2020 in federal politics: Bushfires, scandals, leadership spills and then COVID
From dealing with bushfires to navigating a pandemic, it was an unforgettable 2020 for our federal politicians. Here are the big stories that defined the year.
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The year started with the nation on fire, heat on the prime minister over an ill-advised Hawaiian holiday and a treasurer preparing to deliver the first Budget surplus in a decade.
But in the end, normal politics were blown off course and 2020 will only be remembered for one thing: COVID-19.
Here are the big federal politics stories that defined 2020.
BUSHFIRES
Australia was blanketed in a haze of smoke on New Year’s Day leading newspapers around the world to splash pictures of the nation ablaze across their front pages.
But Australia’s bushfire emergency was only just ramping up as the hottest and driest year on record along with a pervasive drought turned virtually the entire country into a tinder box.
The fires eventually burned through 24m hectares, killed 33 people, destroyed 3,000 homes and cost $10bn.
On the back foot over its climate policies, the government called a Royal Commission to establish how national emergencies could be handled better.
The final 80 recommendations zeroed in on improving co-ordination of all levels of government; better warning systems for the public; improved firefighting resources; and savvier use of the Australian Defence Force.
IRAN PASSENGER JET
The year started more normally on the international stage as the Middle East appeared on the verge of yet another war with Iran and the USA trading tit-for-tat provocations.
US President Donald Trump kicked things off with a drone strike that killed Iran’s infamous spy master Qassem Soleimani.
Iran retaliated by launching a ballistic missile attack on Iraqi military bases housing US troops before a Ukrainian passenger jet was blown apart just after taking off from Tehran, killing all 176 on board.
With nerves jangling on all sides, the Iran Government eventually owned up to an itchy trigger finger inside its military, allowing both sides to step back from the brink.
NATIONALS ATTEMPTED LEADERSHIP SPILL
The Nationals started their centenary year trying to knife Leader Michael McCormack but only managed to shoot themselves in the foot.
Outspoken former leader Barnaby Joyce launched the challenge but failed to secure the numbers despite strong support from Matt Canavan, who resigned as resources minister to back his former boss.
But when the votes were tallied McCormack stayed, Canavan left for the backbench and Queenslanders Keith Pitt and David Littleproud emerged as the biggest winners.
Pitt replaced Canavan in the resources portfolio while Agriculture Minister David Littleproud seized the mantle as heir apparent to the leadership.
Wide Bay MP Llew O’Brien was so incensed by the direction the Nationals were going that he quit but stayed inside the Coalition and managed find himself elevated to Deputy Speaker after some shrewd parliamentary tactics from Labor.
McCormack hung on for the rest of the year as leader despite continual rumblings about his performance and O’Brien eventually returned to the fold.
PANDEMIC
In 100 years, COVID-19 is the only thing 2020 will be remembered for but the early reports of a mystery virus spreading through a little-known Chinese city did little to shift most Australians from their summer holiday torpor.
However a small band of previously unheralded doctors atop the Commonwealth and state medical systems were seeing alarms flashing everywhere.
Authorities moved swiftly to ban travel from the epicentre of Wuhan before expanding it to include all of China.
Australia beat the World Health Organisation into declaring the situation a pandemic and rapidly began preparing the health system as experts warned of an impending disaster if the virus got out of control.
NATIONAL CABINET
The spread of the virus globally quickly made the government’s pandemic manuals redundant, forcing the PM and state leaders to make up their own rules.
They responded by ditching all their advisers and hangers-on to arrange a National Cabinet involving just themselves and the chief medical officer.
The body was operating even before those involved knew exactly how it would work.
Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese push to get a seat at the table was rebuffed.
The plan was a masterstroke and, despite a few testy moments when it seemed like falling apart, National Cabinet met 32 times and eventually led to the abolishment of the much-loathed COAG process.
It became the control centre for decisions that managed save Australia (so far) from the disaster unfolding overseas as leaders transformed the country in ways previously unthinkable outside of war time.
International and state borders closed, citizens were locked down, public gatherings banned, playgrounds closed and handshaking discouraged to limit the spread of the virus.
Most of the seismic changes were announced from the PM’s courtyard, sometimes late in the night, as a nervous nation became conversant in the joys of a political press conference.
DELAYED BUDGET
The Liberal Party went early. “Back in Black” coffee mugs were sold for $35 online in anticipation of Treasurer Josh Frydenberg handing down the first surplus in a decade at the May Budget.
But even as the mugs rolled off the production line, the ”surplus” was disappearing down the biggest financial hole Australia had seen since the Great Depression.
As COVID cut a swath through the nation’s finances, boffins admitted their estimates were, at best, a guess, forcing the government to delay the Budget until October to give them a chance to make sense of the numbers rolling in.
On the latest figures, the projected surplus will come in as a $200bn deficit while debt is expected to peak at 43 per cent of GDP in 2024.
The biggest drain on the budget was the massive $90bn JobKeeper program.
Frydenberg said it was money well spent with the program at one point supporting 3.3m workers.
It also helped stave off the dire predictions of unemployment reaching double figures.
Employment and GDP both recorded record falls as Australia dropped into its first recession in nearly three decades.
But heading into 2021, the nightmare predictions of economic gloom have been largely avoided.
TRADE WAR
It’s unlikely China’s leaders tune in to ABC Insiders but the April 19 edition of the show landed with a thud in Beijing.
Foreign Minister Marise Payne’s call for an international investigation into the origins of the coronavirus immediately angered China which in true Communist style was trying to suppress all information about what really happened inside its borders while floating incredulous alternative theories for how the virus started.
It wasn’t clear if Payne’s comments were a well-defined policy announcement or a minister getting caught up in the moment but, when the PM backed her in a few days later, it didn’t matter.
China fumed and a week later Beijing’s man in Canberra thundered that the Morrison government risked economic repercussions over ‘politically motivated’ calls for an inquiry.
Then Beijing slapped an 80 per cent tariff on Australian barley. Was this the start of a trade war?
The Australian Government downplayed the situation but as Beijing followed up with strikes against beef, coal, wine, cotton, timber and seafood it seemed pretty obvious what was happening.
When wine exports were slapped with tariffs of up to 212 per cent in November, the Government finally acknowledged the obvious.
New Trade Minister Dan Tehan will have to pull out all his tricks from his years as a diplomat to turn things around in 2021.
RORTS AND SCANDALS
A colour-coded spreadsheet, four luxury watches and a wildly overpriced parcel of land gave the government headaches at different points during the year.
In the so-called sports rorts scandal, a damming report from the Audit Office found the Morrison Government had used a $100m community grants program as a massive pork-barrelling slush fund prior to the 2019 federal election.
The scandal widened after further revelations that then sports minister Bridget McKenzie’s office had orchestrated the operation using colour-coded spread sheets to direct money to marginal and targeted seats.
Senator McKenzie eventually fell on her sword but only after the PM directed his department to investigate the affair and discovered that she had failed to declare a $30 membership in a gun club that received a grant.
Another to lose her job was Australia Post boss Christine Holgate after it emerged in Senate Estimates that she had approved the purchase of four luxury watches worth a combined $20,000 to give to executives.
Her days in the $1.5m job were numbered when the PM labelled the spending “disgraceful”.
The PM was not so vocal, however, when another investigation from the audit office revealed the government had paid $30m for a parcel of land worth only $3m.
The AFP is still investigating the massive overspend for the 12 hectare Leppington Triangle near the Western Sydney Airport.
LABOR LEADERSHIP TENSIONS
Anthony Albanese spent much of the year fighting to be heard as the pandemic focused the media and public’s attention squarely onto incumbent leaders.
But at times his biggest problems were behind his own back.
Right faction supremo Joel Fitzgibbon tried to drag Labor back to the centre on climate issues and provide a coherent position on the future of coal.
Despite never failing to grab headlines for his positions while in Shadow Cabinet, Fitzgibbon abruptly quit Labor’s front bench in November so he could speak up more vocally on the issues.
Fitzgibbon never challenged for the leadership but could be a stalking horse for a challenge in 2021.
BRERETON REPORT
What started out years ago as dark rumours of Australian special forces soldiers unlawfully killing Afghans were finally laid bare in a report that detailed what was called “the most shameful chapter in the nation’s military history”.
The Brereton Report accused up to 25 soldiers of murdering 39 Afghan civilians.
The revelations shocked a nation and Defence’s top brass as General Angus Campbell, a former special forces officer, blasted the culture that had built up in the units, called for 3000 soldiers to be stripped of prized meritorious unit citation and handed the allegations to the AFP to investigate.
Campbell and Defence Minister Linda Reynolds both came under heavy and sustained criticism for their handling of the report’s release and will be spending much of 2021 trying to limit the damage to Defence morale.
UNI FEES
The cost of university degrees was given a shake up with the changes due to start from next year.
The Job Ready Graduates scheme will drop the cost of studying education, English, mathematics, agriculture, health and science degrees.
But humanities students will have their costs double to $14,500, while law, economics and commerce students will get a moderate increase.
While the Morrison Government backed the scheme as encouraging students into degrees where there was demand for jobs, Labor criticised it for making it harder for many would-be students to get access to higher education.
IR REFORMS
The parliamentary year was capped off with what will start the big fight for 2021, industrial relations reforms.
A series of roundtables between employer groups, unions and government officials were held over the course of the year to workshop new laws to update overly complex IR rules and regulations, with a particular focus on post-pandemic recovery.
In the final week of Parliament for the year Attorney-General Christian Porter revealed the proposed legislation, which included tough penalties for wage theft, a definition for casuals with a pathway to permanency, as well as part-time changes which could see workers pick up more shifts but without penalty rates.
The most controversial changes, which would see exemptions to the Better Off Overall Test for new EBA in businesses hard hit by COVID, were already a flash point and could be walked back.
RESHUFFLE
It was more a tweak than an overhaul but the PM is hoping his new-look Cabinet will hit the ground running in 2021.
The moves, announced in late December, were necessitated by the resignation of Finance Minister Mathias Cormann who left after the Budget.
The PM plugged the hole with the capable Simon Birmingham, who spent most of 2020 dealing with China’s trade war.
In 2021, that job will fall to former DFAT official Dan Tehan with his post as education minister going to Alan Tudge.
Most other faces will stay the same with a slight juggling of responsibilities.
With the PM opting for stability instead of a revamp, don’t expect a major shift in policy direction in 2021.
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