Blame it on the short week, blame it on seasonal delirium, blame it on the eclipse.
But there was something in the air this week in parliament, and it wasn’t harmony.
It’s that time of year when the sun doesn’t rise until after 7am in Canberra and starts going down shortly after 5pm, sparking an existential crisis that feels as though you’re running out of time.
And the Albanese government is. Australia’s three-year federal election cycle means we are well and truly in the back end of this term and that means everything is on a deadline.
The promised religious discrimination legislation looks like being one of the casualties, unless there is some sort of come-to-Jesus moment in the major parties where politics is put aside for the greater good.
In this parliament, that seems unlikely. Anthony Albanese has not been shy about making it known he wants to run a “middle of the road” government. And that means negotiating with the Coalition on bills, at least when it comes to national security, the economy, major social justice issues and borders to try to find that middle ground.
But as we saw this week, Labor will never be able to do enough to appease a Coalition led by Peter Dutton.
If Margaret Thatcher felt her greatest achievement was New Labour, then Dutton must be feeling pretty happy with Labor’s moves in the home affairs realm.
The deportation legislation is the latest example of Labor attempting to get ahead of Coalition attacks, only to find itself in a political quagmire of its own making.
Trying to out-Dutton Peter Dutton – an uber-Dutton if you will – means Labor is not winning on the politics or the policy. It is also increasingly frustrating grassroots supporters who are watching the party’s policy platform morph into something unrecognisable.
It’s also alarmed the crossbench, with the independent Warringah MP, Zali Steggall, telling the ABC:
This week was definitely, from my perspective, a very disappointing week in our relations with the government. We have had a very good working relationship where they have been very constructive, willing to brief the crossbench and myself on a number of pieces of legislation, and as to their plans and where things go.
But this week, Monday, we saw the cutting short of the debate in relation to the offshore gas bill, where members of the crossbench were not permitted to do their second reading speeches, and then on Tuesday we saw, I think blind-sided with a very short debate time on a very serious piece of legislation.
There is no more parliament until budget week starting 7 May. That doesn’t mean any of this will be forgotten, just that the focus will shift. But with more high court cases in the pipeline and the Coalition seeking to make political hay while the home affairs sun shines, Dutton suddenly finds himself with a lot to smile about.
One of the most famous quotes about journalism is that it is meant to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. (In truth, a lot of journalism is closer to the actual quote the phrase was taken from.)
Tears or no tears?
It wouldn’t be Auspol though without mixing things up, which is how most of Wednesday was spent getting to the bottom of whether a very powerful public servant was brought to tears after a dressing down from her minister and not looking at the law, or the people that law would affect, that sparked the alleged tear-gate.
Putting aside that someone who spent more than 20 years in defence and intelligence could apparently be brought to tears by an angry Clare O’Neil, Sussan Ley was determined to get to the bottom of whether a single salty teardrop had tracked its way down Stephanie Foster’s cheek. Readers may remember Foster from a separate eye-related controversy: 2021’s wink-gate.
Ley asked O’Neil five different ways if sparks of fire had led to drops of tears (to misquote Shakespeare) and O’Neil found five different ways not to answer.
That led the Liberals’ hawkiest of security hawks, James Paterson, to take up the tear-gate baton, and he did so with gusto in Senate estimates, asking Foster whether or not the government was concerned Foster had tabled a document detailing the criminal record of people released as a result of the high court’s NZYQ decision.
Paul Karp said it became a somewhat testy exchange before a steely-eyed Foster cut to the chase:
The [home affairs] minister [Clare O’Neil] and I will always discuss the estimates process in a routine way. The reports that the minister verbally abused me are absolutely baseless. I would like to echo comments made by the ministers, that my relationship with both [O’Neil and the immigration minister, Andrew Giles] is very close, very constructive … At no point, on that occasion, or ever, has minister O’Neil verbally abused me.
The strength of relationships [between ministers and public servants] depends on having trusted conversations. [What matters is] not whether or not who said what to whom, but whether I felt or feel any sense of pressure or influence to behave in any way other than with complete integrity.
Paterson begun his questioning by saying he would never question Foster’s independence – but as the hearing went on and Foster and the border force chief, Michael Outram, didn’t have answers for him about the criminality of the 73 without ankle bracelets, his tune changed, implying they were covering up for the government (which they denied).
We are assured the only cries arising from the estimates hearing were metaphorical.
Ute beauty
No one could ever accuse Bridget McKenzie of not sticking to a line. Or letting facts get in the way of that line. The Nationals senator was sent out to argue that Labor’s fuel efficiency standard, which seems to have made the motoring industry and environmental groups if not jump for joy, then at least not burn everything down, is a tax.
It’s not a tax. It’s an incentive for car manufacturers to make and sell more fuel-efficient cars. But McKenzie wants someone to PLEASE THINK OF THE UTE DRIVERS, and she’ll continue to say it’s a tax until a LandCruiser melts into the ground. Even though she hasn’t read the legislation. Even though the boss of Toyota said it wasn’t a tax. Even though it’s not a tax. McKenzie will hold the line. She told Josh Butler:
If I’m wrong, get them to release the modelling on the price impact, get them to release the modelling on their new plan, get them to release the price impact that it will have for cars, the emissions impact it will have for our economy and the choice of cars available.
Dutton had another idea of why the Toyota boss said it wasn’t a tax, telling Sydney radio host Ray Hadley in his weekly love-in:
Yeah, it was like they were holding his family captive until he made the comments and then they’d release them. It was ridiculous, really.
But Dutton did let slip the Coalition had a second policy it would be taking to the election – it’s no longer just nuclear.
We’re going to go to the election with a clear policy that the HiLux and the LandCruiser and the Ranger and the BT-50 and others will be literally thousands and thousands of dollars more expensive under Mr Albanese than they will be under a Coalition government.
So there you have it. Nuclear and what looks like the end of any fuel-efficiency standard this government may pass. Good times.
Dream team?
The Senate can create strange bedfellows at times – for example, the Greens and the Coalition have had the odd team-up (and did so this week to send the deportation legislation to committee).
But more than a few eyebrows were raised when the United Australia party senator Ralph Babet, who seems to spend a lot of his time attempting to attract the attention of Donald Trump, announced the progressive independent senator David Pocock was a co-sponsor of a motion he was putting forward.
Babet made his fifth attempt to have “excessive” deaths in Australia looked at through a Senate inquiry, and this time, with Pocock and Jacqui Lambie’s names attached, managed to get a majority of the Senate to agree. Babet is motivated by some theories floating around about Covid, but Pocock told us he sees something to be investigated.
Pocock said public health experts had raised concerns with him about the number of deaths in Australia being above levels they would normally expect. He wants to see what the actual drivers might be behind the data. So he worked with Babet to broaden the inquiry to see what’s been going on.
He said:
My preference is always to work collaboratively across the parliament on inquiries that will deliver the best outcomes for our community and that’s what I tried to do here together with Senator Lambie by amending the terms of reference.
Maroon melee
Honourable mention to Graham Perrett’s competitive drive which this week led to a bit of Queenslander-on-Queenslander friendly fire, with Matt Canavan’s head coming off second best in a knock with Perrett’s noggin.
The pair were on the same side for a football friendly at the Parliament House oval, but nothing will take Perrett’s eye off the prize – not even a teammate. The collision left Perrett with a bloody cut across his nose, but Canavan was left with a pretty big gash above a bloodshot eye. Both were looked over and given the all-clear (we hear Canavan became acquainted with Canberra hospital’s ER waiting room) but were laughing about it less than a day later. Queenslanders.
