Night-time politics. That'll do pig. That'll do.
Well what a day, what a week and what a year it has been, bringing Australian politics to you all.
Let’s start with the doings of the day.
Major attention seeking was the order of the day.
- The Coalition’s media reforms have stalled with some progress made but a sticking point has been reached between the government and the Nick Xenophon Team over tax breaks for small players. Xenophon says he will hold out on the government and there the matter lies until the next sitting. The government says it doesn’t go along with tax breaks for multinational media companies.
- Pauline Hanson shocked the Senate by wearing a burqa into the chamber, where she was promptly carpeted by the attorney general, George Brandis, for not only offending law-abiding Muslims but playing into the hands of radicals. Hanson wants to ban the burqa. Brandis got a standing ovation from the NXT, Greens and Labor.
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Labor again suspended standing orders in the lower house over Barnaby Joyce and the Greens suspended standing orders in the Senate over Barnaby Joyce. At the same time, Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon took the government to court to get access to the Coalition agreement between the Liberals and the Nationals but the case was postponed while the freedom of information rejection works its way through the administrative appeals tribunal. Cory Bernardi wants to prorogue the parliament until the high court rules on citizenship.
So that is it for politics live until 4 September, barring major catastrophes. And that is it for me for politics live for good, barring guest appearances. You will be in the good hands of Amy Remeikis, our soon to be colleague coming across from Fairfax.
I would like to thank you, dear readers, for making this project – begun by Katharine Murphy – so successful and so interactive. Your suggestions, links, thanks, wishes and outrage are something to behold. I would like to thank my colleagues for all the help (that you mostly do not see) behind the great curtain of politics live. They are Murpharoo, Paul Karp and Gareth Hutchens. Mike Bowers, you are the goods. (Water!) Also those friends of the blog in the building for tips – you know who you are. And finally thanks to Lenore Taylor, my formidable editor for giving me the editorial freedom to mix it up on Bloggo Rd.
Good night.
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— Mitch Fifield (@SenatorFifield) August 17, 2017
APVMA launches review: why the delays?
I missed this today.
The chief executive of the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA), Dr Chris Parker, has commissioned an independent review of the agency’s operational performance to identify the underlying causes for delays in assessment and registration of agricultural and veterinary chemical products, permits and active constituents.
As the ABC reported:
It was revealed earlier this year that the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA), which is tasked with making sure agricultural chemicals are safe, had recorded a big slump in the rate of applications for products being assessed and approved.
The performance slump came amid an exodus of senior staff, with revelations one in five regulatory scientists had quit the APVMA, as it forged ahead with a controversial forced move from Canberra to deputy prime minister and agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce’s electorate.
Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon called it a joke.
My advice to Barnaby Joyce’s handpicked interim CEO is that he doesn’t need to waste taxpayers’ money on a review, he should just confront his boss about the mess he has caused.
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Katharine Murphy reports:
The monthly jobs figures were out today. Cash made these points in her statement.
- Today’s figures show:
- Total employment rose by 27,900 in July to a record high, of 12,201,400;
- In the past 12 months, 239,300 new jobs have been created, three times as many than Labor’s last year in government. Of those, 197,700 were full-time;
- In the last seven months, full-time employment has increased by 153,200 – the largest increase in full-time employment over the first seven months of a calendar year since 2008;
- Female employment has increased by 124,600 over the past 12 months, to a record high of 5,677,100;
- Youth unemployment has fallen 0.4 percentage points over the past 12 months
- The unemployment rate was 5.6%, down from last month’s revised figure of 5.7%. The annual rate of employment growth of 2% is well above the decade average rate of 1.6%.
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A sharp-eyed reader has reminded me I did not bring the final vote on Labor’s suspension of standing orders against Barnaby Joyce.
The vote was lost 72-62.
Andrew Wilkie, Cathy McGowan and Rebekha Sharkie abstained. Bob Katter also didn’t vote but I am pretty sure he was not in the House. He doesn’t make it to a fair few votes. Only the three aforementioned crossbenchers were watching from the bleachers.
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The Australian Conservatives senator Cory Bernardi has again repeated his call for Malcolm Turnbull to prorogue parliament to sort out the citizenship issue. That would involve suspending parliament until the high court rules and any byelections can be held.
Bernardi tells David Speers of Sky that he has been told by staff members of members of parliament that their bosses are ineligible to sit in parliament and yet those same bosses have stood in parliament claiming to be eligible.
It is quite the accusation.
The only way this day can get weirder is if Malcolm Turnbull comes out to prorogue the parliament.
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Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon’s federal court case to get to see the Coalition agreement between the Nationals and the Liberals has been held over. No decision today.
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Penny Wong has put out a statement to thank George Brandis.
On behalf of all Labor senators, and of all fair-minded Australians, I thank the leader of the government in the Senate, Senator George Brandis, for his words today.
The sort of bigotry and divisiveness we saw displayed by Senator Hanson today has no place in our society. It certainly has no place in our parliament.
Today our parliament showed leadership when it was needed.
It is one thing to wear religious dress as an act of faith. It is another to wear it as a stunt. That can only give offence and divide.
Nobody needs to defend Senator Hanson’s right to speak. The people that need defending are the people she attacks.
Leaders have an obligation to stand up for the people in Australia who do not have a voice and today the parliament did so.
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The employment minister, Michaelia Cash, held a press conference 10 minutes ago and Gareth Hutchens and a few other journos asked why government members did not join the standing ovation by the Greens, Labor and Nick Xenophon.
Cash gave three versions of this answer:
I believe the attorney general has made the position of the government clear and that is all of us should treat each other with respect.
Then she walked out.
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Derryn Hinch tells David Speers that Pauline Hanson’s stunt was disgusting and he said he was speaking as an atheist.
Hinch does not think she should have been allowed in as a matter of respect but he thought president Stephen Parry was caught off guard like everyone else.
I found it insulting and I am thrilled that so many people stood (for George Brandis).
Hinch says this was not a version of the Tasmanian Liberal MP Bruce Goodluck, who dressed in a chicken suit for a dare.
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Pauline Hanson told @JohnSafran last year she would "never wear a burqa". pic.twitter.com/9NV2Ke9tRe
— Denham Sadler (@denhamsadler) August 17, 2017
Once again, Matt Hatter nails the political point of the story of the day.
@gabriellechan Senator Hansen draws attention to the evils of Freeway Construction. pic.twitter.com/LZAcLNXNfV
— The Matt Hatter (@MattGlassDarkly) August 17, 2017
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At the same time, the inquiry into the postal ballot has started.
ABS says it was only told it would be managing a postal ballot on SSM on August 7. Ten days ago.
— Henry Belot (@Henry_Belot) August 17, 2017
Nick Xenophon says no deal on media reforms as yet
It keeps spinning here. Nick Xen:
We are extending an offer to the government and that we will continue to talk to them
He says they were hopeful of announcing some agreement today but that is not possible.
He wants tax breaks for public interest journalism for smaller outfits earning up to $25m.
Now Pauline Hanson is on 2GB speaking about her stunt.
Isn’t it a shame that there are Muslim women forced to wear this?
George Brandis was just brilliant in the chamber. Just brilliant. Strongest I have ever heard him.
— Sam Dastyari (@samdastyari) August 17, 2017
Pauline Hanson asked two other supplementary questions of George Brandis which he completed shut down.
This was the first one: Is the attorney general aware that the burqa is not a religious requirement at all? My question is – will the attorney general then ban the burqa in this house for, in future, as a security risk and also the fact is the people of Australia have the right to see the face of a person they elect to this parliament and they are the person who is going to be making decisions in the parliament on their behalf?
(I think what she was trying to say was, will you ban the burqa for members and visitors).
At that point, the president, Stephen Parry, stepped in.
It is in the purview of the presiding officers, not the attorney general, to the purview of security in the Parliament House. We have determined if anyone enters the building with their face covered is clearly identified prior to entering the building. And I ascertained when you entered dressed as you were, I identified who you were. Attorney general, do you have comment you wish to make?
Brandis said no.
Then Hanson asked: If a person who wears a balaclava or a helmet into a bank or any other building or even on the floor of the court, they must be removed. Why is it not the same case for someone who is covering up their face and cannot be identified? Will the government make changes to these laws?
Brandis said no.
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I just want to bring you more detail of the burqa exchange.
When I reported that Penny Wong congratulated Brandis, she tried to make a short statement but Senator Hanson refused her permission. So she took a point of order to make the point anyway.
Wong:
My point of order is this, if I had the opportunity, I would move to congratulate the leader [George Brandis] for that statement. And all of us on this side of the chamber, there is one thing to wear religious dress as an act of faith and it is another to wear it as a stunt.
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Lower house is voting now on the suspension of standing orders regarding Barnaby Joyce.
By George!
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It was a shame George Brandis did not get a standing ovation from his own side. I suspect they were frozen, thinking through the strategic value or not of standing. Perhaps if a senior Coalition senator had sprang to their feet, the rest would have followed.
Malcolm Turnbull takes the suspension debate.
He agrees with the crossbenchers on the need to get back to policy debate.
He says the parliament should be talking about important issues to Australians such as national security, energy policy and jobs.
And he defends Joyce as a member of the parliament.
There is no point to be made here. Imagine how a young Muslim girl will feel having her faith and her family mocked in our Parliament. Shame pic.twitter.com/yFM2hunzo2
— Sussan Ley (@sussanley) August 17, 2017
Crossbenchers call for Joyce to step aside from cabinet but remain a voting member
Three lower house crossbenchers Andrew Wilkie, Cathy McGowan and NXT MP Rebekha Sharkie have been abstaining from the votes re Barnaby thus far because they don’t agree with either side.
Their position is that Joyce should step aside from cabinet but that his vote should count until the high court rules.
Wilkie asks if the chamber can stop this “fractious juvenile debate” debate and get back to policy debate.
Senator Nick Xenophon will talk about NXT’s position on the media reform bill at 3.30pm.
Tony Burke’s argument is around the two votes in the House recently that were lost by one vote.
Those votes were restoring penalty rate cuts and the other was a procedural motion to bring on a vote on a banking royal commission.
We don’t know if that majority is lawful. This is a big deal.
Updated
Labor’s Tony Burke is prosecuting the suspension of standing orders as Malcolm Turnbull sits there with a bemused smile.
He notes the foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop has not had a question on the great trans-Tasman conspiracy theory.
I was ready to move an extension of time.
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Note the Senate pin.
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Labor is now moving a suspension of standing orders on Barnaby Joyce.
That the House:
1. Notes:
a) This House has unanimously asked the high court to determine whether the deputy prime minister is constitutionally qualified to be a member of parliament and thereby
to determine if the government has a majority;
b) The deputy prime minister has admitted he was a citizen of a foreign power right up until the weekend and has already started campaigning for the New England by-election;
c) Former Minister Matt Canavan has resigned from cabinet and will not vote in the Senate until the high court resolves doubts about his constitutional qualifications;
d) The prime minister is continuing to accept the deputy prime minister’s vote in this House even though it means that victims of the banks are denied the Royal Commission
they’ve been calling for and Australians continue to have their penalty rates cut; and
e) The situation with his deputy prime minister is unsustainable; and
2. Therefore, calls on the prime minister to:
a) Admit his continued reliance on the deputy prime minister’s vote is causing real harm to the people of Australia;
b) Rule out accepting the vote of the deputy prime minister while his constitutional
qualifications are in doubt; and
c) Direct the deputy prime minister to immediately resign from cabinet.
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Barnaby Joyce takes the question on agriculture in the lower house after Labor lost their bid to gag him.
He is halfway through the answer, greeted by Labor heckling, when Anthony Albanese takes a point of order.
It’s normally the practice that valedictories are heard in silence.
He is thrown out.
This is the textbook answer to Pauline Hanson’s stunt.
This is Brandis' response to Pauline Hanson's burqa stunt that earned him a standing ovation from Labor pic.twitter.com/xq5rBSGKQM
— Callum Denness (@CalBD) August 17, 2017
Labor loses the gag motion against Barnaby Joyce.
Meanwhile in the lower house, three Labor members have been thrown out and when Barnaby Joyce rose to speak, Labor moved to gag him. They are voting now.
Remember the last great cunning stunt that Pauline Hanson pulled? The video in which she said:
If you are seeing me now it means I have been murdered.
It was the beginning of the end of the last great caper. #justsaying
Penny Wong also congratulated George Brandis. The Senate tries to do what all good parents do when the kid chucks itself on the floor or holds its breath – that is carry on calmly.
Updated
Brandis gets a standing ovation from Labor and the Greens.
Strangely, he doesn’t get the standing ovation from his own side.
George Brandis gets a standing ovation after he carpets Pauline Hanson
George Brandis says:
No we will not be banning the burqa.
I am not going to ignore the stunt of arriving in this chamber ...
He warns her to be careful of the offence you may do to the religious sensibilities of other Australians.
He says there are almost half a million adherents to Islam and they are law-abiding citizens.
Brandis carpets her. HE IS VERY EMOTIONAL.
GO GEORGE!
His voice is shaking.
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Pauline Hanson stands and takes off the burqa. She asks attorney general George Brandis whether he will work to ban the burqa in Australia.
In the Senate, it feels a bit like your two-year-old sitting in the middle of the living room with a bag over her head to get attention. This really is a strange week.
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Pauline Hanson wears a burqa in senate #qt @gabriellechan @GuardianAus #politicslive pic.twitter.com/KvJyLQlmbf
— Mikearoo (@mpbowers) August 17, 2017
The Senate question time carries on with Hanson sitting there in a black burqa. We cannot show you a pic at the moment but will endeavour to get you one shortly.
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Pauline Hanson has turned up to question time in a black burqa
Labor’s Emma Husar to Turnbull: Shop assistants had their penalty rates cut after the House voted with a majority of just one. Does the prime minister acknowledge his decision to accept his deputy’s vote when it may have been unconstitutional for him to be here is having an impact on every Australian?
Meanwhile in the Senate, Pauline Hanson has turned up in a black burqa.
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The first government question is on delivering its commitments in an open and transparent manner.
He lists school needs based funding via Gonski 2.0, tax cuts for small and medium businesses, more jobs.
Jobs and growth is not just a slogan, it is an outcome.
Labor’s Nick Champion to Turnbull: Despite the fact his deputy has admitted he was a citizen of a foreign power right up until the weekend, the prime minister has spent all week fighting to keep his own job which relies on a one-seat majority that his deputy provides. What’s the prime minister’s response to factory workers in Elizabeth in my electorate who every day watch this prime minister do absolutely everything to protect his job and nothing to protect theirs?
Turnbull says the greatest threat to his constituents was rising energy prices.
Nothing has done more to undermine the jobs of factory workers and manufacturing workers in SouthAustralia than the high prices of energy and the unreliability of that energy in the honourable member’s state. He knows that is a direct consequence of what the Labor premier Jay Weatherill described as his great experiment. I will tell the member for Wakefield what Jay Weatherill was experimenting with: the lives of his constituents.
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Question time. Grab a beverage.
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young is excoriating Barnaby Joyce, suggesting he is unfit for office.
I don’t think anyone is surprised that the deputy prime minister did not check his paper work. I don’t think anyone is surprised at his incompetence...this has made the government a joke....a protection racket is going on here.
She says in a couple of weeks when the prime minister goes overseas, Joyce will be acting prime minister.
The Senate divides to vote on the suspension of standing orders. The Greens vote is lost.
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@gabriellechan "At the Barnaby Bank our dedicated team of professionals will partner you through the business facilitation process." #auspol pic.twitter.com/S3NdZpbzHu
— The Matt Hatter (@MattGlassDarkly) August 17, 2017
In the senate, the Greens senator Nick McKim is trying to suspend standing orders because the government has not produced legal advice which supports Barnaby Joyce’s right to remain as a cabinet minister. (This has been said by various ministers as justification of the deputy PM not standing down.)
The senate passed the motion yesterday ordering the government to produce the advice. The government has not acted.
Attorney general George Brandis has three points:
- McKim did not give notice of the suspension which is senate practice and poor form.
- Governments never release advice through history, especially given there is a court case arising.
- It will be sorted in coming weeks so no need to go there.
Labor says they will not support the motion at this stage. Labor’s Jacinta Collins says its bollocks that notice of suspensions is always given. And it’s bollocks that governments never show legal advice.
Collins warns she will watch the case closely and may pursue it in the next sitting period (in September).
So given Labor will not support the suspension, it is deceased for the time being.
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The former Labor treasurer Wayne Swan and former UK chancellor Ed Balls have been speaking at the National Press Club. I am trying to catch up with the breadth of their presentations while doing a few other things but in the mean time, enjoy Katharine Murphy’s podcast with them from yesterday.
Barnaby Bank Bill minus Barnaby
The lower house is currently voting on the Regional Investment Corporation bill - the so-called Barnaby Bank - which amalgamates all the various buckets of concessional loans in one glorious fund.
This is what the bill officially does:
Establishes the Regional Investment Corporation to administer farm business loans and financial assistance granted to states and territories in relation to water infrastructure projects, and any future programs prescribed by rules; provides for the corporation’s functions, operating mandate, ministerial directions, board membership and appointment of a chief executive officer and staff; and provides for miscellaneous matters, including the recovery of costs, delegations, power to make rules, and an independent review of the operation of the Act before 1 July 2024.
It is sort of a Nationals version of One Belt One Road, a bloody great bucket of existing funding in the form of cheap loans and grants, that will provide a whole lot of announceables with very large numbers attached.
Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon is opposed because they say it is just a pork-barrelling exercise.
Barnaby has pushed this – it is a pet project. But it is interesting to see he is not presenting it to the house. Instead Nationals assistant minister Luke Hartsuyker is doing the job.
The bill is expected to pass the house on the numbers.
Updated
Labor trolls Greens on education
There’s an interesting motion to be brought by Labor’s Jenny McAllister today according to the Senate notice paper.
On its surface, it’s just another Labor attack against the Coalition’s Gonski 2.0 education package, which passed in late June. But look more closely and the motion appears to reproduce the language of a leaflet distributed by Greens senator, Lee Rhiannon, against the package while the Greens were negotiating with the government.
This sparked Rhiannon’s temporary suspension from the Greens party room and a Four Corners episode in which her colleagues and former colleagues Bob Brown, Christine Milne, Richard Di Natale and Nick McKim criticised her for being a team-wrecker.
The motion asks the Senate to acknowledge that the package “cuts $17bn from Australian schools”, and “cancels the current New South Wales agreement on schools funding, locking in a lower 2017 level of funding for the next ten years”.
It also calls on the government to “commit to the full, original Gonski needs-based funding model” and for parliamentarians to “take a stand for public education” and “vote against the Australian Education Amendment Bill 2017, and properly fund the Gonski reforms put in place by the Commonwealth Government in 2013”.
It’s all a bit academic now because the package passed but it will be interesting to see how the Greens in general and Rhiannon in particular vote on Labor’s trolling motion.
Anthony Albanese is campaigning for the yes vote on marriage equality.
I was hoping he would post a photo of the him in Game of Thrones regalia. Yesterday David Speers called him the Jon Snow (the bastard king of Game of Thrones) of Australian politics. Albo had been pointing out he was clear on citizenship because his single mother was many generations Australian and his father was “unknown”. Given Snow is one of the hotties of Game of Thrones, Albo was delighted with this comparison.
The Spycatcher Trial gets better. Neil Kinnock is pursued by the Tories for asking a question after speaking to the brash young Australian lawyer.
On page 143, Turnbull writes:
Kinnock took off on a trip to America and allowed the Tories to pursue him for the terrible crime of having spoken with me ...
I could never understand why Kinnock was subject to criticism for having spoken with me. I asked [British Conservative MP] Jonathon Aitken about it and he said that in Australia or America no one would think less of Kinnock for making inquiries as widely as he like but in England people were different.
(I really must get back to parliament here.)
Updated
As I transition to more breathing space, I am hoping to increase my book pile. One of the absences has been Malcolm Turnbull’s The Spy Catcher Trial: The Scandal Behind The #1 Best Seller.
This is an explanation of the book from the Publishers Weekly.
The British government’s efforts to block publication of Peter Wright’s Spycatcher: Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Agent climaxed in a sensational trial in Australia in 1986 that cast a shadow of disrepute on the British legal system, the Official Secrets Act and the government itself.
The author of this engrossing, suspenseful account is the Australian attorney who represented Wright and his would-be Australian publisher. Excerpts from the trial testimony reveal that Turnbull uncovered mendacity, hypocrisy and cynicism at the highest levels of the British government, principally during his cross-examination of Sir Robert Armstrong, cabinet secretary and adviser on intelligence matters.
In 1987 the High Court at Canberra dismissed the case and ordered the Thatcher government to reimburse legal costs to Wright and Heinemann Publishers Australia. Turnbull calls the Britishers’ conduct in the affair “quite disgraceful” and adds that the experience “galvanized my determination to see Australia rid herself of its [sic] remaining constitutional links with England”.
It has some interesting observations in it, especially when read in the light of the accusations of the ALP’s colluding with a “foreign party” with NZ Labour on Barnaby Joyce’s citizenship.
Here is the young author on p118. The British PM at the time was Margaret Thatcher and the young Turnbull writes:
Students of political science have been told for many years how superior is the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy to the presidential system in the United States or France. They are told that English prime ministers are directly answerable to Parliament. Yet throughout this affair when the integrity of her Attorney General and her Cabinet secretary were put into serious doubt, she managed to avoid giving any explanation to parliament.
Later that day, English time, [Labor leader Neil] Kinnock rose to ask a question of the prime minister. It was precisely in the form we had discussed.
The now prime minister would probably argue that he was not an MP at the time but the lawyer representing his client Peter Wright but it goes to show how this business works.
Nick Xenophon has a private bill in the Senate to restore shortwave radio in the Northern Territory and parts of the Pacific and Papua New Guinea, after ABC cut off the service earlier this year.
Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie has spoken in favour of the bill.
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And while we are on the postal survey, the second directions hearing of the high court challenge to the government’s postal plebiscite on marriage equality will happen this afternoon.
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I note there is comment in the blog over the postal survey committee hearings I mentioned earlier.
This is indeed, as comments have pointed out, a Labor/Greens-dominated committee which means the government had its arm twisted.
It is headed by the Labor senator Jenny McAllister and presumably is designed to address and react to the various roiling boiling issues that surface in the heat of the postal survey.
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I want to go back to hypothecation (because it’s such a alluring term) and the idea that the Medicare levy increase for the NDIS goes into a locked box.
Fairfax’s Peter Martin addressed this issue back in February.
In reality there are no locked boxes. Clause 81 of the constitution says “all revenues or moneys raised or received by the executive government of the commonwealth shall form one consolidated revenue fund, to be appropriated for the purposes of the commonwealth in the manner and subject to the charges and liabilities imposed by this constitution”.
There are no separate jam jars.
But it hasn’t stopped the governments of all persuasion from acting as if there are. The best-known is the Medicare levy, which we are told funds Medicare and the National Disability Insurance Scheme, but which in reality goes straight into consolidated revenue (and couldn’t anywhere near fully fund them in any event).
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Bill Shorten was asked whether the constitution should be changed to allow dual citizens in parliament and he suggests MPs should simply make sure they comply with the rules.
He says he will not back down on the Medicare NDIS levy – he will only support the increase on salaries over $87,000.
It is horribly wrong for the government the hold the NDIS hostage and say that the only way to fund it is through increasing taxes on people who earn $50,000 and $60,000 a year. There is many other ways to fund the functioning of government.
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Shorten dismisses the New Zealand Labour conspiracy theory.
I think we have all seen the mad conspiracy theories of the last 48 hours and I don’t think the prime minister or foreign minister have done themselves any favours whatsoever.
Let’s be clear here. Labor didn’t ask the government to refer their deputy prime minister to the high court. The government did that. Labor didn’t ask the government to make their deputy prime minister come out and declare that he was the citizen of a foreign power.
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Bill Shorten is doing a doorstop and is asked about an old story about a $25,000 donation from the Australian Workers Union when he was the boss of the union.
Did you authorise a $25,000 donation of union money to your 2007 election campaign when you were secretary of the AWU?
This government is absolutely keen to chuck all of the rubbish it can at me because they are desperate to distract from their own matters. I will not go into - in and out of every issue but what I will say is this....
I am very proud of my record of standing up for workers. Very proud indeed. I also had a whole royal commission, a glorious taxpayer waste of money to ask us 1,000 questions and now the government wants to have another crack. I’m not getting into that game.
The trade union royal commission had no adverse findings.
The Canberra Times’ public service specialist reporter Noel Towell reports:
Rank-and-file officials at the Australian Bureau of Statistics have “grave doubts” that the same-sex marriage postal vote can be done properly in the time-frame ordered by the Turnbull government, the public servants’ union says.
Some ABS workers fear the postal survey will be a “rush job” that risks repeating last year’s Census debacle, while others are worried it will not deliver an accurate picture of Australians’ opinions of same sex marriage, according to the Community and Public Sector Union.
Even the bureau’s boss has conceded to his staff that doing the job by November 15 is “challenging” although Chief Statistician David Kalisch insists the ABS is up to the task.
Tony Abbott’s sister Christine Forster has answered her brother’s column on Monday which accused the yes case of moral bullying.
She writes today in the Oz:
The challenge for all of us is to acknowledge there will be fault on both sides and to refrain from pointing the finger at only our opponents. Calling each other — depending on which side you sit — bullies or bigots is never going to be constructive and it will never win over the people the respective proponents seek to convince.
That is particularly true when you consider that once all the politicking, posturing and name-calling is pared back, both sides are arguing the same point: the special nature of marriage.
When we discuss marriage in Australia we are not addressing a religious issue but a relationship between two people, exalted and protected under federal legislation. That legislation was enacted in 1961 and has since been amended 20 times.
Banana sandwich.
Conservative Liberal and former Cormann staffer Slade Brockman has been sworn in as the new senator to replace the retired Chris Back.
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Treasurer Scott Morrison has given quite a long off-the-cuff speech in support of the increase of the Medicare levy and the NDIS generally.
He says it is totally hypocritical for Bill Shorten, who was involved in the establishment of the NDIS, to reject a way of funding it into the future.
Morrison says the Labor party that had the courage and the heart to bring forward the NDIS is not the same Labor party now.
This is one of the few things where I thought we would have agreement.
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I’ve just lost it.
@gabriellechan With a grip like that I hope @RichardDiNatale bulk bills. 😬😂 #yowza @mpbowers #politicslive pic.twitter.com/Fv9MGDOyPo
— The Matt Hatter (@MattGlassDarkly) August 16, 2017
The finance and public administration references committee has announced an inquiry into the postal survey on marriage equality.
It will look at:
- What information will be collected and how it will be collected, aggregated and reported;
- What departments and agencies will be involved and what resources will be provided;
- The legislative basis for the collection and how matters such as advertising, fraud, access to the roll and privacy will be regulated;
- The integrity of the roll and the potential for disenfranchisement of voters;
- Protections against offensive, misleading or intimidating material or behaviour, especially towards affected communities;
- How issues incurred during the collection will be addressed;
- Whether the information will be stored and what controls on future access will apply;
- All aspects of the conduct of the collection and related matters; and
- Proposals for use of the information obtained, including to inform future legislation.
Oddly, submissions close on 10 November 2017, well after the postal vote is delivered. The report will be tabled well after, by the second sitting Tuesday in February 2018.
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Scott Morrison is introducing the Medicare levy bill for an 0.5% increase right now.
He says the bill goes to Australian character of helping out their mates.
It is that character that is called upon in this bill.
Goodbye Laurie. What a journalist.
Laurie Oakes prepares for his last TV appearance this morning with legendary cameraman Mark Jessop. Farewell Laurie @gabriellechan pic.twitter.com/w4Gq1wfet6
— Mikearoo (@mpbowers) August 16, 2017
Labor's Joel Fitzgibbon challenges Coalition agreement in court
Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon has gone to the courts to seek to see the Coalition Agreement between the Liberals and the Nationals.
This is the unicorn of Australian politics. Everyone claims to know what’s in it, MPs use it to justify all sorts of positions, ie we have to stick to no free marriage vote because it’s in the agreement.
This from Fitzgibbon this morning:
Today the federal court will rule on my case against the prime minister.
All Australians have the right to know what is in the Coalition Agreement that handed Malcolm Turnbull the prime ministership.
The case will be heard at 10.15am at the federal court of Australia in Sydney.
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Cathy McGowan gave a raw speech yesterday which we missed as it was in the federation chamber (the second smaller one) about the plight of asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru. She said it is un-Christian for a parliament that says the Our Father prayer.
She has sought and received a briefing from the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, and she says while she understands his logic, she does not understand “the heart of it”. She said:
I find it personally extraordinarily distressing. But more importantly, as a member of parliament, my constituents find it distressing.
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Albo does cuddly.
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This is clearly an audition.
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In arguing the case for the Medicare levy rise, Scott Morrison has said in future, the government wants to lower taxes – apart from increasing tax for the NDIS.
Asked if 100% of the levy rise would go toward the NDIS, Morrison says:
100%, all of it.
The treasurer makes this point and while I usually speak Morrison, I am having trouble with this one. I think his main message it that the levy will be put in a separate bucket, otherwise known hypothecation.
In the future, governments like our government would want to reduce taxes ... if it was a Bill Shorten government he would want to increase taxes. In either case, the way this is designed is that the levy at 1% out of the total 2.5%, that would be secure so governments could on transfer payments, welfare payments, make whatever changes a government may wish to make but the funding flow from the Medicare levy would be secure.
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The Medicare levy increase to fund the NDIS will kick in when a single person earns $21,000 and a family earns $36,000.
Labor will only back the Medicare levy increase for people on more than $87,000.
The independent senator Jacqui Lambie, who has been a strong critic of the government and votes more with Labor than not, has entertained the possibility of a compromise. This might give an indication that the crossbenchers are dealing on the levy increase.
She told Fran Kelly:
I think it needs to be pushed up higher. I think Bill Shorten is calling for $87,000 it starts there. I think that’s too high. I think we can find some middle ground here.
The treasurer is not ruling out a compromise but warns that the bringing in different thresholds for this portion of the levy could create complications in the tax system.
Scott Morrison:
This is not about Bill Shorten’s politics of envy. It’s about disabilities … if you have a Medicare levy, a part of it that only comes in at a particular income you get a massive spike in the effective marginal tax rate and it’s just not good design. And so if there are issues the senators are raising – and they are – then we will work through them in the due course of the parliament.
The increase, if it goes through, starts in 2019 and Morrison rules out bringing it in early if it passes the Senate.
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Thanks, Bowers.
Rainbow over Parliament this morn-Join @gabriellechan on #politicslive for her last day in this role 😭😭😭@GuardianAus pic.twitter.com/m2JnKYWFHr
— Mikearoo (@mpbowers) August 16, 2017
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The Justice party senator, Derryn Hinch, has provided a bit of media advice for Malcolm Turnbull.
He said the government could have avoided all this with an audit.
We can avoid all these headlines if the major parties, if the Nats and the Libs and Labor – twice we have gone to the Senate, most of the crossbenchers, and said: ‘Give us an independent audit, push it off to the legal and constitutional affairs committee, let them put up an independent audit or and everybody issue documents.’
If the Human Headline can sort it out and fix it, it can’t be that hard! Barnaby Joyce should have stood down, should have stood aside. Why on earth a clever prime minister didn’t force him to come out on the Friday and the Saturday, get it out on the weekend. It is now Thursday – I hope – and we are still talking about it. They got no clear air all week on any other issue.
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Cory Bernardi calls for the prime minister to prorogue parliament over 'crisis'
The Australian Conservative senator Cory Bernardi says the citizenship issue has caused a lack of confidence in political institutions. He wants to effectively halt the parliament until the high court rules and any byelections are out of the way.
Two senators have stood aside, good on them for doing that, pending the result of the high court appeal.
We also know there are members of the government that have been referred to the high court and the crossbenches.
There are accusations there are members of the Labor party that should also be going. The crisis of confidence is very real. There is a lack of confidence in our body politic and there are great concerns about the health and wellbeing of our political institutions.
After some contemplation, I believe there is only one way forward for this parliament and that is for the prime minister to prorogue the parliament, effectively end this session pending the outcome of the high court, pending any byelections that may be necessary, but we need to ensure every decision taken by this parliament.
Whatever incarnation comes after it before the next election is absolutely above board, that it retains the confidence of the Australian people and that we can get about rebuilding faith in politics and our political institutions.
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Good morning blogans,
There is a veritable derp storm this morning as competing bluff and bluster try to win the political agenda.
The citizenship tornado continues the blow around the benches. The latest to be questioned is the justice minister, Michael Keenan, whose father was British. Journalists have been putting questions to every possible MP since this whole thing broke. Keenan sought to clear his own situation up.
1/3 I am an Australian citizen and I do not hold citizenship of
— Michael Keenan MP (@MichaelKeenanMP) August 16, 2017
any other country. Fairfax is aware of this, yet in a cheap grab #auspol
2/3 ...for a headline they have ignored this.
— Michael Keenan MP (@MichaelKeenanMP) August 16, 2017
I have to wonder why they’re not pursuing Labor with such
vigour. #auspol
3/3 I renounced my citizenship in 2004 before entering
— Michael Keenan MP (@MichaelKeenanMP) August 16, 2017
Parliament. #auspol
The treasurer, Scott Morrison, and the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, have addressed this point this morning. Their message: nothing to see here, move on.
But let’s get to an actual policy argument. There was a budget in May. Remember that?
Three bills will be introduced into the parliament this morning at 9.30am.
- Medicare Levy Amendment (National Disability Insurance Scheme Funding) and related bills
- Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Amendment
- Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card)
Morrison wants to talk about funding the national disability insurance scheme, specifically the planned 0.5% rise in the NDIS levy on 1 July 2019, to help fund what the Coalition says is a $55.7bn, 10-year funding shortfall.
The human services minister, Alan Tudge, has also been out talking about the cashless welfare card so you can see the government wants to start filling the hole that was blown in its agenda by the citizenship debacle.
On Medicare, Morrison said he was working constructively with the crossbench – he doesn’t want to over-egg it but he underlines that he is being pragmatic.
We are making it work.
I have some other treats in store for you today on this, my last day on the #politicslive blog. Mike Bowers has some fabulous shots from the ABC showcase, with MPs going bananas over B1 and B2. Talk to me in the thread, on the Twits @gabriellechan or on Facebook.
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