That's enough nutso
Well folks I suspect that is that for today. I think it is best if we part ways now because if we stay connected for much longer then aliens will be trying to get a piece of Australia’s submarine action. And I just don’t want to be responsible for that.
Let’s do the summary.
- Wednesday in politics dawned with the most predictable game in Canberra – let’s make Joe Hockey our punching bag.
- The day then moved on to the release of the latest closing the gap report, which showed not nearly enough progress in addressing indigenous disadvantage across a range of indicators. Not enough progress is a kind construction.
- Tony Abbott told Indigenous people they too were responsible for improving outcomes – that government’s couldn’t mandate progress from above. Not everyone loved the tone of the prime minister’s speech.
- Labor leader Bill Shorten spoke of two Australias – one enriched and one poor and marginalised. He also raised the negative impact of cuts to indigenous programs, which prompted a group of Coalition MPs to leave the chamber in protest. One of the MPs, Victorian Russell Broadbent, said he departed because the Labor man had been partisan. Not everyone loved the walkout either.
- The Coalition moved on to confirm it would do what it said it would do prior to the election in imposing limits on foreign purchases of farmland. This would not normally be news, but in the context of seemingly everything being up for grabs, it was news.
- Submarines remained fraught for the government. The prime minister attempted to deflect more questions about what he’d promised South Australian MP Sean Edwards over this past weekend with a rave about Labor trying to entice Russia and North Korea into our submarine program. Don’t worry, it didn’t make sense. You don’t need to understand it. We still don’t know what a competitive evaluation process is in relation to this transaction. Liberal senator Arthur Sinodinos thought it might be time to clarify the process.
That’s pretty much the daily crap shoot. Thanks for your delightful company. Let’s do it all again on the morrow.
Updated
Search engine based inquiries have confirmed the prime minister did in fact invoke the wrong Kim in ‘the North Koreans is coming’ earlier.
#KimGate
Few more.
Here’s Julie Bishop’s “so yesterday” moment.
Tony Abbott, perhaps indulging a bit of Kremlinology on the fly.
Post Kremlinology. Bill Shorten and co.
An absolute keeper.
Mike caught the look the treasurer shot to the prime minister, or perhaps the the world, when he couldn’t answer a question Labor had asked about whether he cared more for his current personal injustice, or the injustices inflicted by the budget.
Brilliant catch.
Some great pictures from Mike coming up. We’ve been in META-for territory today.
Joe under an exit sign. Malcolm Turnbull. Allll byyy myyyself.
Keeping our feet in the nonsense storm
Rightio chaps, let’s just look at submarines to make sure we keep our feet in the nonsense storm.
Here’s what was reasonable in Abbott’s question time mass distraction offensive. It is absolutely reasonable to point out that part of the reason this decision about the submarine purchase isn’t made today is because the former government didn’t make it. It is also reasonable to point out that Labor in government wasn’t quite as rigid about Australian manufacturing and Australian jobs as it is in opposition.
It was also reasonable of Abbott to point out that Shorten had an incredibly messy outing on this subject in Adelaide last year. During a visit to the Adelaide shipyard workers Shorten over reached and banged the economic nationalist drum. Speaking in the context of possible Japanese involvement in the submarine aquisition, Shorten said last September:
This is a government with a short memory. In the Second World War, 366 merchant ships were sunk off Australia.
As well as poking an important ally in the eye for the sake of a populist shot at a political opponent, Shorten also sailed very close to saying Labor would cancel any contract with the Japanese that the Abbott government entered in to. This had to be cleaned up by the shadow treasurer Chris Bowen, who said Labor would not cancel any contracts. It was a significant stumble, no doubt about it.
With that acknowledged, let’s get serious.
- Labor in this discussion points to an unassailable fact: the government told voters before the last election the subs would be built here. They are saying something quite different now. It is absolutely correct of Labor to hold the government to account.
- It remains unclear whether in the desperate scramble last weekend to hold out the spill debate, the prime minister made undertakings to Liberal MPs that he would deal Australian firms and the Australian Submarine Corporation back into the equation through an open tender process. Sean Edwards thought that’s what the prime minister said. The prime minister says he didn’t say that, he spoke about a competitive evaluation process. Whatever the truth, that whole transaction is a really bad look. It’s a bad look because is indicates that major policies can be the subject of barter during leadership wobbles, and because there is still no transparency about this process at all.
- And the whole lob on Russia and North Korea in question time is absurd for reasons I’ve already canvassed in an earlier post this afternoon. I’m sorry there is no other word to use apart from absurd. Actually there is another word. Desperate. He’s trying a deflection. The prime minister doesn’t believe what he’s saying, which makes it even more stupid.
- It’s a bit strange for Abbott to be fretting about Labor’s economic nationalism on a day when the prime minister has declared some foreign investment more desirable than others when it comes to farmland – and also when it is the prime minister raising the spectre of foreign undesirables getting furtive control of our submarine building agenda.
Dreyfus is on the grass for 24 hours. The prime minister has called time on question time. I’ll be back shortly with some thoughts on truthiness and over reach.
Treasurer needs a banana too, I think.
The quick retort from Bishop was very deft. Things deteriorated however from there. She just demonstrated amply that she ain’t no Malcolm Turnbull – she ain’t that quick or compelling unscripted. Which I suspect might have been Labor’s intention.
In any case Labor’s Mark Dreyfus has just spared Bishop from further pressure by interjecting something serious enough across the chamber to get him named. A division is underway now.
Saved by Dreyfus. Bishop should send flowers.
Sooooo yesterday .. today
Tanya Plibersek.
Q: My question is to the minister for foreign affairs. I refer to reports last year that the minister went bananas because the prime minister’s office insisted she be accompanied by the trade minister to the UN climate change conference in Lima. In this new era of good government, can the foreign minister advise whether she will be allowed to represent Australia at the UN climate change meeting in Paris unsupervised?
Julie Bishop:
I thank the member for her question but that is so yesterday!
Shorten refers to Joe Hockey’s bruising outing on Neil Mitchell this morning. Shorten asks what’s more important – the treasurer’s hurt feelings or his rotten budget hurting millions of Australians?
Hockey shouts ask me a question. Ask me.
Abbott unloads on Labor for booby trapping the budget and sabotaging the solution.
It is absolutely contemptible.
Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen asks the prime minister about the Hockey formulation of a Labor controlled senate.
Q: Given Labor has 25 seats in the senate while the Coalition has 33 – does the prime minister have confidence in a treasurer who cannot count?
Tony Abbott:
The Labor Party and their Green coalition partners are the largest bloc in the Senate. By far.
(Labor and the Greens are not in coalition in the senate, or anywhere else. They are in a cage fight for progressive votes. Just in case that was unclear.)
"We should let 'em know we can build 'em a sub. One ping..." #qt pic.twitter.com/3rF3QAMm6P
— James Jeffrey (@James_Jeffrey) February 11, 2015
(I think Abbott invoked the wrong North Korean Kim before. Have to check, but pretty sure he nominated the Kim who has .. what did Madam Speaker say .. gone to paradise.)
I’m really going to enjoy picking the subs nonsense apart after question time. There is nonsense on both sides to address.
For now, Christopher Pyne is talkin about the roll out of direct instruction, a teaching method championed by Noel Pearson.
In more good news for the Coalition ...
Yesterday’s formulation was more good news for the Abbott government. Either way, he gets a unicorn.
Labor wants to know if Tony Abbott has entered an agreement with prime minister Abe of Japan concerning the construction of the submarines? If so, what is the agreement and when was it reached?
Abbott:
Madam Speaker, of course we are exploring the potential for defence cooperation with Japan. Of course we are exploring the potential for defence cooperation with Japan.
Is this another outbreak of xenophobia amongst members opposite? Is this the latest example of the kind of ranting we saw from the leader of the opposition at the ASC ship yard a few months ago?
I could have sworn Madam Speaker just called the member for aquaculture. No, agriculture. Sorry. Need a banana.
Tony Abbott, still entertaining himself with an irrationalism.
I tell you what, I tell you what we are not going to do. We will have a competitive evaluation process but I tell you what we will not go to open tender because only Labor wants to see Australian submarines possibly built in Russia or North Korea.
Banana. Stat.
Up periscope.
Madam Speaker has just welcomed the kids in Canberra today because of the ABC’s Heywire project. Thus far she has not welcomed the shipyard workers, who are sitting like high viz bricks in the the public gallery. She has also noted that unless the member for Wakefield is anxious to go to paradise, he will desist from interjecting.
Updated
Magic 300
Madam Speaker has just booted out the 300th Labor MP under standing order 94A. Madam Speaker, take a bow.
Labor’s deputy leader Tanya Plibersek.
Q: My question is to the prime minister. Didn’t the government promise before the election to build Australia’s future submarines in Adelaide? Will they be built there?
Tony Abbott:
Where they’re built depends on the results of a competitive evaluation process. What we said was that the Australian work on the new submarines would centre on the South Australian ship yards.
Andrew Wilkie, the member for Denison, asks why the government is making life difficult for GPs when spending pressures actually lie elsewhere in the health system.
The prime minister pledges undying loyalty to GPs.
I can assure the member and indeed the House that the government will not be bringing further proposals forward in this area without the backing of the medical profession.
Putin subs, I tell you
Shorten wants to know what Tony Abbott promised Sean Edwards on the submarines for his vote.
Tony Abbott:
Madam Speaker, I said that there would be a competitive evaluation process. That is precisely the process that members opposite put in place for major defence procurement exercises themselves. A competitive evaluation process.
This is obviously very damaging for Abbott, this perception that he folded to get a vote, and then subsequently, apparently did not fold at all – so was this truth or trickery or what?
Perhaps this explains the nonsense offensive which just erupted in the chamber.
Abbott:
What do they want now? They want an open tender. Now they don’t understand the difference between an open tender and an evaluation process, a competitive evaluation process.
Do you know about an open tender? Anyone can compete. What the leader of the opposition wants, he wants anyone to be able to compete to provide Australia’s next generation of submarines.
He might want the Russians to compete, Putin subs is what we will get from the leader of the opposition.
We might get North Korean subs. This is what Labor wants.
Two things here: the government ultimately decides who gets the tender. The Russians can’t force us to build submarines. And Labor wants nothing of the kind. It wants Australian firms dealt into the process. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Abbott better be careful. Someone might shirtfront him.
Updated
The terror threat will get worse before it gets better: Abbott
The prime minister is invited to update the House about the terror raids. He’s grateful for the opportunity.
Abbott describes the incident foiled by police as an imminent attack in Australia.
I regret to say, Madam Speaker, that this country has already had two brushes with terrorism. There was the attack on police officers in Victoria in September and then we had the terrorist incident in Martin Place in December.
We could easily have had a third but for strong action by NSW police and the joint counter-terrorism team yesterday.
This is a serious problem and I fear it will get worse before it gets better – as we have seen again and again in recent times the death cult is reaching out all around the world, including here in Australia and, regrettably, there are people in this country who are susceptible to these incitements, to extremism and even terrorism.
Question time
It being the appointed hour.
Bill Shorten opens on incarceration of indigenous Australians. Will the prime minister cop a new justice target in the closing the gap process?
Tony Abbott
The rate of incarceration of indigenous Australians is horribly high, horribly high – vastly disproportionate to their ratio in the population. And we do need to get it down. I think the best way to get it down is to get the fundamentals right, the fundamentals are getting kids to school, adults to work and communities safe.
I do want to see a resident police presence. And over the years there has not been a sufficiently strong resident police presence in so many of these remote indigenous communities.
Abbott says the situation about remote policing is improving. But the best way to reduce incarceration is to reduce crime. So no on the justice target, then.
We do that by having proper policing in these places and the other thing we should be looking at is the healthy welfare card which is an important part of the Forrest review because if we can make this work, it will ensure that people are spending their money on the kind of things that will help them rather than the kind of things that will hurt them.
Dear dear – that drovers dog is causing some issues.
When nature calls.
Keep it down out there.
[extremely dodgy Russian accent] open tenders pic.twitter.com/ebLN1VfCcL
— Geordie M (@TerryAustralis) February 11, 2015
Down on the farm, with Mike Bowers. Two beautiful shots.
My colleague Shalailah Medhora has been chasing reaction to the closing the gap speech among Indigenous leaders.
Michelle Nelson-Cox, the chair of the Aboriginal health council of Western Australia, says she was bitterly disappointed that the prime minister failed to mention constitutional reform, and at one point thought she might leave.
When you have a diversity of Aboriginal people sitting in the room, you would have thought he would have acknowledged custodians and visitors to this land across the board. At one point there, I was thinking about getting up and walking out. There were a couple of us from the forum that we represent. There were a couple of us who were bitterly disappointed.
Kirsty Parker from the National Congress of Australia’s first peoples said the prime minister is a bit on the back foot. She’s back on the broad consultation point.
We seen him make some pronouncements that haven’t been helpful around the history of the nation. So in some senses, he’s a little bit on the back foot.
The thing is, when you have a relationship with people you can almost say anything, and you can work it out.
But you can’t have that level of trust if you don’t have a relationship.
The prime minister is asked whether he’d support an economic summit. Abbott would support an economic summit on the basis that it might flush out the Labor party.
Are you happy with the ministry?
I’m very happy with the team I’ve got.
Abbott says the country faces headwinds in the economy. And the government faces
... Organised sabotage in the senate from the Labor party.
What on earth is going on with the submarines? A competitive evalution process, Abbott says. He says that’s the only term he’s ever used, either in public or in private. It’s a competitive process, except Russians won’t be allowed to be involved. (Phew, eh?)
What happened with Sean Edwards over the weekend? Clarification, the prime minister says.
There was a clarification of the government’s intention.
Joe Hockey is telling reporters a bigger package is coming on foreign investment. The government will have more to say on agribusinesses and a lot more to say about overseas investments in residential real estate. Shortly.
The prime minister is moving to questions but first, Abbott feels he should note the terrorist raid in Sydney. The government is maintaining ceaseless vigilance.
Today, your government has worked.
From the press club to the paddock.
Agriculture minister, Barnaby Joyce, in a red hat. (We lost the live feed to Murrumbateman. It’s back now.)
You guys, we’ve got to get a tighter control on who owns what.
The land rights act is not a plaything
Morrison:
Ladies and gentlemen, in closing, my message is twofold. Firstly, that governments must take Aboriginal people with them. They must relearn the art of consultation, compromise, and agreement.
The land rights act is very special legislation, it should not be the play thing whereby government conducts its latest social engineering agenda. Any changes to the act threatens property rights and that should rattle all Australians who own property.
Top-down policies have failed miserably and Aboriginal people know it. They feel it day in and day out.
Aboriginal people want government out of their lives: Joe Morrison
Joe Morrison from the Northern Land Council is addressing the National Press Club this lunchtime. It’s been a very interesting speech, covering so much substantial ground: land rights, native title, northern development, the new parternalism and the desire of Indigenous people for self-determination. He’s winding up now and this conclusuon summaries the theme of the address.
Morrison:
Governments need to extract themselves from the lives of Aboriginal people.
Our people are simply over governed. Aboriginal people, whether they live in the big smoke, or in distant out stations, want to engage, they want to be part of modern society.
Updated
Drovers dog – and don't know
I’m conscious that there may be some readers too young to get the drover’s dog reference. Let me blogsplain. Labor’s Bill Hayden was run down in the Labor leadership by Bob Hawke, who went on to win the federal election in 1983. Hayden later remarked (somewhat caustically) that a “drover’s dog” could have led the ALP to victory.
Perhaps we could note at this point that yesterday’s Essential poll’s better prime minister rating yielded the following information. Bill Shorten achieved 39%. Tony Abbott achieved 31% – just a jot ahead of don’t know, which rated 30%.
Oh look it's a drovers dog... pic.twitter.com/miXaYGq9IX
— Laura Tingle (@latingle) February 11, 2015
Very cheeky, that Laura Tingle.
The government really has to adjust that “open for business” talking point. Open for some business would be more accurate.
Breaking: a date has landed
The prime minister has taken off his jacket and is inspecting the plains and the grasslands and the hobby farmlets just outside Canberra. Nice wine out there. Hope he gets a shiraz in.
As I flagged before, the government now wants to change the conversation to foreign investment.
Tony Abbott:
I said Australia was under new management and open for business. We are open for business. We’re certainly open for investment. This country has been built on foreign investment, British investment in agriculture, American investment in manufacturering, Japanese investment in mining and resources, foreign investment is important to us but it’s got to be investment that serves our national interests.
(You sense a but, don’t you?)
It can’t just serve the investors’ interests, it’s got to serve our national interests and so today I announce that the government is implementing a key election commitment. From 1 March, foreign purchasers of agricultural land over $15m will be subject to Foreign Investment Review Board screening – and from the middle of the year the Australian Taxation Office will be conducting a stock take in conjunction with the states and territories titles offices to provide, over time, an ever more complete register of foreign agricultural landholdings in Australia.
You must need to be a very big bloke to work in a shipyard. Yes, that it is a completely random aside, but I’m just looking at the AMWU delegation. A group of workers has come to Canberra today to keep the political fires burning on the submarines.
These are very large men. In high vis shirts. The AMWU blokes are with Labor senator Kim Carr. He’s asked whether he knows what a competitive evaluation is. Carr notes that in government he was once responsible for the Defence Material Organisation.
It was not a term brought to my attention on that occasion.
Just while I’m sifting through the various controversies of the morning, there was also some agitation around among attendees at the closing the gap breakfast this morning about an aside from the prime minister about Indigenous people being first class citizens.
Here’s the Abbott quote:
The closing the gap statement is important. It should be an annual statement because it forces us to stay committed. It forces us to stay focused and as far as I’m concerned there is no more important cause than ensuring that Indigenous people enter fully into their rightful inheritance as first Australians and as first class citizens of this great country.
For some attendees, this aside suggested they weren’t currently first class citizens. Abbott certainly would not have meant it that way – but some people took it that way.
Labor senator Nova Peris gave the prime minister a bit of a clip around the ears on the ABC before.
We are citizens of the world – shut up with the categories, please.
We heard Tony Abbott this morning talking about Aboriginal people one day can be first-class citizens, we talk about Aboriginal people saying we are second-class citizens.
For goodness sake, we are human citizens of this world. Australia is so rich in so many areas, we’ve got a lot to be ashamed about in the treatment of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Updated
You can't be partisan: Russell Broadbent, standing by the walk out
One of the MPs who walked out during the Shorten speech – Victorian Liberal MP Russell Broadbent – a prominent party moderate, is completely unrepentant about his protest. I’ve just had a quick chat to him.
He says Shorten had no right to be partisan on a significant national occasion – by that he means raising the issue of funding cuts.
Russell Broadbent:
Occasions like this should be above the fray. I think it is unacceptable to be partisan.
Q: So you stand by your actions?
Absolutely.
Indigenous leaders are keeping the tone very mild in one of the parliamentary courtyards – but there’s a couple of barbs. There’s a message to the government to reverse the funding cuts to programs.
And this.
Mick Gooda, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice commissioner:
Governments have got to listen to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, they’ve got to listen to our experts, they’ve got to listen to our leaders.
They can’t be selective about who they listen to.
Tom Calma brands government MPs "pathetic" for the walk out during Shorten's speech
I’ve just had a quick word to Tom Calma – a prominent Indigenous leader – who is completely appalled by the antics in the chamber during closing the gap.
Calma says it was pathetic for MPs to engage in point scoring by walking out of the chamber when Bill Shorten mentioned funding cuts.
Calma:
We treat this very seriously. This is not a game. It was pathetic. It was a blight on their integrity.
Updated
It could have been predicted that the former Labor frontbencher Craig Emerson would make a pitch to be Australia’s representative at Eurovision. Yes, you have to endure this because what has been seen cannot be unseen.
Still feel discomfited by Abbott telling Indigenous people they were responsible for closing the gap, just quietly.
Updated
Back quickly to the terror raids. Police are alleging an attack was imminent. Thanks to my colleague Bridie Jabour, who has filed a news update.
Two men planning to carry out a terrorist attack in Australia have been arrested in raids, police say. NSW deputy police commissioner Catherine Burn said police seized a machete, a hunting knife and a home-made Islamic State flag in raids in the western Sydney suburb of Fairfield on Tuesday. She said police will allege the men, aged 24 and 25, were planning to carry out the attack on Tuesday. They were denied bail and will appear in Fairfield court on Wednesday on charges of undertaking acts in preparation or planning for a terrorist act.
Apparently a number of Liberals walked out during Shorten’s closing the gap speech. This happened when Shorten raised the issue of budget cuts. Mr Bowers, who was in the chamber, says it was quite clear this a protest.
Down on the farm
Having transacted that – the prime minister is off to a farm in Murrumbateman. We will be defending the homeland and the farm land around noon. Foreign investment is on the agenda. (Very odd how politics has lost the art of just sticking to one topic on a day and talking that one through. Everything gets lost in the confetti.)
Two Australians need to become one
Shorten says much work would need to be done to land a justice target properly – coordination with tiers of government and with police.
Above all, we need to listen to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and empower them to control their own futures.
This is the approach that Labor will always take. We believe in partnership, we believe in community, we believe in local expertise. This is the promise that we make to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people today.
We will never talk about you without talking to you. We will always work for you by working with you.
Closing the gap is our national responsibility. It is a shared journey and our job will not be done, our journey will not be over until our two Australia’s are one.
Shorten says it is not too late to reverse cuts to programs – and the closing the gap benchmarks need to be broadened.
Incarceration is a misfortune that blights the lives of too many. The rate of jailing Indigenous Australians has almost doubled in the last decade. It is time to speak out against this silent emergency.
It is time for the closing the gap framework to include a justice target.
Updated
Shorten: today we shine a light on the other Australia
The Labor leader Bill Shorten adopts a different tone. This report, he says, confronts us with a tale of two Australia’s.
This report confronts us with two nations, two Australias. One Australia is the country that we experience, the one we live in. The place where our children go to school and our partners go to work. In this Australia, we plan for a long life. And for two decades or more of retirement. In this Australia, we encourage our children to study hard, to seek a degree or learn a trade. And to find fulfilling and rewarding work.
The other Australia is a nation that most of us in in place have little knowledge of or rarely glimpse. In this other Australia, life is harder and shorter. Poverty and disadvantage are rife. Depression, iliteracy, depression, addiction and suicide are common. Home ownership is a distant dream.
Jobs are twice as hard to find. A young person leaving school is more likely to go to jail than university. A woman is 30 times more likely to know the pain and fear of family violence and 15 times more likely to be driven from her home as a result.
Today we shine a light on this other Australia. We stop looking away. Today people have been banished to the margins of our national mind and brought to the centre of our consciousness. Today we promise to do better, we promise to do more.
I don’t buy the cynicism about the prime minister and Indigenous policy – I believe he is absolutely genuine. And that contribution came 100% from the heart – it’s what he believes.
He wants progress, he’ll be frustrated by the lack of progress, he imports his ‘can do’ up by the bootstraps attitude into the discussion. It’s who he is. I applaud him for speaking from the heart.
But at the same time, as I said before, every speech is delivered in a context, not in a vaccuum. I think that contribution says a lot about the prime minister’s headspace right now. It will be very interesting to see how it goes down with the indigenous leadership.
Am I being too sensitive on their behalf? I guess we’ll see. What I think doesn’t matter a jot. What they think matters a great deal.
Updated
The prime minister becomes quite emotional by the end of the speech, recounting the story of Richard Norman Kirby. Kirby ..
.. joined the first AIF in July of 1915 and served at Gallipoli and in France. For his actions in 1918 he was awarded the distinguished conduct medal. The citation read for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty during an attack.
He rushed a machine-gun post single handed and although wounded in the attempt, succeeded in capturing and holding two machine-guns and 14 of the enemy until the remainder of his section came up. He set a fine example of courage and initiative to the men with him.
Lance Corporal Kirby’s gallantry is remarkable, because that was a time when Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were not even counted in the census. Yet despite so many slights and mistreatments, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people served our country with distinction.
Returning home, they were denied the same entitlements as their mates. The door was shut on every day but Anzac Day. While abroad, the Aboriginal soldier was a valued brother, back in Australia he returned to an unequal life and was gradually forgotten but all but his kin and closest mates.
So we owe it, Madam Speaker, to Lance Corporal Kirby and his brothers to build the Australia that they fought for. That they hoped in. And that they shaped, which is both free and fair. We do have much work to do, but there is a superabundance of goodwill.
We must strive and strive again to ensure that the first Australians never again feel like outcasts in their own country. And if we do, our parliament is at its best, our country is at its best and we are at our best.
Oh dear
Ok, so this speech started in the bunker, with a reference to legacy wars that noone is actually prosecuting. Now, Abbott is saying if we are to close the gap, Indigenous people must step up to the plate.
He’s absolutely right, progress can’t be mandated by government – but in my view, the tone here is abrasive and ill judged.
Speeches like this don’t happen in a vacuum. Indigenous people are angry at the prime minister for promising them attention and focus and then proceeding to cut budgets and run almost dead on indigenous recognition in the constitution.
Tony Abbott:
Government programs can be a catalyst, but success, where it is achieved, is due to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who want better for themselves. Governments can fund and governments can urge, but governments can’t change attitudes and behaviours.
It’s those who make the choice to send their children to school, those who make the choice to attend school and stick at it, those who make the choice to get a job and stick at it, and those who choose to abide by the law who are the ones closing the gap.
Closing the gap is not something that Canberra can do on its own. Closing the gap is not something to be granted by this parliament to indigenous Australians.
Closing the gap is to be grasped by them.
Updated
We are not on track to achieve most of the targets: Abbott
Abbott isn’t gilding the lily.
Much more work is indeed needed. Because this seventh closing the gap is report is in many respects profoundly disappointing. Despite the concerted efforts of successive governments since the first report – we are not on track to achieve most of the targets.
Tony Abbott addresses the parliament on closing the gap
The prime minister is making an address to parliament concerning the closing the gap report. I know what he means here in this opening of course, but it sounds a bit defensive. Who is playing legacy wars in Indigenous affairs right now? Perhaps I’m overthinking this.
Tony Abbott:
Improving the lives of Australia’s first people is a challenge beyond partisan politics. Two centuries of occasional partial success and frequently dashed hopes has taught us that neither side of politics can achieve meaningful progress without working with the other. So none of us should seek to score a point or defend a legacy here. Just to reach out across the aisle, because that is the only hope of lasting success.
Updated
Police are currently briefing the media about the terror raid in Sydney. I’ll double back when I can. My colleague Michael Safi has shared the police press release.
Here's the press release from police pic.twitter.com/TvIs3UTP8N
— michael safi (@safimichael) February 10, 2015
Exit: no way out
The treasurer departed the 3AW booth for a more dignified encounter with the assembled journalists. Unfortunately his staff placed the treasurer directly under the exit sign.
#pressadvisorfail Treasurer Hockey speaks to the media under an exit sign @murpharoo @GuardianAus #politicslive pic.twitter.com/wbfaZBahhl
— Mike Bowers (@mpbowers) February 10, 2015
Updated
Meanwhile, submarines remains a rolling debacle.
I'm told Prime Minister's National Security Adviser Andrew Shearer has met with Senator Edwards on whether PM's offer was a change in policy
— Kieran Gilbert (@Kieran_Gilbert) February 10, 2015
I have not verified this information from Sky News reporter Kieran Gilbert. But whether this information is correct or not doesn’t change the this morning’s helicopter call: submarines remains a debacle.
This post wasn’t an excuse just to run the video from backbencher Sean Edwards trying to explain what he thought the prime minister had said on submarines yesterday – but I think I’ll do it anyway.
One of these people is enjoying the current political climate more than the other.
Can you guess which one?
Clive Palmer on Joe Hockey.
Mansplaining.
The treasurer needs to get some proper advice. He can’t rely on treasury, they’re just after a money grab to save their own jobs. They will eat their own young, they will cut the wages of other public servants, anything at all. They’ve got no vision for this country.
He’s got no economic background, he’s never been in business to any extent, he’s never created any wealth for this country. So why does he want to destroy it?
Captain chaos
Politics is divided into people enjoying the current climate and people who are not enjoying the current climate. Clive Palmer is enjoying the current climate. Here he was, in the corridor just before, passing Queensland backbencher Mal Brough, a man he knows well.
Clive Palmer, to Brough:
Keep the chaos going Mal.
Mitchell plays Hockey a clip of Clive Palmer saying this morning he wasn’t interested in Hockey’s budget and the treasurer knew nothing about economics.
How about that?
Hockey:
He (Palmer) wants to borrow more money, he doesn’t have to pay it back. The Australian people have to pay it back.
Mitchell asks if Hockey is enjoying the job. He’s serving, he says, and he intends to keep going. People stop him on the street and say keep going, so he will.
Hockey is digging in behind the copayment, at least for wealthier people. Cleaners shouldn’t pay for rich people to go to the doctor, he says. The higher education reforms are good too, he thinks, or better in any case. It’s ok to spend on childcare, because that will boost participation.
Mitchell wants to know if there will there ever be a surplus?
We’ve been working towards a medium term date. I can’t specify a date because I can’t control external forces.
Will there be a small business tax cut? Yep, possibly before the budget, Hockey says. Will big business get a tax cut? Big busines will pay no more tax than they are paying now.
Let's play policy
The treasurer thinks people play politics in the building: polls and gossip. He wants them to play policy.
What have you done that’s hard, Neil wonders? Hockey says the government repealed the carbon tax. That wasn’t hard, Neil observes. How do you fix things?
Hockey:
We have to engage in a deeper conversation with the Australian people. The world is changing Neil, it is changing quite rapidly.
Mitchell says Abbott’s on six months notice, Hockey’s position is tenuous – has the government got the will to do something hard?
Hockey:
We’ve got the political will to do what is right for the nation.
Updated
3AW host Neil Mitchell is dragging Hockey behind the ute. Five minutes of different constructions of why are you silly and why are your colleagues coming after you and will you do the job long term (Hockey hopes to, but that’s up to the people), and why and why and why.
The current reports are just gossip, Hockey says. He doesn’t listen to gossip.
Hockey:
Someone has to make the right calls for Australia
Good morning treasurer, you’ve been Mitchelled.
Q: You’ve gone from rooster to feather duster in a very short time, why?
Joe Hockey:
Oh, that’s a bit unfair.
Updated
Malcolm Turnbull: I have complete confidence in Joe Hockey
The treasurer Joe Hockey is coming up shortly on 3AW. Stopped somewhere this morning, the man who is most assuredly still here, with his hand down, Malcolm Turnbull – is non-plussed at the notion he may be stalking Joe Hockey, or someone else might be stalking Joe Hockey in an effort to clear the path for him. News reports since the weekend have put Turnbull in the frame as an alternative treasurer to Hockey.
Turnbull has said this morning he has never suggested or asked that he be appointed treasurer, and the prime minister has never suggested to him that he be treasurer.
Malcolm Turnbull:
I have complete confidence in Joe Hockey.
Put up your hand if you are still here.
I have my hand down, but I’m here too.
On Sky News, Mal Brough, (the Queenslander who blew up last week on the copayment in order to presage the leadership discussion), is confident that the current differences between the prime minister and the treasurer can be bridged.
Brough:
I’m very positive we’ll achieve what Joe Hockey wants and what the prime minister wants.
How, exactly?
The health minister Sussan Ley is listening very closely to the doctors, he thinks. That will sort out the copayment problem.
Of course the greatest news of the day is completely outside politics. WE ARE GOING TO EUROVISION PEOPLE.
This didn’t take long.
Team Australia is ready for Eurovision #auspol pic.twitter.com/ze2zHyyN7N
— Torin Peel (@torin) February 10, 2015
(Given my absolute devotion to Eurovision, I was incredibly restrained in failing to mention this development until now.)
The Labor leader Bill Shorten started his speech at the breakfast with a reference to a rainbow, which is always a bit worrying if you are outside the Tuesday mums and babies session at Dendy. The rest of the speech sounded good – but I’m going to have to chase it, apologies, I was multi-tasking. I’ll bring you some of that when I can.
I note that Warren Mundine, who is the chairman of the prime minister’s handpicked advisory council on Indigenous affairs, has expressed some alarm over the data in this latest closing the gap.
Thanks to the ABC for this excerpt:
Warren Mundine, chairman of Abbott’s handpicked advisory council on Indigenous affairs, said Australia was going backwards in a number of very important areas. We have to turn that around now.
The life expectancy figures have only improved slightly over the past year, the early childhood target was not met, and there has not been any overall progress to halve the reading and numeracy gap for indigenous students. No progress has been made on halving the gap in Indigenous employment outcomes, but the Government has argued that is because figures have not been collected during the period of measurement.
Updated
The Daily Telegraph is pointing to terror related police raids in Sydney, yesterday, resulting in a court appearance this morning. There’s not much detail. If this is correct, I’m sure details will come to hand in the course of the day.
Tony Abbott addresses the closing the gap breakfast
The prime minister injects a personal note into his speech at the closing the gap function this morning. He says his approach to Indigenous engagement has been practical, personal and experiential.
Tony Abbott:
We’re not here today just because party politics or political advantage brings us here. We are here today as human beings, not as politicians. We are here today because our hearts tell us we need to be here because making a difference is something that is important, not just for us and our political advantage, it’s important for our country – for the honour, the decency and the long-term glory of our country.
That’s why we’re here. Many people in this room have been on a long journey. I know myself ever since entering this parliament I have been on a journey of understanding and increasing commitment.
And to the tin tacks on the benchmarks.
Abbott:
There is improvement but we have so much more work to do. Mortality rates are down, child and maternal health is improving, heart disease rates are down, and as Mick Gooda noted earlier, indigenous people are leading healthier lives. Smoking rates are down and in remote parts of our country community stores are now stocked with better food.
But good health depends upon so much more than just the best possible health services, important though they are. Good health takes place in a social context and if we are going to ensure that indigenous health approximates that of the Australian community, there is so much that has to be done across a whole range of policy areas.
Updated
Good to have friends in trouble times. The former treasurer and current Future Fund chairman Peter Costello is out this morning giving Hockey (or more likely the position Hockey is adopting in the current debate) some cover.
Costello has told The Australian the government has to live within its means.
We have to do this because the situation is going to get more challenging, and unless we get our expenses and revenue back in equilibrium now, those changes will completely break the budget and the country in the years ahead.
While Hockey is our moving current, the big set piece event of the day is the release of the closing the gap report – which charts a number of benchmarks concerning Indigenous Australians. Judging by the previews this morning, the news isn’t great. The prime minister and the opposition leader are in position at a breakfast associated with this report launch now.
Updated
Good morning and welcome to Wednesday. It might feel like Friday but it is, in fact, Wednesday.
It must feel like Friday for Joe Hockey, who keeps reading in the newspapers that various people want to throw him under the proverbial bus. Let’s make a couple of points and then attempt to look through the current chatter to the interesting point of substance.
Hockey has under-performed significantly in a portfolio which is always critical to the success or otherwise of the government of the day. He’s sloppy with detail, he’s woolly with messaging, and he presents as a person who is far too genial for the austerity message coming out of his mouth. There’s also an unflattering contrast between his loose performance and the tight messaging of the finance minister Mathias Cormann.
It’s obvious that his position is embattled. It has been embattled for some time. But by not shifting him, and waiting until his own leadership was plunged into crisis, Tony Abbott has lost some of the initiative here. If he moves Joe now, it won’t look like prime ministerial authority, it will present like weakness.
Enough punditry. Here is the substance. Abbott has been backing away from his budget nasties for some days, injecting deliberate ambiguity into what stays and what goes. Not Hockey. Last night on the ABC’s 730 Report:
Q: So just to be clear, are we persisting with those policies or changing course?
JOE HOCKEY:
Well, we are and we - we are, because we have no choice, Leigh. We have no choice. Economic growth is not going to deliver a surplus when Australia’s government starts to live within its means.
Hockey told colleagues in the party room yesterday if the government didn’t stand its ground on fiscal discipline then it would never deliver a surplus. All he’d admit on the ABC last night was the measures should have been staggered, not that the direction should change fundamentally.
He’s being the treasurer, in other words. He’s the one who has to get the budget numbers to add up. And while there’s a million shades of grey in this conversation, he’s at odds with the prime minister, who has a different objective right now. Abbott is trying to get the barnacles off faster that they adhere to his hull.
Lots on the go this morning. I’ll bring you up to speed on the other bits and pieces in the next post. Gather round the comments thread campfire. Shout at me on the Twits. You can find us there @murpharoo and @mpbowers
