PoliticsNow: John Setka resigns from Labor Party amid move to expel him
As John Setka exits Labor, Anthony Albanese says the party will continue to take donations from the militant construction union.
- Setka resigns from Labor party
- Official gave contract to son’s employer
- Big stick bill passes House
- Bipartisan call over sex abuser
- ‘Ignore fake Keneally’
Hello and welcome to PoliticsNow, The Australian’s live blog on the happenings at Parliament House in Canberra.
John Setka has resigned from the Labor Party following months of turmoil and internal anger over his conduct. He’s not going quietly.
The CFMEU Victorian secretary had been fighting Anthony Albanese’s bid to remove him from the ALP but today withdrew his appeal.
The Victorian Supreme Court threw out Mr Setka’s legal fight against his expulsion, finding it was not within the court’s jurisdiction, but he had intended to appeal that decision.
Greg Brown 10.54pm: More competition in interest-only mortgage market: APRA
Australian Prudential Regulation Authority chairman Wayne Byres says there has been a pickup in interest-only mortgage lending since the banking regulator dropped its “stress test” requirements on home loans.
Mr Byres said there had been more competition in the interest-only mortgage market since July, when APRA dropped its requirement that banks assess a borrower’s ability to pay a loan based on a 7.25 per cent interest rate.
“At a high level, interest-only lending is running at less than 20 per cent of lending. There has been a little bit of a pick up lately and banks have certainly been competing harder for that type of business,” Mr Byres said at Senate Estimates on Wednesday evening.
“If you look at some of the bank announcements about interest rate pass-throughs, quite often they had passed more through to interest only customers than principal and interest customers.
“The interest rate differential between interest only loans and principal-interest loans has narrowed.”
But he said the biggest growth in lending since the regulation change was to owner occupiers making principal payments on their home loan.
“It has made credit marginally easier to get. It was having an unintended consequence because the floor was most binding on those customers that naturally received the lowest rate. And those were owner occupiers paying principal and interest,” Mr Byres said.
“From our perspective they are the safer customers, all other things being equal, rather than investors paying interest only. So it was impacting to some extent the wrong customers most of all.”
Mr Byres said APRA’s funding would need to be bolstered by between 10 and 20 per cent to run as recommended in the Capability Review. The review, launched after the banking royal commission, was highly critical of the banking regulator.
“If we wish to fulfil all of the recommendations of the Capability Review to the extent that we should then that will require some additional resourcing and that is currently being discussed with government,” Mr Byres said.
“The areas we have called out are more (staff) in superannuation, more on cyber-related risks in the financial system, a broader up skilling of our staff, and on the resolution piece of our work.
“They were the areas called out by the review, where they said we should be doing more than we currently are.”
Mr Byres said the bank licensing overhaul set up “a couple of years ago” and increased increased competition in the sector.
“There have been more new banks licensed in the last year than in any year in the last two decades,” Mr Byres said.
“There is not hundreds of them but we have got some that have got through the process so it shows it can be done. And we have got quite a pipeline of other candidates coming along the way.”
Greg Brown 8.14pm: Labor won’t cut ties with CFMMEU
Anthony Albanese says Labor will continue to take donations from the militant construction union, despite John Setka being a leading figure in its Victorian division.
The Opposition Leader said Mr Setka’s values were “not the same as Australian Labor” after the CFMEU Victorian secretary quit the party because of moves to expel him.
But Mr Albanese said Labor would not cut ties with the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union, despite Mr Setka’s continued involvement.
“The CFMEU is affiliated to the Labor Party, and the CFMEU represents construction workers, people in mining, people in energy,” Mr Albanese told the ABC.
“We want to represent working people. We don’t shy away from the connections that we have with the trade union movement.
“Part of our organisational structure is the affiliation of the unions. I support unions having input into the Labor Party because what that does is make sure that we can keep in touch with what’s happening in workplaces.”
Mr Albanese defended the CFMEU as an important player in the construction sector, despite its record of flouting the law and its refusal to dump Mr Setka.
“If you took the construction union out of the sector, what you would have is far greater accidents on sites,” Mr Albanese said.
“You would have real issues with occupational health and safety, but also with wages and conditions, with underpayment, with exploitation. The trade union movement plays a vital role in our democracy and in civil society.
“Overwhelmingly construction workers and organisers go to work to make a difference to their co-workers each and every day, and I am very familiar with many people in that union. They’re people that I respect.
“Where bad behaviour occurs, it should be called out. I’ve done that. I’ve acted.”
Olivia Caisley 4.40pm: MPs warned on name-calling
Labor spent question time trying to drag the Liberals into questions regarding industrial relations and the drought in an hour that saw the tetchiness seen in yesterday’s session turned up a notch.
A sense of frustration was palpable in the chamber, leading Speaker Tony Smith to threaten to sit braying MPs down for their constant interjections.
He also warned MPs were “slipping back” into bad name-calling habits after Energy Minister Angus Taylor accused Labor MP Steve Georganas of being a “no-friends Nigel” when it came to his ability to garner support for declaring a climate emergency.
But despite Mr Smith’s warnings, Scott Morrison levelled a similar attack on opposition Treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers.
“The shadow Treasurer served at the knee of Mr [Wayne] Swan … he’s at one with the former treasurer. He’s Obi-Swan Kenobi. As he looks up to his great mentor with whom he merges and he hears him say ‘Use the taxes Jimmy, use the taxes’,” the Prime Minister said.
Opposition industrial relations Tony Burke moved a gag order to stop Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton from speaking after he used a dixer to lash Labor’s Medivac legislation.
The motion split the independent MPs even though they traditionally oppose gag motions.
The fiery session was a step-up from Tuesday when multiple Labor MPs, including opposition education spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek, were ejected from the chamber.
Dennis Shanahan 3.15pm: Move to gag Dutton
After weeks of complaining Government ministers won’t answer questions, the Opposition moves a gag motion against Minister Peter Dutton in Question time. The motion splits the independent MPs who traditionally oppose gag motions.
Olivia Caisley 2.55pm: Integrity bill attacked
Opposition industrial relations spokesman Tony Burke asks why Attorney-General Christian Porter “won’t admit” new Ensuring Integrity legislation would give businesses “a weapon to avoid scrutiny and get away with appalling behaviour.”
Mr Porter rejects the claim as “patently false.”
“That is 100 per cent false. Nothing in the Ensuring Integrity Bill changes one iota of the rule about the present rights to access workplaces for Occupational Health & Safety reasons.”
It follows a previous question from Labor backbencher Ed Husic regarding how many workers have died in workplace accidents over the last year — a question, Attorney-General Christian Porter took on notice.
“I will take that on notice and provide the number, any number above zero is too many,” Mr Porter said. “This government takes very seriously those issues.”
Debbie Schipp 2.45pm: Setka’s blazing exit
John Setka has gone out all guns blazing, launching an attack on Labor leader Anthony Albanese.
In a scathing broadside in the wake of his departure from the Labor party, the controversial union boss said could “no longer stand by and watch Anthony Albanese trash the traditional values of the Labor Party and the Union Movement”,
“The core values on which the Labor party was built have been totally eroded under Mr Albanese’s leadership and I cannot support him as a member of the ALP any longer.”
Mr Setka said his “decision” to resign after 15 years as a member of the ALP was “a personal decision I have made; it will not affect The CFMEU Vic/Tas branch’s ability to advocate within the Labor Party for better policies on behalf of CFMEU members and working Australians.”
Mr Setka accused Mr Albanese of a “smear campaign” to oust him, “based on a lie that he denigrated family violence campaigner Rosie Batty at the National Executive meeting — a lie that had been exposed by those who attended the meeting”.
The dragging of his personal life into the campaign was a low blow, he said.
“Enough is enough. I can no longer ignore the effect this is having on my family, along with Anthony Albanese’s betrayal of working Australians and the core values of the Labor Party and Union Movement.”
Geoff Chambers 2.40pm: MP stalked on campaign trail
Liberal MP Nicolle Flint was forced to take a police order out against a stalker who followed her campaign events with a “zoom lens camera” and pursued her online launching personal attacks on his social media pages.
The 41-year-old, targeted by GetUp, the unions and Labor at the May 18 election, has also outlined the “sexist” harassment and intimidation tactics used against her during the campaign including the defacement of her campaign vehicle and office. Read more here.
Ben Packham 2.35pm: Former Tuvalu PM attacks Morrison on aid
Former Tuvalu prime minister Enele Sopoaga has criticised Scott Morrison’s pledge of $500 million in climate change aid to the Pacific, arguing “most of this money will never leave Australia”.
In a speech in Sydney on Wednesday, Mr Sopoaga intensified his criticism of Mr Morrison’s refusal to commit to deeper carbon emissions cuts at the Pacific Island Forum, accusing him of prioritising “making money” over the lives of Pacific islanders.
Mr Sopoaga, who was voted out of office soon after hosting this year’s PIF in August, told the Australian Council for International Development that Mr Morrison’s Pacific step-up “was in fact a step-down”.
“As the PIF chairman, I was stunned by the un-Pacific tenor and manner of the Australian PM to water down the wording of the communique and to limit the concerns about climate change, much against the concerns and tears of the Pacific Island Leaders,” he said.
“Sadly, making money took over saving lives in small island developing states.”
Mr Sopoaga said Mr Morrison’s $500 million commitment of climate change made to PIF leaders, which was drawn from other areas of the aid program, was insignificant compared to the costs inflicted on Pacific Islands “from burning of coal and fossil fuels in Australia”.
“We also know that most of this money will never leave Australia and will go to large consulting firms that may have former Ministers on their board,” he said, referring to former foreign minister Julia Bishop’s appointment to the board of aid contractor Palladium.
“As a consequence, other important developing assistance programs will suffer from the reshuffling of aid funding. No doubt, your organisations are noticing this reallocation.”
Mr Morrison stared down Pacific counterparts at PIF, rejecting calls for “an immediate global ban” on new coalmines and coal-fired power plants, or going carbon neutral by 2050.
Olivia Caisley 2.30pm: Burke’s ‘absurd’ wage claim
Opposition industrial relations spokesman Tony Burke asks Scott Morrison to confirm cuts to penalty rates and taxes on unions are a “deliberate design feature of the Morrison government’s plan to keep wages low?”.
Attorney-General Christian Porter calls the claim “absurd”.
“The lowest paid workers have never seen a real wage decrease under the Coalition,” Mr Porter says. “Under Labor, the minimum wage was cut in real terms three out of six years. Three out of six years.”
Olivia Caisley 2.25pm: Resource industry ‘not to blame’ for drought
Greens crossbencher Adam Bandt asks Scott Morrison when he will apologise to regional communities facing water shortages for making climate change worse by exporting thermal coal.
“The member makes references that the resources industry is to blame for the drought. I do not share that view,” the Prime Minister says. “I don’t share that view because the resources sector is, and has always been one of the greatest supporters of rural communities in this country.”
Olivia Caisley 2.20pm: Wages ‘growing’: Frydenberg
Labor leader Anthony Albanese asks Scott Morrison to answer when he will present a plan to get wages moving again.
Josh Frydenberg responds, saying: “I can confirm that real wages is growing at 0.7 per cent, which is above the historical average of 0.6 per cent and compared to just 0.5 per cent when Labor was last in office.”
“Do not look at what Labor says, look at what Labor does and when it comes to the economy,” the Treasurer says. “We are the only party that delivers more jobs, lower taxes and a balanced Budget.”
Olivia Caisley 2.15pm: ‘Insidious disease’ of drought
Labor MP Lisa Chesters asks Scott Morrison to answer what the government is doing by way of financial support for people who depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, but might not necessarily be farmers.
The Prime Minister says the government’s “comprehensive drought response” includes additional tax incentives for contractors who work at farms, as well as $50 million in grants to farmers for work on farm watering infrastructure.
Drought Minister David Littleproud steps up to the dispatch box and thanks Ms Chester for her question “because it underlies the complexity of the drought” and that it “reaches far beyond the farm gate.”
“The Future Drought Fund will continue to deliver programs and will give the resilience we need in the future,” Mr Littleproud says. “That’s how you tackle the insidious disease that is drought.”
Olivia Caisley 2.05pm: We have a drought strategy: PM
Opposition agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon kicks off question time by asking if Scott Morrison will release a national drought strategy.
The Prime Minister says the government is already implementing a drought strategy.
“It began with the establishment of the National drought future fund, combined with measures to support Farm Household Assistance directly to farmers and their families around this country.”
Rosie Lewis 2pm: Setka removed from Labor
John Setka has resigned from the Labor Party following months of turmoil and anger over his conduct.
The CFMEU Victorian secretary had been fighting Anthony Albanese’s bid to remove him from the ALP but today withdrew his appeal.
The Victorian Supreme Court threw out Mr Setka’s legal fight against his expulsion, finding it was not within the court’s jurisdiction, but he had intended to appeal that decision.
“His membership of the party was suspended. Today he withdrew that appeal and he submitted his resignation to the Victorian branch of the Australian Labor Party. It’s a very satisfactory result in the interests of the Labor Party and might I say in the interests of trade union people everywhere,” the Opposition Leader said.
“This is something that I think is important. It’s been important that we demonstrate Labor’s values as a party are greater than any individual and that we’re prepared to stand up for those values.
“I thought over a long period of time through his actions he demonstrated values that were not consistent with the values which the Australian Labor Party holds dear. One of those values is respect for women. The fact that he’d been convicted of breaching a family violence order and the fact he was also convicted and pleaded guilty to harassment indicates that’s the case.
“There’s also been a range of activities which are in breach of both the Victorian rules of the ALP and the values of the Australian Labor Party.”
A meeting of the ALP’s national executive was scheduled for Friday.
Breaking: Opposition leader Anthony Albanese has announced John Setka has been removed as a member from the Labor party. More to come over @australian #auspol pic.twitter.com/r27o3uPHzZ
— Olivia Caisley (@livcaisley) October 23, 2019
Olivia Caisley 1.42pm: NFF sends message ‘it’s all too hard’
Opposition agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon has lashed the National Farmers Federation over their proposed exit scheme for farmers, declaring the response indicated it was “all too hard”
Speaking on Sky News on Wednesday Mr Fitzgibbon said he was disappointed by the NFF’s proposal that farming families hit by extended drought should be handed “exit packages” to leave the land.
The proposal is one of a suite of measures the NFF has asked the government to consider.
But Mr Fitzgibbon questioned the plan, saying he feared for the nation’s food security if farmers packed up their businesses and moved to the city.
“I’m disappointed Chris, just like Scott Morrison’s $7bn figure is an excuse not to do more the National Farmers Federation has declared it’s all too hard and I don’t accept that,” Mr Fitzgibbon told Sky News.
The Labor MP explained the idea of exit payments was rejected by the Productivity Commission in 2009, but said he was open to them being part of a broader conversation surrounding drought response measures.
“When farmers are struggling and they’re dealing with the psychological impact they don’t want to hear the National Farmers Federation and Barnaby Joyce say they should just get out of the business … who is producing our food in this country if we keep driving farmers off the land?”
Meanwhile, the outlook remains dire for many dairy farmers, with record farm gate prices offset by hugely expensive irrigation water, high feed costs, and a dry weather outlook, Ean Higgins writes. Read his full story here.
Ben Packham 12.45pm: Official awarded contract to son’s employer
A senior Defence official has admitted to awarding a $371,000 contract without a competitive tender process to an IT company where his son worked.
Defence’s chief information officer Stephen Pearson told Senate estimates he didn’t recognise the conflict of interest when he granted the contract to Victorian-based firm Sinapse Pty Ltd in January this year, and only raised the matter with superiors in April.
“My son does undertake part-time casual work in a technology area for Sinapse, now and again,” he said.
Mr Pearson said his son did not receive any benefit from the contract.
He said he took advice on the appropriateness of awarding the contract under a so-called “limited tender”, but he did not tell anyone at the time that his son worked for the company.
Labor frontbencher Penny Wong said: “It didn’t occur to you Mr Pearson that awarding a contract that didn’t go to tender to a company your son worked for might have required some disclosure to someone?”
Mr Pearson said he realised later he should have disclosed his connection to the company through his son.
“I acted in good faith, Senator. On reflection, yes, I think there was a chance of a perceived conflict of interest, I do acknowledge that.
“If I had my time again, yes indeed I would do that.”
Associate Secretary Rebecca Skinner said the procurement decision should have been delegated to another officer.
Sinapse’s website says the company helps clients to “improve their business effectiveness through the development and implementation of business strategy and the delivery of business and technology projects”.
Defence’s annual report confirms the department is having difficulties with the rollout of a major ICT system upgrade, saying the scale and complexity of the work “has resulted in some unplanned service disruptions within the Defence network”.
Olivia Caisley 12.39pm: Big stick bill passes House
The government’s controversial “big stick” legislation has passed the lower house with an amendment from Labor to ensure energy companies can’t be forced to partially or fully privatise.
The bill, which will enable the government to intervene in the market to ensure energy companies keep a lid on prices and maintain supply, will now be examined by a Senate committee.
Opposition’s energy spokesman Mark Butler also moved an amendment to ensure workers would be protected if caught up in a forced divestment.
Greens MP Adam Bandt and independent MP Zali Steggall raised concerns the legislation would be used to force companies to keep coal power in the mix.
“It’s crystal clear this bill allows the government to intervene to try and keep Liddell, and other coal-fired power stations like it, open for longer,” Mr Bandt said while coalition MPs in the chamber cheered.
Mr Butler said although he was initially concerned about that occurring, the legislation now gave more decision-making power to the courts and competition watchdog instead of the minister.
But Mr Taylor, who is also the minister responsible for emissions reduction, hit back at the Greens.
He said the party wanted a “no hope” world with no oil, no gas and no coal.
“We can’t afford to see large parts of the electricity supply disappearing from the market place,” he said.
Business groups have warned market intervention could put future investment in jeopardy and end up costing consumers more, but Mr Taylor doesn’t agree.
“The real deterrent to investment in Australia is anti-competitive conduct,” he said.
Mr Bandt failed to get support from the major parties for amendments which would ban taxpayer money from going towards coal-fired power stations.
The bill will now be scrutinised by the Senate’s economics legislation committee before going to the upper house.
The committee’s first public hearing on the bill is set to occur in Sydney next Wednesday.
With AAP
Stephen Romei 12.05pm: PM’s literary prize
Novelist Gail Jones shed her Miles Franklin bridesmaid tag at the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards on Wednesday, winning the $80,000 fiction prize for her seventh novel The Death of Noah Glass. Sydney-based Jones has been shortlisted for the Miles four times, including for this novel centred on a dead art historian and his surviving family, which missed out to Melissa Lucashenko’s Too Much Lip. Read more here.
11.45am: Wyatt hits back at ‘influencers’
Minister for indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt says he will not be derailed by the loudest voices as he prepares to unveil a plan to involve all indigenous people in designing how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will advise government and parliament, and how governments can communicate with them. Read Paige Taylor’s news article here and read the Minister’s opinion article here.
11.05am: Australian plane on Middle East mission
Australia has deployed a surveillance plane to defend oil tankers from Iranian attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, AAP reports.
The plane was sent to the Middle East earlier this month and will remain there until mid-November, Defence chief Angus Campbell told a Senate estimates hearing today.
General Campbell expects to send between five and 10 Australian personnel to campaign headquarters for the US-led mission in the Persian Gulf, with a frigate beginning a six-month mission in January 2020.
Olivia Caisley 10.52am: Farm call ‘abhorrent’
Queensland Nationals MP Keith Pitt has rejected the National Farmers Federation’s calls to the government to provide “exit packages” to help drought-hit farmers leave the land.
Speaking on Sky News on Wednesday, Mr Pitt said he found it “abhorrent” that a politician could determine whether a farmer should leave the land or not.
“I think even the concept that a politician will determine whether your farm is viable or not is just abhorrent to me,” Mr Pitt said. “I mean this is the land of the free. It’s your choice, your property, your decision.”
The proposal is among a suite of measures announced by the NFF on Wednesday, which the group says would correct “ad hoc” and disjointed state and federal measures.
The NFF is also calling for local council rate relief for drought-hit farmers, federal subsidies equal to the Newstart Allowance for payroll expenses, and additional support for children in isolated areas and rural schools.
NFF president Fiona Simson said the “exit package” would help families make the transition out of farming after an assessment of their long-term viability. “It is something that they could consider, given how long this drought is biting,” Ms Simson said. “We know that, sadly, the fact of drought is that some businesses fail.”
But Mr Pitt said that while he thought some of the NFF’s proposed measures were “very good” he really struggled with the idea the body “wants to fight for farmers funds to leave and go to the city, why wouldn’t you fight for funds for farmers to stay and continue to be in regional Australia?”
Mr Pitt also played down divisions within the Nationals after some backbench colleagues voiced frustration with Bridget McKenzie’s leadership style in a party room meeting on Monday, including the fact she bought forward the introduction of a dairy industry code of conduct following pressure from One Nation leader Pauline Hanson.
“There’s no vacancy, there’s no change,” Mr Pitt said on her position.
Michael Roddan 10.25am: Tax refund impact ‘to become clearer’
New Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy says he is “cautiously optimistic” about how the Australian economy will strengthen as he called for patience to see any positive impact from the government’s flagship tax cut package on consumer spending.
Appearing before a Senate Estimates committee today, Dr Kennedy said the impact of the government’s low-and-middle-income tax refund program would “become clear towards the end of this year”.
According to the most recent official figures, retail spending rose by a weaker than expected 0.4 per cent in seasonally adjusted terms in August after the Australian Taxation Office had delivered tax refunds worth $14.5 billion to 5.4 million workers. This followed weak figures of between minus 0.1 per cent and 0.3 per cent in the three months prior.
The Australian economy recently logged its worst annual growth since the global financial crisis, and the IMF’s World Economic Outlook last week cut its growth forecast for the Australian economy from 2.1 per cent to 1.7 per cent — a level below the government’s and the Reserve Bank’s forecasts of about 2.25 per cent.
“I’m cautiously optimistic about how the economy is going to strengthen through this current cycle,” Dr Kennedy said.
“My view is that the settings are right for the economy to strengthen. I don’t really carry significant concerns about the immediate or near term or medium term outlook for the economy. It’s really the global conditions — the set of issues that I’m watching very closely are how these tensions around global trade resolve themselves. The features of the domestic economy are strong and well balances,” he said.
Dr Kennedy said it was difficult to point to data that showed the impact of the government’s tax cuts on household spending, but he believed the refunds would be having a “positive” impact.
“Maybe the environment was weaker than we expected. Trying to pick that out of the macro data is difficult. We should wait a little bit longer. We will never know the counter-factual,” Dr Kennedy said.
“Although we have some indicators of consumption available for the September quarter, which have not shown a particularly large improvement, these are only partial. And it is difficult to know what these indicators would have been had the tax cuts not been implemented,” he said.
“We will continue to assess the data on consumption as it becomes available, but it is worth noting that even if households initially use the tax cuts to pay down debt faster, this will still bring forward the point at which households could increase spending.”
Dr Kennedy said it was a “puzzle” why business was not investing in their operation given how low interest rates are, and questioned whether the “hurdle rates” used by companies to guide their investment decisions based on what return they can expect, remained too high.
It was Dr Kennedy’s first appearance at Senate Estimates as Treasury secretary. Dr Kennedy, who trained and worked as a nurse, was an economic adviser to Kevin Rudd and was hand-picked by Julia Gillard just days into her Prime Ministership to run a “business of government” section in her Parliament House office to end bottlenecks in the working of government, was appointed as the government’s chief economic adviser in July to take over from Scott Morrison’s former chief of staff Philip Gaetjens.
Olivia Caisley 10.05am: Bipartisanship over sex abuser
Liberal backbencher Dave Sharma and Labor backbencher Josh Burns have came together in a show of bipartisan support to call on the government to have accused child sexual abuser Malka Leifer extradited to Australia.
Flanked by Dassi Erlich and Nicole Meyer, who have accused the former principal of Melbourne’s ultra-Orthodox Adass Israel School of abuse, the MPs said they had asked the Prime Minister to raise the issue directly with the Israeli government.
Leifer fled Australia in 2008 after being charged with 74 separate counts of sexual abuse.
“We first made an extradition request in 2014,’’ Mr Sharma said. “I remember I was ambassador to Israel at the time. Since that time five years have elapsed.
“There have been over 60 hearings in court in Israel and yet we seem to be no closer to having Malka Leifer extradited.”
“Why don’t doubt the independence and integrity of the Israeli legal system, but as my friend Josh Bunes said, enough is enough. And we are here today to send a very fair message to Israel that this case is a high priority for Australia and it is one we will be ceaseless in pursuing and it is one that unless resolved soon will have an impact on the broader relationship.”
Olivia Caisley 9.05am: Party website down again
The Australian Parliament House website is up and running again after being down since at least 6am this morning.
In the past sitting week, the Australian Parliament House website crashed twice, which was publicly blamed on “infrastructure issues … resulting in intermittent unavailability”.
It comes as The Australian reported last week that emerging threats to parliament’s IT systems and Australia’s first “national cyber crisis” hack of the Parliament House network earlier this year triggered a major overhaul of cyber security defences to combat foreign threats.
MORE: Keneally airport crisis claim shot down | Editorial: Medivac sham weakens border | Call for farmers’ exit packages
Olivia Caisley 8.35am: Dutton: Keneally ‘fake and phony’
Peter Dutton has lashed opposition home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally for being a “fake and a phony” after The Australian on Wednesday revealed only 10 people suspected of being victims of human trafficking and slavery have claimed protection.
A new Home Affairs Department report says that of the more than 8.8 million temporary visas granted in 2018-19, 0.00078 per cent, or 69 cases, were identified by the Australian Federal Police as potential victims of human trafficking, with only a handful claiming protection.
The figures conflict with comments made by Senator Keneally that people-smugglers have “changed their business model from boats to planes”.
MORE: Editorial: Medivac sham weakens border
The Home Affairs Minister pounced on the new figures when speaking to reporters in Canberra on Wednesday, arguing they expose Labor claims of a “crisis” as a sham.
“I think Kristina Keneally’s red herring on this has been blown completely out of the water,” Mr Dutton told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday.
“Don’t fall for Kristina Keneally’s two-card trick, she’s been found out to be a fake and phony like was when was Premier in New South Wales.”
But Senator Keneally fired back, saying Mr Dutton wasn’t admitting that “often these people are trafficked to and in Australia, they are exploited as they work for next to nothing. This is unacceptable.”
“Ultimately, this leads to Australian wages being driven down, making it harder for Australians to get jobs while allowing vulnerable people to continue to be exploited in slave-like conditions,” Senator Keneally said.
It comes as Mr Dutton is set to introduce a new border security bill to parliament today to ban bikie and drug-smugglers from working at Australia’s airports and docks.
“We don’t want criminals, particularly bikies who are the biggest distributors of drugs and amphetamines in our country to have access to secure areas at airports and seaports,” he told the Today show on Wednesday.
Current laws allow the government to do background checks on people applying for maritime or aviation identification cards, but only to check if they pose a security risk.
The new bill would expand those checks to include whether a person has prior convictions for gang-related offences or organised crime.
Mr Dutton told the Today show he hoped “common sense would prevail” and the legislation would pass the Senate.
“We don’t want people with these identification cards at our airports trafficking in cocaine or amphetamine or ice or whatever it might be,” he said. “There are examples of that over the course of the last couple of years.”
Mr Dutton introduced a similar bill in 2016 but it was blocked by Labor.
What’s making news
The Department of Defence has kept a series of reports into the culture within the Australian Army under wraps, claiming that their release would jeopardise any possible improvements and have the potential to fuel a social media backlash.
Kristina Keneally’s claims of a crisis at Australia’s airports have been exposed, with official figures showing only 10 people suspected of being victims of human trafficking and slavery have claimed protection.
Ken Wyatt says he will not be derailed by the loudest voices as he prepares to unveil a plan to involve all indigenous people in designing how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will advise government and parliament, and how governments can communicate with them.
Farming families hit by extended drought should be handed “exit packages’’ to leave the land, the National Farmers Federation says.
A massive new dam and hydro system in Victoria’s northeast could bolster water security in the Murray-Darling Basin by providing enough storage capacity to fill 400,000 Olympic swimming pools, as well as generating renewable energy, the Victorian Coalition says.
Alice Workman’s Strewth: ‘It was my intention to call a spill today,’ Llew O’Brien told the Nationals party room on Monday. But he didn’t. Her Sketch is here.
Israel a ‘miracle’, says Labor senator
Labor Senator Deborah O’Neill has condemned the rise of anti-Semitism, as politicians from both sides of politics paused to commemorate October 7 in Canberra.
Bosses demand CFMEU clause ban
Employers say the CFMEU administrator’s ‘business as usual’ approach to bargaining will not address the union’s ‘disgraceful’ illegal tactics.