Night time political summary
- Attorney general George Brandis has said it was a “preposterous” suggestion that the new counter terrorism bill which shares intelligence between Asis and the defence forces is designed to target Australian foreign fighters.
- Communications minister Malcolm Turnbull said the ABC cuts were not a result of an efficiency dividend, as Tony Abbott said he regretted the job losses caused by Mark Scott’s changes. Labor and the Greens MPs joined a protest rally on the ABC/SBS cuts at parliament.
- A “compromise” renewable energy policy being promoted by crossbench senators would result in windfall gains worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year for existing hydro-electric companies while stifling any new investment in renewables such as wind farms, according to analysts.
- Medibank Private floated, opening at $2.22.
- David Leyonhjelm is introducing a same sex marriage bill tomorrow.
- Bill Shorten is speaking to the National Press Club tomorrow.
- Don’t forget to watch ABC journalist Heather Ewart’s three part documentary on the National party at 8.30pm tonight. I hear it’s a cracker.
Thanks to @mpbowers and the Guardian brains trust for all the help and to you, dear reader, for following #politicslive. More #LegoSenate tomorrow.
Goodnight.
Attorney general George Brandis is now on his feet going through all the Greens questions on the counter terrorism bill.
Q: What basis was 7 March 2018 set as date of review of this legislation?
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (Pjcis) recommended certain powers were reviewed 18 months and 2 years for review and sunset after the next election. The review date was chosen to provide certainty (given the election date is fluid), says Brandis.
AG Brandis confirms that the government has not proposed this legislation in order to target Australian civilians fighting overseas.
As an aside, here is the whole senate, prepared by Mike Bowers.
sneak peak for you @cjjosh #LegoSenate chamber @GuardianAus @gabriellechan @murpharoo http://t.co/V71t6nA2V5 pic.twitter.com/JmmdGHNfrF
— Mike Bowers (@mpbowers) November 25, 2014
You may nominate which figure corresponds to which senator. I like Warrior Wong myself.
Just a word of explanation on the senate rules. Photographers can take pictures of senators who are speaking - known as those who have the call - but cannot take pictures of those sitting down. Therefore, when ministers refuse to answer questions, we cannot show you any photos. Hence #LegoSenate.
George Brandis sits down after a brief incursion in the senate.
Updated
We are not allowed to take photos in the senate chamber (unlike the house of reps) so we can’t show you George Brandis on the red benches - not answering the questions. This is a result of a ruling by the presiding officer - being the president - with the Black Rod as the enforcer.
So we will give you a flavour by using our grand collection of Lego. Here is a likeness of George Brandis.
Because of restrictive senate photo rules #LegoSenate George Brandis http://t.co/V71t6nA2V5 @gabriellechan pic.twitter.com/hvuY16z7zZ
— Mike Bowers (@mpbowers) November 25, 2014
Scott Ludlam again asks: Is it the Australian government’s intention to use the legislation to target people?
This flushes out the AG.
He describes Ludlam’s suggestion as preposterous.
Penny Wright again asks: We have Asis able to provide support to the defence forces and the AG has not provided information as to why this is necessary.
Brandis refuses to answer.
Scott Ludlam says it is a “profound contempt”.
This is the most extraordinary abuse of the senate since I have been here.
Here is a strange thing.
The senate is still debating the counter terrorism amendment. Greens senator Penny Wright is asking for details on the bill as it is “in committee” and attorney general George Brandis is basically ignoring her questions. There’s an awkward moment as fellow Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson, who is in the chair, is asked to direct Brandis to answer the questions by Scott Ludlam.
I think he is aware of the questions, says Whish-Wilson.
Brandis sits mute.
Greens senator Penny Wright asked George Brandis when the independent security legislation monitor would be appointed. Brandis said it was the last government’s fault as they had the recommendations for the office and did nothing. The Coalition are preparing to appoint a monitor in the near future, says Brandis.
In the senate, they are back on to the counter terrorism amendment. It must have caught the attorney general George Brandis on the hop as he failed to show and Labor’s Jacinta Collins tried to be helpful and began speaking to the government’s amendments. Eventually Brandis came rushing into the chamber puffing, to take up the arguments for the government. The bill is “in committee” stage, which is like a Q&A for all senators.
O sole mio
“There was even talk of grassy knolls.”
Senate inquiry special hearing into ABC/SBS cuts
The senate select committee currently inquiring into the Abbott government’s budget cuts will hold a special hearing into the ABC and SBS cuts on December 12 in Canberra.
The inquiry chair Scott Ludlam said it would be the “first opportunity to take evidence on the impact of the cuts, the job losses and the reasons behind some of the decisions made by the ABC’s management”.
Our colleagues over at Fairfax - Lisa Cox and Judith Ireland - are reporting that David Leyonhjelm will introduce his same sex marriage bill to the senate tomorrow.
Leyonhjelm is apparently going to make a speech tonight foreshadowing the Freedom To Marry Bill. Apart from obviously addressing the issue for gay, intersex and transgender people, the bill will also create another barnacle for Tony Abbott who will be under pressure to allow a conscience vote. Abbott is notably opposed to same sex marriage, describing it as:
the fashion of the moment.
The senate is debating a matter of public importance on:
The lack of strong environmental policies to address climate change or safeguard natural resources in Victoria.
While we were noting the fun in the lower house, across the hall in the senate question time, defence minister David Johnston was dumping on South Australian shipbuilder ASC.
The context is that the government had promised before the last election to build 12 new submarines in Adelaide. Now it appears the government favours a Japanese company. Although ASC is a potential Australian builder, but it appears the defence minister does not think much of their capabilities. (Notwithstanding its board member Sophie Mirabella.)
Johnston said ASC does not know the government’s “top end requirements” for the contract.
They have never designed a submarine at ASC...let’s get real here. This is not for people looking for a job. This is a professional program which is about national security and we will take the advice of the national service chiefs not somebody looking for a job...
Labor asked: Why has minister resorted to trashing the hard working men and women of the Australian shipbuilding industry to justify his broken promise?
Johnston said ASC had not delivered on submarines in 2009 and had delivered over-budget on a contract for Air Warfare Destroyers.
You wonder why I am worried about ASC and what they are delivering to the Australian taxpayer? You wonder why I wouldn’t trust them to build a canoe? Because what they have done on Air Warfare Destroyers I have had, and Mathias Cormann have had to repair.
National MP and parliamentary secretary Michael McCormack answers Chris Bowen’s prosecution of the “matter of public importance” over the Abbott budget. McCormack is a former journalist. He is talking about the state of the budget left after the previous Labor government, noting “we would all love to fund the ABC to the level it is now”. It just is not possible.
Let’s not get caught up over an interview on SBS the night before the election...Let’s not get too cute about a few cutbacks to some orgnaistions that need it.
Turnbull contradicts Abbott on ABC cuts
Lenore Taylor reports an interesting schism between the communications minister and the prime minister.
Malcolm Turnbull has denied funding cuts to the ABC are an “efficiency dividend” because the government first ensured the broadcaster had the capacity to make the savings without any cuts to programming.
In an interview with Guardian Australia, the communications minister said the ABC had announced programming changes as part of its budget cuts because it was using the government as a “bogey man” to give it “cover for changes it wanted to make anyway”.
Tony Abbott has repeatedly said the cuts to ABC funding do not contradict his pre-election promise that there would be “no cuts to the ABC” because they were really an efficiency dividend, similar to that imposed across government agencies.
Chris Bowen is arguing a matter of public importance, that is:
The House was informed that Mr Bowen had proposed that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely, “The Abbott Government’s unfair Budget damaging Australia’s economy”.
Updated
Daily total of (Labor) members punted under 94A = 12.
The Macklin death stare.
I heard him say it Madame Speaker!
Malcolm Turnbull spoke about “the vapours” from opposition surrounding the cuts to the ABC.
Turnbull references the Shorten ABC interview, in which he did not rule out cutting the ABC if Labor is in government.
Shorten then makes a personal explanation. He denies Abbott’s claim that he (Shorten) said ‘you will find out when we come to government’ across the chamber under the microphones.
Then Christopher Pyne gets up to urge the Speaker to look at the tape.
It is not in order for the leader of the opposition to make a bald face lie to the parliament. I heard him say ‘you will find out when we come to government’.
Anthony Albanese then insists Pyne withdraws. Then Albanese asks Speaker Bronwyn Bishop if she is aware she has gone down in the parliamentary record books for throwing out more members than any other speaker in Australian history.
Today Bishop threw out the 250th member since the Coalition came to government 14 months ago.
I am perfectly well aware of what occurs in this chamber and I would point out that if there was not disorderly conduct it would not happen, says Bishop.
A government question to Christopher Pyne on the construction industry, giving him a chance to dump on the CFMEU.
Chris Bowen asks Joe Hockey about the Mid Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, due in December. Remember Hockey has conceded now that the government does have a revenue problem, that is not enough money coming in the door. Wayne Swan had used the revenue problem for the deficit problem, which the then opposition ridiculed.
Hockey bats on.
Another government question to justice minister Michael Keenan, on the joint state-federal police taskforce in Victoria examining corruption in the CFMEU following on from the trade union royal commission.
The point of the Keenan question is linking Victorian Labor with the CFMEU.
Updated
Shorten to Abbott: I refer to the PM’s remarks at the 50th anniversary of the The Australian newspaper where he said no paper more closely corresponds to the spirit of Australia. Does PM therefore agreement with the judgment in the Weekend Australian that said that his leadership is languishing, flaky and insipid?
Abbott slowly rises and then says if Shorten is quoting the Oz, it gives him (Abbott) the right to quote Paul Kelly,
the prince of political historians.
Joe Hockey gets a government question on how the East West Link will cut driving times.
Labor’s Tony Burke asks in a point of order about the suitability of the questions given “it is clearly ironic” to ask the Treasurer about someone driving a car.
There is no way this is in order, says Burke.
Sit down or leave, says Speaker Bishop.
Eight Labor members have been punted already.
Are Turnbull and Abbott hanging out together more often?
Updated
"You are a grub & he is a liar" Wayne Swan fires up during #QT @gabriellechan @GuardianAus http://t.co/V71t6nA2V5 pic.twitter.com/X1JS616sgR
— Mike Bowers (@mpbowers) November 25, 2014
Shorten to Abbott: Asks if Abbott will reverse his decision to cut the pay and conditions of the Australian Defence Forces. Ping Jacqui Lambie.
Adjectives like brave and courageous are used. But,
We cannot pay people everything we would like to pay. We cannot pay people everything that they deserve.
A government question to treasurer Joe Hockey on the share float of Medibank Private.
The Medibank Private float is the third biggest initial public office share listing in the world this year. And we have delivered it in Australia. It is a core policy principle of the Coalition that we as a government should stick to our knitting, that we should be focussed on delivering essential services for the community and when the government owns a business that business should be set free to compete in the market place.
Abbott: Deep regret of ABC job reductions
Plibersek to Abbott: Yesterday referring to the PM’s cuts to the ABC, Senator Abetz said “Nobody has lost their job.” With the announcement yesterday that 400 ABC staff would lose their jobs, how can the government continue to deny that it’s broken promises are hurting Australians?
Abbott:
Obviously I deeply regret the fact that changes which the ABC management have made will ... produce job reductions. I deeply regret that. But if the deputy leader of the opposition was as concerned about jobs as she says she is, or as she claims to be, why don’t they support the East West Link in Melbourne? There’s 7,000 jobs in the East West Link.
Barnaby Joyce gets a government question on the effect of the China Free Trade Agreement on the horticulture and viticulture industries.
Joyce lists the tariffs for citrus going from 11-12% done to zero and mentions the seat of Barker turns water into wine. (It has the Coonawarra).
Then we are back onto the Labor leadership.
Member for batman David Feeney, lit by a beam of sunlight before #QT then 94-Aed @GuardianAus @gabriellechan pic.twitter.com/1lM0LMN8oq
— Mike Bowers (@mpbowers) November 25, 2014
Another question on the China Free Trade Agreement to industry minister Ian Macfarlane.
Then Shorten to Tony Abbott: how many Victorians will lose their jobs because of the PM’s broken promise (on ABC cuts)? Abbott:
The leader of the opposition just said across the table you will find out where our cuts are when we come to government. You will find out what our cuts are when we come to government. What arrogance! What incredible arrogance!
Now Abbott is reading from Australian journalist Paul Kelly’s book about Shorten’s part in the Labor leadership wars.
Updated
The member for Indi Cathy McGowan asks the agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce:
The agriculture sector relies on programs such as the ABC Bush Telegraph to connect, inform, education and prosper. For the sector to take advantage of the economic opportunities that would exist under the free trade agreement, everyone needs to be connected around Australia. Minister, would you please ask the ABC board to consider the needs of regional Australia when developing programs to replace Bush Telegraph.
Joyce:
I note obviously that the ABC is an integral part of regional Australia. Of course the ABC, like every other department, has had to deal with the curse of the Labor Party.
Joyce says he will keep in touch with the ABC board and
Mr Scott has full responsibility for what happens in regards how he deals with the cuts.
Or was that an efficiency dividend.
Jason Clare to Tony Abbott: This morning the Liberal member for Grey (Rowan Ramsey) referred to the PM’s now infamous promise of no cuts to the ABC and SBS. And he said: “That is not the greatest piece of footage I’ve seen”. The PM would wish he hadn’t made that exact statement. Does the PM agree with the member for Grey and does he now wish he never made that exact statement?
I dare say the member for Lily (Wayne Swan) wishes he hadn’t said the four years of surplus as I announce tonight. I wish that a deficit which the Labor Party said was $30 billion had not blown out to almost $50 billion.
There is a kerfuffle when Swan interjects and Speaker Bishop asks him to withdraw. The former speaker Anna Burke takes issue with her not treating both sides equally. Health minister Peter Dutton is also forced to withdraw.
A government question to trade minister Andrew Robb on the China free trade deal.
He is making the point that the Chinese have felt that all the investment goes from China to Australia and not the other way. The FTA, says Robb, will open up China to Australian companies, particularly service companies.
Speaker Bronwyn Bishop has already given a number of warnings.
Shorten asks Abbott about his pre-election promise when asked in August 2013, “will the condition of the budget be an excuse for breaking promises?” Abbott told the reporter: “We will keep the promises we make”.
This is someone who Julia Gillard couldn’t trust, someone who Kevin Rudd couldn’t trust, and now he wants to make trust an issue, says the PM.
Abbott says the budget was worse than he thought.
If the Leader of the Opposition does not like the options the government is proposing, if he wants to be fair dinkum, if he wants to avoid the charge of hypocrisy or even fraud, he should tell us exactly what he has in mind.
Shorten asks to table the transcript of Abbott’s August 2013 commitment as
proof of his lack of fair dinkumness.
A government question on the China Free Trade Agreement to Tony Abbott.
He repeats the four election promises of removing the carbon tax, building roads, stopping boats and getting the budget under control.
By way of contrast to Labor’s continued attack on his broken promises.
Members claimed that the deficit was going to be $30bn but it was closer to $50bn, says Abbott. Under the circumstances we found ourselves in, it was important to make savings.
This is a definite change in tack from Tony Abbott, who had denied the promise and is now suggesting the broken promise was a result of the state of the budget.
Question Time. Woot.
Shorten to Abbott: Somebody was on SBS saying there will be no cuts to the ABC and SBS. Who was that?
Of course I made that statement, says Abbott, to loud applause from Labor.
Christopher Pyne has commented on the Freya Newman/Frances Abbott case.
I'm not convinced the sentence in the Freya Newman case sends a clear message that breaching another's privacy is wrong #auspol
— Christopher Pyne (@cpyne) November 25, 2014
Coalition joint party room
Tony Abbott addressed the troops this morning at the joint party room meeting. The times were difficult, he said, but the government had remained a little sea of calm in a tumultuous storm.
This has been a difficult and, at times tumultuous year, but the tumult has all been external to the government. At the centre, the government has been stable and competent. It has not, unlike the previous government, been a government effected by tumult and that’s what the people want.
Abbott said the government had delivered on promises and therefore members should be:
satisfied with the past year and optimistic about the next 12-18 months. In the next 12-18 months, we will see a number of dividends of our decisions.
The dividends, he said, were the NBN would be rolling out faster (than otherwise) and infrastructure spending.
There are one or two barnacles still on the ship but by Christmas they will have been dealt with, said Abbott.
(Barnacles remain unnamed. ABC? Budget? Higher education deregulation?)
Our historical mission is to show that the chaos of the Rudd-Gillard years is not the new normal.
In a bold prediction, Abbott said the Victorian election was winnable and it should be a referendum on the CFMEU, which he described as “a criminal organisation in large measure”.
A lot of meeting was taken up discussing the cuts to the ABC.
- One member suggested the regional cuts were a case of political payback by Mark Scott.
- One member suggested Triple J should have been cut because it wasn’t that popular.
- One member suggested the whole of the ABC should put out to tender.
- One member from northern Tasmania suggested the ABC was Hobart centric and Sydney centric.
- One member suggested that the ABC
should be more like the average Australian than the average Greens voter”.
Communications minister Malcolm Turnbull talked about efficiency dividend, arguing the Lewis review found there were opportunities for the ABC to make savings without an effect on programming.
Turnbull accused Scott of “using this opportunity as a cover to do things that he has wanted to do for a long time”.
It has been a workers’ collective for quite some time, said Turnbull.
Thanks to Daniel Hurst for his reportage.
A large prime minister at the ABC rally.
"Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus, and we petty men walk under his huge legs." #ABCcuts pic.twitter.com/4sL6GyLzYn
— Graham Perrett (@GrahamPerrettMP) November 25, 2014
Out of the joint party room, from my country colleague Rob Harris of the Weekly Times.
One coalition mp told the party room the ABC should have cut things like Triple J because nobody listens to it.
— Rob Harris (@rharris334) November 25, 2014
Penny Wright says under the bill, the Intelligence Services Act is changed to make it clear that Australia’s overseas spy agency – Australian Secret Intelligence Service (Asis) – can help the ADF in support of military operations and dilutes the procedural safeguards relating to the grant of emergency ministerial authorisations.
We are debating a bill that may lead to ASIS being involved in the targeted killings of Australian citizens fighting in Iraq and Syria. And the Australian Greens have listened to experts in the space who say that such killings raise significant and difficult questions of domestic policy, human rights and international law.
If these features of schedule 2 are pursued, the Australian Greens has proposed an amendment that would specifically prohibit ASIS from engaging in any conduct that would amount to torture in accordance with Australia’s obligations under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Penny Wright says schedule 1 of the bill makes control orders easier to get. Control orders can restrict where a person goes, who they talk to, how and when they can communicate with the outside world and whether they can work.
They can apply to people who have not been charged with a criminal offence, or even be suspected of harbouring a criminal intent.
Wright says critics believe the control orders could not only be used against those with extremists but to prevent engagement in online media, online banking, community or religious meetings, or religious activities such as attendance at a mosque.
The debate has begun on the counter-terrorism amendment bill No 1 2014. Labor has supported the government’s bill to share intelligence between agencies and the defence forces.
The Greens senator Penny Wright says the bill is only the latest to add to:
an impressive collection of rushed, poorly crafted national security legislation pushed through this place by the government and despite all their rhetorical protestations, supported by the opposition.
She says it is a bill that professes to protect Australians while trampling on their freedoms, without scrutiny by academics, multiparty senate committees or an independent security monitor. (That job - which oversees security legislation - has been left vacant since April this year at a time when the most contentious changes have occurred in decades.)
We have stood in this place late at night – when the press gallery is empty and the nightly news has gone to air – and witnessed the government push draconian national security legislation through this place without proper scrutiny. Without adequate time for senators to know exactly what they are voting for or against. Without a full understanding of the unintended consequences for our freedom of association, of speech, of movement, of the press.
#It’sNick’sABC.
Friends, Romans, countrymen (and women)
Oh to be a fly on the backs of the Nats. What would we hear about the ABC?
Nationals Parliamentary team gathered this morning to swear the oath to stop violence against women @WhiteRibbonAust pic.twitter.com/epTstXacmr
— Darren Chester MP (@DarrenChesterMP) November 24, 2014
The bell has been rung on the Medibank Private share float. The shares opened at $2.22. Finance minister Mathias Cormann has made some remarks on the float.
It has long been the government’s policy to sell Medibank Private because in our judgement, Medibank Private, in private ownership will perform even better as a business and also in particular and importantly for its policyholders, than it has been able to do in government ownership. We also take the view that in 2014, there no longer is a public policy case for government ownership of a private health insurance business.
Cormann said the proceeds of $5.679 billion exceeded the government’s expectations.
That capital which has been released from Medibank Private will now be reinvested in job-creating productivity enhancing infrastructure as part of our plan to build a stronger more prosperous economy where everyone can get ahead.
Coalition backs intelligence sharing on Australians overseas
Attorney general George Brandis has confirmed publicly that the government will support the recommendations of a parliamentary report, giving the green light to the sharing of intelligence information with the defence forces overseas.
This is the add-on to the national security laws and clarifies that intelligence services like the Australian Intelligence and Security Service can share information on Australians overseas, such as foreign fighters. Potentially it opens the way to Australian forces targeting Australian fighters.
Debate on the bill is expected to begin in the senate at 12.30pm.
Just back to Bill Shorten one more time on the ABC cuts, which he calls an effective censorship of independent broadcasting.
It has been there for us when ever and every day of the year. We know the anthem of the ABC News, it is indeed an alternative anthem of Australia.We say very clearly Tony Abbott, if you choose to go ahead with these cuts, if you continue to wage war on the public broadcaster of this country, if you ask the Australian people to choose between the ABC and Tony Abbott and his team, we will choose the ABC.
Back to the Leyonhjelm Imperial Tobacco press conference. Daniel Hurst has produced this report with an amusing exchange on the topic of smoking.
David Leyonhjelm and Andrew Gregson have fronted the media in Canberra to raise concern about a reported increase in illicit tobacco use in Australia.
Leyonhjelm is the Liberal Democratic Party senator who wants cigarette taxes to be reduced and says he gets “nowhere near enough” donations from the tobacco industry.
Gregson is the head of corporate affairs at Imperial Tobacco and says the industry wants the government to “take the problem seriously and to better resource the law enforcement personnel that are combatting the illicit problem in Australia”.
They released a report by KPMG, commissioned by the big tobacco companies, indicating the level of illicit tobacco consumption has grown from 13.5% to 14.3% of total consumption between July 2013 and June 2014 - equating to $1.2bn foregone in excise tax revenue.
The report also pointed out that overall tobacco consumption had decreased since the last report.
Leyonhjelm: Happy to take questions, or have a smoke, if you like.
Q: Mr Gregson, how many people die from cigarette smoking ever year?
Gregson: Ah, that’s a question for the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
Q: What do you accept?
Gregson: We accept that there are health ramifications for adults who choose to use tobacco problems. Of course with the illicit tobacco trade those that are involved in it, the organised criminal gangs that are part of the import and distribution of it, don’t take into account the health considerations that the tobacco manufacturers do vis a vis health warnings and whether they’re selling to minors or not.”
Q: How many deaths are caused every year?
Gregson: I can’t answer your question.
Q: Why not?
Gregson: It’s an Institute of Health and Welfare question. It’s not something the tobacco companies …
Leyonhjelm: Does it matter? Does it matter that people die from tobacco? The tobacco companies, I don’t think anybody disputes that people die from tobacco. The issue is not about smoking, the issue is whether it’s a government-created crime or a legal activity. So legal smoking [of] Mr Gregson’s company’s products is legal. If the government wanted to stop people from dying from smoking, they’d ban smoking, ok? That’s a no brainer. What we’re talking about here is which tobacco products do they buy? Do they buy the ones imported legally on which taxes are paid by Mr Gregson’s company or do they buy the ones that are imported illegally, which the only thing that is paid on them sometimes is GST, nothing else, at substantially lower cost, and without the warnings on the packet.
Q: Does passive smoking cause health effects?
Leyonhjelm: Of course it does.
Q: So do you stand up for the rights of people not to be affected by passive smoking?
Leyonhjelm: If it’s legal and you’re an adult - you’re not a child - do you want somebody else to tell you how to live your life? I don’t think so. Most people don’t. Some people chose to live like a child, but most adults don’t. If you don’t want to smoke, don’t smoke.
Bill’s warming to the topic. #peakzinger
Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Joe Hockey and that figure of hilarity, the great petitioner Christopher Pyne, the man who got elected to parliament to petition his own cabinet. What we say to all of you is you have underestimated real Australia.
Bill Shorten again:
Never has a politician in modern history pinned so much of his own character to the issue of not telling lies in politics. He was merciless in opposition. He made himself a bigger man than he is by saying he would be different. Now, what we have is this attack on the ABC.
Bill Shorten is speaking to the ABC rally.
Just when you thought that the climate change denialism, the attack on the sick and the vulnerable with their GP tax, just when you thought that cutting pensions, when you thought that doubling and tripling the cost of going to university, now this rotten government has now, I would submit to you, issued the final straw - beyond which people will go no further. They now want to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from our ABC.
The ABC rally is starting with Labor’s communications spokesman Jason Clare. Shalailah Medhora reports around 150 people out the front. A fair few are Labor and Greens MPs.
The ABC is the most loved trusted public institution in this country....Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull ignore that at their peril....The Labor party will fight you on that.
Clare must not have read Australian commentator Nick Cater this morning.
For much of the time the majority of Australians are blithely disengaged from the ABC and, with the diversity of content and the manner of its delivery expanding all the time, it seems unlikely that Aunty (as we once called it) will ever be close to our hearts again.
It’s amazing what you can buy around Canberra.
Updated
I just can’t go past the comments of chief of army David Morrison who spoke this morning in support of White Ribbon Day. He repeated the facts that one woman is killed every week at the hands of a partner or ex and said as a soldier and an Australian man, he recognised something needed to be done to change the paradigm.
If we lost one person to a shark every week there would be, as there already are, laws to do something about it and yet in this country, I think we are too slow to address what is an absolute existential issue for us and that is domestic violence against women and children.
He said when women or children died as a result of domestic violence, equal attention was given to the perpetrator of violence.
There are ways we tell ourselves about ourselves that are not helpful for dealing with these issues in modern contemporary Australian society..Society needs to ask why doesn’t he stop rather than why is she staying.
Morrison again questioned the effect of the Anzac legend in creating a male culture in Australia which played into the narrative on many issues, including domestic violence and gender. He lauded the ABC drama Anzac Girls but said too many Anzac stories give emphasis to the masculine rather than the feminine.
Anzac is a great Australian narrative. There was extraordinary bravery by the troops that went ashore in Turkey in 1915. But the stories can be seen in a particular way. They can be seen as focussing on the fact that it was largely men, largely white men, largely white Anglosaxon men but there were other men and women serving in support of those soldiers. I think what we run the risk of is compounding this idea that Australia is a man’s country, is a man’s world where men get ahead, where men are promoted on their potential, women are only ever promoted on their proven performance. I don’t think we are going to progress as a nation if that is the case.
Here I am a white Anglosaxon 58-year-old male who has never been discriminated against in his life on any matter. It’s a man’s world and it shouldn’t work that way. What happens when it’s a man’s world is that women become not just victims but silent victims or ignored victims.
No conviction will be recorded against a 21-year-old whistleblower for accessing confidential files that revealed the prime minister’s daughter, Frances Abbott, received an undisclosed $60,000 scholarship.
Freya Newman, a former part-time librarian at the Whitehouse School of Design, was given a two-year good behaviour bond.
Newman appeared in Sydney’s Downing Centre local court on Tuesday after pleading guilty in September to one count of unauthorised access to restricted data.
Newman accessed student records that showed Frances Abbott had attended the design school on a “managing director’s scholarship” at the recommendation of the college’s chairman and Liberal party donor, Les Taylor.
Freedom fighter and Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm will release a new KPMG report showing that the illicit tobacco trade is booming at 10.30am.
He is joining Andrew Gregson, head of corporate affairs, Imperial Tobacco. The senator is a well-known campaigner to free smokers of taxes. His party also receives funding from tobacco companies.
Leyonhjelm’s catchphrase for his party is:
The Liberal Democratic party supports low taxes, less regulation, free markets, individual liberty, and an end to the nanny state.
Apparently those freedoms don’t include freedom from passive smoking, freedom from dying of lung cancer or non-smoking taxpayers’ freedom from paying for the health effects of tobacco.
Updated
A White Ribbon handshake.
The attorney general George Brandis has reportedly accepted all the recommendations of a parliamentary report regarding new national security laws which would allow spy agencies to collect information on Australians overseas and share it with the defence forces.
The powers potentially allow Australian defence forces to target Australian foreign fighters.
The government had tried to piggy back the powers onto the second tranche of the national security laws - known as the foreign fighters bill. But Labor, which supported both tranches, wanted to see the laws separately. Now that the government has accepted the laws, Labor is understood to support the bill.
There has been a White Ribbon Day brekkie again this morning where there was a large presence of military forces. It follows on the event yesterday which attracted a phalanx of police commissioners. Here is Tony Abbott:
The presence of our armed forces, the presence of our police is a sign that tough, strong men protect others, they don’t persecute them. That the toughest and the strongest men are peacemakers, not brutes. The toughest and the strongest men are there to be gentlemen as well.
Abbott stated that no one in any position of authority or influence “is ever going to make excuses for domestic violence”.
I’ve got to say that there has been progress. A generation or so back often people in authority would say things are just domestics, as it were. Well, there’s no such thing as violence which is excused because it takes place in the home as opposed to in the street. Thank God we are past all of that. We have seen the error of our ways there.
Abbott points out the reality of one woman is killed by a partner or ex every week. One in three will experience violence at some stage and one in five will experience sexual violence in her life.
I am the father of three daughters, I am the brother of 3 sisters. I want them to have all the opportunities that I have had in every sense but above all else I want them to live in a safe world. I want them to be able to trust the people they love. This is what they’re all about. It’s about ensuring that as far as is humanly possible, all of us can trust the people we love to give us the respect, the safety and the support that everyone deserves.
Bill Shorten answered Abbott’s allegations about ABC/SBS, saying Labor, ABC and SBS funding would rise.
Four hundred people lost their jobs yesterday – these vicious cuts are happening today, under this government and its budget of broken promises. Labor would never had made these cuts. Under Labor, ABC had its biggest funding increase in 25 years. Who knows what the state of the ABC will be in 2016 under this government, but under Labor funding for the ABC and SBS will go up. That’s because Labor believes in the importance of public broadcasting, including the critical role it plays in emergencies and for regional Australia.
If you were with us yesterday, you would have read a little about the changes immigration minister Scott Morrison wants to make to the Australian Citizenship Act, which, in his words would raise the bar by introducing a “good character test” in order to obtain Australian citizenship.
Shalailah Medhora has been digging into the legislation which was introduced in a big hurry and pushed through to the Senate, where it will receive a little more scrutiny. Here is a snap of Shalailah’s story:
People could be denied Australian citizenship or have their citizenship revoked, under certain conditions, if they are ordered to undertake drug rehabilitation or a residential program for the mentally ill, under legislation that passed the House of Representatives on Monday.
The Australian citizenship and residential amendment bill will face a challenge in the Senate, where Labor and the Greens oppose it.
The legislation lists a number of clauses that the immigration minister can use to revoke or deny citizenship, including a pending, current or previous criminal conviction, or a court-ordered confinement to a psychiatric institution due to criminal offences.
It also states that people who have court orders to undertake a residential drug rehabilitation scheme or a residential program for the mentally ill, can be barred from becoming Australian.
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Given it is going to be the talk of the day, here are the words of Tony Abbott’s election promise.
Last night, the prime minister was trying to turn the attack back towards Bill Shorten.
Look, as is now clear from what Mr Shorten said to ABC Statewide Drive in Victoria, Mr Shorten is not being straight and upfront with the Australian people. He is complaining about something which he intends to do himself. He says the government is cutting the ABC, well, he has his own cuts in mind for the ABC.
This just shows that Bill Shorten is all complaint and no solution. That’s what he is. He is running a national complaints bureau. He’s not trying to come up with serious credible policies to deal with the issues that are facing Australia right now.
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Morning all,
The ABC cuts and the Senate situation are the moving parts of the political agenda on this lovely Canberra day. Jacqui Lambie has revealed she will speak to Tony Abbott about the defence force pay issue over the next 24 hours. There seems to be a little equivocation within the government on this. Senate leader and Lambie’s least favourite person, Eric Abetz, said early yesterday there was no room for movement on defence pay. Though later in the day, there have been more soothing signs reportedly coming from within the government, so we will have to wait for the next Lambie doorstop.
But let’s cast aside the nebulous back room briefings to consider the concrete things on the political agenda. Joint party room and caucus meetings will definitely occur this morning so parliament will not sit until midday.
In the meantime, people are descending on Parliament house to protest the cuts to the ABC, which will see 400 people lose their jobs and a regional rationalisation. The Community and Public Sector Union has organised the event at 11.30am so we will have all the pictures from Mike Bowers in the front paddock.
The cuts to regional ABC services are the focus with the National party directing their anger at managing director Mark Scott. National senator Bridget McKenzie said he could have chosen cuts to Ultimo or breakfast television rather than the bush. Fellow Nat John Williams has chosen a different defence, saying he was disappointed with the regional cuts but the budget was much worse than the Coalition had expected. Therefore, we all have to take the pain. Williams did concede it was a broken promise but more in sorrow than in anger.
Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten have again spoken at a White Ribbon Day breakfast to highlight the campaign against domestic violence. I will bring you their speeches shortly.
Stay with Bowers and I for the day and join the conversation on Twitter with us @gabriellechan and @mpbowers.
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