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Sport scandal claims minister
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Agriculture Minister Bridget McKenzie has resigned over her role in a highly criticised sporting grants scheme, forcing a reshuffle of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s ministry.
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However, the departure of the embattled former sports minister is unlikely to put an end to the affair, with the Labor opposition saying it will continue to pursue the matter in parliament.
The issue is likely to dominate the beginning of the parliamentary year, with MPs and Senators returning to Canberra this week for the first sitting of 2020.
The government ended 2019 in deep negotiations with the Senate cross-bench to pass legislation and with one of its ministers surrounded in controversy. It entered 2020 with two ministers surrounded in controversy and still deep in negotiations with the Senate cross-bench to pass legislation.
Despite her resignation, the Labor opposition will have Senator McKenzie in its sights after an auditor-general’s report found she had skewed funding towards marginal electorates when she was sports minister. Mr Morrison referred the matter to the head of his department, who found the senator had breached ministerial standards by not disclosing her membership of a club that received funding.
Her resignation on a technicality, as well as Mr Morrison’s refusal to release the advice he received from his department head, means Labor will likely continue to pursue an upper house investigation into the matter. That inquiry will not only target Senator McKenzie, but will also take aim at Mr Morrison to ascertain what role, if any, he or his office played. Either way, it will ensure the matter continues to generate headlines.
Labor will also no doubt continue to pursue Energy Minister Angus Taylor over his use of an allegedly forged document to discredit the lord mayor of Sydney. It will also be the opposition’s first opportunity to question Mr Morrison over his handling of the fire crisis and the government’s actions on climate change. Whether Mr Morrison uses the ministerial reshuffle to move Mr Taylor remains to be seen.
For its part, the government will be looking for a legislative win. Laws making it easier to de-register labour unions will be re-introduced to the Senate after being defeated late last year. The government needs the vote of cross-bench Senator Jacqui Lambie to pass the legislation and has been working hard to secure her support.
Mr Morrison will also be looking to push through a number of energy deals with the states. He has already announced a A$2billion deal with the New South Wales government to increase gas supply and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector.
It is the first of a series of planned bilateral energy agreements between the federal government and the states and territories. It is being seen in many ways as an ad hoc version of the defunct National Energy Guarantee – which was at the centre of former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s removal from office.
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This scandal is bigger than one minister, and we still need to get to the bottom of these tawdry sports rorts.
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— Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese
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PM attempts a political reboot
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison has attempted to put his horror start to 2020 behind him, with a speech ahead of parliament resuming for the year.
Mr Morrison’s speech at the National Press Club last Wednesday – his first major speech of the year – was an opportunity for the prime minister to get back on the front foot after widespread criticism of his handling of the fire crisis.
A key political problem for the government, and Mr Morrison, has been the lack of action on climate change. That is unsurprising, given that Mr Morrison occupies the prime ministerial office after his predecessor was dumped from the job for attempting to move on emissions reduction.
But the public’s patience with inertia has begun to disappear in the wake of the fire crisis, despite the prime minister’s attempts to separate the two issues. Trying to reconcile the public mood for action with his party’s wariness, Mr Morrison pointed to the need for adaptation and resilience.
Whether Mr Morrison’s attempt to move without conceding ground was successful was probably a moot point, given that all anyone really wanted to discuss was the scandal engulfing his government over sporting grants to marginal seats ahead of the last election.
The scandal refused to die, in large part because Mr Morrison would not remove the minister who was responsible. While Mr Morrison will be hoping her belated departure will now put the matter to rest, the fact that he is refusing to release the advice used to remove the minister means the issue will continue to be a news item, crowding out other matters and undermining the credibility of the government and the prime minister.
Given his speech was an opportunity to restore credibility and rebuild public trust, 2020 would appear to be continuing in much the way it started for the prime minister.
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison has attempted to move forward on a number of issues, while trying not to concede ground. |
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Virus response consumes bandwidth
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The continuing spread of the coronavirus is adding to the number of issues facing the federal government, along with the ongoing fire crisis and drought.
Just over 600 Australians were registered as being in Hubei province, which has been under a militarily enforced lockdown in an effort to contain the spread of the virus. The federal government has unveiled plans to evacuate Australians to Christmas Island, where they will be quarantined for 14 days.
Christmas Island, some 2,600km from the Australian mainland in the Indian Ocean, is the site of a controversial immigration detention facility that currently houses a Sri Lankan family of four.
While the government announced the plan to evacuate citizens, it had not gained permission from China to do so. Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne said that was because officials had to be relocated from Shanghai since Australia lacks a consular presence in Wuhan.
Cabinet’s National Security Committee (NSC) made the decision to launch the operation after a briefing from Chinese authorities in Beijing last Monday. The NSC – the government’s peak decision-making body on national security and major foreign policy issues – has been meeting regularly to discuss the response to the virus.
Coronavirus – along with the fires and drought – is consuming what limited bandwidth the government has available, meaning a number of major decisions in health and defence are likely to be pushed back even further.
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Coronavirus outbreak could hit economy
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The spread of the of coronavirus across Australia’s major trading partner is likely to have implications for the local economy, with sectors from mining to tourism and education to be impacted.
Analysts say much depends on how quickly Chinese authorities contain the spread of the virus, and how its policy-makers respond to any subsequent economic downturn. On the latter, they do have room for both monetary and fiscal stimulus.
China accounts for about 38 per cent of Australia’s total exports – worth a A$147.2 billion in the latest trade figures. In turn, total exports account for about 22 per cent of Australia’s GDP. China also accounts for almost 16 per cent of international visitors to Australia and 27 per cent of total visitor expenditure.
Some sectors of the Australian economy are already feeling the effects, with demand for agricultural products dropping off as Chinese consumers stay away from restaurants and bars. Around 25 per cent, or A$11.8 billion, of Australian agricultural exports went to China in 2017-18.
In its analysis, ANZ says that if the lockdown in Wuhan continues, industrial production and travel will suffer, hurting demand for three of Australia’s major exports to the country: iron ore, coal and education.
CBA has also warned that the coronavirus’ spread is a “key downside risk to iron ore prices in the short‑term”. That would be bad news for iron ore exporters and the federal government, which has based a number of its budget projections on a healthy iron ore price.
JP Morgan is downgrading GDP growth for the first quarter by 0.1 percentage point to incorporate a drag on services exports after the Chinese government banned tour groups travelling overseas.
While any economic impacts are likely to be short term, they come amid the ongoing drought, the unprecedented fires and as the economy struggles to lift itself out of anaemic growth.
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Patients avoiding screening and GP visits
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A Productivity Commission report has found that only about half of older Australians are regularly screened for breast and bowel cancer.
The Commission’s Report on Government Services found that just over half of women aged between 50 and 74 had undertaken breast screening during the past year, while rates for bowel cancer screening were lower, with 42 per cent of people aged 50 to 74 having had screening.
A lack of access to GPs – often due to cost concerns – was also identified as a problem, with the rate of preventable visits to public hospitals increasing by more than 50,000 in 2018-19, compared with the previous year. The report found there were almost 3 million presentations at emergency departments during the past year for conditions that should have been treated by a GP.
As well as people avoiding their GP, the report found 7 per cent of the population delayed filling or did not fill a prescription due to the cost.
The report widens the debate over out-of-pocket costs beyond the private health insurance sector. While 80 per cent of GP visits are bulk-billed, some doctors charge large gap fees.
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PM plans to overhaul Defence powers
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Prime Minster Scott Morrison has flagged an overhaul of the federal government’s powers to deploy the Australian Defence Force domestically to assist in dealing with disasters, a move that would have implications for the force’s structure and development.
Under the Constitution, the ADF can technically only be deployed domestically at the request of state governments. But in his speech to the National Press Club, Mr Morrison said he wanted a federal power to declare a national state of emergency that would let the Commonwealth deploy the military to deal with natural disasters without the request of state governments.
The prime minister’s suggestion came after he faced sharp criticism over his handling of the fire crisis that hit a number of states over the Christmas and New Year period. Mr Morrison initially tried to distance the federal government from responsibility, saying dealing with the fires was a matter for state governments. Stung by the public backlash to that, he then deployed the ADF to assist state governments in dealing with the fires and their aftermath.
Should the states agree to the plan – which is not guaranteed, particularly given the fractious relationship that has developed between the federal and New South Wales governments – it would mark a significant rethink of the ADF’s structure; a point acknowledged by the prime minister.
“An enhanced, and more proactive role for our Defence force in response to domestic natural disasters will have implications for our force structure, for its capability, development, its command, its deployment and the training of our Defence forces. So, I don’t put this forward lightly,” he said.
The need for the proposal is, however, being questioned. Since previous prime minister have had no difficulty in deploying the ADF to deal with natural disasters in the past.
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