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Properly, what was all that about? After having its agenda stymied for many of the final two and a half years, Labor discovered it wanted simply half a billion {dollars} and a few minor concessions to get the all of the sudden compliant Greens to open the legislative floodgates, ending the parliamentary yr with a bang.
The Home of Representatives returned this morning to rubber stamp various payments arriving again from the Senate, together with the obligatory on-line ID invoice, one other of many black marks on this Parliament. How Labor whinged and whined when the Howard authorities, in full hubris mode after the 2004 election, used its management of the Senate to conduct three-day inquiries into main payments — but right here was Labor working a farcical non-inquiry into a serious intrusion on privateness conjured up by the dying mainstream media trade. Richard Alston have to be delighted — Australia’s standing as a worldwide village fool that he labored so arduous to attain stays secure for a number of years to come back.
The federal government’s different stitch-up with the Coalition, on political funding, has vanished into subsequent yr and can hopefully by no means be seen once more, given the chance Albanese will name an election earlier than Parliament resumes in February. That might have come as a shock in the event you relied solely on the 9 papers, which had repeatedly insisted the Coalition was behind the invoice, however that’s what occurs when journalists merely repeat Don Farrell’s claims with out scrutiny.
The donations ‘reforms’ are a hoax and the key events are in mattress collectively
In lieu of the political spending stitch-up returning in February, Farrell may have the honour of being liable for a really spectacular failure on electoral integrity. He had a mandate to implement Labor’s election dedication of a $1,000 donation disclosure threshold and real-time disclosure, and will have simply completed so even with the opposition of the Coalition at any time during the last two and a half years. Even that might have represented a big step ahead for the farcical donations disclosure regime on the Commonwealth stage. As an alternative, Farrell and Labor determined it had larger fish to fry in relation to revenge on Clive Palmer and choking off the specter of independents at a time when the key get together vote is collapsing.
The last-minute rush introduced some higher laws, nevertheless. Australia will now have a brand new statutory tort to deal with severe invasions of privateness, a long-overdue reform lastly steered via by Legal professional-Common Mark Dreyfus as a part of a considerable reform of the Privateness Act (although the anti-doxxing sections of the identical invoice, particularly drafted to guard individuals who need to destroy others’ careers for the crime of protesting genocide, belong within the rubbish with the obligatory on-line ID laws and Farrell’s stitch-up).
Labor additionally climaxed this time period’s competitors coverage reforms with an overhaul of merger approval legal guidelines — extra rapidly than Crikey predicted mid-year. The laws itself gained’t finish the spectacle of the pro-big enterprise Australian Competitors Tribunal overturning smart Australian Competitors and Shopper Fee (ACCC) choices to dam mergers, however it caps what has been crucial parliamentary time period for strengthening competitors for over a decade. The ACCC’s Gina Cass-Gottlieb has been an necessary a part of that with the regulator — inspired by Labor — pursuing landmark circumstances in opposition to Qantas and the massive supermarkets; these of us who mentioned she’d be a dud are having to often eat our phrases. If solely Labor might overcome its bizarre psychological block about divestiture powers.
Simon Birmingham additionally mentioned his farewell yesterday, bringing to an finish practically 18 years within the Senate and thus marking one other step within the sluggish deliberalisation of the Liberal Social gathering. Birmingham had just a few ministerial stints in his time, however he ought to remembered because the training minister who first cleaned up Labor’s fiddle vocational training establishments after which, with the encouragement of Malcolm Turnbull, really tried to offer us a fairer training funding system in 2018. It’s forgotten now, however after a succession of confused coverage positions on training funding and the Gonski reforms beneath Tony Abbott, the Liberals beneath Turnbull determined to really strive implementing the unique Gonski reforms correctly — with out the Gillard authorities’s politically motivated handouts to the Catholic sector.
Labor beneath Invoice Shorten, nevertheless, determined to get some payback for all these years of Coalition claims that Labor had a personal college hit listing, and launched a cynical marketing campaign to defend extreme funding for Catholic colleges. Birmingham and Turnbull fought arduous to implement good coverage earlier than having to succumb to Labor’s craven give up to the Catholic foyer. Australia would have a greater and fairer system of college funding if Birmingham had gained.
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