Key events
The opposition has continued its political attacks against visas being given to Palestinians from Gaza (before Israel seized and completely closed the Rafah border in May).
The Australian newspaper has reported:
“International data compiled by the opposition indicates Australia’s nearly 3000 approved visas for Gazans since Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack on Israel far exceed the numbers accepted by the nation’s Five Eyes allies and like-minded countries such as France.”
Of the 2,900 visas which were approved, only 1,300 or so Palestinians made it to Australia before the border closure. Another 7,000 visas were rejected, the government has said.
Murray Watt is asked about the story and says:
I guess the key point is we are using exactly the same processes as were used by the coalition when they were in power and when Peter Dutton was the minister. Mike Burgess, the Director-General of Asio, has confirmed that himself.
Peter Dutton was quite prepared to use certain processes when he was the minister, now we’re in power, he wants to criticise that. He wants to find division, to find reasons for criticism and be negative of the government.
The Greens have also criticised the legislation as giving too much power over unions to the government.
Murray Watt rejects that too:
I think this is just a ridiculous example he’s [Adam Bandt] giving, to disguise the fact yesterday the Greens were the only party in the Parliament who decided to side with John Setka and the organised crime and bikie elements around the CFMEU, rather than taking the side of the Australian people.
We had a vote in the Parliament yesterday, in the Senate, that called on the Greens to say they wouldn’t take political donations from the CFMEU construction division, they refused to vote for that. So I think it’s pretty clear what the motivation here is in voting against this legislation.
Yesterday, Greens senator David Shoebridge said the Greens had not received a donation from the CFMEU in 10 years:
We haven’t received a dollar from the CFMEU for a decade, the Coalition received $175,000 in the last two years, Labor has received millions of dollars and what we say is we have not received the money, it is not why we are engaged in the debate.
Workplace minister Murray Watt has rejected claims from some within the CFMEU that the deal the government has struck with the Coalition over legislation to place the construction arm of the union into administration is ‘an attack on construction workers”.
Watt told ABC News Breakfast:
I would completely disagree this is an attack on construction workers. Quite the opposite. Construction workers and members of the CFMEU construction division have been let down by the leaders, where we’ve seen organised crime and bikies infiltrate the union at the expense of the members.
It’s about rebuilding the union, get back its focus on representing the interests of its members, and once and for all eliminating the organised crime and bikie influence that’s taken hold.
Melissa Davey
(continued from previous post)
Estimates suggest that Australians lost approximately $25 billion on legal forms of gambling in 2018–19, representing the largest per capita losses in the world.
RACP president Dr Jennifer Martin said the government must treat gambling as a health issue. She said;
There needs to be appropriate investment in wrap-around services for people who are impacted, ensuring access to treatment and support to everyone who needs them. Ultimately, without a ban on all forms of gambling advertising the health of Australians is put at serious risk.”
Melissa Davey
Two peak medical bodies have called on the government to implement an outright gambling ban, saying they are seeing an increasing number of patients being harmed by it.
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) and the
Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) released joint position statement on Tuesday on the prevention and treatment of gambling-related harm. The statement highlights an urgent need for legislative action to address gambling harm.
The statement also calls on the federal, state and territory governments to remove barriers preventing people from seeking treatment for addiction.
RANZCP president Dr Elizabeth Moore said; “Increasing rates of gambling-related harm among Australians is a significant concern for psychiatrists, given its strong correlation with comorbid mental health disorders”.
It can tear apart families, fueling financial troubles, economic abuse, and intimate partner violence, with gambling proven to intensify the factors that drive violence against women and their economic abuse,” she said.
Banning all forms of gambling advertising through legislation is critical to address their pervasive effect on people’s mental health and wellbeing.”
Plibersek on sacred site protection at goldmine project: ‘Occasionally decisions like this need to be taken’
The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, has spoken to ABC radio AM early this morning, defending her decision to place an Indigenous protection order over a goldmine in western NSW. The mine’s owner took to the ASX with a statement to say the order made the McPhillamys Gold project unviable.
The decision has kicked off a firestorm of warnings from the mining industry and its advocates that it sets a precedent that could ‘threaten’ all mining projects.
Plibersek says protecting cultural heritage should be paramount.
The truth is, we are living in a country where we’ve got thousands of years of continuous culture and heritage.
We’ve done a pretty bad job of protecting it in the past, the Juukan Gorge tragedy was an extreme example of that.
Liberal, Labor, the Nationals – everyone in the parliament said, ‘we can’t allow things like this to happen again. It was terrible for our reputation as a nation internationally’.
If that is the case, if we sincerely believe that we can’t allow the destruction of cultural heritage in that way, then occasionally decisions like this have to be taken.
Fatima Payman says she has ‘no plans’ to form new party
Daniel Hurst
The former Labor senator Fatima Payman has reiterated that she does not have “any plans” to form a new political party, but her new chief of staff says it is “a discussion we need to have”.
The ABC’s Australian Story program last night profiled the independent senator, who quit the Labor party to sit on the crossbench in protest at what she saw as its inadequate stance against the Israeli assault on Gaza.
In an interview with the program, Payman’s chief of staff, Glenn Druery, was asked whether there were plans to form a new party and he replied:
It’s certainly a discussion we need to have. Yes, it’s a discussion we must have.
Payman told the same program:
I do not have any plans on forming a party, but I will not be joining the Greens and nor will I be forming a Muslim-only party.
Something I’ve learned about politics is you never commit definitively to anything, because it will come around and bite you in the backside.
Druery, the political strategist and so-called “preference whisperer”, told Guardian Australia on 9 August that “if, in the future, the senator does decide she wants to get involved in a political party, my advice would be to stay away from any party with a religious base” because “in electoral terms that will just not work”.
Wong reflects on political career as she announces plans to deepen connections with Indo-Pacific
Daniel Hurst
(Continued from last post)
Penny Wong also used the speech to announce plans to help Australians build deeper connections with the Indo-Pacific region. This will include a doubling of long-term scholarships available under the New Colombo Plan, from 150 to 300.
Wong, who was born in Malaysia, told the ANU’s Centre for Asian-Australian Leadership:
It would have been unimaginable to me, when I first came to this country, that I would one day be Australia’s foreign minister or government leader in the Senate. Such an idea would have been as fantastic as fiction.
Nothing in those early years as an Asian kid in Adelaide – whose parents were married while the White Australia Policy was still in place … Nothing in those early years suggested this was a possibility.
The experiences of prejudice and racism that will be too familiar to many of you.
Wong said that early in her political career “it felt daunting, to so often be the first”. She said her first few years in the Senate were shared with the Chinese-Australian politician Tsebin Tchen “until the Liberal party didn’t preselect him for a second term”. She added:
There were times when it felt like the only other Asian faces I would see in Parliament House were the cleaners and a woman who worked in the library.
Wong said she felt pressure “not to stuff it up”, and that was why she tried hard to avoid make mistakes, which led people to criticise her “as robotic, wooden, cold”.
But she expressed hope “that in the not too distant future, we will see more Asian-Australians become cabinet ministers and leaders and it will be entirely unremarkable”.
Wong accuses Dutton of reviving Howard-era rhetoric about immigrants
Daniel Hurst
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has hit out at narratives of immigrants being a “burden” or “peril” as she accused the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, of reviving “divisive” rhetoric about Palestinian refugees.
Offering some personal reflections in a speech to the Australian National University’s Centre for Asian-Australian Leadership last night, Wong said:
Asian-Australians – particularly of my generation – will be all too familiar with the narrative of immigrant as burden, as peril, a drain on resources, a threat to cohesion.
We saw it from Mr Howard in the 1980s, when he called for a reduction in Asian immigration. I will never forget the toll that took on my family.
We see again it from Mr Dutton today. We know where these words land. We know what communities hear when the opposition deliberately revives this divisive rhetoric.
Dutton last week called for a temporary blanket ban on Australia granting visas to Palestinians escaping the deadly conflict in Gaza, prompting the government to accuse him of politicising national security for domestic political gain.
Wong said last night that politicians had “a responsibility to take care with their words” and “to not just seize a political opportunity but consider the implications of their words and actions”. She added:
This fearmongering is damaging in our community and it is a lost opportunity for Australia – to be more unified, to avoid reproducing other conflicts here.
Good morning
Happy Tuesday blog watchers and thank you for choosing to spend part of your day with us.
It’s a fairly big day in the parliament with lots of moving parts and we will do our best to keep you across all of them.
Anthony Albanese and Richard Marles will meet with Indonesia’s president-elect Prabowo Subianto a little later today. The Indonesian presidential elections were held in February, but Prabowo only secured a parliamentary majority recently. His trip to Australia will be based on the “shared economic, security and net zero transition priorities” and comes ahead of his inauguration in October.
Australia and Indonesia have had bilateral relations for 75 years this year. While defence, economics, trade and climate will be on the agenda, Human Rights Watch hopes meeting human rights commitments will also be raised.
Daniela Gavshon, the Australian director at Human Rights Watch said previous Indonesian administrations had made commitments, but failed to meet them,
“These include some difficult issues such as the mandatory hijab rules, the crackdown on LGBT people, and the government’s unwillingness to allow foreign journalists and United Nations officials to visit West Papua.”
On the domestic agenda, Labor will get its CFMEU administration legislation through the parliament after folding on some of the Coalition’s demands, including that the administration be for a minimum of three years, not the maximum Labor had originally pledged, that there be regular reporting from the administrator to the parliament, and that the CFMEU not give any political donations while under administration.
Some unionists are outraged over the deal, given the government could have negotiated with the Greens and crossbench for the numbers needed in the senate, but Labor was keen to avoid a drawn out fight on unions this close to the next election.
Meanwhile, the former Labor senator Fatima Payman has *kinda* ruled out starting her own party – at least for now – in an ABC Australian Story feature. Payman told the program:
Something I’ve learned about politics is you never commit definitively to anything, because it will come around and bite you in the backside.
And Penny Wong has delivered a rather reflective speech at the Australian National University’s Centre for Asian-Australian Leadership overnight. Daniel Hurst will have more for you, but the foreign minister spoke about her start in politics and the pressure she felt “not to stuff it up”.
The Future Made in Australia legislation continues its way through the parliament, and the party room meetings will be held in the shadow of Peter Dutton and the Coalition’s ongoing war against Palestinian visas and security checks.
If you missed this yesterday, we recommend it to start your day given what is no doubt ahead.
Karen Middleton, Paul Karp, Sarah Basford Canales and Daniel Hurst are all preparing to keep you updated as the day rolls on in Canberra. You have Amy Remeikis (and so far 2.5 coffees) on the blog.
Ready? Let’s get into it.