John,

It’s rare for two sitting weeks to merge like these two did. Everything about this week was a straight line consequence of what happened last week. Last week we had a reshuffled ministry because Bridget McKenzie had resigned over “sports rorts”. This week the instability within the Coalition continued and by the end of the week the sports rorts story was back in the news and knocking on the Prime Minister’s door. Here’s the #5and5:

BEST

1. The Indonesian President’s visit
2. Aged care questions
3. Submarine fiasco
4. The Government loses a ballot
5. Dark Emus and poets
   

WORST

1. Jim Chalmers vs Josh Frydenberg
2. Closing the Gap
3. Angus Taylor’s new document
4. Sports rorts and the PM’s office
5. Pauline Hanson changes her mind

1. So the rule that we can’t have props in the chamber means there are occasions where you need to discreetly smuggle something into the House. In the past, for various stunts, we’ve smuggled in toy unicorns and even a full set of Muppets! This time, it wasn’t for a stunt. It was a gift. Underneath a copy of the Standing Orders I carried a wrapped ceramic bowl for Anthony Albanese to present to Indonesian President Joko Widodo. And it was a bowl with a story from bushfire affected Mogo:

Your Excellency, just last Friday, I received an unexpected reminder of our relationship when visiting the New South Wales South Coast with my shadow cabinet. Prior to the meeting in Batemans Bay, we visited Mogo. This is a very small hamlet on the South Coast. It had been under threat. As you drive into the main street of town, you see homes that have been reduced to ash. There, in Mogo's main street alongside coffee shops and other stores, was a store run by a local, Trent Harvey, who was working in Sydney and decided to move back to set up a small business in Mogo. It is called Indo Direct. It has arts, furniture and every product imaginable imported from your great nation. Here it is: a town with a population of just over 300 demonstrating in a really practical way why increased trade is good for both our economies and both our peoples—in this case, Indonesia's manufacturers and artisans and, on Australia's side, our retail and tourism sectors. On behalf of Labor, I purchased a ceramic artwork as a gift for you—a small gift to remind you of your support for our bushfire communities. It is from your country but purchased in Mogo, a small town doing it tough. It's not what you expect to run into when you're in a small hamlet on the South Coast. We will make sure that you receive that later today, Mr President.

Albo’s gift for the Indonesian President Joko Widodo.

2. On Thursday we had a series of sharp questions to the Health Minister Greg Hunt. It was led by Albo and Julie Collins - and used shocking findings from the Royal Commission. Questions like “Why are up to half of all older Australians in residential aged care malnourished?” and “The Aged-Care Royal Commission drew attention to inadequate prevention and management of wounds, sometimes leading to septicaemia and death, and aged-care residents sitting or lying in urine and faeces. Why are older Australians suffering from this neglect?”. Meanwhile government ministers just spoke about how much they hate Labor. The parliament was stopped in its tracks when Labor’s Mike Freelander asked this: “I have dedicated my working life to the health of children. Children with development delay and other disabilities, including autism, require a developmental diagnosis to qualify for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Children in disadvantaged areas are waiting up to 14 months longer than children in other areas for an NDIS developmental diagnosis. Why?”

3. We’ve been waiting for the moment where we had space during question time to fire a series of questions at Melissa Price, who since the election has been moved to the outer ministry in the Defence Industry portfolio. Deputy Leader Richard Marles, through forensic questioning, forced an answer about submarine contracts. You might remember the government claiming 90 per cent of the build would happen in Australia. Well guess how much Australian content they’ve insisted on in the contract? Not 90 per cent. Not even 50 per cent. We now know there is in fact no requirement in the contract for any of the work to create jobs in Australia.

4. There’s been a fair bit of publicity about the fact the Coalition split on the floor of Parliament, causing Llew O’Brien to become Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives. So here’s a behind-the-scenes look at how it happened. At the end of last week it was announced Kevin Hogan was resigning as Deputy Speaker, which meant there would be a ballot on Monday to replace him. It’s an important role and the last thing Labor wanted was for it to be filled as part of backroom deals within the National Party following the sports rorts saga. Conversations began with some of the disaffected Nats to see if we could find a candidate with a bit of independence. Every time it looked like someone might be willing to run they would then decide not to, and the potential candidate kept changing. Nats MP Ken O’Dowd in an interview with Patricia Karvelas acknowledged at one stage he was going to run and be nominated by Barnaby Joyce. When we went into question time on Monday I presumed that’s what was going to happen. Then as QT continued the message came back that no one was going to run. I tested whether anyone would be okay to run if I nominated them and was told no. I then reminded some Nats that they didn’t have to be in the room to be nominated. The message came back that no one was willing to run. As the Nats were nominating their official candidate Damian Drum, Mark Butler noticed Llew O’Brien leave the room. I decided to roll the dice and stood up and nominated him. The Speaker rang the bells for five minutes and Llew O’Brien returned. Across the front bench we thought he might be about to pull out of the ballot. He stood up. He accepted the nomination. Everyone was given a ballot paper. The government nominee received 67 votes and Llew O’Brien won with 75.

Frosty: Michael McCormack "congratulates" Nationals rebel Llew O'Brien. PHOTO: Alex Ellinghausen / Nine

5. It was a week where the parliament was a bit more interested in the arts than usual. The Parliamentary Book club met with Bruce Pascoe to discuss his book Dark Emu. The Sydney Symphony Orchestra was in town and decided to do pop up performances in the corridors of Parliament House. And Members of Parliament started reading their own poetry to the chamber. Here’s the work of two of Labor’s poets: Meryl Swanson and  Patrick Gorman .

1. Josh Frydenberg is getting worse. He doesn’t want to acknowledge the economy was weak before the bushfires and before coronavirus. He desperately wants everything to be someone else’s fault. First he read out numbers that he didn’t like that were meant to prove something. On cue Jim Chalmers interjected “No one does angry numbers like you Josh”. Then Josh decided he should be less angry and he became strangely quiet, only to have Jim interject: “Did you work out only dogs could hear that last answer?”

2. Wednesday was the day for the Closing the Gap report. Anthony’s speech captured the disappointment of five of the seven Closing the Gap targets falling short with these words: “Since 2008 I've sat in this place on this day and I've listened to fine speeches from prime ministers and opposition leaders alike. Afterwards, so often I've heard members of the press gallery say that days like today show the parliament at its best. But if this day adds up to nothing but sentiment and speeches, if this occasion becomes merely a ceremonial renewal of good intentions and a promise to do better next time, that is so far short of parliament at its best and so far short of Australia at our best.” Linda Burney went on to ask: “I refer to the fact that five out of the seven Closing the Gap targets have not been met or are not on track. Will one of the 14 new targets set in April be a justice target?”

Labor's Linda Burney with the Liberals' Ken Wyatt PHOTO: Alex Ellinghausen / Nine

3. There’s something about Angus Taylor. So much ambition, so little ability. But we should still respect him I guess given he is a former future prime minister. On Wednesday, in the middle of an answer where he was trying to get stuck into Labor, he dramatically proclaimed “I have a document!” and raised it in the air. You know when you laugh so much it hurts? This was one of those moments. People were calling out “Was it downloaded from the City of Sydney?” and “Is this one forged too?” Anthony Albanese stood and said “You won't be surprised that we want to check the validity of the document, and we ask that it be tabled.” I then asked if he could either table it or let us know the web address he claims to have downloaded it from.

Angus Taylor and his documents. PHOTO: Mike Bowers / The Guardian

4. There will be a lot more to emerge from the Senate Inquiry into sports rorts but yesterday’s hearing was explosive. Remember hearing from the PM that every project funded was “eligible”? Not true, according to testimony of the Auditor-General. Remember hearing the PM’s office just passed on representations from MPs? Not true either - we now know the PM’s office made direct and indirect representations to Bridget McKenzie’s office and the PM’s office made clear which projects it wanted funded.  Enjoy this video of Liberal Senator Eric Abetz not getting the answer he was after.

5. The Prime Minister claims he doesn’t have to worry about the Auditor-General’s report because his former Chief of Staff now runs the public service and he produced a secret report that says everything’s fine. There was an attempt in the Senate to force the release of the so-called Gaetjens report. The motion would have made it so Mathias Cormann couldn’t represent the Government in the Senate until the report was tabled. Even though Pauline Hanson signed the original motion she changed her mind at the last minute and voted against it. So we fell a vote short.

There was a lot more this week. Nationals Minister Mark Coulton claimed Labor had voted for a particular bill that didn’t even exist, and the PM tried to attack Anthony Albanese for a comment he made ... in 1985!

Parliament is back in two weeks. 

‘til then,

Tony

PS Song of the week is inspired by the usually uninspiring. But in honour of the chaos within the Nats here’s David Bowie “Rebel, Rebel”.