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| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| Tony Abbott suggests the mining industry should demonstrate their gratitude to Ian Macfarlane – politics live | Tony Abbott suggests the mining industry should demonstrate their gratitude to Ian Macfarlane – politics live |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| 12.09am BST | |
| 00:09 | |
| Back to Abbott for a moment because I am still doing yoga breathing on the story I opened with this morning. | |
| Tony Abbott’s remarks raise a lot of questions, as I noted first up, but one thing I didn’t note first up was whether or not they are even consistent with his own ministerial code of conduct while he was the prime minister. | |
| The Abbott ministerial code (which as far as I know has been picked up by Malcolm Turnbull) says the following about jobs after politics. | |
| Ministers are required to undertake that, for an eighteen month period after ceasing to be a minister, they will not lobby, advocate or have business meetings with members of the government, parliament, public service or defence force on any matters on which they have had official dealings as minister in their last eighteen months in office. | |
| Ministers are also required to undertake that, on leaving office, they will not take personal advantage of information to which they have had access as a minister, where that information is not generally available to the public. | |
| There is another part of the code that’s potentially relevant given the unplugged way Abbott expressed his view in the adjournment debate. | |
| Ministers are expected to conduct all official business on the basis that they may be expected to demonstrate publicly that their actions and decisions in conducting public business were taken with the sole objective of advancing the public interest. | |
| 11.58pm BST | |
| 23:58 | |
| The prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has done a radio interview with MMM in which Donald Trump featured heavily. Turnbull noted of Trump (after some prompting) that he was the product of middle class disillusionment in the US. The prime minister said the middle class in America had been squeezed during the recession, and income inequality was a big deal in the country, and that context was informing the presidential contest in the country. | |
| Turnbull was asked about relations with Washington in the event Trump went from presumptive nominee to nominee, and from nominee to president. Host Eddie McGuire pointed Turnbull to regional disquiet about Trump’s foreign policy isolationism. | |
| The prime minister noted that relationship with America was bigger than any one president, or any one prime minister. Presidents and prime ministers could adjust the ANZUS alliance “a bit” but Australia would always have a friend and ally in Washington. | |
| Malcolm Turnbull: | |
| The ANZUS alliance will grow and strengthen regardless of who the president is. | |
| (Translation: Don’t you worry about Donald. I wonder if he had his fingers crossed when he said that?) | |
| 11.48pm BST | |
| 23:48 | |
| Working through the developments. The government this morning has confirmed that Neil Prakash, a senior Australian Islamic State operative behind a string of failed terrorist attacks in Melbourne and Sydney, has been killed in a US military airstrike in Iraq. Shadi Jabar, the sister of the 15-year-old western Sydney boy who shot and killed police accountant Curtis Cheng last October, was also killed in a separate strike in Syria. The attorney-general, George Brandis, has told Sky News this morning Australian intelligence cooperated with the US in the “identification and location of Prakash”. | |
| Updated | |
| at 11.49pm BST | |
| 11.36pm BST | |
| 23:36 | |
| Still cooling down, apologies, normal live blog transition will resume shortly. Many things on the go. | |
| 11.05pm BST | 11.05pm BST |
| 23:05 | 23:05 |
| Hello, step back, I'm pretty cranky | Hello, step back, I'm pretty cranky |
| Good morning and welcome to Thursday in Canberra, which is budget-in-reply today. On Tuesday the Coalition had its moment to make its economic case for government. Tonight, it’s Bill Shorten’s turn. A big moment, given the election is truly a heartbeat away. | Good morning and welcome to Thursday in Canberra, which is budget-in-reply today. On Tuesday the Coalition had its moment to make its economic case for government. Tonight, it’s Bill Shorten’s turn. A big moment, given the election is truly a heartbeat away. |
| But before we get to all that, it’s not very often I hear something in politics so gobsmacking that my mouth falls open. But last night, at the adjournment debate I did. | But before we get to all that, it’s not very often I hear something in politics so gobsmacking that my mouth falls open. But last night, at the adjournment debate I did. |
| Tony Abbott, who has been quiet of late, made a speech last night that contained an observation that you could either characterise as incredibly naive, or laying bare the grimly transactional character of modern politics. | Tony Abbott, who has been quiet of late, made a speech last night that contained an observation that you could either characterise as incredibly naive, or laying bare the grimly transactional character of modern politics. |
| Abbott was paying tribute to the sterling qualities of the former resources minister Ian Macfarlane, who is retiring at this election. Macfarlane while in government had swept away Labor’s mining tax, “a job-destroying, investment-killing tax, which didn’t raise any revenue”. (I know a tax can’t simultaneously destroy an industry and have no impact on an industry but let’s move past that, because logical inconsistency is not our problem.) | |
| Tony Abbott: | Tony Abbott: |
| It was a magnificent achievement by the [member] for Groom in his time as minister ... and I hope the sector will acknowledge and demonstrate their gratitude to him in his years of retirement from this place. | |
| I know you might need a minute to let that sink in, so I’ll give you a few seconds to read back over that statement. | I know you might need a minute to let that sink in, so I’ll give you a few seconds to read back over that statement. |
| Just in case your mind still blocks the meaning of that sentence let me decode: Abbott (a former prime minister, not some loose-lipped neophyte) is saying now the resources minister has been so kind to give the mining sector a big commercial benefit, now the sector should look after him. | |
| Now you might say to me isn’t that how politics works? Isn’t this just a statement of the obvious? I would say to you that statement is nothing we should be complacent about, or just lapse into cynicism about – it’s dropping the mask moment that should make us all ropably angry. | Now you might say to me isn’t that how politics works? Isn’t this just a statement of the obvious? I would say to you that statement is nothing we should be complacent about, or just lapse into cynicism about – it’s dropping the mask moment that should make us all ropably angry. |
| In that rubric, public policy making is not about public interest, it’s about transactions, appeasing sectional interests. It’s about delivering for your mates (who happen to donate to the Liberal party), then having your mates look out for you. Meanwhile the public look on powerless, at the bottom of the decision-making pile. | In that rubric, public policy making is not about public interest, it’s about transactions, appeasing sectional interests. It’s about delivering for your mates (who happen to donate to the Liberal party), then having your mates look out for you. Meanwhile the public look on powerless, at the bottom of the decision-making pile. |
| That glancing statement from Abbott doesn’t make me cynical, it doesn’t confirm my biases, it doesn’t make me shrug my shoulders lightly and move on, it spurs me again to say the comfy and relaxed disposition sitting behind this observation from Abbott is appalling, and it has to change. | That glancing statement from Abbott doesn’t make me cynical, it doesn’t confirm my biases, it doesn’t make me shrug my shoulders lightly and move on, it spurs me again to say the comfy and relaxed disposition sitting behind this observation from Abbott is appalling, and it has to change. |
| Integrity in the Australian political system should be a much bigger deal than it is, particularly if a former prime minister of this country is relaxed enough to just drop a reference like that into an adjournment speech. The US voting public is so angry with the political class in America, in part because they feel locked out of the system, that Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee for the republican party in this presidential race. A socialist from Vermont is sticking it to Hillary Clinton on the subject of influence, and whatever you think of Sanders politics, the message is resonating. So for Australia: time to wake up politicians – this is not how the voting public wants politics to run. | |
| Let’s push on with this and the rest of the day, another big one, hope you’ve packed provisions because I suspect we’ll be here for more than 12 hours. | |
| Today’s comments thread is wide open for your business. Magic Mike and I are up and about on the twits – he’s @mpbowers and I’m@murpharoo. If you speak Facebook you can join my daily forum here. And if you want a behind-the-scenes look at the day and the looming campaign, give Mike a follow on Instagram. You can find him here. | Today’s comments thread is wide open for your business. Magic Mike and I are up and about on the twits – he’s @mpbowers and I’m@murpharoo. If you speak Facebook you can join my daily forum here. And if you want a behind-the-scenes look at the day and the looming campaign, give Mike a follow on Instagram. You can find him here. |
| Here comes Thursday. | Here comes Thursday. |
| Updated | |
| at 11.40pm BST |