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PoliticsNow: Malcolm Turnbull uses Question Time to launch a fierce and personal attack on Bill Shorten and unions.
Hello and welcome to PoliticsNow, The Australian’s live coverage of federal parliament.
Nick Xenophon has joined Pauline Hanson and Derryn Hinch in backflipping on penalty rates and will now support Labor’s bill opposing the cuts.
The One Nation leader has had her say in the Senate 18C debate, claiming she has often been a victim of “reverse racism” and arguing political correctness has “shut us down from being able to have an opinion”.
3.30pm: QT — What we learned
There was real venom in Question Time on Wednesday as the government attacked Bill Shorten over the deals he did with big companies as the national secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union. For every Labor question on cuts to penalty rates, Malcolm Turnbull threw a sneer at Shorten for running a union that took corporate payments it never disclosed to its members.
These are not new attacks but there was an added ferocity on Wednesday because of the government’s lacklustre performance during the rest of the week. Knowing the best form of defence was attack, the government lunged out of the blocks at Shorten and kept it up for more than an hour.
Labor showed this was hurting. “Are you hungover?” Labor employment spokesman Brendan O’Connor asked Turnbull a few minutes into Question Time. The Speaker, Tony Smith, sat O’Connor down for that remark and gave the government two questions in a row.
In another shot, Shorten declared Turnbull did not even know what the minimum wage was — only to hear the Prime Minister rattle off the number.
The television coverage of Question Time offers no sense of the sheer volume of yelling from the Labor side during answers. Turnbull’s voice is not the only one going hoarse from these daily contests. Every minister tries to keep up three minutes of speaking at full volume with every answer.
The attacks on Shorten’s time at the AWU are based on the findings of the royal commission into trade union corruption. The payments are itemised in the report and were never disclosed to union members. This is an ongoing weakness for Shorten.
The Labor response was to go into Turnbull’s history. Legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus aimed three questions at the Prime Minister over the “secret payments” in the collapse of insurance company HIH, when Turnbull was an investment banker at Goldman Sachs and advised on selling the company to FAI Insurance.
Dreyfus packed every bit of indignation into his questions, referring to Turnbull living in a mansion while HIH customers lived in huts. Turnbull fended off the questions by reminding parliament that Dreyfus did not even live in his own electorate.
This fight over personal integrity shows how desperate both sides have become. Turnbull ended Question Time by declaring he had represented rich and poor clients and always done the best for them – just as he was doing the best for Australian voters now. It is not an easy argument when Labor reminds workers of the looming cut to penalty rates.
Rachel Baxendale 3.06pm: PM’s personal attack on Shorten
The PM has finished Question time with an incredibly fiery and personal attack on Bill Shorten in response to a Shorten follow up on the AFP pay deal. Shorten asked why the PM won’t intervene to rule out pay cuts for AFP officers given his predecessor Tony Abbott was willing to step in to resolve the pay increase problems for Australian Defence Force officers.
Turnbull said the AFP were very lucky they didn’t have Shorten representing them.
“We know what he does - he in return for $75,000 from Clean Event to the AWU, they ended up getting $18 an hour when it should have been $50,” he said.
The PM then defended his own record. “Throughout my life, I have represented many people,” he said.
“I represented people with lots of money and people with no money, I represented the battlers and represented the big end of town, but the one thing I have always done is I have always done the best, I have always done the best for them and now I’m representing every Australian and I’m doing the best for them now.
“When you take the lives and destinies of other people in your hands, when you represent them, you owe it to them to do your best. You owe it to them to tell them the truth. That is what I have done right through my life. But not the Leader of the Opposition.”
Turnbull said he was talking about “character, conviction and commitment.”
“The Leader of the Opposition lacks them all. He wouldn’t stand up for anybody apart from himself,” he said.
“I built businesses, I have employed workers, I have driven to employ more Australians in more jobs in more businesses, and now as Prime Minister, I and all of my government stand up for Australians.
“What does the Leader of the Opposition do? He sells them out just like he sold out the members of the AWU, just like he’d sell out Australia if he got to run it like a union.”
Rachel Baxendale 3.06pm: Shorten on AFP wages
Shorten is back on penalty rates, attacking the PM for refusing to rule out pay cuts for Australian Federal Police officers, including his own protection detail.
Turnbull says that as Shorten knows, the enterprise agreement between the AFP and the Government is being negotiated at an agency level as it always has been.
“In other words, between the Commissioner and the union and the members, and those negotiations are on-going and of course it will require a vote of the members to be concluded,” he says.
Rachel Baxendale 3.00pm: Shorten ‘sold workers down river’
Backbencher Kevin Andrews has another question on union corruption, this time for Christopher Pyne. Will the minister outline to the House why corrupting benefits, as described by the Heydon royal commission should be outlawed?
Pyne cites the “hideous example” of workers at the Clean Event company, who he accuses Bill Shorten of selling out with an EBA that got them 176 per cent less pay than they would have received under the award. “These are amongst the lowest paid workers in the country doing one of the toughest jobs in the country,” he says.
“These are the people that turn up after an event at the bachelor and spinsters ball in South Australia or the race days and clean-up the vomit from the portaloos and empty the toilets and take away the empty beer cans and the plastic mugs and try to put the place back into shape again.
“They’re the lowest paid workers in the community, doing one of the toughest jobs in the community and this bloke sold them down the river.”
Rachel Baxendale 2.50pm: Dreyfus tries again on HIH
Dreyfus tries again with a follow up question which gets even more personal with the mention of a man called Peter who Dreyfus claims lost his house as a result of the HIH collapse.
“Peter and his wife for forced to live in a shed for over two years after their builder went broke and their HIH building insurance became worthless,” he said. “The Prime Minister continued to live in his mansion while they had to live in a shed.
“Peter and thousands of other victims deserve to know what role the Prime Minister played in ruining their lives.”
After deliberation, Speaker Tony Smith disallows the part of the question relating to Peter.
The PM returns fire at Dreyfus, asking whether he can remind the house about whether he actually lives in his own electorate.
Dreyfus lives in the leafy inner Eastern Melbourne suburb of Malvern, but represents the people of Isaacs, centred on Dandenong and Carrum in the outer southeast.
“Has he moved in?” Mr Turnbull asked.
“Oh, yes, another champion of the people we get from the member for Isaacs.
“This Queens Council often has the opportunity to explore his own electorate but he certainly doesn’t live there.
“He observes it objectively from a great distance, Mr Speaker, with an imperial equanimity.”
Rachel Baxendale 2.46pm: Labor’s HIH collapse question
Labor has attempted to turn the PM’s personal focus on Shorten back on him, with a question from Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus about Turnbull’s role in the collapse of insurance company HIH. “Does the Prime Minister stand by his statements on secret payments and should government policy be extended to him?” Dreyfus asks.
“Can the Prime Minister confirm that he was party to a secret payment to settle is litigation which alleged he personally breached corporations law in the collapse of HIH, a devastating collapse which saw thousands of Australians left with worthless insurance policies?
“Is this another example just like penalty rates where the Prime Minister believes it’s one rule for him and his big business friends, and another for workers?”
Turnbull turns the focus back to trade unions, saying they claim to be representing workers.
“We say, and the law will say, that they cannot take payments from the people with whom they’re negotiating on behalf of their members,” he said.
“And that’s the point — it’s about accountability, it’s about honesty, it’s about integrity.
“The fact that the member for Isaacs stooped so low shows what a raw nerve we have hit.”
Mr Turnbull said that if Mr Shorten was so proud of his record, he could tell the parliament what various payments from companies to the AWU were really for.
Rachel Baxendale 2.38pm: SA blackouts
The government is keen to maintain a focus on the South Australian Labor government’s refusal of $25 million in federal funding to keep the Northern Power station open, with a question from SA backbencher Rowan Ramsey to Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne.
Ramsey asks about the obstacles posed by unreliable and expensive energy for industries such as the Southern Blue Fin tuna industry which employs more than 600 people in his electorate.
Pyne says that for $25 million, the South Australian government could have kept baseload power in South Australia. “We could have avoided the year of blackouts that we have had, the businesses that have seen their produce destroyed,” he says. Read more about the Alinta letter here.
Rachel Baxendale 2.33pm: Does PM know the minimum wage?
Now we’re onto the minimum wage, amid calls from the ACTU today to increase it by $45.
Does the Prime Minister even know what the minimum wage is, Bill Shorten asks.
Turnbull does. “Mr Speaker, it’s $672.70 a week, as the honourable member would be well aware,” he says.
“The government’s position on the minimum wage is the same as governments have been taking for years: to make an informative submission that enables the independent umpire, which the honourable member used to back in again and again but doesn’t anymore, to enable them to make an independent decision.”
Rachel Baxendale 2.28pm: Bandt’s ‘contemptible’ question
Mr Turnbull described as “contemptible” a question from Greens MP Adam Bandt linking increasing cyclone intensity with burning coal.
“On the very day Queenslanders were preparing for Cyclone Debbie, your Resources Minister dropped a front page story spruiking a new coalfired power station in that very state and you backed him in,” Mr Bandt said.
Mr Turnbull said now was the time to pull together and stand behind the people of North Queensland and those, including 1200 ADF personnel, who are supporting them.
“That question was contemptible,” the PM said.
Rachel Baxendale 2.22pm: Turnbull fires up again
Mr Turnbull renewed his assault on Bill Shorten in response to another question on business tax cuts from Shadow Employment Minister Brendan O’Connor. “Do Australian workers deserve to be represented by unions that tell them the truth? We say they do. Those opposite say they don’t,” Mr Turnbull said. “All of this hypocrisy covering up — covering up one secret payment after another.
“One worker after another — sold down the river for money paid to unions.
“We’re going to make the light shine on that. We’re going to ban those secret payments and you can vote against it if you wish.”
Rachel Baxendale 2.14pm: Turnbull fires up
Question Time has kicked off with Malcolm Turnbull attacking a “phoney” Bill Shorten’s record as AWU leader. The PM responded to a question on business tax cuts from the Opposition Leader with what appeared to be an attempt to recapture the vibe of the Question Time last month when he accused Mr Shorten of “blowing hard in the House of Representatives (and) sucking hard in the living rooms of Melbourne.”
“This so-called champion of the workers, Mr Speaker, we have seen him snuggling up to big business and it’s not just socialising with big business, Mr Speaker, it’s doing real business with big business, taking money from big business,” Mr Turnbull said. “Some of the lowest paid workers in Australia, cleaners, they could have been getting $50 an hour and they got $18 an hour thanks to that hero’s advocacy. What a champion!
“But the main thing is — the union got paid money.”
John Lyons 2.00pm: McManus will be no pushover
Pledging a renewed “fight” on behalf of the union movement, new ACTU secretary Sally McManus has delivered a clear message to the Turnbull government: she will be no pushover.
In a speech pitched directly at the union heartland, Ms McManus signalled a renewed campaign by workers on a range of conditions, including trying to preserve current penalty rates.
She foreshadowed a campaign to take on “corporate power”. In her first speech to the National Press Club, Ms McManus announced a new claim to raise the minimum wage by $45 a week. Read John Lyons’s analysis here.
Rachel Baxendale 1.12pm: Like water off a duck’s back
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has had her say in the Senate 18C debate, claiming she has often been a victim of “reverse racism” and arguing political correctness has “shut us down from being able to have an opinion”.
Senator Hanson argued that the word “racist” had frequently been used as a lazy means of shutting her down.
“It’s become boring, without really debating the issue of me,” she said.
Senator Hanson claimed she had often been a victim of reverse racism, but said it was like “water off a duck’s back” and she was unfazed.
“A lot of people think that because you’re white, and you’re white Australian you’re not having racist comments directed against you. I’ve had racist comments said to me,” she said, describing a 1996 meeting with indigenous elders who called her “white trash”.
“There is reverse racism,” she said.
“I think that’s why Australians are feeling the brunt of this and they are fed up.”
Senator Hanson accused the political left of hypocrisy in their unwillingness to criticise ethnic minorities for saying things which would be considered utterly unacceptable in any other context.
She cited the example of Imams Council president Sheikh Shady Alsuleiman, who has described AIDS as divine punishment for homosexuals and said women who have sex outside marriage would be “hung by their breasts in hell”.
“Do I hear the left screaming about that? Where’s the left? Where’s the Greenies screaming that this should not be said?” Senator Hanson said.
Rachel Baxendale 12.40pm: Paterson leads 18C charge
Debate has resumed in the Senate over the Coalition’s plan to amend Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act to include the offence of harassment and get rid of “offend, insult and humiliate”.
Leading prosecutor of the case for change, Victorian Liberal Senator James Paterson, has devoted his speech to addressing a common question from Labor and Greens opponents: “What is it that you would like to say that you cannot say under the current law?”
Senator Paterson cited the example of QUT student Alex Wood, who wanted to say that his university was “stopping segregation with segregation” in having an indigenous only computer room.
He said that it had taken Mr Wood three and a half years and a tortuous legal process, which had potentially damaged his career, to establish that his comments had not contravened the law.
Senator Paterson also addressed the allegation that those who favour changing 18C are predominantly white men of a certain age, by saying that one’s race, gender and age should have no bearing on your right to freedom of speech, and arguing that ethnic communities are not universally opposed to changing 18C.
He said that while peak bodies of ethnic communities had indicated their opposition, it was patronising and condescending to not realise that there is debate and diversity of opinion within ethnic communities.
WA Labor senator Louise Pratt has followed on from Senator Paterson, accusing Malcolm Turnbull of being captive to a right wing agenda that is completely out of touch with Australians’ priorities.
Ewin Hannan 12.00pm: Xenophon supports Labor bill
Nick Xenophon has joined Pauline Hanson and Derryn Hinch in backflipping on penalty rates and will now support Labor’s bill opposing the cuts.
The triple reversal means Labor’s bill is likely to pass the Senate, but not the House of Representatives unless a Coalition MP crosses the floor.
Senator Xenophon confirmed today he would support the bill to have the Fair Work Commission decision cutting penalty rates declared inoperable.
“NXT will be supporting Labor’s Bill on penalty rates,” Senator Xenophon told The Advertiser.
“The bottom line is none of us want to see workers have their pay cut in an environment when there’s low wage growth and an increasing number of people are under wage stress.
“I’ll own up to this being a backflip or even somersault because you can’t have individual workers being worse off.”
In 2012, Senator Xenophon proposed a bill to reduce penalty rates paid by small business.
Under his proposal, penalty rates would only apply where an employee worked more than 38 hours a week or more than 10 hours in one day. IT would have applied to businesse employing less than 20 fulltime employees
He now describes the 2012 bill as a mistake.
Labor’s bill is due to be debated in the Senate tomorrow before returning to the Lower House.
10.45am: ‘Modest wage increase better’
As the ACTU’s Sally McManus calls for a $45-a-week pay rise for the nation’s lowest paid, the Australian Industry Group will lodge a submission arguing for a $10.10 per week increase.
Ai Group chief executive Innes Willox said only a modest wage increase was warranted because:
— Employment growth is exceedingly weak nationally;
— Inflation has been low over an extended period;
— Rising energy costs and other cost pressures have eroded businesses’ capacity to afford wage increases;
— Measurable productivity growth is very weak; and
— National aggregate income remains weak and unevenly distributed.
“Rising youth unemployment and underemployment, and falling participation, suggest significant pockets of spare capacity are building up, particularly at the lower-skilled end of the labour market. In such circumstances, it is important that the Fair Work Commission adopt a cautious approach when determining the level of any minimum wage increase in this year’s annual wage review,” Mr Willox said.
9.41am: ‘Don’t cancel Whitsundays holiday
Mr Turnbull said he was discussing a tourism relief package with the relevant minister Steven Ciobo and wanted to “get the message out” that the coming weeks would be a good time to head to the Whitsundays.
“The sun will be shining again, the resorts will be open again and people shouldn’t be cancelling their holidays. In fact this will be a good time to come up and visit Queensland and the Whitsundays,” he told Triple M Mackay radio station.
“Our hearts go out to the people of north Queensland but above all what we have to do is put in place the preparations to ensure that people get the right advice, that people are protected, that people are evacuated and that we have the service men and women, the ADF, the emergency service workers, ready to go in as soon as the storm has passed to protect the community and begin the task of reconstruction.
“Please stay safe. Take the advice of the emergency authorities, don’t go into flood waters, don’t drive through them, walk through them, don’t try to swim through them. The flood is yet to peak in Mackay ... And of course don’t go near any fallen powerlines … often many of the injuries associated with events like this occur after the storm has passed.”
9.20am: PM: ‘Pull together over Debbie’
Malcolm Turnbull says the Australian Defence Force’s preparation for Cyclone Debbie is the “most elaborate and comprehensive it’s ever been” as he puts banks and insurance companies on notice to “pull together” to support the people of north Queensland.
Speaking at the Crisis Coordination Centre in Canberra, the Prime Minister said technology had given governments, emergency services and the ADF a “great advantage” in participating natural disasters.
“Nature has flung her worst at the people of north Queensland and it’s now our job to make sure that every agency pulls together and indeed the private sector, particularly the banks and insurance companies, pull together to provide support to the people of north Queensland,” he said.
“There are well over 1000 emergency personnel and defence personnel literally ready to go in today and they’re working seamlessly with the state emergency services, the co-operation again is closer than it’s ever been.”
9.00am: ‘This is normal’
Health Minister Greg Hunt says his first job in the mental health space is to say “this is normal” and build on work already done to destigmatise illnesses like anxiety and psychosis disorders and depression.
The government is set to announce the opening of a suicide prevention trial site for veterans in Townsville within the week, while a review into veterans’ mental is expected to be released “very shortly”.
“My first task is to say whilst there’s been incredible work on destigmatisation from so many people … the next thing is to say actually ‘ this is normal’. It’s like an injury or an illness, it’s something which happens over the course of our lives to potentially 40 per cent of Australians,” Mr Hunt told ABC radio.
“It’s a lived experience that virtually every family has.
“I come as many Australians do into this space with experience of mental health in our family. In my case it’s now well understood my mother, and indeed the last time I saw her she was institutionalised, my mother had bipolar and some very challenging mental health conditions
“As widespread as I know the issue was, on the first day in office I was briefed about the fact that it’s 4 million Australians … who have some form of either chronic or episodic mental health to a clinical level in any one year. That said to me this is a major national issue and it has to be one of our four pillars: Medicare, hospitals, medical research and mental health.”
8.20am: China treaty ‘on hold’
Justice Minister Michael Keenan says the government could review the Extradition Act to win over Labor’s support to ratify a 10-year-old treaty with China, declaring the policy has not been “abandoned” but is on hold.
Mr Keenan also said the fact the China extradition treaty did not contain a safeguard that would allow the minister to refuse an extradition request where a person was returning to “unjust or oppressive” circumstances made no difference, as the federal government was still obliged to ensure human rights were protected.
“It really doesn’t have any impact on the sorts of considerations that the minister needs to make when he’s asked to extradite somebody,” he told ABC radio.
“We don’t extradite people if we can’t guarantee that wouldn’t be getting the human rights we require.”
Several Coalition MPs had threatened to cross the floor if the government put regulation to a vote to ratify the treaty. Malcolm Turnbull was forced to withdraw an attempt for ratification early yesterday when it became clear the Senate would disallow it.
Mr Keenan said the most important safeguard within the act was that the minister had discretion to refuse extradition and the decision was reviewable in the courts.
“We haven’t abandoned the policy. What became apparent to us is that the opposition wasn’t going to support its passage through the Senate. Given that’s the case, we decided we would postpone putting it before the Senate at this stage whilst we … talk to the opposition further, and we have talked to them quite extensively about their concerns,” Mr Keenan said.
“What I understand their concerns are is they wanted to have a full review of the Extradition Act. Now they did that when they were in government, it was only completed in 2012, but if there’s something we can do in conjunction with the opposition to look at that then we’re very happy to do so. But if the opposition isn’t going to support it then we don’t want to put it before the Senate it and see it voted down.”
MPs have raised “serious questions” about extradition under China’s legal system but Mr Keenan said Australia had treaties with lots of countries that had “very different” processes.
“That actually isn’t unusual. What we do have is enormous safeguards. We wouldn’t extradite anybody if we couldn’t guarantee they would get fair trial protection for human rights, and clearly of course we don’t do it if they would face the death penalty,” he said.
7.30am: ‘What laws will you break?’
Conservative Liberal senator Eric Abetz says new Australian Council of Trade Unions boss Sally McManus must use today’s address to the National Press Club “to outline exactly what laws the ACTU believes should be broken.”
The ACTU will today urge the Fair Work Commission to award almost triple the $15.80 pay rise that flowed through to 1.8 million workers last year, calling for a “historic” $45-a-week pay increase for the lowest-paid.
But Senator Abetz, a former employment minister in the Abbott government, wants Ms McManus to explain why should told the ABC’s 7.30 program: “When the law is unjust, I don’t think there’s a problem with breaking it.”
“Sally McManus must use her speech today to fully explain exactly what laws should be broken, for example: If it’s okay for unions to break the law to go on strike? Is it similarly okay for employers to underpay workers? If it’s okay for unions to bully and harass workers who refuse to participate in industrial action? Is it similarly okay for employers to bully and harass workers to accept lower pay?” Senator Abetz said.
“Clearly all these examples are wrong and unacceptable and any self-respecting union boss should be encouraging all parties to abide by the law to ensure we don’t descend into complete chaos.
“I am also hopeful that Ms McManus will explain her support for a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel along with her bizarre comments calling for a ban on particular plastic surgery among other things.”
Politics preview
The Senate is expected to focus on company tax cuts first up as the government holds out for a deal to extend its $48.7 billion enterprise tax plan and business leaders heighten pressure on Senate Crossbenchers to vote to help more employers in the name of creating jobs.
Also on today’s agenda is debate over the government’s bill that would change section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, with a new push to amend the legislation to ensure the new definition of “harass” can incorporate bullying behaviour waged over social media or e-mail.
First it was One Nation, now Senate crossbencher Derryn Hinch has decided to oppose the industrial umpire’s cuts to Sunday penalty rates despite repeatedly saying he wanted Sunday rates to be the same as Saturday rates.
As Labor attempts to increase pressure on the government over penalty rates, the Senate last night passed an “urgency” motion with the support of the opposition, the Greens, One Nation, the Nick Xenophon Team, Jacqui Lambie and Senator Hinch which states: “The need for the Senate to condemn the Prime Minister’s lack of empathy for Australian workers who rely on penalty rates to make ends meet.”
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