Bye!
Now, I’m sorry to love and leave you but my services are required elsewhere, off campus, at an event about political reform.
So let’s sum up Tuesday.
So much chunky Magic Mike goodness I’ve not had time to share today. Shocker.
Must do better tomorrow.
Now, today:
- The prime minister faced two censure motions after he was accused of misleading the House yesterday in an answer about the government’s intentions on capital gains tax. Not all that pleasant.
- The government has launched something like a review into a safe schools program that aims to keep LGBTI kids safe in the playground by educating fellow students about diversity. This is happening because conservatives, led by South Australian Cory Bernardi, think this program is about the rainbow agenda. I’m not sure what that is, but it sounds, on the face of it, harmless.
- Crossbenchers remain angsty about the government’s plans to overhaul Senate voting procedures, and Labor has resolved to vote against them on the basis the change will lead to a “purge” of the micro-parties.
There was more, but that’s your main course.
See you in the morning.
When Scott met Ben and things got testy
While I’ve been trying to think the treasurer Scott Morrison has been booted around the 2GB yard by broadcaster Ben Fordham. Most of the discussion was about foreign investment, and it was reasonably willing, but Fordham could not resist a bit of needling at the end. Fordham wondered whether or not Morrison had been hiding from his stablemate, Ray Hadley.
Scott Morrison, on that proposition.
That’s crap, Ben, and I think it’s a bit cheap.
Morrison said no reasonable reading of his distinguished record of making himself available to Ray would bear out an analysis that he was hiding, under his desk, or anywhere else.
Fordham urged the treasurer not to get sensitive. He was just a jobbing journo, asking the questions.
Morrison:
You are insinuating and I don’t appreciate it.
Fordham persisted in the needle. The treasurer, he noted, was a little glass jawed about my very mild criticism.
No mate, Morrison said, in the way where you say mate but you mean something other than mate.
(If you are wondering what this is about, Morrison skipped his regular appearance on Hadley yesterday morning. Ray was unhappy.)
Updated
Not drowning ..
Let’s take this quickie analysis step by step.
The first thing that needs to be said is the tempo of the parliament and political discourse has accelerated notably this week. The major parties have locked into election formation, which means we’ve moved beyond sparring, beyond practice punching, we are now firmly in go for the knock out territory. Why? Because both sides know we could be in a campaign the day after the budget lands. As Bill Shorten told caucus colleagues earlier today, we all have to dig a little deeper.
Presumably that’s why the prime minister has diverted from his ‘smile and take it gently’ approach that characterised the opening phase of his political leadership. He’s moved into lobbing tabloid soundbites. Scary Labor will drive down the value of the family home, because you know scary Labor. Shorten too is sharpening (by his still periodically woolly standards) his characterisations of Turnbull – arrogant, the agent of the investor class, sell-out, Tony Abbott in disguise. What you are watching right now is like the process of sending a file to someone online: it needs to be compressed before it can be dispatched successfully to the recipient.
Labor’s policies on negative gearing and capital gains tax are politically risky. The practical consequences of restricting a concession to one segment of the housing market are not currently known. If Labor has commissioned modelling attempting to scope out the consequences, this material is not currently in the public domain. There is also a risk associated with telegraphing your intentions before implementing them: that you create a bubble of speculative activity. So the bottom line here? I think there are legitimate questions to ask about the practical implications of the policy. Perhaps there are better ways to wind back concessions that many experts believe distort Australia’s housing market. Bring that conversation on. We’d all benefit from it.
But Turnbull has pedalled past obvious lines of calm and sensible interrogation to alleged full scale house snatching by the alternative party of government. Some of the overstatements hurled in question time today were, truly extraordinary. Take this one: “Every single home owner in every single electorate represented in this House will be poorer if the Labor Party is elected to government.” Really? Like, really, prime minister?
We expect the Liberal and National parties to stand up for the aspirational investor class in Australia – this posture isn’t a shock – but the vehemence of the beat down, and the hyperbole associated with it works against one of Malcolm Turnbull’s core principles when he took the Liberal leadership: to respect the intelligence of voters, to cease and desist from cheap political slogans, not rush pre-emptively in half panic to rule policy things out that, by rights, should be considered.
He’s (in part at least) pitching to the conservatives in his own ranks in an effort to keep the government stable, but what Turnbull actually needs to do – what Tony Abbott couldn’t do – is pitch to the sensible centre in Australian politics. And the fact of the matter is Turnbull has both the credibility with the public and the political capital to win the next election by being a grown up, by expanding the discourse, not by contracting the discussion into the same mind numbing nonsense Australians have already seen and don’t much care for.
Fact is, right now at least – all things in this joint liable to change without notice – the party offering the politically risky policy has the prime minister exactly where it wants him: running against type, mouthing a half baked script, jumping at shadows, over-egging, and tripping up on the great rush through.
Further questions have been placed on the notice paper. I’ll be back with some thoughts on that session shortly.
Labor’s Tony Burke, seconding the motion.
I thought they had changed prime ministers! I thought we were told that there was going to be a new respect for the intelligence of theAustralian people!
I thought people had a sense that the new prime minister would change the culture of the Liberal party, we were told that he would change the Liberal party but, no, the Liberal party has changed him, from the moment he got that job.
A brief diversion into live cattle before back to Labor’s secret plan to drive down the price of your home. Labor’s negative gearing policy will cut the value of your home.
Malcolm Turnbull:
It will mean you can’t afford to borrow money from your home to give money to your kids so they can buy a place. It mean you can’t afford to go on a holiday when you want to start a business, and you go to the bank and you want to borrow some money to start a business, the bank will say: “Well, you better get a valuation.” And you will discover that your home has been reduced in value and it will be entirely the consequence of a deliberate, calculated act by a Labor government.
Malcolm Turnbull:
Mr Speaker, all of – every single one of those Australians after 1st July 2017, if the honourable member becomes prime minister, will not be able to claim a net interest loss on investment made in existing property.
Now, their cunning plan, Mr Speaker, their cunning plan is to say that they can only invest in new property.
Now, we all know that the reason that housing is less affordable than it ought to be, particularly again, I have say, in my own area of Sydney, is because of lack of supply.
They are going to cut the value of your home.
Mr Speaker, that is Labor’s policy. They want to make housing more affordable by making your house worth less.
The prime minister is defending himself in this censure debate. Turnbull says negative gearing is an activity undertaken by nurses and teachers – not surgeons and finance managers. He’s face first in the stats right now.
Shorten:
This fellow here ... he thinks the Australian dream is the ability to negatively gear your seventh house.
Mere mortals don't understand the extent of the Wentworth genius ..
Shorten, continuing.
Now, I feel a little bit of a pang for poor old Member for Warringah (Tony Abbott). He got undermined by Malcolm Turnbull for making captain’s calls, but as soon as Mr Turnbull is up there, the captain’s call!
We know what this leader of the government said. He said there would be no changes to capital gains tax whatsoever. So today we ask him to back in his words and there are really three options the PM could have picked: tell the truth or indeed tell us what was happening with capital gains tax or he could have just said: “Everyone else is wrong.”
We are lucky enough to have an infallible prime minister in this country, we are very lucky to know that we are led by the smartest man in Australia, self-declared – that even when he gets it wrong, he is still right, us mere mortals just don’t understand the extent of Wentworth genius.
This is the second censure order of the day against the prime minister for misleading the House.
Bill Shorten:
Either this prime minister is dishonest or he is incompetent, he cannot be both. The prime minister needs to rule out increasing capital gains tax on the superannuation accounts of millions of people.
What is it about this prime minister that makes him so out of touch that he will defend to the last drop of Liberal blood, reducing the 50% capital gains discount to 25%, when it comes to defending the capital gains tax discount of millions of Australians and their superannuation - well, he is out of town for that.
The prime minister is so arrogant that he thinks he can say unsay words and make them miraculously disappear, but the problem for him is this: every journalist in the press gallery heard exactly what he said, every newspaper in Australia showed that he was ruling out tackling capital gains tax, and what does he do?
No, they are all wrong.
Rightio, here comes the suspension of the standing orders.
Turnbull is persisting with his argument that he was taken out of context yesterday on CGT.
It is perfectly obvious that - perfectly clear that I was talking about Labor’s proposal to increase capital gains tax on individuals, and it was perfectly obvious that that’s what the Member for McMahon (Chris Bowen) was talking about.
(Nope, nope, nope.)
Malcolm Turnbull:
When you are in a tax hole, stop digging.
(Quite universal, that advice, I reckon.)
We are proceeding.
Malcolm Turnbull:
I think what the opposition is doing here demeans this House. It demonstrates a desperation that really insults the intelligence of the Australian people.
Bill Shorten.
Q: Will the prime minister acknowledge that he misled the parliament?
Manager of government business Christopher Pyne has had enough.
Speaker Smith is deliberating.
Malcolm Turnbull:
Every single home owner in every single electorate represented in this House will be poorer if the Labor party is elected to government.
Labor, persisting on the mislead of the House.
Q: Does the prime minister stand by the following statement: “Increasing capital gains tax is no part of our thinking whatsoever?”
The prime minister is glad to have this question he says, because it gives him an opportunity to note that Labor wants house prices to come down. Massive shock. Everyone will be poorer if Labor wins the election. Lower house values, a poorer Australia, less investors, less confidence.
Vote Labor and be poorer!
The prime minister, digging in here on negative gearing and CGT.
After the foreign minister Julie Bishop informs the House of all the benefits associated with the China Australia free trade agreement, Bowen rolls back to CGT.
Q: Will the prime minister today rule out cutting the capital gains tax discount for millions of Australians’ superannuation accounts?
Turnbull says the government is looking at superannuation across the board.
What we are looking at is the entire superannuation system, as you would expect, in any responsible review of taxation, unlike the Labor party, we are not rushing into snap decisions, to reckless decisions which are going to undermine property prices.
Chris Bowen is back.
Q: Prime minister, why is halving the general capital gains tax discount a terrible thing, but halving the capital gains tax discount for millions of superannuation accounts a good idea?
Malcolm Turnbull is kicking off on Labor’s CGT policy. He says Labor’s proposal amounts to a radical change that will provide an extraordinary disincentive to investment.
We are back to the very vulnerable property market.
In this very vulnerable property market where prices are forecast in some cities to decline, in others to increase by maybe 1 or 2% – that is in that moment they are proposing the biggest shock to the most important asset for all Australian families.
The prime minister’s self described wing man, the deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, is deep in cherries and irrigation. And dams. Damnation.
Shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen.
Q: My question is to the treasurer and refers to his answer just then on implementing the recommendations of the Murray inquiry into financial systems. Is the treasurer aware that the Murray inquiry found in relation to negative gearing and capital gains tax discount and I quote: “Reducing these concessions would lead to a more efficient allocation of funding in the question?”
Treasurer Scott Morrison says the government has no interest in being in a race to raise taxes to fund more spending. He says Labor just wants to rip away investment opportunities from ordinary people.
Independent Andrew Wilkie is worried about CSIRO job cuts and the recent decision to exit climate research. The innovation minister Christopher Pyne hints there are some announcements coming up in Tasmania that should please Wilkie.
Christopher Pyne:
I think there will be some announcements in the next few days specifically about the Antarctic and Ocean Division that the Member for Denison has been particularly concerned about, and I understand that the work that is being done is to ensure that the essential services provided around the measuring of temperatures will be able to be continued through the CSIRO or through any of the other national institutions that do this kind of work.
The next Dorothy Dixer invites the prime minister to outline to the House how important the asset value of the family home is to the economic security of Australians.
Turnbull is happy to oblige.
The Member for Sydney is complaining that housing prices are too high and that people can’t afford to buy a house, so what she wants to do, she wants to crash housing prices.
She thinks - she thinks that - she thinks that by their measure – a wrecking ball swung into an already vulnerable property market, they believe they will knock down property prices and they will make it easier for people to buy homes.
So, the 70% of Australians who own houses will see the value of their single most important asset smashed to fulfil an ideological crusade by the Labor party, designed, so she claims, to make it easier for people to buy houses.
(I think the prime minister thinks he’s in opposition. This is the sort of hyperventilating nonsense oppositions try and peddle. Not governments. The value of their asset, “smashed.” Smashed? To fulfil an ideological crusade? Like the ideological crusade that Joe Hockey said was a good idea in his final speech to parliament?)
Shorten is back.
Q: Is the prime minister aware that this morning on ABC Radio the minister for resources said, and I quote: “I did notice that the PM did say to the parliament yesterday that the increase in capital gains taxis not part of our thinking andI think that this is a very clear statement by the prime minister.” When the members of his own Cabinet recognise that the PM made a clear statement to the parliament yesterday, why does the PM continue to waffle and blame everyone else for simply misunderstanding him?
Malcolm Turnbull is sorry for all this childishness. I mean, really.
This is pathetic childishness.
The first Dorothy Dixer is about growth opportunities in the global economy.
Question time
It being 2pm, let’s have a break from the pre question time madness and supplement it with the question time madness.
Bill Shorten, opening the batting today on the prime minister misleading the House over capital gains tax. How can people trust you when you say one thing and do something else, Shorten wonders.
The prime minister rises to say he has not, by his own account, misled the House. Turnbull says he can’t help it if Labor failed to understand what he was talking about. He’s pleading “taken out of context.”
The Australian Christian Lobby, by contrast, looks to have had had sufficient advance warning (just speculation on my part) to issue a small screed. I can safely spare you most of it. It ends this way.
Lyle Shelton, ACL managing director, on the scourge of rainbow ideology:
Many people are asking questions about where rainbow ideology is taking our politics. The government should immediately pay out its contract with the program providers. The break fee would be a small price to pay to ensure all children could be safe at school.
I promised I would share the statement on the safe schools review from the education minister, Simon Birmingham, when it arrived. Here it is. Two lines.
Homophobia should be no more tolerated than racism, especially in the school environment. However, it is essential that all material is age appropriate and that parents have confidence in any resources used in a school to support the right of all students, staff and families to feel safe at school.
Apparently I can also assert as fact that an independent review will happen and report to the minister in March.
No other particulars.
Chaos, much?
I suspect the education minister has had better days.
Bernardi wound up that interview with a couple of observations on tax: I haven’t seen any justification for any change to negative gearing; and don’t tinker with it (CGT) lightly.
The ABC is now playing a pre-recorded interview with the South Australian Liberal, Cory Bernardi. Schools just need to stick to the three R’s, he says. Not experiment in radical gender theory.
I’m a parent. I want my children to go to school learning how to read, to write and to do their maths. We already have problems with literacy and numeracy in our school system. Yet what we’ve discovered is that federal funds and resources from schools are pushing a social engineering agenda that is radically at odds with the aspirations of many parents.
We have got children as young as 11 being told to imagine they’re 16 and in a sexualised environment, either in a same-sex or opposite sex attraction, to imagine themselves without genitals and being bullied and intimidated into complying with a radical program such that if they don’t answer the questions correctly, they are left humiliated in front of the class.
Q: Would you concede there are some children and teenagers where gender issues are a problem and they need to feel they can be in a safe environment in their school?
Cory Bernardi:
Children have all sorts of issues in dealing and coping with puberty and growing into adulthood. We need to teach them resilience. We also need to teach them acceptance and responsibility.
Penny Wong is asked about the safe schools program review. She says it is important to remember what this program is actually about. It’s about trying to ensure kids don’t die, or harm themselves.
Can I be clear about what this program is designed to address? Remember, it’s a program that has had bipartisan support.
It’s designed to address the terrifying statistics - I’d invite you to look at what Beyond Blue has said about young people, gay and lesbian, young LGBTI people, the number that have experienced abuse and the terrifyingly high numbers who have attempted suicide or self-harm.
We all want our children to be safe. I hope the more sensible people in the Liberal party will continue to focus on that very important objective.
Back to Senate voting reform momentarily. Labor’s Senate leader Penny Wong is on the ABC now making the case for why the opposition won’t back the government’s package.
Penny Wong:
We recognise the current system isn’t perfect but no system is.
Our concern is what has been presented to the parliament is a deal done behind closed doors. The largest change to Senate voting in 30 years – that’s going to be rushed through the parliament with the consent and willingness of the Greens.
Let’s understand what the deal does.
It is designed to purge the parliament, not just for now but, if possible, forever, of all minor parties. That’s what it’s designed to do. We think there’s a problem with that.
This is a purge, frankly.
We don’t think it’s appropriate.
I’m yet to see any sort of statement from the education minister. Once that is forthcoming, I’ll give you more details about this proposed review. Until then, let’s power on.
I’d say *drink* in response to this but that isn’t really appropriate on a family blog. No drinking before question time. This is News Corp’s Samantha Maiden, recording some of the discussion from the party room.
One MP raised safe schools program re "indoctrinate children into Marxist agenda of cultural relativism" and six other MPs spoke
— Samantha Maiden (@samanthamaiden) February 23, 2016
Good grief. I might join Mathias Cormann in a bit of ensuite screaming and rejoin you momentarily.
On the safe schools inquiry that I flagged a moment ago.
Confirmation that Bernardi raised concerns in party room about Safer Schools program; many other MPs criticised it. @murpharoo
— Shalailah Medhora (@shalailah) February 23, 2016
At PM's invitation, Birmingham will report back to the party room on the operation of the Safer Schools program. @murpharoo
— Shalailah Medhora (@shalailah) February 23, 2016
Simon Birmingham is the education minister.
My colleague Shalailah Medhora is down at the Coalition party room debrief getting the official account of the prime minister’s pep talk to colleagues this morning. Looks like the prime minister has been channelling his inner Abbott once again, to borrow from Dennis Shanahan of The Australian.
PM rubbishes ALP capital gains tax policy in party room, labelling it a "significant shock to largest single asset class in Aust" @murpharoo
— Shalailah Medhora (@shalailah) February 23, 2016
PM rubbishes ALP capital gains tax policy in party room, labelling it a "significant shock to largest single asset class in Aust" @murpharoo
— Shalailah Medhora (@shalailah) February 23, 2016
Here’s a pithy summary of that safe schools program investigation by BuzzFeed’s Lane Sainty.
Safe Schools investigation winners:
— Lane Sainty (@lanesainty) February 23, 2016
- Aus Christian Lobby
- The Australian
- Cory Bernardi
- Others in far right
Losers:
- LGBTI kids
Probably a bit early to chalk up a loss for kids, an investigation of the program could of course lead to an affirmation of the program, but I get her general point.
While we’ve been knee deep in procedural antics and caucus, the ABC reports the prime minister has agreed to an investigation into a taxpayer funded program aimed at helping lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and/or intersex (LGBTI) school students.
Parliamentarians like Cory Bernardi have been hot to trot against this particular program on the basis, (as the South Australian senator told the ABC today): “It makes everyone fall into line with a political agenda. Our schools should be places of learning, not indoctrination.”
I’ll update you when there’s more to know.
Backtracking briefly now to deliver something more comprehensive on today’s caucus meeting. After Bill Shorten’s “dig a little deeper” pep talk to his caucus colleagues, the Labor party discussed its stance on a range of bills - mostly uncontentious.
Senate voting reform, however, drew a range of questions from people, including how the Coalition’s proposal would work and the party’s reasons for opposing it. The shadow special minister of state, Gary Gray – who has been on the record vigorously supporting reform – had to do the duty of recommending the shadow cabinet’s collective decision. That decision was to oppose the bill, while moving amendments to increase the transparency of the political donation system.
Labor’s Senate leader, Penny Wong, said the government’s legislation was different from what the joint standing committee on electoral matters - which included Gray - unanimously recommended in 2014.
We understand Wong explained Labor’s stance in the following terms:
1. At the last election 3.3 million people voted for minor parties. This would exhaust their votes.
2. It’s likely to mean that there will be an entrenched 38 senators for the Coalition. That means the 2014 budget would have made it through.
3. This is the biggest change in 30 years and it’s been rushed through in a deal to advance the interests of the Coalition and the Greens political party.
On the substantive issue, one caucus member - believed to be the retiring WA MP Alannah MacTiernan - spoke against the shadow cabinet’s position, arguing the party should not be leaving the issue for a future parliament to resolve.
Senate voting reforms aside, Labor backbenchers were also asking questions of their frontbench team about the plight of Baby Asha and the campaign to let 267 people stay in Australia rather than be transferred to Nauru.
There was a question about the New Zealand offer to resettle some of the refugees held offshore, and a suggestion to highlight the differences between the government’s and opposition’s approach.
Shorten told his team a Labor government would get children out of detention, pursue regional resettlement, engage with the UNHCR and ensure mandatory reporting of child abuse. Labor’s immigration spokesman, Richard Marles, accused the government of dropping the ball on regional resettlement.
Stoush in the House, in pictures.
Here’s the Burke motion.
I seek leave to move the following motion.
The House:
1. Notes:
a. That yesterday in question time, the prime minister said, and I quote, “increasing capital gains tax is no part of our thinking whatsoever”;
b. That just hours later, the prime minister’s own office confirmed to media that not only had the government not ruled out changes to capital gains tax, it was still actively considering changes;
c. That leaked Coalition talking points from the prime minister’s own office contradict the prime minister’s statement in question time yesterday; and
d. Therefore, by the admission of his own office the prime minister has misled the parliament and through it the Australian people; and
2. Calls on the prime minister to immediately attend the House to correct the record in accordance with Clause 5.1 of the prime minister’s own Statement of Ministerial Standards.
That’s just been defeated.
Speaker Smith requires Tony Burke to withdraw his unparliamentary language. Lie is unparliamentary language. He withdraws.
Chris Bowen rises to second the motion.
We’ve got a treasurer on the witness protection program!
The government moves the gag motion.
In case you are just tuning in, I really should explain *the CGT cock-up*. Yesterday, the prime minister told parliament:
Increasing capital gains tax is no part of our thinking whatsoever.
But the prime minister’s office has had to sweep up that unequivocal statement. Now the official line is the government will not adopt Labor’s proposal on capital gains tax, but will consider other options, including halving the current CGT discount for superannuation funds.
Burke says the prime minister has lied to the parliament. He needs to come into the chamber to correct the record.
The government is responding with the predictable gag motion.
The manager of opposition business Tony Burke is in the House now moving a motion on yesterday’s CGT cock-up.
Tony Burke:
The prime minister has misled parliament, and through it, the Australian people.
In the meantime, here comes the procedural stoush I’ve been foreshadowing this morning.
Only early soundings but it sounds like a number of Labor MPs in today’s caucus had questions about Labor’s position on Senate voting reform (including one MP suggesting Labor should do something rather than nothing) – also I gather there was a fair discussion about the circumstances of baby Asha. I’ll bring you particulars or specifics as they come to hand.
There’s a slightly strange characterisation in this news story from Fairfax Media’s James Massola which says the prime minister has been “contradicted by his own office” about the government’s position on capital gains tax.
It’s not really a contradiction. It’s a cleaning up exercise that began last night when the prime minister’s unequivocal statement in the house was being walked back to something like we’ll look at some CGT changes, including the current discount for super funds. I referenced this development in today’s opening post.
But the Massola story is useful in that it contains a form of words about what the government’s position on CGT (currently) is. I was trying to find that form of words this morning, but was unsuccessful in my efforts.
So here is today’s CGT word, according to the talking points.
The government will not implement anything as rushed, distorting and potentially destructive as Labor’s anti-investment CGT plans. There will be no change to the 50% CGT discount for individuals. The government is still carefully considering some other changes.
Last night, after his appearance on the ABC’s 7.30 Report, I wondered on Twitter whether the finance minister Mathias Cormann sometimes walked into the privacy of his ministerial ensuite bathroom and screamed uncontrollably. This was my way of saying does this guy ever just do his block.
Looping back to the post earlier about Morrison on the hunt of pixie ponies, and Joe Hockey enjoying his nice life in Washington, I’ll bring in the finance minister for a moment. Last week, I watched the finance minister sit calmly and quietly at a table at the National Press Club while, at the podium, the now treasurer Scott Morrison argued the government was kind of stuck on major tax reform options now because not much had been done during the government’s first two years in office.
That would be during Cormann’s tenure as finance minister. Now Cormann of course is the second economic minister in finance, not the first. Morrison’s remarks were a backhander to Abbott and Hockey, not Cormann – but if I was a person prone to muffled screaming incidents in ministerial ensuite bathrooms I would have felt a bit put out by the characterisation of my two years in a key economic portfolio from the NPC podium by the guy who’d just lobbed into the job.
I also note that Cormann went out the next day to state the bleeding obvious on the subject of bracket creep: that with wages growth slow and inflation contained, there was no particular urgency in addressing bracket creep right now. Obvious as buggery that intervention, but entirely different from what Morrison has been saying on this question.
Then yesterday, in Senate question time, Cormann had to soak up this gratuitous crack from Labor.
Q: Mr president, I ask a supplementary question. Does the minister agree with former treasurer Joe Hockey that ‘negative gearing should be skewed towards new housing so that there is an incentive to add to the housing stock rather than an incentive to speculate on existing property’?
Mathias Cormann:
No.
A longish post which says nothing more or less than I’m still wondering about that bathroom.
On the subject of digging a little deeper, a passing thought about team work.
1 Corinthians 12:26
And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honoured, all the members rejoice with it.
Updated
Readers with us yesterday know that Mike and I have been working up a #BrickParliament series of the treasurer, Scott Morrison’s relentless hunt for mythical creatures, be they pixie horses or unicorns or ..
While Morrison labours away to find something to say, the chap he replaced, Joe Hockey, looks to be settling into American life quite nicely.
At the famous Fenway Pk home of Boston Red Sox for Aus US Business Week pic.twitter.com/qw8HyUTPhr
— Joe Hockey (@JoeHockey) February 22, 2016
Dig a little deeper.
Brilliant portrait from Magic Mikearoo.
Updated
Shorten: we have to dig a little deeper
I’ll spare you the references to Green Left Weekly and unicorns and reds under the beds and the various analogies, because the substance of Shorten’s message is interesting. It’s a homily about team work, sticking with the plan, and not giving up.
The Labor leader says Turnbull has wandered off the reservation. He started as the man for everybody. Now he’s settling in his prime ministership as the man for vested interests. Shorten says the prime minister is anxious, worried about losing his popularity. The tax debate has been a mess because the government isn’t prosecuting change in a coherent framework. And the divisions within the government work against intellectual cohesion in every respect.
It’s a good analysis.
Now here’s the pep talk.
Bill Shorten:
I believe ... we collectively, have been a strong opposition, probably stronger than people realised.
If we had said two and a half years ago, imagine back then, we’ll see off Abbott, we’ll see off Hockey, I didn’t predict the Washington angle, that we’ll see off Bronwyn Bishop, that we’ll see off the 2014 budget, that we’ll see off the 15% plans they had for GST and that we will start holding them to account on a range of their ministers.
If I had predicted to you two and half years ago that in the space of the last six months they’d have ministers change, you would have said ‘oh, Bill, you know.’ But that’s exactly what’s happened.
And we’ve been doing that because we are a team. We’ve ticked the boxes of being a strong opposition.
So now is the time we have to dig a little deeper.
We can have no, I believe, acceptance or tolerance of giving up. There are millions of people who count on us. This is the time that we have to dig a bit deeper, this is the time where I believe in this team, and I’ve got to know all of you, you cannot only be as good as you believe you can be, you can be better than you realise.
When people aren’t ready, and this government are not ready, when people do not act as a team, and they are not acting as a team, then they’re no better than anyone else and no-one person’s popularity can mask all these difficulties.
I think Labor’s greatest strength is when we don’t give up being a team. Our greatest strength is when we act with a passion which indicates we are ready to govern. This election is there for the winning.
It’s going to take a team effort from all of us but I can assure you I believe in winning, there’s millions of Australians who believe that we should win and we just need this team to carry it down to the line.
The Labor leader Bill Shorten has a talking to caucus voice. He’s using it now.
Shorten, it must be said, is looking quite pleased with himself this morning.
I don’t think we’ve .. [meaningful pause] we haven’t won the battle of ideas ... but we are engaged in the battle of ideas for the future of this country.
And we’ve been announcing positive plans for Australia’s future.
(This is the caucus pep talk.)
Refugee advocates are unhappy about the Courier Mail story this morning which was the subject of my last post. The director of GetUp’s human rights campaign, Shen Narayanasamy, has issued a statement saying the following:
Peter Dutton is in possession of medical reports which clearly state baby Asha’s injuries were accidental. This minister is making allegations which ignore medical evidence. He’s ignoring the fact that the police inquiry he initiated has concluded with no charges laid after just a couple of days. Dutton is trying on the kind of dirty politics we saw with “Children Overboard”, and the discredited allegations levelled at Save the Children staff last year.
Readers with me yesterday will know there was contention in question time and afterwards after the immigration minister Peter Dutton suggested that asylum seekers were self harming in order to secure a hospital stay then a pathway to citizenship. Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie launched a censure motion against Dutton, backed by Green Adam Bandt. This was the Wilkie motion.
That the minister for immigration and border protection be censured for implying that the baby Asha was deliberately harmed as a means of facilitating asylum seeker access to Australia.
The Courier Mail reports this morning the mother of Asha has been interviewed by police “after a guard claimed she had admitted the girl was purposely burnt to get to Australia.”
Renee Viellaris reports the mother refuted the allegations when interviewed by police at Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital on Friday.
An Immigration department guard alleged the mother had admitted the girl was purposely hurt to get out of detention in Nauru, sparking a child protection notification from Queensland’s Department of Child Safety. Queensland Police confirmed they received a child protection notification but said yesterday the investigation had been finalised. Police also intended to interview the girl’s father yesterday but cancelled the meeting once she was released from hospital into community detention.
Here we see the problem I raised yesterday: the lack of information released into the public domain in orderly fashion to allow parliamentarians, voters and journalists to reach informed conclusions about the facts.
Here, in this case study, we see guards with one version, Asha’s mother has another version – in parliament Dutton is then seen making a sweeping statement about the behaviour of asylum seekers to build a political case to justify the government’s punitive policy responses, and then objecting when he is called on the comment.
How can anyone see anything clearly in this environment? Seriously.
I should note a couple of good stories around in the news cycle this morning.
My colleague Lenore Taylor notes that Senate cross benchers are trying to negotiate a compromise with the government over its proposed building industry watchdog in an attempt to avoid a fresh trigger for a double dissolution election.
Matthew Knott at Fairfax is reporting that Cabinet has approved sweeping changes to Australia’s media ownership laws, including scrapping the population “reach rule” and the “two out of three” media ownership rule.
Some commentary worth noting, too. Dennis Shanahan in The Australian notes the prime minister has located his inner Abbott.
Turnbull has turned to the traditional favourite that Labor “can’t be trusted with the economy” and claims the Opposition Leader’s appeal to his electoral base with a clampdown on negative gearing will destroy house values, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne. The phrases, tone and arguments Turnbull used in parliament yesterday could all have come from Tony Abbott when he ruled out changes to negative gearing more than six months ago.
Finance minister Mathias Cormann was on the ABC earlier this morning and was asked to clarify the government’s position on CGT. Cormann said he didn’t intend to announce the government’s policy on breakfast television, but the prime minister in question time yesterday had been “appropriately critical” of Labor’s policy position on capital gains (cutting the discount from 50% to 25% on assets held for more than 12 months.)
Updated
As well as giving the prime minister a tickle up, Chris Bowen confirmed that the Senate reform package would go to the Labor caucus this morning. Shadow cabinet resolved last night to oppose the government’s proposal. (It being Tuesday, there are partyroom meetings before the chambers get underway.)
If you are bamboozled by the mechanics of the voting reform proposal, my colleague, Daniel Hurst, is here to help.
Labor’s Chris Bowen, to reporters a little while ago.
Now, is there nothing this government won’t do to attack the retirement incomes of working Australians? Last week was the thought bubble about exemptions (from superannuation) for low income earners. We have seen the government rip away the tax concession for low income earners in superannuation. We have seen the government freeze the superannuation guarantee at 9.5%. And now, this miserable excuse for a government is contemplating reducing the capital gains tax discount for superannuation by half.
Now, this goes to character as well as competence. If the prime minister can stand there at question time and deny even thinking about reducing capital gains tax discount and yet his ministers and his officers briefing out, talking to journalists, that afternoon, saying that, in fact, what he really meant was we would reduce the capital gains tax discount within superannuation.
This goes to the prime minister’s character. He cannot be trusted on tax. If he can’t be trusted on something he says at question time at two o’clock, how can his commitments about the GST be taken seriously?
(Like I said earlier, watch for the reposition from the prime minister, or alternatively, watch for efforts from Labor to go down ‘the prime minister has misled the House’ route.)
As you can see from Mikearoo’s great opening picture of the independent Senator Glenn Lazarus, our corridor is teeming with aggrieved cross benchers this morning.
The Family First Senator Bob Day has just been on the ABC flagging some kind of legal challenge to the government’s proposal to change Senate voting procedures. Day thinks it may be unconstitutional to disenfranchise the voters by ensuring that a vote is exhausted if the first, second or third preference of the voter does not get elected. Right now, he says, a vote remains alive for the duration of the count.
Fair to say these folks are cranky. No good will come of this, Day tells his host Michael Brissenden, somewhat darkly. This is the big guys ganging up on the little guys. Day has some reason to feel bruised. He’s voted with the government more than any other cross bencher. And now they’ve gone and stolen his play lunch.
Fancy meeting you here
Good morning everyone and welcome to Tuesday on Politics Live. Before we power into Tuesday, I think it’s worth recapping a notable development of Monday, and it’s this: the prime minister had a pretty bad day. Given it was Malcolm Turnbull’s first obviously bad day since taking the leadership, I’ll walk you through it.
Monday started with an opinion poll which showed the major parties were locked in a dead heat (which in the real world should be heavily discounted, given one or two polls does not give you a trend, but in the febrile world of Australian politics, a bad poll is a thunderclap in the news cycle. Echo, echo, echo.)
The prime minister then unfurled his reforms to Senate voting reforms, which, without bipartisan support, will be more difficult to land without mess and contention. The cross benchers fired up talk of dirty deals, and Labor started hurling around the concept of gerrymanders just to spice things up. Governments tend to approach the politically sensitive subject of political reform on a bipartisan basis for a reason: change happens with very little contention attached to it. Change has to happen to the Senate voting system because the voting system is being gamed – there’s no doubt about that – but without bipartisanship, the conversation is more risky.
Malcolm Turnbull then rolled into question time, and stuffed up. He told the parliament in response to a question from Labor’s Chris Bowen: “Increasing capital gains tax is no part of our thinking whatsoever.” Late yesterday evening that statement was being walked back. It became clear the government was, in fact, contemplating measures like halving the capital gains tax discount for superannuation funds. So that part of increasing capital gains tax was, in fact, part of the thinking. It will be interesting to see how the prime minister handles the reposition after that stumble today.
The other negative for Turnbull in question time I mentioned yesterday. Labor is keen right now to back the prime minister into a corner where he will define himself as being all for the aspirational rich, the investor class, at the expense of people who are, say, struggling to buy a house. Turnbull cooperated with that effort yesterday both in tone and in substance. I might be quite wrong about this, it wouldn’t be the first time, but I suspect the combination of reflexive partisan negativity and defending the assets of people who can probably cope with one less tax concession is not a good look for him, Malcolm Turnbull. His political style is charm and disarm, not smash and plunder.
I’m sure the prime minister is being advised to muscle up to Labor, to ramp up the high visibility contrast before powering through quick sticks to the election. But the prime minister also needs to consider what’s in his own long term interests as a political leader: the one who promised voters, less aggro, less chaos, less madness, and a genuine conversation about policy when he toppled Tony Abbott last September. Abbott got sucked in to serving the machine at his own personal cost. It would be good for the collective sanity of politics lovers everywhere if the current prime minister resisted the invitation to repeat past mistakes.
Anyway, let’s power on. Today thread is open for love readers, hate readers, grammar watchers, spell checkers, encouragers and discouragers. Welcome everyone. Magic Mikearoo and I are also dancing like we won’t make it til Wednesday on the Twitters. He’s @mpbowers and I’m @murpharoo
Twirl under the disco ball blogans, bloganistas. Blame it on the boogie. Here comes Tuesday.
