Amy Remeikis

Hello my lovelies and welcome to another sitting of the 48th parliament – Angus Taylor’s first in the opposition driving seat.

Usually you would have me, Amy Remeikis with you for the two weeks, but for the first time in years I have to miss a parliamentary sitting because of another project I am on deadline for.

Lucky for you, you have Glenn Connley to keep the blog open for the duration of the sitting, which I am very grateful for. He’ll be helped along by a team of experts (inside and out of politics) and Mike Bowers will be lending his support as well to make sure you are covered. I am very, lucky to have such a great team to count on – sometimes life just gets on top of you and this is one of those times, so I am very appreciative of being able to down the daily tools for a short while to try and rebalance parts of my life.

But I will still be watching and dropping in when needed – and you can still ask questions whenever you need and if Glenn can’t answer them, I will find who you need.

The domestic agenda has some what been pushed to the side by the US and Israel waging war against Iran. The civilian casualties will haunt anyone who saw them – school girls, too young to have any impact on their country’s politics, slaughtered while they were in a place they should have been safe. The major parties are on a unity ticket in supporting the US-Israel action, despite not having been clued in, or given information that the strikes were coming. So we support whatever it is they do, even when we have no information about why, what information they are using, what is the target, what legal advice they have it meets international law, or what, if any, precautions are being made to protect civilians. That’s how slavishly devoted to the US we now are.

Which seems a very apt way to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Howard election. What better way to show how he changed Australia then to just have both major parties support the US (and by extension Israel) despite the wariness from much of the rest of the world. That’s just us being a good deputy sheriff, huh?

Domestically the fight over CGT discount and negative gearing is shaping up, Pauline Hanson and One Nation is continuing to collect all grievances, the LNP are continuing to greenlight and further legitimise Hanson’s divisive rhetoric and the Labor government seen too cowed to actually pushback where it is needed.

Good times.

So Glenn will be guiding you through the day (and coming weeks) – be gentle, I will miss you. And worry not – I am already up and drinking coffee as I panic over a deadline – but I will be back with you next sitting. Until then, take care of you – and keep caring. It matters.

Over to you, Glenn xx