Time to review
The parliament is winding down and so am I, so let’s take a quick look at what we learnt, what we have ahead of us, and what we know as we wrap up the day.
- Everyone thinks they know what the government needs to do on energy
- Newspoll had more bad news for the government, with Labor ahead 54-46
- Essential will have a new poll for us tomorrow, so keep an eye out for that
- Returning remains on Tony Abbott’s mind – but only if he’s “drafted”
- George Brandis won’t be one of those rushing to draft his former leader
- You’ll have your energy policy answers tomorrow
Cabinet will meet tonight and give that final approval. Then it heads to the party room, where all those who haven’t had their say, or a slot on one of the nation’s talkback stations, get to make their opinions clear.
Then the sell begins. Won’t that be exciting?
Thank you to everyone who played along today, and a wink and a nod to those who picked up on some of my less obvious jokes. I’m really enjoying getting to know you all in the comment stream. Massive thank-you to Paul Karp, Gareth Hutchens and Katharine Murphy for helping to turn my attention to where it needed to be, and to the amazing production staff who help clean up when my fingers get ahead of my brain.
Mike Bowers will be back with us tomorrow, as will I. In the meantime, send your questions, queries and complaints to @amyremeikis or have a chat over here.
Have a lovely evening and we’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning.
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Popping back into the Senate and Pauline Hanson is annoyed there is even a debate about raising the voting age – and that she is getting blamed for it.
The Queensland senator, who made the claim on morning television in a debate with the Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young over raising the smoking age to 21.
Hanson would like you to know that raising the voting age to 21 is not actually One Nation policy, it is just her opinion.
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The Business Council of Australia chief Jennifer Westacott, was having a chat to David Speers on Sky and said she hopes the energy policy we’ll hear about tomorrow, after tonight’s cabinet meeting gives it that final tick off, will be considered without bias, from any side.
“Let’s just all, tomorrow, just put it to one side for a minute, let’s look at the detail and I make that point to business as well,” she said.
“There are always trade-offs in these things, and we have to get on top of that and come back to those three things; does it improve reliability, does it put downward pressure on prices and improve affordability; and does it help us meet our emissions reduction target. We have to balance those three things.”
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Eric Abetz has timed his media release “Let’s put pensioners before Paris” for just before cabinet is due to meet to finalise the government’s energy policy.
Here’s some of it:
In this morass with our haemorrhaging budget deficits we send over $180m to some UN climate fund. This is borrowed money, which our children will need to pay back with interest. And to whom? You’ve guessed it – China. A country which can keep increasing its emissions with our coal, develop its economy and wealth so it can lend money to Australia so we can pay the fund, yet pays nothing itself.
“These are just some of the stark facts which provide the backdrop against which the examination of the Finkel review needs to be undertaken. The review threatens rather than promises virtual central command and control, reviews, programmes, studies, calculations and at the end of it a 42% equivalent clean or renewable energy target with unbelievably cheaper energy prices.
“If 42% delivers cheaper prices why stop there. Why not double the savings and go for 84%?
“Our current problems are largely due to the path we’ve blundered down – mainly with good intentions but with devastating consequences as to price and stability of energy supply. The remedy we are offered to overcome this is to give us even more of the same.”
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Well, this is one way to liven up the afternoon
I'm in love. My latest purchase. Genuinely faffing about whether to bring to Canberra or put up in the family room. #auspol pic.twitter.com/n5k8glDg3u
— James McGrath (@JamesMcGrathLNP) October 16, 2017
Australia has a new ambassador to Afghanistan.
Foreign minister Julie Bishop has announced Nicola Gordon-Smith’s latest move.
From the statement;
Ms Gordon-Smith is a senior career officer with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and was most recently Assistant Secretary, Consular Policy Branch. In Canberra she has held a range of positions, including Chief of Staff to the Trade Minister, and Senior Adviser to the Prime Minister. She has twice served overseas at the Australian Embassy in Brussels, most recently as Deputy Head of Mission. Ms Gordon-Smith holds a Bachelor of Arts (Political Science) from the Australian National University.
The Senate has moved on to Matters of Public Importance. Today’s debate is on “the suggestion that young Australians aged 18,19 and 20 be blocked from participating in democracy by raising the voting age to 21.”
That has been put forward by the Greens senator Rachel Siewart, but we can thank Pauline Hanson for the topic, after the One Nation leader suggesting raising the voting age by three years to stop all those “no idea” yoof, who have “never held a job”, earlier this month. Sigh.
Indi independent MP Cathy McGowan has also dipped a toe into the energy debate.
McGowan introduced the Renewable Energy Legislation Amendment (Supporting Renewable Communities) Bill 2017, calling on a “dedicated focus in funding for community energy projects” from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
“There are 90 community energy projects across Australia – 75% of them are in regional Australia,” McGowan said in a statement.
“As an independent representative I’m asking the government to hear the community’s message that local power generation is a vital piece of a dynamic national approach, together with baseload projects and other initiatives.
McGowan said communities in north east Victoria were ready to play a role in developing local energy solutions. Examples include Totally Renewable Yackandandah, Winton Wetlands, Wangaratta Sustainability Network, Renewable Albury Wodonga, Benalla Sustainable Future Group, Murrindindi Climate Network, Up2Us Landcare Mansfield and Indigo Council.
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What can we take from that question time?
The government thinks it is on to a winner with its energy policy (and that triple bottom line) and the opposition is just as sure it can start picking out the flaws. The NBN questions not only managed to annoy the prime minister, they also signalled some of the issues Labor will begin campaigning on – the NBN reached 6m homes in August. And you don’t have to go far to find someone ready to complain about it.
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Greg Hunt gets the final dixer on new drug listings and Turnbull, who it must be said, looks very pleased with how this question time has played out, calls time.
While we still don’t know what the energy policy will look like, we did get a hint from Turnbull on what it will involve in this attack against Bill Shorten.
The leader of the opposition has been in favour of an emissions intensity scheme, he’s been in favour of a clean energy target, the only thing they have got in common, he doesn’t understand how either of them work. He doesn’t know the difference between a renewables target and an emissions reduction target. One slogan after another, and I say to the leader of the opposition, we will deliver a careful energy plan based on engineering and economics, designed to deliver the triple bottom line of affordability, reliability, and meeting our international commitments. And that is in stark contrast to the ideology and the … idiocy inflicted upon us for years.”
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Emma McBride brings the parliament back to … the NBN. And she’s got a case study.
“We are now in the fifth year of this prime minister’s mismanagement of the NBN. Is the prime minister aware that students at the central coast school can’t connect to the NBN even though Fountaindale has had the NBN since … last year. What sort of incompetence means that [the] cemetery behind the school has an NBN connection but the school doesn’t?”
Turnbull brings up how well the rollout is going, but also says he’ll take the case up with both the minister and NBN Co.
A beat or two later (with a slight interruption for Peter Dutton’s attack against the unions) and McBride has another question on the NBN, with another case study of where it has gone wrong in her electorate.
Turnbull will have someone look at that too, but repeats what he has been saying recently – that a rollout this big will have some problems.
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I do not have 1,000 words, so I present you these.
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Oh I hadn’t realised it was that time yet. We are moving quickly today! Christopher Pyne is gifted his regular slot to talk about how terrible the terrible unions are.
“It goes to a question of if this leader of the opposition is not prepared to stand up to the CFMEU, despite all their heinous crimes, how will he stand up for Australia’s national interests on the overseas stage? How will he stand up for Australia’s national interests in Australia and beyond if he’s not on prepared to stay enough is enough to the CFMEU?”
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In the Senate, the Greens have been asking Michaelia Cash, representing the immigration minister, about plans to close the Manus Island detention centre.
Cash confirms that Papua New Guinea will close the regional processing centre by 31 October and will provide alternative accommodation for refugees in Manus province. Refugees eligible for transfer to the US can go to Nauru. Non-refugees will be sent back to their country of origin – voluntarily or involuntarily.
Cash says people will be “removed by lawful means” but does not rule out cutting off water or sewerage at Manus.
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Julie Bishop receives a dixer to talk about her recent visit to North Korea, where she reiterates her call for the rogue state “to abandon its illegal tests, to return to the negotiating table, and to direct its resources and energy into alleviating the suffering of the North Korean people”.
Then we move on to our non-energy issue – did anyone have the NBN?
Michelle Rowland says the “NBN Co has recently revealed it spent $177m of taxpayers’ money buying over 15m metres of new copper. Why is the government still investing in 20th century copper, when Australia needs a 21st century national broadband betwork?”
Turnbull feels a personal connection to the NBN, having had oversight of it while he was communications minister.
“The honourable member might reflect on the fact that the NBN Co has activated more customers every 10 days, than the Labor party did in six years. Quite an accomplishment – 51,000 customers, paying customers, in six years, that is what Labor did. Now had we persisted with Labor’s failed project, it would have taken between six and eight years longer and $30bn more.”
He raises his voice as the interjections grow, but manages to say the project is on track to finish by 2020.
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Tony Burke breaks from our scheduled energy attacks to talk about Bruce Billson
“On the 10th of [September], the Prime Minister promised to conduct an investigation into Bruce Billson. Will the Prime Minister verify this letter [saying] the investigation did not speak to any ministers, did not review the public documents that are tabled in this Parliament? Can the Prime Minister confirm the investigation involved Mr Billson simply giving an assurance that he had complied with the code?””
“I will take that question on notice,and respond in due course when I have from the secretary,” the prime minister says.
Just a short while later, we get the answer as Turnbull responds to another question.
“...Whether in respect of the complaint he raised about Bruce Billson, whether the secretary of my department had interviewed any ministers, as opposed to former ministers, the answer is I’m advised he did not, and I table the letter of the secretary of my department wrote to me on the fourth September.”
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He’s still red though.
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Back to dixers–and it’s Barnaby Joyce’s turn at the box, which just thrills Labor.
Katharine Murphy, who is in the chamber, reports that as Joyce rumbles to his feet, Labor MPs can be heard shouting “one for the road, Barnaby” and “give us a haka”.
It’s the little things, really. But it doesn’t stop the deputy PM from launching into a defence of the agricultural industry and how it could potentially be impacted by the emissions reduction target put forward by Labor.
For someone who usually sounds like he is just one word away from losing complete control over the English language, Joyce is almost demure today.
The reality is, that we need cheaper power for irrigation, we need cheaper power for meat processing, we still believe, we still believe that blue collar workers deserve a job. The Labor party believes that blue collar workers are politically incorrect. There is nothing that – when we see them come forward, and keep talk about targets that are going to put working men and women out of a job, shut down the manufacturing industry, more people out of a job, we are doing everything in our power to keep these people. You can either have cheap power, or you can have cheap wages, or no jobs. We believe in cheap power, and we’re going to bring it about.”
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Tanya Plibersek is up.
“My question is to the prime minister. The prime minister has said a clean energy target would, and I quote, ‘Certainly work. There is no question it would work”. Does the prime minister stand by that statement or has the member for Warringah been drafted to lead the government in developing a new energy policy?”
No one quite enjoys delivering questions like Plibersek.
Turnbull says there are “many approaches to energy policy that can work”, but the question “is ensuring that you adopt the best”.
“That’s the task of government. To get beyond the slogans, and the three-letter acronyms that honourable members opposite don’t understand and to get a policy that works and have the one that works best. That is our commitment. Engineering and economics, not three-letter acronyms and terms that honourable members opposite and laugh about but do not understand.”
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Back in the Senate for a moment.
One Nation’s Pauline Hanson has asked the defence minister, Marise Payne, why the Australian defence force is paying for gender reassignment surgery after a report that 27 personnel have been treated for gender dysphoria in the last five years.
Payne replied that the ADF provides necessary healthcare to all defence members, because they are not covered by Medicare, including “comprehensive healthcare that is clinically necessary for health conditions”.
She said gender dysphoria “is managed in accordance with best practice clinical guidelines, the same as any other health condition”, according to doctor’s orders, and no cosmetic or elective surgery is covered.
When Hanson then asks how the money could be spent to support returned service personnel, Payne replied:
It’s invidious to to try and distinguish between one health condition or personal circumstance over another. In no way does treatment of personnel with gender dysphoria diminish the strongest possible support for returned service personnel.”
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The Greens MP Adam Bandt has the floor. He also wants to talk energy.
“After the government scrapped the carbon price, pollution went up. It went up in 2015, again in 2016 and this year too. You’re making climate change worse, but over that time, wholesale electricity prices have doubled, too. Instead of letting climate deniers dictate your energy prices, wouldn’t it be better to increase the renewable energy target, so that we cut population, cut power bills, and keep the lights on?
Frydenberg picks up the answer.
“I hate to reminded the member for Melbourne, when they were in coalition with the Labor party, the power prices increased by 100%. That was the Greens legacy. And the confected outrage, the confected moral outrage from the Greens when it comes to climate policy is amazing. When they were dealing with the constituents with cyclone Debbie, and speaking with their constituents with the fires in Sydney, who was out there, on their soap box, blaming climate change? The member for Melbourne. That was disgraceful. That was absolutely disgraceful. Now it may be, it may be an inconvenient truth, an inconvenient truth for the member for Melbourne, that emissions in Australia are at their lowest level in 27 years. Their lowest level in 27 years, in terms of GDP and per capita. Lowest level in 27 years. Even the electricity sector has been falling for the last two quarters.”
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Scott Morrison takes a dixer on just how amazing the government has been in tackling rising electricity prices (very amazing, with plans to do more, is the short version) and then Bill Shorten is back.
“I refer to the prime minister’s previous answer, where he claimed he had obtained contractual commitments from the big gas companies to supply more gas. Given this is a contractual agreement, can the prime minister confirm what penalties will apply to the big gas companies under the contract, and will he table the contracts to the parliament?”
Malcolm Turnbull is very pleased to tell Shorten, and you, the gas agreement is public.
In short, it’s an agreement, as a contract. Of course it is. Of course it is an agreement, it’s a contract. You can use whatever semantics you like. The bottom line is, we have, we had the character and the commitment to bring those gas companies to Canberra and get them to do the right thing by the Australian people. And the Labor party did nothing. Nothing. The Labor party allowed gas to be exported from eastern Australia, without doing anything to protect Australian consumers.”
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Labor’s energy spokesman Mark Butler steps up to the dispatch box
“My question is to the minister for energy. In his presentation to the Coalition joint party room room, he confirmed that a clean energy target lowers prices. Given the energy minister told the government’s own party room it would lead to lower prices, why is the government caving into the demands of the former prime minister, by abandoning the clean energy target, that would save Australians money on their power bills?”
Josh Frydenberg is just thrilled to be able to answer.
After the mandatory South Australian blackout reference, Frydenberg moves on to the other 49 recommendations in the Finkel report and the government’s action on those, before going into issues from the last parliamentary session – when Labor asked about power prices increasing by $1,000, a figure which was found to be wrong.
“One thing we don’t do on this side, we won’t tell lies to the Australian people like the member for Port Adelaide did, like the opposition leader did in the last sitting fortnight, when they came to the despatch box and said that power prices have gone up with $1,000. You won’t hear them repeat it any more,because the Australian energy regulator and the Australian energy market commission, in correspondence, tabled in this house, have that directly – contradicted directly the claims made by the Labor party. Stop making things up. Have the courage of braveheart, walk up to the despatch box and repeat the lies of your past. You know it’s misleading the Australian people.
He’s asked to withdraw, and does, following it up with a “I do say” which is the parliamentary equivalent of ‘I’m sorry, but...” and Speaker Tony Smith shuts him down.
“No, you can resume your seat. No, you can resume your seat. No, no, you’re finished.”
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Heading to the red chamber for a moment.
Labor has targeted the government leader in the Senate, George Brandis, on power prices and the government’s abandonment of the clean energy target.
Asked about Tony Abbott’s speech in London, which included the claim that climate change is “probably doing good” and likening policies to combat climate change to “primitive people … killing goats to appease the volcano gods”, Brandis replied:
“I haven’t actually read Mr Abbott’s speech but I’ve seen some reports, and I’ve seen some extracts on the Insiders program yesterday morning. He made some interesting anthropological observations about people sacrificing goats to volcanoes or something like that. I note what Mr Abbott had to say, Mr Abbott is entitled to his views, but life … is too short to read everything that all of one’s political colleagues have to say, no matter how interesting they may be. Rest assured, the views of the Australian government are the views of the prime minister and his cabinet not the views of a backbencher.”
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Lucy Wicks, the member for Robertson has been gifted with the first dixer.
“My question is to the prime minister. Will the prime minister update the house on what the government has done to ensure that energy is affordable and reliable for hard working families and businesses, including in my electorate of Robertson,” she said.
“Is the prime minister aware of any alternative approaches.”
Well what do you know, not only is Turnbull aware of some alternative approaches, he has many opinions on them. So many opinions in fact, he wants to get to that first.
“Let me start with the alternative approach, because we know what it’s been from the Labor party,” he begins.
The chamber gets loud, which only serves to encourage Turnbull more. He always looks like he could do with a walking microphone, and never more so when he is relishing a fight.
“We know what their approach is. We know that their approach is. No engineering and no plan. Massive investment in renewables, with no regard to the fact that the sun doesn’t shine all the time, and the wind doesn’t blow all the time. Full speeding a massive amount of renewables into the South Australian market, without any backup, or storage, whatsoever, driving out reliable power to introduce variable power.”
As for what the government is doing? Refer to answer one.
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Question time begins
Bill Shorten has the floor and asks about … energy DING DING DING.
“On the 9th June, the energy minister stated: The prime minister said it very clearly in his press conference, there a number of [reasons] for the clean energy target. It it’s technology-neutral and it lowers energy prices. [A Labor wag interjects with “really?” in their most quizzical tone of voice.] Why is the prime minister caving into the member for Warringah for abandoning the clean energy target, a target that saves Australians money on their power bills?”
Malcolm Turnbull is “surprised” Shorten is asking this question on the day the Senate abolished the limited merits review.
And almost like he has come prepared, he has a list of things the government has done to lower electricity prices:
We have gone out to the retailers, and ensured that they deliver the best deals to their customers. And thousands ofAustralian families are paying less for electricity now, saving hundreds of dollars a year, in many cases,than they were before. Of course the single biggest factor in pushing up electricity prices in recent times has been the price of gas. Why is that? Well, the Labor party in government allowed gas to be exported from the east coast of Australia, without paying any attention to the need to protect the domestic market. We took strong action and we delivered a commitment, a contractual commitment from the energy companies, to supply more gas, and as honourable members know, wholesale prices have been coming down as a result.”
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The remainder of those speeches have been moved to the Federation Chamber. The House is standing for a moment’s silence.
Both Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten are speaking on a condolence motion for Indigenous activist Dr Evelyn Scott, who passed last month.
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The Senate has passed a government competition law bill instituting an “effects test” – prohibiting conduct that has “the purpose effect or likely effect of substantially lessening competition”.
However, the government removed a provision of the bill to increase penalties for secondary boycotts to $10m after opposition from Labor, the Greens and crossbench. Labor opposed the measure on the basis it would imposing higher penalties for sympathy strikes, further watering down unions’ right to strike.
A spokesman for Nick Xenophon has told Guardian Australia the Nick Xenophon Team wants to consider the issue of increased penalties for secondary boycott, but did not believe it was appropriate to include in this bill. The comments leave open the possibility the government could attempt to pass the measure with NXT support in a later bill.
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Given the theme of the day – energy, energy, energy – we can expect question time to be chock full of energy attacks. But there is always at least one surprise. Any guess what today’s random topic will be?
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Question time is about to begin, so get ready for that.
Also – here is a thing that happened
On @sunriseon7 this morning Pauline Hanson tells me get it through your head Sarah climate change "isn't because of humans" 😳😂#OneNationFail pic.twitter.com/nUT6hFMMpN
— Sarah Hanson-Young🌈 (@sarahinthesen8) October 15, 2017
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It’s been one of the quieter starts to parliament for some time. It’s given some of the MPs, like Labor’s Anthony Byrne some time for some candid (cough) contemplation
Just enjoying a brief moment in one of the many beautiful gardens surrounding Parliament House. pic.twitter.com/7kwwQGvGsO
— Anthony Byrne (@AnthonyByrne_MP) October 16, 2017
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Scott Morrison addressed Citigroup in New York late last week and has promised there are “better days ahead” for the economy.
My speech to global investors in NY about Australia's solid economic growth story. Full text here: https://t.co/gKMFmOBLyI pic.twitter.com/3NCg5ryJ6b
— Scott Morrison (@ScottMorrisonMP) October 13, 2017
It’s a four-flag situation
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Stranger in the house update
Christopher Pyne is on Sky talking about how busy the government is in parliament this week.
Asked if he, as the leader of government business, will have to direct the sergeant at arms to remove Barnaby Joyce from the parliament if the high court rules against him, he doesn’t miss a beat.
Pyne says the government is still confident of a win but that all outcomes are being anticipated and there will be no need for the sergeant at arms to step in, if the court goes the other way.
For what it is worth, Pyne says there are a “veritable blizzard of polls” in Australian politics and “we saw their unreliability” with the Trump result, and Brexit, so he “lets polls come and go” and says the “only sale we have to make is on election day every three years”. (Drink)
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A bit of a housekeeping in the Senate, with Arthur Sinodinos still absent. The senator revealed earlier this month he is fighting cancer.
Michaelia Cash will represent his portfolio of industry, innovation and science, while the attorney general, George Brandis, will represent Trade, Tourism and Investment.
Concetta Anna Fierravanti-Wells is also away on ministerial business, so Simon Birmingham will represent her portfolio during question time.
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House debates Australia's relationship with the United States.
Labor MP Ed Husic has delivered a speech on the motion regarding Australia and its key ally the United States of America. The House spent 50 minutes discussing the relationship.
But Husic, who said he has visited the US every year since 2005, has had an epiphany of sorts in the wake of the travel ban Donald Trump has been working so hard for since his election.
Donald J Trump is calling for a total and complete shut down on Muslims entering the United States until that country’s representatives can figure out what is going on. I can’t believe that this is where this great country has got to. And then it exercises that ban. And it shuts out people on the basis of faith. I visited the country in that point of time before the inauguration, friends saying to me that it is probably premature to think that it is not right to visit again sometime later. But I think it is wrong, that a nation that can promise so much on the basis of freedom can shut out people on the basis of faith, and do it that way. I think it’s wrong. And against what America stands for.
I think of the words of Paul Keating, who said that ‘once they have pawned the crown, it is hard to reclaim the inheritance’, and he is right. What America is doing to itself and the way it is behaving, is so disappointing to so many of its friends. I can’t see myself going back to America while this is being maintained. I can not think of people like me and my faith, being taken out in front of their children in a line, queuing up to visit the States, just on the basis of faith. America, I think the world of you. But I cannot, and people like me, cannot be shamed by you. This is not the promise of the America we love. America is better than this.”
You can find the whole speech on Husic’s YouTube channel, here
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The government has just passed the amendments to its media reforms, as negotiated with the crossbench in the Senate, in the House of Representatives.
Perhaps the god of thunder had some tips on energy policy?
Quick look into the parliament: The amendments attached to the media reforms bill by the Senate are being debated in the house (where they will pass) and Malcolm Roberts is talking about the “sharing of ideas” as being “even sexier” as part of his speech on the Competition and Consumer Amendment bill. That may not have been the greatest time to tune in.
Back to other issues which don’t seem to make a whole lot of sense lately, but on a ground we are more familiar with: ACCC head Rod Sims is attempting to talk about the draft report on electricity prices, without discussing the politics, to which we can only wish him luck.
Asked about the clean energy target, Sims had this to say:
Look, our focus is on affordability. We’ve spent a lot of time working out what’s driven prices up. And we’ve done that. And now the focus is going to be on how do we address all those issues to get prices down? As we all know, there’s three objectives in relation to our electricity sector: there’s meeting the Paris targets for emission reductions, and that’s obviously very important. That’s the clean energy target. Secondly, there’s improving reliability. And there’s a range of things happening there. And, thirdly, there’s a focus on affordability. And when you look at our work, you see that the biggest causes of higher electricity prices are higher network prices, higher retail costs and margins. That’s what we’ve got to be looking at.
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From the ‘so strange it can only be Australian politics’ file comes this story.
I’ve tried three times to condense this for you but, well, there are a lot of moving parts to this situation and not a lot of them make sense. Take a bow Australian politics. It’s only taken 1.5hours into the parliamentary sitting to completely flummox me. (You can read the story here. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.)
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Bill Shorten has also had a bit to say about the energy debate this morning – looks like we are getting a sneak peek of what awaits us during question time!
Will the real leader of the Liberal party please stand up, is basically the theme here:
Well, first of all, what is the point of asking the chief scientist of Australia to write a full report on climate change and energy, and then not follow the recommendations? It is very clear that Turnbull faces a test in the next 24 hours. It is a test of whether or not he is running the Liberal party and can back in what he believes, which is a clean energy target, or if Tony Abbott is running the Liberal party and they’ll dump a clean energy target. Labor has made it very clear, from even before the final report of the chief scientist, that we will work with the government to do something to lower energy prices in this country. But what we see is the government can’t even work out what they want to do, and long-suffering consumers and business are the people paying the price, with higher energy prices, because this government is at war with itself.
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We have some pictures rolling in from this morning’s events. Just a reminder, the indomitable Mike Bowers will be back with us tomorrow.
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Brendan Nottle from the Salvation Army has been greeted by MPs outside parliament after walking from Melbourne to Canberra to raise awareness about homelessness.
Wonderful to welcome @brendannottle to Parl House after walking 703km from Melb to Canberra to raise awareness for homelessness pic.twitter.com/ydDtWfZxUq
— Michael Sukkar (@MichaelSukkarMP) October 15, 2017
Bill Shorten was one of those who welcomed him:
I understand that what you’ve done today is not only drawn attention to the 100,000-plus people who are homeless, including 17,000 kids, not just all of the challenges, but what you’ve done, Brendan, is you’ve given politics a little bit of self-respect. Because you walking up this hill and those 700km beforehand, you are saying that you trust the political system and the parliamentarians to be fair dinkum on homelessness, to be as fair dinkum as you are, to be as fair dinkum as this group. We will not let you down. Thank you for making me look at this parliament with different eyes today. You are a rockstar, mate.
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But it looks like Labor won’t be joining Richard Di Natale on the picket lines if Adani’s Carmichael coalmine in Queensland goes ahead.
The Greens leader told Sky News on Sunday that if his party could not stop the mine in the parliament, they would do it by standing in front of the bulldozers. You can read more about that here.
Queensland Labor, which is preparing to head to a tough state election, supports the project but doesn’t support government subsidies (outside the royalty holiday it has granted).
Mark Butler says the parliament is dealing with the question of government assistance:
Labor is clear that the one matter before the federal parliament is the question of a concessional loan to the Adani project and federal Labor is definitely opposed to any of the subsidies. Beyond that, there are a range of different views about whether this is a project that stacks up economically and environmentally. My position has been made clear on a number of occasions publicly. But the matter before the Australian parliament is whether taxpayers are going to subsidise this operation in the Galilee Basin.
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Labor’s energy spokesman, Mark Butler, has held a press conference to discuss all things energy. He was criticised by Mathias Cormann this morning for rejecting the government’s energy policy before seeing it – speaking to the ABC’s Insiders on Sunday, Butler said if there was no clean energy target, then Labor was out. This morning, he was a little more open to listening to the government:
We want to wait and see what comes out of the cabinet discussion tonight and tomorrow. We still do hold out some hope that Malcolm Turnbull and Josh Frydenberg will see some sense, will support the broad coalition of support that exists for the clean energy target and come up with something sensible tomorrow. If they don’t, we’ll have to consider our position, we’ll talk to business groups, the energy sector and other stakeholders about what the way forward should be. But the test today is for Malcolm Turnbull, not for Labor. We’ve indicated our position. We’ve shifted from our election policy, a substantial shift, to try to develop some bipartisanship around this question. The test now is that there are two paths for Malcolm Turnbull: Tony Abbott’s path or the path urged on him by pretty much everyone else in the community.
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The NSW Nationals leader, John Barilaro, has had a chat to Laura Jayes on Sky after the Nats’ byelections over the weekend which left heartland seats Cootamundra and Murray – once among the safest in the state – reduced to marginals.
So while his party won, he’s not feeling overly celebratory. He told Jayes he thinks what is happening federally has a lot to do with what happened in NSW over the weekend.
“What we are seeing is a government that has lost its way,” he said, naming the citizenship hearings and leadership tensions as distractions.
The Liberals’ Craig Laundy, who has seen his biggest mentions in the press lately in relation to his brother Stu, who is a contestant on The Bachelorette (sentences I never thought I would be writing #8765) said he believed there was “frustration with politics across the board”.
I think the default position when that happens is the government of the day, irrespective of ilk, gets marked down. However it is also a frustration that issues that aren’t of great relevance are hijacking all the oxygen, and for us it is a great grind to keep talking about the important day-to-day issues – and let’s face it, power prices and cost of living and power prices for businesses [are] absolutely some of those.”
As for the NSW byelections, Laundy says he believes some local issues played into the results, naming council amalgamations as one of those factors.
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Labor’s foreign affairs spokesperson, Penny Wong, is talking at the same international relations conference as Julie Bishop.
In a transcript of her speech, Wong lays out a number of ways Australia can work better with China:
I’ve identified six main principles that I think will help us to engage better with China. There is no overarching simple answer to how we engage with China; we constantly need to steer through the intersecting dimensions of issues and opportunities.
First: we must have a clear idea of what our national interests are, and recognise where they may and may not align with those of China.
Second: we need to accept that we live in a disrupted world – we deal with the world as it is in order to better shape it as we want it to be.
Third: we engage with China as it is, not as others might perceive it or as China might represent itself.
Fourth: we accord to our relationship with China the priority it merits.
Fifth: we pursue a more integrated and coordinated approach to the various strands of the relationship.
And sixth: we work with China in a regional framework, recognising that this is the region in which we both live, and the importance of the rules-based order that has underpinned stability and prosperity to the benefit of both our nations, and the region.”
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The parliament will welcome a special guest today.
The Prime Minister will welcome His Excellency Mr Michael D Higgins,
— Political Alert (@political_alert) October 15, 2017
President of Ireland, to Parliament House at 10am #auspol
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The bells are ringing! Which means parliament is about to officially get under way.
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Labor’s climate change spokesman, Pat Conroy, has been doorstopped on his way into parliament today.
There are plenty of ways in and out of parliament without walking past the media. So if MPs choose the doors where the cameras are hanging out, it’s because they have something to say. Today Conroy had quite a bit to say about energy, the ACCC report and Tony Abbott:
We’ve got a doubling of wholesale energy prices because of two things: skyrocketing gas prices, and all this government is doing is talking about it and not taking concrete action; and secondly the investment strike.
We’ve had seven coal-fired power stations come out of the system in the last four years with no replacement dispatchable capacity because people don’t know what the rules of racing are.
The Finkel review said if you can provide some certainty around a bipartisan energy mechanism that would get investment flowing and that would lower power prices, and the energy minister agreed with him as recently as two months ago.
Nothing has changed. This government will use the ACCC report as cover to back away because they are craven and cowardly, and they are more worried about what Tony Abbott can do in their party room.
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Here’s a little bit more from that speech Julie Bishop was giving to the AIIA:
Australia is seeking to serve on the UN human rights council, the first time we will have served on this body. The vote takes place at 2.00am our time, so I will be able to tell you tomorrow how we went. We put in a very strong campaign and received a lot of written pledges for offer to serve on the human rights council campaign and we have most certainly put forward a very strong case to bring a very principled and pragmatic approach, just as we did when we served on the security council and we had five themes in relation to gender empowerment and freedom of speech and strengthening democratic institutions and human rights institutions and Indigenous rights and the like.
We’ll update you on the outcome of that vote tomorrow morning.
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Does Malcolm Turnbull “have to fall on his sword – FOR THE GOOD OF THE PARTY, MR ABBOTT,” as Hadley very animatedly asks?
Well, the Newspoll count was Turnbull’s test, not Abbott’s, the former PM says, but he doesn’t say whether he agrees with Hadley.
Abbott thinks his view on energy policy will see the public take a “big sigh of relief”:
I think the focus shouldn’t be on the polls, I think the focus should be on being the best possible government. Let’s see what comes out of the cabinet … it has got to be right, we have to get it right and I hope that a lot of very serious thought has been given to this matter by minister Josh Frydenberg, a bloke I respect.
Hadley tries one more time to get Abbott to say something about Turnbull resigning. In the end he says the only way ex-prime ministers could come back would be if they were drafted and that’s “almost impossible to imagine”.
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Ray Hadley is straight into the London speech.
“It’s nice to see that people were listening; I am not sure if all the people who were criticising it have actually read it,” Abbott says.
But he doesn’t think there have been “any big shifts” in his views on climate change (Crikey added them up and found Abbott has held 17 different views).
Abbott says he abolished the carbon tax, and is the only prime minister to have brought the clean energy target down. (That would be the carbon tax that his former chief of staff Peta Credlin said in February wasn’t really a carbon tax.)
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A quick wrap of some of the interviews this morning: no one is worried about the Newspoll (that would be the one showing for the 21st time in a row, the government is less popular than Labor) and energy solutions are on their way.
Paul Karp gave us a wrap on what Mathias Cormann had to say on energy a bit earlier – the finance minister also said he was not worried about the poll and, as the next election approached: “We are hopeful that we are able to convince a majority of people in the majority of seats to support the Coalition again.”
Simon Birmingham also had a bit to say when chatting to Sky News – he won’t be distracted by polls, or former prime ministers (ahem, Tony Abbott) and is “getting on with all these important issues like dealing with an energy crisis”.
Speaking of our nation’s greatest onion advocate – he is coming up on Ray Hadley’s 2GB show imminently.
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Julie Bishop is speaking at the Australian Institute of International Affairs National Conference. We only caught the beginning of it, before Sky News diverted to something else, but she opened the speech by saying there was a chance in the foreseeable future that Australia could sit outside the worlds 20 biggest economies.
She said:
[Taking] one PWC study as one guide, by 2030, Indonesia, Pakistan and Thailand will all have larger economies than Australia. Vietnam, Bangladesh and the Philippines will be approaching parity with Australia in absolute economic size.
.@JulieBishopMP also notes the majority of emerging powers in Asia are not US allies, unlike in the second half of last century
— Stephen Dziedzic (@stephendziedzic) October 15, 2017
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Parliament officially begins at 10am – you’ll find the house schedule here and the Senate here. Cabinet is meeting today, where the government’s energy policy will get its final tickoff. Then it heads to the Coalition party room on Tuesday, and from there, the world.
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Speaking of policy that has dropped off the agenda, the government’s controversial citizenship changes, which caused uproar in April when Peter Dutton announced them, look to be heading nowhere fast. The Nick Xenophon Team maintains it cannot support the legislation in its current form, with Nick Xenophon encouraging the government to “go back to the drawing board”.
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Remember the company tax cuts the government promised at the election? Scott Morrison does and last month he signalled he would be working to get it back on the agenda.
The Business Council of Australia also hasn’t forgotten – but it says the government would need to go further than its plan to drop the 30% rate to 25% over 10 years if Australia wants to stay competitive in a changing international tax landscape.
Labor, meanwhile, used the weekend to unveil its plan to boost business – announcing a $1bn manufacturing future fund.
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For those wanting to plan out their life (what’s that?) the parliament sits for a week and then heads straight into budget estimates, while the house sits.
The Senate is scheduled to sit for a week without the house from 13 November, before the final two sitting weeks at the end of November/beginning of December.
The sitting calendar does rest in the government’s hands though, and this could all change if the high court rules all seven MPs were ineligible to be elected.
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The finance minister, Mathias Cormann, has blasted Labor for ruling out bipartisanship on energy policy when it hasn’t even seen the Turnbull government’s alternative to a clean energy target.
Cormann told Radio National that Labor’s climate change spokesman, Mark Butler, was “incredibly reckless and irresponsible” in his comments on Sunday, and accused him of “getting way ahead of himself”.
It’s always dangerous to lock yourself in before you’ve seen what is on the table. The government will put forward a policy framework that is in the national interest … focused on bringing down the cost of electricity, that is focused on improving reliability of energy supplies, on making sure Australia can continue to meet our emissions reduction targets.
When asked how the government could achieve the trifecta of lower power prices, improved reliability and meeting greenhouse gas reduction targets, Cormann said the government’s new policy would be announced “in due course”. He did not rule out more funding for the emissions reduction fund, which pays polluters to reduce emissions.
Asked how the government would handle the high court finding the deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, and several government senators ineligible to sit in parliament, Cormann said he would “not pre-empt the findings” of the court.
Labor has not guaranteed pairs for senators found ineligible by the case and, if Joyce is ineligible, he will need to face a byelection in New England.
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Good morning and welcome back
It’s only been a month since the last parliament sitting but for many MPs it feels like a lifetime.
But, as always in politics, the more things change, the more they stay the same. And on that point, we are picking back up where we left off, with energy the buzzword on everyone’s lips.
The ACCC has released its report into household power prices – Katharine Murphy has this report – which found prices have increased by 63% on top of inflation over the past decade. That’s mostly down to network costs.
But it comes as the government prepares to release its energy policy, having all but announced its plans to walk away from a clean energy target. Labor’s energy spokesman, Mark Butler, said that was a “deal breaker” as far as the opposition’s support goes. But before the government attempts to win support in the parliament, it has to win over the Coalition party room. Given the divide that has plagued the party for the best part of two decades when it comes to energy, that’s no easy feat.
Malcolm Turnbull enters a new parliamentary fortnight with his government behind in the Newspoll for the 21st time in a row – 54% to 46% on a two-party-preferred basis. That comes after the government tackled private health insurance, the domestic gas supply shortfalls and announced additional funding for health research. For those playing at home, Malcolm Turnbull used 30 lost polls as one of his reasons for ousting Tony Abbott.
The change in net satisfaction is one to watch. This was outside the margin of error. https://t.co/IpRWs10EzM
— David Crowe (@CroweDM) October 15, 2017
Meanwhile, we are all waiting on the high court, sitting as the court of disputed returns, to let us know its decision on the election eligibility of seven MPs, including the deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce. As several pundits have pointed out, if the decision comes down during question time Joyce would have to be removed under the “stranger in the house” protocol. It’s all in the high court’s hands and we wait along with everyone else.
Mike Bowers will be back with us tomorrow so it’s just me following the cut and thrust of Australian political life today. I’ll do my best to keep up. As always, you can chat away in the comment thread or reach me directly on Twitter at @amyremeikis.
Grab your coffee (or your popcorn, if that’s how you roll) and we’ll get started!
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