Category Archives: Australian politics

From tight purse strings to massive fiscal firepower: the Coalition’s staggering transformation | Katharine Murphy

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The RBA begged the government for stimulus to kickstart the economy – to no avail. But coronavirus has seen a radical change in thinking

On 12 March Scott Morrison came to his courtyard with $17.6bn. A week later the Reserve Bank of Australia cut the cash rate to 0.25% and pumped more than $100bn into the financial system in an effort to keep struggling businesses afloat and stave off substantial job losses.

On 22 March Morrison returned to his courtyard with another $66bn. Then on 30 March, Monday, the prime minister came back with $130bn for wage subsidies. Monday’s $130bn will be spent not over the four-year forward estimates, which is the budgetary convention. It will be spent over the next six months.

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Coronavirus Australia update live: Tasmania records its first Covid-19 death – latest news

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Australian prime minister Scott Morrison announced further restrictions on Sunday, including limiting public gatherings to two people. Follow all the latest Covid-19 updates

Passengers onboard the Ocean Atlantic have begged Scott Morrison to help bring them home via a YouTube video.

The passengers, who include about 150 Australians, embarked on what was supposed to be an Antarctic cruise in February/early March.

Queensland will also be issuing on the spot fines for people who ignore the social distancing rules. As AAP reports:

In Queensland thus far, no more than 10 people - other than residents - will be allowed inside a home at any one time, with homeowners and occupants now obliged to ensure they and visitors practice social distancing as much as possible.

Queensland Police now have powers to issue infringement notices for breaches of quarantine directions of up to $13,345 for individuals and $66,672 for businesses.

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After the coronavirus, Australia and the world can never be the same again | Katharine Murphy

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In a deeply ingrained reflex, Australians have looked to government in this crisis. Will it prove its worth?

We are all off balance. From the moment I open my eyes in the morning, I feel the discomfiting sensation of being suspended between the set of propositions that existed before the pandemic and the set of propositions that exist now.

I suspect everybody is encountering this out of kilter sensation frequently in normal life. Thousands and thousands of Australians were employed last week but aren’t today. Businesses have gone bust, or teeter on the brink. Kids are not at school. Socialising is curtailed. Unless you are young and sanguine enough to believe coronavirus is either a beat-up or a “boomer remover” and therefore it’s business as usual, you are either ill or deeply anxious about getting ill and infecting others.

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Finger-pointing over the Ruby Princess debacle won’t help solve coronavirus crisis

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It will take a full inquiry to determine what really happened, but clearly Australia’s protocols for assessing disease risk were inadequate

There is nothing more unedifying than different levels of government finger-pointing during a crisis.

In the aftermath of the bushfires, there was sniping via the media as the prime minister’s office blamed the New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, for refusing offers of defence help.

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Stuart Robert’s incompetence on MyGov should accelerate his own social isolation | Katharine Murphy

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From fanning national anxiety with claims of a cyber-attack on MyGov, to a lack of empathy for the jobless, the government services minister has no grasp of the gravity of our times

“It was heartbreaking stuff yesterday Alan.”

“Alan”, naturally, is Alan Jones and our heartbreak town crier is Stuart Robert – the minister charged with rolling out government support to Australians knocked sideways courtesy of the coronavirus pandemic.

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‘Clear as mud’: schools ask for online learning help as coronavirus policy confusion persists

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Despite national cabinet process aiming for consistency, states and territories now have a patchwork of responses

New South Wales Catholic schools have asked for the government’s help to take teaching online, warning it could take months to roll out and result in a “digital divide” between schools.

The chief executive of Catholic Schools NSW, Dallas McInerney, wrote to the NSW government on Tuesday seeking help, after the premier, Gladys Berejiklian, announced schools would stay open – although parents are encouraged to keep their children home where they can.

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As Australia goes off the coronavirus cliff, the question is how hard will it land? | Katharine Murphy

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A significant spike in cases and state lockdowns are signals that life has changed. It’s all now on the health system

Anyone watching events on Sunday will know the coronavirus story is now moving so fast it is hard to keep on top of what’s happening.

So let’s keep this simple. Let’s be very clear what happened.

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Australia is easing superannuation access for those worst-hit by coronavirus. But can we afford it?

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Tax-free withdrawals will be capped at $10,000 this financial year and will allow those struggling to pay rent, meet mortgage repayments and buy food

• What Australia’s $189bn coronavirus economic rescue package means for you
• Follow our Australia coronavirus live blog
• Follow our global coronavirus live blog

Australians who are laid off as a result of the coronavirus outbreak will be allowed to pull money out of their superannuation, Scott Morrison announced on Sunday.

Withdrawals will be capped at $10,000 this financial year, and a further $10,000 next financial year, and will be tax-free, the prime minister and his treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, said.

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Coronavirus travel ban, stock market dive and Qantas cuts: Australia’s week in review – video

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In one week, Australia intensified its approach to tackling the coronavirus. The government announced travel bans and restrictions on social gatherings, while the reserve bank and government introduced new financial policy in the face of major economic disruptions

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Coronavirus Australia latest: at a glance

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A summary of major developments in the coronavirus outbreak across Australia

• Follow our Australia coronavirus live blog for all the latest news and updates

• Follow the latest global coronavirus updates in our international live blog

Key Australian developments in the global coronavirus outbreak on Thursday include:

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Australians stuck in Peru amid Covid-19 outbreak advised to book charter flight home

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Thousands of travellers frantically trying to fly back to Australia after government warning over coronavirus pandemic
• Australia coronavirus live: NSW now has 307 confirmed cases, up 40 since yesterday

More than 170 Australians trapped in locked-down Peru have been advised by the government to find a commercial charter flight to get out of the country.

Some passengers have been able to get on chartered flights to the US, while others have been offered a dedicated charter flight from Lima to Sydney, but at a cost of more than $5,000.

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PM tells Australians to ‘stop hoarding’ as he announces sweeping measures to slow spread of coronavirus

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Scott Morrison says massive step-up of the government’s response to the Covid-19 outbreak likely to be in place for at least six months

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has told Australians to “stop hoarding” as he announces sweeping new measures to try to slow the spread of coronavirus, including a ban on indoor gatherings of more than 100 people, a global do-not-travel order, and strict new rules for visiting aged care homes.

In a massive step-up of the government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, Morrison announced that a national cabinet of state and federal leaders had agreed on Tuesday night to an indefinite new ban on indoor groups of 100 people or more, with exemptions for schools, public transport, universities, prisons, courts, supermarkets and worksites.

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‘Potentially dangerous’: One Nation’s tactics at family law inquiry concern women’s advocates

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Discredited themes, including that men’s aggression is caused by partners who seek to deny access to their kids, have drawn most of the attention this week

l The only authorised video stream of this week’s federal parliamentary hearings into Australia’s family law system was broadcast on Pauline Hanson’s Facebook page. The camera was operated by Hanson’s aide James Ashby, the stream captioned like an official broadcast but published with hundreds of unfiltered live comments from apparently aggrieved fathers, who called witnesses and MPs “man-hater” and “dirty snake”.

In the shadow of the murders of Hannah Clarke and her three children, expert witnesses have told the inquiry that reform to family law is increasingly urgent to better protect mostly women and children, primarily from men who perpetrate acts of coercive control and domestic violence.

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Businesses affected by coronavirus should have access to disaster relief funds, says Queensland

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State says virus ‘is no different’ to floods, cyclones and bushfires as it prepares to ramp up pressure at Coag meeting

Queensland will use the upcoming meeting of state leaders and the prime minister to appeal to the federal government to open up its natural disaster assistance payments to local industries impacted by the coronavirus.

Scott Morrison has previously rejected Queensland’s request for the disaster recovery funding arrangements to be made available for businesses knocked by the economic slowdown resulting from Covid-19 on 4 February, and again on 28 February.

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Sports rorts: Scott Morrison sidesteps question about late changes to spreadsheet

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Prime minister says ‘ministerial authority’ was with Bridget McKenzie when asked about changes she says she did not make

Scott Morrison has sidestepped a question about whether changes to a spreadsheet of sports grants on 10 and 11 April last year – including a change sought by his own office – were made with proper legal authority.

The former sports minister Bridget McKenzie reignited the sports rorts controversy late last week by insisting she made no changes to the brief and attachments outlining successful projects funded under the sports grants scheme after 4 April 2019.

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Kylie Moore-Gilbert: jailed British-Australian not among 70,000 prisoners freed in Iran as coronavirus spreads

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Political prisoners, including the University of Melbourne academic, have overwhelmingly been excluded from furloughing

Iran has temporarily freed 70,000 prisoners from jails around the country out of fear coronavirus could spread through prisons unchecked, but British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert has not been released.

Political prisoners have overwhelmingly been excluded from the furloughing of prisoners, with other dual nationals such as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an Iranian-born British aid worker, remaining imprisoned despite growing concerns for their health.

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Six grants worth a total of $260k approved in marginal seat of Longman before election

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LNP candidate advertised one of the grants on Facebook a month before election without specifying source of funds

Six taxpayer-funded grants were approved in the key marginal seat of Longman through the Department of Social Services in the month before the last federal election, including $177,000 for the Bribie Island and Districts Junior Rugby League Club.

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Sport Australia defies Senate on questions over sports rorts grants

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Exclusive: senior officials claim no ‘specific recollection’ of a hastily convened teleconference to discuss colour-coded spreadsheets

Sport Australia defied a Senate committee request to respond to questions about its role in the Morrison government’s controversial sports grants program, while senior officials involved in the administration of the grants claim to have no “specific recollection” of a hastily convened teleconference to discuss the government’s colour-coded spreadsheets.

Sport Australia had been ordered to respond to 40 questions its officials had taken on notice following a 28 February committee hearing examining the $100m sports grants program by 6 March.

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Sports rorts changes everything. It’s time for a federal Icac | Katharine Murphy

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If we care about integrity in government, the Coalition must be held accountable for the grants saga

Before we go forward, just for a minute, I want to look back. Let’s track back to last April when the Morrison government was mulling the grants at the centre of the “sports rorts” scandal.

Politics was hurtling towards a federal election that the Coalition (well, perhaps everyone apart from the prime minister himself) fully expected to lose. Believing there were five minutes left to live, the government went into hyperdrive. There was a rush of appointments and decisions – in the press gallery it felt like a volcano was erupting in our inboxes.

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Australian Signals Directorate has already spied on Australians, boss confirms

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Rachel Noble tells Senate estimates the agency has sought ministerial approval to gather intelligence on Australians

The Australian Signals Directorate has already spied on Australians in the last year, invoking “rare circumstances” and seeking ministerial approval to extend its powers in an unspecified number of cases.

ASD’s director general, Rachel Noble, indicated in Senate estimates on Wednesday that although the focus of the agency’s powers was directed at gathering intelligence about people or organisations outside Australia, it had also produced intelligence about Australians.

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