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| Government defends Israel embassy move 'discussion' – politics live | Government defends Israel embassy move 'discussion' – politics live |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Just for a change of pace, and because we need a little bit of inspiring news from time to time, this is also something which is happening from our little place on the hill: | |
| This handsome man is about to embark on a ‘Walk for Life’!Just a few years short of his 90th birthday - Alan Staines is a man on a mission to walk from Canberra to Sydney to bring national attention our shameful suicide rate. What a boss. Get around him. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/X8Nk85JglI | |
| Greg Hunt will be waving Alan Staines off on his walk tomorrow morning. Alan wants to raise awareness around Australia’s suicide rate, because of just how many lives it touches. | |
| “Deaths in Australia due to suicide now exceed motor vehicle accidents, war, naturaldisasters and homicides combined. The hidden costs of suicidal behaviour are estimated to be $17 billion a year. And yet, there is little attention given to the issue of suicide,” he said. | |
| He’s not alone – there has been a concerted effort from organisations in the mental health and health sector to get the government to pay more attention to this. | |
| Crisis support services can be reached 24 hours a day: Lifeline 13 11 14; Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467; Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800; MensLine Australia 1300 78 99 78; Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636 | |
| We are three days out from polls closing on Wentworth, where the Liberal party are scrambling to hold on to its one-seat majority in the House of Reps. | |
| Now, the polls are bad. Single-seat polls are notoriously difficult to get right because, well, the samples are a bit hinky and we have seen time and time again the polls predict the exactly wrong result. | |
| But the Liberal party showed just how worried it is when Scott Morrison came out on Tuesday, having briefed parts of the media on Monday night, that he was open to the discussion that Australia should move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. | |
| That had nothing to do with Wentworth, we were told. Nothing at all. And it definately has nothing to do with the almost 13% of voters in Wentworth who practice Judaism. That would be an offensive conclusion to draw. He just wanted to discuss it because, you know, that’s what prime ministers do. Discuss potentially tearing up decades of foreign policy, and going against 90 % of the world a week out from a crucial byelection with a large Jewish population, just because. | |
| The Liberals, thanks to Malcolm Turnbull, hold Wentworth by almost 18%. It was a 2.5% margin in 2007, so Turnbull not only worked that seat, he put his thing down, flipped it and reversed it. | |
| And still the government is worried it could lose it. And with it, its majority in the parliament (although Cathy McGowan has confirmed she will still give the government supply). | |
| Do they have a right to be so worried, given that margin? | |
| Well, thanks to one of the wags who likes to sprinkle my days with fun political facts, and the occasional Kate Bushism, I can tell you that the three worst byelection results since the war were: | |
| Bass (1975) – swing against the Labor govt was 14.6% | |
| Canberra (1995) – swing against the Labor govt was 16.1% | |
| Werriwa (1952) – swing against the Lib govt was 12.4% (though seat did not change hands) | |
| In Bass and Canberra, the government also lost power. | |
| After the 2015 Queensland election, where Labor went from nine seats to government, I would never underestimate voter anger. It just depends how angry the people of Wentworth actually are. | |
| And on that absolute masterclass in bell-endery (a few of you pointed this out in the comments last night), Luke Howarth, whose seat of Petrie sits smack back in One Nation territory, had a slightly different take on the issue during his Sky interview yesterday: | |
| “At the end of the day, I think this has been blown out of all proportion,” he said. | |
| ... What we are seeing from Pauline Hanson and the Labor party in the House of Reps today [Tuesday] is everything people in my electorate hate about Canberra. So if you go to people in my electorate and say, ‘well, it’s okay to be white’, most people would have no idea what you are referring about. They’d go ‘well, of course it is’. But down here, they are in this little bubble where One Nation and Labor want to play games and the fact is people on the ground think ‘what the hell are you guys doing down there’. | |
| On Scott Morrison coming out and saying it was “regrettable”, Howarth had this to say: | |
| “Well, I believe that was a mistake by the government as well, we should have just let it die.” | |
| ... I believe the government should have just let it die yesterday [Monday] and I think the opposition were wrong to raise it again in the House of Reps again today [Tuesday]. | |
| They should have just come out and said straight forward that the reason why they voted for it was because when you read what Senator Hanson said by itself it is fine, but when you put it in the context of what the Labor party raised, saying it was from a white supremacist group in the US, and not being a US MP I wasn’t aware of it, it has [been] given it more air time. | |
| 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. | 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: | 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. | 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 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. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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 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. | 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. | 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 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. | 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. | 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? | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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”. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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. |