New Politics: Australian Politics, News, Analysis & Commentary

In this episode: the Budget 2023 announcement and our expert analysis… are CEOs in Australia paid too much? We speak to Rebecca Bachmann about this issue … and when there's a Budget, there's also a Budget Reply, we look at what the Opposition has got to say about it.

The Budget was released by the Treasurer Jim Chalmers, and Budgets always contain a strong political dimension that goes way past any balance sheets and figures that exist on the Budget pages. This Budget is a combination of the Labor government doing what they said that they would do during the 2022 federal election campaign: a cautious approach – probably being a little bit far too cautious – but they’ve directed funding towards some of those areas that were causing political problems – the single parent payment has been continued from when the youngest child turns eight to when the youngest child turns 14. Jobseeker payments have been increased by $20 per week – better than nothing, but it’s still short of what's needed. The Budget is also notable for what’s not in there: there was meant to be a greater source of revenue for mining and there was a substantial increase in iron ore revenues over the last year. The petroleum resources, rent tax was meant to have been improved substantially but it’s only going to raise $2.4 billion over the next four years. But the biggest political aspect of the budget is a predicted $4 billion surplus. It’s cold comfort for the people at the lower end of the scale, who were hoping to receive more support. Despite these issues, it is a Budget that offers a good starting point for the future, rather than offering any substantial reform.

The CEO of Qantas Alan Joyce will leave his position in November, and during his 15 year term, he's earned over $125 million, while Qantas made cumulative losses of $1.9 billion. There is a perception that CEOs in Australia are overpaid, and especially at a time when wages have stagnated over the past decade. In the case of Qantas, there's been an attack on workplace rights – they sacked 6,000 workers in 2020; it also grounded its entire fleet in 2011, and service quality has deteriorated over the past three years. Joyce hasn’t represented value for money for Qantas and is it the case where CEOs in Australia are being overpaid? Dr. Rebecca Bachmann from Macquarie University outlines some of the issues surrounding transparency and remunerations.

There was also a Budget reply from the Opposition leader, Peter Dutton, which didn’t seem to have much to say except for a continuation of the Morrison–Abbott–Howard philosophy of lower taxes, lower immigration, small government, complaining about the Labor government not being able to deliver surpluses in the future – despite the fact that a surplus has just been delivered. It’s a message for the electorate of yesteryear, and the world has moved on.

In this episode: will he stay, or will he go? The future of Scott Morrison in Parliament; the company a prime minister should keep; forget about the Coronation, the move to a republic needs to start now; and how soon before we see a new major political party in Australia?

The former Prime Minister Scott Morrison is on the verge of leaving politics – or so we're told. We’re heard this story before, so it’s a never-ending speculation. Morrison has been linked to “a number” of defence corporations in Britain, keen to employ him in an AUKUS-related position, but there are no names attached to the sources, so the source of these reports could actually be Morrison himself. There are many people who would like Morrison to leave Parliament as soon as possible and never be heard of again but it also brings up the question of the working life of ministers after they leave Parliament, and whether it's in Australia's national interest.

The Prime Minister Anthony Albanese attended the wedding of Kyle Sandilands and Tegan Kynaston and resulted in a few protests, mainly along partisan lines. Kyle Sandilands is one of the most offensive people on radio but being the prime minister is about trying to appeal to as many people as possible. Sandilands does have a massive audience – the ‘Kyle and Jackie O Show’ is the leading morning program in Sydney with almost 200,000 listeners every day, so being on good terms with a major media personality does have its political benefits for the Prime Minister even if it’s probably more to the benefit of Sandilands, rather than Albanese.

There doesn't seem to be too much interest in the UK Coronation event so far: the Prime Minister is already in London and has met the King, and he'll be attending the Coronation – it would have been more appropriate for the Governor–General to attend. Of course, a republican Prime Minister of Australia needs to be polite and say the right words, but the sooner the country gives a Scottish-styled response to the Royal Family and moves towards a republic, the better.

The idea of politics of the centre-right going through a reformation is starting to take hold, with more academic material being published about this concept. The last time this happened was with the formation of the Liberal Party in 1944 – it is far easier to work with what you've got, and it has to be remembered that there were suggestions after the Labor Party lost their fourth consecutive federal election in 2004, it should disband and reform in a totally different way – only for the party to go on and win the 2007 federal election. A political party can never be written off but if the creation of a new major political party is ever going to happen, this is the most favourable time.

In this episode: a boost in military spending, but what does it mean for funding of other important areas; The Dominion case in the United States is the beginning of the end of News Corporation; And the continuing federal “No-alition”: is it a recipe for success or a disaster in the making?

ANZAC Day was held this week and what better way to commemorate this than the federal government announcing an extra $19 billion as part of the review of the Australian Defence Force. The military industry is like a beast that keeps needing to be fed: there will also be an additional $42 billion spent on defence over the next decade, and it’s an area that rarely receives the same cutbacks that apply to virtually every other sector in the community – all the defence department has to do in Australia is ramp up the fear on China and every dollar that they ask for will be given. National security and defence spending are important issues that every country in the world needs to consider and take on seriously but, sometimes in Australia, these matters force every other issue onto the backburner.

There’s two defamation cases concerning News Corporation – they've had different outcomes, but have a similar message: News Corporation is a diminishing influence and overstretched itself as a right wing propaganda unit and is now paying the price. In the United States, News Corporation settled a defamation case with Dominion Voting Systems for $US797 million – a quarter of its cash reserves – and it’s a punishment for spreading the lies about the 2020 presidential election being rigged and stolen from President Donald Trump and the Republican Party. In Australia, Lachlan Murdoch has dropped his defamation case against Crikey News, claiming that he didn't want to give Crikey any more publicity. Up until recently, News Corporation would have doubled down, poured more money into litigation costs and defending itself. But this time, it has given up without much of a fight. This is a humiliation of one of the biggest news media companies in history and it could also be the beginning of the end of News Corporation as well.

A Newspoll was released last week and, as predicted, the news is getting worse for the Coalition, with a confirmation of the poor standing of the Coalition and the Leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton. This can provide an opportunity for change for a political party to understand that everything is not currently working, and doing politics differently might be a better option. But the Liberal Party is not for changing and hasn’t understood that opposition for the sake of opposition doesn't work anymore. And with a change in demographics and voting patterns, they might be out of office for a long time. This change isn’t good news for the Labor Party either, and there are suggestions that this could be the last majority government – from either side of government – and the future will be based around coalitions of common political interests.

In this episode: rebooting the National Disability Insurance Scheme; the build-up to the federal Budget; and the latest opinion polls – good news for the Prime Minister; bad news for the Opposition leader.

There’s been a build-up to the Budget which will be announced on 9 May, it’s at the final stages of development and still working out what will be palatable at this point of the political cycle, and what’s in the interests of the Australian community and the economy.

There’s a wide range of budget issues coming into focus – the cost of the AUKUS deal with the United States and Britain; the amount allocated towards social housing; and there’s also the debate about whether the Stage 3 tax cuts should proceed, even though they won’t commence until 1 July 2024 – there’s also the cost of Medicare and raising the rate of Jobseeker payments – a standard ‘bread and butter’ Labor issue that many in the community are finding it difficult to understand why the government is being so recalcitrant about.

The focus of attention of the week has been on the NDIS, which Bill Shorten promises to reboot and reform after the previous Coalition government mismanaged the program during its term in office. It is a costly program, but it’s an essential program – but the Budget announcement will confirm if the dollars are going to be matched up with the rhetoric.

There are new opinion polls, and they provide bad news for Peter Dutton, and good news for the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. Sometimes, a prime minister can be made to look good because of a weak opposition leader – but the flipside is that an Opposition can be made to look even worse because of a competent government – in this case, it’s probably a combination of the two – but despite all attempts by the mainstream media to boost his stocks, the polling for Dutton has reached his lowest level, and it just keeps getting worse and worse for the Liberal Party.

In this episode, another resignation in the Liberal Party, and are there more to follow? And the cost blowout in the Inland Rail Project is yet another example of why Barnaby Joyce should leave politics.

After a short and sustained period of criticism about his role in the Liberal Party's leadership ‘no’ vote for the Voice to Parliament. Julian Leeser has resigned from Shadow Cabinet and has now said that he will campaign for the ‘yes’ case. This will place more pressure on the leadership of Peter Dutton and add to the debate about the future of the Liberal Party. But Lesser said he wants to make amendments to what has already been proposed in the referendum; he also didn’t end up repudiating any of Dutton's claims that the Voice to Parliament will end up costing billions of dollars to implement and it will grind the government to a halt, so it’s difficult to discern – at this stage – what Leeser’s true motivations are.

When he became the leader of the Liberal Party, Dutton said his job after the 2022 federal election loss was “to unite the Liberal Party”, but with MPs resigning from Shadow Cabinet, former Liberal Party MPs resigning from the party, and backbenchers speaking out, it’s far from a united party and it’s a political mess that keeps being pulled down by internal conservative forces.

It was also revealed during the week that the cost of the Inland Rail Project has doubled within two years and has increased from $16 billion, up to $31 billion. The Inland Rail Project commenced in 2018 and is proposed to operate between Brisbane and Melbourne and was one of Barnaby Joyce’s pet projects when he was the deputy prime minister and the Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development. There were also claims that he was trying to fasts-track this Inland Rail Project and change the path of the project so it would run closer to the land that he owns near Narrabri – 1,000 hectares of land, which no one in their right mind would buy unless they knew of a future government project that was in development. Where there’s corruption – or alleged corruption – Joyce is never too far behind, and his time in politics should be close to an end.

In this episode: the result of the Aston byelection – was it a big Labor victory or a bad loss for the Liberal Party?… and celebrating the life of Yunupingu: he was a great man of Australian political life. The work on the Voice to Parliament will continue, despite the best efforts of the small men of the Liberal and National parties to derail it.

The Aston byelection resulted in either a big win for the Labor Party or a big loss for the Liberal Party, depending on which perspective people wish to choose. Most of the analysis during the week has been on what went wrong for the Liberal Party, but the focus should be on what the Labor Party did right to win the seat. Byelections have many political issues that can be read into them – most of this analysis tends to be wrong – but the result in Aston seems like it’s an accurate reflection on what’s happening in federal politics at the moment: good news for the Labor government; bad news for the Liberal Party.

Yunupingu died during the week, campaigner for Indigenous land rights for most of his life. He first came to prominence with the Gove Land Rights case in 1971, which gave rise to the Woodward Royal Commission, the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, which in turn gave rise to the Mabo decision in 1992. Yunupingu was a highly respected member of the Australian community. His legacy on reconciliation, treaty, Voice to Parliament, land rights: he created the signposts for the where Australia needs to go on these issues – there’s still some way to go on this – but Australia will finally get there, despite offensive opportunism of Peter Dutton and the Liberal–National Coalition: the small men of Australian politics.

In this episode: a wrap up of the New South Wales election from last weekend, with the NSW Coalition ending their 12 years in office and the start of a NSW Labor government; the case against whistleblower Richard Boyle continues, but it needs to stop; the federal government social housing policy has stalled in Parliament; a new inquiry into the Freedom of Information system; and predictions for what might happen in the Aston byelection.

There was a change of government in New South Wales last weekend and of the nine jurisdictions across Australia, there's only one Liberal Party government. Former Prime Minister John Howard suggested it's just a matter of time before the Liberal Party returns as a political force, but there are some very big long-term problems for the party, and not just in New South Wales.

The case against whistleblower Richard Boyle is proceeding after the judge in the case decided that he's not immune from prosecution and the case should now proceed. The Labor government promised to clean up the whistleblower legislation and they still haven't done that. The Attorney–General Mark Dreyfus needs to act now and stop this case from going ahead any further.

The Labor government’s social housing policy is on the backburner – it’s only 30,000 properties across Australia, it’s not enough and the Greens cannot support it. Jim Chalmers did suggest that it would offer a boost to the economy as well as address a serious housing supply issue but it doesn't look like it's going to be the panacea that he suggested. And this is the time to do this properly.

The Australian Greens, the crossbench and the Coalition have created an inquiry into the Freedom of Information system – the Coalition virtually destroyed when they were in office and it’s a system that does need to be cleaned up.

The Aston byelection on Saturday could be Peter Dutton’s last stand. Historically, it's a seat the Liberal Party should hold – they’ve held it for over 30 years. But when you look at much of the evidence at the moment, it's also a seat that Labor should win. There's a 2.8 per cent margin, the Liberal Party in Victoria is in disarray. And it's not looking very good for the Liberal Party who might be looking for a new leader after Saturday night.

In this episode: the week in federal politics; the AUKUS deal; the Voice to Parliament; and the safeguard mechanism for emissions control. The anti-trans agitators and Nazis getting an unwelcome reception all across Australia. And a final look at the New South Wales State election.

Federal Parliament returned this week: There were the remnants of the AUKUS debate from last week, where after the complete support provider to the deal by the media, there have been more voices calling for more scrutiny on AUKUS, how much it's going to cost and what it actually means. And this is on the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, which was based on weapons of mass destruction that were never found. The lesson is: on national security, never believe what the government is telling the public and it’s best to get a second opinion.

Neo-Nazis had been causing trouble again and this time it was the Nationalist Socialist Network who teamed up with the anti-trans rally organised by Moira Deeming, and Kellie Jay Keen-Minshull, who also goes by the name of “Posie Parker”. “Posie Parker” is a repulsive person and after mixing with the neo-Nazis in Melbourne, she went down to Hobart to organise another rally but was quickly shut down and hounded out of Tasmania. There’s no place for this kind of bigotry.

Election day in New South Wales election and it hasn't captured the imagination of the public – and who is to blame for this is hard to say, whether it's the inane coverage by the media or whether it's because of the relative performances of the two main sides of politics. NSW Labor does have to win 11 additional seats to win a majority government – the Liberal–National Coalition is governing in a minority position and has to win two seats to form a majority. That's unlikely to happen. The more likely outcome is a Labor government in a minority position, but with a good chance of winning a majority. The NSW Government does deserve to be dismissed but it might also be a case where NSW Labor hasn't done enough to convince the electorate that it needs to be returned to office.

In this episode, we look at the AUKUS deal and what it means for Australia. It looks like it’s a bad deal, so why did Albanese agree to it? It’s complicated.

Paul Keating also attacked this AUKUS deal – and we things he’s right – but instead of looking at the merit of what he had to say, the mainstream media decided that Keating was impolite to journalists. So, he can’t be taken seriously. Wow, these journalists are so upper-class, they don’t know what’s good for them: let them eat cake and we say – all the way with PJK.

And we've been asked the question: why did the mainstream media avoid the Robodebt Royal Commission? Again, the answer to this is complex: dwindling advertising revenues, news editors and journalists who come from the upper echelons of society, so receiving a social security payment – or being forced to pay it back – is a totally foreign experience for them. That’s the long-term effect of journalism courses around Australia becoming stacked with graduates from private schools.

And more corruption in New South Wales, this time there’s a recording of former NSW National Party leader John Barilaro bragging about his pork-barrelling adventures back in 2021. If only there was a decent mainstream media that has the courage to reveal these details on the eve of a NSW state election instead of delivering silence. If only…

In this episode… we look at the week in federal politics: the Liberal Party is in contortions over a tatty flag on top of Australian Parliament House (the important things) and wants to repeal the government’s popular superannuation tax – in the unlikely event it returns to government in the near future.

Malcolm Turnbull appears at the Robodebt Royal Commission – with the same level of collective amnesia which afflicted many other witnesses – and there are also calls for Katherine Campbell to be sacked from the public service.

A call for the takeover of Liberal Party branches by right-wing Christian groups needs to be resisted, otherwise that will be the end of the party.

International Women’s Day didn’t have the dramas from the time of Scott Morrison, and we should be thankful for that.

And is Dutton really facing a #Libspill? It’s in the interests of the Liberal Party to keep him there as a placeholder, but who’s next?

The New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption finds that corrupt behaviour in New South Wales is not actually corrupt. John Barilaro landed the trade job that he created while he was a Minister in NSW Parliament, and wasn’t qualified for. But the ICAC ruled that it wasn’t corruption. And, by the way, where is the report into alleged corruptions by Gladys Berejiklian?

And we are going to war with China in three years’ time, so we’ll need to order our military fatigues and start practising our commando techniques. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, of course – this would have to be among the more irresponsible and foolish journalism of recent years. And it’s racist as well. So, put the guns away, return the fatigues to sender: there will be not war with China.

It’s all a media beat-up.