tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/malcolm-turnbull-3246/articlesMalcolm Turnbull – The Conversation2024-02-14T02:07:03Ztag: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>
</blockquote>
<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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Read more:
<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/2204572024-01-04T15:44:32Z2024-01-04T15:44:32ZSpycatcher scandal: newly released documents from the Thatcher era reveal the changing nature of government secrecy<p>I grew up in Tasmania in the 1980s. The capital city, Hobart, had a bit of a “living at the edge of the world” feeling in those days. It seemed about as far away from anywhere as you could get. So, I remember the thrill when the first hints of the “Spycatcher” scandal hit. A British spy had “secretly” been living only a few miles away in the sleepy town of Cygnet. To a child, it all felt impossibly adventurous.</p>
<p>The British National Archives has now released a <a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/news/latest-cabinet-office-files-released/">slew of Cabinet Office papers</a> dealing with the extraordinary series of events surrounding this man and his attempts to publish Spycatcher, a memoir that promised to spill secrets on double agents and assassination plots. Margaret Thatcher, the prime minister at the time, was so concerned about the book’s contents that the UK government launched multiple legal attempts to have it barred from publication. The most famous of these cases unfolded in Australia, where Thatcher had dispatched her top civil servant to fight the former MI5 operative Peter Wright in court.</p>
<p>The documents lay bare how fearful she was about the book. In communications between government officials, we see the intensity of briefings and updates flowing into Number 10 as the court case unfolded in Australia in late 1986. The government was determined to stand by the principle that security information must remain confidential. </p>
<p>The prime minister followed the exchanges closely, as revealed by her <a href="https://cdn.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/release-2023-12/prem19-1952.pdf">handwritten comments across documents</a>. These ranged from brief scribbles like “Bad news” (on an update relating to potential revelation of sensitive documents in court), to noting that “the consequences of publication would be enormous” and commenting in frustration that “surely Wright himself is in breach of the Official Secrets Act?”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567825/original/file-20240104-17-2k1i9f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An archived government document discussing the Spycatcher scandal, including a margin note from Margaret Thatcher about the 'enormous consequences' of the book being released." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567825/original/file-20240104-17-2k1i9f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567825/original/file-20240104-17-2k1i9f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567825/original/file-20240104-17-2k1i9f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567825/original/file-20240104-17-2k1i9f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567825/original/file-20240104-17-2k1i9f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=647&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567825/original/file-20240104-17-2k1i9f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=647&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567825/original/file-20240104-17-2k1i9f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=647&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Thatcher’s margin notes reveal her concerns.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://cdn.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/release-2023-12/prem19-1952.pdf">National Archives</a></span>
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<p>The cast of characters in this saga is in itself rather breathtaking. It begins, of course, with the elusive Wright – in my mind’s eye in the 1980s, I had expected him to be a dapper figure in a pinstriped suit. The picture that hit the press at the time instead revealed an old man in a rather incongruous broad-brimmed hat, who did not exude the requisite level of mystery.</p>
<p>Thatcher herself also looms large, as does Robert Armstrong – the head of the civil service she sent across the globe to Sydney like a gun-for-hire, in an extraordinary attempt to prevent the book’s publication. In court, Armstrong would face none other than the up-and-coming Australian barrister <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/sep/14/malcolm-turnbull-spycatcher-lawyer-prime-minister">Malcolm Turnbull</a>, appearing for Wright’s publishers.</p>
<p>Turnbull would go on to be Australia’s prime minister 30 years later, but not before eliciting from Armstrong in court his infamous description of having been <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/jlsocty16&id=217&men_tab=srchresults">“economical with the truth”</a> in a letter he had written that was relevant to the case.</p>
<p>What the papers released by the National Archives provide is something rather more than just a good story, however. They provide a rare window into how the British government worked in the 1980s. They offer a marker against which to measure what has changed and what has remained the same in the conventions and traditions that underpin the nation’s political system.</p>
<h2>That was then …</h2>
<p>In the 1980s, aspects of British government could remain shrouded in mystery without expectation of public scrutiny. Even the names of the leaders of MI5 were a closely guarded secret, never mind the workings of their organisation. It was simply not the done thing to discuss issues of national security in public. </p>
<p>The institutional settings of Whitehall and Westminster were built for “governing in private”. Advice was offered and arguments made behind closed doors and away from the public gaze. This applied not just to the security agencies but the civil service in general.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld5803/ldselect/ldconst/258/25804.htm">British constitutional theory</a>, the civil service was an indivisible part of the executive government. It was not an independent creature of the parliament, or indeed the wider public. The job of civil servants was to serve ministers in non-partisan ways, based on deep reserves of mutual trust between the political and administrative leaders of government. Armstrong could be sent to the Antipodes knowing that he carried with him the total trust of the prime minister, and vice versa.</p>
<p>His goal, of course, was to stop Wright’s memoir from ever seeing the light of day. In the 1980s, it was still possible for government to believe it might be able to control the spread of information. In a pre-internet age, it still made sense to try very hard to prevent the publication of a book, knowing that its contents could potentially be stopped or contained. Such ideas seem dreamily quixotic in our modern digital age.</p>
<h2>This is now …</h2>
<p>Today, the luxury of being able to govern in private, to carefully consider actions with a degree of secrecy, has given way to far greater scrutiny. Modern expectations of transparency mean that governments are now governing in public, whether they like it or not. Where once the heads of MI5 had their identities protected, we now find them striding the public stage. Stella Rimington, the director general of MI5 in the mid 1990s, published her own <a href="https://shop.nationalarchives.gov.uk/products/open-secret">autobiography</a> in 2001. Her successors give regular public speeches and updates discussing perspectives on national security in ways that would have been unthinkable in the 1980s.</p>
<p>In theory, the status of the wider civil service has not changed – it remains an indivisible part of the executive government. But the bonds of trust have begun to fray. Few of Armstrong’s successors in the civil service could claim the complete trust of a prime minister. And amid the blame games of modern government, ministers and officials can now find themselves in public disagreement, teasing apart the threads of indivisibility that previously kept them in a mutual embrace.</p>
<p>But perhaps the most dramatic change is to the information environment. The relative futility of trying to prevent information from entering the public domain is self-evident. Information – both true and false – flies into the public domain like water through a colander.</p>
<p>A modern government rarely makes the mistake of drawing attention to a set of memoirs by going to great, public lengths to try and stop their publication. Wright died a millionaire. His book was a bestseller. The irony is that he had the British government to thank for boosting his sales. Their attempt to quash what turned out to be a rather innocuous book turned it into an international cause celebre.</p>
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<img alt="A government document outlining concerns about the implication of allowing Spycatcher to be published." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567829/original/file-20240104-17-allyg3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567829/original/file-20240104-17-allyg3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=186&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567829/original/file-20240104-17-allyg3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=186&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567829/original/file-20240104-17-allyg3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=186&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567829/original/file-20240104-17-allyg3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567829/original/file-20240104-17-allyg3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567829/original/file-20240104-17-allyg3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=233&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">Scandal generates book sales.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://cdn.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/release-2023-12/prem19-1952.pdf">National Archives</a></span>
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<p>The Spycatcher saga is a reminder that the nature of British government has changed. It shines a light on the extent to which something seen as an extraordinary public scandal in the 1980s would be seen as far less remarkable today. Modern governments are far more used to the norms of governing in public – for good or ill – in our more transparent age.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220457/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dennis C Grube received funding from the Australian Research Council in 2013 (grant number DE130101131) for a previous project on the public face of government.</span></em></p>Cabinet Office papers expose Thatcher’s anxiety over the famous book, and the difference between governing in the 1980s and the modern information age.Dennis C Grube, Professor of Politics and Public Policy, University of CambridgeLicensed 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/2035222023-04-17T16:43:24Z2023-04-17T16:43:24ZTackling Chinese interference: What lessons can Canada learn from Australia?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521144/original/file-20230416-3209-6rytjb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6073%2C4563&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Prime Minister Justin Trudeau talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping after taking part in the closing session at the G20 Leaders' Summit in Indonesia in November 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/tackling-chinese-interference--what-lessons-can-canada-learn-from-australia" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>In the 2023 <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-federal-budget-foreign-interference/">federal budget</a>, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his government plans to earmark $13.5 million over five years for Public Safety Canada to establish a National Counter-Foreign Interference Office aimed at cracking down on foreign interference, threats and covert activities.</p>
<p>The move comes amid growing concerns in Canada <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/foreign-interference-csis-china-allegations-1.6783031">about interference by foreign agents, particularly the influence of the Chinese government</a>. For that reason, the announcement explicitly points out that China is an authoritarian regime that can act with impunity and meddle in the affairs of democracies. </p>
<p>China’s growing ambition to assert global influence is causing international concern about Beijing’s intentions. Canada isn’t alone in countering potential interference from China. </p>
<p>As a pioneer in this area, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-44624270">Australia passed anti-foreign interference legislation in 2018</a>. Although Canada and Australia face quite different circumstances regarding China, the Australian experience still offers many points of reference for Canada before it <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/liberals-add-foreign-interference-office-new-money-laundering-rules-in-latest-budget-1.6332804">launches the National Counter-Foreign Interference Office.</a></p>
<h2>Warnings from China to Australia</h2>
<p>In late 2017, Chinese media slammed Australia’s proposal of the anti-foreign interference law, considering it an anti-China action, and warned <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/china-media-warns-of-consequences-if-australias-anti-chinese-propaganda-continues/f87rmdmqy">of consequences</a> if Australia’s “<a href="https://hongkongfp.com/2017/12/07/anti-china-hysteria-beijing-slams-australia-amid-growing-fears-foreign-interference/">anti-Chinese hysteria</a>” continued. </p>
<p>What frustrated China was not the proposal per se, but the language that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/dec/09/china-says-turnbulls-remarks-have-poisoned-the-atmosphere-of-relations">Malcolm Turnbull, then the Australian prime minister</a>, used in chastising China over the issue of foreign interference.</p>
<p>Speaking Mandarin, Turnbull invoked Mao Zedong’s <a href="https://china.usc.edu/Mao-declares-founding-of-peoples-republic-of-china-chinese-people-have-stood-up">famous 1949 slogan “the Chinese people have stood up”</a> to declare Australia would “stand up” against China’s meddling in Australia’s domestic affairs. </p>
<p>Kevin Rudd, another former Australian prime minister, was in Beijing at the time Turnbull made his comments. He alleged <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/14/turnbull-nuttiness-to-blame-for-bad-relationship-with-china-kevin-rudd-says">the discussion of Australia’s anti-foreign interference law was not getting much attention from Beijing or Chinese society</a> until Turnbull picked the phrase that Mao used and blabbed it out in his own appalling rendition of Chinese.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A grey-haired man in a dark suit and orange tie speaks into a microphone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520928/original/file-20230413-22-zpszdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520928/original/file-20230413-22-zpszdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520928/original/file-20230413-22-zpszdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520928/original/file-20230413-22-zpszdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520928/original/file-20230413-22-zpszdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520928/original/file-20230413-22-zpszdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520928/original/file-20230413-22-zpszdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&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">In this February 2018 photo, Malcolm Turnbull, then the Australian prime minister, speaks during the National Governors Association 2018 winter meeting in Washington.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)</span></span>
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<p>While Beijing may be unhappy with the establishment of Canada’s new office, it’s unlikely to use economic coercion to punish Canada — it didn’t take that approach with Australia in 2018, after all.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/china/china-country-brief">Bilateral trade between China and Australia remained robust</a> and seemed unaffected by the political dispute, although Australia’s economic dependence upon China’s imports gives Beijing the means to retaliate at any time.</p>
<p>Canada has less economic exposure to China than Australia does. But Ottawa still cannot take that for granted. <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/chinas-covid-19-comeback-rides-strength-chinese-households">China is now dealing with its domestic post-pandemic social and economic recovery</a>, with less strategic flexibility to retaliate against Canada.</p>
<p>But if China feels continually provoked by Ottawa, retaliation will come. </p>
<p>That means the National Counter-Foreign Interference Office should be country-agnostic — designed to apply to any country’s misconduct, whether it’s China, Russia, Iran or the United States.</p>
<p>The diplomatic language used by Ottawa should be neutral and unprovocative. That will help Canada avoid worsening the conflict with China, but will also ensure the new institution is considered more legitimate and durable.</p>
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<img alt="Frozen packages of beef filets with the flags of Australia, the U.S. and Canada." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521147/original/file-20230416-24-gufn23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521147/original/file-20230416-24-gufn23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521147/original/file-20230416-24-gufn23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521147/original/file-20230416-24-gufn23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521147/original/file-20230416-24-gufn23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521147/original/file-20230416-24-gufn23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521147/original/file-20230416-24-gufn23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Frozen beef filets from Australia, the United States and Canada are on sale at a supermarket in Beijing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)</span></span>
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<h2>Mindful of side-effects</h2>
<p>The idea of a wide-ranging threat to national security from Chinese influence emerged in Australia almost 10 years ago. Intelligence officials, politicians and journalists identified China as a source of existential threat that quickly gained policy traction. </p>
<p>But as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2022.2052437">recent research</a> shows, the scope quickly expanded. Along with actions by the Chinese government, Australian officials have also considered many non-governmental organizations and people, including Chinese private enterprise, Chinese scholars and international students, as potential security threats. </p>
<p>This stance has had side-effects, including a surge in <a href="https://time.com/6176970/australia-election-china/">anti-Chinese and anti-Asian sentiment</a> in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.9dashline.com/article/lessons-from-chinese-government-interference-in-australia">Academic collaborations</a> between Australian and Chinese universities have also partially stagnated in the wake of allegations Beijing used these connections to fuel its military modernization and steal intellectual property. Australian universities have been portrayed as “<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/hastie-urges-democracies-to-engage-in-political-warfare-to-preserve-peace-20191203-p53g7u.html">modern battlegrounds of covert influence and interference</a>.”</p>
<p>More recently, the Australian-Chinese voters <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/chinese/2023-03-29/liberal-lost-chinese-votes-due-to-the-federal-election-legacy/102153696">have abandoned</a> the right-wing coalition government and Liberal Party in both federal and New South Wales elections due to concerns about what they view as alarmist anti-Chinese platforms.</p>
<p>Canada is in a similar situation given its sizeable Chinese diaspora and the fact that Canadian universities have developed vibrant research collaborations with their Chinese counterparts. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-alberta-must-rethink-its-ban-on-canada-china-university-collaborations-161851">Why Alberta must rethink its ban on Canada-China university collaborations</a>
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<p>Harshly singling out China could result in damaging social cohesion and undermining Canada as an open, transparent and multicultural democracy. </p>
<p>That means Canada’s National Counter-Foreign Interference Office should not allow <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mp-csis-embassy-diplomat-intelligence-espionage-1.6809781">false allegations to propagate</a>. It should focus on its purpose of defending sovereignty and not cause further risk to Canadian society. </p>
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<img alt="Two women talk as they sit at a table with microphones in front of them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521146/original/file-20230416-4327-uqt1v6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521146/original/file-20230416-4327-uqt1v6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521146/original/file-20230416-4327-uqt1v6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521146/original/file-20230416-4327-uqt1v6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521146/original/file-20230416-4327-uqt1v6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521146/original/file-20230416-4327-uqt1v6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521146/original/file-20230416-4327-uqt1v6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&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">Jody Thomas, National Security and Intelligence Advisor, left, and Cindy Termorshuizen, Associate Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, wait to appear as witnesses at a parliamentary committed into foreign election interference in March 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby</span></span>
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<h2>Diplomacy focus</h2>
<p>Australia’s China policy under the coalition government that was defeated a year ago has been widely criticized for <a href="https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/australia-lacks-the-diplomacy-to-win-friends-and-influence-20211025-p5930t">lacking diplomacy</a>. </p>
<p>The coalition devoted a lot of effort to balance China’s regional and global ambitions, but ignored the fact that China was Australia’s largest trade partner and that Australian national interests should not be dictated by security agencies. Dealing with China required a more multi-dimensional approach.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/with-a-new-australian-government-and-foreign-minister-comes-fresh-hope-for-australia-china-relations-182785">With a new Australian government and foreign minister comes fresh hope for Australia-China relations</a>
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<p>Since the Labor party came to power last May, Australia’s China policy has become more dynamic. <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2022/08/australias-china-strategy-under-the-labor-party/#:%7E:text=One%20thing%20that%20plays%20very,side%20of%20the%20political%20aisle.">The uptick in diplomacy</a> has diminished the hostile atmosphere and paved the way for normalizing bilateral trade. The approach has reassured Beijing without compromising on the principles and core values of Australian society.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1646114746985324545"}"></div></p>
<p>Canada’s leaders should do the same and weigh China’s immediate and future importance to Canada carefully. If cutting ties completely with China isn’t a feasible option, then Ottawa should be more imaginative in designing its China policy and keep the relationship moving in a direction that best serves the overall interests of Canada.</p>
<p>Diplomacy and offering moderate reassurances to Beijing could help Ottawa resolve some outstanding substantive issues with China — or at least finesse the problems — and eventually reframe the bilateral relationship.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203522/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ye Xue 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>Canada should examine Australia’s diplomacy-focused approach to China as it battles foreign interference.Ye Xue, Research Fellow, International Relations, University of AlbertaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1877682022-08-10T20:12:05Z2022-08-10T20:12:05ZSending teens to maximum security prisons shows Australia needs to raise the age of criminal responsibility<p>The recent transfer of a “difficult cohort” of teenagers <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-20/seventeen-banksia-hill-inmates-moved-to-casuarina/101256138">to a maximum-security adult prison in Western Australia</a> raises familiar questions about Australia’s prison system.</p>
<p>The 17 young detainees have “significant offending histories” and had for months been destroying infrastructure, assaulting staff and harming themselves at Perth’s Banksia Hill juvenile centre, according to the head of the WA justice department, Adam Tomison. Tomison didn’t elaborate on what led to these incidents.</p>
<p>According to Gerry Georgatos, coordinator of the <a href="https://gerrygeorgatossocialjustice.com/nsptrp/">National Suicide Prevention and Trauma Recovery Project</a>, the damaged cells were a sign of <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-21/third-of-banksia-hill-detention-centre-cells-damaged-unusable/101167766">the strain detainees were under at Banksia Hill</a>.</p>
<p>Premier Mark McGowan and Corrective Services Commissioner Mike Reynolds said the government had been left with no choice. The transfer was a necessary circuit-breaker, they argued, to provide greater security and safety for the management of the detainees. </p>
<p>While no time frame has been specified, the WA government has described the move to <a href="https://www.mamamia.com.au/banksia-hill-juvenile-detention/">Casuarina Prison</a> as “<a href="https://www.wa.gov.au/government/announcements/disruptive-detainees-relocated-temporary-facility">temporary</a>”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/almost-every-young-person-in-wa-detention-has-a-severe-brain-impairment-90695">Almost every young person in WA detention has a severe brain impairment</a>
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<p>Australia’s juvenile detention centres have been under the spotlight since 2016, when ABC Four Corners <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jul/26/abuse-of-teenage-prisoners-in-nt-detention-how-four-corners-got-the-story">revealed</a> the treatment of inmates at Darwin’s Don Dale Youth Detention Centre. The children were being stripped naked, tied to restraint chairs, manhandled and even teargassed. </p>
<p>Such was the shock when the episode aired that, within hours, then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called for a <a href="https://www.royalcommission.gov.au/child-detention">royal commission</a> into juvenile detention centres in the Northern Territory, though he later refused to extend the inquiry to other states and territories.</p>
<p>The release of the commission’s <a href="https://www.royalcommission.gov.au/child-detention/final-report">final report</a>, almost two years later, followed a familiar pattern. It found staff had in many cases not followed required procedures and the system had “failed to comply with the basic binding human rights standards in the treatment of children and young people”.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/may/24/don-dale-no-charges-to-be-laid-over-royal-commission-findings">none of the officers involved was charged</a> and the commission’s recommendations seem to have been <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-nts-tough-on-crime-approach-wont-reduce-youth-offending-this-is-what-we-know-works-160361">ignored</a>.</p>
<p>Those incidents were not unique to Don Dale. While the government blames them on “difficult” juveniles, it ignores how young detainees are also among the most vulnerable members of society. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, as the Banksia Hill case shows, Australia pays scant attention to the difference between a child and an adult offender. The evidence suggests it’s <a href="https://action.amnesty.org.au/act-now/raise-the-age">time to rethink</a> this approach.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/theres-still-a-long-way-to-go-for-the-don-dale-royal-commission-to-achieve-justice-92736">There's still a long way to go for the Don Dale royal commission to achieve justice</a>
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<h2>A national problem</h2>
<p>Problems concerning the treatment of inmates at Banksia Hill Youth Detention Centres <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-18/banksia-hill-report-leaves-wa-government-under-pressure/8720488">have been known</a> for years.</p>
<p>A 2017 <a href="https://www.oics.wa.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Full-report.pdf">report</a> noted the increasing use of a special operations group to manage incidents at the facility. This group uses <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-17/banksia-hill-what-is-happening-to-kids-in-youth-jail/8717018">stun grenades, gun-laser sights and pepper spray</a>, which is unprecedented in either adult or youth facilities in the state. The report noted this was a “telling sign of a facility that is failing the basics”.</p>
<p>An unscheduled visit by WA’s custodial inspector last year raised “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-19/cruel-treatment-of-inmates-at-wa-banksia-hill-detention-centre/100998896">reasonable suspicion</a>” that young detainees were being subjected to “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment”, including been held in their own cells for 23 hours of the day. </p>
<p>While Don Dale and Banksia Hill represent the more egregious cases, other youth detention centres around the country have also faced significant scrutiny in recent years. These include <a href="https://www.youthjustice.dcj.nsw.gov.au/Documents/ministerial-review-into-frank-baxter.pdf">Frank Baxter</a> in New South Wales and the <a href="https://www.justice.vic.gov.au/justice-system/youth-justice/review-of-the-parkville-youth-justice-precinct-an-independent-review">Parkville</a> facility in Victoria.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1391902119423217667"}"></div></p>
<h2>Changing the age of criminal responsibility is key</h2>
<p>Article 37 (c) of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child states juvenile detainees “shall be separated from adults unless it is considered in the child’s best interest not to do so”. </p>
<p>On ratifying the convention, Australia specified it was “<a href="https://www.alrc.gov.au/publication/seen-and-heard-priority-for-children-in-the-legal-process-alrc-report-84/20-detention/separation-of-adults-and-juveniles-in-detention/">unable to comply with</a>” this requirement. Children would be separated from adult prisoners only when “feasible”.</p>
<p>The federal government has so far <a href="https://www.amnesty.org.au/why-we-need-to-raise-the-minimum-age-of-criminal-responsibility/">rejected calls</a> by the UN to raise the age of criminal responsibility from ten to 14. In this regard, Australia’s stance is oblivious to what’s commonly known as “the labelling effect”. Young people who are labelled “criminal” are <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5342201/">likely to live up to this label</a> rather than growing out of crime as would normally occur.</p>
<p>Youth justice detention, from this standpoint, is inherently <a href="https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/project/understanding-criminogenic-influences-on-youth-offending">criminogenic</a> – it encourages rather than reduces criminal behaviour.</p>
<p>The risk of labelling grows where young offenders are housed with adult offenders. <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-26/families-fear-for-banksia-hill-detainees-moved-to-casuarina/101233756">News reports</a> are already suggesting some of the juveniles sent to Casuarina have been speaking to adult prisoners through the fence.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ten-year-olds-do-not-belong-in-detention-why-australia-must-raise-the-age-of-criminal-responsibility-142483">Ten-year-olds do not belong in detention. Why Australia must raise the age of criminal responsibility</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Last November, the Productivity Commission noted “<a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/research/completed/prison-dilemma/prison-dilemma.pdf">Australia’s prison dilemma</a>”: our imprisoned population is at an historic high, yet crime rates are falling.</p>
<p>Governments spend <a href="https://www.ceda.com.au/NewsAndResources/Opinion/Economy/Australia-pays-the-price-for-increasing-rates-of-i">more than $4bn each year</a> keeping people behind bars, and taxpayers should ask what that money is achieving. Australia must also recognise <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/feb/14/wa-study-finds-89-of-children-in-detention-have-severe-cognitive-impairment">the role mental health plays</a> in the behaviour of “difficult” children. We can’t continue to sweep that problem under the carpet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187768/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Piero Moraro 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>Australian governments play down the difference between child and adult offenders, and the costs are highPiero Moraro, Lecturer in Criminology, Edith Cowan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1750582022-01-18T19:08:29Z2022-01-18T19:08:29ZThe republic debate is back (again) but we need more than a model to capture Australians’ imagination<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441031/original/file-20220117-4151-tazvu4.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">Chris Jackson/AP/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Australian Republic Movement has just released their <a href="https://republic.org.au/media/2022/1/12/an-australian-choice-for-australians">preferred model</a> for a republic. </p>
<p>It would see Australia’s parliaments nominate candidates for head of state, who would be put to a popular vote of all Australian voters. The head of state’s term would be for five years. </p>
<p>For the past two decades, the Australian Republic Movement has not had a position on what model should be used. So what does this <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/new-republican-model-could-be-the-project-that-brings-us-back-together-20220112-p59nqu.html">development</a> mean? </p>
<h2>The 1999 referendum</h2>
<p>Australia’s 1999 republic referendum is widely believed to have failed because republicans were divided on what model to adopt. The proposal for a president chosen by the federal parliament was opposed by many republicans, who insisted only a directly elected head of state was acceptable. Whether another model could have succeeded is unknowable. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Peter FitzSimons, chair of the Australian Republic Movement." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441032/original/file-20220117-15-1hcet57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441032/original/file-20220117-15-1hcet57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441032/original/file-20220117-15-1hcet57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441032/original/file-20220117-15-1hcet57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441032/original/file-20220117-15-1hcet57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441032/original/file-20220117-15-1hcet57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441032/original/file-20220117-15-1hcet57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Writer, journalist and former rugby player Peter FitzSimons is chair of the Australian Republic Movement.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Himbrechts/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The idea of a republic has essentially been on the political back burner since the referendum.</p>
<p>Major polls suggest <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/no-sense-of-momentum-poll-finds-drop-in-support-for-australia-becoming-a-republic-20210125-p56wpe.html">declining support</a> for a republic. Interestingly, support for change is weakest among younger age groups, who would have no memory of the earlier campaign.</p>
<p>Under former leader Bill Shorten, Labor proposed a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/nov/11/labor-promises-vote-on-australia-becoming-a-republic-if-it-wins-government">two-stage popular vote</a> to get to a republic: one to decide in-principle support for a republic, and if that succeeded another to decide how. However the issue is unlikely to feature prominently in the upcoming election campaign, set to be dominated by COVID and the economy. </p>
<h2>After Queen Elizabeth</h2>
<p>As the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign approaches, the Australian Republic Movement has reignited the debate, following two years of consultation. Central to their campaign is the claim: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Australians should have genuine, merit-based choice about who speaks for them as Head of State, rather than a British King or Queen on the other side of the world.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Monarchists will retort that we already have an effective head of state with the governor-general, who for all practical purposes exercises the powers granted to the monarch. Ever since 1930, when the Scullin government appointed the first Australian-born governor-general, Sir Isaacs Isaacs, against the opposition of King George V, it has been clear this choice rests with the prime minister. </p>
<p>Becoming a republic would essentially be a symbolic, if important act. The republic movement claims we need the change so “our future, more than ever, will be in Australian hands”, but it is hard to see what effectively would change. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/forget-charles-an-australian-republic-hinges-on-the-model-we-adopt-not-the-monarch-158873">Forget Charles — an Australian republic hinges on the model we adopt, not the monarch</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The biggest hurdle for republicans is the reality that Australia is already an independent nation, with only sentiment and inertia linking us to the British crown.</p>
<p>Most Australians, when pressed, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2018/may/22/most-australians-dont-know-their-head-of-state-this-doesnt-help-the-republicans">struggle</a> to remember the name of the current governor-general or to explain their role. </p>
<p>Over the past several decades, prime minsters have seemed increasingly presidential. Indeed, one might have expected a head of state to be more visible as a unifying force during the past two years of the pandemic, but Governor-General David Hurley’s <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/governor-general-david-hurley-tests-positive-to-covid-19-20220109-p59myx.html">messages</a> have gone largely unnoticed.</p>
<h2>A hybrid model</h2>
<p>To find an acceptable means of removing the link to the crown, the republic movement is now proposing a hybrid plan. The media response to this has been at <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radio/melbourne/programs/breakfast/dr-jill-sheppard-sammy-j-australian-republic/13707608">best lukewarm</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Paul Keating" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441193/original/file-20220117-13-1fyjez6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441193/original/file-20220117-13-1fyjez6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441193/original/file-20220117-13-1fyjez6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441193/original/file-20220117-13-1fyjez6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441193/original/file-20220117-13-1fyjez6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441193/original/file-20220117-13-1fyjez6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441193/original/file-20220117-13-1fyjez6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=478&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">Former prime minister Paul Keating is no fan of the hybrid proposal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Darren England/AAP</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>This model retains the basic premise of the Westminster system, namely that effective power rests in the hands of a parliamentary majority. A directly-elected president can be compatible with parliamentary government – this is the system in Ireland and several other European countries – although it would need strict constitutional limitations on the powers of a president. </p>
<p>But former prime minister Paul Keating <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/keating-blasts-new-republic-proposal-as-dangerous-us-style-presidency-20220113-p59o22.html">lashed the hybrid idea</a>, saying it would undermine the prime minister’s authority and lead to a dangerous “US-style” presidency.</p>
<p>Former “yes” campaign leader and prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has also <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/i-would-vote-for-the-new-republican-model-but-it-s-got-little-chance-of-getting-that-far-20220113-p59o4w.html">criticised the proposal</a> as unlikely to get the required support of voters, because it </p>
<blockquote>
<p>will be seen by many to embody the weaknesses of direct election and parliamentary appointment models but the strengths of neither.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Indigenous recognition</h2>
<p>Becoming a republic would require significant rewriting of the Constitution, which would then need to be ratified by a majority of voters in a majority of states. Such a significant undertaking should see us imagine more than just a name change for the head of state. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/our-research-shows-public-support-for-a-first-nations-voice-is-not-only-high-its-deeply-entrenched-172851">Our research shows public support for a First Nations Voice is not only high, it's deeply entrenched</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>One of the major shifts since the 1999 referendum is the growing demand from Indigenous Australians for recognition that sovereignty was never ceded, and the scars of colonial occupation and expropriation remain.</p>
<p>As historian Mark McKenna <a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2021/december/1638277200/mark-mckenna/stunted-country#mtr">writes</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The republican vision of Australia’s independence […] must finally be grounded on our own soil and on thousands of generations of Indigenous occupation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A republican movement that begins with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/constitutional-reform-made-easy-how-to-achieve-the-uluru-statement-and-a-first-nations-voice-116141">Uluru Statement from the Heart</a>, rather than concerns about the symbolic links to the British crown, is a project more likely to capture the imagination of Australians.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175058/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dennis Altman 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 biggest hurdle for republicans is the reality that Australia is already an independent nation. Only sentiment and inertia links us to the British crown.Dennis Altman, VC Fellow LaTrobe University, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1697332021-10-18T04:23:21Z2021-10-18T04:23:21ZWhat’s behind News Corp’s new spin on climate change?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426834/original/file-20211018-7324-1j5x0jm.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">Justin Lane/EPA/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australia’s Murdoch-owned tabloid newspapers – including The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun and Courier Mail – have embarked on a bold new climate change campaign. </p>
<p>This climate rebrand, dubbed “<a href="https://www.themercury.com.au/technology/environment/mission-zero-putting-australia-on-a-path-to-a-net-zero-future/news-story/83f521bfd9d592ab6defdab7d3b81ce8">missionzero2050</a>”, is billed by the company as “putting Australia on a path to a net zero future”. </p>
<p>The change has surprised Australian media observers and, no doubt, media consumers given News Corp’s long-held <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/nov/21/news-corps-rupert-murdoch-says-there-are-no-climate-change-deniers-around-here">climate denialist stance</a>, which is well documented <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/1/24/how-murdochracy-controls-the-climate-debate-in-australia">in public commentary</a> and <a href="https://www.uts.edu.au/sites/default/files/Sceptical-Climate-Part-2-Climate-Science-in-Australian-Newspapers.pdf">research</a>.</p>
<p>So why is this happening now? And what does it mean? </p>
<h2>What does the new campaign say?</h2>
<p>Last Monday, News Corp’s tabloid mastheads began the new campaign with a 16-page wraparound supplement and a splashy <a href="https://www.themercury.com.au/technology/environment/mission-zero-putting-australia-on-a-path-to-a-net-zero-future/news-story/83f521bfd9d592ab6defdab7d3b81ce8">online campaign</a> championing the drive to cut climate warming emissions by 2050.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-cop26-and-why-does-the-fate-of-earth-and-australias-prosperity-depend-on-it-169648">What is COP26 and why does the fate of Earth, and Australia's prosperity, depend on it?</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<hr>
<p>News Corp must have done its climate communication research. It has assembled a collection of stories using <a href="https://www.climatechange.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0027/419148/CCC-Lit-Review-Guide-for-Policymakers.pdf">best-practice climate communication</a> techniques: telling a global story with a local face, <a href="https://www.themercury.com.au/technology/environment/from-sydney-to-london-what-rising-seas-could-do-to-our-cities/news-story/ef34e8be6c460aedc85dc99366354601">visualising climate impacts</a> and focusing on solutions, not creating fear.</p>
<p>Crucially, the campaign marks a change from News Corp’s long-held position on climate action. It’s moved from calling decarbonisation <a href="https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/shortens-climate-push-hits-workers/news-story/f8e965f5841fa06838671144f4513022">too expensive</a> and bad for jobs (it tagged the cost at A$600 billion in 2015), to describing it now as a potential $2.1 trillion economic “windfall”, offering opportunities for 672,000 new jobs. </p>
<h2>News Corp and climate change</h2>
<p>What News Corp does matters, because it has extensive influence in Australia’s media market.</p>
<p>The company’s newspaper, radio, pay TV and online news portfolio gives it <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-14/fact-file-rupert-murdoch-media-reach-in-australia/100056660">significant audience reach</a> and huge political sway. In April, former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/utterly-unaccountable-turnbull-labels-news-corp-the-most-powerful-political-actor-in-australia-20210412-p57idq.html">labelled</a> the Murdoch media “the most powerful political actor in Australia”. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1381437037342031874"}"></div></p>
<p>Most people derive their understanding of climate change <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200623102230-mqb46/">from the media</a>. So News Corp’s audience reach (which included <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-14/fact-file-rupert-murdoch-media-reach-in-australia/100056660">about 100</a> print and digital mastheads as of early 2021) has given it extensive influence over Australians’ knowledge of and opinions about climate change, profoundly shaping public debate.</p>
<p>Murdoch media outlets have denied the science of climate change and ridiculed climate action for more than a decade. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/30/one-third-of-australias-media-coverage-rejects-climate-science-study-finds">2013 study</a> by the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism found climate denialist views in a third of Australian media coverage of climate change, and pointed to News Corp outlets as the key reason for this. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-wars-carbon-taxes-and-toppled-leaders-the-30-year-history-of-australias-climate-response-in-brief-169545">Climate wars, carbon taxes and toppled leaders: the 30-year history of Australia’s climate response, in brief</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>News Corp’s commentators have <a href="https://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/the-age-cries-for-warming-alarmists-it-should--hold-to-account/news-story/02a77e6c8a907e08ea2cb66555afc2f3">described</a> those arguing for climate action as “alarmists” and “<a href="https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/climate-scientists-taking-cues-from-greta-thunberg/video/25c13b73c34cfbf20a297caeb7534c28">loons</a>”, who are <a href="https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/andrew-bolt/andrew-bolt-global-warming-hysteria-overlooks-practicalities/news-story/0c0a079ef1d64c831d851fc33cc80ac8">prone</a> to “warming hysteria”. They have also <a href="https://www.skynews.com.au/opinion/andrew-bolt/the-global-warming-cult-is-getting-very-dangerous-bolt/video/ede99bc9e744990251378becd1c17594">said</a> climate concern is a “cult of the elite” <a href="https://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/dear-abc-maybe-i-just-follow-the-evidence-not-orders/news-story/e6b0839a6652f49234599568cae34483">and</a> the “effects of global warming have so far proved largely benign”. </p>
<p>Despite this, in 2019, Murdoch <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/nov/21/news-corps-rupert-murdoch-says-there-are-no-climate-change-deniers-around-here">declared</a> there were “no climate change deniers” in his company.</p>
<h2>Signs of a mood shift</h2>
<p>This pivot on climate change was not entirely unexpected. </p>
<p>The company had been signalling a mood shift since early 2020, in the wake of its controversial reporting on the Black Summer bushfires, which saw it accused of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jan/04/the-australian-murdoch-owned-newspaper-accused-of-downplaying-bushfires-in-favour-of-picnic-races">downplaying</a> the fires and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/feb/16/bushfire-article-in-the-australian-that-fuelled-misinformation-cleared-by-press-council">fuelling misinformation</a> about the cause.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="James Murdoch" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426845/original/file-20211018-13-qldm2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426845/original/file-20211018-13-qldm2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426845/original/file-20211018-13-qldm2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426845/original/file-20211018-13-qldm2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426845/original/file-20211018-13-qldm2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426845/original/file-20211018-13-qldm2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426845/original/file-20211018-13-qldm2g.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">James Murdoch, pictured in 2015, has become a vocal critic of News Corp’s approach to climate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sang Tan/AP/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At that time, Rupert Murdoch’s son James expressed his concerns about the “<a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/james-murdoch-blasts-news-corp-s-ongoing-climate-change-denial/99380967-f22b-43f7-b2ce-49d1c09f46f5">ongoing denial</a>” of climate change at News Corp in the face of “obvious evidence to the contrary”. </p>
<p>He subsequently resigned his position on the company’s board. Early last month, the Nine newspapers <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/rupert-murdoch-newspapers-24-hour-news-channel-to-champion-net-zero-emissions-20210905-p58oyx.html">flagged</a> an imminent change of stance on climate at News Corp, noting, “Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire has faced growing international condemnation and pressure from advertisers over its editorial stance on climate change”.</p>
<h2>The fine print</h2>
<p>Despite the gloss of missionzero2050 (the newspapers <a href="https://www.themercury.com.au/technology/environment/mission-zero-putting-australia-on-a-path-to-a-net-zero-future/news-story/83f521bfd9d592ab6defdab7d3b81ce8">say</a> they are only focusing on “positive stories” about creating “a clean future while having fun and feeling good at the same time”), a deeper analysis shows the campaign has some quite specific agendas, signalling its climate epiphany may be limited.</p>
<p>In the stories that make up the campaign, it is still rolling out business-as-usual narratives like: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>defending Australia’s emissions as small compared to other countries, especially China (therefore suggesting we do not need to take drastic action)</p></li>
<li><p>framing renewables as an unreliable source of energy (so not an adequate replacement for fossil fuels)</p></li>
<li><p>promoting Australia’s coal as cleaner than other countries’ (some of it may be, but the International Energy Agency says the world must <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/01/world-kick-coal-habit-start-green-recovery-iea-fatih-birol">start quitting coal now</a> to stay within safer global warming limits)</p></li>
<li><p>promoting gas as having half the emissions of coal (burning gas does emit less carbon dioxide, but its extraction also causes <a href="https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/gas-driving-massive-increase-in-fugitive-emissions/?atb=DSA01b&gclid=CjwKCAjwk6-LBhBZEiwAOUUDp7HjbvkQdWrhucIg7iSdxrY8vLdRkknnMLfCTpJNftPaZY-ptbPDDRoCPjMQAvD_BwE">fugitive emissions</a> of methane, a gas that’s about <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/scientists-concerned-by-record-high-global-methane-emissions">30 times more powerful</a> as a heat-trapping greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over 100 years)</p></li>
<li><p>advocating carbon capture and storage (which is not yet a proven way to <a href="https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/what-is-carbon-capture-and-storage/">reduce emissions </a>from burning fossil fuels)</p></li>
<li><p>criticising a carbon pollution price (<a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/explainers/what-is-a-carbon-price-and-why-do-we-need-one/">economists widely agree</a> this is the single most effective way to encourage polluters to reduce greenhouse gas emissons).</p></li>
</ul>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/economists-back-carbon-price-say-benefits-of-net-zero-outweigh-costs-169939">Economists back carbon price, say benefits of net-zero outweigh costs</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Surprisingly, the campaign is making a big effort to <a href="https://www.themercury.com.au/technology/environment/australian-miners-awu-back-nuclear-power-to-achieve-net-zero/news-story/d55b3b1a97e392c0b5095234c7477af6">spruik nuclear power</a>. It states: “our aversion to nuclear energy defies logic” and advocates strongly for an Australian nuclear industry for “national security” purposes as well as energy. </p>
<p>Overall, the missionzero2050 agenda seems to be set on supporting new and existing extractive industries and Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s “<a href="https://theconversation.com/malcolm-turnbull-condemns-scott-morrisons-gas-gas-gas-song-as-a-fantasy-146705">gas-led recovery</a>”. </p>
<p>Strangely, the campaign also <a href="https://media.news.com.au/multimedia/2021/NED-4717-Mission-Zero-special-report/Mission-Zero-booklet4.pdf">emphasises</a> “putting Australia first” – although efforts to deal with climate change must be inherently globally focused.</p>
<h2>Loud silences</h2>
<p>What’s most perverse, perhaps, about missionzero2050 are the things it does not say or acknowledge. There has been no mention of News Corp’s years of intentionally undermining decarbonisation and helping to topple Australian leaders who advocated for climate action.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1447653982978158592"}"></div></p>
<p>Oddly, News Corp has not muzzled its high-profile commentators. Columnist Andrew Bolt was quick to make it known that he thought the campaign was “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/oct/13/news-corps-andrew-bolt-says-his-companys-climate-campaign-is-rubbish">rubbish</a>”. </p>
<p>Nor has it aligned its advertising with the missionzero2050 message. For example, last Wednesday, the Herald Sun ran a half-page ad placed by the climate “sceptical” <a href="https://www.desmog.com/climate-study-group/">Climate Study Group</a> about the “great climate change furphy,” discrediting climate science and advocating for more coal and nuclear power.</p>
<h2>What might it mean?</h2>
<p>The timing of the campaign, just as Morrison <a href="https://theconversation.com/joyce-says-nationals-dont-want-bigger-2030-climate-target-as-party-room-frets-about-regional-protections-170085">negotiates</a> with the Nationals ahead of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-cop26-and-why-does-the-fate-of-earth-and-australias-prosperity-depend-on-it-169648">COP26 climate conference</a>, is likely to be no coincidence. It seems designed to provide cover for a potential shift on the part of the Coalition towards a mid-century net zero declaration. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/barnaby-joyce-has-refused-to-support-doubling-australias-2030-emissions-reduction-targets-but-we-could-get-there-so-cheaply-and-easily-169932">Barnaby Joyce has refused to support doubling Australia's 2030 emissions reduction targets – but we could get there so cheaply and easily</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Morrison is also under intense pressure from other world leaders <a href="https://theconversation.com/spot-the-difference-as-world-leaders-rose-to-the-occasion-at-the-biden-climate-summit-morrison-faltered-159295">to lift his ambitions on climate</a>. He’ll be expected to bring new plans for emissions cuts to the table in Glasgow.</p>
<p>Some commentators have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/12/news-corps-turnaround-on-climate-is-a-greenwash">labelled</a> the Murdoch pivot “greenwashing”. Others have <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/rupert-murdoch-climate-change-news-outlets-australia-policy-change-2021-9">called</a> it a “desperate ploy to rehabilitate the public image of a leading climate villain”.</p>
<p>However perplexing the Murdoch papers’ climate U-turn may seem, at least Morrison will know Australia’s “most powerful political actor” is not likely to campaign against any 2050 net zero declaration. </p>
<p>Given News Corp’s power to subvert the national narrative on climate, that’s important if we want to see the action that’s so long overdue.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169733/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gabi Mocatta is co-lead of Deakin University's Climate Change Communication and Narratives Network. She is also vice-president of the Board of the International Environmental Communication Association.</span></em></p>The Murdoch tabloids have just embarked on a bold new climate campaign, despite previously describing those who want action as ‘loons’.Gabi Mocatta, Research Fellow in Climate Change Communication, Climate Futures Program, University of Tasmania, and Lecturer in Communication - Journalism, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1689612021-09-29T10:55:42Z2021-09-29T10:55:42ZTurnbull slams ‘deceitful’ Morrison for giving Australia a reputation as untrustworthy<p>Malcolm Turnbull has accused Scott Morrison of trashing Australia’s reputation for trustworthiness and putting national security at risk, in a swingeing attack on the Prime Minister’s handling of the cancellation of the French submarine contract.</p>
<p>Turnbull also revealed that since the blow-up with France he had spoken to French President Emmanuel Macron – describing him as a friend and “an enormously important figure in global politics”. Macron has refused to take Morrison’s call, after the government quashed its contract effectively without notice.</p>
<p>Turnbull declined to go into the details of Macron’s reaction in their call but indicated French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who accused Australia of stabbing France in the back, “was not speaking just for himself”.</p>
<p>“France believes it has been deceived and humiliated – and she was,” Turnbull told the National Press Club. “This betrayal of trust will dog our relations with Europe for years.</p>
<p>"The Australian government has treated the French Republic with contempt. It won’t be forgotten. Every time we seek to persuade another nation to trust us, somebody will be saying, ‘Remember what they did to Macron? If they can throw France under a bus, what would they do to us?’”</p>
<p>Turnbull said when Morrison did something domestically which was criticised as slippery or disingenuous it reflected on him and the government, but “when you conduct yourself in such a deceitful manner internationally, it has a real impact on Australia.”</p>
<p>“What seems to have been overlooked is that one of our national security assets is trustworthiness,” Turnbull said. Morrison’s admirers were praising him for his “clever sneakiness”, but this was “an appalling episode in Australia’s international affairs” and the consequences would “endure to our disadvantage for a very long time”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-for-morrison-aukus-is-all-about-the-deal-never-mind-the-niceties-168248">View from The Hill: For Morrison AUKUS is all about the deal, never mind the niceties</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Turnbull said anyone who raised the unresolved questions about the AUKUS deal for nuclear-powered subs was essentially accused of being unpatriotic.</p>
<p>“I can say to you, I am not getting any lectures on patriotism from Scott Morrison. I defended the national security of this country and its national interest and I know the way that he has behaved is putting that at risk.”</p>
<p>Turnbull said Morrison defended his conduct by saying it was in Australia’s national interest. “So, is that Mr Morrison’s ethical standard with which Australia is now tagged: Australia will act honestly unless it is judged in our national interest to deceive?”</p>
<p>The government should have been honest and open with the French – who produce nuclear submarines – about exploring the acquisition of nuclear-powered boats. Macron would have been supportive, Turnbull said.</p>
<p>“Let us assume that after this discussion the conclusion was that only a US or UK submarine would do. If the contract was terminated at that point, nobody could say that Australia had been dishonest or sneaky. France would be disappointed, but not betrayed, disrespected or humiliated,” Turnbull said.</p>
<p>“Morrison’s response is to say that he could not be open and honest with Macron because the French might have run to Washington and urged Biden not to do the deal. That tells you a lot about how confident he is about the commitment of the Americans.”</p>
<p>Turnbull said despite its “awkward birth” he hoped AUKUS was “a great success. It should be. We are already the closest of friends and allies – none closer.”</p>
<h2>Turnbull is off to Glasgow</h2>
<p>Turnbull revealed he will attend the Glasgow climate conference</p>
<p>Asked what message it would send if Morrison did not go (the Prime Minister has indicated he might not), Turnbull said, “History is made by those who turn up. If Mr Morrison decides not to go to Glasgow […] his absence will send a pretty strong message about his priorities. This is a critical conference.”</p>
<p>Pressed on what Australia’s present 26-28% 2030 emissions reduction target should be raised to, Turnbull said there were plenty of scientists who said it should be 70%, but it should be at least 45% or 50%.</p>
<p>He was cagey on whether he would endorse climate-focused independents at the election if the government didn’t produce a satisfactory climate policy. Still a member of the Liberal party, he said “I haven’t made a decision about that”. “I will wait and see, I reserve my rights, as they would say.”</p>
<p>The NSW government this week boosted its 2030 emissions reduction target to 50%, from its previous target of 35% reduction.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-after-the-deal-on-security-scott-morrison-turns-to-the-shift-on-climate-168606">Grattan on Friday: After the deal on security, Scott Morrison turns to the shift on climate</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Morrison is negotiating with Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce to embrace a net zero by 2050 target for the Glasgow conference. </p>
<p>In awkward timing on Wednesday Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, who is preparing the way for the 2050 net zero target, and Nationals Senate leader Bridget McKenzie, who took a swipe at Frydenberg this week, appeared jointly. They were talking about the coming end of the COVID disaster payment, but were inevitably put on the spot about climate policy.</p>
<p>McKenzie wrote in her opinion piece in the Australian Financial Review: “It is easy for the Member for Kooyong [Frydenberg] or the Member for Wentworth [Dave Sharma] to publicly embrace net zero before the government has a position, because there would be next to zero real impact on the way of life of their affluent constituents”.</p>
<p>Questioned about this Frydenberg said: “Climate change has no postcode. Climate change is a global challenge that requires national solutions.”</p>
<p>He said the government was “having very positive and constructive internal discussions. Not everyone will agree on every point.</p>
<p>"But it shouldn’t be seen as a binary choice between the regions and jobs. It shouldn’t be seen as a binary choice between city electorates or suburban electorates and regional electorates.</p>
<p>"When you reduce emissions in accordance with a well-considered, funded plan, you actually create jobs.”</p>
<p>McKenzie said one message in her opinion price was to challenge the assumption that “rural and regional Australians are anti climate and the National Party anti–caring for the climate.”</p>
<p>Her second message had been “that we had a job to do in the National Party and that is to stand up for our constituents and the industries that not just prop up our own local economies, but indeed prop up our national economy”. </p>
<p>“And the third message was that in this very, very serious debate, there are MPs out there, Josh isn’t one of them, Sharma isn’t one of them, but there are MPs out there who want to be cool for the climate, want to be cool on climate change, want to be popular without actually understanding and assessing and evaluating the consequences of these decisions.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168961/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>Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says other countries won’t trust Australia after Scott Morrison deceived the FrenchMichelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1639632021-07-06T03:54:03Z2021-07-06T03:54:03ZThe ‘madness’ of Julia Banks — why narratives about ‘hysterical’ women are so toxic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409792/original/file-20210706-23-1bbv9pp.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>On Monday night, former Liberal MP Julia Banks spoke to Laura Tingle on 7.30. In the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/7.30/liberal-mp-julia-banks-speaks-on-the-toxic-culture/13432590">detailed interview</a> about her new book, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/shut-up-and-take-your-hrt-ex-mp-julia-banks-on-canberra-s-boys-club-20210514-p57s31.html">Power Play</a>, she described how Scott Morrison’s office began backgrounding against her when Banks told the prime minister she was quitting politics and making it public. </p>
<p>The spin allegedly put on the story was that she had a “complete sort of emotional breakdown” and had not “coped” with the coup that saw Malcolm Turnbull replaced by Morrison in 2018.</p>
<p>By the time Banks’ announcement reached the media, the narrative was already set. When Morrison fronted journalists he merely had to express concern for “Julia” — a sly signalling that Banks was mentally unstable.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What am I doing right now? I’m supporting Julia and I’m reaching out to Julia and giving her every comfort and support for what has been a pretty torrid ordeal for her. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Banks told Tingle the prime minister was “very good” at “controlling the narrative” and constructing her as “this weak petal that hadn’t coped”.</p>
<h2>The history of hysteria</h2>
<p>Words associated with madness and emotion are <a href="https://theconversation.com/memo-steve-price-how-hysteria-has-been-used-to-degrade-and-control-women-62604">frequently applied</a> to women to discredit them and undermine their authority.</p>
<p>Because it is often so subtle — expressing itself as an apparently genuine concern — it can be easy to dismiss. And yet it plays to stereotypical perceptions of women as irrational and hysterical. This is one of the most insidious tactics used in all walks of life to deny women power and agency.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1411997160304832516"}"></div></p>
<p>It is also part of the repertoire of <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-gaslighting-mean-107888">gaslighting</a> — a tactic used to dismiss women as disproportionately emotional or crazy, in a way that silences and controls them, denying them access to power. It has gained new prominence during the #metoo movement. When women speak out — the refrain from those in power is victims have somehow “misread” a situation. </p>
<p>Gaslighting in workplaces doesn’t have the obvious hallmarks of sexual harassment or bullying. But for exactly this reason, it is incredibly effective. It is the woman — not the situation — that is claimed to be the problem. It is the woman — not the culture — that needs to be “fixed”. Try to call it out and the perpetrator is extremely well placed to declare themselves the “victim”.</p>
<h2>But wait, there’s more</h2>
<p>Other subtle tactics revealed in Banks’ interview on 7.30 included repeatedly calling the 50-something MP (and former corporate lawyer) by her first name “Julia”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Julia Banks campaigning with Malcolm Turnbill in 2016." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409797/original/file-20210706-25-1fjf4tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409797/original/file-20210706-25-1fjf4tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409797/original/file-20210706-25-1fjf4tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409797/original/file-20210706-25-1fjf4tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409797/original/file-20210706-25-1fjf4tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409797/original/file-20210706-25-1fjf4tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409797/original/file-20210706-25-1fjf4tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Banks was elected to the Victorian seat of Chisholm in 2016, in a surprise win for the Coalition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Crosling/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This functions not only as a claim to intimacy, supporting Morrison’s alleged knowledge of the state of Banks mental health, but also as infantalisation. Morrison <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-16/scott-morrison-womens-march-grace-tame-brittany-higgins/13249824">once referred </a>to professor Alison McMillan, as “chief nurse Alison”, while reserving the accolade of “professor” for chief medical officer Paul Kelly. It relegates well-credentialled women to the status of a “girl”. </p>
<p>Banks says she was dragged through “this sexist spectrum narrative” when it came to the backgrounding against her. On top of being emotionally weak, she was also criticised by colleagues for speaking out against bullying in the party and for eventually <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-28/patricia-karvelas-julia-banks-australian-parliament-liberals/10560914">going to the crossbench</a>. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was this weak overemotional woman, to the bully bitch</p>
</blockquote>
<p>All of these stereotypes play to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-campaign-and-the-political-shrew-9057">pre-existing cultural assumptions</a> about women’s relationship to power.</p>
<h2>‘Menacing wallpaper’</h2>
<p>This kind of undermining is extremely difficult to combat. If the victim speaks out, she will be told that she is over-reacting, that she is over-sensitive. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg allegedly told Banks she could take a break from Canberra and do a stint at the United Nations. Banks says, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>it would have got me out of the parliament because they basically wanted to silence me.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/misogyny-male-rage-and-the-words-men-use-to-describe-greta-thunberg-124347">Misogyny, male rage and the words men use to describe Greta Thunberg</a>
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<hr>
<p>Banks, with decades of experience working in male-dominated professions, thought she could see what Morrison and his colleagues were doing. But it is much easier to call out overt acts. If diffuse and low-level untruths are repeated constantly, the danger is the public starts believing that there must be something wrong.</p>
<p>Banks description of Morrison as “menacing, controlling wallpaper” is an apt description of the tangible and intangible barriers that so many aspiring women face.</p>
<h2>And so it continues</h2>
<p>A key question is why hasn’t this angle in Banks’ story attracted more attention? Up to now, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-03/julia-banks-inappropriate-touching-sexism-lnp-politics-claims/100265384">media coverage</a> of her new book has largely focused on an incident of “inappropriate touching” that occurred in the Prime Minister’s Office, when a member of the Turnbull cabinet allegedly touched Banks’ leg, then ran his hand up her inner thigh.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-gaslighting-mean-107888">Explainer: what does 'gaslighting' mean?</a>
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<p>While this is obviously worth serious attention, it is not the whole story. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jul/05/menacing-controlling-wallpaper-julia-banks-says-her-three-months-under-scott-morrison-were-gut-wrenching">statement</a>, Morrison’s office “absolutely rejected” the content of his conversations with Banks. The spokesperson said the prime minister had “several conversations with her to understand what she was going through”. And that she had been offered “support”. </p>
<p>And so the subtle campaign of sexist denigration continues in plain sight.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163963/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Camilla Nelson 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>Words associated with madness and emotion are used against women to discredit them and undermine their authority.Camilla Nelson, Associate Professor in Media, University of Notre Dame AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1606172021-05-27T03:08:19Z2021-05-27T03:08:19ZNon-university educated white people are deserting left-leaning parties. How can they get them back?<p>In Australia, the US and the UK, whites without a university education have trended to the right in the past decade, relative to overall election results. Scott Morrison in Australia, Donald Trump in the US, and Boris Johnson and Brexit in the UK have recently won elections owing to these trends.</p>
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<p>I wrote about how Trump won the <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-2016-election-final-results-how-trump-won-69356">2016 US election here</a>. Although Trump lost the 2020 election, his defeat in the key Electoral College battleground states was very narrow (0.6% in the tipping-point state), and this was because his support with non-uni whites held up from 2016. See my <a href="https://www.pollbludger.net/2020/12/11/us-2020-election-final-results-bidens-electoral-college-win/">2020 US election report</a> at The Poll Bludger.</p>
<p>In the UK, a <a href="https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/wl0r2q1sm4/Results_HowBritainVoted_2019_w.pdf">YouGov poll</a>, taken after the Conservative landslide at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_general_election">December 2019 election</a> from a sample of 42,000, gave the Conservatives bigger leads among low-income than high-income people. The Conservatives won by 58-25% among those with the lowest education level.</p>
<p>CNN analyst <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/04/politics/republicans-white-working-class-education/index.html">Harry Enten</a> wrote in early April that in 2006, Democrats won 23 of the 50 federal US House seats with the highest population share of whites aged 25 or older without a university degree. In 2020, Democrats won just two of the top 50 such seats. </p>
<p>Democrats gained control of the House in 2006; they lost it in 2010, then regained it in 2018.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401789/original/file-20210520-13-c1denx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401789/original/file-20210520-13-c1denx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401789/original/file-20210520-13-c1denx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401789/original/file-20210520-13-c1denx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401789/original/file-20210520-13-c1denx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401789/original/file-20210520-13-c1denx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401789/original/file-20210520-13-c1denx.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">In the 2016 US election, non-uni whites were an important part of the ‘base’ that elected Donald Trump president.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/EPA/Michael Reynolds</span></span>
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<p>In 2006, a Democrat won the seat with the second highest proportion of non-uni whites by 24 percentage points, winning his home county by 45 points. Trump won that county by 40 points in 2020.</p>
<p>Income is far less important than it was in 2006 in explaining how white people vote, with education level the dominant factor. Enten says that in 2020, non-uni whites below the median income level voted Republican by a 26-point margin, and those above voted Republican by 31 points. Democrats increased their margin by 39 points when shifting from non-uni whites to whites with a university degree.</p>
<p>In Australia, the regional Queensland federal seat of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_results_for_the_Division_of_Capricornia">Capricornia</a> was Labor-held for all but two terms from 1961 until 2013; those terms, in 1975 and 1996, were Coalition landslides. At the 2019 federal election, the LNP won Capricornia by a 62.4-37.6% margin, a massive 11.7% swing to the LNP from 2016, the <a href="https://results.aec.gov.au/24310/Website/HouseTppByDivision-24310-NAT.htm">highest of any seat</a>.</p>
<p>From being pro-Labor relative to the national and Queensland results, Capricornia was 4% better for the Coalition in 2019 than Queensland overall (58.4-41.6% to LNP), and 10.9% better than the nation (51.5-48.5% to Coalition). According to the 2016 Census, just 11.3% of <a href="https://quickstats.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2016/quickstat/CED305?opendocument">Capricornia’s population</a> aged 16 and over had a Bachelor’s degree or higher, compared with 22% of Australia overall.</p>
<h2>Australia 2016 and UK 2017 elections broke this trend</h2>
<p>At the 2016 Australian federal election, the Coalition under Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership won only a bare majority of 76 of the 150 seats, losing 14 seats from the 2013 Coalition landslide. </p>
<p>The Coalition’s one gain from Labor occurred in the inner Melbourne seat of Chisholm (36% Bachelor’s degree or higher), while <a href="https://results.aec.gov.au/20499/Website/HouseSeatsWhichChangedHands-20499.htm">Labor gained</a> the three northern Tasmanian seats of Bass (15% Bachelor’s), Braddon (9.5%) and Lyons (9.5%), Longman (9.3%) and Herbert (15.3%) in Queensland and seven seats including Lindsay (13.5%) in NSW. </p>
<p>Bass, Braddon, Lindsay, Longman and Herbert were all <a href="https://results.aec.gov.au/24310/Website/HouseSeatsWhichChangedHands-24310.htm">regained by the Coalition</a> in 2019.</p>
<p>Although there was an overall swing to Labor of 3.1% at the <a href="https://results.aec.gov.au/20499/Website/HouseTppByState-20499.htm">2016 election</a> for a two party result of 50.4-49.6% to the Coalition, the Liberals gained a 2.2% swing in the inner Melbourne seat of Melbourne Ports (44.6%), reducing Labor’s margin to 51.4-48.6%. In 2019, the same seat (renamed <a href="https://results.aec.gov.au/24310/Website/HouseDivisionPage-24310-322.htm">Macnamara</a>) was one of Labor’s best in swing terms with a 5% swing to them.</p>
<p>At the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_United_Kingdom_general_election">2017 UK election</a>, both major parties increased their vote share from 2015, with the Conservatives up 5.5% to 42.4% and Labour up 9.6% to 40%. In a major upset, the Conservatives lost their parliamentary majority, winning 317 of the 650 seats (down 13). They were able to form a government with support from Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party.</p>
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<span class="caption">In the 2017 UK election, the Conservatives under Theresa May, despite again forming government, lost their parliamentary majority. Johnson replaced May before the 2019 election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/EPA/Facundo Arrizabalaga</span></span>
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<p>In the 2017 <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/06/13/how-britain-voted-2017-general-election">YouGov post-election poll</a>, Labour still lost the least-educated by 55-33%, but this 22-point margin was much better than the 33-point margin in 2019. Furthermore, Labour performed well in traditional heartland seats that voted heavily for Leave at the 2016 Brexit referendum.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartlepool_(UK_Parliament_constituency)">Hartlepool</a>, which Labour had held continuously since its creation in 1974, Leave won by 69.6-30.4%, but Labour won 52.5% in 2017 (up 16.9% since 2015). The Conservatives won 34.2% (up 13.3%) and UKIP 11.5% (down 16.5%).</p>
<h2>The 2021 UK Hartlepool byelection</h2>
<p>Despite the Conservatives’ 2019 landslide, Labour held Hartlepool owing to vote splitting between the Conservatives and Brexit party. Labour won 37.7% (down 14.8% since 2017), the Conservatives 28.9% (down 5.3%), the Brexit party 25.8% and the Lib Dems 4.1% (up 2.3%). The UK uses first past the post.</p>
<p>A byelection was held on May 6. The Conservatives won 51.9% (up 23%), Labour 28.7% (down 9%) and an independent 9.7%. It was not shocking the Conservatives won as they were expected to consolidate the Brexit party vote. </p>
<p>What was shocking was Labour’s nine-point drop in support from what was already a bad loss nationally in 2019. I covered this byelection and the generally disappointing local government UK elections for Labour in a live blog for <a href="https://www.pollbludger.net/2021/05/07/uk-local-scottish-and-welsh-elections-live/">The Poll Bludger</a>.</p>
<h2>Non-uni whites are voting the opposite way to elite opinion</h2>
<p>For this article, I am defining elite opinion as representing political journalists and opinion and editorial columns at organisations like The Conversation, The Guardian, the ABC, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.</p>
<p>In the US and UK, Trump, Brexit and Boris Johnson were hated by elite opinion, but non-uni whites voted heavily for all three.</p>
<p>When he <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/sep/14/australian-leader-tony-abbott-ousted-by-malcolm-turnbull-after-mps-vote">deposed Tony Abbott</a> as prime minister in September 2015, Turnbull was welcomed by elite opinion. I believe this welcome alienated non-uni whites, and led to Labor making many gains in seats with low levels of educational attainment at the 2016 election, while the Coalition gained in seats with high levels of educational attainment.</p>
<p>Elite opinion was never in favour of Morrison, and the 2016 pattern was reversed in 2019, with the Coalition making its strongest gains in regional Queensland. See this <a href="https://www.pollbludger.net/2019/10/27/call-board-regional-queensland/">Poll Bludger</a> post for the gory details of Labor’s collapse in regional Queensland.</p>
<p>Jeremy Corbyn was despised by UK elite opinion because he was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Jeremy_Corbyn#European_Union">pro-Brexit</a>, and Labour was perceived as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/26/labour-sandbags-survive-yory-tidal-wave-tactical-voting-progressive-alliances">headed for a thrashing</a> under Corbyn’s far-left policies. The 2017 surge for Labour nationally and in seats like Hartlepool probably reflected non-uni whites’ distrust of elite opinion.</p>
<p>By 2019, Corbyn had become associated with blocking Brexit, and so non-uni whites rejected him and Labour. Keir Starmer, who had been an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/aug/27/labour-is-the-party-of-remain-says-keir-starmer-brexit">ardent Remainer</a> under Corbyn, then became Labour leader, and elite opinion welcomed him. However, the Hartlepool byelection result was utterly woeful for Starmer and Labour.</p>
<p>There are mitigating factors for Labour. The Conservatives have opened up a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election">big poll lead</a> as the result of the UK’s COVID vaccination program that has <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/">massively reduced deaths and cases</a> from January peaks. However, the Conservative government is 11 years old, and Labour could only get into a near-tie late last year.</p>
<p>In the 2020 US presidential election, elite opinion was disdainful of Joe Biden owing to his age. It’s possible Trump would have gained further ground with non-uni whites and won the election in the Electoral College if not for this.</p>
<h2>Left should attempt to dissociate from elite opinion</h2>
<p>The above section implies that non-uni whites are voting contrarily to elite opinion. If left-wing parties want to regain the votes of non-uni whites, they should probably break with elite opinion on some issues.</p>
<p>I think political correctness is an area where the left could break with elite opinion without compromising its core values on supporting low-income people and the environment. As I wrote here, the right could gain with young voters from the political correctness issue.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/has-a-backlash-against-political-correctness-made-sexual-misbehaviour-more-acceptable-158428">Has a backlash against political correctness made sexual misbehaviour more acceptable?</a>
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<p>At the very least, people from the left should be as condemnatory as those from the right about extreme politically correct jargon such as “<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/breastfeeding-association-defends-creation-of-chestfeeding-booklet-20210512-p57rbu.html">chestfeeding</a>”.</p>
<p>A danger for the right is being perceived as wanting to slash government services when in office. The 2014 Australian <a href="https://theconversation.com/labor-leaps-further-ahead-in-post-budget-polls-26853">federal budget</a> was very unpopular, with Labor’s lead blowing out by about three points to 55-45%. Trump was at his <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/">most unpopular</a> during his first year in office, during which he <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Health_Care_Act_of_2017">attempted to gut Obamacare</a>.</p>
<p>In the last year, there have been two massive victories for the left in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_New_Zealand_general_election">New Zealand</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Western_Australian_state_election">Western Australia</a>. The wins have been by such huge margins that Labo(u)r must have easily won non-uni whites. </p>
<p>Perhaps incumbent left-wing governments will be able to make progress with non-uni whites, but the difficulty is becoming an incumbent. Those two elections were strongly influenced by NZ and WA’s successful campaign against COVID.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160617/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>Recent elections in Australia, the US and the UK have seen left-leaning parties lose votes among non-university educated whites. One way to win them back might be to disassociate from ‘elite’ opinion.Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1595592021-04-22T11:27:25Z2021-04-22T11:27:25ZGrattan on Friday: As Morrison struggles with 2050, the climate leaders up the ante for 2030<p>We shouldn’t be surprised at the Kevin Rudd-Malcolm Turnbull bromance. After all, we saw the same with Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam.</p>
<p>The stronger the earlier political antipathy, it seems, the closer the later collaboration. Rudd’s fury over Turnbull’s refusal to back him for United Nations secretary-general might never have existed.</p>
<p>With Whitlam and Fraser, the republican cause and media issues were unifiers.</p>
<p>With Rudd and Turnbull, a mutual commitment to action on climate change and a passionate hatred of the Murdoch media provide the glue.</p>
<p>Each of them, in his ascendancy, regarded the Murdoch empire more benignly than now. But they’ve both been consistent on climate change, an issue central in Turnbull losing his leadership twice, and important in Rudd’s 2010 ousting from the prime ministership.</p>
<p>This week, ahead of US President Joe Biden’s (virtual) climate summit, the duo <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/21/australias-ambition-on-climate-change-is-held-back-by-a-toxic-mix-of-rightwing-politics-media-and-vested-interests">co-authored an article in The Guardian</a>, in which they argued: “The main thing holding back Australia’s climate ambition is politics: a toxic coalition of the Murdoch press, the right wing of the Liberal and National parties, and vested interests in the fossil fuel sector.”</p>
<p>Despite community concern about the issue, until recently the government, post Turnbull, judged it could slough off criticisms of Australia’s inadequate climate policy. After all, wasn’t Labor the side with the problem?</p>
<p>Now that’s changed. There are multiple reasons but most immediately the election of Biden, who has put climate change at the heart of his international agenda, has left Australia without a fig leaf and with nowhere to hide.</p>
<p>It has to account for itself at high-profile international occasions. After the Biden summit comes the June G7 meeting in the United Kingdom, to which Australia has been invited. Then there’s the November United Nations climate change conference in Glasgow.</p>
<p>Scott Morrison understands he must pivot the government’s climate policy – specifically, that sometime this year he needs to formally embrace the widely accepted target of net-zero emissions by 2050. In his Thursday night speech to the summit he said Australia would update its strategy for Glasgow.</p>
<p>He knows market forces are driving much of the pace on climate policy. Climate risk is increasingly significant in investment decisions.</p>
<p>And, in trading terms, other countries could disadvantage Australia for being a laggard. The European Union is preparing a plan for a price on the carbon content of imported goods. This is due to be tabled this year and, after consultations, imposed in 2023.</p>
<p>As he manoeuvres on climate policy, Morrison is rather like the boy on the skateboard trying to navigate an awkward change of direction.</p>
<p>He insists the government’s approach will be based on “technology not taxes”. By stressing advances in technology, he’s preparing the way to sign up later to the 2050 target.</p>
<p>Ahead of the Biden summit, the government announced more than $1 billion in funding (spread over a decade) to support the development of technology. Morrison’s rhetoric casts Australia as an international leader on that front.</p>
<p>According to his current mantra, “‘when’ is not the question [in climate policy] anymore. ‘How’ is the question.”</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/morrison-wants-to-focus-on-the-how-rather-than-the-when-in-climate-debate-159442">Morrison wants to focus on the 'how' rather than the 'when' in climate debate</a>
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<p>But climate leaders are very much focused on the “when”. With Britain and the United States upping their medium-term ambitions, the debate is about toughening 2030 targets, and the paucity of Australia’s position is further exposed.</p>
<p>As Morrison inches towards the 2050 commitment, international attention is shifting to what should be done 20 years before that. But Morrison had no revised medium-term Australian target to put on Biden’s summit table.</p>
<p>If Morrison had been dealing with this challenge in late 2019, after his unexpected election triumph, it would be a whole lot easier. He’d have had maximum authority to make shifts of policy.</p>
<p>But the PM’s authority, while still substantial, has been eroded, especially by the setbacks in the vaccine roll-out. Within his own ranks, there’s more criticism, and it’s no longer assumed he couldn’t lose next year’s election.</p>
<p>The government’s parliamentary numbers are on a knife edge after the exit of Craig Kelly to sit as an independent.</p>
<p>Morrison is acutely aware he has to keep his ranks solid – hence his failure to demand Queensland Liberal Andrew Laming be forced to the crossbench.</p>
<p>Resistance to a meaningful shift in climate policy is strongest among the rebels in the Nationals, including the outspoken Queensland senator Matt Canavan, a big spruiker for coal. These are the people who’d seize any excuse to move on Nationals leader and Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack. The last thing Morrison wants is a destabilising stoush within the Coalition’s minor partner.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-matt-canavan-on-holgate-di-bartolomeo-and-john-andersen-159043">Politics with Michelle Grattan: Matt Canavan on Holgate, Di Bartolomeo, and John Andersen</a>
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<p>The dilemma faced by Australia – and Morrison – was bluntly called out in a pre-summit briefing given by Biden administration officials.</p>
<p>Asked where Australia’s policy was, and what the US expected in increased ambition, one briefer pointed to the “very difficult political conversation” in Australia about “how much ambition is there”.</p>
<p>“I think that our colleagues in Australia recognise that there’s going to have to be a shift,” the official said. “It’s insufficient to follow the existing trajectory and hope that they will be on a course to deep decarbonisation and getting to net-zero emissions by mid-century.</p>
<p>"I think the differences are very largely about what the trajectory is and how do you get on it. One view of the world says, ‘Don’t worry, technology will solve the problem.’ The other view of the world says, ‘At the end of the day, technology will contribute but is insufficient on its own to solve the problem, and you have to have a set of policies, you have to have national intent, you have to follow up with actions and commitments.’</p>
<p>"I think that there’s movement. […] We are hopeful [Morrison] will come to the summit and make announcements around both and commit the country to next steps that we think would be critical.”</p>
<p>With the message that technology is not enough to deal with the climate challenge, the US official pricked the balloon into which Morrison had been assiduously blowing as much air as he could.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159559/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>With the message that technology is not enough to deal with the climate challenge, the US official pricked the balloon into which Morrison had been assiduously blowing as much air as he could.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1584482021-04-07T02:43:20Z2021-04-07T02:43:20ZIs Malcolm Turnbull the only Liberal who understands economics and climate science – or the only one who’ll talk about it?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393696/original/file-20210407-19-6y4tzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=130%2C92%2C5005%2C2764&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Darren England/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Yesterday, former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull was unceremoniously <a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/malcolm-turnbull-dumped-as-chair-of-nsw-climate-change-advisory-board/29f2f8c9-537c-4745-a7d1-4ddf8cb2aa3b">dumped</a> as chair of the New South Wales government’s climate advisory board, just a week after being offered the role. His crime? He questioned the wisdom of building new coal mines when the existing ones are already floundering.</p>
<p>No-one would suggest building new hotels in Cairns to help that city’s <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-19/coronavirus-queensland-regional-tourism-cairns-hotels-reef/12158486">struggling</a> tourism industry. But among modern Liberals it’s patently heresy to ask how rushing to green light <a href="https://reneweconomy.com.au/surge-in-new-coal-mine-proposals-in-nsw-triggers-fresh-calls-for-coal-moratorium/">11 proposed coal mines</a> in the Hunter Valley helps the struggling coal industry.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/glencore-to-suspend-hunter-valley-coal-mines-as-china-restricts-imports-20200807-p55jlw.html">Coal mines</a> in the Hunter are already operating <a href="https://www.afr.com/companies/mining/coal-mines-rail-and-ports-slowed-by-rains-20210322-p57d0g">well below capacity</a> and have been <a href="https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/2160532-australias-hvo-coal-mine-cuts-workforce">laying off workers</a> in the face of <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-21/international-energy-agency-says-coal-demand-peaked-in-2013/13001140">declining</a> world demand for coal, <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth">plummeting</a> renewable energy prices and trade sanctions <a href="https://theconversation.com/forget-about-the-trade-spat-coal-is-passe-in-much-of-china-and-thats-a-bigger-problem-for-australia-153300">imposed</a> by China. The problem isn’t a shortage of supply, but an abundance. </p>
<p>The simple truth is building new coal mines will simply make matters worse, especially for workers in existing coal mines that have already been mothballed or had their output scaled back.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="coal mine in the Hunter Valley" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393697/original/file-20210407-19-1wkhbxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393697/original/file-20210407-19-1wkhbxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393697/original/file-20210407-19-1wkhbxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393697/original/file-20210407-19-1wkhbxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393697/original/file-20210407-19-1wkhbxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393697/original/file-20210407-19-1wkhbxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393697/original/file-20210407-19-1wkhbxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Turnbull has called for a moratorium on new coal mines in the Hunter Valley, such as the one pictured above.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dean Lewins/AAP</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>It gets worse. Once an enormous, dusty, noisy open cut coal mine is approved, the agriculture, wine, tourism and horse breeding industries – all major employers in the Hunter Valley – are reluctant to invest nearby. While building new coal mines hurts workers in existing coal mines, the mere act of approving new coal mines harms investment in job creation in the <a href="https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/5889426/report-time-is-up-for-coal-in-the-hunter/">industries</a> that offer the Hunter a smooth transition from coal.</p>
<p>The NSW planning department doesn’t have a plan for how many new coal mines are needed to meet world demand. Nor does it have a plan for how much expansion of rail and port infrastructure is required to meet the output of all the new mines being proposed. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/forget-about-the-trade-spat-coal-is-passe-in-much-of-china-and-thats-a-bigger-problem-for-australia-153300">Forget about the trade spat – coal is passé in much of China, and that's a bigger problem for Australia</a>
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<p>That’s why my colleagues and I <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/report/one-step-forward-two-steps-back/">recently called for a moratorium</a> on new coal mines in the Hunter until such plans were made explicit. Just as you wouldn’t approve 1,000 new homes in a town where the sewerage system was already at capacity, it makes no sense to approve 11 new coal mines in a region that couldn’t export that much coal if it tried.</p>
<p>But if there’s one thing that defines the debate about coal in Australia, its that it makes no sense. </p>
<p>Just as it made no sense for then-treasurer Scott Morrison to wave a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/feb/09/scott-morrison-brings-coal-to-question-time-what-fresh-idiocy-is-this">lump of coal</a> around in parliament in 2017, it makes no sense for right-wing commentators to pretend approving new mines will help create jobs in coal mining. And it makes no sense for the National Party to ignore the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-33647189">pleas of farmers</a> to protect their land from the damage coal mines do.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Scott Morrison with a lump of coal to Question Time in 2017." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393698/original/file-20210407-13-1btbj1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393698/original/file-20210407-13-1btbj1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393698/original/file-20210407-13-1btbj1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393698/original/file-20210407-13-1btbj1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393698/original/file-20210407-13-1btbj1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393698/original/file-20210407-13-1btbj1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393698/original/file-20210407-13-1btbj1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Scott Morrison took a lump of coal to Question Time in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lukas Coch/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the surface, Turnbull’s support for a pause on approving new mines while a plan is developed is old-fashioned centrism. It protects existing coal workers from new, <a href="https://im-mining.com/2018/07/26/australia-coal-mine-automation-increase-post-2025-says-woodmac/">highly automated</a> mines, it protects farmers and it should make those concerned with climate change at least a bit happy. Win. Win. Win.</p>
<p>But there’s no room for a sensible centre in the Australian coal debate. And when someone even suggests the industry might not be set to grow, its army of loyal parliamentary and media supporters swing into action.</p>
<p>Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon <a href="https://www.facebook.com/JoelFitzgibbonMP/posts/4006442726068264">said</a> Turnbull “wants to make the Upper Hunter a coal-mine-free zone”. The Nationals’ Matt Canavan <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/environment/sustainability/turnbull-calls-for-halt-on-new-coal-mines-inquiry-on-rehabilitation-funds-20210331-p57fji.html">suggested</a> stopping coal exports was “an inhumane policy to keep people in poverty”. The head of the NSW Minerals Council <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/environment/sustainability/turnbull-calls-for-halt-on-new-coal-mines-inquiry-on-rehabilitation-funds-20210331-p57fji.html">suggested</a> 12,000 jobs were at risk.</p>
<p>But of course, the opposite is true. Turnbull’s proposal to protect existing coal workers from competition from new mines would save jobs, not threaten them. He didn’t suggest coal mines be shut down tomorrow, or even early. And, given existing coal mines are running so far below capacity, his call has no potential to impact coal exports.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/labor-politicians-need-not-fear-queenslanders-are-no-more-attached-to-coal-than-the-rest-of-australia-148993">Labor politicians need not fear: Queenslanders are no more attached to coal than the rest of Australia</a>
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<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Coal workers" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393699/original/file-20210407-21-ik86mj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393699/original/file-20210407-21-ik86mj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393699/original/file-20210407-21-ik86mj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393699/original/file-20210407-21-ik86mj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393699/original/file-20210407-21-ik86mj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393699/original/file-20210407-21-ik86mj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393699/original/file-20210407-21-ik86mj.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">Opening new coal mines won’t help save the jobs of existing coal workers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Himbrechts/AAP</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Predictably, the Murdoch press ran a relentlessly misleading campaign in support of the coal industry and in <a href="https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=DTWEB_WRE170_a_GGL&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailytelegraph.com.au%2Fnews%2Fjames-morrow-climate-warrior-malcolm-turnbull-wasnt-always-a-clean-green-anticoal-machine%2Fnews-story%2Fda8cf549cd63501a29e666a74a27fde7&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium">opposition</a> to their least favourite Liberal PM. But surprisingly, the NSW government <a href="https://www.perthnow.com.au/politics/turnbulls-coal-comments-sealed-his-fate-c-2532115">rolled over</a> in record time. </p>
<p>While the government might think appeasing the coal industry will play well among some older regional voters, they must know such kowtowing is a gift to independents such as Zali Steggall, and a fundamental threat to inner-city Liberals such as Dave Sharma, Jason Falinski and Trent Zimmerman.</p>
<p>The decision to dump Turnbull might have bought NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian some respite from attacks from the Daily Telegraph. But such denial of economics and climate science will provide no respite for existing coal workers in shuttered coal mines or the agriculture and tourism industry that is looking to expand.</p>
<p>No doubt the National Party are pleased with their latest scalp. But it must be remembered this is the party that last year wanted to wage a <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-nsw-koala-wars-showed-one-thing-the-nationals-appear-ill-equipped-to-help-rural-australia-146000">war against koalas</a> on behalf of property developers. Such political instincts might help the Nationals fend off the <a href="https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6246848669001">threat</a> from One Nation in regional areas but it does nothing to retain votes in leafy Liberal strongholds that deliver most Liberal seats.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/arent-we-in-a-drought-the-australian-black-coal-industry-uses-enough-water-for-over-5-million-people-137591">Aren't we in a drought? The Australian black coal industry uses enough water for over 5 million people</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158448/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Denniss is the Chief Economist of The Australia Institute. He was a senior strategic advisor to Australian Greens Leader Senator Bob Brown and Chief of Staff to Senator Natasha Stott-Despoja, former Leader of the Australian Democrats.</span></em></p>Among modern Liberals it’s patently heresy to ask how rushing to green light 11 proposed coal mines in the Hunter Valley helps the struggling coal industry.Richard Denniss, Adjunct Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1562392021-03-01T11:27:46Z2021-03-01T11:27:46ZCabinet minister ‘categorically’ denies historical rape allegation: Morrison<p>Scott Morrison has said the cabinet minister accused of historical rape denies the allegation “categorically”.</p>
<p>As calls for an inquiry into the alleged assault continued, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull urged the man to identify himself.</p>
<p>“I think for the sake of his colleagues, the government, everybody – he should front up and state who it is,” Turnbull told the ABC’s 7.30.</p>
<p>Facing a barrage of questions about the issue at his news conference on the aged care royal commission report, Morrison insisted the matter should rest firmly with the police – even though they are not able to take it further because the woman is dead.</p>
<p>Morrison would not be drawn on whether he believed the allegation to be false. “That is a matter for the police.”</p>
<p>Pressed on whether it was acceptable to have a cabinet minister remain in his position with this hanging over his head, Morrison said “I think it’s appropriate for the matter to be dealt with by the federal police and the federal police to advise me of the nature of this, which they’re doing.</p>
<p>"At this stage, the commissioner [Reece Kershaw] has raised no issue with me – and the department secretary was present for that call as well – that would cause me to take action under the ministerial code. That’s where we are, right now.”</p>
<p>Morrison appears careful in including time caveats. If the issue escalated politically, there is a feeling he could cut the minister loose.</p>
<p>The Prime Minister was among four parliamentary recipients last week of a letter from anonymous friends of the alleged victim, who claimed she was raped by the man in 1988, when she was 16. The woman took her own life last year but the letter included a statement she had written.</p>
<p>Morrison said he became aware on Wednesday evening that the letter was coming to him, although he did not receive it until Friday afternoon.</p>
<p>That evening he spoke to the minister, Kershaw, and senior officials of his department.</p>
<p>Morrison would not go into details of his conversation with the minister, beyond saying he (Morrison) had raised the matter “and he vigorously and completely denied the allegations”.</p>
<p>The events of Wednesday explain the background to the letter Kershaw sent Morrison on Wednesday stressing “the importance of timely referrals of allegations of criminal conduct”. This letter was subsequently circulated to MPs.</p>
<p>Asked if he had heard of the allegation before last week, Morrison said he’d heard “only rumours of an ABC investigative journalist making some inquiries. That’s all I’d heard. I didn’t know the substance of them.”</p>
<p>Asked if he had known who was being referred to, he said, “I tend to not pay attention to rumours.”</p>
<p>Pushed on whether the rumour was about alleged rape, he said, “Well I wasn’t aware of the substance of it and as a result not in really a position to pursue it. When I was put in a position to pursue it, I did”.</p>
<p>Under further questioning Morrison said he had heard the rumours around the time of the ABC Four Corners story last year on the “Canberra Bubble”, dealing with sexual misbehaviour.</p>
<p>“But I had no idea what or who it was about,” he said.</p>
<p>Turnbull said the “ball is really in the court of the minister concerned. I mean, he knows who he is. Everyone knows who he is.</p>
<p>"He may well have known about these allegations for a long time. One of the things we don’t know is whether he’d had any communication with the woman who’d made the complaint, right? So there’s a lot of questions to be answered.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156239/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Scott Morrison has said the cabinet minister accused of historical rape denies the allegation “categorically”.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1549492021-02-15T18:52:40Z2021-02-15T18:52:40Z‘Trumpism’ in Australia has been overstated – our problems are mostly our own<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384210/original/file-20210215-19-1ph54tz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=101%2C0%2C3592%2C2000&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>The Trump era might not yet be over. But the Trump presidency – or at least one Trump presidency – certainly is. For the United States, it’s time to clean up the wreckage. For the rest of us, there’s also damage to undo.</p>
<p>Yet, just as Australia managed to emerge from the global financial crisis in better shape than any country had the right to expect, so it emerges from the Trump presidency in surprisingly reasonable shape - especially considering the global calamities still unfolding around us.</p>
<p>Just how much credit Australia’s federal government deserves for that result is worth considering. Australia had two prime ministers during the Trump era, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-king-the-fires-and-the-fever-a-fairytale-finish-to-2020-149971">The king, the fires and the fever: a fairytale finish to 2020</a>
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<p>Early in Trump’s presidency, Turnbull had a now <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-04/donald-trump-malcolm-turnbull-refugee-phone-call-transcript/8773422">infamous phone conversation with Trump</a>, which was duly leaked to the media. In it, Turnbull tried to persuade a deeply disgruntled president to fulfil the American end of a bargain involving a refugee swap. The US would take asylum-seekers stuck on Manus Island and Nauru, in return for Australia taking refugees from Central America.</p>
<p>Turnbull tried to address Trump as one transactional businessman to another. The effort was probably as effective as it could have been in the circumstances. Turnbull reported in his memoir A Bigger Picture that in dealing with the “narcissistic bully”, it’s advisable to stand up for yourself.</p>
<p>Morrison, who is transactional but no businessman, seemed less worried about appearing close to Trump. The images of the two of them with Australian businessman Anthony Pratt at the opening of an Ohio box factory looked like a Make America Great Again Rally. Morrison scored a state dinner on that visit, in September 2019. It all seemed pretty chummy. As Trump left office, he took time out from fomenting a violent insurrection to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/dec/22/trump-awards-scott-morrison-legion-of-merit-for-leadership-in-addressing-global-challenges">award Morrison a legion of merit</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384140/original/file-20210214-13-14akvaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384140/original/file-20210214-13-14akvaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384140/original/file-20210214-13-14akvaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384140/original/file-20210214-13-14akvaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384140/original/file-20210214-13-14akvaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384140/original/file-20210214-13-14akvaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384140/original/file-20210214-13-14akvaj.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">Donald Trump and Scott Morrison made a joint visit to Pratt Paper Factory in Ohio in 2019, looking much like a ‘Make American Great Again’ rally.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Mick Tsikas</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Yet the image of Morrison as Trump-lite has never been fully convincing. Trump delights in revving up his “base”, but Morrison’s political strategy has been to appeal to the “quiet Australians”. He makes a virtue of political disengagement. Morrison is a political entrepreneur if nothing else, always on the hunt for whatever it takes. His brief and mild flirtation with Trumpist populism – in the form of complaints about “negative globalism” in a <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/2019-lowy-lecture-prime-minister-scott-morrison">lecture to the Lowy Institute</a> in October 2019, just after his US visit – needs to be seen in this context.</p>
<p>Trumpism did have its effects on Australian domestic politics. When Turnbull won the prime ministership from Tony Abbott in September 2015, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/sep/14/malcolm-turnbulls-speech-in-full-we-need-a-new-style-of-leadership">he promised</a> “a style of leadership that respects the people’s intelligence”. But then came the 2016 election, which reduced the Coalition’s margin to a hair’s breadth. It also saw the return of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation to the Senate. The Brexit referendum, signalling the rise of right-wing populism in Britain, occurred during the Australian election campaign. But Trump’s victory later that year did more to embolden Australia’s political right.</p>
<p>That combination of near-defeat and rising right-wing populism in Australia’s two major Anglophone allies was fatal to Turnbull. Never popular among conservatives, the narrative was repeatedly hammered home by the Murdoch media, think tanks, conservative magazines and on the right wing of the Coalition parties both in parliament and out of it. In comparing Turnbull to his Labor counterpart Bill Shorten, conservative legal academic James Allan <a href="https://www.spectator.com.au/2015/09/i-come-to-praise-tony-not-to-bury-him/">complained</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have two parties led by men whose core views cannot be separated by a piece of paper.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Trump’s political success managed to convince a large section of the political right that history was on their side. This new confidence had many manifestations. </p>
<p>The timing of Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton’s <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-21/peter-dutton-fraser-made-mistake-resettling-lebanese-refugees/8043624">criticism</a> of the Fraser Coalition government for allowing the immigration of Lebanese Muslims to Australia in the 1970s – surely one of the most sordid remarks by a senior government minister in decades – came just a fortnight after Trump’s victory. In January 2018, Dutton <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jan/03/peter-dutton-says-victorians-scared-to-go-out-because-of-african-gang-violence">claimed Melburnians were too frightened</a> to go to restaurants at night because of the danger posed by African street gangs.
Two months later, he <a href="https://theconversation.com/peter-duttons-fast-track-for-white-south-african-farmers-is-a-throwback-to-a-long-racist-history-93476">called for South Africa’s white farmers</a> to be given refugee status, a popular cause on the far right. </p>
<p>After Barnaby Joyce’s career as Nationals leader imploded, he produced <a href="https://insidestory.org.au/poor-white-bloke/">a badly written memoir</a> that represented his effort - ham-fisted as it was - to articulate the persona of an angry white man and a populist vision for the “poor whites” of the bush.</p>
<p>Then, in October 2018, a motion from Pauline Hanson that contained the slogan “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/video/2018/oct/16/pauline-hansons-its-ok-to-be-white-motion-narrowly-defeated-in-senate-video">it’s OK to be white</a>” – one popular among racists – attracted the votes of Coalition senators, before they backtracked and voted against it the following day.</p>
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<p>When the move against Turnbull’s leadership came in August 2018, it was predictably over energy policy – attachment to coal and oil remains <em>de rigueur</em> for Australia’s right – and it came from Dutton. The prime minister won a leadership spill by 48 votes to Dutton’s 35 but in the vote for the leadership later in the week, the margin was closer still. In the final round, Morrison defeated Dutton by just five votes. This was Australia’s nearest flirtation with Trumpism.</p>
<p>Morrison seems to have been occasionally tempted by a mild Trumpian populism early in the pandemic, but he quickly recognised that fewer deaths would result from a more consensual approach attuned to scientific advice. Morrison’s stated desire to open up the economy – often well before prudence appeared to dictate – might have been ill-judged, but it was hardly indebted to Trump.</p>
<p>No serious Australian politician has been able to regard the US or UK as worthy of emulation in dealing with COVID-19. The disintegration of the Trump presidency during 2020, and especially its violent denouement, seems to have deterred all but a small core of true believers.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-trump-exits-the-white-house-he-leaves-trumpism-behind-in-australia-153289">As Trump exits the White House, he leaves Trumpism behind in Australia</a>
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<p>Australia’s harder line toward China in 2020 owes something to US policy and close relations between the countries’ intelligence communities. But it also has other roots – in long-standing Australian anxieties about domination by Asian powers as well as the growing force of a local critique of China’s record on human rights and international relations.</p>
<p>Nor did Australia’s Coalition government need Trump to reinforce its go-slow on climate policy. Australia is quite capable of doing that all on its own. It will find life less congenial under a Biden presidency.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154949/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>While some aspects of Australian public policy have taken inspiration from Trump - our relationship with China among them - in reality the former US president had little impact on our political life.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/1497742020-11-09T13:03:19Z2020-11-09T13:03:19ZPorter rejects allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour and threatens legal action after Four Corners investigation<p>Attorney-General Christian Porter and fellow cabinet minister Alan Tudge have been accused of sexual indiscretions in a sensational Four Corners expose the government first tried to head off and then to discredit before it went to air.</p>
<p>In the program, former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull recounted how in December 2017 he had told Porter, then social services minister, that “I had heard reports of him being out in public having had too much to drink in the company of young women”.</p>
<p>“He knew that I was considering appointing him attorney-general, which of course is the first law officer of the Crown, and has a seat on the national security committee, so the risk of compromise is very, very real,” Turnbull told the program.</p>
<p>Turnbull, however, was apparently satisfied Porter had taken on board the warning and went on within a fortnight to promote him to the post.</p>
<p>Rachelle Miller, a Liberal staffer in 2010-18, told the program she had a consensual affair with Tudge when on his staff. They were both married.</p>
<p>Tudge had “put a lot of pressure” on her, asking her “to ‘war game’ the lines that I was going to give the journalists to try and kill the story” when rumours spread of their liaison.</p>
<p>She said when she walked into the mid-winter ball at parliament house in 2017 with Tudge, she felt like “I was being used as an ornament”.</p>
<p>Miller described an alleged incident in Canberra’s Public Bar near parliament house, where there were journalists and politicians, when she and Tudge saw Porter with “someone in the corner, and they were clearly very intimate”.</p>
<p>“They were cuddling, they were kissing. It was quite confronting given that we were in such a public place”.</p>
<p>The woman was a young staffer who was working for another cabinet minister, according to Four Corners.</p>
<p>Miller said Tudge had demanded a journalist delete a photograph taken of Porter. </p>
<p>Before the program aired Four Corners executive producer Sally Neighbour tweeted: “The political pressure applied to the ABC behind the scenes over this story has been extreme and unrelenting. All credit to the ABC’s leadership for withstanding it”.</p>
<p>The program, “Inside the Canberra Bubble” focused on what it described as the “heady, permissive culture” around federal politics that “can be toxic for women”. Its investigation questioned “the conduct of some of the most senior politicians in the nation”.</p>
<p>In Senate estimates, the ABC’s managing director, David Anderson, faced hostile questioning from Liberal senators, with pre-emptive attacks on the program for not looking at the behaviour of members of other parties.</p>
<p>Anderson strongly defended the program’s integrity, including saying the ABC chair Ita Buttrose had seen it and approved it going to air.</p>
<p>He said government staff had questioned whether the program was in the public interest, but had not made threats. The Prime Minister’s Office had not been involved.</p>
<p>The controversial investigation will intensify the criticisms of the ABC constantly made by some in the Coalition and media critics of the public broadcaster.</p>
<p>The program presented a damaging picture of Porter, delving back decades to expose his attitudes to and comments about women.</p>
<p>Barrister Kathleen Foley said she knew Porter from when she was 16. She was in the Western Australian state debating team and he was brought in to coach it; later she knew him when she was at the WA state solicitor office and he was at the office of the director of public prosecutions.</p>
<p>“I’ve known him to be someone who was in my opinion, and based on what I saw, deeply sexist and actually misogynist in his treatment of women, the in way that he spoke about women,” she said.</p>
<p>In a statement late Monday night, Porter said many of the claims on Four Corners were defamatory and “I will be considering legal options.”</p>
<p>He “categorically rejected” the “depiction of interactions” at Public Bar. </p>
<p>“The other party subjected to these baseless claims directly rebutted the allegation to 4 Corners, yet the programme failed to report that. This fact usually would be expected to be included in a fair or balanced report.”</p>
<p>Porter said that journalist Louise Milligan “never contacted me or my office, despite my awareness that for many months she has been directly contacting friends, former colleagues, former students – even old school friends from the mid 1980s - asking for rumours and negative comment about me.</p>
<p>"The ABC’s Managing Director told a Senate Committee just today that all relevant information had been provided to ministers who were the subject of tonight’s programme – that is not the case,” Porter said.</p>
<p>He said that in his time as attorney-general in Turnbull’s government, “I never had any complaint or any suggestion of any problem from Malcolm regarding the conduct of my duties as AG until the last week of his Prime Ministership when we had a significant disagreement over the Peter Dutton citizenship issue”.</p>
<p>Porter did apologise for sexist material he contributed to a law students’ magazine some 24 years ago.</p>
<p>Tudge, who is now Minister for Population, Cities and Urban Infrastructure, said in a statement after the program: “Tonight, matters that occurred in my personal life in 2017 were aired on the ABC’s Four Corners program.</p>
<p>"I regret my actions immensely and the hurt it caused my family. I also regret the hurt that Ms. Miller has experienced.”</p>
<p>The President of the Law Council, Pauline Wright, said: “Allegations of misconduct regarding public or elected officials require an appropriate framework for investigation, which is why the Law Council has long called for an integrity commission to be established at the federal level with appropriate powers and definitions of misconduct”. </p>
<p>Porter is in charge of the legislation recently released in draft form for an integrity commission.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149774/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>Attorney-General Christian Porter and fellow cabinet minister Alan Tudge have been accused of sexual indiscretions, in a sensational Four Corners expose.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1477962020-10-08T14:02:42Z2020-10-08T14:02:42ZGrattan on Friday: Anthony Albanese tries to climb an impossible mountain<p>Many people who know Mathias Cormann – let us except Malcolm Turnbull – will hope he wins his bid to become secretary-general of the OECD.</p>
<p>Not only is he well qualified, but it would be a feather in Australia’s cap.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-a-budget-for-a-pandemic-147739">Politics with Michelle Grattan: a budget for a pandemic</a>
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<p>He’s certainly no shoo-in, however. There are already multiple candidates, the pandemic will make campaigning complicated, and Australian’s record on climate change might be a negative.</p>
<p>But he’ll have strong government support and, given his meticulous organisational skills and network of contacts abroad, nothing will be left undone.</p>
<p>Finance minister throughout the Coalition’s term, Cormann is respected across the political spectrum, which has made him effective as the government’s “wrangler” of the difficult characters in the Senate.</p>
<p>His dour image conceals a lighter side, seen in Wednesday’s cameo appearance on the ABC’s “Mad as Hell” as he jested with his “spokesman” Darius Horsham, a long-running character on the show.</p>
<p>Cormann’s October 30 parliamentary exit – the timing determined by the OECD’s process – is a significant loss for the government. But Scott Morrison was determined not to let it become a disruption.</p>
<p>Morrison has filled Cormann’s shoes even before his minister has stepped out of them, announcing Simon Birmingham will take over the finance portfolio and Senate leadership when Cormann goes.</p>
<p>The PM said he’d make no other changes at that time, but there’ll be a reshuffle at year’s end.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/simon-birmingham-to-become-finance-minister-and-senate-leader-as-australia-nominates-cormann-for-oecd-147742">Simon Birmingham to become finance minister and Senate leader as Australia nominates Cormann for OECD</a>
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<p>Birmingham will then shed his trade ministry, and Morrison will have the opportunity to make other alterations to his team. With aged care set to be a mega issue after the royal commission reports in February, one thing he should do is put a heavyweight into that portfolio and elevate it to cabinet.</p>
<p>Thursday’s small shuffle was a side show in the major play of the week, which saw a budget with a deficit of $213.7 billion this financial year that gambles on being large enough to get the country marching to recovery.</p>
<p>It will take months to judge whether the government has pitched its budget well (and that’s assuming no new seismic setbacks), but it is satisfied with the immediate reception. Income tax cuts are likely to be popular even if their critics argue other measures would be better. Business can only welcome the massive incentives to invest, although many enterprises won’t survive to take advantage of them.</p>
<p>Labor has given its support to the huge tax concessions for business in Josh Frydenberg’s second budget.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/budget-2020-frydenberg-tells-australians-we-have-your-back-147014">Budget 2020: Frydenberg tells Australians, ‘we have your back’</a>
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<p>This ease of passage is in sharp contrast to the company tax cuts in then treasurer Scott Morrison’s first budget, which embroiled the Turnbull government in a debilitating fight from 2016 to 2018. Even Cormann couldn’t wrangle the big business tranche of those through the Senate; it was abandoned in the final week of Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership.</p>
<p>The budget has come under fire on various fronts – for example, the wage subsidy for younger workers carries the risk of being rorted, and there’s criticism about the lack of assistance for older workers.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, it has been a difficult budget for the opposition to savage, given Labor is endorsing its core elements of income tax cuts and business concessions.</p>
<p>But one fertile area for the opposition has been the lack of specific assistance for women, many of whom have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic. They’re often in casual jobs, and in sectors with the biggest job losses (although Frydenberg pointed out women have been strongly represented in the restored jobs). Women have also carried a disproportionate load of home schooling.</p>
<p>Anthony Albanese tapped into this area of government vulnerability when he delivered his Thursday night budget reply.</p>
<p>The opposition leader had several imperatives to meet as he went into that speech. To produce some policy flesh. To set up an ideological difference with the government. To cut through to the public.</p>
<p>With possibly only a little over a year before an election, the opposition is under pressure to start rolling out detailed policies. Albanese’s promises to make childcare more affordable (at a cost of $6.2 billion) and to modernise the energy grid (a $20 billion investment) were substantial commitments.</p>
<p>The childcare policy will appeal to women in particular. The pandemic has made families, but especially women, even more aware how important childcare is for them – the brief period of it being free only increased the appetite for a better system – and the budget didn’t respond.</p>
<p>The proposals Albanese put forward to boost skills and local manufacturing highlighted Labor’s message that it believes in using government as a driver of change, through prescriptions, procurement policy and other means.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/albanese-promises-20-billion-plan-to-modernise-electricity-grid-and-6-2-billion-for-childcare-147764">Albanese promises $20 billion plan to modernise electricity grid, and $6.2 billion for childcare</a>
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<p>Albanese proposes mandating that a certain proportion of workers on major government-funded projects should be apprentices and trainees. He even suggests this could be extended to government-funded sectors such as aged care – how practical that would be is debatable.</p>
<p>There wasn’t a detailed social housing policy but Albanese flagged Labor would invest substantially in this area – that’s spending favoured by many economists as well as necessary to improve lives.</p>
<p>While Albanese is at pains to argue he’d mobilise the power of government, Morrison has muddied this political water.</p>
<p>The budget might be heavily private-sector oriented (and from that vantage point, seen as ideological), but Morrison is also interventionist when it suits him. His so-called gas led recovery, and his identification of designated sectors in his manufacturing policy are examples.</p>
<p>In terms of the imperatives he was trying to meet, Albanese did produce some policy flesh but of the announcements, probably only the childcare initiative is likely to achieve general “cut through”.</p>
<p>The danger for Albanese is that come the next election, if Morrison sees childcare as a political weak spot, he’s likely to address it.</p>
<p>In his stress on childcare and social housing, Albanese made his point that Labor had different priorities to the government’s. And we got the message about putting government in the driver’s seat.</p>
<p>But the picture of what an Albanese government would actually look like wasn’t clear – as it can’t be, because that remains a work-in-progress.</p>
<p>Nor did we get any comprehensive idea of how, if this had been a Jim Chalmers budget, Labor would be tackling the immediate crisis differently.</p>
<p>Albanese’s problem was that circumstances demanded too much of him in his budget reply. He had a fair crack at meeting those demands, but he couldn’t change the perception that the pandemic has made the opposition one of its victims.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147796/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Anthony Albanese’s budget reply made the point that Labor had very different priorities to the government’s.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1469212020-09-25T04:55:30Z2020-09-25T04:55:30ZVIDEO: Michelle Grattan on the upcoming budget, government reform, and the NBN<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359974/original/file-20200925-16-e9vp2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C14%2C4864%2C3232&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://photos.aap.com.au/">Erik Anderson/AAP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>University of Canberra Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan and University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Paddy Nixon discuss the week in politics.</p>
<p>This week Michelle and Paddy discuss the upcoming 6 October budget, the government’s plans to reform the insolvency system, comments made by former Prime Minister Paul Keating on the reserve bank, and former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s thoughts on the government’s ‘gas-lead recovery’.</p>
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<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>Michelle Grattan discusses the political week that was with Professor Paddy NixonMichelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1467052020-09-22T12:17:13Z2020-09-22T12:17:13ZMalcolm Turnbull condemns Scott Morrison’s ‘gas, gas, gas’ song as ‘a fantasy’<p>Malcolm Turnbull has launched a swingeing attack on Scott Morrison’s gas-led recovery, labelling his threat to build a gas-fired power station “crazy stuff”, and his idea of gas producing a cheap energy boom “a fantasy”.</p>
<p>The former prime minister also claimed Morrison’s refusal to embrace a 2050 net zero emissions target was “absolutely” at odds with the Paris climate agreement. “That was part of the deal,” Turnbull said.</p>
<p>Morrison at the weekend would not commit to a 2050 target – endorsed by business, farming and other groups in Australia and very many countries – although he said it was achievable.</p>
<p>Turnbull also declared that Energy Minister Angus Taylor – who on Tuesday delivered his technology investment roadmap for low emissions – didn’t believe most of what he was saying on energy.</p>
<p>“Angus has got quite a sophisticated understanding of the energy market, and he is speaking through the political side of his brain rather than the economic side,” Turnbull told the ABC.</p>
<p>The energy/climate war was pivotal in Turnbull’s fall from the prime ministership in 2018, and from the opposition leadership in 2009. While Morrison is totally safe in his job, the battle over energy policy on the conservative side of politics has not been put to rest, although the prime minister is banking on his elevation of gas satisfying his Liberal parliamentarians.</p>
<p>Morrison’s gas policy, which the government spruiks as underpinning a manufacturing revival, is being seen as a walk away from coal.</p>
<p>It includes a threat to build a gas-fired power station in the Hunter region if private enterprise does not fill the gap left by the coming closure of the Liddell coal-fired station.</p>
<p>The debate about gas has produced an unexpected unity ticket between Turnbull and former resources minister, the Nationals Matt Canavan, on one key point - both insist gas prices won’t be as low as the policy assumes. </p>
<p>But Turnbull and Canavan go in opposite directions in their energy prescriptions – Turnbull strongly backs renewables and Canavan is a voice for coal. </p>
<p>While acknowledging gas had a role “as a peaking fuel”, Turnbull dismissed any prospect of a “gas nirvana”. </p>
<p>“There is no cheap gas on the east coast of Australia. It is cheap at the moment because there’s a global recession and pandemic and oil prices are down, but the equilibrium price of gas is too high to make it a cheap form of generating electricity.”</p>
<p>“The cheap electricity opportunities come from wind and solar, backed by storage, batteries and pumped hydro, and then with gas playing a role but it’s essentially a peaking role,” Turnbull said.</p>
<p>Writing in the Australian, Canavan said the Morrison gas plan would “keep the lights on but it is unlikely to lower energy prices to the levels needed to bring manufacturing back to Australia.</p>
<p>"If we were serious about getting [energy] prices down as low as possible, we would focus on the energy sources in which we have a natural advantage, and that is not gas. We face gas shortages in the years ahead.”</p>
<p>Former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce said about the government’s power station threat, that it would be “peculiar” to build a gas-fired plant “in the middle of a coal field”.</p>
<p>Turnbull said of last week’s announcement, “I’m not going to sing the song but it’s a gas, gas, gas”.</p>
<p>The roadmap was “gas one minute, carbon capture and storage the next”.</p>
<p>“What you need is to set out some basic parameters, which deal with reliability, affordability and emissions reduction, and then let the market get to work. That’s what Liberal governments should do. Unfortunately, it’s just one random intervention after another,” Turnbull said.</p>
<p>He lamented that, for whatever reasons, there was a “body of opinion on the right of Australian politics in the Liberal party and the National party, the Murdoch press, which still clings to this fantasy that coal is best and if we can’t have coal we’ll burn gas – I mean, it’s bonkers. The way to cheaper electricity is renewables plus storage, which is why the big storage plan that we got started, Snowy 2, is so important.”</p>
<p>Turnbull said that unlike his own situation when PM, Morrison was “in a position with no internal opposition”. “Now is the time to deliver an integrated, coherent energy and climate policy which is what the whole energy sector has been crying out for.”</p>
<p>Taylor told the National Press Club the government’s determination to get the gap filled, whether by private investment or a government power station, when the Liddell coal fired station closes in 2023 “is partly about reliability, but it’s primarily about affordability.</p>
<p>"If you take that much capacity out of the market, it’s a huge amount in a short period of time. We saw what happened with Hazelwood. We saw very, very sharp increases in prices. We’re not prepared to accept that.”</p>
<p>Asked whether the government’s resistance to committing to the 2050 target was more about appeasing the right wing of the coalition rather than about the target itself, Taylor said: “Our focus is on our 2030 target in the Paris agreement…and in a few years time we will have to extend that out to 2035 …</p>
<p>"What we’re not going to do is impose a target that’s going to impose costs on the economy, destroy jobs, and stop investment. The Paris commitment, globally, is to net zero in the second half of the century and we would like that to happen as soon as possible.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146705/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Malcolm Turnbull has launched a swingeing attack on Scott Morrison’s gas-led recovery.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1367302020-04-21T20:03:36Z2020-04-21T20:03:36ZSecrets and scandals: where Malcolm Turnbull’s memoir fits in the rich history of prime ministerial books<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329396/original/file-20200421-82654-7totml.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=532%2C0%2C3269%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>Landing in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, it may seem strange former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s memoir has generated so much political controversy.</p>
<p>Turnbull has been accused of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js06JnyNQO4">hypocrisy</a> and championing <a href="https://omny.fm/shows/ben-fordham-full-show/former-speaker-of-the-house-of-representatives-bro">socialism</a>, and has been <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/liberal-party-conservatives-want-immediate-expulsion-of-turnbull-20200419-p54l7h.html">threatened with expulsion</a> from the Liberal Party.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-former-prime-minister-malcolm-turnbull-on-his-autobiography-a-bigger-picture-136746">Politics with Michelle Grattan: Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on his autobiography, 'A Bigger Picture'</a>
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<p>In A Bigger Picture, <a href="https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-malcolm-turnbull-gives-his-very-on-the-record-account-of-scott-morrison-136693">Turnbull deals candidly with his antagonists</a> inside the Coalition, who fought him bitterly on the same-sex marriage reform and climate policy. Similarly, he names and shames those he blames for the leadership insurgency of August 2018. All of this was expected, but none of it must please the current government.</p>
<p>But is the book any more inflammatory than previous prime ministerial memoirs?</p>
<p>Political controversy is a trademark of political memoir publishing in Australia. A Bigger Picture is just another page in that story.</p>
<p>Until the 1960s, prime ministerial memoirs were the exception, not the rule. Between 1945 and 1990, just three former prime ministers chose to publish books about their political lives. Two of them – Billy Hughes and Robert Menzies – produced two books each, and both political veterans sought to avoid “telling tales out of school”. Both seemed more interested in foreign affairs, particularly our imperial relationship to the UK in the case of Menzies.</p>
<p>The dismissal of the Whitlam government provoked both Sir John Kerr and Gough Whitlam to publish their memoirs. After reading extracts of Kerr’s <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/8961710?q&versionId=10375777">Matters for Judgement</a>, Whitlam decided to “set the record straight immediately” by writing <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/the-truth-of-the-matter-paperback-softback">The Truth of the Matter</a>. His second book, <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/8478914">The Whitlam Government</a>, was also designed to make a political splash. Promising to explain the “development and implementation” of his policy program, the book was timed for release on the tenth anniversary of the dismissal itself, ensuring maximum publicity.</p>
<p>Since then, political controversy has accompanied prime ministerial memoirs, in part because incumbent political parties and leaders have had a vested interest in how these books might affect their popularity.</p>
<p>In his 1994 <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/11599888">political memoir</a>, Bob Hawke accused his rival and successor, Paul Keating, of calling Australia “the arse-end of the world” during an argument about the Labor leadership. Further, Hawke accused Keating of failing to support Australia’s involvement in the Gulf War against Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990.</p>
<p>Keating, who was attacked in parliament in October 1994 over the claims, <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/118291291?searchTerm=%22Button%22%20AND%20%22Flying%20a%20Rhetorical%20Kite%22&searchLimits=">called both allegations</a> “lies”. Hawke offered to take a lie-detector test to prove his sincerity. Senior ALP figures recorded their outrage at Hawke’s memoir. But Hawke hit back, describing them as “precious self-appointed guardians of proper behaviour”.</p>
<p>Hawke’s predecessor also damaged his relationship with his own party in the process of publishing his memoirs. Malcolm Fraser’s <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/malcolm-fraser-paperback-softback">Political Memoirs</a>, written with journalist Margaret Simons, was recognised as one of Australia’s <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/political-presses-20101226-197ul.html">top ten books of 2010</a>. His outspokenness – in the book and in his post-prime-ministerial life more generally – earned him many attacks from Coalition MPs.</p>
<p>John Howard handled the politics of his memoirs better than most politicians. Though the book was antagonistic toward his former treasurer, Peter Costello, Howard promised to “deal objectively” with events and relationships in <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9780730499640/lazarus-rising/">Lazarus Rising</a>. Ever the party stalwart, Howard and his publishers re-issued the book after the 2013 election with a new chapter that touted Tony Abbott’s “high intelligence, discipline […] good people skills”.</p>
<p>Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard both publicly took aim at one another in their memoirs, which made for plenty of media fodder. In <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/my-story-9781760893330">My Story</a>, Gillard described Rudd’s leadership as a descent into “paralysis and misery”. Rudd returned fire, calling her book her <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-24/kevin-rudd-dismisses-julia-gillard27s-memoir-as-a-work-of-27f/5767096">“latest contribution to Australian fiction”</a>. However, he was unable to dent the book’s commercial success.</p>
<p>Four years later, Rudd in <a href="https://kevinrudd.com/books/">The PM Years</a> accused Gillard of plotting “with the faceless men” to become prime minister. In a bid to patch over the historic rifts, he subsequently promised the Labor Party’s 2018 National Conference that the “<a href="https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2018/12/18/kevin-rudd-life-membership-alp/">time for healing</a>” had come.</p>
<p>Critics of Turnbull’s book – such as Sky News’ Andrew Bolt and 2GB’s Ben Fordham – have argued that he and his publishers, Hardie Grant, were wrong to “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js06JnyNQO4">betray confidences</a>” and divulge “<a href="https://omny.fm/shows/ben-fordham-full-show/former-speaker-of-the-house-of-representatives-bro">private conversations</a>”.</p>
<p>In reality, political memoirs have always pushed against conventions of political secrecy. In the 1970s, British cabinet minister Richard Crossman <a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2017/february/1485867600/mark-mckenna/character-business">published his Diaries</a>, which included detailed descriptions of how cabinet functioned. The British establishment subsequently conducted the <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmpubadm/689/68905.htm">Radcliffe review</a> into political memoirs and diaries. It found such material should be kept secret for 15 years, but that civil servants could do little to stop their political masters from publishing.</p>
<p>In 1999, Australia’s Neal Blewett was warned that publishing his <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/32639152?q&versionId=45870443">A Cabinet Diary</a>, recorded seven years earlier, could lead to prosecution under the Crimes Act because it revealed confidential cabinet discussions. Calling the public service’s bluff, Blewett published anyway. He explained in the book that “a few egos will be bruised, but cabinet ministers are a robust lot”. His diary shed significant light on the trials and tribulations of a ministerial life.</p>
<p>Since then, countless MPs and ministers have published books that claim to accurately represent personal conversations, some based on private notes (as Costello claimed in his memoirs), others on diary entries (as is the case in Turnbull’s book). In recent years, politicians have reproduced text messages and email exchanges in their books, as <a href="https://theconversation.com/gareth-evans-bob-learned-early-self-deprecation-is-for-dummies-25579">Bob Carr did</a> in his 2014 book, Diary of a Foreign Minister. In each version of history, the author is the essential policymaker.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-malcolm-turnbull-gives-his-very-on-the-record-account-of-scott-morrison-136693">View from The Hill: Malcolm Turnbull gives his very on-the-record account of Scott Morrison</a>
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<p>In his book, Turnbull reveals private conversations and WhatsApp exchanges with colleagues, world leaders, public servants and more. His accounts of cabinet discussions are hardly ground-breaking: cabinet debates about the economy and national security under the Abbott government, for instance, were thoroughly detailed in Niki Savva’s <a href="https://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/books/the-road-to-ruin1">The Road to Ruin</a>, while the acrimonious debates about energy policy, same-sex marriage and home affairs inside the Turnbull government were laid bare in David Crowe’s <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9781460757963/venom-vendettas-betrayals-and-the-price-of-power/">Venom</a>. Similarly, Turnbull’s criticisms of News Corporation’s biased reporting have been aired elsewhere, and stop short of Rudd’s argument in The PM Years that Rupert Murdoch should be the subject of a royal commission.</p>
<p>Turnbull’s book is another addition to the history of incendiary political memoir publishing in Australia. Political parties and their media associates have confirmed once again that a successful parliamentary memoir requires deft political management.</p>
<p>Ultimately, A Bigger Picture is not the compendium of revelations that some may perceive. Instead, it is another picture of politics in which “character” and “leadership” reign supreme at the expense of all other political forces.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136730/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Black receives an Australian Government Research Training Program (AGRTP) scholarship for doctoral research.</span></em></p>Australia has a rich modern history of former prime ministers writing memoirs, partly to exact revenge and partly to secure their legacy as they see it. A Bigger Picture fits into that tradition.Joshua Black, PhD Candidate, School of History, National Centre of Biography, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1367462020-04-20T10:08:53Z2020-04-20T10:08:53ZPolitics with Michelle Grattan: Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on his autobiography, ‘A Bigger Picture’<p>In this episode of Politics with Michelle Grattan, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull gives his frank assessment of Scott Morrison as a former colleague and as prime minister, warns about the right of the Liberal party, and tongue lashes News Corp.</p>
<p>As Treasurer, Morrison at times infuriated then PM Turnbull by leaking to the media and “frontrunning” positions before decision were made. </p>
<p>“Morrison and I worked together very productively” but “he had an approach to frontrunning policy which created real problems for us,” Turnbull says.</p>
<p>As for now, Morrison’s “obviously got massive, completely unanticipated challenges to face … I think he’s doing well with them by the way. … I think the response of Australian governments generally [on coronavirus] has been a very effective one”.</p>
<p>Turnbull’s anger against both the Liberal right wing and News Corp continues to burn undiminished. </p>
<p>The right, “amplified and supported by their friends in the media, basically operate like terrorists”. </p>
<p>News Corp “I think was well described as ‘a political organisation that employs a lot of journalists’”; The Australian “defends its friends, it attacks its enemies, it attacks its friends’ enemies, and the tabloids do the same.”</p>
<h2><strong>Transcript (edited for clarity)</strong></h2>
<p><strong>Michelle Grattan:</strong> Malcolm Turnbull’s memoir was much anticipated. Even so, its landed with additional fanfare. This is thanks to copies being distributed ahead of publication by a Scott Morrison staffer, who’s been threatened with legal action by the book’s publisher and has since apologized. </p>
<p>The huge tome covers Turnbull’s event filled life before politics, but most interest is in his parliamentary years, which included losing the leadership in both opposition and government. In each case, while the reasons for his downfall were multiple, his fight for more action on climate change was central. In his book, Turnbull is frank about his former political colleagues, including Scott Morrison, whom he both praises and damns. </p>
<p>Within the Liberal Party, Turnbull has always been a controversial character. For his supporters, he’s a small L liberal progressive who stood up for the right causes. For his detractors, he’s a Labour man in big L Liberal clothing who has undermined the party. Feelings haven’t changed since he left politics.
Malcolm Turnbull joins us today remotely, of course. </p>
<p>Malcolm Turnbull, firstly about the leak of your book, your publishers have threatened to take legal action against the Morrison staffer concerned. Will this action go ahead? </p>
<p><strong>Malcolm Turnbull:</strong> Well, that’s really a matter for them, Michelle, it’s a very big issue in the publishing industry, as you know, and all of the creative industries, you know, internet, copyright piracy is a crime. I mean, if you you know, if you distribute pirated copies of a book or film or a song, you’re stealing just as if, you know, shoplifting from Dymocks. So it is a serious matter. For them it is really a big issue of principle, but I’m leaving that to them. Obviously, it’s rather awkward timing, given that the government’s out there in the press today talking about how it’s going to take steps to ensure that Facebook and Google pay money to newspapers for the use of their content and talking up the sanctity of copyright, and at the same time, someone in the prime minister’s office is distributing, as he’s admitted, at least 59 copies of the book in breach of copyright.</p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> Now, just on this question of the timing of the book’s release, the timing is somewhat difficult. How does one do a virtual book tour? What are you doing exactly? </p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> Just like this, you know, just doing a lot of Zoom meetings, large and small and podcasts like yours. And so I’m doing all this from home, with occasional excursions to studios like at the ABC last week where we recorded an interview with Leigh Sales and myself, and you know, in a vast hall with everybody metres apart. So it was a rather unusual environment, but that’s what you have to do. </p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> Now just to get to the substance, you document in the book your battles over climate change, which ended in personal disaster for you, not just on one occasion, but twice. Looking back, do you think you could have done things any differently to have achieved more success on that issue and at less personal cost? </p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> Well, you know, if you look back at what I did in 2018, you can see that I was very consciously learning from the experiences of 2009. So I was very careful to keep the cabinet together. I consulted the party room very carefully. The National Energy Guarantee, had the widest support of any energy policy I can recall. And no one could have said I was high handed or, you know, heavy handed. I was very, very consultative and clearly had the support of a substantial majority in the party room. But that did not stop a minority basically using it as a means of destabilising the government, both to get their own way on climate and also to undermine my leadership. This was all part of the, you know, the Dutton coup which ended much to their dismay and Scott Morrison becoming prime minister. </p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> So where do you see Australia’s policy on climate going from here? There’s been speculation, of course, that the bushfires might have been a game changer, but is that really likely? And on the otherside, of course, the coronavirus has had the effect of bringing a short term hit to emissions. But what about the longer term? </p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> Well, the obstacle to effective action on climate change in Australia is entirely political. The community, the business community, you know civil society are by and large united in their determination to move to a zero emission energy sector and net zero emission economy. However, there is a determined minority, I think it’s still a minority, that may become a majority depending on how far the Liberal Party moves to the right. But there is a determined minority within the Liberal Party and the National Party supported by obviously the fossil fuel lobby, but above all, by the right wing media, in particular Murdoch’s media, which has resolutely opposed taking action on climate change. And so, you know as I record in the book, we had during December and January, during these terrible fires, we’d have on one page the News Limited tabloids, pictures of the most terrible destruction and facing them, attacks on Gretta Thunberg or anybody else types climate change seriously. So that is that that is the roadblock. I mean, you remember back in 2007, when both John Howard and Kevin Rudd supporting an emissions trading scheme. You know, it was a bipartisan policy, well Abbott weaponized climate change as an issue. He was backed in by elements of the media and we are where we are. So I think it’s absent a change inside the coalition, I don’t think we’ll get any progress on this any time soon. </p>
<p>Now, you know, one of the the disappointments I’ve had with the Morrison government is that Scott did not take the opportunity after his miraculous win in May to reinstate the NEG [National Energy Guarantee]. Cause Scott believes in it, I mean, he absolutely was on board with that as was Josh. It was absolutely a joint effort they’ve got as much handy work in it as I have. In Josh’s case possibly a bit more. But you know, at that moment, when his political capital was, as you’d agree, you know, at its absolute zenith, he still wasn’t prepared to do it because, I guess he knows, that you know, right wing group in the party room would, if they got the chance to do the same to him as they did to me. </p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> Well, just talking about that group, it is a minority, I would have thought. Surely, most of the Liberal MPs are pretty pragmatic. When you became prime minister, did you think initially that the party would settle down after the coup or did you, in fact, under estimate the determination of your opponents? </p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> Yeah, I never you see, I never, you know, calculated or considered the possibility that there would be a group within the party that would seek to destroy the government and cause us to go into opposition. And but you know, that was Abbott’s agenda. And as Rupert Murdoch has admitted in his discussion with me in that coup week. That was Paul Whittaker’s agenda, or Bill Borris, as he’s better known as the most senior editoral executive at News Corp in Australia, very close to Lachlan. And they had this crazy agenda to bring down my government in the expectation this would result in Shorten winning an election so that Abbott could come back as opposition leader after the election. I mean, it’s completely crazy, but that, you know, that’s why so many people said at the time, and you know they’re identified and quoted in the book that the right’s concern was not that I’d lose the election, but I’d win it. Now, you know, that’s trying to provide a rational analysis of that is very difficult. I mean, you’ve been around politics for longer than me, Michelle. I’ve never seen anything as mad as that. There it is. You know, that was that was their agenda. </p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> Looking back or reading back over those years in your book, one is struck by the fact that there was a lot of bad behaviour by a number of people. How much responsibility do you yourself take for some of that bad behaviour? </p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> I’m not sure what you mean by that. I mean, I take responsibility for my own behaviour, but I can’t take responsibility for others. </p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> Well, I mean, there was a lot of undermining of people by others, by their colleagues.</p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> Whom by whom? Who are we talking about? </p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> Well, I think a number of the the leading characters in the book and surely you would agree that you were part of the maneuverings of those years sometimes to your advantage, sometimes to your disadvantage. </p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> You’re being uncharacteristically obscure, Michelle. But let’s look at Abbot. I mean, Abott’s government’s problems were created by Abbot and Credlin, not by me. Not by me. In fact, as I describe in the book in some detail, there are a number of messes that Abbott got himself into that I ended up sorting out whether it was the citizenship deprivation fiasco, which was all that. Or you remember the meta-data fiasco. You know, basically Abbott kept on making knee-jerk decisions without proper preparation, without proper consultation, with the predictable consequences. And on a number of occasions I basically cleaned them up, for which I got scant thanks. Or no thanks, of course. So, I mean, look at the fiasco over gay marriage. I mean, what an extraordinary shambles that was. I mean, any normal government. I mean, Abbott had said to the party room, you know, when she raised in the party room, he said, “look, we’ll take it to a leadership group and that cabinet will consider it, and We’ll come back to the party room” and everyone oh well that whats sense, that’s what you’d normally do. Instead, we had this sudden party room meeting called, and everyone is invited to stand up and give ex tempore speeches about what they think should be done. It was like complete bedlam. I’ve never seen anything crazier than that. And, you know, so that did him a lot of damage. That was his doing. I mean, I didn’t tell him to make Prince Philip a knight. I didn’t tell him to give Simon Benson the outcome of the cabinet meeting before it was held up on citizenship, what a joke that was. You know where Benson had a story the morning after the cabinet meeting saying last night the cabinet decided X, Y, Z. Well, the cabinet hadn’t, actually, but he’d been briefed by Abbott’s office before the meeting. How ludicrous. </p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> A lot of what you write, of course, is very close up and personal to conversations and interactions between the various players. When you were writing, did you worry about breaking confidences? How did you navigate that line? </p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> Well, look, it’s it’s really just a question of judgement, Michelle. You can’t write a political memoir without talking about what actually happened. And so you do need to, you have to, every diarist, every memoirist, if that’s the right term, has to talk about discussions and events. It wouldn’t be much of a history if I hadn’t done that. But I have obviously used my discretion and there are things, you know, naturally have been said that have not been repeated. But, you know, I think if you were to look, I mean, particularly someone like yourself that has been in the press gallery for a long time. I mean, you know, I know there have been people saying, oh, it’s terrible to describe Scott Morrison’s front running on tax policy and that that was a problem for the government. I mean, everyone in the gallery knew that. I mean, there’s literally I mean, that the setting it out in the way I did maybe will be of interest to many people, no doubt. But it’s a fact and hardly a surprise. I mean, you understood, that it was obvious. You know like it was the subject of public culture at the time. </p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> Now, you obviously kept a diary of key events, did you keep that diary all through? </p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> Yeah, I did, intermittently. I mean, I didn’t keep it every day. And I did yeah. I did keep contemporaneous records. I mean, I wish I’d kept more because it’s quite interesting, when you’re writing a book and you go back, you’ll see in your diary accounts of an event that absent the diary, you have very little recollection of. Memory is very frail. And so there are, you know, obviously the episodes that I can most effectively and colourfully recount of those that I’ve got contemporary records. </p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> It’s not quite as comprehensive as that of the former Labour minister, one time Labour minister the the late Clive Camera. But still, you do seem to have kept quite a lot. </p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> Yeah, well, it’s it’s look, I mean, there are gigantic [UI] stories. You know, let’s face it, you know, there is no substitute for contemporary evidence and I mean and diaries four people, 40 people can go to a meeting, have a discussion and then come out of it with slight, each age with differing accounts. You know, I’ve seen particularly when I was a lawyer, I’ve seen, you know, examples of that. But when I say differing accounts, I mean honestly, differing accounts. But having said that, history is made up of recollections and memories and records. And that’s why it’s important to pull them together. </p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> I might just add Michelle, as you know, it’s not as though people in politics have not, you know, briefed out conversations with me, WhatsApp messages from me. I mean, I’ve read, you’ve seen them yourself, I’m not sure ifyYou’ve written any of those stories, but you’ve seen plenty of occasions where things I’ve said or alleged to have said have been published, you know, there’s some value in putting your name to it. As I have, this is my book and actually telling the story as it happened, I mean, if people want to dispute that, they are free to do so, and no doubt will. </p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> In the book you seem to me to have a quite ambivalent attitude to Scott Morrison, you portray him as a leaker and one who used the media to try to lock colleagues in over policies, the so-called front running technique. Yet you also thought that you had an effective working relationship as prime minister and treasurer. Which is uppermost in your recollection now? The bad Scott or the good Scott. </p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> Well, look there’s no bad or good Scottt, T. tHere’s just Scott, right. And he has strengths and weaknesses as we all do. I did have a good working relationship with him. The only problem, quote unquote, I had with Scott was his front running of policy. And look he didn’t deny it. You know. Well, you know, sometimes he claim that particular things, he had no idea how they got into the media, but no-one was particularly convinced by that. But, you know, Scott, it was a technique. He saw this as a way of front running, floating ideas and policies and [UI] and, you know, it was completely antithetical to my approach. And as I said at the time, as I’ve described in the book, you know, the problem with running your policy agenda through a series of hypothetical thought bubbles in the tabloid press or any press, is that, you know, you run the risk that they get shot down in flames before you’ve formulated them. They can, you know, become, run off like hares across the countryside and get out of control and significantly, and this is the major problem that we had, we paid a high political price for this. People will, if you fly half a dozen ideas in the media. And then let’s say for perfectly good reasons, don’t go ahead with them. You look as though you’ve backed off, walked away, reneged or something, and you may be seen or backed off or abandoned the policy that you were never likely to accept anyway. You know, as I say in one message to Mathias. You know, the approach that he and I had was that we should stick to whatever policy we have until such time as we decide to change it and then change it. As opposed to having policy A. But then tentatively floating that you might move to B,C,D. I mean, look, there are people in Canberra who have defended Scott’s approach. That they think that’s a sensible way to proceed. I honestly don’t, you know, the most effective policy measures that we had and the school’s policy, the so-called Gonski 2.0 is a very good example of this, where we did a lot of work in private, kicked around a lot of possibilities, went uphill and down dale on them and then made a decision and then announced it. And, you know, I don’t have a problem with all of the options and the consideration that preceded the announcement being made public, you know, at some point, even relatively quickly. But the difficulty is that if you are literally thinking aloud, it honestly undermines effective government, in my opinion. </p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> Do you think he’s still front running policy? </p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> Ah look, I’m not quite, I don’t know, I couldn’t I’m not. You’d be better able to say that Michelle, you’re there in the gallery keeping an eye on things that, you know, he’s obviously got massive, completely unanticipated challenges to face at the moment. I think he’s doing well with them by the way. You know, I think the response of Australian governments generally has been a very effective one. </p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> On the virus, you mean?</p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> Yeah, absolutely yeah. I mean, look, there have big mistakes have been made and, you know, they’re feeling their way. And no one really knows for sure what the right, you know, right measures are, which measures are more effective than others. But collectively, the states and the territories and the federal government have been doing a pretty good job. And, you know, touchwood, let’s hope that they continue to do so. </p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> One of your main initiatives as prime minister was the legislation against foreign interference in response, particularly to fears about Chinese interference. Do you feel that legislation is doing its job? </p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> Well, I have heard, well I’ve seen complaints that it is not being properly enforced and that in particular the transparency legislation, which was it’s, you know, that there were two, there was a whole bundle of bits of legislation, but essentially there was one about foreign interference, which basically dealt with espionage and people trying to coerce others to, you know, take particular approaches in terms of public policy and so forth. But then there’s the transparency legislation, which we talk about as foreign influence. Our position there that we didn’t mind if foreign governments or foreign state owned companies or political parties wanted to seek to have influence in Australia, but they had to do so transparently, so essentially a sunshine policy. Now, there’s been, I’ve seen people say that it hasn’t been adequately enforced. Look, you know, in the face of a lot of controversy and criticism, I was able to ensure that those tools were created, and it’s really up to the government to make sure they use them. </p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> But you’re worried about that? </p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> I wouldn’t, I’m not, well I am, my concern is that is that the Australia’s democratic processes should be determined by Australians. </p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> And you still you still think that threat is there? </p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> Well, of course, the threat is there. </p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> Well, perhaps not being adequately met. </p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> No, no, I’m not saying that Michelle, that’s what you’re trying to get me to say. I’m really asking you, you you’re much closer to it, whether you think that is the case? I have seen people complaining and criticising. It’s effective…whether it’s being effectively measured, but others would be better able to express a view on it. So there it is. </p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> Now you obviously have a lot of complaints about your treatment by News Corp, but more generally, do you think there needs to be reform of the media in Australia and what form should that take if you do? </p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> Well, you know, there’s I mean, we have free a free press in Australia. But I think we have to recognise that News Corporation and I think this may well will reflect Lachlan’s influence because he is a much more right wing person, much more ideological political person than his father, which is saying something. But News Corp is I think was well described as a political organisation that employs a lot of journalists. I mean, it isn’t you know, the Australian is not. You can’t compare the Australian, describe the Australian as a newspaper with a product of journalism. I mean, it you know, it defends its friends, it attacks its enemies, it attacks its friends enemies and the tabloids do the same. I mean, look at that, just leaving me aside. Look at the extraordinary attack on Matt Kean. Remember when Matt Kean, the young environment minister, gave a perfectly fine, you know, I would say mundane is not the right term, but it wasn’t full of surprises. He gave a sensible speech about climate policy. And he was rewarded for that with the most vicious attack from The Daily Telegraph, you know, claiming that he was, you know, the personal attack of claiming that he was posing as a volunteer when he wasn’t. You know, it’s just classic tabloid hit. And, you know, the you know, I don’t think that News Corp any longer hold governments to account. And the question is, who is holding News Corp to account? You know, this is the real challenge is operating as a political organisation. And, you know, the the thing is that they, as I say, well, it just isn’t, it isn’t remotely any longer what you would call a proper newspaper, the Australian and the tabloids. They are basically political weapons. Of course, they still report news, thay have to do that. But it is, it’s very much a political orientation. I mean, do you disagree with that? </p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> Well, that’s perhaps for another time. </p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> So well Michelle, let me ask you this just as, here’s an important question for you. So you’ve been in politics and journalism for a very long time. Why aren’t you prepared to say what you think is going on in the Australian media? You’re better able to talk about it than I am. </p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> Well, I think, as others might say, we’ll take that as an observation rather than a rather question to be answered. </p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> No but seriously. This is an important question. What a-feared of? I mean, you, nobody has… How long have you been in the press gallery? Is it 40 years?</p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> Longer than I care to say I think.</p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> You’ve have seen it. You’ve seen it. You would have started in the press gallery not long after the Australian was founded, as a newspaper. And so you’ve seen it all and you’ve seen how it’s changed. But you’re not prepared to have a discussion about it.</p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> Perhaps not on this interview. Moving right on, some of your enemies would like to see you expelled from the Liberal Party. Do you still see yourself as a loyal Liberal? It’s a big L loyal Liberal and what do you reply to those people?</p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> Well, it would be ironic if the party of free speech expelled someone for writing a book. Well look, I’m a member of the Liberal Party and I am proud to be so. I would be surprised if there would be much enthusiasm for expelling me from the party. But I’m not, you know, when you when you consider the way in which, I mean, what I’ve written is essentially, is an account of my life. It’s essentially a work of history. In so far it’s about politics. But when you consider the way some members of the Liberal party savagely and often publicly sought to undermine and bring down my government, it is ironic that many of them are now supporting my expulsion from the Liberal party. Puzzled why they didn’t try to expel him from the Liberal party when I was prime minister. </p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> Where do you see the party heading in the next decade? And who do you see as those who can carry it forward successfully? </p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> Well, as you know, the premise of a political party is a broad church, big tent political party, is that you work by consensus. So that means that you have, you know, people on the left and on the right and in the middle. And some people will be on the left on one issue, on the right on another, and you know, get a diversity of opinion. And the idea is that people debate these issues, they kick them around, and then the consensus or majority, however you want to describe it prevails. And that’s the deal. Now, basically, the situation we’re in with the Liberal party is that theright and so I’m talking about Canberra in particular, the right are amplified and supported by their friends in the media, basically operate like terrorists, I hasten to add, they’re not using guns and bombs. But their proposition is if you don’t do what we want, we will blow the joint up. And that was absolutely the way they operated in 2009, and certainly the way they were operating during my prime ministership. I mean there were you know, the coup in August 2018 was not the first one. Remember at the end of 2017, there was a whole move to use Christiensen to, you know, when we had Barnaby and John Alexander out of the house, and didn’t have a majority for a few weeks. Christensen was going to cross the floor or bring down the government unless I resigned as leader, and that was all being cooked between Andrew Bolt and Peta Credlin. I mean this is all public, you know, public knowledge. It’s been reported on. And Christiensen for some reason or other backed off it. But you had Jones inviting Kerry Stokes to his house at the end of 2017 with Abbott and saying, we’ve got to bring down Turnbull. And so forth, you know, this was this was their agenda was to basically terrorise the party room, terrorise the government until they brought it down, in which case they would lose an election and Abbott would come back as opposition leader. This is the scenario that Paul Whittaker at News Corporation, according to Murdoch, subscribed to - just staggering and yeah, and that’s that’s how, that’s how they operated. But it was you know, I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. I mean, I hope, you know that at some point you’ve got to say, you’ve got to describe the facts, Michelle. And the emperor has no clothes, say so.</p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> Do you see any bright lights in it for the future in the party? </p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> Well, I think if you mean bright lights, individuals, yeah, there’s lots of talented people there. Sure. I think Josh Frydenberg was very good young treasurer. I think Morrison’s doing well. Look, Morrison and I are not, you know, we work together very productively. He had an approach to, you know, front running policy, which which created real problems for us. And I think that damaged us. But I’ve I’ve said in the book others would have a very different view that I did not think he was doing it deliberately to damage the government. He just, he, you know, he this is how he had this sort of strange relationship particulary with News Corp where he was always like bringing, you know, making them a kind of a collaborator in the development of policy through the pages of the newspapers. It was a bit bizarre. Anyway, so Morrison well, he’s obviously, he’s you know, he’s at the top. I think there are, you see a lot you see a lot of smaller liberals in leadership positions in the states, you know Gladys in New South Wales. Steven Marshall in the South Australia, I think that the challenge, though, is the way the right operates, that, they have been able to succeed through this process of intimidation and that will drive more moderate people out of the party and so the minority can then become the majority. But it certainly means that the party is, you know, is operating, runs the risk of operating to the right of, you know, where the public is. This is, this is a risk. I mean, you’ve seen this in in the past, you know, with the Labour party’s membership and union leadership has gone too far to the left and got out of step with the public at large. I mean look at the UK with Jeremy Corbyn. You know, he had overwhelming support of the British Labour party. They loved him. And what happened? It was entirely predictable. It’s just, you know, you had a government that had been in complete disarray and they had a landslide win. And you can’t take any credit away from Boris Johnson, but boy, Corbyn made it very, very easy for him. </p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> Now the book’s done and dusted, will we hear the Turnbull voice in the big national debates of the coming years to a great extent? </p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> Well, you’ll, you’ll, you’ll. Yes, you will, from time to time. Yeah, sure. I mean, I’m not, I’m not planning to run for parliament again, I can assure you of that, But I you know, as I as I say in the, I’m just picking up my book, which are encourage your listeners to acquire, legally, I say here:</p>
<p>“While I was determined to leave parliament, my time as PM was over. I haven’t lost interest in politics and public affairs. In particular, I remain committed to an Australian Republic and above all, to seeing effective Australian and global action to cut our emissions and address global warming. Now that the 2019 election is over, I’m free to play a more active role in public life. I’ve surrendered the title of Prime Minister, but I retain the most important title in our democracy, an Australian citizen with all of the responsibility and opportunity that entails.” </p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> And what about other plans? </p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> Well, I mean, I’m in business. I mean, I’m not gonna start another investment bank or anything like that, but I’m investing actively in a number of areas, but in particular in venture capital and particularly in Australian technology. I mean, the announcements of my investment in Myriota an Australia, sort of small satellite company, I’m just dealing with the stuff that’s publicly known. I’ve invested in advance navigation, a leading Australian technology company in the area of, you know, in effect, they create, make, virtualized gyroscopes that enable you to have, you know, essentially automated immersion navigation, which is a very in other words, navigation without using GPS or satellites. Add there’s a bunch of others. So, yes I’ll continue doing that. That’s what I used to do in the past. And I love being involved in technology and innovation. I think it’s just such a big part of my political agenda, but it’s a great passion of mine and so critical to Australia’s prosperity and security in the years ahead. </p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> It’s been really good to talk to you. Malcolm Turnbull, but I just have one footnote question. I understand you’ve provided your own audiobook reading. Does this include a return to your 2017 mid-winter ball Trump impersonation? </p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> Well, it wasn’t really a Trump… yes… well, that’s a little you’ll have to buy it and listen. No but was very he was very complimentary about it. It wasquite funny, it was more of a Trumpian speech than a Trump impersoniation. But I I do. I did. I did enjoy that. It was the last so-called off the record mid-winter ball speech wasn’t it, because Laurie Oakes decided to publish someone’s smart phone recorded version of it. </p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> It’s true that they’re not so much fun on the record.</p>
<p><strong>MT:</strong> That’s right, I’m told ever Peta Credlin laughed when I gave that speech.</p>
<p><strong>MG:</strong> Malcolm Turnbull, thank you very much for talking with us today.</p>
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<h2>Additional audio</h2>
<p><a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Lee_Rosevere/The_Big_Loop_-_FML_original_podcast_score/Lee_Rosevere_-_The_Big_Loop_-_FML_original_podcast_score_-_10_A_List_of_Ways_to_Die">A List of Ways to Die</a>, Lee Rosevere, from Free Music Archive.</p>
<p><strong>Image:</strong></p>
<p>Mick Tsikas/AAP</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136746/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 episode of Politics with Michelle Grattan, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull gives his assessment of Scott Morrison as a former colleague and as prime minister, warns about the right of the Liberal party, and tongue lashes News Corp.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1287932019-12-12T10:27:13Z2019-12-12T10:27:13ZGrattan on Friday: Climate winds blowing on Morrison from Liberal party’s left<p>Scott Morrison is picking up that Australia’s devastating, prolonged fires are producing a soured, anti-government mood among many in the community.</p>
<p>It may not be entirely rational for people to turn on politicians in such situations. The actual fighting of the fires, driven primarily at state and local levels, appears to have been efficient.</p>
<p>But the government has invited anger in terms of the broad debate by being so inactive and partisan about climate change over years.</p>
<p>Morrison is struggling to navigate his way through these fraught days before Christmas. He’s stressing unity - “I want to reassure Australians, that the country is working together … to deal with the firefighting challenge”. He’s refusing to meet calls for a national summit or a COAG meeting on the fire effort, but he’s highlighting the federal government’s co-ordinating activities.</p>
<p>He’s placing the most positive spin he can on what Australia is doing on climate change, but all the time emphasising Australian emissions are only a tiny portion of the global total “so any suggestion that the actions of any state or any nation with a contribution to global emissions of that order is directly linked to any weather event, whether here in Australia or anywhere else in the world, is just simply not true”.</p>
<p>The fires are putting pressure on the government by elevating the climate issue and opening new division among Liberals. Only this time – and importantly - the internal wedge is coming from the left rather than the right of the party. The PM is being pushed to do more, rather than being held back.</p>
<p>Morrison is no longer able to gloss over the climate debate. The big question for the next year or two is whether he will reposition the government. </p>
<p>As former treasury secretary Ken Henry has argued, “today’s catastrophic bushfires, and rapidly vanishing water security, again following years of drought, put the present government in a similar position” to when John Howard moved on climate change in 2006.</p>
<p>“The political economy of late 2019 is looking a lot like late 2006,” Henry writes in an article titled <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/ken-henry-the-political-economy-of-climate-change/">“The political economy of climate change”</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/now-australian-cities-are-choking-on-smoke-will-we-finally-talk-about-climate-change-128543">Now Australian cities are choking on smoke, will we finally talk about climate change?</a>
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<p>Morrison is the ultimate pragmatist and so, if he sees it in his interest, he may well be willing to readjust. Not radically, nor quickly. Just enough, as and when he judges it, to satisfy middle ground voters.</p>
<p>He did a little of this before the election, when he topped up funding for “direct action” and advanced pumped hydro, although some read more into the shift than was there.</p>
<p>This week NSW Liberal environment minister Matt Kean bluntly called out his federal colleagues’ dancing around the climate-fires link.</p>
<p>“Let’s not beat around the bush … let’s call it for what it is. These bushfires have been caused by extreme weather events, high temperatures, the worst drought in living memory - the exact type of events scientists have been warning us about for decades that would be caused by climate change,” said Kean, who is the leader at state level of the moderate faction.</p>
<p>“There has been a lot of talk since the federal election about ending the climate wars. I think that that talk has been misplaced. It’s not time to end the climate wars. It’s time to win the climate wars.”</p>
<p>Kean also notably acknowledged the “leadership” on the climate issue of Malcolm Turnbull (who again prodded the bear on Monday’s ABC Q&A).</p>
<p>One federal Liberal says, “for a long time [Kean’s line] is where the overwhelming majority of the party has stood [but] nobody was willing to say it. The community is so concerned it has given us the cover to come out and say it”. The MP points to the impact of the issue in Liberal heartland seats in Sydney and Melbourne.</p>
<p>The federal government has repeatedly derided the Victorian and Queensland Labor governments for what it argues is their excessive ambition on renewables and emissions reduction. Kean has flagged NSW plans to strengthen its stand. The federal government is clearly exposed as the odd player out.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-the-10-year-anniversary-of-our-climate-policy-abyss-but-dont-blame-the-greens-128239">It's the 10-year anniversary of our climate policy abyss. But don't blame the Greens</a>
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<p>Yet it is the states’ targets for renewables that are helping the national effort on emissions reduction, according to figures just released by the environment and energy department in its report <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/4aa038fc-b9ee-4694-99d0-c5346afb5bfb/files/australias-emissions-projections-2019-report.pdf">“Australia’s emissions projections 2019”</a>.</p>
<p>Looking at Australia’s progress towards its 2030 Paris target of a 26-28% reduction on 2005 levels - which, incidentally, can only be reached via the much-criticised course of carrying over Kyoto credits - the report has revised down its 2018 estimate for projected 2030 emissions.</p>
<p>Reasons for this revision include the boost to the “direct action” fund and “stronger renewables deployment”. A factor in the latter was “the inclusion of 50% renewable energy targets in Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory”.</p>
<p>The projection is now for Australia to have renewables generating 48% of its electricity by 2030 – very close to the Labor policy of 50% of which the government was so critical.</p>
<p>Energy Minister Angus Taylor’s speech at the United Nations COP25 conference in Spain this week showed how, as the inevitable transition to clean energy progresses, the government is conflicted. Regardless of years of scepticism about renewables from the federal Coalition, Taylor in Madrid lauded Australia’s achievements in this area.</p>
<p>“In Australia, an unprecedented wave of low emissions energy investment is already underway,” he boasted. </p>
<p>“Last year, renewable investment was Australia’s highest on record at A$14.1 billion, which is world leading investment given our population. Renewables are now more than 25% of our electricity supply in our National Electricity Market.”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/for-hydrogen-to-be-truly-clean-it-must-be-made-with-renewables-not-coal-128053">For hydrogen to be truly 'clean' it must be made with renewables, not coal</a>
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<p>Reality is gradually proving stronger than ideology as the energy mix changes, but not entirely. The debate around a new coal-fired power station goes on. The government before the election promised a feasibility study into a possible venture in Queensland, and the Nationals continue to push for action.</p>
<p>If a feasibility study left the way open for a coal-fired station, would the government be willing to provide any financial help or guarantee for a portion of the energy output? Given the reluctance of private capital, that would likely be the only way it could happen.</p>
<p>There was a certain irony in Anthony Albanese touring coal country in central Queensland this week, given the climate debate.</p>
<p>Visiting Emerald, Rockhampton and Gladstone among other stops, Albanese was beginning his mission to reconcile the strands in Labor’s climate messages, after Bill Shorten failed to do so, costing vital Queensland votes.</p>
<p>This week Albanese has been talking up the domestic transition to renewables, while providing reassurance to the coal areas by declaring the world will continue to want Australian coal for the foreseeable future.</p>
<p>He says the role of government in relation to new coal mines is to make the environmental judgements; if they pass that test, then such projects live or die on their ability to raise private finance. On Adani, he says it has its approval and he’s urging it to get on with providing the jobs (the company says it is doing so).</p>
<p>As to a new coal fired power station: he believes it would not get private finance.</p>
<p>Very aware Shorten was smashed for trying to walk in different shoes on climate and coal when he was in the inner city and in regional Queensland, Albanese is aiming for a story to which he can get a favourable reception all round the country.</p>
<p>That won’t be easy. Then nothing is, for anyone, on the climate issue.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128793/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 fires are putting pressure on the government by elevating the climate issue and opening new division among Liberals.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1260322019-11-03T18:56:02Z2019-11-03T18:56:02ZIs the Morrison government ‘authoritarian populist’ with a punitive bent?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299817/original/file-20191101-102212-1g6u68d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Scott Morrison's government may be more authoritarian populist than strictly conservative.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/malcolm-turnbull-blames-liberal-climate-change-denialists-for-high-power-bills/news-story/ac3a9ac934d634ca0494747153afb368">recent interview</a> Malcolm Turnbull raised the possibility that these days many so-called “conservatives” in the Liberal Party might be better described as “authoritarian populists”.</p>
<p>It would be easy to dismiss his comments as being those of a bitter former leader. But maybe Turnbull has a point, and perhaps it might even be applied more broadly to the Morrison government. </p>
<p>Although the term “authoritarian populism” is often <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/DE624D20B257C3862AEC1E9C2E8C0663/S2071832219000208a.pdf/div-class-title-the-two-faces-of-populism-between-authoritarian-and-democratic-populism-div.pdf">associated</a> with far-right parties, it has also been used to <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/248815398_Authoritarian_Populism_Two_Nations_and_Thatcherism">describe </a> mainstream governments, such as those of Margaret Thatcher (1979-1990).</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-a-code-of-conduct-may-not-be-enough-to-change-the-boys-club-culture-in-the-liberal-party-121365">Why a code of conduct may not be enough to change the boys' club culture in the Liberal Party</a>
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<p>Thatcherite populist rhetoric mobilised the people against big government and elite special interests, which was combined with authoritarian measures such as increased policing of ethnic minorities and militant unions.</p>
<p>Authoritarian populist is a term now sometimes applied to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/03/11/its-not-just-trump-authoritarian-populism-is-rising-across-the-west-heres-why/">Donald Trump</a>. So it is well worth asking whether the Morrison government also has some authoritarian populist tendencies.</p>
<p>This is particularly the case given Morrison’s recent embrace of a Trump-influenced <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/speech-lowy-lecture-our-interest">anti-globalist rhetoric</a>, which seems partly aimed at asserting Australian independence from international human rights frameworks. </p>
<p>The populist tinge to Morrison’s politics was obvious during the 2019 election campaign. Morrison countered Labor’s own populist arguments (standing against the “top end of town”) by using an alternative populism that mobilised the people against big-spending, big-taxing Labor governments. He argued that Labor would rip off ordinary citizens, run up big debts and ruin the economy, costing jobs in the process.</p>
<p>Morrison’s election persona of “ScoMo”, the warm and friendly daggy dad from the suburbs, might not seem authoritarian. However, even then, there were authoritarian tendencies creeping in to his populism. This is not just in his attitudes to asylum seekers, but also to Australians. For example, Morrison’s <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/doorstop-googong-nsw">slogan</a>: “A fair go for those who have a go” implied that some welfare recipients didn’t deserve the benefits they were getting. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299821/original/file-20191101-102199-s9pow7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299821/original/file-20191101-102199-s9pow7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299821/original/file-20191101-102199-s9pow7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299821/original/file-20191101-102199-s9pow7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299821/original/file-20191101-102199-s9pow7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299821/original/file-20191101-102199-s9pow7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299821/original/file-20191101-102199-s9pow7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&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">Morrison’s ‘daggy dad’ persona may not seem authoritarian, but there are strains of it in his populism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Craig Golding</span></span>
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<p>Indeed, the Morrison government’s authoritarian policy agenda also has a punitive element that has become more evident since the election. Not only has the government emphasised it won’t increase Newstart (despite even <a href="https://www.bca.com.au/a_plan_for_a_stronger_australia">business groups</a> calling for an increase), but welfare recipients have been increasingly demonised.</p>
<p>The social services minister reportedly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/oct/02/raising-newstart-would-give-drug-dealers-more-money-social-services-minister-says">rejected</a> increasing Newstart on the grounds that many welfare recipients would just spend the money on drugs and alcohol. The government has instead <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/morrison-government-to-revive-plans-to-drug-test-dole-recipients-20190905-p52odq.html">revived</a> punitive mandatory drug-testing proposals for welfare recipients.</p>
<p>The government has also supported an expansion of the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-10/scott-morrison-defends-expansion-of-cashless-welfare-card/11493626">cashless welfare card</a>, despite trenchant <a href="https://apo.org.au/node/131821">criticisms</a> from the Australian Council of Social Service.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Peter Dutton has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/oct/03/peter-dutton-accused-dictator-urging-welfare-cuts-protesters">suggested</a> climate change protesters should face mandatory imprisonment and lose their unemployment benefits. </p>
<p>Morrison has <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/doorstop-burwood-nsw">dismissed</a> calls for greater media freedom with the populist argument that journalists should not be “above the law”. (In doing so, he implies journalists are an elitist group demanding special privileges denied to ordinary people.)</p>
<p>Yet it is governments that make the law, including authoritarian and punitive laws that can shield them from proper democratic scrutiny. Suggesting that the attorney-general should have the final say on whether police proceed with prosecutions against journalists compounds, rather than reduces, the problem. </p>
<p>It is not just powerful media organisations facing the government’s authoritarian streak. Attacking higher energy prices is a popular move (and easier for the Liberals than developing a full energy policy, given internal divisions).</p>
<p>But businesses have <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/big-stick-laws-need-major-rewrite-to-avoid-consumer-pain-says-energy-sector-20191006-p52y21.html">expressed their concern</a> at the “big stick” potentially being wielded against them. Predictably, though, it is <a href="https://www.attorneygeneral.gov.au/Media/Pages/The-Government%E2%80%99s-Approach-to-Industrial-Relations-Reform-19-09-2019.aspx">unions</a> that face the government’s most authoritarian measures, with the <a href="https://www.actu.org.au/actu-media/media-releases/2019/government-ignores-inquiry-evidence-while-opposition-mounts-to-union-busting-bills">ACTU arguing</a> the proposed new laws are designed to bust them. </p>
<p>Admittedly, as I have <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00472336.2018.1441894">argued elsewhere</a>, none of these authoritarian tendencies are totally new. The Howard government had a history of tough legislation against unions and of defunding advocacy groups.</p>
<p>Australian governments have introduced increasingly authoritarian measures that the <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20689&LangID=E">United Nations</a> and <a href="http://static1.squarespace.com/static/580025f66b8f5b2dabbe4291/5812996f1dd4540186f54894/581299ee1dd4540186f55760/1477614062728/HRLC_R%20eport_SafeguardingDemocracy_online.pdf?format=original">human rights organisations</a> have criticised previously for undermining Australian democracy, including under Turnbull’s watch.</p>
<p>Many moderate Liberals who remembered Turnbull from his libertarian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/sep/14/malcolm-turnbull-spycatcher-lawyer-prime-minister">spycatcher days</a>, opposing British government secrecy, were sadly disappointed by his failure to stand up to the right-wingers in his party on such issues. (Admittedly, Labor often <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/mar/26/mandatory-data-retention-becomes-law-as-coalition-and-labor-combine">capitulated </a>on so-called national security issues as well.) </p>
<p>Nor is it unusual for conservatives in the party to demonise protesters. Indeed, a <a href="https://www.drive.com.au/motor-news/milestones-robert-askins-drive-over-the-bastards-quip-20141014-115b56">NSW Liberal premier</a> once reportedly urged a driver to run them over. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/win-or-lose-the-next-election-it-may-be-time-for-the-liberals-to-rethink-their-economic-narrative-110902">Win or lose the next election, it may be time for the Liberals to rethink their economic narrative</a>
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<p>However, the attitudes towards Newstart, for example, are very different from the days when Robert Menzies was <a href="https://electionspeeches.moadoph.gov.au/speeches/1961-robert-menzies">proud</a> of increasing unemployment benefits. The authoritarian industrial relations measures are also a far cry from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/win-or-lose-the-next-election-it-may-be-time-for-the-liberals-to-rethink-their-economic-narrative-110902">social liberal traditions</a> that used to influence the Liberal Party. The eroding of civil liberties will be concerning to many small-“l” Liberal voters, as well as to more left-wing voters. </p>
<p>Some Turnbull supporters would have felt relieved when he was replaced by Morrison rather than the Coalition’s hard man, Dutton.</p>
<p>However, perhaps “ScoMo” is just a more personable Dutton in some respects. Whether his government’s punitive measures will eventually undermine Morrison’s warm and friendly election image remains to be seen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126032/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carol Johnson 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>Authoritarian populism has been around for a while, but this government’s determination to punish some groups make the label more apt than just “conservative”.Carol Johnson, Adjunct Professor, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1251362019-10-11T03:49:51Z2019-10-11T03:49:51ZVIDEO: Michelle Grattan on the Extinction Rebellion protests - and Australia’s responsibility at the Turkish-Syrian border<figure>
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<p>University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Professor Deep Saini and Michelle Grattan discuss the acts of civil disobedience by climate activist group Extinction Rebellion - including the harsh bail conditions faced by protesters, and whether the tactics they use will be helpful to their cause. </p>
<p>They also talk about America’s withdrawal from Syria and the ensuing Turkish military offensive, and consider what Australia’s responsibility is in the conflict.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125136/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>Deep Saini and Michelle Grattan discuss the acts of civil disobedience by climate activist group Extinction Rebellion, and consider what Australia’s responsibility is in the Turkey-Syria conflict.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1248892019-10-08T06:42:15Z2019-10-08T06:42:15ZView from The Hill: Malcolm Turnbull delivers the unpalatable truth to Scott Morrison on climate and energy<p>Sometimes birthdays are best let pass quietly. The Liberals are finding the 75th anniversary of their founding another occasion for the blood sport they thought they’d put behind them.</p>
<p>Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull are out of parliament – for which Scott Morrison is much thankful – but their passions are unabated. Each has let fly in interviews with The Australian’s Troy Bramston to mark the anniversary.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/tony-abbott-the-accidental-pm/news-story/1aa197f965c7b664565a233f2c456d03">Abbott repeated</a> that it was Turnbull’s undermining which did him in (only the partial truth) and indicated he wouldn’t mind returning to parliament but didn’t think the Liberal party would ask him (absolutely true).</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/liberal-party-75-years-celebrate-the-progressive-says-malcolm-turnbull/news-story/3fcb2a0744e57943015baccb776e24c9">Turnbull’s was the more pertinent</a> and, from where the government stands, pointed interview because it fed very directly into central issues of the moment, climate change and energy policy.</p>
<p>“The Liberal Party has just proved itself incapable of dealing with the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in any sort of systematic way,” Turnbull said.</p>
<p>“The consequence … is without question that we are paying higher prices for electricity and having higher emissions.”</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/morrison-has-led-the-coalition-to-a-miracle-win-but-how-do-they-govern-from-here-117184">Morrison has led the Coalition to a 'miracle' win, but how do they govern from here?</a>
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<p>He knows what he’s talking about. These issues were critical (though not the only factor) in Turnbull losing the leadership twice - first in opposition and then in government. And that was despite doing deals and trade offs to try to satisfy the right in his party.</p>
<p>He still frets about the battles which cost him so much for so little gain. He told the Australian, amid boasts about what his government had done, that his biggest regret as PM was not settling a new energy policy.</p>
<p>What Scott Morrison really thinks on the climate challenge, or what he would do if he were just driven by policy concerns without regard to party considerations or electoral judgements are in that category of known unknowns.</p>
<p>In few areas can Morrison’s beliefs be divined free of political context.</p>
<p>But we do know two things.</p>
<p>Firstly, we don’t have a satisfactory energy policy: emissions are rising; power prices are too high; investment is being discouraged. An <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/report/power-play/">analysis released</a> by the Grattan Institute this week was damning about how federal government policies were discouraging investment including by “bashing big companies” (the so-called “big stick” legislation, allowing for divestment when an energy company is recalcitrant, is still before parliament).</p>
<p>Secondly, climate change is again resonating strongly in the community.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-the-liberal-party-hold-its-broad-church-of-liberals-and-conservatives-together-93575">Can the Liberal Party hold its 'broad church' of liberals and conservatives together?</a>
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<p>Critics dismiss the attention young activist Greta Thunberg has received internationally, and this week’s “Extinction Rebellion” demonstrations, and many in the government would point to the election result to note that climate change did not carry the day with the “quiet Australians”.</p>
<p>The Morrison win, however, doesn’t mean the issue lacks cut through, or won’t have potency in the future. And although the Liberals like to talk about the miracle victory, it should be remembered the win was by a sliver, not by 30 seats. What made it so notable was that it defied expectations.</p>
<p>Turnbull said in his interview the Liberal party had been influenced by a group that was denialist and reactionary on climate change.</p>
<p>It still is, but this group is not giving trouble at the moment because Morrison, unlike his predecessor, is not provoking them. </p>
<p>The problem for Morrison is that keeping his party calm doesn’t solve the policy problem. Unless that is more effectively tackled, it could come back to bite him, regardless of the positive tale he tries to spin, such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/defiant-scott-morrison-tells-the-world-australia-is-doing-our-bit-on-climate-change-124269">in his United Nations speech</a>.</p>
<p>Turnbull also said in his interview that, among much else, in government he had been “very focused on innovation” which, as we remember, was his catch cry in his early days as PM.</p>
<p>And, if we take <a href="http://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/">information from the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for International Development</a>, reported in <a href="https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/australia-is-rich-dumb-and-getting-dumber-20191007-p52y8i">Tuesday’s Australian Financial Review</a>, Australia needs innovation to be a much higher priority.</p>
<p>Australia fell from 57th to 93rd between 1995 and 2017 on the index of economic complexity, which measures the diversity and sophistication of countries’ exports. Our wealth comes from the minerals and energy that form the bulk of our exports but “Australia is less complex than expected for its income level. As a result, its economy is projected to grow slowly. The Growth Lab’s 2027 Growth Projections foresee growth in Australia of 2.2% annually over the coming decade, ranking in the bottom half of countries globally,” the data says.</p>
<p>“Economic growth is driven by diversification into new products that are incrementally more complex. … Australia has diversified into too few products to contribute to substantial income growth.”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-turnbull-government-is-all-but-finished-and-the-liberals-will-now-need-to-work-out-who-they-are-101894">The Turnbull government is all but finished, and the Liberals will now need to work out who they are</a>
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<p>Turnbull’s talk of innovation, agility, and the like was seen by many in his ranks, particularly in hindsight, as too high falutin’. It certainly went down badly in regional areas, which is why in 2016 the Nationals sharply differentiated themselves in the election campaign.</p>
<p>The Harvard work suggests Turnbull’s innovation ambition was on the right track. But the political evidence showed he was a bad salesman for this (and a lot else).</p>
<p>Morrison is a good marketing man. But the test of his prime ministership will be whether he can use his marketing skills to sell policies that the country needs, rather just what he thinks will go over easily with his constituency.</p>
<p>The most effective leaders (and that excludes both Abbott and Turnbull) can both identify what the nation requires and persuade enough of the voters to embrace it, even when it’s difficult. They operate not on the principle of the lowest common electoral denominator, or simplistic descriptions of their supporters - rather they pursue the highest achievable goals.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124889/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>Sometimes birthdays are best let pass quietly. The Liberals are finding the 75th anniversary of their founding another unfortunate occasion for the blood sport they thought they’d put behind them.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1195242019-06-27T20:44:56Z2019-06-27T20:44:56ZIf Dutton had defeated Turnbull, could the governor-general have stopped him becoming prime minister?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281492/original/file-20190626-76709-tmuo4q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Had Peter Dutton won the 2018 leadership ballot and become prime minister, the governor-general may have had some tricky legal arguments on his hands.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Ellen Smith</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Who decides who is to be prime minister?</p>
<p>When Malcom Turnbull was challenged by Peter Dutton in August 2018 for the leadership of the Liberal Party, and ultimately the prime ministership, Turnbull <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/that-is-wrong-in-law-turnbull-tried-to-bring-in-governor-general-in-last-ditch-act-20190627-p521nz.html">apparently asserted</a> that the governor-general would not appoint a person whose <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-is-peter-dutton-ineligible-to-sit-in-parliament-101840">eligibility to hold the office</a> was in doubt.</p>
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<p>His attorney-general, Christian Porter, reportedly <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/that-is-wrong-in-law-turnbull-tried-to-bring-in-governor-general-in-last-ditch-act-20190627-p521nz.html">replied</a> that Turnbull was “wrong in law” and that the governor-general could only have regard to issues of confidence. </p>
<p>Who was right, and what might have happened if Dutton had been chosen as leader of the Liberal Party?</p>
<h2>Not a choice between Dutton and Turnbull</h2>
<p>The governor-general can only act to fill a vacancy in the prime ministership if there is one. If Dutton had defeated Turnbull in a leadership challenge, this would not itself have vacated the office of prime minister. Turnbull would have continued as prime minister until he resigned (or in extreme circumstances, was dismissed). So the governor-general would not have faced the question of whether or not to appoint Dutton as prime minister until Turnbull had indicated he was going to resign. </p>
<p>The choice would then have been between Dutton and whoever else the governor-general considered was most likely to hold the confidence of the house. It would be unlikely that the governor-general would seek to reappoint the prime minister who had just resigned, unless he was the only person who could hold the confidence of the lower house.</p>
<p>This would seem most unlikely in the circumstances.</p>
<h2>What if Turnbull had advised the governor-general to appoint someone else?</h2>
<p>The more plausible scenario would have been that Turnbull resigned as prime minister but advised the governor-general to appoint someone other than Dutton, such as Julie Bishop, due to concerns about Dutton’s possible <a href="https://auspublaw.org/2018/09/section-44-and-the-competing-arguments-for-disqualification-and-exoneration-of-peter-dutton/">disqualification under section 44</a> of the Constitution. This raises the question of whether the advice of an outgoing prime minister about who should be his or her successor is conventionally binding on the governor-general. </p>
<p>Ordinarily, the principle of responsible government requires the governor-general to act on the advice of ministers who are responsible for that advice to parliament, and through parliament to the people.</p>
<p>But that principle only works when the minister continues to be responsible for that advice. An outgoing prime minister necessarily ceases to be responsible to parliament for advice about his or her successor. The governor-general is instead obliged, by convention, to appoint as prime minister the person who is most likely to command the confidence of the lower house, regardless of what the outgoing prime minister advises.</p>
<p>While this is the orthodox constitutional position, there is still some controversy about it. When Kevin Rudd defeated Julia Gillard for the leadership of the Labor Party in 2013, it was not clear whether the crossbenchers who supported the minority Gillard government would support Rudd.</p>
<p>The then governor-general, Quentin Bryce, sought advice from the acting solicitor-general as to whether to appoint Rudd as prime minister on the basis of Gillard’s advice. The acting solicitor-general <a href="https://www.gg.gov.au/sites/default/files/media_files/letter_to_the_acting_solicitor-general_and_letter_to_the_official_secretary.pdf">advised</a> that the governor-general should do so, and appeared to take the view that the outgoing prime minister’s advice was conventionally binding.</p>
<p>He did not advise the governor-general that her sole consideration should be who held the confidence of the house.</p>
<h2>Who advises the governor-general on legal issues?</h2>
<p>If, in 2018, the governor-general had sought legal advice about his powers and the conventions that govern them, two questions would have arisen. First, who should provide the advice? Should it be the solicitor-general, the attorney-general, or the even the prime minister? </p>
<p>In 1975, when the governor-general asked for legal advice, the prime minister, Gough Whitlam, said it could only come through him. The attorney-general and the solicitor-general prepared a joint draft advice, but it was not provided promptly. </p>
<p>When a frustrated governor-general, Sir John Kerr, called in the attorney-general to get the advice, he was presented with a draft that the attorney-general apparently said he had not carefully read and did not necessarily reflect his views. Kerr later, controversially, sought the <a href="http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/cru/2012/08/the_judiciousness_of_advising_1.html">advice of the chief justice</a>, Sir Garfield Barwick.</p>
<p>In more recent times, the solicitor-general has provided advice to the governor-general, as occurred in 2013. Even then, that advice was controversial, as it addressed how the governor-general “should” act, rather than simply advising on the powers and conventions that applied and leaving the governor-general to decide how to apply them.</p>
<p>There is currently no clear position in Australia on who should provide legal advice to the governor-general and the constraints upon the type of advice that should be given. This needs to be addressed in the future.</p>
<h2>What happens when advice conflicts?</h2>
<p>The second question is how the governor-general should deal with conflicting advice, which in 2018 was a real possibility. </p>
<p>For example, the solicitor-general could have taken the same view as the previous acting solicitor-general – that the advice of the outgoing prime minister is binding. The attorney-general, Christian Porter, apparently took the view that it was not binding, and that the governor-general should only consider who held the confidence of the house.</p>
<p>The prime minister is likely to have taken the view that the governor-general was bound to act on his advice not to appoint Dutton as prime minister, or that if the governor-general had a discretion, he should take into account the doubts about legal eligibility and refuse to appoint a person who might be disqualified from parliament. </p>
<p>There is no rule book that tells the governor-general how to deal with conflicting legal and ministerial advice. Ultimately, in this case, it was a reserve power that was in question and the discretion was a matter for the governor-general to exercise.</p>
<h2>Confidence and eligibility when appointing a prime minister</h2>
<p>Assuming the governor-general accepted the orthodox view that the appointment of a prime minister is a reserve power governed by the convention that the prime minister should hold the confidence of the lower house, what should he have done in this scenario? </p>
<p>The first issue is one of confidence. It is not certain that even if Dutton had been appointed leader of the Liberal Party, he would have held the confidence of the house. There may well have been defections that altered the balance of power. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-government-was-defeated-on-the-medevac-bill-but-that-does-not-mean-the-end-of-the-government-111635">The government was defeated on the 'medevac' bill, but that does not mean the end of the government</a>
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<p>Hence the governor-general, as occurred in 2013, could have required an assurance to be given by the prospective prime minister that he would immediately face the house to allow it to determine confidence.</p>
<p>The second issue concerns eligibility. The governor-general is obliged to obey the Constitution. If the Constitution plainly prohibits action, such as appointing a prime minister in certain circumstances, the governor-general is obliged to obey it.</p>
<p>But where the legal question is contestable, it is not up to the governor-general to determine it. In this case, the Constitution and the law confer the power on the relevant house, or the High Court acting as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_of_Disputed_Returns_(Australia)">Court of Disputed Returns</a>, to determine disqualification from parliament. </p>
<p>Further, the Constitution allows a person to be a minister, without holding a seat in parliament, for <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s64.html">up to three months</a>. So the governor-general could legally have appointed Dutton as prime minister, but might first have required his assurance that he would ensure his eligibility was resolved by a reference to the High Court. </p>
<p>In this way, the governor-general would have protected the Constitution and the rule of law while still complying with the principle of responsible government. Of course, he may have had some difficulty persuading Dutton to give those assurances. But this is precisely why we appoint as governor-general people with the authority and gravitas to ensure that the Constitution is respected and upheld.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119524/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne Twomey has received funding from the Australian Research Council with respect to research on the reserve powers and occasionally does consultancy work for governments. She has written a book on the reserve powers - The Veiled Sceptre: Reserve Powers of Heads of State in Westminster Systems - which might get the odd extra sale due to this controversy.</span></em></p>The Constitution says that the governor-general can only act to fill a vacancy in the prime ministership if there is one - but in this case, some complex questions would have arisen.Anne Twomey, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.