Nighty night
Well folks that’s your lot for this evening. Let’s pause in one another’s company to take stock of the day.
Rather than catalogue, let me leave you with two impressions about Tuesday.
-
Tony (no wrecking, no sniping) Abbott today has made it much harder for Malcolm Turnbull to pursue even modest reform of negative gearing – and the failure of the finance minister Mathias Cormann this afternoon to countenance any notion of excesses in negative gearing gives you a signpost of where the debate is likely heading. Cormann doesn’t want to be stranded at the changing of the tide.
- The Greens are copping a major political bombardment on Senate voting reform. They must be feeling the heat. It will be interesting to see whether the government emerges with what it wants unscathed or whether its dancing partner will insist on various amendments courtesy of the various pressures being applied over the past few days. I’ll be interested to see how that all shakes out.
We won’t have to wait too long. Bits and pieces I suspect will be clear by the time we regroup in the morning. In the meantime, have a great evening.
Mathias “it’s not my portfolio” Cormann.
.@MathiasCormann says negative gearing is in @ScottMorrisonMP's portfolio - not his. @SkyNewsAust #pmagenda https://t.co/QfuC0pRqfN
— James O'Doherty (@jmodoh) March 1, 2016
Updated
The communications minister Mitch Fifield has replaced Cormann in the Sky News studio. He’s just declared himself ownership agnostic. What that means is he doesn’t care who owns the various media companies. Don’t care if Murdoch takes Ten, don’t care if Fairfax merges with the Nine Network. Ownership agnostic.
Q: Let the market rip in other words?
Mitch Fifield:
Let business take the decisions businesses need to make.
Over on Sky News, the finance minister Mathias Cormann is declining to say whether he thinks there are excesses when it comes to negative gearing. Political editor David Speers makes numerous attempts to extract an answer to that question. No dice. Cormann says Speers can put the question any way he likes but he’s not going to give a running commentary outside my portfolio. Hang on, Speers says, you are on the ERC, you are a treasury minister. No, says Cormann, expenditures are my thing, not tax.
Political blogger Paula Matthewson points out (and I’m grateful given my variable brain function) that in today’s Essential, health has taken over economic management as the number one issue facing voters.
- The most important election issues were ensuring the quality of Australia’s health system (43%), management of the economy (37%), Australian jobs and protection of local industries (35%) and ensuring a fair taxation system (29%).
- Liberal/National voters were more likely to think management of the economy (56%) was important.
- Labor voters were more likely to nominate the health system (49%) while Greens voters were more likely to nominate addressing climate change (41%), protecting the environment (40%) and treatment of asylum seekers (22%).
- The main change since this question was asked in November was for management of the economy (down 10%).
Sounds like a good time to cut hospitals funding and tell the states to fend for themselves. Not.
Updated
William Bowe in Crikey on Essential.
The normally placid Essential Research fortnightly rolling average records a rare two point shift on the two party preferred this week, which eliminates a settled 52-48 lead for the Coalition over previous weeks. Particularly remarkable is a three point increase in the Labor primary vote, from 35% to 38%, although the Coalition is down only one to 43%, and the Greens are steady on 10%.
Perhaps a shift is on. There are obvious reasons why a shift would be on, given the government’s recent underwhelming performance. There’s another obvious factor contributing to a tightening in the polls – the near constant speculation about early elections. Voters focus in proximity to election seasons, and generally polls tighten as a consequence.
But I’m still cautious myself. I’ll need a few more polls before I’ll be confident enough to say anything much at all.
Of course I’ve just found the poll, clearly I need a Bex and a lie down. As well as the deadlock on the two party preferred measure – 50/50, there are the usual bunch of questions.
Senate voting reform:
- 53% approve of the proposed changes to Senate voting and 16% disapprove. 30% could not give an opinion. There was majority support from both Liberal/National voters (71%) and Labor voters (52%).
Early elections:
- 56% favour holding the federal election later this year as scheduled and 23% think there should be an early election. Greens voters (35%) were more likely to favour an early election than Labor voters (23%) and Liberal/National voters (24%). Since this question was asked in September, there has been a shift toward holding an early election.
Essential 50/50
Normally the Essential Poll is out by this time on a Tuesday afternoon, but unless I’ve gone mad, I can’t find it. Crikey’s political editor Bernard Keane says it too (like the recent Newspoll) is 50/50 on the two party preferred vote. Crikey subscribers can read Bernard here.
A surge in Labor’s primary vote has eliminated the Coalition’s lead under Malcolm Turnbull, delivering the government’s worst result since the ousting of Tony Abbott, today’s Essential Report shows. .
Labor’s vote is up to 38%, its best performance since Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister, while the Coalition’s primary vote is down a point to 43%. With the Greens down a point to 10%, the two-party preferred outcome is 50%-50%, down from 52%-48% in the government’s favour last week.
The result suggests that last’s week 50-50 Newspoll, which initially looked like an outlier, in fact caught a palpable shift in the political mood beyond Canberra away from a government that has looked rattled and directionless under its new economic leadership.
Lenore Taylor has written some commentary post party room about Tony Abbott’s efforts to project Malcolm Turnbull back into his budget strategy – the one rejected by the voters.
Tony Abbott has confirmed the obvious. The backbench “revolt” over the Coalition’s tax policy has really been about trying to corral Malcolm Turnbull into repeating his predecessor’s rejected budget policy.
Because of course if Turnbull goes along with the “revolters” and rejects options to reduce tax concessions for the very rich, he will be left with the only other way to pay for anything he wants to do, without increasing the budget deficit. Spending cuts.
Recommended reading.
Just while I’m shifting gears, the world’s greatest environment minister, mid savannah update.
Further questions have been placed on the notice paper. Let me gather briefly and then I’ll be back for the rest of the afternoon.
Meanwhile, up the back.
Bill Shorten says Malcolm Turnbull has failed on eight occasions to rule out negative gearing changes. Could he finally bring the voters into his confidence? The prime minister says when the government has concluded its work, it will share the conclusions. In the interim the prime minister will reflect on the bizarre and anomalous outcomes associated with Labor’s negative gearing policy.
The environment minister Greg Hunt is invited to reflect on the general fabulousness of Direct Action. He is delighted to provide an update on savannah management.
I’ve just been back to a research paper from Ben Phillips at the ANU, who says in 2012-13, 1.2m people had negatively geared properties. Not quite two-thirds, 1.2m.
Christian Porter:
What we have here, Mr Speaker, is the idea, the idea that you can take the two thirds of Australians who have been receiving a tax benefit, make them pay more tax on housing, two thirds of Australians who were negative gearing, who earn under $80,000, make them pay more tax.
(Two thirds sounds rather high to me.)
Q: What are the excesses in negative gearing?
Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen, to the prime minister, who throws it to the social services minister.
Labor says, er wut, why would this question go to a minister without portfolio responsibility? Manager of government business Christopher Pyne says one of the delightful things about being a prime minister is you can throw questions wherever you want. Speaker Smith agrees.
Christian Porter moves to the dispatch box. He’d like to speak about housing affordability and rental affordability. And about a tax not being reform. (Which is a mildly brave line of argument, given the government will make some tax changes in due course and, I presume, will characterise that activity as reform.)
Treasurer Scott Morrison:
Mr Speaker, the minute you put the key in the door, it becomes an old property and you can’t sell it to one out of the three people who would have previously bought it. Under their [Labor’s] policy, it’s like driving a new car off the lot, Mr Speaker. They just have not thought it through.
(It really isn’t, but, by all means.)
A Dixer allowing the foreign minister to crow about Fury Road winning the technical Oscars yesterday. The Dixer was asked by Fiona Scott, the member for Lindsay.
Julie Bishop:
I know that the Member for Lindsay will be delighted with the success of this film for part of the post apocalyptic film was actually done in Lindsay in a sand mine – in a sand mine in Penrith Lakes.
A Dixer for the agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce to warn about how the tax office will be coming for family farms.
Then Labor asks whether the prime minister is hoping people don’t notice that he will not rule out retrospective changes to negative gearing?
The prime minister responds by talking about the bizarre and inequitable outcomes that will flow from Labor’s policy on negative gearing policy.
Green Adam Bandt.
Q: The safe schools program has been stopping bullying around the country and has helped many young people feel that they fit in. Prime minister, is your commitment to socially progressive values so skin deep that you will put young people’s welfare at risk and throw a successful anti-bullying campaign under a bus just because the bigots in the conservative brotherhood tell you to?
Bandt is told to withdraw the unparliamentary language. He withdraws.
Malcolm Turnbull:
Mr Speaker, every student, every child has the right to be safe at school, has the right to be safe at home. We have no tolerance for bullying of any kind. Let’s be quite clear about that. Bullying, whether it is in the classroom, whether it is on the bus, whether it is on the Internet, wherever it occurs, it is utterly unacceptable.
And it is unacceptable on whatever basis that bullying occurs, whether it is on the basis of a child’s sexual orientation, their perception of their sexuality, of their race, their gender, their religion, their appearance.
Turnbull says there have been complaints about Safe Schools. The government is conducting an independent review. The government will make the review public, judge the merits of the complaints.
We will be able to judge the merit of the criticisms and what, if any, steps should be taken consequent on the review. That is taking children’s rights seriously, it’s taking bullying seriously, it’s standing up for children.
Updated
Labor is persisting with ‘will the prime minister rule out retrospective changes to negative gearing’ – this time quoting George Brandis in the Senate yesterday, who said: “It has always been the position of Coalition governments to have an in principle opposition to retrospectivity.”
The prime minister says, look, we are having a debate about tax policy.
The government is considering these matters and considering them very carefully. We are taking the best advice and analysing the impacts of various proposed changes with great care and diligence.
And by the way, your policy sucks, Labor.
Bill Shorten is back.
Q: Today the former prime minister has shirt fronted the current prime minister over his lack of economic leadership. Will the current prime minister take up the former PM’s challenge and rule out retrospective changes to negative gearing.
This one is waved to the treasurer, Scott Morrison, who is digging out old quotes, before Labor resolved to adjust negative gearing, back when the policy was “not on our radar” according to Bill Shorten.
Scott Morrison:
It would seem, of course, the leader of the opposition is on a need to know basis when it comes to their policy.
On a roll here now in question time. The prime minister is currently explaining why there has never been a more exciting time deregulate media ownership.
Mr Speaker, governments have kicked the reform of these media ownership rules into the long grass for so long that they have formed part of the rich subsoil of Australian political inertia – and we are taking them out.
Malcolm Turnbull.
We know what those levers are and we are pulling them.
Question time
It being 2pm. The Labor leader is opening today on the nauseating exchange of compliments between Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull in the party room today.
Q: Today in the Coalition party room the former prime minister challenged the current prime minister over his lack of economic leadership. Will the PM finally show some leadership and rule out retrospective changes to negative gearing?
The prime minister thanks Shorten for allowing him to showcase the depth of experience on this side of the House. We are back in exciting times, and lever pulling, and the wanton destruction of the value of the family home.
Jane Norman from the ABC has tweeted that Cory Bernardi has been selected for one of the parliament’s prime junkets (sorry, study tours) – the three-month sortie to the United Nations. Just out of interest, the government MP who last went on this trip was Barry O’Sullivan, the LNP senator who used to make quite a sideline out of giving the HRC president, Gillian Triggs, an extremely hard time every time she crossed his path in an estimates committee.
Happy days.
Updated
Apologies I should have explained that last video: that’s Tony Abbott in response to the prime minister’s pep talk to the party room earlier today.
Clap along, if you feel, that happiness is the truth ..
The sound of half a hand clapping.
Applause for the PM in this morning's Coalition joint party room meeting. pic.twitter.com/zjGK4T02VY
— Adam Todd (@_AdamTodd) March 1, 2016
Updated
A nauseating exchange of compliments ..
My colleague Lenore Taylor is just back from the official briefing after the Coalition party room meeting.
The official briefer, outed earlier today as George Brandis by the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, told reporters the exchange between Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull was almost a love-in. It could perhaps be characterised as a slightly nauseating exchange of compliments.
Basically a number of MPs took the opportunity of today’s meeting to raise their concerns about the government fiddling with negative gearing. In the middle of that debate, Abbott made his contribution, which was, essentially, to remind colleagues of two truisms: the government had a spending problem and not a revenue problem. Abbott was cautious about going near negative gearing in part because of Malcolm’s brilliant attack on Labor’s policy.
The prime minister responded to this performance assessment by noting that leadership was about continuity and change – he said the government was continuing the budget strategy that Tony Abbott had so openly and courageously begun.
The prime minister apparently wound up by inviting the treasurer Scott Morrison to speak, noting the treasurer was handling a difficult debate really well. Morrison told colleagues the government was dancing on the top of pin head when it came to tax reform. Morrison noted that tax reductions could only come from another tax because spending reductions had to go to deficit reduction.
Which is a little different to Abbott’s version. In any case, a nauseating exchange of compliments. For your lunchtime reading.
Updated
Updated
Fifield is asked whether he’ll split the bill, given Labor will give him the reach rule but isn’t yet resolved to give him two out of three. The communications minister isn’t inclined to give up his leverage by letting Labor have a little think about things. Right now, the package is all or nothing.
Bundling up is a punt: the media companies want deregulation so they can get bigger. The current industry speculation is a Fairfax merger with the Nine Network and the Murdochs grabbing Network Ten.
The media bosses want it. Will Labor pick a fight with the media owners in the countdown to a federal election? Hence, we get this, from the communications minister.
Mitch Fifield
I think it’s important that it’s looked at as a whole package and it’s my intention to secure passage of this, as a package.
Updated
Fifield says this package protects diversity.
There are some organisations and people in the community who still maintain concerns about diversity and, for people who have those concerns, then we can direct them to the five four rule, we can direct them to the one to a market rule for TV, we can direct them to the two to a market rule for radio and we can also direct them to the ACCC provisions which remain in place – so we’ve taken an approach that we think would enjoy broad support.
What about TV license fees? Again, some background. Kerry Stokes (the Seven Network boss and owner of West Australian newspapers) wants relief from paying TV licence fees (in fact that seems to be Stokes’ only pointy issue in this media reform debate.) Fifield says wait ‘til the budget.
(I suspect we don’t have to wait. I’d be amazed if Kerry didn’t get what he wanted.)
Updated
The first question to Fifield is why is he not changing the anti-siphoning list? This is the regulation that reserves premium sport for free to air television.
Fifield says, because there’s not consensus. (Meaning because the voters would go nuts.) Some necessary background. Mr Murdoch would like more premium sport for pay television. He’s not going to get it before the election.
Updated
Fifield says the government will implement some new local content requirements (basically to placate the Nationals). He’s going through those in some detail now.
In summary this is good news for the media industry. It’s good news for consumers and it’s particularly good news for regional consumers.
(Not great news for diversity, but I won’t digress at this stage.)
Hang onto your hats. Here’s the communications minister, Mitch Fifield, who is deciding that today’s the day to deregulate media ownership laws.
Mitch Fifield:
The legislation that will be introduced into the parliament will abolish what’s known as the 75% audience reach rule, which prevents anyone from owning or controlling television licences which reach more than 75% of the Australian population.
The legislation will also abolish what’s known as the two out of three rule which prevents anyone from owning or controlling more than two out of three of the regulated traditional platforms of print, radio and TV in a radio licence area.
Updated
Foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop, on Abbott, in full.
Q: How did the party room respond when it came to Mr Abbott making comments about the budget and having to rein in spending?
Julie Bishop:
I think that what goes on in the party room is generally confidential and it’s briefed out formally by I think George Brandis so, on the assumption that George Brandis has briefed out what Tony Abbott said in the party room, it was well received.
The contributions of our colleagues are always well received.
We are a party of lower taxes, smaller governments and we’re trying to find savings to repair the budget. I recall very well being in the Howard government that delivered successive surpluses and then when Labor came into government and panicked in response to the global financial crisis and then blew the surplus and then built up the most extraordinary level of debt and deficit and we have to find our way to repair the budget and that’s what we’re doing – so all contributions from colleagues in the party room are well received.
Updated
Politics, this lunchtime
That’s some pincer movement: preference whisperer Glenn Druery wedged between Green Lee Rhiannon and Family First senator Bob Day.
This is my one and only shot at a lunchtime summary, so let’s crack on before the government unveils its media reform legislation before question time.
Today, Tuesday.
- As predicted, backbenchers, including the most famous backbencher currently at large, Tony Abbott, have confronted the prime minister over tax reform and budget strategy in today’s Coalition party room meeting. The foreign minister Julie Bishop has just been asked about the A-bomb in the party room. Assuming, she says, this intelligence has been delivered through the official lips of George Brandis at the official debriefing, Tony’s thoughts were well received. “All contributions from colleagues in the party room are well received,” Bishop notes, crisply, noting also the government has been in a constant process of fiscal consolidation since, well, the dawn of civilisation in September 2013.
- The JSCEM has held a blink and you’ll miss it inquiry into the government’s proposal to amend Senate voting procedures. The key points of that inquiry in my view: the AEC says it needs three months to get the new scheme in place, more if the bill is amended; and Nick Xenophon’s obvious positioning on fixing the disparity between voting practices above the line and voting below the line. I don’t know what the latter means yet but it’s interesting. Outside that inquiry, Labor is throwing everything but the kitchen sink in an effort to stop the reforms from proceeding.
-
Bill Shorten has confirmed that Linda Burney will run for the federal seat of Barton at the next election, and Malcolm Turnbull has said there’s never been a more exciting time to be alive provided that people don’t vote Labor at the coming poll and mess things up.
To media reform and more besides.
Updated
Through the actions of my mum and others, I think I avoided a monster ..
Shorten is asked about this morning’s evidence from Cardinal George Pell to the royal commission. (I haven’t caught up with that yet but we have been covering it live.)
The Labor leader says the evidence is personal. He feels he “avoided a monster” in his Melbourne parish.
Bill Shorten
In terms of some of the specific matters which have been asked of Pell, Cardinal Pell, it very personal because one of the terrible cases was a story from Sacred Heart and Oatley church in Melbourne and that used to be my parish.
The priest who went to jail who did terrible things which have caused such tragedy in the lives of families was my parish priest and, through the actions of my mum and others, I think I avoided a monster.
So I think that the church does need to respond fully.
Updated
The Shorten press conference is being replayed now. He’s been asked several questions on Senate voting reform. Shorten contends the Greens have been duped by the government and he warns of the risks of the Coalition getting control or defacto control of the Senate.
Updated
To Labor. Bill Shorten has held a media conference about Linda Burney, the current deputy leader in NSW, running for the federal parliament at the coming election.
I haven’t got to this news yet but this development was reported somewhere this morning, and Burney’s plan to run for Barton has been confirmed now.
If Burney succeeds she’ll be the first Aboriginal woman to sit in the House of Representatives.
Updated
JSCEM has finished its hearings. I’ll sum that up when I get to the lunch time summary (she says, optimistically, knowing the tidal wave about to hit between now and question time.) Now I need to catch up with various things in a more comprehensive way. Give me a minute, and I’ll be back.
More from party room. As we predicted ..
Complaints raised in Coalition party room about the tax reform process. Tony Abbott also urged lower taxes through lower spending
— David Speers (@David_Speers) March 1, 2016
There’s been a brief barney in JSCEM over whether Druery should have to disclose whether or not he’s paid for his advice on preference deals. A question about income was ruled out of order earlier, but government MPs on the committee think they’d like an answer to the question.
Back to JSCEM, Druery is insisting the Senate reform package will give the Coalition a blocking majority of 38 in some elections – as well as snuffing out the micro-parties. He thinks Nick Xenophon has taken an unfortunate decision in naming his political movement after himself: that increases the likelihood that the movement will extinguish itself once he retires.
Just by the by, the first reports, post Coalition party room, are beginning to lob in. Phil Coorey from the Financial Review.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott has raised the temperature inside the Coalition over tax reform by calling on Malcolm Turnbull to make tough decisions to cut spending if he wanted to fund tax cuts.
Mr Abbott, who as prime minister opposed tinkering with superannuation, negative gearing and the GST, told Tuesday’s weekly Coalition party room meeting “the only credible way to reduce taxes is to reduce spending”.
During discussion on tax reform, he said it was “time for the leadership to take on the savings challenge again”.
Lee Rhiannon is pressing Druery on the appropriateness of his conduct. Druery is inclined to give as good as he gets.
Glenn Druery
As I recall it was this so-called flawed electoral system that put you there in the first place.
The reality is you benefitted from a form of electoral subsidy – and now you want to pull up the draw bridge.
Green Senator Lee Rhiannon would like to know how many parties Druery has helped to set up. How many before the NSW election?
Glenn Druery
Look that was a long time ago, I don’t recall how many people I advised. It was a lot.
Pressed, he thinks about 40 parties.
Lee Rhiannon
Q: Were you paid to set up parties to funnel votes in group voting tickets?
The JSCEM chair rules that question out of order.
Updated
Druery says the current system has delivered diversity in the Senate. He says Ricky Muir is a real person and now he’s a senator. That trend should continue.
He’s challenged by the JSCEM chair, who says the reason people like Muir are in the Senate is a consequence of a bunch of highly complex preference deals. That’s right, isn’t it? Druery concedes the point.
Updated
Scott Mitchell has been excused at JSCEM and replaced by Glenn Druery, the artist both formerly and currently known as the preference whisperer. He says he starts up small parties, that’s his business. The major parties now seem to have a problem with smaller parties getting elected, he says.
Glenn Druery
It’s almost a form of school yard bullying.
He says the changes mean the only party that will be able to control the Senate in the future will be the Coalition. Labor, he contends, has no chance. This set of reforms will force Labor into a formal coalition with the Greens.
Updated
Tony Basil Nutt.
Scott Mitchell, the director of the National party, has replaced Nutt in the chair at JSCEM. David Leyonhjelm wants to know whether Mitchell is worried about the implications for the National party in the event it wants to run a separate Senate ticket to the Liberal party in some states, like it currently does in West Australia. You people might poll like a micro-party in that event, is Leyonhjelm’s point. Mitchell says he isn’t worried.
The minister who is not in the hearing, the special minister of state, Mathias Cormann, chimes in with the fob off from the Twitterverse.
People voting below the line already have the power to direct their preferences according to their wishes. Above the line they don't. #JSCEM
— Mathias Cormann (@MathiasCormann) March 1, 2016
Nick Xenophon is persisting in the hearing this morning asking witnesses whether or not the voting reform package could be amended to fix the current disparity between voting above the line and below the line.
Given he’s a supporter of the government’s proposal, it’s interesting how persistent he’s being with these questions. Nutt fobs him off, politely.
Labor senator Kim Carr asks Nutt whether there have been preference negotiations between the Liberal party and the Greens for inner city seats in the House of Representatives.
Nutt answers with a general formulation. It’s an election year ... parties have those discussions, he says.
Carr says this answer confirms preference negotiations have been a factor here.
Tony Nutt:
I’m not confirming anything, senator. That’s you trying to get something for the 12 o’clock news. Senator Faulkner used to do that too, he was just much better at it.
Updated
All the channel surfing required this morning is preventing me from catching some of the best lines of various proceedings. In the JSCEM, David Leyonhjelm has just asked a question about Antony Green. I think he was trying to discount one of his points on the basis of a legal action (but I didn’t hear the full exchange.)
Tony Nutt brushes this off. He notes that Green works for the ABC ..
... which, last time I looked, was not a lickspittle apologist for my party.
Updated
Meanwhile, a dispatch from the Coalition party room.
Reports from inside Coalition Party Room: Tony Abbott "laid down the challenge on tax". Calling on leadership to make savings not lift taxes
— Chris Uhlmann (@CUhlmann) February 29, 2016
Tony. Helping.
Meanwhile, Tony Nutt, in JSCEM.
The truth is only God and Malcolm Turnbull knows when the election will be, and neither have told me.
Meanwhile, the interwebz.
@mpbowers @murpharoo @GuardianAus enhanced for dramatic effect pic.twitter.com/ibwG7THcPr
— Ben Bowring (@BenBowring) February 29, 2016
The federal director of the Liberal party, who has just introduced himself as Tony Basil Nutt, is in the chair at JSCEM. Nutt is talking group voting tickets with Labor’s Stephen Conroy.
Stephen Conroy:
The total people who understand how the science and the maths [of group voting tickets] work is a very small number.
Conroy wants Nutt to nominate how many people he believes would understand the science of group voting tickets. Nutt agrees that would be a quite limited number.
Possibly just you and Gary Gray, seems to be Conroy’s inference. Nutt declines to be offended by what he calls a flick on the way through.
Busy morning, where are things up to?
While the JSCEM is on a tea break, a quick summary to take stock in the event you are just tuning in.
- Labor is intensifying the push back to Senate voting reform. A short committee hearing this morning has heard evidence from the AEC that it will take three months to implement the new system – longer if the bill gets amended in the parliament (which is of course consequential in the event the government wants to launch a double-dissolution election just after the budget.)
- Government MPs have gone into their party room meeting and been treated with a pep talk from the prime minister, who is excited about everything except the possibility that Labor wins the election and kills the property market. We anticipate various people will raise their concerns about the government’s absent tax policy in this morning’s meeting.
- And Tony Abbott forgot he was the prime minister and could have killed the safe schools program when he told the Australian today that the program his government implemented should now be scrapped.
And on we go.
Updated
Portrait of an excitement machine.
Updated
Behind you. Cory, behind you.
Updated
Meanwhile, sitting up the back of the party room.
Updated
Antony Green and Stephen Conroy are engaged in a willing discussion about the merits of voting above the line.
Conroy points out that many people are happy to vote above the line and the party’s preference deals are publicly available for people who want to be very clear about the implications of their vote.
Green says people vote above the line because it is too complex to vote below the line.
Antony Green
You have been herding people above the line for the last three decades! It’s a herding process to make people vote above the line.
Updated
Mackerras.
The [Senate voting] system is unconstitutional!
Q: And has been since 1984?
Yes.
Back to the JSCEM. Malcolm Mackerras is fomenting revolution. He says senators must challenge this new Senate voting regime if it happens to pass the parliament. He says the system being proposed is the worst of all worlds.
Have a system based on principle. Have a decent system. It will get a good reputation. Let the chips fall where they may.
Updated
Excitements and filibusters
Turnbull has a section in this morning’s pep talk on Senate reform. The government is trying to put choice in the hands of the people, while Labor wants to keep power with the power brokers, the prime minister says.
Now the Labor party supported these changes, as you know in the unanimous joint standing committee recommendation sometime ago that Tony Smith so ably chaired. And now, for pure political purposes because they see a tactical advantage, they are filibustering in the Senate and standing in the way of this reform!
Labor is standing in the way.
Then back to the excitements + naughty Labor.
We have a strong case because what we offer Australians is a clear vision, a clear vision with every measure, every policy counting towards the achievement of the great jobs, the great opportunities of the 21st century.
These are the most exciting times to be alive. This is the most exciting time to be an Australian but we need the vision, the plans, the measures to take us there. We have them and Labor’s answer is simply to stand in the way of that progress.
Updated
Meanwhile, the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, is delivering a pep talk to the Coalition party room with cameras present. He’s in ‘I’m the innovation prime minister’ mode.
There is much ‘hear hearing’ from the colleagues.
Malcolm Turnbull
We know these are the most exciting times! We’ve got to have the right policies to deal with it.
Labor – well they are standing in the way of the new economy, and sinking the value of the family home.
Updated
Stephen Conroy asks Green about a blog post where he suggested the new system would be beneficial for the Coalition and for Nick Xenophon. He’s not inclined to repeat that here. Green notes the last election is hard to model because of the large number of candidates.
Ricky Muir in this morning’s committee hearing, with a couple of crossbench friends. Things that make you go hmmmm.
Updated
Up now at JSCEM we have professor George Williams, the ABC’s election analyst Antony Green, psephologist Malcolm Mackerras and Kevin Bonham from the University of Tasmania.
Each are making opening statements.
Williams says the Senate voting system needs reform but this bill only does half the job. He outlines his argument about the disparity between above the line and below the line being a problem. Optional preferential should apply for at least six below the line, Williams says, both as a point of principle and also to ensure the new regime can’t be challenged in the high court.
Green agrees the disparity could allow a foot in the door for a high court challenge. He says it’s good action is being taken to reform the system, but it should have happened sooner.
Mackerras is back with Doc Evatt, and in the present with the big party conspiracy, and Gary Gray’s dummy spit. He says he looks forward to the inevitable high court case with both fear and delight.
That’s a tough act to follow for Kevin Bonham but he’s cracking on on a crackly line from Tasmania. No, the line is lost. The committee will have to call him back.
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Meanwhile, outside the building.
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LDP senator David Leyonhjelm wonders when Tom Rogers’ “three months” clock starts? Now, or when the bill is passed?
Not now, says the commissioner.
Until the legislation passes it is difficult for us to implement it.
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The electoral commissioner is asked about a submission from Michael Maley, a former AEC official.
Maley argues in his submission to JSCEM the scheme proposed will create an anomaly never previously seen at Senate elections – identical preferences for candidates may produce a formal vote if the elector expresses them “above the line” but an informal one if they are expressed “below the line” because the ballot paper would be insufficiently completed.
Stephen Conroy asks whether the commissioner accepts that Maley has expertise in this field.
Tom Rogers
He absolutely does.
So it he right?
Rogers says Maley has expressed a number of different views in his submission. He says he has no view on his political statement about the dichotomy above and below the line.
I have no view on that.
Rogers says the AEC will be advising Australians to lodge a formal vote.
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Nick Xenophon wants to know how difficult it would be to amend the bill to fix the problems a couple of experts have raised – the disparity between practices above the line and below the line.
As constitutional law expert George Williams put it:
In particular, introducing optional preferential above-the-line voting, while retaining full preferential voting for below the line, creates an obvious and unfortunate disparity. The result will be a system in which below-the-line voting is significantly more onerous, thereby privileging the party-selected voting tickets applied in the case of an above-the-line vote.
The AEC officials don’t know how complicated this would be because they haven’t considered it. Can you consider it, Xenophon wants to know. Be good if you could.
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Crossbencher Ricky Muir isn’t convinced the AEC will have the time it needs to get the change implemented.
Tom Rogers repeats his advice that three months is the minimum.
If the bill changes significantly I will need to review that. If we don’t get the time we need and the funding we need its going to be very difficult to implement.
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Conroy has asked AEC officials for all written correspondence with the government on the bill. The officials have taken that on notice. Going to be a big night for JSCEM. A report from this committee is due to be tabled first thing tomorrow morning.
The electoral commissioner is telling the committee if this legislation becomes law, the AEC will run another voter education campaign to ensure people understand the changes.
Tom Rogers
We will be seeking additional funding. We are working with finance at the moment on those costs.
The commissioner declines to share the dollar figure he’s seeking because it contains a commercial-in-confidence element.
Labor’s Stephen Conroy asks who identified flaws in the bill when it was introduced last week in the House of Representatives. The government had to bring forward amendments to the bill to make sure Senate votes were counted on election night.
The AEC says it wasn’t them. Who was it? Was it finance? Ah, finance is not here, goes the Conroy riff.
While I’m listening to this, Andrew Probyn from the West Australian this morning has unearthed what looks like material for the shadow cabinet deliberations on Senate voting reform. Advice from David Feeney (called in by the Labor leader Bill Shorten to try and resolve the internal row between Stephen Conroy and the shadow special minister of state Gary Gray) indicated the reforms proposed by JSCEM would “heighten the risk of a government Senate majority.”
Andrew Probyn:
Similarly, a report by Paul Erickson, the assistant national secretary of the ALP, concludes that “over two election cycles, this scenario would see the coalition win control of the Senate following the second election”.
The electoral commissioner Tom Rogers has been asked by the Family First Senator Bob Day for his assessment of the policy change on voting behaviour. He declines to speculate about that.
Meanwhile, outside the building.
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Labor’s deputy Senate leader, Stephen Conroy, is leading the questioning at the moment in the JSCEM on the Senate voting package. It’s taken about four goes to get an answer to the question, when did the AEC first get consulted on the bill? The answer is the AEC’s legal counsel saw a draft version on February 11 (but the organisation provided input via the department of finance earlier on.)
Conroy notes that he’d like to seek clarification from the department of finance but officials have not been permitted to attend today’s hearings.
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The hearing on Senate voting reform is kicking off now with officials from the Australian Electoral Commission. The AEC is telling the committee it will need three months to roll the new system out. If the bill changes, it might take longer than three months.
I’ve just got one thing to say about Abbott on Safe Schools. Tony Abbott was the prime minister for two years. He’s not a bystander. If he had such a problem with this program, why did he consent to continuing to roll it out?
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There’s also this. The former prime minister Tony Abbott has called for the immediate defunding of the Safe Schools program, saying it goes beyond its scope as an anti-bullying initiative. Abbott spoke to the Australian newspaper on Tuesday.
“It’s not an anti-bullying program,” he said. “It’s a social engineering program. Its funding should be terminated.”
Abbott is the latest conservative member of the Coalition to speak out against the initiative, which aims to stamp out homophobia and transphobia in schools.
Top of the morning to you
Hello lovely people and welcome to Tuesday in Canberra, where there is scattered cloud, blue skies and lashings of contention.
With the government now sprinting in the direction of pushing Senate voting reform through the parliament with the support of the Greens and Nick Xenophon, Labor is attempting to slam on the brakes. Labor’s Senate leader, Penny Wong, has been on the ABC already criticising the Greens for participating in a strategy that looks very likely to smooth the path to a double-dissolution election, which could see the abolition of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation if the government chooses to invoke one of its previously stashed triggers.
The government’s voting reform package will this morning be the subject of a quick sticks inquiry by the joint parliamentary committee on electoral matters – a process that was compared in the Senate by Labor’s deputy leader Stephen Conroy last night to a sham process in Stalin’s Russia. (I did give you that weather forecast first up. Blustery.)
With resistance to the reform model building, the finance minister and special minister of state, Mathias Cormann, has been deployed this morning as the cooler on the wireless. Sure these are the biggest changes to the Australian voting system in 30 years and, sure, today there will be a four-hour inquiry to examine them, but this is all fine. Cormann says the government is proceeding with 85% of the recommendations of a previous inquiry by the joint committee on electoral matters. He says the government is intent on ensuring voters have the ultimate say with their Senate vote. He says Labor used to support this proposal but now it doesn’t. He says Labor’s national secretary, George Wright, isn’t even appearing at today’s hearing.
ABC Radio National host Fran Kelly puts to Cormann the government is flat out creating an impression it’s on an inelegant sprint to a double dissolution election, never mind the technicalities, like whether its current voting reform proposal creates a whole set of new problems (as some legal experts suggest it does.)
Mathias Cormann:
We don’t accept that at all.
The JSCEM inquiry kicks off shortly after 8, and I’ll cover as much of that as I can consistent with the other thundering madness of the political day.
Lots more on the go – we expect backbenchers to raise concerns in the Coalition party room today about the current government vacuum on tax policy and the industrial-sized hints that the government might do something on negative gearing. There are reports that the government’s media reform package will also go to the party room today.
Let’s power on, the comments thread is open for your business. We are also up and about on the Twits – Mikearoo is at @mpbowers and I’m @murpharoo
Construct a sound barrier, a bunch of cardboard boxes in a dome shape is fine, I suspect you might need it.
Here comes Tuesday.
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