Good night and keep on Trussing
After that late flurry, I think we can fold the Politics Live tent for today. We need to be bright eyed and bushy tailed for the morrows, so rest up.
Let’s recap today, Wednesday.
- Today Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten spoke about Indigenous affairs after the new, annual, closing the gap report indicated we’d made very little progress on addressing entrenched disadvantage.
- Two senior players, the Nationals leader Warren Truss and the trade minister Andrew Robb, are expected to announce their respective intentions to retire from politics tomorrow.
- Labor kept up its pursuit of Stuart Robert over his trip to China, and we are likely to learn his fate tomorrow when the prime minister is expected to be given a report from his departmental head advising him whether or not there’s been a breach of the ministerial code of conduct.
- Labor’s deputy leader Tanya Plibersek gave a significant speech outlining her approach in her foreign affairs portfolio. In the process, she signalled a new direction in settling the disputed maritime boundary with Timor Leste, and also parted ways with the shadow defence minister Stephen Conroy about whether Australia should be more upfront about freedom of navigation exercises in the South China sea.
- The tax commissioner used senate estimates to read the riot act to a bunch of multinational companies about paying tax; and the chief scientist used his appearance to be critical about the CSIRO quitting climate science research.
Thanks for reading. See you in the morning.
All of these events, of course, clear the way for Malcolm Turnbull to embark on a frontbench reshuffle that he’s had on ice while waiting for Truss to outline his future intentions.
Today's later breaker in three points
Because the last thirty minutes or so have been very choppy in a reporting sense, and respecting the fact some readers will be just tuning in, let me recap our late breaker.
Tomorrow, Thursday, we expect the following things to happen.
- We expect that the trade minister Andrew Robb will announce his intention to retire from politics. We do not expect him to depart the frontbench immediately.
- We expect the Nationals leader Warren Truss will map out a timetable for his future. The smart money is on Truss retiring – a move that will spark what could be a fun times leadership transition in the junior coalition partner – but I don’t know that with certainty at this stage.
- We are also expecting a report from the secretary of the department of prime minister and cabinet about whether or not Stuart Robert has breached the ministerial code of conduct when he travelled to China with a mining friend to witness a commercial agreement in some as yet ill-defined personal capacity.
On Sky News now, the cabinet secretary Arthur Sinodinos has confirmed that Warren Truss will make a statement about his future tomorrow. He says it’s been known for some time that Andrew Robb did not intend to re-contest his seat at the coming election, so the statement tomorrow will clarify his intentions.
We are all still in information gathering mode. It looks highly likely (at this stage) that we will have the results of the Parkinson inquiry into Stuart Robert tomorrow.
I understand Andrew Robb has decided to retire from politics, however the timing of his departure from the frontbench is still unclear. A source close to Robb said he would “stay in the ministry until a later date.” As for Warren Truss, there’s no confirmation about his intentions, one way or the other. Warren likes to keep us guessing.
Daniel Hurst has confirmed the Robb story is correct. Robb is retiring. We are chasing further details.
Movement at several stations?
We have breaking news this afternoon. Phil Coorey from The Australian Financial Review is pointing to tomorrow being a super Thursday. We’ve been waiting for the National leader Warren Truss to clarify his future. Coorey is reporting that the trade minister Andrew Robb may join Truss in announcing his retirement from politics – as early as Thursday.
And we might also get the Parkinson review. Which could mean a reshuffle on Friday.
All speculative right now. Buckle in.
Thank you to Naomi Woodley from the ABC for catching this brief statement after question time when I was preoccupied with the travails of Stuart Robert.
Labor's Gary Gray is speaking in the House abt the deaths of Adam Coleman & Dean Lucas in Mexico last year. The Mexican Ambassador is here.
— Naomi Woodley (@naomiwoodley) February 10, 2016
Gary Gray says the men's families thank the Mexican government for being "supportive & co-operative & never shying away from the horror".
— Naomi Woodley (@naomiwoodley) February 10, 2016
Gary Gray also offers the Coleman & Lucas families thanks to Julie Bishop & Michael Keenan and DFAT & the AFP.
— Naomi Woodley (@naomiwoodley) February 10, 2016
Here is Gary Gray afterwards with the ambassador and the foreign minister Julie Bishop, a lovely picture from Mike Bowers.
As well as recording this event, Magic Mike and I are sending love in this post to Jane Cattermole, a great friend of Politics Live, who was impacted by this tragedy.
Because I have a little bit of time, I want to share some broader thoughts on the Stuart Robert fracas, at the risk of becoming a broken record on the subject of political reform.
Late last year, Jonathan Green, the editor of Meanjin, very kindly invited me to write an essay about whether Malcolm Turnbull could change the state of our politics. A number of people have read the essay, and contributed their thoughts on social media, which has been marvellous. If you haven’t read it and you’d like to, here’s a link. If you are in Canberra, and you are interested in this topic, I’ll be hosting an event on this theme later in the month. You can find details for that here.
My thesis in that Meanjin piece is we need to get serious about political reform on several fronts. We have to consider ways of stopping the current cycle of politicians chasing money. We have to look at reforms to the donations and disclosure regime to ensure people know what’s going on in a timely fashion. And we have to consider ways of bringing the public in to decision making, rather than locking up the reform conversation as a transaction of appeasement between special interests.
So how does this relate to Stuart Robert?
Well, riding shotgun to a major political donor during one of his business transactions in China, in some ill-defined private capacity, to my mind at least, is a symptom of a system where the inhabitants don’t quite know where to draw the lines. It suggests there’s not enough clarity of purpose and rigour in the system. Whether Robert ultimately stays in a ministry or whether he goes, this broader observation will remain valid.
We need to view these case studies as small systemic cries for help, a bit like the case study the former Speaker Bronwyn Bishop, supplied, when she thought it was ok to charter a helicopter at taxpayer expense to fly from Melbourne to Geelong. And we mustn’t waste opportunities to ask politicians to act on the systemic problems as well as clean up individual messes that periodically arise. Because when these things happen –the periodic imbroglios over entitlements and relationships with donors, politicians just go into fire fighting mode, the only imperative is shut down the controversy, and move on as quickly as possible. It’s a recipe for nothing ever changing.
So, in a sense, I don’t really care if Stuart Robert remains in the ministry or not. I care more about whether this latest example of misplaced priorities from a parliamentarians can lead to more serious consideration of institutional and cultural change.
Shadow attorney general Mark Dreyfus has taken it outside. He’s in the courtyard talking to the cameras. What else does the prime minister need to know, he wonders? What more information do you need in order to sack Stuart Robert?
As Mr Bowers so neatly terms it, Stuart Robert, walking the green pile.
Further questions have been placed on the notice paper. I’ll be back shortly with pictures and particulars.
Manager of opposition business, Tony Burke, seconding the motion.
He needs to be sacked, everybody knows it. But the prime minister can’t make a decision!
Christopher Pyne:
I move the member be no longer heard.
Bill Shorten:
It is time for this do nothing prime minister to do something. We must sack the minister!
Manager of government business, Christopher Pyne.
I’ll put the leader of the opposition out of his misery. I move the member be no longer heard.
Speaker Smith is not amused. He advises Pyne to leave off the commentary.
Shorten is now launching into a suspension of the standing orders, which culminates in censuring the prime minister for failing to sack Stuart Robert.
Is that the time? Here comes the censure motion.
Bill Shorten is back wondering whether the prime minister is too arrogant to sack his minister while the parliament sits?
The Speaker Tony Smith thinks that’s a bit rude.
The prime minister says won’t detain the House by repeating his last answer, but then proceeds to repeat it.
And he ends with a zinger.
The leader of the opposition is as convincing in his indignation as he was in his defence of the lettuces of Australia.
‘Now, Stuart.’ A shepherd, tending his flock.
Bill Shorten takes his turn now. He’s back with the ministerial code. Given there’s a breach of the code, Shorten reasons, why hasn’t the prime minister sacked the minister?
Malcolm Turnbull says, because, well, the Parkinson review. Which you keep referencing. Bill.
The prime minister, who doesn’t approve of this pumped up indignation, yet remains genial in the face of it, chortling, to better project his profound non-concern with this small controversy .. offers the following:
Dr Parkinson will complete his inquiry and when he does I will review it and obviously the House will be very well aware of the conclusions I will make.
Dreyfus is persisting. What has Robert given to the Parkinson inquiry? Has the minister provided the Parkinson inquiry with a copy of the letter of appointment he presented to an official of a state Chinese state-owned company? Will the minister also provide this letter to the parliament?
No comment.
Stuart Robert:
I thank the honourable member for his question and I refer him to my response yesterday.
Third question on Robert. Mark Dreyfus says the holding line is insufficient because the short statement the minister has given to parliament contains no particulars.
Q: I refer to the minister’s previous answer. The minister has referred the parliament to his statement yesterday, given that his statement was silent on what would be provided to the Parkinson inquiry, will he now answer the question: has the minister provided the Parkinson inquiry with evidence that proves that at the time he undertook his trip to China, the minister paid for his own flights, accommodation, internal travel and incidentals?
Nope, nope, nope.
Stuart Robert:
I thank the member for his question and I refer the member to my previous response yesterday.
The second question on Robert. Still on the theme of assisting the Parkinson inquiry.
Q: Has the minister provided the Parkinson inquiry with evidence that proves that at the time he undertook his trip to China the minister paid for his own flights to and from China, accommodation in China, internal travel in China and incidentals, including meals in China? Will the minister also provide this evidence to the parliament?
No, he will not.
Stuart Robert:
I thank the member for his question and I refer the member to my response yesterday.
We are back now to Stuart Robert. The shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus wants to know whether Robert is providing assistance to Turnbull’s departmental head by informing him that he met a Chinese minister while on holidays in Beijing, and was accompanied to that meeting by a representative of Nimrod Resources.
Q: Will he also give that information to the parliament?
No, Robert will not.
Stuart Robert:
Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I thank the member for his question and I refer the member to my previous answer yesterday.
Clive Palmer decides today is a day to troll the government on the lack of women’s representation. Where are all the women, Malcolm, is a paraphrase of the Palmer question. Don’t they have merit?
The prime minister notes he is concerned for the women who have lost their jobs in one of Palmer’s businesses, Queensland Nickel.
Malcolm Turnbull:
The honourable member for Fairfax should consider his responsibilities to those men and women when he - when he raises issues of this kind.
(A government backbencher was just turfed by the Speaker, Tony Smith, for making precisely this point.)
Morrison: why wouldn't we look at negative gearing?
Back to question time now.
Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen is attempting to bait the treasurer Scott Morrison.
Q: My question is to the treasurer. Last year when asked about changing negative gearing, the treasurer replied: “No, I don’t think we should change it.” Is that still the treasurer’s position?
Morrison is slightly between rock and hard place here. Morrison is the self appointed champion of the strivers. But the government right now is clearly considering winding back the generosity of current negative gearing concessions.
Scott Morrison:
If there are areas where the system is being abused or where they’re excessive and there’s away to channel that sort of high end investment into other areas, Mr Speaker, of course the government would look at those things.
Why wouldn’t the government look at those things?
(The eternal why, right there. Except this is a new construction from the treasurer.)
Tax commissioner reads the riot act to multinationals
Sorry we need to cut into question time with some breaking news in another forum. Tax commissioner Chris Jordan says he has run out of patience with multinational companies using “over the top excuses” to “string along” the tax department and “game the system” – promising more legal action and a “much harder stance” to force them to pay tax in Australia.
“The excuses we hear from these companies are frankly over the top,” Jordan told a Senate estimates committee, acknowledging he was responding to deep public concerns about revelations of tax avoidance and profit shifting by major corporations.
Chris Jordan:
How is it possible that companies known for their new-age technology and innovative products and services, fail to be able to furnish us with basic reports showing their business structures, their profits, how much tax they’ve paid and where. Their clear tactic is to delay and obstruct. They game the system. They even have the gall to complain that we are uncooperative and unreasonable simply because we don’t agree with them or their advisors on what are, at times, quite outlandish claims.
These companies have pushed the envelope on reasonableness – they play games, they string us along, they believe we can be stooged. Enough is enough. No more. We will be reasonable with those that genuinely cooperate, but we will now take a much harder stance on those who do not. We will not be rolling over and giving further extensions of time. We are ruling the line under these protracted negotiations and proceeding immediately to raise assessments and create liabilities on these cases –potentially taking them all the way to court if necessary.
Question time
Here we go, the hour of glower.
Labor opens on the government’s secret plan to privatise Medicare. The one it flagged in 2014.
Q: This morning it was revealed in senate estimates committee that the prime minister has established a 20-person taskforce at a cost of $5m to taxpayers to oversee his radical plan to privatise Medicare. Isn’t this just another case of the PM saying one thing and doing something completely different?
The prime minister says this secret plan to privatise government service delivery was hiding in plain sight in the 2014-15 budget.
Malcolm Turnbull:
There was an expression of interest issued or called for in August 2014, and the current request for quotations are all part of a carefully considered approach. Any outsourcing would only apply to back office operations and the administrative actions of making payments to individuals and providers. It doesn’t include setting fees or rebates and it doesn’t have any impact on the cost of health care,other than that it may result in services being delivered more efficiently.
Just an inflection on the South China Sea issue and Plibersek’s reluctance at the press club to endorse announcements about Australia’s exercises because they might be seen as deliberately provocative.
This is shadow defence minister Stephen Conroy last month, saying the opposite:
Firstly, Australia currently has ships and planes that engage in activities across this region, but neither the prime minister nor the defence minister will actually state what they’re doing. In fact recently – as I’m sure you heard, and your listeners heard – a BBC recording was made of China challenging an Australian plane that wasn’t, we understand, within any disputed territorial waters.
So the first thing is, why are the government hiding what activities our planes and our ships are engaged in? I don’t understand why the Australian government refuses to outline to the Australian public what activities our military assets are engaged in. Why are we hiding it, why won’t we talk about it?
Delighted to meet with @KristinDavis today to discuss her work in UNHCR and raise awareness of the IWill campaign pic.twitter.com/dTPAmcPpEn
— Michaelia Cash (@SenatorCash) February 10, 2016
We also have a special guest in the parliament today – Kristin Davis of Sex in the City fame. Davis is a refugee advocate working with the UN.
Look where I am! Parliament House, Canberra, AU with @UNrefugees #UNHCR @Refugees pic.twitter.com/7f5DDBCfUP
— Kristin Davis (@KristinDavis) February 10, 2016
Because I need some Magic Mike to power me through question time. Estimates, in two pictures. The defence secretary Dennis Richardson.
Reaction has started pouring in on today’s Closing the Gap progress report. Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander community leaders have welcomed the prime minister’s commitment to talking to and collaborating with Indigenous people.
“We really need to hear the voices of our people,” co-chair of the Close the Gap committee, Jackie Huggins, said. “We are decent, dignified human beings; we expect the best and we expect what is afforded to other people in this country.”
But Huggins expressed frustration at the slow progress in reaching critical health, education and employment targets. “We are sick and tired of going to funerals on a very regular basis. We want it to stop for our people,” she said. She warned Malcolm Turnbull that Indigenous Australians would “hold him to his word” on his pledge to improve the lives of the nation’s first peoples.
Labor acknowledged that there were “areas of profound disappointment” in the report, but urged the government to put money towards implementing a plan on improving Indigenous people’s health. It continued its push for a new target on lowering the number of Indigenous people in jail. “We walked free, once many years ago in this country, but now my mob are locked up,” Aboriginal senator, Nova Peris, said.
Updated
And that’s a wrap at the press club.
A quick performance assessment. We need to appraise because Plibersek is a future leadership contender for the Australian Labor party, and she’s very rarely tested. So here’s my thoughts. Strong speech, well articulated. It would have taken a deal of preparation and thought. Questions and answers mainly fine. Small but perceptible wobble on the South China Sea answer, which is odd. That’s the question that she should have prepped for with that speech and in this forum. Really not the question you want to wobble on.
Question time is beckoning. Pop the kettle on everyone, there’s just time to freshen the pot.
Plibersek gets a follow up question on the Palestine debate at the NSW Labor conference. She repeats what she said before about trips being beneficial, and hoses down the idea that this will be a big noisy stoush. (If this follows usual practice, there will be a significant amount of arm twisting and bartering and a joint motion with cross factional support will ultimately be put and carried. But maybe this one will be different.)
David Speers from Sky News invites Plibersek to have a crack at Russia in the current airstrikes in Syria. She ponies up on that one.
I think that moderate groups are deliberately being targeted by the Russians to strengthen the hand of the Assad government. I think the Russians would prefer the West to be making a choice between the Assad government and IS with no middle way.
Q: Would she support partition?
No, she would not.
Where would you even begin to draw the borders?
Mark Kenny from Fairfax invites Plibersek to disavow Australia’s current military contribution in Iraq. Unsurprisingly, she declines to disavow.
I think we have a monstrously complex situation but I continue to believe that the threat from IS or Daesh in attacking civilians across the border into Iraq justifies our engagement.
Peter Hartcher, Sydney Morning Herald.
Q: Should the Australian navy and air force conduct and announce regular freedom of navigation exercises within the twelve nautical-mile territorial limit on disputed territories and reefs in the South China Sea?
Well, Peter, as you would know, the Australian navy has often sailed through these areas and we urge the Australian navy to continue the practice that it has followed in this area.
Q: Announcements, though?
We don’t think it’s useful to raise tension s in the sense that sometimes announcements can be perceived as deliberately provocative so you’d have to take a case-by-case approach depending on the mission you were talking.
(Sail by quietly? Not entirely convincing, that answer.)
Into questions now.
Andrew Tillett from the West Australian.
Q: I want to ask you about at the Labor party, your branch of the Labor party’s conference this weekend there will be a debate on Israel and Palestine including a motion that MPs and other Labor identities be banned from taking sponsored travel to Israel. Could it be a compromise that if you go to Israel you have to spend half the time also in Palestine? TheWA Labor party branch has had a motion of its own put up through its channels that if an MP takes a visit to Palestine the MP has to spend 50% of their time in Israel. I was wondering what’s your take on all this? And also, too, if you could explain what your response is to the view that Labor policy on the Israel-Palestine questions being more overly influenced by electoral considerations in Sydney?
Thank you for that question, Plibersek says, not meaning that in the slightest. She says she expects “a reaffirmation of our position from the national conference which says that we support, of course, a two-state solution.”
Then on the trips:
The second issue, the one that you’ve raised specifically, is about trips to Israel and Palestine. Look, I think it’s a wonderful opportunity for members of parliament and for others to visit Israel and the Palestinian territories. I think it’s great. I don’t actually think you can really understand the geography, how close people live, how intertwined the communities are until you have visited so I’m a great supporter of people visiting.
Some context around this announcement from Plibersek. Timor-Leste last year announced it would resume a formal challenge against a 2006 oil and gas treaty that became mired in controversy following claims Australia bugged the cabinet room in Dili to gain the upper hand in negotiations.
But the government of Timor-Leste withdrew an International Court of Justice case against Australia relating to evidence it said was wrongly seized by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) in raids in Canberra in December 2013.
Plibersek has now called for a resolution, noting Timor-Leste had suffered decades of war and starvation and Australia’s role in securing the country’s independence was “a proud moment for many Australians”.
Timor-Leste has said it remained willing to resolve the dispute directly with Australia even as it launched new arbitration proceedings in September last year. Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, and the attorney general, George Brandis, have previously said they were disappointed with the decision and they would prefer to resolve the issue “through dialogue rather than legal action”.
Plibersek flags submission to international adjudication to settle the maritime boundaries between Australia and Timor
Picking up this theme, some news on Timor-Leste.
Tanya Plibersek:
Australia regularly calls on other countries to abide by international laws and to settle disputes in line with the rules-based system. If we want to insist that other nations play by the rules, we also need to adhere to them.
We have a good record of doing so but not a flawless one.
Timor-Leste suffered decades of war and starvation before gaining independence. Australia played a key role in securing that independence, a proud moment for many Australians.
The maritime boundary dispute has poisoned our relations with our newest neighbour. This must change for their sake and for ours.
A Shorten Labor government will redouble our efforts to conclude good-faith negotiation with Timor-Leste to settle the maritime boundaries between our two countries.
If we are not successful in negotiating a settlement with our neighbour, we are prepared to submit ourselves to international adjudication or arbitration.
(That one gets applause in the room.)
Updated
Plibersek is currently outlining her view of the key difference between conservatives and progressives on foreign policy. She frames this difference around the concept of being a good global citizen. She says moral global citizenry is a duty at the heart of Ben Chifley’s timeless definition of the Labor mission: working for the betterment of mankind.
On China, the relationship, the AIIB and disputes in the South China Sea.
Tanya Plibersek:
We’re proud that Gough Whitlam reached out to China when people said it was folly. We’re proud that Bob Hawke and Paul Keating fostered inclusive cooperation in our region through APEC when their critics mocked it as vanity and an elitist obsession.
We’re proud of the work Julia Gillard did to establish regular and formal leader-level meetings between China and Australia, a foreign policy achievement which will only be enlarged over time. Our history with China means a Labor government would have acted differently when it came to the Asian infrastructure investment bank. This was a way of positively working with China to reduce the infrastructure deficit in our region.
Instead, division around the Coalition Cabinet table and botched public diplomacy led to it being seen as a great US-China power struggle with Australia caught in the middle and China coming out on top. And now it seems that Australia will miss out on a position as one of the vice presidents of the AIIB due to our perceived reluctance at the period of sign-up. We should have gotten in early, we could have had more influence in setting the rules.
Our close economic and diplomatic relationship with China binds us but it does not blind us. On the question of relations between China and the United States and between China and the rest of the region, we are clear-sighted.
On the South China Sea we are not disinterested observers. We have a national interest in defending freedom of navigation and in upholding the international system of laws and accepted behaviours.
Plibersek outlines her thoughts on the US alliance. Close, but not supine.
We have never sought for Australia the tinny badge of deputy sheriff. We believe that we are a more valuable ally if we have the maturity and confidence to speak frankly and act independently within the alliance. Australia will disagree with the United States on occasion and we should have disagreed in 2003. The decision to invade and occupy Iraq was a terrible mistake.
The cost in lives, money and the reputational damage to the United States and other members of the Coalition of the Willing was not matched in gains for Iraq, for the United States or for the world.
Labor opposed the decision to join the invasion of Iraq. I spoke against it, I marched against it, when George W. Bush visited our parliament in 2003, I presented Condoleezza Rice with a letter signed by 41 Labor MPs explaining why Labor opposed the invasion of Iraq without UN approval.
If I was presented with the same set of circumstances, I’d do that again.
But none of this diminishes Labor’s support or commitment to the alliance. As two nations with shared histories, mutual interests and common values, as believers in and defenders of open economies, free societies and individual liberties, there is so much that Australia and the United States can achieve together which is why the US-Australia alliance will always be an important element of Labor’s foreign policy.
Tanya Plibersek:
I don’t think you’ll be shocked to hear that I’ve never been a big fan of the great man theory of history: the story of the world written as a tribute to an immortal few, deserving to command, taking their citizens by the scruff of the neck and driving them on to glory.
The history that interests me is the more complex story, the ebb and flow of events, the spark and slow burn of resurgence and decline, the shifts in power and influence that see nations rise and fall.
Reading about this is one thing but living through it is another.
Updated
The deputy Labor leader, Tanya Plibersek, is addressing the National Press Club and laying down some markers about her desire to adopt a “broader” approach to foreign policy.
She says she wanted to serve a foreign minister in a Shorten Labor government because she believed there was much more that Australian ideas and values could offer the world.
Australia can be a better international citizen, a more active player in our region and a more creative, more confident presence on the world stage. We should choose this path of energy and activism, knowing that it serves our national interest. We see ourselves as a good international citizen and we measure our actions against that.
Updated
Don’t worry fellow politics tragics, I’ve been looking for a break in the weather too to catch up with the primary in New Hampshire. According to our live coverage – Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are the projected winners.
Politics this lunchtime
Just while the going is good – let’s pause for a lunchtime summary. This will give me a chance to stretch to treasury estimates which I’ve thus far neglected to cover.
-
Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten have delivered their closing the gap speeches to parliament. Turnbull acknowledged the lack of progress on key indicators, but chose to keep his major major speech on Indigenous affairs upbeat, referencing the richness and continuity of culture, highlighting success stories, and pointing to economic opportunities. He said he would lead through consultation, not by imposing his will on communities. Shorten said progress on closing the gap required truth telling, some policy innovation, and funding.
- Labor is continuing efforts to pile pressure on Stuart Robert over his unfortunate trip to Beijing with mining mate Paul Marks. We’ve had one procedural skirmish, and question time of course looms. Shorten has now elevated the effort by calling for Robert’s resignation. Malcolm Turnbull’s departmental head, Martin Parkinson, declined the opportunity to respond to reporters questions about where he was up to with his investigation into whether or not Robert breached the ministerial code of conduct.
- Environment minister Greg Hunt is the best minister in the world according to a body that I had not heard of until this morning. Congratulations, Greg.
- In estimates hearings, the chief scientist, Alan Finkel, has politely rebuked the CSIRO for exiting the field in climate science research; treasury officials have confirmed the department continues to model a number of tax options, despite the signal from the prime minister that a GST hike has slipped off the table; and the defence secretary Dennis Richardson has told his committee he became aware “at some point” that Stuart Robert, one of the junior portfolio ministers, was in Beijing. “We were aware that the minister was in Beijing simply because he was designated to represent the defence minister at a meeting in Singapore immediately after Beijing,” Richardson told the committee.
And so it goes.
Defence estimates is rolling back round to Stuart Robert. The defence secretary Dennis Richardson has unearthed a letter between chiefs of staffs on August 13 – Tony Abbott’s and Stuart Robert’s – approving travel, I think. It’s not entirely clear.
Dennis Richardson:
It was a letter, one seeking approval for the minister to travel from Beijing to Singapore, to attend the Singapore Australia joint ministerial committee meeting, which was held in Singapore on 21/22 August.
That would seem to imply the then prime minister’s office knew that Robert was in Beijing. Richardson said he was in Singapore for the official part of Robert’s visit.
Q: You didn’t go via Beijing?
Dennis Richardson:
No.
Labor senator Stephen Conroy is fishing for information about another trip, a delegation, which he evidently suspects Paul Marks was on.
A few more lovely shots from the chamber.
Richardson told the hearing the department became aware after he got back to Australia that Robert had met a Chinese vice minister while in Beijing in 2014.
It seems there were some disclosures made internally at the time.
Here’s Richardson:
Following his return to Australia, minister Robert asked his office to advise the department who he had met in China.
We became aware of the trip ... at some point
While the chamber has been preoccupied with closing the gap, the secretary of the Department of Defence, Dennis Richardson, has been fielding a barrage of questions about Stuart Robert’s infamous China trip.
Robert was, of course, the assistant defence minister at the time.
Richardson says the department become aware of the Beijing trip “at some point”.
We were aware that the minister was in Beijing simply because he was designated to represent the defence minister at a meeting in Singapore immediately after ... I’m not aware that we were advised that he was travelling to China privately ... There’s a difference between being aware he was going to China and sorting arrangements for his visit to Singapore once it’d been decided that he would represent the minister for defence in Singapore.
Asked whether the defence attache in Australia’s Beijing embassy was involved, Richardson hints the officer was not aware before the trip but may have assisted with the minister’s onward travel to Singapore. “He was not aware of the visit by Minister Robert to China; in terms of his engagement in Minister Robert’s departure from Beijing, again I’ll need to take that on notice.”
As to whether Robert or his office had sought advice from the department about China-related matters prior to his visit, Richardson says: “My inquiries have drawn a blank on that, so to the best of my knowledge, no.”
Labor senator Stephen Conroy was preoccupied with whether Robert took his Defence Department-issued phone to China, and whether such action would have left it vulnerable to hacking and security risks. Richardson told the committee he did not know if Robert took his official phone.
Conroy successfully secured a commitment from the defence minister, Marise Payne, to raise the phone issue with the prime minister or his department. “Yes, of course … I suspect on reflection it would be more appropriate for me to refer that matter to the secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet [who is investigating ministerial standards].”
Closing the gap: some quick analytical thoughts
Some initial helicopter thoughts from those two speeches.
Turnbull obviously had to take the opportunity of today to set out some general approaches to Indigenous affairs. He did that. He sent an important message: I will work with Indigenous leaders and with communities, not impose things. This will be a welcome message, particularly if it signals a genuine intent to broaden the sources of advice and input. Under Tony Abbott, many Indigenous leaders felt excluded in favour of voices who were more in sync with Abbott’s view of the policy terrain. That’s the good news.
The less good news is, frankly, Turnbull’s natural optimism. The prime minister is always that guy who thinks you get stuff done just by force of will. You get people together and you get it done. Infectious enthusiasm and sunny side up is one of the prime minister’s most charming attributes, but ebullience doesn’t work in Indigenous policy. The problems are too complex, too protracted, and have proven remarkably resistant to policy interventions of all kinds. He’s talking to a community burdened by the weight of previous disappointments, and connecting with the community requires an acknowledgement of that grief and frustration. I think the tone of today’s contribution was absolutely well intended, but ever so slightly off.
As for Shorten? The tone was better. There was that strain of humility – the acknowledgment that the problems are real and endemic, and that all we’ve really done for generations is toss out money and walk on by, comfortably immersed in our own lives.
Shorten is right that progress in this area requires truth telling. That aspiration rang like a bell in today’s parliamentary debate.
But the major truth really is this.
The purpose of closing the gap was to impose some evidence, some benchmarks, to inform public policy making in Indigenous affairs. It was an effort to impose some rigour to counter someone’s latest theory or feeling or random prejudice.
Good thought.
We have to look at what the benchmarks are telling us. The current approach is not working. We need another approach entirely, not just fiddling at the edges.
That’s the truth, and I’m yet to really hear that from the parliament of Australia, acknowledged in those stark, unvarnished terms.
Perhaps the task just feels too enormous.
To borrow from TS Eliot, if we let the human voices wake us, then we drown.
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I call this sequence, Malcolm in the middle. Don’t shoot. I know that’s terrible.
Shorten has some nice rhetoric to build to his close. One day we’ll be able to say Australia is one country and mean it. One day we will get past racism. One day, there will be opportunity for all.
And with that, this debate is a wrap. I’ll be back shortly with pictures and analytical thoughts and an update about what else is going on.
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On funding cuts and the subsequent (nonsense) rationalisations.
Mr Speaker, it’s easy in the current political discourse to say that throwing money at the problem won’t solve it and if it was going to solve it, it would have solved it in the past.
This is an alibi to justify cutting funding because pretending that money doesn’t matter, pretending that empowerment through greater resources doesn’t make a difference is an arrogant falsehood.
It is generally used by people for whom lack of money and lack of power has never been a problem.
When an Aboriginal woman is 34 times more likely to be hospitalised as a result of family violence and 11 times more likely to die, when family violence is the number one cause of Aboriginal children being removed from their family and their community, when too many women seeking help from family violence face significant legal, psychological and cultural barriers, how can repeatedly cutting millions of dollars from Aboriginal legal and specialist support services possibly be part of the solution in there is no excuse for these cuts.
You cannot cut your way to closing the gap.
Shorten outlines Labor’s approach to criminal justice reform, then segues to education, and the importance of needs based funding. Then to health, and high rates of vision loss among Indigenous people.
This country is rich enough and generous enough to deal with this issue right now. So today I’m pleased to announce that a Labor government will commit $9m to close the gap in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander vision loss.
Bill Shorten:
It is a national disgrace, it’s not one which I believe anyone consciously signs up to in this parliament.
But when we know the problem exists, to walk past the problem makes us part of the problem.
Shorten zeroes in on incarceration rates.
It is un-Australian that if you are an Aboriginal man you are 15 times more likely to be imprisoned than a non-Aboriginal man. Half of all Aboriginal prisoners in custody are under the age of 30. The reimprisonment rate for Aboriginal young people is higher than the school retention rate.
In the last decade imprisonment rates have more than doubled, growing faster than the crime rate. And for Aboriginal women, there has been a 74% increase in the past 15 years, meaning they make up one-third of our female prison population, far too many prisoners have poorly understood disability, particularly cognitive and mental impairment.
Far too many young people see jail time as a preordained destination, part of the natural order of things.
It is not natural. These facts are more than uncomfortable. They are not the nation that we wish to see in the mirror.
It cannot be correct that the colour of your skin is a greater predictor of going to prison and until we address this problem we will never close the gap.
We cannot tolerate a criminal justice system built on processing people rather than administering justice.
Bill Shorten is contributing now. He says constitutional change cannot be a mere poetic sentence or two stapled to front of our constitution.
Platitudes just don’t cut it, do they? It must be real, it must be substantive change. It must eliminate racism and signal a declaration of national intent. Equality in our constitution must be twinned with a real world of equal opportunity. In housing, health, employment , education and justice. And perhaps the most basic right of all: empowering our first Australians with the right to grow old.
Today, eight years after prime minister Rudd extended a hand of healing, grasped in friendship, supported by the then leader of the opposition, Mr Brendan Nelson, we now need to examine our progress in closing the gap. Not in the spirit of self-congratulation, nor trenchant self-criticism, but just with clarity and honesty, with a determination to speak the truth about what is working and what is not.
To recognise that the progress we’ve made is uneven and too slow, to redouble our efforts in an equal, engaged and empowered partnership with the first Australians.
He wraps up thus.
We have to be agile and we have to allow for new approaches. This will enable us to continue to build the evidence base where it doesn’t yet exist. It’s equally important we listen to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people when they tell us what it working and what needs to change.
It’s our role as a government to provide an environment that enables Indigenous leaders to develop local solutions. Again, Mr Speaker, it is time for governments to do things with Aboriginal people, not do things to them.
Now, we are the most successful multicultural society in the world. The glue that holds us together is mutual respect. A deep recognition that each of us is entitled to the same respect, the same dignity, the same opportunities.
Closing The Gap is more than another government Indigenous policy. It speaks to all of us, and it speaks about all of us.
It is our best selves, our deep, just, fair values, given practical form.
When we close the gap, we make ourselves more whole, more complete, more Australian.
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Turnbull says he wants to acknowledge the grim realities, while also telling the positive stories.
I want us as a nation to tell the rich story of Indigenous creativity, of innovation, and entrepreneurship.
Now, while we should celebrate those successes, we cannot of course sugar-coat the enormity of the job that remains.
We do face very real and difficult challenges. Particularly in isolated communities. We must be honest about the catastrophe and violence created by drug and alcohol misuse and confront and respond to the cries for help, particularly from women and children.
Turnbull says he endorses the advice Sarra gave him. He segues to the recognition of Indigenous Australians in the constitution, noting that Indigenous people must be happy with whatever is ultimately proposed in terms of constitutional change.
He then drills into the closing the gap benchmarks. Turnbull acknowledges things are changing fast enough. But then we get to the bootstraps.
A key driver of progress has to be economic empowerment through employment, through entrepreneurship, and through the use of our human capital.
Forty years after Gough Whitlam poured dirt into the hands of Vincent Lingiari, we continue to ensure hard-fought Indigenous land rights are protected, while enabling those rights to be converted into economic opportunities.
Last year, we saw Indigenous leaders come together at the Growing with Governance forum to develop the Indigenous investment principles. In the year ahead, working closely with Indigenous Australians and state and territory governments, we’ll implement the recommendations from COAG’s investigation into land use, to better enable Indigenous landowners and native title holders to use their land for economic development.
We are starting to see returns on reform we’ve undertaken in employment policy.
Turnbull says he sought advice from Chris Sarra when he crossed paths with him a few weeks after becoming prime minister.
I asked him what three things we could do in Indigenous policy that would truly make a difference. He said to me it was too complex a question to answer straightaway. But later, at his Senate occasional lecture, he answered my question.
This is what he said: “firstly, acknowledge, embrace and celebrate the humanity of Indigenous Australians. Secondly, bring us policy approaches that nurture hope and optimism, rather than entrenched despair.
And lastly, do things with us, not to us.
Do things with us, not to us.
One nation, shared values.
In 2008, the national apology to the stolen generations was a great milestone in the healing of our nation. It was a long overdue acknowledgement of grief and the suffering and the loss inflicted on generations ofAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
We all recognise that healing takes time. And our generation seeks to make a further amends, a further setting-right, through formal recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in our constitution. Our nation’s founding document should reflect Australia as it is, not how it was perceived 120 years ago.
We recognise and value Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and peoples. And we’re proud that their history is our history. Their culture is our culture. Their values are our values.
We recognise that prior to the arrival of European settlers, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians spoke hundreds of languages and over 600 dialects. These words carry knowledge. Tragically, many of these languages have been lost and many are critically endangered.
And that is why, today, we are announcing $20m in additional funding over two years for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. This will enable the collection of critical cultural knowledge and promote an understanding of Aboriginal and Torres StraitIslander culture, traditions and stories past and present.
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From adversity, comes opportunity.
The closing the gap challenge is often described as a problem to be solved. But more than anything, it is an opportunity. If our greatest assets are our people, if our richest capital is our human capital, then the opportunity to empower the imagination, the enterprise, the wisdom and the full potential of our first Australians is an exciting one.
And when we focus on the gap to be closed and ending the disadvantage that entails, we should not overlook or fail to celebrate the many successes of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians are studying at universities, at home and abroad, at Oxford and Harvard, are completing medicine degrees, and apprenticeships, are sending their children to school, buying homes, starting and running businesses, and have dreams for the future that are as optimistic and as different as the rest of us.
Malcolm Turnbull is aware this is a big occasion for him. He’s adopted a slightly Churchillian inflection in his opening.
For more than 40,000 years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have cared for this country. Theirs are the oldest continuing cultures on earth. Our nation is as old as humanity itself. The stories of the Dreamtime, the rock carvings on the Burrup peninsula – these speak to us from thousands of years, so far away, time out of mind.
Linked by the imagination, the humanity, of our first Australians. Yet we have not always shown you our first Australians the respect you deserve.
But despite the injustices and the trauma, you are and your families have shown the greatest tenacity and resilience.
Defence officials are currently being quizzed about Stuart Robert’s travel plans. But we’ll stick with Closing the Gap for now. The prime minister is opening his contribution in an Indigenous language.
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Only two Closing the gGap targets on track to be met
Here’s my colleague Shalailah Medhora, with the main points of the Closing the Gap report. It makes for depressing reading.
- The infant mortality rate for Indigenous children has dropped drastically in recent years, but Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders are still more likely to be unemployed and die younger than the rest of the Australian population, the latest Closing the Gap report has found.
- There has been no change from the previous year in cutting Indigenous disadvantage in the seven target areas.
- Only two of the targets – cutting infant mortality and getting more students to finish high school – are on track to be met, mirroring exactly the results of the 2015 report.
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids have lower rates of literacy and numeracy, and greater rates of truancy than non-Indigenous children.
- Indigenous children generally have lower reading skills than their peers, and go into high school without the minimum requirements. They fare better in numeracy, with Years 5 through to 9 achieving the same results as their non-Indigenous peers.
- Indigenous adults are likely to die 10 years earlier than other Australians, with the average life expectancy sitting at 69 years for Indigenous men and 73 years for Indigenous women.
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Just before we roll into the formal Closing the Gap speeches, a bit more of Bill Shorten’s contribution at the breakfast earlier today. I’ve already shared his observation about bootstraps and boots. Here’s a bit more.
Bill Shorten:
This week, in our parliament and around our country we ask Australians to face up, to remedy together, the entrenched unfairness that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples confront every day. This is about facing up to the facts.
It is always a dilemma, isn’t it? Do you look at all the good things that are happening and be a bit too blue-sky and try then to overlook the problems. Or do you just simply look at the problems and then somehow you are perhaps not acknowledging the progress. I don’t think we have to resolve that question, I think we just have to be honest. And if the honesty is uncomfortable listening, well we need to listen even harder.
We need to tell the full truth.
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Alan Finkel says climate research demands a national approach
The new chief scientist, Alan Finkel, has also made an opening statement to Senate estimates this morning which is implicitly critical of the recent decision by the CSIRO to exit climate science research. Climate study is a collaborative activity, and it needs a national approach, Finkel has told senators.
The importance of these responsibilities has been underscored in my mind by the recent conversation on the priorities of the CSIRO. As the committee will be aware, the CEO of the CSIRO announced last week a change of strategic direction that will affect programmes across the organisation, including climate research.
There is no question that Australia needs a continuous and highly effective commitment to climate science, both to meet our national needs and to fulfil our international commitments. Our contribution is particularly important in light of our central role in understanding the climate of the Southern Hemisphere.
It is reflected in the National Science and Research Priorities, one of which specifically commits us to: “Build Australia’s capacity to respond to environmental change and integrate research outcomes from biological, physical, social and economic systems.” Australian climate research is a broad activity across many institutions and many disciplines including science, engineering, humanities and social sciences.
It relies on collaboration and it demands a national approach.
Our most immediate national concern must be to ensure that long-term data collections will be funded and staffed; and that the climate modelling capabilities developed by the CSIRO will continue to be made available for scientists to use and refine.
I am pleased that the CSIRO has this week committed to working with stakeholders to develop a transition plan to maintain this capacity.
I have an ear on a couple of estimates committees as we wait for the closing the gap speeches to kick off in the chamber.
The ABC’s Frank Keany listened in on an estimates committee last night where the AFP was giving evidence. I gather the officers were asked what the hold up was with the current investigation into the special minister of state, Mal Brough – and his connections with James Ashby and Peter Slipper, the former speaker of the House.
This was the explanation.
AFP's Leanne Close says #ashbygate investigators sifting thru 7600 emails, 141000 docs, 161000+ images & thousands of attachments #estimates
— Frank Keany (@FJKeany) February 9, 2016
Down in the House, the health minister, Sussan Ley, is introducing the medicinal cannabis legislation.
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Today's #auspol theme @murpharoo pic.twitter.com/nCRNvIDqKO
— Kate M (@ComissionerKate) February 9, 2016
Manager of opposition business, Tony Burke, seconding the motion:
The prime minister is incapable of making a decision!
Trade minister Andrew Robb:
I move the member be no longer heard.
Things moving to their inevitable, numerical conclusion here.
Here’s the motion.
That the House:
Notes that during a trip to China in August 2014, the minister for human services provided assistance to Nimrod Resources by:
(a) Participating in a signing ceremony which sealed a mining deal between Nimrod Resources and a Chinese state-owned company;
(b) Presenting what have been described as a “letter of appointment” and “a medal” from the prime minister to an official of the Chinese state-owned company; and
(c) Meeting with the Chinese vice-minister for Land and Resources accompanied by executives of Nimrod Resources; and
Notes that:
(a) The minister himself has stated in the House that his visit to China was in a “personal capacity”;
(b) Except where the prime minister has given permission to continue an interest in a family business, the prime minister’s own statement of ministerial standards puts a blanket ban on ministers providing assistance to companies in a personal capacity; and
(c) The minister repeatedly answers each question asked in the House by referring to his earlier statement even where it bears no relevance to the question being asked; and
Calls on the minister for human services to immediately attend the House to:
(a) Give a full and comprehensive account of his activities during his trip to China, including a full account of his itinerary, program, meetings and speeches; and
(b) Explain to the House and to the people of Australia why he has not yet resigned for breaching the prime minister’s statement of ministerial standards.
Down in the House, procedural fun times, Labor is again attempting to suspend the standing orders.
The Labor leader Bill Shorten has been stopped by reporters.
Q: What do you think about Greg Hunt’s award?
I’d like to see what competition he was up against. Goodness only knows what the entry requirement was.
Q: Why should Stuart Robert go?
It doesn’t take a Rolex watch to know the time is up for Stuart Robert.
I’ll have to get back to you.
Meanwhile, back at One World Government, sorry, the World Government Summit, Greg Hunt wound up in appreciation of his accolade, thus.
The environment minister:
Our work as ministers may seem hard some days. But it can be deeply meaningful. We could not do it without our departments or our offices and I have been magnificently supported by both.
In the end though, I am optimistic that we can achieve our goals. I am optimistic because of the lessons that my father taught me about the value of a vision supported by a plan.
I am optimistic because of the lessons my mother taught me about community, because of the determination I learnt my friend and mentor Alexander Downer. I am optimistic because of the support I have had from two successive Australian prime ministers.
Above all else I am optimistic, because as husband to Paula and father to Poppy and James, I can see the same inviolable truth that all parents see...in the end, humanity and the environment are both fundamentally worthy and fundamentally linked.
Parkinson, to the assembled rats, contemplating their drain pipe.
Martin Parkinson to press waiting to ask him questions on inquiry into Stuart Robert: you need something better to do, guys" @murpharoo
— Shalailah Medhora (@shalailah) February 9, 2016
Here’s Martin Parkinson, the man of the hour, watching on. Parkinson has only just landed in the job. Lucky he’s used to hardship posts.
Bill Shorten has also made his contribution to the breakfast. It was a good speech. He observed we have to resist the conservative cliche that life in Indigenous communities would be better if people would just pull themselves up by the bootstraps. You can’t pull yourself up if you don’t have the boots.
Malcolm Turnbull is warming up his themes for his closing the gap speech to parliament later today. Here’s a couple of chunks that will give you some key points.
Progress is mixed:
Under successive governments of both sides,progress across the closing the gap’s target has been mixed. We have to be honest and recognise that reality. But I do believe we have witnessed true commitment and collaboration and we’re seeing positive trends as a result. Our investments in parenting, in early childhood education, in maternal and child programs has supported a positive start to life which is an investment in that child’s future. Indigenous infant mortality rates have more than halved over the past 16 years. Immunisation rates for indigenous children are high and by the age of 5 more indigenous children are immunised compared with the overall Australian population.
Working in partnership:
The message I’ve heard most consistently from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is their design to work in partnership with government in a relationship based on mutual respect. And we must never forget that the success of Australia, the success of ours, the most successful multicultural society in the world is based on mutual respect. That is the glue. Thatis the absolutely essential element that holds us together and provides us with the ability to do better and better in the years ahead. And so we need to listen to and draw on the wisdom, the ingenuity, the insights of indigenous people across the nation from the cities to remote communities.
Tally ho chaps, we’ve all got to roll up our sleeves:
Today I want to reaffirm my government’s commitment to closing the gap. Everyone must play their part in this. Strong partnerships between governments and indigenous Australians are absolutely essential for the achievement of this goal. Now, I know that many of you have dedicated your life to the service of your communities, to your families, to creating a life for your children that is filled with hope and optimism. I want to thank you all for your ongoing commitment to ensuring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people can share equally in the opportunities of this great country. We have a great future together, a great task ahead of us – with commitment, with love, with mutual respect, with an optimism and a confidence and our ability to overcome all these challenges, we will get there. Aunty Matilda: the little koala, and even some of the big ones, will get there.
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Great pictures rolling in now from Mike Bowers, who is downstairs at a closing the gap breakfast. The prime minister is speaking at that now. I’ll bring you that shortly.
I gather Turnbull’s departmental head, Martin Parkinson, is also downstairs. Given he’s the man inquiring into whether or not Stuart Robert has breached the ministerial code, I imagine reporters will be on to him like a rat up a drain pipe.
Sorry I won’t quite yet. Just one more post for readers who for some strange reason have never heard of the World Government Summit. A description from the website.
The World Government Summit is the primary global forum dedicated to shaping the future of government worldwide. Each year, the Summit sets the agenda for the next generation of governments with a focus on how they can harness innovation and technology to solve universal challenges facing humanity.
The World Government Summit is a knowledge exchange platform at the intersection between government, futurism, technology and innovation. It functions as a thought leadership platform and networking hub for policymakers, experts and pioneers in human development.
The Summit is a gateway to the Future as it functions as an analysis platform for the future trends, issues and opportunities facing humanity. It is also an opportunity to showcase innovations, best practice and smart solutions to inspire creativity to tackle these future challenges.
I’m sure Maurice Newman will be on to this mob like a rat up a drain pipe.
“if the weather changes when I fly to the other side if the world is that climate change?” pic.twitter.com/pxKfYdOwQF
— Scott Bridges (@s_bridges) February 9, 2016
Sorry, I will move on now.
Some people are just rude.
TFW a man is handing you a certificate while you are busy trying to work out why it’s summer at home and winter here pic.twitter.com/qxRAttzkOt
— Scott Bridges (@s_bridges) February 9, 2016
Not me, though.
Good morning everyone and welcome. I’m at that point in the week when I have to pause to think what day it is. After a brief period of reflection I can report it is Wednesday, in Canberra. Part of my mild disorientation is associated with not knowing quite where to start with this morning’s embarrassment of riches.
Overnight, we have learned the environment minister Greg Hunt is the best minister in the world according to the somewhat sinister sounding World Government Summit – which I strongly suspect enjoys the honour of being the only organisation to actually endorse the government’s climate policy. Yay Greg! Yay World Government Summit!
Courtesy of a high level of attentiveness around the travel arrangements of the human services minister, Stuart Robert, we have also learned that a Chinese billionaire gave Tony Abbott, his chief of staff Peta Credlin, the then opposition industry spokesman Ian Macfarlane, and the then opposition spokesman for defence, science, technology and personnel, Stuart Robert, rolexes worth around $40,000 a pop. We have also learned that Macfarlane thought it was a fake, until he discovered, to his horror, it wasn’t. An order went out that the watches needed to be handed in.
On the contemporary Stuart Robert imbroglio we learned yesterday, courtesy of my colleague Daniel Hurst, the minister had an official taxpayer funded trip to Singapore around the same time as his holiday sojourn in Beijing witnessing a commercial contract for a mining mate and Liberal party donor, Paul Marks. We learn this morning, courtesy of Sarah Martin in The Australian, that Robert charged taxpayers $900 in flights and travel allowance while on the way to a private trip to China, including an airfare to Sydney for what he claims was “official business”. Overnight, the Labor leader Bill Shorten has pushed the nuclear button on Robert. “It’s time for Malcolm Turnbull to show the leadership he promised and sack Stuart Robert,” Shorten said.
And accompanying the pursuit if Robert, coming up this morning, the government will introduce legislation allowing the medicinal use of cannabis – and Malcolm Turnbull will have the opportunity to set some directions on Indigenous policy when he delivers the closing the gap report around mid morning.
So lets gallop onwards, with our nostrils flaring and the wind in our manes. The comments thread is open for your business. You can also get in touch with either me or Magic Mikearoo on the twits. I’m @murpharoo and he’s @mpbowers
Yo ho, let’s go.
- Note for readers. This post has been amended from the original to delete a quote from Phil Coorey’s story, because the quote has been deleted from The Australian Financial Review’s website.
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