This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/16/stranger-things-in-parliament-this-week-with-varying-doses-of-reality
The article has changed 4 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 2 | Version 3 |
|---|---|
| Stranger Things in parliament this week, with varying doses of reality Stranger Things in parliament this week, with varying doses of reality | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Perhaps it’s because I’ve just finished the Netflix series Stranger Things that I’m preoccupied with different yet co-existent realities, playing out on different planes simultaneously. | Perhaps it’s because I’ve just finished the Netflix series Stranger Things that I’m preoccupied with different yet co-existent realities, playing out on different planes simultaneously. |
| There are several different ways we could characterise this past week in politics. If so inclined, we could cast the cartoonish LNP backbencher George Christensen as the most powerful man in Canberra, a characterisation he’d find both apt and delightful. | There are several different ways we could characterise this past week in politics. If so inclined, we could cast the cartoonish LNP backbencher George Christensen as the most powerful man in Canberra, a characterisation he’d find both apt and delightful. |
| We could conclude that politics is a bitch by noting that one of the most publicly minded, genial and least artful people I’ve met in politics over the past 20 years, Ewen Jones – Christensen’s north Queensland Liberal neighbour – won’t be representing the voters of Herbert in the new 45th parliament, because he was taken out, in part at least, because of the swing to One Nation in Queensland. This week, the LNP decided there were no grounds to challenge the result. A pity, this, because good souls in politics can be hard to find. | We could conclude that politics is a bitch by noting that one of the most publicly minded, genial and least artful people I’ve met in politics over the past 20 years, Ewen Jones – Christensen’s north Queensland Liberal neighbour – won’t be representing the voters of Herbert in the new 45th parliament, because he was taken out, in part at least, because of the swing to One Nation in Queensland. This week, the LNP decided there were no grounds to challenge the result. A pity, this, because good souls in politics can be hard to find. |
| We could scratch our heads about the enigma wrapped up in a riddle that is Peter Dutton, who, this week, provided his most heart-starting insight since that time during the election campaign when he said asylum seekers would come to Australia to steal our jobs and go on welfare. Continuing this quaint trend of don’t sweat the obvious internal contradictions, Dutton in the space of one day appeared to say two contradictory things. He suggested asylum seekers on Nauru might be resettled in New Zealand, something of a thunderbolt, given the government has been saying the exact opposite for years. On the same evening, he said he hadn’t said it, then said we’d be dealing with Nauru for decades. | We could scratch our heads about the enigma wrapped up in a riddle that is Peter Dutton, who, this week, provided his most heart-starting insight since that time during the election campaign when he said asylum seekers would come to Australia to steal our jobs and go on welfare. Continuing this quaint trend of don’t sweat the obvious internal contradictions, Dutton in the space of one day appeared to say two contradictory things. He suggested asylum seekers on Nauru might be resettled in New Zealand, something of a thunderbolt, given the government has been saying the exact opposite for years. On the same evening, he said he hadn’t said it, then said we’d be dealing with Nauru for decades. |
| But rather than getting hung up about the multiple parallel universes of politics – fun as it is – I think if we stand back a little we can identify a significant common thread in this parliamentary week. This week was about doses of reality, measured out in different contexts, with different results. | But rather than getting hung up about the multiple parallel universes of politics – fun as it is – I think if we stand back a little we can identify a significant common thread in this parliamentary week. This week was about doses of reality, measured out in different contexts, with different results. |
| We can start with the political newcomer Liberal Julian Leeser, who achieved the rare feat of making Australian politics catch its collective breath when he shared a personal story about his father’s suicide in his first speech to parliament. | We can start with the political newcomer Liberal Julian Leeser, who achieved the rare feat of making Australian politics catch its collective breath when he shared a personal story about his father’s suicide in his first speech to parliament. |
| Leeser recounted the day his mother had woken him from sleep to say Dad had gone. “I got up from my bed to comfort my mum, trying to calm her. I went down the hall to my father’s office, where he worked late into the night for his clients. There I found his pyjamas in a pile and on the glass-topped table in the hall, was a note, like so many of the notes from my father, written in red pen on the back of a used envelope. It said, simply: I am sorry Sylvia. I just can’t cope, love, John.” | Leeser recounted the day his mother had woken him from sleep to say Dad had gone. “I got up from my bed to comfort my mum, trying to calm her. I went down the hall to my father’s office, where he worked late into the night for his clients. There I found his pyjamas in a pile and on the glass-topped table in the hall, was a note, like so many of the notes from my father, written in red pen on the back of a used envelope. It said, simply: I am sorry Sylvia. I just can’t cope, love, John.” |
| Leeser’s stoicism in recounting the tale, his simple desire to say something real, to make the personal the political, instantly shamed the B-grade melodramas of the sitting week. Truth and clarity rang out in the House of Representatives like a bell. | Leeser’s stoicism in recounting the tale, his simple desire to say something real, to make the personal the political, instantly shamed the B-grade melodramas of the sitting week. Truth and clarity rang out in the House of Representatives like a bell. |
| Politics also had to face up to the reality that Pauline Hanson had successfully clawed her way back into the subculture she was bundled out of in 1998. | Politics also had to face up to the reality that Pauline Hanson had successfully clawed her way back into the subculture she was bundled out of in 1998. |
| Hanson is back with a new category of “others” to scapegoat as a ritualised salve for the alienation of white working-class blokes who believe they’ve been stiffed by globalisation, and can’t work out why the Australia they were born into in the last century appears almost unrecognisable to them in 2016. | Hanson is back with a new category of “others” to scapegoat as a ritualised salve for the alienation of white working-class blokes who believe they’ve been stiffed by globalisation, and can’t work out why the Australia they were born into in the last century appears almost unrecognisable to them in 2016. |
| But this time, Hanson delivered her speech with the Indigenous leader Pat Dodson sitting diagonally across from her, hat off, back straight, beard flowing down the front of his suit, watching on unflinchingly; and she was followed immediately by Malarndirri McCarthy, who opened her first speech in her Indigenous language, the words lilting up through the Senate chamber to the large group of assembled family and friends, who cheered, and bawled, and held the Indigenous flag aloft with a punch of pure triumph. | But this time, Hanson delivered her speech with the Indigenous leader Pat Dodson sitting diagonally across from her, hat off, back straight, beard flowing down the front of his suit, watching on unflinchingly; and she was followed immediately by Malarndirri McCarthy, who opened her first speech in her Indigenous language, the words lilting up through the Senate chamber to the large group of assembled family and friends, who cheered, and bawled, and held the Indigenous flag aloft with a punch of pure triumph. |
| Politics had changed since 1996, there were now countervailing forces, possibly catalysed by the dogged persistence of her public ambitions. Hanson had moved on from the “Aboriginal industry” in any case. So 1996. | Politics had changed since 1996, there were now countervailing forces, possibly catalysed by the dogged persistence of her public ambitions. Hanson had moved on from the “Aboriginal industry” in any case. So 1996. |
| By Friday, the Labor senator Stephen Conroy articulated his own personal reality. After 20 years, it was time to move on to the corporate world. He departed with the pithy summation: “When you resent being in Canberra because you are missing your daughter’s soccer training it is time to retire from the federal parliament.” | By Friday, the Labor senator Stephen Conroy articulated his own personal reality. After 20 years, it was time to move on to the corporate world. He departed with the pithy summation: “When you resent being in Canberra because you are missing your daughter’s soccer training it is time to retire from the federal parliament.” |
| Colleagues were wrong footed, because Conroy hadn’t told all of them. He hadn’t told the party leader, his sometime friend, sometime frenemy, Bill Shorten. Anyone who knows Conroy will know that this is how things generally are with him – stuff the talking points, snowboard downhill, at breakneck speed, minus crash helmet, never mind the concussion. | Colleagues were wrong footed, because Conroy hadn’t told all of them. He hadn’t told the party leader, his sometime friend, sometime frenemy, Bill Shorten. Anyone who knows Conroy will know that this is how things generally are with him – stuff the talking points, snowboard downhill, at breakneck speed, minus crash helmet, never mind the concussion. |
| Sensibly, Turnbull ignored this posturing and set about constructing a verb | Sensibly, Turnbull ignored this posturing and set about constructing a verb |
| Conroy’s New South Wales colleague Anthony Albanese, who was looking very zen about this turn of events, thought he might shovel a bit of reality back in the direction of a press pack so revved it was in danger of hyperventilation. This Conroy resignation looked incredibly strange. Where was Conroy, why wouldn’t he front up and explain himself? Albanese was brutal. “That is your problem. No one else’s. Stephen Conroy told the Senate last night.” | Conroy’s New South Wales colleague Anthony Albanese, who was looking very zen about this turn of events, thought he might shovel a bit of reality back in the direction of a press pack so revved it was in danger of hyperventilation. This Conroy resignation looked incredibly strange. Where was Conroy, why wouldn’t he front up and explain himself? Albanese was brutal. “That is your problem. No one else’s. Stephen Conroy told the Senate last night.” |
| After the dog bit the man (called Sam) last week, various forces aligned to ensure the man then bit the dog. The Coalition was persuaded that if you make a big political fuss about one senator and his propensity to ask Chinese business people to kick in with contributions, you might need to be seen to be doing something more systemic about reform of the donations and disclosure regime. Actually doing it is, of course, another matter – and on the doing front, we’ll have to wait and see – but the joint standing committee on electoral matters was given a reference allowing it to take steps to improve a system desperately in need of substantial improvement. Who’d have thunk it? Almost grounds for hope. | After the dog bit the man (called Sam) last week, various forces aligned to ensure the man then bit the dog. The Coalition was persuaded that if you make a big political fuss about one senator and his propensity to ask Chinese business people to kick in with contributions, you might need to be seen to be doing something more systemic about reform of the donations and disclosure regime. Actually doing it is, of course, another matter – and on the doing front, we’ll have to wait and see – but the joint standing committee on electoral matters was given a reference allowing it to take steps to improve a system desperately in need of substantial improvement. Who’d have thunk it? Almost grounds for hope. |
| Then there was the prime minister, making peace with his own complicated reality. | Then there was the prime minister, making peace with his own complicated reality. |
| Malcolm Turnbull entered his anniversary week absolutely determined to turn around perceptions that he’d achieved two-fifths of bugger all since taking the leadership from Tony Abbott 12 months ago. This was partly a message for external consumption, to pacify the bobble heads who go on Sky News programs and ABC24 programs and talk incessantly about “optics”, or who write ponderously about seminal turning points; and partly a message for internal consumption, given Abbott was Around, being pacified by Alan Jones about the Terrible Injustice of one year ago, burnishing some parallel reality where Abbott Could Have Done Better Than Malcolm. Never mind all those polls telling us the Coalition was heading for a stupendous rout. National affairs is no fun at all if you can’t choose your own facts. | Malcolm Turnbull entered his anniversary week absolutely determined to turn around perceptions that he’d achieved two-fifths of bugger all since taking the leadership from Tony Abbott 12 months ago. This was partly a message for external consumption, to pacify the bobble heads who go on Sky News programs and ABC24 programs and talk incessantly about “optics”, or who write ponderously about seminal turning points; and partly a message for internal consumption, given Abbott was Around, being pacified by Alan Jones about the Terrible Injustice of one year ago, burnishing some parallel reality where Abbott Could Have Done Better Than Malcolm. Never mind all those polls telling us the Coalition was heading for a stupendous rout. National affairs is no fun at all if you can’t choose your own facts. |
| Abbott has been saying recently the Turnbull government must be different to its opponents, which is code for saying the Coalition must exist in a state of rigidly inflexible purity inside its own ideological bubble, and continue with the unproductive tub thumping that killed his own prime ministership. This is a dispatch from a strange, disconnected universe where talking incessantly about doing something in a righteous manner exciting the shock jocks and the base is somehow better than doing it. | Abbott has been saying recently the Turnbull government must be different to its opponents, which is code for saying the Coalition must exist in a state of rigidly inflexible purity inside its own ideological bubble, and continue with the unproductive tub thumping that killed his own prime ministership. This is a dispatch from a strange, disconnected universe where talking incessantly about doing something in a righteous manner exciting the shock jocks and the base is somehow better than doing it. |
| Sensibly, Turnbull ignored this posturing and set about constructing a verb. The profound need for momentum in anniversary week drove the government to make peace with Labor on $6bn worth of budget savings by actually having a negotiation rather than pounding the gavel. The increase in the tobacco excise also cleared the parliament, another nice thing to pacify the ratings agencies. | Sensibly, Turnbull ignored this posturing and set about constructing a verb. The profound need for momentum in anniversary week drove the government to make peace with Labor on $6bn worth of budget savings by actually having a negotiation rather than pounding the gavel. The increase in the tobacco excise also cleared the parliament, another nice thing to pacify the ratings agencies. |
| Not content with that, Turnbull decided this was the week to walk over and lift the club from Abbott’s hand – the superannuation club he’s been using to beat Turnbull and Scott Morrison and Kelly O’Dwyer with behind the scenes. A peace deal on the vexed super policy was settled and bowled up on the final sitting day. | Not content with that, Turnbull decided this was the week to walk over and lift the club from Abbott’s hand – the superannuation club he’s been using to beat Turnbull and Scott Morrison and Kelly O’Dwyer with behind the scenes. A peace deal on the vexed super policy was settled and bowled up on the final sitting day. |
| If the price of that deal was having Christensen out, crowing like a year nine prefect in the Mural Hall about being the man of the moment, then that was a price worth paying. | If the price of that deal was having Christensen out, crowing like a year nine prefect in the Mural Hall about being the man of the moment, then that was a price worth paying. |
| Then there was the plebiscite. The realities around the plebiscite are more vexed. Turnbull genuflected at the start of the week to the reality of the various demands conservatives were making – demands sufficient to kill the whole exercise. He appeared to execute this submission willingly enough, but on Friday, safely past the pressures of the parliamentary week, a loose construction. The prime minister told the radio host Neil Mitchell that he might look to compromise in order to salvage the plebiscite. | Then there was the plebiscite. The realities around the plebiscite are more vexed. Turnbull genuflected at the start of the week to the reality of the various demands conservatives were making – demands sufficient to kill the whole exercise. He appeared to execute this submission willingly enough, but on Friday, safely past the pressures of the parliamentary week, a loose construction. The prime minister told the radio host Neil Mitchell that he might look to compromise in order to salvage the plebiscite. |
| It’s a flare. Turnbull is clearly saying to Shorten “I will negotiate”. You might ask on what? Well, a couple of things. It’s possible the government could look to strengthening the protections against government-funded advertising being used to say hateful things. It’s possible Shorten could get something approximating a joint platform on which to campaign. Perhaps there are other things that could be applied to the process to address some of the concerns about the plebiscite becoming some sort of sanctioned vilification exercise. | It’s a flare. Turnbull is clearly saying to Shorten “I will negotiate”. You might ask on what? Well, a couple of things. It’s possible the government could look to strengthening the protections against government-funded advertising being used to say hateful things. It’s possible Shorten could get something approximating a joint platform on which to campaign. Perhaps there are other things that could be applied to the process to address some of the concerns about the plebiscite becoming some sort of sanctioned vilification exercise. |
| The signal is limited, but it’s also deliberate. | The signal is limited, but it’s also deliberate. |
| So where does it end? | So where does it end? |
| Well that depends on how far both leaders can extend. Turnbull is completely ring-fenced by the plebiscite, his internal reality says it is that process or nothing. As for Shorten? It’s a threshold question. | Well that depends on how far both leaders can extend. Turnbull is completely ring-fenced by the plebiscite, his internal reality says it is that process or nothing. As for Shorten? It’s a threshold question. |
| Is the reality now that Labor does not want a plebiscite on any terms? Or is it more shaded? Is Shorten hesitating ever so slightly about locking Labor in, once and for all, behind killing the whole process, because he is prepared to deal? | Is the reality now that Labor does not want a plebiscite on any terms? Or is it more shaded? Is Shorten hesitating ever so slightly about locking Labor in, once and for all, behind killing the whole process, because he is prepared to deal? |