The day that was, Tuesday 15 February
That is where we will leave the live blog for Tuesday. Thanks for following along.
Here’s some of what you might have missed today:
- Thousands of nurses and midwives gathered outside NSW parliament to fight for staff-to-patient ratios on all shifts and a 2.5% pay increase.
- Asio chief declared that his intelligence agency is “not here to be politicised”, vowing to defend its independence after the leak of details of an alleged foreign interference plot.
- Former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd said what Peter Dutton is “asserting about the Australian Labor party and China is a bald-faced lie”. Rudd also accused the Liberal party of hypocrisy on the issue.
- Attorney general Michaelia Cash confirmed in Senate estimates that the anti-corruption commission bill won’t be coming until after election.
- The prime minister said his wife could “speak for herself” after 2GB’s Ben Fordham suggested she had taken the tough questions in a 60 Minutes interview.
- NSW recorded 8,201 new cases and 16 deaths, Victoria recorded 8,162 cases and 20 deaths, Queensland recorded 5,286 new cases and 10 deaths, the ACT reported 455 cases, SA reported 1,138 cases, Tasmania recorded 513 cases and Western Australia reported 62 new cases.
- Novak Djokovic has said that although he is not against vaccinations, he is willing to sacrifice future trophies if he is told to get the jab.
We will be back again tomorrow with all the latest from the House and Senate estimates.
Updated
Speculation over Alan Tudge's future
Sticking with Alan Tudge and the Network Ten report, here’s a quick situation report. There is a lot of speculation about the minister’s future. The prime minister’s office says there is no decision yet about whether or not he returns to the frontbench – Vivienne Thom’s report is not yet finalised, so it sounds like the ultimate landing point is not imminent.
But I understand Tudge did lobby the then prime minister’s office for Rachelle Miller to be promoted (which was referenced in Peter Van Onselen’s news report tonight). I’m told there are records – correspondence or messages to that effect. But to be clear: I don’t know whether or not that information has been assessed by the Thom inquiry or what, if anything, she has recommended.
The prime minister at the time was Malcolm Turnbull. Turnbull has said previously he was unaware Tudge was in a relationship with Miller while she worked for him. He learned about it later, after Miller had moved to another office. Turnbull has confirmed those facts to me tonight.
To recap, Tudge, the education minister, stood aside in December while the Thom investigation into allegations made by his former staffer, Miller, was carried out.
Miller, who worked as Tudge’s press secretary while he was human services minister in the Turnbull government, first admitted to an extramarital affair with her boss in the November 2020 Four Corners episode Inside the Canberra Bubble.
Then, in December 2021, just days after the release of the Jenkins review into parliamentary culture, Miller revealed her relationship with Tudge was “more complicated”, saying it was defined by a power imbalance. She alleged it was at times “abusive”. Tudge has denied the allegations.
Updated
We have issued an infringement notice of $13,320 to Victorian-based company TCF Trading Co Pty Ltd for alleged unlawful importation of COVID-19 rapid antigen tests. Read more: https://t.co/GEYyPLkzh0
— TGA Australia (@TGAgovau) February 15, 2022
And you can read Tamsin Rose’s piece from today’s nurses and midwives rally outside NSW parliament at the link below:
Updated
And you can read more on the Djokovic interview in this story from Elias Visontay:
NT records 1,086 new cases
And finally, the Northern Territory has recorded 1,086 new cases overnight, with 156 people in hospital and 22 requiring oxygen.
The number of active cases in the NT has now reached 7,233.
Updated
Chau Chak Wing, the Chinese-Australian property developer who was named in a Senate estimates hearing last night, has issued a statement to say he is “shocked and disappointed at the baseless and reckless claim”.
He also said he had “never had any involvement or interest in interfering with the democratic election process in Australia”.
The Labor senator Kimberley Kitching, under the protection of parliamentary privilege, told the Asio chief, Mike Burgess, at the Senate hearing last night:
I am reliably informed that the puppeteer mentioned in your case study in your annual threat assessment speech given last week is Chau Chak Wing.
Kitching asked Burgess to confirm it, but the Asio chief replied that he would not comment on “speculation” about identities “and it’s unfair you ask me that question in public”.
Burgess had last week said in a speech in Canberra that Asio had foiled an alleged election interference plot, which involved an unnamed “puppeteer” hiring an employee who then allegedly searched for “candidates likely to run in the election who either supported the interests of [a] foreign government or who were assessed as vulnerable to inducements and cultivation”. He did not identify the alleged puppeteer, the candidates targeted or the foreign country responsible.
In the statement issued this afternoon, Chau said:
I am shocked and disappointed at the baseless and reckless claim made by Senator Kimberley Kitching during a Senate Estimates hearing on Monday. It is always unfortunate when elected representatives use the shield of parliamentary privilege as a platform to vilify and attack Australian citizens without producing a shred of evidence. I am a businessman and philanthropist. I have never had any involvement or interest in interfering with the democratic election process in Australia.
Chau said he would “invite Senator Kitching to show some courage and integrity by repeating her claim and revealing the sources she says she relied on, outside the parliament”.
Updated
In Senate estimates, Labor’s Katy Gallagher has been asking the finance minister, Simon Birmingham, about the Channel 10 report suggesting that Alan Tudge may be dumped from the ministry.
Birmingham did not want to give an inch – he said he hadn’t seen the news report, and wouldn’t say whether Tudge would keep his job or not.
Birmingham repeatedly said that he “can’t speak for the accuracy of the reporting” and cautioned against “assumptions and assertions” about what was in the review conducted by Dr Vivienne Thom, including the reported conclusion that Tudge will be sacked for lobbying to promote staffer Rachelle Miller without declaring he was in a relationship.
He said:
We’re not going to respond to a news report in a way that undermines the rights of those who engaged in a review process ... We want to ensure that review is concluded and Mr Tudge and Ms Miller receive the findings of Dr Thom, which will be more substantive than that [news] report if it is accurate.
Asked if the prime minister, Scott Morrison, still had confidence in Tudge, Birmingham noted Tudge had “had stood aside pending the Thoms report”.
Updated
The Australian federal police have announced they have fined a man for posting a “threatening and menacing” comment on Facebook, directed at a federal MP.
The 47-year-old was fined $5,000 for likening the politician to a terrorist supporter and “predicted they would be murdered”.
The Marangaroo man pleaded guilty yesterday in Perth magistrates court to using a carriage service to menace and was fined $5000.
A 47-year-old West Australian man has been fined $5000 for making a threatening and menacing comment online towards a Federal Member of Parliament. https://t.co/SggwVfL6Bt
— AFP (@AusFedPolice) February 15, 2022
Updated
Djokovic: I'm not anti-vax
Novak Djokovic has said that although he is not against vaccinations, he is willing to sacrifice future trophies if he is told to get the jab.
Speaking to the BBC, Djokovic said he’d accept not being able to compete for Wimbledon or the French Open over his stance on the vaccine.
Yes, that is the price that I’m willing to pay.
I was never against vaccination, but I’ve always supported the freedom to choose what you put in your body.
Because the principles of decision making on my body are more important than any title or anything else. I’m trying to be in tune with my body as much as I possibly can.
It’s the first time the tennis star has spoken out since he was deported from Australia in a row over his vaccine status.
Djokovic also addressed some of the criticisms that came from the stoush with the Australian government, particularly around the details of his submission to be exempted from getting the vaccine due to a recent Covid infection.
I was really sad and disappointed with the way it all ended for me in Australia. It wasn’t easy.
I understand that there is a lot of criticism, and I understand that people come out with different theories on how lucky I was or how convenient it is.
Absolutely, the visa declaration error was not deliberately made. It was accepted and confirmed by the federal court and the minister himself in the Ministry for Immigration in Australia.
So actually, what people probably don’t know is that I was not deported from Australia on the basis that I was not vaccinated, or I broke any rules or that I made an error in my visa declaration. All of that was actually approved and validated by the federal court of Australia and the minister for immigration.
The reason why I was deported from Australia was because the minister for immigration used his discretion to cancel my visa based on his perception that I might create some anti-vax sentiment in the country or in the city, which I completely disagree with.
Updated
Labor’s home affairs spokesperson, Kristina Keneally, spoke to reporters in the press gallery a short time ago. When asked whether it had been appropriate for Labor senator Kimberley Kitching to use parliamentary privilege to name a person as the alleged puppeteer behind a foreign interference plot (the Asio boss has not confirmed this), Keneally replied:
I make the point that individual senators can make individual decisions about the questions they ask, and what we heard last night in Senate estimates to our national security agencies were questions from a range of senators from a range of political parties that are questions that I would not ask in a public forum.
And I would encourage all members of parliament to take heed of the Asio director general’s advice about the importance of keeping national security information and intelligence information confidential, because if it becomes weaponised as we saw with Peter Dutton’s dangerous and divisive rhetoric last week, if it becomes a tool for political domestic debate, it actually undermines national security and social cohesion.
Asked whether she had spoken with Kitching to raise concerns, Keneally said:
I have not had the opportunity to, and I’d prefer to keep my conversations with my caucus colleagues private.
We have given Kitching an opportunity to comment.
Updated
Over in finance estimates, the Future Fund is up for a grilling from Greens senator Nick McKim over revelations it invested in a Chinese state-controlled weapons manufacturer that has sold combat aircraft to the Myanmar military, which is accused of crimes against humanity.
We hear that the Future Fund has now divested $4.9m in five subsidiaries of the company, Chinese arms conglomerate Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), due to US treasury sanctions issued against one of the subsidiaries in August last year.
The Fund’s chief executive, Dr Raphael Arndt. tells the hearing that they divested from AVIC in November 2021. The Future Fund’s investment in AVIC was revealed through freedom of information a month earlier.
Arndt said:
In August 2021, the US treasury announced that there would be investment sanctions investing in one AVIC subsidiary, being Avic Shenyang Aviation Company Limited, which is one of the companies we had an investment in.
[We] proceeded to divest that position. Under the sanction that was issued, they had until June of this year to do that and I believe the respond to the FOI request was October 2021. In November of 2021 that position was fully divested.
McKim asks whether the Future Fund divested due to the embarrassment of the FOI.
Arndt says the divestment was made in response to the US sanctions. He also clarifies that the investment was made through an index fund, and that the Future Fund doesn’t look at individual companies it invests in through index positions. That is left to third-party investment managers, he says.
Earlier today, WA Premier Mark McGowan told reporters an announcement on border arrangements would be made at the end of the month.
The WA border was set to open on 5 February, but due to widespread Omicron outbreaks, McGowan announced that the hard border would remain for the time being.
The premier said the government would be reviewing the border restrictions, and suggested the extra time was to allow people to get their third jab:
We are reviewing [the border restrictions] as we speak. We are going to review it over February and no doubt we will reach an announcement some time in February.
The reality is though that we are getting the third dose vaccination rate up, the eastern states appear to be coming off their peak which is a good thing, we are getting children [vaccinated], and every thing we are doing every single day is saving many West Australian lives.
By the time we reopen the interstate and international borders, we will be one of the highest vaccinated places in the world with one of the safest populations in the world, which is a great thing.
Updated
So, Channel 10 is advertising they have another “leak” from the government tonight:
Tonight, Prime Minister Scott Morrison is getting ready to sack one of his scandal-plagued ministers. But the MP doesn't even know they are about to be dumped.
— 10 News First (@10NewsFirst) February 15, 2022
Who could it be? Tune in to 10 News First at 5pm tonight to find out. #auspol pic.twitter.com/wstXJ3cZx3
We’ll be keeping our eyes on this one.
Good afternoon all, a quick thanks to Tory Shepherd for her epic shift this morning. Mostafa Rachwani with you this afternoon, and there is still much about so let’s get stuck in.
Mostafa Rachwani is standing by to take you through the rest of the day. See you all tomorrow!
The Sky News interview – in which the foreign minister did not specifically repeat the China appeasement claim – continued as follows.
Kieran Gilbert: Isn’t it incumbent upon you and your government to say this is bipartisan territory, you have got a solid partner regardless of who wins the election?
Marise Payne: Well we do we have a solid partner in Australia, Kieran – I’ve been extremely clear about that. And I have been working, as I said, with counterparts in the Quad, multiple other groupings, both formal and informal, over the last three years, in fact, six years, including as as minister for defence, on prosecuting the case for Australia as a solid partner.
Gilbert: But you’ve got your government, members of cabinet, the prime minister, the defence minister, others, saying that China has chosen Anthony Albanese?
Payne: Well, Kieran, I think it is legitimate for governments and for members of this government to point out areas, as I just said, the minister for defence did in question time today, in a short grab that I saw, to point out areas where we believe that there are differences in approach. And, ultimately, we have to work with the material that’s on the record, and the material that’s on the record, Kieran, in relation to defence, for example, is the situation that the previous Labor Government left us with in 2013, for example.
Gilbert: The other material is that Anthony Albanese met with [US] Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken last week, with [White House Indo-Pacific coordinator] Kurt Campbell last week with the Japanese ambassador last week. It is bipartisan territory when we’re talking about China, and the government is clutching at straws, isn’t it?
Payne: I don’t agree, Kieran, that it is not the role of the government to indicate where we believe our strengths lie and where we believe our record stands. We are consistently doing that.
Updated
The foreign minister, Marise Payne, has declined to repeat Scott Morrison’s claim that a Labor government would stand for “appeasement” of China.
In an interview on Sky News, Payne was repeatedly pressed on the matter. While she repeated the Coalition’s criticism of the former Labor government for a drop in defence spending as a share of GDP, and insisted it was fair enough to indicate “where we believe our strengths lie”, Payne dodged several opportunities to specifically endorse the appeasement claim.
When asked whether it was in the national interest for the Coalition to portray Labor as being compromised by China given that it may win government at the election, Payne made a generic statement that consistency was important:
What I would say is that it is essential, it is essential for those who wish to govern our nation, to be clear and to be consistent, as we have done in the approach that we take on these issues in Australia’s national interests and to protect Australia’s national security.
Asked why she won’t reiterate Morrison’s appeasement line – and whether she was uncomfortable with the prime minister’s language – Payne backed Peter Dutton’s question time comment about defence spending.
Payne said she knew, as a former defence minister, about “the repair that needed to be done to Defence’s investment program, and frankly, to the state of personnel numbers and a range of other issues – that was what we inherited from the previous government”.
The interviewer Kieran Gilbert noted that Payne had met with her counterparts from the US, Japan and India in Melbourne on Friday. Gilbert read out a tweet from Prof Rory Medcalf, head of the Australian National University’s national security college, that “Australia’s national interests require the foreign minister to reassure her Quad counterparts they can have confidence in Australia as a security partner, no matter who wins government”.
Payne said she was a great admirer of Medcalf’s work. She said she had worked with her Quad counterparts over the past three years “to absolutely assure them of Australia’s commitment to the Indo-Pacific”.
Pressed on whether it was in the national interest to suggest there was not bipartisanship on the issue, Payne said the Australian democracy was strong, robust and vibrant.
Updated
Some snaps from question time, thanks to Mike Bowers:
If you’re after all the details of the “character test” that the federal government is talking about (no, not the test it keeps referring to in relation to opposition leader Anthony Albanese, but the legislative one), Daniel Hurst and Paul Karp have you covered:
Question time ends
That was a spectacularly long question time. Or is that just me? Anyway, it’s done now, thanks for playing along!
Updated
Labor’s Richard Marles asks: “Why does the prime minister always fail to anticipate problems before they occur, fail to listen to expert warnings and act too little, too late? Why doesn’t he ever do his job?”
Scott Morrison launches into a Gish gallop listing everything the government has ever done. Here’s a link to the PM’s press releases if you want all the details.
“We’re getting on with the job,” he says.
Updated
“The cattle don’t use the phones,” Labor’s Tony Burke says, complaining that the prime minister is now talking about the cost of communication instead of the cost of beef.
Labor MP Susan Templeman asks about cost of living pressures, and prime minister Scott Morrison refers to the Russian threat to Ukraine.
Sigh. He says:
There are considerable pressures on costs of living in the inflationary environment we are facing, and economic uncertainty, that is a function of many things, including what we are seeing in the Ukraine.
Conflict will force up the price of petrol, he says (in answer to the question, which was about the cost of beef).
There’s still more than $5bn in the government’s election war chest in “decisions taken but not yet announced”, the finance department says, setting the scene for a pre-budget cash splash in coming weeks.
The Coalition copped some heat last year when the mid year economic fiscal outlook (Myefo) reported the government had noted down nearly $16bn in decisions not yet announced, and those not for publication due to commercial sensitivities.
The government wouldn’t confirm the exact breakdown between those two categories but said it was roughly equal, with the NFP measures said to be related to Covid vaccine spending.
Labor’s shadow finance minister, Katy Gallagher, tried to drill down on exactly how much of the approximately $8bn in “not yet announced” decisions – basically government decisions that they aren’t ready to announce yet, or ones they’re saving for a rainy day – was still to come.
After some back and forth, the finance department confirmed around $927m had been spent in numerous small announcements recently, and finance minister Simon Birmingham said another $1.5bn had been spent in some large announcements in the last few weeks.
That leaves around $5.5bn in decisions taken but not yet announced.
Updated
Labor’s Brendan O’Connor says no one has investigated the leaking of texts between prime minister Scott Morrison and French president Emmanuel Macron. Can the prime minister explain how this text message, which was on his phone, was leaked?
Morrison doesn’t refer to the text messages, but says he was upfront with Macron (which Macron denied with the immortal words “I don’t think, I know” when asked if he thought Morrison had lied to him). Morrison talks up the Aukus deal and says:
We had to advise the French government that we would not be continuing [with the submarine contract]. And if those opposite think there is a friendly way or an easy way … to tell another country that a $90bn contract cannot be continued, I am all ears.
Updated
Officials from the attorney general’s department have revealed that the prosecution of Witness K’s lawyer, Bernard Collaery, has cost $424,642 in the period from 19 June, when Witness K was sentenced, to 31 January.
Collaery’s case is bogged down in appeals about national security information provisions.
The attorney general, Michaelia Cash, said that “to the extent possible” the case will be in open court but the commonwealth always has to seek to protect “national security information”.
Labor’s Kim Carr asks if the commonwealth is seeking to introduce “super secret” evidence that Collaery’s lawyer wouldn’t see.
Officials confirmed they are asking for “court-only evidence” about the sensitivity of national security information, but it doesn’t go to the guilt or innocence on the primary charge.
Updated
Labor’s Clare O’Neil asks the minister do “do his job” and fix aged care. Health minister Greg Hunt says they’ve taken a range of actions since the royal commission after the Oakden aged care scandal in South Australia. He says:
In terms of the actions taken during the course of the pandemic, we have at this stage delivered 83.4% of booster coverage to the eligible population. 100% of facilities have had visits and over 300 have had a second visit for boosters.
In terms of workforce, over 82,000 surge positions have been made available. 50m units of PPE have been provided to aged care homes... beyond that, we have also been able to provide 9m rapid antigen testing to concessional card holders.
He’s also talking about overall spending in aged care and those not-so-popular aged care bonus payments.
Updated
Labor MP Amanda Rishworth says childcare fees have gone up by 40% while real wages haven’t risen, making it harder to make ends meet.
Liberal MP Stuart Robert says from 7 March, government changes in response to cost of living concerns will be in place. He says:
In just two or three weeks, the average Australian family with a second or third child in childcare will be $2,200 better off. $2,200 better off. Balancing childcare and the childcare need of our society is important … over 240,000 children and their families are benefiting.
The government understands the challenges with a second and third child which is why these extra rebates, over $1bn coming through, approaching $2bn, will start earlier than we first hoped.
Updated
Andrews goes on to say that she “takes on board the concerns people have in relation to swastikas on buildings”, and now her time has expired.
Labor MP Terri Butler is asking about the Safer Communities Funding (Sarah Martin wrote about it here). She’s asking why mosques subjected to vandalism that referenced the Christchurch massacre are missing out.
Home affairs minister Karen Andrews says the grants are appropriately administered (which is not what the auditor general found):
In relation to grant funding, and I make this point very sincerely, in relation to grant funding, and those opposite I understand have not been in government for quite some time ... but it’s very clear that grant funding guidelines to the safer communities fund were complied with.
There were instances where ministers “did take specific responsibilities to make sure the programs were able to be supported in various communities”, she says.
Labor’s Ed Husic says that was a generic answer and mentions swastikas on mosques. Speaker Andrew Wallace says something about specificity, which was hard to hear because that word makes people laugh out loud (thanks to former prime minister Kevin Rudd’s use of it).
Updated
Hmmmm
Another government leak tonight on @10NewsFirst tune in for the details. #auspol
— Peter van Onselen (@vanOnselenP) February 15, 2022
Albanese asks if Morrison’s response to questions about the bushfires are what former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian was referring to when she said “lives are at stake today and he is obsessed with petty political pointscoring”. We’re on those leaked texts again, which involved a mystery minister.
Morrison responds with the same template as below, detailing spending on recovery and resilience.
Updated
Labor MPs are brandishing photocopies of that Falinski article mentioned earlier:
Labor’s up with another question about the federal government’s response to last year’s bushfires.
Morrison says it was “the most testing of times”:
That is why we put in place the actions which were coordinated for some $2bn worth of support to aid the immediate assistance and recovery from those bushfires. [We] also for the first time had a mandatory rollout of the defence forces to support Operation Bushfire Assist … a trial run was conducted and that meant we could move to support our state governments and I thank state governments who accepted that assistance.
It was a great crisis and the government responded with clear funding commitments.
Updated
There’s been a spectacular blowup in Senate estimates, with Labor senator Katy Gallagher accusing finance minister Simon Birmingham of running a “dodgy costing unit” out of his office to scrutinise opposition policies.
Birmingham’s office last week released their own set of costings on Labor policies like free rapid antigen tests, after the opposition resisted putting their own price tag on the headline-grabbing policy.
In a sign of what we will see through the coming election, Birmingham said “we will continue to scrutinise your announcements in the lead-up to the election, just as I expect you to scrutinise ours”.
Some context: last week, the Australian published an article quoting analysis from Birmingham’s office, claiming “Labor’s pandemic policies would have cost taxpayers an extra $81bn”.
The finance minister used the numbers to claim Labor would have presided over “unnecessary spending”, as the government looks to fight the election campaign on economic and cost of living grounds.
(A reminder that the Coalition government’s spending has Australia on track for $1tn in net debt in coming years.)
Birmingham said the calculations had been done between his staff and the office of treasurer Josh Frydenberg, not the finance department.
“Unfortunately you’ve announced a policy with no detail, so we put some conservative numbers on it,” Birmingham told Gallagher.
“So you just made it up?” Gallagher responded.
Labor hasn’t said exactly how its free RAT scheme would work, for example how many tests would be available to each person.
The opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, when asked about the price of the scheme, has consistently said costings would be released before the election.
So, Birmingham said his team modelled several possible scenarios, coming up with a few different price tags, all north of a few billion. He called it an “ill-defined policy”.
“Ill-defined but you managed to define it?” Gallagher shot back.
“What a joke.”
She accused Birmingham of “cooked-up, dodgy numbers”.
“All the policies we take to the election will be costed, but I worry about this, and your dodgy scare campaign, which fell flat,” Gallagher said.
Updated
Warringah MP Zali Steggall, who has been under fire over campaign donations, asks about the federal government’s support for small business, and says she has heard from one in Manly that is on the brink of closing.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says he hopes her constituent’s correspondence included a $100,000 cheque. He talks up Australia’s economic recovery from the pandemic, saying:
This side of the House has helped deliver more than $60bn of economic support to the people of New South Wales.
Record support to the people of New South Wales. Whether it’s the jobkeeper payment, whether it’s been the cash bonus … we did partner with the NSW government on a 50-50 basis to provide business support. Which was very important. But now the economy is recovering strongly.
There are definitely businesses and families who continue to be challenged by the current economic conditions. But Australia has outperformed all major advanced economies. And we have been there for the Australian people, we have been there for the people of New South Wales, and they needed our help.
Updated
Labor MP Kristy McBain says an official has confirmed at Senate estimates that “three years after it was announced, not a single cent of the $4.7bn emergency response fund has been spent on disaster recovery”. What sort of “incompetent government” puts that money aside and doesn’t spend a cent?
Morrison says that’s a long-term program, and that $2bn has been spent from other rebuilding and resilience programs.
There are more interjections, and the Speaker gives Morrison six seconds to finish his answer. He uses it to talk up Andrew Constance, the Liberal candidate for Gilmore.
Updated
Another point of order from Burke, then Frydenberg picks up the thread again. He says:
Despite protests that you no longer stand for those things, the fact is, you have said those things.
Someone says loudly, “oh, no”. (Sorry, I didn’t catch who it was, but it sounded very despondent).
Updated
Shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers asks treasurer Josh Frydenberg about a report in the Australian Financial Review on inheritance taxes. Again, we covered this earlier. Liberal MP Jason Falinski says he definitely doesn’t back them, despite that report.
This is the ongoing fallout from a three decade old speech Anthony Albanese gave about tax.
Chalmers says:
Now that the treasurer’s desperate scare campaign has blown up in his face, will he stop spending his day poring over speeches from over 30 years ago, stop trolling his opponents websites and start doing his job for once?
Frydenberg continues attacking Albanese, saying he has supported inheritance taxes, and so on, ad infinitum.
Updated
Last week there was much huffing and puffing about dorothy dixer questions that end with a variation of “is the minister aware of alternative approaches”. The government takes that as carte blanche for full scale attacks on the opposition, but the Speaker... well, the Speaker is mostly OK with it.
Labor’s Murray Watt has been asking attorney-general Michaelia Cash about reports Scott Morrison considered a last-ditch attempt to get the national integrity commission up to help pass the religious discrimination bill.
Watt asked about reports the cabinet rejected the possibility of making the integrity commission retrospective – which led to a classic Cash counterpunch.
Cash said Watt had “demeaned” his line of questioning and was getting “political”, then questioned what senator Kim Carr thinks about the proposed expulsion of Victorian MP Kaushaliya Vaghela.
Watt objected on the grounds of relevance, but Cash pushed on:
Given that Mr Albanese is campaigning on a federal Icac, expelling a member for referring a matter to [Vic] Ibac … is hypocritical and suggests Mr Albanese is not serious about fighting corruption.
Updated
Speaker Andrew Wallace asks Morrison to reflect on the words he’s using after a point of order from Labor’s Tony Burke, who referred to previous calls on character assassinations in parliament.
That deportation legislation detailed earlier will feature all question time, I reckon. Have a look at Christopher Knaus’ piece and prime minister Scott Morrison’s comments, rinse and repeat.
Updated
Question time begins
And we’re away. Question time is kicked off with a question from the opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, to the prime minister, Scott Morrison.
Albanese is asking what Morrison has done to show support for Ukraine.
Morrison says they’re working closely with the Ukraine:
To send a very clear message to the Russian government that these threats of terrible violence against Ukraine are unacceptable and should be denounced and all effort should be made to prevent Russia taking that step in committing that violence against Ukraine.
The national security committee met last night and Morrison says “we will move swiftly with our partners along the lines we were considering and discussing, not for the first time”.
And now he’s segueing swiftly into attacking China for not denouncing Russia.
Updated
No anti-corruption commission bill until after election
Bit of breaking news before question time begins:
BREAKING: Attorney-General Michaelia Cash confirms to Senate #Estimates that the Govt will not introduce legislation for an anti-corruption commission before the election. A broken promise from the last election.
— Senator Murray Watt (@MurrayWatt) February 15, 2022
Updated
This just in from Christopher Knaus – a human story, important in context of the federal government’s push to be able to kick out offenders:
WA reports 48 new cases
Case numbers have also come out of Western Australia, with 62 new cases reported overnight, 48 of them locally acquired. There are now 471 active cases in WA.
A few more bits and bobs from party room.
There was a discussion of the government’s Regional Telecommunications Review report which was tabled in parliament on Monday, with several MPs speaking in support. There was also some discussion about live exports and cost of living.
One MP said the government needed to exercise spending restraint, urging an end to the low and middle income tax offset which was always intended to be temporary.
Terry Young, the Liberal MP for the seat of Longman, addressed the split over religious discrimination last week, complaining that he had supported net zero because “they accepted that it was for the greater good”, but spoke “disappointingly” of the MPs who had not supported the bill. He also read out an email from a local pastor expressing anger at the government over the failure to legislate religious discrimination.
Another spoke on marginal seat campaigns, saying “they were not rocket science, but were hard work” and praised the prime minister and federal director Andrew Hirst for their campaign strategy at the last election.
Greg Hunt, who is retiring at the next election, also spoke about his experience in parliament, saying the Coalition had been written off in 2001, 2004 and 2019, but had prevailed because of the leadership of John Howard and Scott Morrison. “We were told we were going to lose, but we didn’t.”
He said that if Morrison “pulls this off” and wins the next election, he will be “just above” Howard in his estimation.
Updated
ACT reports 455 new cases
Case numbers have come in from the Australian Capital Territory, with 455 new cases reported overnight.
Forty-nine people are in hospital, four are in intensive care and two require ventilation.
Updated
Some more on inflation issues. The RBA this morning released the minutes of its first board meeting in 2022. Nothing jumps out as startling.
However, CBA, Australia’s biggest lender, has seen enough. It shifted its prediction of when the central bank will lift the official cash rate to June, earlier the August timing it had forecast.
Financial markets are already pricing in a June move too, with the rate to lift to 0.25% from its record low 0.1% rate.
Gareth Aird, the CBA’s top economist, predicts three further rate rises in 2022 to take it to 1% by the end of 2022.
While the rate rise, if the CBA is right, won’t come before the federal elections, the expectation may be firmly in the minds of rate-wary voters. Aird said:
We expect the RBA to move to an explicit hiking bias at the May 2022 board meeting.
The Labor caucus met this morning – including a lengthy debrief about how the religious discrimination debate went and discussion of some of the wedge tactics the government is using on national security and immigration.
Leader Anthony Albanese said:
Last week was our party at its best – we made a collective decision and backed it in. There is often a debate about Labor having different constituencies and attitudes between them. We can represent people of faith and still represent that every child should be free from discrimination.
If we win, we will act on discrimination on the basis of faith, including an anti-vilification provision, which is stronger than what the government put forward, and we’ll also protect children.
Albanese said he’d never seen the government vote against its own legislation before (after it lost the vote on LGBTQ+ student amendments) and also chipped the Greens for pushing for bigger amendments that would not have guaranteed the result.
Albanese said “every government scare campaign has blown up in their face”, including Josh Frydenberg’s attacks on a speech he gave in 1991 on inheritance tax, which he compared to “Jason Falinski’s comments in the paper today”.
On national security, Albanese noted Asio boss Mike Burgess had backed his account of briefings related to alleged foreign interference.
Albanese said Labor was “competitive” in the election and “confident the government does not deserve a second decade in office”.
One MP noted that Labor’s anti-vilification amendment was being described in the Muslim community as the “Christchurch amendment” and there is an important national security dimension in ensuring people aren’t vilified on the basis of religion.
Updated
The NSW Nurse and Midwives Association are striking today, with a list of issues as outlined by my colleagues Michael McGowan and Tamsin Rose here.
Interesting to hear a sympathetic Ben Fordham on Sydney’s 2GB this morning (apparently his mother-in-law was a nurse).
Fordham did highlight that nurses got a 2.5% pay rise last year but, unless I missed it, made no mention that CPI is running at 3.5% (or 2.6% if you take the RBA’s preferred measure for underlying inflation).
Either way, nurses are – like many of us – unlikely to see much in the way of increased pay in real terms, given the jump in inflation.
Meanwhile, executives at one prominent Sydney hospital are apparently unhappy with the badges being worn by nurses.
A source tells us executives at the Royal Prince Alfred hospital have been overheard criticising nurses for these badges and stickers in front of patients.
“Remove it. It is offensive because the sticker has the phrase ‘life and death’ on it. It’s very misleading,” is what one nurse was told, apparently.
The nurse said the executives were “basically giving orders to shut [the protest] down instead of creating a solution”.
We can expect more tensions between executives and staff, it seems.
Updated
Victoria’s ombudsman, Deborah Glass, will consider an official referral from state parliament for a new investigation into Labor’s “red shirts” scheme.
Last week, Labor MP Kaushaliya Vaghela crossed the floor of the upper house to support a motion by her factional ally, former Victorian government minister Adem Somyurek, for a new probe.
She is expected to be expelled from Labor for breaking party rules.
In 2018, Glass found 21 Labor MPs had misused almost $400,000 worth of taxpayer funds to pay for campaign work, in what is now referred to as “red shirts”.
Labor repaid the money and all MPs involved were cleared of any criminal activity.
The latest referral to Glass asks her to examine the alleged role of the premier, Daniel Andrews, in the scheme, as well as matters related to another investigation being conducted in conjunction with the state’s anti-corruption watchdog into branch stacking by Somyurek and his allies.
“I will consider the extent to which the matters in the referral have already been investigated or are currently being investigated,” Glass said in a statement on Tuesday. She continued:
The public needs to have confidence that public resources are not being misused for political ends, and, as always, any investigation I lead will be independent and based on evidence.
I have discretion to investigate as I see fit, and I will refer matters and share information as appropriate and in accordance with the Ombudsman Act.
Glass said she would report back to parliament in due course.
Updated
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg also spoke to the joint party room, saying it was important for MPs to let their constituencies know that Labor had supported a number of taxes.
“There isn’t a tax that [opposition leader Anthony] Albanese hasn’t supported,” Frydenberg said.
He also urged MPs to “keep going” with their campaign on Albanese’s support for a wealth tax, suggesting the leader of the opposition had been “frothing at the mouth” over their attack:
We have got to keep going. These are his words, not just to the Labor party conference, but he was shadow minister when he was talking about wealth taxes as being a priority for Australia.
The treasurer’s urging suggests we can expect to see some more of the dirty misinformation campaigning that we saw at the last election, when an unfounded campaign against death taxes gained traction, particularly on Facebook.
Prime minister Scott Morrison also spoke a bit about Jenny Morrison’s appearance on 60 Minutes, thanking colleagues for messages of support she had received.
The PM said that it was “a brave thing for Jenny to do”:
It’s not something that she does naturally or that she likes to do – it’s not in her nature. But she was magnificent, you would expect me to say that, but she was – she was truly amazing.
Updated
National Covid-19 update
Here are the latest coronavirus numbers from around Australia today, as the country records at least 46 deaths from Covid 19:
ACT
- Deaths: 0
- Cases: 455
- In hospital: 49 (with 4 people in ICU)
NSW
- Deaths: 16
- Cases: 8,201
- In hospital: 1,583 (with 96 people in ICU)
NT
- Deaths: 0
- Cases: 1,086
- In hospital: 156 (with 22people in ICU)
Queensland
- Deaths: 10
- Cases: 5,286
- In hospital: 491 (with 35 people in ICU)
South Australia
- Deaths: 0
- Cases: 1,138
- In hospital: 219
Tasmania
- Deaths: 0
- Cases: 513
- In hospital: 10 (one person in ICU)
Victoria
- Deaths: 20
- Cases: 8,162
- In hospital: 441 (with 67 people in ICU)
Western Australia
- Deaths: 0
- Cases: 62 (48 local, 14 ‘other’)
- In hospital: 0
Updated
Tasmania reports 513 new Covid cases
In Tasmania, 513 new Covid cases have been recorded. Ten people are in hospital, one in intensive care.
Updated
Queensland reports 10 deaths and 5,286 new Covid cases
Ten people have died in Queensland, where 5,286 new Covid cases have been reported. There have been 491 hospitalisations and 35 people are in intensive care.
Today we have recorded 5,286 new COVID-19 cases.
— Queensland Health (@qldhealth) February 15, 2022
Sadly, 10 deaths were reported in the past 24 hours.
Full details ➡ https://t.co/2vvTmliFgl pic.twitter.com/vHmzrHpK2J
Updated
PM's call to action for Coalition MPs ahead of election
The prime minister has told a meeting of Coalition MPs that they need to focus ahead of the election to be successful.
Dismissing the division of last week that saw five Liberal MPs cross the floor, Scott Morrison said he knew the path to victory was in exposing the “starkness” of the choice between the Coalition and Labor. He said:
To win this election will require the most discipline, focus and professionalism from each of us in all of our roles.
Do that, we win, it’s that simple.
Morrison said there was “no risk-free change” and urged MPs to work hard in their electorates on the issues that mattered to them:
We have a job to do - I’m going to do mine, I need you to do yours. I need you to focus on your seats and what’s happening in your seats. I need you to prosecute every single inch of our agenda in those seats into the channels that that you know.
Deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce also spoke, using a swimming analogy to stress the need to push through the “pain barrier”. He said in a 1500m race, the last three-quarters of the final lap were all that mattered:
There’s only one part of the race that it’s really important that you’re in front, and that is the finish line.
Joyce warned MPs that some MPs might lose a seat by as few as 60 votes, and said they should go the extra mile by visiting the local bowls club or church and “micro” groups.
Updated
PM tells colleagues in the party-room between now and the election, we have a job to do, “I’m going to do mine, I need you to do yours” @ToryShepherd #auspol
— Katharine Murphy (@murpharoo) February 15, 2022
South Australia reports 1,138 new Covid cases and 219 in hospital
Another 1,138 Covid cases have been reported in South Australia, and 219 people are in hospital. Eighteen are on ventilators.
Updated
Morrison says there’s a “very real risk” of a Russian incursion into Ukraine in the next 72 hours although he wouldn’t want to say that is “known”. But it is “real”.
He’s again denouncing China for not denouncing Russia.
“My preference” would be that aged care services minister Richard Colbeck had been at the Covid meeting (instead of the cricket), Morrison says. But he needs his “corporate knowledge”.
“We’ve spoken about it,” Morrison says, when asked if he had reprimanded Colbeck, before dismissing it as a “bubble” issue.
Updated
Prime minister Scott Morrison is talking about aged care, how “normally” people die every week, even before Covid. He’s reeling off rates of infections around the world. “While all of those lives lost I grieve for, I’m actually thankful for the thousands of lives we’ve saved,” he says.
Many of those who’ve died had comorbidities, he says, and many would have died anyway.
I’m sure the families will be comforted by that.
Updated
I heard “metal” and had to think about this for a while. More coffee needed.
Plenty of mettle in the tank, the PM tells Lawsie #auspol
— Katharine Murphy (@murpharoo) February 15, 2022
We haven’t got into this silly story on here, but this is a funny rejoinder:
Alright, I confess, we were doing a cover of ‘April Sun in Cuba’. On the oboe. pic.twitter.com/MKKsm7EF3y
— Grace Tame (@TamePunk) February 15, 2022
Morrison has gone from talking about China to now talking about Russian troops amassing on the Ukraine border, saying it’s “not a time for weakness”.
Hint: We will be hearing about how tough Morrison is, and how soft Labor is by contrast, for the rest of the campaign. I won’t bother repeating it every time he says it.
Morrison is equating his deportation laws (see the context below, from Paul Karp) with turning back the boats. He’s saying those who don’t support him are supporting people who commit domestic violence.
He’s gone so far as saying Labor’s Kristina Kenneally wants people convicted of domestic violence to stay in the country (which is a complete misrepresentation of Labor’s position).
Laws is lapping it up.
Updated
Scott Morrison speaks in radio interview
Prime minister Scott Morrison is on 2SM with John Laws.
Laws starts by talking about the PM’s terrible horrible no good very bad week last week, and about opposition leader Anthony Albanese’s “character assassination” of Morrison. (Many would say the Coalition has been doing exactly that to Albanese.)
“What a lovely wife you’ve got,” Laws tells Morrison. Morrison says he’s “punching above his weight” and that those criticising him can get in the bin.
“There’s always going to be those, John, who have a crack at you,” he says.
Updated
The esafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, has received over 200 complaints about the bullying of adults online since the new Online Safety Act came into effect on 23 January.
Under the new cyberbullying reporting scheme, people can report serious bullying online to the commissioner’s office, and she is empowered to compel the social media platforms to remove the bullying content if it meets the threshold of “serious harm”.
Inman Grant told Senate estimates on Tuesday that the 200 complaints so far covered a wide range of bullying content:
These include complaints about explicit instructions and encouragement to commit suicide, threats of murder, and the menacing publication of personal details online, or doxxing.
In response to these and other harmful content, we’ve worked with the platforms to ensure the material is quickly removed. Some posts have been taken down in less than an hour because of esafety’s interventions.
Updated
Labor caucus has reserved its position on strengthening character test bill because Kristina Keneally is still trying to negotiate changes with Alex Hawke. #auspol
— Paul Karp (@Paul_Karp) February 15, 2022
Given all the debate today about strengthening the character test bill – it’s worth revisiting that the human rights committee (which has a government MP in the chair, Anne Webster) in December expressed concerns about the bill.
The committee said:
As the cancellation of a person’s visa subjects a person to mandatory immigration detention prior to removal, this measure limits the right to liberty (and the rights of the child if a child’s visa is cancelled).
Further, as the cancellation or refusal of a visa will result in a person’s expulsion from Australia (including potentially those with strong ties with Australia, including family ties), the committee considers the measure also may limit the prohibition on expulsion of aliens without due process; the right to freedom of movement (which includes the right to return to one’s ‘own country’); the right to protection of the family; and the rights of the child.
It also noted:
The committee considers protecting the safety of the Australian community and the integrity of the migration programme are important objectives. However, to be a legitimate objective for the purposes of international human rights law, the objective must be one that is pressing and substantial and not one that simply seeks an outcome that is desirable or convenient.
In this regard, the committee notes that the minister may already cancel or refuse a person’s visa where a person has committed an offence that would fall within the new definition of ‘designated offence’, including having regard to the broad notion of the person’s past or present criminal or general conduct.
We’ve checked the cases that Scott Morrison relies on when he says judges are giving out more lenient sentences.
It’s certainly true that judges can take into account hardships that a convicted criminal will suffer outside their sentence (or extra-curial punishment), but it’s not a loophole in migration law that judges are exploiting so much as an orthodox principle of sentencing.
Updated
Nurses and union representatives have been addressing the crowd at the strike in Sydney.
New South Wales Nurses and Midwives’ Association assistant general secretary Shaye Candish read out stories from nurses, detailing extreme cases of understaffing and burnout.
She vowed nurses would come back “bigger and angrier” if they were ignored today. She said:
This government is underresourcing the health system and it’s creating trauma for us. It’s time for the premier to listen. [Nurses] are saying that the system’s not coping and it’s not OK. We are not going away until our demands are met.
Updated
Police have confirmed they arrested a protester on Saturday in Canberra allegedly with a gun and a map of Parliament House.
Australian federal police commissioner Reece Kershaw has told Senate estimates about the arrest of the protester who, police say, had a firearm, ammunition and the map, AAP reports. Kershaw said:
We had specific information on some of those [protesters] and that was how we were able to work with the state police intelligence agencies as well, who were able to help us with the numbers coming into Canberra.
We were concerned when the number started to swell, and then some of the intentions were not clear, they were not a coordinated group, which actually presents a different challenge for us.
Updated
Melissa Davey and Laura Murphy-Oates take a terrifying but important look at the aged care crisis in the latest Full Story:
Australia Post paid retention bonuses to five senior staff, with one paid $500,000 over three years on top of his base salary and short-term incentive payments, Senate estimates has heard.
CEO Paul Graham told Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young on Tuesday that five senior staff had been paid the bonuses in order to retain them in the business. He said:
My view very clearly was that it was appropriate to retain those people. These skills are very, very difficult to find both in the Australian market and, indeed, in the international market.
They were being coaxed away by a major competitor and I felt that the damage that their departure would have done would have been significant. And therefore the board approved the potential payment for those three individuals. It is not an unusual process to pay retention when people are under threat of moving to a major competitor.
The AFR reported on Tuesday that executives at the government-owned mail service who were on a base salary of between $300,000 and $400,000 per year received an average bonus last year of close to $170,000.
The chair of Australia Post, Lucio di Bartolomeo, defended what the company said were “short term incentive” payments and not bonuses, arguing that the board benchmarks of pay showed Australia Post’s remuneration offers were below the median of payments offered in similar sectors in order to attract and retain talent. He said:
We certainly don’t see them as bonuses at all … we have contractual arrangements around the remuneration that provides two components for remuneration, one is fixed and paid irrespective of performance and another part is payable subject to performance, identifiable, targeted and measurable performance outcomes.
And clearly performance outcomes from year to year may well see different payments being made. They’re not increasing pay, they’re not increasing bonuses …
As those packages are set on the basis of what is considered in the marketplace for that sort of positions, and it starts off with the group general manager for Australia Post.
Updated
As the Omicron wave begins to recede (and we’re yet to see a major uptick in Covid cases from schools going back), consumers are starting to feel more confident.
That’s the finding at least, from the latest weekly ANZ-Roy Morgan survey, which shows a 3.3% improvement in sentiment – its largest weekly advance since early April 2021.
Among the states, Queensland (which delayed its return to school) rose the most, up 6.5%, with WA coming second (despite the extension of border barriers).
David Plank, head of ANZ’s Australian economics, noted the confidence picked up even as petrol prices remain at or near record levels.
So far, the weekly inflation expectations component has barely budged, rising 0.2 percentage points in the past week to 5% but that’s close to the four-week moving average of 4.9%.
The current economic conditions gauge, meanwhile, rose 9.3%, reaching its highest since mid-December 2021, when Omicron took off.
That consumer confidence, though, may be tested by other events – such as a potential Russian attack on Ukraine. And even the threat of an invasion will have its effects sooner to later for Australian motorists, you’d have to think.
Overnight, global oil prices rose another 2% or more, with Brent crude reaching about $US96.50 barrel … or closing in on the symbolic $US100 a barrel mark. It was last above $US100 in September 2014.
Speaking of inflation, there’s a curious debate over whether the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, will extend the low- and middle-income tax offset (or LMITO, dubbed the lamington because, well, we’re Aussies).
Supposedly, he’s pondering whether pumping $7bn or so more into the economy could make the RBA bring forward any rate rise.
Here’s my take on why this lamington lark looks very red herring-ish (to mix food metaphors).
Updated
Thousands of nurses gather outside NSW parliament
Thousands of nurses have gathered outside NSW parliament to fight for staff-to-patient ratios on all shifts and a 2.5% pay increase.
Protesters are here despite being told to call the action off by the Industrial Relations Commission. A nurse who has been working for 15 years told the Guardian it had “taken a lot for us to walk off the job today” but it had reached a critical point. She said:
The way it’s going, it’s unsustainable. We just want to provide safe care to our patients.
Union officials speaking at the rally accused the government, including the premier, Dominic Perrottet, and the health minister, Brad Hazzard, of being disingenuous in “crisis talks” over the past week. The spokesperson said:
I will not be lectured about safe staffing by these men.
A moment of silence was held to remember those the union representative said had died due to short staffing.
Updated
Nurses hold a moment of silence for patients they have died due to understaffing. #NursesStrike #nswpol pic.twitter.com/cWW2yUvKSE
— Tamsin Rose (@tamsinroses) February 14, 2022
In Auspol election world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes and scare campaigns around death taxes. Liberal and Labor are fighting over the issue very publicly this morning, and it’s been turning a bit silly.
To recap, this comes after online misinformation at the 2019 election that wrongly claimed Labor would bring in an inheritance tax, unkindly called a “death tax”.
This time around, the campaign is far more front-facing, with the government pointing to opposition leader Anthony Albanese’s comments from 1991 proposing an inheritance tax when he was assistant general secretary of NSW Labor.
The government is blasting social media with graphics showing a laundry list of “higher taxes” they claim Albanese has supported.
Labor has mocked the Coalition for digging so far back in the archives, and Albanese jokingly tried to table in parliament a 1981 university essay he wrote as an economics student.
On Tuesday, the Australian Financial Review reported that Liberal MP Jason Falinski said “the people who aren’t paying tax are the people inheriting their money”, adding it was “problematic” that “more and more money is being accumulated by lazy capital”.
It was published under the headline “Liberal MP backs higher inheritance taxes”.
But just hours after the story was published, Falinski tweeted “Never have, never will support an inheritance tax. And anyone who knows me knows that I am strongly in favour of lower taxes not higher taxes.”
Labor’s shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers ruled out taking an inheritance tax to the election, telling ABC’s Radio National “absolutely not, of course we are not introducing a tax of that kind.”
He mocked the furore over Falinski’s comments:
“[Treasurer] Josh Frydenberg can’t even organise a decent scare campaign without the wheels falling off it. It is ridiculous.
He later took a printout of the AFR’s front page to a press conference, brandishing it to accuse Frydenberg of an “unhinged and dishonest scare campaign”.
The only major party who says that the problem that needs to be dealt with here with a death tax is the Liberal party.
Guardian Australia asked if he’d read Albanese’s 1981 essay, titled “The Neoclassical Theory of the Competitive Market System”.
Chalmers replied “very sharp essay, very neatly written.”
“It was very impressive.”
Updated
Hundreds of nurses getting ready to March towards Parliament. They are striking for staffing ratios and a pay rise despite the IRC telling them not to yesterday. #nswpol @GuardianAus pic.twitter.com/Ti6gAtgnSh
— Tamsin Rose (@tamsinroses) February 14, 2022
Updated
Grants awarded to “ineligible” applicants, or not assessed in full accordance with guidelines, Sarah Martin reports:
Kevin Rudd accuses Liberal party of 'appeasing' China
I know you are but what am I?
Returning to Kevin Rudd’s virtual media conference – he is outraged by the Coalition government’s rhetoric that an Albanese Labor government would stand for “appeasement” of China. The former prime minister hits back by suggesting the Coalition is the one that has appeased China. Rudd says:
Appeasement is a set of actions designed to push core questions of values and security to one side because you see other advantages to be realised.
Number one, when the Liberal party attacked my posture on human rights in China, that was seeking to appease Beijing for commercial reasons. Why else would you stand up and attack the position that I took on human rights in Tibet in an address I gave in Beijing as prime minister or the decision to grant a visa to a Xinjiang human rights activist?
Why else would you have opposed that as a Liberal party? Those are appeasing actions. Therefore, I don’t use the term lightly and certainly I don’t intend to stand idly by while Peter Dutton smears the party of which I’ve been parliamentary leader, prime minister, and could form the next government of Australia as being somehow soft on China when it comes from a series of actions on the part of the Liberal party in government and in opposition, which constitute a classical definition of appeasing the Chinese.
Rudd says he does not use the term lightly, “but I’m sick and tired of being on the receiving end of this appalling set of statements from Dutton who should hang his head in shame given that he’s been part and parcel of these cabinet deliberations over such a long period of time.”
Rudd says the forthcoming federal election campaign should be conducted on the basis of facts about modern China and how Australia should engage with it in a balanced fashion “as opposed to the fiction and hypocrisy we’ve been served up by field marshal Dutton”.
Rudd says Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong were members of his cabinet when it decided to exclude Chinese telco Huawei from the National Broadband Network.
OK. In summary, Rudd is not a Dutton fan.
Updated
Peter Hannam’s been crunching those Covid numbers:
NSW #covid deaths nudge up two to 16. Hospitalisations are down 4% as are ICU patients (reversing yesterday’s pickup). https://t.co/4cO8nhJzwa
— Peter Hannam (@p_hannam) February 14, 2022
Labor senator Kimberley Kitching has used parliamentary privilege to suggest that a major donor to Australian political parties is the “puppeteer” of an alleged foreign interference plan linked to an election.
Asio chief Mike Burgess called the comments “unfair”, refusing to confirm or deny details related to the plot he outlined in a threat assessment to parliament last week, alleging an unnamed foreign national planned to support certain political candidates to be elected in an unspecified Australian election.
During Burgess’ appearance before a Senate estimates committee hearing on Monday, Kitching – under the protection of parliamentary privilege – named Chinese-Australian property developer Chau Chak Wing, who has previously been a major donor to both major parties.
I am reliably informed that the puppeteer mentioned in your case study in your annual threat assessment speech given last week is Chau Chak Wing.
I believe it to be Chau Chak Wing. Are you able to confirm that it is Chau Chak Wing?
Burgess refused to give further information, criticising Kitching for the question.
As I said before, I will not comment on speculation of who is or isn’t targets, and it’s unfair you ask me that question in public.
Burgess confirmed he held no concerns about any Labor candidates at the next federal election.
Updated
Victoria records 20 Covid deaths, 8,162 new cases
In Victoria, 20 people have died. 441 people have been hospitalised with Covid and 67 of them are in intensive care. 8,162 new cases were recorded.
We thank everyone who got vaccinated and tested yesterday.
— VicGovDH (@VicGovDH) February 14, 2022
Our thoughts are with those in hospital, and the families of people who have lost their lives.
More data soon: https://t.co/4nRYt6jpwC#COVID19Vic #COVID19VicData pic.twitter.com/qmrJKXNe7s
Updated
NSW records 16 Covid deaths, 8,201 new cases
Sixteen people have died with Covid in NSW, and there have been 1,583 hospitalisations, 96 of them in intensive care. NSW has recorded 8,201 new infections.
NSW COVID-19 update – Tuesday 15 February 2022
— NSW Health (@NSWHealth) February 14, 2022
In the 24-hour reporting period to 4pm yesterday:
- 95.6% of people aged 16+ have had one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine
- 94.2% of people aged 16+ have had two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine pic.twitter.com/iGlqSiL1ek
Updated
Australia passed a booster milestone on Monday – more than 10m doses have been administered, taking the national rate to almost 60%.
Vaccine rollout chief lieutenant general John Frewen told ABC television this morning he is pushing to get more jabs into arms, and encouraged people to get the Novavax vaccine, which recently arrived in Australia.
He said he will keep encouraging “other pathways” into aged care homes, using GP facilities as well as in-home clinics.
Updated
Kevin Rudd criticises government's China rhetoric as 'outrageous'
The former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd is doing an early morning Zoom press conference to hit back at the government over its “outrageous” rhetoric about China.
Rudd says what Peter Dutton is “asserting about the Australian Labor party and China is a bald-faced lie”. Rudd also accuses the Liberal party of hypocrisy on the issue.
Cue the video tape (yes, there is a video tape, which Rudd labels as “Peter Dutton’s home video collection”). His office has cut together clips of various Liberal party figures making statements – for example, supporting an extradition treaty with China, or questioning the Labor government’s ban on Huawei in the National Broadband Network.
Rudd says the 99-year lease of the Port of Darwin to a Chinese company is an “abrogation of the national interest”.
Updated
Here are some more details on that NSW nurses’ strike, from Michael McGowan and Tamsin Rose:
Opposition leader Anthony Albanese says he takes being called “vanilla” as a win. The term is being used as he is accused of running a “small target”, bland campaign.
“Vanilla is in fact the most popular flavour of ice cream,” Albanese tells commercial radio. “So I’ll take it as a win.”
He’s asked about Jenny Morrison as the prime minister’s “secret weapon”.
My secret weapon is the Labor party. We actually like each other.
Updated
Morrison says 'Jenny can speak for herself' in response to 60 Minutes criticism
2GB’s Ben Fordham asks prime minister Scott Morrison about suggestions his wife, Jenny took the tough questions in that 60 Minutes special.
“Jenny’s amazing and she can speak for herself,” he says, adding that he’s addressed the questions, particularly about the Hawaii trip. He’s suggesting his responses got cut in favour of including Jenny.
Now it’s all chuckles about the ukulele playing. And Morrison says if people want to sneer at him for playing the uke and for cutting hair, those people are sneering at millions of Australians.
Updated
Morrison tells 2GB’s Ben Fordham that he will be “discreet” discussing that story (mentioned earlier) about a Chinese Communist party “puppeteer”.
He’s not so discreet in accusing Labor of being “weak” on China and says his government is the certainty in an uncertain world.
People are throwing stones in glass houses, Morrison says, when asked about the Zali Steggall donation story I linked below.
Updated
PM accuses judges of giving sentences that allow foreign-born criminals to dodge deportation
Prime minister Scott Morrison has accused judges of handing out sentences that allow foreign-born criminals to dodge deportation.
The government will introduce legislation so non-citizens who have been convicted of a crime are easier to kick out. He tells 2GB radio that judges are giving out more lenient sentences so people are not captured under current laws. He says:
The judges are handing down sentences that allow people to get around this.
We want to make sure we can punt them.
He says since the last election the government has expelled 4,000 people, and 10,000 since coming to power.
He is, naturally, using the delays in introducing the bill as an attack on Labor, calling them soft on national security.
Updated
Former treasury secretary, Dr Ken Henry, says the tax system is broken because there are budget deficits as far as the eye can see.
Tax reform can encourage faster economic growth, more business investment, and from that investment, growth in real wages.
He tells ABC radio that while whichever party is elected next should embark on tax reform, it’s unlikely to feature in the lead up to the election because of “scare campaigns” about taxes that “prey on the most vulnerable in the community”.
Having three levels of government makes Australia’s tax system “incredibly messy”, he says, and that the state and territory taxes are “even worse” than the federal taxes, which he says are not fit for purpose.
“It should not be easier to deport an international sports star than a convicted criminal,” immigration minister Alex Hawke says, referring to tennis star Novak Djokovic’s visa saga.
I mentioned below that the government wants to fast-track the deportation of non-citizen people who’ve been convicted and sentenced of a crime.
Hawke says the bill the federal government wants to bring in “broadens existing discretionary powers to cancel and refuse visas under the ‘character test’”. According to AAP, he says:
An Australian visa is a privilege that should be denied to those who pose a threat to the safety of Australians.
The Senate blocked the bill last year after Labor declared it a “political wedge”.
Updated
Speaking of the lamington, the Australia Institute has released analysis this morning that shows nine in 10 taxpayers will pay more if it is scrapped.
They have projected out to 2024-25, when legislated tax cuts for high income earners will come into effect. The institute’s Richard Dennis says it will predominantly be Liberal seats that benefit from the high income tax cuts, while the LMITO winners are more likely to be in Labor seats.
The low and middle income tax offset is set to wind up, which will be fertile fodder in election campaigns. Peter Hannam looks at the fluff, sweeteners and coconut sprinkles of the LMITO:
Asio chief says agency is 'not here to be politicised' after Dutton's China comments
The Asio chief has declared that his intelligence agency is “not here to be politicised”, vowing to defend its independence after the leak of details of an alleged foreign interference plot.
Mike Burgess confirmed he held no concerns about any Labor candidates at the next federal election, and people should “definitely not” assume an Asio employee was responsible when news reports attributed information to “security sources”.
“I take our reputation very seriously. Asio is not here to be politicised. It should not be,” Burgess told a Senate estimates hearing on Monday night.
Without criticising anyone by name, Burgess said he did “recognise that there may be people who choose to misuse [information] – officials or members of parliament or ministers” and “any misuse is a matter for them to answer to, not myself”.
He said he was able to “have very robust conversations with all elements of the political class” and with officials “to make it very clear what I think is appropriate and inappropriate”.
“I can assure you I will continue to do that when things like this happen,” Burgess said.
The Asio chief’s forthright intervention comes days after the defence minister, Peter Dutton, ramped up the government’s political attack on Labor by claiming the Chinese government had picked the opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, “as their candidate”.
Dutton later claimed he based Thursday’s inflammatory allegation – ruled by the Speaker on Monday to be out of order – on “open source and other intelligence”.
When asked about this comment, Burgess said he would avoid entering the political fray, but added:
I can’t speak for the minister what was in his mind and what processes he went through when saying that … I’d suggest that’s a question you should ask the minister not me.
The Nine newspapers on Friday reported “multiple security sources” had said a Chinese intelligence service was behind a recently disrupted foreign interference plot that had “attempted to bankroll [New South Wales] Labor candidates in the upcoming federal election”.
That report prompted Albanese to tell reporters on Friday that the Asio chief briefed him regularly and had “never raised a concern about any of my candidates”.
Burgess confirmed Albanese had given “an accurate account of the conversation I had with him last week when he asked me that question”.
Burgess told the Senate committee that when he delivered his annual threat assessment speech last Wednesday, he “deliberately chose not to identify the election, jurisdiction, party, the individuals that were targets, or the country attempting to conduct the interference”.
That, the Asio chief said, was because attempts at foreign interference were “not confined to one side of politics” and were being seen “at all levels of government, in all states and territories”.
Burgess said it was unfortunate that “media speculation about who was involved” had “missed a key point”.
“We stopped the plan before it was executed and the targets were not aware they were in fact targets,” he said.
He said he had chosen to use the case study – without disclosing identities – “to raise awareness, in particular because we have a federal election approaching and it’s important that we all understand what political foreign interference looks like”.
Burgess said Asio existed “to serve our national interest, not sectional interests or partisan interests or personal interests”. By law, he said, Asio must not “lend favour to one element of society or another or one party or another”.
“So, we do not do that, but I can see how some people would be concerned by that media speculation,” he said.
During an exchange with the senior Labor frontbencher Kristina Keneally, Burgess said he did not want to say anything that might confirm or deny the particulars of the foiled interference plot – meaning a lot of his comments were general in nature.
But Burgess said it would be “totally inappropriate” if classified information was “released publicly without the appropriate process”. He said ministers and their staff with access to classified information were “subject to the same laws of the land that I am”.
He said:
When Asio product is distributed, people have the appropriate level of clearance and the reporting itself has the appropriate caveats that make it very clear how that information should be handled and what shouldn’t, in fact, by that very definition, happen with it, such as public disclosure.
Where it is misused, that’s a problem - but I can assure you where it is misused, if it was hypothetically misused, I would look at whether I needed to do an investigation.
On Thursday Dutton told parliament the Chinese Communist Party had “made a decision about who they’re going to back in the next federal election … and they have picked this bloke [Albanese] as their candidate”.
When challenged, Dutton insisted he was reflecting “on what has been publicly reported and commented on by the director general of Asio”.
The Speaker, Andrew Wallace, ruled on Monday that Dutton’s “insinuation” against Albanese had been out of order and “would ask that such comments not be repeated”, but stopped short of forcing the minister to withdraw.
On Monday the prime minister, Scott Morrison, continued to accuse the Labor party of standing for “appeasement” – even though the opposition has given broad bipartisan support to the government on the key flashpoints in the relationship with China.
Burgess has previously implored politicians not to bring Asio into political debate, as he disclosed in an interview with Guardian Australia last year.
“I have general conversations with politicians about for example … ‘don’t make Asio the political thing, we’ve got a job to do, my organisation is apolitical [and] we’re here to serve the country [so] don’t bring us into it’,” he said in March 2021.
In February 2019, the then head of Asio, Duncan Lewis, issued an extraordinary rebuke for the leak of departmental advice on the medevac bill to the Australian newspaper and misrepresentation of the advice as from Asio.
Updated
Steggall also says claims she was a “hypocrite” accepting money that may have come from the proceeds of fossil fuels were a “hit job”.
Past investments should not disqualify people from making future donations, she says.
She’s invoking Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, the mining magnate who is now spruiking green hydrogen, saying he is now seen as the “messiah”.
Updated
Independent MP for Warringah Zali Steggall says she didn’t try to hide a $100,000 campaign donation, calling it a “rookie error”.
“It wasn’t hidden from the public,” she says on ABC radio.
Donations from the family trust of a coal investor were split into eight separate pledges, and therefore fell beneath the disclosure cap. Steggall, who advocates for climate change action, says her accountant “failed to raise there’d been a single cheque”.
“The record was corrected,” she says.
Steggall says donors were worried about being targeted by the Liberal party as she tried to unseat sitting member (and prime minister) Tony Abbott.
Read the original story by Sarah Martin here:
Last night Australian Border Force officials were asked about the Novak Djokovic visa cancellation saga.
The home affairs general counsel, Pip De Veau, revealed the estimated legal costs to taxpayers of the Djokovic court saga is $360,000.
Those include internal resources and external lawyers, but the estimate is very approximate because Djokovic won costs in the federal circuit court and the commonwealth won costs in the federal court.
ABF officials also revealed for the first time why they reneged on a deal to give Djokovic more time to respond to their concerns about his medical exemption in an early-morning interview – a crucial factor in his first round court win.
The ABF chain of command believed Djokovic had been granted time to rest, but when they learned it was to consult lawyers and Tennis Australia they went ahead with visa cancellation, figuring they couldn’t tell them any more about the purported medical exemption from vaccination.
Michael Outram, the ABF commissioner, explained that in early November Tennis Australia had asked the health department if a prior Covid infection was a valid exemption for the entry requirement of double vaccination.
Outram said both the health department and minister said ‘no – it wasn’t’, but Tennis Australia’s chief medical officer nevertheless produced a letter claiming that tennis players had an exemption on this basis. This letter “confused airlines” and helped players get flights – but ultimately not to enter Australia.
Officials denied that doubles player Renata Voracova was strip searched when she was taken into immigration detention and deported.
Updated
Good morning
There’s a lot to catch up on from yesterday’s parliamentary goings-on. In Senate estimates, the Australian federal police warned about disinformation and foreign interference as the election approaches.
Revelations that the home affairs department paid $16,000 to rent an official’s home through Airbnb were described as “mind blowing”, Asio refused to weigh in on speculation about the identity of a “puppeteer” working on behalf of the Chinese Community Party to influence elections, and there were estimates that the Novak Djokovic visa cancellation saga will cost $360,000.
Speaking of booting people out of Australia, the Morrison government is getting ready for another legislative battle after its religious discrimination laws fell over. Character test laws that would speed up the deportation of those deemed to fail them are being readied.
Nurses are set to strike in New South Wales – despite orders to stop them.
Shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers said this morning Labor was “absolutely not” considering inheritance taxes, but will that stop the Coalition’s attacks? Opposition leader Anthony Albanese yesterday tabled an essay he wrote in 1981, after a three-decade old speech he made was unearthed to claim Labor will bring in “death taxes”.
Meanwhile Russia is still threatening an invasion of Ukraine, a situation that prime minister Scott Morrison railed against yesterday, while trade minister Dan Tehan threatened tough sanctions against Putin’s regime.
And the week is only just building up a head of steam.
Guardian Australia’s Canberra team – Katharine Murphy, Sarah Martin, Daniel Hurst, Josh Butler and Paul Karp are here for you, as is Mike Bowers.
