasin.
But support fell away, as people got promoted and/or started to feel like they were being used.
“He wanted clean hands,” one MP said of Mr Abbott. “So we were co-opted into the attacks.” Junior members of the group had thought the meetings were purely to discuss strategies as to how to press Mr Turnbull on conservative policy positions, before realising that “more sinister motives were at play”, as one participant put it.
Is Tony Abbott the Regina George of the Coalition party room? (I will take other nominations.) Best get cracking. The finance minister, Mathias Cormann, has been feeding the chooks this morning so I shall have some comment from him shortly. Mike Bowers is haunting the building. Speak to us in the thread, on the Twits @gabriellechan or @mpbowers or on Facebook.
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