What we learned: Monday 16 October
Before we close the blog for today, let’s recap the big headlines:
Anthony Albanese has recommitted to Makarrata – coming together after conflict – but deflected questions about the way forward for reconciliation, citing Indigenous leaders’ wish for a week of silence to grieve the referendum result.
Peter Dutton has dramatically walked back his offer to symbolically recognise Indigenous Australians in the constitution, declaring Australians are “over” referendums after the voice poll.
After boarding repatriation charter flights out of Israel, 255 Australian citizens have landed in Dubai en route to Australia following a day of uncertainty amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.
Former commando Heston Russell has won his defamation case against the ABC and been awarded $390,000 after a federal court judge found the public broadcaster did not prove its reporting was in the public interest.
People who watched Sky News were less likely to believe Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders face discrimination and more likely to vote no, a new study of referendum voting intention in the final week of the campaign has found.
The Islamophobia Register Australia has reported a quadrupling in reports of Islamophobic incidents since the escalations in Israel and Palestine, including direct references to the current Israel-Palestine situation.
Thanks very much for you company today. We’ll be back with you bright and early tomorrow morning.
Updated
Nationals call for support for Australian wine industry
The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, has told AAP that Australia’s wine industry is in desperate need of financial support to even if China decides to drop tariffs.
Littleproud said the government needs to step in to stop foreclosures and help a struggling industry after years of blockages to the lucrative China market put the industry on a knife’s edge.
The government needs to act now to give some financial support to get them through this phase and hope that China will at least remove these tariffs.
But even if the tariffs are removed, it’s still going to take time to move product, and for these producers to be able to financially survive this is critical.
Littleproud said he has heard of wine producers in South Australia’s Riverland region about to go under “because they simply don’t have a market to sell to”.
The head of the Australian Grape and Wine group, Lee McLean, supported calls for growers to receive additional support:
It’s not something that we can solve as an industry ourselves quickly, we need some additional coordinated government support.
Updated
National cabinet to meet to discuss future skills and training needs
As forewarned during question time, national cabinet will meet virtually at 6.30pm this evening to discuss the country’s future skills and training needs.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said the meeting with state and territory leaders will look to “progress the next stage” of the national skills agreements.
The five-year skills agreement will start from January 2024 and will focus on removing workplace entry barriers, lifting First Nations and women’s participation and improving completion rates in critical skill areas.
The commonwealth will commit $3.7bn over the five years with an extra $400m directed to support 300,000 Tafe and vocational education and training (VET) fee-free places.
The skills minister, Brendan O’Connor, told question time it would benefit students, workers, businesses and the economy:
If we’re going transform the energy sector, we need skills, if we’re going to enliven manufacturing through the national reconstruction fund; we need skills. If we are going to supply the labour and skills for our care economy, we have to have the right investment advised by jobs and skills Australia.
Updated
Zali Stegall calls for truth in political advertising laws
Independent MP Zali Steggall is again mounting the case for truth in political advertising laws after the voice referendum. About 58% of her electorate of Warringah voted yes, with about 80% of votes counted. Similar results have been recorded in many teal seats across the country.
Steggall, like many politicians who campaigned for yes, have criticised high levels of misinformation about the voice proposal. Here’s what she told the ABC a few moments ago:
We have consumer law that protect advertising in relation to products. So advertising cannot mislead the consumer parting with their money [for products] that do not do what is said to be done. We do not protect democratic rights in the same way. I think that creates a really incredible imbalance.
There is broad support for truth in political advertising in relation to misleading and deceptive advertising that is paid for and authorised. We’re not talking about opinions, we’re talking paid advertising.
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NSW RFS issues warnings over fire near Moparrabah as BoM warns of fire risk across the country
Stepping away from politics for a moment, there’s a couple of fires now at emergency alert level across the country.
The NSW Rural Fire Service says a fire burning in Willi Willi National Park and Boonanghi Nature Reserve near the town of Moparrabah, west of Kempsey, is moving in multiple directions due to erratic fire behaviour:
If you are in the area of Toorumbee Rd you are at risk. Seek shelter to protect yourself from the fire. It is too late to leave.
EMERGENCY WARNING: Willi Willi Rd Fire, Moparrabah (Kemspey LGA) Leave Now - Willawarrin
— NSW RFS (@NSWRFS) October 16, 2023
If you are in Willawarrin and your plan is to leave or you are unprepared, leave now along Armidale Rd heading south towards Kempsey. For more information: https://t.co/30HSwOH5Lg pic.twitter.com/hQ3N3OD9Uv
The Bureau of Meterology’s Miriam Bradbury has told AAP that there’s a fire risk in large parts of the country this afternoon:
Many parts of Australia are seeing high fire danger ratings, with a number of districts sitting in extreme.
These extend from the mid-west coast of WA, all the way to north-east NSW and the Darling Downs and the granite belt in Queensland.
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I am going to hand over the blog to Henry Belot, who will take you through the afternoon. Parliament and party room meetings will be held tomorrow – expect to hear another victory lap from the opposition leader.
Thank you so very much to everyone who joined us today, and followed us through another grim day of Australian politics. We will be back tomorrow morning – and please, more than ever, take care of you.
Updated
Husic:
On these points – and I’m very grateful to have been able to express a few remarks in this very important debate we are having – not all Israelis are Jewish and not all Palestinians are Muslim, but everyone is feeling a dread at the moment.
Regardless of your faith or ethnicity, all Israelis and Palestinians are absolutely entitled to the right to a future, free from the weight of fear. They should be able to build better lives for themselves and do what everyone of us who are parents want: to build a better life for the ones that follow.
They should be able to do it within the state of Israel, and they should be able to do it in [the] state of Palestine
Updated
Husic:
I also think deeply about what will happen in Gaza, where two million people are crammed in. There’ll be a lot of innocent Palestinians who will pay a price for the actions of Hamas.
I restate this: Hamas must absolutely be held to account. Innocent Palestinians should be protected. They should be given passage. They should be able to get out of harm’s way. They should be preserved as well, in the sense of not being targeted.
I think about what we can do in regard to something that is so far away. A simple and powerful proposition is to always be conscious of the humanity of others.
I recognise – I think any student of history recognises – that there have been moments in time where the violent refusal to recognise the humanity of others has written the worst chapters of humanity.
Specifically, in those moments when I think of my friends in the Jewish community and the intergenerational trauma created by the Holocaust, I remember what has driven that.
I think of many shared meals, from Shabbat to iftar, and I think of the bonds that are being created through those moments. I know it’s very hard. Those warm memories will be pressed to the deepest recesses of minds. They will be moved out by the memories that are being created or may be made in the coming weeks. But being conscious of humanity will be an important way in which we preserve what we value most in this country. It should be at the frontline of our fight against antisemitism and Islamophobia.
It has been at the heart of the work of people like the member for Cowan [Anne Aly] who sits behind me. I thank her deeply for what she has done in taking up the fight against extremism and the way in which it tears communities apart.
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Husic continued:
Like many people the world over, we’ve been aghast at what we saw in Israel on 7 October. It was an absolute abomination. Hamas must be, and is rightly being, condemned. The way in which they targeted infants, women and the elderly was on the basis of their faith, and so many Jewish people lost their lives in a way that was completely and utterly unacceptable.
We feel deeply for them and we grieve with Israelis the world over who are feeling this deeply.
All the hostages must absolutely be released without condition.
I also acknowledge that any government that is confronted with these acts within its own borders will respond. They have to respond.
They have to hold Hamas to account, and that will happen.
Too many Israelis and Palestinians have, since 7 October, paid an utterly horrific price, and I’m deeply concerned about what will happen from here.
Updated
Ed Husic speaks on Israel and the Hamas attack
Labor MP Ed Husic gave a short speech as well:
Anyone with a surname like mine carries a legacy, genetic and historic. They come from a part of the world – it once had a name, Yugoslavia – where people of different faiths and ethnicities were as tight as brothers and sisters. They shared all the special religious and personal events and they sang songs together about a country that was outside of an anthem. It was truly a special bond.
Then, in a matter of years, that bond disappeared and the most depraved acts occurred between people who had said that they loved each other like brothers and sisters. I know the impact of hate and the way it tears apart societies; I’ve carried that since my 20s. There are a lot of people who have seen similar episodes in different parts of the world. It comes to the fore at moments like this and hate drives people to do the most barbaric of actions. That hate-propelling violence is something that we all must not only recoil from; we have to act against it.
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He finished with:
I am proud to be standing with those Jews, Palestinians and supporters in Australia who are saying it is time to push for a just and lasting peace.
We can condemn atrocities and war crimes, but that does not justify an invasion where there are 2.2 million people, 40 per cent of whom are children, who have nowhere to go.
The direction for them to leave their homes so that bombing can take place is unlawful, the United Nations has said, and there is nowhere for them to go. They are walled in.
That, amongst other reasons, is why an invasion is not only wrong; it is going to lead to humanitarian catastrophe.
So I urge the government to reconsider that part of their motion that gives tacit support to that invasion and instead to adopt a pathway forward for peace.
There are millions of people around this country and around the world who want that and who know that this is the opportunity not to call for escalation of the conflict and to back an invasion but instead to call for peace so that we can mourn those who’ve died and, hopefully, not add to their numbers in the thousands, as an invasion is going to lead to.
Adam Bandt attempts to amend motion to recognise what is happening to the people of Gaza
Bandt attempted to amend the motion to include what is happening to the people of Gaza:
It is really only paragraph (2) in the government’s motion that stands in the way of us supporting it.
It reads, in part, like a motion that was drafted some time ago and does not take account of the fact that we are on the eve of an invasion of this territory that not only is going to create a humanitarian catastrophe but is going to make life less safe for people living in Israel and people living in Palestine.
So I move that the motion be amended as follows: Omit paragraph (2), substitute: (2) condemns war crimes perpetrated by the state of Israel, including the bombing of Palestinian civilians, and calls for an immediate ceasefire between all parties and an end to the war on Gaza, recognising also that for there to be peace there must be an end to the state of Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Updated
Bandt:
No to antisemitism, no to Islamophobia and no to the war on Gaza. We stand with all of those people in Australia and around the world who want just and lasting peace and security for everyone in Israel and Palestine.
And that means ending the occupation and developing a just and lasting peace, but it also means putting our efforts into an immediate cease fire of all parties and a stopping of the war and the invasion.
Not only will it bring about a humanitarian catastrophe and be a likely war crime; we’ve got to think about what the consequences will be for the region of an invasion of an area that’s occupied territory in breach of international law when we know what the other actors in that area are like.
We have to push for peace.
Updated
Bandt calls for Australia to join push to stop Israeli invasion of Gaza
Bandt:
There are about 2.3 million people in Gaza crammed into an area about half the size of the ACT.
In many respects, Gaza is a walled-in primary school, with 40% of the population under 15 years old.
Their area has been blockaded now for many years, but, in the heartbreaking words of the United Nations refugee agency: Not one drop of water, not one grain of wheat, not a litre of fuel has been allowed in the Gaza strip for the last eight days.
[We] raise the alarm that as of today, my UNRWA colleagues in Gaza can no longer provide humanitarian assistance as I speak.
The UN has also said that the directions being given by the Israeli military for evacuation orders in hospitals in northern Gaza are ‘a death sentence’ for everyone within them, because there is nowhere for these people to go.
It has also been pointed out by Amnesty and the UN and others that these orders to evacuate are not in compliance with international law.
The Red Cross has been reportedly saying that there has been deliberate shelling of health facilities, and that amounts to a collective punishment of the Palestinian people for something that they are not responsible for.
This looming humanitarian catastrophe is something that Australia should be joining other countries in trying everything we can to stop.
We join with everyone in this parliament in mourning the 1,300 Israelis who have lost their lives, but on today’s count there are also between 2,300 and 2,600 Palestinians who have lost their lives, many of who are children.
And we mourn them as well. This is now moving beyond self-defence into an invasion, and it is up to Australia as a peace-loving country to join the push to stop it.
Updated
Bandt continued:
There were some other people who gathered over the weekend in their thousands across the country to say that not only is there no place for antisemitism in Australia but there is no place for Islamophobia and that the war on Gaza must stop.
Thousands of people gathered together peacefully across the country to make the point that we are on the verge of a humanitarian disaster becoming a humanitarian catastrophe.
With a ground invasion of Gaza looming, it is disappointing to say … that this motion moved by the government backs that invasion.
There is much to be supported in this motion. The Greens join in condemning the attacks on innocent civilians and call for the hostages to be freed and for the perpetrators of these war crimes to be held to account.
We join with everyone in this place and say there is no place for antisemitism and Islamophobia.
There is much that we could support, but, on the eve of a looming invasion that is likely to be not just a humanitarian catastrophe but a war crime, Australia cannot stay silent and back that invasion.
Updated
Bandt criticises Dutton over ‘weaponising’ suggestions of antisemitism
Here is a little bit more of what Adam Bandt said during the motion on Israel and Palestine the house passed earlier (which did not condemn the war crimes occurring in Gaza)
There is no place for antisemitism in Australia or in this parliament. I think I speak on behalf of everyone in saying that the vile antisemitic comments that we have heard from some in the community and also the attacks of Hamas on innocent civilians which constitute war crimes are to be condemned.
It is also contemptible to hear an attempt in this chamber early today from the leader of the opposition to try and weaponise it by suggesting that somehow someone in the government condoned any of those remarks. That is beneath contempt.
It is beneath contempt on what should be a motion that is about expressing support for people who are on the receiving end of hate, and there is no place for antisemitism and no place for Islamophobia in this country.
We can have a debate in this place about the looming invasion and the need to fight for peace without the leader of the opposition falsely accusing people [that] I might have a difference of opinion with, but [that I believe] none of them back the vile anti-Semitic comments that we have heard.
It is beneath contempt for the leader of the opposition to try and use this motion to prosecute that agenda.
Updated
Here is how Mike Bowers saw question time play out.
Peter Dutton has finally been able to realise his life long political dream – smiling more.
Anthony Albanese performs his one-man show, ‘I’m a little tea pot’
Labor MP Peta Murphy’s face says it all.
Updated
Spike in reported Islamaphobic incidents since escalation of Middle East tensions
The Islamophobia Register Australia has reported a quadrupling in reports of Islamophobic incidents since the escalations in Israel and Palestine, including direct references to the current Israel-Palestine situation.
The register has also heard anecdotal reports about increased Islamophobia from other Muslim community organisations, including threats to mosques and Islamic schools and physical assaults of Muslim women in Australia.
The register’s executive director, Sharara Attai, said:
Unfortunately, we know that violence in the Middle East often leads to increased Islamophobia in Australia. We also know that divisive political rhetoric can lead to increased Islamophobia.
The Register said it is “dismayed” at the use of rhetoric that has racist implications and divisive rhetoric by certain senior leaders in Australia.
The register echoes the comments of the Australian SecurityIntelligence Organisation chief, Mike Burgess, who stated that: ‘It is important that all parties consider the implications for social cohesion when making public statements.’
Burgess also stated: ‘As I have said previously, words matter’ and ‘Asio has seen direct connections between inflamed language and inflamed community tensions.’
Divisive rhetoric from people in leadership positions is irresponsible and dangerous, and clearly has an impact on domestic tensions.
Attai is calling on “all leaders, commentators and senior figures to use careful and considered language that works to advance social cohesion, and ensure that they are not fanning the flames to racism or division.’’
Updated
Question time ends
Anthony Albanese rises on indulgence – Scott Morrison will also speak on this.
They are paying tribute to the house manager at Kirribilli House, Adam Thomas, who has served there for 25 years.
Thomas has served John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morison and now Anthony Albanese, but he is now retiring.
Albanese asked him to come to Canberra, with his family, to hear the tribute, but Thomas “didn’t want the fuss” and declined, saying he would watch it from home.
Updated
Wong warns Australians leaving Tel Aviv ‘these might be our last flights’ for a while
As we reported earlier, the Australian government has flown 255 people out of Tel Aviv to Dubai, en route to Australia, overnight on two RAAF planes and one private contracted flight.
Foreign affairs minister Penny Wong has just shared some images on social media, showing people arriving in Dubai airport:
The Australian Government has safely airlifted 255 people on three assisted-departure flights from Tel Aviv to Dubai overnight.
— Senator Penny Wong (@SenatorWong) October 16, 2023
More than 1,200 previously registered Australians have now left Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. pic.twitter.com/IuXTY8yLhy
Wong wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that the government has secured flights to Australia from Dubai, for Australians arriving in the country via the three charter flights.
And subject to factors including security conditions, we are planning two flights from Tel Aviv to Dubai today.”
Wong said the situation is “highly challenging and rapidly changing”, so people should consider these “might be our last flights for the foreseeable future”.
For Australians who want to leave, we strongly encourage you to take the first option you can. Please do not wait for a different option.”
Updated
Peter Dutton attempts to move motion to condemn PM for ‘dividing Australians’ through voice referendum
Peter Dutton attempts to suspend standing orders to move this motion:
The House condemns the prime minister for dividing Australians, through his voice referendum, a failing to listen to all Australians, wasting over $450m in taxpayer dollars, refusing to provide Australians with the detail of the voice, refusing to compromise in the national interest, refusing to follow established referendum procedures … if it is of the opinion that all Australians deserve the very best of what our nation has to offer and the differences of opinion do not diminish our love for our country or regard for each other …and therefore calls on the prime minister to support the opposition ‘s calls for a royal commission child sexual abuse in Indigenous communities, audit spending on Indigenous programs and support practical policy ideas to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians to help close the gap.
He manages to get out
The prime minister has taken our country unnecessarily down a part of division–
But Tony Burke is on his feet, saying “yeah, nah”.
“The great divider” Anthony Albanese says about Dutton, loud enough for the microphone to pick up. Burke says he has already made commitments to the House about another debate, and Dutton can have this particular debate after 5.30 – which is outside of prime viewing hours. Burke has been allowing these debates, but moving them outside of QT to other times when no one is paying attention to take out some of the heat.
Updated
Greens MP Stephen Bates asks Tanya Plibersek:
When will you stop approving new coal and gas projects?
Plibersek:
I want to remind him of the strong new climate safeguard laws that we introduced on their side that we negotiated with you and with others on the crossbench that this parliament passed some time ago that say that coal and gas projects must comply with Australia’s commitment to reaching net zero.
We are approving more renewable energy projects than ever before. Just this week, our government approved, or just last week, the government approved the biggest battery project in Asia, one of the largest in the world.
The week before, it was a massive new solar farm in Queensland that will produce enough power to power 200,000 homes, a city the size of Townsville.
In fact, we have ticked off about 37 renewable energy projects since coming to government and we have about another 100 and three in the pipeline. This is an enormous transformation of our energy sector, it is an enormous transformation, bigger than anything since the Industrial Revolution.
I want to remind the member that you were a part of designing this. Together, we designed the Safeguard Mechanism and we voted for it, you voted for it, we got through the parliament because we are all committed to reaching - well, not all of us, sorry (Plibersek gestures to the opposition side of the chamber)
We (she gestures to the Greens, teals and government) are all committed to reaching net zero. You want to do it, we want to do, that is why we are doing these renewable energy projects.
Dutton, Coalition have poor record funding Indigenous policies, says Albanese
That paper handed to the prime minister obviously had a list of how the Coalition handled spending in the Indigenous portfolio, because Anthony Albanese next says:
We will, of course, take on any practical suggestions as we do and we go through proper processes of funding. The change in government in December 2013, with this Leader of the Opposition as health minister, the first thing that was cancelled was a $777m national partnership agreements on closing the gap on Indigenous health.
They then, in 2014, refused to provide ongoing funding to Aboriginal children and family centres.
They cut $10m from the Aboriginal legal services forum. They defunded the National Congress of Australia first people’s.
They abolished the Prime Minister’s Indigenous business policy advisory group. In their first budget, they cut $165m from Indigenous health programs. That is his record when it comes to Indigenous health, the bloke who walked out on the apology, walked away from funding Indigenous programs.
Updated
Nationals go on the attack in question time over Indigenous funding
Nationals leader David Littleproud asks Anthony Albanese:
Your government has spent $450m in a failed referendum and in Alice Springs Yipirinya School has been asking for just $12m to provide accommodation for at-risk Indigenous children to help close the gap.
CLP senator Jacinta Price, who sits in the Nationals party room, has also raised this issue. Her mother, Bess, is the school’s assistant principal.
Anthony Albanese reminds the house of Dutton’s promise on a second referendum:
To hold another one, that is what he said.
He stood up on multiple occasions, on the 11 August, the 3 September, the 18 September, and put his plan out there for all to see, he wanted people to vote no in this referendum … have an election in which he was successful and then to vote yes in another referendum. That is what he said.
David Littleproud stands up to ask a point of order and Albanese is handed a piece of paper.
Updated
Dutton ‘incompetent’ while he was immigration minister, says O’Neil
O’Neil continues:
It is not possible for anyone on the other side of politics to claim that they did not have great visibility of these problems.
What we saw while they were in government was almost a report a year, including one done by one of the junior ministers in the portfolio during the time that they were in office, which detailed in great detail … issues that Christine Nixon found in her report.
The evidence was there, the Opposition Leader did nothing to stop [it]. Instead, he cut funding and made the problem worse.
Our government has a very different approach.
We take these issues extremely seriously and that is why over a week ago we came forward with a comprehensive set of policies that will help the Australian government do a better job of doing this.
What was a response from the Opposition Leader when we came forward with these policies?
We didn’t hear contrition, didn’t hear any taking of responsibility.
What we heard instead was a bizarre array of the seven stages of grief and then we heard that he was either being accused of being too tough or too soft. That is not what we are accusing you of.
What we are accusing you of, is incompetence.
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Dutton ‘broke’ Australia’s migration system when in power, says Clare O’Neil
Clare O’Neil takes a dixer on the Nixon review into visa processes and says:
In January this year I asked former police Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon to undertake a rapid review into the exploitation of Australia’s visa system, and what this review found was utterly and truly shocking.
Christine Nixon found that our migration system today has serious and systemic problems.
She found that the system has been used to perpetrate some of the worst crime ... Sexual slavery, human trafficking, and that Australia, because of problems in our migration system, has actually become a target for organised crime around the world.
Christine Nixon also found that the root causes of this problem were … dysfunction in our migration system, and almost a complete lack of enforcement of the rules of that system.
She said, and I quote, ‘I have been appalled by the abuses of sexual exploitation, human trafficking and other organised crime that had been presented to me. It is clear that there are gaps and weaknesses in Australia’s visa system that allow this to happen’.
We came to office with a migration system that was fundamentally broken and we don’t have to look far to the person who broke it.
He is sitting opposite me in the Leader of the Opposition’s chair.
For almost all of the last decade, the Opposition leader oversaw our immigration system, first as minister for immigration and border protection, and later, as minister for home affairs.
What really makes me angry about these abuses and exploitations is the fact that the Opposition leader has self styled himself as a tough man on the borders; when we actually look at the facts, what he did was cut compliance officers in our department in half.
Updated
Peter Dutton ‘now opposing himself’, says prime minister
There are interjections and a point of order but Anthony Albanese finishes with:
... Today the Leader of the Opposition has now taken the next step, he is now opposing himself!
Now saying he is opposed to holding a referendum on constitutional recognition. The Leader of the Opposition is all trailer, no movie. He never actually sticks to a commitment, which is why he doesn’t recognise conviction when he sees it in someone else.
Updated
Opposition constantly changing its position on constitutional recognition, says Albanese
Liberal MP Melissa Price asks Anthony Albanese:
Is the prime committed to Makarrata truth-telling and treaty?
Anthony Albanese:
What I am committed to post the referendum is respecting what Indigenous people have said. And what they have said is that they are undertaking a week which is reasonable for them to deal with what, for many people, would be a difficult time for them, and I think that should be respected.
One of the things about this issue is that I have sought to grant agency to Indigenous Australians, to accept the invitation that they offered, that they worked through, that they had hundreds of meetings involving thousands of people about.
Now, the voice was, with constitutional recognition, was important. Makarrata is simply a Yolngu word for coming together after struggle. I made it very clear on Saturday night that that is my position. … and in terms of where we go from here, I note that there has been a change of position again from the opposition when it comes to constitutional recognition.
And the Leader of the Opposition said during this process in September, ‘We went to the last election and a number of elections before that with that as our policy, and that will be our policy going into the next' … I think it is right and respectful to recognise the Indigenous Australians in the constitution.’
Just think about that. They went to a number of elections with this as a promise. If only they had been elected in 2016 and 2019. They might have fulfilled it.
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Cost-of-living measures voted down by Coalition, says Albanese
Anthony Albanese answers questions about the cost of living, listing measures taken by the government:
It was targeted and it was effective and it has been rolled out. And cost of living measures, cheaper child care that began on 1 July, cheaper medicines that began on 1 January, the first component, and the 60-day dispensing opposed by those opposite. Our energy price relief plans ... They voted against it; $3bn that they voted against. Affordable and social housing that they voted against.
The idea of housing supply, they voted against. All of the strengthening of the social safety net that we have put in place as well.
Every measure opposed by those opposite.
But there is something else we have done to take pressure off inflation, and that is to turn around the $78bn deficit that those [opposite] left and turn it into a $22bn surplus. [That’s a ] $100bn turnaround.
The biggest nominal improvement in Australian history. And this is what S&P global had to say. The improvement in fiscal outcomes is a key factor in our AAA ratings. Because it will reduce the government’s annual borrowing needs and provide a buffer to absorb future economic [shocks].
Those opposite apparently think that inflation has nothing to do with the cost of living.
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Housing bubble rears its ugly head; Angus Taylor cites Australia’s world-leading ‘mortgage pain’
Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor asks Anthony Albanese:
Recent IMF analysis found Australians lead the world in mortgage pain. Paying a higher share of their income on mortgage payments than any other advanced economy. Why has the Prime Minister been solely focused on his divisive Canberra voice proposal rather than dealing with the surging cost-of-living pressures facing Australian families?
Now obviously the interest rate increases have had an impact – not just on mortgage holders, but on renters as well. But what Taylor’s question leaves out is the non-stop increase in Australian property prices in recent years. As the ABS points out. A lot of this has to do with government policy, particularly over the past 10 years, dominated by the Coalition. The 2019 federal election focussed on trying to change some of those policy settings – you may remember how that turned out, and some of the arguments about ‘mum and dad investors’ (why is there never any acknowledgement that millionaires and billionaires can also be mums and dads?)
The point is, Australia’s housing market has been in trouble for a long time. For years, Australians have had to spend larger and larger proportions of their income on housing. And, some ask, should interest rates have been kept so low for so long, given the rapidly increasing prices in housing?
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ALP ‘deadly serious’ about Hobart’s role in Antarctic ship series, says Plibersek
Independent MP Andrew Wilkie asks Tanya Plibersek:
My question is to the minister for the environment. We have heard that the Antarctic Division overspent by $42m while winding back important science programs.
Also, that a new icebreaker cannot refuel in Hobart and the just released Macquarie Point plan showsAntarctic facilities … [that] will be about as big as two shoeboxes are not exclusively dedicated to the Antarctic purposes. When will the government get serious about protecting the frozen continent and honouring our international treaty obligation?
Plibersek:
I want to thank the member for his question and reassure him as an active local member that we are deadly serious about making sure that Hobart is the home to Antarctic series and that Australia’s Antarctic series continues to be world-class.
The sad truth is the former Liberal government was irresponsible in managing Australia’s Antarctic program and because of that we have had three inquiries into the Antarctic Division, the reasons and before that the national inquiries.
That is just in 18 months. Those inquiries uncover the fact that there was very serious bullying and harassment in the Australian Antarctic Division and we’re working hard to clean up mess.
We also locked in significant long-term funding for the Australian Antarctic program, in fact its budget is going up every year, year after year, for the next three years, and it is higher every year than it would have been under those opposite.
Fixing the Antarctic program is a big job but we are getting on with it and as Mr Brian Miller said, who was a current employee of the division, he told the Senate inquiry earlier this month ‘I believe the ship is turning, I feel like things are getting better slowly'. Twelve months ago I would not have appeared before this committee because I would have feared the repercussions.’
He went on to say, we know the importance of the work, we need some help to get back on track so we can do the important work we have been sent out to do.
Labor is getting the Antarctic Division back on track. Our priority is supporting the critical science and permanent jobs that come with that in Tasmania … and our Antarctic scientists are doing terrific research on the millionaire ice core, the icecap, greenhouse gases in the southern atmosphere and so much more.
The member asked about the magnificent ship [which] has been built, the previous Minister for the Environment now Deputy Leader of the Opposition, was minister when the ship was delivered. She is very proud of it, she interjects.
It cannot sail under the bridge in Hobart, which means that it cannot refuel in Hobart. The ship, since it was delivered in 2021, has spent 18 months in dry dock. The budget overruns are because we have been having to rent vessels to replace the ship because it has been [drydocked] since it was delivered.
I understand the concerns of the member for Clark, with mixing up the mess that those opposite left us. We are absolutely determined to make sure that world-class science stays in Hobart and that we continue our international obligation in Antarctica.
Updated
‘Massive’ support for the voice from Indigenous communities, Albanese reminds parliament
Albanese continues:
After a process in 2017, First Nations people through the Uluru statement of the heart, the eloquent 440 words, issued an invitation to Australians to walk with them on the form of recognition they sought.
That was recognition through a voice. There was then a process established including under the former government and other processes, the joint committee chaired by [Indigenous leader] Patrick Dodson and [Liberal MP] Julian Leeser to progress this issue.
I said before the election, on a range of occasions, as did both leaders, Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten prior to 2019, there would be advancement on these issues.
I was at [the Indigenous festival] Garma when the [former] minister for Indigenous Affairs, Ken Wyatt, said there would be a referendum held*. I was there in 2019. … I fulfilled that commitment that I made. It was not out of convenience, it was out of conviction.
I believe that when you make a commitment, including a commitment to Indigenous people, that it should be fulfilled. I make this point: across remote areas dominated by Indigenous communities, yes recorded massive support …”
*Daniel Hurst hears Scott Morrison interject to ask ‘But did it include the voice?’
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Constitutional recognition for Indigenous Australians promised by previous governments, says Albanese
Anthony Albanese thanks Sussan Ley for her “rhetoric”.
Let’s be very clear about what occurred. There was a constitutional convention. There was one established under the former government in 2017. After a process that the former government established under Tony Abbott when he established a process, a working group, who are charged with coming back to the Australian people about what form constitutional recognition should take.
That was after John Howard, of course, and every other leader since promised to promote constitutional recognition. In 2017 ...
(Liberal MP Rick Wilson is booted out for interrupting).
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Referendum on Indigenous voice was Albanese’s ‘vanity project’, says Ley
Sussan Ley asks again:
My questions to the Prime Minister … concerns his divisive and incompetently manage referendum. Either the Prime Minister in the words of the member for Macarthur, focus on, quote, inner-city elites? Why did he refuse to hold a constitutional convention and what he make the effort to achieve bipartisanship? Why did he waste $450m of taxpayer money? Why did he proceed when it was clear his vanity project was going so disastrously wrong?
Again, it was not Labor created policy. It was a request from Indigenous people at the biggest consensus assembly at the Uluru statement from the heart and came after more than a decade of work.
This is another example of how questions are crafted to get a few words, without context, and often without pushback, into news reports – spreading the arguments, without the crucial facts.
Updated
Sussan Ley attacks Albanese’s ‘divisive and incompetently managed referendum’
Sussan Ley has the next question:
My question is to the Prime Minister and concerns his divisive and incompetently managed referendum. Why did the Prime Minister in the words of the member for Macarthur [Labor MP Mike Freelander] focus on inner-city elites? Why did he refuse to uphold constitutional convention? Why did he make no effort to achieve bipartisanship? Why did he waste $450m of taxpayer’s money?
There are interjections from the Labor benches at this question. Daniel Hurst hears laughter when Ley asked why “no effort” was made to achieve bipartisanship.
What a joke,” one said.
There is no question bipartisanship could have been achieved here. The government took the proposal asked for in the Uluru statement from the heart. It was not a Labor-created policy. It was the request of Indigenous leaders attached to the Uluru statement from the heart.
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Australians now aware more needs to be done to close Indigenous gap, says Albanese
Anthony Albanese continues:
Australians did not accept the constitutional change that was proposed. But no-one is arguing for the status quo.
No-one can say that just keep on doing the same thing is good enough for Australia. What has occurred in recent times is now a much greater national awareness.
We need to channel that into a national purpose to find the answers. The referendum was about listening to people and about getting better outcomes.
And these principles will continue to guide me. I will continue to listen to people and communities and consult on Indigenous Australians about a way forward.
Because the issues that we sought to address ... had not gone away, and nor have the people of goodwill and good heart who want to address them.
We will address them with hope in our heart and with faith in each other and with kindness towards one another. Walking together in a spirit of unity and healing.
The great Australian story goes back some 65,000 years. We have an opportunity as parliamentarians to write the next chapter. As government, we have a responsibility to write the next chapter as well.
A chapter that sees the gap closing because we know that only four out of 19 targets are on track as we speak ... Australians know that is not good enough and that is why we must seek to achieve that change.
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Albanese defends accepting request from Indigenous Australians for constitutional change
As Labor Lingiari MP Marion Scrymgour asks a dixer on the voice, the chamber, is, for once, silent.
Photograph: Reuters
Prime Minister, following Saturday’s referendum on the voice to parliament, what is the Prime Minister’s message to Australia about the results?
Anthony Albanese:
I thank the member for Lingiari for her question, and for her extraordinary work in representing remote communities in Central Australia, in Arnhem Land, in places like water and other communities.
Communities like where we see the massive gap that exists between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia.
Now, the referendum on Saturday was not the result that I had hoped for. But I respect the decision and the democratic process that produced it. We can make, in this country, the big decisions peacefully and as equals.
We know that referendums are hard, that is why only eight of 45 have passed. None without bipartisan support. And I certainly accept responsibility for the decisions that I have taken.
This was a constitutional change asked for, requested, and an invitation from Indigenous Australians. I accepted that invitation and I followed through on the commitments that I made.
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Albanese defends track record, lists initiatives such as housing, employment white paper
Anthony Albanese continues:
We have released the Employment White Paper, mapping the future for good jobs, skills and training in Australia. We will have more to say about that later today.
We announced projects from the $2bn Social Housing Accelerator with the Victorian and the New South Wales governments. We have opened and announced new urgent care clinics, now operating, serving people, keeping people out of emergency departments, giving them healthcare they need … with just their Medicare card, not their credit card.
We secured the release and safe return to Australia of journalist Cheng Lei. Cheng Lei is now reunited with her family, her two wonderful daughters and her family.
During recent times, we attended the ASEAN and East Asia Summit in Indonesia with our most important of friends promoting prosperity and stability in our region.
I was the first prime minister in two decades to visit the Philippines and elevate our relationship in a strategic partnership, and in the G20 in India, we advocated for Australia’s interest in clean energy and economic resilience.
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Anthony Albanese attacks Peter Dutton for opposing everything:
Interesting to get a question from the Leader of the Opposition about division.
The Leader of the Opposition, who has never seen a policy that he doesn’t oppose.
He has opposed all of the measures that we have put in place.
We have put in place a few. In recent times we passed the Housing Australia Future Fund through the Parliament.
And locking in $10bn in investments in social and affordable housing.
Opposed by those opposite, the government committed a further billion dollars for public and community housing.
Opposed by those opposite. I went to Whyalla, looking at the transition which is occurring in the steel industry there, moving towards green hydrogen, producing green steel, announcing, along with the South Australian government … items to assist in that process.
We hosted the national disaster preparedness summit here, contrasting with what occurred in the lead-up to 2019 where the attitude was ‘nothing to see here’ ...
We had, the first time that has ever happened, hosted here in this parliament, bringing together key stakeholders, including from federal, state and territory emergency services, logistics, food and groceries, utilities and the non-government sector.
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Question time begins
Peter Dutton:
Australians are questioning the competence of this Prime Minister, knowing he is clearly not across the detailed decisions that he is making, which adversely affect the lives of Australians.
Economic decisions have resulted in prices going up and up*, energy policy is a disaster with power prices going up and up**, the $450m referendum was against advice and resulted in our country being divided***. Will the Prime Minister [apologise to the] Australian people?
*No examples were given.
**Energy prices have increased, but not by as much as they would have without government intervention, which the Coalition opposed.
***The counterfactual – that the opposition’s position to oppose the referendum, and then stoke fears over what the voice would do, is not considered here.
Daniel Hurst is in the chamber and says Tony Burke went to get up during Dutton’s comments [to object] but Anthony Albanese gestured to him to leave it to him to respond.
Updated
Richard Marles, the defence minister, and his shadow counterpart, Andrew Hastie also speak about the fallen servicemen.
The house had a moment’s silence.
Question time begins.
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Gaza invasion would turn humanitarian disaster into a ‘catastrophe’, says Greens’ Bandt
Greens leader Adam Bandt says the Greens have ‘refused to support the looming invasion of Gaza’, saying the government ‘must take steps to stop an invasion that will turn a humanitarian crisis into a catastrophe’.
Speaking on the house refusing to pass the Greens amendment to ‘call for an end to the invasion and occupation and condemn the war crimes perpetrated by the state of Israel’ Bandt says:
The looming invasion of Gaza will turn a humanitarian disaster into a humanitarian catastrophe.
The Greens condemn the war crimes of Hamas and we condemn the looming invasion of Gaza, which will kill thousands and push a lasting peace further out of reach. We grieve with the Israelis and Palestinians who have lost loved ones and we must all work now to stop further bloodshed.
With 40% of its over 2m residents aged under 15, Gaza is a walled-in primary school, and an invasion will be a humanitarian catastrophe.
Instead of backing the invasion, Australia should be part of an international push for peace and de-escalation, which means an immediate ceasefire, an end to the invasion of Gaza and holding to account those who have committed war crimes.”Over the weekend, the civilian death toll continued to climb in Gaza, with the constant bombardment of Gaza by the Israeli Defense Force killing hundreds and the denial of food, water and electricity, resulting in catastrophic losses of life.
Authorities in Gaza have said that more than 2,300 people have been killed, a quarter of them children, nearly 10,000 have been injured and hundreds of thousands have been displaced.
The United Nations argues that Israel’s evacuation orders for Northern Gaza are impossible to achieve, and constitute a “death sentence” for many of the 2,000 people receiving treatment in the area’s 22 hospitals.
International observers have expressed their alarm about Israel’s apparent bombing of a civilian convoy attempting to flee Northern Gaza using an approved escape route; the use of airburst white phosphorous in populated areas, which indiscriminately creates a “high risk of excruciating burns and lifelong suffering”, and of the bombing of ambulances and health facilities.
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Lebanese Muslim Association condemns government, media ‘hypocrisy’ over Gaza situation
In the wake of the parliamentary motion on Israel and Palestine, the Lebanese Muslim Association in Lakemba has also released a statement.
It plans to hold an open-air Friday sermon and prayer this week “to stand united and in solidarity with our fellow brothers and sisters in Gaza, and to condemn the hypocrisy and double standards of the government, as well as the selective coverage of mainstream media, regarding this situation”.
We are deeply disturbed by the atrocities carried out with impunity by the Israeli occupation against our brothers and sisters in Gaza. They are becoming more brazen and unspeakable by the day.
Considering this grim situation, the Lebanese Muslim Association has decided to organise an open-air Friday sermon and prayer for Palestine at Parry Park this Friday, 20 October 2023.
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Talisman Sabre accident a reminder of risks defence personnel take for the nation, says Dutton
Peter Dutton has also spoken on the loss of the four servicemen in operation Talisman Sabre:
That fateful night [of the Blackhawk disaster] in June of 1966 just like on 28 July this year, it reinforces the risk our servicewomen and servicemen face even when they are training. We cannot eliminate tragedy in life but it is our tragic sensibility which will see Australians provide the families of the fallen with the support, the strength, solace, they will need as they go through this terrible ordeal. It is a tragic sensibility [that] will see that Australian Defence Force carry on doing what it has always done - serving Australia, safeguarding Australia, sacrificing for Australia.
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Chris Minns recommits to an Indigenous treaty process for NSW
Stepping out of the chamber for a moment – New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, was “really upset” when the voice referendum failed on Saturday night.
Speaking in Sydney on Monday, Minns said he respected the judgment of NSW and the nation but thought it would have been “a good thing for the country”.
Asked how he felt when the result was announced, he said:
I was really upset … I think it would have enabled us to be in a position where we could have had a deeper and greater engagement with First Nations people and started to focus in a more collaborative way on the problems that we face.
However, it is what it is and the work goes on. I can give a commitment to First Nations Australians that supported the voice, that wanted to change, that you’ve got a government … that will engage with you and start making progress.
He pledged to move forward with a treaty process in NSW, in line with his election promise.
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Australian parliament remembers officers who died in Taipan helicopter accident
The chamber has gathered for question time, but there is a condolence motion for defence force personnel who died in a tragic accident during exercise Talisman Sabre; Captain Danniel Lyon, Lieutenant Maxwell Nugent, Warrant Officer Class 2 Joseph ‘Phillip’ Laycock, and Corporal Alexander Naggs.
Anthony Albanese:
One of our most solemn duties in this place is to speak the names of those who have fallen in our nation … Those who have stepped up for their homeland but been unable to return home to their families. Today we speak the names of four brave Australians: Captain Danniel Lyon, Lieutenant Maxwell Nugent, Warrant Officer Class 2 Joseph ‘Phillip’ Laycock, and Corporal Alexander Naggs.
Four names eternally joined in the final moment.
It is nearly three months since that tragic accident that cut short their lives. But while our shock has slowly retreated, sorrow is a tide that never goes out.
Updated
‘Data entry error’ initially showed majority yes vote in NSW’s Cowra, AEC says
The Australian Electoral Commission says it incorrectly portrayed a majority yes vote in the central NSW town of Cowra due to a data entry error.
Results from the Cowra pre-polling voting centre, at the Cowra Uniting Church, initially showed 3,702 yes votes versus 819 no votes. This would have given Cowra the second highest yes vote at a pre-polling site in NSW, after Ultimo in Sydney, and the highest yes vote in the Riverina electorate.
An AEC spokesperson told Guardian Australia the error was quickly identified and fixed.
The count was completed correctly, as always, but there was an error when inputting the figures into the tally room. This has been rectified now.
These sorts of things are very rare and always rectified - either expedited review or when conducting the mandatory validation counts we perform on every single count we do. It is a process called fresh scrutiny that will be a large portion of this week’s work.”
Polling sites in Parkes, also in the Riverina electorate, have also been updated to reflect a similar error, now showing a majority no vote across all polling sites.
Updated
The first question time is about to begin.
Given the state of the ‘debate’ and the tone, it is going to be a fairly brutal one. A reminder that if you need to take some space, you absolutely should.
House of Reps supports government motion condemning Hamas attacks; Greens amendment fails
The Australian House of Representatives has overwhelmingly voted to support the government’s motion condemning the Hamas attacks, recognising Israel’s right to defend itself, and condemning “all forms of hate speech and violent extremist activity, including antisemitism and Islamophobia”.
It passed after the Greens unsuccessfully tried to amend one part of the motion. The Greens wanted to keep almost all parts of the motion, but had sought to change the self-defence line to also condemn “war crimes perpetrated by the state of Israel, including the bombing of Palestinian civilians”. The Greens also wanted to call for “an immediate ceasefire between all parties and an end to the war on Gaza, recognising also that for there to be peace there must be an end to the state of Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territories”.
The Greens’ amendment failed because it was supported by only seven MPs: the Greens’ four MPs, plus independents Kylea Tink, Sophie Scamps and Andrew Wilkie.
Then the chamber moved to vote on the unchanged government motion. The four Greens’ MPs proceeded to oppose the main motion. But Tink, Scamps and Wilkie joined with the major parties to support the government’s motion.
The result was 134 to 4
Updated
Australia must condemn Israel’s actions, help protect Gaza civilians, says Muslim Advocacy Network
That statement continued:
Israel’s actions since October 7th are reported as serious breaches of international law, humanitarian law, and human rights. Indiscriminate attacks in Gaza have caused civilian casualties, including women, children, and the elderly. The forcible transfer of a million people, the destruction of entire residential housing blocks, and over 600 children killed in six days demand immediate international attention. Cutting off water, fuel, electricity and medical supplies while bombing families that flee on supposed ‘safe routes’ are also obvious war crimes.
In recent years, Australia has advocated in support of Israel to ensure historical war crimes by Israel and Hamas are never investigated, contributing to current lawless conditions. Our message is simple: if you value all communities, uphold the law.
We urgently call on the Australian Government to:
Publicly condemn Israeli breaches of international law
Request all Government Ministers to retract any statements that encourage war crimes in Gaza
Take immediate action to protect civilians in Gaza
Call for an immediate ceasefire to prevent further loss of life
Advocate for an immediate end of Israel’s siege, enabling secure humanitarian aid access to Gaza.
Updated
Albanese, Marles ‘failed to condemn’ Israel’s apparent war crimes, says Muslim Advocacy Network
The Australian Muslim Advocacy Network (AMAN) has released a statement in response to the prime minister’s comments today, and the deputy prime minister’s comments on Insiders yesterday:
We express deep concern regarding the Prime Minister’s statement to Parliament and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles’ recent statements on the Insiders program, where they have failed to condemn apparent war crimes committed by Israel. Australian families are in Gaza right now and have limited communication or safety options as a result of Israel’s siege.
Continued Israeli bombardment poses a grave risk to civilian lives and constitutes further international crimes. The Australian Government is now on notice, having knowledge of past crimes, of potential imminent international crimes if it continues to support such actions.
International criminal tribunals have consistently recognised the responsibility of those who encourage and morally support perpetrators of crimes. It is unlawful to support war crimes and to fail to prevent genocide, principles the Australian Government is well aware of.
Updated
Attorney general Mark Dreyfus says Hamas attack ‘an attack on the Jewish people’
Some of those speaking in parliament today about the Hamas attacks shared some deeply personal stories.
The attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, said the parliament was morning “the greatest loss of Jewish life in a single day since the Holocaust”. He said:
I am the son of a Holocaust survivor who, as young boy, was forced to flee his home in 1939 and travel to the other side of the world. His life was at risk because – and only because – he is Jewish.
My father, and my grandparents, escaped.
Dreyfus said the Nazis did not invent antisemitism “and, as the events of the last week have demonstrated all too tragically, antisemitism did not end when the Nazis were defeated”. He said of the events of last weekend:
This was an attack on the Jewish people.
Over thousands of years, the Jewish community – my community – has only survived because of our unbreakable spirit in the face of horrific prejudice.
And, on many occasions, we have had to face that prejudice alone. Not this time, because this time, unlike so many times in our past, the Jewish community is not alone. As this motion makes clear, Israel is not alone.
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ALP’s Burke says past attempts to weaken Racial Discrimination Act ‘wrong’
The Labor MP Tony Burke alluded to attempts by the former Coalition government to weaken section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act:
And anyone who in the years gone past has argued that we should be weakening our laws against hate speech was wrong then and anyone now who engages in hate speech, thinking it’s only words is wrong now.
We must not pretend though that the minority engaging in hate speech is somehow representative of us as a nation, or of any group as a community. It is incredibly important in how we respect and debate each other and how we regard which words are truly representative of communities and which are not that we don’t pretend that the sections of hate are bigger in Australia than they are. But to the extent they are there, we must fight them and fight them hard. When our fellow Australians mourn, when our fellow Australians fear, and when our fellow Australians hope, we need to stand with them.
Updated
Tony Burke says ‘no place for hate speech in Australia’, defends his western Sydney community
Let’s return to an earlier contribution to the debate about events in the Middle East.
Close followers of the debate may recall that the Labor MP Tony Burke copped criticism in some quarters last week.
Specifically, the Australian newspaper reported on its front page last Wednesday: “Two of the most senior federal ministers from western Sydney - Tony Burke and Chris Bowen - were under pressure for failing to full-throatedly condemn local anti-Israel preachers and activists who led the two NSW rallies celebrating Hamas’s attacks.”
Burke told parliament today that he wanted to tackle hate speech head on:
A few people - not many - are aware of the state of my health last week, which meant my public commentary was very limited, and when comments were eventually given to the media late in the week, they were not published.
So, allow me to take this chance to be quite unequivocal: statements of hate speech, some of which were given in my part of Sydney, some of which were given elsewhere, are all unacceptable and are all to be condemned. There is no place for hate speech in Australia.
I was particularly devastated that one of those comments was made along the pathway where my community had conducted the Walk for Respect. My community has actually been at the centre, at the absolute centre, of opposing any weakening of our hate speech laws.
In my community, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and people of no faith at all walked together against hate speech, against all forms of hate speech, against racist hate speech, against antisemitism, against Islamophobia.
(Continued in next post)
Updated
‘No reason’ water trigger bill can’t be ‘passed this week’, Teals MP says
Scamps’ and Hanson-Young’s bills have support from environment groups, traditional owners and farmers in the Northern Territory.
Scamps said it was a simple change and one the government already supported:
With the threat of drought again looming large and the approval of new shale fracking projects in the Beetaloo Basin imminent, it is urgent that we act now to protect our water resources from potentially destructive unconventional fracking practices.
The bill also has the backing of the crossbench, so there is no reason it cannot be agreed to by the government and passed this week.
Hanson-Young said the bill would close a fracking loophole. Proposed projects in the Beetaloo, for example, will need to be assessed under national laws but as those laws currently stand they would not be assessed under the existing water trigger.
Water is life, but right now a legal loophole means fracking corporations have a licence to drill without regard for our rivers, the climate or the voices of Traditional Owners.
If the Government backs our bill, the Greens will use our numbers in the Senate to close this loophole immediately, working with Sophie Scamps MP in the lower house.
The environment and water minister Tanya Plibersek said the government’s “strong new environment laws will include an expanded water trigger”. They said consultation with expert groups on the draft laws would begin this month:
We would welcome support, across party lines, to expedite our strong new laws through the parliament next year.
Updated
Water trigger: Greens and Teal MPs call for protection of Australia’s water resources from fracking
Independent Teal MPs and the Greens are urging the Albanese government to legislate to expand the water trigger before the end of the year to protect Australia’s water resources from fracking for gas.
The member for Mackellar Sophie Scamps and the Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young are both introducing bills today to strengthen the water trigger in Australia’s national environmental laws and ensure all gas projects, such as those proposed in the Beetaloo basin in the Northern Territory, are assessed under it.
The existing water trigger requires coal seam gas and large coal projects to be assessed for their impact on water resources. Labor has promised to expand it to all forms of unconventional gas, including the shale gas found in the Beetaloo basin, as part of its reforms of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.
But the crossbench wants the government to move sooner given a package of reforms for the EPBC Act is not expected to be introduced until next year at the earliest.
A recommendation from a senate inquiry into the Beetaloo basin said the water trigger should be expanded before the end of the year.
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Discrepancies in dealing with mental health helplines
Nurses have told an inquiry into mental health treatment in New South Wales that there are vast discrepancies across the state in dealing with calls to understaffed mental health helplines.
Registered nurse, Helen Boardman, told the parliamentary inquiry that there was a “huge discrepancy” between local health districts, with some running helplines overnight staffed with trained and experienced clinicians. In contrast, others were more limited and run by private providers.
Not every person answering calls could access a patient’s record, making it impossible to make an informed decision about the need to involve the police.
Boardman said:
[If] you’ve got access to the patient’s history, it doesn’t mean that the police wouldn’t get called - the mental health team may well call the police for assistance but that would be based on a risk assessment of how safe it would be for the mental health team to attend with or without police.
Registered nurse, Victoria Norris, added that the mental health access lines were “often very understaffed” and being manned by “a lot of unskilled and relatively limited experienced clinicians”.
Updated
Cryptocurrency reforms to protect Australians’ digital assets
We’ve seen this morning that the Albanese government has released a proposal paper on how it plans to regulate crypto and other digital assets, and the exchanges they trade on, as AAP has reported here:
The Reserve Bank has also chimed in on the matter this morning, with assistant governor Brad Jones outlining the central bank’s evolving views of “a tokenised future” including digital currencies for our financial system.
Jones said the RBA remains “open-minded as to the functional forms of digital money and supporting infrastructure that could best support the Australian economy in the future”.
It seems we shouldn’t expect much change soon since the bank is only at “the early stages of planning for a new project” to assess how tokenised asset markets might trade in Australia. The RBA and Treasury will also publish a “stocktake” on their research into a central bank digital currency by “around the middle of 2024” and then “set out a roadmap for future work”.
There are certainly some benefits, potentially worth billions of dollars a year, in terms of the instant information and accountability of at least some forms of digital currency. Jones noted that pricing in the $750bn market for bank term deposits – or about 15% of Australian bank funding – was “still largely conducted over the phone, in branches, by email, and on spreadsheets, much like 25 years ago”. “Is this the best we can do?” Jones asked.
However, challenges include the ongoing “regulatory uncertainty and compliance obligations”.
Jones said:
[If] a smart contract on a programmable ledger goes awry, cross-border and anti-money laundering responsibilities do not disappear, but who is accountable?”
Presumably that’s what the government’s crypto regulations will seek to address.
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Former commando Heston Russell welcomes federal court decision
Former platoon commander Heston Russell has welcomed a finding by the federal court that the ABC could not rely on a public interest defence for its articles which accused him of war crimes.
Speaking outside the court in Sydney after winning $390,000 in damages, Russell said the ABC had “finally been exposed for its false allegations against our Australian veterans”.
He said:
Today the federal court decided it was not in the public interest for the commandos of November Platoon to be accused of heinous war crimes without any basis.
The evidence at trial demonstrates that the publications that I sued over were ... involved no fact checking, or corroboration to speak of.
Australians deserve better from the national broadcaster that we all pay taxes for.
In his decision in favour of Russell, Justice Michael Lee was critical of the former soldier’s evidence in the witness box and did not award aggravated damages.
Updated
To hear what Anthony Albanese had to say during that motion, the video team have you covered:
The former prime minister Scott Morrison is addressing the house now. He says recognising Israel’s right to defend itself “should and must include all efforts to eradicate Hamas from Gaza”. Morrison also tells parliament:
We cannot look away from the support Hamas has received from Iran. It is an abomination.
Adam Bandt has proposed to amend the government’s motion regarding the Hamas attacks. Instead of point 2 in the government’s motion - which talks about Israel’s right to defend itself - Bandt is proposing to replace that dot point with:
Condemns war crimes perpetrated by the state of Israel, including the bombing of Palestinian civilians, and calls for an immediate ceasefire between all parties and an end to the war on Gaza, recognising also that for there to be peace there must be an end to the state of Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territories.
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Bandt criticises government for not opposing Israeli ground invasion
The leader of the Greens, Adam Bandt, says there is “much” in the motion that deserves support. But he says the government should be explicit in opposing a ground invasion of Gaza by Israel, warning of significant humanitarian consequences. He says it is “disappointing to say the least that this motion moved by the government backs that invasion”*.
Bandt told parliament:
Australia cannot stay silent and indeed back that invasion … this is now moving beyond self-defence into an invasion.
Bandt urged the government to “adopt a pathway forward for peace” and to avoid “escalation of the conflict”. He said the government should “instead to call for peace so we can mourn those who’ve died and hopefully not add to their numbers in their thousands”.
* The government’s motion has 15 dot points, including recognising Israel’s “inherent right to defend itself”, but later also “reiterates Australia’s consistent position in all contexts is to call for the protection of civilian lives and the observance of international law”.
Updated
Ahead of this motion, there was a private conversation between Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton.
This was before Dutton attacked Labor, again, by falsely claiming it had not condemned antisemitic hate speech.
After that, the motion was spoken on
Updated
As a reminder:
Dr. Yousef Abu-Al Rish, Deputy Minister of Health
— WHO in occupied Palestinian territory (@WHOoPt) October 15, 2023
describes the dire situation at hospitals in📍Gaza @WHO calls for Israel to immediately reverse evacuation orders to hospitals in northern Gaza, which are a death sentence for the sick and injured.#NotATarget
🔊SOUND ON pic.twitter.com/yjtWLgSdKb
Peter Dutton said Israel was doing what it could to forewarn civilians in Gaza. He criticised “some commentators who try to find moral equivalence” between the Israel Defence Forces and Hamas terrorists.
Dutton said Australia stood with Ukraine in its time of need, and it was time for the Australian parliament to stand with Israel “in its hour of need”.
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Dutton repeats call to deport people over antisemitic behaviour
In parliament, Peter Dutton repeats his call last week for any non-citizens at pro-Palestine rallies engaged in “vile, antisemitic” behaviour or inciting or choosing violence to be deported.
He said the home affairs minister, Clare O’Neil, should “not hesitate” to use her powers swiftly.
Dutton went on to acknowledge that there would be civilian deaths on the Palestinian side “and Hamas knows that”.
(Dutton has no knowledge of the citizenship of those who made the chants, which have also been condemned by Palestinian supporters, and the leadership of the peaceful event in support of Palestine.)
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Peter Dutton told parliament that events abroad “must be no justification for rising tension within our own communities”.
He said the rally at the Sydney Opera House last week was “an abomination and a day of shame for our nation”.
He said Australia’s Jewish community “was unable to gather an our iconic landmark” that had been lit up in blue and white in solidarity with Israel. Instead, protesters had chanted comments such as “gas the jews, F the jews and F Israel”, Dutton told parliament.
Someone seemed to have interjected about Dutton reading those comments into the parliamentary record.
Dutton fired up at the interjection:
I’ll take the interjection – I won’t stop saying it … The words shouldn’t have been said in the first place … the Jewish community here in Australia deserves to hear you condemn them as well.
The Labor government has unequivocally condemned those chants. Repeatedly.
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Peter Dutton said the Coalition “joins with every other people of decent humanity in condemning this attack by Hamas militants on Israel”. He said Israel “has every right to exist … to defend itself and its people … to deter future attacks and other acts of aggression”.
Dutton said the Coalition “supports and proudly supports Israel’s right to do what is necessary in the circumstances”:
There must be no restraint shown to these who have shown no restraint themselves.
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Albanese ended his speech to parliament by saying the motion aimed to send “sympathy and solidarity to the people of Israel after the attacks of Hamas, and to our own Jewish community”.
He said:
We cannot lighten the weight that is upon you but we hold you in our hearts.
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, is up now. He thanked Albanese for his words. Dutton said the attacks on Israel were the “embodiment of evil”.
He said:
No longer can the apologists of this death cult claim they have a just and noble cause.
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PM says ‘no room’ for antisemitism or Islamophobia in Australia
Anthony Albanese told parliament the antisemitic chants said by some outside the Sydney Opera House last week was “beyond offensive” and a “betrayal of our Australian values”. He said:
We cannot allow that. We will not allow that. I know I speak for every member of this house when I say that this kind of hateful prejudice has no place in Australia.
Albanese said Hamas tried to sow division around the world. Albanese said people in Australia should “avoid the traps set by such forces of division”.
He said:
We have no room for antisemitism in this nation, just as we have no room for Islamophobia. We have no room for hatred – not against Jews, not against Muslims. Our country has been made better by generations of both.
Albanese said social cohesion “cannot be taken for granted” and that his government was committed to preventing discrimination against people of faith, including vilification.
Albanese announced that his cabinet had agreed to spend an extra $10m from the confiscated assets program to protect community safety (more details soon).
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PM condemns Hamas attacks, calls on Israel to ‘operate by rules of war’
Anthony Albanese has unequivocally condemned the Hamas attacks on Israel:
It was a slaughter of innocent people - it was an act of terror … This was not just an attack on Israel. This was an attack on Jewish people.
The prime minister went on to say that Hamas was an enemy not just of Israel but “an enemy of all peace-loving Palestinian people”.
Albanese said Israel had the right to defend itself against these terror attacks, but added:
We join the call from President Biden and other partners for Israel to operate by the rules of war.
Alluding to recent criticism from the Coalition, Albanese said:
Because protecting innocent people is not a show of weakness, it is a measure of strength … we believe all people have the right to live in peace within secure borders.
The motion moved by Albanese included many elements, but including condemnation of all forms of hate speech, “including antisemitism and Islamophobia”.
This post was updated to reflect the fact Albanese called for Israel to follow the “rules of war” not the “rules of law”.
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In the house, Anthony Albanese is moving a condolence motion on what is happening in Israel and Palestine.
Daniel Hurst is in the chamber – there will be a few speeches here.
ABC loses former commando Heston Russell's defamation case
ABC investigative journalist Mark Willacy has not established the public interest defence for his defamation of former commando Heston Russell, the federal court has found.
Justice Michael Lee said he had no doubt Willacy “believed the publication of the matter was in the public interest” but “his belief was not reasonable in the circumstances”.
Lee is reading out the reasons for his judgment in the defamation case Russell brought against the ABC over two online news articles, a television news item and a radio broadcast that relate to the alleged actions in Afghanistan in 2012 of the November platoon, which Russell commanded.
Lee also found Russell “dissembled” in his evidence in the witness box when questioned about an invoice and that it was not safe “to place any reliance upon his evidence”.
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Labor plan to regulate crypto a ‘rehash’ of Coalition policy, Andrew Bragg says
Liberal senator Andrew Bragg, who is interested in these things, has released a statement on the government taking the first steps to regulating crypto currencies.
Bragg says:
Labor’s statement on crypto today concedes there will be no crypto laws in the life of this Parliament.
The Coalition announced this policy almost two years ago. Rather than implementing the policy, the Government has been goofing around, and solely prioritising the laundry list of reforms sought by unions and super funds.
The Proposal Paper recognises the need for crypto regulation to protect consumers. But Labor has locked Australia into the slow lane on crypto reform.
There is a Bill in the Parliament today that would do virtually everything the Government now says is important.
If Labor was serious about protecting consumers, they would have continued the regulatory process commenced by the former Liberal Government in 2021. Instead, Labor’s Assistant Treasurer, Stephen Jones, abandoned this regulatory process.
Bragg says today’s release is a re-hash of a 2021 paper released by the Coalition.
And while there may be a private members bill in the parliament now on the issue, there is also the small issue of the Coalition not doing anything in this space despite being in government as it emerged.
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Strong link between electorates' education level and yes vote
As other people have noted, at the electorate level one of the single best predictors of a yes vote has been the percentage of people with a university degree. You can see this relationship here:
It’s important to be aware of the ecological fallacy when interpreting results like this.
This shows that electorates with a high proportion of university-educated people were more likely to have a higher yes vote.
It does not necessarily mean that individual voters with university degrees voted for the voice. There may be other factors responsible for the trend that also correlate with education.
However, it is worth noting that the relationship between education and the yes vote is quite strong for this data, and much stronger than the relationship between the median income of an electorate and the yes vote, which has also been the focus of some attention today.
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Jacinta Price applauded in Senate
Country Liberal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price was given a hero’s welcome by colleagues including Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie in the Senate this morning, as captured by Mike Bowers.
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Opposition leader promotes mental health support
Peter Dutton spoke at the launch of the national multicultural mental health month this morning.
There are many issues where we can have disagreements and go to and fro in this place, but there’s a lot more that we agree on than the Australian public might realise. We should shine a light on opportunities, particularly where we could help Australians, young Australians, people from many and diverse backgrounds, who have mental health needs. This is an opportunity this morning to shine that light, so thank you.
Which is all true.
During the referendum, mental health advocates created a respectful referendum pledge, asking politicians to be mindful of the impact the referendum was having, particularly on First Nations people.
From AAP in September:
Liberal leader Peter Dutton and opposition Indigenous Australians spokeswoman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price have yet to accept an invitation from mental health advocates to sign a respectful referendum pledge.
The pledge is a set of principles to encourage more civil and inclusive conversations about the Indigenous voice to parliament, that aim to reduce social and emotional harms ahead of the 14 October referendum.
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Labor plans crypto rules
In a very 2023 sentence, the government is looking to regulate crypto.
Jim Chalmers is releasing a proposal paper “that recommends making crypto exchanges and digital asset platforms subject to existing Australian financial services laws and requiring platform operators to obtain an Australian financial services licence”.
So basically, the NFT monkeys would have to live within the law.
The release continues:
In addition, digital asset platforms will need to meet specific obligations that take into account the nature of the platforms. This will include minimum standards for holding tokens, standards for custody software, and standards when transacting in tokens.
Feedback on the proposal paper closes on 1 December, with further consultation next year on the draft legislation.
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Civil liberties council blasts police ‘scare tactics’ over pro-Palestinian rally
The New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties has condemned what it described as “scare tactics” by NSW police designed to deter pro-Palestinian protesters on Sunday.
President Josh Pallas said:
NSWCCL was pleased to see large crowds able to safely attend the Gaza protest on 15 October. Protesters refused to cower in response to the government and police’s scare tactics over the past week and asserted their right to protest and did so peacefully.
It was outrageous that the primary threat to crowd safety was from the NSW police, who threatened to use extraordinary powers under [section] 87D of LEPRA, which are available when there is a threat of wide-spread public disorder. So-called police intelligence turned out to be completely unfounded. NSW Police and the police minister must explain how they got it so wrong.
Pallas said his organisation’s lawyers were preparing to support organisers of a protest next weekend and has warned of legal action if it is shut down.
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During the Senate inquiry into higher education, the committee heard from the president of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Postgraduates Association, Dr Sharlene Leroy-Dyer, who said:
The average Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person who is a postgraduate student is working full-time, usually has a family to look after and extended family and community obligations, which include monetary obligations.
Quite frankly, the cost of coursework really eliminates a lot of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students from being able to undertake courses.
The average one-year postgraduate degree is around $28,000.
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Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi wants to amend the higher education bill, expanding it to give free postgraduate positions to Indigenous students.
Faruqi:
Financial hardship is a major barrier to postgraduate study for First Nations students, so it’s extremely disappointing that the government has chosen to limit commonwealth supported places for First Nations students to undergrad only. My amendment closes this critical gap and extends access to postgrad study for all First Nations students.
If Labor is serious about tackling how our higher education system is failing First Nations students, then opening up access to postgrad study to make it more affordable is a crucial component of it.
Full-fee postgraduate courses are off limits to many First Nations people. This is a travesty and must be addressed as a start to achieve equity in access to tertiary education.
Ultimately university should be free and all student debt wiped, but lowering the financial barrier of entry for First Nations students to all levels of study is an incredibly important step.
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Former frontrunner for Qantas CEO quits
The Qantas executive overlooked to succeed Alan Joyce as CEO has announced she will resign, as the airline appoints a partner from under-fire consulting firm PwC to its executive.
Olivia Wirth, who had been a frontrunner for Joyce’s job but lost out to Vanessa Hudson, has announced she will leave Qantas in February “to pursue other opportunities”. Wirth has been the CEO of Qantas’ Loyalty arm since 2018, and with the airline for 14 years.
Wirth said:
Qantas has been a massive part of my professional life and I’m really grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given over the years. At its core, Qantas is an incredible company and brand and I’ve loved being part of it.
Hudson said:
Olivia’s contribution to this company over many years has been enormous…on behalf of the organisation I’d like to sincerely thank her for everything she’s done.
Qantas also announced the appointment of Catherine Walsh as its new chief people officer. Walsh, who has been tasked with improving relations between Qantas, its 25,000 employees and the unions that represent them, is currently PwC’s head of people and culture.
Walsh said:
It’s an honour to be joining the Qantas Group in such an important role and at a pivotal time. I’ve spent a lot of time on Qantas flights and the dedication and professionalism of the people always shines through, so I look forward to being part of the broader team.
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Yes campaign philanthropists vow to continue Indigenous advocacy
The philanthropic funders of the yes campaign have released a statement, saying they are “saddened by the result of the referendum, and our hearts and gratitude go out to the inspiring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who led this campaign for many years, and to the First Nations people, families and communities who are deeply impacted by this result”.
We are grateful to all the advocates for yes; to the millions of Australians who voted for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice. In light of the weekend’s wounding referendum result, we reaffirm our ongoing commitment to supporting and advocating for First Nations peoples to have a greater say in the issues and decisions that affect them. We acknowledge that many of our First Nations partners are now in a week of silence following the result.
Our group of more than 30 philanthropic foundations banded together to support constitutional recognition through establishing a voice, and this referendum result will strengthen philanthropy’s dedication and commitment to ensure First Nations voices are recognised and heard.
Philanthropic foundations will continue to work closely with communities, First Nations-led organisations, governments, and each other to help advance community-led, place-based solutions and systemic change to advance First Nations justice and close the gap across a range of areas, including education, housing, health and employment.
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‘Do not wait,’ Wong tells Australians wanting to leave Israel
A little earlier, Penny Wong also urged Australians who want to leave Israel to make an immediate decision:
There were people who registered for the flights who did not, chose not to depart. Obviously, that’s their right. But we will be seeking to do a further flight today. But people should consider it’s possible this is our last flight for the foreseeable future. You would have heard me say over the last few days to Australians in Israel, and there are many, if you wish to leave, do not wait for another option, leave now. Obviously, there are Australians, particularly dual citizens, who may not wish to leave and that’s their right. But if people wish to leave, our message has been to leave now.
Q: Is there any update on the Lebanon situation?
Wong:
Look, I issued yesterday updated travel advice to say to people, please consider whether or not your presence is required. Obviously there is always the risk that we are all trying to avert. The United States, the countries of the region are seeking to avert this spilling over, this conflict spilling over. That would be a bad thing for the region, a bad thing for the world and obviously be extremely risky for civilians in the region.
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Labor still ‘absolutely committed’ to closing the gap – Marles
Asked about this story:
Richard Marles says:
Well, as I say, we will take our time to assess exactly the way forward, but the second point I was going to make is that in doing what we do in terms of closing the gap, we absolutely are committed to listening to Indigenous Australians and Indigenous voices.
Obviously that was what underpinned the proposed change to the constitution, but we need to be listening to Indigenous Australians to make sure the programs that are put in place are done with the greatest effect – people who are affected by them have the best idea of how they can work to the greatest outcome.
And that’s what we will do in the way in which we frame programs going forward. So we really understand there are going to be a range of suggestions at this moment and that’s understandable, we’ll look at all of those, but we are going to take our time in the aftermath of this to work out what are the next steps forward.
But we are absolutely committed to doing everything within our power to closing the gap, because the idea that there is a group of Australians who, by virtue of their birth, live shorter and less healthy lives is fundamentally unfair.
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What does Australia think about the possibility of a broader conflict?
Richard Marles:
I think clearly there is a deep anxiety which is being felt in the region and, to be honest, around the world, and you can see that in the movements that you’ve just described. And clearly we would be urging all parties in the Middle East not to be getting involved.
We do absolutely respect and support Israel’s right to defend itself in the face of the appalling terrorist attacks by Hamas the weekend before last.
But there is a genuine risk of this escalating and it is obviously why we are enormously concerned about the welfare of Australians in the region and as I say, why we have, as an example, changed the travel advisory to Lebanon.
Meanwhile, in Gaza:
Avoid unnecessary travel to Lebanon – advisory
What is the travel advice for Australians in Lebanon?
Richard Marles told the ABC:
The travel advisory has been changed for Lebanon. I mean, clearly what we’re seeing play out in Israel-Palestine, but beyond, is very volatile and things can change really quickly. And it’s with that in mind that we have changed the travel advice to Lebanon to not travel unless you absolutely have to, and to avoid any unnecessary travel.
If there are Australians who are in Lebanon wanting to leave, again, we would urge them to make those decisions now because it is uncertain what will be happening with the existing commercial options going forward.
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Civil liberties council says police ‘got it so wrong’ on pro-Palestine rally
Although NSW Police did not follow through on a plan to exact extraordinary powers at yesterday’s pro-Palestine rally in Sydney, the NSW Council for Civil Liberties (NSWCCL ) claimed this was a “scare and intimidation tactic” in the lead-up to the protest.
President Josh Pallas said in a statement that “emergency powers should not be available to prevent a political protest”.
So-called police intelligence [around crowd safety] turned out to be completely unfounded. NSW Police and the police minister must explain how they got it so wrong.”
Yesterday an estimated 6,000 people attended a pro-Palestine rally in Sydney’s Hyde Park. Police did not follow through with a plan to enact extraordinary powers – which would have permitted them to search protesters without reason and arrest and charge people who refused to identify themselves.
Assistant commissioner Tony Cooke said the gathering was “largely peaceful” with no arrests made.
Pallas claimed there are reports from independent NSW Legal Observers (which monitors the policing of protests) that people were asked to remove face coverings, even surgical face masks, by police, and if they refused to do so they were moved on.
The police presence throughout the city, including at major train stations leading into the city, was concerning.
These police tactics are outrageous and were unfounded as the large protest was peaceful.
NSWCCL lawyers will assist organisers in preparing for another rally on Saturday, Pallas said.
If police attempt to shut it down, we are poised for legal action to ensure that it can proceed and the right to engage in non-violent assembly is protected.
My colleague Catie McLeod has more on yesterday’s protest here:
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Sussan Ley swipes at PM over cost of living
Sussan Ley is also indulging in some rewriting of history, by also pretending that Labor has done nothing about cost of living for the last year.
These lines are designed to act as soundbites in broadcast packages – politicians and their spinners know that there is only a few seconds, at best, which will be included, so they construct their lines to have maximum impact in those few seconds – they know that context won’t be included.
This is not to say that Labor has done enough when it comes to addressing the cost of living – of course more can be done, particularly when it comes to the unemployment and disability support payments. But it is blatantly untrue to suggest that Labor has done nothing.
Ley:
I heard the prime minister talk about taking responsibility and then pivot immediately to the blame game on Saturday night. I must admit I’m shocked if the government is going to take out some policies that address the cost of living, which they’re talking about this morning, they’ve had sitting in the top drawer and they’re bringing them out now? What have they been doing for the last 12 months when Australians have been hurting?
So this has been a failure of the prime minister’s leadership. It was the referendum we didn’t need to have. I take no joy in the result.
I’m conscious of the disappointment and the emotion in many communities across Australia today.
But this is firmly at the feet of the prime minister, who insisted on this referendum, this question, this timeline. Unfortunately, the result is not good for our Indigenous communities and the improvement, the practical improvement, in their lives that we need to see.
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Apropos of nothing – just if you need a little break from all the politics – a reminder that all potatoes, eventually, do fall.
Sometimes into my belly. Sometimes to the whispers of history.
No potato, no matter how big, stands forever.
Bad news - The Big Spud has fallen!
— Jeremy Rockliff (@jeremyrockliff) October 15, 2023
Those winds must have been stronger than we thought at Sassafras over the weekend!! pic.twitter.com/zBh5Uc5qbZ
Dutton walks back promise of Indigenous recognition
Peter Dutton has dramatically walked back his offer to symbolically recognise Indigenous Australians in the constitution, declaring Australians are tired of referendums after the voice poll.
On Monday the opposition leader all but abandoned his much criticised suggestion of a second referendum.
Dutton told reporters in Canberra:
Look, all of our policy ... is going to be reviewed in the process Kerrynne [Liddle] and Jacinta [Price] will lead now. I think that’s important, but I think it’s clear that the Australian public is probably over the referendum process for some time.
Dutton also targeted the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, accusing him of an “almost unprecedented failure in campaigning” as the yes vote collapsed from more than 60% to 40%.
He said:
I think that’s why there’s a lot of angst within the Labor party at the moment about why the prime minister just doesn’t get across the detail. When he does make a decision, it’s the wrong decision. And we know, of course, millions of Australians at the moment are hurting because the prime minister has been completely obsessed with the voice over the course of the last 16 or 17 months.
This is highly subjective and arguably incorrect – Labor has been doing a lot in all the areas they’ve allegedly taken focus off, such as cost of living (cheaper medicine, cheaper childcare, energy price relief etc).
Often in question time, Labor’s dixers were all on other issues (such as its housing bill), while the opposition asked question after question on voice.
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Oh and on why the Coalition didn’t do any of the things it is now demanding, when it was in government for almost a decade?
Peter Dutton:
I can respect people who have voted yes or no, I’ve been very clear about that right through the course of the campaign. There is fault here on every side.
Everybody can take responsibility.
But over decades, governments of both persuasions have spent record amounts of money each year. When you get into a community like Alice Springs … , let me tell you, there are not billions of dollars being spent on people in town camps, or who were living in drains at the moment. So there’s something going wrong between where the check is written in Canberra and where the cents start to drip out in Alice Springs.
Now if you tell me that there’s nothing wrong there’s nothing to see here. The prime minister says he doesn’t believe in a royal commission. He doesn’t believe in an audit, then, you know, we’ll continue to repeat the same mistakes of the past.
If people are willing to grow up and listen and act and show leadership instead of weakness, which is where the prime minister has been, we can start to make some change.
So if the prime minister stands up instead of being dictated to, by activists and people who are out of touch in corporate boards around the country, and start listening and acting, then we can make a change. But if you pretend that sexual assault on children is not a reality, if you pretend that domestic violence is not taking place … you’ll condemn yourself to the same mistakes of last decades. I don’t intend to do that. I want to see practical outcomes for Indigenous Australians. And it requires strong leadership. And so far the prime minister hasn’t shown that leadership.
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Peter Dutton continues the fantasy that the question, which he voted for, could have been changed once passed the parliament, ahead of the referendum.
That is not how referendums work.
We said that the question put to the Australian people should have been on recognition and dropped the voice because people supported recognition but not the voice. The prime minister didn’t do that.
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Dutton says he speaks for majority who voted down voice
Peter Dutton has held a quick doorstop in Canberra (a doorstop is an impromptu press conference) and he is continuing his misleading on what the voice was.
He is also pushing, as expected, the calls for an audit into how money is spent when it comes to Indigenous issues. Which is not something he called for while in government. For almost a decade.
And remember when we said Dutton was feeling emboldened? Well, he now says he is speaking for the 60% of Australians who voted down the voice. So Dutton is moving forward as if he and the Coalition hold the majority support.
As expected, he is also blaming the prime minister for “division”.
The prime minister embarked on a divisive path. He spent $400 million of taxpayers’ money. He was born not to go down this path of division, and he bears the responsibility for where our country is today. And there’s a lot of healing to take place.
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Now some people have asked why we haven’t heard from Indigenous people who were supporting the yes campaign and there is a very simple answer – they are having a week of silence and mourning in response to the referendum debate.
And for people questioning that, you need to remember that this wasn’t “just politics”. It is about actual lives, and reconciliation and real impacts on communities. It’s not theatre.
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Q: Is land rights actually delivering an economic base for communities?
Warren Mundine:
They are in regard to jobs and businesses. You know, the mining industry probably spends about $4 billion on Aboriginal businesses, and that employs Aboriginal people.
And then there’s 7,000 Aboriginal people actually employed within that industry, and then the other industries.
The issue that we’ve got to look at is when all that royalty money or trust money, where does that go?
Because there is billions of dollars that we need to follow up on.
Q: Are these conversations that you’ve been having with Gina Rinehart around the influence of mining in Indigenous communities.
Mundine:
No, I’m Warren Mundine, mate, I go out, talk to Aboriginal people, talk to people who are experts in these areas and then we have a conversation about it.
I have never – and I can say this on a stack of bibles – I’ve never had this conversation with Gina Rinehart.
And then the interview ends.
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Q: If I may, I mean, you did say during the campaign that you thought a no vote would be more likely to lead to treaty and you did make the point, I think, back then that this was a different kind of treaty to what some others imagine. But what you’re talking about today is entirely different. You’re talking about native title, you’re talking about land rights, you’re talking about the interaction between community and corporations. It’s just not the same thing.
Warren Mundine:
Yes it is, it is the same thing. You know, this is where the voice has been totally wrong. The first thing that was found was it was built on a lie.
The lie was Aboriginals do not have a voice and in actual fact they have and they have had it for quite a while.
Fifty-five per cent of Australia’s landmass is now owned by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and that was done through native title and that was done through land rights. And that has built an economic base for those communities.
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Q: Isn’t a corporation though reaching an agreement with traditional owners quite a different thing to actual treaty? I mean that the two entirely different concepts, aren’t they?
Warren Mundine:
Those corporations or PVCs … what they are, they are the representative bodies of those traditional owners. They’re all in place.
Those bodies actually have to get all their members together, of that traditional owners, and then work through what’s going to, how it happens.
And when they’re negotiating with wherever it’s private enterprise, whether it’s governments or state and territories, in that building roads, building rail, building wars, building houses, or getting projects and mining and energy and agriculture or whatever else.
And these have had tremendous outcomes for Aboriginal people.
There’s billions of dollars that have gone into trust funds and that to help these Aboriginal communities from these processes. And this job, you know, 7,000 jobs within the mining industry…
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Q: So just so we understand what you mean, the individual nations negotiating treaty with who? With the commonwealth? With state jurisdictions?
Warren Mundine:
We’re doing it now. I’ll tell you right now, we’ve been doing it since the 1990s. And that’s where you know, people like myself, I’m chairman of a couple of companies and what we do is go down and this is where they got it wrong about the voice…
Q: But sorry, what do you mean you’ve been doing treaties since the 90s?
Mundine:
I am trying to explain, but you keep interrupting. Just give me a few seconds to actually present my case, OK, Hamish? Is that all right?
Told to go for it, Mundine says:
So what I’m talking about, we actually get down with agreements now, where we consult, negotiate and agree.
I’m going to agreement with Aboriginal traditional owners on their land, because it’s our culture that says, one group of people cannot talk to another people’s country. So we have to be working with those traditional owners, and those First Nation people or those countries, about how we work together and move forward.
Now me I’ve got I’ve got a four pillars plan to do that. And that is one about the assessments of performance and see how we can fix that and work with communities and people, education, getting kids to school, and getting investments, jobs and business in the community.
Those three things, if you look at those three things, and we did that right, there’s no need to close the gap because it’s closed.
Of course the hard one is in regard to social change, now we have to deal with the crime and everything in those communities.
What Mundine is describing is not treaty.
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Q: You had said that a treaty process would be more likely to succeed if there’s a no vote – will you now pursue treaty?
Warren Mundine:
Not in a format that the voice was, I will not be doing that at all.
It’s about recognition of our First Nations, traditional owners, and we really got most of that in place through land rights and through native title where we did that…
Q: With respect, that is a very different thing to treaty. I mean, do you want to pursue treaty in whatever form that is, between the commonwealth…
Mundine:
It has to be with the traditional owner nations and it’s got nothing to do with sovereignty. It’s about how we move forward as a nation because we’ve got 26 million other people in this country now. And we need to work together as a united nation, a united country.
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Q: A few clarifying questions about next steps. Do you actually want to see a referendum on the question of constitutional recognition of First Australians?
Warren Mundine:
Look, I’d love that. But most of Australia has, in fact, it is in the 90% our polling tells us that they want to do that as well.
But the issue we’ve got, and we all know this, is that that is the leadership of the Aboriginal community. Tther people out there, they don’t want it, and that so that’s got to be a problem.
Q: So do you think it will happen?
Mundine:
Well, I don’t know, to be honest. What we’ve got to do is do something that the government failed to do, that Albanese failed to do, and that is get everyone onboard for things to happen.
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Q: And who would be accountable, who would be accountable for the people who have been funded, and the government’s enforcing that funding? So if an Indigenous corporation or organisation receives commonwealth funding to deliver particular objectives, they would be held accountable for the delivery and they’d lose that funding if it’s not reached?
Warren Mundine:
Well, it’s not only Indigenous funding we see across the board – non-Indigenous organisations also get funded as well. And so we made them make sure that they do meet their goals. And the first thing for me, the first thing about the performance review is not to blame people, it is actually to sit down and say OK, what worked and what didn’t work, and how do we get more programs to work? And that’s working with people on the ground.
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Warren Mundine says ‘definite timeframes’ needed on Indigenous outcomes
Leading no campaigner Warren Mundine has appeared on ABC radio RN Breakfast and … it did not go well. Mundine was interviewed by Hamish Macdonald about next steps, but things became confused very early on.
Q: Warren, you very clearly won this argument about whether the voice to parliament is the answer to improving the lives of Indigenous Australians. If that’s not the answer, what is?
Mundine:
Well, Australian people made it quite clear what the answer is, during the campaign.
I heard from everyone both yes and no people and people who are undecided. They said to us very clearly they did want to see Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in the constitution as the first people of Australia, they rejected the voice, and they wanted governments to have practical outcomes for Indigenous people.
So the billions and billions of dollars that we spend every year, they have to have a definite outcome, with definite timeframes.
And that’s what the people have told us and that’s why I said: now the hard work starts.
Q: So it’s as simple as that putting definite timeframes on the closing the gap targets and tying the funding to the delivery of those, is that what you’re saying?
Mundine:
Yeah, I’m saying that because in my business, I don’t spend a cent unless and unless we set up targets, we set up KPIs, and we hold people accountable for that. And this is the problem we have.
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250 Australians on flights en route from Israel – Wong
Foreign affairs minister Penny Wong has provided more details on the repatriation flights that left Israel overnight:
She confirmed to 9News that 250 Australians were on board the three repatriation flights, which departed Tel Aviv last night for Dubai, en route to Australia.
Wong said since the conflict began, the government has helped 1200 Australians depart Israel.
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Q: But if you’re turning up at a protest on Australian streets, might your actions be interpreted as supporting Hamas?
Clare O’Neil:
No, the criminal code is about providing material support. So sending, for example, significant sums of money, or as I said, going to fight with a terrorist organisation.
It’s not political support for a terrorist organisation which will fall foul of this. It’s literally physical and material support that the law is aimed at.
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Q: What constitutes supporting it? If you are donating money to the people of Gaza, perhaps might you fall foul of these rules?
Clare O’Neil:
What we would encourage Australians to do [is what is not] illegal, as you say, under Australian law – Hamas is a listed terrorist organisation. And I think there’s very good reason and we’ve seen it over the last week or so, for why we have listed this organisation as a terrorist organisation.
That means that it is illegal to support that organisation. So I’d ask Australians, if you are interested in donating to support people in Gaza – and we would encourage you to do so because there is a humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza, and there are a lot of innocent people there who are going to be hurt by what unfolds over the coming weeks – please do so by donating to a reputable organisation. Organisations like the Red Cross are in the region and working in the region.
And we encourage you to use those organisations, not to donate indiscriminately if you can’t be confident where the money is going.
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Q: Is it legal for Australian citizens to go and fight for the Israeli Defence Force or for Hamas?
Clare O’Neil:
It’s legal under Australian law for Australians to go to a foreign country and fight with the armed forces of that country.
So it is legal for Israelis, Australians who have a connection to Israel, to go and fight in the Israeli armed forces.
It is not legal under Australian law to fight with a terrorist organisation such as Hamas.
And I just want to remind your listeners, what is happening in the Middle East now is not a war between two nation states.
It is a war between a nation state and a terrorist organisation a terrorist organisation that has just in the most inhuman way murdered innocent men, women and children, and is now using innocent people in Gaza as a human shield to stop being apprehended and brought to justice.
So just remember a nation state versus a terrorist organisation. Of course it is illegal under Australian law to fly overseas to fight with a terrorist organisation. Hamas in its entirety has been a proscribed terrorist organisation in Australia since 2022.
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On the reparation flights from Israel, Clare O’Neil says:
The first Qantas operated flight arrived in London early Saturday morning and then overnight, three charter flights left for Dubai.
So that’s really good news for those Australians who were on board those flights and the Australian government is now working on onward travel for those people.
There were 255 people on the three charter flights that left last night the vast majority of those were Australian citizens and also non citizen family members.
We still have a number of people who are in Israel who would like to leave and we are working as a first priority as a government on making sure that we can assist people to leave Israel wherever possible.
What I would say is that this is a very challenging situation, which is growing worse by the day. If you get the opportunity to leave, you need to take that opportunity. Don’t wait for another chance. If you get the chance to leave, leave immediately.
If you’re an Australian and you’ve got friends and family in the region in Gaza or in Israel, you should call emergency consular assist to register interest in leaving and I’d really urge people if you are thinking that you would like to leave to do so as quickly as you can.
On the role Country Liberal senator Jacinta Price will play, Clare O’Neil says:
We saw lots of leaders emerge in this debate. And of course Jacinta Price was one of them. And I respect her as a First Nations woman with a strong view about the future of her community.
Of course, she’s a part of this debate. She’s a senator in the Australian parliament. She’s not going anywhere.
One of the things I would say is that we are going to have to find some common ground here with our Indigenous leaders, and that is a job that we will support them to do.
And I think one of the things that’s very obvious looking at this debate is that we didn’t have clear agreement as it emerged, but between the Indigenous leaders in our parliament, and that was an issue. We need to find that common ground and I’m confident that we will find a way forward.
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‘We need to take a breath’ after voice vote – O’Neil
But Clare O’Neil says any discussion of another referendum is premature.
I can’t see into the future and I think asking literally two days after one referendum when the next one will be is perhaps a little bit too far leading.
I think we’ve got to take a breath now. We’ve got to give our First Nations leaders, I think, a little bit of a break, their lives have just been the subject of national discussion for about six months now, and as many other communities in our country know, that’s a very uncomfortable thing for a lot of First Nations people to have to deal with.
I think we need to take a breath.
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Clare O’Neil says PM ‘did the right thing’ in putting voice forward
Home affairs minister Clare O’Neil spoke to ABC radio RN Breakfast a little earlier today and was asked about whether or not Anthony Albanese was damaged over the referendum loss and said:
When you play politics that way, as it should be played, you don’t win every battle, but I personally am proud of the government for having taken this to the people as we committed to First Nations people that we would do.
On the issue of whether there was a more bipartisan approach to get more Coalition MPs onboard, O’Neil says:
I have not heard anyone who’s been close to this process make a sensible argument that it was possible to get bipartisan commitment for this proposal. I mean, think about this, the National Party and the Liberal Party effectively declared their position even before the referendum question was finalised.
Now I think questions about bipartisanship on this case are directed rightly towards them.
What I can tell you is the prime minister would put this forward and he did, he did the right thing and it was a good thing to have had the debate, one we didn’t win and we don’t win every day in politics.
But we’re really focused on issues that matter and that’s how we’ll move forward, respectively, though, on the most basic component of this, which is constitutional recognition of First Nations Australians.
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Fijian PM and wife visit Australia
The prime minister of Fiji, the Hon Sitiveni Rabuka, and Mrs Suluweti Rabuka are visiting Australia this week.
The official release from the PMO says:
The prime ministers will renew and elevate the Fiji-Australia Vuvale partnership, which has set out the shared principles and priorities of our relationship since 2019 – and work together to strengthen peace, prosperity and resilience in the Pacific.
Australia and Fiji acknowledge that climate change remains the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of our region. Both countries are committed to taking ambitious climate action and boosting disaster resilience.
This will be the first official visit to Australia by a prime minister of Fiji since 2019.
Rubuka is an official guest of the government.
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Government doing ‘everything we can’ to get Australians out of Gaza, Wong says
Speaking to ABC News Breakfast, foreign affairs minister Penny Wong said the government had been working to get Australian citizens out of Gaza, amid a “very distressing situation”.
So far, efforts have “not been successful”, she said.
We continue to do a lot of engagement with the United States, with Israel, with Egypt to try and assure passage for Australians out of Gaza.
Obviously the security situation on the ground there is extremely difficult and so far we have not been able to do that.
We will continue to do everything we can to arrange that passage.
Wong is asked about the siege on Gaza, with its electricity, food and water cut off by Israel.
She responds that “Israel has a right to defend itself”, adding: “How it does that matters.”
We would continue to urge, as we have since the beginning of these tragic, horrific events, that civilian life at all times be protected as much as is possible.
We continue to urge the observance of international law.
Q: Is what Israel is doing consistent with helping civilians?
I don’t think it’s for me here in Canberra to [pass] judgment on judgments that the Israeli government has to make in very difficult circumstances.
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The Guardian is covering what is happening in Palestine, here
Greens leader Adam Bandt says:
The motion calls for an immediate ceasefire and calls on the Australian government to work towards a just and lasting peace for both Israelis and Palestinians, which starts by ending the occupation.
The looming invasion of Gaza will make what is already a humanitarian disaster a humanitarian catastrophe.
We’re already seeing the devastating results of the violent attacks on civilians, but also the continuing war and occupation. The loss of life is staggering.
We need a ceasefire, and we need governments around the world, including the Australian government, to push for a lasting peace.
An essential element of that peace is working towards an end to the state of Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories.
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Greens to move motion on Israel and Palestine
The Greens are seeking to move a motion in both the house and the Senate on Israel and Palestine:
The motion asks that the parliament:
Condemns war crimes perpetrated by Hamas, including the premeditated targeting of Israeli civilians
Condemns war crimes perpetrated by the state of Israel, including the bombing of Palestinian civilians
Calls for all perpetrators to be held accountable for their actions in accordance with international law
Calls for an immediate ceasefire between Hamas and the state of Israel
Condemns anti-semitism, Islamophobia and racism in all its forms both in Australia and internationally
Recognises that the September 2022 report of the United Nations special rapporteur found that the occupation of Palestinian territories “is not merely belligerent, but is settler-colonial in nature and that Israel has prevented the realisation of Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, violating each component of that right, wilfully pursuing the ‘de-Palestinianisation’ of the occupied territory”.
Recognises that for there to be peace there must be an end to the state of Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories
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Three flights with Australians leave Israel
Foreign affairs minister Penny Wong has confirmed that three charter flights carrying Australian citizens have now left Tel Aviv for Dubai, en route to Australia.
About 250* Australians departed Israel onboard the flights, Wong said, on two RAAF planes and one private fleet contracted flight.
Wong indicated that some people cancelled at the last minute, choosing not to take the flights. The government is looking to arrange a further flight today (Israeli time) but Wong warned: “People should consider that may be our last flight for the foreseeable future”.
I’ve been saying for some days ... that if people wish to leave, that they should take the first available option – they should not wait for another option.
An earlier version of this post listed the figure as 1200 – that is how many people have left since the conflict began, not the number of people on flights.
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Good morning
Good morning and welcome back to Politics Live and parliament.
It’s going to be a very uncomfortable week for the Labor government. The Coalition – particularly Peter Dutton – is feeling emboldened by the decisive loss of the voice referendum and now feel they’re officially back in the game. Which was the main point of opposing the referendum.
Dutton will seek to leverage the result, and will begin pushing for an audit into the money spent in the Indigenous portfolio, as well as a royal commission into child sexual abuse in Indigenous communities. He says he’ll be led by senator Jacinta Price in how the Coalition moves forward – so one voice. Price, who doesn’t believe colonisation has any ongoing negative impacts on Indigenous people, will help formulate Coalition Indigenous policy with her South Australian Liberal colleague, Kerrynne Liddle.
Dutton might even hold a press conference in Canberra – which would be his first since June. It’s that sort of week.
Meanwhile, Anthony Albanese will continue to deal with the fallout of the referendum loss, but no one is speaking like it’s terminal. Bob Hawke lost a couple while prime minister (including one on religious freedom provisions) and the government kept ticking along, but at the same time, no one is pretending that it hasn’t been a blow to the government (outside of the blow to Indigenous people who supported the voice). Foreign affairs and the cost of living will become the main focus – Albanese is off next week to the US, where he will be a guest at a White House state dinner, and then there is the trip to China shortly after.
This week the focus will be Israel and Palestine. So far, the government has remained lockstep in its support of Israel, although in the past day there have been stronger calls for Israeli leaders to follow the rules of war. It’s still been the bare minimum – Australia may have committed some initial funding to the humanitarian response for citizens in Gaza, but the official line of support for Israel has been maintained. The parliament will hold a moment of reflection over the situation later today. Despite not moving in its support of Israel, the government has been under political attack from the opposition, which weaponised calls for restraint in the loss of civilian lives. That didn’t stop over the weekend – Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie accused the prime minister of “not being able to get out of his yes shirt” and visit the Jewish community. Sussan Ley, once a prominent supporter of Palestinians in the parliament, has also been critical, labelling the calls for restraint from Penny Wong (who was talking in the context of the loss of civilian lives) as “disgraceful”.
So that’s the week we are all walking in to. Nuance is dead, as is good faith. It’s all open game right now and that does not bode well for anyone. Especially not those hoping to maintain some trust in democracy. It’s Tony Abbott tactics with a liberal dash of Trumpian declarations and it only looks like getting worse.
You’ll have Katharine Murphy to guide you through it, along with Paul Karp, Daniel Hurst, Josh Butler and Sarah Basford Canales. Mike Bowers is with us and you have Amy Remeikis on the blog.
Ready? Me either. Alas, let’s get into it.
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