By political correspondent Emma Griffiths

Photo: The biggest saving that was due to begin today is a two-year freeze on family tax benefits.

Related Story: Welfare review proposes payment cull, assistance

Related Story: Cuts may leave 500,000 young people needing aid

A hole will be punched in the federal budget from today, with major savings measures that were slated to kick in on July 1 held back because of opposition in the Senate.

But today also marks the dawning of a new regime in the Upper House as the balance of power swings from the Greens to a micro-party cross bench of eight Senators, dominated by the Palmer United Party.

The new Senate will sit for the first time next Monday with a legislative agenda swollen by a Government wish list of election promises and budget measures worth billions of dollars.

The biggest saving that was due to begin today is a two-year freeze on family tax benefits, budgeted to save $397 million this financial year and $2.6 billion over the four-year forward-estimate period.

The Government also put a hold on eligibility thresholds for all payments from today, including the childcare benefit Newstart, parenting payments and youth allowance, to save $160 million this financial year and $1.5 billion over four years.

The indexation of the clean energy supplement, paid to all welfare recipients, was also due to be removed today in a cut worth $42.3 million in 2014-2015 and nearly half a billion dollars over five years.

But for opposition in the Senate, single parents would also have been affected by a switch in the indexation from male average weekly earnings to the consumer price index, which would push down the rate of growth in the payment.

This financial year the cuts were worth around $600 million but the delay will reduce that saving - by how much depends on if and when the new Senate passes the measures.

Government seeks to skip budget negotiations with senators

There is also the chance that the Government will seek to skip the Senate negotiations and introduce some of the changes by regulation, which does not require a majority vote in parliament.

Arguably at the top of the legislative list for the Coalition is the abolition of the carbon tax, which will increase today from $24.15 per tonne to $25.40.

PUP leader Clive Palmer last week revealed he would support legislation to "axe the tax" - granting Prime Minister Tony Abbott his core election promise.

However, PUP has put conditions on its support for scrapping the mining tax which is linked to the payment of the School Kids Bonus.

The failure to repeal that tax means the bonus will be paid out to families again this July, at a rate of $205 for primary aged children and $410 for children in high school.

But one significant budget measure - the 2 per cent income tax rise for top earners or "debt tax" - has already been waved through the Senate with Labor support and will begin today.

Those on incomes of $180,000 and above will pay the Temporary Budget Repair Levy for three years, raising $3.1 billion over four years.

Other changes today include:

• The increase to the Medicare levy from 1.5 per cent to 2 per cent to help fund the national disability insurance scheme
• The increase in the compulsory super rate from 9.25 per cent to 9.5 per cent - a rate that will be on hold for four years
• A $10,000 payment to employers who hire a worker aged 50 or older
• Federal funding cuts for pensioner and seniors concessions - already compensated for by some state governments
• A one-year freeze on the pay and allowances for MPs and senior public servants saving $20 million over four years

Government says changes to health budgets will make system fairer

Other budget cuts will begin to take effect, including a $217 million cut to public hospital funding, part of a $1.8 billion saving over four years.

Work for the dole arrangements will begin in 18 locations around the country for job seekers between the ages of 18 and 30 with a full rollout expected next July.

Today also marks the beginning of the Federal Government's $20 million Stronger Relationships Trial, which will give couples $200 vouchers for relationship counselling.

Changes to aged-care fees, largely introduced by the previous Labor government, also take effect from today, meaning some people will need to pay more for support.

Income and assets will be taken into account when working out aged-care fees.

The Government says the new arrangements are designed to make the system fairer and will ensure people who can afford to contribute more for their care.

Federal budget feels pain as savings measures slated for July 1 delayed by Senate - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By political correspondent Emma Griffiths

Related Story: Senate balance of power - Who's who

July 1 marked a new world order in the Senate, with eight colourful micro-party senators holding the Abbott Government's legislative agenda by the throat.

If it cannot secure support from Labor or the 10 Greens senators, the Coalition will need six of those eight micro-party crossbench votes.

Clive Palmer's three Palmer United Party (PUP) senators will hold crucial balance-of-power votes in the Senate - a position bolstered by their alliance with the Australian Motoring Enthusiast party Senator Ricky Muir.

The Government's ability to fulfil key election promises - like repealing the mining and carbon taxes - and enact billions of dollars in budget cuts and changes will rest in the hands of this new crossbench.

Glenn Lazarus

Photo: Queensland senator-elect Glenn Lazarus (AAP)

PUP Senate leader Glenn Lazarus is a rugby league legend known in his playing days as "the brick with eyes".

During a 12-year first-grade playing career, the prop forward won premierships with three clubs - the Canberra Raiders, Brisbane Broncos and Melbourne Storm.

Since retiring in 1999 he has been a coach at both national and state level.

But the rugby league hard man was reduced to tears when the election results formally declared he had won a Senate seat.

As Upper House leader of the new balance-of-power party, Mr Lazarus is ostensibly one of the most powerful MPs in Parliament.

Jacqui Lambie

Photo: Tasmanian senator-elect Jacqui Lambie (Supplied)

Even before entering Parliament, former soldier Jacqui Lambie made an impact with her fighting words.

A former Liberal Party member and failed pre-selection candidate for the Tasmanian seat of Braddon, she has called the Prime Minister and Treasurer "deceitful, lying political politicians" and claimed the Liberal Party is full of "gutless sycophants".

The outspoken PUP Senator told the ABC in May that she wants banks to pay more tax, free university education and has previously listed as her primary policy interests national security, seniors and youth.

Dio Wang

Photo: Western Australia senator-elect Dio Wang (AAP: Dan Peled)

Barely five years after becoming an Australian citizen, the China-born and raised Dio (Zhenya) Wang entered the nation's Parliament.

But it has not been a smooth run into the Senate - the Mr Wang won his spot in the September election, lost it in the recount, and won it again in the re-run West Australia Senate vote.

For most of his time in Australia, he has worked for Australasian Resources Ltd - a company majority owned by his party leader Clive Palmer.

Most recently he was managing director - a position he has since resigned.

Ricky Muir

Photo: Victorian senator-elect Ricky Muir (News Online Brisbane)

Showing the power of preference harvesting, the motoring enthusiast was elected with just 0.51 per cent of the vote.

Mr Muir struck a deal with PUP to form a voting bloc in October, but it appears to be a fairly loose arrangement.

A former sawmill worker, Mr Muir enters parliament fighting off bad press from a fumbled TV interview and video of him throwing kangaroo dung.

His party lists as one of 20 core values a belief in "minimal government interference".

Bob Day

Photo: South Australia senator-elect Bob Day. (Supplied)

A former South Australian public servant and plumber, Bob Day is also an officer of the Order of Australia for service to the housing industry and social welfare.

He is a former member of the Liberal Party who quit the party after losing a pre-selection battle with Jamie Briggs for the lower house seat of Mayo, when it was vacated by Alexander Downer in 2008.

Since his election representing the Family First Party, Mr Day has called for changes to unfair dismissal laws and says he will argue to allow employers to pay less than the minimum wage.

He has also criticised the PM's paid parental leave scheme and the Government's direct action climate change policy.

He has formed a voting bloc on economic issues with Liberal Democratic Party newcomer David Leyonhjelm.

David Leyonhjelm

Photo: New South Wales senator-elect David Leyonhjelm. (Supplied: baronsp.com)

David Leyonhjelm's Liberal Democratic Party pulled 9.5 per cent of the primary vote - a result attributed in part to the "donkey vote" given the first place position on the massive NSW ballot paper.

A former vet turned agribusiness consultant based in Sydney, Mr Leyonhjelm has been a member of Labor, the Liberal Party and the Shooters Party.

He quit the Liberals in protest over John Howard's crackdown on guns after the Port Arthur massacre and has recently argued that allowing people to carry guns would curb crime in western Sydney.

He supports the Government's bid to repeal the carbon and mining taxes, but - like his voting partner Bob Day - is opposed to the paid parental leave scheme and direct action.

Nick Xenophon

Photo: South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon

A veteran of the crossbench, independent Nick Xenophon has been in the Senate since 2008.

A former lawyer and state politician - on a No Pokies ticket - Senator Xenophon held the balance of power with the Greens and Family First from 2008-2011.

He has played a key role in debates including on gambling reform and the Murray-Darling basin, and has used parliamentary privilege to level accusations at the Church of Scientology and at a South Australian Catholic priest.

At the last election he increased his vote to 24.9 per cent.

John Madigan

Photo: Victorian senator John Madigan (AAP: Alan Porritt)

Elected to the Senate in 2010 with 2.3 per cent of the vote, former blacksmith and boilermaker John Madigan, from Ballarat, formed his political views in a youth group run by Catholic political activist B.A Santamaria - who was a key force behind the formation of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) in the 1950s.

Senator Madigan is the first DLP member of parliament since 1974.

In keeping with those roots, he has conservative views on both social and economic issues.

He is pro-life, against same-sex marriage, opposes the privatisation of state assets and rails against politician's perks.

Senate power players: Meet the crossbenchers who will hold balance of power - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Daniel Hurst, political correspondent

theguardian.com, Tuesday 1 July 2014

Abbott is losing to the Labor leader 34% to 44% in the preferred prime minister stakes, poll shows

Bill Shorten has run a campaign against the 'cruel' budget, arguing it was unfair and based on broken promises. Photograph: Alan Porritt/AAP

Bill Shorten has opened up a 10-point lead over Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister and the Labor opposition is leading the Coalition government by the same margin on a two-party preferred basis, according to the latest Newspoll.

The poll, published in the Australian newspaper on Tuesday, provides a snapshot of the political landscape as the new Senate takes effect and the government contemplates the need to secure the support of six of eight crossbench senators to pass any contentious legislation.

Seven weeks after the government delivered its first budget, the poll shows Shorten holds a 44% to 34% lead over Abbott as preferred prime minister. Shorten’s score was up four points compared with the previous Newspoll a fortnight earlier while Abbott’s was down three points.

The telephone poll of 1,161 voters, which has a margin of error of up to 3%, showed the Coalition would attract 35% of the primary vote if an election were held now, compared with 37% for Labor, 13% for the Greens, and 15% for others.

Based on preference flows at the last election these figures translate to a two-party preferred result of 55% for Labor and 45% for the Coalition.

This represents a two-point increase for Labor since the previous fortnight’s poll. The Coalition won the last election when it attracted 53.5% of the two-party vote and Labor mustered just 46.5%.

Asked whether they were satisfied with the way Abbott was doing his job as prime minister, 31% said they were satisfied and 62% were dissatisfied, translating to a net approval rating of -31. The Australian said this net approval rating was the worst for a prime minister since Julia Gillard scored -34 points shortly before she was rolled by Kevin Rudd last year.

Satisfaction with Shorten’s performance stood at 34% and dissatisfaction declined four points to 41% since the last poll, equating to a net approval rating of -7. Shorten has run a campaign against the “cruel” budget, arguing it was “unfair” and based on broken promises.

The leader of the government in the Senate, Eric Abetz, said he believed voters would ultimately accept the budget changes as necessary.

Abetz told the ABC: “I think you are right that people never like to hear a message of belt tightening, but when it is explained to them I believe the common sense of the Australian people and their sense of decency that it is simply economically irresponsible and morally wrong to steal the inheritance of the next generation and leave them with a legacy of debt so we can maintain our lifestyle today – that is something most Australians would not accept as a fair cop.”

He said the government would seek to get as much of its agenda through the Senate as possible “but where the cards fall, that remains to be determined”.

The Coalition needs to secure support from six of the eight crossbench senators to ensure the passage of any legislation opposed by Labor and the Greens.

“I wouldn’t describe them as a motley crew; they’re all God’s children as far as I’m concerned. We will be working with them on the issues case by case,” Abetz said.

“We will be living with these independent senators for six years, all things being equal, therefore it makes very good sense to adopt the prime minister’s approach, which is not to hector or lecture them but to treat them with the respect that they deserve – treat each case on its merit and each senator as an individual or should they wish to be in a party grouping, then that party grouping.”

Clive Palmer, whose Palmer United party holds three crossbench Senate seats and has a loose voting alliance with a fourth, has indicated he will not be easily swayed by government briefings on proposed legislation.

“First of all we don’t have advisers, we have employees that follow our direction and our party policy, we don’t need to be advised on what to think or what’s the difference between right and wrong,” Palmer told Guardian Australia. “I just have my brain which is very effective and I’m

Tony Abbott falls further behind Bill Shorten in latest Newspoll | World news | theguardian.com

Russell Marks theguardian.com, Friday 27 June 2014

In an age where Australian politicians lack the gift of the gab, nostalgia for the Paul Keating of the Redfern speech and the republic is more excusable than ever

'Oh, for someone who can debate, persuade, convince.' Photograph: flickr

After years of prime ministers who lack flair and political instinct, many Australians are searching their memories for a leader who looked like he knew what he was doing. This side of the Howard, Rudd and Gillard governments, social democrats look into the mists of time and see the hero of Casey Bennetto’s successful 2005 cabaret show, Keating! The Musical, the heroic PJK, cast against a Napoleonic John Howard determined to stop niceness and take over the world.

This is the Paul Keating of our dreams; the man who delivered the Redfern speech, and acknowledged that “it was we who did the dispossessing”; of Mabo and native title; of the commitment to a republic. The Howard years were harder for the dreamers; the nation became a "Brutopia", as Kevin Rudd wrote in 2006.

Now, after the troubled Rudd-Gillard years, Howard's Brutopia has become Abbott’s. Refugees, pensioners, Indigenous Australians, single parents, students, low-income earners and plenty more are set to bear the full brunt of one of the most divisive budgets in living memory. If only a new Keating would spring from the legacy of Irish oppression to champion the rights of the underprivileged!

First as treasurer and then as PM, the boy from Bankstown was drier than anyone Labor had ever offered up. He steered much of the neoliberal policy agenda through the institutions of Australian government. At least in his own mind, he balanced the deregulation with a reasonable welfare safety net. Wistful progressives might recall that the Keating of Redfern Park was also the Keating of “the recession we had to have”, who told one student protester in 1995 to “get a job”.

Now we have a prime minister who promised “no surprises, no excuses government”; who said the worst thing was to break promises; who promised no new taxes but now says they’re necessary to fix the budget, which he can’t seem to demonstrate is broken; who promised he wouldn’t use the budget as an excuse to break promises and who won’t use any of the GP tax revenue to actually fix the budget.

The sheer hypocrisy of it all! Keating's policy lessons, with his graphs and his J-curves, seem like the good old days. When was the last time a political leader set about explaining even the most basic policy advancement to us in a way that respected our intelligence?

Oh, for someone who can debate, persuade, convince. Hell, for someone who can deliver a decent line! In an era when politicians strangely lack the skill of rhetoric, that art most essential to their vocation, Keating nostalgia is perhaps more excusable than ever.

“I want to do you slowly,” he said in parliament, in response to John Hewson’s request for an early election in 1993. “Does a soufflé rise twice?” he asked earlier of Andrew Peacock. "I am not like [John Howard]," he once remarked. "I did not slither out of the Cabinet room like a mangy maggot."

Years later, in 2007, he was asked by the ABC’s Eleanor Hall for a response to revelations Kevin Rudd may have met with a disgraced former WA premier. “Look, Kevin has done something, he’s met Brian Burke,” Keating said.

“But I’ll tell you what he hasn’t done. He hasn’t lied to his nation about reasons for committing Australia to a non-UN sponsored invasion and war. He hasn’t turned his head from the plight of a boat full of wretched individuals looking for shelter, and then adding insult to injury by saying they threw their kids overboard first.”

Imagine a member of the 44^th parliament reframing a situation like Keating could, with wit, confidence and more than occasional invective. Whereas Tony Speaks: The Wisdom of the Abbott – an earlier book of quotations I put together – is mostly gaffes, backflips and hypocrisies, The Book of Paul is a mixture of sharp retorts and light-on-the-hill vision. No wonder so many of us are a little too fond of the self-described Placido Domingo of Australian politics.

What's wrong with a bit of Keating nostalgia, anyway? | Russell Marks | Comment is free | theguardian.com

Oliver Laughland theguardian.com, Sunday 29 June 2014

Australian customs believed to have intercepted vessel carrying Tamils but immigration minister refuses to comment

Scott Morrison arrives at the press conference in Melbourne on Saturday. Photograph: David Crosling/AAP

A boat said to be carrying more than 150 Tamil asylum seekers including young children has not been heard from for nearly 24 hours as speculation mounts that it has been intercepted by Australian customs.

On Saturday the immigration minister, Scott Morrison, refused to confirm the boat’s existence despite numerous reporters and asylum advocates having spoken to people on board.

It appears to be one of a number of boats possibly intercepted by Australia in the past two weeks. Guardian Australia revealed on Monday that a boat was understood to have made two emergency calls to search and rescue in New Zealand after getting into difficulty off the north-west coast of Australia. Another boat departing from Java carrying 50 asylum seekers was reported on Saturday.

Ian Rintoul, of the Refugee Action Coalition, told Guardian Australia he had last spoken to a passenger on board the boat carrying Tamils about 24 hours ago and had been told there were 37 children on board, including a one-year-old baby, and 32 women.

Rintoul said the boat was leaking oil and had run out of diesel around 175 nautical miles from Christmas Island.

It was understood at that point that the boat had been contacted by Australian authorities and had left the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu on 13 June, meaning it had been at sea for nearly two weeks.

“They told me there were a number of sick children on board, some had been vomiting, although it wasn’t a medical emergency,” Rintoul said.

The Labor MP Alannah MacTiernan, who was on Christmas Island on Saturday night, said immigration staff on the island were “on standby waiting for instructions” and had been told both boats had been intercepted.

“They're saying that two boats have been intercepted and the ship on which they're being loaded is in Christmas Island waters,” MacTiernan told the ABC.

The Greens’ immigration spokeswoman, Sarah Hanson-Young, said she was concerned that those on board the two boats were being held on “prison ships” rather than being brought ashore for processing.

“Where are these people?” Hanson-Young said. “They haven’t been brought ashore to Christmas Island. They should be immediately, and we should be looking after those children.”

Hanson-Young said she understood the Australian customs vessel Ocean Protector was intercepting the boat from south India.

On Sunday afternoon Christmas Island shire president Gordon Thomson told Guardian Australia there was still no sign of either boat reaching Christmas Island.

In May Guardian Australia revealed photographs from inside the Ocean Protector showing the cramped living conditions for intercepted asylum seekers. The pictures were hand-drawn by asylum seeker children on the canvas bunks.

On Sunday Morrison’s office did not respond to a request for comment. A day earlier he said in Melbourne that there were no significant incidents at sea to report. “I am advised that I have no such report to provide to you today.”

He would not confirm if there was a boat, if it was in Australian waters, or if the government had taken any action.

Asylum seeker boat not heard from in 24 hours amid silence from government | World news | theguardian.com

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has deflected questions about reports of a leaky asylum seeker boat 300 kilometres off Christmas Island.

Fairfax Media says it has spoken to two people claiming to be on the boat with 151 others.

One of them, a woman identifying as Tamil, said it left southern India on June 13.

The Refugee Action Coalition says there are 37 children on board the vessel, which made contact with marine rescue authorities on Thursday night.

Mr Abbott brushed off questions from the ABC about the reports on Friday night, saying "we will be doing what we normally do in respect of Operation Sovereign Borders".

He would not say whether assistance would be sent to the vessel.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said the Government does not confirm border protection activities unless they involve extreme risk of safety to life at sea.

Refugee advocates, who say they spoke to people on the boat on Thursday, believe it has an oil leak rather than the vessel itself leaking.

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said she had been told the boat was carrying 153 asylum seekers including more than 30 children.

"They've come from India and they're not far from Christmas Island," she said.

"They are saying that the boat is in trouble. They're obviously coming to Australia to seek asylum and are calling for help.

"Now, if the boat is in trouble, as per the reports, then the Australian Government needs to act quickly, to ensure that there is no further sinking of the boat and there's no fatalities."

Senator Hanson-Young says any decision to turn the boat around is likely to create issues for the Government.

"This boat cannot be turned back to Indonesia, it hasn't come from Indonesia," she said.

"And if the Prime Minister is considering creating a new diplomatic row with India then he needs to be very clear about that with the Australian people."

Federal Government not confirming reports of asylum seeker boat off Christmas Island - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Greg Barns

Photo: Scott Morrison's proposed changes are cruel and not consistent with the obligation this country has under the Refugee Convention. (AAP: Alan Porritt)

Scott Morrison's tough new plan to send asylum seekers home if they have a less than 50 per cent chance of torture or persecution defies a longstanding High Court ruling and breaches our international obligations, writes Greg Barns.

As the number of refugees in the world tops 50 million, it is extraordinary that a wealthy democracy like Australia would be making it more difficult for desperate people to come here and seek security.

But that is exactly what Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has done when yesterday when he introduced changes to the Migration Act that seek to overturn almost three decades of legal authority on the assessment of risk of persecution or serious harm if a person is not granted refugee status in Australia.

Under the 1951 Refugee Convention, to which Australia is still a signatory, a refugee is a person who, "owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality ... or country of former habitual residence".

A "well-founded fear" has been interpreted since 1989 in Australia to mean that a person seeking refugee status must show that there is a real chance of their being persecuted if returned to the country in which they previously lived.

In 1989 High Court Chief Justice Anthony Mason, in a decision called Chan, set out what is termed the "real chance" test. He wrote that it:

Clearly conveys the notion of a substantial, as distinct from a remote chance, of persecution occurring ... If an applicant establishes that there is a real chance of persecution, then his fear, assuming that he has such a fear, is well-founded, notwithstanding that there is less than a 50 per cent chance of persecution occurring. This interpretation fulfils the objects of the Convention in securing recognition of refugee status for those persons who have a legitimate or justified fear of persecution on political grounds if they are returned to their country of origin.

The decision in Chan was affirmed in another decision of the High Court called Guo in 1997. This test has been applied consistently in tens of thousands of cases since 1989.

But Minister Morrison wants to undermine Australia's Refugee Convention obligations by replacing the "real chance" test with a new "more likely than not" test, which would mean that an applicant for refugee status in Australia would have to demonstrate a "greater than 50 per cent chance" of them suffering significant harm or persecution if returned to the country they fled.

Extraordinarily Minister Morrison claims that such a test will still enable Australia to meet its international obligations. This is simply wrong.

The "real chance" test or variants of it have been adopted in many countries because it is so patently unfair to read an international law designed to assist desperate people in a restrictive way that undermines the intent of the law. The US, New Zealand and Canada are all examples of jurisdictions that do not insist on a 50 per cent or better type test.

The test Mr Morrison proposes is essentially a balance of probabilities type test.

In other words, an asylum seeker would have to prove it more probable than not that persecution or serious harm would happen to them if Australia refused them a visa.

Such a proposition is antithetical to the Refugee Convention because it wrongly applies a principle of law that is suited to cases where it is events in the past that are being examined.

In a civil action where a person is, for example, suing the Commonwealth government for mental and physical harm that is alleged to be caused by their detention on Manus Island, what a court is examining is events in the past - the period the person was in the centre.

A court can decide that it is more likely than not that the Commonwealth caused harm to that person or did not, as the case may be, by reference to what has happened. But in the case of an applicant for refugee status the court or decision maker is being asked to look into future - what would happen if that person were sent back to the country where they lived?

When assessing the future, unless one has a crystal ball or some mystical power, then it is intellectually untenable to make prognostications that persecution is more likely than not to occur. The nature of the future, particularly in unstable parts of the world, makes decisions about what might happen to a person more difficult.

It is right to err on the side of caution because what is at stake is a human life and the responsibility of a country like Australia to not send individuals back to situations where they are tortured or killed.

Minister Morrison's changes, if they pass the Senate, would inevitably mean an increase in the number of people shunted back to situations where their lives would be at grave risk.

This is cruel and it certainly is not consistent with the obligation this country has under the Refugee Convention.

Greg Barns is a barrister and a spokesman for the Australian Lawyers Alliance. View his full profile here.

Asylum plan defies law and decency - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By ABC's Jonathan Green

Photo: This is our unfolding reality: a Parliament of constant bargains and no guarantees. (AAP: Daniel Munoz)

Our Parliament seems to be teetering between the infantile, the grotesque, stubborn stalemate and the absurd - so maybe a double dissolution is the best outcome, writes Jonathan Green.

Chris Kenny's probably right:

Yes. Maybe the best thing we could do is wipe the slate clean and start again. Dissolve both houses, present the unpicked litter to the people and have us make of it what we will.

Because at the moment, our politics just seems to have stopped making sense.

What's the ordinary punter to pull from a day in our parliament like yesterday?

Another day in which Question Time was its routine and tedious farce of expulsions, shouts and gibes; all "suppositories of wisdom" and "irritable bill syndrome"?

Just moments of puerile byplay on a day in which our Government also decided that if you are seeking asylum on the basis that you face less than a 50 per cent chance of torture in your home country, then maybe we should just send you back to take that chance.

But hey, never mind torture. "Irritable bill syndrome!" Ha! Hilarious. Our bipolar Parliament, in turns asinine and inhumanly cruel.

At this point we might need to remind ourselves that torture is more than just a selection of vowels and consonants, an empty, almost theoretical possibility in a bill that whispers through our lower house. We might want to recall that torture is the systematic application of pain and wit-snapping terror to the point at the which the victim crumbles, losing what vestiges of dignity and humanity they might have preserved in a mess of screams, blood and tears.

And to what end? Perhaps no more than that degradation. A process you might endure by accident of your faith, your name, some dumb fault of circumstance.

And that might be enough to lead you to mock execution: a blindfold, a gun's cold and hollow steel pressed to the skin of your head and then ... an empty click of the unloaded chamber and the sudden smell of your own terrified stink. That's torture. The use of electric shock, of beatings, stabbings, sexual assault, sensory deprivation, asphyxiation. A 50 per cent risk? More likely than not? Well, what are you worried about? What are we worried about? Go home and take your chance.

Welcome to the cold shoulder of the Migration Amendment (Protection and Other Measures) Bill 2014.

Don't let the middle school japery of Question Time fool you, nor the dumb show of rote public announcements, the stupid repetitions of the day's empty and mandatory phrases, the vaudeville-for-dummies of politics.

This is still a Parliament capable of consigning nameless and desperate wretches to unmentionable horror. In our name.

And then Glen Lazarus, Clive Palmer and Al Gore walk into a bar. Sorry, the Great Hall of our Parliament.

Lazarus, Senator elect, the man formerly know as the brick with eyes, walks out to introduce a press conference featuring his eponymous party leader and Clive Palmer's new ally in the fight to save the world from climatic calamity, former US vice-president Al Gore.

But Palmer, for all the superficial absurd pantomime of his late afternoon stunt, has played canny politics around the carbon tax; a tax that he will repeal at the price of a sleeper ETS, a trading scheme lying in wait for the world.

This is a prospect Prime Minister Abbott will need to either accept or drive his Government to the brink of dissolution and the vagaries of a new election.

This will vex the Liberal party ... Palmer's ETS is a prospect uncomfortably close to the scheme that so offended the party it deposed Malcolm Turnbull in Abbott's favour. Will they swallow it now, even in the shadow form proposed by Palmer, in order to quickly "axe the tax"?

It's a move of such quiet cunning that it must make some in the Government wonder at the prospects for the budget once Palmer sinks his teeth in, and whatever other legislation he sees fit to turn to his own cunning purposes in the upper house.

And this is our unfolding reality, a Parliament of constant bargains and no guarantees, with a government struggling to hold its course.

The PM seems to have little patience for it, especially when it comes to the budget, that set of bold but unheralded desires, things never tested by a popular vote and now set out in bills that will bowl up again and again to test the determination of a teetering Senate. A house whose resolve is still a mysterious unknown.

A determined PM said of his budget on Tuesday night, "We may not get it through the first time or even the second time, but I think we will get it through."

Twice rejected will be enough to take both houses to the people, a prospect that some in the PM's camp, like Mr Kenny, are coming to consider; maybe even welcome.

And perhaps the only way for all of us to reset this strange machine of our Parliament, a body of men and women elected in a process that hardly gave informed consent for the parade of transformation our Government seems determined, subsequently, to implement.

Sending refugees to take their chance with torture, Medicare co-payments, even a gutted ABC. We weren't asked.

And in that vacuum of consent is the new Senate's opportunity: its excuse to impose confounding stasis on this Government. This was a Government elected on a slim set of slogans and precious little detail, one that can hardly insist on the obedient respect that might have accompanied a precisely detailed mandate.

Nothing was made plain pre-poll and now everything is in play.

Perhaps that is the gift that a return to the ballot box might bring: a new vote that might force both parties to spell out a clear set of intentions.

It could be our best chance to rule a line under an unfortunate period in our politics, a time caught in a narrow band between opportunism and self interest.

Because for the moment our Parliament seems to be teetering between the infantile, the grotesque, stubborn stalemate and the absurd.

Jonathan Green hosts Sunday Extra on Radio National and is the former editor of The Drum. View his full profile here.

Parliament teeters between infantile and absurd - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Simon Cowan

Photo: Greg Hunt's somewhat bemused response to Clive Palmer's climate policy suggested he was pleased with the turn of events. (AAP: Alan Porritt)

Clive Palmer's climate policy announcement, flanked by global warming campaigner Al Gore, certainly was high theatre but was this play a tragedy or a farce? Simon Cowan writes.

While the presence of Al Gore suggested a stunning political victory for the Greens and Labor, and it is tempting to cast Clive Palmer wielding the dagger as Macbeth, we shouldn't be so quick to cast Abbott in the role of Duncan.

The press conference was stage managed right down to the surprise twist, with questions such as "how will this global emissions trading scheme (ETS) work?" and "did you kidnap Al Gore to get him here?" cut short by an apparently urgent dinner.

Palmer has proposed that Australia legislate an ETS that would only take effect when China, the US, Europe, Japan and South Korea operate similar (possibly linked) schemes. Palmer later clarified that abolishing the carbon tax was not conditional upon supporting this global ETS.

The end result seems to be that, while the Renewable Energy Target (which wasn't under direct threat) and the rent-seeking Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) remains, the carbon tax appears finished along with the Government's deeply unpopular Direct Action plan.

In giving the Government's somewhat bemused response, Environment Minister Greg Hunt seemed pleased with the turn of events. Given that the Palmer-Gore ETS isn't linked to the carbon tax, and that the Government is freed from the terrible Direct Action policy, the Government may be able to let the ETS fall into legislative no-man's-land and live with the one-off budget impact of the CEFC.

Not perfect policy by any means, but it seems Tony Abbott isn't in receipt of Clive Macbeth's dagger this time. Perhaps, given who shared the stage with Palmer during the announcement, this one targets the representatives of the environmental movement?

Two of the main objections to the carbon tax scheme are that Australia was moving ahead of other countries with such a high price and that Australia's carbon tax simply exported our emissions to other countries.

However, we were assured by the Climate Change Authority and others that many countries were also pricing carbon. The Palmer-Gore ETS puts that Labor-Green argument to the test. If our major trading partners really are taking the same level of action as Australia then the ETS may have a genuine impact on the level of global emissions. If they aren't though, then the scheme isn't real.

Australian climate policy would rest on whether China really is serious about climate change.

While it's strange that one of the world's leading climate change advocates would lend his name and credibility to Palmer's policy, the theatrics of Palmer are but Act 2 of this Australian political play. Act 1 involved the imposition on the country of a carbon tax the people had not voted for.

It has become almost cliché to say that convincing the Australian public of the need for meaningful reform is all but impossible, certainly in climate change policy. The truth is that politicians have simply stopped trying to communicate with the public.

Kevin Rudd had a chance to take his ETS to an election and convince the public it was the right thing to do. He chose not to do so, trying instead to work it through Parliament via various deals. Julia Gillard had a chance at the 2010 election to convince people of the need for a carbon tax. She chose not to even try, instead attempting to justify it on the basis of a deal with the Greens.

It cost both Rudd and Gillard the confidence of the country and consequently their prime ministerships.

Why should the public support reforms they don't understand, to address problems that they haven't been convinced need urgent, drastic action?

The Howard government should already have taught politicians this lesson. Howard's failure to convince the public of the need for WorkChoices, instead relying on his control of the Senate to push through the legislation and convince the public it worked afterwards, led to his defeat.

Amazingly the Abbott Government, having given both Rudd and Gillard an abject lesson in how not to sell reforms, has chosen not to convince the public of the need for budget repair or healthcare reform but instead to play political games on what really constitutes a broken promise.

The marked difference between the public response to the first Howard-Costello budget and the first Abbott-Hockey budget can be directly attributed to the current Government not walking the public through the (very real) budget challenges facing Australia in coming years.

It has tried to skip the step where they make people understand just how bad the coming fiscal crunch is and it is being punished for it.

Into this gap steps the masked figure of Clive Palmer breaking the fourth wall of political theatre to tell the public what is "really going on". It's a strategy that has gathered a lot of (surprisingly) favourable media coverage, and the balance of power in the Senate. But will it be good for the country? I guess we will find out in Act 3.

Simon Cowan is a research fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies. View his full profile here.

Abbott, Palmer and Gore - a play in three acts - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Damien Kingsbury theguardian.com, Wednesday 25 June 2014

The odd arrangement between Tony Abbott and foreign minister Julie Bishop is manifesting as a poor feel for the nuances of foreign policy. The consequences for the region are real

'Australia is now explicitly viewed as a problem by an increasingly nationalist Indonesia.' Photograph: Getty Images

After balking at its first diplomatic test over revelations of spying on Indonesia last year, there was still a reasonable expectation that the new government would quickly find its foreign policy feet. Julie Bishop as foreign minister was intended to present a firm but friendly policy face to the world, while Tony Abbott got on with domestic policy.

It appears now, however, that it’s actually Abbott who enjoys the world stage, while Bishop seems constrained in her ability to act. In a deeply enmeshed world, this arrangement is manifesting as a poor feel for (or a lack of understanding of) the nuances of foreign policy.

Australia is now explicitly viewed as a problem by an increasingly nationalist Indonesia, eyed with suspicion by an assertive China and with anger or tepid acceptance by formerly close regional friends.

Comments by Indonesia’s two presidential candidates, Joko Widodo and Prabowo Subianto, made ahead of this year's election, cast Australia as the problem in formerly close bilateral relations. Bishop’s failure to offer a quick apology over Australian spying on Indonesia was an "own goal". The apology eventually came, but it was too little and much too late.

This was exacerbated by Australia’s policy of unilaterally pushing asylum seekers back into Indonesia waters, transgressing Indonesian territorial sovereignty and, more recently, returning asylum seekers in Australian-supplied life boats. Bilateral cooperation put on ice last year will probably stay in the deep freeze until at least 2015.

Even further to the north, Australia’s downgrading of ties with long-standing friend, Thailand, was justified in response to the May military coup. But this led to an angry rebuke by junta leader, general Prayuth Chan-ocha, who will remain as Thailand's head of government for at least 18 months. Australia has, for the time-being, lost not just Indonesia but Thailand’s support in regional forums such as the strategic Asean regional forum, the east Asia summit and others.

More locally, Australia’s relationship with Papua New Guinea is under renewed pressure, following corruption investigator Sam Koin’s call for Australia to "take a greater interest" in allegations that embattled PNG Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill. Last year O’Neill criticised then-opposition leader Tony Abbott’s "completely untrue" claims over Australian aid to PNG being linked to an asylum seeker processing agreement.

''We are not going to put up with this kind of nonsense,'' he said. ''We are helping resolving an Australian issue.

There is little doubt that PNG is riddled with problems. As PNG’s largest aid provider, Australia has a right to be concerned over good governance. But this interest is increasingly unwelcome.

Earlier this year, Australia moved to normalise relations with Fiji, following the 2006 coup. Unfortunately for us, Fiji has long since dumped Australia as its dominant regional partner. We've been replaced by China’s, which offers "soft power" diplomacy, in the form of loans and investment. Fiji also recently welcomed Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as a sign of strengthening relations with Indonesia, as it increases its own influence as a growing regional power.

China is playing a similarly more influential role with Australia’s other Pacific neighbours. The status of the Pacific as Australia's backyard has long since dissipated – Australia’s aid program has been contorted to fit changing domestic politics, our economy can't match growing regional powers and our strategic orientation remains transfixed by the distant spectre of militant Islamism.

Australia’s largest trading partner, China, has tolerated Australia’s diplomatic clumsiness. After Abbott identified Japan as Australia’s "best friend", he responded to China's partially concealed irritation by assiduously courting the growing regional power during his recent Asian trip. These negotiations were, in turn, conducted while Abbott walks the tightrope of a US alliance competing with Chinese trade.

Globally, the Australian government’s enthusiasm for supporting a return to Iraq before the US has defined its own policy position, its questionable approach to climate change and now its failed attempt to overturn the Tasmanian forest world heritage listing, has left Australia further diplomatically isolated.

Foreign policy primarily reflects domestic political concerns and there is little doubt that the Australian government would like to see a seamless link between the two. How likely is that dream? While the government struggles under the critical appraisal of a disenchanted electorate, the international stage looks more like a minefield – in part of its own making – that it seems only marginally equipped to avoid.

Australia's foreign policy clumsiness is losing us the Asia-Pacific | Damien Kingsbury | Comment is free | theguardian.com

Clive Palmer's emissions trading announcement effectively leaves Abbott completely isolated on climate policy.

Clive Palmer with former US vice president Al Gore in Canberra on Wednesday 25 June. Photograph: Mike Bowers

Clive Palmer's shock announcement on Wednesday night next to former vice president Al Gore has been very cautiously welcomed by Australia's environment movement.

Palmer's announcement effectively leaves Abbott completely isolated on climate policy, both domestically, and as Al Gore's presence demonstrates, internationally as well. It is remarkable that one of Australia's largest coal barons has firmly declared his support for renewables, taking action on global warming, and introducing an emissions trading scheme.

Senior leaders of some of the largest environment groups told me that they welcome Palmer's position on the renewable energy target, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Climate Change Authority, while approaching the details with caution and a large grain of salt. It was labelled as "definitely surprising", "very smart politically", "surprising" and "courageous".

There are no details behind Palmer's announcement, and it is unclear what approach he will take with his decision to support the abolition of the carbon "tax" and its replacement with an emissions trading scheme. Palmer also stated that he would not support prime minister Abbott's "direct action" policy, criticising it as a waste of money.

Kelly O'Shanassy, the new CEO of the Australian Conservation Foundation, who is organising the Climate Reality project that Gore is in Australia for, said "keeping the 'clean three' of the RET, the CEFC, and the CCA is great news for all Australians. It's great to see that Clive Palmer has the courage to listen to the voices of Australians when they say they support clean energy and they support cutting pollution."

Several recent polls showed that a large majority of 72 per cent of Australians support keeping or expanding the renewable energy target. Similarly, the polls show that Australians support putting a price on carbon, and just 22 per cent support the discredited "direct action" policy.

The Clean Energy Council was effusive in its congratulations. Deputy Chief Executive Kane Thornton described the announcement as "a Titanic boost for the clean energy industry". Increasing the proportion of Australia's energy from renewable sources would mean lower costs for consumers and potentially thousands of extra jobs. Kane said in a statement, "what we need is policy stability to unlock these benefits, and the best outcome for the industry is if the policy is left alone to continue working."

A senior environment campaigner noted to me that "we are approaching Palmer's announcement with caution, especially on the RET. This is not the first time the Palmer United Party has made an announcement about renewables, only to see it reversed less than 24 hours later."

What is clear is that Tony Abbott's offensive against renewable energy and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation are effectively dead.

CEO of Environment Victoria, Mark Wakeham said to me, "Palmer's announcement is definitely surprising, but is a pretty productive intervention that will change climate politics in Australia. The government should now give up on its attack on the RET and the CEFC immediately."

Ben Pearson, the head of campaigning for Greenpeace Australia-Pacific agreed, saying to me: "if this position holds, Palmer has turned climate politics on its axis."

The most ambiguous part of Palmer's announcement related to his position on the carbon price. He has said he wants to abolish the carbon tax and replace it with an emissions trading scheme. The catch is that he doesn't want the ETS to kick in until our major trading partners have one.

I spoke to someone intimately involved in creating the architecture of the carbon price under Labor and asked them whether what Palmer was proposing was even possible. If Palmer votes to keep the architecture of the carbon price, by simply amending the existing legislation to set the price to zero dollars, and delays the automatic linkage of the carbon price to Europe's scheme, then it would be relatively simple to re-start Australia's emissions trading scheme in the future.

ACF's O'Shanassy said, "what the Palmer United Party has proposed around the carbon price is basically like taking the battery out of your car. The car still runs fine, and a smart person can always come along, replace the battery, and be off to the races."

However, I'm told it would become a "nightmare" if the entire carbon pricing framework was torn up and rewritten from scratch.

National campaign director for the Wilderness Society, Lyndon Schneiders, told me that "it's fantastic that Palmer is supporting an ETS and retaining the renewable energy target. It would be great to now see him to renounce his Galilee coal projects."

The CEO of The Climate Institute, John Connor, however, described the potential repeal of the carbon price as "ugly" and said it was unclear "whether the Palmer United Party's call for an emissions trading scheme is a pre-condition for repeal of the carbon price and exactly what is intended. The devil is in the detail."

This concern was held by several other eNGO leaders, who told me that they fear Palmer is more interested in creating a political bargaining chip, rather than having any real commitment to climate action.

The cautious welcome to Palmer's announcement extended beyond the environment movement.

I also spoke to several union leaders, and the opposition Labor party.

Colin Long, the Victorian secretary of the National Tertiary Education Union, a union that has been a strong advocate for climate action, told me that "Palmer's acknowledgement of the importance of dealing with climate change is significant, and the idea of an ETS is an improvement on Abbott's useless "direct action" corporate subsidy policy. Palmer's commitment to the renewable energy target and the CEFC is a great relief and will hopefully thwart the Coalition's attempt to destroy the renewable energy industry."

Long-standing carbon price supporter and national president of the union representing coal miners, Tony Maher of the CFMEU, told me, "our concern about abolishing the ETS was that it would mean we had to renegotiate all the consumer and job protections all over again in the future. It's not clear whether PUP is proposing to leave all those protections in place or not. We will be urging them to do so."

Federal Labor also welcomed Palmer's support for an emissions trading scheme. An opposition spokesman said, "Labor's position on climate change has not changed. We will not support the repeal of the carbon tax unless there is a credible alternative that will deliver meaningful action to tackle climate change."

It is clear that Palmer (and Gore) has completely rewritten climate politics in Australia. Why he has done this is not clear, and there are elements of incomprehensibility in what has said.

However, as a political tactic, it could potentially be a master stroke, and consigns Abbott's almost non-existent climate policy to the dust bin. As Greenpeace's Pearson quipped, "tonight Al Gore has delivered Tony Abbott an inconvenient senate."

Abbott completely isolated by Palmer's "inconvenient senate" | Alexander White | Environment | theguardian.com

Oliver Laughland theguardian.com, Wednesday 25 June 2014

Exclusive: extraordinary footage emerges showing Australian immigration minister calling on detained asylum seekers to leave

A filmed message intended for asylum seekers, featuring immigration minister Scott Morrison.

Extraordinary film footage has emerged of Australian immigration minister Scott Morrison directly threatening asylum seekers detained in Australia’s offshore detention centres in Papua New Guinea and Nauru to return to the countries they have fled from or spend a “very, very long time” in detention.

The footage, obtained by Guardian Australia, shows the immigration minister staring down the lens of a camera and telling asylum seekers in a pre-recorded message: “There are new rules in place under this government so I urge you to think carefully about your next decision and to make a decision to get on with the rest of your life and to not remain here and take the option to go back to the country from which you’ve originally come.”

It is further evidence of the concerted attempts by Australia’s right-wing Coalition government to coerce asylum seekers to return and follows news published by Fairfax newspapers that some are being offered an increased repatriation incentive of $10,000.

Australia is a signatory to the Refugee Convention, of which non-refoulement – the rule of not returning asylum seekers to persecution – is a core principle.

Before urging asylum seekers to return, Morrison warns: “If you choose not to go home then you will spend a very, very long time here and so I urge you to think carefully about that decision and make a decision to get on with the rest of your life.”

Guardian Australia understands the video message was recorded in early September, soon after the Coalition government gained power, but was never shown to asylum seekers.

At this point asylum seekers from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and other war-torn countries were detained on Manus and Nauru.

Uncertainty over processing times has been identified as a key factor leading up to the unrest in the Manus centre which left one Iranian asylum seeker, Reza Barati, dead and dozens injured. Morrison has used numerous media appearances to argue that processing of asylum claims is being done in a timely manner.

Guardian Australia has previously revealed how Syrian asylum seekers on Manus were offered repatriation despite articulating fears of certain death if returned, which Human Rights Watch say is in contravention of international law.

The video message is understood to have been recorded before Morrison visited Manus in late September, where he directly addressed some detained asylum seekers, telling them they would never be resettled in Australia under the government’s hard-line “PNG solution”, which sees all asylum seekers who arrive by boat processed and resettled offshore.

Whistleblower and former Manus guard Martin Appleby told Guardian Australia that Morrison’s September address on Manus “put people’s security at risk, including his own” and sent tension in the camp soaring afterwards.

The minister delivered a similar address to asylum seekers detained on Nauru. Footage obtained by the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre showed Morrison telling asylum seekers: “You will not be getting what you got on that boat for, and anyone else who tries to come will not get what they got on that boat for.”

At the start of the video address Morrison tells asylum seekers they have entered Australia illegally and that the new Australian government “will not be putting up with those sorts of arrivals”.

Ben Pynt, the director of human rights advocacy at Humanitarian research partners, said the video showed the immigration minister’s “callous disregard for the mental health of asylum seekers detained offshore”.

Pynt said it highlighted the government’s attempt to actively coerce people into returning to their country of origin.

“This isn't just a violation of the technicalities of international law, this violates the fundamental object and purpose of the Refugee Convention and other human rights treaties that Australia's governments have undertaken to protect.

“The message is 'we don't want you and nobody else does either, so you might as well go home,'” Pynt said.

A spokeswoman for Scott Morrison did not respond to detailed questions but appeared to suggest that the threat to return was not a blanket one to all asylum seekers detained offshore.

“It is true that people assessed as being found not to be owed protection who refused to go home would have to remain at offshore processing centres for a long period of time,” the spokeswoman said.

“Those whose asylum claims have failed should explore their options to return.”

 

Morrison: asylum seekers should go home or face 'very, very long' detention | World news | theguardian.com

(and six months down the track there is still no improvement. We’re stuck in the 18th century)

news A flippant response by Malcolm Turnbull to broadband problems being suffered by a high-flying small business owner and executive has backfired on the Communications Minister, with a plethora of responses being published on the social networking site slamming the new Coalition Government’s controversial revision of Labor’s popular National Broadband Network policy.

Julia Keady is a senior marketing and social media consultant who runs the XFactor Consulting Group based in Victoria. According to the executive’s LinkedIn profile, she has developed marketing initiatives for some of Australia’s largest brands, including Australia Post, ANZ and NAB Banks, HBF, Medibank and more. Keady has also worked as the chief executive executive at the Australian Women Donors Network, as well as holding journalist positions earlier in her career.

On Twitter yesterday, Keady informed Turnbull that she had bought a house in the rural Victorian town of Ocean Grove, which has a population of about 11,000. “No NBN. No Cable. No ADSL2 or 1. Back to the dongle. Prehistoric. Not good enough,” she wrote. In response, Turnbull asked Keady why, “if connectivity was so vital to you, why did you buy a house where there was no broadband available?”

Keady followed up Turnbull’s question by stating that she had checked whether broadband was available in the relevant area. “Broadband is available. We’re not that silly! But no ports left in exchange. No incentive for Telcos!” she wrote.

The exchange sparked some of a small storm on Twitter, with dozens of other users of the site chiming in admonishing Turnbull for his flippant response to the issue, and arguing that rural Australia deserved the same level of telecommunications access as metropolitan Australia.

“Mate, do you even understand the bit where this is literally your job and that answer isn’t acceptable?” one Twitter user asked Turnbull. Another wrote: “Fair question, but the vision for the National Broadband Network was to eliminate this. You are being held responsible and we need it fixed.”

Exacerbating the problem for Turnbull is that the Government’s MyBroadband site launched last month lists most of Ocean Grove as having access to ADSL broadband, meaning it is likely that Keady could have reasonably expected to get some access to broadband if the consultant had used the site to gauge availability. Crowd sourced analysis of the site’s results have shown it to be substantially inaccurate when compared to real-world broadband speeds.

The social media stoush reflects an ongoing level of dissatisfaction which the wider Australian population has with the Coalition’s radical modification of Labor’s popular NBN policy.

Under Labor’s NBN policy, some 93 per cent of Australian premises were to have received fibre directly to the premise, delivering maximum download speeds of up to 1Gbps and maximum upload speeds of 400Mbps. The remainder of the population was to have been served by a combination of satellite and wireless broadband, delivering speeds of up to 25Mbps.

Under this scenario, Keady’s issues in Ocean Grove would have been resolved eventually. In fact, some areas of the town are listed as having NBN access already, meaning that it may have been used as a trial for early rollout of Labor’s network.

However, NBN Co’s Strategic Review published in December last year changed the paradigm, with the company recommending (and the Coalition supporting) a vision in which up to a third of Australian premises will be served by the HFC cable networks of Telstra and Optus, and Fibre to the Node and Fibre to the Basement used in other areas not already covered by Labor’s FTTP approach. Satellite and wireless is to be used to cover some rural and regional areas. The plan has been roundly criticised by much of Australia’s technology sector due to the technically inferior nature of the technology being proposed, compared with Labor’s vision.

Labor has admitted its previous contractor-led rollout strategy for its NBN policy had failed, and the rollout was proceeding very slowly. However, under the Coalition’s new model, it is currently unclear what the future holds for Ocean Grove and other areas in terms of what type of broadband it will get and when.

In general, the Australian public has not reacted well to the Coalition’s plans to modify the NBN policy.

In mid-February Shadow Minister for Communications Jason Clare presented to Federal Parliament the signatures of 272,000 Australians who want the new Coalition Government to build Labor’s all-fibre version of the National Broadband Network instead of the technically inferior version which the Coalition is proposing.

The news came as a new comprehensive study of public attitudes towards Labor’s National Broadband Network project published this month found the initiative still enjoyed very high levels of widespread public support from ordinary Australians, despite what the study described as an “overwhelmingly negative” approach to the project by print media such as newspapers.

In November, supporters of Labor’s all-fibre vision for the National Broadband Network project organised a national day of action on the issue, which saw thousands of Australians physically present Members of Parliament with copies of the petition. Supporters also raised tens of thousands of dollars for a pro-NBN advertising campaign in Turnbull’s local newspaper. A number of other surveys conducted over the past 2-3 years have consistently shown strong support for the NBN project amongst Australians, and even Coalition voters.

Before Christmas, respected telecommunications analyst Paul Budde heavily criticised the Coalition’s new preferred broadband deployment model, describing its “Multi-Technology Mix” approach as “a dog’s breakfast” of different technologies, which could turn out to be a “logistical nightmare” to deliver in practice.

This week’s episode on Twitter is also not the first time that Turnbull has faced heavy public criticism over the Coalition’s broadband plan.

An attempt by Turnbull in January to leverage a visit to Facebook’s headquarters in the US to communicate with Australians about the future of the digital economy via social media also backfired, with the Communications Minister’s official Facebook filling up with hundreds of comments slamming the Coalition’s inferior broadband policy.

opinion/analysis

So who’s right here? Well, there are arguments on both sides, but none of them lead down a good path for our Communications Minister.

Firstly, Turnbull is, of course, somewhat right. I’m a small business owner myself, and I have to say that I wouldn’t move to a rural area unless I was 100 per cent certain I could definitely get broadband in that area — say, for example, if Labor’s fibre NBN had already been deployed there. Keady did check whether broadband was available in the area, but it’s still a bit of a gamble moving to a rural area, as the consultant found. The ‘lack of ADSL ports’ problem is a pervasive one in some areas in Australia.

There is a small degree of entitlement in Keady’s comments — entitlement which small business operators cannot afford.

However, there’s also a bigger picture here. As Communications Minister and in Opposition, Turnbull has repeatedly pledged to deliver better broadband to Australians, faster, cheaper and more affordably.

The Minister’s comments to Keady were not only impolite, they were an abrogation of that responsibility, as so many other Twitter users pointed out immediately. Sure, given that Turnbull has only been Minister for six months, he can’t be expected to take responsibility for the state of broadband in Ocean Grove. But as a politician, he might have been expected to apologise, to say that he would look into her situation and do what he could about it. That would have cost him absolutely nothing and no time — but would have stopped the Australian Twitterati from going into one of its oh-so-entertaining mass rages.

Turnbull’s not going to get very far selling the Coalition’s broadband plan to a sceptical Australian electorate if he doesn’t play nice.

This episode is symptomatic of Turnbull’s personality in general. The Member for Wentworth is very unusual amongst his colleagues in that he deeply understands social media and uses electronic communication to build a very close relationship with his constituents. His availability and charisma through such channels is what has led him to be extremely popular in the electorate.

However, when Turnbull is on the wrong side of the argument — as he is with the NBN issue — that relationship tends to turn on the MP, and Turnbull can be flippant or even a little bitter with his audience. I recognise the phenomenon, as the same thing happens to me as a journalist sometimes when the majority of Delimiter readers don’t agree with something I’ve written.

Turnbull needs to realise that his fundamental role is to be a representative of the people: And that means all the people, not just those who agree with him. You can’t lead by taking an antagonistic approach with your constituency. You can only lead by gently helping to steer the wave already created by your support base. And right now, the broadband issue is a major one in Australia. Turnbull needs to support people on this issue, not belittle them.

Image credit: Parliamentary Broadcasting, Julia Keady

Related posts:

1. Turnbull slams Twitter’s NBN “craziness”
2. Turnbull insists Coalition’s NBN still “national”
3. Turnbull Facebook Q+A backfires with NBN rage
4. Turnbull sends TPG share price into tailspin
5. Albo slams Turnbull FTTP on demand “lottery”

Impolite Turnbull tweet sparks NBN backlash - Delimiter

Daniel Hurst, political correspondent

theguardian.com, Monday 23 June 2014

Shorten says prime minister's cuts to health and education funding are 'dramatic and reckless' and his views on commonwealth responsibilities are stuck in 1901

Bill Shorten says the government's cuts to state funding for health and education set the clock back on more than a century of change. Photograph: Dave Hunt

The Abbott government’s decision to rein in health and education funding to the states reflects a “reactionary, hyper-literal interpretation” of the constitution, Bill Shorten has argued.

The opposition leader used a speech to the Committee for Economic Development on Monday to mount a strongly worded attack on the prime minister’s “alarmingly narrow view of the role and responsibility of the commonwealth”.

In an address focused on the state of the federation, Shorten castigated the government for launching a “surprise attack on the state governments of Australia” through the $80bn in long-term budget savings, which represented “a dramatic and reckless destabilising of our federation”.

The government has argued states and territories have primary responsibility for running and funding public hospitals and schools. In its budget overview document the government said its decision to adopt “sensible indexation arrangements for schools from 2018, and hospitals from 2017-18, and removing funding guarantees for public hospitals” would achieve “cumulative savings of over $80bn by 2024-25”.

It also announced plans to “reduce or terminate some commonwealth payments that are ineffective or duplicate state responsibilities” including national partnership agreements on preventive health, improving public hospital services and certain concessions for pensioners and seniors card holders.

The moves provoked a backlash from state and territory leaders, including those from the Coalition side of politics, and the government subsequently downplayed the impact by insisting that the raw amount of funding continued to increase each year.

Shorten took issue with Tony Abbott’s declaration that health and education were traditionally state responsibilities and that states should be “sovereign in their own sphere”.

He said the prime minister’s view turned the clock back “on more than a century of change and evolution in favour of a model that is fundamentally at odds with the reality of governing modern Australia”.

“It is true that when our constitution was drafted, the colonies retained responsibility for a range of front-line services, and yes, in 1901, there was no Commonwealth Department of Health or Education,” Shorten said. “But there was also no Department of Finance, or Transport, Industry, Communications, Indigenous Affairs, Arts, Sport, or Environment.”

Shorten said the Australia of 1901 also had no social safety net, no minimum wage, no accessible higher education, no universal healthcare and no superannuation and was “a country where women were disempowered, where migrants were distrusted and Aboriginal Australians were counted as ‘fauna’ and deemed destined for extinction”.

He said Australia had changed for the better, and governance had also evolved and improved.

The commonwealth, as the dominant collector of revenue, would inevitably play a role in funding the delivery of essential state services, especially in health and education, Shorten said.

He pointed to Abbott’s comments in the book Battlelines that “any withdrawal of commonwealth spending in these areas [health and education] would rightly be seen as a cop-out”. Shorten argued the government’s actions in re-writing agreements and tearing them up indicated the commonwealth now posed “sovereign risk to the states”.

In a broader attack on the budget, Shorten said the $7 GP tax, “cruel cuts” welfare payments, the overhaul of higher education and the “abandonment of Australians looking for work” represented “the most radical social experiment in Australian history”.

“It assigns the heaviest lifting to the weak and only the lightest touch to the strong,” Shorten said.

The opposition’s argument that the budget’s impact is unfair appears to have resonated with voters. A Fairfax-Nielsen poll published on Monday showed just one-third of respondents believed the budget was fair while 61% believed it was unfair.

Abbott and senior ministers have repeatedly defended the budget, arguing it was the tough medicine needed to address Labor’s “debt and deficit disaster” and that future large earmarked spending in health and education was “pie in the sky”.

Earlier this month the treasurer, Joe Hockey, delivered a speech in which he dismissed claims the budget was unfair as resembling “1970s class warfare”.

“Our first budget is based on the premise that it is fair to expect those who have the capacity to pay, should accept more personal responsibility for their cost of living, the cost of raising their children, their health services and their education,” Hockey said.

The government has promised two processes that will affect the role of the states: a white paper on the reform of the federation and a white paper on the reform of Australia’s tax system. These white papers are due to be completed by the end of next year.

Abbott taking 'hyper-literal' view of constitution, Shorten says | World news | theguardian.com

By Chris Berg Posted Tue 24 Jun 2014

Photo: If Bill Shorten wants to be competitive in 2016 he'll have to be more proactive. (AAP: Alan Porritt)

Bill Shorten is romping ahead in the polls right now, but being in opposition is a long-term goal and the tables will turn on three big policy areas before the next election, writes Chris Berg.

Bill Shorten has one of the worst jobs in Australian politics - first opposition leader after a loss of government.

Just ask Brendan Nelson, Kim Beazley, Andrew Peacock, and Billy Snedden.

Yet, thanks to the Government's disastrously bad selling of the budget, Shorten has an impressively winning poll position. If the election were held tomorrow, Labor would romp it back in.

Unfortunately for Shorten there are no federal elections scheduled for tomorrow.

Opposition is a long-term game - almost certain to be longer term for Shorten than most, as Labor's new party rules make it virtually impossible to spill him before the next election.

In the Sydney Morning Herald on Sunday Mark Latham claimed the "right-wing hunting pack" is targeting Shorten because he is too successful. (This is the sort of canny judgment that made Latham such a success himself.)

But polls go up, polls go down. If we look out two years from now to the next election, Labor's political profile is very different. Where Shorten looks strong now, he is vulnerable in 2016. Where he looks vulnerable, he is actually quite strong.

Let's take the big issues of last year's election: debt, boats, and the carbon tax.

The debt is Shorten's biggest weakness.

This seems paradoxical, perhaps, because the Coalition's budget - that is, its solution to the debt problem - is deeply unpopular. According to an Essential Poll earlier this month, just 23 per cent of voters think that Labor should support university deregulation. Just 27 per cent think Labor should support the pension changes. Just 32 per cent think Labor should back the Medicare co-payment.

These are gimmes for Shorten. Yet opposing the specific proposals will do little to rebuild Labor's economic reputation.

Wayne Swan destroyed Labor's standing on the economy when he was unable to wrestle the budget back into the black. Year after year Swan claimed that the budget was returning to surplus. Year after year we got deficits.

It's easy to free ride on public dissatisfaction with government policy. Voters might be hostile to the Coalition's individual budget measures but voters are not stupid. Shorten has to suggest - perhaps just hint, allude, imply, give us a knowing wink - that there could be a better way to fix the deficit.

That's the difference between being a time-serving opposition leader and a viable potential prime minister.

If Shorten is strangely weak on the budget, he is strangely strong on boats.

Labor has careened from one side to another on the asylum seeker issue. Last week a few in caucus tried to engineer a shift back to the left again. Quite apart from the morality and practicality of the policy, Labor looks hopelessly divided and confused.

But will it in two years?

Right now, Labor will be secretly crossing its thumbs that the boats have, in fact, stopped, and stay stopped. It is in Labor's interest to get boats off the front page; to remove asylum seekers from the centre of Australian politics. A weakness isn't a weakness if nobody is talking about it.

For Labor, the carbon tax is neither vulnerability nor strength.

This is strange, perhaps, because the carbon tax has been one of the defining policies of the last decade. Elections have been won and lost on it. Prime ministers and opposition leaders have fallen at its altar.

Yet much of the heat dissipated from the carbon tax debate after it was introduced. Kevin Rudd smothered what remained when he announced he would transition from the tax to an emissions scheme. This is a rare example of trying to confuse voters as a deliberate political strategy. (I outlined the farcical nature of this announcement on The Drum when it was made last July.)

Climate activists have tried to re-spark climate change as a political issue - every once in a while the Climate Institute puts out a poll to try to get momentum going again, as they did yesterday - but realistically the issue is on hiatus. All sides have dug in. It isn't a positive. It isn't a negative. It just is.

It is often said that the Coalition didn't win the 2013 election, Labor lost it.

In other words, it was the Rudd and Gillard government's faults that were highest on the minds of voters as they faced the September ballot, rather than Tony Abbott's virtues.

This is true as far as it goes, but those faults were made powerful because of the Coalition's dogged prosecution of them.

Abbott made the carbon tax into a political liability. It wasn't before. Same with the boats. And Abbott and his predecessor Malcolm Turnbull made Labor wear its deficit spending.

By contrast, Shorten is just along for the ride. He's been gifted the budget backlash. He'll likely be spared the need to take a stand on asylum seekers. And he's been excused from boldness on the carbon tax debate.

Shorten might be polling well now, but if he wants to be competitive in 2016 he'll have to be more proactive than that.

Chris Berg is Policy Director with the Institute of Public Affairs. View his full profile here.

Tides to turn for Shorten on debt, boats and tax - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)