John,

Sorry the email is late this week but there’s a good reason. Shadow Cabinet met in Bateman’s Bay on Friday to hear first-hand from the community represented by Labor’s Fiona Phillips about the impact of the fires. It’s going to be a long road to recovery and there were plenty of practical suggestions we’ll be taking up to push the Government to do better by communities that are going through really difficult times.

So instead of spending the morning writing to you I spent the day driving and attending the meeting.

So, I’ve decided you have already forgiven me for the late email. Here’s the #5and5:

BEST

1. Reflecting on the bushfire crisis
2. The voice of the communities
3. Hostilities resume
4. An inquiry into the sports rorts
5. Who is our Deputy PM again?

WORST

1. Coalition of chaos
2. Scott Morrison’s character
3. Merit?
4. Pork barrel pressure
5. No integrity

1. On Tuesday the PM took up Anthony Albanese’s suggestion that we devote the entire day to the impact of the bushfires. No question time. No brawls. Morrison’s speech was okay but it feels like he is always trying to downplay what the climate is now causing. Right down to his attempt to name the fires “Black Summer”, even though the fires started burning months before summer started. Anthony Albanese captured exactly how much change we are seeing:

Yes, fire is part of who we are; our recorded history is heavy with its grim poetry: Ash Wednesday, Black Friday, Red Tuesday, Black Saturday. But we are at a turning point. This is not business as usual. This is not even fire as usual. We can no longer fall back on the poetry of Dorothea Mackellar and comfort ourselves with the thought that it's always been like this, that this is the price we pay for living on a beautiful but sometimes harsh and unforgiving continent, nor can we soften reality with the fiction that we had no way of predicting this. We have no choice but to turn to face the harsh new reality. The scale and intensity of the fires has been unprecedented.

BUSHFIRE SMOKE OVER PARLIAMENT THIS WEEK.
PHOTO: ALEX ELLINGHAUSEN / NINE

2. There’s always something particularly powerful when a local MP whose area has been affected by natural disaster speaks. These fires hit three Labor electorates very hard and when Fiona Phillips, Mike Kelly and Susan Templeman spoke it was like you were hearing the voice of the community. I’ve put a link here to their speeches as well as Rebekah Sharkie and a Coalition MP who was affected.

Fiona Phillips
Mike Kelly
Susan Templeman
Rebekah Sharkie
Darren Chester

3. The moment the legislation relating to the bushfires went through on Wednesday morning the Parliament changed. There had been a temporary refrain from hostilities but that was over. The job of holding the Government to account was back on. Speech after speech leading into Question Time referred to the sports rorts scandal. Amanda Rishworth, Mark Dreyfus, Nick Champion, Josh Wilson, Sharon Bird, Tim Watts, and Patrick Gorman delivered one of the most extraordinary demolition jobs I’ve seen. The next day Ed Husic kept the attack going, reminding everyone of the fact that Bridget McKenzie had gone, but Angus Taylor whose behaviour has also been terrible, is still there.

4. Labor Senators delivered a big win on Wednesday, ensuring there will be a Senate inquiry into the sports rorts scandal. This will give a voice to those clubs that should have received money but missed out when the Government effectively engaged in match-fixing to change the result. It will also provide a chance to work out exactly how involved the PM and his office really were. We already know it’s much more than he has admitted.

5. The argument that the Deputy Prime Minister isn’t very well known was made in a new way by the Queensland newspaper, The Courier Mail. They named Barnaby and had a photo of Barnaby. They named David Littleproud and had a photo of David Littleproud. They then named the Deputy PM Michael McCormack and had a huge photo of Labor’s Brendan O’Connor. It was a step up for the Deputy PM but serious defamation of Brendan O’Connor. On Thursday, after a bruising Question Time which saw the PM morph back into “angry Scott”, Brendan managed to get the room laughing when he stood up to explain how he had been terribly misrepresented.  Here’s what he said.

THEY LOOK NOTHING ALIKE!
PHOTO: ALEX ELLINGHAUSEN / NINE

1. When I said earlier the PM agreed to Anthony’s proposal that Tuesday would be devoted to the fires, not everyone agreed. The National Party decided to devote Tuesday to a leadership ballot to determine whether Barnaby Joyce would make a comeback. They then made Bridget McKenzie leader of the National Party in the Senate. So before there has even been a Question Time without Senator McKenzie as a minister, they had already started promoting her again.

BARNABY WANTS HIS JOB BACK.
PHOTO: ALEX ELLINGHAUSEN / NINE

2. We’ve learnt a lot about Scott Morrison’s character over summer. He’s stubborn, it’s all about marketing, and he can’t handle criticism. So we asked him whether he regretted: his party political ad about the fires; forcing a bushfire survivor to shake his hand only to then turn his back on her; saying the impact of the fires could be good for the economy; and saying volunteer firefighters didn’t need compensation for months of work because they “wanted to be there”. He refused to say he regretted any of it and became angry we had the temerity to ask. Why did he react this way? Well, probably because he’s stubborn, it’s all about marketing, and he can’t take criticism.

3. The simplest questions can be the ones that trip people up. Scott Morrison was asked twice, first by Pat Conroy and then by me, whether the projects that were funded under sports rorts were the ones with the most merit. And twice he refused to answer. When projects that scored more than 90/100 were rejected and projects scoring 40/100 were funded I reckon we already know the answer.

4. On Thursday Josh Frydenberg had a go at selectively quoting previous audit reports from when we were in office to try to take some of the pork barrel pressure off Scott Morrison and throw mud at Albo. Problem for Josh was Albo was back on his feet later in the day pointing out the exact report Josh had quoted from Labor’s time said our funding “was awarded on an electorate basis consistent with the proportion of seats held in the House of Representatives … three of the four largest grants were made to projects located in Liberal Party held electorates”. It concluded: “There was no evidence that the shortlisting criteria were intended to benefit electorates held by one party compared to another.” In other words, the exact opposite of the sports rorts scandal.

5. The Senate rejected Labor’s bid to have the new version of the Ensuring Integrity Bill sent to an inquiry. This is appalling. The new bill contains amendments that went through the Senate last year without debate. The whole bill then went through the House of Reps last year without anyone being allowed to debate it. An inquiry was going to be the only chance for public scrutiny of legislation that could see unions deregistered for minor paperwork breaches. It’s a bill to create appalling double standards. It’s all about a Government scheme to weaken unions and keep wages low.

We start the year with a dinner for caucus and the Labor staff members who work flat-out the entire year to help our cause. This year the surprise guest speaker was Paul Keating. As always he was brilliant, reminding us the big reforms and the success and structure of the modern economy all stand as Labor’s legacy. I really wish I was allowed to quote the speech. It was off the record so I can’t. But no one, and I mean no one, can match the turn of phrase of Paul Keating. It was vintage stuff.

I’ll be in touch next week. And hopefully not late.

‘til then,

Tony 

PS. The mood in the Parliament has shifted radically. After summer, the glossy veneer of Scott Morrison has been sanded right back. The instability of the Coalition is back. So for a song where the title of the band and the song explain the week pretty well, here’s Faith No More with “Falling to Pieces”.