LNP’s decision to pause truth-telling ‘continues 165 years of government failing to listen’: Josh Creamer
Andrew Messenger
Josh Creamer, the chair of Queensland’s truth-telling and healing inquiry, has spoken about the decision to put the process on “hold”.
Despite repeated requests, Creamer has yet to receive a call from the minister, Fiona Simpson, or premier, David Crisafulli. The inquiry received a brief letter from Simpson at 6.49pm on Monday, he said.
“I request further truth-telling sessions, notices, hearings and other work of the inquiry be placed on hold, until such time as the government repeals the act,” Simpson wrote.
Creamer will meet Simpson tomorrow, he said:
People have said to me, this is like the chief protector days, a single person deciding what’s best for every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island person in the state.
The government has previously signalled its intention to repeal the Pathway to Treaty Act in one of the two sitting weeks of parliament this year, making it one of the government’s first acts. Crisafulli, who voted for the original bill, called the inquiry “divisive”. Creamer said:
Ceasing the inquiry’s work in this way continues 165 years of government failing to listen to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Creamer said pausing the inquiry left it unable to provide “support to our participants who are no doubt hurting through this process”, in violation of its trauma-informed process mandated in its terms of reference.
Key events
Independent MP Kate Chaney is up now, saying Australia “is not immune to the mistrust we see in the US”
There is increasing suspicion that politicians are acting in the interests of airlines, fossil fuels or gambling companies, unions or a political party instead of all Australians.
Voters deserve to know who is funding all political candidates before they vote. Will the government legislate real-time donation disclosure in time to make our next federal election transparent?
There was jeering and heckles from the floor, and Dick intervened again.
Prime minister Anthony Albanese says democracy is something “that must be cherished and must be nurtured and cannot be taken for granted”:
I can confirm that I’ve been working as the leader of the government to increase transparency, including on funding issues, and indeed, I [had] just this morning, another constructive discussion with the minister for the special minister of state, senator Farrell about these issues.
We believe in lower donation thresholds, and have done that and took that to an election.
He says he’s “not picking” on Clive Palmer but that his company’s donations distorted the political system and says something must be done. He says some of the crossbench have “very strong views” about the timing of changes. He also mentions “some of the backers” of the crossbench having opinions.
Josh Butler
Tense moment between Labor minister and Fatima Payman in Senate estimates
There was a tense moment between the Labor minister Murray Watt and former Labor senator Fatima Payman in the employment hearing of Senate estimates just before the lunch break.
Payman, who quit Labor earlier this year to sit as an independent, asked Watt – the employment and workplace minister – about salaries of administrators appointed to the CFMEU.
Reading from a “leaked document” purporting to show the payments made to those administrators (Watt said he wasn’t aware of their individual salaries), Payman asked:
Do you know how many fee-paying members it takes to cover the salaries of these three officials?
Watt responded:
No, but I dare say it’s pretty similar to the members’ contributions that were needed to pay the salaries of two former officials who are facing corruption charges in NSW right now.
Payman:
I’m talking about these three officials, and on my calculations it would be almost 2,000 members’ hard-earned fees that they’re paying their dues, just to employ your hand-picked bureaucrats. How can the government justify this program of jobs for mates at the expense of workers?
Watt responded:
I’m not sure who’s supplying these questions to you Senator Payman.
Payman interjected:
Don’t insult my intelligence and being able to put questions to the government, minister. That’s really not fair.
After a brief interlude from the Labor committee chair, Tony Sheldon, the hearing got back on track. Watt referred back to his previous public statements about protecting the interests of union members.
LNP’s decision to pause truth-telling ‘continues 165 years of government failing to listen’: Josh Creamer
Andrew Messenger
Josh Creamer, the chair of Queensland’s truth-telling and healing inquiry, has spoken about the decision to put the process on “hold”.
Despite repeated requests, Creamer has yet to receive a call from the minister, Fiona Simpson, or premier, David Crisafulli. The inquiry received a brief letter from Simpson at 6.49pm on Monday, he said.
“I request further truth-telling sessions, notices, hearings and other work of the inquiry be placed on hold, until such time as the government repeals the act,” Simpson wrote.
Creamer will meet Simpson tomorrow, he said:
People have said to me, this is like the chief protector days, a single person deciding what’s best for every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island person in the state.
The government has previously signalled its intention to repeal the Pathway to Treaty Act in one of the two sitting weeks of parliament this year, making it one of the government’s first acts. Crisafulli, who voted for the original bill, called the inquiry “divisive”. Creamer said:
Ceasing the inquiry’s work in this way continues 165 years of government failing to listen to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Creamer said pausing the inquiry left it unable to provide “support to our participants who are no doubt hurting through this process”, in violation of its trauma-informed process mandated in its terms of reference.
Liberal MP echoes ‘incompetence’ line in interest rates question
The Liberal MP Zoe McKenzie echoes Taylor’s line on weakness and incompetence despite Dick’s quite heartfelt plea about the language used in the house.
After more discussion over the words used, McKenzie repeats the rest of Taylor’s earlier question about interest rates (without repeating the weakness and incompetence line).
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, refers to comments from the RBA’s Michele Bullock, saying “we still have inflation coming back to target in a reasonable way”:
She also went on to say … the fact that inflation, now for the last year, has only been 2.8% is actually real for people.
They are seeing lower petrol prices. They are seeing lower electricity prices. So this is good for people. Real incomes are rising again. As inflation is declining and wage growth is a bit higher than that, and you’ve got the tax cuts, real incomes are rising again. That is what governor Bullock had to say yesterday.
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, echoes Albanese’s words (except for a bit about Albanese being invited into Biden’s home). “Our relationship with the United States will endure, it will strengthen,” he says. “We want to see a safe environment in which people can vote and we want to see the best outcome for the US.”
Albanese pays tribute to outgoing president Joe Biden
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is paying tribute to the outgoing US president, Joe Biden, saying he met him within 48 hours of being sworn is as PM. “I’ll never forget the genuine warmth of Joe’s welcome,” he says, and talks up the future of the alliance.
Turnbull’s little gaffe in Trump’s favour
Another little nugget from the former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s earlier appearance on ABC television – while he was typically, eloquently scathing of Donald Trump, he did make a little gaffe in Trump’s favour.
Turnbull was saying the president of the day would need to certify that the US does not need the Virginia-class submarines in order for Australia to receive them, adding that the US is “producing half as many as their navy needs to sustain them”.
“He’s got to say –” Turnbull started.
“Or she?” David Speers interjected.
“He or she has got to say it would not detract from the underwater capabilities of the US Navy …,” Turnbull went on.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, responding to Taylor, is giving what is by now his well-rehearsed speech that Labor “turned two big Liberal deficits into two substantial Labor surpluses, and that’s helping in the fight against inflation”.
They’re “cleaning up the mess” of the previous government, he says, and has a crack at Taylor over the figures he’s using:
If he was honest … he would say that what he’s doing once again … he’s literally trying to confuse people and trying to confuse the underlying measure and the headline measure.
The Reserve Bank targets the headline measure, and they say in their new forecast that they’ll hit the new the midpoint of the target band on the headline measure in June of 2025.
“We’re going to get through this, don’t worry,” the speaker, Milton Dick, says, adding that he will allow the question but wants the house to be careful with the language it’s using.
For everyone’s benefit, if we could reframe language to be more factual and to be on point, I think question time would be a better thing.
A point Taylor ignores, repeats his original point, and asks about Labor’s “reckless spending” driving up interest rates.
Question time begins
And it’s question time! The shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor, is first up, calling the government “the weakest and most incompetent since the Whitlam government”. Speaker Milton Dick (again) calls on him to lose the “descriptors”.
Dick says it’s a “slippery path and a race to the bottom” and puts him in a difficult position to argue for such language. The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, wants to know what standing order Dick’s using, but he’s grandstanding:
If you can’t describe a government in terms it should be described in, I don’t understand how it is we can have a breach of the standing orders.
Dick says he was calling for dignity, rather than ruling the question out of order.
What an illuminating start.
Luca Ittimani
Trump supporters watch US election at Parliament House
At the US election watch party in NSW Parliament House, Liberal party rank-and-file members Jamie and his wife, who preferred not to be named, are hopeful Donald Trump will win the presidency but are worried there will be electoral “cheating”. Jamie said:
While Kamala’s ahead in certain states, they’ll just keep counting.
The couple were “devastated” by the results in 2020’s presidential election and are happy to be watching the results with fellow Trump supporters, a few of whom are wearing Maga hats. The pair live in Sydney’s inner west, in Anthony Albanese’s electorate of Grayndler, where they say they feel unsafe to proclaim their support for Trump. Jamie’s wife said:
It’s great we’re seeing people walking around with Trump hats on. They’re taking their life into their own hands in the city … We would probably be killed or our lives would be made a misery if people saw us in Maga hats.
The pair have been long engaged in Australian and American politics and are frustrated by Australia’s political disengagement, citing immigration rates, the development of offshore windfarms and the nation’s acquiescence to vaccine mandates during the pandemic. Jamie’s wife said:
It frustrates the hell out of me … Australians sitting around, watching sport, drinking beer, talking about climate change, all this sort of rubbish. They’re just not seeing what’s really going on here, are they?
The pair heard about the watch party through an organisation called the British Australia Community, which they first encountered at an event with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson earlier in the year.
Daisy Dumas
Turnbull says Trump ‘doesn’t pay a lot of attention’ to advisers
More from former PM Malcolm Turnbull – he warned that Donald Trump’s behaviour with foreign leaders is different to what one might expect from a president.
Speaking with the ABC’s David Speers just now, he said:
You know, a regular president or prime minister will have staff and advisers and a whole official system that you can interact with. Now, with Trump, he will have those people, but he doesn’t pay a lot of attention to them. So the advocacy really is down to the prime minister or the counterpart.
When asked about ambassadors’ roles under Trump, Turnbull again suggested things will not be in keeping with usual diplomatic modus operandi:
Joe Hockey worked really hard, was a good ambassador. [He] tried to engage … but he had nothing to do with the critical negotiations with Trump. And that’s no reflection on him. I don’t think that any ambassador will.
Luca Ittimani
Katherine Deves says ‘angry’ Americans will vote Trump in
At a pro-Trump watch party in New South Wales’ Parliament House, dozens of Australians have taken their seats alongside some state politicians to watch Fox News as the US election results roll in.
A few attendees are wearing red Maga hats and one woman wears a T-shirt showing Trump’s shooting with the words “God bless President Trump” – a proud Redbubble purchase.
The Libertarian party has booked out parliament’s theatrette, with about 200 expected to drop by over the afternoon. Libertarian MP John Ruddick, sitting in the front row, says:
I’m hoping that we can save western civilisation and that Trump can prevail … Trump’s not a libertarian but Kamala is very much a supporter of very big government [and] the puppet of the military industrial complex.
From NSW, Liberal frontbencher Damien Tudehope, One Nation MP Tania Mihailuk and Libertarian party president Ross Cameron have showed up, while former federal Liberal MP Craig Kelly and Katherine Deves, who ran for the Liberal party in 2022, have also dropped by.
Deves predicts an “angry” American people will vote Trump in:
You’ve got tens of millions of migrants coming in, who are unchecked, unvetted, crime is through the roof, and you’re seeing the whole woke agenda with respect to transgenderism and critical race theory.
Sarah Basford Canales
Nacc received 3,189 referrals of suspected corrupt conduct in 2023-24
The National Anti-Corruption Commission decided not to investigate 221 instances of potential corrupt conduct in its first year of operating, while moving forward with 26 probes, acknowledging its decisions may sometimes be “unpopular”.
The federal integrity body’s annual report for 2023-24 provides a snapshot of its first full year. It shows the Nacc received a total of 3,189 referrals of suspected corrupt conduct.
In 221 cases, the referral passed the triage stage but didn’t proceed to investigation because there were “insufficient prospects of finding corrupt conduct, or the matter was already being adequately investigated by another agency, or a corruption investigation would not add value in the public interest”.
The report’s release comes a week after the Nacc’s decision not to start a corruption investigation into robodebt royal commission referrals was “affected by apprehended bias”.
The report, which was written before the watchdog’s watchdog made the finding, acknowledged the decision would be unpopular.
The Nacc commissioner, Paul Brereton, wrote in its foreword:
Since commencement, we have been committed to carrying out our work in good faith, with integrity and in the public interest. That does not mean that our decisions will always be popular; often they will not. Making decisions that we believe to be right, though they may be unpopular, is what integrity requires of us.
The Nacc also reported the average time for assessing referrals was 125 days. As no corruption investigations were completed within the reporting period, it could not measure the average time to finalise an investigation.
