Australia Institute Live: 'I'm very proud of the team I lead' says Sussan Ley as she's forced to fend off party room woes for the third day - as it happened.

We then get to:

Q Just quickly. What is happening inside the Liberal Party? You’ve had Jacinta go, you’ve had Andrew Hastie go, you’ve had an MP stand up this week saying I didn’t join to fight internally, I joined to fight Labor. It’s a mess, isn’t it?

Ley:

Well, I’m not going to reflect on conversations within our party room, but just to say this, Nat, I welcome the contest of ideas, wherever it comes from…

Host: Seems to be a bit more than that though.

Ley:

Wherever it comes from, and we did suffer a significant defeat at the last election. People are having their say. As I said, I welcome that, but I’m very proud of my team this week. We’re holding the government to account on its Optus triple zero failures, we’re asking the questions that you’ve just asked about these returning ISIS members, and we’re reminding Australians that we’re having the biggest drop in living standards in the developed world. So I’m proud of the team I lead. We’re working hard to demonstrate that this government is leading Australia down the wrong path, and we have something to fight for every day, and that is the future of hard working Australians.

Mainstream media is once again running the line that an anti-genocide protest “could be a disaster” which is what police said when they tried to stop the walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. If you need a reminder of that, up to 300,000 people walked the bridge to protest the genocide in Gaza and there were no incidents. Police responded to the fact there were no incidents by saying there could have been.

And yet, even though there were actual incidents at the far right march a few weeks after, we continue to hear about how “precarious” people marching against genocide could be.

That continued this morning with Sussan Ley’s breakfast media tour.

This is from the Seven network:

Host: We are being warned a pro-Palestinian protest at the Sydney Opera House this weekend could be a disaster, as concerns grow over the scale of the event and the potential for crowd crush. Let’s bring in Opposition Leader Sussan Ley live in Canberra. Good morning to you.

Ley: Morning, Nat.

Host: So in 1996, the final Crowded House concert drew 150,000 people, in 1990 Nelson Mandela drew 40,000. Should these protests go ahead?

Ley:

And those two events Nat, brought people together. But our opera house, our iconic opera house, should never be the background for the symbols of hatred that unfortunately, if this protest goes ahead would be seen and beamed around the world. Now, maybe it’ll be illegal – I hope it is, but it’s certainly immoral that this is proposed on the anniversary of those dreadful, terrorist inspired events in southern Israel. We all want the war to end, we want to see peace in the Middle East. There’s a US brokered peace deal on the table. Everyone with passion and concern should be focusing their efforts on supporting the outcome of that peace deal to see the hostages released, most importantly, aid flow to Gaza and an enduring peace put in place.

The host adds “and to stop the bombing” and then immediately goes into “Isis brides” which…GAHIKAIDbjl;Ogbfaguj;kwsbfew;GFSBoj’lzBCn’dilS.

It’s not as bad as it could be – the host asks about people who returned from Syria under the Coalition and exit counseling and how the Coalition can be so sure of the intent of the two women and four children. Ley doesn’t have answers to those questions and keeps repeating the BIG SCARY LINES.

Activists are locked onto a concrete barrel, blocking an access road into the Pine Gap. They have also brought in boats in solidarity with the flotillas attempting to break Israel’s blockade in Gaza.

The “flotilla of boats in the desert” says it has stopped contractors working at the Pine Gap base on Arrernte Country from entering the base and is demanding:

• the Australian Government enact immediate sanctions against Israel;
• the Australian attorney general prosecute Pine Gap’s active involvement in the genocide;
• Close and return Pine Gap stolen lands to Arrernte people.

We’re here because Pine Gap is sharing surveillance data, including geo-location information from mobile phones with the genocidal Israeli regime, who are targeting journalists and their families, children, teachers, doctors, patients and the entire population of Palestine.” Jorgen Doyle said in a statement.

The group and their supporters say senate estimates will be examining the defence portfolio today and Pine Gap’s role in supporting Israel’s genocide should be investigated.

Grog’s has written on the tax system for the Guardian this week (you can find the whole column, here)

Last Friday two news reports perfectly encapsulated why people might feel the economy is rigged against them. First, the ATO released the corporate tax transparency report showing that 28% of companies with annual turnover above $100m paid no tax on their income here. Then came a report by Jonathan Barrett on the impact of the ATO’s new initiative of clawing back old tax debts.

The political reality is if we want a better, more equal society, the government needs to raise more tax to pay for better public services and benefits. But more tax only works if the system is also fair.

As I have said many, many times before, Australia is a very low taxing nation – and this is not without consequences.

It’s not a fluke that Australia is the ninth-richest country in the OECD, but has the fifth-worst rate of poverty among women aged 66 or older (and seventh-worst among men) – we have the worst rate of aged pension for women and the second-worst rates of male aged pension. And not surprisingly Australia raised the 10th-least amount of tax:

Meanwhile, the actual real world impact of the Coalition continuing to circle the drain (and I know I have said this for a while now, but I do believe that the Coalition’s woes are irreversible and that it won’t make it out of this decade intact. There will be a centre right/right party, but it won’t be this one) is that the Albanese government can just skate along doing the very least.

Journalist Nick Feik makes that point in the latest 7AM podcast:

Sussan Ley is then asked:

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has written a letter to you wanting to crack down on leaks to the media. Now, this is to do with Andrew Hastie and Peter Dutton’s opinion of him. She says the Coalition is at risk of looking like a clown show. Is that how you see it?

Ley, who had to tell her colleagues that she doesn’t have access to the submissions to the internal party review into what happened at the last election, after Dutton’s submission blaming Hastie for the loss was leaked,

I’m not going to reflect on internal processes. We obviously have our discussions within our party room and you would expect them to focus on the contest of ideas*, which I welcome, and every single colleague is valued.

But who I value right now is Australians and the circumstances they find themselves in going backwards with declining living standards. We’re here and I’m very proud of my team. We’re backing aspirational Australians, Australians who want to get ahead, who get up in the morning, who take risks, who have a crack, who build this country and who deserve a government that supports them.

So we’re focused on lower taxes**, on aspiration, on holding the government to account for its failures with 000, its failure to answer questions on repatriating ISIS brides to this country***, and a host of other things**** that really there is a sense of disappointment***** from Australians in Anthony Albanese right now.

*’Contest of ideas’ is a very strange way of describing complaining about leaks, pointing the finger at different colleagues, and pointing out the dysfunction within the party room.

**The Opposition went to the last election with a plan to raise taxes. After the stage three tax cut changes, Ley’s immediate response was to repeal them (which would have raised taxes for all but the 10%).

***The Opposition has not asked any questions on this in question time all week, despite Michaelia Cash and others trying to make it happen, so take this as a sign Ley is capitulating.

****I would think the opposition leader could come up with more than two examples of how the government is failing?

*****Opinion polls have Anthony Albanese enjoying higher levels of approval.

Sussan Ley is on the defensive offensive today (a special move by politicians about to lose their leadership) where she is trying to keep the focus on the 000 failure and Communications minister Anika Wells, but in doing so, keeps the stories about her fractured party alive and well with more quotes denying there are any issues.

ABC News Breakfast kindly gave her some time to speak her Optus lines first up:

We are asking the Government what on earth is going on when they are supervising a system because the regulator sits within the department of communications and when lives are on the line, you don’t side with the telcos. You don’t jet off to New York. You don’t cover up your failures. These are three things the Communications Minister has actually done. And I was bewildered yesterday in Parliament. We’ve asked many questions, because why wouldn’t the minister support a parliamentary inquiry to find out what is going on in the 000 system? This is 2025. Not 1925. Australians deserve answers. People have died. The minister has pointed the finger at everyone but the processes that she, as minister, is responsible for. So we are asking the questions of this government because ultimately it’s their responsibility.

So a few things here: Wells has not ‘sided with the telcos’. She went to New York with parents who had lost their children to suicide to talk about the government’s social media age verification laws, which the opposition had pushed for and the cover up appears to be more of a f*ck up. There is no evidence things were “covered” up, just that no one really knew what to do for 24-48 hours and a lot of mistakes were made.

There is a story here, and there are questions to be asked. But as usual, Ley focuses on the politics, not the practical and that’s why people tune out.

The government is pushing ahead with its bill which will make it even more difficult to access information under freedom of information. The government claims the bill is necessary because of AI bot campaigns and the burden on public servants processing the requests has grown too big (which is mostly because FOI requests are now checked by more people than ever – without reason – which has not only slowed down processing, but increased the hours each request is worked on. (It’s now four public servants for essentially what one public servant did under the Howard government.)

The government wants upfront payments and an end to anonymous requests among its changes for…reasons. There is no real justification for it. The bill doesn’t have a lot of friends in the parliament, and the crossbench have been leading the charge against it.

They’ll be holding a press conference on that issue later this morning.

Israel has stopped another attempt to break through its blockade on food and life sustaining supplies in Gaza, boarding the boat The Conscience, which was carrying 93 journalists, doctors and activists, including it’s captain, Australian Madeleine Habib, in international waters.

That’s illegal under international law.

The people on board the latest flotilla were taken by Israel and are in unknown conditions in an Israeli prison.

Habib had anticipated Israel’s actions and had pre-prepared a video her supporters have released, while calling on Penny Wong and DFAT to intervene and ensure Habib’s and others are released from Israel’s captivity:

Al Jazeera reports:

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said he strongly condemned the Israeli action and demanded that Malaysian activists taking part in the flotilla mission be released.

Turkiye’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the flotilla includes its citizens and lawmakers. It called Israel’s actions a “grave violation of international law” and “an act of piracy.”

German progressive political party MERA25 said one of its members, activist Amira Zayed, was among those detained and that it was “deeply concerned” about her well-being.

It follows Israel illegally intercepting and seizing The Sumud flotilla, which was carrying about 450 people:

Several activists from that flotilla have alleged physical and psychological abuse while in Israeli custody. Rima Hassan, a French-Palestinian member of the European Parliament, said she was “beaten” by Israeli police after the flotilla was intercepted. American activist David Adler described being “stripped”, “zip-tied”, and “blindfolded” before his detention, as well as being forced to be photographed with Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Michaelia Cash is really, really, really trying to make returning Australians from Syria a scandal.

In perhaps a good sign for the wider Australian population, so far she has not succeeded.

Last night, Cash made her poor staff stay back and send a press statement out after hours because the AFP told a senate estimates hearing Tony Burke had been briefed in June “about the intention of the ISIS brides to return to Australia.” (It’s two women and four children).

Which they have every right to do. Because they are Australian citizens.

AFP said Burke was then updated on September 23 about the planned arrival on September 26.

The government has not said it was unaware of the return of Australians who had been in Syrian camps. It said it had not repatriated anyone. So far there is no evidence the government aided in their return to Australia, or helped the women and children leave the camps they were stranded in, in order to access a third party country where they could then return to Australia from.

But you know why we have these dates, and why Burke was able to be briefed? Because intelligence and security agencies have been doing their job and monitoring the women and children. So it’s not a surprise these Australian women and children returned to Australia, and it’s not illegal that they did so. That’s citizenship law.

The hearing also heard that the women are under investigation. Which is also how it works – break Australian laws and you are subject to Australian consequences.

But the modern Coalition has always been more of a ‘play stupid games, win stupid prizes’ player, so Cash is taking all these very normal, expected and legal happening and elevating it to a “scandal” because…reasons.

Australian citizens have a right to return to Australia. If they committed crimes under Australian laws, they should be investigated and face consequences if found guilty in Australian courts. This applies equally to Australian women who left of their free will, or were tricked, or were children when they left the country for Syria and to Australians who have joined the IOF.

Not sure Cash will want the law to apply to that latter group though. Which tells you all you need to know about this selective ‘outrage’.