Posted by Key events
‘It’s the law’: Katter prompts return of cash payments at Parliament House
Bob Katter has a new legacy – returning cash to the parliamentary staff dining room.
The independent MP for Kennedy was SHOCKED when he went to buy his lunch of fish, rice and vegetables at what is known as the trough and had his $50 note rejected.
The trough has been cash free for some time. This was news to Katter, who wanted to remind the parliament that “to not accept Australian legal tender, in the very place, that makes the laws to accept cash as a form of currency” was a bit ridiculous.
Legal tender means you must accept it, it’s the law,” Katter said.
Katter is a huge cash advocate and saw this as a moment to make a larger point.
I fight the battle because otherwise all your freedom is gone. The banks will control your life. You can’t buy a loaf of bread without the bank’s permission. The banks will now have complete control of your life.
And there is another factor I appreciate – in North Queensland, and we’ve seen it recently, we’re having storms and cyclones knocking out our power lines. Your plastic magic won’t work without electricity and without cash you’ll starve, you won’t be able to buy fuel or medication either.
Staff gave Katter his meal free of charge and Katter said Speaker Milton Dick told him “we will reverse this policy immediately”. (We’ll check in with Dick a little later)
Things like the trough are run by DPS, not MPs, but the speaker and president of the Senate are the presiding officers.
Good morning
Thank you to Martin for starting us off this morning. You have Amy Remeikis with you now for the sitting day.
Paul Karp, Daniel Hurst, Josh Butler and Sarah Basford Canales will be along very soon and Mike Bowers will also help guide you through the parliamentary sitting day.
As Martin and Dan have laid out, foreign affairs and Australia’s relations with the Pacific will be the focus of the day. But there will also be quite a bit on tax after the Coalition’s capitulation yesterday and IR as Tony Burke works through his agenda.
It’s at least a three coffee morning. Ready? Let’s get into it.
Livestock export to be unloaded in Perth on Thursday amid heatwave
Livestock on board the MV Bahijah will be unloaded at Fremantle on Thursday after the owners failed to present a safe plan to ship them to the Middle East.
The Israel-owned vessel was 10 days into a passage to the Middle East when it was ordered to return to port when the government ruled it could not make the journey safely.
But the prospect of unloading the live cargo of almost 17,000 sheep and cattle has created a logistical headache for the port which is usually only geared up for sending animals overseas rather than receiving them. Onshore “processing facilities”, where the livestock are stunned and killed, do not have the capacity to deal with an unexpected influx of animals, one expert said.
An added complication is that Perth is facing a heatwave with temperatures on Thursday expected to reach 42C, presenting a heat risk for the animals.
Read the full story from Narelle Towie here:
PNG prime minister expected in Canberra
The Papua New Guinea prime minister, James Marape, is due to arrive in Canberra today before the annual leaders’ meeting and address to a joint sitting of parliament tomorrow.
It comes after reports PNG and China have entered early talks on security and policing cooperation.
For more, read our full report:
Daniel Hurst
ADF expects training helicopters available midyear
The ADF expects that the training helicopters will be available for operations in Oakey in Queensland by around the middle of this year.
The government will argue these helicopters have been chosen because they can perform a variety of roles “including personnel and equipment transport and Defence assistance to the civil community”.
It has not dislocated the cost of the lease arrangement, but it is expected to last five years and be funded from within defence’s existing budget.
Separately, the government will also announce that it has signed $830m worth of sustainment and support contracts for Black Hawk, Apache and Chinook helicopters.
The defence minister, Richard Marles, said:
We need a highly capable army. When the tough but necessary decision was made last year to expedite the withdrawal of the MRH-90s from service, it meant that we needed to look at all options when it came to filling the capability gap and the training which our servicemen and women need.
We have been working with the United States and United Kingdom on ways in which we can bridge this gap, and their support and willingness with the acceleration of the Black Hawks and leasing of training helicopters will have a significant impact.
Defence to hire five helicopters from UK to fill gap left by Taipan retirement
Daniel Hurst
The Australian Defence Force will hire five helicopters from the UK over the next five years as part of moves to fill a capability gap left by the early withdrawal of the Taipan fleet.
The federal government will announce today that it will procure five H135 “Juno” training helicopters from the United Kingdom through a lease arrangement, saying this will “support essential training requirements for army aircrew”.
The government will also confirm that the United States is delivering nine new Black Hawk helicopters this year. That will mean a total of 12 Black Hawk helicopters will be in Australia by the end of 2024. This number is believed to include the accelerated delivery of three Black Hawk helicopters that the US and Australia announced four months ago.
It’s part of a plan to acquire a fleet of 40 UH-60M Black Hawks from the US. While 12 of them will be here by the end of 2024, the remaining 28 will arrive in staged deliveries between 2025 and 2029.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live politics blog. I’m Martin Farrer and I’ll be bringing you the best of the overnight stories before my colleague Amy Remeikis takes the controls.
“Weak” action, broken promises and failing to listen to Indigenous communities. These are just some of the problems with Closing the Gap identified in a scathing report today that warns the program will fail without major reform. The Productivity Commission report on Closing the Gap will make uncomfortable reading in Canberra with a warning that successive governments have failed to accept “that they do not know what is best for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people”.
The federal housing minister, Julie Collins, has described hundreds of premature homelessness deaths as “completely unacceptable” amid a push for a reporting scheme to shine a light on the crisis. It follows the launch this week of our series, Out in the cold, shining a light on the premature deaths of homeless people. The latest feature in our series charts the tragic story of rough sleeper Pasquale Giorgio who died in a police van in Surfers Paradise the day after asking an officer on the streets for help.
About 17,000 sheep and cattle intended for live export to Israel could be slaughtered in Australia if the exporters fail to come up with a plan to take the animals safely to the Middle East. The livestock are currently on board the MV Bahijah off the coast of Western Australia after being ordered to return to port when the government ruled it could not safely sail to Israel.
The Australian Defence Force will hire five helicopters from the UK over the next five years to help fill a capability gap left by the early withdrawal of the Taipan fleet – more on that soon.
And the visiting Papua New Guinea prime minister, James Marape, is due to arrive in Canberra today, before a meeting tomorrow with Anthony Albanese and an address to a joint sitting of the Australian parliament. We also have more on that coming up.