Daily Telegraph Editorial: Trade unions seeking to exploit the High Court’s ‘Citizenship 7’ non-eligibility ruling

IN AUGUST, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull volunteered a prediction on the outcome of the High Court’s investigation of Barnaby Joyce’s parliamentary eligibility. He was wrong.

IN AUGUST, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull volunteered a prediction on the outcome of the High Court’s investigation of Barnaby Joyce’s parliamentary eligibility.

“The government is very confident that the court will not find the member for New England is disqualified from being a member of this house. Very confident indeed,” Turnbull told parliament as Joyce, one of our nation’s more prominent dual Australian and New Zealand citizens, sat nearby.

“The leader of the National Party, the deputy prime minister, is qualified to sit in this house and the High Court will so hold.”

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull

Sadly for the government, the High Court did not so hold — and that might just be the start of the government’s grief.

Trade unions are now seeking to exploit the High Court’s non-eligibility ruling for both Joyce and his former National Party deputy Fiona Nash by potentially running legal challenges against legislation narrowly passed during their time in office.

“We are keenly aware that Mr Joyce illegitimately sat in parliament, debated and voted to cut penalty rates,” Australian Council of Trade Unions boss Sally McManus told The Daily Telegraph.

“This decision gave the government the one vote it needed to cut the wages of 700,000 retail, pharmacy and hospitality workers.”

McManus confirmed that legal advice was being sought as to whether unions could challenge what she describes as Joyce’s “illegitimate votes” against a reversal of the February penalty rate cuts.

Legal advice to be released by Labor today declares the likelihood of challenges against decisions made by the two former senior Nationals “is high”, which, depending on various factors, could lead to anything from a standard political pointscoring stoush all the way up to a serious courtroom case.

The Attorney-General Senator George Brandis appearing at a Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture Kym Smith

According to Attorney-General George Brandis, however, the government is not unduly concerned, telling Sky News there were “no legal consequences here at all”.

His colleagues will be hoping that this time Brandis is correct. Back in August, following Prime Minister Turnbull’s comments, Brandis told the ABC: “The Prime Minister is a very accomplished lawyer and has practised before the High Court and knows that better than anyone.”

Get ready for some legal challenges, then.

SIR NINIAN STEPHEN, A DIGNIFIED GOVERNOR-GENERAL

Sir Ninian Stephen, Governor-General (1984-1989) with then prime minister Bob Hawke

Even by the dignified standards of most Australian governors-general subsequent to Sir John Kerr, Sir Ninian Stephen was notably unnoticeable. This is not a criticism. Far from it. From 1982 until 1989, Sir Ninian — who died yesterday aged 94 — carried out his responsibilities with a quiet dignity perfectly befitting his role. He will be remembered as a fine governor-general and a proud patriot whose love of his adopted country was demonstrated by his WWII service with the Australian Army.

In so many ways, Sir Ninian set a brilliant example for the generations who followed. He was a great Australian.

THERE’S NO ROOM FOR THE GARBOS

Anne Marshall, from Thornton, lives on Sydney Smith Drive but has to wheel her bins from Cannonball Lane behind her home to William Hart Crescent for them to be collected. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Space. Australia has tons of it. According to a United Nations ranking of nations by population density, Australia is 235th out of 241. We have fewer than four people for every square kilometre of land.

Compare those figures with the most densely populated region, Macau, which crams nearly 19,000 people into every square kilometre of its tiny territory. Or compare Australia’s density with that of the entire planet. We have fewer than four people for each square kilometre while the world average is 50. So we can afford to stretch out a little — unless, of course, you live in one of Western Sydney’s new housing estates. These mini-Macaus have been built with such narrow streets that garbage trucks cannot fit down them, forcing drivers and residents alike into ridiculously awkward bin-day manoeuvres.

Some residents haul their garbage all the way to other streets. Garbage truck drivers perform intricate six-point turns to access pick-up zones. Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils chief executive Charles Casuscelli explains matters in the simplest possible terms: “The trucks can’t turn around or fit inside the areas for the garbage bins.”

Whoever approved these truck-proof streets might be slightly dense themselves.