Righto that’s me done for the day, and parliament for the next couple of weeks.
You ever have one of those days where you feel like you got nothing done?
Between the Coalition’s apparent determination to keep the Michaelia Cash imbroglio running for as long as possible, Kim Carr’s ridiculous comments about Hitler youth, and Bill Shorten’s equivocating over Labor’s stance on Adani, it just feels like we didn’t really move the needle.
Anyway the good news is we – or they – get to do it all over again in two weeks when the Senate resumes sitting. The next joint sitting week isn’t until the end of March though, on the week of the 26th.
By then hopefully your usual driver Amy Remeikis will be in better health.
Thanks for hanging out though, it’s been fun!
Updated
Murph’s just filed an update on the whole ‘what did Bill Shorten tell Geoff Cousins about Adani’ affair.
Sounds like they’re trying to water down expectations about what they would or wouldn’t do with the coalmine’s environmental approval if they were elected.
He’s echoed Brendan O’Connor’s line from earlier, too, about Labor not ripping up contracts.
Updated
Nationals reshuffle: Canavan survives but Hartsuyker, Drum dropped.
Hey now the Nationals reshuffle has dropped!
No changes to the cabinet – so Matthew Canavan survives – but Darren Chester returns to the outer ministry as minister for veteran affairs and minister assisting for the centenary of Anzac.
Keith Pitt returns as assistant minister to the deputy prime minister – remember how furious he was when he was dropped in December? – and Mark Coulton becomes assistant minister for trade, tourism and investment. They’ll be sworn in on Monday.
And, of course, whenever there are winners there are also losers.
Damian Drum and Luke Hartsuyker both lose their assistant ministry positions.
Updated
Questions on notice have revealed that of 30,056 people who were subject to assessments of whether they are still eligible for the disability support pension from July 2017 to November 2017, only 135 came off the DSP.
Of those:
- 119 voluntarily chose to come off DSP and are either no longer receiving income support (56) or are on another payment (63); and
- 16 recipients had their DSP cancelled and are either no longer receiving income support (10) or are receiving a more appropriate payment (6).
Greens welfare spokeswoman, Rachel Siewert, said:
“With only 66 people coming off income support ... out of 30,000+ recipients reviewed, it seems the eligibility checks have been a monumental waste of time and money.
“The government would have likely spent more money carrying out the checks than the money they’ve clawed back from these people, meanwhile 30,000+ recipients have gone through a stressful process that didn’t need to occur in the first place.
“In Senate estimates today the Department of Social Services admitted they were reviewing the process, which to me is a concession that the process isn’t working as they hoped.
“I urge the government to stop this awful process that is causing stress to vulnerable members of our community. It is obviously not saving money and is just causing harm.”
Michael Kroger, the Liberal party state president in Victoria, just said on Sky News that the Greens party have “no empathy with what happened in World War 2”.
Which, of course he did.
It was in the context of Kim Carr’s comments to James Patterson in estimates earlier, and feels like the inevitable conclusion of today.
“The left of the Greens, in fact most of the Greens, they have no empathy with the Jewish community, they have no empathy with what happened in World War 2.
“There are elements of anti-semitism in Australian politics, mainly on the left, a fraction of it is on the right but mainly on the left.
“I mean these are the fascists in Australian politics.”
Yikes.
Updated
For those of you playing at home (and perusing Parliament House’s media rules) the whiteboard kerfuffle is explained by two seemingly clashing rules.
Rule 4.7 (e) says that media activity is permitted in the Mural Hall. But 4.7(d) says it is not permitted “in the corridors outside the committee rooms”.
So the issue is that media were stationed in the Mural Hall but filming down the corridor outside the committee rooms. On one view, they are in Mural Hall, so it’s fine; on the other view they are filming the corridors outside the committee rooms, so it’s not.
That would explain why both media and Michaelia Cash have complained to the sergeant-at-arms.
Updated
Paul Karp has managed to confirm that Michaelia Cash’s office has filed a complaint to the sergeant-at-arms about the media filming that embarrassing entrance into estimates earlier.
Basically, there are issues of protocol about where the media can and cannot film in the halls of Parliament House.
But the complaint raises a few questions. First, if the media wasn’t supposed to be filming, why bother with the ridiculous whiteboard stunt?
Second, and more importantly, did they really think I wouldn’t use this as an excuse to post the video again?
Farcical scenes at Parliament House, as security guards wheel out a whiteboard to stop media filming Michaelia Cash arriving at a #estimates committee hearing pic.twitter.com/YZXC7VxE6S
— ABC Politics (@politicsabc) March 1, 2018
Updated
Oh grow up, all of you.
The Anals of History pic.twitter.com/Me77kWHHAd
— Phillip Coorey (@PhillipCoorey) March 1, 2018
Earlier Murph mentioned the comments from businessman and environmentalist Geoff Cousins, who insists Bill Shorten suggested to him that he wanted to “lead” on reversing approvals for the controversial Adani coalmine.
Read about that here.
Well, Brendan O’Connor has been on Sky News this afternoon and is insisting that it isn’t Labor’s policy to overturn the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act approval for Adani.
“We’ve said that if there are environmental concerns with respect to project then of course [we have] reservations,” he said.
But he said Labor was “not going to be tearing up contracts if we’re elected”.
“That’s not Bill’s position or Labor’s position,” he said.
Hm.
Labor’s been playing a dangerous game on Adani, and the government has been honing in. Revenue and financial services minister Kelly O’Dwyer quipped in question time that Shorten is “an eco-warrior in inner-city Melbourne [but] the miner’s mate when he is in north Queensland”.
She was just one of a long line-up of ministers keen to whack Shorten on this in question time, and it could be fertile ground if the Coalition can make this an issue of his trustworthiness.
Updated
Withdrawn, unreservedly
Labor’s Jenny McAllister has asked Michaelia Cash whether she has unreservedly withdrawn her remarks about rumours around Bill Shorten’s staff.
Cash said that hansard would reflect that she had withdrawn the remark.
Well, not quite. Yesterday, Cash said “if anyone has been offended – I withdraw” which is not a total climb down, allowing Labor to kick the outrage into today’s cycle.
Today, Cash does the mopping up job: “I’m more than happy to withdraw them unreservedly ... I withdrew them yesterday and I will withdraw them unreservedly.”
But Cash also pushed back against Labor’s Doug Cameron, claiming she made her comments in response to his “highly inappropriate comment”.
Fact check: all Cameron did was ask if her new chief of staff came from another Liberal office.
“Doug Cameron is nothing more or less than a bully – and that was on display yesterday,” she said, before calling on him to “withdraw the insinuations he made about my staff”.
McAllister tries to get the bully remark retracted, but Cash refuses. One climb down at a time it seems.
Updated
OK we’re moving on the Cash saga again.
She’s back taking questions in estimates and, per Murph, has “unreservedly” withdrawn her comments while echoing the prime minister’s line from earlier about Doug Cameron being a bully.
More on that soon.
Michaelia Cash has just withdrawn her comments "unreservedly" (while calling Doug Cameron a bully) #auspol @mmcgowan569
— Katharine Murphy (@murpharoo) March 1, 2018
Updated
G’day, G’day. Murph’s walked off and left the keys in Politics Live, so I’m taking my chance and jumping behind the wheel. Or keyboard. Whatever. I’m taking over the blog for the rest of the afternoon, is my point.
Michaelia Cash has of course dominated headlines today, and Malcolm Turnbull’s equivocation on the matter in question time just now coupled with her bizarre entry into estimates (see below) suggests we may be headed for day three of ... is there a hashtag for her thing yet?
In the meantime, though, a brief contribution to actual policy from none other than One Nation leader Pauline Hanson.
Hanson spoke to Samantha Maiden on Sky News this morning, and suggested the government still has a ways to go before winning One Nation’s support for its proposed company tax cuts.
There were reports this morning that finance minister Mathias Cormann has been circulating modelling on the proposed cut in a bit to win over the reluctant members of the Senate crossbench.
But Hanson said she hadn’t seen the modelling, and that she still “needs to be convinced” on the policy.
The Coalition has tried to sell the policy on the basis that it will increase wages – though there remains quite a few questions about how much and over what period of time – and despite saying she had “an open mind” on the policy, Hanson expressed doubt that a tax cut would do anything to spur wage growth.
Watch this space, I suppose.
Updated
So long, folks
With the news piling up, as delightful as this brief reunion has been, I need to move on and tend to my usual patch. Thanks for riding along for the day. I’m handing over now to my colleague, Michael McGowan, who will see you through to stumps.
In the galaxy not that far away
The jobs and innovation minister, Michaelia Cash, has been in Senate estimates since 1:50pm but has not yet faced any questions about the tipoff to the media about the AWU raids.
That’s because the first witnesses up were from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. The raids have to be dealt with in the cross portfolio time slot, which isn’t scheduled until 7:15pm.
Labor’s Kim Carr eased off when Cash confirmed she intended to stick around for that, but grumbled that cross-portfolio matters were not first up.
At 3pm, after questions to Michael Keenan about the AWU raid leak dominated question time, Labor’s Jenny McAllister tried again to ask Cash about “remarks made by the prime minister in the House just now”.
Several Liberal senators objected, and the Liberal chair Jane Hume suspended the hearing to ask McAllister what the question was to determine if it was relevant.
After the suspension, we’re back with the Anti-Dumping Commission and – you guessed it – there were no questions about the AWU. So that’s kicked the can down the road, possibly for a few hours.
Updated
The prime minister has called time on question time.
Back in the House.
The Cairns community has got a spring in its step and confidence is returning. No project embodies the renewed energy and confidence like the refurbishment of the Cairns courthouse ..
While these guys narrowcast for three elections, I can share antics elsewhere. Let’s call this one #Accountability #TheSequel
Farcical scenes at Parliament House, as security guards wheel out a whiteboard to stop media filming Michaelia Cash arriving at a #estimates committee hearing pic.twitter.com/YZXC7VxE6S
— ABC Politics (@politicsabc) March 1, 2018
A Dorothy referencing the South Australian election, followed by a Labor question about the Tasmanian election. I wonder whether we will touch down in Batman? Oh no, we have, already. The baristas in Brunswick.
Meanwhile.
Updated
Bill Shorten is taking us now to Tasmania, given the looming state election.
Q: My question is to the prime minister. Can he confirm he is making over 150,000 Tasmanians pay more income tax each year while providing a $65bn handout to big business?
Malcolm Turnbull:
Thank you Mr Speaker, it has taken the leader of the opposition now 54 minutes to ask a question about the economy.
The prime minister says the increase in the Medicare levy is to pay for the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
The Dorothy’s – for those playing along at home – are Bill Shorten is walking all sides of the street on Adani, and Chris Bowen is a dope on company tax cuts.
Scott Morrison, summarising:
The Labor party have turned their back on Julia Gillard, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating. When you believe in nothing, nobody will believe in you!
The energy minister Josh Frydenberg, summarising:
The leader of the opposition says one thing to the miners in Mackay and to another to the baristas in Brunswick.
Again, Michael Keenan.
Q: My question is to the minister the human services and I refer to his previous answers. A moment ago, the minister said he rejected the allegation. Does he deny his office being the original source of the leak to the media about the AFP raid? Yes or no?
Michael Keenan:
How much clearer can I be?
Yes!
Government members urge the Labor questioner, Brendan O’Connor, to write that one down.
Labor, persisting with Michael Keenan.
Q: My question is to the minister for human services. Did the minister or his office at any time prior to the AFP raid inform anyone other than the prime minister about this raid, including but not limited to the office of minister Cash?
Michael Keenan:
Mr Speaker, that is exactly the same question as the previous one that I have just addressed. The truth is, an allegation has been made. I have completely rejected that allegation and I am not going to sit here and ...
Question time: what is point?
Tony Burke, with the obvious point.
Mr Speaker, if the opposition can’t ask questions because that’s cross-examination, should we continue with question time, ever? Surely that’s the point of it.
Speaker Tony Smith, full deadpan.
I’m going to continue with question time. If the manager of opposition business doesn’t wish to, that’s his business.
There was quite a fun quip then by Malcolm Turnbull to the former New Zealand prime minister John Key, who is visiting today. The prime minister detects a look of relief from the retired Key as he surveys “the dignified debates here in the House of Representatives”.
Today, we are all John Key.
Then Labor returns to Michael Keenan.
Q: My question is to the minister for human services and I refer to the member’s previous answers. Did the minister or his office at the time inform anyone other than the office of the prime minister about the raid before the execution of search warrants, including but not limited to the office of minister Cash?
Michael Keenan:
Mr Speaker, I won’t be cross examined by him ... And in fact, I won’t be cross-examined by any of them because they are not worthy!
#Accountability
Labor has come back to Michael Keenan.
Labor’s Mark Dreyfus says a statement issued by his office said media outlets were not informed of the raids by him or his office.
Q: What steps did he take to substantiate the claim that no-one in his office informed the media before the execution of search warrants?
Michael Keenan:
I am not being cross-examined by someone who is running a protection racket for a corrupt union movement that remains in control of this Labor party.
#Accountability
Back to the other place, the treasurer Scott Morrison, has fluffed his funny. He was trying to land a line about his opposite number Chris Bowen chugging down left lattes, or left ideology, like Bob Hawke, chugging stuff. The landing point was spewing.
It ran off the rails. It wasn’t clear in the end who was chugging, apart from the treasurer, on his funny.
Meanwhile, in a galaxy not far away.
Updated
The member for Kennedy, Bob Katter, is bellowing.
Malcolm Turnbull is unmoved by the bellowing.
I understand the member for the Kennedy does not approve or agree with free-market economics but we have to say to him, with respect to his views, that we here in the government believe in free markets, in trade, in free enterprise.
Michael Keenan gets a second question on the denial his office has issued on the BuzzFeed story. He says he’s already answered that question. Then we get a solid dose of CFMEU alleged wickedness.
The next Dorothy is on cyber bulling, and the national day of action in mid-March.
Malcolm Turnbull:
We all have smart phones, our children have smart phones. This is a recent technology. The first one arrived on the scene at about a decade ago. While there are enormous benefits, what it means is that the bullying that used to end at the school gate follows children home.
The consequences can be tragic.
Bill Shorten, on indulgence, says the following.
I wish to associate the opposition with the remarks of the prime minister. I congratulate the prime minister on writing to school principals.
Parents raise the scourge of bullying with me in all forums. It is not just cyber bullying but what can happen to their children at school.
It is a parents worst nightmare not to be able to protect their children, so I congratulate him on this initiative.
Labor has moved on to Michael Keenan and the BuzzFeed report I referenced a couple of posts ago about an alleged tip off from his office before the police raids on the AWU.
Keenan is asked whether the denial issued by his office is accurate.
Michael Keenan:
The answer to the member’s question is yes, and we will not be distracted by this enormous nonsense that you see from the Labor party.
What does Amy say? #DeathToDixers? We are on the first Dorothy, which allows the prime minister to note that Bill Shorten went off on “a secret snorkelling expedition”. This is about Adani, and Shorten’s trip north with Cousins, which I referenced a couple of posts ago.
Malcolm Turnbull:
He did! He did! With Geoff Cousins!
Question time
Bill Shorten opens on the Cash incident. Will the prime minister require her to apologise for her comments?
Malcolm Turnbull digs a trench and clambers right on in.
The prime minister says Cash responded in a “heated” Senate estimates session when she was being “bullied and provoked” by Doug Cameron. The prime minister says she withdrew the comments “unreservedly”.
(She didn’t).
Michaelia Cash has returned to the economics legislation committee. My colleague Paul Karp will keep an eye on her.
Over we go to the House of Representatives for the hour of glower.
The Greens leader Richard Di Natale has just been interviewed on Sky News and has been asked about the Alex Bhathal complaint.
Richard Di Natale:
The party has considered these complaints very carefully ... she has the overwhelming support of the branch and her community.
Michaelia Cash is due shortly to be in one of the estimates committees. Will keep an eye out and we are galloping now towards question time. Refresh your beverages and hope for the best.
Updated
Another thing I haven’t had a chance to reference today – the Australian has reported the Greens candidate in the Batman byelection, Alex Bhathal, was the subject of a 101-page internal complaint by 18 party volunteers.
Thanks to AAP for this recount.
The party’s leadership has consistently declined to reveal the nature of the complaints against Alex Bhathal because the “issue” had been dealt with internally. But the Australian, citing a copy of the complaint on Thursday, reports the issues ranged from intimidation and bullying through to comments about Greens members.
It’s been known for some time Bhathal isn’t universally loved in her local area and there are some local councillors who have been publicly critical of her.
Very important contest, the one on 17 March. We’ll continue to watch with interest.
Updated
I haven’t had time to link you to it yet but Alice Workman at BuzzFeed has reported that a journalist has told her they were tipped off by the then justice minister Michael Keenan’s office in advance of police raids on the Australian Workers Union last year.
The journalist is not on the record in the piece. Michaelia Cash ran into trouble last year when it emerged that her office had, in fact, tipped off news outlets in advance of the raid after she had denied being involved five times.
The Keenan office has denied the story: “Neither the minister or anyone in his office informed media outlets prior to the execution of search warrants.”
Updated
Just in case you need to review The Incident™.
Do you want to start naming them?
"I've been waiting for her to ring up my office ..."
Speaking as we were of buckets of merde, Bill Shorten has just issued a statement on The Incident™, ie: the Michaelia Cash estimates performance.
Bill Shorten:
Of course I’m angry. I’m angry on behalf of the smart, dedicated, hard-working professionals in my office who have been smeared by Michaelia Cash. I’m honestly shocked she hasn’t said sorry. I’ve been waiting for her to ring up my office and organise it.
It’s this sort of nonsense that turns people off politics. We should be focusing on the things that matter to Australians, not hurling insults and making up stories about people who can’t defend themselves.
The prime minister said a few weeks ago that the parliament needed to be a more respectful workplace for women. I agree with him. Maybe he should try doing something about it.
Updated
"You just threw a bucket of shit at me ..."
Anyone can tell you, you don’t start a land war with Russia and the first person to mention Hitler always loses the argument – but it appears Liberal senator James Paterson and Labor’s Kim Carr didn’t get the memo.
While Murph has been dealing with summaries, the pair have just had a robust exchange in education estimates.
When Carr was quizzing witnesses about the study of humanities, Paterson jibed “what about the Russian revolution” – presumably in reference to Carr’s membership of the socialist left faction.
Kim Carr then ventured:
I can tell you that too – you’d know that, those in the Hitler Youth would know that only too well.
Paterson called the slur “outrageous” and “seriously offensive”.
After first defending the comment on the basis it was facetious, Carr then offered the Michaelia Cash-style apology: “If you took offence, I withdraw it ... You just threw a bucket of shit at me and you’re going to suddenly say you’re offended.”
Paterson summarised his own contribution: “I was joking about revolutions.”
in which education #estimates goes from Russian revolution > Hitler youth > Nazis > "bucket of shit" > "poor petal" in a wild 50 seconds between Kim Carr and James Paterson (calmly mediated by Lucy Gichuhi) pic.twitter.com/vvywDJr4kr
— Josh Butler (@JoshButler) March 1, 2018
Updated
Lost in the wash of today (among other things lost in the wash) is Labor and its position on the Adani coalmine.
If you’ve been watching events over the past couple of days, you will have seen the businessman and environmentalist Geoff Cousins tell Leigh Sales at the ABC, and then me yesterday, about a bunch of conversations he had with the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, between last December and last weekend about the controversial Queensland coal project.
Cousins says Shorten signalled to him that Labor would revoke the licence for the project if they won the next federal election, then signalled to him that things were getting difficult internally but he was still committed to doing that, then signalled he would tell him one way or another last weekend what Labor’s position would be, then Shorten disappeared off the radar entirely.
I’ve been trying to give Shorten a right of reply to Cousins for over 24 hours. Thus far, radio silence.
Updated
The compost heap, this lunchtime
In an effort to conform with live blogging best practice, please allow me to produce a lunchtime summary so we can look back with our hearts swelling with optimism at events since about 7am this morning.
Summarising events, in no particular order:
- Labor is continuing with efforts to extract an unqualified apology from Michaelia Cash and from the government more generally, after Cash blew up in a Senate estimates hearing on Wednesday about Bill Shorten and women in his office.
- Thus far, those efforts have triggered a doubling down among government folk, who have said, variously: “Labor had an undisclosed mucky agenda in pursuing the questions that triggered the Cash blow up, therefore Cash was justified in dialling up to 11”; “Bill Shorten, I mean look at that guy”; and “Michaelia is a great minister who scares the pants off the unions”.
- Apart from this stirring public interest exchange, we’ve had the Liberal senator Dean Smith winning a prize for actually remembering that representative democracy is about representation and trying to build something rather than tearing things down.
- We’ve got Nationals, waiting to know what the new McCormack era brings by way of ministerial advancement.
- I’m still waiting to learn what Labor’s position on Adani is. More of that shortly.
In the meantime, top up your almond lattes – on we go.
Updated
Kill Bill
If you’ve been watching political events closely this week, it won’t have escaped your attention that the Turnbull government is back to the “Kill Bill” strategy, which was the strategy it deployed in the absence of the government having anything much coherent to say throughout the chaos of 2017.
In this week’s meeting of government MPs, the deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop, told colleagues they needed to keep talking about the inadequacies of Shorten who “does not have the character to lead at home or abroad”.
So this week, as the government has rolled out of the Joyce disaster, we are back to talking about Bill Shorten being duplicitous, or two faced, or, (as Dutton has this morning), referencing “the history of problems in Bill Shorten’s personal life”.
We are in a period of random mud throwing at the wall.
I continue to shake my head in disbelief that these people want to bring on a US-style character debate in Australian politics – that they are willing participants in this shift.
What they don’t seem to realise, or do realise but don’t care, is this is a debate that shines lights in dark corners right across the board. Once you open the door on this “let’s throw mud randomly at the wall” conversation, you don’t get to decide who closes it.
Updated
One of my smart-as-paint colleagues just said to me the word you are looking for is apophasis.
If this word is unfamiliar to you.
Apophasis:
Allusion to something by denying that it will be mentioned, as in I will not bring up my opponent’s questionable financial dealings.
Hang on just a minute Peter
Rightio, I’ll exercise my third comment today just to ensure we don’t slide face first into the compost heap here with Peter Dutton.
Just a quick fact check.
Fact one:
The only person who delivered a public morals lecture to Barnaby Joyce over the past couple of weeks was, drum roll please ... Malcolm Turnbull.
Nobody else went there.
At all.
Labor pursued a bunch of questions about the public interest dimensions of the former deputy prime minister’s relationship with his former staffer Vikki Campion. There were no morals lectures, apart from Turnbull, who spoke about the world of woe Joyce had inflicted on the women in his life, and advised him to reflect on his behaviour, and then introduced a ban on sexual relationships between ministers and staff. As morals lectures go, it emptied the magazine, but that was Malcolm Turnbull, not Bill Shorten.
Fact two:
You also don’t get to say “I’m not the moral police” before launching an ad hominem character assassination of your political opponent explicitly on character grounds. Well, you do, obviously, because politicians closing in at speed on the compost heap say whatever the hell they feel like – but you don’t get to say it and not be called for it.
Updated
The (not) moral police, (not) moralising, (not) talking about people's personal lives
Back over on 2GB, Ray Hadley has really zeroed in on The Incident™.
Hadley believes Cash allowed Doug Cameron to bait her. He generously threw to home affairs minister Peter Dutton to see if he agreed.
Peter Dutton:
I think there’s a frustration on the Coalition side at the moment ... we’ve sat there taking a morals lecture from Bill Shorten in relation to Barnaby Joyce over the last few weeks. People know that there’s a history of problems in Bill Shorten’s personal life, in Tony Burke’s personal life, and to be lectured by the Labor party sticks in the craw.
I think Michaelia Cash did the right thing by withdrawing her comments - she’s done that - but there’s a general frustration within the parliament that you’ve got people like Shorten, Burke, and a couple on the other side being virtuous and I’m not sure they’ve got great grounds to be virtuous.
Dutton said Cash did not intend offence against women in Shorten’s office and “it was more a reflection on Bill Shorten”. Asked if there was history between Shorten and people in his office, Dutton says “these are questions for Mr Shorten – nothing to do with me”.
Peter Dutton:
I’m not the moral police, I don’t have any interest in people’s personal lives ... the only point I’d make is it’s a bit rich for Mr Shorten to be up there on higher ground lecturing others on their relationships.
Dutton says Shorten is two-faced and a “duplicitous character” citing attempts to endear himself to miners in Queensland then talking tough on the Adani mine in Batman.
Updated
Labor’s Doug Cameron, the senator who pursued the staff questions about Michaelia Cash yesterday that sparked The Incident™, was buttonholed in the corridor a little while ago by Sky reporter Samantha Maiden.
Q: There has been a lot of confusion about why Michaelia Cash made the comments that she did in that hearing. We now understand that she believes you were pursuing a line of questioning around the idea that Coalition staff movements may be linked to relationships with ministers. Is that what you were doing?
Doug Cameron:
Well certainly not. I have been pursuing these issues for some time and I must say I was a bit shocked and stunned at the response because there had been a whole line of questioning before that didn’t gain that type of reaction and I have never had that type of reaction before. What I am concerned about and what Labor is concerned about is the web of influence from Michaelia Cash’s office into agencies that are pursuing working people and the trade union movement.
Q: So you were pursuing that line of questioning over questions over how the AWU raids leaked. Can you categorically rule out that you were in any way trying to bait Michaelia Cash on other issues surrounding Coalition staff?
Doug Cameron:
Well absolutely. Anyone that knows me knows that I don’t do that type of thing – I mean it’s not of any interest to me. I am not prepared to comment on that stuff; that’s not my business. My business is to make sure the minister is held to account and that’s what I was doing.
Updated
In happier news, the Liberal senator Dean Smith has been named the inaugural winner of the McKinnon Prize for Political Leadership.
Smith won the prize “for tackling vital issues of public policy, overcoming adversity and achieving real change for the public good”. He was commended for his “bipartisan leadership on same-sex marriage and his demonstration of courageous backbench leadership in the face of internal opposition and diversity of public opinion within Australian society”.
Remember, that happened, politicians showing some leadership and collaboration to deliver an outcome a majority of the Australian public wanted? We all saw it.
Councillor Vonda Malone was also named the McKinnon Emerging Political Leader of the Year, for politicians with less than five years in office, “for her outstanding leadership as Mayor of Torres Shire Council”.
Updated
Just one little sign of how far through the looking glass we, collectively, are.
Sign Trump has changed Washington: Friend who lives in Hicks building sends photo of paparazzi waiting outside. Has there ever been paparazzi waiting for a departing White House comms director? pic.twitter.com/wurjAFNGew
— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) February 28, 2018
Meanwhile, in the Trumpocalypse, far far away.
I love you and will miss you, Hope Hicks.
— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) February 28, 2018
If you’ve missed this morning’s collective intake of breath from Washington, followed by the blizzard of hot takes – Hope Hicks, the White House communications director and longtime aide to Donald Trump, has confirmed she is moving on.
Updated
Back to round the hedge. The finance minister, Mathias Cormann, has also been out and about defending Michaelia Cash, telling 2GB she is an “outstanding minister”.
Cormann:
The Labor party doesn’t like Michaelia because Michaelia is a very effective operator. The unions don’t like her because she’s been successful in passing very important reforms like the restoration of the Australian Building and Corruption Commission, the Registered Organisations Commission … the Labor party is an agent of the union movement and some of the worse elements of the union movement clearly don’t like her.
Updated
To give you a break from doing the rounds of the hedge on Michaelia Cash, just a reminder, the Nationals are in a period of abeyance.
When I spoke to the new Nationals leader, Michael McCormack, on Tuesday, I got the impression a reshuffle of their ministerial positions would likely lob today. It’s not clear to me, largely because I haven’t yet had time to check, whether it will lob today or not.
If you are wondering why a reshuffle needs to happen, McCormack has taken on the portfolio held most recently by Barnaby Joyce, but is still holding the ministry he had previously: veterans’ affairs. Someone needs to take that portfolio at the very least. That would be the minimalist response. The new leader would also have the option of doing something more wholesale than just replacing himself.
But like everything around the place at the moment, adventurism is a bit fraught. The Joyce clique is keeping a close eye on their fortunes – will the new leader promote any of the insurgents who moved against Joyce last week and dump folks close to the previous leader?
Politics: the art of walking on eggshells.
Updated
I think it’s fair to say that if Michaelia Cash had delivered an unqualified apology yesterday we would not still be doing the rounds of the hedge on this issue. That’s my second comment.
Updated
Updated
Unspoken realities
I mentioned a little earlier that Craig Laundy, the government frontbencher, had attempted to mount a context defence for Michaelia Cash.
Here’s a direct quote that might help you understand his point.
Craig Laundy:
There was implied innuendo the whole way along about staff movements between Liberal staffers’ offices and the unspoken reality was they were attempting to sling mud looking back a couple of weeks linking it to the movement of staffers around the Nationals’ office.
That was what was going on here and that is the part that has been broadly missed as part of this discussion.
Labor denies there was any innuendo at all in the questions.
But this is what happens, of course, when events force the entire building to startle at shadows. People read meanings into comments that may, or may not, be there.
This is what happens when the prime minister codifies what kind of relationships can or can’t occur between principals and staff: everyone starts looking over their shoulder.
Another piece of context that may be useful to readers is the Cash office is not a happy place. There’s been a lot of turnover since the AWU troubles. Perhaps there might be some sensitivities about that afoot as well.
Updated
Hopefully Dutton’s new home affairs ministry won’t ever include the moral police. Take that as a comment.
The home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, has been chased by reporters down the corridor after his regular interview on 2GB. I didn’t catch all of his remarks but for what it’s worth, he said he did not intend to be “lectured to and moralised upon by people who should check their own situation”.
Peter Dutton:
I’m not part of the moral police. I don’t pass judgment on anyone.
(Except he just did, on someone.)
Updated
The government frontbencher Craig Laundy has been interviewed this morning and, like everyone, he has been asked about Michaelia Cash’s outburst.
He told Sky News this morning that the questions Labor posed to Cash yesterday by Labor senators happened in the context of the controversies of recent weeks. By that he meant the Barnaby Joyce/Vikki Campion imbroglio.
Reading between the lines of what Laundy said – he means there’s now some sensitivity around the building about staff movements. Given the debate of the past fortnight, and the prime minister’s ban on sexual relationships between ministers and their staff, you can understand there would be some sensitivity about that.
The questions from the Labor senator Doug Cameron yesterday were about staff movements in the Cash office. He’s been pursuing those questions since Cash got into trouble about her staff tipping off the media in relation to a police raid on the AWU. I didn’t detect any edge at all in his questions, but Laundy’s rationale is that everything in this place happens in a context.
Updated
The Liberal party’s newest recruit, Lucy Gichuhi, was lost for words when asked what she thought of the Cash outburst yesterday.
I think this reaction speaks for itself.
When asked what she thought of @SenatorCash's comments about female staffers in Bill Shorten's office, @senatorlucy seemed lost for words... #auspol pic.twitter.com/VzBN4sC0Xg
— ABC Politics (@politicsabc) February 28, 2018
Updated
Just for reader John O’Driscoll, who thinks I have done something terrible to Amy, I promise you I haven’t. I’ve just sent her home to bed. She has been ill for days, but has pressed on serving her loyal audience – bless her. She needs to lie down today. She will be back with you directly, when the flu clears. It’s a shocker, I can attest.
Amy mentioned in her opening post today that Michaelia Cash’s bizarre, dial it up to 11, name-and-shame episode in Senate estimates yesterday is dominating the early conversation in the parliamentary precinct.
Tanya Plibersek has said this morning she wants Cash to march down to Bill Shorten’s office and apologise personally to all the young women in his employ. That would be quite something. In fact, that is an event that you could likely sell tickets to. I suspect there would be hot demand for the front-row seats.
Just in case we missed Plibersek’s suggestion, the manager of opposition business, Tony Burke, has fronted the in-house video press release service, Sky News.
Burke says the government, rather than demanding Cash deliver an unqualified apology, has doubled down in her defence, and that is unacceptable.
Tony Burke:
We want a straight-up apology.
Updated
Well that was actually the shortest live blog shift in living memory. Hello everyone, it’s Katharine Murphy here, taking over from Ms Amy. I took one look at her this morning and ordered that she pack up her desk and go home.
Ghosts can’t live blog. It’s a hard rule. So let’s conduct my semi-regular live social experiment: can I still cover politics live? Will the muscle memory kick in? I guess we’ll find out. Buckle up, giddy up, here comes Thursday.
Updated
Good morning and welcome to day 12
It is the last day of the sitting week but Michaelia Cash’s outburst from yesterday is still dominating the agenda.
Tanya Plibersek is just one of many, from all sides of politics and beyond, who don’t think the qualified apology Cash offered yesterday, after threatening to name “all the young women” there were rumours about in Bill Shorten’s office, was good enough:
Look, I thought Senator Cash’s comments yesterday were highly inappropriate and she should walk down to Bill Shorten’s office and apologise to the women that she’s maligned. I think it is hard enough working in an environment that is pretty male-dominated. I mean, we are a bit better off in the Labor party because almost half of our MPs are women. We have taken a very deliberate steps over many years to improve the gender balance of our party, but, nevertheless, Parliament House is a pretty blokey environment. She’s just made life a whole lot harder for a bunch of young women who are smart, they are dedicated to their jobs, they work really hard. They are away from their families. Why would you do that? This is a minister who used to be the minister for women. She’s the minister for jobs and she’s giving these young women doing their jobs a hard time. I don’t understand her behaviour. I think those meanly-mouthed apologies – “If anyone was offended, I withdraw” – that is just pathetic. She should have the decency to realise she has done the wrong thing, she shouldn’t have said what she said and she should apologise to the young women she’s assaulted. I feel offended on their behalf.
Craig Laundy is maintaining the line that the grilling Doug Cameron was putting Cash under on Wednesday, and the “implied innuendo” that went along with the questioning.
Again, Cameron was questioning Cash about who her new chief of staff and media adviser was and where they had come from. Labor says it was about staff movements within Liberal organisations. It expected a response along the lines of Labor offices hiring union-aligned staff.
But from Laundy’s response, I don’t think Cash is going to be getting any closer to an actual apology. There is a bit of rewriting of history here with Laundy’s response. Tony Abbott remains the only member of the government to call out Cash’s comments for what they are.
In other news, Dfat estimates are being held in the Senate, with Penny Wong leading Labor’s questioning. That will start at nine.
Mike Bowers is here and walking the hallways. Follow along with him at @mikepbowers and @mpbowers. You can catch me in the comments and at @amyremeikis and @ifyouseeamy.
I am dosed up on all of the cold and flu drugs, having succumbed to the plague over the last 24 hours. The blog will live on though.
So grab your coffee or your own morning crutch of choice and let’s get started!
Updated
