tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/michaelia-cash-25719/articlesMichaelia Cash – The Conversation2023-06-19T02:11:12Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2080062023-06-19T02:11:12Z2023-06-19T02:11:12ZReferendum legislation passes 52-19 to applause but Lidia Thorpe condemns ‘assimilation day’<p>The legislation to enable the Australian people to vote in a referendum for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament has passed the Senate by 52 to 19.</p>
<p>The vote took place with the public gallery crowded with supporters, and was greeted with prolonged applause. Those watching included prominent leaders of the “yes” campaign, including Megan Davis, Pat Anderson and Thomas Mayo.</p>
<p>But Indigenous crossbencher Lidia Thorpe labelled it “assimilation day” and interjected repeatedly during the debate on the bill’s third reading, and during the applause.</p>
<p>Those who voted against the legislation will be involved in preparing the no case for the yes/no pamphlet that will be sent to all voters. </p>
<p>Earlier, Nationals leader David Littleproud told the ABC he did not support having the claim the Voice would “re-racialise” Australia – a claim Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has made – included in the pamphlet’s no case. “I don’t support those sort of words. I’m not prepared to put my weight behind those words,” he said. </p>
<p>The government has not announced a date for the vote yet.</p>
<p>The referendum legislation required an absolute majority, so every vote was recorded. </p>
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<p>In the final round of speeches in the Senate, shadow Attorney-General Michaelia Cash said “we are opening up a legal can of worms. The proposed model […] is not just to the parliament but to all areas of executive government. It gives an unlimited scope.”</p>
<p>Opposition spokeswoman for Indigenous Australians Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said the Voice would divide the country. </p>
<p>Greens Senator Dorinda Cox said the Greens “remain committed to the full implementation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, truth, treaty and voice. The referendum is the first important step.”</p>
<p>ACT crossbencher David Pocock said the Voice was “about ensuring that First Nations people, Australia’s first peoples, have a say on issues that affect them”. </p>
<p>Thorpe declared: “Happy assimilation day”. She said the Voice was “appeasing white guilt in this country by giving the poor little blackfellas a powerless advisory body”. She would be voting no to something that gave no power.</p>
<p>“"There is not one law in this country that has ever, ever, ever been good for us, not one. And now we’re meant to accept a powerless voice. It is truly assimilating our people so we’ll fit nicely as your little Indigenous Australians, it’s what you want us to be, right?”</p>
<p>She was asked by Senate President Sue Lines to cover her T-shirt, which had “gammin” in it, used in Aboriginal slang to mean fake.</p>
<p>Pauline Hanson said many people were still very confused about the proposal. </p>
<p>Assistant Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy said “this is a critical moment in our country’s history. It is the right thing to do.” McCarthy paid tribute to Senator Patrick Dodson, who is on extended leave due to illness. </p>
<p>Murray Watt, representing the Attorney-General, called for the coming debate to be respectful, saying there was an onus on people to “tell the truth” and accusing no supporters of misinformation.</p>
<p>Appearing after the legislation passed parliament, at a news conference with Indigenous leaders, Anthony Albanese pitched a strong appeal to voters: “I say to my fellow Australians: parliaments pass laws, but it is people that make history.</p>
<p>"This is your time, your chance, your opportunity to be a part of making history,” he said. It was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to lift our great nation even higher”.</p>
<p>Referencing Labor’s recent historic victory at the Aston byelection, the PM said this was “more important than any by-election ever held”. </p>
<p>Liberal MP Julian Leeser, who quit as shadow minister for Indigenous Australians to support the yes case, said in a statement after the vote: “Over the months ahead, I am looking forward to being part of a movement of Australians from all political backgrounds and playing a part in a campaign that will bring our country together”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208006/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The vote took place with the public gallery crowded with supporters, and was received with long applause.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2076272023-06-13T08:12:11Z2023-06-13T08:12:11ZKaty Gallagher says she didn’t alert Albanese or Wong to the pending Brittany Higgins’ interview<p>Finance Minister Katy Gallagher has categorically denied misleading the Senate over her prior knowledge of the Brittany Higgins interview, but refused to be drawn on what discussion she might have had with Higgins or her partner David Sharaz at the time. </p>
<p>Gallagher has, however, said she did not communicate anything about the interview, which was to be aired on The Project, to Anthony Albanese, Labor Senate leader Penny Wong, their staffs, or her own staff. </p>
<p>“I was provided with information in the days before the allegations were first reported, and I did nothing with that information,” she said in a statement to the Senate. “Absolutely nothing. I was asked to keep it to myself, and I did.”</p>
<p>Later, under concerted opposition interrogation, she declined – on the grounds of confidentiality – to say whether she had been supplied with the yet-to-be broadcast Project interview, as has been reported. She also warded off questioning about whether she had given feedback. </p>
<p>In a Senate estimates committee hearing in 2021, Gallagher said she’d had no knowledge. She was replying to Liberal then-minister Linda Reynolds’ claim a Labor senator had warned her two weeks before Higgins made public her rape allegation of the then-opposition’s plan to use an incident in her office politically. </p>
<p>Higgins alleged she was raped in Reynolds’ office in 2019 by fellow staffer Bruce Lehrmann, which he denied. (Lehrmann was not named in The Project interview.)</p>
<p>Gallagher said in her statement: “I was shocked at the assertion made by Senator Reynolds with the clear implication that I was responsible or had some involvement with making that story public. </p>
<p>"That was not true. It was never true, and I responded to that allegation by saying no one had any knowledge.” </p>
<p>She said she explained to Reynolds the same night that she’d been given “a heads up about the allegations in the days before they became public, an explanation she accepted at the time”. </p>
<p>Gallagher also said she’d had no role in the payout the Commonwealth has made to Higgins. </p>
<p>Earlier, at the Labor caucus meeting, Anthony Albanese declared the caucus was “1000%” behind her. </p>
<p>Albanese heaped praise on Gallagher, who is also Minister for Women, telling her “we thank you, we honour you, we’re with you”. </p>
<p>He told caucus that “no government has done more to put women at the centre of policy making than what has happened under Katy Gallagher”.</p>
<p>He described her as “a person of extraordinary integrity”, saying the attack on her was unfair, unjustified, and unscrupulous. No backward step would be taken, he said. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-brittany-higgins-story-continues-its-damaging-trail-with-no-end-in-sight-207500">View from The Hill: Brittany Higgins story continues its damaging trail, with no end in sight</a>
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<p>Opposition leader Peter Dutton told the Coalition party meeting it was “an open and shut case” that Gallagher had misled the Senate.</p>
<p>“It is increasingly clear that a group of Labor operatives conspired to maximise the damage. It was absolutely brazen. Labor used an alleged rape victim for political purposes.”</p>
<p>He said it was entirely appropriate for the opposition to put pressure on Labor to answer the questions.</p>
<p>Labor is attacking the Coalition for taking up this issue, arguing this will deter young women coming forward when they have been sexually assaulted. Albanese said “the real tragedy is the impact this will have on any woman contemplating coming forward”.</p>
<p>Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus condemned the leaking of private court material, which has appeared widely in the media. </p>
<p>Answering a question from crossbencher Zali Steggall he said “I am deeply concerned about the apparent unauthorised publication of material produced as a result of a subpoena in the criminal trial of Mr Bruce Lehrmann.</p>
<p>"Material produced to a court in response to a subpoena is subject to an implied undertaking from the parties who receive it, that it won’t be used for purposes other than for those court proceedings.” </p>
<p>He said the police were examining a complaint about this. The Ten Network has taken the leak to the police. </p>
<p>Steggall said in a statement: “The media should not have a leave pass on people’s right to privacy. </p>
<p>"Media publication of leaked private material produced for a police investigation undermines trust and confidence in the criminal justice system for victims. This is not in the public interest.”</p>
<p>Reynolds on Tuesday began legal action against the Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, alleging Plibersek had defamed her in comments this week about her handling of the Higgins matter.</p>
<p>Meanwhile former prime minister Scott Morrison told parliament he and Fiona Brown, a staffer in then-minister Reynolds office who dealt with the Higgins case, had different recollections about whether they had spoken about the matter. </p>
<p>Morrison had told the House in 2021 that he had spoken with Brown, who by then was working in his office, <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/fiona-brown-on-the-brittany-higginsbruce-lehrman-saga-i-was-shot-by-the-metoo-firing-squad/news-story/c3587711aea8e1b2af777e6b3b8ee293">but Brown told the Weekend Australian</a> that he had not. </p>
<p>In a Tuesday statement, Morrison said: “While I believed my response to be accurate at the time, I cannot, obviously, fully discount that her recollection of those events now is the more accurate. However, I reject absolutely any suggestion of deliberate intent in any such possible inaccuracy in my response.”</p>
<p>Morrison at the weekend spoke to Brown – who had said in the interview that she had felt unsupported by Morrison and his office. </p>
<p>He told parliament, “It was and remains my strong view that Ms Brown did all she could to provide support to Ms Higgins at that time.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207627/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Anthony Albanese declared the caucus was 1000% behind Katy Gallagher, as the Finance Minister fights off allegations of misleading parliament while in opposition in 2021Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2040162023-04-18T02:00:41Z2023-04-18T02:00:41ZJacinta Nampijinpa Price to be Peter Dutton’s right-hand campaigner against the Voice<p>Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has given his campaign against the Voice added horsepower by elevating high-profile Indigenous Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price to become shadow minister for Indigenous Australians.</p>
<p>Price has been one of the loudest, most trenchant opponents of the Voice – at the opposite end of the Coalition spectrum from Julian Leeser, whom she replaces. Leeser resigned from the frontbench last week to campaign for the yes case, triggering the frontbench shakeup. </p>
<p>In a significant reshuffle, Dutton has also brought the Coalition’s other Indigenous MP, South Australian Senator Kerrynne Liddle, into the shadow ministry. Like Price, Liddle, a former journalist and businesswoman, entered parliament at last year’s election. </p>
<p>She will become shadow minister for child protection and prevention of family violence. Dutton has brought this issue to the fore in relation to Indigenous communities with allegations of sexual assault against Indigenous children in Alice Springs. </p>
<p>The reshuffle also sees Karen Andrews, who has been spokeswoman on home affairs (and previously the minister), step down to the backbench. Dutton said Andrews has recently told him she would not run again and would be happy to go to the backbench when there was a reshuffle. </p>
<p>Andrews will be replaced by Senator James Paterson, who under the Coalition government chaired the powerful parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security. He is already shadow minister for cybersecurity and shadow minister for countering foreign interference. </p>
<p>Senator Michaelia Cash becomes shadow attorney-general (the other portfolio held by Leeser), returning to an area she held in government. She retains her present responsibilities for employment and workplace relations. </p>
<p>The choice of Price had not seemed to be Dutton’s original plan. Coming from the Northern Territory Country Liberal Party, she sits with the Nationals. </p>
<p>Her promotion, following talks between Dutton and Nationals leader David Littleproud, means the Nationals’ representation is above their quota under the Coalition agreement. </p>
<p>Apart from the quota issue, there were other arguments against Price – that she was too inexperienced and that elevating her would put noses out of joint among Liberals who had been around longer. </p>
<p>But over the past week, calls increased for her appointment from vocal supporters, and she featured widely in the media including on the ABC’s Insiders on Sunday. </p>
<p>Dutton described Price as “a warrior for Indigenous Australians”. </p>
<p>“She’s always fought hard to improve the lives of Indigenous women and kids. She’s done an incredible amount of work to tackle tough issues like the scourge of sexual abuse, domestic violence and the crisis of law and order in some Indigenous communities, particularly Alice Springs most recently.” </p>
<p>Dutton also insisted he had raised the issue of child sexual abuse with the prime minister, despite Anthony Albanese on Monday denying this. </p>
<p>Dutton told his news conference: “There is a systemic problem in Alice Springs, the NT and other parts of the country and a big part of the decision to put Jacinta Price into this portfolio and Kerrynne Liddle into her portfolio is because we want to provide a brighter future for those kids.</p>
<p>"We can’t have a situation where we have young children being sexually abused, the impact psychologically on them, the difficulties it creates within a home environment.</p>
<p>"As we know, in Alice Springs at the moment, there are very significant issues.”</p>
<p>Andrews said that having decided “to call time” on her political career, “I wanted to ensure the Coalition has maximum time to have a replacement in the crucial home affairs portfolio, and the best replacement candidate for [her Queensland seat of] McPherson in place”. </p>
<p>She said in a statement she would continue to to support the Liberals’ position on the Voice. But she told a later news conference: “I won’t be out there wearing a shirt that says vote no. When people speak to me I will go through what
my concerns are, but I want to do that in a very neutral way so that
people are in a position that they can make their own mind up.”</p>
<p>She said she could not support the current words for the referendum, but she was open to working to get a proper set of words.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204016/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Price, the new shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, has been one of the loudest, most trenchant opponents of the Voice.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1792092022-03-14T09:32:23Z2022-03-14T09:32:23ZAustralia launches action against Russia over MH17, in bid for reparations<p>Australia and the Netherlands have started legal action against Russia in the International Civil Aviation Organisation for the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 on July 17, 2014. </p>
<p>The two countries are seeking to have Russia’s action declared a breach of the Convention on International Civil Aviation, Russia ordered into “good faith” negotiations on reparations and its ICAO voting power suspended until the negotiations reached “a satisfactory outcome”.</p>
<p>The missile attack, over eastern Ukraine, killed 298 people, 38 of them Australian citizens and permanent residents. The plane was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.</p>
<p>Australia and the Netherlands hold Russia responsible under international law. </p>
<p>Foreign Minister Marise Payne told a news conference on Monday evening this latest action was an “important step in the fight for truth, justice and accountability” for the victims.</p>
<p>The ICAO is a United Nations agency funded by more than 190 governments to support co-operation in air transport.</p>
<p>Attorney-General Michaelia Cash, speaking at the news conference, said the Russian action had been a clear breach of the convention, which required states to refrain from using weapons againt civil aircraft in flight.</p>
<p>In October 2020 Russia withdrew from negotiations with Australia and the Netherlands about the plane’s downing, and refused to return. </p>
<p>In a statement Scott Morrison, Payne and Cash laid out the evidence on which the two countries will rely. This includes that</p>
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<li><p>the plane was shot down by a Russian Buk-TELAR surface-to-air missile system </p></li>
<li><p>that system was transported from Russia to an agricultural field in eastern Ukraine, an area controlled by Russian-backed separatists, on the morning of July 17, 2014 </p></li>
<li><p>the missile system belonged to Russia’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Military Brigade, and was accompanied by a Russian crew </p></li>
<li><p>the missile fired from the launch site brought down the plane</p></li>
<li><p>the missile could only have been fired by the trained Russian crew of the Buk-TELAR, or at least by someone acting under their instruction, direction or control</p></li>
<li><p>the missile system was returned to Russia soon after the plane was downed. </p></li>
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<p>The government said in its statement: “The Russian Federation’s refusal to take responsibility for its role in the downing of Flight MH17 is unacceptable and the Australian Government has always said that it will not exclude any legal options in our pursuit of justice”.</p>
<p>It said the joint action under Article 84 of the Convention on International Civil Aviation was in addition to the Dutch national prosecution of four suspects for their individual criminal responsibility </p>
<p>“Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine and the escalation of its aggression underscores the need to continue our enduring efforts to hold Russia to account for its blatant violation of international law and the UN Charter, including threats to Ukraine’s sovereignty and airspace,” the statement said.</p>
<p>It reaffirmed that Australia would “pursue every available avenue to ensure Russia is held to account” over MH17.</p>
<p>Also on Monday the government announced fresh sanctions on 33 Russian oligarchs, prominent businesspeople and their immediate families.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179209/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Australia and the Netherlands have started legal action against Russia in the International Civil Aviation Organisation for the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 on July 17, 2014.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1579062021-03-25T12:20:16Z2021-03-25T12:20:16ZGrattan on Friday: The worst is not over in the crisis tearing at Scott Morrison’s government<p>“Is your leadership safe?” Scott Morrison was asked on the ABC on Thursday. The Prime Minister’s leadership is quite safe, but that the question was put says volumes for how embattled he’s become in a few weeks.</p>
<p>As did some early words in his answer. “What suggestions are you picking up there?”</p>
<p>These days Morrison gets out of bed each morning not knowing what disturbing, sometimes bizarre, story might hit him before he retires for the night.</p>
<p>On Thursday, for instance, Nine went to Morrison with evidence Queensland Liberal backbencher Andrew Laming had bullied two women in his community via Facebook.</p>
<p>Morrison immediately summoned Laming, who was dispatched to the House to retract his comments and make a grovelling apology.</p>
<p>The string of accounts of dreadful behaviour in parliament house, from alleged rape to government staffers engaging in disgusting sexual acts and so-called “orgies”, is making the nation’s seat of democracy sound like the set of an X-rated movie.</p>
<p>Questioned about Network Ten’s graphic report, Morrison said: “This is conduct that is completely mysterious to me, it is not something that I can even conceive of, to be honest.” He wasn’t the only one.</p>
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<p>As we’ve seen, the broad message of disrespect and much worse from the revelations has lit a fire among women in the community, as they share their own experiences of assault, harassment and denigration with each other and publicly.</p>
<p>In another context, Morrison famously said “you know, I don’t hold a hose, mate”. But in this crisis engulfing the government, he’s frantically on the tools, announcing inquiries, promising initiatives, advocating quotas, delivering mea culpas, declaring empathy, inviting Brittany Higgins to meet.</p>
<p>Often, however, it’s one step forward, one back. Like the own goal when he turned aggressive, stupidly blurting out (inaccurate) gossip, during the news conference called to project an image of the caring man who listens.</p>
<p>Now he’s forced into a reshuffle, made imperative by the issues surrounding Attorney-General Christian Porter.</p>
<p>Morrison should have dealt with Porter’s situation much earlier, regardless of his going on mental health leave. (It is, incidentally, at least in my memory, very unusual for a minister at the centre of a political storm to take leave.)</p>
<p>In the imminent changes, Porter will be moved out of attorney-general’s and Defence Minister Linda Reynolds, under fire for her handling of Higgins (and on medical leave) will go from defence.</p>
<p>In a fig leaf of solidarity – or a sign of stubbornness – Morrison will keep both in cabinet.</p>
<p>Morrison stuck by Porter initially but it’s clear (a point presumably spelled out in the advice from the Solicitor-General) that he would be riddled with potential conflicts of interest now he’s suing the ABC.</p>
<p>Porter should have stepped down for the good of the government as soon as the allegation of historical rape landed – even though he strongly denies it.</p>
<p>But neither Morrison nor Porter were willing to take that course, arguing it would set a new low bar for forcing ministerial departures.</p>
<p>It’s ironic that Porter’s move to try to clear his name through the courts will be the catalyst for moving him.</p>
<p>Reynolds’ future has been problematic since she entered hospital when she was under political fire and her heart condition became common knowledge.</p>
<p>The reshuffle – in which Michaelia Cash is tipped to become attorney-general and Peter Dutton defence minister – won’t be a magic carpet ride to the other side of this crisis.</p>
<p>Morrison will be helped by having no parliament until the May budget. But allegations and revelations are expected to continue, and striking the right tone and mustering effective responses will remain a struggle for the PM.</p>
<p>On Thursday Higgins struck again, with a letter to Morrison’s chief of staff, John Kunkel, lodging a complaint saying the PM’s media team had backgrounded against her partner.</p>
<p>Morrison, who’d dodged numerous opposition questions about this, later said a “primary and direct source” – apparently someone who had allegedly witnessed what had happened – had now come to Kunkel with “confidential information”. </p>
<p>Morrison said he’d asked Kunkel to commence a process to deal with the complaint. This sounded like a ticking time bomb.</p>
<p>On the positive side, the crisis has generated momentum for action on the Sex Discrimination Commissioner’s report on workplace sexual harassment – on which little had been done – with a full response before the budget.</p>
<p>And Morrison says he’s open to quotas to get more Liberal women into parliament. We’ll see where that gritty debate goes within the party.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-sussan-ley-on-being-a-woman-in-politics-157888">Politics with Michelle Grattan: Sussan Ley on being a woman in politics</a>
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<p>With the government taking such a battering, the question is how lasting the damage will be. Specifically, at election time next year will a significant number of women take their anger with them into the polling booth?</p>
<p>Not long ago bold commentators were declaring the election unlosable for Morrison.</p>
<p>Now, bets are hedged. But in politics, fallout is often unpredictable.</p>
<p>For example, shortly before the 2004 election, John Howard’s credibility came into serious question after a whistleblower made damaging claims about what the then prime minister had been told in the 2001 “children overboard” affair. Undeterred, Howard made “trust” central when he announced the election, at which he increased his majority.</p>
<p>Again, when Julia Gillard became PM in June 2010, putting her head-to-head with Tony Abbott, she instantly boosted Labor’s two-party vote, and nearly twice as many women preferred her to Abbott, according to an Age/Nielsen poll. In August, she almost lost the election.</p>
<p>There’s an election saying “the pig can’t be fattened on market day”. But it’s true as well that situations change incredibly fast, especially in today’s hyper cycles.</p>
<p>Equally true, is that people have a hierarchy of considerations when they vote. Many women will be critical of Morrison’s performance in recent weeks. But even if some of that feeling remains strong, where would it rate when they vote compared with, say, their judgment on how the government is performing on the economy?</p>
<p>Oppositions mightn’t win elections but opposition leaders have to attract votes for positive reasons (as did Whitlam, Hawke, Rudd) as well as harvesting people’s discontent with the government. The Coalition looks shambolic, but Anthony Albanese and his party remain unimpressive.</p>
<p>In earlier times, Labor’s national conference would be a significant event that could be used by the leader as a rallying moment.</p>
<p>However next week’s conference, delayed from 2020 by COVID, will be “virtual”, reducing the opportunity for hoopla.</p>
<p>There are no major issues – the policy arguments will be in the weeds. That’s good for the appearance of unity but it also removes the opportunity for the leader to show his command.</p>
<p>The best Albanese can look for is a good public reaction to whatever policy he decides to announce.</p>
<p>Recent weeks have been appalling for Morrison. They do not give us a pointer to an election result probably roughly a year away. They do indicate the contest looks more open than it appeared as 2021 began.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157906/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>“Is your leadership safe?” Scott Morrison was asked on Thursday. The Prime Minister’s leadership is quite safe, but that the question was put says volumes for how embattled he’s become in a few weeks.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1555702021-02-18T11:39:17Z2021-02-18T11:39:17ZGrattan on Friday: Scott Morrison dealt poorly with a young woman’s shocking story<p>Scott Morrison has been wounded by the public revelation this week of an alleged rape in Parliament House. But the fear must be that along the way Brittany Higgins, the young woman whose story shocked the country, has become a victim twice over – not just of the incident itself but also of the fallout these past days.</p>
<p>Politicians praise her courage in coming forward, but some use her trauma in their own cause.</p>
<p>For the media, her experience has fed into the recurring narrative of bad behaviour in Parliament House, and the wider one of violence against women. It’s been salacious.</p>
<p>But where will Higgins be left when the political and news caravans move on? In a personally bad place, one suspects. This is the cost of speaking out sometimes.</p>
<p>The political focus of the issue moved from whether or to what degree Linda Reynolds, then defence industry minister, fell down in her duty of care to her staffer, to when Morrison and his office knew about Higgins’ alleged assault by a colleague in Reynolds’ office in March 2019.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-fix-the-culture-in-canberra-we-need-to-take-a-sledgehammer-to-male-privilege-155553">To fix the culture in Canberra, we need to take a sledgehammer to male privilege</a>
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<p>Morrison says he first knew of the rape allegation on Monday this week, and his staff only learned of it on Friday last week. </p>
<p>The prime minister threw Reynolds under the proverbial bus for not telling him, with a rebuke delivered in the House of Representatives.</p>
<p>At one level, of course the PM should know about a crime allegedly committed under his workplace roof. The question of whether Reynolds should have told him is, however, debatable.</p>
<p>If she had made the information more widely available, Reynolds would not just have breached Higgins’ privacy but possibly, given the nature of politics, jeopardised her prospects. </p>
<p>As it was, post-election Higgins had job offers from several ministers and went to Michaelia Cash’s office, where she apparently got on well.</p>
<p>Morrison was being expedient in his public swipe at Reynolds for staying mum. But if Reynolds feels any private resentment she might recall she had the benefit of Morrison’s expediency before the election, when he took the unusual step of promising she’d be defence minister if he won. He wanted to bolster his credentials on women.</p>
<p>Reynolds this week gave a general apology to Higgins but, apart from meeting her in the room the incident took place (the minister’s own office), it is not clear where her treatment of her staffer was at fault.</p>
<p>Higgins said on Wednesday Reynolds’ then chief of staff, Fiona Brown, who primarily handled things, “continually made me feel as if my ongoing employment would be jeopardised if I proceeded any further with the matter”.</p>
<p>Yet Reynolds wanted Higgins to seek police action (while recognising her right not to). She did speak to the police, as did Reynolds. It is understandable Higgins felt she was choosing between laying a complaint and protecting her career. But if Reynolds advised her to pursue a complaint, presumably she would have stood by her if she had done so. </p>
<p>On Thursday Reynolds said in the Senate: “I made it clear to Brittany that she would have my full support in whatever course of action she decided to take”.</p>
<p>Not that long after the incident, Higgins told Brown how appreciative she’d been of her support and advice.</p>
<p>On the other hand, text evidence shows Higgins, reacting to unrelated reported bad behaviour, referring to how she’d received little help in the wake of the assault. Not surprisingly, her mood varied.</p>
<p>Brown is very relevant to the row over what Morrison knew and when.</p>
<p>Previously working for now-ambassador to Washington Arthur Sinodinos, Brown is described by one staff source (not in the PM’s office) as a sensitive, maternal figure who’d follow proper process.</p>
<p>She’s currently in Morrison’s office. She knew everything about these events. If Morrison says Reynolds should have passed on the information, doesn’t he think Brown should have done so?</p>
<p>His “Chinese walls” justification for apparent double standards sounds ludicrous.</p>
<p>He told Parliament there was a convention a staffer didn’t talk about what happened in a previous office they’d worked in.</p>
<p>“That knowledge related to her time in that [COS] role. Not in her role in my office. […] Seeking to conflate those things […] and to suggest that involves a knowledge of my office […] would be misplaced,” he said.</p>
<p>If such a convention existed (before this week), surely it would apply only to work matters – policy discussions and the like.</p>
<p>More probably, if Brown said nothing it was because she thought the issue closed or, like Reynolds, she was being discreet.</p>
<p>Whatever Brown did or didn’t do, Morrison’s claim that his office was unaware of the allegation until late last week is self-evidently false and illogical, because Brown was fully across it. The thing nobody in the office knew was that it was about to become a big story.</p>
<p>There’s another strange aspect about Morrison’s timeline. He says his office learned of the allegation on Friday February 12. That was when journalist Samantha Maiden made inquiries. She published <a href="https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/shock-decision-after-brittany-higgins-alleged-rape-in-parliament-house-by-a-liberal-colleague/news-story/822eb2881d612317ceaaefd6134a1e61">her report</a> on news.com.au early Monday.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/morrison-invokes-chinese-walls-defence-on-why-staffer-didnt-tell-him-of-higgins-rape-allegation-155505">Morrison invokes Chinese walls defence on why staffer didn't tell him of Higgins' rape allegation</a>
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<p>We know Maiden was dealing with the Prime Minister’s office through last weekend. Morrison has a bevy of senior media advisers. It’s odd they didn’t alert him that Maiden, a tiger when she’s on the scent, might be about to cause him grief.</p>
<p>Morrison certainly knew he was walking on eggshells after the story broke, but plunged increasingly into trouble, not least when he smashed the whole egg carton by invoking Jenny’s advice to think as a father.</p>
<p>At a political level, the Higgins issue has been a test of four high-profile Senate women: two ministers, Reynolds and Cash, and Labor’s Senate leader and deputy, Penny Wong and Kristina Keneally.</p>
<p>Wong and Keneally are among the opposition’s fiercest attack dogs, and homed in on Reynolds, who after the rebuke at first stonewalled, then made a statement on Thursday. The strain was showing – she broke down when dealing with a separate matter.</p>
<p>Higgins was still employed in Cash’s office when she decided to quit recently.</p>
<p>In an emotional account, Cash told the Senate she tried to persuade Higgins to stay, and offered to accompany her to the police if she wanted to make a complaint. Cash, who says she only learned of the rape allegation on February 5, also offered to go with her to Morrison’s office. But Higgins declined, saying she wanted to preserve her privacy.</p>
<p>Their discussion was after Morrison stood beside Australian of the Year Grace Tame, an advocate for survivors of sexual violence – an image Higgins has pointed to as one trigger for her decision to go public.</p>
<p>It is not clear what mix of motives caused Higgins to speak out. It is clear she is now very vulnerable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155570/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Scott Morrison has been wounded by the revelation this week of an alleged rape in Parliament House. But the fear must be that Brittany Higgins has become a victim twice over – of the incident itself and the fallout these past days.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1477422020-10-08T02:10:52Z2020-10-08T02:10:52ZSimon Birmingham to become finance minister and Senate leader as Australia nominates Cormann for OECD<p>Trade Minister Simon Birmingham, a leader of the Liberal moderates, will become Senate leader and finance minister following the imminent retirement of Mathias Cormann.</p>
<p>Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Australia will nominate Cormann as its candidate for secretary general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-a-budget-for-a-pandemic-147739">Politics with Michelle Grattan: a budget for a pandemic</a>
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<p>Cormann indicated in July he <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/i-ve-left-nothing-on-the-field-mathias-cormann-to-quit-federal-politics-triggering-cabinet-reshuffle">planned to leave parliament</a> late this year. He has been Finance Minister throughout the Coalition government and a central figure in the preparation of its seven budgets.</p>
<p>Morrison said Birmingham would be sworn in as finance minister at the end of the month when Cormann retired. He would continue as minister for trade, tourism and investment.</p>
<p>“I am not planning on making other ministerial changes at that time,” Morrison said.</p>
<p>But there will be a reshuffle at the end of the year. With the current COVID-19 restrictions on international travel, Birmingham will be able to juggle his trade and extra responsibilities for a time, and he has trade negotiations in train. </p>
<p>Employment Minister Michaelia Cash will become deputy Senate leader, a position Birmingham has held since 2018.</p>
<p>Birmingham has served in the Senate since 2007 and was education minister between 2015 and 2018. </p>
<p>Cormann, who came to Australia from Belgium in the 1990s, demonstrated his multilingual skills at a Thursday news conference with Morrison, giving short speeches in French and German. </p>
<p>His election to the OECD job is not certain, but Australia will campaign hard for him.</p>
<p>Morrison said this was “the most important Australian nomination for a major international body in decades”.</p>
<p>“Senator Cormann has already been an influential contributor in regional and global institutions, having attended every G20 Leaders’ meeting since 2014 and numerous G20 finance ministers, IMF and World Bank meetings over the period,” Morrison said.</p>
<p>“Over the last seven years, Senator Cormann has worked with many OECD leaders, and dozens of treasury, finance, and trade minister counterparts from developed and developing countries.”</p>
<p>Cormann will step down from the ministry and the Senate on October 30, before he is formally nominated for the OECD role. Nominations close at the end of October, with interviews and consultations beginning after that and an outcome expected in the first part of next year.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147742/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced today that following Mathias Cormann’s resignation, Cormann will be nominated as a candidate for secretary general at the OECD.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1120812019-02-19T11:31:48Z2019-02-19T11:31:48ZView from The Hill: Minister who watches the nation’s credit card overlooks his own<p>Mathias Cormann’s 2018 family holiday in Singapore is costing him a good deal more than the $2780.82 he <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/cormann-had-no-idea-a-travel-company-had-given-him-a-free-trip-20190218-p50ym5.html">belatedly paid</a> for airfares booked with Helloworld travel company’s CEO who happened to be the Liberal party treasurer and a mate.</p>
<p>Cormann, Government Senate Leader, says he gave his credit card number to Andrew Burnes in July 2017 and assumed – until a media query this week - the transaction had gone through. He received no reminders about the outstanding payments.</p>
<p>He also says he had nothing to do with handling a contract his Finance department awarded a subsidiary of the company around the same time.</p>
<p>In his explanation for not noticing he hadn’t been charged, Cormann told a Senate estimates hearing on Tuesday he travelled a lot and many travel-related expenses went through his card.</p>
<p>It’s reasonable to take Cormann at his word about missing that the charge hadn’t been processed. Even accepting this, however, the affair looks bad for Cormann, who failed the “Caesar’s wife” test.</p>
<p>He should not have booked through the CEO, given the man is a
political and personal associate, and the company has a commercial relationship with Cormann’s department.</p>
<p>If he wanted to use that company, he should have gone to the normal booking service. It would have been more prudent to have used another travel agency.</p>
<p>Helloworld’s chief financial officer Michael Burnett says, in a letter Cormann produced on Tuesday, that the flights were never intended to be free. But Burnett provided an odd explanation for no reminders. “Because we held your credit card details at the time of the booking, payment reminders were not sent to you, even though the amount remained listed as ‘Outstanding’ on our internal system”. </p>
<p>You’d expect the company would have either processed the payment or sent a reminder.</p>
<p>Scott Morrison’s aggressive reaction – accusing Labor of going “to the bottom of the chum bucket” - when the opposition asked if Cormann had any conflict of interest, given the contract, doesn’t help the government. The public’s default position is scepticism when it comes to politicians’ conduct.</p>
<p>Giving Cormann the benefit of all doubt, the matter smacks of cosiness and cronyism – a politician using his connections to smooth his way (just as that famous picture of Joe Hockey and Cormann smoking cigars sent a signal of complacency and came to haunt both of them).</p>
<p>This is one more setback for Cormann, who has seen his reputation badly dented in the last few months.</p>
<p>His decision in August to throw his lot in with Peter Dutton and
declare Malcolm Turnbull had lost the confidence of the Liberal party sealed the fate of the former prime minister, with all that followed, including the Coalition being plunged into minority government.</p>
<p>There were multiple players in Turnbull’s downfall, not least Turnbull himself, but Cormann was a major one.</p>
<p>Cormann’s judgement was also off beam in his belief that he could muster the necessary crossbench votes last year to pass the government’s tax cuts for large companies.</p>
<p>His commitment was a factor in the government’s clinging to this
measure for too long, to the detriment of Turnbull.</p>
<p>Earlier this year it was revealed Cormann used a defence plane, at a cost of $37,000, to fly from Canberra to Perth so he could drop into Adelaide to lobby (unsuccessfully) a couple of Centre Alliance senators to support the cuts.</p>
<p>His spokesperson said at the time: “Use of the special purpose
aircraft was approved in the appropriate way to facilitate official business in Adelaide in transit from Canberra back to Perth in between two parliamentary sitting weeks”.</p>
<p>Cormann, obsessed with trying to rustle up votes, didn’t stop to consider how over-the-top this would look to most people, who would say “find a way to fly commercial” or “have a video call”. After Bronwyn Bishop’s helicopter flight, politicians should automatically hit a pause button before ordering up expensive transport.</p>
<p>It is obvious from Cormann’s demeanour that he is very aware he’s politically diminished. His reputation was as one of the government’s best performers, but he is not out in the media as much these days.</p>
<p>Another cabinet minister, Michaelia Cash, embroiled in the court case about her office leaking an imminent police raid on the AWU, has almost disappeared from public view.</p>
<p>This week’s Senate estimates hearings have been damning for the embattled Cash.</p>
<p>The Australian Federal Police gave evidence on Monday that Cash and former justice minister Michael Keenan had declined, despite at least two requests, to provide “witness statements” about media leaks. Rather, they responded by letter.</p>
<p>Morrison defended the two ministers’ behaviour. “I’m advised that both ministers did, in fact, cooperate with that investigation on a voluntary basis,” he told parliament on Tuesday. “I’m advised that neither minister received any further requests for information after they responded to the AFP’s initial invitation to provide information”.</p>
<p>On Tuesday night, Cash was put through the wringer during a Senate estimates hearing. Amazingly, the minister said she had not read the AFP’s Monday evidence. Asked why, she said, “because I haven’t”.</p>
<p>Taxpayers, incidentally, are currently up for $288,812 for Cash’s legal representation.</p>
<p>Although Cormann’s tickets affair is very different from the issue involving Cash and Keenan, the message from the behaviour of all three is one of elitism – politicians thinking they don’t have to do things the way ordinary people do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112081/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s reasonable to take Cormann at his word about missing that the change hadn’t been processed. Even accepting this, however, the affair looks bad for Cormann, who failed the “Caesar’s wife” test.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/975672018-05-31T12:21:48Z2018-05-31T12:21:48ZGrattan on Friday: Winners and losers on the tests of judgement, temperament and character<p>It’s obvious, but easily underestimated, that in politics judgement and temperament are key. Together with character, with which they’re often entwined, they are probably more important than high intelligence, or low cunning.</p>
<p>We just need to look at the federal scene today.</p>
<p>Barnaby Joyce provides the current case study about the importance of judgement or in his instance, lack or it. Here is a career, so carefully built, dramatically torn down by his own hand.</p>
<p>And as for temperament, we have the contrasting examples of Mathias Cormann and Greg Hunt, of whom more later.</p>
<p>Joyce burst onto the political scene in 2005 as a larger-than-life high profile Nationals senator. Because of tight numbers, he started with disproportionate power; for his Coalition peers and betters, he was a headache.</p>
<p>But he had charisma out in the bush, and ambition, and he set his sights on becoming Nationals leader, eventually adopting (mostly) the discipline needed to get there. When he reached the deputy prime ministership he began well, and his party outperformed the Liberals at the 2016 election.</p>
<p>But soon after, his private life became complicated, with his staffer Vikki Campion the new woman in his life.</p>
<p>Campion says in Sunday’s <a href="https://twitter.com/sundaynighton7/status/1001623743712575490">interview</a> on Seven, “you can’t help who you fall in love with.”</p>
<p>That may or may not be true, but you can manage the implications. A public figure can separate the work and private parts of their lives. Joyce let the two merge messily, as Campion shifted to colleagues’ offices. With this failure of judgment, his fall began.</p>
<p>Now we have the paid interview. You only need political instinct, not even judgement, to know it’s unacceptable.</p>
<p>Then, when things became hot, Joyce this week took leave. Leader of the House Christopher Pyne said Joyce had a doctor’s sick- leave certificate, “and any other person in a workplace who produced such a certificate would get the same kind of leave.”</p>
<p>Give us all a break! The guy gets a reported $150,000 for the couple’s “tell all” interview, and when people are critical, he goes on stress leave.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/barnaby-joyce-takes-personal-leave-after-horror-day-97411">Barnaby Joyce takes personal leave after horror day</a>
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<p>To people away from politics, coping with serious stresses often not of their own making, this saga just comes across as self-indulgence.</p>
<p>Now there is speculation about Joyce’s future – will he, should he, stay on in his seat of New England?</p>
<p>This ought to be resolved quickly, for Joyce’s own sake, and that of the Nationals, who don’t want to risk the emergence of a new strong independent, remembering that Tony Windsor grabbed and held this electorate for many years.</p>
<p>If Joyce wants to stay, he’ll have a big rebuilding job, locally and in Canberra. If – and it would probably be the more sensible course – he feels it would be better to strike out into another career, he should announce that decision without delay (while of course remaining in place until the election).</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-podcast-michael-mccormack-on-barnabys-future-latte-sippers-and-other-matters-97452">Politics podcast: Michael McCormack on Barnaby's future, latte sippers and other matters</a>
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<p>Probably no one would be surprised to hear of a few expletives from Joyce, but this week’s News Corp <a href="https://t.co/FoIycpz4ws">story</a> that Greg Hunt had sworn at the mayor of the Northern Territory town of Katherine, Fay Miller, in a private meeting last year, telling her she needed to “f…ing get over” herself, would have raised eyebrows among those who see the very reasonable-sounding Health minister on TV. Hunt only apologised to Miller – who’d been leading a delegation from the town to discuss a health package following contamination from RAAF Base Tindal - when the story was about to break.</p>
<p>Hunt’s temperament is of the “street-angel, house-devil” type; he is known for private outbursts of temper, and has now been rather dramatically “outed”.</p>
<p>In question time on Thursday, pursued by the Opposition, he also admitted that he’d been subject of a complaint after what he described as a “strong discussion” with a former health department secretary (Martin Bowles).</p>
<p>He told Parliament: “The Prime Minister himself raised it and asked that I speak with the secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet.” The nature of Hunt’s behaviour can be judged by the fact that departmental secretaries – robust characters, for the most part - don’t usually complain upwards, to the head of the Prime Minister’s department, when their ministers have “strong discussions” with them.</p>
<p>Colleagues might recall such incidents, if Hunt in years to come eyes his party’s deputy leadership - a position that ideally requires an even temperament.</p>
<p>Fortunately for the government, Hunt isn’t in the sort of position occupied by Senate leader Mathias Cormann, who has to manage relationships and negotiate in perennially-testing circumstances.</p>
<p>Cormann has a few heated clashes with opponents, especially recently with Labor’s Senate leader Penny Wong, but he manages political conflict in a civilised, quite respectful way. In dealing with a Senate crossbench packed with volatile and unpredictable characters surfing atop inflated egos, Cormann displays inexhaustible patience and general good humour.</p>
<p>Beyond judgement and temperament, there is another quality that is crucial in politics: character.</p>
<p>The voters are like sniffer dogs when it comes to character – if that hadn’t been the case Mark Latham might have won the 2004 election.</p>
<p>For years, the government has been on a constant mission to fan doubts about Bill Shorten’s character. It knows that if such an attack is effective, it can be lethal for a leader’s chances.</p>
<p>That was in part behind the Abbott government establishing the royal commission into trade unions. And it’s why Michaelia Cash set the Registered Organisations Commission onto the 2005 $100,000 Australian Workers Union donation to GetUp, when Shorten was union secretary. But as we saw this week, the donation affair has so far inflicted more pain on the government than on Shorten.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/jobs-minister-michaelia-cash-resists-call-to-give-evidence-in-awu-court-case-97478">Jobs Minister Michaelia Cash resists call to give evidence in AWU court case</a>
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<p>We know from the polls the public don’t warm to the opposition leader. So far, however, Labor’s two-party lead indicates people haven’t concluded that he is not fit to rule. Shorten hasn’t failed the character test, but he hasn’t entirely passed it yet, either.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97567/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The voters are like sniffer dogs when it comes to character – if that hadn’t been the case Mark Latham might have won the 2004 election.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/927402018-03-02T04:14:26Z2018-03-02T04:14:26ZVIDEO: Michelle Grattan on the government’s shake-up<figure>
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<p>Michelle Grattan speaks with Deep Saini about the week in Australian politics. They discuss Michael McCormack taking over from Barnaby Joyce as Nationals leader and deputy prime minister, his ministerial reshuffle, and the fallout from Michaelia Cash’s threat on young women in Bill Shorten’s office.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92740/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Michelle Grattan speaks with Deep Saini about the week in Australian politics.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraPaddy Nixon, Vice-Chancellor and President, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/926912018-03-01T11:58:28Z2018-03-01T11:58:28ZGrattan on Friday: What was that about making Parliament House a better workplace for women?<p>New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern – who flew into Sydney on Thursday night for a 24-hour visit – admits she’d struggle if she were operating in the Australian political environment.</p>
<p>In an interview with The Conversation, Ardern said that while politics in her country is very robust: “I have observed and thought, gosh there is another level there in Australia”.</p>
<p>We’ve seen yet again this week how low that level can fall.</p>
<p>When on Wednesday cabinet minister Michaelia Cash delivered her extraordinary threat to “name every young woman in Mr Shorten’s office over which rumours in this place abound”, she didn’t just insult identifiable individuals – she also further debased our already degraded political system.</p>
<p>Imagine if someone had said, out of nowhere and with no supporting substance, that they were ready “to expose rumours that surround senator Cash”. Cash would be justifiably outraged. She’d say: “What are you talking about?” She’d want an apology.</p>
<p>And yet when Cash – a former minister for women, incidentally – was challenged, she initially offered only the most qualified withdrawal: “If anyone has been offended by my remarks, I withdraw”.</p>
<p>It wasn’t until Thursday afternoon that she withdrew her comments “unreservedly”. There was no apology to the women.</p>
<p>Anyway, while withdrawals and apologies should be made when politicians behave badly (Thursday saw Kim Carr apologise for likening a Liberal senator to a member of the Hitler Youth), they shouldn’t be regarded as get-out-of-jail cards for what ought not have been said in the first place. They often do not repair the damage of the original smears, which leave their rents in the political fabric.</p>
<p>Politicians may agree, at the level of generality, that their discourse should be more civil; the tone of parliament should be raised. Yet in practice, they simply refuse to change.</p>
<p>Let’s not romanticise the past – the gutter was always there. But equally, let’s not allow this crop of politicians off the hook, even if today’s media blitz does mean we see more of the appalling moments than we used to.</p>
<p>Ironically, it appears the trail from Cash’s remarkable outburst goes back to Malcolm Turnbull’s controversial attempt to impose a stricter standard in ministerial offices, by an addition to the ministerial code of conduct.</p>
<p>As part of his morals lecture delivered at the height of the Barnaby Joyce affair a fortnight ago, Turnbull announced his ban on ministers having sexual relationships with members of their staff.</p>
<p>In Wednesday’s Senate estimates committee hearing, Cash – who last year got into political trouble when her then-staffer told the media about a planned raid on the Australian Workers’ Union office – was being quizzed about her current staff.</p>
<p>Two new female appointees to senior positions are from other ministers’ offices.</p>
<p>It is claimed Cash believed Labor senator Doug Cameron was about to go down the route of insinuation and that she was being protective of her staff.</p>
<p>Cameron categorically denied he had any such intention, saying he was seeking to probe “the web of influence from Michaelia Cash’s office into agencies that are pursuing working people and the trade union movement”.</p>
<p>Cash was doubly guilty: of apparently misjudging what Labor was on about, and of a lack of restraint and nous. Even if she did genuinely misinterpret the questioning, her tit-for-tat was a slur on one lot of women to shield other women.</p>
<p>Turnbull, defending Cash in parliament, accused Cameron of “bullying” her. Cash also invoked the bullying line. It was clutching at straws. Both Cameron and Cash are hardened political brawlers.</p>
<p>Cash’s frequent political tactic is to default to aggression. In this case it was counter-productive as well as egregious. Just as the government was sloughing off the debilitating Joyce saga, and trying to exploit Bill Shorten’s shilly-shallying on Adani, it was again diverted.</p>
<p>The incident has shown the unintended consequences of the sex ban, which shines unwanted – and what’s likely in most cases to be irrelevant or misleading – light on staff moves between ministerial offices.</p>
<p>In terms of managing individual offices, such a ban seems common sense. But when it comes to political management across government, it encourages gossipy speculation. Once again Turnbull, who found himself in a corner, went too far, potentially subjecting staff who move offices to rumour-mongering.</p>
<p>Ardern says she didn’t feel such a code was necessary in New Zealand. But she added diplomatically that she was not passing judgement on what happened here. </p>
<p>“You’re always meeting the demands that are on you as a leader at that given time, and so certainly I watched and it was a really difficult situation in Australia that’s been going on over this last period,” she said. That’s something of an understatement.</p>
<p>Among those who rallied to defend Cash, Peter Dutton headed off in a particularly distasteful direction – Labor figures’ personal pasts.</p>
<p>“I think there’s a frustration on the Coalition side at the moment,” he said on radio. “We’ve sat there taking a morals lecture from Bill Shorten in relation to Barnaby Joyce over the last few weeks, and people know there is a history of problems in Bill Shorten’s personal life, Tony Burke’s personal life, and to be lectured by the Labor Party really sticks in the craw,” he said.</p>
<p>“I think if we’re being honest, there’s a general frustration within the parliament that you’ve got people like Shorten and Burke and a couple of others on the other side who are being virtuous and I’m not sure they’ve got great grounds to be virtuous.”</p>
<p>There are two obvious points to make here.</p>
<p>The headline “morals” lecture in the Joyce case came from the prime minister.</p>
<p>And the “frustration” the Coalition feels is less because of any Labor moralising and more because the government is killing itself with its own mistakes.</p>
<p><strong>POSTSCRIPT:</strong></p>
<p>I had cause to look back at some clips from the 1984 election and came across this from The Age:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The National Party leader, Mr Sinclair, when questioned again yesterday about his former relationship with a Sydney businesswoman, asked why the past of the prime minister, Mr Hawke, was not being raised in the election campaign.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92691/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Politicians may agree, at the level of generality, that their discourse should be more civil. Yet in practice, they simply refuse to change.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/917392018-02-14T03:05:06Z2018-02-14T03:05:06ZNo science minister, and it’s unclear where science fits in Australia<p>Science is <a href="https://theconversation.com/science-meets-parliament-doesnt-let-the-rest-of-us-off-the-hook-90692">in Canberra this week</a>, and yet we have no titled Minister for Science. </p>
<p>No such minister, on a background of Australia’s complex recent history of affiliating the science portfolio with a range of other ministries. </p>
<p>One interpretation is that successive federal governments struggle to see where science fits in our nations’s operations and future. Perhaps it remains unclear for politicians to see how best to link science with other activities, how to fund it, and how to successfully harness science for economic and other benefits. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/science-meets-parliament-doesnt-let-the-rest-of-us-off-the-hook-90692">Science Meets Parliament doesn't let the rest of us off the hook</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>As part of the annual <a href="https://scienceandtechnologyaustralia.org.au/event/science-meets-parliament-2018/">Science Meets Parliament</a> event, President of <a href="https://scienceandtechnologyaustralia.org.au/">Science and Technology Australia</a> Emma Johnston addressed the National Press Club today, saying,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Although Australians love science, especially on Valentine’s day, Australia has no clear whole-of-government plan for future solution-making. </p>
<p>We have a big-picture Science Statement, which is admirable, and roadmaps and reviews that have provided insights and ways forward. But we don’t have a coordinated, cross-portfolio investment plan - a plan to invest in the ultimate renewable resource.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Johnston said any such plan needs to be long-term, and to encompass education, research, translation and innovation, and research infrastructure.</p>
<p>If Australia is to build a whole-of-government plan for science, it will need a champion. Naturally that champion should be a federal minister for science.</p>
<h2>Where does science belong?</h2>
<p>On <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/ministerial-arrangements-2">December 20, 2017</a> a number of government departments were renamed, and The Department of Jobs and Small Business and The Department of Industry, Innovation and Science became part of the Jobs and Innovation Portfolio. Senator Michaelia Cash became Minister for Jobs and Innovation, and <a href="https://ministers.jobs.gov.au/cash/science-technology-australia-science-meets-parliament">states</a> “I am the Cabinet Minister responsible for science.” The term “science” itself as a title is now attached to Assistant Minister for Science, Jobs and Innovation, Senator Zed Seselja. </p>
<p>This is the second period since 1931 that Australia has been without a titled Science Minister, the previous time being for 15 months during the Abbott government over 2013 and 2014. </p>
<p>Our history with science ministers has been a somewhat potted one. Since 1931, the science portfolio has been associated with a wide range of other portfolios, including industrial research, education, training, consumer affairs, technology, small business, customs, tourism, resources, innovation and skills. </p>
<p>In recent times, the Australian government has connected the science portfolio with industry, which is a reasonable place for science to sit given the government wants science to produce a return on investment for the country. The industry portfolio has generally included science since 1994, when the Keating government established the Department of Industry, Science and Technology. Since then, there have been 16 science ministers working with either industry or education, and more recently, with innovation.</p>
<hr>
<p><iframe id="LdpT3" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/LdpT3/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<hr>
<p>There are a few ways to interpret this history. Perhaps successive governments have still not quite worked out where science should sit. Although there’s a level of understanding that science is crucial to Australia’s prosperity, and is fundamental to a wide range of portfolios, there appears to be no consistent, bi-partisan view of where science belongs. </p>
<h2>Mixed messages</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.science.org.au/news-and-events/news-and-media-releases/academy-responds-science-and-innovation-portfolio-0">Australian Academy of Science</a>, <a href="https://scienceandtechnologyaustralia.org.au/sta-calls-for-science-to-be-properly-recognised/">Science and Technology Australia</a>, and the <a href="http://www.acds.edu.au/press-release-australian-deans-of-science-say-ministerial-change-fails-nation/">Australian Council of Deans of Science </a> were all disappointed to see science removed from cabinet. </p>
<p>These peak science bodies argue the lack of a science minister is at odds with the government’s National Innovation and Science Agenda (<a href="https://www.innovation.gov.au/page/agenda">NISA</a>), which described science and innovation playing a major role in Australia’s policy agenda. Remember the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/rethinking-small-business-could-drive-a-real-ideas-boom-54550">ideas boom</a>”? That was NISA.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.science.gov.au/scienceGov/NationalScienceStatement/index.html">NISA report</a> states that: “Innovation and science are critical for Australia to deliver new sources of growth, maintain high-wage jobs and seize the next wave of economic prosperity.”</p>
<p>Senator Cash has echoed these sentiments this week, recognising the importance of science in “<a href="https://twitter.com/SenatorCash/status/963348144078516226">fuelling our economy by creating new businesses and jobs to ensuring we are healthy and have the best quality of life</a>”. She also pledged to make gender equity in STEM one of her priorities during her meetings with the <a href="https://scienceandtechnologyaustralia.org.au/what-we-do/superstars-of-stem/">Superstars of STEM</a> - a group of high-achieving female scientists acting as role models for young women and girls, and working towards equal gender representation in the media in STEM. Cash’s support would hold a lot more weight if she were also the minister for science. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"963359984489607168"}"></div></p>
<p>Australia has only had one female science minister, Julie Bishop, just over a decade ago.</p>
<h2>Investment in science</h2>
<p>With 200 scientists and technologists meeting with parliamentarians as part of Science Meets Parliament, the need for long-term funding for science will be a message heard loud and clear by serving members in Canberra this week. </p>
<p>While NISA saw an injection of funding into science and innovation, compared to other OECD countries Australia still fairs quite poorly. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/infographic-how-much-does-australia-spend-on-science-and-research-61094">Infographic: how much does Australia spend on science and research?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The 2015 OECD figures show that Australia spends 2.1% of its gross domestic spending on research and development, which puts it in the middle of the pack. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206322/original/file-20180214-174963-151zq9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206322/original/file-20180214-174963-151zq9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206322/original/file-20180214-174963-151zq9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206322/original/file-20180214-174963-151zq9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206322/original/file-20180214-174963-151zq9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206322/original/file-20180214-174963-151zq9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206322/original/file-20180214-174963-151zq9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206322/original/file-20180214-174963-151zq9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gross domestic product spending on Research and Development (R&D), total % of GDP, 2000-2016. CLICK TO EXPAND.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://data.oecd.org/rd/gross-domestic-spending-on-r-d.htm#indicator-chart">OECD</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But if we look just at federal government spending, removing state government and private sector contributions to R&D, things look far worse. The federal government spends just 0.4% on R&D, which puts it towards the bottom of the pack (see editor’s note below). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127064/original/image-20160617-11098-12n3se3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127064/original/image-20160617-11098-12n3se3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127064/original/image-20160617-11098-12n3se3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127064/original/image-20160617-11098-12n3se3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127064/original/image-20160617-11098-12n3se3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=698&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127064/original/image-20160617-11098-12n3se3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=698&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127064/original/image-20160617-11098-12n3se3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=698&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>The two world leaders in terms of their gross spending on R&D are Israel and Korea, <a href="https://data.oecd.org/rd/gross-domestic-spending-on-r-d.htm#indicator-chart">both currently sitting on about 4.2%</a>. But their stories are different. Israel has maintained this high rate of investment in R&D for a sustained period, while Korea has been ramping up.</p>
<p>Korea also focuses heavily on basic research (the creation of new knowledge for its own sake without immediate applications) and is committed to education in science, technology, engineering and maths. Israel is known for its translational research. Both countries have a strategic and sustained approach to R&D investment. </p>
<p>Australia’s funding on R&D, on the other hand, has decreased and plateaued since its high of 2.3% in 2008. </p>
<p>Science and innovation clearly do go hand in hand, and fundamental research is a vital first step towards translational research, which provides the government with the return on investment it seeks. And we need more young people studying STEM to help drive the economic development that science and technology drive. </p>
<p>Which brings us back to Emma Johnston’s call to action, a whole-of-government plan to invest in science. I agree with Johnston’s statement,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Australia needs a powerful and secure Minister for Science to rise above the short-termism and instability.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p><em>The editor was contacted by a representative of the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science on March 2, with the following comment:</em> </p>
<p><em>“For 2015-16, the value of total Australian Government investment in R&D as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is 0.62.”</em> </p>
<p><em>“The 0.4% statistic reported in the article and shown within the OECD chart excludes Australian Government support for R&D provided through the R&D Tax Incentive.”</em> </p>
<p><em>At a value of 0.62%, Australian Government investment in R&D as a percentage of GDP would be placed in between Russia and France.</em></p>
<p><em>The article has also been edited to include Senator Cash’s statement “I am the minister responsible for science” and to describe the inclusion of The Department of Industry, Innovation and Science in the Jobs and Innovation Portfolio.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91739/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Maddison is a member of the Australian Research Council College of Experts.</span></em></p>Right now, for the second time since 1931, there is no minister directly responsible for science in Australia.Sarah Maddison, Pro-Vice Chancellor (Academic Innovation & Change), Professor of Astrophysics, Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/864672017-10-27T02:35:57Z2017-10-27T02:35:57ZVIDEO: Michelle Grattan on calls for Michaelia Cash’s resignation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192166/original/file-20171027-13327-ez2w70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sXXnfvX7wHw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>The University of Canberra’s Nicholas Klomp and Michelle Grattan discuss the week in politics, including the opposition’s call for Employment Minister Michaelia Cash’s resignation after her staffer quit over media tip-offs, the fear of a politicised police force, the issues with the Nation Broadband Network, and the government’s rejection of the Referendum Council’s call for a national Indigenous representative assembly to be put into the Constitution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86467/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Nicholas Klomp and Michelle Grattan discuss the week in politics.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraNicholas Klomp, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Academic, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/863992017-10-26T23:33:47Z2017-10-26T23:33:47ZThe case of Michaelia Cash and her leaking adviser illustrates a failure of ministerial responsibility<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191960/original/file-20171026-28036-pjf32w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Michaelia Cash has refused to resign over misleading parliament, claiming she was unaware of one of her staffer’s actions.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The federal opposition is <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/michaelia-cash-clings-to-job-as-malcolm-turnbull-backs-her-in-20171026-gz8te3.html">continuing to call</a> for Employment Minister Michaelia Cash’s resignation, claiming she misled parliament this week after repeatedly telling a Senate estimates committee that neither she nor her office had any involvement in tipping off the media about a police raid.</p>
<p>Cash’s senior media adviser, David De Garis, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/oct/25/michaelia-cash-and-the-rogue-staffer-when-political-theatre-goes-off-script">later confessed</a> he had leaked information about the raid on the Australian Workers Union’s offices to the press. Cash retracted her statements and <a href="https://theconversation.com/cash-staff-member-quits-over-media-tip-offs-as-awu-affair-backfires-86357">De Garis resigned</a>. </p>
<p>Labor frontbencher Tony Burke <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-25/cash-staffer-resigns-over-awu-raids/9086214">argued</a> that “the wrong person has resigned”. But Cash has refused to resign, claiming she was unaware of her staffer’s actions. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/michaelia-cash-clings-to-job-as-malcolm-turnbull-backs-her-in-20171026-gz8te3.html">has defended</a> Cash, saying she acted properly.</p>
<h2>Who are these advisers?</h2>
<p>Ministerial advisers are partisan staff who are personally appointed by ministers and work out of the ministers’ private offices. </p>
<p>The number of Commonwealth ministerial staff <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Senate_Estimates/fapactte/estimates/sup1516/finance/index">has increased</a> over the years from 155 in 1972 to 423 in 2015. </p>
<p>Ministerial advisers undertake a wide range of functions. Tony Nutt, a long-time former adviser, <a href="http://www.monash.edu/news/opinions/what-lessons-can-we-draw-from-the-leaked-tapes-crisis">has said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>… a ministerial adviser deals with the press. A ministerial adviser handles the politics. A ministerial adviser talks to the union. All of that happens every day of the week, everywhere in Australia all the time. Including frankly, the odd bit of, you know, ancient Spanish practices and a bit of bastardry on the way through. That’s all the nature of politics.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The question is what happens if advisers overstep their roles? </p>
<h2>Ministerial responsibility and political advisers</h2>
<p>According to the doctrine of ministerial responsibility, ministers are responsible to parliament for the acts of their departments. </p>
<p>British academic Sir Ivor Jennings <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/711704">wrote</a> that the “act of every civil servant is by convention regarded as the act of the minister”. And British MP Lord Morrison <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Canadian_Constitutional_Conventions.html?id=RpfTngEACAAJ&redir_esc=y">proclaimed</a> that the “minister is responsible for every stamp stuck on an envelope”. </p>
<p>But it is doubtful that this principle has ever reflected reality. It is rare for ministers to resign or even accept responsibility for the actions of their department, where they were not personally involved.</p>
<p>Ministers should also technically take responsibility for the actions of advisers in their own offices, who are at an even higher level of direct ministerial control than departments.</p>
<p>Even more than public servants, advisers are seen to be acting as alter egos of their ministers. This means ministers should be accountable to parliament for the actions of their advisers – even those they did not authorise. </p>
<p>But what happens in reality is that ministers tend to use their advisers as scapegoats and blame them for controversial events. This is consistent with <a href="http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/PublicChoiceTheory.html">“public choice” theory</a>, which predicts that politicians have the incentive to deflect all the blame that comes in their direction while accepting the credit for anything that goes right.</p>
<h2>How are advisers regulated?</h2>
<p>Australia has <a href="https://www.federationpress.com.au/bookstore/book.asp?isbn=9781760020637">inadequate legal and political regulation</a> of ministerial advisers. They are subject to a <a href="https://www.pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/publications/statement_ministerial_standards.pdf">Statement of Standards</a>, which sets out the standards they are supposed to meet in preforming their duties. </p>
<p>Sanctions under the standards are handled internally within the executive through the Prime Minister’s Office. This means any breaches of the standards by ministerial advisers would be handled behind closed doors, without the scrutiny of parliament or any external bodies. </p>
<p>Ministerial advisers have <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/BWhmTMdqgKaAj7cNcvDX/full">also refused</a> to appear before parliamentary committees on their minister’s instruction. This has impeded the investigations of significant parliamentary committees, including the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/senate/committee/maritime_incident_ctte/report/report.pdf">Children Overboard affair</a>.</p>
<p>Australia thus has minimal legal and political regulation of ministerial advisers. This has led to an accountability deficit, where ministers have been able to utilise their advisers to escape responsibility for public controversies and scandals.</p>
<h2>How can we fix the system?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.bookdepository.com/Rise-Political-Advisors-Westminster-System-Yee-Fui-Ng/9780415787482">Other Westminster jurisdictions</a> have more stringent regulation of political advisers. </p>
<p>There are a few forms of regulation of advisers. The first is restrictions on the employment of advisers, either through a cap on the numbers of advisers, as in the UK, or a cap on the total budget for advisers, as in Canada. </p>
<p>Second, regulations can restrict the actions of advisers themselves. For example, in the UK, there is a prohibition on advisers leaking confidential or sensitive information, which would have been applicable in this scandal.</p>
<p>Canada has post-employment restrictions banning advisers from becoming lobbyists for five years after ceasing their employment. </p>
<p>Third, transparency measures also exist, such as requirements that departments disclose all meetings that advisers have with the media (as in the UK) and what hospitality these advisers receive (in the UK and Canada). </p>
<p>Ideally, the Australian regulatory framework should be reformed so it is policed externally from the core executive. In Canada, the conflict of interest and lobbying provisions are policed by the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, who has been independent and ready to criticise the government. </p>
<p>And, in the UK, <a href="http://www.civilservant.org.uk/library/2014_Osmotherly_Rules.pdf">the rules</a> provide for political advisers to appear before parliamentary committees. Similar guidelines could be drafted to facilitate the appearance of advisers before Australian parliamentary committees. </p>
<p>In the last 40 years, ministerial advisers have become an integral part of Australia’s system of government. But the law and rules have lagged behind, and our system should be reformed to ensure greater accountability.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86399/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yee-Fui Ng does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Australia’s minimal legal and political regulation of ministerial advisers has led to an accountability deficit.Yee-Fui Ng, Lecturer, Graduate School of Business and Law, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/864162017-10-26T10:50:50Z2017-10-26T10:50:50ZGrattan on Friday: Cash takes a hit in the government’s pursuit of Shorten<p>In his opening statement to a Senate estimates committee on Wednesday night, Mark Bielecki, the head of the Registered Organisations Commission, which is investigating the Australian Workers Union’s A$100,000 donation to GetUp, declared he wanted to correct a “misapprehension”.</p>
<p>“This investigation is not into Mr Shorten. It is into the AWU and it is into the AWU’s processes for approving donations, including political donations,” Bielecki said.</p>
<p>Whatever the Registered Organisations Commission might think or say, there’s been no doubt in the minds of the government what the inquiry is about. When Employment Minister Michaelia Cash referred the donation to the commission in August, she and her colleagues knew it was all about Bill Shorten.</p>
<p>The 2005 donation was made when Shorten, a founding director of GetUp, was AWU secretary.</p>
<p>Once again the government was trying to put Shorten in the frame over his behaviour in his union days. Previous attempts have fallen short of hopes.</p>
<p>It would always be a toss-up whether the Registered Organisations Commission investigation would yield dust or a trace of political gold. But no-one could have predicted it would blow up spectacularly in the face of the minister who sent the reference to the newly created watchdog.</p>
<p>Cash is still in place but it was excruciating to watch her performance when, as chance had it, she was appearing in Senate estimates this week and had to face forensic grilling – laced with sarcastic comments – from Labor senators.</p>
<p>The events are now well-known. The media were tipped off so the cameras could be present for Monday’s police raids on the AWU offices.</p>
<p>In front of the Senate committee, Cash denied through Wednesday that her office had anything to do with alerting the media. But around 6PM <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/aliceworkman/afp-raids?utm_term=.ts52rWGKQ#.irLEO3BG2">BuzzFeed reported</a> journalists had said Cash’s office was responsible for the tip-off. When the committee resumed after the dinner break, Cash announced her senior media adviser had just fessed up and resigned.</p>
<p>It seemed extraordinary that Cash could have been left in ignorance all day. Even more odd was that she (and the staffer in question, David De Garis) attended Malcolm Turnbull’s pre-Question Time briefing on Wednesday, when she assured him she had not given the tip-off, but neither he nor others present asked the obvious question: “what about your office?”</p>
<p>When media are being alerted, it is rarely by a call from the minister – it’s done by the media adviser. Everyone at the briefing would have known that. Assuming we’re hearing the truth, failing to ask was sloppy at best.</p>
<p>Not that the answer would necessarily have elicited the facts – because Cash says she’d already inquired of her staff and at that stage no-one admitted putting out the word.</p>
<p>Until recently Cash was receiving good reviews, as a hard worker, an effective negotiator on legislation, and skilled at carrying a brief.</p>
<p>But even before this week, her reputation had started to tarnish, when the head of the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), Nigel Hadgkiss, <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/industrial-relations/abcc-chief-nigel-hadgkiss-resigns/news-story/45621f514f95d59e9a5e0f0b2af36f8f">had to resign</a> after admitting to breaching the Fair Work Act while in his previous position. Cash was aware of the civil proceedings against him when he took over the ABCC.</p>
<p>The GetUp affair revolves around whether the donation went through the proper process under the AWU rules – as distinct from being generally known about and accepted by the union hierarchy at the time.</p>
<p>The government – which, incidentally, is on a jihad against GetUp, a campaigning body far too effective for its liking – would point out it is important to ensure unions are accountable and transparent when giving away members’ money. No-one could reasonably disagree with such a proposition.</p>
<p>But the government’s obvious attempt to use the recently established Registered Organisations Commission for political purposes is an abuse of power – and potentially damaging to the fledgling organisation. </p>
<p>Cash points out that she can’t direct the Registered Organisations Commission but when the minister refers something to it, that will obviously be taken up. And, as has been widely asked, would this matter, more than a decade old, have been referred if it hadn’t involved Shorten?</p>
<p>De Garis’ action in tipping off the media also shows the political prism through which the government sees these issues. Turnbull on Thursday described what De Garis did as “wrong” and “improper”. But if the affair had not backfired on the government, would it have been unhappy with the TV pictures of the raid?</p>
<p>Conservative commentator Andrew Bolt <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/police-raids-show-liberals-using-state-power-against-labor/news-story/1eb102e0477d86186375771da7585948">wrote this week</a> that the raids “seem part of a disturbing pattern of the Liberals using state power to persecute a political enemy”.</p>
<p>Bolt is a perennial critic of Turnbull but in this case he highlighted what had happened from the start of the Coalition government, referring to “the Liberals’ astonishing record of dragging Labor leaders before commissions and royal commissions created – at least in part – to humiliate them”.</p>
<p>In parliament on Thursday Turnbull kept firing at Shorten, mustering what chutzpah he could. But the bullets looked rubbery, after those days in which one of the more competent ministers was winged and the new Registered Organisations Commission found itself in rather too much spotlight. To say nothing of the fact that Shorten once again remained one step ahead of his pursuers.</p>
<p><strong><em>POSTSCRIPT</em></strong></p>
<p>There has been some debate among journalists about whether BuzzFeed should have reported that the media tip-off came from Cash’s office.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, my view is that it’s fine to report what happened if you didn’t get the tip-off – rather like Laurie Oakes reporting what Turnbull said at the press gallery ball that Oakes didn’t attend.
It’s not OK to reveal your source if you get a tip-off and it’s on a confidential basis.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86416/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The government’s obvious attempt to use the recently established Registered Organisations Commission for political purposes is an abuse of power.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/750522017-03-23T01:56:36Z2017-03-23T01:56:36ZPolitics podcast: Michaelia Cash on union misconduct<p>The government this week introduced a bill that aims to put a stop to secret agreements between employers and unions without the knowledge of union members. The next hurdle will be the Senate, although it’s possible Labor may support the legislation. </p>
<p>Employment Minister Michaelia Cash says she is always in discussion with the Senate crossbenchers about the implementation of the recommendations from the Heydon royal commission.</p>
<p>“And certainly, I’m always willing to sit down with [Shadow Employment Minister] Brendan O'Connor or Richard Di Natale to discuss the legislation.”</p>
<p>Beyond these new measures, Cash suggests the government wants to legislate more recommendations from the royal commission into trade unions. </p>
<p>“There are about 50 to 55 left and we are finalising that package as we speak. We are absolutely committed to adopting the Heydon recommendations.</p>
<p>"There are further recommendations in relation to what employers and unions should be disclosing in the course of enterprise agreements. There are some recommendations which go to, for example, choice of superannuation fund in enterprise agreements. There are some recommendations which go towards further transparency. Again, we’re happy to adopt them all.”</p>
<p>Following a ruling by the Fair Work Commission to cut Sunday penalty rates in industries such as hospitality, retail and fast food, some businesses have been reluctant to show strong support for the changes. Cash would like to see more businesses take up the cause.</p>
<p>“I believe that if you accept a decision and you embrace the positive benefits and you want to bring people with you, then yes, you should be out there selling that message.</p>
<p>"These guys are scared. They are scared that the unions will come and get them.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75052/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The government this week introduced a bill that aims to put a stop to secret agreements between employers and unions without the knowledge of union members.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/664962016-10-07T01:55:12Z2016-10-07T01:55:12ZProtecting migrant workers requires a rethink on employer freedoms<p>Detail on the federal government’s long-awaited <a href="https://ministers.employment.gov.au/cash/coalition-delivers-election-commitment-protect-migrant-workers">Migrant Workers Taskforce</a> has barely made a splash this week. This is surprising given last year’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/7-eleven-20033">7-Eleven firestorm</a> exposing the widespread exploitation and coercion of international students employed in 7-Eleven franchises.</p>
<p>The new taskforce, to be headed up by Allan Fels and David Cousins (who came to prominence in this space as chairs of the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-11/7eleven-underpaid-workers-alan-fels/7405968">now infamous 7-Eleven wages panel</a>) brings together a vast array of different government departments and agencies. Its brief is to identify and address the systemic causes of migrant worker exploitation and provide a vehicle for inter-agency collaboration. It’s a big mandate for a taskforce which is only set to meet four times a year.</p>
<p>The mission which now confronts Employment Minister Michaelia Cash and her taskforce is to redesign Australia’s rather chaotic and unfair temporary labour migration program. To do this they will need to address the underlying causes of temporary migrant worker vulnerability in the Australian labour market. This will necessarily involve curtailing some of the freedoms currently enjoyed by employers who engage temporary migrant workers.</p>
<p>The establishment of the taskforce shows the government recognises the inherent vulnerability of temporary migrant workers. In the UK, post Brexit, the Conservative government appears to be going backwards on this issue by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/oct/05/government-faces-backlash-from-business-leaders-over-foreign-workers">demonising temporary migrant workers</a> and increasing government controls on them.</p>
<p>Cash is to be commended for being the first Minister for Employment to recognise the particular disadvantage faced by temporary migrant workers. Although such workers are entitled to the protections contained in the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), which applies to all workers in Australia, Cash appears to understand that temporary migrant workers find it difficult to access legal remedies and exercise their workplace rights under Australian law. This is a fact that has been well established in the <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2649296">academic literature</a>, both here and abroad. </p>
<p>An essential starting point for the taskforce is to acknowledge the precarious position of migrant workers at work – their temporariness, their dependence on employers for essential income (including to send home), their need for ongoing sponsorship (in the case of 457 visa holders) and the desire of many for permanent residency.</p>
<p>It’s vital that the taskforce is able to affect real policy change, rather than being just another voice identifying temporary migrant worker vulnerability. This is a space which is becoming increasingly crowded and it’s difficult to know where the taskforce fits in. Since 2014 Cash has created a reconstituted Ministerial Advisory Council on Skilled Migration, Operation Cardena, a Ministerial Working Group on Vulnerable Visa workers and a new Fair Work Ombudsman Migrant Worker Strategy and Engagement Division. Despite the addition of these new voices, there has been very little change to the regulations governing temporary migrant work.</p>
<p>Additionally, in the past four years there have been eight separate official reviews of Australia’s temporary labour migration program. In the main, these reviews have made important recommendations for how the regulation of temporary migrant work could be improved. Although the government has implemented some of these recommendations, many of the more challenging ones (for example, recommendations around the introduction of independent labour market testing and greater regulation of labour hire use) have been conveniently bypassed.</p>
<p>The primary question facing Minister Cash and her taskforce is whether they are prepared to challenge the primacy of employers in the current regulatory design of Australia’s temporary labour migration program. </p>
<p>Although it is critical that employer interests are met through the labour migration program, it is equally important that the use of temporary labour migration meets Australia’s national interest and is fair to temporary migrant workers. In our new book, <a href="http://www.bloomsbury.com/au/temporary-labour-migration-in-the-global-era-9781509906291/">Rosemary Owens and I argue</a> there needs to more nuanced and stronger enforcement and greater regulatory control and supervision of Australia’s temporary migration program. </p>
<p>The primary focus of the temporary migrant program cannot be on the efficacy of the visa process and the reduction of regulatory burdens on business. It is critical that genuine efforts are made to ensure that the design of visas for temporary migrant work doesn’t open the door to exploitative work.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66496/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Joanna Howe receives research funding for projects examining temporary labour migration from the Fair Work Ombudsman, the Australian Research Council and Horticulture Innovation Australia.</span></em></p>The taskforce must redesign Australia’s rather chaotic and unfair temporary labour migration program.Joanna Howe, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/646812016-08-31T09:24:30Z2016-08-31T09:24:30ZIn search of authority, Turnbull can’t afford to lose the industrial relations bills<p>Dressed predictably if absurdly in a fluoro vest, with Employment Minister Michaelia Cash sporting matching gear, Malcolm Turnbull was out first thing on Wednesday spruiking his industrial relations legislation, which he introduced in the House later in the morning.</p>
<p>How important this legislation is to Turnbull was reinforced when he told reporters he might join Cash in some of the discussions she and crossbenchers will have.</p>
<p>With every sign the new parliament will be difficult, Turnbull needs early wins on important measures. One is the omnibus bill of about A$6 billion in savings (where the opposition discovered a $107 million error). Others are these industrial relations measures – the double-dissolution bills to resurrect the Australian Building and Construction Commission and to toughen union governance, as well as (added in the election campaign) the bill, arising from the Victorian stoush, to protect volunteer firefighters.</p>
<p>Leaving aside the firefighter legislation, there are two possible routes for passing the other bills: the normal avenue or a joint sitting.</p>
<p>Before they can go to a joint sitting, they first have to be put to parliament in the same form they were previously considered and rejected pre-election.</p>
<p>The government is anxious to try to get them through at this first stage. If that can’t be done, a joint sitting would be problematic on the numbers. Much better to make a few compromises – which is what the government is signalling – to attempt to win crossbench senators’ support so it doesn’t come to that.</p>
<p>If he can get these bills passed, Turnbull will have given some succour to various constituencies, including the conservatives in his ranks as well as business. If he fails, he is in even deeper trouble than now.</p>
<p>While these and other bills are coming in with a flurry the votes are a while away. Parliament has next week off, when Turnbull is out of the country on the summit round. For Turnbull this initial sitting week is one for starting processes – and having the fire hose out.</p>
<p>Labor began parliament’s initial workday by moving its well-previewed motion urging a royal commission into the banks. The government’s numbers held to vote it down. It threw a bone to those in its ranks concerned by banks’ bad behaviour by ordering the small business and family enterprise ombudsman to examine specific cases of abuses and recommend whether more reform is needed. An existing inquiry is looking at a possible disputes tribunal.</p>
<p>It will be harder for Turnbull to close down the backbench pressure to revisit Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, given that all but one Coalition backbench senators has signed up to a private member’s bill to amend the section. Turnbull reiterated in the House that the government has “no plans to change Section 18C”. But the conservatives see this as a signature issue and will keep it on the agenda.</p>
<p>Labor seized on a report from a new book by Wayne Errington and Peter van Onselen saying that Turnbull and Treasurer Scott Morrison had argued in cabinet to tighten negative gearing concessions but were later persuaded otherwise by ministerial supporters of Tony Abbott. It was potentially manna for the opposition but Turnbull’s denial of the account took some steam out of the attack.</p>
<p>Labor’s push for a royal commission on banking and the conservatives’ pressure over 18C were well-flagged. But an embarrassment for Labor came out of the blue this week.</p>
<p>ALP senator Sam Dastyari has achieved a high profile for prosecuting issues of corporate bad behaviour. Given he has been so out there, one would have thought he’d have been more careful with his own affairs. </p>
<p>Having a Chinese company, Top Education Institute, with links to the Chinese government, pay the $1,670 he overspent of his travel budget is extraordinary. He declared the payment on his pecuniary interest register but on any view it was inappropriate for him to send on the bill. </p>
<p>In a move to limit the damage, Dastyari on Wednesday admitted his error and announced that he was sending the amount to charity – only to be embarrassed further when the first charity declined it. Dastyari on Wednesday evening tweeted:</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"770884853432619008"}"></div></p>
<p>Apart from the immediate problem, such an incident invites wider scrutiny and is there to be brought up later. Critics are poring over other benefits Dastyari has received from the Chinese; his credibility has received a knock.</p>
<p>The Dastyari affair took some edge off Labor’s day. More broadly, Labor had its tail up but didn’t manage to sink its teeth into the government.</p>
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Dressed predictably if absurdly in a fluoro vest, with Employment Minister Michaelia Cash sporting matching gear, Malcolm Turnbull was out first thing on Wednesday spruiking his industrial relations legislation…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/627272016-07-19T11:47:17Z2016-07-19T11:47:17ZLiberals deride quotas for women MPs but how are they going to make targets work?<p>Before the election Malcolm Turnbull had no trouble calling himself a feminist but now his party has had its woman problem highlighted by the result.</p>
<p>There will only be 13 women among the 60 (assuming the party loses Herbert) Liberals in the House of Representatives. That’s 21.7%. In the last House there were 17 women among 75 Liberals (22.7%). The decline might be marginal but the representation is unacceptably low in both terms.</p>
<p>And when people start highlighting the problem, everything comes to be seen through the gender prism.</p>
<p>After he became prime minister Turnbull boosted the number of women in cabinet from two to five. Kelly O'Dwyer, Marise Payne and Michaelia Cash were elevated. Payne became Australia’s first female defence minister. </p>
<p>A few months later the number of women went to six, when Fiona Nash became Nationals deputy.</p>
<p>In this week’s ministerial reshuffle, two of the Liberal cabinet women have had large parts of their ministerial bailiwicks stripped away.</p>
<p>O'Dwyer keeps her (renamed) area of revenue and financial services but small business has been removed. Christopher Pyne, in a newly created job of defence industry, now has a big slice of defence minister Payne’s former territory.</p>
<p>Labor deputy leader Tanya Plibersek quickly claimed the two had been “demoted”. That wasn’t actually true but it drew attention to the fact they’d come out losers.</p>
<p>Turnbull overloaded O'Dwyer initially, giving her areas previously held by two ministers. Splitting the roles better distributes the workload, although he was probably driven by having to accommodate the Nationals – who had more spots and wanted small business (which is now outside cabinet, to the sector’s anger).</p>
<p>The well-regarded Payne hasn’t had much time to prove herself in one of the most testing ministries. Pyne is not a junior minister to help out but her cabinet equal. It’s hard to see the exercise as other than giving Pyne, a South Australian, a large pork barrel that will be very useful in the politics of his state, where the Xenophon forces have run rampant. It’s also suggested Pyne will be more of a salesman than the rather reticent Payne.</p>
<p>Health Minister Sussan Ley had been under some criticism, leading to speculation she might be moved. The case against shifting her could have been strengthened by the prospective backlash if three women had been targeted – even if the motives had nothing to do with gender.</p>
<p>The small number of Liberal women in the lower house has sparked a fresh debate about what can be done.</p>
<p>One problem is that women often tend to be in marginal seats and so their fates are more tied to swings, positive and negative. When John Howard won in 1996 a good number of women entered parliament on the coat-tails of that victory. A negative swing can work the other way, although in this election the swing against the Liberals hit men and women roughly proportionately.</p>
<p>Liberal deputy Julie Bishop has suggested the wider use of preselection plebiscites might help boost numbers. Plebiscites are desirable for a range of reasons but will they act to get more women? Not necessarily, if the Victorian Liberal experience is any guide. The party’s state division has plebiscites but there are only three women among its 14 House of Representatives members (including the new member for Chisholm, Julia Banks, who took the seat from Labor).</p>
<p>The Liberals are vociferously against quotas, but in Victoria at an organisational level they have always had them. When the Liberals were founded by Robert Menzies in the mid-1940s, the powerful Australian Women’s National League merged into the new party on the condition of equal male-female representation on governing bodies throughout the Victorian division. One would have thought the women in the organisation could have used this power better to get more women into parliament.</p>
<p>Georgina Downer, who ran unsuccessfully for preselection in the safe seat of Goldstein, says a big difficulty is getting enough women to contest preselections.</p>
<p>There aren’t many younger women in the party membership, she says, while “young ambitious guys are reasonably plentiful”. Party activism takes a lot of hours and women aged from the late 20s to early 40s, when political hopefuls are seeking preselection, are often juggling family and work responsibilities.</p>
<p>Another Victorian Liberal source says there are too few women who take on the chair positions in the party’s electorate bodies, which would improve their chances when preselections have become so local.</p>
<p>The Liberal federal executive has embraced “a national aspirational target of 50% for female representation in Australian parliaments by 2025”. But this is subject to each state division agreeing and devising a strategy for reaching it.</p>
<p>Without a dramatically greater commitment and effort by the party this won’t have the slightest chance of happening.</p>
<p>Such an effort needs to include very actively seeking potential female candidates and maximising their competitiveness in preselections, including by convincing sometimes sceptical rank-and-file preselectors that it is important for the party to get more women into parliament. </p>
<p>Senior Liberal women should bring whatever heft they can to doing this, and to ensuring senior men play their part too. Turnbull should use his influence with the Liberal organisation.</p>
<p>It’s no good the Liberals being sanctimonious about how much better “targets” are than “quotas” if their performance is so lamentable that they can’t achieve any meaningful targets.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/xzkk9-60ebb7?from=yiiadmin" data-link="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/xzkk9-60ebb7?from=yiiadmin" height="100" width="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62727/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Before the election Malcolm Turnbull had no trouble calling himself a feminist but now his party has had its woman problem highlighted by the result. There will only be 13 women among the 60 (assuming…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/597382016-05-31T19:49:48Z2016-05-31T19:49:48ZThe penalty rates time-bomb is ticking<p>A <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2016/s4470275.htm?site=eyre">looming decision on weekend penalty rates</a> presents problems for both major parties in the lead-up to Australia’s federal election. The Fair Work Commission seems likely to hand down its decision in the controversial case soon after the federal election. </p>
<p>Nobody knows what the commission’s decision on penalty rates in the retail and hospitality industries will be. There seem to be more tea-leaf readers predicting it will cut Sunday penalty rates to match Saturday rates than who think it will make no changes. </p>
<p>If so, employer organisations would be happy, but many retail employees will be worse off. Pressure would grow for cuts to penalty rates elsewhere.</p>
<p>The commission president’s request for submissions on whether some employees should be given a <a href="https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/sites/awardsmodernfouryr/am2014305-dirs-290416.pdf">right to refuse to work on Sundays</a>, perhaps as a trade-off, has added to the confidence of the former group of tea-leaf readers. </p>
<h2>The Coalition dilemma</h2>
<p>For the Coalition, the debate is a reminder of the disastrous political consequences of over-reach in industrial relations. A decade ago, it introduced the WorkChoices legislation, frequently touted as <a href="http://www.australianreview.net/digest/2008/02/spies-butcher_wilson.html">costing the Howard government the 2007 election</a>. The main way in which it had affected workers’ pay was through allowing employers to <a href="http://www98.griffith.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/handle/10072/29660/59864_1.pdf?sequence=1">reduce penalty rates, overtime pay and shift allowances</a> below the award safety net.</p>
<p>Voters <a href="http://www.essentialvision.com.au/penalty-rates-3">overwhelmingly support</a> the retention of penalty rates. It doesn’t follow that this alone would change their votes, but the “Your Rights at Work” campaign <a href="http://www98.griffith.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/handle/10072/37764/66954_1.pdf?sequence=1">showed the potential salience</a> of the issue.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124391/original/image-20160529-10041-1vopwa8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124391/original/image-20160529-10041-1vopwa8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124391/original/image-20160529-10041-1vopwa8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124391/original/image-20160529-10041-1vopwa8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124391/original/image-20160529-10041-1vopwa8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124391/original/image-20160529-10041-1vopwa8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124391/original/image-20160529-10041-1vopwa8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The ‘Your Rights at Work’ campaign showed the potential impact of employment issues.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Peetz</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has described the reduction of penalty rates as <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/malcolm-turnbull-lower-penalty-rates-inevitable-with-seven-day-economy-20151005-gk1yr5.html">inevitable</a>. While his predecessor, Tony Abbott, was renowned for an extremely conservative social philosophy, he was one of the few ministers at the time of WorkChoices <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/business-spectator/the-dubious-virtues-of-abbotts-revolution-/news-story/5741eb0d22bafbbdac5feb7802e3f990">reported to be hesitant</a> about its direction. While Turnbull was not in the cabinet then, there is little evidence of his being less enthusiastic than Abbott about lowering pay or conditions.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/12/23/show-courage-penalty-rates-lib-senator">enthusiasm of Coalition members</a> has <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-do-new-disclosures-reveal-about-coalition-ir-policy-17689">not waned</a>. But it must be done without cutting pay below the safety net. And it must be done in a way that enables the government to avoid blame. </p>
<p>That is why so much Coalition hope rests with the Fair Work Commission in this case. It’s partly why it asked the Productivity Commission to <a href="https://ministers.employment.gov.au/abetz/productivity-commission-review-workplace-relations-framework">review the workplace relations framework</a>. The Productivity Commission’s <a href="http://elr.sagepub.com/content/27/2/164.full">recommendations to cut penalty rates</a> attracted more attention than any other aspect of its report, though some parts proposed <a href="https://theconversation.com/workplace-reforms-would-hit-workers-outside-unions-hardest-45772">more radical changes</a>. Employers submitted the report to the Fair Work Commission case without the authors being cross-examined. </p>
<p>When the government commissioned the report, it anticipated it could promise <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-pc-review-that-could-bring-the-government-unstuck-36756">major changes to employment relations</a> at the 2016 election. The Productivity Commission would provide <a href="http://elr.sagepub.com/content/27/2/164.full">critical “third-party endorsement”</a> for radical change.</p>
<p>But the polls went south for the government, and now it faces a choice: announce a radical policy and risk voters’ wrath; or announce a mild policy, frustrate employers and hope voters have forgotten that the mild policy it presented in 2004 morphed into WorkChoices after that election. </p>
<p>The issue is so politically sensitive for the government that it declined to make a submission to the penalty rates case. Yet it cannot stay silent until the election. </p>
<p>There is, however, another pathway to satisfying corporate demands. In response to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-franchises-care-more-about-their-coffee-than-their-people-46948">7-Eleven scandal</a>, the Coalition recently announced <a href="https://www.liberal.org.au/latest-news/2016/05/19/protecting-vulnerable-workers-australia">increased powers for the Fair Work Ombudsman</a> to compel answers to questions. Lacking detail, this hasn’t attracted much attention yet. However, unless the government guarantees otherwise, those increased powers could also be used against workers.</p>
<p>This is not a mere theoretical possibility. Recently, the ombudsman launched <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace-relations/fairfax-journalists-to-be-investigated-by-fwo-20160504-gom6ak.html">investigations into journalists</a> who walked off the job after Fairfax announced more redundancies. </p>
<p>One danger of using “union corruption” as the rationale for increasing the powers of the Australian Building and Corruption Commission was that it could be used to justify eventually extending the use of coercive powers <a href="https://theconversation.com/bringing-back-building-watchdog-helps-a-political-agenda-but-not-concerns-about-union-corruption-54051">to all industries</a>. Increasing the ombudsman’s coercive powers could be another way of doing that. </p>
<h2>The Labor dilemma</h2>
<p>The Labor Party, on the other hand, <a href="https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/sites/awardsmodernfouryr/AM2014305-sub-FOS-210316.pdf">made a submission</a> to the Fair Work Commission case. The main purpose might have been to embarrass the government by consolidating the many instances of Coalition support for cutting penalty rates. Labor did, however, argue against cuts to penalty rates. </p>
<p>That was the easy part. Labor is <a href="https://theconversation.com/labor-struggles-with-the-sticky-paper-of-penalty-rates-59487">under pressure</a> from unions to promise something more concrete – in particular, legislation to protect penalty rates, as <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/05/16/greens-want-weekend-penalty-rates-law">the Greens propose</a>. </p>
<p>Labor hesitates to commit to legislative action. This is partly because it does not want to appear to be undermining the <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/05/17/umpire-will-protect-penalty-rates-shorten">“independent umpire”</a>, which legislation would do. Yet Labor’s own Fair Work Act created a set of legislative obligations, the <a href="https://www.fairwork.gov.au/how-we-will-help/templates-and-guides/fact-sheets/minimum-workplace-entitlements/introduction-to-the-national-employment-standards">National Employment Standards</a>, on matters that had been the sole prerogative of the Fair Work Commission. </p>
<p>Still, setting a precedent for legislative determination of penalty rates could also be used by the Coalition to opposite effect.</p>
<p>More valid would be concern about what legislation would do. Different awards set different penalty rates. This means that a single legislated formula for penalty rates would leave some workers better off and some worse off than at present. </p>
<p>The creation of national “modern awards”, which replaced a variety of inconsistent state awards, did precisely that. Both <a href="http://www.fullyloaded.com.au/industry-news/0909/nsw-award-rates-slashed-on-balance-drivers-worse-off/">unions</a> and <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/retail-industry/submissions/sub129.pdf">employers</a> screamed they were worse off, cherry-picking different effects. </p>
<p>It’s a complexity Labor would like to avoid. </p>
<p>If legislation were to avoid greater rigidity than the current system, it would need to allow enterprise agreements to override legislated penalty rates if employees were better off overall, which the National Employment Standards do not allow.</p>
<p>Alternatively, legislation could entrench existing penalty rates (either by directly referring to modern awards, or by a detailed legislative schedule). But such legislation could not be passed before the commission brought down its decision in the current case.</p>
<p>So, legislation may need to lock in penalty rates that existed before the current case. That would undermine the idea of regular reviews of modern awards and the “flexibility” that allowed, which would worry a number of Labor policymakers.</p>
<p>Another approach would be to highlight Sunday penalty rates in the Objects of the Act (as part of the current mention of weekend rates). But that would still be no guarantee current levels would be maintained, and would not affect the current case.</p>
<p>So legislation is feasible, but it’s not easy. </p>
<p>In the meantime, Labor has committed to <a href="https://www.laborherald.com.au/people-families/only-labor-will-protect-penalty-rates-system-for-workers/">intervening in the case</a> after the election, to support penalty rates. </p>
<p>Here it follows a precedent set by the Whitlam government. Then, Labor <a href="https://pmtranscripts.dpmc.gov.au/release/transcript-2734">intervened</a> in the 1972 equal pay case immediately it was elected, after submissions had closed. Days later, the commission issued <a href="https://www.fwc.gov.au/waltzing-matilda-and-the-sunshine-harvester-factory/documents/equal-pay-case-1972">one of its most famous decisions</a>, endorsing a broader interpretation of equal pay. </p>
<p>Since then, the Commonwealth’s reopening of the case has been lauded as critical in its success. Whether this was really so is impossible to know. But it showed the possibilities, and the symbolic value, of such actions.</p>
<h2>Who’s in the hottest seat?</h2>
<p>The lack of employer outrage at the increased powers of the Fair Work Ombudsman to investigate corporations at the top of franchise chains might mean they have been given a nod and a wink that all will be OK. </p>
<p>But voters want more. As the election draws closer, the government must play its hand on penalty rates and its response to the Productivity Commission <a href="https://ministers.employment.gov.au/abetz/productivity-commission-review-workplace-relations-framework">review that it requested</a>.</p>
<p>Labor has already played its hand. In some ways it is a bet each way. But the delegation of part of industrial relations policymaking to third parties holds more risks for the government than for Labor.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article has been amended to clarify the reference to highlighting Sunday penalty rates in the Objects of the Fair Work Act.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59738/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Peetz receives funding from the Australian Research Council and, as a university employee, has undertaken research over many years with occasional financial support from governments from both sides of politics, in Australia and overseas, employers and unions. In the Fair Work Commission case on penalty rates in the retail industry, mentioned in this article, he was co-author of a joint expert evidence report commissioned by one of the unions on the demographic composition of Sunday retail workers.</span></em></p>Cutting penalty rates can be a vote-changer and the looming Fair Work Commission decision is tricky for both sides of politics. So what cards do the parties hold and how might they play them?David Peetz, Professor of Employment Relations, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/585042016-04-28T06:52:57Z2016-04-28T06:52:57ZPublic service begins long journey back to leading on gender equality<p>Minister for Women Michaelia Cash this week released a new <a href="http://www.apsc.gov.au/publications-and-media/current-publications/gender-equality-strategy">gender equality strategy</a> for the Australian Public Service.</p>
<p>The importance of this strategy cannot be underestimated. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Australian public sector was lauded as being a model employer for women. In 1973, the Australian government legislated to provide paid maternity leave for its female employees – a landmark achievement at the time. Good conditions of employment, decent pay and job security resulted in increasing numbers of women joining the APS. </p>
<p>From the 1980s, however, the rhetoric of “New Public Management” gained pace. This ethos dictated that the public sector should become more like the private sector – leaner, more productive and more competitive with the private sector in the provision of public services. The role of the public sector as a model employer progressively decreased as services were outsourced and public sector budgets were reduced. Terms and conditions of employment continued to be female-friendly, but arguably major gains were made through collective bargaining, rather than through government or agency policy. </p>
<p>Simultaneously, some organisations introduced gender equality provisions more beneficial than those found in the APS, such as providing 26 weeks paid parental leave, “shared care” leave which provides fathers with up to 50% of their salary for up to six months, making all jobs flexible, and domestic violence leave. The APS was in danger of being left behind.</p>
<h2>The new plan</h2>
<p>The new strategy is built around five pillars: </p>
<ul>
<li>Driving a supportive and enabling workplace culture</li>
<li>Achieving gender equality in APS leadership</li>
<li>Working innovatively to embed gender equality in employment practices</li>
<li>Increasing take-up of flexible work arrangements by both men and women, and</li>
<li>Measuring and evaluating actions.</li>
</ul>
<p>The aim of the strategy is to achieve culture change across the public service, harnessing gender equality initiatives to increase performance and productivity in the APS. </p>
<p>The five pillars of the strategy reflect some <a href="https://www.wgea.gov.au/sites/default/files/not%20yet%2050%EF%80%A250%20report-Final%20Version%20for%20print(1)%5B1%5D.pdf">existing appraches</a> to achieving gender equality in the APS, such as a focus on leadership and culture change. </p>
<p>The strategy, however, also contains new approaches at organisational, APS-wide and national levels. These include: </p>
<ul>
<li>The introduction of “panel pledges”, whereby senior managers can ask members of recruitment panels how they will achieve gender balance on a panel</li>
<li>Working with the public sector in other jurisdictions to “prioritise gender equality in public sector leadership”</li>
<li>Implementing training on how to conduct gender analysis on government policy, an important function which academics and women’s organisations claim has been downgraded over the years</li>
<li>Working towards becoming an Employer of Choice as determined by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency. Currently public sector agencies are exempt from reporting to this agency, and<br></li>
<li>Working with the Australian Public Service Commission to evaluate and report on progress. </li>
</ul>
<p>This strategy presents a new approach to implementing gender equality in the APS, combining culture change, practical initiatives, evaluation, and showcasing best practice. The release of the strategy follows Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s <a href="http://www.pm.gov.au/media/2016-04-20/address-australian-public-service-canberra">address</a> to the APS last week, where gender equality was dominant, including the need for targets, flexible working arrangements and mentoring for women.</p>
<p>Recently, one commentator <a href="http://www.themandarin.com.au/63303-family-bias-aps-time-cultural-reform/">lamented</a> the lack of any progress on gender equality in the APS, noting that the levels of women in the more senior levels of the Senior Executive Service continued to be low and that many jobs continued to be based on the full-time male breadwinner model. Additionally, the Community and Public Sector Union has <a href="http://www.cpsu.org.au/news/dont-be-duped-turbulls-attempt-appear-sympathetic-working-families">criticised</a> the government’s position on collective bargaining in the APS, claiming the government has attempted to remove or reduce family friendly working arrangements contained in enterprise agreements. </p>
<p>Initial research I have conducted on publicly available documents showed some innovative gender equality initiatives, such as agencies providing domestic violence leave to their employees or formally enabling them to work from home. These are important provisions, though they were only available to employees in select agencies, and additional innovative provisions had yet to surface.</p>
<p>Some agencies, however, do appear to be already leading the way and are adopting a more holistic approach. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade recently released a far-reaching <a href="http://dfat.gov.au/about-us/publications/Pages/women-in-leadership-strategy.aspx">Women in Leadership</a> strategy. Similarly, over the last five years the Department of Defence has implemented a comprehensive <a href="http://www.defence.gov.au/pathwaytochange/docs/epapsw/Full%20report%20Review%20of%20Employment%20Pathways%20for%20APS%20Women%20in%20Defence.pdf">gender equality strategy</a> for its APS employees. </p>
<p>While these initiatives are important and necessary, gender equality in the APS will best be achieved through an APS-wide approach. Until now, there has been a lack of any whole-of-government strategy for gender equality for APS employees. This new strategy signals a welcome change and may well result in the APS once again being a model employer for women.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58504/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sue Williamson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Once a model employer for women, the APS is in danger of being left behindSue Williamson, Lecturer, Human Resource Management, UNSW Canberra , UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/578052016-04-14T20:48:15Z2016-04-14T20:48:15ZGrattan on Friday: Turnbull sees even a difficult new Senate as an opportunity for a fresh start<p>Malcolm Turnbull says bluntly that he expects the coming special Senate sitting to reject the industrial legislation. Labor’s Penny Wong indicates the opposition won’t be playing silly buggers by trying to delay the bills.</p>
<p>As parliamentarians prepare to return to Canberra next week, both sides just want to get to the double dissolution now regarded as virtually certain.</p>
<p>Employment Minister Michaelia Cash, with carriage of the legislation, has been catapulted centre stage just months after she was one of the three women promoted to cabinet when Turnbull became leader.</p>
<p>Experienced in industrial law from her solicitor days, Cash was in the small group at the Lodge the night Turnbull finalised his strategy to have parliament recalled, with the threat of a double dissolution if the Senate refused to pass the industrial relations bills.</p>
<p>One government source says Cash has “surprised on the upside” in her performance in the Turnbull ranks.</p>
<p>The bills at the centre of the double-dissolution play resurrect the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) and toughen trade union governance.</p>
<p>But recently added to the agenda for the special parliamentary session – though not relevant to the double dissolution – is the government’s move to scrap the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, following a new pay decision that small operators say would send many of them out of business.</p>
<p>This is also in Cash’s bailiwick. The government initially intended to put the ruling on hold until early next year, while promising that if re-elected it would abolish the tribunal. But then, sensing it could get the Senate numbers, it decided to push ahead at once with abolition. This adds to its anti union, pro small business election narrative.</p>
<p>While it is fairly confident it has the needed support, the government is also adopting a belt-and-braces approach by putting forward the delay option too.</p>
<p>It’s a different story with the industrial relations bills. Although the Registered Organisations legislation is already a double-dissolution trigger, it would not be beyond the bounds of possibility that the required six crossbenchers could be persuaded to support it with some compromises. But it is nearly impossible to see the coming weeks bringing a deal on the ABCC.</p>
<p>Anyway, the government has no incentive. The momentum is now so strong for a July 2 double dissolution that it would be quite awkward if the industrial legislation were passed, forcing Turnbull to back off and re-gear for a later normal election. In these circumstances extra time might harm rather than help him.</p>
<p>Yet the benefits of a double dissolution for Turnbull in terms of the Senate are debatable. ABC election analyst Antony Green calculates that, even with the recently reformed voting system, there is a strong prospect a re-elected Turnbull government would face <a href="http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2016/04/the-turnbull-governments-senate-position-would-be-little-better-after-a-double-dissolution.html">another potentially difficult upper house</a>.</p>
<p>“There are serious questions whether a double dissolution would be of any benefit to the government’s Senate position,” Green wrote. “A double dissolution is unlikely to deliver the Coalition more Senate seats than it currently holds. The government would still need the support of up to half a dozen crossbench senators to pass legislation.”</p>
<p>But the government takes the view that a new Senate, regardless of its crossbench component, would present a fresh start. It sees the present upper house as the “Abbott” Senate, afflicted by the former prime minister’s broken promises and fractured relationships. Turnbull could argue to a new Senate that his re-elected government had a mandate, and launch a charm offensive.</p>
<p>Cash is in the fortunate position that whatever happens to the industrial relations legislation, she won’t look bad.</p>
<p>If, contrary to all indications, the crossbench senators caved, it would be a victory for which she as negotiator would be able to claim some credit. If, as expected, they don’t, the government moves on to the double dissolution considered all along to be Turnbull’s preferred position.</p>
<p>Turnbull on Wednesday anticipated the industrial relations bills’ defeat: “every indication we have is that they will be rejected”. The Senate had voted against the ABCC once, and the Registered Organisations bill three times, he said. “So if the past is any guide to future performance then you would expect it wouldn’t be passed.”</p>
<p>Wong, Labor’s Senate leader, on Thursday confirmed Labor will not try to prevent the bills being considered, as some had speculated. “We will deal with these bills. We won’t be delaying,” she said. “If Malcolm Turnbull wants a double-dissolution election, we’re ready for an election.”</p>
<p>Turnbull’s tactic of the special sitting is not risk-free for him. The Coalition is limiting the dangers presented by multiple Question Times by having the lower house sit only two days next week and not at all the following one.</p>
<p>But Labor already has a boxful of ammunition for the lower house Question Times on Monday and Tuesday. The government is on the back foot in resisting a royal commission into the banks’ bad behaviour. More serious is this week’s assessment from Moody’s credit rating agency, ominously highlighting the debt issue – “a credit negative for Australia” – and contesting Treasurer Scott Morrison’s repeated insistence there is not a revenue problem.</p>
<p>Meanwhile at week’s end the hyperactive Cash was in Townsville, to deal with another issue on her crowded plate – the fallout for workers of the collapse of Clive Palmer’s Queensland Nickel.</p>
<iframe id="audio_iframe" src="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/xdwwc-5e609a?from=yiiadmin" data-link="http://www.podbean.com/media/player/xdwwc-5e609a?from=yiiadmin" height="100" width="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57805/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Malcolm Turnbull says bluntly that he expects the coming special Senate sitting to reject the industrial relations legislation. Labor’s Penny Wong indicates the opposition won’t try to delay the bills.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/559392016-03-14T05:50:51Z2016-03-14T05:50:51ZFactCheck Q&A: can foreign seafarers be paid $2 an hour to work in Australian waters, under laws passed by Labor?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114832/original/image-20160311-11264-twnp47.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Employment Minister Michaelia Cash and the opposition's Penny Wong appearing on Q&A with host Tony Jones.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Q&A</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><strong>The Conversation is fact-checking claims made on Q&A, broadcast Mondays on the ABC at 9:35pm. Thank you to everyone who sent us quotes for checking via <a href="http://www.twitter.com/conversationEDU">Twitter</a> using hashtags #FactCheck and #QandA, on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/conversationEDU">Facebook</a> or by <a href="mailto:checkit@theconversation.edu.au">email</a>.</strong></p>
<hr>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VHii8ydj7IE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Excerpt from Q&A, March 7, 2016.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<blockquote>
<p>MATTHEW LAWRENCE (audience member): I’m an unemployed Australian merchant seafarer. Why would any government in their right mind replace tax paying Australian seafarers with exploited foreign seafarers working on 457 visas, working for as low as $2 an hour?</p>
<p>… MICHAELIA CASH: Thank you very much for the question. Just to be sort of sure here, everything that you are referring to is currently happening under the legislation that the Labor Party brought in, in 2012…<strong>– Federal Minister for Employment and Women, Michaelia Cash, responding to audience member Matthew Lawrence <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4405538.htm">on Q&A</a>, March 7, 2016.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>For Australian miners, manufacturers or other firms, it can be cheaper to send cargo by sea – from one Australian port to another – than sending it by road or rail.</p>
<p>On Q&A, an unemployed merchant seafarer said Australian seafarers could replaced by foreign seafarers working on 457 visas, working for as little as $2 an hour. </p>
<p>The question came after <a href="http://www.mua.org.au/noise_outside_garners_q_a_attention">the Maritime Union of Australia</a> (MUA) had spent weeks trying to get a question put to the panel on seafaring jobs. According to the MUA, audience member <a href="http://www.mua.org.au/mua_member_matt_lawrence_on_abc_qanda">Matthew Lawrence</a> is a union member.</p>
<p>This has been a controversial issue for months, after the government granted aluminium producer Alcoa a <a href="http://www.alcoa.com/australia/en/news/releases/2016_01_13_moves_to_end_illegal_industrial_action.asp">temporary licence</a> in 2015 to use a ship crewed by foreign workers <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-13/alcoa-under-fire-for-hiring-foreign-ship-crew-to-move-cargo/6937030">to transport alumina</a> between Western Australia and Victoria. The firm wanted to use the foreign-manned vessel for the domestic route after selling its own ship, the ageing MV Portland.</p>
<p>The union protested the granting of the temporary licence, saying <a href="https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/muanational/pages/3455/attachments/original/1447048738/MV_Portland_Crew_Statement.pdf?1447048738">Australian workers may have been able to do the job</a>. Alcoa <a href="http://www.alcoa.com/australia/en/news/releases/2016_01_13_moves_to_end_illegal_industrial_action.asp">said</a> it sought a quote for the job from a company with Australian-flagged ships, but received no reply.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2012A00055/Html/Text#_Toc327452028'">Federal Court ruled in 2015</a> that while there were problems with the way the government notified interested parties about Alcoa’s application, the licence remained valid.</p>
<p>The issue was debated at length on Q&A and you can read the comments in context in the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4405538.htm">transcript here</a>.</p>
<p>This FactCheck aims to answer two key questions about what’s allowed under Australian law: </p>
<ul>
<li>Can foreign seafarers on as little as $2 an hour work on domestic shipping routes in Australian waters?</li>
<li>And was Employment Minister Michaelia Cash right that this is allowed under legislation passed by Labor in 2012?</li>
</ul>
<h2>Can foreign seafarers on $2 an hour work on domestic shipping routes in Australian waters?</h2>
<p>It is true foreign crew on roughly US$2 an hour can work on domestic shipping routes in Australian waters – though only under certain conditions. </p>
<p>But it is wrong to say this can happen using 457 visas. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2012A00055/Html/Text#_Toc327452028">Coastal Trading (Revitalising Australian Shipping) Act 2012</a>, passed by the Gillard government (and <a href="http://www.mua.org.au/shipping_reform_passing_parliament_will_save_australia_s_shipping_industry">supported by the Maritime Union of Australia</a>), allows for the granting of temporary licences, subject to certain conditions.</p>
<p>These temporary licences allow companies to use foreign ships and foreign crews working under a <a href="https://www.border.gov.au/Trav/Visa-1/Spec">special purpose visa</a> to transport goods between Australian ports.</p>
<p>These foreign workers can be paid under “existing international arrangements” for the first two domestic voyages in Australian coastal waters.</p>
<p>What’s that mean in wage terms? Brandt Wagner, head of the Transport and Maritime Unit at the International Labour Organisation, an agency of the United Nations in Geneva, told The Conversation by email that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The <a href="http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_dialogue/---sector/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_250409.pdf">current minimum monthly basic pay or wage figure for able seafarers</a>, which became effective on January 1, 2016, is currently US$614. The International Labour Organisation does not refer to an hourly figure but only the monthly figure.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The International Transport Workers’ Federation says a typical able seafarer may work around <a href="http://www.itfseafarers.org/files/seealsodocs/33560/itfuniformtcccba20122014.pdf">around 263 hours a month</a> (40 hours a week plus 103 hours of overtime). </p>
<p>That gets you an average hourly rate of around US$2.33 (roughly A$3.11 in Australian dollars). A little over, but not far off the figure cited by Matthew Lawrence on Q&A. This rate is well below the Australian award wage.</p>
<p>Dean Summers, an inspector with the <a href="http://www.itfglobal.org/en/transport-sectors/seafarers/">International Transport Workers’ Federation</a> (ITF), said the ITF was aware of a foreign-flagged vessel working in Australian waters that paid close to $US2 an hour for foreign seafarers working on the vessel.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The already paltry wage is not a requirement and there are many ships trading on our coast that are not paying the US$2.10 figure as it is not regulated… The reality is that there are zero minimum wages for international seafarers. The international shipping lobbyists quote an International Labor Organisation minimum rate of US$1000 per month but that is a voluntary figure and completely unenforceable in any jurisdiction.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>You can read his full response <a href="https://theconversation.com/full-response-from-the-international-transport-workers-federation-and-maritime-union-of-australia-56270">here</a>. </p>
<p>Under the law, however, a temporary licence holder is allowed to use foreign crews paid under existing international arrangements for only the first two domestic voyages per temporary licence granted. </p>
<p>A spokesman for Employment Minister Michaelia Cash told The Conversation by email that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The true situation on foreign worker wages is that when a foreign vessel operates domestically (which can only happen under a temporary licence), the crew are paid under whatever existing international arrangements apply on that vessel for the first two domestic voyages only. From the third domestic voyage onwards, crew on foreign vessels must be paid no less than the Australian Award. The Australian Award (set by the Fair Work Commission) expressly includes pay rates for workers on foreign vessels … Any suggestion that temporary licences are being used to engage a foreign crew on $2 an hour as a permanent replacement for Australian crew is wrong and nothing more than a scare campaign of misinformation being run by the MUA and Labor.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>You can read the spokesman’s full response <a href="http://theconversation.com/full-response-from-a-spokesman-for-michaelia-cash-and-penny-wong-56131">here</a>, as well as a comment from a spokeswoman for Opposition Senate Leader Penny Wong, who was part of the same Q&A discussion.</p>
<p>So yes, foreign seafarers working for roughly US$2 an hour can work on ships moving cargo between Australian ports, as long as it’s on a foreign vessel operating under a temporary licence. But this can only happen on the first two domestic voyages.</p>
<h2>Was the minister right that this is allowed under legislation passed by Labor in 2012?</h2>
<p>The short answer is yes, Senator Cash is right. </p>
<p>As established above, the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2012A00055/Html/Text#_Toc327452028">Coastal Trading (Revitalising Australian Shipping) Act 2012</a> passed by the Gillard government expressly allows for companies to apply for a temporary licence to use a foreign ship with a foreign crew moving material from one part of coastal Australia to another.</p>
<p>Among the objects of the Act is promotion of a viable shipping industry that contributes to the broader Australian economy and facilitation of the long term growth of the Australian shipping industry.</p>
<p>The work must first be advertised locally to give local ships an opportunity to respond to the work.</p>
<p>So why is this even up for debate? It’s because in the MV Portland case, the Maritime Union of Australia <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/cth/FCAFC/2015/187.html?stem=0&synonyms=0&query=%22Ms%20JD%20Williams%22">argued in court</a> that problems with the way Alcoa’s application for a temporary licence was advertised may have put local operators at a disadvantage.</p>
<p>The Federal Court <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/cth/FCAFC/2015/187.html?stem=0&synonyms=0&query=%22Ms%20JD%20Williams%22">decided</a> while the government didn’t publish the notice in compliance with the law, the temporary licence was still valid.</p>
<h2>Verdict</h2>
<p>Foreign seafarers working for roughly US$2 an hour <em>can</em> work on ships moving cargo between Australian ports, as long as it’s on a foreign vessel operating under a temporary licence. But this can only happen on the first two domestic voyages. </p>
<p>It is wrong to say this can happen using 457 visas. </p>
<p>The minister was right to say those foreign seafarer and temporary licence rules are covered by the legislation passed by the Labor government in 2012. <strong>– Joanna Howe</strong></p>
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<h2>Review</h2>
<p>This is a sound analysis. The author correctly notes that the current law, passed under the last Labor government in 2012, does allow for firms to apply for and be granted temporary licences that allow the use of foreign-manned vessels to transport goods from one Australian port to another. This is subject to conditions, including that the work be advertised locally first and that the licence holder use foreign workers for no more than the first two domestic voyages undertaken under the licence. </p>
<p>Given the International Labour Organisation puts the minimum wage for able seafarers at US$614 a month, and given that a standard month of work would be around 260 hours, it is fair to say this works out at an average wage of between US$2 and US$3 an hour. <strong>– Tess Hardy</strong></p>
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<p><em>UPDATE: This story was updated at 11.04am AEST on March 15 to include quotes from a spokesman from the International Transport Workers Federation, and a link to his full response <a href="https://theconversation.com/full-response-from-the-international-transport-workers-federation-and-maritime-union-of-australia-56270">here</a>.</em></p>
<p><div class="callout"> Have you ever seen a “fact” worth checking? The Conversation’s FactCheck asks academic experts to test claims and see how true they are. We then ask a second academic to review an anonymous copy of the article. You can request a check at checkit@theconversation.edu.au. Please include the statement you would like us to check, the date it was made, and a link if possible.</div></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55939/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tess Hardy has previously received ARC Linkage funds and separate funding from the Fair Work Ombudsman.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Howe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On Q&A, an unemployed merchant seafarer said Australian seafarers could replaced by foreign seafarers working on 457 visas, working for as little as $2 an hour. We check the facts.Joanna Howe, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.