Shalailah Medhora Tuesday 30 June 2015

Opposition ahead of the government 53% to 47%, almost a direct reversal of the 2013 federal election result, according to Newspoll

Bill Shorten’s performance ratings are down in every major state. Photograph: Nikki Short/AAP

The Coalition has lost ground in each of the five major states since the last federal election, with Labor maintaining a small election-winning lead in the two-party preferred stakes, analysis of Newspolls shows.

The figures, published in the Australian on Tuesday, show Labor is ahead of the Coalition 53% to 47%, nearly a direct reversal of the 46.5% to 53.5% result at the September 2013 federal election.

The two major parties are neck and neck in New South Wales and Western Australia, on 50-50 each. The Coalition’s fortunes have tumbled more than eight percentage points in the western state since the September poll, making it the state of the most concern for the government.

Labor is most popular in Victoria, securing nearly seven percentage points since the poll to take it to 57% in the two-party preferred stakes.

But the figures are less cheery for the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, whose performance ratings are down in every major state since the 2013 poll, while his dissatisfaction rating is up across all jurisdictions.

Shorten has been under increasing pressure over allegations of impropriety while he was head of the Australian Workers Union. He will front the royal commission into trade union corruption early next month.

Only one-third of respondents were pleased with the opposition leader, while 50% were dissatisfied, giving him an approval rating of minus 17%. That soars to minus 20% in WA, but narrows to minus 9% in South Australia.

By comparison, Tony Abbott’s approval rating is more or less stable, registering 35% in the October quarter and 35% in the last quarter. But his approval rating is up one percentage point to 56%, giving him a net approval rating of minus 21%.

Victorians are least satisfied with the prime minister, giving him an approval rating of minus 30%, while Queenslanders are the most satisfied minus 7%.

Asked who would make the better prime minister, Australians are evenly divided, giving each leader 39%. But more than one in five voters – 22% – are uncommitted.

The analysis has a margin of error of 1.3% and is based on 5,771 interviews from NSW, Victoria, Queensland, WA and SA. The sample for Tasmania was too small to analyse on its own, while the ACT is added to the NSW sample.

Speculation of an early election increased during the last sitting fortnight of parliament but has died down since parliament rose for its six-week winter break.

Coalition loses ground to Labor in five main states, poll analysis shows | Australia news | The Guardian

By ABC's Barrie Cassidy Friday 26 June 2015

Photo: If there's a poll boost soon then expect leadership speculation to give way to election speculation. (AAP: Mick Tsikas)

Government backbenchers will head into the winter break pleased they have the old Tony Abbott back - and at the top of his game, writes Barrie Cassidy.

The Abbott Government has ended the Autumn session of parliament strongly, on the offensive over the economy and under attack only on issues that it is comfortable with in any case.

The budget topped and tailed the session with the small business initiative the centrepiece. The sudden - and cynical - transition from austerity to stimulus was too dramatic for some, and in the end the strategy allowed the Government to do no better than hold the line in the polls, still trailing on average 47.5 per cent to 52.5 per cent two party preferred. However, that's not an unusual outcome even for well received budgets. And the Government now has a key talking point around economic management and consumer confidence.

Beyond that, a series of deals with the Greens (on changing the assets test on pensions) and Labor (on the fuel excise, the small business stimulus, terrorism and offshore processing) created a last minute climate of consensus politics missing until now; though it was a brand of bipartisanship peculiar to Australia.

The Government accepted Labor's support on terrorism laws with all the ingratitude it could muster.

Had the moderates in the Liberal Party not watered down the laws, Labor faced an excruciating decision on whether or not to oppose them.

Had they gone with the original version to avoid a concerted attack from the Government for being "soft on terrorism" they would nevertheless have shed a power of votes to the Greens.

It was at times a bumpy road for the Prime Minister too, with the initial discussions sent off the rails by internal dissent, cabinet leaks and even a distraction over removing the GST on tampons.

In the end, the outcome was unambiguously positive for the Government, and it gives them another powerful talking point. The process was tarnished because at times the Prime Minister seemed intent on manufacturing a split with his opponent; his intemperate suggestion that they had "rolled out the red carpet to terrorists" a case in point. But as he said when referring to another topic - the leaked education reforms - "what matters here is not what goes into the process but what comes out of the process".

Even the deal with Labor on the fuel excise was tinged with political point scoring.

Labor's shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, said : "This is not an easy decision for the Labor Party. We know of course that this is a decision that some people will be unhappy about. But we are happy to make difficult decisions not unfair decisions."

To that, the Treasurer, Joe Hockey said: "The Labor Party has been mugged by reality. They're being mugged by the reality that the budget needs to be repaired and they've got to help us to fix the mess that they created."

That's as close to a joint ticket as we're likely to get these days.

Labor for its part has been distracted by the allegations against Bill Shorten that go back to his time as a union leader. His appearance on Insiders settled down the issue in the short term but the fraught process of giving evidence before a Royal Commission is still ahead of him.

More damaging - to this point - was the extraordinarily candid performances on The Killing Season. Had that program not happened, those events would have been more distant and far less dramatic. Not anymore.

And in the end it caught Shorten for lying about his involvement; though that is mitigated because (a) he admitted his mistake and (b) they all lie, on all sides, about everything to do with leadership speculation.

The program hurt Labor, immeasurably. For Abbott, it was a double edged sword. He would have enjoyed Labor's discomfort, and the irony behind the narrative; that cutting down a prime minister in his or her first term can be damaging for years to come.

But in the process the audience was reminded of a couple of nasty moments in his own background when he addressed the "ditch the witch" rally, and said of the Gillard government that it should have "died of shame", just days after Alan Jones had said Gillard's father "died of shame".

Perhaps though the most perverse aspect of the Autumn session was how the allegations that the Government paid people smugglers probably worked in its favour. It forced Labor to go on the attack over asylum seekers, even though the two policies are in lock step. The mere raising of the issue seemed to delight the Government. They couldn't be happier than when they are being attacked over asylum seekers or "draconian" anti-terrorism laws.

It's a bit like the debate around Q&A. Jonathan Green in his superb article on the subject on The Drum writes of the Government's "red cheeked, blustering outrage".

Yet a caller to ABC 774 in Melbourne on Wednesday probably reflected a widespread view when he said: "That guy the other night ... I was a little bit undecided if we needed that legislation. We definitely do."

So the Government backbenchers will leave for their electorates pleased they have the old Tony Abbott back - and at the top of his game. The furious attacks on the ABC - accusing the organisation of betrayal and demanding that "heads should roll" - is just further red meat to the right. And keep in mind, at the height of the spill motion in February, alarmingly, he was starting to lose the support of some of the most rusted on conservatives.

Whether any of this leads to a boost in the polls won't be known for a few weeks. The "vibe" as they say, suggests that it will.

And if it does, then leadership speculation will quickly give way to election speculation.

Barrie Cassidy is the presenter of the ABC program Insiders. He writes a weekly column for The Drum.

The old Tony Abbott is back - and going strong - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By ABC's Jonathan Green Thursday 25 June 2015

Photo: Zaky Mallah should have been a no-go zone for Q&A. (ABC Q&A)

This week in politics and media was a wreck: beginning with Zaky Mallah and the troll casting on Q&A, to the inflated hypocrisy of the tabloid response and the blustering outrage of government, writes Jonathan Green.

Omni shambles: ˈɒmnɪʃamb(ə)lz/ noun British informal

1. a situation that has been comprehensively mismanaged, characterised by a string of blunders and miscalculations.

... or any given week in the Australian media and politics. Actually not just any week, this week: this rolling, muddy scuffle of buffoonery, self-interest, score settling and fear.

Yes the whole Zaky Mallah farrago, from thoughtless Q&A troll casting, to the grotesquely inflated hypocrisy of the tabloid response and the censorious, red-cheeked, blustering outrage of government. A week that has shown the media class at its worst: reactive and self-absorbed, simultaneously inconsequential and self-important. Or worse: driven by petty vindictiveness over public interest.

The public interest here is simple: freedom of speech, pluralism. And maybe Q&A has done some harm to that cause through accident, overconfidence and misadventure, but the thrust of its endeavour was right. Here is a young man, once radicalised, now reformed, whose central message is disdain for the "wankers" of Islamic State.

That's a voice that has a place in our conversation about the promotion of terror, but not if politics has anything to do with it.

A complex human reality of cause and complicated effect might muddle the binary simplicity promoted by the Government in its prosecution of a domestic front in the War on Terror. It was all pretty clear to the Prime Minister:

I think many, many millions of Australians would feel betrayed by our national broadcaster right now, and I think that the ABC does have to have a long, hard look at itself, and to answer a question which I have posed before: whose side are you on?

Betrayed by an admission of complexity? Betrayed by an attempt to consider the full range of the conversation? This is the sort of freedom that surely our war should defend.

To call it a betrayal is to protest too much, is to reveal the thinness of the politically self-serving construct of "us" against some nameless but omnipresent "them", a construct remote from reality, but one that the ABC is seemingly bound to defend.

Us and them meant something rather different by the time the tabloids got their hands on the story, and here it became just another shot in a vicious culture war, a culture war with the added edge of deep commercial self-interest and simple spite.

It takes a special kind of dulled self-awareness to produce front page images of Mallah in every major capital outside Perth and then complain, with heated outrage, of how the ABC had given this demon "publicity". Never mind equating the entire staff of the public broadcaster with IS, that's just offensive hyperbolic groupthink; the hypocrisy is the real killer.

And as good a demonstration as you might hope for of how profoundly self-regarding and fundamentally broken mass media is in this country: that one corporation's sense of indignation and outrage can somehow become a strangely confected, stable-wide news event. It's too easy to imagine that the real intent of Wednesday's ubiquitous News Corp covers was to do harm to a public broadcaster whose presence in the Australian media is the last remaining coherent check on the ubiquity of its readily manipulated media message.

This is a lesson in how media can operate: not reflecting with an objective sense of significance and priority on the events of the world it claims to report with fairness and good faith, but here, as so often, devoting every resource to a vendetta.

Here was our moment: politics trading on fear and hoping for little short of acquiescent propaganda from media, media responding with an unseemly readiness to betray its public's reasonable interest in the simple truth.

And after all of that the thing that should have kept Mallah off the TV were not his views on terror, or jihad, or his loathing of Islamic State.

Mallah should have been a no-go zone after he tweeted threats of sexual violence against columnists Miranda Devine and Rita Panahi a few months past, threats repeated with idiotic zeal after this fuss blew up, threats that should have been known to the producers who scheduled a question from him to add ginger to Monday's program.

It's all of a piece in this muddle of media and politics, that violence against women plays second fiddle in this saga to Mallah's alleged, and for the most part imagined, links to terror.

We know the numbers by heart now, two women a week killed in this country in acts of violent loathing. The figures for those killed in acts of domestic terror...

Yet in pursuit of one we are prepared to surrender liberties, democratic process and perhaps even chip away at the rule of law. Never mind the dedication of billions to schemes only likely to inflame the very radicals they seek to imprison, banish or deter.

And for the other? The real killer, the true source of so much domestic terror? The usual political routine of penny-pinching, platitudes and lip service.

Put it all together and you might just give way to despair.

Jonathan Green is presenter of RN Sunday Extra. He has recently been appointed editor of the literary journal Meanjin. This will be his last regular column for The Drum.

Zaky Mallah, Q&A, and the media at its worst - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Michael Bradley Thursday 25 June 2015

Photo: You have no right to be heard before the Immigration Minister makes his decision. (AAP: Dave Hunt)

Allegiance will soon be a necessary condition of citizenship, under a new law designed by the Government to get around the constitutional problem that it can't declare someone guilty of a crime, writes Michael Bradley.

Today's new law is the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Bill 2014. I've actually read it, so here's a primer.

Who cares? These laws are just for terrorists anyway

Until now, and so long as Australia remains an actual functioning democracy, your unconcern about most of these laws has been more or less justified. Not because those who have done nothing wrong have nothing to fear, but because the Government hasn't actually used most of the national security laws it's been making since 9/11.

But this one is different. If you are a dual citizen or a foreign national, you really should care. This law doesn't create new crimes you're not planning to commit; it takes away something you probably care about - your identity as an Australian - automatically and in circumstances which will surprise you.

The Bureau of Statistics says that 27.7 per cent of the current Australian population (6.4 million people) was born overseas. Add to that number those who were born here but hold dual citizenship - there are no current stats on this but in 2000 it was estimated at 4-5 million. Those two figures overlap, so conservatively perhaps a third of us are either foreign citizens or foreign nationals. Keep reading.

What does the new law do?

The Citizenship Act has always said that if a foreign citizen or foreign national fights for a foreign country at war with Australia, they automatically cease to be an Australian citizen. Fair enough.

The Bill adds three new categories of circumstances which will bring about the same result.

1. Fighting for a terrorist organisation

If you're a foreign citizen or national and you fight for a declared terrorist organisation outside Australia, your Australian citizenship will automatically cease. Again, fair enough. The Immigration Minister makes the decision to declare named terrorist organisations, and he'll probably adopt the list already specified for the existing terror laws. Currently, 20 organisations are listed (they're predominantly Islamic).

About 120 Australians are fighting for Islamic State, and many of them have dual citizenship. When this law passes, if they keep fighting, their Australian citizenship will be gone. The practical effect is that they'll never be allowed back into the country.

2. Convictions for certain offences

If you're a foreign citizen or national and you are convicted of any of a long list of criminal offences, your citizenship will automatically cease.

The list includes treason and espionage, and all the terrorism-related offences. Consider though these examples of offences, your conviction for which would mean you were no longer Australian:

• Intentionally urging violence against a group distinguished by race, religion, nationality or political opinion, where that violence would threaten the peace, order and good government of Australia. Say you went on social media calling for all the Muslims in Cronulla to be bashed.
• Advocating terrorism. This is much wider than you think. It would include, for example, encouraging someone to hack into the ABC Online website and post a message calling the Government a bunch of terrorists. No, really, it would.
• Being in possession of things connected with terrorist acts. This could include allegedly terrorist propaganda materials, for example.
• Intentionally damaging Commonwealth property. If you get angry in a Centrelink office and chuck a chair, or steal a public servant's mobile phone and drop it in the river, on conviction your citizenship is gone.

3. Acting inconsistently with your allegiance to Australia

This one is the kicker. I'm about 60 per cent convinced it's constitutionally invalid, but assume it stands up. It's been designed to avoid the constitutional problem that the Government can't declare you guilty of a crime. Instead, it says that, if a dual citizen or a foreign national "acts inconsistently with their allegiance to Australia" by engaging in certain conduct, they will renounce their Australian citizenship. So, it's like saying "I'm not Australian anymore", except by actions instead of words.

Funny, I didn't know that allegiance was a necessary condition of citizenship. Nobody's ever asked me to declare it.

The list of conduct is very long: engaging in terrorist acts, financing terrorism, recruiting or training for a terrorist organisation, blowing things up overseas, and those "hostile activities" in foreign countries again. These are borrowed over from the Criminal Code, the critical distinction being that you don't have to have been convicted, or even accused, of committing an actual offence.

You renounce your citizenship by doing the act, whatever it is, as soon as you do it. It's automatic and self-inflicted.

So you're no longer a citizen, according to the Act. Who will know? Obviously, it has no practical consequence until somebody notices and acts on it. That means the Government saying "hey, we've noticed you're not a citizen anymore, so we're deporting you". What the bill says is that, when the Immigration Minister notices that you've renounced your citizenship by your actions, he has to give written notice of it to whoever he thinks he should. Presumably his own department, so it can track you down and kick you out of Australia or refuse you re-entry.

And there's the problem. How does the Minister notice that you've renounced your citizenship? By noticing that you've done a particular thing. To illustrate by random example: say ASIO tells the Minister that you've been doing some public fundraising for a charity based in Syria. ASIO thinks the charity is a front for IS, and it thinks you've been reckless as to whether the funds will end up in terrorist hands. That's the definition of financing terrorism in the Criminal Code, and if ASIO is right then you have renounced your citizenship.

The Minister says "thanks ASIO", and deports you. To do that, he has to accept that the factual allegations are correct. You have no right to be heard before he does so. You can take your case to the courts where you'll have the onus of proving that you honestly thought the Syrian charity was legitimate, which might not be of all that much comfort if you're already on a plane to Damascus.

I'm not very comfortable with that.

Michael Bradley's firm Marque Lawyers is presently advising Amnesty International Australia on the legal validity and effect of the bill referred to in this article.

Michael Bradley is the managing partner of Marque Lawyers, a Sydney law firm.

You may be surprised by how you could lose your citizenship - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Michael Bradley Tuesday 23 Jun 2015

Photo: Zaky Mallah was acquitted of terrorism charges. (ABC Q&A)

The Prime Minister was already doing a great job of whipping up fear before the ABC gave him the Q&A episode of his dreams, in which one of his ministers was pitted against a man acquitted of terrorism charges, writes Michael Bradley.

Scared and angry enough yet? Sufficiently distracted from climate change, from the stalled economy, from the 45 women violently killed by men in Australia so far this year? Is your attention entirely fixed on terror (that existential threat which in 2015 has killed precisely zero Australians)?

Fear, as Dee Madigan succinctly put it on Q&A last night, sells. It particularly sells for governments, because people don't like to change governments when they're scared. And how is it sold to us? By the constant turning of the screw.

You can feel the turning of the screw in the events of recent days. Let's play them out.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott ambushes Cabinet with a proposal that the Immigration Minister be given the power to revoke the citizenship of Australians who hold dual citizenship or may be eligible for foreign citizenship, if he considers them a threat to national security. The proposal is leaked to the Murdoch press.

Somebody leaks the Cabinet discussion, identifying all the ministers who weren't consulted and raised objections. As for who leaked, well, who gains most from the narrative of "courageous PM stands up against terror"?

The PM takes to his favoured forum for reasoned policy debate, talk-back radio. Lawyers froth at the mouth about the presumption of innocence, separation of powers, the constitution, Magna Carta, habeas corpus, just like the PM knew they would.

Meanwhile, the PM makes noise about the inconveniences of the legal system's insistence on not calling people criminals until they've been convicted of a crime. "We all know the perils of that," he says, referring to the courts. As for a criminal conviction being a precondition to cancelling citizenship, "What if they get off?" he asks. Great question! Perhaps the Immigration Minister should be empowered to revoke the citizenship of any judge or juror who fails to convict someone the Minister has already deemed guilty.

Does Abbott really think it's a good idea to trash 1,000 years of carefully crafted criminal law and its assurances that nobody but the guilty should lose their freedom? Actually, one suspects, he doesn't care either way.

What Abbott does understand is the politics of distraction, and he's giving a master class. So, back to the narrative. Come Monday, the Murdoch press is again preparing the ground: the PM has wedged Labor as far as he can by saying Bill Shorten wants to roll out the red carpet for terrorists, so now it's time to bring them back into Team Australia with a law they will have to support in line with their mindless commitment to giving the Government whatever national security laws it wants so long as the High Court won't throw them out.

The law we're going to get will be an amendment to section 35 of the Australian Citizenship Act, which currently automatically revokes the citizenship of anyone who is a national or citizen of a foreign country and who serves in the armed forces of a country at war with Australia. This will be extended to include foreign nationals who fight for terrorist organisations overseas such as Islamic State. It's potentially workable, not that controversial, and unlikely to have any practical effect. It's purely politics as theatre, and it gives the PM an excuse for a 10-flag press conference where he can put on his serious face.

Meanwhile, as we're all focused on foreign fighters and the risk of their return, the news drops that the two most prominent of them, IS poster boys Mohamed Elomar and Khaled Sharrouf, have been killed in Iraq. Such a handy and timely reminder of the reality of the threat.

To cap off a week of excellent politics for the PM, the ABC gives him the perfect parable of modern politics with the Q&A episode of his dreams. The ABC has formed the habit of including in its Q&A audience people who have a story to tell, and last night it was Zaky Mallah. It starts off well enough. Government Minister Steve Ciobo is explaining how he'd like to revoke the citizenship of all the "terrorists", here and overseas. Throw to Mallah, who explains how he spent two years in Goulburn SuperMax prison awaiting trial on terrorism charges of which he was acquitted. He acknowledges that he pleaded guilty to the crime of threatening to kill ASIO officers. His question is, would he have lost his citizenship under the proposed new law?

After all, as Ciobo explains, Mallah had only got off on a technicality. Ah yeah, the technicality that a jury found Mallah not guilty of the terrorism charges against him. The law was later changed to broaden the ambit of these terrorism offences, but criminal laws don't apply retrospectively. Not a problem for Ciobo though, who knows a bad guy when he sees one, just like his boss.

Back to Mallah, who then drops this:

The Liberals have just justified to many Australian Muslims in the Australian community tonight to leave and go to Syria and fight for ISIL because of ministers like him.

Awkward silence. Tony Jones rules the comment "totally out of order" and says he's sorry. Today, the ABC admits it made an "error of judgement" in allowing Zaky into the audience at all. The entire right wing of Australia goes ballistic, possibly orgasmic, in its calls for a jihad against the jihadists.

But wait, excuse me? Jones and the ABC are sorry about what exactly? Allowing a free Australian citizen into the audience and to express his opinion?

So Zaky Mallah isn't a good guy by most Australians' lights, including mine. He has some incendiary opinions which offend many people. Then again, I'm really offended by Steve Ciobo's desire to deport Australian citizens on the basis of his personal opinion that they are terrorists, whether or not they've committed a crime.

And here we are, all talking about terror again and in varying states of outrage at each other. Feeling scared and angry enough? Not nearly enough for Abbott. More turns of the screw to come.

Michael Bradley is the managing partner of Marque Lawyers, a Sydney law firm.

Citizenship laws, Q&A, and the anatomy of a fear campaign - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Paula Matthewson  Tuesday 23 June 2015

Photo: Tanya Plibersek and Penny Wong would be clear leadership contenders if it wasn't for the small matter of their gender. (AAP: Lukas Coch)

There is real despair in the community about our current political leaders, but if you thought there might be a chance either side of politics would switch to someone else, think again. Paula Matthewson writes.

There's a lot that is depressing about Australian politics right now, what with the major parties trying to wedge each other on terrorism or pensions while neither seems perturbed by the latest allegations of sexual abuse in the offshore detention centres that remain open because of bipartisan support.

Political leadership has been reduced to either dog-whistling the worst prejudices of Australian voters, or policy timidity lest those very same prejudices come back to bite.

It's bad enough that we have one political leader who can only communicate in jingoistic slogans like "Daesh is coming" and "anyone who raised a gun or a knife to Australians simply because of who we are ... has forfeited his or her right to consider themselves one of us"; the other can barely utter a sentence without sounding like an amateur stand-up comedian waiting for the boom-tish. Both are so busy unleashing the hounds of prejudice against each other that they've lost sight of what is right for our society and the economy.

Without getting too nostalgic, it seems to be a while since we've had some "real" political leaders - people with the intelligence to know when it's the right time to support or resist public opinion, the courage to do the right thing by the nation and not just key marginal seats, and the ability to convincingly explain why a decision was the right choice to make.

Granted, this combination of capabilities is a big ask and many politicians simply don't make the cut, yet it is the responsibility of political parties to ensure potential leaders with these skills are recruited into the Parliament and promoted.

When the parties fall down on that responsibility, when they indulge in internecine warfare and factional trade-offs aimed at getting one of their own into the top spot instead of a capable leaders, then we end up with barely competent leaders like the two we're currently saddled with.

The Prime Minister is a creation of the Liberal hard right, the conservative rump that would rather lose government with Tony Abbott than see a moderate like Malcolm Turnbull become party leader or PM. Some hardliners even claim Abbott's leadership is on the line if he allows Liberals to have a free vote on gay marriage.

Yet if the conservative kingmakers were to dethrone Abbott, who would they install instead? The conservatives in the Liberal Party and some of the Nationals have made it clear Turnbull has little chance of uniting the Coalition, even more so since the Communications Minister resisted backbench enthusiasm for stripping citizenship from Australians involved in terrorist acts.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has wooed the hard right, and deftly stayed quiet on same-sex marriage, but was also in the Turnbull minority on the question of cancelling citizenship. Bishop also has the unfortunate disadvantage of being a woman, at a time when there's no evidence that sexism in the Coalition, the media or the broader community has abated since the Gillard years.

Treasurer Joe Hockey's leadership chances fizzed out like a wonky Catherine wheel when he mishandled the Liberal leadership contest back in 2009.

Scott Morrison's image is benefiting from his time in the social services portfolio but he still lacks depth of experience, and when he attacks the Opposition he lapses into a level of nastiness that rapidly reminds voters of the extent to which he was prepared to go to "stop the boats".

Other than the known "leadership aspirants" Turnbull and Bishop, there is not one other Liberal MP who could be considered competitive leadership material. Not Scott Morrison (yet) or Andrew Robb, who is a policy wonk and solid political strategist but lacks clarity in communication. Not Matthias Cormann, who knows the detail and his lines but can sound robotic (and is in the wrong chamber).

Looking to the other side, Labor's stock of leadership talent isn't that much more impressive. For a start, those involved in the Rudd-Gillard machinations might as well kiss any leadership aspirations goodbye after the recent screening of the Killing Season.

That includes two fairly talented but now tainted potential leaders-in-waiting: Tony Burke and Chris Bowen. Both men are articulate and smart, with Bowen doing a commendable job while holding down the leadership fort during the contest between Anthony Albanese and Bill Shorten to decide the new Labor leader. As Manager of Opposition Business, Burke is proving to be an emerging force on the parliamentary floor.

This week may be the traditional "Killing Season" although there is arguably enough time left for a party committed to improving its electoral fortunes.

Yet if either man was to become Labor leader, voters will be reminded by the Coalition come election time, repeatedly and unmercifully, that Burke plotted (in code) with Gillard before the "surprise" knifing of Rudd, while Bowen was one of Rudd's key lieutenants during the destabilisation of Gillard. They may eventually live down their parts in the Labor civil war, but not in time for the next election.

Of the cleanskins, both Deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek and Labor leader in the Senate Penny Wong are ostensibly competitive leadership contenders. However both women have to contend with the small matter of their gender in a society that is in many ways still overtly chauvinistic if not sexist. Plibersek also has lost an edge by running hard on marriage equality, with some in the party now questioning the quality of her political judgement.

Wong like Cormann is in the wrong chamber to become leader, and while she is a formidable political talent (having overcome a tendency to drone when climate change minister), if the Australian community was uncomfortable with a woman in the top job it is regrettably not ready to put a gay Asian-Australian woman into the role.

That leaves three other shadow ministers. There's the new ALP president, Mark Butler, who, according to another detailed account of Rudd's campaign to bring down his successor, switched from the Gillard to Rudd camps but then contributed to the leadership speculation by refusing to confirm or deny it. Then there's Mark Dreyfus, whose political judgement has been drawn into question over national security in recent days. And, somewhat counter-intuitively, there's the Rudd loyalist Anthony Albanese, who seems to have emerged from the actual Rudd-Gillard wars as well as their retelling with his integrity and reputation intact. It was Albanese who warned that in moving to dethrone Rudd and install Gillard, Labor would essentially be killing two prime ministers.

This week marks five years since Albanese's sage words were ignored, and two years since Rudd fulfilled his ultimate revenge fantasy.

Having thrown out Labor in 2013 for not being able to keep its house in order, voters are now faced with two reasonably tidy political houses led by deeply unpopular leaders.

This week may be the traditional "Killing Season" although there is arguably enough time left for a party committed to improving its electoral fortunes to make changes at the top.

For Labor, a leadership overhaul would involve the right accepting a leader from the left, and the parliamentary brawler Albanese finding his inner statesman.

A change for the better in the Liberal Party would require the traditionalists installing either a man they despise, a woman who they will inevitably think is considered not up to the task, or another man who is not yet ready to lead.

There is arguably enough time, but none of these changes are going to happen. The right installed Abbott and Shorten not only to retain factional dominance but because there was a dearth of viable options. It's by default as much as connivance that Australian voters are currently saddled with two dud political leaders.

Paula Matthewson is a freelance communications adviser and corporate writer. She was media advisor to John Howard in the early 1990s.

Don't like the current leaders? Good luck finding real alternatives - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Jason Wilson Thursday 18 June 2015

 

Is Bill Shorten’s slow-motion failure as a leader a measure of his own ineffectiveness, or a symptom of Labor party culture?

If Bill Shorten wrote a book, what could it possibly contain, and who would read it? Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Is the fact that Bill Shorten is the leader of the federal parliamentary Labor party a cause, or merely a symptom of its problems?

On the one hand, he’s currently even less popular than his adversary, who is the least popular prime minister in recent political history. It’s fair to assume that this is dragging the party’s numbers down a little. He’s far less popular than Kevin Rudd was when Shorten helped drag him down on the grounds that he couldn’t win the coming election.

This unpopularity may be in part because he’s the least fluent and inspiring orator and performer to lead either major party in my memory (I’ve looked over the old Simon Crean videos, and I promise you that Mr Zinger is worse).

The opposition leader is seeking to appear before the royal commission in July; ministers won’t get another detailed look at citizenship revocations before the legislation hits the parliament; and the government remains under pressure over reported payments to people smugglers. All the developments from Canberra, live

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Or it may be because he’s an archetypal apparatchik, and it increasingly looks like there’s nothing more to him. Apart from a brief stint at a Labor law firm, he’s never had a job outside a union or the ALP. Since he was a teenager, his life has been devoted to the grind of the labour movement’s internal politics; of union versus union, faction versus faction.

Ever since he came up directly against an adversary who he could not undermine from within, he’s looked out of his depth. His attempts to connect with voters are so strained and unconvincing perhaps because he is the product of a rarefied world, sufficient unto itself, with few and diminishing links to the ordinary lives and values of those he seeks to represent.

The single-minded focus required to climb the ALP’s greasy career pole means that he hasn’t done much else. Unlike Rudd or even Abbott, he’s never lived or studied in another country. The only recent Labor leader with a comparably narrow range of life experience was Mark Latham, who at least found time to write a couple of books. If Shorten wrote one, what could it possibly contain, and who would read it?

This brings us to the question of whether Shorten’s promotion, and subsequent slow-motion failure as a leader is attributable to his own weakness, or to his immersion in the culture of Labor’s movers and shakers. For while the branches may still be home to salt-of-the-earth-activists, the insight into the federal parliamentary Labor party offered by the ABC’s The Killing Season is horrifying, particularly for those like me who voted for them during that period.

What’s most shocking is not the cascade of personal and political betrayals, and the easy contempt for democratic processes, but bearing witness to a milieu completely preoccupied with itself and its own dynamics. The internal mechanisms with which Rudd was removed – partially set in train by Shorten – are refined, precise and efficient. But political professionals with such a mastery of caucus numbers and such a close understanding of factional balances apparently did not foresee that this would be the undoing of the government.

Is it because the outside world only rarely intrudes on the soap opera? Certainly, those interviewed for the documentary were heavily preoccupied with mediated representations of politics itself, and the pre-digested results of private polling and focus group summaries. In a party and a movement which is less and less representative of the broader society in which it finds itself, the public becomes a matter of abstraction.

In this hermetic context, in a culture that treats politics as a kind of real time strategy game, Shorten apparently felt justified in offing a first-term prime minister because failing to do so would have a short-term impact on his own career prospects. And he seems to have pursued the leadership and to be pursuing the prime ministership in the same spirit – with no broader or deeper moral and political purpose than self-aggrandisement, or none, at any rate, that he can convincingly articulate.

Firm allegedly paid Bill Shorten's AWU to ensure workers 'didn't disrupt' operations

Several companies also allegedly made payments to Australian Workers’ Union while Shorten was secretary, including more than $211,000 from a building firm

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The chicken-and-egg question we began with is partly prompted by developments that have made Shorten seem worse than merely ineffectual. The Fairfax coverage this week about his days as an AWU boss are particularly damaging. If the allegations are true, he made deals that effectively eroded workers’ conditions while accepting large donations from employer groups. He also engaged in the practice of allowing companies to pay their workers’ AWU dues.

It’s not a story, or a form of leadership, that is particularly inspirational. Indeed we’re yet to hear an articulation of values that exceeds the desire to replace Abbott. Like the long line of Labor right politicians before him, Shorten would no doubt see this as a species of electoral pragmatism. But from outside the bubble it looks dangerous: in the absence of some modicum of progressive hope, something that marks them out from the Tories, what are Labor governments and Labor leaders for?

Labor and Shorten know how vulnerable they are on “boats” and national security. They know that, despite current two party preferred polling, Abbott will campaign on these issues, and that he will likely win, despite running a largely incompetent government.

A bolder strain of progressive politics might try changing the national conversation, and reconstituting it around hot button issues like intergenerational equity, climate change, and health and aged care. Shorten doesn’t appear to have that capacity. Does anybody else in the federal Labor party?

If Labor wants a shot at the next election it needs a leader who is not Bill Shorten | Jason Wilson | Comment is free | The Guardian

Latika Bourke National political reporter June 16, 2015

Empty: The prime minister's chair. Photo: Melissa Adams

It may be an unwritten rule, but it's usually a rule nonetheless that of the many ways to get ahead in a workplace, publicly critiquing your boss is not one of them.

However, it's a life lesson not yet learned by one government MP, who has risked raising the ire of Prime Minister Tony Abbott by republishing a report card that graded the leader of his party with just a "D".

And the same report card gave Opposition Leader Bill Shorten a higher rating, awarding him a "C".

Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Photo: Andrew Meares

The Member for Hinkler, Keith Pitt, republished a "Voting Attendance Report Card" in his June issue of "Hinkler Headlines". The report card was originally published in two local newspapers.

The scorecard rates Mr Pitt and fellow Queensland LNP backbencher Wyatt Roy an "A" for their performance in Parliament on voting attendance.

But the report card awards Mr Abbott a dismal "D" - worse than the "C" given to Mr Shorten and the "B" awarded to Labor MP Justine Elliot, who represents a northern New South Wales electorate.

The voting attendance report card in MP Keith Pitt's electorate newsletter.

The only MP rated worse than Mr Abbott is PUP leader Clive Palmer, who was graded with an "F".  The multi-millionaire with interests in mining and tourism often skips Parliament, citing that he has better things to do.

The leaflet says the data is based on voting records since 2006 as compiled by Open Australia – a volunteer organisation that collates data about elected representatives' work.

As Prime Minister, Mr Abbott would be "paired" with a Labor MP for low profile votes to free him up to attend to his Prime Ministerial duties.

Former Labor Treasurer Wayne Swan has previously accused Mr Abbott of being "drunk" and missing a key vote on the stimulus package designed to protect Australia against the global financial crisis.  Mr Swan was ordered to withdraw.

Mr Pitt and Mr Abbott have been contacted for comment.

Follow Latika Bourke on Facebook

Government MP highlights Tony Abbott's poor voting record in electorate mail out

Shalailah Medhora Tuesday 16 June 2015

‘I am in the business of building a strong relationship … not aggravating things,’ prime minister says, adding that stopping the boats has improved ties

Tony Abbott in Canberra on Tuesday. He says Canberra’s relationship with Jakarta is ‘getting stronger all the time’. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Ties between Australia and Indonesia are “getting stronger all the time” and media outlets are “promoting discord” by saying otherwise, Tony Abbott has said.

The Australian prime minister has been under intense pressure to definitively confirm or deny claims that authorities paid people smugglers US$5,000 (A$6,450) each to turn their boats back to Indonesia late last month.

He has instead repeated the argument that the Coalition has “stopped the boats” and has pointed the finger at journalists for inflaming tensions between Canberra and Jakarta.

“The great thing about stopping the boats is that it has very much improved our relationship with Indonesia,” Abbott said. “We have a good relationship with Indonesia, it’s a strong friendship, it’s getting stronger all the time.

“Occasionally people will say things which journalists like to savour and conjure. There are many media outlets that are more interested in promoting discord than in celebrating all the constructive things that happen between our two countries.

“I am in the business of building a strong relationship with Indonesia, not aggravating things.”

The comments come just a day after his foreign minister, Julie Bishop, ignited a diplomatic row by saying Australia would not have to stop asylum boats if Indonesia secured its borders.

Bishop’s assertions drew an angry response from the Indonesian government, with a spokesman for the security ministry, Agus Barnas, demanding she withdraw them and the vice-president, Jusuf Kalla, saying the alleged payments amounted to “bribery”.

Abbott denied that any illegal activity had occurred. “I am confident that at all times Australian agencies have acted within the law,” he said.

Reports on Monday suggest the payment could have been made by Australia’s spy agency ASIS, complicating the issues of legality and transparency. Australian spies have been operating inside Indonesia on anti-people smuggling ventures since at least 2001, according to reports in the Australian newspaper. The Rudd government had given Asis a funding injection to step up disruption measures, the article said.

A spokeswoman for the shadow immigration minister, Richard Marles, on Tuesday told Guardian Australia: “Labor did not pay people smugglers to turn back boats.”

On Monday Labor said it was “unlawful for the government or the opposition to divulge security or intelligence information”, leading members of the government to question whether Labor was being hypocritical in hammering the Coalition over its policies if it would not reveal its own policies.

Abbott is standing by the policy.

“We’ve done the right thing, we’ve done the moral thing, the decent thing, the compassionate thing,” he told reporters in the capital on Tuesday. “We’ve stopped the boats by doing whatever is necessary within the law to stop the boats.

“The most moral thing you can do here is stop the boats because as long as the boats are coming, the evil people smuggling trade is in business and the deaths continue.”

Indonesia has never supported the Coalition’s policy to turn boats around, saying regional cooperation is needed to stop the flow of asylum seekers.

Tony Abbott accuses media of 'promoting discord' with Indonesia | Australia news | The Guardian

By Carlo Sands Saturday, June 13, 2015

'Get a good job,' says a member of a government that has slashed public sector jobs while pushing to cut penalty rates and the minimum wage while pushing anti-union laws.

I am not sure federal Treasurer Joe Hockey really thought through his “get a good job that pays well” solution to the Sydney housing crisis. After all, as our treasurer teaches us in his Book of Joe, the poor don't drive, so how are they going to get to the job interviews?

By the bus, maybe? Has Hockey ever tried using a Sydney bus to get anywhere on time? Sydney's bus timetable can be so random it makes a Barnaby Joyce press conference sound coherent.

Hockey makes Marie Antoinette's alleged “Let them eat cake” response to French peasants without bread seem almost sensitive and in touch with people's needs. After all, it was probably easier for a starving peasant in 18th century France to find cake than for a low-income worker in Sydney to find an affordable home.

Other government members defended Hockey on grounds he spoke the truth. And he did. You need a high-paying job to buy a home in Sydney.

But what if your job doesn't pay well enough? Like, say if you are a nurse or a teacher, or maybe even a cleaner like the underpaid Parliament House cleaners striking on June 15 for $1.80 more an hour to reach a grand total of $22.90 an hour for the task of cleaning up Hockey and his colleagues’ crap each week?

Hockey failed to point to any oasis of better paid jobs amid growing unemployment.

Or should such people stay and fight for better wages, like the Parliament House cleaners, or the public servants who have begun a wave of strikes?

But the government is actively seeking to restrain wages, slash penalty rates, cut the minimum wage and weaken unions.

Just be rich

No answers, there is just the bald statement: if you want a home, then be rich. You know, like Hockey, who nonetheless claimed on ABC Radio: “I've seen over the years how challenging it can be for people to get into housing”.

He didn't say when, but perhaps he meant the challenge he and his wife, former investment banker Melissa Babbage, faced when they bought their house on Sydney's north shore that's now worth $5.4 million.

Or maybe it was when they bought the holiday home in his wife's name on the NSW south coast. Or maybe Hockey saw how tough the battlers were doing it, property-wise, when they sold off 40 hectares of their Queensland cattle station last year, with the remainder now on sale for $1.5 million.

It certainly can't be Hockey's experience of renting in Canberra, because the tab for the $270-a-night rent paid to stay in a house he and his wife own near Parliament House is paid for by the taxpayer.

You might think someone involved in this well-publicised rort might want to avoid lectures that amount to shouting: “You useless peasants! How dare you even think about owning a home unless you are willing to get off your arse and become an investment banker and/or a government cabinet member whose rent paid to himself is paid for by you!”

But no. These bastards seem to love rubbing their privilege over our faces while uttering smug, condescending rubbish as though the problem is we are just too plain thick to grasp the inherent brilliance of their system.

This is a system that says housing – widely considered a human right – should be left to the mercy of rich investors, encouraged by negative gearing laws, so as to speculate and profiteer, driving up prices.

This affects more than potential home buyers. With fewer people able to buy, the demand for rental properties keeps growing, driving up rents and increasing the risk of homelessness.

It is now so bad that a Sydney Morning Herald study found there were only five suburbs in Sydney – or 0.1% of Sydney’s suburbs - where a minimum wage worker could afford to live.

Bubble?

Whether prices are out of control depends on who you ask. For instance, Reserve Bank boss Glenn Stevens called Sydney's house prices “crazy”, but ANC chief executive Mike Smith “doesn’t believe Sydney is in bubble territory yet”.

It is strange, isn't it. Those at the centre of every speculation bubble, those dragging in huge profits on the basis of over-inflated prices, always insist there is no bubble – right up until the thing explodes and crashes down over the rest of us, who are then expected to pick up the pieces lest some “too big to fail” institution topples on us too.

“Not in bubble territory yet.” Presumably, if Mike Smith's home ever catches fire, he'll just walk around as the flames climb higher and walls start collapsing, loudly declaring: “Is it just me or it getting a bit warm in here? Honestly, any hotter and I might actually have to take off this heavy overcoat!”

His justification was revealing: “I was speaking to an investor the other day who was saying: ‘Oh, house prices are getting higher in Sydney, but compared to Hong Kong and compared to New York, Sydney’s quite good value’.”

Oh well fine then! Neither you nor anyone you know can afford a home, but some big investor thinks Sydney property prices are still a pretty decent deal, compared to other markets, for them to speculate in.

That's the key thing when you think of housing. Not “how can we have guaranteed decent housing”, but what does some rich prick in an overpriced suit out for a quick buck think.

The government's defence of Hockey's “get a good job” comment was arguably even worse than the comment itself – starting with Hockey, who defended himself by insisting Sydney housing must be affordable because there are people buying it. Yes, Joe, rich bastards like you!

Abbott's take

But even Hockey struggled to top the master at the idiotically offensive. Prime Minister Tony Abbott not only claimed to have struggled with mortgage stress himself while on a six-figure ministerial salary (the heart bleeds), but pointed to the fact his daughter bought a property in Canberra as proof young people could buy homes.

Leaving aside allegations Louise Abbott only got her plum foreign affairs job due to her political connections, news.com.au explained she “appears to have benefited from a Canberra housing market wilting after widespread public service job cuts”.

It would be ridiculous to suggest Abbott sacked thousands of public servants to let his daughter buy a house – our prime minister has never needed an excuse to screw workers – but it does prove that it can't be said Abbott has done nothing to lower housing prices.

So don't fear Sydney – sooner or later the government's relentless war on our living standards must cause the bubble to burst and prices to drop, even if we'll be too poor to notice.

Carlo's Corner: 'Let them get good jobs' – Hockey makes Marie Antoinette seem in touch | Green Left Weekly

By Darrin Barnett Friday 12 June 2015

Photo: Should Tony Abbott cash in and go to an election by the end of the year? (ABC News)

Everyone in politics is a gambler, knowing which battles to pick, who to befriend, when to attack. But this week, both Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten would have felt like the odds were stacked against them, writes Darrin Barnett.

In my student days, I spent a lot of time at a pub less than a block away from the main Melbourne University campus called the Clyde Hotel.

Like any good pub, it had beer, a beer garden, pool tables and a jukebox, and the most played song, year after year, was The Gambler by Kenny Rogers.

A strange choice for 1990s inner-city undergraduates to choose a somewhat daggy 1978 rendition of a country classic.

The gambler's thoughts, however, explain many things about today's political dynamic.

What is apparent now - and I perhaps should have realised then - is that the gambler always knew more than the rest of us.

The song itself is about someone down on their luck - who receives some sage advice from the battle-hardened gambler in exchange for a swig of whiskey.

The chorus is well-known:

You've got to know when to hold 'em, Know when to fold 'em, Know when to walk away, And know when to run.

You never count your money, When you're sittin' at the table, There'll be time enough for counting, When the dealin's done.

But one of the verses is even more instructive when assessing today's politics in Australia, and given the polls at the moment, it applies equally to Abbott and Shorten right now:

Every gambler knows, That the secret to survivin', Is knowin' what to throw away, And knowin' what to keep.

'Cause every hand's a winner, And every hand's a loser, And the best that you can hope for is to die, In your sleep.

Everyone in politics is a gambler of sorts, knowing which battles to pick, who to befriend, when to attack or defend, whether to take up the cudgel or shut the hell up, or simply pass the blame to somebody else.

Most of the major political players this week would have thought the odds were stacked against them.

The upshot is that we have Opposition Leader Bill Shorten in trouble, Treasurer Joe Hockey in even more trouble, and Prime Minister Tony Abbott needing to make a call whether to follow the advice of the Gambler and fold his Treasurer so he can cash in and go to an election by the end of the year.

Hockey's much publicised gaffe on the easy road to home ownership has left the Prime Minister stubbornly clinging to a politician who seemingly doesn't always think before he opens his mouth.

"The starting point for first home buyers is to get a good job that pays good money" speaks volumes about the Treasurer's perspective and it doesn't sit well with middle Australia, who are battling to keep their job and pay the bills, let alone enter the booming property market.

University of New South Wales analysis, published by Fairfax, showed that a first-home buyer on their own would need to earn about $152,000 a year to afford an average house or unit in Sydney; $115,000 in Melbourne; and $111,000 in Canberra.

That isn't a good job, it's a great job, and the simple reality is that most Australians will never earn that sort of money.

The problem for Hockey is that it's a case of déjà vu - whether it's asserting that poor people don't drive cars or smoking a cigars after putting the finishing touches on the harshest budget in living memory.

If Abbott were to honestly come up with one of his famous three-word slogans, it would be "Out of Touch", but the bigger question is whether it should be: "Out of Time."

To follow the song, Abbott would be considering this: "The secret to survivin', Is knowin' what to throw away, And knowin' what to keep."

Things are no better on the other side either.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten's past may come back to haunt him through either the Trade Union Royal Commission or a three-part television series looking into how the ALP got it so wrong when last in government.

As the series title suggests, it is indeed the political Killing Season - the last sitting fortnight before both houses rise for the winter recess.

This is a time when political parties get rid of deadwood, even leaders, in part because the Labor Caucus and Coalition party room won't meet formally again until Parliament sits again in the week beginning August 10.

In other words, there is no turning back from decisions made before a long break.

This week was expected to be all about Shorten: his dealings when he was national secretary of the Australian Workers' Union and also what role he may have played in the removal of two Labor prime ministers through the ABC documentary series The Killing Season.

Allegations from the royal commission were printed on the front page of Fairfax newspapers on Thursday that Shorten "oversaw a deal where a builder paid his union thousands of dollars in union dues".

Shorten describes the story as an "unfair smear" while Abbott is goading the Opposition Leader for dodging questions about whether he had duded his members, which could be career-limiting if proven.

As the Gambler would tell you, Shorten has already walked away from one of his closest political allies, former AWU Victorian secretary and now ALP Victorian Upper House MP Cesar Melhem, but he has nowhere to run.

In addition, while week one of The Killing Season was fairly benign, weeks two and three promise to air the dirty laundry of the party - and with it, Shorten's role in the knifing of both Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.

The feeling around the traps was that if things went far enough south for Shorten, we could be heading for an election this year.

After a disastrous first budget, uninspiring second budget, a series of broken promises and a declining economic position, Abbott doesn't have much to campaign on beyond "We're better than the other guys".

But then in comes Joe Hockey and his goofy comments.

Abbott was forced to defend him but also made the point that he clearly understood how tough things are out there in the suburbs.

As I have written previously, you don't want to be the Government in charge when Australians come to the conclusion that home ownership is no longer a reality.

Abbott's answer that it's tough for cabinet ministers too didn't make it across the line and this was in danger of becoming the dominant theme for Parliament next week.

So the Prime Minister skilfully shifted from main street to side street with yesterday's comments on wind turbines.

"Not only are they visually awful but they make a lot of noise," he told the Alan Jones program.

So much noise, Hockey will be hoping, that he gets to die, politically speaking, in his sleep rather than in a far more immediate and brutal fashion.

Darrin Barnett is a former Canberra Press Gallery journalist and press secretary to prime minister Julia Gillard. He is now a fellow of the McKell Institute.

Kenny Rogers' Gambler has some lessons for Shorten and Abbott - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Tom Iggulden, staff Thursday 11 June 2015

Photo: An episode of the ABC's Kitchen Cabinet, hosted by Annabel Crabb, was set in Joe Hockey's Canberra home. (facebook.com: Kitchen Cabinet)

Related Story: Cabinet colleagues defend Hockey over housing comments

Related Story: Hockey accuses critics of 'playing the man' over housing comments

Independent senator Nick Xenophon is calling for greater transparency for MPs who use taxpayer-funded allowances to pay off houses in Canberra, accusing the Government of "dog whistling" on home ownership.

The call follows Treasurer Joe Hockey's advice to first-home buyers to "get a good job that pays good money".

When in Canberra, Mr Hockey stays in the exclusive suburb of Forrest at a house he and his wife own.

The house is valued at about $2 million and was bought in 1997 for $320,000.

As a politician, Mr Hockey also legitimately claims a $270-a-night allowance for travel to the capital.

In the past he has rented rooms in the property to other politicians.

Senator Xenophon told the ABC's Lateline program that the public had a right to know how their money was being used.

Job comment not the most worrying

Joe Hockey's comment on "getting a good job" may have caused the biggest stir, but it's his follow-up comments that we should be talking about. Michael Janda writes for The Drum.

 

"If an MP is using their allowance to pay off a home for themselves or for their spouse, I don't think it's unfair to require transparency," he said.

A recently retired senator confirmed to the ABC that it is common practice for politicians in the major parties to buy a house in Canberra and use their travel allowance to pay off the mortgage.

"It's an entirely legitimate entitlement that gets turned into a benefit and an advantage [in the property market]," they said.

Senator Xenophon said he would look at forcing politicians to return some of the profits from selling a Canberra property to taxpayers if they had used public money for their mortgage.

"I like the idea of a portion of that capital gain being put back into Treasury's coffers," he said.

Your stories on housing affordability

• Still living with my ex: Maya
• Biggest issue of our time: Christopher Boyce
• The day the dream died: Andrew Rollason
• Goodbye Sydney, I'll miss you: Sammy
• Housing affordability and aging: Lynne Sanders-Braithwaite
• Life in a station wagon: Chaplain

"Although the flip side to that is if the housing market crashes and the MP makes a loss, I don't think taxpayers would want to subsidise a bad investment decision by an MP."

The Treasurer yesterday softened his comments about home ownership, saying he "totally understands" property in Sydney and Melbourne is "very expensive".

Cabinet colleagues also jumped to Mr Hockey's defence, with Prime Minister Tony Abbott saying Mr Hockey had been working hard to help first home buyers.

But Senator Xenophon said he hoped Mr Hockey's comments were not part of a political strategy to pander to home owners at the expense of renters.

"I certainly hope that the Government isn't hinting that if you're a property owner that's good and if you're a renter that's not so good," he said.

"It just seems to me that the Government might be putting their lips on that dog whistle when it comes to property ownership and that's not a good thing."

Mission Australia urges Government to hold housing summit

Leading social housing provider Mission Australia has urged the Government to immediately convene a summit, saying Australia's housing market is broken.

"As people can't afford to buy their own home, there are more people in the rental market," chief executive office Catherine Yeomans told the ABC's AM program.

Media player: "Space" to play, "M" to mute, "left" and "right" to seek.

Video: Taxpayer funds crackdown in Canberra (Lateline)

"That means people who are on lower incomes, the people that we're working with everyday, also people who are homeless and we're struggling to get into sustainable rental accommodation, we simply can't do that because we actually have a housing crisis right across Australia.

"On any given night there are 100,000 people who are homeless right across Australia."

Ms Yeomans criticised the Treasurer for failing to recognise how many Australians are struggling to afford the basic necessities.

"We really need urgent action and our suggestion is a summit needs to occur as soon as possible," she said.

"Let's get an action plan in place by the end of the year, let the Treasurer chair this summit and take some leadership and address this issue."

From other news sites:

• The Sydney Morning Herald: Treasurer Joe Hockey's impressive housing portfolio
• The Australian: Joe Hockey's prescription for housing pain the best medicine
• The Observer: Why Joe Hockey's housing comments are so appalling
• Daily Mail: Hardly your average Joe: How Treasurer married a millionaire banker, earns $365k a year, owns a $6 million property in Sydney, a 200 hectare farm in Queensland... and he wants ...
• News.com.au: Treasurer backtracks on 'get a good job' advice to first home buyers, says attacks on him are personal

Joe Hockey's housing comments prompt call for crackdown on politicians using taxpayers' funds to pay off Canberra houses - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Ben Pobjie Wednesday 10 June 2015

Photo: Getting your finances in order is easy if you just follow these tips from the Treasurer. (Alan Porritt: AAP)

It turns out our straight-talking Treasurer has far more handy hints than just "get a job, get a house". Having trouble paying for groceries? Just buy cheaper things. Finding it hard to save? Just spend less money. It's easy once Joe shows you how, writes Ben Pobjie.

How much more refreshing than a clear mountain stream is a politician who tells it "how it is". And in Joe Hockey we have a doozy, a man of irrepressible forthrightness, a leader of boundless integrity, a statesman who would rather hurl himself into a snake pit than tell it how it isn't for even a moment.

Not many politicians have Hockey's peculiar blend of shrill petulance and kamikaze gumption, and it's to our nation's benefit that we get the straight dope from him. As we did this week when Hockey, faced with questions regarding the increasing lack of affordability in the house market, provided a simple, common-sense solution to the problem.

"The starting point for a first-home buyer," Hockey summed up in classic style, "is to get a good job that pays good money."

YouTube: 'Get a good job', Hockey tells first-home buyers

And you know what? He's absolutely right. That IS the starting point for first-home buyers. The Treasurer's calm advice should be a wake-up call for all those aspiring first-home buyers who have been starting out by getting a bad job, or by quitting their job, or by setting themselves on fire outside a bank. None of these are the way to go, and it's time we accepted this.

Naturally, Hockey's comments caused controversy, but this was only because people insist on jumping the gun. Hockey only said that getting a good job that pays good money was the starting point for first-home buyers. Of course as Treasurer he knows there's more to it.

After getting the job and the good money, of course, the next step is to give the money to a man who makes houses, and then naturally you'll need to hire movers. It doesn't happen overnight, but there's no doubt: having a good job that pays good money is the starting point. And if you have a bad job that pays bad money, or a good job that pays bad money, or even a bad job that pays good money ... well that's hardly Joe Hockey's fault, is it? He didn't make you take that job.

Far more significant than the carping of a few malcontent arts graduates who think Centrelink owes them a studio apartment is the fact that for once the levers of economic power in this country are being grasped by a man who understands the problems facing the populace, and who is willing to come forward with easy-to-implement solutions to those problems.

It doesn't stop with "get a job, get a house". Hockey's got all sorts of helpful hints to share with us, including:

Household budgets

Many Australians have difficulty making ends meet from week to week these days - the grocery dollar doesn't stretch as far as it used to. Treasurer Hockey has a little trick we can all try, though. "If you're having trouble affording essentials like food," he says, "why not try buying cheaper things?" It's as easy as that! Sound too good to be true? Well we here at The Drum have personally tested this tip, and found that it works like a charm - buying things that cost less than other things can shave up to 40 per cent off your household spend.

Savings

It sure is hard to get ahead with your savings, isn't it? How can you build up a nest egg with so many demands on the old purse strings? Hockey's got you covered. "The secret to successful saving," the world's best Treasurer confides, "is putting money in a bank and leaving it there for a while." Again, try it and see: I predict that after just a few weeks of putting money into your bank, and not taking it out again, your savings will be burgeoning like nobody's business. And speaking of business, why not try the Treasurer's tips on:

Business expenses

It's every Australian's dream to own their own business, but with all the overheads involved, how can you cover start-up costs? The man whose broad, safe fingers are clutching the nation's finances didn't get where he is by being a business mug, and he has some incredible information to share. "When starting a business," our Joe nods wisely, "the most important thing is to have enough money to start a business." And guess what, guys: he's right. In fact, ABS figures show that 100 per cent of businesses that stay afloat for five years or more started out with enough money to start out. Are you going to argue with facts?

Education

It's every parent's dilemma: you can't afford private school, but you also don't want your child to be a murderer. How can you, on your modest pay packet, send your beloved offspring to a school that doesn't offer ice manufacturing as a PE module? It's easy if you just listen to Ol' Joe, Wallet-Master. "Education costs are easy to meet," he says, sucking thoughtfully on a cigar, "if you just remember, every month, to put away exactly the amount you need for school fees, then give that amount to the school." And to think how many people believe private school is a complicated affair!

Travel

So often we think we have to settle for cut-price holidays, but there's no need to, if you're just smart about your money. As the Treasurer explains, "for affordable, luxurious travel, why not try being a Cabinet Minister?"

Try any or all of these great Hockey "shortcuts" for yourself, and like me and countless other new homeowners, you'll be left wondering just why you didn't think of it yourself!

Ben Pobjie is a writer, comedian and poet with no journalistic qualifications whatsoever.

Hockey's hints. Or: how I learned to stop worrying and just got a good job - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)