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Nine’s China war risk story is ‘news abuse’, Keating says
Daniel Hurst
The former prime minister Paul Keating has taken aim at the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age over the papers’ coverage of national security threats facing Australia.
In a strongly worded statement issued today, Keating said:
Today’s Sydney Morning Herald and Age front page stories on Australia’s supposed war risk with China represents the most egregious and provocative news presentation of any newspaper I have witnessed in over fifty years of active public life.
It is way worse than the illustrated sampans shown to be coming from China in the build up to the war in Vietnam in the 1960s.
Apart from the outrageous illustrations of jet aircraft being shown leaving a profiled red-coloured map of China, the extent of the bias and news abuse is, I believe, unparalleled in modern Australian journalism.
Nine and the journalists have been contacted to offer them a right to respond.
But the coverage to which Keating objects features a panel of five national security experts who have issued a statement labelled “Red Alert”.
They said they believed Australia “faces the prospect of armed conflict in the Indo-Pacific within three years”, with the most serious risk being a “a Chinese attack on Taiwan that sparks a conflict with the US and other democracies, including Australia”. The panel said it based its assertions on Xi Jinping’s aggressive stance and rapid military buildup. It also said Australia was not prepared for conflict, and the federal government was “reluctant to openly identify the threat we face: an increasingly aggressive Communist China”.
The online version of the story is headlined: Australia faces the threat of war with China within three years – and we’re not ready.
Keating is a longstanding critic of the current bipartisan consensus on Australia’s national outlook and policies such as Aukus. At the National Press Club in November 2021, Keating urged Australia not to be drawn into a military engagement over Taiwan, “US-sponsored or otherwise”, and said Taiwan was “fundamentally a civil matter” for China. He also referred to Taiwan as China’s “front doorstep”.
Taiwan’s ministry of foreign affairs responded to Keating’s intervention in 2021 by saying a crisis in the Taiwan Strait was “by no means a domestic matter between Chinese, and the security of the Taiwan Strait involves the stability and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region, but also the global peace, stability and development”.
As mentioned, Nine has been contacted for comment.
Key events
There is a moment of bipartisanship over the prime minister’s trip to India with a trade delegation (he will leave a little later today), which Peter Dutton agrees is important.
Moving on.
Question time begins
Josh Butler will be bringing you a bit more context about Sussan Ley’s turn as Sussan Ley-ner (she was dressed as a tribute to Tina Turner) which was part of a dare for a cancer charity.
When it is for a good cause, not political and there is a little bit of warning, there tends to be a little bit of leeway (Ley-way?) when it comes to props and dress standards in the chamber.
And if it helps raise money for a cure to something that impacts way too many of us, as well as bringing a smile – what is the harm?
To the questions:
Peter Dutton is up first:
My question is to the Prime Minister: Did the Prime Minister promise to the Australian people, and I quote the PM, will result in energy prices coming down by $275 per household? That his energy plan will result in energy prices coming down by $275 per household?
Anthony Albanese (after a million interjections)
The Leader of the Opposition asks about the Reputex modelling that was done on our energy plan. And he should be able to find the Reputex modelling because it’s the only modelling ever done for a proper energy plan that we put forward. The only time in their 22 Policies that they put forward, none of them landed, none of them delivered. None of them delivered. But they had an opportunity to deliver one of their energy plans, the Safeguard Mechanism, the Safeguard Mechanism that is before this Parliament. And I say to those opposite, if they’re serious about giving business…
There are more interjections, but that is the main point (Albanese):
They come in here, they spent all last week talking about super. Where is it? The sounds of silence. The sounds of silence. Art Garfunkel had nothing on this mob over there. The sounds of silence is what we hear from those opposite when it comes to their big, their big issue that they were going to make. So, instead, they go back with half quotes, half statements, because – because they – because it shows their dishonesty. It shows their dishonesty.
OK, we are just a few minutes out from QT. Grab what you need – it looks like being a wild one. But hopefully one that ends around the hour mark – yesterday’s 1.45hr session was an invitation for madness.
Michael McGowan
The deputy federal Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, has issued an extraordinary serve at a group of senior party powerbrokers over their refusal to appear at a NSW parliamentary inquiry examining allegations of impropriety at a Sydney council, labelling it “unacceptable” and calling for one of the members to be expelled.
In an interview on Sydney radio station 2GB on Tuesday, Ley took aim at the former NSW Liberal party state executive member Christian Ellis over allegations he attempted to orchestrate a branch-stacking exercise to unseat her in the seat of Farrer prior to the federal election last year.
In an extraordinary spray against her Liberal colleagues, Ley labelled the allegations against Ellis “disgraceful”, said that she didn’t “see an alternative” other than expelling him from the party, and accused “factional bully boys” of putting Premier Dominic Perrottet’s re-election chances at risk.
The branch stacking, the factional skullduggery, all these schemes and plots, they have absolutely no place in any political party.
The premier is trying with us to win this state election [and] these factional bully boys are just making it tougher for him, they’re slowing the boat down they’re not making it any faster.
The parliamentary inquiry had been examining alleged links between property developers and Liberal members of the Hills shire council in north-west Sydney.
Handed down last week, it took was severely critical in its assessment of a series of party power-brokers – including two of Perrottet’s brothers and Ellis – for their refusal to appear to give evidence.
But the inquiry also heard evidence from the Liberal party member Shirlee Burge, a councillor in southern NSW, that Ellis had made Ley the target of a branch-stacking operation prior to the last election.
Ley said the behaviour – including their refusal to appear at the inquiry – was “unacceptable”.
This behaviour has been unacceptable, the actions have been unacceptable, the flagrant disregard for a parliamentary inquiry [and] that summons, the flagrant disregard for proper process and the lack of respect [for the] people from Deniliquin.
Nine’s China war risk story is ‘news abuse’, Keating says
Daniel Hurst
The former prime minister Paul Keating has taken aim at the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age over the papers’ coverage of national security threats facing Australia.
In a strongly worded statement issued today, Keating said:
Today’s Sydney Morning Herald and Age front page stories on Australia’s supposed war risk with China represents the most egregious and provocative news presentation of any newspaper I have witnessed in over fifty years of active public life.
It is way worse than the illustrated sampans shown to be coming from China in the build up to the war in Vietnam in the 1960s.
Apart from the outrageous illustrations of jet aircraft being shown leaving a profiled red-coloured map of China, the extent of the bias and news abuse is, I believe, unparalleled in modern Australian journalism.
Nine and the journalists have been contacted to offer them a right to respond.
But the coverage to which Keating objects features a panel of five national security experts who have issued a statement labelled “Red Alert”.
They said they believed Australia “faces the prospect of armed conflict in the Indo-Pacific within three years”, with the most serious risk being a “a Chinese attack on Taiwan that sparks a conflict with the US and other democracies, including Australia”. The panel said it based its assertions on Xi Jinping’s aggressive stance and rapid military buildup. It also said Australia was not prepared for conflict, and the federal government was “reluctant to openly identify the threat we face: an increasingly aggressive Communist China”.
The online version of the story is headlined: Australia faces the threat of war with China within three years – and we’re not ready.
Keating is a longstanding critic of the current bipartisan consensus on Australia’s national outlook and policies such as Aukus. At the National Press Club in November 2021, Keating urged Australia not to be drawn into a military engagement over Taiwan, “US-sponsored or otherwise”, and said Taiwan was “fundamentally a civil matter” for China. He also referred to Taiwan as China’s “front doorstep”.
Taiwan’s ministry of foreign affairs responded to Keating’s intervention in 2021 by saying a crisis in the Taiwan Strait was “by no means a domestic matter between Chinese, and the security of the Taiwan Strait involves the stability and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region, but also the global peace, stability and development”.
As mentioned, Nine has been contacted for comment.
A brief history of Australian politics and Married at First Sight
Seems there is quite the crossover between Married at First Sight fans and Australian politics. I have been informed multiple times that there are 15 mentions of MAFS in the Australian hansard (most of it not very flattering).
The former Labor senator Sam Dastyari had the first mention (of course)
Last night, I saw the light – to be more specific, I saw episode 6, season 4, of Married At First Sight. It highlighted for me the glory and sanctity of marriage in Australia. I now realise why the government does not want to support gay and lesbian couples getting married.
Notable inclusions are Kate Chaney in February:
How could something be successful if you haven’t done the work to truly listen to and understand each other and work out together what it is you want to achieve? It’s as ridiculous as Married at First Sight.
Catherine King, March 2022:
I understand that Married at First Sight actually rated higher than the Treasurer’s budget, but I was here listening to the Treasurer as, I’m sure, were many Australians.
Andrew Leigh in June 2020:
In reality, this government is more like Married At First Sight: a train wreck Australians can’t look away from.
Tanya Plibersek in March 2018:
The promise that they’ve given is about as convincing as the commitments contestants make on Married at First Sight.
Thank you to Nick Miller (one of the blog overseers) and the many parliamentary secret squirrels who rushed to find hansard MAFS mentions. You have done your country proud.
Amy Remeikis
Yes, we will work on bringing you pictures.
Amy Remeikis
Sussan Ley has appeared in the chamber dressed as 80s Sussan Ley
I think?
The deputy Liberal leader appeared in a crimped mullet wig, pearls and camisole as a dare for charity.
Caitlin Cassidy
University of Melbourne endorses yes campaign on voice referendum
The University of Melbourne has become the latest institution to come out in formal support of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice to parliament ahead of the referendum.
On Tuesday afternoon, the university released a statement affirming the council and the executive endorsed the Uluru Statement from the Heart and the yes position on the referendum:
Freedom of enquiry and the free expression of ideas are fundamental to the mission of the University of Melbourne. All members of our community are entitled to engage in robust, evidence-based and respectful expression of their views and the university provides a safe place for expressing differing opinions. The University will continue to contribute to the referendum process by actively facilitating informed public debate. Not everyone will vote ‘yes’ and we fully respect that.
Notwithstanding this, the Council and the Executive of the University of Melbourne affirm their support for the Uluru Statement from the Heart and the ‘yes’ position in the referendum, and look forward to the parliamentary process that would follow such an outcome.
It followed a suggestion by the shadow minister for education, Sarah Henderson, likening support of the voice to parliament in schools to “indoctrination”.
UNSW, the University of Wollongong, the University of Swinburne and Curtin University have all pledged support of the voice.
Zaneta Mascarenhas highlights third-culture Australians (and Married at First Sight)
As we roll a little bit closer to question time, I was reminded of this 90-second statement the Labor member for Swan Zaneta Mascarenhas delivered yesterday.
Is this the first time MAFS has ended up in the hansard? Possibly not, but it’s not a speech we would have heard in the last parliament, that is for sure:
I’d like to highlight a fabulous woman called Sandy from Married at First Sight. There are thousands of women across Australia who have wanted to give love a chance but who have been too scared to try. Sandy has been courageous to allow us to walk with her. In fact, Sandy has inspired a whole generation. Australia is made up of many third-culture kids.
We take our parents’ culture and we blend it with Australian culture to create a cool hybrid culture. When I watched Sandy’s wedding, I saw the way she skilfully did this.
Sandy used her wicked sense of humour to disarm people to help them see the real her: smart, fierce, sassy and funny. It sucks, but, for women, it’s often hard for the first, whether it be the first female prime minister or the first woman in a migrant family to have a mixed-race relationship.
It was tough when my Aunty Julie wanted to marry Uncle Jason in the 1960s. My dad smashed a fish tank when he first heard. By the time I got married, my dad embraced my husband. In my home of Swan, there are many mixed-race couples of different generations, and it’s easier when the person you’re dating has multicultural friends and a genuine curiosity to explore cultures.
I sense that Sandy will go through a period of healing, but know that we are so proud. I am certain that Sandy will find someone as fabulous as she is, because she doesn’t deserve anything less.
Josh Butler
Labor adds four minor amendments to Referendum Machinery Act
The government has proposed four new minor amendments to the Referendum Machinery Act when it hits the Senate this week, but at this stage are not entertaining proposals from the vital crossbench senators about real-time donation disclosures or fact-checking of the information pamphlet.
As we reported earlier, the special minister of state, Don Farrell, brought new amendments to the Machinery Act (the rules governing referendums) to the government party room this morning, which were all approved. We can now reveal what those were.
On top of keeping the information pamphlets, which the government had initially planned to abolish, Labor will propose a few relatively minor changes. Those include:
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Increasing the number of scrutineers for referendum votes.
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Extending the mobile polling period for remote areas from 12 days to 19 days before the vote, allowing the Electoral Commission more time to visit areas affected by natural disasters.
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Freezing the threshold for disclosing donations at $15,200, and not raising it further.
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Extending a broadcasting “blackout” period, restricting TV advertisements about the vote, to 3 days before voting day.
The bill, currently before the House of Representatives, is expected to pass the lower house today or tomorrow, then go to the Senate. The Coalition has pledged to vote against the bill unless the government sets up and funds official campaign bodies.
You may note that the government amendments do not propose to do that.
The Greens and David Pocock have called for real-time donation disclosures, lowering the disclosure threshold, and new mechanisms for fact-checking the pamphlet such as truth in advertising laws.
You may note that the government amendments do not propose to do that, either.
Pocock and the Greens are likely to propose Senate amendments. It’s not clear whether the government will oppose those, but Guardian Australia understands the government is less inclined to move on changes to donations until after a joint standing committee on electoral matters inquiry reports back later in the year.
Australia’s agriculture industry looks set to record a $90bn production year. So when should we start planning for drought, Gabrielle Chan asks?
The answer – now, when rain isn’t an issue.
The parliament has received a fairly significant gift (historically speaking):
Descendants of Joseph and Enid Lyons have donated the bible on which they were both sworn as MPs to Parliament’s official collection. Speaker Milton Dick and Parliamentary Librarian Dianne Heriot received the gift this morning. Joseph Lyons used the bible to be sworn in as PM. pic.twitter.com/6pORn4C5ex
— Tom McIlroy (@TomMcIlroy) March 7, 2023
The bible will be added to the parliament art collection.
Greens: FOI commission’s resignation a sign of a threat to democracy and transparency
The Greens senator David Shoebridge has some thoughts about the resignation of Leo Hardiman KC, the FOI commissioner, just one year into his five year term.
Hardiman cited his powers not being sufficient to actually overhaul how freedom of information requests are treated. Feeling ineffectual, he resigned.
Shoebridge said the Coalition government had deliberately undermined FOI and now it was up to the Labor government to fix it:
This resignation is a public indictment of the current system, highlighting the urgent need for an immediate funding injection to deal with the problems allowed to build up under the former Coalition government.
I asked about the impossible backlog on FOI in estimates in February and was told there are thousands of outstanding reviews, many going back at least 5 years. It has got so bad that people applying for review now are being told there’s no point with a wait this long.
There are more than 200 outstanding FOI reviews dating back to 2019. This delay destroys the utility of the information that was requested in the first place.
If a decision on FOI is wrong, waiting 5 years to force the release of the right information is far, far too long.
There is a huge threat to democracy and transparency when there are thousands of outstanding FOI review requests and 5 year delays on accountability.
Instead of Freedom of Information laws we have Freedom from Information, which means whether you’re a journalist or a citizen, it’s next to impossible to hold those in power to account.
Ley on super changes: ‘This is a dishonest prime minister’
The deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley has had many things to say on Sydney radio 2GB while speaking with Ray Hadley.
Hadley is concerned over the Treasury modelling which Katy Gallagher spoke about in Senate question time, which said that one in 10 Australians could be impacted by the super concession changes in 30 years’ times. That is assuming that there are no changes to any legislation surrounding super for three decades.
It’s incredible areas, really – let’s get upset about something that won’t matter because there are TEN WHOLE ELECTION CYCLES between now and then. You have to hand it to political debate in this country. It is poster mentality made media.
Ley:
Anyway, this is a dishonest prime minister. He’s deceived the Australian people day in and day out, you’ve exposed it on your program. I mean, how many times did we hear him say ‘we’re making it clear the change we’re proposing will impact half a per cent of Australians, 99.5% won’t be impacted at all’.
Now he’s breaking promises, in fact he is breaking promises he made hundreds of times before the last election, and he’s ramming policies through the parliament that he didn’t even mention once.
This is a perfect example … if you’re 37 years old, and you’re looking at investing more in your super, in 30 years’ time you’ve basically been told that what is described as $3m dollars today has shrunk to about $1m. Now, we have enough trouble convincing young people to invest in super and now they see this changing of the goalposts.
But remember that people trusted this prime minister, and he has just broken promise after promise. Power bills, cheaper mortgages, lower inflation, every promise broken. A plan to bring down the cost of living, promise broken and a huge one, no changes to super, promise broken. And again, this morning franking credits won’t be touched, that is another promise broken.
I mean, this is a shambles of a government, also we can’t forget the fumbling, stumbling deputy prime minister. I expect he didn’t explain it because that he actually knew that the whole thing was built on a lie.
Kathryn Campbell tells robodebt commission she did not consider ‘fairness’ until one and a half years after scheme began
The former department of human services secretary, Kathryn Campbell, has told a royal commission she didn’t consider the fairness of the robodebt scheme until one and a half years after it was introduced.
Campbell, appearing at the royal commission for a third and final time on Tuesday, has been facing questions about her involvement developing the proposal at the request of the then social services minister Scott Morrison.
Campbell accepted that the 2015 robodebt proposal included a retrospective change to the way a person’s entitlement to income support was calculated. Even though they declared on a fortnightly basis, it used annual tax office data to check their eligibility to payments.
Campbell was asked by senior counsel assisting, Justin Greggery KC: “Did you consider the question of fairness involved in the changing the question of entitlement retrospectively?”
Campbell replied: “No.”
Campbell said she did not consider this until robodebt exploded into controversy in January 2017. The scheme had already been operating for a year and a half.
She said in 2017 the government announced changes that meant the “income averaging” method central to the scheme would only be used after two attempts had been made to contact the welfare recipient.
The commissioner, Catherine Holmes AC SC, put to Campbell: “And if they didn’t contact, it served them right, did it?”
Campbell replied: “No.”
Campbell said by this stage she was relying on legal advice from the department of social services that suggested income averaging could be used as a “last resort”.
Holmes asked: “You didn’t have to worry about fairness because you thought it was legal?
Campbell said: “No.”
Campbell said she thought the system from August 2017 onwards provided procedural fairness to welfare recipients.
Asked what consideration she had given how the scheme might affect hundreds of thousands of her department’s customers, Campbell noted they were the department of social services’ customers, too.
Her evidence continues.
So now that the party room meetings are done and dusted, it’s down to the business of the parliament.
You won’t see government bills listed in the Senate for debate unless Labor is confident it has the numbers to pass them. Just an FYI for those looking for the safeguard mechanism.
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