tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/scott-morrison-6509/articlesScott Morrison – The Conversation2024-03-20T04:01:17Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2262202024-03-20T04:01:17Z2024-03-20T04:01:17ZWhy are religious discrimination laws back in the news? And where did they come from in the first place?<p>On March 21, the federal government will release the Australian Law Reform Commission’s report on ensuring religious schools cannot discriminate against LGBTQIA+ students and staff.</p>
<p>But the political debate is already well under way – and has been going on since 2017. So how did we get here?</p>
<h2>The current debate started with marriage equality</h2>
<p>When same-sex marriage was legalised in late 2017 following a successful postal survey on the issue, conservative religious groups were promised a <a href="https://theconversation.com/morrison-wants-religious-discrimination-act-passed-before-election-108755">“religious freedom” review</a> as a consolation prize. </p>
<p>That <a href="https://www.pmc.gov.au/domestic-policy/taskforces-past-domestic-policy-initiatives/religious-freedom-review">review</a>, led by former Liberal minister Philip Ruddock, found Australia does not have a religious freedom problem. However, it did recommend new legislative protections against religious discrimination. In <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/government-response-religious-freedom-review">response</a>, in December 2018, the Morrison government promised a Religious Discrimination Act.</p>
<p>What the Morrison government ended up proposing – in multiple versions over several years – was laws that would both prohibit discrimination against people on the basis of religion (which was not particularly controversial) and allow discrimination against LGBTQIA+ people and others by taking away existing anti-discrimination protections (which was very controversial). These draft laws never passed.</p>
<p>Before the 2022 federal election, Labor leader Anthony Albanese promised to change federal law to ban discrimination against LGTBQIA+ students and staff by religious schools, and to protect people against discrimination on the basis of their religious beliefs or lack of religious beliefs.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/future-of-anthony-albaneses-religious-discrimination-legislation-is-in-peter-duttons-hands-226119">Future of Anthony Albanese's religious discrimination legislation is in Peter Dutton's hands</a>
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<h2>There are actually two distinct issues at play</h2>
<p>The debate we’ve been having over the past few years is actually a debate about two issues.</p>
<p>The first issue is about religious discrimination. This means ensuring people are not discriminated against on the basis of their religious beliefs, or lack of religious beliefs. </p>
<p>All states and territories (other than New South Wales and South Australia) already have laws banning this kind of religious discrimination. But there is no federal law banning religious discrimination – apart from a <a href="https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s116.html">constitutional provision</a> banning religious discrimination in federal government jobs.</p>
<p>It’s standard practice for there to be complementary federal and state anti-discrimination laws on the same topic. For example, if a person is discriminated against on the basis of their race, that person can choose to take action under either federal or state law.</p>
<p>One proposal is for there to be a federal Religious Discrimination Act.</p>
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<p>The second issue is religious exemptions, which involves allowing discrimination on the basis of sexuality, gender identity, marital status and so on where the discrimination has a religious motivation. For example, the Sex Discrimination Act currently prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, sexuality, gender identity and marital status, but also includes an exemption that allows religious schools to discriminate against students and teachers. </p>
<p>So, if a non-religious private school expels a student for being gay that would contravene the Sex Discrimination Act. But if a religious school did the same thing for religious reasons, that would not contravene the Sex Discrimination Act.</p>
<p>Some states and territories already ban religious schools from discriminating against students and teachers for these kinds of reasons. So if a religious school in Victoria expels a student for being gay, that would not breach federal law as it stands but it would breach Victorian law. The practical result is that the school can’t expel the student for being gay.</p>
<p>A second proposal is to modify the religious exemptions in the Sex Discrimination Act.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-australia-does-not-need-a-religious-discrimination-act-99666">Why Australia does not need a Religious Discrimination Act</a>
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<h2>The Morrison government’s first draft of the legislation</h2>
<p>The Morrison government held a consultation during 2019 on a <a href="https://www.ag.gov.au/rights-and-protections/consultations/religious-discrimination-bills-first-exposure-drafts">first draft</a> of its promised legislation. This draft legislation included standard anti-discrimination provisions to prohibit discrimination against people on the basis of their religious beliefs or lack of religious beliefs. It also included highly controversial additional provisions.</p>
<p>The controversial provisions included:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>a provision about “statements of belief” – motivated by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-does-rugby-australia-have-legal-grounds-to-sack-israel-folau-for-anti-gay-social-media-posts-116170">Israel Folau controversy</a> – which would have overridden all other federal and state anti-discrimination laws to allow derogatory statements to be made by doctors, schools and employers against women, people with disabilities and LGTBQIA+ people.</p></li>
<li><p>a provision allowing healthcare practitioners to refuse to provide care to people, such as allowing a pharmacist to refuse to fill prescriptions for a divorced woman or a nurse to refuse to dress a gay man’s wound.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>In effect, these provisions would have created a “sword” allowing harm to be inflicted on people by taking away existing anti-discrimination protections. Anti-discrimination laws are meant to be a “shield” protecting people from harm. This is why the issue has been so controversial.</p>
<h2>The Morrison government’s second draft</h2>
<p>The controversy over the first draft led to consultations in 2020 on a <a href="https://www.ag.gov.au/rights-and-protections/consultations/religious-discrimination-bills-second-exposure-drafts">second draft</a>.</p>
<p>The second draft was very similar to the first. It too included the override provisions on “statements of belief” and refusal to provide health care. </p>
<p>However, it reduced the number of healthcare professions entitled to refuse to treat patients. It also included some <a href="https://www.ag.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-03/summary-of-amendments-to-the-bills-since-the-first-exposure-draft.pdf">additional measures</a> about:</p>
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<li><p>allowing religious hospitals to “preference” people of the same religion as the body in hiring decisions. For example, a Catholic hospital could give priority to Catholics in hiring new staff</p></li>
<li><p>allowing religious camps and conference centres to take faith into account when hiring out their campsites.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>The bill fails</h2>
<p>The Morrison government <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r6821">introduced legislation</a> based on the second draft into parliament in 2021. </p>
<p>During debate, several Liberal backbenchers <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_departments/Parliamentary_Library/FlagPost/2022/March/Floor_crossings_in_the_House_of_Representatives_on_10_February_2022">crossed the floor</a> to vote in favour of amendments the government did not want. One of those amendments – to remove the ability of religious schools to discriminate against LGBTQIA+ students – succeeded, with five Liberal MPs crossing the floor. </p>
<p>The amended bill passed the House of Representatives with the support of both major parties. However, it did not come to a final vote in the Senate because people on all sides of the debate were unhappy with the bill and it was causing internal tensions in the Liberal Party. The bill lapsed.</p>
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<h2>So why is it back in the news?</h2>
<p>After the Labor Party won the 2022 federal election, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus <a href="https://ministers.ag.gov.au/media-centre/australian-law-reform-commission-review-religious-exemptions-educational-institutions-04-11-2022">asked</a> the Australian Law Reform Commission to advise on what amendments to federal law would be necessary to deliver the Labor Party’s election promise. Labor’s promised legislation would:</p>
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<li><p>ensure religious schools cannot discriminate against LGBTQIA+ students or staff under federal law.</p></li>
<li><p>ensure religious schools can give preference to people of the same faith as the school when hiring staff under federal law.</p></li>
<li><p>ensure the legislation will be drafted in a manner that does not remove existing legal protections against other forms of discrimination.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The commission delivered its report to the attorney-general in December 2023. </p>
<p>In anticipation of the report being released on March 21, senior politicians on both sides of politics, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, have <a href="https://theconversation.com/future-of-anthony-albaneses-religious-discrimination-legislation-is-in-peter-duttons-hands-226119">already started</a> the politicking. The debate may not be over yet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226220/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luke Beck is board member of the Rationalist Society of Australia Inc and a member of Australia Labor Party. The views in this article are his own.</span></em></p>Religious discrimination laws have been highly controversial in Australia in recent years. Here’s where they started, and where we are now.Luke Beck, Professor of Constitutional Law, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2245042024-02-27T05:32:20Z2024-02-27T05:32:20ZView from The Hill: Labor ‘highly unlikely’ to contest the Cook byelection, as Morrison bows out with ‘plenty of scars’<p>Labor is not planning to contest the coming byelection in the Sydney seat of Cook, following the departure of former Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who delivered his parliamentary valedictory on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Cook is on a 12.4% margin and Labor – currently on tenterhooks over Saturday’s byelection in the Melbourne Labor seat of Dunkley – doesn’t want the political or financial pressure of running in a seat it could not win. </p>
<p>Labor sources said it was “highly unlikely” to field a candidate. No date has been yet set for the byelection. </p>
<p>The Morrison valedictory was heavy on saying “thank you” to many people in and out of politics, and emotional at times. </p>
<p>It had a riff on Taylor Swift. His daughters had suggested he should “play a type of Taylor Swift bingo [ … ] by trying to work the names of every single Taylor Swift album into my remarks”.</p>
<p>Morrison said he departed “having given all” and had “plenty of scars to show for it”. He reflected on “three things I have learned along the way that may help those dealing with the challenges of the future who continue in this place”.</p>
<p>The first was that “all good government must start with nurturing a strong, innovative, dynamic, entrepreneurial, market-based economy”.</p>
<p>In a warning against attempting to “reinstitutionalise” the
economy, he said “such an approach will only negate the
capacity we have as a nation to deliver on the essentials that Australians rely on”.</p>
<p>Secondly, Morrison warned about the threats to Australia’s security and the dangers posed by the “arc of autocracy”, to which he had referred when prime minister, ranging “from Pyongyang to Beijing to Tehran and Moscow.”</p>
<p>On China he said: “The 2022 election may have provided an
opportunity for Beijing to step back from their failed attempts at coercion. But we must not be deluded. Tactics change, but their strategy remains the same.”</p>
<p>Thirdly, Morrison highlighted the importance of “the Judaeo-Christian values upon which our liberty and society was founded. Even if you may not believe, it would be wise to respect and appreciate this important link and foundation.”</p>
<p>Morrison said he left parliament “appreciative and thankful, unburdened by offences, and released from any bitterness that can so often haunt post-political lives.</p>
<p>"This is due to my faith in Jesus Christ, which gives me the faith to both forgive but also to be honest about my own failings and shortcomings,” he said.</p>
<p>Speaking in response, Anthony Albanese described Morrison as “a truly formidable opponent”.</p>
<p>Earlier, at the Coalition parties meeting, Morrison told his soon-to-be-former colleagues to “work you arses off. That’s how you win an election.” </p>
<p>Meanwhile both sides are flat out trying to manage expectations ahead of the Dunkley outcome. </p>
<p>The PM told caucus the average swing against Labor governments was 7.1% “and we hold this seat by 6.3%”. The 7.1% is the figure senior Labor figures are using repeatedly. It is the average swing in byelections in government seats since 1984.</p>
<p>The opposition is choosing more modest figures. </p>
<p>In the Coalition party room Peter Dutton said Dunkley was not a marginal seat. </p>
<p>Dutton said the average swing against governments in byelections since the second world war was 3.6%. The average byelection swing against a first-term government was 1.5% and no first-term government had lost a seat in a byelection since WWII. </p>
<p>In Aston last year, Labor achieved a 6.4% swing to win the Liberal seat. </p>
<h2>Wednesday update</h2>
<p>The Prime Minister hit the airwaves on Wednesday morning to spruik the passage of his tax package, which went through the Senate on Tuesday evening. </p>
<p>“It’s a fantastic result for Australian taxpayers. All 13.6 million of them will get a tax cut – many of them were going to miss out [under the original Stage 3],” Albanese said.</p>
<p>The legislation’s passage has been neatly timed for the last days of the campaign for Dunkley. Albanese said he will be in the electorate on Friday and Saturday morning.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224504/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>Today Scott Morrison gave his valedictory speech saying “thank you” to many people in and out of politics, and was very emotional at times.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2230032024-02-25T19:16:56Z2024-02-25T19:16:56ZAs Scott Morrison leaves parliament, where does he rank among Australian prime ministers?<p>This week Scott Morrison, Australia’s 30th prime minister, will deliver his valedictory speech to the House of Representatives. As Morrison leaves parliament, it’s timely to ask where he is placed in the pantheon of Australia’s national leaders.</p>
<p>Already there have been unflattering verdicts on Morrison’s prime-ministerial standing. For example, in her withering account of his leadership, veteran columnist and author <a href="https://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/books/bulldozed-9781922585981">Niki Savva writes</a> that among detractors, “Morrison was regarded as the worst prime minister since Billy McMahon”. Moreover, according to Savva, following the August 2022 revelation of his commandeering of five ministries during the COVID pandemic, his reputation sunk still lower: “he was worse than McMahon. Worse even than Tony Abbott, who lasted a scant two years in the job”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-blood-sport-feigning-as-government-what-the-abcs-nemesis-taught-us-about-a-decade-of-coalition-rule-223002">'A blood sport feigning as government': what the ABC's Nemesis taught us about a decade of Coalition rule</a>
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<h2>How can we rank prime ministerial performance?</h2>
<p>How might we know how Morrison’s record stacks up against his prime-ministerial peers? One device for evaluating comparative leadership performance is expert rankings. Australia has had a slow take-up in this field, unlike the United States, where presidential rankings have a lineage stretching back three-quarters of a century and are a veritable scholarly cottage industry. </p>
<p>In recent years, there have been forays into this territory in Australia, with three prime-ministerial rankings conducted by newspapers and two initiated by Monash University in 2010 and 2020. (I was the organiser of both of these Monash rankings.)</p>
<p>These rankings have been largely consistent in their results. The experts, mostly political historians and political scientists, have judged the nation’s greatest prime minister to be its second world war leader, John Curtin. The other leaders in the top echelon are, in rough order, Bob Hawke, Ben Chifley, Alfred Deakin, Robert Menzies, Andrew Fisher, John Howard, Paul Keating and Gough Whitlam.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577479/original/file-20240222-16-qdih1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577479/original/file-20240222-16-qdih1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577479/original/file-20240222-16-qdih1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577479/original/file-20240222-16-qdih1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577479/original/file-20240222-16-qdih1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577479/original/file-20240222-16-qdih1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577479/original/file-20240222-16-qdih1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Billy McMahon is often considered to be Australia’s worst prime minister.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Archives of Australia</span></span>
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<p>At the other end of the scale, Billy McMahon, who is chiefly remembered for being defeated by Labor’s Whitlam at the December 1972 election, thereby bringing to a close the Liberal Party’s postwar ascendancy, has been consistently rated Australia’s prime-ministerial dunce. Even his biographer, Patrick Mullins, acknowledges that McMahon has become “a by-word for failure, silliness, ridicule”.</p>
<p>However, in the most recent of the rankings, the Monash 2020 survey, McMahon had a close competitor for bottom place: Tony Abbott. Forty-four out of 66 respondents to that survey assessed Abbott’s prime ministership a failure. Other prime ministers to the rear of the field included Abbott’s contemporaries, Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull.</p>
<p>Morrison was not included in the 2020 rankings because as the incumbent his prime ministership was incomplete, and so it was premature to evaluate his performance. Let us now, though, measure his record against the nine benchmarks that the experts were asked to consider in rating the nation’s leaders.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/who-were-australias-best-prime-ministers-we-asked-the-experts-165302">Who were Australia's best prime ministers? We asked the experts</a>
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<h2>So how does Morrison shape up?</h2>
<p>The first is “effectively managing cabinet”. To date, little has been disclosed about the integrity of cabinet processes under Morrison’s stewardship. Yet, whatever the merits of that management, his scandalous breach of the norms of cabinet government by <a href="https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-the-bell-report-on-morrisons-multi-ministries-provides-a-bad-character-reference-195368">secretly assuming several ministries</a> will irretrievably stain his reputation in this regard.</p>
<p>Next is “maintaining support of Coalition/party”. That Morrison avoided being deposed by his party, which was the fate of his immediate predecessors (Rudd, Julia Gillard, Abbott and Turnbull), counts in his favour. As the ABC docuseries Nemesis shows, however, his prime ministership was marked by serious frictions both within the Liberal Party and between the Liberal and National coalition partners.</p>
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<p>“Demonstrating personal integrity”. This was not one of Morrison’s strong suits. As Savva makes searingly evident, and Nemesis also highlights, Morrison earned a reputation for being economical with the truth (including hiding his acquisition of colleagues’ ministries), for evading accountability and shifting blame (“I don’t hold a hose, mate”), and for corrupted processes under his watch (an example being the <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-sports-rort-questions-for-morrison-after-bridget-mckenzie-speaks-out-133160">shameless pork-barrelling</a> of the community sport infrastructure program in the lead-up to the 2019 election).</p>
<p>“Leaving a significant policy legacy”. Here Morrison is partly damned by his own words. In office, he insisted he was not concerned about his legacy, equating the idea with a vanity project. Indeed, an obsession with the theatre of politics and a corresponding lack of substance caused his prime ministership to come to be seen as bereft of purpose. </p>
<p>On the other hand, management of the COVID pandemic, however mixed, accords a significance to his time in office. AUKUS stands as the other major legacy of Morrison’s prime ministership, entrenched as it has been by his successor, Anthony Albanese. The agreement promises to influence Australia’s defence capability until the middle of this century and beyond, although only time will tell whether it enhances the nation’s security or is a dangerous white elephant.</p>
<p>“Relationship with the electorate”. Morrison’s record here is mixed. In his favour, he won an election (something McMahon couldn’t claim). Yet, by the time of the 2022 election, according to the Australian Election Study, he was the least popular major party leader in the history of that survey, which dates back to the 1980s. </p>
<p>His public toxicity was a primary factor in the Coalition’s defeat, one of his Liberal colleagues comparing the depth of public sentiment against the prime minister in 2022 to “having a 10,000-tonne boulder attached to your leg”.</p>
<p>“Communication effectiveness”. Styling himself as a Cronulla Sharks-supporting “daggy dad” from the suburbs, at least initially Morrison’s communication mode seemed to be well received in the community. He was relentlessly on message during the 2019 election campaign. </p>
<p>But the shine rapidly wore off his persona following that victory, with growing doubts about his authenticity. Rather than persuade, his habit was to hector, and rather than empathise, he exuded smugness. A series of notorious tin-eared statements, which especially alienated women voters, came to define his image. By the end he was known as the “bulldozer-in-chief”.</p>
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<p>“Nurturing national unity”. An innovation of Morrison’s at the beginning of the pandemic was the national cabinet. Bringing together the prime minister and premiers, it worked effectively for a time, only for partisan interests over lockdowns to strain relations between Canberra and the states. </p>
<p>Under pressure, Morrison also flirted with divisive culture-war politics, instances being his divisive Religious Discrimination Bill and his egregious handpicking of the anti-transgender Liberal candidate Katherine Deves to contest the 2022 election.</p>
<p>“Defending and promoting Australia’s interests abroad”. The AUKUS pact has vehement critics, led by Morrison’s prime-ministerial peers Keating and Turnbull, who argue it jeopardises national sovereignty. </p>
<p>There is no denying, however, that AUKUS was Morrison’s signature foreign policy enterprise. On the other hand, Australia’s reputation as a laggard on climate change under the Coalition hurt our international standing, not least among Pacific neighbours. The Morrison government’s belated commitment to a net zero carbon emissions by 2050 target was too little, too late. Bellicose rhetoric towards Beijing also led to a deterioration in relations with the nation’s major trading partner (as well as estranging Chinese-Australian voters).</p>
<p>“Being able to manage turbulent times”. Here, again, Morrison’s record is at best mixed. In his favour is decisive early actions to ameliorate the COVID pandemic, headed by the JobKeeper program. As the pandemic progressed, however, his government was too often flat-footed, demonstrated by its dilatory approach to procuring vaccines. His response to natural disasters, most notably the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires, was another shortcoming, exemplified by his secret holiday to Hawaii in the midst of the crisis. Arguably, his prime ministership was doomed from that moment.</p>
<h2>And the verdict?</h2>
<p>Prime-ministerial reputations can take time to settle. The passing of years fleshes out historical knowledge as well as providing greater perspective on performance in office. For example, the fate of AUKUS will quite possibly affect Morrison’s standing well into the future.</p>
<p>Even allowing for this, it seems safe to forecast that Morrison will be rated among the least distinguished of Australian prime ministers. His government’s relatively successful early management of the COVID pandemic and the legacy of AUKUS might spare him from falling below McMahon and Abbott at the bottom of the prime-ministerial heap. But avoiding that ignominy will probably be a close-run thing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223003/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>In the past Paul Strangio received funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>In assessing Morrison’s prime ministership, several factors need to be taken into account. On many of them, his record is poor.Paul Strangio, Emeritus professor of politics, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2230022024-02-14T02:07:03Z2024-02-14T02:07:03Z‘A blood sport feigning as government’: what the ABC’s Nemesis taught us about a decade of Coalition rule<blockquote>
<p>For God’s sake let us sit upon the ground</p>
<p>And tell sad stories of the death of kings.</p>
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<p>Shakespeare, Richard II</p>
<p>ABC-produced post-mortem documentaries on national governments have a distinguished pedigree. The latest instalment, Nemesis, dealing with the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison years, is the fourth of these series since the pioneering Labor in Power screened in 1993 chronicling the Hawke-Keating era. The Howard Years (2008) and The Killing Season (2015) followed examining respectively the Howard and Rudd-Gillard governments. </p>
<p>The changing tone of the titles of these series is telling. Though Labor in Power and The Howard Years had their fair share of preoccupation with leadership rivalries, they were also concerned with the substance of the governments. By contrast, The Killing Season and Nemesis focus predominantly on the leadership wars that blighted Australian politics between 2007 and 2022.</p>
<p>The most striking takeaway from Nemesis is that the Coalition’s decade in office from 2013 to 2022 was a time of abject irresponsibility. Rather than dedicated to delivering effective public policy, the Coalition spent a large part of that time consumed by infighting and ravaged by a cycle of treachery and retribution. It was blood sport feigning as government. And even when the leadership stabilised under Scott Morrison from August 2018, there was little guiding purpose.</p>
<p>There is no questioning that Nemesis is a significant piece of television documentary making. Eighteen months in creation, it is based on interviews with 60 participants. Mark Willacy, the reporter and interviewer of the programs, was surprised how easy it was to recruit the interviewees. Their motivations for participating were a mixture of a debt to posterity, vindicating actions and score settling.</p>
<p>But there are also some notable non-participants, most conspicuously Tony Abbott, who became the first former prime minister to decline to be interviewed in the three-decade history of these programs. We can only speculate why Abbott, who is also unusual among former prime ministers in not having written an account of his term of office, refused to participate. Perhaps his “action man” persona disinclines him to reflection, perhaps the memories of his unfulfilling two years in office are too painful to revisit, or perhaps he recognised that participating would only mean further debasement. Other high profile non-participants include Julie Bishop, the senior woman and deputy leader of the Liberal Party for the majority of the Coalition’s term in office, and Peter Dutton.</p>
<p>For keen students of Australian politics, Nemesis contains few major revelations. The series mostly confirms what we knew. But to witness the sheer awfulness of the era distilled into four and a half hours of television is both gripping and sobering.</p>
<h2>The Abbott years</h2>
<p>The first episode deals with the Abbott years. It is remarkable how early his prime ministership unravelled, beginning with the government’s first budget delivered by Joe Hockey in May 2014, notoriously invoking “a nation of lifters, not leaners”. It was a catalogue of swingeing cuts and broken promises (Abbott had pledged no cuts to health or education during the 2013 election campaign). When some Liberal colleagues dared to broach with the prime minister the budget’s breaches of trust, he dismissed them with angry invective.</p>
<p>The Abbott government never really recovered. The prime minister’s other problems included internal resentment at his overbearing chief of staff, Peta Credlin, and his own leadership idiosyncrasies. The latter was exemplified by his captain’s call to knight Prince Philip on Australia Day 2015. This rendered him a national laughing stock. </p>
<p>One new thing we learn about the Abbott years is that the prime minister proposed deploying the military to Ukraine in the wake of the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 by Russian-backed separatists that killed 38 Australian citizens and residents. He was thankfully talked out of the plan by Angus Houston, who Abbott had appointed as a special envoy to Ukraine to repatriate the bodies of the Australian victims. </p>
<p>The end for Abbott came less than two years into the job. Easily forgotten, Nemesis revisits the so-called “empty chair spill” of February 2015, prompted by a backbencher motion to declare the leadership vacant. </p>
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<p>Despite there being no challenger — Malcolm Turnbull was biding his time until Abbott’s leadership “burnt down to the water line” — the spill motion garnered 39 votes providing a comical scenario of a sizeable minority of the party preferring an empty chair to the incumbent. Chastened by that result, Abbott then caused incredulity among colleagues by proclaiming that “good government begins today”. Effectively his leadership was now on death watch, with Turnbull and his allies circling and counting numbers. </p>
<p>In September 2015, Turnbull struck. He sanctifies the challenge as in the national interest: “I owed it to Australia”. Scott Morrison was party to the deposition and would be rewarded with the position of treasurer in Turnbull’s government, though he characteristically dissembles about the role he and his lieutenants played in Abbott’s fall. Nemesis has a delicious footnote to Turnbull’s ousting of Abbott. The former recalls that in the weeks that followed he reached out to inquire about his predecessor’s wellbeing. According to Turnbull, Abbott did not welcome the approach, telling him “to fuck off”.</p>
<h2>The Turnbull years</h2>
<p>Episode two, the most compelling of the series, commences with the Turnbull prime ministership’s buoyant beginnings. The public were relieved to see the back of Abbott and welcomed enthusiastically the ostensibly progressive Turnbull. He soared in the polls. </p>
<p>But his leadership was compromised from the start. Attorney-general in the government, George Brandis, refers to the Faustian bargain Turnbull had made to win the prime ministership. He had agreed to not rock the conservative boat in crucial areas like climate change and same sex marriage. With time, this eroded his authenticity.</p>
<p>Turnbull’s hope was that a decisive election victory in 2016 would empower him to assert his true political colours. Yet, as Nemesis records, the opposite happened. The double dissolution election of July was ruinous to his leadership. The eight-week campaign was too long, his performance on the hustings uninspired. Losing the electoral fat that Abbott had won in 2013 and returned to office with the barest majority, the result diminished Turnbull’s authority and emboldened his conservative critics, not least a vengeful Abbott.</p>
<p>As Nemesis tells it, notwithstanding some achievements on the international stage led by Turnbull and Julie Bishop, there were few bright spots for the government after that. The successful same sex marriage plebiscite of the second half of 2017 occurred on Turnbull’s watch but, fascinatingly, Liberal champions of that measure are grudging about his leadership on the issue. The suggestion is that he was circumspect in his advocacy, fearing a right-wing blowback.</p>
<p>As when he lost the Liberal leadership to Abbott in December 2009, it was climate change policy that finally lit the fuse under Turnbull’s prime ministership. The National Energy Guarantee (NEG), a policy crafted by Josh Frydenberg, was meant to end the climate wars but instead became a lightning rod for conservative dissent in the winter of 2018. With the NEG meeting resistance in the Coalition joint party room, Turnbull retreated, symptomatic of his prime ministership.</p>
<p>The fulcrum of Nemesis’s narrative of Turnbull’s prime ministership is a blow by blow account of his extraordinary week-long overthrow in August 2018. For this cause, he would dig in and fight. With regicide in the air, the week opened with Turnbull endeavouring to salvage his leadership by calling a surprise spill motion. Dutton, the right-wing hard man who Turnbull scathingly describes as “a thug”, challenged for the leadership, losing relatively narrowly. Eric Abetz, Abbott’s henchman, recalls mirthfully that at that point Turnbull’s leadership was “over and out”. Revenge was sweet.</p>
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<p>Mortally wounded, Turnbull nevertheless remained determined to stave off Dutton, the conservative’s candidate. A revelation about events during that febrile week is that Turnbull considered heading off his opponents by calling an election. It is a remarkable admission, and we are left to wonder whether the governor-general would have granted an election in those circumstances and if the government would have completely imploded in the event of him taking that course. </p>
<p>In recounting his downfall, Turnbull seems strangely blind to the parallel between his deposition of Abbott in 2015 and the conservative insurrection of August 2018. It takes chutzpah for him to protest that the latter was “an obscene parody, a complete travesty of democracy”.</p>
<p>With support leaching away, including the defection of senior ministers, Turnbull bowed to the inevitable. Choosing not to stand in a second leadership ballot, it became a three way contest between Dutton, Bishop and Morrison, with the latter manoeuvring through the middle to prevail. Morrison insists he only entered the race when it was clear that Turnbull’s leadership was terminal. Turnbull alleges otherwise, accusing Morrison of having “played a double game”. The episode ends with Turnbull offering another pungent character assessment, this time of his successor: “duplicitous”.</p>
<h2>The Morrison years</h2>
<p>Nemesis concludes with Morrison’s prime ministership. The leadership conflict might have been over but it still has many unedifying moments. Being most recent, the story is familiar with even fewer surprises. It errs towards generosity to Morrison, not fully capturing why his leadership became a byword for inauthenticity, a prime minister whose obsession with the theatre of politics consistently trumped substance.</p>
<p>The documentary springs directly to Morrison’s self-proclaimed “miracle” re-election of May 2019. Christopher Pyne puts a more realistic note on the result observing that many in the Coalition “decided they had won the election because they were geniuses as opposed to the fact that we had won because Labor had thrown it away”. As a consequence, a “lack of humility infected” the government.</p>
<p>The episode recalls many of the notorious statements made by Morrison, which by suggesting he was evading responsibility, was a bully or lacked empathy, corroded his public image, especially among women voters. “I don’t hold a hose, mate” (after disappearing to Hawaii in the midst of the Black Summer bushfires), “she can go” (monstering Australia Post CEO, Christine Holgate), and “not far from here such marches, even now, are being met by bullets” (about a women’s justice rally at Parliament House) are examples.</p>
<p>Asked about the comments, Morrison admits to poor choices of words. Yet, he is equally quick to complain of his words being “weaponised” and to protest that he was misrepresented. The effect conveys that he continues to struggle to accept responsibility. An unfortunate habit of smugness when explaining himself adds to this impression.</p>
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<p>Nemesis shows that the COVID pandemic was both a blessing and curse for the Morrison government. Fighting the pandemic gave the government a purpose that it otherwise lacked. The early decisions such as creating the national cabinet and intervening in the economy headlined by the JobKeeper program were its finest hours. </p>
<p>Things went awry, however, as the pandemic progressed. Political game playing resurfaced and tensions with the premiers festered. And then, of course, there were delays in procuring and distributing vaccines. Health bureaucrat Jane Halton is damming: “manifestly we had longer lockdowns than we actually needed to have because we didn’t have supply and rollout as others”.</p>
<p>Nemesis devotes considerable time to the AUKUS pact and the reneging on the agreement to buy submarines from France. Morrison paints AUKUS as the proudest legacy of his prime ministership. He was concerned that the French built conventional submarines would have been “obsolete before they got wet”. He is unfazed that French President Emmanuel Macron labelled him a liar: “I’ve got big shoulders”. Turnbull, who signed the agreement with Macron for the purchase of the French submarines, provides the critical commentary on AUKUS: “Morrison sacrificed Australian security, sovereignty and honour”.</p>
<p>The picture that emerges of the final months of Morrison’s prime ministership is of a divided government that was a spent force. A commitment to net zero carbon emissions by 2050 brought relations with the Nationals to breaking point. It was too little too late to change the public’s opinion that the Coalition was a laggard on climate change action.</p>
<p>Morrison then expended dwindling political capital by fruitlessly pursuing religious rights protections, causing ructions with Liberal moderates. Nemesis draws a connection between Morrison’s evangelical religious faith and this prime-ministerial frolic. The viewer is also invited to draw the dots between his faith and his politically disastrous and morally culpable handpicking of the anti-transgender Liberal candidate Katherine Deves to contest the 2022 election.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-morrisons-can-do-capitalism-and-conservative-masculinity-may-not-be-cutting-through-anymore-183118">Why Morrison's ‘can-do’ capitalism and conservative masculinity may not be cutting through anymore</a>
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<p>Morrison’s colleagues are unsparing in assessing him as politically toxic by the time of the 2022 election. Some even approached Treasurer Josh Frydenberg about challenging Morrison’s leadership: Frydenberg rebuffed their overtures. Tim Wilson, like Frydenberg a casualty of the Teal insurgency, compares the depth of public sentiment against the prime minister to “having a 10,000 tonne boulder attached to your leg”. </p>
<p>Morrison’s secret commandeering of five ministries was the sting in the tail of his prime ministership. Nemesis records the shock and appal of his colleagues when those actions were revealed. His explanations of his behaviour are unpersuasive as are his expressions of contrition. He says he has apologised to former treasurer Frydenberg and that they have “reconnected and as good a friends as you could hope for”. Frydenberg puts it differently: “it impacted the relationship and does to this day”. We are left with the suspicion that once again Morrison is bending the truth.</p>
<h2>A decade of banality and pettiness</h2>
<p>What can we take away from all this? Participants in the documentary draw on classical allusions in making sense of the chaos. We are told, for instance, that the leadership feud between Abbott and Turnbull was Shakespearean. Yet what Nemesis exposes is the banality of these events and the pettiness of the actors. One searches vainly for a sense of higher mission or nobility of bearing. </p>
<p>None of the three major protagonists emerge well. Abbott is deeply eccentric, leery of criticism and hopelessly incapable of adjusting to the positive tasks of governing; Turnbull is bloated with self-regard, merciless about the faults of others and yet timorous when he had the chance to make his mark; and Morrison is deceitful and bullying, a man whose governing declined into vacuity.</p>
<p>There have been other occasions in the past when national leadership has descended into tawdriness. The Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard years were defined by internecine warfare, but at least Gillard exhibited resoluteness in the way she governed and dignity in the way she left office. </p>
<p>The post-Menzies Liberal triumvirate of Harold Holt, John Gorton and William McMahon were respectively overwhelmed by the office, reckless and pygmy like. We can go back further for episodes of leadership delinquency to the debilitating feuding between Earle Page and Robert Menzies on the eve of the second world war and even further to the egomaniacal and conflict ridden prime ministership of Billy Hughes. </p>
<p>Yet arguably the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison era represents a nadir when it comes to Australian national leadership.</p>
<p>Focussed on the blood-letting and human follies of the Coalition years, Nemesis is silent on the bigger forces roiling national politics, the eroding bases of the major parties and a hyperactive and polarised media to name the obvious. </p>
<p>The task of leadership has become more fraught in this environment. Yet this does not afford an alibi for the degraded governance of 2013-22. Successful incumbents from the past — Alfred Deakin, John Curtin, Ben Chifley, Robert Menzies, Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and John Howard — provide a template for prime-ministerial achievement in all seasons. It begins with being steadfastly bound to a larger purpose, without which politics can easily degenerate into destructive vanities and mindless absurdities as Nemesis painfully illustrates.</p>
<p>As ghastly a spectacle as it presents, this is its powerful lesson.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223002/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Strangio received funding from the Australian Research Council in the past.</span></em></p>Arguably, the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison era represents a nadir when it comes to the history of Australian national leadership.Paul Strangio, Emeritus professor of politics, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2217462024-01-23T06:57:34Z2024-01-23T06:57:34ZAs Morrison quits parliament, his ‘legacy’ has little to recommend it<p>The recent months have been kind to Peter Dutton and the Coalition. Scott Morrison’s announcement that he will leave parliament at the end of February is the latest instalment of the federal opposition’s good run. </p>
<p>When the Coalition lost the 2022 election, Morrison was, according to the <a href="https://australianelectionstudy.org/wp-content/uploads/The-2022-Australian-Federal-Election-Results-from-the-Australian-Election-Study.pdf">Australian Election Study</a>, the least popular major party leader at any election since the survey began in 1987. Since that time, it has been revealed that he secretly took five ministries for reasons he has never been able to explain with any plausibility. He was also a <a href="https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-morrison-endures-the-witness-box-while-albanese-enjoys-being-in-the-box-seat-with-the-senate-196662">deeply unimpressive witness</a> before the Robodebt royal commission, a scandal he played a large role in making.</p>
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<p>The reasons for his unpopularity even before those post-election revelations were clear enough. He was seen to have failed in the Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20. The image of Morrison holidaying in Hawaii while the country burned became the image of Morrison the politician, rivalled only by his carrying a lump of coal into parliament and the spectacle of his ukulele playing on national television.</p>
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<p>On gender, he was embarrassing. It would be hard to invent a politician more poorly equipped to deal with the problem of sexual assault, an issue that took political centre stage in the wake of historic claims against his attorney-general, Christian Porter, and former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins’ allegations against a colleague. His repeated fumbling suggested a man out of tune with the times.</p>
<p>Part of Morrison’s problem was that like so many political leaders, he seems to have come to believe in his own artifice. The “Scomo” image – the rugby league-loving daggy dad from the Shire – was pure performance. Morrison was really a rugby union man from affluent Bronte who had enjoyed a string of highly-paid jobs since his twenties. </p>
<p>His error was to believe Australians had voted him back into office because they bought this image. The result was that we had to endure more – curries, cubby-houses, flamboyant displays of barracking, and tedious cosplay in a bewildering variety of workplaces.</p>
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<p>One suspects that most of us spotted the fakery a mile off. People voted for him – not overwhelmingly, but enough to get him over the line once – because they didn’t like Bill Shorten, and because they believed Labor was coming after their utes, weekends, jobs, negative gearing and franking credits. </p>
<p>When faced with something more benign three years later, they abandoned him in droves, turning to Labor, Independents, the Greens – anyone but Morrison and his similarly unpopular deputy, Barnaby Joyce.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/did-australia-just-make-a-move-to-the-left-183611">Did Australia just make a move to the left?</a>
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<p>Morrison’s defenders are already pointing to a “legacy”. We will hear much about AUKUS. But the Morrison legacy there was a poisonous relationship with France – whose president publicly accused Morrison of lying – and a big splashy announcement lacking basic detail made alongside a United States president who could not recall his name. AUKUS was designed to wedge the Labor Party. The Biden administration wanted him to take Anthony Albanese into his confidence. Morrison predictably declined to do that. There was political hay to be made.</p>
<p>With Morrison, politics invariably trumped policy. He does, however, deserve credit for the government’s handling of the pandemic in 2020. Australia was probably fortunate it had a Coalition government, because any Labor administration that had come up with JobKeeper and JobSeeker would likely have been subjected to relentless hostility by the media and Coalition opposition. </p>
<p>Of course, Morrison never dropped politics: favoured groups of Australians – men in high-vis and corporates – were treated well, while anyone regarded as in the camp of the enemy was less fortunate. His instincts were often bad, but tempered by an understanding of how bad they had proved during the bushfires, by the expert advice of officials, by the obstruction of premiers and chief ministers and, above all, by a desire not to be seen as responsible for a very high pile of dead bodies.</p>
<p>It was obvious the pathway through vaccination and out of danger was meant to lead to an early election and Morrison’s return – an outcome widely regarded by Australia’s political pundits as inevitable until the summer of 2020-21. His government’s muddling of the vaccination program, a new round of lockdowns in 2021, and the failure even to arrange enough test kits put paid to any prospect of an early resort to the polls and, in retrospect, can be seen to have sealed his fate.</p>
<p>Morrison’s Pentecostal religion gained a good deal of attention at the time he contested and won the 2019 election, but had less prominence thereafter. A recording of him addressing a conference of co-religionists that did the rounds served as a reminder that it was both odd and American. Morrison was itching to introduce US-style conservative religiosity into the everyday discourse of Australian politics but had sufficiently well-honed political instincts to understand he should not go there. </p>
<p>The poverty of his political language owed something to this prohibition. Take out the religious material, and Morrison had only slogans that tired those he had acclaimed as “quiet Australians”. After a while, the import of that phrase also became clear enough. Morrison’s ideal citizenry was one that left politics to professionals such as Morrison.</p>
<p>In the end, future historians will probably scratch their heads over why Morrison took the plunge from being a not-very-successful tourism executive to a not-very-successful prime minister. He was also for a time state director of the New South Wales Liberal Party, and his political career took its tone and colour from these earlier roles. He was always campaigning, always looking for the rhetorical trick, political stunt and clever phrase (Remember “<a href="https://theconversation.com/scott-morrison-warns-against-negative-globalism-124651">negative globalism</a>” and “<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-morrisons-can-do-capitalism-and-conservative-masculinity-may-not-be-cutting-through-anymore-183118">can-do capitalism</a>”?) that would gain him advantage. He launched his prime ministership in 2018 with a crackdown against criminals who were said to have placed pins in strawberries.</p>
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<p>Sean Kelly, easily the most perceptive Morrison watcher, called his book on Morrison The Game and was astute in doing so: that was precisely how Morrison treated politics. It was just a game to be played and won. </p>
<p>He has been unable to hide his pride in besting Shorten in 2019, but seems otherwise uninterested in what he leaves behind him, including the wreckage of the Liberal Party, the public service and parliamentary government – which received its worst battering since November 1975 at the hands of Morrison’s secret dealing with the governor-general.</p>
<p>And for that, we have all paid a price. Politics might look like a game if on your way up you’ve coasted from one bubble to another, one executive job to another, one ministry to another, one political ally to another, one policy to another, one suburb to another, one football code to another. But it’s no game if you are being pursued by Centrelink for a debt you don’t actually owe. It’s no game if your home has just burned down in a bushfire. And it’s no game if you can no longer sell your barley, wine or lobster to China because the government thought it a good idea to go front-running on a grand international enquiry into COVID-19. </p>
<p>On the day of the 2022 election, Morrison tried another stunt – a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-27/scott-morrison-instructed-border-force-election-day-boat/101101464">public announcement</a> that the government had intercepted a Sri Lankan asylum-seeker boat. The news was then texted to mobile phones for the benefit of undecided voters. It was the political equivalent of a minor Bond villain’s last, desperate throw of the dice. </p>
<p>It did the Coalition no good. But it was a reminder of what Morrison had never ceased to be: the marketing man who believed that, in the end, he had the punters’ measure.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221746/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frank Bongiorno 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 deserves credit for his government’s handling of the economics of the COVID pandemic. But aside from that, he treated politics purely as a game.Frank Bongiorno, Professor of History, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2142622023-09-25T10:40:27Z2023-09-25T10:40:27ZView from The Hill: ‘Player’ Mike Pezzullo undone by power play<p>Mike Pezzullo, one of Canberra’s most powerful and certainly most controversial public servants, cannot survive the revelation of the trove of text messages showing him blatantly inserting himself into the political process. </p>
<p>Pezzullo, the secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, has been stood aside while his extraordinary behaviour, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/power-player-20230925-p5e7fq.html">exposed by Nine Entertainment</a>, is scrutinised by a former public service commissioner, Lynelle Briggs. But the end of the story is predictable. </p>
<p>In the tsunami of encrypted texts, running over five years and sent to Scott Briggs (no relation to Lynelle Briggs), a Liberal insider and confidant of prime ministers Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison, Pezzullo repeatedly lobbied for his departmental interests and his views. </p>
<p>He dissed ministers in the way of these interests or those (and other people) he didn’t rate. He used Briggs to seek leverage with the then PMs, asking for his opinions to be passed on. Briggs was happy to comply.</p>
<p>Nine <a href="https://www.9now.com.au/60-minutes/2023/episode-34">says it learned of the messages</a> “via a third party who obtained lawful access to them”. </p>
<p>Pezzullo is a one-off in today’s public service. He can perhaps be partly understood by referring back to the so-called bureaucratic “mandarins” of decades ago. They ran their departments with iron grips, and in some cases were, or tried to be, as powerful as ministers, or more so. They gave no quarter in bureaucratic battles.</p>
<p>The mandarins were “players”. Pezzullo is a “player”. </p>
<p>He’s tough and polarising, with supporters and bitter enemies. Critics have long questioned his judgement. On security matters, he’s the hawks’ hawk. While at first blush his texts appear highly partisan, that is too simplistic an interpretation. He fights bureaucratic and policy/ideological battles, rather than being directly party-political.</p>
<p>His addiction to texting is certainly bipartisan. Within the Albanese government they joke about it starting first thing in the morning and running well into the night. </p>
<p>As a public servant, Pezzullo has served both sides of politics. When in the defence department, he was lead author of the Rudd government’s 2009 defence white paper, which raised the hackles of China. Earlier, he was a senior staffer to Kim Beazley when Beazley was opposition leader. His primary interest is defence – he would have liked nothing better than to head the defence department.</p>
<p>When Anthony Albanese won government, some in Labor wanted Pezzullo gone. He survived not least because the new home affairs minister, Clare O'Neil, in charge of this huge, sprawling empire, needed an experienced hand. </p>
<p>In some ways, Pezzullo is a stickler for process – as we saw when Morrison was trying to make political use of a boat headed for Australia on election day – which makes these texts all the more shocking. But he portrayed himself as acting in broader interests, telling Briggs at one point during the 2018 battle over the prime ministership, “I say that from a policy perspective and not from a Liberal leadership perspective”. </p>
<p>Pezzullo lobbied relentlessly for the creation of the home affairs “super” department, which Turnbull set up in December 2017 to placate the ambitious Peter Dutton. </p>
<p>Those who resisted its establishment, particularly then attorney-general George Brandis, became Pezzullo’s targets. He accused Brandis of “lawyering” public servants “into a state of befuddlement”. </p>
<p>Pezzullo is particularly fond of military imagery. During the struggle to get home affairs up, he texted Briggs, “I am running deep and silent. Won’t come up to periscope depth for a while”. In another message he said the attorney-general’s department needed to be “put to the sword” on a matter, then “we can break out of the Normandy beachhead”. (In a 2021 Anzac Day message to staff Pezzullo caused a public ruckus when he wrote of “the drums of war” beating.)</p>
<p>Moderates were an all-round worry in the Pezzullo texts. Marise Payne, in the defence portfolio, was “completely ineffectual”, “a problem” and “doesn’t have a clear view of the national interest”. Julie Bishop received short shrift; he “almost had a heart attack” when she put her hand up as a candidate in the 2018 upheaval. He was sarcastically relieved when Briggs assured him she had few numbers.</p>
<p>In that battle, in which Dutton (Pezzullo’s minister) challenged Turnbull and Morrison ultimately emerged as prime minister, Pezzullo was concerned about who would end up his minister. </p>
<p>“You need a right winger in there – people smugglers will be watching”, he texted Briggs. </p>
<p>“Any suggestion of a moderate going in would be potentially lethal viz” for Operation Sovereign Borders, he said. </p>
<p>Pezzullo had little time for the head of the prime minister’s department, Martin Parkinson: he was not up to the job and “entirely lacking in self awareness”. In one of those nice ironies of politics, Parkinson was commissioned by the Labor government to lead O'Neil’s migration review.</p>
<p>Pezzullo, whose tug-of-war appearances at Senate estimates hearings are often compulsory viewing, complained to Briggs in 2020, after enduring a very long session, that the hearings were “actually a concern for our democracy”. But he boasted that “in batting terms we are 0-400”.</p>
<p>Free speech came well behind security in Pezzullo’s priorities. After an awkward story by reporter Annika Smethurst, who was subjected to a police raid, Pezzullo reportedly argued for a revival of the D-notice system, under which editors were requested not to publish certain information affecting defence or national security. It didn’t happen.</p>
<p>Pezzullo in one text asked Briggs, “Please keep our conversations confidential. Tricky tight rope for me”. Tricky indeed. The player obsessed by security has been undone by some unidentified power play that has left him totally exposed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214262/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>Pezzullo is a one-off in the today’s public service. He can perhaps be best understood by referring back to the so-called bureaucratic “mandarins” of decades ago.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2140682023-09-21T06:47:52Z2023-09-21T06:47:52ZView from The Hill: Josh Frydenberg puts political ambition aside to remain in business<p>Former Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s decision to put a business future before an attempted political revival is a blow for the Liberal Party, but a relief for the teal member for Kooyong, Monique Ryan. </p>
<p>Opposition Leader Peter Dutton might regard his former colleague’s decision with mixed feelings. Frydenberg would probably have increased the chance of the Liberals regaining Kooyong in 2025. </p>
<p>But if elected, Frydenberg would have become an obvious choice for party leader (on the very reasonable assumption the Coalition was still in opposition). More immediately, speculation about that prospect would have dogged Dutton in the run-up to the next election.</p>
<p>For Frydenberg, this must be a bittersweet moment. As he said in a note to Kooyong branch members, telling them he wouldn’t be seeking preselection, “It is a difficult decision and one I have been weighing up for some time”.</p>
<p>His aspiration to be prime minister has been long-standing, strong and obvious. He was indefatigable as treasurer, a quality shared by his successor Jim Chalmers, who also aspires to the top job. But business gives him a bright, lucrative, family-friendly future, without the pressures and uncertainties that politics bring. </p>
<p>Anyway, winning back Kooyong (which Frydenberg held from 2010-22) would have been no shoo-in. Ryan is regarded as more vulnerable than some of the other teals, but the demographics of the seat have been changing and there is a boundary redistribution to come. </p>
<p>After joining Goldman Sachs following his defeat, Frydenberg will now become chairman of the investment bank in Australia and New Zealand. </p>
<p>The firm said: </p>
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<p>In this role, Josh will focus on further deepening and strengthening client coverage across the A/NZ region. He will continue to offer advice on economic and geopolitical issues as the firm’s senior regional advisor for Asia Pacific.</p>
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<p>While it’s possible Frydenberg, 52, might consider running in the election after next – and he hasn’t closed off that option – it would seem unlikely. </p>
<p>The 2025 election was the logical time to try for a comeback. A term on and much water will have gone under the bridge – in his own life and in politics. The Liberal line-up would be different, the road to leadership potentially harder. Perhaps the fight in Kooyong (or some other seat, if that were back in Liberal hands) would be more difficult.</p>
<p>Frydenberg became of a victim of the teal wave. He had stuck very close to former Prime Minister Scott Morrison: loyalty is an admirable character trait but not always a political advantage. </p>
<p>If he, rather than Morrison, had led into the last election, the Coalition might have done better; on the other hand, a leadership change carries its own costs. In any case, it was never on the cards. </p>
<p>Frydenberg, a conservative who became more centrist as time went on, was treasurer in extraordinary circumstances, confronting the economic challenges and demands imposed by the pandemic. He oversaw the wage subsidy JobKeeper program that, while it had its flaws which have seemed more significant in retrospect, was critical to keeping many businesses and workers afloat. </p>
<p>Independent economist Chris Richardson says JobKeeper “wasn’t perfect but it was bloody beautiful”. He praises Frydenberg’s COVID performance, saying, </p>
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<p>The key thing was to make the wheels of government move faster than they had ever moved before. I give him high marks for that. </p>
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<p>Another independent economist, Saul Eslake, agrees Frydenberg did a good job during COVID, with the only serious mistake being in some of the detail of JobKeeper.</p>
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<p>He was right to throw overboard all the Coalition rhetoric about debt and deficit. He was honest, thoughtful and consultative. </p>
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<p>Morrison, Eslake says, was a “huge handicap” because he was not an effective communicator of economic ideas, “in contrast to the prime ministers who backed Paul Keating and Peter Costello, the two most successful treasurers of recent history”. </p>
<p>But for the pandemic, Frydenberg would have seen the budget back in black. That achievement now belongs to Chalmers, who is savouring the moment.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214068/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>While it’s possible Frydenberg, 52, might consider running in the election after next, it would seem unlikely. The 2025 election was the logical time to try for a comeback bidMichelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2109062023-08-02T08:34:08Z2023-08-02T08:34:08ZWord from The Hill: Double dissolution hot air, PM dodging Treaty question, Morrison hit with counter punch after Robodebt speech<p>As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation’s politics team.</p>
<p>In this podcast Michelle and politics + society editor Amanda Dunn discuss whether there’s much in the PM’s double dissolution threat, and his defensiveness when pressed on Treaty in an ABC interview. </p>
<p>As well, they canvass the Reserve Bank’s reprieve for mortgage holders, which will be only small comfort to those coming off fixed rates. Meanwhile in parliament, Scott Morrison’s rejection of the Robodebt royal commission’s findings against him just sparked fresh attacks on him from the government.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210906/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>In this podcast @michellegrattan and politics + society editor @amandadunn10 discuss Anthony Albanese's defensiveness when pressed on treaty, support for the Yes case slipping in polls, theMichelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2107222023-07-31T10:30:44Z2023-07-31T10:30:44ZMorrison labels Robodebt findings against him unsubstantiated and absurd and accuses government ‘lynching’ campaign<p>Scott Morrison has accused the Robodebt royal commission of making wrong, unsubstantiated and absurd findings against him, in a detailed statement to parliament.</p>
<p>The former prime minister, who was excoriated by the commission, was unrepentant, giving no ground on any of the criticisms Commissioner Catherine Holmes made of him in her report.</p>
<p>He also accused the government of a “campaign of political lynching” to discredit him and his service to the country, once again weaponising “a quasi-legal process to launder [its] political vindictiveness”. </p>
<p>Rising on the first sitting day after the report’s release during the recess Morrison, speaking to a near-empty house, said he rejected the commission’s findings he had allowed cabinet to be misled, provided untrue evidence, and pressured departmental officials. </p>
<p>Morrison was social services minister when the scheme, announced in the 2015 budget, was being worked up. He was an enthusiast for pursuing savings in the welfare area and saw the plan, based on income averaging, as a powerful means to do this. </p>
<p>But the scheme was found to be illegal and, by the time he was prime minister, it had raised $1.76 billion unlawfully from hundreds of thousand of people, and the government was forced to repay a huge amount in total to people wrongfully pursued for money they didn’t owe.</p>
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<p>In his statement, Morrison reiterated that when he was social services minister and the plan was being prepared, the final advice to him was that legislation was not required, and he had no reason to doubt the integrity and knowledge of officials. This superseded an earlier minute indicating legislation could be needed.</p>
<p>The commission’s suggestion it was reasonable he would or should have formed a contrary view to this advice was “not credible or reasonable,” Morrison told parliament. </p>
<p>He said when the scheme was announced in the 2015 budget, the Labor opposition did not express concerns about its legality. </p>
<p>“The commission’s finding unfairly and retroactively applies a consensus of the understanding of the lawful status of the scheme that simply was not present or communicated at the time,” Morrison said. “This is clearly an unreasonable, untenable and false basis to make the serious allegation of allowing cabinet to be misled.” </p>
<p>Morrison said the commission’s finding he had given untrue evidence was “unsubstantiated, speculative and wrong”, with the commission seeking to reverse the onus of proof. “I had stated in evidence what I understood to be true, the commission failed to disprove this and simply asserted it unilaterally as fact.”</p>
<p>Arguing the commission’s allegation pressure was applied to officials that prevented them giving frank advice was “absurd”, Morrison said the department had already initiated the proposal before he arrived as minister. “How could I have pressured officials into developing such proposals, while serving in another portfolio?”, he said. “The department had already taken the initiative and were the proponents of the scheme.”</p>
<p>Further, “the Commission’s suggestion that an orthodox policy setting of seeking to ensure integrity in welfare payments would be seen as intimidating to the department and its senior executive is both surprising and concerning. That is their job.”</p>
<p>Morrison said that “at no time did the department advise me as minister of the existence of the formal legal advice prepared prior to my arrival in the portfolio, regarding the scheme.” </p>
<p>He said the “uncontested fact that senior departmental executives withheld key information regarding the legality of scheme from their minister is inexcusable.”</p>
<p>Morrison once again expressed his “deep regret” for the scheme’s “unintended consequences” on individuals and their families. </p>
<p>Opposition leader Peter Dutton told the ABC Morrison had put “a very strong case” of his position, and he had been right to put it in parliament. </p>
<p>The commission has referred a list of people involved in Robodebt for further action, but the names have not been released. </p>
<p>A key top bureaucrat involved in the scheme, Kathryn Campbell, has resigned from the public service in the wake of the report’s condemnation of her.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210722/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 former prime minister, who was excoriated by the commission, was unrepentant, giving no ground on any of the criticisms Commissioner Catherine Holmes made of him in her report.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2102772023-07-24T05:27:11Z2023-07-24T05:27:11ZChris Barrett becomes new head of the Productivity Commission, as Jim Chalmers flags fresh focus<p>Treasurer Jim Chalmers has appointed Chris Barrett, an economist with extensive public service and governmental experience, as the new chair of the Productivity Commission. </p>
<p>Barrett was former Treasurer Wayne Swan’s chief of staff when Chalmers was the deputy chief of staff. Later he was appointed by the Labor government as Australia’s ambassador to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).</p>
<p>Barrett is presently deputy secretary of the economic division in the Victorian Department of Treasury and Finance. </p>
<p>The outgoing head of the Productivity Commission, Michael Brennan, was appointed by the Coalition and had worked for senior Liberals. He attracted criticism from the then-Labor opposition for having political connections. </p>
<p>Chalmers, announcing Barrett’s appointment, was at pains to stress he had been been through a rigorous recruitment process. </p>
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<p>The treasurer made it clear the commission will soon have a new focus. A review, spearheaded by Treasury, is underway. </p>
<p>Chalmers said he wanted to “revitalise and renew and refocus” the commission, recognising that “productivity has evolved”. </p>
<p>“We’ve made it clear we think the productivity opportunity for Australia is not to make people work longer for less but to invest in human capital, it’s to invest in the energy transformation, to get much better at adapting and adopting tech as it evolves. </p>
<p>"I want to make sure the Productivity Commission is providing the kind of insights and perspectives about a more modern economy that a government can pick up and run with.” </p>
<p>Chalmers said the commission “will remain fiercely independent as it should be”. He would not put a date on the finalisation of the review, which will now involve the new chair, other than to say “months rather than years”. </p>
<p>Labour productivity as measured by GDP per hour worked has been falling since March 2022. </p>
<p>In the 1990s, labour productivity was increasing 2.2% a year; in the decades leading up to COVID it was growing at only half that rate. </p>
<p>Chalmers said: “The decade to 2020 was the worst for productivity growth in Australia in the last 60 years. And it will take time to turn that around. </p>
<p>"Nobody pretends that there’s a switch that you can flick to turn around what has been disappointing performance on the productivity front.”</p>
<p>Chalmers said Brennan had made a significant contribution to the commission, saying it had “featured prominently in the nation’s conversation about Australia’s productivity”.</p>
<p>Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor said the test of Barrett’s performance “will be in whether he pursues genuine productivity reform or rubber stamps Labor’s union-led agenda that business is warning will take productivity further backwards”.</p>
<p>“The Productivity Commission has given a roadmap in its five-year review yet the government has buried it,” Taylor said. </p>
<p>Brennan described the choice of Barrett as “an outstanding appointment. Chris will bring great intellect, strategic insight and a breadth of experience to the role. I also think he is a great fit for the organisation. We should all be very positive about the future of the PC under Chris’s leadership.”</p>
<p>Andrew McKellar, CEO of Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, also praised the appointment. “Chris Barrett is well-credentialed to become the leader of one of Australia’s most important sources of expert advice to government. With experience as a chief of staff, as Australia’s ambassador to the OECD and as a senior public servant, Chris Barrett is a strong choice to lead the Productivity Commission at this crucial time.”</p>
<p>At his news conference, Chalmers also gave the latest update for last financial year’s surplus, indicating it is likely to be above $20 billion.</p>
<p>He said the government was focused on delivering the cost of living relief it has announced but it was not working on a new package.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210277/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>Treasurer Jim Chalmers said he wanted to ‘revitalise and renew and refocus’ the commission with Barrett’s appointment, recognising that ‘productivity has evolved’.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2096852023-07-13T10:15:15Z2023-07-13T10:15:15ZGrattan on Friday: Fadden byelection is Dutton’s immediate hurdle but party reform is the bigger challenge<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537242/original/file-20230713-19-9g5fo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C17%2C2896%2C1179&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Darren England/AAP; Cameron Caldwell/Facebook</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Stuart Robert has kept well away from the byelection to choose his parliamentary successor, but Labor has made sure the controversial former member hasn’t been forgotten. </p>
<p>Just over a week out from Saturday’s vote in the Gold Coast seat of Fadden, Robert received a pasting from the Robodebt royal commission (although not, he says, a referral for further action). Labor hopes the voters care. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is banking on their attention being on other things. </p>
<p>Dutton was glad to see the back of Robert, just as he was to have another discredited former minister, Alan Tudge, resign from parliament. </p>
<p>But Tudge’s departure came at high cost. The Liberals lost the seat of Aston at that byelection, which underscored the depth of Dutton’s difficulties in Victoria. </p>
<p>Fadden could deliver a blow or a boost to Dutton. He can hardly afford the former and desperately needs the latter. </p>
<p>Unlike Aston, which became marginal in 2022, Fadden sits on what is considered an impregnable 10.6% margin. Both sides are convinced it will stay in Coalition hands, so it’s all about the size and direction of the swing. </p>
<p>We shouldn’t over-read the results of byelections. Some matter, others don’t, but in today’s fevered politics, their results have impact in the moment. </p>
<p>In Fadden, both Labor and the Liberal National Party have had meaty issues on which to campaign. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/robodebt-royal-commissioner-makes-multiple-referrals-for-prosecution-condemning-scheme-as-crude-and-cruel-209318">Robodebt royal commissioner makes multiple referrals for prosecution, condemning scheme as 'crude and cruel'</a>
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<p>Labor has made the most of the discredited Robert, who faces other integrity questions separate to his role in Robodebt. Despite the welter of bad publicly about the former MP, some in Labor believe voters’ thoughts will be squarely on their own personal circumstances.</p>
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<p>The Liberals have going for them the cost-of-living pressures. They are also seeking to exploit concern over crime, targeting the state Labor government, which has lost its pandemic gloss and faces an election next year. The Liberals are urging voters to send messages to both federal and state Labor. </p>
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<p>The Voice to Parliament is not featuring.</p>
<p>Both sides are focusing on the local. The Liberals’ Cameron Caldwell is a long-time councillor with a small-business background. He has a bit of history – <a href="https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/lnp-sacks-second-candidate-cameron-caldwell-in-seat-of-broadwater-on-gold-coast/news-story/9e689a063caa2b6ca7d168cd7f3e51ed">prior to the 2012 Queensland election he was dropped as a candidate</a> after a complaint that he had, some years before, attended a “swingers club” (dressed in a pirate outfit). He said he was there with his wife for a drink. Dutton, campaigning in Fadden on Thursday, promoted Caldwell as a “local champion”. </p>
<p>Labor’s candidate, Letitia Del Fabbro, is a nurse educator at Griffith University. Like Mary Doyle in Aston, Del Fabbro ran at last year’s federal election, which means she had already done the spadework by the time the byelection came. </p>
<p>The field of 13 includes candidates from the Greens and One Nation. </p>
<p>The byelection matters for Anthony Albanese but less than it does for Dutton. </p>
<p>An anti-Labor swing – presuming it wasn’t too large – could be written off as what normally happens in byelections. The average byelection swing against governments, when the major parties contest, is 3.6%. Polling analyst Kevin Bonham points out that in byelections in federal opposition seats the historic average swing is only about 1% to the opposition. </p>
<p>Although the government could dismiss a modest swing, Labor hardheads would see it as a warning sign of the cost of living starting to bite in political terms. Labor knows the politics of that issue will only get tougher for the government in coming months. </p>
<p>A swing against Labor might be more alarming for the Palaszczuk government.</p>
<p>The Liberals, fearing the impact of another bad showing, have run the bigger campaign. Queensland is Dutton’s home state, where the Coalition held up at the 2022 election. Dutton is reportedly happy with the party’s efforts in Fadden, with the Liberal National Party machine running a competent campaign.</p>
<p>While the LNP organisation is in solid shape, there are bleak stories elsewhere. </p>
<p>The faction-ridden shambles in the NSW division took its toll in the 2022 election. Then federal minister Alex Hawke, in cahoots with Scott Morrison, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jul/13/scott-morrison-ally-faces-liberal-party-expulsion-over-nsw-preselection-debacle">delayed preselections for their own purposes</a>, with disastrous results. Recently Dutton, Liberal federal president John Olsen and party director Andrew Hirst wrote to the NSW organisation telling it to come up with a preselection timetable. Reportedly this caused some tensions. </p>
<p>Jason Falinski, a prominent moderate and one of the MPs defeated by a teal independent candidate at the federal election, is the new NSW president. He’s committed to improving the division, but it has a long record of being stubbornly committed to its own infighting. </p>
<p>The troubles with the Liberals in Victoria are centred on the state parliamentary party but spread through the division. Already on their knees after being routed at the state election, the Victorian Liberals have been torn apart over Moira Deeming, now expelled from the parliamentary party. Triggered by her attendance at the Let Women Speak rally, which Nazis gatecrashed, the imbroglio has hugely damaged state leader John Pesutto and divided the rank and file, where Deeming has strong support. It spilled over federally when last month the Liberals’ federal women’s committee called for Deeming to be reinstated. </p>
<p>Tasmania is the only state with a Liberal government, but the party is chaotic there too. The government was thrown into minority when two MPs defected to the crossbench in protest at its support for an expensive new stadium. The premier, Jeremy Rockliff, faces discontent from the grass roots. </p>
<p>In Western Australia there is an enormous rebuilding job from wipeouts at the state and federal elections. </p>
<p>One of Dutton’s problems in trying to knock heads together in NSW and Victoria is his own unpopularity in the south. But without the state machines being in better shape, the chance of electoral progress will be dragged down.</p>
<p>Outspoken Tasmanian federal Liberal MP Bridget Archer this week again called attention to something else the Liberals need – for Morrison to leave parliament. </p>
<p>Morrison came out of the Robodebt commission particularly badly. There is general agreement he has not quit earlier because he can’t get a decent job. The commission’s findings will put another negative on his CV. </p>
<p>Dutton would be delighted to have the former PM move on. That would, however, mean another byelection, with its opportunities and risks.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209685/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>Fadden could deliver a blow or a boost to Dutton. He can hardly afford the former, and desperately needs the latter.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2094012023-07-12T20:05:00Z2023-07-12T20:05:00ZAuthor, ambassador, commentator, critic? It’s not always easy to earn a crust as a former PM<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536956/original/file-20230712-23-hruk9x.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">Lukas Coch/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Few Australians are losing sleep over how Scott Morrison is going to earn a crust after politics. Few outside the federal Coalition, at any rate. His continuing presence on the opposition backbench serves as a distraction from the present and reminder of the past. Unfortunately, that past keeps intruding on the present – most recently, in the form of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/robodebt-royal-commissioner-makes-multiple-referrals-for-prosecution-condemning-scheme-as-crude-and-cruel-209318">robodebt royal commission report</a>. There is no reason to believe relief is in sight. </p>
<p>Morrison’s prime ministership was a landmark in one respect that is rarely noticed. Leaving aside the independently wealthy Malcolm Turnbull, Morrison is the first prime minister originally elected to parliament under the post-2004 <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/howards-shock-move-on-super-20040213-gdxat7.html">superannuation arrangements</a> for politicians. These were the result of a decision made by the Howard government, as a defensive measure against an insurgent Labor Party under Mark Latham, to end the gold-plated scheme that had politicians getting a pension for life once they had been in parliament for eight years, with further generous benefits for ministers.</p>
<p>Of course, former prime ministers receive many other goodies, such as office facilities and free travel, but that does not earn them a living. Morrison is just 55, with a young family. He does not seem short of a quid, but it is easy to see why he might be reluctant to surrender his parliamentary salary without having something else lined up. </p>
<p>He has been <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/morrison-heading-towards-the-exit-eyes-uk-defence-job-20230501-p5d4oz.html">shopping himself around</a> and seems to imagine a future on the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/aug/26/scott-morrison-received-token-payments-for-speeches-and-plans-to-join-global-lecture-circuit">lecture circuit</a>. That is potentially a nice little earner for an ex-leader, as Tony Blair and Bill Clinton have shown. But as US vice-presidential candidate Senator Lloyd Bentsen might have put it if he were still around: “Scott, you’re no Bill Clinton”. The opportunities for a former Australian prime minister to play wise elder statesman seem unpromising.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/he-played-his-ukulele-as-the-ship-went-down-frank-bongiorno-on-the-political-year-that-was-194063">'He played his ukulele as the ship went down': Frank Bongiorno on the political year that was</a>
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<p>Bill Clinton, like all former US presidents, remains “Mr President”, but it is different under a parliamentary system. There is no obvious role for a former Australian prime minister to play. Nor is there an obvious career path for them to take to keep themselves in the manner that they presumably see as befitting their status. If you are wealthy, like Turnbull or Kevin Rudd, there is nothing to worry about. But matters are more complicated for others. Even Robert Menzies relied on benefactors to help him acquire a home in Melbourne after spending 16 years in the Lodge.</p>
<p>So, what have our ex-prime ministers done with their post-prime ministerial lives? Five never had to face the dilemma. Joseph Lyons and John Curtin died in office, and Harold Holt disappeared at sea. Ben Chifley died as opposition leader in 1951, after losing an election to Menzies in December 1949. Alfred Deakin tragically lost his mind.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536960/original/file-20230712-23-a2ul92.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536960/original/file-20230712-23-a2ul92.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536960/original/file-20230712-23-a2ul92.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536960/original/file-20230712-23-a2ul92.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536960/original/file-20230712-23-a2ul92.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=609&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536960/original/file-20230712-23-a2ul92.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=609&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536960/original/file-20230712-23-a2ul92.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=609&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Even Sir Robert Menzies was a little strapped after leaving office.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Museum of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Edmund Barton, our first, went to the High Court, but he is unique in following that course. Several have assumed diplomatic appointments. High commissioner in London was popular in the early decades of last century, and a natural progression given that prime ministers, not external affairs or foreign ministers, had primary responsibility for relations with the United Kingdom. George Reid, Andrew Fisher, Joseph Cook and Stanley Melbourne Bruce all took on this role. Reid subsequently entered the House of Commons for the Conservative Party for a brief period before his death. Bruce distinguished himself as high commissioner for over a decade, taking in the latter years of the Depression and the second world war before he went to the House of Lords as Viscount Bruce of Melbourne. </p>
<p>The practice of sending ex-prime ministers on major diplomatic postings fell into disuse. The Hawke government appointed Gough Whitlam to Paris as ambassador to UNESCO, but Rudd’s recent appointment to Washington is otherwise a departure from patterns established since the second world war. </p>
<p>Efforts to gain a prestigious international role have usually produced disappointment. Malcolm Fraser failed in a bid to become secretary-general of the Commonwealth, but he did serve on the eminent persons group trying to end apartheid in South Africa and chaired the international relief agency, CARE Australia. The even more exalted role of secretary-general of the United Nations eluded Rudd.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536961/original/file-20230712-20-gxwl1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536961/original/file-20230712-20-gxwl1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536961/original/file-20230712-20-gxwl1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536961/original/file-20230712-20-gxwl1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536961/original/file-20230712-20-gxwl1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536961/original/file-20230712-20-gxwl1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536961/original/file-20230712-20-gxwl1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kevin Rudd missed out as UN general-secretary, but has since been appointed Australia’s US ambassador.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Others have tried business. Bob Hawke’s recent biographer, Troy Bramston, <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/bob-hawke-9780143788096">reports</a> that he “made a lot of money in the 1990s and 2000s”, with China a focus. Hawke had excellent business connections stretching back to his time at the ACTU, and made the most of them. In general, his business activities, combined with his criticisms of his successor Paul Keating, did little to restore his reputation. Keating himself pursued business opportunities, taking an interest in Sydney planning issues, and has now emerged as the harshest <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/mar/15/paul-keating-labels-aukus-submarine-pact-worst-deal-in-all-history-in-attack-on-albanese-government">public critic</a> of AUKUS.</p>
<p>Most write memoirs, which can be lucrative. Menzies, Whitlam, Hawke, John Howard, Julia Gillard and Turnbull did well with sales; Rudd less so. Fraser also wrote books as he became more critical of the Liberal Party he once led. Howard and Gillard have continued to write, while Gillard was a founder and remains chair of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, established at King’s College London and now also based at the Australian National University (ANU). She has interested herself in girls’ education. Whitlam was a visiting fellow at the ANU for a time after politics.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536963/original/file-20230712-22-kiiqy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536963/original/file-20230712-22-kiiqy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536963/original/file-20230712-22-kiiqy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536963/original/file-20230712-22-kiiqy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536963/original/file-20230712-22-kiiqy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536963/original/file-20230712-22-kiiqy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536963/original/file-20230712-22-kiiqy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Writing a memoir can be a lucrative option for ex-PMs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dean Lewins/AAP</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The problem for ex-prime ministers today is that the dynamics of political careers have changed. Politics was once essentially a profession; now, it is more commonly a stage in a career and those leaving the job are often only in their fifties. </p>
<p>Billy Hughes was for a time Australia’s longest-serving prime minister, in the role from late 1915 through to early 1923. But these were but a few years in a political career that stretched from his election to the New South Wales parliament as an early Labor member in 1894, to serving in the House of Representatives with several parties from 1901 through to his death in 1952. Another Billy, McMahon, continued in parliament for almost decade after his defeat at the 1972 election, offering commentary on his own side of politics that was rarely cherished.</p>
<p>Ironically, the greatest harm McMahon did to his party after 1972 was an ill-timed resignation that saw his seat of Lowe go to Labor. But when prime ministers deposed by their own side have stayed on – Hughes, John Gorton, Rudd and Tony Abbott – they can do their successors a little or a lot of damage.</p>
<p>Gorton appeared in a whisky ad, and Whitlam advertised pasta sauce and telephones. Morrison made his career in marketing and gained a public profile over the controversial “Where the bloody hell are you?” Australian tourism ad. </p>
<p>A master spruiker, perhaps the answer to Morrison’s dilemma lies under his nose.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209401/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frank Bongiorno 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 might seem as though there would be a host of lucrative options for a former leader after politics, but that’s not always the case.Frank Bongiorno, Professor of History, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2094002023-07-10T08:36:24Z2023-07-10T08:36:24ZPolitics with Michelle Grattan: Bill Shorten on Robodebt report’s sealed section, and progress on NDIS reform<p>The Robodebt royal commission’s report has excoriated a raft of former ministers, especially Scott Morrison, who was a main instigator of the program, as well as public servants who were involved.</p>
<p>What we don’t know is who has been referred for prosecution or other action, because the names are in a sealed section of the report. </p>
<p>When in opposition, Bill Shorten pursued the scandal, mobilising a class action. Now Shorten is Minister for Government Services, overseeing a department that in an earlier iteration was at the centre of Robodebt. He’s also Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme.</p>
<p>In this podcast, Shorten joins The Conversation to discuss the aftermath of the royal commission report, and progress in reforming the NDIS.</p>
<p>Shorten sees Commissioner Catherine Holmes’s report as groundbreaking: “I genuinely believe that this royal commission and the report has the opportunity to educate a generation of politicians and senior public servants about the errors that have occurred here […] the way that the royal commissioner has drafted the report, her words, her analysis […] I think has sent shockwaves through Canberra.”</p>
<p>He condemns Morrison’s lack of contrition in light of the strong findings against him. “I just think that a lot of politicians I know, not just on the Labor side, but also the Liberal side who, when confronted with the same evidence, would show more contrition, would show more self-awareness.”</p>
<p>On the sealed section, naming those against whom action should be taken, Shorten toes the Labor line on Holmes’ advice to keep it secret – although he notes, “the discredited trade union royal commission certainly released the names of delegates and organisers” <a href="https://www.royalcommission.gov.au/trade-union/final-report">it recommended action against</a>.</p>
<p>He says Commissioner Holmes did “such a fantastic job” in getting to the heart of matters, so if she believed not putting out all the evidence “improves the odds of better investigation by regulatory authorities […] well, I think the government’s prudential to listen to her advice”.</p>
<p>“I do, though, accept that there’s an interest in accountability, that there’s scepticism […] I just want to reassure people, as the person who helped organise the class action and who campaigned for the royal commission, I and the government are completely committed to accountability in this.”</p>
<p>Shorten says he has already undertaken major reform of the NDIS since taking it over, changing the leadership and getting more people with a disability into senior roles. The scheme is about to undertake a mass conversion of labour hire staff into full-time roles, as promised in the May budget.</p>
<p>A major part of Shorten’s reform drive is to tackle fraud, taking particular aim at agencies “rorting” the scheme. “I’m talking to the ACCC [The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission] about how we can clamp down on price-gouging.”</p>
<p>“Our criminal task force [is] going after not the people on the scheme, but some service providers who are rorting the system, and we’ve got a lot of operations underway. We just want to get rid of the crooks out of the scheme, but we’re not creating notional budgets that somehow this will deliver some mountains of gold. I just want to straighten up the scheme in the best interest of participant.”</p>
<p>Earlier this year the government said the growth rate of the scheme would be cut to 8% a year by 2026. Shorten recently suggested it wouldn’t be the end of the world if this target wasn’t reached, but he quickly had to backtrack. “I was a bit naive in my language,” he says, explaining he’d been trying to make it clear this was a “target” not a “cap”. “It’s not a cap. Funding for people isn’t going to run out [at] 11 months in a 12-month program,” he says.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209400/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>In this podcast, Bill Shorten joins The Conversation to discuss the aftermath of the royal commission report, and progress reforming the NDIS to make it more sustainable.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2092162023-07-07T11:09:28Z2023-07-07T11:09:28ZVictims now know they were right about robodebt all along. Let the royal commission change the way we talk about welfare<p>The long-awaited <a href="https://robodebt.royalcommission.gov.au/publications/report">robodebt royal commission report</a> landed today, making searing adverse findings against both politicians and bureaucrats. </p>
<p>Key individuals are denounced in stark moral terms: for venality, cowardice and callous disregard. </p>
<p>The report contains the statement that “on the evidence before the commission, elements of the tort of misfeasance in public office appear to exist”. </p>
<p>The victims and key advocates who have laboured in obscurity, through days when no listened, can now know they were right all along.</p>
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<h2>Consequences</h2>
<p>The report leaves a core question unanswered: will anyone ever face consequences for what happened? Robodebt Royal Commissioner Catherine Holmes’ decision to keep referrals confidential should be perceived as victim-centred. </p>
<p>A royal commission is the last fail-safe of our democracy, the one way we open doors those in power would prefer to keep shut. </p>
<p>It’s a mechanism that is particularly precious to the marginalised, those failed by the media and party political cycles. </p>
<p>The confidentiality serves to highlight the elemental values that were denied to people during robodebt itself: procedural fairness, ethics and attention to proof.</p>
<p>On compensation for the victims, the report states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The administration costs of a scheme which addressed all the different ways in which people were harmed by the Scheme and examined their circumstances to establish what compensation was appropriate in each case would be astronomic, given the numbers involved. A better use of the money would be to lift the rate at which social security benefits are paid.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1635045723220656129"}"></div></p>
<h2>Holmes’ challenge for Australians</h2>
<p>The report leans heavily into the importance of pursuing a deeper change in our political life. This reflects the arguments of advocates that even if it had been lawful, robodebt was still a scandal. </p>
<p>The commissioner’s call to consider raising the rate of JobSeeker directs us to the bigger picture. Welfare advocates in this country can now forcefully critique any government program that trades on stigma or vulnerability and ignores real-life suffering.</p>
<p>That will now forever be known as robodebt governance.</p>
<p>As the report reads: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>politicians need to lead a change in social attitudes to people receiving welfare payments. The evidence before the commission was that fraud in the welfare system was miniscule, but that is not the impression one would get from what ministers responsible for social security payments have said over the years. Anti-welfare rhetoric is easy populism, useful for campaign purposes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The report reflects that Australia’s constitution places all its trust on responsible politicians and a vibrant parliamentary culture. </p>
<p>The law does not offer the protections the public often thinks it does, and plays an outsized role in public debate. Across more than 900 pages, the key take away for social security recipients is effectively: find a way to get political power and cultural influence, any way you can.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/robodebt-royal-commissioner-makes-multiple-referrals-for-prosecution-condemning-scheme-as-crude-and-cruel-209318">Robodebt royal commissioner makes multiple referrals for prosecution, condemning scheme as 'crude and cruel'</a>
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<h2>‘Robodebt’: the power of a word</h2>
<p>It was confronting to watch today as politicians and media picked over the findings of the report, when it took so long to have the wrongs of robodebt noticed by anyone.</p>
<p>The report detailed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The beginning of 2017 was the point at which Robodebt’s unfairness, probable illegality and cruelty became apparent. It should then have been abandoned or revised drastically, and an enormous amount of hardship and misery (as well as the expense the government was so anxious to minimise) would have been averted.</p>
<p>Instead the path taken was to double down, to go on the attack in the media against those who complained and to maintain the falsehood that in fact the system had not changed at all. The government was, the DHS and DSS ministers maintained, acting righteously to recoup taxpayers’ money from the undeserving.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>My thoughts were with the #notmydebt volunteers. With transparency advocate Justin Warren who spent years seeking the very documents that could have stopped this long ago. </p>
<p>To Asher Wolf, Lyndsey Jackson, Amy Patterson and the forever anonymous volunteers who <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rise-of-robodebt-how-twitter-activists-pushed-a-government-scandal-from-hashtags-to-a-royal-commission-209131">built the very word on everyone’s lips</a>. The people who were told it was disrespectful and wrong to even use the word “robodebt”.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1677135541605908481"}"></div></p>
<h2>Change comes from the outside</h2>
<p>Australians carry as many ideas about their government as the politicians who run it. Robodebt stands as a warning against rose-tinted visions of the rule of law, or any idea our institutions are inherently self-correcting. </p>
<p>The politicians have taken this report into their world. We must always remember the spaces it actually comes from. How social security recipients found the power to make this all happen. Commissioner Holmes has named that as the path to real change.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-robodebts-use-of-income-averaging-lacked-basic-common-sense-201296">Why robodebt's use of 'income averaging' lacked basic common sense</a>
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</em>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209216/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Darren O'Donovan 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>Welfare advocates in this country can now forcefully critique any government program that trades on stigma or vulnerability and ignores real-life suffering.Darren O'Donovan, Senior Lecturer in Administrative Law, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2093182023-07-07T04:01:45Z2023-07-07T04:01:45ZRobodebt royal commissioner makes multiple referrals for prosecution, condemning scheme as ‘crude and cruel’<p>Robodebt Royal Commissioner Catherine Holmes has referred multiple individuals involved with the illegal scheme for civil and criminal prosecutions and other actions. </p>
<p>But the names remain secret. They are contained in a sealed section of Holmes’ report, released Friday, with referrals variously being made to the Public Service Commission, the new National Anti-Corruption Commission, the Australian Federal Police, and professional bodies. </p>
<p>In a swingeing indictment of the scheme, the commission says: “Robodebt was a crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal, and it made many people feel like criminals. In essence, people were traumatised on the off-chance they might owe money. It was a costly failure of public administration, in both human and economic terms.”</p>
<p>The commissioner has not made public the names of those in the secret section so as not to prejudice future actions. </p>
<p>Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told a news conference he did not have the sealed section, but the head of his department, Glyn Davis, did. </p>
<hr>
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<p>Robodebt, designed to raise maximum revenue, used income averaging to strike debts to recover money from welfare payments. It unlawfully raised $1.76 billion from hundreds of thousands of welfare recipients, but many of the calculated debts were wrong, and after the illegality of the scheme was exposed the former government had to announce it would repay the money. </p>
<p>Former Liberal ministers come in for trenchant criticism. </p>
<p>Scott Morrison, who as social services minister was an initiator of the scheme, “allowed Cabinet to be misled,” the report says. </p>
<p>“He took the proposal to cabinet without necessary information as to what it actually entailed and without the caveat that it required legislative and policy change,” it says.</p>
<p>“He failed to meet his ministerial responsibility to ensure that Cabinet was properly informed about what the proposal actually entailed and to ensure that it was lawful.” </p>
<p>Morrison said in a statement later: “I reject completely each of the findings which are critical of my involvement in authorising the scheme and are adverse to me. They are wrong, unsubstantiated and contradicted by clear documentary evidence presented to the Commission.”</p>
<p>In a news conference after the report’s release, Albanese said Morrison’s defence of the scheme was, in the wording of the report, based on a “falsehood”. </p>
<p>The report says of the former minister for government services, Stuart Robert, who argued he was obliged to defend the scheme despite his doubts about it: “It can be accepted that the principles of Cabinet solidarity required Mr Robert to publicly support Cabinet decisions, whether he agreed with them or not”. </p>
<p>“But Mr Robert was not expounding any legal position, and he was going well beyond supporting government policy. He was making statements of fact as to the accuracy of debts, citing statistics which he knew could not be right.</p>
<p>"Nothing compels ministers to knowingly make false statements, or statements which they have good reason to suspect are untrue, in the course of publicly supporting any decision or program,” the report says.</p>
<p>The Guardian has reported Robert saying: “I have NOT received a notice of inclusion in the ‘sealed section’ and I understand they have all gone out”.</p>
<p>The commissioner says of former human services minister Alan Tudge that his “use of information about social security recipients in the media to distract from and discourage commentary about the scheme’s problems represented an abuse of that power.</p>
<p>"It was all the more reprehensible in view of the power imbalance between the minister and the cohort of people upon whom it would reasonably be expected to have the most impact, many of whom were vulnerable and dependent on the department, and its minister, for their livelihood.”</p>
<p>In a Friday statement Tudge said: “I strongly reject the Commission’s comments of the way I used the media and that I had abused my power in doing so. At no stage did I seek to engage in a media strategy that would discourage legitimate criticism of the Scheme.” He said he had not received notification that he was one of those referred in the sealed section of the report. </p>
<p>The report is highly critical of the then-head of the human services department, Kathryn Campbell, finding she stayed silent about the misleading effect of the income averaging proposal, and the advice it needed legislative change, “knowing that [social services minister] Mr Morrison wanted to pursue the proposal and that the government could not achieve the savings which the [scheme] promised without income averaging”.</p>
<p>In her preface to the report, the commissioner says: “It is remarkable how little interest there seems to have been in ensuring the Scheme’s legality, how rushed its implementation was, how little thought was given to how it would affect welfare recipients and the lengths to which public servants were prepared to go to oblige ministers on a quest for savings. </p>
<p>"Truly dismaying was the revelation of dishonesty and collusion to prevent the Scheme’s lack of legal foundation coming to light. </p>
<p>"Equally disheartening was the ineffectiveness of what one might consider institutional checks and balances – the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Office, the Office of Legal Services Coordination, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal – in presenting any hindrance to the Scheme’s continuance.” </p>
<p>She says the sealed section “in part is intended as a means of holding individuals to account, in order to reinforce the importance of public service officers acting with integrity. </p>
<p>"But as to how effective any recommended change can be, I want to make two points. </p>
<p>"First, whether a public service can be developed with sufficient robustness to ensure that something of the like of the Robodebt scheme could not occur again will depend on the will of the government of the day, because culture is set from the top down. </p>
<p>"Second, politicians need to lead a change in social attitudes to people receiving welfare payments.</p>
<p>"The evidence before the Commission was that fraud in the welfare system was miniscule, but that is not the impression one would get from what ministers responsible for social security payments have said over the years. </p>
<p>"Anti-welfare rhetoric is easy populism, useful for campaign purposes. It is not recent, nor is it confined to one side of politics.”</p>
<p>“Largely, those attitudes are set by politicians, who need to abandon for good (in every sense) the narrative of taxpayer versus welfare recipient.”</p>
<p>The Minister for Government Services, Bill Shorten, who pursued the Robodebt issue in opposition, said the report showed “the previous government and senior public servants gaslighted the nation and its citizens for four and a half years. They betrayed the trust of the nation and its citizens for four and a half years with an unlawful scheme which the Federal Court has called the worst chapter of public administration.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209318/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>In a swingeing indictment of the scheme, the commission says: “Robodebt was a crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal, and it made many people feel like criminals.”Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2077482023-06-14T10:31:48Z2023-06-14T10:31:48ZLidia Thorpe alleges she was ‘sexually assaulted’ by Liberal senator David Van – a claim he brands ‘disgusting’<p>Crossbench senator Lidia Thorpe has accused Victorian Liberal senator David Van of sexually assaulting her – a claim he immediately branded disgusting and untrue. </p>
<p>Government sources on Wednesday night said Thorpe’s claim was serious and should be “referred appropriately”, offering support to her.</p>
<p>Thorpe’s allegation, under parliamentary privilege, came in a week when the opposition is targeting Finance Minister Katy Gallagher for allegedly misleading parliament in 2021 over her prior knowledge of the Brittany Higgins TV interview.</p>
<p>Van, speaking in the Senate on Wednesday afternoon, was criticising Labor for attacking Liberal women involved in the Higgins matter, saying parliamentarians should be setting standards, when Thorpe began interjecting, calling out “perpetrator”, and rejecting attempts from the chair to silence her. </p>
<p>“I can’t believe they put you up to make this speech,” she said. </p>
<p>“You can talk”, she said. “You know what you were doing around this time don’t you Van? You got away with a lot.”</p>
<p>She said she was “feeling really uncomfortable when a perpetrator is speaking about violence.”</p>
<p>Asked by Deputy Senate President Andrew McLachlan to withdraw, she said, “I can’t because this person harassed me, sexually assaulted me and the [then] prime minister had to remove him from his office. </p>
<p>"To have him talking about this today is an absolute disgrace on the whole party,” she said.</p>
<p>McLachlan said he would refer the matter to Senate president Sue Lines.</p>
<p>After Thorpe’s outburst, Van immediately retorted, “I utterly reject that disgusting statement outright. It is just a lie and I reject it.” </p>
<p>He added, “I withdraw the word lie. It is just not true.” (“Lie” is unparliamentary language.)</p>
<p>Van repeated his denial in a statement outside parliament, saying: “In the Chamber today Senator Thorpe made unfounded and completely untrue allegations against me that I immediately and unequivocally denied and continue to deny. These outrageous and reprehensible comments were made by Senator Thorpe using parliamentary privilege in the most malicious and despicable way. My lawyers have written to her already making my position clear in the strongest possible terms.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/14/liberal-senator-david-van-rejects-lidia-thorpe-accusation-in-parliament-he-sexually-assaulted-her">The Guardian reported a spokesman for former prime minister Scott Morrison saying</a>, “Mr Morrison has no recollection of Lidia Thorpe ever making such an allegation to him personally or of any involvement in Senator Van moving offices.”</p>
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<p><strong>UPDATE: Thorpe withdraws</strong></p>
<p>On Wednesday night, Senator Thorpe withdrew her comments, in line with a request from the Senate President, saying she wanted to comply with Senate rules. She promised to make a statement on Thursday. </p>
<p>She told the Senate: “Earlier today I made some comments in relation to another senator. In order to comply with parliamentary standing orders, I withdraw those remarks. For the information of the Senate, I will make a further statement on the matter tomorrow.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207748/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>Thorpe made the claim while Van was attacking Labor for politicising the Brittany Higgins allegation that she was raped in the office of then minister Linda Reynolds in 2019Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2047982023-05-07T03:22:27Z2023-05-07T03:22:27ZEasy Liberal wins likely in byelections in Robert’s and Morrison’s seats; support for rise in JobSeeker<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524760/original/file-20230507-28082-f4d1xs.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">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Saturday former Liberal minister <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-06/stuart-robert-to-retire-from-federal-politics/102312186">Stuart Robert announced</a> that he would soon retire from politics, setting up a byelection in his Queensland seat of Fadden.</p>
<p>There has been <a href="https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/speculation-scott-morrison-considering-retirement-from-federal-politics-this-year-as-he-vies-for-overseas-consulting-job/news-story/3a819ffa12a08c9ba45f8a74fc00bc08">recent speculation</a> that former Liberal PM Scott Morrison will also soon retire, which would mean a byelection in his New South Wales seat of Cook.</p>
<p>At the 2022 federal election, Robert won <a href="https://results.aec.gov.au/27966/Website/HouseDivisionPage-27966-159.htm">Fadden</a> by a 60.6-39.4 margin over Labor, while Morrison won <a href="https://results.aec.gov.au/27966/Website/HouseDivisionPage-27966-112.htm">Cook</a> by a 62.4-37.6 margin over Labor.</p>
<p>At the April 1 federal <a href="https://results.aec.gov.au/28791/Website/HouseDivisionPage-28791-197.htm">Aston byelection</a>, Labor had a 6.4% swing in its favour to overturn a 52.8-47.2 Liberal margin at the 2022 election. Even if Labor achieved such a swing in its favour in Fadden and Cook, these seats would still be comfortable holds for the Liberals.</p>
<p>As they are very unlikely to win either Fadden or Cook at byelections, and could be embarrassed if there were a swing to the Liberals in either seat, I do not expect Labor to contest either byelection.</p>
<h2>Pre-budget Essential poll: 53-41 to Labor including undecided</h2>
<p>In last week’s pre-budget federal <a href="https://essentialreport.com.au/reports/federal-political-insights">Essential poll</a>, conducted in the days before May 2 from a sample of 1,130, Labor led by 53-41, an increase from 52-43 four weeks ago. Primary votes were 33% Labor (down one), 32% Coalition (up one), 14% Greens (steady), 5% One Nation (down one), 2% UAP (down one), 8% for all Others (down one) and 5% undecided (up one).</p>
<p>Despite the Coalition’s primary vote gain, Labor increased their two party lead. That suggests respondent preference flows to Labor were stronger than previously.</p>
<p>By 48-29, respondents supported raising the JobSeeker rate without a cost of living component in the question (this applied to half the sample). With the cost of living component, support was 50-29. An additional question from the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/voters-favour-tax-breaks-childcare-subsidies-for-working-women-over-jobseeker-raise-20230419-p5d1li.html">April Resolve poll</a> had support for increasing JobSeeker at 43-31.</p>
<p>Respondents were asked to rate Anthony <a href="https://essentialreport.com.au/reports/02-may-2023">Albanese and Peter Dutton</a> from 0 to 10, then ratings of 0-3 were counted as negative, 4-6 as neutral and 7-10 as positive. Albanese improved to a 41-24 positive rating from 40-27 in March, while Dutton dropped to 35-23 negative from 33-26.</p>
<p>Asked to name the treasurer, 33% correctly named Jim Chalmers. By 41-27, voters approved of his job performance. By 45-42, voters thought the budget could make a difference to the cost of living.</p>
<p>For health, education and social security, far more people thought government spending was too low rather than too high. For renewable energy projects and the NDIS, the difference between too low and too high was much reduced. For defence, more people thought spending too high than too low.</p>
<p>On taxes, far more thought personal taxes too high rather than too low, but too low and too high were equal for taxes on oil and gas producers and too low was far ahead for taxes on international corporations.</p>
<p>By 52-22, voters supported allowing New Zealanders who have lived in Australia for at least four years to become Australian citizens.</p>
<h2>Morgan poll: 53.5-46.5 to Labor</h2>
<p>In last week’s weekly <a href="https://www.roymorgan.com/">federal Morgan poll</a>, conducted April 24-30, Labor led by 53.5-46.5, a three-point gain for the Coalition since the previous week. Primary votes were 36% Labor, 35.5% Coalition, 13% Greens and 15.5% for all Others. I believe this is Labor’s worst result in a Morgan poll since <a href="https://theconversation.com/labor-retains-big-lead-in-newspoll-as-albaneses-ratings-jump-victorian-election-update-195440">late November 2022</a>.</p>
<h2>UK local elections were disappointing for Labour</h2>
<p>I covered Thursday’s United Kingdom local government elections for <a href="https://www.pollbludger.net/2023/05/04/uk-local-elections-live/">The Poll Bludger</a>. The Conservatives lost over 1,000 councillors, but Labour only had a nine-point margin over the Conservatives on the BBC’s Projected National Share. </p>
<p>While that’s Labour’s best performance since they were last in government nationally in 2010, it was much worse than current national polls that give Labour about a 17-point lead.</p>
<p>A United States debt default could occur as early as June 1 if no action is taken by Congress to lift the debt limit. The May 14 Turkish election and May 21 Greek election were also covered.</p>
<h2>Incumbents easily re-elected at Tasmanian upper house elections</h2>
<p>Every May two or three of Tasmania’s 15 upper house seats are up for election for six-year terms. On Saturday there were elections in Rumney, Murchison and Launceston. Independents in the latter two held with over 70% of the primary vote, while Labor’s Sarah Lovell won 50.5% of the primary in <a href="https://www.tec.tas.gov.au/legislative-council/elections-2023/results/rumney/index.html">Rumney</a>, with 26.5% for the Liberals and 16.6% for a conservative independent.</p>
<p>These results mean the status quo in the upper house is retained. <a href="https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2023/04/legislative-council-voting-patterns.html">Analyst Kevin Bonham</a> said there are four Labor out of 15, four Liberals, three left-wing independents, one centrist independent and three conservative independents. The Liberals hold a majority in the lower house.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204798/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrian Beaumont 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>Robert’s seat of Fadden in Queensland, and Morrison’s seat of Cook in New South Wales, would both likely be safely held by the Liberals.Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2051192023-05-05T07:02:51Z2023-05-05T07:02:51ZVictorian Liberals’ bitter infighting seems more and more likely to end up in court. Can Dutton stop it?<p>The crisis consuming the Victorian branch of the Liberal Party sounds a warning to centre-right parties that pursuing the culture wars now gripping the United States and other countries brings dangerous volatility. And little public support.</p>
<p>After it was humiliated at the November 2022 election by a long-term Labor government beset with its own failings and character questions, the state division in the nation’s second-most populous state is regarded as a basket case.</p>
<p>The future of its moderate parliamentary leader, John Pesutto, who took over from the hapless Matthew Guy, now hangs in the balance.</p>
<p>A cabal of religious and hardline social conservatives in Pesutto’s party room is defying his attempts to shift the party closer to mainstream voter sentiment on key social policy debates. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/victorian-liberals-embarrassed-by-extremists-within-how-does-this-keep-happening-194984">Victorian Liberals embarrassed by extremists within: how does this keep happening?</a>
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<p>With the stoush dominating the headlines – even beyond Victoria – a clearly frustrated federal leader Peter Dutton has pointedly <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/i-want-this-mess-sorted-out-dutton-refuses-to-rule-out-intervening-in-victorian-liberal-party-20230505-p5d5tq.html">refused to rule out federal intervention</a> to clean up the mess, which he says is harming the Liberal “brand” and letting the Andrews Labor government off lightly. </p>
<p>It is far from clear that a federal intervention is even practical. But Dutton’s comments represent a significant escalation in a crisis that seems increasingly likely to end up in the courts.</p>
<p>Pesutto’s removal is also now more likely given that several Liberals in his depleted caucus have backed rebel MP Moira Deeming.</p>
<p>Deeming is challenging her suspension from the party following her attendance at an anti-trans “Let Women Speak” rally in front of Parliament House. The event attracted extremists, including neo-Nazis.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-conservatism-succumbs-to-the-same-radical-tendency-as-like-minded-parties-abroad-188816">Australian conservatism succumbs to the same radical tendency as like-minded parties abroad</a>
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<p>The outspoken MP has reportedly instructed lawyers to challenge a party-room ruling that she would not be expelled from the party – as Pesutto initially proposed – but would instead serve a nine-month suspension, during which she would sit on the crossbench.</p>
<p>Deeming says the compromise decision included Pesutto explicitly stating publicly that she was in no way a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/04/moira-deeming-mp-issues-ultimatum-deadline-victoria-liberal-leader-john-pesutto-to-declare-shes-not-a-nazi-sympathiser">Nazi sympathiser</a>, which she says he has not done.</p>
<p>Deeming’s supporters, who met at a <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/liberal-mps-are-tiring-of-deeming-and-her-merry-band-of-rebels-20230504-p5d5o1.html">country hotel last weekend</a> and then used social media to advertise the fact, say she has been treated abysmally.</p>
<p>Amid the chaos, minutes of the <a href="https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/shooting-ourselves-in-the-head-minutes-from-moira-deeming-expulsion-meeting-revealed-in-full/news-story/fc603b25cee969c43651c879df88fe62">March 27 party-room meeting</a> show tempers were high. In the meeting, Pesutto was warned by senior figures against taking steps towards Deeming’s expulsion. </p>
<p>Deeming claims she has been effectively tagged with Nazi sympathies via a dossier circulated at the meeting. This is said to have <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/terrorists-victorian-liberals-slam-mps-leaking-against-john-pesutto-20230504-p5d5iu.html">linked</a> the British social agitator Kellie-Jay Keen, who goes also by the name of Posie Parker, with fanatical authoritarians.</p>
<p>Pesutto denies anything in the dossier established Deeming herself as “a Nazi or having Nazi sympathies”.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the unseemly public struggle for the soul of the Victorian Liberal Party has again drawn attention to the type of candidates chosen by local rank-and-file branch members. There are claims of “entryism” – an insidious form of political party <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-01/vic-liberal-party-branch-stacking-claims-city-builders-church/101388642?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web">infiltration</a> whereby hardline forces, often associated with rightwing Pentecostal faith communities, join local party branches en masse to install like-minded candidates in winnable Liberal seats.</p>
<p>Liberal insiders say Dutton’s threat of federal intervention may be hard to deliver. Unlike the Australian Labor Party – which has a strong national structure – the Liberal Party is set up on federated lines, with each state division jealously guarding its own autonomy.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/duttons-high-wire-act-holding-the-coalition-together-while-presenting-as-an-alternative-government-189964">Dutton's high-wire act: holding the Coalition together while presenting as an alternative government</a>
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<p>However, federal interventions have occurred in the past. One example was last year when, just before the federal election, a special committee featuring then prime minister Scott Morrison, then NSW premier Dominic Perrottet, and former party president Chris McDiven was empowered to crash through factional roadblocks to <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/record-number-of-nsw-liberal-members-quit-amid-war-over-preselections-20220410-p5achd.html">endorse candidates</a> in several Liberal-held seats.</p>
<p>Sources say gaining support for such extraordinary powers is not straightforward. It would need to achieve a super-majority of the party’s federal executive – a <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/can-dutton-intervene-to-sort-out-the-state-liberal-mess-20230505-p5d5uq.html">three-quarters majority</a> in favour of federal intervention in a state’s affairs. It may also require the backing of the Victorian state president.</p>
<p>Party insiders say such actions are inimical to Liberal Party philosophy and would only be granted in extreme circumstances, based on the narrowest of parameters and a short time frame.</p>
<p>The intervention itself would also be likely to end up in court, with opponents challenging its legality and the force of its decisions.</p>
<p>In any event, courts have shown reluctance to adjudicate on internal political party disputes, generally regarding them as matters for the parties and individuals involved.</p>
<p>The Victorian Liberals’ problems are merely the latest example of a tendency in conservative politics to prosecute niche or peripheral social policy campaigns against advances in Indigenous rights, gender fluidity and identity, feminism, sexuality, and birth control.</p>
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<p>Given Dutton’s own antagonism for what his party dismissively describes as “wokeism” and “corporate activism” on the Voice and other questions, moderates may view his threat of federal intervention as an attempt to press Pesutto and other moderates into backing down by readmitting Deeming to the party room.</p>
<p>But after his own party’s performance in the federal Aston byelection, in which the Liberals surrendered a seat to a Labor government for the first time in more than 100 years, Dutton’s cache in the state is questionable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205119/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Kenny 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>Extremist candidates and threats of federal intervention ensure the Victorian Liberal Party remains no closer to resolving its woes.Mark Kenny, Professor, Australian Studies Institute, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2016402023-03-12T09:25:29Z2023-03-12T09:25:29ZView from The Hill: Anthony Albanese finds Scott Morrison’s AUKUS clothes a good fit<p>As Anthony Albanese readies for the imminent unveiling of details of the nuclear-powered submarine acquisition program under AUKUS, one important question looms. </p>
<p>Can the prime minister juggle this closer Australian-American military embrace with a continuation of the improving Australian-Chinese relationship?</p>
<p>Albanese has been on the international stage for the best part of a year now, and he has been sure-footed. </p>
<p>The most notable development in that time has been China taking Australia out of the freezer, following the low of the Scott Morrison years. </p>
<p>The Australian government has been careful not to over-hype the progress, talking about “stabilising” the relationship, rather than using stronger language. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the government is ambitious in terms of China. One hope is for an invitation for Albanese to visit Beijing as early as this year. </p>
<p>Will the hoopla in San Diego, where Albanese will be alongside US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, slow things down? </p>
<p>Chinese President Xi Jinping’s government is vocally critical of AUKUS, which the US, UK and Australia conceived, at its core, as part of a long-term policy of containment of China. </p>
<p>On the other hand, China sees the continuation of its recent, more outward-looking diplomacy, which in part has driven the improved relationship with Australia, to be in its national interest. And China will also note that the major delivery points in the submarine program (reportedly involving both US and British boats) are well into the future. </p>
<p>The Australian government will hope China lets this particular AUKUS moment pass with a few sharp words but without fallout for the bilateral progress.</p>
<p>If and when Albanese sets foot in Beijing in the relatively near term, it will probably be the greatest diplomatic challenge he’s faced up to that point. </p>
<p>Striking the right note when your host is the country you are overtly boosting your military capability against is an exacting test. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-long-awaited-aukus-submarine-announcement-is-imminent-what-should-we-expect-200994">The long-awaited AUKUS submarine announcement is imminent. What should we expect?</a>
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<p>On another front, when you think of Labor history, it’s been remarkable how easily Albanese has been able to don Morrison’s AUKUS clothes. </p>
<p>The early fitting for these garments came when Morrison, with Biden and then-British PM Boris Johnson, announced the historic security agreement, which gives Australia access to key technology, in September 2021. </p>
<p>It had been a tightly-held secret, so there was little time for Albanese to prepare. But given his small target strategy, he knew there had to be a near-instant response and that it must be positive. </p>
<p>Labor signed up. There was no sign of revolt from the left in caucus, no agonised party debate. </p>
<p>Compare, for example, when then-Prime Minister Bob Hawke had to retreat under caucus pressure after agreeing American planes could use Australian facilities as part of monitoring MX missile tests in the Pacific. </p>
<p>Labor has strongly supported the US alliance over the decades. But within, Labor there have often been arguments over particulars. In 1963, during the Cold War, the stance Labor should adopt on the planned North West Cape Naval Communication Station caused a massive internal upheaval. </p>
<p>At that time, Labor’s extra-parliamentary organisation was a powerful and fierce beast, and then-opposition leader Arthur Calwell and his deputy Gough Whitlam had to wait outside a Canberra hotel while the party’s federal conference debated the issue (it gave approval in a knife-edge vote). </p>
<p>The power of the extra-parliamentary party has long been quashed. In the parliamentary caucus, the left (in which Albanese was once an outspoken member) has become the tamest of creatures. The factions these days are primarily groups for dividing up spoils rather than hotbeds for policy argument. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-australias-military-ties-with-the-us-deepen-the-top-end-becomes-even-more-vital-to-our-security-199783">As Australia's military ties with the US deepen, the Top End becomes even more vital to our security</a>
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<p>These days, the Greens are the party of choice for many hard-line left wingers.</p>
<p>On AUKUS, we’re not seeing a crack of light between Albanese and Peter Dutton, with the opposition leader last week affirming, ahead of the announcement, support for all the decisions to be taken under the pact. </p>
<p>Although its strategic implications and reach are enormous and the government will stress the jobs and other economic benefits involved, the submarine announcement won’t seem to have great immediate relevance for many voters. </p>
<p>But when we think about the services we want from government, there’s another story. </p>
<p>In the October budget, defence funding for 2022-23 was 1.96% of GDP. Albanese has flagged that it will rise in the May budget. Over the coming years, given a threatening strategic outlook and the huge cost of the submarines and other purchases, it is expected to increase substantially. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-adam-bandt-is-wedged-by-greens-overreach-on-emissions-legislation-200083">Grattan on Friday: Adam Bandt is wedged by Greens' overreach on emissions legislation</a>
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<p>While the imposts will be tilted to future years (and future governments), the trajectory will nevertheless be clear. </p>
<p>This comes as other pressures on the budget – from the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the health system, interest on debt – are great. And that’s besides the pressure to boost the amount those on unemployment benefits receive, and other welfare demands. </p>
<p>The implications for the May budget are just the start. By the time it faces the people again, by May 2025, Labor will need to have a lot more to say about how it is going to raise enough money to pay for the calls on the budget – calls from programs it wants to fund and from others, like the submarines, that it knows it must. </p>
<p>In 2025, the Albanese government won’t be able to be a small target.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201640/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 Australian government has been careful not to over-hype the progress, talking about “stabilising” the relationship, rather than using stronger languageMichelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2011652023-03-10T05:43:33Z2023-03-10T05:43:33Z‘Amateurish, rushed and disastrous’: royal commission exposes robodebt as ethically indefensible policy targeting vulnerable people<p>The robodebt royal commission hearings came to an end on Friday. Over the past four months, they have delivered a telling portrait of unaccountable government power.</p>
<p>As they look back on a mass of limited recollections, missing paper and inaction, what are key things Australians should take away?</p>
<h2>‘I’m appalled’</h2>
<p>The first phase of the inquiry was marked by bombshell revelations. Two iron curtains that protect government – legal professional privilege and cabinet confidentiality – were pulled back.</p>
<p>In the opening week, we learned:</p>
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<li><p>In 2014, Department of Social Services’ <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/31/legal-doubts-over-robodebt-raised-with-government-department-in-2014-inquiry-hears">legal advice</a> on robodebt was a flat “no”. New legislation was needed to raise debts by averaging annual income. Robodebt went ahead without it.</p></li>
<li><p>In 2017, after enormous public outcry, external legal advice was not sought. Instead, a government lawyer reported feeling “pressure” to produce heavily qualified <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/im-appalled-robodet-inquiry-commissioners-shock-at-departments-admission/4gxm8kigw">legal advice</a>. This unpersuasive advice was then used to justify the scheme.</p></li>
<li><p>In 2018, the Department of Social Services, <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/bad-government-on-display-for-all-to-see-in-robo-debt-debacle-20230205-p5chy1">received advice dubbed</a> “catastrophic” for the scheme. It stayed in draft, something lawyers admitted was a common practice. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Confronted by this, Commissioner Catherine Holmes had only <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/nov/05/a-shameful-chapter-how-australias-robodebt-saga-was-allowed-to-unfold">two words</a>: “I’m appalled”.</p>
<p>Without the commission, the standard rules on transparency would have applied. Australians would never have known any of it.</p>
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<h2>Ethically indefensible</h2>
<p>Robodebt is about so much more than just the absence of law. After years of semantics and political rhetoric, the hearings confirmed robodebt as baseless, ethically indefensible policy. </p>
<p>Holmes <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/turnbull-never-considered-robo-debt-legality-20230306-p5cpp9">rebuked</a> the program as “amateurish, rushed and disastrous”.</p>
<p>The core concept at the heart of robodebt was the tactical imposition of administrative burden on vulnerable people. Instead of the previous system, where evidence would be gathered direct from employers, the onus of proof was reversed. </p>
<p>The hearings revealed the department’s own budget <a href="https://robodebt.royalcommission.gov.au/system/files/2023-03/transcript-hearing-day-41-3-march.pdf">assumed most people would give up</a>. Hundreds of thousands would effectively cop an averaged and inaccurate debt. </p>
<p>Robodebt should never again be framed as a technological glitch or a legal oversight. It was the active and direct exploitation of people’s vulnerability. The department’s own research into the letters sent confirmed they <a href="https://robodebt.royalcommission.gov.au/system/files/2023-03/transcript-hearing-day-41-3-march.pdf">generated terror and confusion</a>. We learnt it even held modelling that debts raised under the programme were inflated.</p>
<p>We have built a dense, highly conditional welfare system, which concentrates enormous, life-changing powers in the hands of government decision-makers. The hearings delivered a portrait of a system warped by imbalances of power and a lack of access to justice. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/robodebt-was-a-fiasco-with-a-cost-we-have-yet-to-fully-appreciate-150169">Robodebt was a fiasco with a cost we have yet to fully appreciate</a>
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<h2>Welfare cop</h2>
<p>So what of the politicians? Their appearances had one clear theme: they positioned themselves as the victims of the Australian Public Service.</p>
<p>Scott Morrison indicated he was entitled to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-14/scott-morrison-fronts-robodebt-inquiry/101771092">rely on a checklist</a> that read “no legislation needed”. Christian Porter relied on the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/02/christian-porter-tells-inquiry-someone-in-department-assured-him-robodebt-was-legal-but-i-cant-recall-who">verbal assurance</a> of a public servant that the system was above board.</p>
<p>For hours, we cycled through the same phrases: “I did not know”. “I was not told”. “I was entitled to rely on public servants”.</p>
<p>In our Westminster system, a minister is responsible for the actions of their department. The hearings have revealed that to be abstract fiction rather than functional reality. While a storm of suffering and advocacy raged, politicians and their offices didn’t ask even the simplest questions about the core issue.</p>
<p>What they focused on was seeking political benefit – right from the earliest press releases, trumpeting the arrival <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/dec/17/how-morrison-launched-australias-strong-welfare-cop-and-the-pain-robodebt-left-in-its-wake">of a</a> “strong welfare cop on the beat”. In the pursuit of this political brand, we saw egregious actions ranging from deliberately evading questions to approving the <a href="https://indaily.com.au/news/2023/01/31/shut-this-story-down-minister-distributed-private-centrelink-data-after-negative-robodebt-media/">release of the personal information</a> to “correct the record”.</p>
<p>Moving past individuals, our focus needs to be on tackling the broader ecosystem that produced “welfare cop”. The phrase speaks powerfully to how we have fallen into a social security system driven by shortcut cultural images, rather than on supporting work, families and care.</p>
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<h2>Taken advantage of</h2>
<p>Most people will not have had time to follow the commission. Media coverage, predictably, surged for “politician days”. They missed the most powerful and important contributions. </p>
<p>Victims of the scheme spoke up for what should matter, what a social security system needs to protect and deliver. Sandra Bevan, a single mother of four boys, who works in disability support, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-16/qld-robodebt-scheme-government-royal-commission-victim/101780890">told us</a> about the experience of correctly reporting income and not being listened to.</p>
<p>It was so traumatic that she swore she would “never access Centrelink benefits ever again”. Bevan is a powerful reminder of where courage, strength and leadership are found in our society.</p>
<p>In the final block, another victim, Matthew Thompson, summed up <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-01/qld-robodebt-scheme-royal-commission-matthew-thompson/102039536">what he felt drove robodebt</a>:</p>
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<p>It seems to me that the powerful people are always able to take advantage of vulnerable people, as the gap between rich and poorer increases still. And no matter how many royal commissions we have, that always seems to be the case. And I hope this royal commission can change that.</p>
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<p>Holmes could only give <a href="https://twitter.com/DarrenODonovan/status/1630733001624788995">a simple human response</a>. Somehow, all at once, it spoke to her commitment, the limits on her role, the history of royal commissions and the reality of the system as it currently is:</p>
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<p>I’m afraid I can’t promise you that. But we’ll do what we can.</p>
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<p>In a room in Brisbane, we have learnt of the scale of problems in front of us. Only a broader societal change, not just a royal commission, will ever deliver the change we need.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201165/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Darren O'Donovan 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>Robodebt should never again be framed as a technological glitch or a legal oversight. It was the active and direct exploitation of people’s vulnerability.Darren O'Donovan, Senior Lecturer in Administrative Law, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2014632023-03-09T09:29:49Z2023-03-09T09:29:49ZGrattan on Friday: Could Josh Frydenberg still have a path to the Liberal leadership?<p>One of those closely watching the extraordinary legal face-off between independent Monique Ryan and her former high-profile staffer, Sally Rugg, will be Josh Frydenberg, who lost Kooyong to the “teal” at last year’s election. </p>
<p>The outcome of the case, going to whether Rugg was forced to work unreasonable hours, could have significant ramifications for parliamentary staffs’ conditions. </p>
<p>But Frydenberg will be focused on whether the fight takes paint off Ryan. </p>
<p>Now in the private sector, Frydenberg hasn’t declared whether he will run again for Kooyong, but he hasn’t lost his political ambition. </p>
<p>He didn’t put his hand up for the Aston byelection, but then insiders didn’t expect him to. He’s concentrated on Kooyong – anyway the Liberals needed a woman in Aston. </p>
<p>If Frydenberg could regain his seat and Peter Dutton lost the 2025 election, one scenario for the Liberals would be for Frydenberg to take over the leadership and position the party to be competitive for the 2028 poll. </p>
<p>There are a lot of “ifs” involved, not least the 2025 result in Kooyong. Its boundaries will be affected by a redistribution. Ryan has another two years to dig in, and independents can be hard to dislodge. </p>
<p>Still, the teals were elected in very special circumstances, helped by the acute unpopularity of Scott Morrison, and some could be vulnerable next time. Ryan might be one of those. </p>
<p>Frydenberg would benefit if the economy were central at the election. But he’d need to make a decision on contesting relatively early, and run a savvier campaign than last time, when he unwisely derided his opponent as a “fake” independent. </p>
<p>There are those who cast doubt on how well Frydenberg would do as leader. Critics argue it’s hard to know what he stands for and that he wants to be popular with everyone. On the other hand, as a former treasurer and former energy minister, he has a wealth of front-line experience. </p>
<p>Frydenberg started out with the label of a conservative, but became more centrist. In 2018 he won the Liberal deputyship overwhelmingly. He carries baggage from the Morrison years, including what some saw as excessive loyalty to the then PM (he was also loyal to PMs Abbott and Turnbull). </p>
<p>Whatever his limitations, however, a Liberal party defeated in 2025 wouldn’t be replete with leadership talent.</p>
<p>Speculation about the significance of a Frydenberg return carries with it the assumption Dutton is doomed to failure. Caveats are required. I recalled being sceptical when Tony Abbott was elected leader. Then he nearly won his first election, and cleaned up at his second. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/word-from-the-hill-another-rate-rise-support-for-super-tax-hike-pms-india-trip-rugg-v-ryan-201300">Word from The Hill: Another rate rise; support for super tax hike; PM's India trip; Rugg V Ryan</a>
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<p>That said, it would be difficult at present to find anyone who’d put any money on Dutton. </p>
<p>Meanwhile he and his party are struggling for a strategy. </p>
<p>Dutton is, on a range of issues, adopting the “just say no” approach. The Liberals are opposing the legislation for implementing the government’s emissions reduction target (the safeguard bill), and bills for the national reconstruction fund (a kick-start for manufacturing), and a fund to generate a money stream to help provide affordable housing. </p>
<p>The “say no” strategy means Labor can counter Liberal attacks on the government over, for example, energy prices, by pointing out the Coalition voted against legislation last year to curb price rises. </p>
<p>Dutton jumped on the government’s superannuation tax rise, but the subsequent polling did not meet Liberal hopes they were on a winner. Newspoll showed strong support (64%) for the change, including 54% of Coalition voters. </p>
<p>While the Coalition is pursuing negative tactics (as Abbott did in opposition), this doesn’t extend to everything. There is important bipartisanship, for instance, on AUKUS. With the deal on the nuclear-powered submarines to be unveiled next week, Dutton on Thursday reaffirmed the opposition “will support the decisions of the government under AUKUS”. </p>
<p>However, one test coming up will be on the level of defence spending in the budget. Will the opposition say it should be higher than whatever the government settles on? </p>
<p>On the Voice to Parliament, Dutton has yet to declare a formal position. But he’s had nothing positive to say about it, and his party room would have a majority against. If the Liberals oppose it, that’s likely to go down poorly with younger voters. </p>
<p>Among the Liberals’ multiple problems is a weak team, which also lacks balance. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-trimming-the-tail-of-the-superannuation-tax-tiger-is-no-easy-task-200996">Grattan on Friday: Trimming the tail of the superannuation tax tiger is no easy task</a>
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<p>Senior people such as Liberal deputy Sussan Ley and shadow treasurer Angus Taylor are poor performers. </p>
<p>The moderates were decimated at the election, and those left are failing to act as a cohesive influence. </p>
<p>Backbencher Bridget Archer speaks out on issues, but comes across as reflecting and protecting her seat rather than having wider clout within the party. </p>
<p>The Liberals’ Senate leader, Simon Birmingham, is a heavyweight moderate who is not the driving force he should be. Former foreign minister Marise Payne, also a moderate, is neither seen nor heard publicly.</p>
<p>Valuable parliamentary seats are taken up by people with extreme positions, such as senators Gerard Rennick from Queensland and Alex Antic from South Australia. </p>
<p>Scott Morrison is in another category, but should make way for new blood.</p>
<p>The challenge of recruiting good potential candidates and getting them selected is only likely to get worse at a time when a political career has become unattractive to many, and the party erects road blocks to the best and brightest. </p>
<p>At the grass roots, it is vulnerable to infiltration by fundamentalist religious groups. Organisationally, it’s riven by factionalism and incompetent, with the Victorian, NSW and Western Australian divisions dysfunctional. Dutton needs to tackle this, but it’s a near-impossible task.</p>
<p>Among Dutton’s problem is Dutton himself. </p>
<p>As leader, the right-winger has shown himself pragmatic and managed to hold the party together. He is an asset in his home state of Queensland, where Labor is weak. But it is hard to see him making inroads in the south, especially in the progressive state of Victoria. Observers are looking to Aston to give an early reading.</p>
<p>Labor holds government by a very narrow margin, but as things stand now, Dutton’s only route to victory in 2025 would require the Albanese government – which faces some tough economic problems – to fail lamentably in the next two years. </p>
<p>Not impossible. Labor went into minority government in 2010 after a good win in 2007. Malcolm Turnbull turned Abbott’s 2013 landslide into a close result in 2016. </p>
<p>But if Albanese doesn’t squander power, the Liberals would be pitching for a two-stage comeback at best. And Frydenberg just might be back in the play.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201463/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>Frydenberg, now in the private sector, hasn’t declared whether he will run again for Kooyong, but he hasn’t lost his political ambitionMichelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2005512023-02-23T10:06:16Z2023-02-23T10:06:16ZGrattan on Friday: Defining superannuation’s ‘objective’ should leave room for debate about its use for housing<p>The Albanese government is prodding the superannuation bear, which can be a dangerous beast when stirred. </p>
<p>It is throwing out multiple questions. What should we allow super to be used for? Should the highly generous tax breaks for superannuation be curbed? How can more of the enormous $3.3 trillion super pool be channelled into areas of national priority? </p>
<p>In policy terms, these are important debates. Politically, though, anything to do with superannuation is fraught, especially for a government already grappling with difficult economic issues. </p>
<p>And when there is a byelection looming. The fact Labor is happy to have this aired before the April 1 vote in Aston suggests it anticipates the seat will stay Liberal and isn’t too worried about it. Certainly the opposition is grabbing the opportunity offered to raise familiar scares.</p>
<p>The government’s plan to legislate the “objective” of superannuation has implications for the Coalition. </p>
<p>At the end of the last Labor government, there was talk of trying to “Abbott-proof” policy. Defining superannuation’s purpose could be seen as an attempt to “Dutton-proof” the system.</p>
<p>In the 2022 election, Scott Morrison promised to allow first home buyers to access a large slice of their superannuation for a deposit. Dutton has recommitted the Coalition to the policy. </p>
<p>The discussion paper Treasurer Jim Chalmers released this week proposes a definition that says: “The objective of superannuation is to preserve savings to deliver income for a dignified retirement, alongside government support, in an equitable and sustainable way.” </p>
<p>Explaining the various terms in the objective, the paper notes that to “preserve savings restricts access to superannuation savings for a person’s retirement only”. </p>
<p>The paper seeks feedback on the wording, and the government will make its decision. But, on the face of it, if this wording were legislated, a future Coalition government that wanted super to be used for housing would have to alter the definition. </p>
<p>When Anthony Albanese was asked on Wednesday whether a definition of superannuation’s purpose would rule out the policy the Liberals had offered, he declined to pre-empt the process. </p>
<p>During the pandemic, the Morrison government allowed people to access $20,000 of their superannuation. This was a bad judgement. A massive $36 billion was taken out. Many, especially younger people, have been left worse off for the future as a result. </p>
<p>As a general principle, super should be preserved for retirement (apart from the limited hardship provisions now available). But the case of housing is arguable. </p>
<p>Home ownership can be seen, as much as super, as a pillar for a “dignified retirement”. Older people with their own homes are better placed than others. Many older women, in particular, with smaller nest eggs and paying rent, increasingly find themselves in dire straits. </p>
<p>So there is a case for the proposed objective to be flexible enough to encompass a policy allowing a limited dip into super for a first home. This would be consistent with Labor saying that, for its part, it does not believe super should be used for this purpose. </p>
<p>Meanwhile the government is examining the tax breaks available for superannuation. </p>
<p>It is constrained by what was said before the election. “Australians shouldn’t expect major changes to superannuation,” Chalmers declared. That at least left some room to manoeuvre (while opening an argument about what is “major”). Albanese was less nuanced, insisting Labor had “no intention of making any super changes”. </p>
<p>While the government says no decisions have been made, it indicates “tweaks” are in prospect, aimed at those with big balances.</p>
<p>Chalmers told Melbourne radio: “The average is 150 grand in super. Less than one per cent of people have got more than three million bucks. The average for them is about 5.8 million bucks. </p>
<p>"I think the country should have a conversation about whether concessional tax treatment on balances that big is the best use of the taxpayer money.”</p>
<p>The Retirement Income Review, reporting in 2020, noted that while tax concessions were given to support savings for retirement, “most retirees leave the bulk of the wealth they had at retirement as a bequest”. </p>
<p>The Grattan Institute’s superannuation expert, Brendan Coates, puts it bluntly: “Superannuation has become a taxpayer-funded inheritance scheme”. By 2060, Treasury estimates one-third of all withdrawals from superannuation will be paid out as bequests.</p>
<p>The concessions, with their ballooning cost to revenue, clearly should be trimmed, on the grounds of budget cost and equity. </p>
<p>Consider this. The Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Bill Shorten, is at present seeking to find savings in the NDIS to make it more sustainable in the long term. If that’s reasonable for the NDIS, it is more than reasonable for super tax breaks. </p>
<p>The other area Chalmers wants to pursue is having the government collaborate with super funds to facilitate investment in priority areas such as affordable housing. </p>
<p>This raises knotty issues, including the imperative that super fund members’ money should be invested in their best interests. The best investments for their financial interests and the best investments for the national interest may not align. </p>
<p>The desirability and viability of such collaboration – Chalmers emphasises participation would be entirely up to funds – would depend on particular circumstances. The initiative would require maximum caution by funds and government. The risks are obvious.</p>
<p>The renewed debate around superannuation is manna for the opposition. For his part, Chalmers is frustrated observers are overlooking the Turnbull government’s changes to super concessions. Condemning opposition “hypocritical hyperventilating”, he said on Thursday, “I call on them to explain the difference between what they did in office and what they are railing against now”.</p>
<p>Fair point. But there is another point too. The Liberals would remember the huge electoral blowback they ran into with their superannuation changes. </p>
<p>One difference between then and now, however, is that the Turnbull government’s changes hit the Liberals’ own support base. </p>
<p>Labor reform directed at curbing tax breaks would not target its own base. Coates says the government would “lose some political paint” in going after concessions, but less than would be lost by other measures to fix the budget. </p>
<p>Like the climate wars and the culture wars, the “super wars” seem one of those certainties of federal politics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200551/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>In policy terms, these are important debates. Politically, though, anything to do with superannuation is fraught, especially for a government already grappling with difficult economic issuesMichelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1970152022-12-22T06:39:20Z2022-12-22T06:39:20ZGrattan on Friday: Liberal post-mortem urges party to address flight of female vote – but not by quotas<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502524/original/file-20221222-26-tcvxw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=86%2C61%2C8157%2C5425&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Liberal Party’s review of its election rout has highlighted the party’s broad and deep problem with the female vote, but shied away from recommending quotas to elect more women. </p>
<p>Like Labor’s recent post-mortem, the Liberal analysis also points to the key importance of voters’ negative perceptions of Scott Morrison in his government’s election loss. </p>
<p>Prepared by former party director Brian Loughnane and senator Jane Hume, the Liberal report, released today, presents a stark picture of extensive political and organisational failure. </p>
<p>“Put simply, by the time of the election the Coalition had lost control of its brand,” the report says. “We were not in control of the politics, and we were unable to frame the electoral contest.” </p>
<p>Morrison’s “standing with voters deteriorated significantly through 2021 to become a significant negative. The Prime Minister and the Party were seen as ‘out of touch’. </p>
<p>"The leadership choice between Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese became the most influential driver of voting intention during the campaign period.”</p>
<p>In the year before the election, “there was a loss of political capital and an accumulation of negative issues” for the government. </p>
<p>These included lost political focus due to the demands of the pandemic; allegations of the poor treatment of, and attitude toward, women; scandal, disunity and instability in the government; the government’s longevity and its lack of a clear forward agenda; and faults of state divisions of the party. </p>
<p>To rebuild, the report says, the Liberals must establish a “strong, grassroots presence”, state executives must act in the party’s electoral interests, the parliamentary team must be united and disciplined, and campaigning must be significantly improved.</p>
<p>In an important message as the party struggles against not just Labor but the new “teal” wave, the review declares the Liberals mustn’t give up on any of the seats lost to the teals in May. It also warns teal candidates could threaten other seats in future. </p>
<p>Surveying the Liberals’ current parlous electoral position, the review says: “The Party has lost nearly all of its inner metropolitan seats: 13 seats lost, 6 to Labor, 5 to Teal, 1 to Green, and 1 to redistribution. The Coalition now holds 4 [of the 44 inner metropolitan seats]. </p>
<p>"The Party has not held or provided any gains in outer metropolitan seats: 5 seats lost; 3 to Labor, 1 to Teal, 1 to Green. The Coalition now holds 16. </p>
<p>"Of particular concern in the results is that in seats with high numbers of female professional voters, the Liberal Party only holds three of the top 30 seats where previously it held 15. In the top 50 seats by female professionals, the Liberal Party only holds 10 seats where previously it held 25.”</p>
<p>Overall, the party “performed particularly poorly with female voters, continuing a trend that has been present since the election of 1996”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-morrison-endures-the-witness-box-while-albanese-enjoys-being-in-the-box-seat-with-the-senate-196662">Grattan on Friday: Morrison endures the witness box, while Albanese enjoys being in the box seat with the Senate</a>
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<p>A majority of women preferred Labor across all age segments, the report says. </p>
<p>The Liberals’ two-party preferred vote was the weakest among women aged 18-34. Women aged 35-54 were the most likely segment to move from the Liberals, and women in this age group were the most likely segment to vote independent.</p>
<p>“Liberal defectors in Teal seats were highly likely to agree with the statement that ‘the treatment or attitude toward women within the Liberal Party had a strong influence on my vote’.”</p>
<p>The review says that if the Liberal party “is to fully reflect the Australian community the objective must be to improve the level of female members, particularly younger women, and to increase the level of representation of women as successful members of parliament, not just as candidates.</p>
<p>"The Party must therefore ensure that all Divisions are working to increase female membership, particularly of women under 50. The Party must also ensure there is a much larger number of high-quality female candidates contesting key, winnable seats at the next election. </p>
<p>"It is expected that by broadening the membership base with young women, and retaining them, that this will assist in identifying strong pre-selection candidates.”</p>
<p>The review recommends a target of 50% female representation in the party’s parliamentary ranks within ten years or three terms. </p>
<p>But it does not suggest imposing quotas for female candidates or MPs, as Labor has. There have been calls from some Liberals for quotas, but also strong resistance within the party to having them.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-morrison-government-spent-a-record-amount-on-taxpayer-funded-advertising-new-data-reveal-196870">The Morrison government spent a record amount on taxpayer-funded advertising, new data reveal</a>
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<p>Urging a robust fightback against the teals, the report says: “The Party must concede no seat and must vigorously contest the Teal seats at the next election. </p>
<p>"This will require the strongest possible candidate in each seat and a rebuilding of the Party infrastructure in each seat. It will also require specific strategies for each seat,” it says.</p>
<p>“The Liberal Party must monitor Teal statements and commitments as they will be the basis for future candidates campaigning against Teal incumbents. </p>
<p>"In addition, public comments by Teal campaign leaders are foreshadowing the possibility of Teal campaigns in additional seats currently held by the Coalition at the next election. </p>
<p>"The Party should be conscious of candidates as they are announced and work with Liberal incumbents to develop plans to counter these future candidates’ campaigns.”</p>
<p>The review recommends that for teal seats, the party begins searching early for possible candidates with strong community credentials.</p>
<p>The review urges action to win back the support of Chinese-Australians, who swung against the Morrison government. It recommends the parliamentary party should “develop an outreach programme for Party MPs and Senators to [culturally and linguistically diverse] communities, in particular the Chinese Australian community” as well as reviewing “the need for the appointment of additional staff with bilingual language skills”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197015/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>Like Labor’s recent post-mortem, the Liberal analysis also points to the key importance of voters’ negative perceptions of Scott Morrison in his government’s election loss.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1968702022-12-20T05:03:40Z2022-12-20T05:03:40ZThe Morrison government spent a record amount on taxpayer-funded advertising, new data reveal<p>The federal government is a big spender in the advertising world, regularly spending more than major companies such as McDonald’s, Telstra and Coles. New data <a href="https://www.finance.gov.au/publications/reports/campaign-advertising-australian-government-departments-and-agencies-report-2021-22">released on Friday by the Department of Finance</a> shows that in the lead-up to the May 2022 election, the Coalition government’s advertising spend skyrocketed yet again.</p>
<p>The past financial year was the biggest year on record for taxpayer-funded advertising. The previous federal government spent A$339 million on taxpayer-funded advertising campaigns in 2021-22, well above the <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Grattan-Institute-advertising-report.pdf">25-year average</a> of about $200 million a year.</p>
<p>In the first six months of 2022, the previous government was the <a href="https://www.mediaweek.com.au/nielsen-unveils-the-biggest-ad-spenders-for-the-first-half-of-2022/">biggest advertising spender</a> in the country.</p>
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<img alt="Graph showing annual federal government spending on advertising campaigns" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502056/original/file-20221220-16-yqs7ym.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502056/original/file-20221220-16-yqs7ym.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502056/original/file-20221220-16-yqs7ym.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502056/original/file-20221220-16-yqs7ym.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502056/original/file-20221220-16-yqs7ym.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502056/original/file-20221220-16-yqs7ym.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502056/original/file-20221220-16-yqs7ym.jpeg?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">
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<p>The Morrison government ran 28 separate advertising campaigns last financial year – the most on record. Many were for legitimate purposes, such as an $89 million campaign encouraging take-up of the COVID-19 vaccine, and a $25 million campaign urging people to fill out the Census.</p>
<p>But sometimes, taxpayer-funded advertising campaigns seek to confer a political advantage. This is often achieved by including party slogans or colours, and/or spruiking government achievements – often in the lead-up to elections.</p>
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<img alt="Chart showing the top 20 most expensive taxpayer-funded campaigns for 2021-22" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502021/original/file-20221219-22-4nj10j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502021/original/file-20221219-22-4nj10j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502021/original/file-20221219-22-4nj10j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502021/original/file-20221219-22-4nj10j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502021/original/file-20221219-22-4nj10j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502021/original/file-20221219-22-4nj10j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502021/original/file-20221219-22-4nj10j.jpeg?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">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<h2>Why does government advertising spike before elections?</h2>
<p>Taxpayer-funded advertising typically spikes in election years, and 2022 was no exception.</p>
<p>In the six months leading up to the 2022 election, the Coalition government spent about <a href="https://www.finance.gov.au/publications/reports/advertising">$180 million</a>, compared with about $120 million in the six months leading up to the 2019 election.</p>
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<img alt="Chart showing federal government advertising spend spikes just before federal elections" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502022/original/file-20221219-18-4nzzzb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502022/original/file-20221219-18-4nzzzb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502022/original/file-20221219-18-4nzzzb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502022/original/file-20221219-18-4nzzzb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502022/original/file-20221219-18-4nzzzb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502022/original/file-20221219-18-4nzzzb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502022/original/file-20221219-18-4nzzzb.jpeg?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">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>An otherwise legitimate campaign might be strategically run pre-election to encourage a positive impression of the government. For example, an $18 million federal government campaign on recycling was called out by the then-Labor opposition as “<a href="https://www.joshwilson.org.au/2022/02/15/more-waste-more-rubbish-government-spends-millions-on-greenwashing-again/">ridiculous and self-serving greenwash</a>”.</p>
<p>But usually, pre-election advertising also contains messages that look politically motivated – promoting the government’s policy platform on key election issues.</p>
<p>For example, the $28.5 million Emissions Reduction campaign – the third most expensive campaign of the year – ran from September 2021 to April 2022, and sought to promote the government’s “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/feb/14/coalition-spends-31m-on-ads-spruiking-efforts-to-cut-greenhouse-gas-emissions">good progress</a>” on reducing greenhouse emissions and switching to renewable energy. The campaign clearly used messaging that created a positive image of the government’s performance, and lacked a call to action that might justify it on public interest grounds.</p>
<p><a href="https://grattan.edu.au/report/new-politics-depoliticising-taxpayer-funded-advertising/">Grattan Institute analysis</a> shows that typically, about a quarter of government spending on advertising is politicised in some way, by both sides of politics. Historically, about $50 million on average each year has been spent on campaigns that are politicised.</p>
<p>The former government’s “<a href="https://www.finance.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-12/Campaign%20Advertising%20by%20Australian%20Government%20Departments%20and%20Agencies%20-%20Report%202021-22.pdf">COVID-19 Economic Recovery Plan</a>” fell into this category, because it blatantly spruiked the government of the day, without requiring any action or behaviour change from citizens.</p>
<p>Officially, the campaign sought “to inform Australians about the government response to the recurring challenges being faced and reassure [us] there was an adaptable and future-focused plan in place for the economy”.</p>
<p>This was criticised by Labor Senator Tim Ayres in early 2022, <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/treasury-suspends-10m-ad-blitz-promoting-economic-recovery-and-coalitions-job-record-due-to-poll/news-story/5b42f2f756ba253a81bf15c25eb9b933">who asked</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>What possible public purpose is there in ‘Australia’s Economic Plan – we’re taking the next step’? […] What is it asking people to do apart from vote Liberal?</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Why is politicisation of taxpayer-funded advertising harmful?</h2>
<p>Politicisation of taxpayer-funded advertising is wasteful and creates an uneven playing field in elections.</p>
<p>Government advertising budgets are well above the expenditure of individual political parties, even in election years.</p>
<p>We won’t know until February 2023 how much political parties spent in the 2022 federal election. But in the lead-up to the 2019 election, <a href="https://transparency.aec.gov.au/download">the Coalition spent $178 million, Labor $122 million, and Clive Palmer $89 million</a>, with advertising only a portion of their expenses.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-big-money-influenced-the-2019-federal-election-and-what-we-can-do-to-fix-the-system-131141">How big money influenced the 2019 federal election – and what we can do to fix the system</a>
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</p>
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<h2>How things should change</h2>
<p>The new federal government has announced it will cut taxpayer-funded advertising, although by how much is not yet clear. Labor has promised to tackle <a href="https://www.adnews.com.au/news/the-federal-government-slashes-advertising-budget">advertising</a> as part of its broader “rorts and waste” audit.</p>
<p>That promise to cut wasteful spending will be best tested by whether Labor tightens the rules and oversight for government advertising.</p>
<p>Public money should not be used to spruik government policies. It should be used only on public-interest advertising campaigns that have a clear “need to know” message and a call to action.</p>
<p>An independent panel should be established to check compliance. The panel should have the power to knock back campaigns that aren’t compliant – whether they are politicised, or more generally don’t offer value for money.</p>
<p>And if the rules are broken, then the political party – not the taxpayer – should foot the bill for the entire advertising campaign.</p>
<p>Establishing a proper process is the only way to truly reduce waste and restore public confidence in genuinely important government messages.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Kate Griffiths and Anika Stobart are coauthors of <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/report/new-politics-depoliticising-taxpayer-funded-advertising/">New politics: Depoliticising taxpayer-funded advertising</a>, Grattan Institute, 2022.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196870/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Grattan Institute began with contributions to its endowment of $15 million from each of the Federal and Victorian Governments, $4 million from BHP Billiton, and $1 million from NAB. In order to safeguard its independence, Grattan Institute’s board controls this endowment. The funds are invested and contribute to funding Grattan Institute's activities. Grattan Institute also receives funding from corporates, foundations, and individuals to support its general activities as disclosed on its website.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Griffiths 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>Politicisation of taxpayer-funded advertising is wasteful and creates an uneven playing field in elections.Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Grattan InstituteAnika Stobart, Senior Associate, Grattan InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1940632022-12-18T19:18:10Z2022-12-18T19:18:10Z‘He played his ukulele as the ship went down’: Frank Bongiorno on the political year that was<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501683/original/file-20221218-11363-tu45y9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=383%2C0%2C3610%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wes Mountain/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Two summers did for Scott Morrison. The first was that of 2019-20, with its fire, smoke and ash. The second occurred two years later when, having earlier muddled the vaccine program, the federal government failed to secure sufficient access to rapid antigen test (RAT) kits. The removal from the country early in 2022 of an unvaccinated Novak Djokovic ahead of the Australian Open tennis tournament provided some diversionary drama but contributed to the overall impression of pandemic mismanagement already etched on public opinion.</p>
<p>2022 was a year of three elections. The first seems almost forgotten outside South Australia, but the March 19 election there mattered beyond its borders, because it saw the first pandemic-era government ejected from office when Peter Malinauskas defeated the Liberal government of Steven Marshall on a two-party preferred swing of more than 6.5%. </p>
<p>There were also changes of leadership, although not of government, in Tasmania and the Northern Territory. All this looked like a thinning of the ranks of those leaders who had steered it through the crisis, even a changing of the guard.</p>
<p>Would Morrison be next? Not if he could help it, but public reaction to his ukulele performance on 60 Minutes suggested that he would not be able simply to reprise the “daggy dad” routine that worked a treat at the 2019 election. This time the public wasn’t buying.</p>
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<p>A stench of decay clung to his government. It had to endure a revolt from members of its own ranks over the issue of the rights of transgender children and teachers in connection with the effort to legislate against religious discrimination. It lacked credibility on climate change policy, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/oct/26/scott-morrison-says-australia-2050-net-zero-emissions-plan-based-on-choices-not-mandates">adopting a 2050 net zero emissions target</a> too late and without a satisfactory pathway. It flaunted its refusal to legislate a workable anti-corruption commission. Relations with China were in a dreadful state. </p>
<p>As the Omicron variant of COVID-19 spread through the community, Australia’s infection rates climbed dramatically, although these now received less intense media publicity than before. Undaunted, thousands of freedom protesters <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-freedom-convoys-seen-in-australia-and-across-the-world/u7r4a1ojo">descended on Canberra</a> in February.</p>
<p>The federal election campaign was, for the major parties, an uninspiring affair and for the mainstream media, a nadir that should have prompted more soul-searching than it did. Morrison said he was a bulldozer, assured us he could change, and then bulldozed an eight-year-old boy during a soccer match. Albanese spoke often of his personal story in the campaign as the son of an invalid pensioner who grew up in public housing. </p>
<p>The election of May 21 saw Labor return to office with a narrow majority and a primary vote in the low 30s, the lowest for a winning party since the adoption of the preferential system in 1918. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/did-australia-just-make-a-move-to-the-left-183611">Did Australia just make a move to the left?</a>
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<p>But the scenario for the Coalition was far worse. Not only had it lost seats to Labor and the Greens, community independents or “teals” made massive incursions into its old metropolitan heartland. Even Robert Menzies’ old seat of Kooyong went, with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg losing to paediatric neurologist Monique Ryan. The successful teal candidates were all professional women, reflecting a wider dissatisfaction among women with the government and Morrison personally.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501190/original/file-20221215-14114-u3idim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501190/original/file-20221215-14114-u3idim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501190/original/file-20221215-14114-u3idim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501190/original/file-20221215-14114-u3idim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501190/original/file-20221215-14114-u3idim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501190/original/file-20221215-14114-u3idim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501190/original/file-20221215-14114-u3idim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Women in general, and the ‘teal’ independents in particular, punished the Coalition at the May election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span>
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<p>The story of the campaign seemed to be a two-party system groaning under the strain of the challenges from minor parties and independents who had taken about a third of the primary vote in the House of Representatives. The Greens expanded their numbers, winning three new seats in Brisbane. An independent with strong environmental credentials, former rugby international David Pocock, even managed to wrest a Canberra Senate seat from the Liberals, the first time the major parties had failed to share the representation between them.</p>
<p>Once the dust settled, attention turned away from the banalities of the campaign and the novelties of results to the new Labor government led by Anthony Albanese. He and ministers such as Penny Wong, who took on foreign affairs, sought to improve relations with China and remind Pacific nations that Australia was “family”. </p>
<p>By the end of the year, there was legislation to create an anti-corruption commission, and to strengthen the ability of workers to push for higher wages after years of stagnation. With war raging in Ukraine and energy prices soaring, the new government was dogged by inflation, but it has now legislated to cap gas prices and reached an agreement with the states for controls on the price of coal. Interest rate increases from a Reserve Bank whose 30-year shine was wearing off threatened the well-being of people whose cost of living was rising faster than many, after decades of low inflation, had ever known.</p>
<p>The government came under pressure to abandon its predecessor’s commitment – supported by Labor – to a third round of income tax cuts that would deliver a windfall to high-income earners. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501191/original/file-20221215-15787-nle86l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501191/original/file-20221215-15787-nle86l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501191/original/file-20221215-15787-nle86l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501191/original/file-20221215-15787-nle86l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501191/original/file-20221215-15787-nle86l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501191/original/file-20221215-15787-nle86l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501191/original/file-20221215-15787-nle86l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Most pundits agree that the Albanese government has had a relatively successful first six months in office.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lukas Coch/AAP</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>But amid such competing pressures, most commentators thought Labor’s first six months had been among the more successful for a new federal government. Its image of orderliness was helped by the contrast produced by the revelation that Morrison had secretly taken on five ministries during the pandemic. Meanwhile, new Opposition Leader Peter Dutton sought to rebuild a party that now leaned even further to the right as a result of losses by Liberal moderates in metropolitan seats.</p>
<p>It was the year’s third election, held on November 26, that caused the most surprise. It was not so much the result, for most polling indicated that Labor, under Daniel Andrews, would win the Victorian election. It was the <a href="https://theconversation.com/final-victorian-election-results-how-would-upper-house-look-using-the-senate-system-196291">scale of Labor’s victory </a>that shocked. Victoria had endured prolonged and frequent lockdowns, fierce protests against them, and much else that supposedly indicated a faltering government and premier falling out of favour. </p>
<p>Yet Labor, while losing votes in some places, increased its tally of lower-house seats by one. It was another epic media fail, with wishful thinking, especially in the Murdoch press, generating hopelessly inaccurate punditry. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-liberal-party-is-in-a-dire-state-across-australia-right-now-that-should-worry-us-all-191851">The Liberal Party is in a dire state across Australia right now. That should worry us all</a>
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</em>
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<p>The Liberals in Victoria are in a deep malaise, contributing to a bleak national picture for the Coalition parties. The question of whether the Australian centre right, after its unwise flirtations with right-wing populism, can now begin to reconnect with mainstream constituencies, policies and ideas remains one of the central questions in Australian politics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194063/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frank Bongiorno 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>2022 has been a transformational year in Australian politics, with three significant elections and a distinct erosion of support for the two major parties, and particularly the Liberals.Frank Bongiorno, Professor of History, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.