Tyrrell worked as Lambie’s office manager for years before being elected to the upper house in 2022
Firebrand senator Jacqui Lambie has wished Tammy Tyrrell well after she announced her decision to quit the Tasmanian’s network and go it alone on the crossbench.
In a statement released on Thursday evening, the senator revealed she had resigned from the Jacqui Lambie Network and would remain in the upper.
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Continue reading...The party whip says she plans to stay in the Senate as an independent after Lambie suggested she should ‘go it alone’
The Tasmanian senator Tammy Tyrrell says she is quitting the Jacqui Lambie Network, but plans to stay in the Senate as an independent, saying the party leader had suggested her former party mate “go it alone”.
“Today I have advised the Jacqui Lambie Network that I am resigning from the party. I’ll remain in the Senate as an independent Senator for Tasmania,” the 53-year-old said in a statement on Thursday evening.
Continue reading...As the dust settles from an unnecessary election, premier Jeremy Rockliff has some serious work to do to form a stable government
Jeremy Rockliff brought this on himself.
The Tasmanian premier – the leader of Australia’s sole Liberal government – called an election a year earlier than required, believing he could persuade voters to reject the “chaos” of minority government and reward his party with a fourth straight majority victory. Tasmanians didn’t buy it.
Continue reading...Labor’s Rebecca White is hoping to unseat Australia’s only remaining Liberal government and return her party to power after 10 years in opposition
Australia’s last Liberal government is hoping they can defy opinion polls and be returned in majority, as polls close in Tasmania.
The state Liberals are chasing a record fourth successive term, while Labor is aiming to end a decade in opposition.
Continue reading...Crossbenchers including the Greens and the Jacquie Lambie Network back proposal that would ban $1.5m-plus donations and tighten the definition of gifts but does not include spending caps
Mega donations of more than $1.5m would be banned under a crossbench plan to get big money out of politics.
Lower house independents, including Kate Chaney, Zali Steggall, the Greens, David Pocock, Lidia Thorpe and the Jacqui Lambie Network, will present a united front by introducing the fair and transparent elections bill in both houses of parliament.
Continue reading...Environment minister says ‘well‑behaved and peaceful’ pro-Palestine protests in Australia are ‘just part of democracy’. Follow the day’s news live
Minister focuses on multicultural cohesion
Pressed on why he wouldn’t call for a ceasefire, Andrew Giles says:
We have seen a considered and careful response by the Australian government through foreign minister Wong pushing towards the sort of outcomes that I think every Australian was to see.
In the last few weeks as minister for multicultural affairs I’ve spent an extraordinary amount of time engaging directly with Australians who have a close personal connection to this conflict.
Palestinian Australians, Jewish Australians and members of the wider Arab and Muslim communities and I’m, of course, deeply affected by every one of these conversations.
Continue reading...Lambie tells Senate the Brereton report gave senior commanders a ‘free pass’ while soldiers were ‘thrown under the bus’
Senator Jacqui Lambie has told the Senate she has asked the international criminal court (ICC) to investigate senior Australian Defence Force commanders for alleged war crimes.
Lambie said that the Brereton report gave senior commanders a “free pass” while soldiers were “thrown under the bus”.
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Independent Kooyong MP Dr Monique Ryan said the crossbench was distressed by the past week in parliament:
I can speak for other members of the crossbench because we talk to each other after each question time because we found it distressing, and we wanted to stand to our feet and say that we felt it was conduct unbecoming parliament, and I think if we learn nothing from this, we have to decide as a society whether we want our parliament really to be dragging people who have gone through really difficult experiences through that sort of experience again. It wasn’t ideal. It was – I actually felt it was shameful.
I think there were serious questions that needed to be asked in the face of a minister misleading the Senate and we asked questions about who knew what, when, what was done with that information – all very legitimate questions, and this issue, when it was last in parliament was pursued ferociously by the then opposition and I think we were very careful as we could be with our tone, but to also ask legitimate questions of the government and their ministers, not just around who knew what when but also around the swiftness of the compensation payment, why some evidence in that process was explicitly excluded, and that, you know, the substantial nature of it – all legitimate questions and the right thing to do.
Continue reading...Exclusive: US embassy says review ended with a decision that no training restrictions needed ‘at this time’
The United States says the Brereton inquiry into alleged war crimes by Australian special forces sparked “a bilateral training review” that ended with a decision not to suspend security cooperation between the two countries.
The US embassy in Canberra moved to clear up unanswered questions about the issue on Friday, insisting that the Australian government’s actions to address the allegations had allayed any concerns.
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Continue reading...The senator told the premier Tasmanians have had a ‘bloody gutful’ over the stadium and ‘you can stick it up your bum’
Thousands of Tasmanians have voiced their opposition to a $715m stadium critical to the state’s entry to the AFL, a day after the project brought the Rockliff government to its knees.
Australia’s only state Liberal government was thrust into minority status on Friday after two MPs quit, citing concerns over state debt and government transparency around the planned build on the edge of the Hobart CBD.
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Continue reading...Bipartisan approach likely as Senate addresses changes to the rules governing referendums. Follow the day’s news live
Voice negotiations
The referendum machinery legislation will set up how the voice referendum will run – the machinery surruounding the vote, if you will.
We’re negotiating in good faith in the Senate that’s being led by Jane Hume who is doing an outstanding job. What we said to the government in the beginning is what we’re saying to them now and that is that we are not prepared to trash decades of referendum precedent, and not do this in a way that Australians expect us to, in their interests, for their information.
We’re asking for a pamphlet to outline the yes and no case, and we’ve talked about that. We’re asking for equal funding of the yes or no case, not the millions of dollars that may go into a public campaign on either side of this debate, but just the administration funding.
Fifty-seven per cent of the population does not want to open new coal and gas mines and I think there’s a very clear message coming through there. Secondly, no, I have got a lot of time for Jacqui Lambie, but we had an emissions trading scheme in this country and she was part of a party that voted to repeal it so let’s let’s not get too carried away with the spin here.
We’re in a climate crisis, as the UN secretary general has made clear. The decisions that we make now will reverberate for generations to come and the big decisions that we’ve got to make, do we open new coal and gas mines or not?
Continue reading...Despite this pushback, most crossbench MPs remain open to debate, and several independent senators have spoken in favour of curbing some super tax concessions to help budget repair
Independent MPs including Kylea Tink, Zoe Daniel and Zali Steggall have said that capping superannuation balances at $3m may undermine the confidence of people saving for retirement.
The teals have joined the Coalition in warning against capping, which appears to be the most likely measure to implement Labor’s objective for super to be “sustainable and equitable”, saying the government should look to raise revenue elsewhere, including company profits and tax evasion.
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Continue reading...Follow the day’s news live
Buy now, pay later review has been coming for a while
The last time the issue was examined, under the previous government, it was decided the industry could regulate itself.
Continue reading...Albanese government has agreed amendments to get business on board but independent senators won’t be bullied into passing omnibus legislation
The Albanese government is ratcheting up pressure on Senate crossbenchers to support its contentious industrial relations legislation after Jacqui Lambie and David Pocock signalled concessions to employers were not enough to expedite the bill’s passage.
Labor used the resumption of federal parliament on Monday to welcome last week’s 15% pay rise for aged care workers and declare that other workers battling escalating cost-of-living pressures needed industrial regulations that worked in their interests, given inflation was now forecast to peak at 8%.
Continue reading...Almost half of those polled support axing stage three cuts while one quarter thought they should be kept
Support for the stage three tax cuts remains low with the majority of Australians backing sound economic management over sticking to election promises, a new survey suggests.
The research from the Australia Institute found that high-income earners were particularly likely to support the repeal of the stage three tax cuts, despite being the main beneficiaries of the changes.
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Continue reading...Senator tells Festival of Dangerous Ideas the rise of the teals is ‘the breakthrough our country’s been waiting for’
Jacqui Lambie has called for an end to Australia’s major political parties while launching a scathing critique of Labor’s unwillingness to dump the controversial stage three tax cuts.
The independent senator for Tasmania told an audience at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney on Saturday the federal government’s failure to increase jobseeker payments above the poverty line while waving through the tax cuts was emblematic of the “broken” political system.
Continue reading...Greens senator David Shoebridge says grant impacts ‘independence’ of governor general’s office and Scott Morrison should have rejected requests for support
The Greens and Jacqui Lambie Network have moved to disallow a controversial $18m grant to a leadership foundation for which the governor general, David Hurley, personally lobbied the Morrison government.
Announced in the 2022 budget, the $18m to establish the Australian Future Leaders Program was probed by Labor in opposition due to concerns the foundation was not operational before the grant was announced without a competitive tender.
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Continue reading...The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, says he will be “taking a break” next week, with his deputy, Richard Marles, to act in the top job in his stead.
Speaking on ABC Melbourne radio, Albanese said he would take a short period of leave and travel somewhere in Australia. He will be on leave from August 6-14.
Taking a break with security issues is more complex, I have found.
Three people remain in custody. We believe one of those persons is responsible for this matter.
Continue reading...Sussan Ley and Jason Clare react to US supreme court decision on abortion rights; Australia to send $1m earthquake relief to Afghanistan; nation records 26 Covid deaths. This blog is now closed
Sussan Ley: Roe v Wade overturning ‘a backward step for women’
Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley says the US supreme court’s decision to overturn a constitutional right to abortion is a “backward step for women in the US”.
This has been a step backwards for women in the US. I’m very discomforted by anything that puts a personal and sensitive issue that a woman has to grapple with in many instances, or a family has to grapple with, in the same sentence as criminal.
Thank God we are a country here in Australia where abortion is not an issue that divides the Labor party and Liberal party.
I’m thinking at the moment for the women who live in some of these states that are basically being told today that if you want to have an abortion then get on a bus and travel a couple of hundred kilometres.
Continue reading...Anthony Albanese’s move to reduce crossbench staffers to pre-Coalition levels met with outrage
Furious independent MPs and senators have accused the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, of an “attack on democracy” after he decided to slash their staff allocation in one of his first dealings with the newly expanded crossbench.
One Nation has threatened to reject all government legislation as their “default position”, while crucial Senate vote David Pocock called the decision “extremely damaging” to the relationship with the crossbench. The Greens also claimed they have been given an effective staff cut, allocated the same number of staff as the last parliament despite their representatives growing from 10 to 16.
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