Politics With Michelle Grattan

The global scandal surrounding the release of the Panama papers and Malcolm Turnbull’s criticism of Australian banks have put the spotlight on the often murky world of banking and finance. Greens' finance spokesman Peter Whish-Wilson, who had a pre-parliamentary career on Wall Street, tells Michelle Grattan one reason he walked away from the banking industry was because of its culture. “You’re only as good as your last sale. I think the culture of any organisation starts at the top and the way they incentivise their employees – from the CEO down – is the root cause of the problem,” he says. Whish-Wilson argues that a royal commission into the finance and banking sector is what is needed to deal with its pervasive cultural problems. He also says the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the Australian Tax Office need greater powers to deal with the tax-avoiding behaviour revealed by the release of the Panama papers.

Senators will return to Canberra later this month with the expectation that they will give final consideration to the government’s industrial legislation - unless they decide to refuse to consider it. Glenn Lazarus, a crossbencher whose approval the government may need if the bills are to have any hope of passing, tells Michelle Grattan he will not be bullied or blackmailed into giving his support. Lazarus says that when he asked Malcolm Turnbull to turn the Australian Building and Construction Commission into a national corruption watchdog for all industries, the Prime Minister gave him a blank look. The former Palmer United Party senator also says that he has become a better politician as a result of leaving the PUP and that no ministers had visited his office before his decision to walk away from the party.

While Labor goes into the coming election as underdog, the party’s strategy to win government will capitalise on what it sees as its competitive advantages. From Labor’s national secretariat in Canberra, campaign director George Wright tells Michelle Grattan the party will be working hard to increase its direct contact with voters. “We worked very hard at that in 2013 and we will work even harder on that in 2016,” he says. Whether or not the government calls a July 2 double-dissolution election, Wright is ready and says Labor led by Bill Shorten can win. “The party that he leads is now in a very competitive position against someone who everyone was predicting would wipe the floor with everyone. I think people who underestimate Bill’s capacity are doing so at their own peril.” Listing Labor’s policy strengths, Wright nominates health, education, housing affordability and the economy. “I think a lot of work has gone into having a cogent and credible position on the budget and I would strongly argue that right n

The Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party’s Ricky Muir this week made an unsuccessful last roll of the dice to try to delay the government’s Senate voting reform legislation. The bill will prevent almost all “micro” players being elected to the Senate, and facilitate the government driving out most of the current bunch if it holds a double-dissolution election. But Muir tells Michelle Grattan the reforms have not been properly scrutinised and the process to approve them has been a sham. While he acknowledged the need for some reform, he believes the government is scapegoating him for being elected on 0.51% of the primary vote. “Do I appreciate that some kind of changes could happen? Absolutely. But it needs to be a long, thought-out, thorough process with proper public consultation,” he says. Muir, who was reticent about speaking out in public in his first months in the Senate, is now fiesty. He is taking a high-profile and ready to fight for his political reputation at the election.

In what promises to be one of the toughest contests at the election, former independent MP Tony Windsor will try to retake the seat of New England from Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce. Windsor tells Michelle Grattan he believes the seat is winnable. “I’m not naive in politics, I know there will be an enormous amount of money thrown at this but my campaign will be based on people – and people power, if it gets positioned correctly, can actually do a tremendous amount,” he says. Windsor pitches his campaign as a policy battle to be fought on local issues that have national prominence: climate change, the NBN, and the Shenhua mine – to name a few.

Following recommendations from the joint standing committee on electoral matters, the government has amended its Senate reform bill to include provision for optional preferential voting “below the line” as well as “above the line”. Special Minister of State Mathias Cormann explains the details of the changes and says the bill “empowers the Australian people to determine what happens to their votes and their preferences”. “What it does is it will help ensure that the result at the next Senate election and any subsequent Senate election reflects the will of the people.”

Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm has accused Malcolm Turnbull of failing to live up to his promise to liaise closely with the Senate crossbenchers. As the "micro" players react furiously to the government's proposed Senate voting changes, Leyonhjelm tells Michelle Grattan he has not heard from Turnbull since his call in his first week as prime minister. Despite the "reservoir of goodwill" he enjoyed on taking over, Turnbull did not follow through. The Coalition government has been appallingly bad at negotiating with the crossbenchers, Leyonhjelm says. Unlike the Gillard government, which negotiated successfully with lower house crossbenchers, the Abbott and Turnbull governments never learnt how to do it. Leyonhjelm and the other "micro" Senate players have been invited to dinner at The Lodge this week. They are ready to vent their sense of grievance to Turnbull face-to-face.

Soaring community outrage over the issue of child sexual abuse was this week fanned by a Tim Minchin song calling for Cardinal George Pell to return home to Australia to give evidence to the Royal Commission. Francis Sullivan, CEO of the Truth, Justice and Healing Council tells Michelle Grattan that his organisation supports the crowd-funded push to fly victims to Rome and describes Cardinal Pell as a lightning rod for discontent. “It’s a buildup of the angst, the anger, the hurt surrounding the whole issue of child sex abuse and the history of the Catholic Church, which has been a history of cover-up and a history of distrust,” he says. “In such a short time it’s raised so much money and it shows you the intense concentration in the community not only about this specific issue, but about the broader issue of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.” Sullivan also criticises the Turnbull government for appearing to wash its hands of a national redress scheme for victims, instead placing it in the hands of t

South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill’s willingness to countenance an increase to the GST angered federal Labor colleagues. But Weatherill tells Michelle Grattan he has no regrets about his “circuit-breaker” intervention – although he also concedes an increase to the GST is not really a solution to the states' revenue problems. “It raises too much money in the early years and too little in the later years because GST is not growing at the rate of the growth of our health care expenditure,” he says. “Even if we were to get a 15% GST it would just kick the can down the road for another 10 or 15 years to be back talking about this problem,” he says. Weatherill explains why he has called for the states to receive a share of income tax revenue, the problems associated with raising land-based taxes and his disappointment in Malcolm Turnbull. “This sort of approach that we’re now getting from Malcolm Turnbull is the sort of thing that reminds us of Tony Abbott. The glib one-liners, what I have described as an infa

As the government considers a tax reform agenda without changing the GST, Assistant Treasurer Kelly O'Dwyer discusses tax and superannuation with Michelle Grattan - and strongly defends the Business Council of Australia’s Jennifer Westacott against an attack by Victorian Liberal President Michael Kroger. Kelly also suggests the Liberal party tap talented women on the shoulder to get more female representation in Parliament. 

At the start of a frenetic year for independent Nick Xenophon, the South Australian senator tells Michelle Grattan his new national political party, the Nick Xenophon Team (NXT), will fill a vacuum. “People want a genuine choice from the political centre. I think they’re sick of the left and right skirmishes we see in politics - the red team, blue team approach where even if one side acknowledges that the other side has a good idea, it needs to tear it down,” he says. Xenophon talks about the preselection process for his candidates, the difficulty of operating on a “dental floss budget”, and his views on how to create a fairer senate voting system.

As the government turns up the heat over its Australian Building and Construction Commission legislation, Employment Michaelia Cash reveals to Michelle Grattan she is willing to agree to senator David Leyonhjelm’s call for a sunset clause. “David has raised that with me and … yes, I would accept an eight-year sunset clause,” she says. She says in that time the ABCC would demonstrably prove its worth in curbing lawlessness in the construction industry and improving productivity. In the aftermath of the trade union royal commission, Cash talks about a restored ABCC’s powers, proposed revamped registered organisations legislation and double dissolution triggers. Cash, also Minister for Women, outlines plans for promoting gender equality in the public service and calls on the Liberal Party across Australia to undertake “audits” on female participation.

In the first Politics Podcast for 2016, Michelle Grattan and shadow finance minister Tony Burke discuss the challenging gap between government revenue and spending, and what Labor would do to address the problem. Burke pitches Labor’s recent education announcements as being central to its economic vision, describing them as a “strategic economic investment” in what Australia will need post the mining boom. He also responds to the divisions in Labor over GST changes, and the need to ensure Australia maintains its triple A credit rating. Asked about Treasury Secretary John Fraser’s high profile speech last week, Burke is complimentary.

Michelle Grattan discusses the mid-year economic and fiscal outlook with shadow assistant treasurer Andrew Leigh, gaging his thoughts on the savings measures announced by the government and how Labor would address the issue of budget repair.

Former Howard government minister Peter Reith, who has just released his recollections of the period in his book 'The Reith Papers', talks about the current challenges facing the Turnbull government including his view that Tony Abbott needs to keep his head down for a while, the pros and cons of increasing the GST and the predicament facing Mal Brough.  

Newly appointed chair of Innovation Australia, Bill Ferris, talks about his early experiences investing in start-ups in the 1970s, the need for Australia to bring its ideas and inventions to market, and the way to tackle a business culture that fears failure. 

Michelle Grattan speaks with Education Minister Simon Birmingham about his negotiations for a new higher education package, efforts to crack down on rorting in the vocational educational sector and the government's overhaul of the childcare system. 

Michelle Grattan speaks with Minister for Social Services Christian Porter about the government's moves on domestic violence, his thinking on welfare reform and his support for making adoption easier. 

Australian Strategic Policy Institute executive director Peter Jennings has strongly criticised the decision to lease the Port of Darwin to a Chinese company, saying it is a deep strategic mistake after a flawed policy process. Speaking to Michelle Grattan, Jennings also canvasses the difficulties of co-ordinating Russian and American military action in the Syrian conflict, and warns Australia could ''in time'' get a request for more special forces assistance.

Former ACT chief minister Katy Gallagher, now a federal Labor Senator with new responsibilities in the shadow ministry, admits she has found the jump into the bigger political pool challenging - she has also had to do a pivot in her views on increasing the GST. Here she also talks about the issues of mental health, federal-state relations and Labor’s face-off against Malcolm Turnbull.