Anti-corruption commission legislation to be introduced next week
Helen Haines to Mark Dreyfus:
Ahead of the anticorruption legislation being introduced next week, will the government also establish an independent whistleblower protection Commissioner as a one-stop shop to support and protect the brave people who will report corruption to the anti-corruption commission and across the entire public sector?
Dreyfus:
I thank the honourable member for the question. And say that I am looking forward to introducing to the parliament next week the legislation to establish an anti-corruption commission, fulfilling a commitment that our government made at the last election and, indeed, at the election before that and just to remind those opposite, a commitment those opposite made at the last election and at the election before that and it is long past time that this parliament moved to establish a national anti-corruption commission.
Going to the question, the government is of course committed to ensuring that Australia has an effective framework to protect whistleblowers, frameworks to protect whistleblowers are critical to supporting integrity, the rule of law.
I am very proud that when we were last in government, we brought to this parliament the public interest disclosure act 2013 and equally I am able to say I was very disappointed to say the statutory inquiry which we legislated when passing that, to place and was carried out by an eminent Australian, Philip Moss, who reported to the former government at the end of 2016 and there the report sat.
Mr Moss made a number of very sensible suggestions for the amendment to the act and regrettably the government simply sat on those recommendations by Philip Moss. I have said, since coming to office, that we have picked up Mr Moss’s report and looking hard at the recommendations that he has made and I am hopeful to bring the parliament in coming months amendment that the public interest disclosure act will pick up and almost certainly will need to update the recommendations that Mr Moss made back in 2016, whether or not it goes to a whistleblower protection commissioner is something that the government is still considering.
I know the member for Indi has an interest in this and in her anti-corruption commission bill she had in the last parliament, she had provided for a whistleblower protection commissioner and that is why we are taking that particular idea very seriously indeed.
Key events
NSW Police arrest 18-year-old driver in fatal Sydney crash
NSW Police have arrested the 18-year-old ute driver in the crash that resulted in the deaths of five teenagers in Buxton in the south-west of Sydney on Tuesday night.
Three teenage girls and two teenage boys died at the scene, while the driver was treated by paramedics and taken to Liverpool Hospital for testing. After he was released from hospital, he was arrested in Bargo at 1.50pm on Wednesday and taken to Narellan Police station.
Police say he is assisting with inquiries, and have called on anyone with dashcam footage or information from social media to come forward.
Amy Remeikis
Midwinter Ball tonight
The parliament is starting to wind down: everyone is now turning their focus to the Midwinter Ball, which is being held in spring, because the election and subsequent parliamentary break meant it couldn’t actually be held mid-winter.
Mike Bowers will be taking photos of the entrants, so we will bring you some of that. I’ll let you know how everyone is feeling tomorrow morning (I am not attending, so I will be as fresh as a tired, trampled daisy). Josh Taylor will take you through the evening, though.
Thank you so much to everyone who joined me today and for all your comments. A big thank you to the moderators who are going above and beyond keeping the blog comments open for as long as possible, and of course to the Guardian brains trust, especially Bowers, Sarah, Paul and Josh B for keeping you all informed.
I’ll be back tomorrow morning – until then, take care of you Ax
Josh Butler
Greens say addressing poverty is a ‘moral obligation’
Here is a little bit more on the senate inquiry into poverty we told you about a little earlier:
Greens senator Janet Rice, chair of the community affairs references committee, asked for the group to investigate ‘the extent and nature of poverty in Australia’.
The Albanese Labor government has hosed down prospects of any significant rise to welfare payments in the October budget. Rice called out “years of inaction by successive governments” on poverty.
When 5.1 million Australians are barely scraping by on Centrelink payment rates below the poverty line, and millions more are facing cost of living pressures and the crushing stress that goes with it – something is deeply wrong and needs to be fixed,” she said.
“This inquiry will hold wide-ranging hearings across the country, enabling people who have been forced to rely on woefully inadequate payments to have their voices heard, and take that evidence into Parliament.”
“When millions of people in this wealthy country are one car-breakdown or dental emergency away from total financial ruin, surely as elected representatives of the people, it is our moral obligation to do something about it.”
Paul Karp
Christian church leaders appeal for food aid donations
A delegation of 40 Christian women is meeting with senior ministers, shadows, cross benchers and minor party MPs in Canberra today.
They are urging the Australian government and others to support a $150m emergency relief package for hunger hotspots in the Horn of Africa, Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan. There are more than 49 million people in 45 countries at risk.
Somalia is at the forefront of the crisis, with UN aid chief Martin Griffiths overnight giving a “final warning” that we are in the “last minute of the 11th hour” to save lives. Covid, climate (devastating drought) and the war in Ukraine are behind the food crisis.
The Uniting Church’s rev Amel Manyon, who came to Australia as a refugee in 2008 and became first South Sudanese female minister in the Uniting Church, is among the delegation.
She said:
“Many children have died, women, vulnerable people – they died because they went searching for something to eat. I’m asking the government in Australia, please do something now. People are dying because of hunger and it’s not good for us to sit and listen to their stories and not do something.”
Antipoverty Centre welcomes inquiry into poverty
Spokesperson and JobSeeker recipient Jay Coonan:
We are glad to see today’s news about a new poverty inquiry, almost exactly 50 years on from the establishment of the inquiry led by Ronald Henderson that went on to produce Australia’s poverty line.
The need to better understand poverty in this country is clear, but the need to immediately increase Centrelink payments is clearer.
Poor people have been failed too many times by government inquiries, and there is no time to wait.
The low rate of welfare payments is killing people. Poor people are dying by suicide at extraordinary rates. People are being forced to stay in or return to violent homes. We are skipping meals and healthcare at an unprecedented rate and the cost of living crisis is only making things worse.
This inquiry is no excuse for the government’s continued refusal to act urgently on the rate of income support payments. They must give up playing politics with our lives and increase all payments to at least the Henderson poverty line before more people die.
Motion for Senate inquiry into poverty accepted
The Greens senator Janet Rice’s motion for a Senate inquiry into the nature and extent of poverty in Australia has been accepted by the Senate.
The inquiry will look at:
The extent and nature of poverty in Australia with particular reference to:
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The rates and drivers of poverty in Australia;
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The relationship between economic conditions (including fiscal policy, rising inflation and cost of living pressures) and poverty;
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The impact of poverty on individuals in relation to:
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employment outcomes,
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housing security,
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health outcomes, and
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education outcomes
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The impacts of poverty amongst different demographics and communities;
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The relationship between income support payments and poverty;
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Mechanisms to address and reduce poverty; and
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any related matters
Tamsin Rose
The NSW premier, Dominic Perrottet, visited the high school of the young Buxton car crash victims on Wednesday afternoon.
He spoke with teachers at Picton High and expressed his condolences at the private meeting.
He also placed flowers inside at the school.
So you know, things seem to be going great for some
Ban on personal meat imports from 70 countries
As of midnight, meat imports from 70 countries were banned by the Australian government as part of the ongoing foot-and-mouth disease response.
Murray Watt tells the ABC:
What we have introduced from midnight was a complete ban on the personal importation of meat products from the 70 countries that currently have foot-and-mouth disease. There has obviously been some calls that we should be banning meat products brought in from Indonesia, but this ban goes wider than that and picks up every country that currently has foot-and-mouth disease.
BANNED: Today, we’ve banned imports of meat products for personal use from ALL countries with foot & mouth disease. An unprecedented action to keep us FMD-free.
This includes highly processed meat products for personal use – products like pâté, pork crackling or meat floss. pic.twitter.com/lSrQOnReU8
— Senator Murray Watt (@MurrayWatt) September 7, 2022
Security committee appointments announced
The Parliament of Australia has appointed members to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) in the 47th Parliament.
This is one of the most coveted committees in the parliament:
The PJCIS has elected Peter Khalil as its Chair.
The members are:
· Peter Khalil MP [Chair]
· Andrew Wallace MP [Deputy Chair]
· Karen Andrews MP
· Senator Simon Birmingham
· Senator Raff Ciccone
· Andrew Hastie MP
· Julian Hill MP
· Senator James Paterson
· Senator Marielle Smith
· Senator Jess Walsh
· Josh Wilson MP
Jane Hume questions cost of living
You can add Jane Hume to the list of Coalition MPs wondering how and why the Labor government hasn’t fixed everything from the last 9 years of Coalition government in the three months since it took power.
Hume adds:
They have crab-walked away from their signature policy to reduce the cost of living which was a $275 reduction in energy prices. Minister Bowen has come out and said that he stands by the modelling but that’s weasel words, if you can’t commit to the promise to reduce energy prices by 2025
I mean…
Government Covid reports to become weekly
This was a national cabinet decision – daily covid reporting will move to weekly from Friday. NSW Health announced:
Routine reporting of Covid-19 information, including case numbers, hospitalisations and deaths, will happen on a weekly basis from Friday 9 September.
The move from daily reporting to weekly reporting was agreed to by all state and territory health ministers and will begin to be applied from this week.
In addition to its weekly reporting of Covid-19 information through the NSW Health website and social media accounts, NSW Health will continue to provide comprehensive, detailed reporting and analysis of the latest Covid-19 data and developments in its weekly respiratory surveillance reports.
A wide range of Covid-19 information and advice is also available on the NSW government website.
The Senate is once again being … the Senate
Lidia Thorpe was asked to withdraw comments she said was calling out racism in response to one of SA Liberal senator Alex Antic’s speeches, which was bemoaning the “threat” of critical race theory (another culture war import from the US) and “victimhood”.
Thorpe wants to know why calling out racism has consequences but saying things like Antic did, does not.
Thorpe released a statement:
This parliament punishes Blak women for calling out racism, yet there are no consequences for being racist in the Senate chamber. I am not safe in this workplace.
The Jenkins report talks about the ‘intersection of multiple forms of discrimination and harassment (…) on the basis of gender, age, race, disability and sexual orientation’ as well as the importance of everyone feeling ‘safe and welcome to contribute.’
If I didn’t withdraw, I could have been kicked out of the Chamber for a day and The Greens would be down a vote. They cut off my microphone and told me to withdraw my comment. How is that creating a workplace where everyone is ‘safe and welcome to contribute’?!
It’s ‘unparliamentary’ to call out racism, but not unparliamentary to be racist. Racism is a disease in this country. It’s violent and literally makes people sick. We need an anti-racist code of conduct for MPs to be accelerated and implemented to stop this from happening in the first place.
Breaking into politics for my South Australian peeps (hi QuietHillbilly) – there is a weather warning you should know about:
