The last week starts with a bang
The first day of the last week of parliament is done. There’s been plenty to talk about, from Nick Xenophon’s new job with Huawei, to the continuing pressure on Angus Taylor.
So what did we learn today?
- The attorney-general, Christian Porter, has revealed he was in the room when prime minister Scott Morrison called NSW police commissioner Mick Fuller about an active investigation involving cabinet minister Angus Taylor. Porter said he thought the call was appropriate and was so “simple” and “basic” that he did not seek advice from his department.
- Protesters converged on parliament to voice their anger at the failings of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Farmers were asking for a pause or scrapping of the plan, saying it has failed them and their communities, as well as the environment. The protesters reached the front door of parliament and were making themselves heard. A handful also disrupted Senate question time and were hauled out for abuse directed at agriculture minister Bridget McKenzie.
- The medevac repeal legislation came before the Senate for debate. Labor’s Kristina Keneally and Greens senator Nick McKim both pleaded with the crossbench to keep the medevac law, saying it was humane and saving the lives of asylum seekers. Jacqui Lambie is yet to make her position clear.
- The federal government announced a new taskforce encompassing intelligence and policing agencies to detect and disrupt foreign interference. We didn’t get a lot of detail on what the taskforce will actually do, but it will involve Asio, the Australian Federal Police, Austrac, and the home affairs department, among other agencies.
- The 10-year anniversary of the defeat of Labor’s carbon pollution reduction scheme prompted a day of sparring between Labor and the Greens.
- Former senator Nick Xenophon courted some controversy for his new role with Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant that was infamously barred from involvement with Australia’s 5G network over security concerns. Xenophon spent the day defending his new client from what he said were unfair and inaccurate attacks about its links to the Chinese Communist Party. Tim Wilson, Liberal MP, said history will not look kindly on Xenophon’s decision.
- Scott Morrison and foreign affairs minister Marise Payne both voiced serious concerns about the treatment of Australian citizen and author, Yang Hengjun, by the Chinese government.
Updated
The Greens are voting with the Liberals in the Senate against an urgency motion on the carbon pollution reduction scheme. The motion, brought on by senator Malarndirri McCarthy, asked the Senate to recognise that the Greens and Liberals joined together to vote against the CPRS 10 years ago today.
Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson said the motion was “all about the Labor party” and a “huge distraction”.
It is all about the Labor party trying to steal votes off of the Greens. In fact, I suspect it is all about one senator in this chamber, Penny Wong.
This chamber should not be used as a personal vanity project for any senator.
Bob Katter addresses the "Convoy to Canberra" rally on the front lawns of Parliament House this afternoon @GuardianAus @murpharoo @knausc #politicslive pic.twitter.com/kXWfsnnNoq
— Mikearoo (@mpbowers) December 2, 2019
Seven News in Melbourne are reporting that Tony Abbott visited cardinal George Pell in prison. The full story has not yet been aired.
Exclusive: Former PM Tony Abbott visits Cardinal Pell in Melbourne jail. Details @ 6 pm on #7NewsMelb pic.twitter.com/q5RTSCcq2l
— Brendan Donohoe (@BrendanDonohoe7) December 2, 2019
#cantheplan protestors call out for water minister David Littleproud and shout (enviro minister) “Sussan Ley is M-I-A”. pic.twitter.com/p9rhj410WX
— Gabrielle Chan (@gabriellechan) December 2, 2019
My colleague Graham Readfearn has just published a story on Australia’s concessions to Unesco that climate change had adversely affected the Great Barrier Reef’s world heritage unique values. He reports:
Australia has conceded in an official report that the Great Barrier Reef’s unique values as a world heritage site have been adversely affected by climate change.
In the report to Unesco’s world heritage committee, the Queensland and federal governments say the reef is “an icon under pressure with a deteriorating long-term outlook”.
The committee will review the status of the Great Barrier Reef at its June 2020 meeting in China, with the potential to place the reef on its “in danger” list.
As part of the process, the committee asked Australia to submit a comprehensive “state of conservation” report for the reef – the first since 2015.
The report says mass coral bleaching events of 2016 and 2017, together with six tropical cyclones, flood plumes and outbreaks of coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish “have impacted the [outstanding universal value] of the property since the last State Party Report in 2015”.
The Greens senator Larissa Waters said the report was an “exercise in spin”.
“An honest reef report would read – the reef is cooked unless we boldly and quickly ramp up rescue efforts,” she said.
“Yet, rather than taking strong action to address climate change, the Australian government in this report is saying it’s everybody else’s problem, after having lobbied for climate change to be removed as a consideration in world heritage in danger listings.”
Updated
Xenophon is asked whether he is comfortable with Huawei’s involvement in the mass surveillance of Uighurs in Xinjiang province in China. A report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute this week found Chinese tech companies “are engaged in deeply unethical behaviour in Xinjiang, where their work directly supports and enables mass human rights abuses”.
Xenophon said he was troubled by the Chinese government’s actions, but not of the suppliers of technology.
The issue is not what Huawei or Intel or Hewlett-Packard supply, it is the way that it is being used in that country. And that is something that is quite separate in my view.
I’m troubled by it in terms of the actions of the government, not of the supplier.
Nick Xenophon is doing the rounds spruiking for his new client, Huawei. He’s been on the ABC and says he won’t need to place himself on the government’s new foreign influence transparency register, despite his new role.
No, unless of course I was lobbying politicians, but I think I’ve had enough of politicians, they’ve probably had enough of me.
Xenophon says his job is to respond to “slurs” and “untruths” against Huawei.
It’s my job to represent Huawei in terms of giving them appropriate legal advice and when things are said about Huawei that go beyond the 5G ban... they’ve been accused of things that are quite frankly ridiculous, they are untrue.
He then questions the advice of security agencies of Australia, which advised the government against involving Huawei in the 5G network on security grounds. He then compares their advice to the advice on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which was later proven wrong.
“I’m not conflating them,” he assures viewers.
The Murray-Darling Basin Plan protesters have made their way up to the front doors of Parliament House. They’re certainly making themselves heard.
#cantheplan protestors yell “no water no food” outside the front doors. The doors were closed. pic.twitter.com/dLFg6Mncjl
— Gabrielle Chan (@gabriellechan) December 2, 2019
Updated
Speaking of Angus Taylor, which seems to be an interminable exercise at the moment, there’s a slight question about his first speech to parliament. He referenced his memory of “a young Naomi Wolf” as a student at Oxford wanting to remove a Christmas tree from the common room “because some people might be offended”. Taylor described his outrage at this form of “political correctness”.
Wolf, a US author and journalist, has questioned some of Taylor’s factual assertions on Twitter.
We’re looking into it, rest assured.
I was a Rhodes Scholar in Oxford 1985-88. Angus Taylor recalls me in a fever dream at Oxford in 1991 among those warring on Xmas.(I was in NYC). (Plus I love Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa.) Flattered to be on this mythological hate list. Imaginary "war on Xmas" worked in US too.
— Dr Naomi Wolf (@naomirwolf) December 2, 2019
The Liberal MP Tim Wilson has some tough words for the former senator Nick Xenophon and his decision to act as Huawei’s strategic counsel.
“I think history will judge him harshly for it,” he said.
“I just think he’s made a choice and he’s chosen who he is going to work for ... he has chosen to represent a telecommunications company that has been denied access to Australia’s telecommunications network for a reason.”
Updated
Labor’s Mark Butler is speaking on what he says is Angus Taylor’s failure to declare interests in a company named GFA F1 Pty Ltd. Taylor has a partnership interest in the company through a separate venture, Farm Partnerships Australia, which he has declared appropriately.
Labor says he should have also declared the interest in GFA F1 Pty Ltd on his pecuniary interests register. Butler says the scandals by themselves don’t warrant Taylor’s sacking.
But take them together. If the prime minister does not now act against Angus Taylor, then his ministerial standards are not worth the paper they are written on.
Taylor says he has declared all interests appropriately. His colleague Tim Wilson has just described the criticism as a “joke”.
We’ve just got some vision from the debate on the medevac repeal bill a little earlier. Kristina Keneally spoke out against the “inhumane” attempts to deny proper medical care to asylum seekers.
"This debate has nothing to do with border protection”, says Labor's Kristina Keneally as debate kicks off in the Senate over the #medevac repeal bill. "Denying people medical attention is un-Australian, it’s inhumane". Follow live: https://t.co/SRPFFbr0Y2 #auspol pic.twitter.com/TUqrsADeFE
— Guardian Australia (@GuardianAus) December 2, 2019
Mike Bowers captured all the colour from Labor’s assault on Angus Taylor during question time this afternoon.
Updated
I’ve just come back from the CanthePlan protest out the front of Parliament House.
The organiser Carly Marriott told Guardian Australia that “environmental water is not an out-and-out good thing” but rather is a piece of “branding” used to persuade the public.
She said:
They’re banking on ignorance. They’re banking on the urban voter to think the government is doing what is right for the environment when in actual fact they punch that much water down a natural waterway to deliver on things ... that don’t need to happen.
The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers MP for the NSW seat of Murray, Helen Dalton, explained that Australia is an “ephemeral environment” and high water levels in the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers “is actually causing a lot of environmental damage”.
Dalton said:
They just think adding water to the environment is good. In Australia it’s not, we expect to be dry, this is the beginning of summer. We know what our environment is: It’s not with rivers running full banker 24/7 12 months a year. You’ve got everything out of whack in the environment. You’ve got proliferation of carp, carp are undermining the banks of the river, and destroying aquatic reeds which filter the water.
Marriott said:
Farmers, if given water, they can manage their environment. We deliver on the triple bottom line: we look after our economy, our environment and our people. The Murray-Darling Basin plan is undermining all of that.
Pauline Hanson said One Nation have been “working extremely hard” to fix the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, complaining that parliament had knocked back her call to debate setting up the Bradfield Scheme.
She said:
I’ve done three days in the Murray-Darling, and I’ve spoken to the communities and I’ve spoken to the farmers. It’s not good enough, it needs to be revised, it needs to be thrown out and we need to come up with something that’s going to give the water to the people of this nation. I’m so angry when we have our water sold to foreign ownership – 20% of the water is in foreign ownership, 15% of our licences. Water shouldn’t be owned by anyone just to use for a trade to make their pockets bigger.
Ahead of the rally, the National Farmers’ Federation put out a statement acknowledging farmers’ concerns, but warning that “no plan” is no solution. The NFF president, Fiona Simson, said:
We have continued to advocate, increasingly stridently, for changes and reforms to the way the plan is being implemented and welcome the support from farmers also seeking to improve the plan...
Not having a plan is a complex proposal. Even without it there would continue to be an intergovernmental agreement on water distribution; there would continue to be environmental water; there would continue to be competition in the water market and the status of the drought would remain uninfluenced.
No plan is not the answer to this very complex challenge.
Marriott said the push to scrap or rewrite the basin plan will not be derailed or stopped by a press release.
Updated
Question time features renewed Labor attack on Angus Taylor
And that’s a wrap on question time. It ends with a ceasefire of sorts. Scott Morrison wishes his dad happy birthday during what he says is a difficult time. Labor echoes the sentiments.
Anthony Albanese:
Some things should be above politics – the prime minister’s father’s birthday is one of them. So happy birthday from everyone on this side as well.
So just to recap quickly:
- Labor began with an attack on the Coalition’s economic management, citing slowing economic growth and sluggish wage growth. It then seized on Malcolm Turnbull’s criticism of the Coalition’s climate policy to criticise the government’s ongoing climate action.
- Labor then shifted into full-frontal assault mode on Angus Taylor, who remains under pressure on several fronts. The issue continuing to cause him most difficulty is his reliance on a falsified document to attack the Sydney lord mayor, Clover Moore, for her travel-related emissions. That has prompted a NSW police investigation.
- The attorney-general, Christian Porter, confirmed he was in the room with Scott Morrison when the prime minister made a call to the NSW police commissioner, Mick Fuller, about the investigation. Porter said Fuller knew he was on the call.
- Porter said he did not seek advice on the appropriateness of the call. He said he didn’t believe it was necessary because it was so short and basic.
- The attorney-general said it was a completely appropriate call to make and attacked Labor for vexatious referrals to police.
- Labor also asked why Taylor had not properly declared interests in a company named GFA F1 Pty Ltd. Taylor said all his financial interests were properly disclosed.
- In the Senate, we had some fairly unedifying displays from protesters opposed to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. They heckled and attacked Bridget McKenzie with abuse, including one who described her as “fucking useless”. Some individuals were escorted out.
Updated
Scott Morrison says Labor is engaged in “grubby smears and political games” in the attack on Angus Taylor because it can’t face the fact it was rejected by the voting public.
They don’t want your higher taxes, they don’t want your job-destroying emissions reduction targets, they don’t want the fact that they blow a budget any time they see it. They were rejected and they have been sulking ever since.”
Updated
Anthony Albanese begins to rattle off the various controversies involving Angus Taylor. It takes so long that he can’t finish his question.
Scott Morrison jumps to his feet:
Thank you. I can confirm that the leader of the opposition can’t get a question out in 30 seconds.”
Updated
Labor asks Angus Taylor why he has failed to declare to parliament that he holds partnership shares in a company named “GFA F1 Pty Ltd” for more than five years.
Taylor insists he has declared all his financial interests, as required.
My interests are declared in accordance with the rules as I have said many times in this House.”
Updated
Porter says he didn’t seek advice before the Morrison call to Fuller because it wasn’t the sort of call you’d need to seek advice about. The call was “basic” and “simple” #qt
— Katharine Murphy (@murpharoo) December 2, 2019
Labor’s Terri Butler asks Christian Porter “how on earth” he, as the first law officer of Australia, judged it appropriate to call the NSW police chief, Mick Fuller, about an active investigation involving a cabinet minister’s office.
Porter responds:
Because the call was totally appropriate. It was precisely what the prime minister undertook to do. He did it. He came back to the house with the response to the call.”
He then asks how Labor could think it was appropriate to recklessly refer attorneys general in the past to police for vague allegations of corruption.
You are responsible for all of those referrals. All eight of them. Eight-zero.”
Updated
Back in the lower house, Dreyfus again asks Christian Porter whether he sought advice on the phone call to Mick Fuller. Porter says the phone call was so brief that it didn’t need advice.
Mr Speaker, the phone call was very brief, the description of it by the prime minister was completely accurate. The description of it by the police commissioner was completely accurate. It was not the sort of phone call, because it was so basic and simple, that required any advice to be sought or given.
Some disruptions in Senate question time, where Murray-Darling basin plan protesters are shouting abuse at Bridget McKenzie
“Fucking useless” a protester yells as Bridget McKenzie takes a question in the Senate. The person was booted. McKenzie insists she won’t be resigning #auspol
— Brett Worthington (@BWorthington_) December 2, 2019
“You’re pretty brave from down there,” another heckler yelled as the Senate President booted him #auspol
— Brett Worthington (@BWorthington_) December 2, 2019
A man kicked out of the public gallery after yelling "f***ing useless" during #SenateQT after applauding calls for Agriculture Minister Bridget McKenzie to resign. Lots of angry anti basin-plan people here.
— Matt Coughlan (@CoughlanMatt) December 2, 2019
There's now a mass walkout of people who had come into #SenateQT to hear Bridget McKenzie's answer about the Murray Darling Basin Plan.
— Paul Karp (@Paul_Karp) December 2, 2019
Shouts of "corrupt!" as one leaves. #auspol
Updated
Mark Dreyfus, the shadow attorney general, steps up the attack after Christian Porter’s confirmation that he was in the room for the Morrison-Fuller call. He asks whether Porter gave advice about whether the call should be made, or whether departmental advice was sought.
Porter responds:
Mr Speaker, the descriptions of that call provided by the prime minister and commissioner Fuller have been absolutely accurate. But what I won’t be lectured to about taking advice from someone who has an 8-0 record of referring Coalition members to the police – eight referrals, zero success.”
Updated
Labor returns to Angus Taylor and that phone call
Labor’s attack pivots to the ongoing Angus Taylor scandal. The attorney general, Christian Porter, is asked whether Mick Fuller knew that he was on the call with the prime minister, Scott Morrison, when he rang to discuss an active investigation into Taylor’s reliance on a falsified document. Porter responds:
Yes I was and I note with respect to his call, he said the prime minister didn’t ask any questions that were inappropriate.
I also note with respect to that call he said something else very interesting. He said that matters like the one that was referred by the shadow attorney general are, in his words, a great diverter of my time.”
The chamber erupts as Porter alleges Labor is wasting police time with “vexatious” referrals.
Updated
David Littleproud, the drought minister, is asked why the Coalition won’t intervene to increase dairy prices. You’ll remember, of course, that One Nation has introduced a bill to protect dairy farmers, though the government has voted to block debate on it.
Littleproud said the concept was a “cruel hoax” played on dairy farmers.
Not only [will it] have created oversupply, but you will also recklessly put at risk the international trade agreements that we have put in place, not just for dairy, but for every other commodity.”
Updated
Anthony Albanese is making hay of comments by the former prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, that the Coalition’s climate policy is incoherent and holding back billions of dollars of investment.
Morrison responds:
Our policies are working. Our policies are working. On the other side, they cannot still say whether they are for the policy they took the last election. They have had six months to deliberate.”
Updated
The deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, is on his feet, talking about the benefits of “puff organic grain” for some reason.
Don’t know about you, but “puff organic grain” sounds to me like something consumed by those inner-city lefties McCormack is always railing against. Guess they’re good for something after all.
Updated
There’s a bit of argy-bargy in the chamber. Anthony Albanese challenged the prime minister, Scott Morrison, on an earlier answer, which he said was misleading. Morrison had claimed Labor did not conclude any free trade agreements while in office. Albanese rattles off a few free trade agreements finalised by Labor.
Morrison responds:
Start and finish is the test, Mr Speaker. When you start an agreement and finish an agreement, then I suppose you can claim those. I’m happy to acknowledge that some were concluded under the former Labor government, Mr Speaker, but what I can acknowledge also is when they left government just 26% of our trade was covered by trade agreements. It’s 70% now, Mr Speaker.”
Updated
The shadow treasurer, Jim Chalmers, asks whether the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, views low wage growth as “mission accomplished”.
Frydenberg shoots back:
I thank the member for Rankin and I thank the leader of the opposition for letting him out of witness protection. He’s been averaging one question a sitting week since the election.”
Frydenberg says real wage growth is at the long-term average of 0.6%.
I know that the member for Rankin rarely gets a question, but when he does, I appreciate it.”
Updated
Morrison gets a dixer. He’s asked to update the house on what the government is doing to ensure Australia’s “national economic and environmental security”.
You already know the rest, so I won’t bother transcribing the response.
Question time kicks off with Labor attack on economy
Labor kicks off question time with an attack on the Coalition’s economic management, saying growth has slowed, and labour productivity has declined for the first time since records began. Morrison responds:
Thank you. I can confirm that after the election, people’s taxes didn’t go up, Mr Speaker.”
Updated
The opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, has just spoken on the 10-year anniversary of the defeat of the carbon pollution reduction scheme by the Liberals and the Greens. He said it was a “great opportunity lost” and all it required was the five Greens senators to vote in favour.
What we needed was economy-wide action on climate change. As a result there has been 218m additional tonnes of carbon put into the atmosphere.
It has been a decade in which we have today no energy policy, no emissions policy. We have an emissions reduction minister where emissions are rising.”
Updated
Back to the Senate, where Nick McKim continues to speak against the medevac repeal bill. He is discussing the case of Hamid Kehazaei, whose death from infection on Manus Island was caused by a cascading series of errors and systemic failures in the Australian-run offshore detention centre.
Queensland coroner Terry Ryan, who investigated the death of Kehazaei, deemed it to be entirely preventable, and said the healthcare on Manus was not the same as he would have received in Cape York, Australia.
McKim said he wa not evacuated to Australia because of the “mendacious bureaucrats and politicians and the system they created”.
There’s blood on people’s hands here, and the blood is on the hands of the LNP. And the blood will be on the hands of One Nation if they vote to support the legislation.”
You can read more about the case here:
Updated
Second letter to police watchdog over Fuller-Morrison call
An update today on the status of the NSW police commissioner, Mick Fuller, and his referral to the state’s police integrity watchdog.
Last week NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge formally referred Fuller to the law enforcement conduct commission, over his phone call with Scott Morrison about the police investigation into Angus Taylor.
Morrison had spoken to Fuller to discuss the active investigation into Taylor, something Shoebridge claims was “highly inappropriate”, and a potential breach of section 10 of the LECC Act (serious misconduct).
Today Shoebridge has sent a second letter, updating his referral with a specific regulation that Fuller may have breached.
It is clause 76 of the NSW police regulation 2005:
“A member of the NSW police force must treat all information which comes to his or her knowledge in his or her official capacity as strictly confidential, and on no account without proper authority divulge it to anyone.
“A police officer must observe the strictest secrecy ... and is forbidden to communicate without proper authority in any way to any person outside the NSW police force any information in regard to police or other official business.”
Fuller has told the Australian newspaper that his conversation with Morrison was “extremely short” and gave “no more or less information than what was in the media release”. “He just wanted confirmation we were conducting an investigation,” Fuller said.
Shoebridge said this was “an unambiguous law” that “binds the commissioner as much as any constable”.
“All information that commissioner Fuller had about the investigation had to be treated as confidential unless he had a valid basis to disclosure it,” he said. “To date neither the PM nor the commissioner have been able to establish any legitimate basis for this briefing.”
Updated
Meanwhile, in Liberal MP Tim Wilson’s office:
Awesome to reaffirm support for Hong Kong and a liberal future over a catch up with the Hon Jeremy Tam, the Hon Cheuk-Yan Lee and Mr Eric Lai pic.twitter.com/PTiMicwcR1
— Tim Wilson MP (@TimWilsonMP) December 2, 2019
Greens senator Nick McKim is on his feet to speak on the medevac bill. He says the debate boils down to a simple question:
Do you think sick people should get the treatment that medical professionals say they need? If you answer yes to that question, you will join the Greens in opposing this legislation.”
McKim said the old regime had led to deaths, because it denied asylum seekers the care they needed.
The medevac legislation has saved lives. It has delivered people the healthcare that they so desperately needed and that they had previously been deliberately deprived of by mendacious ministers and bureaucrats.”
Updated
The government has turned offshore processing into indefinite detention, Keneally said. This, she said, was what made medevac such a critical piece of legislation.
It is why medevac was needed and required: to ensure people who are sick should receive the medical attention they require.
Denying people medical care is un-Australian.
It’s inhumane.
It’s uncompassionate.
If you or I are sick, we see a doctor.
And vulnerable people in Australia’s care who have already suffered significant trauma in their lives should not be forced to the brink of death to receive the medical treatment they require.”
Updated
Keneally says there is widespread public support for the medevac bill. But the government has made “brazen, desperate, and dishonest” attempts to discredit the law. That includes leaking national security advice to the Australian newspaper, and the dissemination of private and personal details of asylum seekers.
Let’s not forget, these are people who, in the majority of cases, have fled persecution and have been found to be owed protection.
We have seen their medical conditions misconstrued and exploited for political gain.
These people have had their photos published, the treatment they have undergone shared and their information exploited – without their permission.
How would minister Dutton feel if he woke up one morning to see his personal medical details on the front page of a national newspaper?
An investigation would be launched within minutes.”
Just a reminder: we still don’t know which way the votes will fall on this repeal bill. It all hinges on Jacqui Lambie, and we are yet to discover if she has won the concessions she sought from the Coalition.
Updated
Debate has begun on the medeval repeal bill
Debate has begun on the medevac repeal bill – formally known as the migration amendment (repairing medical transfers) bill 2019 – in the Senate. Labor’s Kristina Keneally is on her feet.
I say from the outset that the name of this bill is a fallacy.
There is nothing to ‘repair’ when it comes to the medical transfers of sick people from regional processing countries to Australia.
The name of this bill – like so many pieces of legislation from this visionless government in the post-truth era – is untruthful, misleading and misdirected.”
Keneally speaks of a letter she received from a doctor formerly on Nauru, named Chris Jones. She quotes Jones’s letter:
It is like being witness to people dying on a palliative care ward, slowly fading away, physically and emotionally. The only difference here is that they do not have the dignity of palliative care.”
Keneally says the current system allowed bureaucrats with no medical qualifications to overrule doctors on the ground. She said successive ministerial directions greatly discouraged the transference of asylum seekers to Australia for treatment.
Over time, the problem grew, and medical transfers were denied time and time again.
People’s physical injuries were left to worsen – often to the stage where people were facing lifelong disabilities.
Children were denied transfers because they didn’t want to be separated from their parents.
Women were denied the opportunity to have their reproductive health seen to.
Mental health across the cohort of Manus – and later broader PNG – and Nauru diminished terribly.
It is because of all of these circumstances that Labor and the crossbench moved to put provisions in place – medevac – to fix the issues of this third term Liberal National government’s own creation.”
Updated
Consumer advocates have welcomed the introduction of a bill to crack down on exploitative payday loans, a form of short-term, high-interest lending that can trap vulnerable consumers in debt. The bill was introduced to the Senate with the support of Labor and Centre Alliance. It would, among other things, ban payday lenders from making unsolicited offers encouraging individuals to repeatedly take out payday loans.
The Consumer Action Law Centre’s chief executive, Gerard Brody, said the bill would protect hundreds of thousands of Australians exploited by payday lenders.
“There is a broad consensus across the community that stronger consumer protections for payday loans are needed. Why then are prime minister Scott Morrison and treasurer Josh Frydenberg letting payday lenders and consumer lease providers escape legislative reform?” he said.
The government has previously promised action to regulate the payday loan industry. A draft of small amount credit contract legislation to increase protections for vulnerable consumers was released by the government in 2017, but despite promising it would introduce the bill by the end of that year, it failed to do so.
“In the three years that these reforms have stalled, payday lenders have profited to the tune of some $550m,” Brody said. Recent data from the Stop the Debt Trap Alliance’s report on payday lending uncovered a booming market, projecting that it would reach a staggering $1.7bn in gross payday lending stock by the end of this year.
Updated
Mike Bowers has been roaming the corridors of parliament this morning and has all the colour from the prime minister’s press conference and, earlier, an event launching the Friends of our Pacific Family.
Updated
A little earlier this morning, Greens MP Adam Bandt introduced a bill that would compel the Climate Change Authority to report on the impact of three degrees or more of global warming on the Australian environment, economy and society.
“The Australian people need to know that the Morrison government’s current climate targets will take us into a three-degree world, with catastrophic consequences for Australia,” he said. “We’re already seeing the severe impacts of a one-degree world with the climate crisis driving the fire emergency and the record drought. The Australian people need to know what the prime minister’s targets will do to the country when they take us to three degrees.”
Updated
There’s not a lot of bipartisanship on display in Canberra this morning. But there’s one thing Labor and Liberal MPs are both happy to put their names to: an invitation to the industry-sponsored “parliamentary friends of resources” Christmas drinks.
The invitation has just been jointly sent out by Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon and the Liberal party’s Craig Kelly. The event is to be held in parliament house on 4 December. It is sponsored by the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association.
It is described thusly:
Sponsored by the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA), the event will showcase Bright Sparks, an initiative that tells the stories of hard-working people employed directly and indirectly by Australia’s natural gas industry.”
Sounds like fun.
Updated
Jacqui Lambie coy over discussions on medevac
We know Jacqui Lambie is critical to the government’s plans to repeal medevac. For “national security” reasons, Lambie has been coy about what she wants in exchange, though one report has suggested she wants Australia to accept New Zealand’s offer to take 150 refugees from offshore detention.
Morrison appeared to shut down that option in his press conference. Asked whether he would be prepared to take New Zealand’s offer, Morrison said simply: “Those policies on those matters haven’t changed.”
Updated
The organisers of the Murray-Darling basin protest are expecting about 200 trucks to descend on Canberra today. They plan to encircle Federation Mall, the strip between the new and old parliament houses.
Organiser Carly Marriott, who lives on property just north of the Murray river, says the plan has grossly restricted her access to water, something she likens to having “your hands tied behind your back”. She spoke to the ABC a little earlier:
It’s a very peaceful rally, but it’s based out of frustration and anger at the politicians’ lack of action and inability to listen to us. We’re trying to grow food for Australians and we’re not being listened to and it’s hurting people out in the country. So the fact that we have to pack up and come into Canberra to get this message across, we’re giving it our all.”
Let the #convoytocanberra has begun!!
— Speak Up (@Speakup4water) December 2, 2019
Doing 35km/hr #cantheplan pic.twitter.com/JIoPOPT3a3
Updated
PM Scott Morrison, when asked about the treatment of Yang Hengjun, answers by reiterating Peter Dutton's response on Nick Zhao. To be clear - definitely not the same person. 😬😬🙈🙈#auspol
— Alex Beech (@AlexHBeech) December 2, 2019
Peter Dutton has said he believed it was entirely appropriate for the prime minister to call the NSW police commissioner, Mick Fuller, about the active investigation into Angus Taylor’s office.
Dutton, a former police officer, was asked whether he would have appreciated such a call.
“I said at the time last week I thought the prime minister’s call was entirely appropriate,” he said. “The prime minister has obligations under the ministerial code of conduct and the alternative view would have been that he didn’t avail himself of the information and, therefore, he couldn’t fulfil his obligation under the ministerial code of conduct.”
He said nobody had “sought to impede” NSW police’s investigation.
The phone call has been criticised by Labor and integrity experts, including a former anti-corruption commissioner and judge, David Ipp, who said it appeared to be an attempt to use the office to further party political interests.
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PM very concerned about China's detention of Yang Hengjun
Morrison is asked about Nick Xenophon’s new job with Huawei and whether he should place himself on the government’s new foreign influence register.
“He needs to comply with the law like everybody else,” Morrison says.
Huawei was not directly targeted in the government’s decision to restrict involvement in the 5G network, Morrison says.
“Look, I wish Nick all the best in his new employment and sounds like he’s prosecuting his case. It’s a free country.”
The prime minister also speaks about China’s detention of Yang Hengjun, an author and Australian citizen. The latest consular report suggests he is being interrogated daily, sometimes in shackles. He says:
Australia always has to stand up for our citizens and we have to be true to who we are as a people. [We] are very concerned following the most recent consular access that we have had about the treatment and we have raised these issues consistently now for some time and we would like to see the issues about access to lawyers, about getting a clear enunciation of what the matter is that have been brought against the Australian citizen at the centre of this case, and, thirdly, that his access to family and treatment that would meet, you know, world standards is being provided to him.
“Now, the most recent consular access was a matter of great concern to me and the foreign minister and we will continue to make those representations on behalf of an Australian citizen.”
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The prime minister, Scott Morrison, and the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, are holding a press conference on the government’s new $87.8m taskforce to detect and disrupt foreign interference. The taskforce, which brings together intelligence and policing capabilities, has been announced after extraordinary revelations about China’s efforts to plant a candidate in Australia’s parliament and the defection of a man who claims to be associated with Chinese intelligence.
“Foreign interference comes from many, many different sources and it’s important that we have the capacity to deal with it,” Morrison says. “It’s an evolving threat and it’s also been a building and evolving response.”
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I mentioned a little earlier that bushfire survivor Melinda Plesman had travelled to parliament to call for climate action. Her home was lost in the bushfires that devastated the east coast in recent months. She has brought the remains of her home to parliament as a gift to Scott Morrison.
Plesman spoke to reporters a little earlier:
We need the parliament and the prime minister and the opposition, we need them to listen to the science, to look at all the data that has been collected ... and to do something.
I want direct climate action and I want it now, I don’t want prayers. I don’t want glib comments about the cricket.
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Richard Di Natale rejects Labor criticism
Richard Di Natale, the Greens leader, is responding to Wong’s attack. He says Labor’s criticism of events 10 years ago are a “distraction” from the “coal hugging Liberals”.
“You’re supposed to be here to fight the Tories, not the Greens,” he says.
Di Natale said today was the first day Labor had wanted to talk about climate change since the devastating fires on the east coast.
“What are the Labor party doing? Turning their attention to the Greens. We had half the country on fire last week. We have had the east coast burning. We have had people losing their homes. You know what the response was from the Labor party? Well, again they joined the Liberal party: now is not the time to talk about climate change.”
Di Natale says the Greens were the only party to take a carbon price policy to the election.
“If you are so desperate to have a climate price introduced, let’s get together and work on one,” he said.
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Still in the Senate, Labor’s Penny Wong is speaking about the 10-year anniversary of the defeat of the carbon pollution reduction scheme, which was voted down by the Liberals and Greens.
Wong isn’t wasting the opportunity to lay the boot into the Greens. She describes the Liberals and Greens as an “unholy alliance” that derailed Australia’s action on climate change.
“The Greens political party voted against cumulative reduction of Australia’s carbon emissions by 280m tonnes over the last decade,” she says.
Wong says the Greens justified their decision by complaining the targets were inadequate and industry assistance was too great.
“Just two years later they voted for the clean energy future package, which had the same emissions targets for 2020 and more industry assistance,” Wong says.
Finance minister Mathias Cormann describes Wong’s statement as a “political stunt”.
“This is just all about a tiff between the Labor party and the Greens,” he says.
For his part, Cormann says he stands by the decision to vote down the CPRS.
Cormann says the CPRS would never have helped reduce emissions, but simply just shifted Australia’s emissions to another part of the world.
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Over in the Senate, One Nation’s Pauline Hanson is attempting to have her bill protecting dairy farmers debated today. The bill is an attempt to require that fair prices be paid for milk. Hanson wants it debated in private senators’ time, just after midday.
Labor has supported attempts to bring on debate on the bill, and has previously challenged the Nationals to do the same. But the government is resisting and just won a vote denying One Nation the ability to debate the bill. That is slightly unusual, in that the government does not typically use its numbers to dictate what bills can be debated during private senators’ time.
One Nation will bring on the bill anyway, but further debate has been adjourned.
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Nick Xenophon has just been on Sky News, talking about his new role as “strategic counsel” with Chinese telecommunications behemoth Huawei. Huawei was banned from any role in Australia’s 5G network over concerns of potential foreign influence, a decision that infuriated the Chinese government and the company.
Xenophon is asked how much he is being paid, and whether he is selling out his good name to act as a mouthpiece for a company associated with the Chinese Communist party.
“We are being paid on an hourly rate, it’s about the same as any other client that I’m acting for,” Xenophon said. “So there’s no premium, there’s no danger rate.”
He said all he wants is to “shut down false, unfair attacks on Huawei”.
“In my view this decision to ban Huawei was a decision that was ill-considered. It was highly political, in my view,” he said.
Xenophon said it was wrong to suggest he was acting as a mouthpiece for a CCP-linked company.
“It’s wrong. Wrong on so many levels. Huawei is a private company, it’s owned by its employees, its owned by its key executives, it’s been fiercely independent.”
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Melinda Plesman has arrived in Canberra with a present for the prime minister Scott Morrison. Plesman lost her home in bushfires that swept through Nymboida, on the NSW north coast near Grafton.
She has brought the ashes of her property down to gift Morrison to highlight the Coalition’s lack of climate action.
Police at APH moving on bushfire survivors Melinda Plesman and Dean Kennedy, who brought down the charred remains of their family home. Their message: "Morrison, your climate crisis destroyed my home" #ClimateEmergency #auspol pic.twitter.com/zRdrU0X4k6
— Nelli Stevenson (@nellistevenson) December 1, 2019
It’s the final sitting week for 2019, and there’s a lot on in the House. First, Petitions Committee Chair @LlewOBrienMP will table the final bundle of petitions to the House for the year. Procedure Committee Chair @BertVanManen will also make a statement on the #QT inquiry. pic.twitter.com/r4GHN9ngS3
— Australian House of Representatives (@AboutTheHouse) December 1, 2019
Australia 'very concerned' about treatment of Yang Hengjun: Payne
Foreign minister Marise Payne has issued a statement on China’s treatment of Yang Hengjun, an Australian writer detained on unspecified criminal charges. The Guardian reported this morning that Dr Hengjun is being subjected to daily interrogations with his arms and legs shackled, as Chinese security officials try to “break” him, and have him confess to unspecified allegations of espionage that potentially carry the death penalty.
Payne said the Australian government was “very concerned” by reports from a recent consular visit to Hengjun. She described his treatment as “unacceptable”.
His circumstances of detention include increased isolation from the outside world, with restrictions on his communications with family and friends, and the resumption of daily interrogation, including while shackled.
This is unacceptable.
We have made repeated requests to the Chinese authorities for an explanation of the charges against Dr Yang. We have also made repeated requests for him to be afforded basic standards of justice, procedural fairness and humane treatment, in line with international norms, including access to his lawyers and to his family, both of which continue to be denied to him.
This has not led to any substantive changes in his treatment.
We will continue to express our expectations in clear terms to the Chinese authorities – both in Beijing and in Canberra – including that Dr Yang be released and that, while his detention continues, he be treated fairly and humanely.
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Labor has seized on a report showing budget surpluses would not be as large as the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, predicted in April. The report, from Deloitte Access Economics, suggests a surplus of $5.3bn for the 2019/20 financial year, which would be smaller than the $7.1bn forecast in April.
Economist and partner at Deloitte Access Economics Chris Richardson said that while overall strong commodity prices have benefited Australia, coal prices are now off the boil.
Labor’s Andrew Leigh said the report “confirmed that Australia’s economic problems were homegrown”.
“It’s given the lie to the claim that it’s purely international problems that are causing the weakness in the domestic economy,” Leigh said. “Deloitte has made absolutely clear that there are domestic economic problems that need to be handled. They pointed again to the fact that wages are growing woefully while profits are growing powerfully.”
“They’ve indicated very clearly that far from the world causing only problems for the Australian economy, indeed the iron ore price – a factor entirely outside the control of the government – has given the budget more benefit than had been expected at budget time.”
You can read a full report on Deloitte’s findings here:
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In an interesting (and welcome) development, the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit has agreed to commence an inquiry into the administration of government grants, including the trouble-plagued regional jobs and investment packages program.
Labor had written to the audit committee asking it to look into the program’s administration after the auditor general released a scathing report into the Coalition’s handling of the $220m regional jobs scheme.
The RJIP paid out funds across 10 regional areas, but doubts have been raised about the process, given a ministerial panel made decisions against the recommendations of the department.
In a statement this morning, the chair of the committee, Liberal MP Lucy Wicks, confirmed the inquiry and said it would likely conduct public hearings in 2020. The audit committee will also look at the Australian Research Council’s administration of the national competitive grants program.
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We mentioned a little earlier that farmers were congregating in Canberra to protest the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, which they say is failing rural communities and the environment.
One of their chief concerns is what they see as unfair water allocation between the basin states.
The chief executive of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, Phillip Glyde, was on ABC radio this morning and acknowledged the “significant pain” farmers were experiencing.
“We have to acknowledge the significant pain that people are going through as a result of the drought, the significant pain that has occurred as a result of 15 years or more of water reform in the Murray-Darling Basin,” he said.
But Glyde said concerns about water allocation had little to do with the basin plan.
“The allocation of water between the states, which is currently the major issue, is not something to do with the basin plan or the water market. That is to do with an intergovernmental agreement that was first struck in 1914,” he said.
He said the scientifically-based basin plan was about ensuring the long-term viability of the system for all its users, and said the 12-year period leading up to its full implementation in 2024 was particularly difficult.
“We’ve got this immediate pain for this long-term gain, and it’s very hard to see it, particularly during drought,” he said.
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An interesting tidbit about Nick Xenophon, the former crossbench senator, emerged this morning. He’s taken up the cause of Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications behemoth that was barred from involvement in Australia’s 5G network.
The ban was prompted by security concerns, and has further strained the relationship between Canberra and Beijing.
Xenophon will be part of the strategic counsel representing Huawei. He has described the company as an “underdog”.
“They have been treated incredibly unfairly,” he told the Australian on Monday.
Trade minister Simon Birmingham was asked about Xenophon’s new gig a little earlier. He said it was “for Nick to explain the nature of his work” but questioned what his parliamentary colleagues in Canberra and South Australia would make of it.
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Andrew Wilkie will launch yet another attempt to wind back Australia’s live export trade this morning. The trade subjects animals to cruel and horrific conditions and Wilkie’s bill would impose a permanent ban from July 2022.
“Live export is systemically cruel, not in Australia’s economic self-interest and lacks popular support,” Wilkie said. “No wonder so many Australians want to see this vile trade shut down.”
Wilkie’s private member’s bill is unlikely to pass. He has attempted to introduce a similar bill four times in the past and it has never won support from the government or Labor.
“It’s high time both sides of the parliament took notice, started representing their constituents and supported this bill to ban live export.”
The government this morning announced a new $87.8m taskforce to counter foreign interference. The taskforce will bring together intelligence agencies, the Australian federal police, Austrac, and the home affairs department in a concerted effort to detect and disrupt attempts by foreign actors to interfere in Australian politics.
“It will be led by a senior Asio officer and bring together a new team of Australian federal police investigators and representatives from Austrac, the Australian Signals Directorate and the Australian Geospatial Intelligence Organisation,” the government said in a statement this morning. “The Office of National Intelligence will also support the taskforce.”
This announcement, of course, comes after disturbing reports last week about a Chinese government plot to plant Bo “Nick” Zhao in Australia’s parliament, and the defection of Wang Liqiang, a man who claims to be associated with Chinese intelligence. Reports suggest the taskforce had been in the works for some time, but was signed off by cabinet last week.
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Trade minister Simon Birmingham has just been on Sky News talking about medevac, making it clear that the government is proceeding with the bill, regardless of whether it will be defeated. He concedes the government may lose the vote.
“Governments will lose votes on the Senate floor, governments always have and governments almost certainly always will.”
Birmingham is refusing to say what Lambie is demanding of the government, but says the Coalition would consider “sensible requests”. Asked whether senators will actually know what they’re voting on, given little is known about Lambie’s demands, Birmingham says: “People in that chamber will be voting in relation to the medevac repeal bill.”
Birmingham is asked whether Labor will be given a briefing on Lambie’s “national security” demands. He says: “If Labor want to talk about the repeal of the medevac laws, we would welcome the debate. but I don’t see any signs of the Labor party waking up to their error and their mistake.”
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No horse-trading on medevac: Cormann
Finance minister Mathias Cormann has just been speaking on the medevac bill. The government is slated to meet with Jacqui Lambie this morning. But Cormann was pretty emphatic about the possibility it will not horse trade to secure her vote to repeal medevac.
“We will not be horse-trading on national security,” he told the ABC. “There will be no horse-trading on the medevac repeal bill.”
He appears to be making two things clear this morning. Firstly that Lambie’s support has not yet been secured. And secondly, the government does not intend to pull the bill.
That doesn’t leave a great deal of wiggle room.
But let’s see where the chips fall.
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So what can we expect from today? There’s a few issues bubbling away already this morning.
- Farmers from across the Murray Darling Basin will descend on Canberra to protest against the Murray Darling Basin Plan. They say the management of water under the plan is failing farmers, communities and the environment. The protesters are calling for a royal commission into the plan. Some are calling for it to be immediately scrapped, a position that has caused a split with the National Farmers’ Federation.
- The government will continue to seek the support of crossbench senator Jacqui Lambie in its bid to repeal the medevac legislation. Lambie is playing hardball. She has asked for unknown promises from the government before giving it her support. We don’t know precisely what she’s asked for, because she’s keeping it under wraps for “national security” reasons. Her vote is, of course, critical to the government getting its way.
- Speaking of those pesky crossbenchers, we’re also likely to see continued fallout from One Nation’s decision to deny the government passage of its union-busting ensuring integrity bill in the Senate last week. The government is expected to reintroduce the legislation into the lower house this week, though it won’t come up for a vote. They may seek to win the support of Lambie instead, who has indicated she would be open to discussions.
- We can also expect Labor to continue its attack on Angus Taylor. Taylor has come under immense pressure since the Guardian revealed he relied on a falsified document to attack the City of Sydney lord mayor Clover Moore for her travel-related emissions. Taylor has since been referred to NSW police, which has set up a taskforce to investigate. The prime minister Scott Morrison got himself into trouble last week by calling the NSW police commissioner, Mick Fuller, an old personal acquaintance, to check up on the investigation.
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Hello and welcome to the last week of parliament for the year.
It’s Christopher Knaus here filling in for your usual live blog extraordinaire, Amy Remeikis.
We’re almost there. Four more sitting days left until this chaotic parliamentary year is done and dusted.
There’s still plenty to come. From the continuing Angus Taylor saga to the government’s continuing attempts to repeal medevac, it’s set to be a busy week. So grab a coffee and strap in.
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