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happy Sunday! Today on #Insiders are Karen Middleton, Virginia Trioli and Gareth Parker. The interview is with AG/IR Minister Christian Porter. This thread is not fact-checked.
happy Sunday! Today on #Insiders are Karen Middleton, Virginia Trioli and Gareth Parker. The interview is with AG/IR Minister Christian Porter. This thread is not fact-checked.
as is his habit, Speers opens by repeating, verbatim, a Morrison government announcement. He pretends that an NPC speech is actual policy work, and has accepted (and repeats) the lie that these IR suggestions are new or started last week. #Insiders
the montage busily promotes the idea that the five roundtables are not Workchoices 2.0 (they are) and pretends a Morrison announcement is something akin to actual Labor policy outcomes instead (it isn’t). #Insiders
#WhatThePapersSay quick report from the US, erasing the structural racism issues and, as is the Australian media way, never, ever mentioning police brutality and killing black people here. #Insiders
it is “clever” of Morrison to put pressure on the unions and sidieine Labor. Yes I must say wedge politics are terribly exciting. Great governance. Kind of like how having an election campaign stunt a day was widely praised by the gallery #Insiders
was dropping the latest union-busting bill a big deal? asks Speers. Nope, says Trioli. It was gone anyway. She moves quickly on to claiming that five IR working groups is very significant tho #Insiders
we want to create jobs that are secure and pay well says Parker. Regular reminder that journalists chatting about what the government says it will do is not news, it is not even comment and definitely not analysis. It is speculation #Insiders
again Speers repeats the lie that “we are at the start” of an IR process. This is wrong. Two of the five areas - green fields and compliance - have legislation drafted already. Nobody corrects him #Insiders
the only reference to Workchoices is to pretend the Liberals “learnt” from losing the 2007 election due to IR overreach. Yeah like Morrison learnt from going overseas during the climate fires and was MIA for 2 days after his government announced a $60 billion budget cut #Insiders
national cabinet and the abolition of COAG. Nobody mentions the cabinet in confidence and FOI implications. Nothing about a blatant seizure of executive power by the Commonwealth and drastic cut to already inadequate accountability measures #Insiders
cut to the interview with IR minister Porter a clip of ACTU head Sally McManus. Wow turns out Speers did know about “compliance and green fields” draft bills after all! And he used the EXACT phrase I did! Amazing. #Insiders
btw Porter’s opening remarks were basically “never waste a good crisis”, and he should have been asked if the government is exploiting the pandemic to achieve its pro-business IR goals. After this bold reveal, Porter defaults to their sloganeering lies about jobs #Insiders
casuals. What’s your view minister? Porter says he wants to hear from people with skin in the game, like employers, he says. Oddly, interrupting Speers does not challenge this #Insiders
the first award focus is hospitality. Porter repeats the furphy that complexity is the problem. No mention of systemic multi-million dollar underpayments by hospo bosses who never err the other way. He goes the “covid wreaked devastation in hospo” line instead #Insiders
“you’re arguing about jobs that don’t exist unless we grow them back” Porter gibbers. This is a tell. It shows how the Liberal leadership/comms strategists have re-worked “jobs and growth” into “growing jobs”. Slogans, slogans #Insiders
asked about #Robodebt, Porter says all the money extorted by illegal averaging will be refunded [paraphrased]. He says any compo will be subject to statute of limitations? Can someone fact check that? It must be pretty short? #Insiders
heh Speers has the #Robodebt data matching press release put out in Porter’s name back when he was Human Services minister. He won’t apologise due to ongoing litigation which argues negligence, which the AG/Commonwealth reject #Insiders
will you repay lost interest? Porter says the Commonwealth has not reached a position in mediation (ie still deciding if they can fight it). But the cost could increase above the $721 million? asks Speers. Porter says $721 million is paid, a lie. It is due in July #Insiders
btw the second covid stimulus payment is also due in July, the government has cut $60 billion from its original stimulus spending announcement, and economists have explained that stimulus dues not working if it is too small #Insiders
finally, it is reconciliation week. Will there be a referendum on recognition this term?
Short answer is no.
Short answer is no.
clip of Shorten calling #Robodebt 1.0 “this unlawful Ponzi scheme”. There is no denying this has been a “rolled gold” policy stuff up says Speers. Lol that’s what Riley called the $60 billion cut to stimulus last week too #Insiders
no apology, repeats Speers. Middleton emphasises the harm to victims of #Robodebt, Trioli picks up the point that ministers are scared of being called to court to give evidence [paraphrased]. She also points to the pain and suffering caused #Insiders
nobody credits the #NotMyDebt campaign. Trioli says Shorten “mobilised the lawyers”. Parker is asked if announcing a $721 million repayment on trash-taking Friday was “a bit sneaky”. After last Friday, you wonder what will be next week, he says. All the #Insiders chuckle at this.
just to be clear, last Friday the government announced a $60 billion budget cut, this Friday it announced $721 million repayment of unlawfully collected revenue, and instead of analysing systematic fiscal failures, a bunch of political journos laughed #Insiders
heh Parker walked back his “being a bit flippant” about the whopping $60 billion budget cut. Speers asks about jobseeker next, which he calls “doubling the job seeker payment”. This is two payments, the JSP base rate and the poetically named corona virus supplement. #Insiders
bit more about poor people as “jobs” and the political objectives of the Morrison government, and national accounts due Wednesday. Trioli says it would be good to get a sense of how the economy was tracking pre-Covid, which can be sourced, just not from this government #Insiders
onto national cabinet. The #Insiders are for [Commonwealth seizure of executive power and cabinet-in-confidence secrecy] abolishing COAG. Parker says there was another announcement of eye-watering amounts of money on Friday, for the national hospitals agreement #Insiders
is the good news for Annika Smethurst good news for press freedoms? Middleton says there was concern, public concern, and a case for protections for media - this is re warrants to search journo data. Not seeing broader concern outside their own sector here #Insiders
a bad week for the sector - media industry - with the closure of regional papers, says Speers. Trioli points to the downside in regional communities, older demographic, people who will not necessarily transition to online news #Insiders
a thriving commercial media industry would be the ideal, says Parker. He makes the same points about advertising revenue tanking during the pandemic #Insiders
#TalkingPictures demonstrates once again that cartoonists have the Morrison measure or are the only media staff who are allowed to say it. Rowe has Morrison at the IR table with a [WorkChoices?] cricket bat begins his bat #Insiders
#TalkingPictures Wilcox hasMorruson as the nature of the scorpion and Kudelka just laughs at the whole farce #Insiders
[rate limit exceeded]
#FinalObservations 1 Middleton would like to see [what the gallery have accepted is an IR olive branch] an extension of co-operative policy approaches. Like 300,000 other Australians she walked across a bridge for Reconciliation in 2000, she says #Insiders
#FinalObservations 1 Middleton would like to see [what the gallery have accepted is an IR olive branch] an extension of co-operative policy approaches. Like 300,000 other Australians she walked across a bridge for Reconciliation in 2000, she says #Insiders
#FinalObservations 2 Parker picks up on the dig at Labor premiers Morrison made during his #NPC speech and says it is more likely people from Auckland will be allowed into Aust than east coasters allowed into WA which “will be an island for a while yet”. #Insiders
Trioli says “secession - what they’ve always wanted” about WA. Her #FinalObservation is a Pope toon showing Rio Tinto blowing up the Juukan site in the Pilbara for profit and the Taliban blowing up statues in the name of the prophet. She points to Wyatt, saying he knew #Insiders
we go out with a tiktok of @jjzandt lip-syncing the terrible Minister for Jobs, Michaelia Cash, braying about having a curry for the country #Insiders
ht @RealFakeLiberal re 6-year expiry on debts, the Turnbull government used an Omnibus bill in January 2017 to expand the scope of #Robodebt. Explainer in the Mandarin from 18 January 2017 here: https://www.themandarin.com.au/74220-confusion-in-centrelink-about-removal-of-six-year-expiry-date-on-debts/
