Labor’s Chris Bowen says the government’s new inquiry into the family court system is “outrageous” and a “stitch-up” as part of a deal between the government and One Nation.
“We don’t support it,” the shadow health minister told the Q&A audience on Monday night. “That was quite a big call for us. Normally a parliamentary committee gets bipartisan support. No harm having a look at the issue. We took the big decision to oppose this inquiry.
“There was a law reform commission report six months ago, unacted upon. There was a House of Representatives committee on family violence last year. Unacted upon. This is part of some other side deal. This is a stitch-up.
“It’s not standard practice for a One Nation senator to be deputy chair. There’s some side deal ... You should not trade issues of family violence and family law as part of parliamentary horse trading. It’s not on.”
Will Labor boycott the inquiry into Family Law? #QandA pic.twitter.com/5OH6CL5mVC
— ABC Q&A (@QandA) September 23, 2019
On a Q&A program where veteran journalist Kerry O’Brien said there was “a lot of marketing speak” from the Scott Morrison, Monday’s panel was asked whether the prime minister had a habit of dodging questions by calling them “gossip” or part of the “Canberra bubble”.
The communications minister, Paul Fletcher, dismissed questions about whether Morrison wanted to invite a Hillsong pastor whose father abused children to the White House, describing it as “a quirky angle”.
On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Morrison had requested Hillsong founder Brian Houston be a guest of his black-tie dinner in the US, but that the White House had refused.
Houston’s father, Frank Houston, had abused up to nine children in the 1970s, and the royal commission later found that Brian had failed in reporting his father’s crimes to police.
When Morrison was asked whether he wanted to invite Brian to the White House dinner, he told reporters: “I don’t comment on gossip. It’s all gossip.” In a statement, Brian Houston denied he had ever been invited or spoken to Morrison about an invite.
Scott Morrison refused to answer questions about inviting Hillsong church leader Brian Houston to the White House. How can the media navigate the repeated obfuscations? #QandA pic.twitter.com/vSldTGpRNr
— ABC Q&A (@QandA) September 23, 2019
On Monday Fletcher said there were important issues from Morrison’s US visit other than “whether or not he answered a particular question”.
“This notion that in some way there’s less scrutiny of politicians than there used to be, I don’t think stacks up,” he said.
“I have to say, I think it’s rather a quirky angle about the prime minister’s visit to the US, about whether he answered a particular question.
“We have a prime minister vigorously prosecuting our relationship with the US, having a very successful visit with the US and vigorously maintaining relationships around the country. That’s a great deal more important than involved nuances about how a prime minister answered a question or not.”
But O’Brien said that he would asked Morrison, “What on earth were you thinking?” over the reported invite attempt.
“There is a lot of kind of marketing speak that is coming from Scott Morrison, that invites you to get past it and cut through,” O’Brien said.
“I think in this case, I probably would be asking him if he feels a bit foolish. It seems to be almost a kind of childlike naivety to even consider the possibility of inviting any person with a personal connection like that.”
Speaking about the role of journalists, O’Brien also touched on issues he raised in a speech at the Logie awards about the failure of journalism in combatting fake news.
Journalist Jan Fran agreed, saying “the way that misinformation spreads online is like nothing we have seen before”.
“Not only do journalists now have to of course report the truth, but they spend quite a considerable amount of their time trying to swat away misinformation ... It’s almost as though we’ve got to do the job of two people now, which is to report the news, but also to correct all of this stuff that’s been said.”
