A lean period of polling awaits, given the interruption of Easter and the no doubt related fact that every single pollster in the business unloaded results last week. If you’re desperate, Nine Newspapers has further results from last week’s Resolve Strategic poll finding 56% support for “stronger laws to ban hate speech on the basis of religion and faith”, with 19% opposed; 74% in favour of criminal penalties for “doxxing”, with 4% opposed; and 57% saying there had been a rise in racism and religious intolerance “as a result of the Israel-Gaza conflit”, with 15% disagreeing.
Other news:
• Troy Dodds of the Western Weekender reports that Melissa McIntosh, the Liberal member for the marginal outer western Sydney seat of Lindsay, has secured preselection after the withdrawal of Penrith deputy mayor Mark Davies. The expectation that Davies would have the numbers in conservative-dominated local branches to topple McIntosh had been a source of consternation among the party leadership, with Paul Sakkal of the Sydney Morning Herald reporting earlier this month on “the prospect of a rare federal division intervention in the NSW branch” if the challenge went ahead. McIntosh was promoted from the shadow assistant ministry to outer shadow ministry status in a recent reshuffle.
• Tim Wilson won a Liberal preselection vote for Goldstein last week, setting up a rematch with teal independent Zoe Daniel, to whom he lost the seat he had held since 2016 in 2022. Wilson won the local party vote ahead of Colleen Harkin, research fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs, and Stephanie Hunt, lawyer and former staffer to Julie Bishop and Marise Payne. Paul Sakkal of The Age reports Wilson won a second round vote ahead of Harkin “by about 160-130”.
• Amelia Hamer, a former staffer to then Financial Services Minister Jane Hume who has more recently worked for financial technology start-up Airwallex, has won the Liberal preselection vote for the Melbourne seat of Kooyong, which teal independent Monique Ryan won from Josh Frydenberg in 2022. The Australian reports Hamer won the party vote by 233 to 59 ahead of Rochelle Pattison, director of an asset management and corporate finance firm and chair of Transgender Victoria.
• Former state government minister Andrew Constance has again won Liberal preselection for Gilmore, where he narrowly failed in a bid to unseat Labor’s Fiona Phillips in 2022. Constance won a party vote by 80 to 69 over Paul Ell, lawyer, Shoalhaven councillor and long-standing hopeful for the seat who was persuaded to stand aside in favour of Constance in 2022.
• The Australian’s Feeding the Chooks column reports that Margaret Forrest, a commercial and criminal law barrister, has been preselected as the Liberal National Party candidate for the Brisbane seat of Ryan, which the party lost to Elizabeth Watson-Brown of the Greens in 2022.
• Rowan Ramsey, who has held the regional South Australian seat of Grey for the Liberals since 2007, has announced he will retire at the next election.
• Tammy Tyrell, who won a second Senate seat for the Jacqui Lambie Network at the 2022 election, quit the party last week. Tyrell issued a statement saying the move was made on Lambie’s suggestion, saying it had “become clear to me that I no longer have the confidence” of the party.
• I have a page up for the Cook federal by-election, to be held on April 13.
Amelia Hamer has a plan to help young people. She wants to get rid of the 180k tax bracket. Which will make young people with wealthy parents even wealthier. When they inherit from those parents. Not everyone has rich parents you may say but i suspect Amelia would tell you. If your parents are not rich they have no right to live in Kooyong. So Amelia’s plan has a lot of merit. Similar to how young Prince Charles inherited all his mothers vast wealth.
C@t: The explanatory memorandum is here: https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22legislation%2Fems%2Fr7181_ems_f83281ef-0f46-4fbb-a59f-2e19439dcacb%22
The hypothetical I’m referring to is under item 63:
“Example – Parker
Parker is a participant who has a physical disability. Parker’s plan includes $100,000 of self-managed funding. Parker uses the funding to pay for rent and groceries. The Agency has also observed that Parker recently purchased 10 food processors. It is not clear why Parker purchased them.
Parker has made frequent requests for plan reassessments because they have overutilised their plan.
At his plan reassessments, the Agency explained to Parker that their funding was not provided for rent, groceries or multiple food processors. Parker’s local area coordinator works with them to make sure he understands how they can use their NDIS funding to best meet their support needs.
Once these amendments are enacted, the Agency will also be able to change Parker’s plan management type to Agency managed to ensure that Parker is appropriately utilising their plan to provide for their disability related needs.”
I genuinely thought someone was trolling to try and make Labor look bad when I saw it on social media. As I said, this is the sort of thing I’d expect from some of the more tone-deaf LNP ministers, because even the LNP ministers with some understanding of disability wouldn’t come out with this garbage.
Terminator @ #48 Sunday, March 31st, 2024 – 10:19 am
= Project 2025
C@t, its amendments to s43
Edit: beaten to it by Rebecca
“(Here’s an interesting thing. Reba is now the CEO of the Sisters of Charity – a position sure to trigger many a PBer)”
Nope. As one of the anti-clerical atheists present, it was never the groups within the catholic church who did social welfare work in the community that were the problem. They do great work, and I know some great people within them. I still respect them, and donate to them.
The problem in the catholic church is the cohort of bishops who spend millions on lawyers keeping paedophile priests out of court/jail.
Andrew Charlton was parachuted into Parramatta with little fanfare surrounding his preselection.
The difference for Keneally is that she is a known public figure, and much of her preselection was reported in the context of her move from the Senate, presumably in aspiring to a leadership position. Whereas with Charlton, nobody had really heard of him. Only PBers would recall that he was once an advisor to PM Rudd.
Rebecca leaning heavily into false equivalence. If the media labels it “Robotax” it must be the same as “Robodebt”, right? Surely these media barons aren’t in the business of pushing their own barrow 😉
The facts as they stand are that the tax issue is an actual debt, the other a false debt based in automated incorrect calculations. While I are not a fan of debts remaining past the time that records must be kept, we require legislation to change the situation, not calls to fire the Minister.
The only changes I can see to Section 43 were from July 2022:
New legislation
Additional risk assessments are required for participants whose plans are managed by a registered provider or nominee. This is consistent with the requirements for self-managed participants.
Impact for Participants
Consistency and protections for participants who use a registered plan management provider to purchase services from unregistered providers.
https://www.ndis.gov.au/news/7975-2022-ndis-legislation-amendments-july-update
Is there anything else?
Terminator:
Yes, I recall reading about that some time ago. I guess however, they aren’ ‘training’ in order to provide high quality administrative and policy advice to the government and president. Rather, it’s about stacking the Administration with loyalists who won’t stand in the way as Trumpists destroy what is left of US democracy.
Griff:
The differences are obvious to anyone who has bothered to read about the issue.
I vividly recall that Andrew Charlton is very handsome. 😉
Confessions @ #60 Sunday, March 31st, 2024 – 10:34 am
Hot takes and political slurs aren’t about an honest understanding of an issue.
Griff: That’s incorrect: the ATO is claiming debts are owed, but like Robodebt not explaining the basis on which they’re calculated, many historical enough that they’re beyond the period people are required to keep records. It’s just an asserted debt – and, just as with Robodebt, it’s already run into trouble about being an improper process.
It may well require legislation, but in that case the legislation should’ve been urgently rushed through, not to have, months and months later once it gets negative official scrutiny, Jones going “well the Department told me ‘nah it’s all good mate'” (and still no suggestion of actually getting off one’s arse and doing the legislating).
The reaction to the situation makes me seriously wonder what would’ve happened to Robodebt if Labor had won the 2016 election, and whether it would’ve seen a similarly dawdling response until forced to act.
C@tmomma: Stinker noted the wrong section of the explanatory memorandum, and I literally copied and pasted the right one and even provided the link for you to verify it for yourself. You’re better than that.
Confessions: Charlton could’ve well been another Keneally situation, except for two things: a) no strong opponent, and b) being one of the epicentres of the Chinese community backlash against the LNP’s racist targeting of the Chinese community. In that environment, the Liberals weren’t in a position to take him out even if they’d somehow been able to run the resurrected ghost of Robert Menzies, and the ex-Labor councillor who took 3.5% of the vote as a quasi-indie clearly wasn’t a great threat.
Confessions says:
Sunday, March 31, 2024 at 10:31 am
Then there was the issue of the “parachuting” of Ms Keneally for Labor. Both sides do it all the time. It often causes grumbling but nonetheless it nearly always works as voters mostly go out and vote for their preferred party.
So what happened this time ? Well, Ms Le seems to have been a particularly good local candidate. Ms Keneally was unpopular with many in the broader community, including Fowler. She has no connection to SW Sydney.
Andrew Charlton was parachuted into Parramatta with little fanfare surrounding his preselection.
The difference for Keneally is that she is a known public figure, and much of her preselection was reported in the context of her move from the Senate, presumably in aspiring to a leadership position. Whereas with Charlton, nobody had really heard of him. Only PBers would recall that he was once an advisor to PM Rudd.
__________
A slight mitigator was the Liberal candidate, Maria Kovacic, was also a non-local. Now a Liberal Senator replacing Jim Molan. Appears to be a NSW ‘wet’ Liberal. She even mentioned a cap on negative gearing! We may not hear much else from her while Dutton is in control.
Rebecca 10.09
“I particularly liked the fun hypothetical about someone with a physical disability (not an intellectual disability) who might order 10 food processors with their NDIS funding, and how of course Labor would need to step in and strip the hypothetical person of agency. Because of course there is just an abundance of people with physical disabilities going out and buying 10 food processors with their NDIS funds for shits and giggles. I thought someone was taking the piss when I saw it shared, and then I read the memorandum myself and…they were not taking the piss and this was a document that Labor actually put their name to.”
I believe that you are “taking the piss”.
Show us where it says what you’re suggesting.
The real memorandum says something like that if a service provider provides a food processor to one recipient than the service provider would like to provide all recipients with a food processor.
And that desire to provide “willy nilly” is what has corrupted a scheme intended to support genuine recipients.
The big four accountancy conglomerates have operated “a scheme” like that for years.
The privatization of education services to Australia citizens and overseas students was structured to achieve maximum profits for the providers.
Medical services have suffered the same fate on many levels.
Restricted Pharmaceutical services have operated on the same “bullshit” for years.
Company directorships are a “whirlwind” of self renumeration.
The concept of “service provider” means different things.
The problem is called “corruption”, it exists, will exist, and is not confined to politicians of a particular bent.
But what has happened since good old Johnny Howard, is that the corruption has been institutionalized, become the norm, accepted as “oh well, that’s how things are” and is a far better fit for “free marketeers” that is the modern “Liberals” plus that spoilt national “pup”.
How brazen had it all become ?
The LNP elected the untidy duplicitous Morrison, barricaded behind the tenet that “there’s no point engaging in the conversation if you don’t agree with me”.
Some just like “to shout others down” in the printed form.
The succession of LNP governments had ten years to chase the tax debts!
goll: I copied and pasted the literal example from the explanatory memorandum on this page.
Let me do it again for anyone else who feels inclined to be deliberately dense:
C@t: The explanatory memorandum is here: https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22legislation%2Fems%2Fr7181_ems_f83281ef-0f46-4fbb-a59f-2e19439dcacb%22
The hypothetical I’m referring to is under item 63:
“Example – Parker
Parker is a participant who has a physical disability. Parker’s plan includes $100,000 of self-managed funding. Parker uses the funding to pay for rent and groceries. The Agency has also observed that Parker recently purchased 10 food processors. It is not clear why Parker purchased them.
Parker has made frequent requests for plan reassessments because they have overutilised their plan.
At his plan reassessments, the Agency explained to Parker that their funding was not provided for rent, groceries or multiple food processors. Parker’s local area coordinator works with them to make sure he understands how they can use their NDIS funding to best meet their support needs.
Once these amendments are enacted, the Agency will also be able to change Parker’s plan management type to Agency managed to ensure that Parker is appropriately utilising their plan to provide for their disability related needs.”
Are we going to see any more wonderfully creative fictional recreations of the literal text of the explanatory memorandum because you’d rather not try and justify what’s there?
goll: “The succession of LNP governments had ten years to chase the tax debts!” is perhaps the wackiest response I’ve seen to Robotax yet, given that the sole argument put forward for doing it is “legislation says we must” and yet it was one dodgy thing even the LNP managed not to do for ten years.
Griff: I always thought Kovacic seemed like a surprisingly competent candidate for the Libs at that election if they’d run her in a more winnable seat, but running her in Parramatta was inevitably doomed without a time machine to go back four years and not bait the Chinese community.
C@tmommasays:
Sunday, March 31, 2024 at 10:36 am
I vividly recall that Andrew Charlton is very handsome.
_____________________
I find Amelia Hamer very attractive.
There was something else, however. There seems to have been a concerted media campaign against Ms Keneally and for Ms Le, including in these pages and no I expect very much in the Murdochracy and social media. Odd that so much attention would be paid to what was a safe electorate. Actually not really – the strategy worked as intended. Maybe a trial run for the future. It’s not hard to guess who Ms Le, a once and future Liberal, would support in a hung Parliament situation.
@Steve777
Steve the criticism of the media’s role in this that you have pointed out does have some merit. But you have left out the elephant in the room. It was Tu Le who constantly went to the media that largely drove this. Le never did grow up in the electorate despite previous MP Chris Hayes inferring this, and only moved into the electorate the previous year of election. She was also handpicked by the previous member. Which shows a certain disrespect to the rank and file, as the previous member knows better then them. The truth is Tu Le its very doubtful would have won the preselection despite the media making it seemed as she was robbed. And it’s very doubtful she will be the candidate for Fowler for Labor at the next election. It’s reported there is still anger in Labor branches of what she did, – and some feel she heavily contributed to the ground swell of discontent that cost Labor the seat.
Rebecca, you “bent” the explanatory memorandum to suit your purpose.
When used as intended it makes sense.
Political Nightwatchman: I’m sure Dai Le will be over the moon if what you’re saying is true, because it’ll make her re-election campaign just that much easier.
Rebecca
“and yet it was one dodgy thing even the LNP managed not to do for ten years.”
Are you sure you expressed yourself as intended?
goll: How does it make sense? Do you think there’s such an abundance of people on the NDIS misusing their plans in ways like buying 10 food processors for no reason that it warrants legislative intervention?
It’s a phenomenally patronising and insulting thing to put in an explanatory memorandum of all places. The amount of people here who will let their true colours show and start sounding like Scott Morrison on any given issue if it it’s what they have to do to fall in line and defend something a Labor government did.
In respect of Robotax, what don’t you understand? You’re trying to attack the LNP for *not* doing something dodgy that Labor did do, which is definitely the most bizarre response to that situation that I’ve seen yet.
Rebecca says:
Sunday, March 31, 2024 at 10:49 am
Griff: That’s incorrect: the ATO is claiming debts are owed, but like Robodebt not explaining the basis on which they’re calculated, many historical enough that they’re beyond the period people are required to keep records. It’s just an asserted debt – and, just as with Robodebt, it’s already run into trouble about being an improper process.
It may well require legislation, but in that case the legislation should’ve been urgently rushed through, not to have, months and months later once it gets negative official scrutiny, Jones going “well the Department told me ‘nah it’s all good mate’” (and still no suggestion of actually getting off one’s arse and doing the legislating).
The reaction to the situation makes me seriously wonder what would’ve happened to Robodebt if Labor had won the 2016 election, and whether it would’ve seen a similarly dawdling response until forced to act.
_____________
Are you asserting that I am incorrect on the basis that the debt is merely asserted? 🙂
You are focussing on the process of notifying and collecting the debt being the same. The real difference is that one debt is unlawful and one is not. For Robodebt, the debt calculation used assumed rather than actual income, making it unlawful. There are no claims that the tax debt is calculated incorrectly. It is concern in that it is now being collected. This is why legislation may be required. If you don’t want to acknowledge the difference, I can’t explain it any more clearly and best desist from explaining any further.
Carry on 🙂
@Griff
There are no claims that the tax debt is calculated incorrectly.
————
I think though that there are claims that recipients of tax debt notices simply aren’t able to know if the tax debt has been calculated correctly or not, because there isn’t any explanation for how it was calculated. That aspect is similar to Robodebt, where there were undoubtedly cases where correct debts were raised, albeit on an unlawful and unexplained approach. As it relates to this tax issue, the age of some of the debts is the real barrier to testing whether they’ve been calculated correctly or not.
Griff: You’re misunderstanding me. Robotax involves the sending of automated debt letters claiming debts are owed, without explaining *why* they are owed. There are absolutely claims that the tax debt is calculated incorrectly – because there’s no evidence being provided as to how it was calculated in the first place.
It leaves people in exactly the same situation as they were with Robodebt: having to FOI a government agency to try to get some sort of justification and determine if there was a valid debt themselves so they can respond accordingly if it isn’t – made harder because some of the debts were so historic.
That legislation may be required to stop the collection – even though it wasn’t when the LNP just didn’t send out these dodgy claim letters for ten years, as someone else kindly pointed out above – doesn’t change that it’s a similarly poor situation in terms of proving that the debts actually exist in the first place.
Rebecca
“In respect of Robotax, what don’t you understand? You’re trying to attack the LNP for *not* doing something dodgy that Labor did do, which is definitely the most bizarre response to that situation that I’ve seen yet.”
It is dodgy that the LNP didn’t act on something required by legislation.
But expected!
Rebecca
“goll: How does it make sense? Do you think there’s such an abundance of people on the NDIS misusing their plans in ways like buying 10 food processors for no reason that it warrants legislative intervention?”
There’s an abundance of service providers misusing the “plans”.
You seem to have no hesitation in “contorting” things.
goll: These responses are convincing me in a way I’d never considered before that many people here would’ve defended Robodebt to the teeth, at least initially, if Labor had won the 2016 election.
goll: But the hypothetical “Parker” was not a service provider, just an NDIS recipient who mysteriously wanted to buy 10 food processors for shits and giggles.
The example had absolutely nothing to do with any suggestion of any kind of misconduct by any service provider, whatsoever – it was suggesting that participants will do/are doing ridiculous things with their funds for shits and giggles.
Trying to pretend it was about “service providers” is a bald-faced lie.
@goll at 11.23am
There’s an abundance of service providers misusing the “plans”.
You seem to have no hesitation in “contorting” things.
————
Goll, why bother arguing about things you plainly haven’t read or don’t understand? The part of the Ex Mem that Rebecca has cited relates specifically to management of plan funding by participants, not what service providers do.
Now Stinker and Rebecca trying. Put simply, a debt being chased prior to the request to keep records does not make it unlawful. As there is no statute of limitations on tax debt, it is currently unlawful to wipe the debt based on time. It is actually the opposite to what you are arguing.
As I said, fix that with legislation. But that is not evidence of the debt being unlawful.
Now I must really desist. Real life beckons 🙂
@Rebecca at 11.24am
You’re spot on, and it’s a symptom of what happens when people treat politics as though it’s a football game instead of a contest of ideas
Griff: You’re still not getting it: the debt isn’t unlawful because it was incurred prior to the period in which people have to keep records (although it should be), it’s at least potentially unlawful because there’s no evidence provided on how the alleged debt was calculated in the first place. This isn’t complex, and I think you’re deliberately ignoring the point because you’re not that dense.
Political Nightwatchman: I’m sure Dai Le will be over the moon if what you’re saying is true, because it’ll make her re-election campaign just that much easier.
@Rebecca
Well Labor didn’t choose her in Cabramatta and had no problems. I love these people outside the party lecturing Labor they should select candidates who complain to the media, but don’t have rank and file support.
Stinker
“Goll, why bother arguing about things you plainly haven’t read or don’t understand? The part of the Ex Mem that Rebecca has cited relates specifically to management of plan funding by participants, not what service providers do.”
Rebecca misused and ,”slanted for purpose” the reference to the explanatory memorandum.
Rebecca was clearly disingenuous.
@Griff, I’m not saying the debts are unlawful. I am saying that the circumstances are such that some taxpayers who receive notices of debt have no straightforward way of testing the accuracy of the debts. That’s a failure of administration, even if it’s not strictly unlawful. And don’t forget that Robodebt was “lawful” until it wasn’t – the advice to Government was initially that it was open to do what it did, which ultimately was wrong.
@ goll, take your blinkers off mate. Rebecca posted the content of the Ex Mem verbatim.
Political Nightwatchman: No, they preselected a local Vietnamese solicitor, which was a very sensible choice – but they’ll probably need a multicultural candidate with a higher profile to oust Le now.
A candidate like Vo very likely would’ve won in 2022, but Le has the advantages of incumbency now, a much higher profile, and a term in office to prove that she’s not as scary as Labor might have hoped to portray her as.
I think Tu Le has the profile from having been outspoken last time (and having gotten so much sympathetic attention in the process) to take on Dai Le and win. It’s entirely possible there’s someone else out there who could do it, but if the branch is more interested in settling scores than finding the strongest candidate it certainly makes Dai Le’s life easier.
Rebecca says:
Sunday, March 31, 2024 at 11:31 am
Griff: You’re still not getting it: the debt isn’t unlawful because it was incurred prior to the period in which people have to keep records (although it should be), it’s at least potentially unlawful because there’s no evidence provided on how the alleged debt was calculated in the first place. This isn’t complex, and I think you’re deliberately ignoring the point because you’re not that dense.
_________
Oh I agree that the ATO should provide evidence for the tax debt raised. Not sure where you are going with “potentially unlawful” and no idea how you equate that in your mind with Robodebt which was unlawful. If I didn’t know better, I would be saying you are “deliberately ignoring” how bad Robodebt is 🙂
Stinkersays:
Sunday, March 31, 2024 at 11:35 am
@ goll, take your blinkers off mate. Rebecca posted the content of the Ex Mem verbatim”
And then misused ithe memorandum to fit Rebecca’s purpose.
Clearly disingenuous!
Likely.
Griff: Stinker worded his response a bit better than I did, but if there’s no way to test the accuracy of the debts, it leaves open the real possibility – and I’d even go so far as to say real likelihood – that a proportion of the debts might not, in fact, be accurate. If the ATO took your advice and actually provided the supposed basis, there would at least be far more clarity around what proportion of claimed debts were actually lawful – but Labor appears to be in no hurry to do so.
And spare me the pretend-theatrics about Robodebt: I was the recipient of one of those letters, and it’s one of the reasons I’m so unsympathetic about excuses for people receiving these ones under Labor.
Can’t have freedom of expression in Hong Kong, can we?
Hey, A-E, just joking!
Radio Free Asia closes Hong Kong bureau, citing security law concerns: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/radio-free-asia-withdraws-hong-kong-press-freedom-rcna144194
@ goll
“ then misused ithe memorandum to fit Rebecca’s purpose.”
—————
What does this even mean? Rebecca’s argument is that the part of the Ex Mem cited is patronising. To make that argument good, she cited the extract verbatim. So you’re saying that using evidence to make good an argument is disingenuous? That’s very 1984.
The so-called ‘robotax’ complete with sob stories from the piteous sob story, self-pity mongering, moral panic mongering supported by Dutton, Bandt and Rebecca is all about making taxpayers pay the tax they actually owe.
You might find it shocking that the Greens and the Coalition, Murdoch, Stokes, Costello, the Guardian and Buttrose are in bed with this one.
I don’t.
The whole point is not about people paying the tax they owe. The whole point is to stoke moral panic in order to destroy a fully functioning Labor Government that is pushing through hundreds of reforms.
There is no daylight between Bandt and Dutton, Stinker and Rebecca.
Stinker says:
Sunday, March 31, 2024 at 11:34 am
@Griff, I’m not saying the debts are unlawful. I am saying that the circumstances are such that some taxpayers who receive notices of debt have no straightforward way of testing the accuracy of the debts. That’s a failure of administration, even if it’s not strictly unlawful. And don’t forget that Robodebt was “lawful” until it wasn’t – the advice to Government was initially that it was open to do what it did, which ultimately was wrong.
____________
If that was your takeaway from the Royal Commission, it says it all.
@Boerwar at 11.51am
It is remarkable how few words in your post would need to change to be an unironic Coalition defence of Robodebt circa 2016.
Yes Griff, that was my only takeaway from the Robodebt RC. Got it though, Labor = infallible, Libs = evil