On that note, we are going to wrap up the blog for the day.
But we’ll back tomorrow morning for day two of Senate-palooza.
No doubt we will still be talking about whether or not we are allowed to discuss causes for worsening natural disasters tomorrow, because this is after all, Australian politics.
For those in the fire zone, please stay safe. For those fighting those fires, thank you.
In the meantime – take care of you.
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Someone is having fun.
STATEMENT | Nationals kill dairy rescue bill.
— Pauline Hanson 🇦🇺 (@PaulineHansonOz) November 11, 2019
Senator Pauline Hanson's private senator’s bill to introduce a minimum farm gate price for milk has been defeated by 31 votes to 30.#auspol #qldpolhttps://t.co/lXoeaHjP3Q
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Breaking: Norwegian oil giant, Equinor has had their environmental & safety plan to drill in the Great Aust Bight rejected. The risk of an oil spill is too big and the damange to local fishing & tourism jobs too great. It’s time to protect the Bight from big oil once and for all
— Sarah Hanson-Young💚 (@sarahinthesen8) November 11, 2019
Rachel Siewert is asking Michaelia Cash what happened to the 104,480 who have dropped out of income support – and whether or not she can confirm they have jobs, or any form of income.
Cash says there were many reasons, but doesn’t give an answer.
Senate question time ends, and so does my will to keep standing.
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Bridget McKenzie REALLY likes the line “we are standing with you” when it comes to farmers.
Really, really likes it.
Apologies for the dairy/diary typos.
But you try listening to this guff without your entire being glazing over.
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On Wednesday Pell will either be told it's the end of the road, or that his appeal will be heard [likely some time next year]. The High court will deliver its decision on whether he will be granted leave to appeal his convictions at 9.30am.
— Melissa Davey (@MelissaLDavey) November 11, 2019
“I’m sorry Senator Hanson, I forgot you were actually new to this issue, so let me walk you through it,” Bridget McKenzie says.
Someone get the aloe vera.
Pauline Hanson is now asking Bridget McKenzie about the exposure draft for the dairy code.
This would be the issue that One Nation has seemingly taken over from the Nationals, leaving the Nationals rather annoyed.
Hanson put through a bill today for regulation of the industry, which was lost after the Nationals voted against it (Centre Alliance was absent from the vote) so she lost it by one.
Hanson is very much enjoying how discomforted this is leaving McKenzie.
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This is becoming the Bridget McKenzie hour, which is wayyyyy too much Bridget McKenzie.
She is basically taking every single question on notice. Which includes why Moira council found out from the media it was no longer getting the $1m drought funding it thought it was, after a miscommunication between Damian Drum and the water minister.
McKenzie can’t tell you much about that. But she can tell you that it is a “great program”.
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Can you be a raving inner city greenie lunatic, if you are from Michael McCormack’s electorate? Asking for a friend.
Join us at 8am tomorrow Tuesday 12th at Michael McCormacks office #wagga for a 20 minute Bushfire Silent Vigil to stand with those affected by the #ClimateCrisis -induced bushfires and tell our government to stop pretending! @ap4ca @gabriellechan pic.twitter.com/eQgYrAosJ7
— em_n (@em_n2019) November 11, 2019
Honestly, I would prefer to eat a bunch of bananas then sit through this.
Bridget McKenzie just had a bit of a fraudian slip with the term “climate reduction fund” instead of emissions reduction fund as she answers a question from Larissa Waters.
I mean, at least it is honest.
McKenzie now accuses Waters of using the “misery of those in regional NSW and Queensland for your political advantage.”
Oh that’ll fix it.
We are now hearing a dixer on how the parliament and government will be acknowledging Remembrance Day.
Which occurred at 10.30am.
Senators @MathiasCormann @SenatorWong and @larissawaters address the #senate on the bushfires @murpharoo @mpbowers @AmyRemeikis pic.twitter.com/XMRuxBOezH
— Lyndal Curtis (@lyndalcurtis) November 11, 2019
Asked more questions on the Regional Jobs and Investment Packages issues, Bridget McKenzie says she will take the questions on notice “and that is all I can really do”.
Even Penny Wong cracks a smile at that one.
Strangely, McKenzie doesn’t seem to have anything prepared on this, despite the auditor-general report basically calling it a trash fire, meaning her staff are now madly sending her sheets of information via the Senate clerks.
Bridget McKenzie says “we are the first government to put real money on the table” to help prepare for the next drought.
“That is how you [deal] for a drought, you plan for the next one now ... we are the first government in history to do that.”
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Nita Green gets the first question – on the Regional Jobs and Investment Packages program that Sarah Martin and Paul Karp have been writing about.
Bridget McKenzie is taking all the questions on notice.
You can find some of the problems with that scheme here:
And here
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Bridget McKenzie says her “thoughts and prayers” are with the communities facing the fire emergency.
Larissa Waters says on the fires that “we cannot say that we weren’t warned this was going to happen” and mentions a 2006 CSIRO report handed to the John Howard government, talking about the danger of fires becoming worse by 2020 because of a changing climate.
“We need more than thoughts and prayers to keep Australian communities safe,” Waters says.
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Penny Wong says that individual weather events can’t be linked to the fires, but trends can, and Australia needs a plan to deal with what is coming in the future.
The defence minister has authorised all local base commanders for the armed forces to respond where they can during the fire emergencies.
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Senate question time begins with an acknowledgement of the fires and a thank you to fire fighters.
We are just a few minutes away from Senate question time.
I am finding it very hard to contain my excitement.
On another note, I hate bananas (it’s a consistency thing) but I still force myself to eat them, because they are so good for you and I kinda feel like I have to.
Senate question time is a lot like eating a banana.
There is a cross-parliamentary working group, which includes George Christensen and Andrew Wilkie, looking to see Julian Assange before his extradition hearing.
They are still waiting on permission from the UK government.
Free Julian Assange banner hoisted above Parliament House today https://t.co/5D57I76epk
— rob harris (@rharris334) November 11, 2019
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The final division on Pauline Hanson’s dairy bill was just held – she lost
Ayes 30
Noes 31
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That Senate chamber light.
The passing sun lights up the poppy on Senator Hanson’s jacket. #senate @AmyRemeikis @mpbowers @murpharoo pic.twitter.com/EqEPsyKaHQ
— Lyndal Curtis (@lyndalcurtis) November 11, 2019
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Labor is supporting this, but the government is not.
Pauline Hanson reacts when LNP Senator Susan McDonald reveals she will not be supporting her Protecting Australian Dairy Bill 2019 in the upper house this morning. @AmyRemeikis @GuardianAus #PoliticsLive https://t.co/Zw4RXI9BE1 pic.twitter.com/q8Tj2VgNIZ
— Mikearoo (@mpbowers) November 11, 2019
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Katharine Murphy has written on Michael McCormack’s Michael McCormacking this morning:
Let me say this next bit very clearly. The best way to decline Michael’s now rolling invitation to be tribal is to respond with reason, not with emotion.
With that basic objective in mind a couple of things can be noted.
Dear Michael. It is possible to do more than one thing at once.
Perhaps multitasking has never been a particularly strength of the deputy prime minister’s, and that’s fine, because juggling is certainly not for everyone, but I’ll venture it is possible for emergency services to extinguish fires and for politicians and various experts to speak informatively about the underlying causes of fires so catastrophic that they have been designated a state of emergency in the middle of November, not in mid-to-late summer.
I reckon those things can happen simultaneously – both the analysing and the doing – without anything terrible happening or without anything fundamental being compromised.
I think we are that clever. Truly, I do.
You’ll find the whole piece here:
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Noted raving inner-city greenie lunatic Margaret Thatcher:
30 years ago today, Margaret Thatcher became the world's first major leader to warn of the dangers of climate change and call for a legally-binding treaty to reduce CO2 emissions, which later became the Kyoto Protocol and COP. pic.twitter.com/ysNkPBwjqM
— Oliver Cooper (@OliverCooper) November 8, 2019
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Back in the red bubble #canberrabubble @mpbowers @AmyRemeikis @murpharoo pic.twitter.com/yVDYTFL6mc
— Lyndal Curtis (@lyndalcurtis) November 11, 2019
The bells have rung for the beginning of Senate-palooza, which means I am about to enter the little known ninth circle of hell – Senate QT supplementary questions.
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Cory Bernardi has told Chris Kenny on Sky News he will be quitting the Senate some time in 2020. That is not a surprise – he has all but announced he is out of here, and said he wanted to leave when he was 50 (this year).
Plus, there was the whole political-party-didn’t-quite-work-out thing.
Elected as a Liberal for a six-year term in 2016, his seat will revert back to the Liberals when he officially pulls the pin.
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This is the big bill in the Senate today
First bill on the #Senate's agenda today is Senator @PaulineHansonOz's Protecting Australian Dairy Bill 2019 https://t.co/LemMg3tpLa
— Australian Senate (@AuSenate) November 11, 2019
Live broadcast will be available here https://t.co/9Lgw5iXAcZ and you can keep track of proceedings with the Dynamic Red https://t.co/Wi8bN9E81O
Neither medevac nor ensuring integrity is listed as yet (which means the government doesn’t have the numbers).
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Penny Wong was also asked about Jim Molan’s return to the Senate this morning, while chatting to ABC radio:
I sat on the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security with Jim Molan, and it might surprise people but we actually got on quite well. We obviously have different views but I always found him good to deal with.
I hope that he could encourage perhaps the foreign minister to engage members of parliament and senators more on our relationship with China. I think he’s certainly got a focus in that area and I certainly hope he will join me in encouraging foreign minister Payne to engage the parliament a little more.
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I know a few hours have gone by since that interview with Michael McCormack, but I am still flabbergasted.
What an absolute parsnip of a political mind.
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Michael McCormack may have actually started a movement – energising people about politics. So he’s proven useful in one way at least.
My child’s school IS closed tomorrow due to fire risk in Sydney metro region. I’ll have to take time off work. Maybe once climate change starts to affect national productivity Michael McCormack and Scott Morrison will start to take it seriously
— Amber Robinson (@missrobinson) November 11, 2019
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Mike Bowers has been out and about this morning:
And of course, recognising the service and sacrifice of Indigenous Australians, who served during the Great War, but returned to the same prejudices they left.
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Another group of raving inner city lunatics – because what else would former fire and emergency leaders warning about longer and more devastating fire seasons be, other than off their tree? Have they considered to sticking to their knitting?
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Adam Bandt responded to Michael McCormack this morning:
Thoughts and prayers are not enough, we need science and action too,” he said.
They’ve done everything in their power to make these catastrophic fires more likely.
When you cuddle coal in Canberra, the rest of the country burns.
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The call to ceremony has just gone out across the Parliament House speakers, to commemorate the anniversary of the armistice of 11 November 1918.
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Remembrance Day ceremonies have officially begun.
Scott Morrison is in Sydney, Anthony Albanese is at the War Memorial.
The governor general has just arrived to officially begin the proceedings in Canberra.
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ICYMI it late last Friday (and it was late last Friday, so you very well may have), a reminder that Chris Kenny (yes, that one) will be advising Indigenous affairs minister Ken Wyatt on how best to move forward with an Indigenous voice to parliament (which is now being referred to as the Indigenous voice to government).
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Comments are on – thank you for your patience and welcome back btl.
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'Warnings about more intense fires have been on the table for a long time,' Penny Wong says
Penny Wong was climate change minister 12 years ago. Here she was speaking to the ABC this morning:
We need to stand with those who are battling fires and grieving and at risk. I understand why people are anxious about this. What I would say is when we get through this, it is a responsible thing for us to focus on, how we plan to keep Australians safe. You’re right, I am a former climate minister, warnings about a longer bushfire season and more intense fires have been on the table for a long time.
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Rural Australians for Refugees held an overnight vigil on the Parliament House lawns last night, protesting against the move to scrap medevac.
Kristina Keneally addressed the group this morning, which included this exchange:
KK: I just want to be very clear about a couple things, especially while our friends from the media are here because I don’t think I can say this often enough. When it comes to the medevac laws, minister Peter Dutton, the prime minister and others are simply not telling the truth. They continue to misrepresent, and frankly lie, about what this law does. If you listen to minister Dutton, you would believe that he is powerless when it comes to who he can let into the country.
Attendee: Bullshit!
KK: I won’t use the word the gentleman just used because there’s a camera and a microphone in front of me but let me say, loosely translated, he called time; he called that out in a more colourful bit of the language. It is not the case. It is not the case. Of course the minister still has that power. The minister has used that power himself to deny somebody entry into the country based on whether or not they are a security risk.
Attendee: Or au pairs!
KK: The minister does like to let au pairs in as the lady says. However, the minister continues to repeat these lies that somehow medevac is letting people into the country that are a risk. Somehow he is powerless. Somehow doctors, any two doctors anywhere are just going to say anything or do anything and let people come in. Let us be clear about this – the minister has the power to stop anybody he wants based on security concerns.
The doctors who allow people to come to this country because they need medical help are doctors appointed by minister Dutton and what we have seen under medevac is well over 100 people who have been able to get the medical care they needed because doctors appointed by minister Dutton have said these people are sick and they need to come to Australia to get health treatment. That’s what is happening when it comes to medevac – people who are sick who need help are getting the help that they need. Now, I stand with you. The Australian Labor party stands with you. A huge sway of the crossbench in the Senate stands with you. And we will not stand by quietly; we will stand with you. We will stand up for people who are sick to get the healthcare they need. We will not stand by and watch this government just wave through a repeal of medevac. We will oppose the repeal of medevac. We will oppose it on the floor of the parliament and in every other forum that we can and I am so delighted to be here in this forum, this morning, with all of you who are bearing witness. Thank you for what you’re doing.
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(We are still working on a moderator. Hold tight – in the mean time, you can always catch me on Twitter.)
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And Michael McCormack ahead of the May election on how we need to be more respectful of each other in political debate:
I think everybody should actually be a little bit more respectful of each other, and I think we were talking yesterday about Van Badham, and the language that she uses and yet, Tanya Plibersek and Bill Shorten are happy to be situated beside her and pose for photos. I think her language is far worse than calling some of the metropolitan people latte-sippers. They’re drinking milk, comes from a country cow, they’re having coffee beans which no doubt comes from a regional centre. The fact is we need to be more respectful in our dialogue. One thing I will say about Kevin Rudd is that when he retired he talked about the politeness that is in politics and the need for more of it. And he was probably right, he was right. And he’s probably still to this day correct.
But the fact is, Twitter, there’s a lot of people, and particularly the left side of politics, which use Twitter as a weapon against people, who stand more and represent regional Australians. The Great Dividing Range is not just a geographical barrier, sadly these days it’s also a metaphor for the differences between metropolitan cities and the great sprawl that is regional Australia. Warren Truss said to me one day that back in his day, when he was a young fella, a lot of people would come and visit the country farmer, country cousins. That doesn’t happen these days, we’re so busy! We’re so caught up in the hustle and bustle of life that city people forget where their food and fibre comes from.
And that’s why I was delighted to stand beside Scott Morrison, last week and announced a new arrangement by which country kids and city kids are going to be drawn closer together because metropolitan kids are going to know where their food comes from. It just doesn’t come from a fridge, it just doesn’t come from a supermarket, it actually comes from a farm. And we will always stand up for farmers, we will always make sure that their hard work and their endeavours are respected, and we’ll get on with doing that. Maybe I shouldn’t tweet about latte-sippers in the next few weeks, hey?
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Michael McCormack’s first speech included this line:
Politics is not about power; it is about people representing those people and speaking up for them loudly, often and passionately. I have lived my life by this motto: I promise not to be silent when I ought to speak. That is my commitment to the people of the Riverina and to this parliament.
How quickly we forget.
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Welcome back to the Senate, Jim Molan
I have just received a letter of resignation from Arthur Sinodinos @A_Sinodinos as a senator for NSW. The resignation takes effect immediately.
— Senator Scott Ryan (@SenatorRyan) November 10, 2019
1/4
AAP is reporting that Labor is continuing the fight against the government’s unions bill.
Labor is ratcheting up its lobbying of the Senate crossbench to block the Morrison government’s proposed union-busting laws.
Legislation making it easier to deregister unions and ban officials is due to be debated in the Senate this week.
The government is expected to tweak the bill after negotiations with minor party Centre Alliance, which should be enough to get the laws over the line.
“This is a bill which is about destroying the right of trade unions to organise,” Labor senator Penny Wong told ABC radio on Monday.
“It is about undermining the capacity of trade unions and their members to advocate for better wages and conditions and better safety.”
The legislation makes it easier to deregister unions for improper conduct and repeated breaches of the law and allows for the automatic disqualification of union officials charged with serious crimes.
It also places public interest tests on union mergers.
Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus made a direct appeal to the crossbench senators.
“Unions will be threatened with being shut down for late paperwork. This is a sledgehammer, don’t let it happen,” McManus said.
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NSW has just declared 'a state of emergency' for the next 7 days. @abcnews
— Sabra Lane (@SabraLane) November 10, 2019
Our leaders just covering themselves in glory and leadership, this morning:
Credit to @mjrowland68 for pushing. Ask 3 times. Ask 4.
— Mike Cannon-Brookes 👨🏼💻🧢 (@mcannonbrookes) November 10, 2019
Saddens me @GladysB says “let’s not get into politics”... as her first response. This isn’t politics. Science doesn’t play politics.
That drought? Extreme weather patterns? Unique events? Exactly what scientists predicted https://t.co/TcUpk3S1eY
Also a reminder, because it didn’t get a hell of a lot of attention late last week, released as it was at the same time as the latest drought response, but the government-appointed drought coordinator general, Major Gen Stephen Day, was also pretty emphatic about climate change’s impact on our environment.
Hopefully, Michael McCormack has the opportunity to call him a “raving inner-city lunatic” to his face.
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Or like Wagga Council, which declared a climate emergency... https://t.co/HZ86wHHIhe
— Gabrielle Chan (@gabriellechan) November 10, 2019
Also a reminder that it is a politician’s job to look at overarching policy to help those on the ground. #thoughtsandprayers don’t stop catastrophic fires.
.@M_McCormackMP I live in a fire prone area in reg Vic. When I leave my family to do my job, they face the risk of fighting a catastrophic fire alone. Rather than trying to divide Australians, why not do something about the #ClimateEmergency thats accelerating these deadly fires?
— Richard Di Natale (@RichardDiNatale) November 10, 2019
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Given Michael McCormack’s line of thinking, backed up by David Littleproud, from now on, no one is allowed to mention speeding or other driver-caused factors in road crashes, drug use in overdoses, or alcohol in “fuelled” violence.
Discussing contributing factors is cancelled.
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Also: don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten you in the comments. We just have to wait until there is a moderator available to turn them on – there is a bit going on in the world at the moment, but we will have you below the line very soon.
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Another “raving inner city lunatic”, obviously:
In Sept, former Chief of Fire & Rescue NSW, Greg Mullins told #thedrum of vain attempts to meet with PM & ministers on #bushfires. His letters ignored. His pleas that we act now on climate, his concern we're unprepared for this "uncharted territory" of extreme weather - ignored. https://t.co/kEJklA2cQH
— Dr Julia Baird (@bairdjulia) November 10, 2019
LNP MP and minister for water resources, drought, rural finance, natural disaster and emergency management David Littleproud was also on ABC TV this morning and was asked about Michael McCormack’s comments by host Michael Rowland.
Michael Rowland: Your boss, Michael McCormack, says it galls him when people blame climate change on these bushfires and he says “it is raving inner-city lunatics”. What do you make of that language?
David Littleproud: Look, I think the frustrating thing is there are a number of people out there that have been impacted by this fire that are very fragile and those that are traumatised and those that have a lot of anxiety at the moment worrying over the next couple of days worrying about what might happen. This is not the time by these people that want to weaponise climate change ...
MR: Minister, excuse the interruption. We’re not talking about politicians. We’re talking about residents here, with no political axe to grind, saying climate change is a concern, something’s new, something’s changed, these fires are unprecedented. They’re not talking politics.
DL: Well, and when we do talk about that we can say that we are leading the world but we need the world to lead with us. We need other international communities to come with us. We expect that. We put our hand up as a federal government and said we’ll do our bit of the heavy lifting with respect to emissions reductions. We’ll do that because that’s what scientists tell us is the best way to address it but we need other nations to lead with us. Australia can’t do it all by ourselves and it is unrealistic to think we can do it by ourselves. That’s why we need to be the global leader that we are and expect other nations to come with us.
MR: Are people concerned with climate change, again, “raving inner-city lunatics”?
DL: Obviously these types of events bring emotions out and everybody needs to be focus just on the here and now at the moment and those conversations will continue but we have a strong ...
MR: Was Michael McCormack wrong to say that? Was Michael McCormack being too emotional?
DL: No, I mean, Michael McCormack has been out talking to the people that have been impacted. He’s trying to get results for those people, those people that have had their homes lost, those people that are concerned today and tomorrow that will lose their homes, he’s concerned about making sure that our focus, our primary focus, from state, federal government and local state, federal government and local government is all about them. That’s the responsible thing to do. Let’s have those conversations in the cold, hard light of day after the event. But our focus and energy should be on the men and women fighting these fires and also the men and women, and children who are at risk.
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I am not sure if Carol Sparks qualifies as one of the “raving inner-city lunatics” or “inner-city lefties” raising concerns about climate change in Michael McCormack land, but who knows.
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Glen Innes mayor Carol Sparks: 'To deny climate change is, to me, very ill-informed.'
Carol Sparks, the mayor of Glen Innes Severn council, which had an absolute horror weekend dealing with the fires, spoke to ABC TV this morning about Michael McCormack’s interview, where he said he found it “galling” to have climate change raised as the cause of worsening fires:
Well, I probably couldn’t respond how I really feel on television but I think that Michael McCormack needs to read the science, and that is what I am going by, is the science.
It is not a political thing. It is a scientific fact that we are going through climate change.
Of course it’s not relevant at the moment when people’s houses are burning and you’ve lost lives, and you’ve lost friends, and you’ve lost family.
You don’t think, “Oh, this is climate change.” You think, “What am I going to do next and how will I save myself?”
But the overall thing is we are so dry in this country – we haven’t had rain for years in some places. All the dams and creeks and rivers are dry, and we need to look at what we’re going to do about that in the future. To deny climate change is, to me, a very ill-informed and uneducated way of looking at things.
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Meanwhile, the latest Newspoll is out, and with all the usual caveats about polling, it shows the Coalition and Labor on 50/50 for the first time since the election, in terms of two-party-preferred.
The Australian put that down to the drought and the softening economy.
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On the leaders front, Scott Morrison will attend a Remembrance Day ceremony in Sydney, while I believe Anthony Albanese will attend the War Memorial service with Linda Reynolds.
Three people have been confirmed as dead, another five are unaccounted for and 40 people have been injured in the latest fire emergency which has also taken scores of homes and property.
The NSW Rural Fire Service has also placed the greater Sydney region under a “catastrophic” fire risk for the first time since the ratings system began about a decade ago.
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Good morning
We start the Senate-only sitting week in the midst of an argument over whether or not Australia can manage to have a climate change discussion in the midst of an event made worse by climate change.
Despite fire-fighting bosses, scientists and even the drought coordinator-general saying that climate change is going to make events which have always occurred in this nation – bushfires, drought, etc – worse, (which we can all see), no one is allowed to mention the giant burning elephant in the room.
The deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, summed up this argument on ABC RN radio this morning:
“We’ve had fires in Australia since time began, and what people need now is sympathy, understanding, help and shelter,” he said.
“They don’t need the ravings of some pure, enlightened and woke capital-city greenies at this time.”
#thoughtsandprayers
We’ll have the continued “discussion” around that, as well as what happens in the Senate. The big bills – medevac among them – are not on the list as yet, so you all know what that means.
The Senate won’t sit until 12.30pm because of Rememberance Day, so we have some time to get into the nitty gritty of what has happened over the last couple of weeks. For that, you have Mike Bowers, Katharine Murphy, Sarah Martin and Paul Karp at your disposal. Plus, a slightly fluey, but still standing me.
Ready?
Let’s get into it.
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