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| Government defends Israel embassy move 'discussion' – politics live | Government defends Israel embassy move 'discussion' – politics live |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Michelle Grattan, who checks, double checks and then checks her information again (as do we, but for context) wrote about the monumental stuff-up, which was the “administrative error” that saw the government vote yes when it meant no. | |
| From her the Conversation article: | |
| When these Senate motions – on average there are 50-60 every sitting week – come, the government asks the relevant ministerial office to advise. In this case, it was the office of Attorney-General Christian Porter. | |
| Porter says his staff interpreted Hanson’s [motion] as “a motion opposing racism. The associations of the language were not picked up”. An email was sent – advising support – “without my knowledge”. | |
| Porter put the blame on his staff – in fact two were involved – for misinterpreting the motion and so failing to “escalate” it up to him. | |
| One would have thought ministerial staff would be particularly alert to Hanson motions, and think very carefully before concluding she was doing something as unlikely as putting forward an anti-racist one. | |
| Porter’s office gave its first advice in September, when the motion was lodged. | |
| But in a tactics meeting, Mathias Cormann, who is Senate leader, overrode the view from the Porter office. | |
| The Senate leadership decided the Coalition would oppose the motion, accompanying its opposition with a statement that the government condemned all forms of racism. | |
| The motion was expected to come to a vote on September 20 but the Senate ran out of time. | |
| When the motion was looming this week, unbeknown to Cormann, fresh advice was sought from Porter’s office, which again declared it should be supported. | |
| Cormann was paired and not in the chamber when it was dealt with; he only found out the government had voted for it after the event (it was defeated 31-28). Cormann hadn’t been informed that his earlier decision had been overridden by the latest advice from the Porter office. Another failure of “escalation”. | |
| Cormann threw himself under the blame bus on Tuesday, but actually he’d tried earlier to stop the government being run over by the Hanson truck. | |
| Which might explain why Cormann looked like he wanted to rock under a desk for most of yesterday. But at least he stepped up and took the blame. You know who we didn’t get a press conference from yesterday? Porter. | |
| Who doesn’t love the smell of a diplomatic storm in the morning? | |
| Despite numerous, numerous reports that Indonesia is pretty cranky at the suggestion we might even be considering moving our Israeli embassy, and the cloud that puts over the trade agreement we have signed with them, Scott Morrison says everything is fine. | |
| The Indonesian trade minister has discounted that report. That doesn’t surprise me. We have been in close engagement with Indonesia and we share one important value in common – we both believe in a two-state solution and that is the basis of the comments I have made today. | |
| Anyone who follows Indonesian foreign policy knows that ministers can say something, and then policy can change on a dime. | |
| Which is why all our foreign policy wonks are warning us not to do it. | |
| Speaking of Nauru and Manus Island, today’s press club address is by Peter Maurer, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross. | Speaking of Nauru and Manus Island, today’s press club address is by Peter Maurer, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross. |
| He’s speaking on the “global trends of war and their humanitarian impacts”. Given that Australia is involved in some of those global trends of war, and knows exactly what the humanitarian impacts can be, it should be quite interesting. | He’s speaking on the “global trends of war and their humanitarian impacts”. Given that Australia is involved in some of those global trends of war, and knows exactly what the humanitarian impacts can be, it should be quite interesting. |
| The Morrison government has woken to wall-to-wall bad headlines, featuring its allies warning it against walking away from a foreign policy Australia has held for decades, just days out from a byelection that will decide whether it holds on to its one-seat majority or not. | The Morrison government has woken to wall-to-wall bad headlines, featuring its allies warning it against walking away from a foreign policy Australia has held for decades, just days out from a byelection that will decide whether it holds on to its one-seat majority or not. |
| And it is an entire self-own. | And it is an entire self-own. |
| Scott Morrison’s decision to have a “discussion” about whether or not Australia should move its Israel embassy to Jerusalem has gone down like a lead balloon with key trading partners and traditional allies. | Scott Morrison’s decision to have a “discussion” about whether or not Australia should move its Israel embassy to Jerusalem has gone down like a lead balloon with key trading partners and traditional allies. |
| The only one who seems happy, other than Israel, is America, with Donald Trump embracing the fact someone else might be following his path. | The only one who seems happy, other than Israel, is America, with Donald Trump embracing the fact someone else might be following his path. |
| So now Morrison and Josh Frydenberg, who has been sent out over the past 24 hours to talk about how talking about this is not a bad talk to have, are now defending that talk, while batting away any mention of the “Wentworth byelection”. | |
| The “proposed discussion” has been roundly criticised for it’s timing. Morrison is desperately trying to come up with reasons why it’s not about Wentworth, but given the announcement, which came out of the blue, and on the back of some bad polling for the Liberals, he is not having much luck. | |
| We’ll follow that, and the latest on Nauru, with the parliament now waking up to the fact that the public probably isn’t so cool with leaving asylum seekers to sit in Nauru and Manus Island indefinitely. Members of the Liberal backbench – the same ones who were largely steamrolled by their more conservative colleagues on practically every issue under the sun – are now speaking up, loudly, that they want a solution too. | |
| But it’s become snagged on the “lifetime ban” clause the government wants to put on the asylum seekers. Labor and the Greens say no and so do enough of the crossbench, that the legislation has been sitting there in the twilight zone. | |
| Mike Bowers is still on assignment, so it’s just me and the Guardian’s brains trust this morning. I hope you have had your coffee, because if yesterday was any indication, it is going to be a doozy. | Mike Bowers is still on assignment, so it’s just me and the Guardian’s brains trust this morning. I hope you have had your coffee, because if yesterday was any indication, it is going to be a doozy. |
| Ready? | Ready? |
| Let’s get into it. | Let’s get into it. |