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One Nation to vote down federal Icac proposal – politics live
Senate passes federal Icac bill after One Nation fails to show – politics live
(about 1 hour later)
One Nation, whose vote is needed to pass the anti-corruption body bill, are now incorrectly interpreting clauses of my bill and using that as a premise to not support my bill. Roberts claims it’s too strong then finishes implying that it’s too weak... I can’t even. #auspol
Mike Bowers has been going since very early this morning. His week is going to look a lot like this.
Larissa Waters has responded to the news that Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts will not support the Greens bill for a stronger federal Icac:
Adding to the weight of what just happened in the Senate, I’m told this is just the fourth Greens bill to pass that chamber.
This bill will pass or fall based on One Nation’s vote. If One Nation vote against an anti-corruption body, their own voters will feel totally ripped off. If they side with government in wanting to turn a blind eye to federal corruption they might as well just join the Liberal party and be done with it.”
Larissa Waters on that victory:
Malcolm Roberts is doing his best impression of a senator, and explaining why One Nation won’t be supporting the bill as I type this.
After 10 years of attempts by the Greens to clean up politics, the Senate has just passed a Greens bill to set up a federal corruption watchdog with real teeth.
It looks as though the fate of the Greens Icac legislation could rest with conservative independent Cory Bernardi.
Now the pressure is on the government to back this bill in the House, where the crossbench and opposition also want a strong corruption body, not the weak, toothless government proposal, which hasn’t moved an inch for almost a year.
One Nation has confirmed to Guardian Australia that it will not be supporting the Greens bill today, saying it has concerns that someone could be falsely accused under the current model.
For those asking, Centre Alliance and Jacqui Lambie voted for the bill, along with Labor and the Greens (who put it forward).
“We are happy to work with the Greens in the future and Labor and the Coalition to make sure we get it right,” a spokesman said.
That shouldn’t be a surprise – Centre Alliance has been calling for a federal Icac for some time, while Lambie stood up with the crossbench last sitting and said she wanted one with “more teeth than Jaws”.
He said the party supported the concept and need for a federal Icac but the Greens’ proposal had several flaws.
I think we can call that a victory for optics.
“There are a number of issues with it and this shouldn’t be used as a political stunt, it should be used as a means to bring about some positive change.”
With One Nation out of the chamber, the Greens win the vote, 35 to 32.
Even if the Greens have the support of Labor (26 votes), Centre Alliance (2 votes) and Jacqui Lambie, it will fall short of having a majority of 39 votes unless it can convince conservative Cory Bernardi to support the bill.
The House will now be forced to vote the legislation down.
Bernardi has not yet responded to Guardian Australia’s request for clarity on his position, but we will keep you posted.
So I guess some last minute thoughts hit the One Nation team - and they decided that actively voting against a federal integrity bill would not play well with the ‘we keep the bastards honest’ line.
Indigenous Australians minister Ken Wyatt will be treated to a performance from Spinifex Gum and the Marliya choir.
Without them, the bill gets up.
Spinifex Gum is a group of talented, young Indigenous women (the Marliya choir) whose performances intend to inspire national dialogue through music, with song cycles that reflect the dramatic contrasts of Australian life.”
Paul Karp tells me that One Nation is not in the chamber.
That will be held in parliament house at midday.
Cory Bernardi is voting with the government.
Read more about their vocal petition here:
It looks like One Nation may have missed that vote – if they abstain, then the integrity bill will get up.
Dreaming of a voice to parliament: Spinifex Gum sing their way into stony hearts
The whip has asked Scott Ryan for some more time, so the bells will now ring for four minutes.
And watch them perform their version of Bruce Springsteen’s Dream Baby Dream, which calls on Australians to support the Uluru Statement from the Heart and establish an Indigenous voice in the constitution:
So perhaps some people didn’t get there in time. Or maybe the government is hoping that is the case.
Labor will support a Greens bill to establish a federal anti-corruption commission.
While the Senate can’t force the House to do anything, it will force the government to vote it down.
The decision has been signed off by the opposition this morning, with a vote likely in the Senate later today.
Looks like there were a few people who abstained there – so the Greens bill moves to its third reading.
The government is opposed to the legislation, but the Greens are confident they will be able to win over enough of the crossbench for a bill to establish a new federal Icac to pass the Senate.
Ayes 35
Labor has 26 votes in the Senate and the Greens have nine, but 39 votes are needed to secure an absolute majority.
Noes 32
The Public Health Association of Australia is the latest organisation to come out and call for the Newstart allowance to be raised, saying it was a mental health issue:
The Senate bells are ringing for a division on Larissa Waters’s national integrity commission bill – but unless Cory Bernardi changes tack, it will go down by one.
Australians in the lowest socioeconomic group experience the worst health,” said CEO Terry Slevin said.
There is no mention there, of tying her support to drug testing of politicians and public servants.
Figures from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show that those in the lowest wealth quintile (when compared with the most well-off) are 2.3 times as high for diabetes, two times as high for lung cancer, 1.8 times as high for anxiety disorders and 1.5 times as high for the combined impact on health measured by “burden of disease”.
It is however worth noting, that Jacqui Lambie has had personal experience with drug addition impacting her family, which she has been open about. So if anyone knows about accessing services here, it is her.
Most people on Newstart get on and off it quickly, but many are on it for a long time living with poverty and mental stress. An increasing number are homeless.
Jacqui Lambie’s office has released a statement on the drug-testing proposal. Here it is in full, because this morning has been a bit all over the place:
“The punitive low rate of Newstart is having a crippling effect on people who are unemployed. They are sick with worry about how to afford shelter, healthcare, medicines and food to eat.”
This isn’t really about getting people off drugs. It’s about kicking people off payments.
As the Productivity Commission’s current mental health inquiry has heard, there is a strong relationship between low income levels and psychological distress, economic participation and mental health and wellbeing. Long-term unemployment is associated with depression and social isolation, and as individuals move from unemployment to work their mental health tends to improve.
You can’t punish someone for being on drugs if they don’t have the help available to get them off it. We have to get the services in place to help people.
“The prime minister has set an ambitious agenda to improve mental health among Australians. Raising Newstart should be among a comprehensive suite of solutions,” said Slevin.
The government hasn’t done its due diligence here. It’s put the cart before the horse. We have bugger all in place to help people with mental health let alone drug and alcohol rehabilitation.
We are now in the “I will take a drug test, no problem” stage of the political cycle.
The fact the government wants to throw drug tests at everybody but themselves shows plain as day what the real agenda is. It’s one rule for them, one for everyone else. They don’t want a breathalyser at the chamber doors after those long dinner breaks where half of them get on the sauce.
Eric Abetz just told Sky he would have no problem with taking a test while talking on Sky.
Bottom line is I’m not going to punish people for seeking help and not getting it, because we’re not making it available to them. We can’t cut off a drug addict who’s done the right thing in seeking treatment only to be told they have to wait 12 months for a rehab bed.
Totally normal day in Australian politics.
They say taxpayers don’t want their money going to drug dealers. What, are they going to test every ABC journo? Every pensioner? Every war veteran? Every school teacher? Let’s get real. This isn’t about who is getting tax dollars, it’s about who’s easy to take them from.
Just a reminder, that according to that little document called the constitution, no one can actually sack a politician, except for the high court (and the electorate). You can kick someone out of your party, but you can’t strip them of their place in parliament.
So if this isn’t about respecting taxpayers, then let’s get real and make it about getting people off drugs full stop. You can’t punish someone into going clean.
But, yes, let’s continue with this.
If the government wants my vote on drug testing, it’s time for them to step up and put comprehensive mental health and drug and alcohol rehabilitation services in place.
And there go the bells.
They need to show that they are interested in more than punishing people who are on welfare.
Huzzah.
If you kick a drug addict off payments, they don’t magically get better.
The bells are about to ring, marking the beginning of the new session.
They just become a junkie with a habit to service and no money to service it with. So what you end up seeing is more cars being broken into, more TVs being flogged at Cash Converters, more prostitution, more crime, more cost and no fewer drug addicts.
Obviously, my excitement levels are through the roof.
Making an addict more desperate doesn’t make them more healthy.
For those playing along at home
My message to the government is simple: fix the support services and you’ll get my support too. Until then, get off your high horse and get back to work.
Economics Committee Chair @TimWilsonMP has announced the Committee will hear from Professor Graeme Samuel at a hearing on @APRAinfo's performance. The hearing will take place on Wednesday morning at @Aust_Parliament. https://t.co/o5Rwd1e5At
Jacqui Lambie has given a press conference in which she has said she won’t support drug testing for welfare recipients unless there is infrastructure in place, and she doesn’t think that (counselling services and the like) is there yet.
She also wants to look more at what is happening in communities where the cashless debit card has been rolled out before making a decision on a national rollout. She plans to visit areas where it’s in place where she will chat to people on the ground.
Oh – and she still wants John Setka to resign.
Rachel Siewert says the Greens will continue to fight against the cashless welfare card:
This is not a government with an agenda based on evidence, it’s all ideology and it entrenches poverty and disadvantage. This most recent push is also designed as a distraction from the gathering momentum to raise the rate of Newstart.
I’m urging Senator Lambie and the opposition to listen to the community and the evidence and not to fall for this government spin. This card makes life hard for people on low incomes.
Just last week I was in Ceduna and what we heard from the community was devastating. People can’t just get on with their day-to day-lives, they feel stigmatised, angry and depressed with simple things like using the laundry mat a major stress.
My office deals with people daily who cannot pay their rent or bills using the card or are not able to use cash economies like markets, secondhand shops or op shops to help them make ends meets – and I heard the same thing in Ceduna last week.
In “please set everything on fire and just start again” news, the AFR’s Joe Aston reports that Scott Morrison is calling the new Australian VIP jet “Shark One”.
PM @ScottMorrisonMP’s new VIP jet will debut on his state visit to Washington DC next week - and guess what he’s calling it? https://t.co/P7iQsNJqdr #auspol
Jacqui Lambie looks as though she’s about to speak to the media – I’ll keep you updated.
Anthony Albanese has stopped by the doors (the doors to parliament that MPs only come by when they have something to say) to remind Scott Morrison that he won the election. I think he knows, but given that most normal people I know have completely switched off from federal politics, it is possible that there are some still out there who don’t know who the prime minister is.
Albanese’s wider point is the one he has been making since he took over the leadership – it is not all about Labor.
This fortnight, the prime minister re-enters parliament after a break where we have had quite disturbing economic figures across the board. What we have is lower economic growth. We have a Reserve Bank governor calling for infrastructure investment to be brought forward. We have low consumer demand. We have interest rates at 1%, one-third of where they were at emergency levels. And what’s the government’s response?
The government’s response is to talk about everything being a test for Labor. The fact is Scott Morrison won the election on May 18. He needs to stop acting like an opposition in exile on the government benches and actually develop a plan to deal with the economic challenges that Australia is facing.
Any website still showing footage from the Christchurch attack will be taken down today. From Paul Fletcher’s office:
The eSafety Commissioner has today issued a direction to Australia’s largest internet service providers requiring them to continue blocking access to eight websites that host video of the Christchurch terrorist attacks or the manifesto of the alleged perpetrator.
Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts, the Hon Paul Fletcher, said that keeping Australians safe from this type of horrific content is a key priority for the Morrison Government.
“Australian internet service providers acted quickly and responsibly in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Christchurch in March this year to block websites that were hosting this harmful material,” Minister Fletcher said.
“ISPs called on the Government to provide them with certainty and clarity in taking the action they did, and today, we are providing that certainty.”
The eSafety Commissioner has consulted with the specific website administrators, providing them with the opportunity to remove this content. Most have complied and the eight remaining offending websites will be subject to the blocking directive.
The crossbench are certainly making themselves known this parliament.
In case you haven’t seen it, Christopher Knaus has written about Rex Patrick’s aim to have the Timor-Leste situation addressed:
The crossbench senator Rex Patrick will push to fix a historic wrong stemming from the “shameful” treatment of Timor-Leste during oil and gas negotiations by overturning decisions that limit Australia’s exposure to international courts.
In 2002, the then Howard government decided to limit Australia’s acceptance of the compulsory jurisdiction of the international court of justice and international tribunal for the law of the sea.
The government was at the time involved in sensitive maritime boundary negotiations with Timor-Leste that would split the lucrative oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea.
The move effectively shielded Australia from cases lodged in the international courts about maritime boundary disputes, denying Timor-Leste an avenue of recourse it enjoyed under international law.
Speaking of Jacqui Lambie, you may have seen a bit around this morning saying that she is going to support the government’s welfare legislation – the cashless debit card and the drug testing.
It’s not so cut and dry as that though. The senator has been in support of the cashless debit card for some communities but hasn’t made her mind up on a national rollout, as Rob Harris for Nine newspapers previously reported Scott Morrison was eyeing off, for the future.
And, on drug testing, she still wants to look through the legislation proposal. Plus, she wants the same proposed drug testing regime put in place for public servants and MPs.
A spokeswoman for the senator told me this morning:
Jacqui is supportive of the card but she doesn’t immediately support a national rollout and there are still tweaks that need to be made.
Welcome back to parliament!
It’s been five weeks or so since we last gathered on the hill and we can expect all the greatest hits, including “Whose side are you on?”, “How good is ... ”, “Just how safe are you?”, “It’s Labor’s fault despite not being in power for the last six years” and more.
I. Can’t. Wait.
What happened during the break?
Not a lot. Which is why we are back with cashless welfare card, drug testing welfare recipients and tough on crime.
The government want to wedge Labor on mandatory sentencing. Labor hasn’t made up its mind on that one yet but really wants to talk about the economy – the one thing the government doesn’t really want to talk about.
Newspoll is out, but I am not sure if anyone is paying attention to polling just yet – you can find the results here, but Anthony Albanese’s personal popularity didn’t come off too great. Again, I am not sure if anyone is really paying attention to that right now.
Meanwhile, the Greens and the crossbench are continuing to lead the charge on a federal corruption watchdog “with teeth”. Speaking of the crossbench, it is the Jacqui Lambie show right now.
The Tassie senator had the deal she struck with the government – wiping Tasmania’s federal housing debt in exchange for her support for the tax cuts – confirmed at the weekend but she is crucial for quite a few upcoming votes. One of them, the ensuring integrity bill, comes down to her and, as she told the Guardian late yesterday, she’ll vote for it if the CFMMEU boss John Setka doesn’t step down.
Stay tuned.
You have me and Mike Bowers, as well as Katharine Murphy, Sarah Martin, Paul Karp and the rest of the Guardian brains trust. I still need a coffee, so I am working on that.
