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Greens call on Jeremy Buckingham to stand down – politics live
Scott Morrison says he won't 'cop the excuses' for extremist violence – politics live
(35 minutes later)
A joint statement from @jennyleong and I pic.twitter.com/kTJ9IKYGGl
It is almost senate question time, time.
Yay.
Just a note on the legal advice – all the candidates who were sent to the high court, including Labor’s three, had legal advice they were fine. All of them. From Barnaby Joyce to Susan Lamb.
The only power to decide how the constitution should be interpreted, is the high court.
Meanwhile, this is still happening:
Chris Crewther arms himself with legal advice from former solicitor-general David Bennett QC but won't release it publicly https://t.co/i2fMmNgcOm #auspol @australian
Look, everyone has their strengths and should play to them.
And for those things that aren’t our strengths?
Well, I guess practise? Or leave it to the professionals?
If you own your own property - under Labor’s plan, it will be worth less. If you rent your own home - under Labor’s policy, you will pay more.Only the Coalition can be trusted to keep your taxes low & keep the economy strong. pic.twitter.com/hxw93M5tqu
The federal Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi and the New South Wales Greens MP Jenny Leong have released a statement calling for the NSW Greens MLC Jeremy Buckingham to stand aside and not contest the next election.
“We have made this decision as independent women and we have not taken it lightly,” the statement says.
Stepping into the NSW parliament for a moment;
Stepping into the NSW parliament for a moment;
I will be making a speech about Jeremy Buckingham in the NSW Parliament at approx. 12:30pm today and issuing a joint statement with @MehreenFaruqi at this time also #NSW #nswpol #greens
I will be making a speech about Jeremy Buckingham in the NSW Parliament at approx. 12:30pm today and issuing a joint statement with @MehreenFaruqi at this time also #NSW #nswpol #greens
The PM’s message in a condolences book for Sisto in Melbourne today:“Dear Sisto,Thank you for your wonderful gift to our nation and the people of Melbourne. You will always be loved and always missed.” [1/2] pic.twitter.com/42yj0Gp3B8
The PM’s message in a condolences book for Sisto in Melbourne today:“Dear Sisto,Thank you for your wonderful gift to our nation and the people of Melbourne. You will always be loved and always missed.” [1/2] pic.twitter.com/42yj0Gp3B8
Labor won’t be supporting the motion to suspend standing orders to bring on the Greens schools anti-discrimination bill (the one which aims to stop religious schools from discriminating against staff, as well as teachers).
Labor won’t be supporting the motion to suspend standing orders to bring on the Greens schools anti-discrimination bill (the one which aims to stop religious schools from discriminating against staff, as well as teachers).
So the motion has no chance of getting up.
So the motion has no chance of getting up.
After this motion, it is all government business, with the GST legislation David Leyonhjelm is so worked up about next on the agenda.
After this motion, it is all government business, with the GST legislation David Leyonhjelm is so worked up about next on the agenda.
Scott Morrison has released a statement on his upcoming Asean trip:
Scott Morrison has released a statement on his upcoming Asean trip:
I will travel to Singapore over 13–15 November to participate in the East Asia Summit and bilateral meetings with some of Australia’s key partners.
I will travel to Singapore over 13–15 November to participate in the East Asia Summit and bilateral meetings with some of Australia’s key partners.
The East Asia Summit is the region’s premier forum for strategic dialogue and helps to ensure the Indo-Pacific remains peaceful, open and prosperous.
The East Asia Summit is the region’s premier forum for strategic dialogue and helps to ensure the Indo-Pacific remains peaceful, open and prosperous.
The Australian government’s international agenda advances our domestic priorities – keeping our economy strong, keeping Australians safe and keeping Australians together.
The Australian government’s international agenda advances our domestic priorities – keeping our economy strong, keeping Australians safe and keeping Australians together.
Our focus is on progressing practical initiatives in areas including counter-terrorism, infrastructure and maritime cooperation.
Our focus is on progressing practical initiatives in areas including counter-terrorism, infrastructure and maritime cooperation.
In addition to the East Asia Summit, I will join leaders to review progress towards the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, an important agreement that will help to promote closer regional economic integration and create trade and investment opportunities for Australian businesses.
In addition to the East Asia Summit, I will join leaders to review progress towards the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, an important agreement that will help to promote closer regional economic integration and create trade and investment opportunities for Australian businesses.
I will also participate in a meeting with my ASEAN counterparts, building on the momentum of the historic ASEAN-Australia Special Summit held in Sydney earlier this year.
I will also participate in a meeting with my ASEAN counterparts, building on the momentum of the historic ASEAN-Australia Special Summit held in Sydney earlier this year.
Frank dialogue and mutual respect and cooperation underpin the East Asia Summit, and I look forward to the opportunities it presents.
Frank dialogue and mutual respect and cooperation underpin the East Asia Summit, and I look forward to the opportunities it presents.
Speaking of the Greens, they are trying to suspend standing orders in the Senate to bring debate for its discrimination free schools bill forward.
Speaking of the Greens, they are trying to suspend standing orders in the Senate to bring debate for its discrimination free schools bill forward.
They have also just been asked to remove badges, which had “$75” on them (which is in relation to wanting to raise Newstart by $75 a week), because they are too big.
They have also just been asked to remove badges, which had “$75” on them (which is in relation to wanting to raise Newstart by $75 a week), because they are too big.
Scott Ryan says when it comes to size, it should be in proportion to lapel size. Peter Whish-Wilson says in that case, the 70s safari suits might be making a comeback.
Scott Ryan says when it comes to size, it should be in proportion to lapel size. Peter Whish-Wilson says in that case, the 70s safari suits might be making a comeback.
Richard Di Natale, who has a much smaller badge, is allowed to keep his on.
Richard Di Natale, who has a much smaller badge, is allowed to keep his on.
Having watched last night’s Four Corner’s episode on Michelle Guthrie and Justin Milne, Sarah Hanson-Young is calling for the entire ABC board to be sacked;
Having watched last night’s Four Corner’s episode on Michelle Guthrie and Justin Milne, Sarah Hanson-Young is calling for the entire ABC board to be sacked;
“After hearing the allegations put forward by Michelle Guthrie and a number of concerning statements made by Justin Milne on Four Corners, it is clear the board must be sacked. What’s also clear is the board is plagued with political interference from the communications minister and the Liberal government,” Greens media spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said in her statement.
“After hearing the allegations put forward by Michelle Guthrie and a number of concerning statements made by Justin Milne on Four Corners, it is clear the board must be sacked. What’s also clear is the board is plagued with political interference from the communications minister and the Liberal government,” Greens media spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said in her statement.
“The board may have refused to speak to Four Corners, but each individual member will be called before the upcoming Senate inquiry.
“The board may have refused to speak to Four Corners, but each individual member will be called before the upcoming Senate inquiry.
“The Senate inquiry into the mismanagement and political interference at the ABC comes at a good time. It is clear that board members themselves have questions to answer and need to be held accountable for their decisions.
“The Senate inquiry into the mismanagement and political interference at the ABC comes at a good time. It is clear that board members themselves have questions to answer and need to be held accountable for their decisions.
“It’s time to put a broom through the board and replace it with people who are there for the interest of the public broadcaster and the Australian people.”
“It’s time to put a broom through the board and replace it with people who are there for the interest of the public broadcaster and the Australian people.”
Oh, the Senate is about to start.
Oh, the Senate is about to start.
Watch today's live broadcast https://t.co/9Lgw5iXAcZ or keep track of proceedings with the Dynamic Red https://t.co/Wi8bN9E81O
Watch today's live broadcast https://t.co/9Lgw5iXAcZ or keep track of proceedings with the Dynamic Red https://t.co/Wi8bN9E81O
Honestly, it is a bit easy to forget these days.
Honestly, it is a bit easy to forget these days.
Bill Shorten has also spoken on Bourke Street at his morning press conference;
Well, first of all, what happened on Friday was just an evil tragedy. As my colleague said earlier on television, Sisto, the man who got killed, was committing an act of kindness and was met with an act of evil.
I understand people are upset. My own kids catch the tram through the city. We’ve all ... I’ve lived in Melbourne for most of my life.
We’ve all walked past that old Commonwealth Bank building there. So it is shocking. I would like to think that what we saw on Friday doesn’t happen in Australia, but it does.
Now, I can understand why people want to lash out, want to blame different groups or want to blame politicians or want to blame Mr Morrison.
I actually think we’ve got to take a step back. Someone died. Two people died. And the coroner will have an investigation. That’s a pretty good process. In terms of the debate about the Muslim community, there are a few radicalised troublemakers, no question, and pretending that isn’t the case doesn’t make it go away.
But by the same token, absolutely the vast bulk of Muslim Australians, the vast, vast bulk, love their country and I don’t want to tag a whole group of Australians just by the actions of a very few.
I get that some people want to blame the government and authorities, I think the authorities are trying to do the best they can. We need calmness and coolness.
Our Australian way of life tolerates a range of views as long as you adhere to the laws. The police are doing a great job and I want to congratulate them again.
As a parent whose kids walk up and down Bourke Street and whose wife has shopped there and walked up and down there, I am pleased that Vic Pol were so responsive so quickly and I think I speak for a lot of people.
To the family of the deceased and to Sisto and the other two people who were wounded, this is shocking and nothing can make sense of that, but I just say to people, I understand if anyone wants to perhaps lash out.
It’s a disturbing event. I get that, but I think now is the time to work out what can we all do better. It’s not about one group or one politician.
What can we all do better to keep Australians safe?”
An exclusive investigation by the Guardian today reveals a company owned by the Papua New Guinean prime minister Peter O’Neill received a US$32m government contract to build bridges in the country, in a process with “serious irregularities” that may have violated anticorruption guidelines.The Guardian’s revelations reveal serious concerns about O’Neill’s business practices at a time when he is hoping to promote PNG as a site for investment and trade. World leaders, including Scott Morrison, Mike Pence, Xi Jinping, Jacinda Ardern and Justin Trudeau are set to arrive in Port Moresby later this week for the Apec summit.
An investigative criminologist said there has never been anything like these revelations before. “O’Neill is PNG’s Mr Teflon, while others around him have crashed against the rocks, he seems to escape unscathed.
This Asian Development Bank investigation is a bone-shaking exception to the rule. An international body has uncovered activity by a company he owns which appears to fit within the dictionary definition of fraud.”
In recent weeks, Morrison has signalled his intention to pivot toward the Pacific. Last week, he revealed $3bn in Pacific funding to counter Chinese influence in the region.
Peter O’Neill came to Sydney earlier this month where he signed off on a joint naval base to be located on Manus Island.
With Scott Morrison in Melbourne to pay his respects to the memory of Sisto Malaspina, the politicking is continuing in Canberra.
Liberal Democratic senator David Leyonhjelm, from NSW, has issued a press release imbued with Libertarian wit criticising the government’s GST distribution plans.
Leyonhjelm says the Morrison government’s GST amendments – currently being debated in the Senate – will snatch $9bn from taxpayers over and above their GST payments to throw at state and territory governments “like confetti”.
He says the proposed system will continue to short-change “high-performing states” while propping up “beggar states” like South Australia and Tasmania.
South Australia and Tasmania “spend more time hugging trees and wind turbines than developing [themselves]” – whatever that means.
These parasitic states will continue to impede development and smother small businesses in red tape, while pouring millions of other states’ dollars into bloated local bureaucracies. In South Australia, almost 13% of the entire workforce is now sucking on the state government teat,” he said.
The South Australian and Tasmanian governments love making feel-good statements about cutting greenhouse gas emissions in their own backyard, while expecting extravagant handouts from the heavy-lifting states to compensate for their economic incompetency.
The government’s legislation, which is likely to pass the senate this week, will deliver an additional $9bn in extra untied funding to states and territories over 10 years and an extra $1bn in perpetuity once fully implemented.
It will prevent states such as Western Australia receiving just 30 cents in the dollar from their GST contribution by introducing a 70 cents floor for all states, rising to 75 cents in 2024–25.
It will also change the GST’s equalisation standard by basing it on the fiscal capacity of the stronger of New South Wales or Victoria – rather than the strongest state in the country in any given year.
The West Australian government has been fighting for these changes for years.
Australian Council of Social Services head, Cass Goldie spoke to Sky News about some of the wider cuts to Australia’s social services budget this morning, in the wake of the decision to reverse the funding cut to Foodbank.
.@ACOSS Cass Goldie: Since the Coalition government has come into office, we've seen an overall cut of about $1.5 billion to a range of community service programs.MORE: https://t.co/12xTAfCBb0 pic.twitter.com/mD8iKzoXK1
But Scott Morrison says this is not a migration issue, but a radicalisation issue, pointing out, again, that Hassan Khalif Shire Ali was radicalised in Australia.
He came here when he was five years old, for goodness’ sake and those who suggest it’s an issue of migration, he was five years old.
What happened here, happened here. And so we need to focus on what happened here and that is a man grew up in this country, and was radicalised with these hateful views and beliefs and he didn’t get it from the postman.
He didn’t get it from the police. He got it from the community he was living in and the people he was speaking to. And this is what we have to ensure does not take hold in this country.
We’re in a position where we can deal with this. So I’m urging positively to encourage all leaders, all those who take positions of responsibility in these communities to ensure that they work closely with authorities so that this does not take hold, because it’s your children, your cousins, your family members, your community, and I want to work with you to protect the integrity of these communities, so they are resilient to this sort of hate and violent extremist Islamic practices are not taking root in this city, or any part of Australia or any other part of the country.
The prime minister said he believes his spiritual leaders would know what is happening within their congregation:
Communities need to ensure they weed this out. We can’t have the situation, frankly, where you have in religious communities, you know, police officers and others – these are places of faith.
These are prayer rooms. These are places of instruction. There are people who are seeking counselling and guidance on any number of issues as they should be able to do and that’s happening in their communities.
I’m a member of a religious community and my pastor knows what’s going on in our church community.
He would know if there was someone, or his wife would know if there was someone, leading a local Bible study group or something like that, who was teaching things that were not in accordance with what our faith believed.
They’d be pointing that out and they’d be dealing with it because that’s the responsibility of a religious leader, to actually protect the integrity of your faith community.
Now, this is an assault on those communities, I should stress. I’m standing up for the integrity of their communities and want to work closely with religious leaders and others in the community to ensure that they don’t allow these wolves in, because these wolves will take advantage of vulnerable people.
And I want to protect those people and I am looking to work together with religious communities, particularly Islamic communities, where we know that radical extremist Islam can take seed and we’ve seen it here again and we have seen it on other occasions and let’s not forget about the attack in Parramatta.
That radicalisation took place at lightning speed with a young boy so this can happen fast. It can happen over a longer period of time and I’m not going to look the other way and I’m not going to allow others to make executions for people who want to look the other way.
On his calls that Islamic community, particularly it’s spiritual leaders, need to do more to root out extremist terrorism, Scott Morrison said:
I will say simply what I said on the weekend, that the violent extremist Islamic terrorist who did this on this street was radicalised in this country.
He wasn’t radicalised in a suburban mall he wasn’t radicalised in a schoolroom. He was radicalised in a community here in Melbourne.
Now, we all have jobs to do to keep Australians safe. It’s my job to ensure that our intelligence agencies and our law enforcement agencies both have the resources and the powers to enable them to do their jobs.
It’s the job of communities to protect themselves and to keep the wolves from coming in amongst the sheep in their own religious communities.
We want a country where people can have freedom of expression and freedom of belief.
Of course we do. I’m a passionate supporter of this. But with that comes great responsibility.
In religious communities, we need to ensure that people who would seek to infiltrate, people who would seek to take advantage of vulnerable people and spread hateful doctrines and idealologies that can inspire people to the most evil of acts, religious communities have a responsibility.
So I won’t cop the excuses. There are responsibilities for all of us and, importantly, in religious communities, there are Imams and Muslim communities that are absolutely doing this and they are protecting the integrity of their religious communities. And I applaud them.
And I know people and I’ve worked with people who are doing exactly that and they are brave and they are courageous.
But for those who want to stick their head in the sand, for those who want to make executions for those who stick their head in the sand, for those who want to walk post those comments and make excuses, are you not making Australia safer. You are giving people an excuse to look the other way and not deal with things right in front of you.
If there are people in a religious communities, an Islamic community, that are bringing in hateful, violent, extremist ideologies into your community, you’ve got to call it out, because it will take root and it will take root with your sons and daughters, with your friends, with your uncles, with your cousins, and it will infest and it will lead to the sorts of things that we have seen here on Bourke Street and I don’t want to so see that happen ever again.
Scott Morrison:
But there are so many Sistos here in Melbourne. The Sistos of Melbourne built this city, particularly after the Second World War. They created the businesses, they raised their families, they worked hard. They were honest people. They looked after each other. They were caring. They were compassionate. And this is the great city it is today because of people just like Sisto.
And so to come here and be able to pay respects to him today – as others have, and rightly have, and more will – you know, the best way we respond to these and radicalist, extremist, Islamist attacks, is to do the very thing that they would have us stop doing, and that would be to stop smiling, like Sisto would every day, to stop living a life full of joy and full of compassion and full of freedom, like Sisto did every single day.
I mean, he came here for the life that he was able to live here, and he lived it. He lived it. And he touched so many other lives.
And they would have that taken away and for us to live a different way in this country and so to wear that Sisto smile, to follow his example, to embrace that.
I think this is the greatest tribute we can pay to him, but it also says to those who want to have none of this, and would have us live very differently, that we won’t cop that and we will always live the way that we have the freedom to live in this country and you will never take that from us, you will never wipe that smile from our face, because we will always know that this is the greatest country on earth in which to live and the values and beliefs that enable it to be that great country, and the sacrifices that have been made from people to make it this great country are things that will always put a smile on our face and on those of our children.
As the end of the year draws closer to us, so do all those end of year events – which include the annual cabinet document release.
This year, we are up to 1996 and 1997. Which is John Howard’s first year of government – and when Australia’s gun laws were introduced and passed, following the Port Arthur massacre.
Scott Morrison says he has been very touched by the stories he has been hearing about Sisto Malaspina, as the cafe, well, Melbourne institution he co-owned, re-opened following his death on Friday, in the Bourke Street terror attack.
One day when the lady inside came in and she was feeling a bit blue, and he came over and he smiled at her, and he sung to her. How good is that? That is the heart of Melbourne ... The families who run these businesses, it is not a job, it is a passion.
