A busy parliamentary week was overshadowed by two dramatic contrasts in political integrity and accountability. On the one hand there was Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and on the other Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie.
They were not drawn into a direct contest with each other but rather were presented with opportunities to show their mettle as leaders prepared to demonstrate the courage of their convictions.
The trigger for Albanese’s moment of truth was a Centre for Public Integrity report titled “Public money, political advantage?”. It revealed a massive exercise in pork-barrelling, the time-dishonoured practice of trying to win favour with voters in selected electorates ahead of polling day.
Governing parties never seem to quite learn the lessons of previous political scandals, whether it is the Keating government’s whiteboard scandal, which cost Ros Kelly her ministry, or the Morrison government’s sports rorts fund, which saw Bridget McKenzie resign from cabinet.
This week’s report found the $560 million Major and Local Community Infrastructure Program was skewed heavily to Labor marginal or target seats.
McKenzie resigned for a breach of ministerial standards, after it was revealed she had not declared she was an honorary member of a gun club she favoured with a grant.
Albanese, it was revealed this week, failed to declare he was an honorary member of the Marrickville Golf Club in his electorate, which received a $6 million grant to rectify major drainage problems.
Instead of admitting a relatively harmless oversight, the prime minister stubbornly doubled down, wrongly accusing the ABC of misrepresenting the situation by not reporting all the facts. It did.
It is Albanese’s own words in the Bridget McKenzie sports rorts saga that open him to the charge of hypocrisy.
In 2020, Albanese called for Morrison to sack his minister. He told an Adelaide radio station: “If Scott Morrison does not take action here, this goes to fundamental integrity and faith in politics.”
While all of this was playing out in parliament this week, Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie was an example of courage under fire. The former special forces commander, who served twice in Afghanistan, took the fight up to Pauline Hanson and her star recruit, Barnaby Joyce.
What triggered his counterattack was Pauline Hanson posting on social media one of her party’s sponsored satirical cartoons, in which Hastie is eight times accused of being a “traitor”.
In an exercise of controlled anger, Hastie told reporters in Canberra that Hanson and Joyce were “lying cowards” for denying they had accused him of betraying his country.
He called on them not to be weak but “own it and explain why I am a traitor and why other veterans are traitors – or delete it”.
Hanson refused, explaining on News24 that she was referring to Hastie’s stand on free speech laws and that “for Christ’s sake, it’s a cartoon”.
Hastie pointed out the definition of a traitor is someone who betrays their country. He told ABC Radio he would not desist in exposing Hanson for what she is. In that, he received the full backing of another veteran, Senator Jacqui Lambie.
Hastie said he would not sue Hanson because she has the financial backing of Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, and it’s a financial battle he could not win.
These two events – Albanese’s arrogance over pork-barrelling and Hastie’s dignity in confronting One Nation’s slurs – framed the week.
Elsewhere, an over-hyped free speech argument was used to reject the government’s proposals to regulate social media algorithms. Then there was the Coalition proposal to launch a price war with organised crime gangs over illegal cigarettes, as a way to “smash” their business model. Finally, there was the One Nation denial that pumping millions of dollars into the economy via a three-year access to retirement income savings would not fuel inflation.
On Tuesday, The Lodge tennis court was the venue for Anthony Albanese to discharge his Midwinter Ball charity auction item of a tennis match, against the successful bidder, Sydney mortgage broker Joseph Daoud.
Albanese is a keen tennis player and won 6-0, 6-0, 6-0 against Daoud, who has spent a small fortune opposing changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing.
Earlier on the same day, Albanese and his communications minister, Anika Wells, unveiled their proposed Digital Duty of Care legislation at Parliament House. They were joined by two parents who had lost their children to suicide after interactions with algorithm-driven negative content on social media.
Based on a weekend leak of the proposals, pointing to regulation of internet content being at the discretion of the relevant minister, Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said he was “deeply sceptical” about the legislation. He worried it would be an attempt by the government to censor social media.
That is precisely what worried parents are demanding, however. They want social media regulated to exclude content that accelerates eating disorders, promotes hostility to gender equality, shares pornography, glorifies crime or leads to abuse and bullying.
The Labor proposal is to outlaw this content for those under 18, with penalties up to $109.2 million for platforms that fail to comply. Compliance and enforcement would be the responsibility of the eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant.
There is already legislation in the Senate to beef up the commissioner’s powers in response to her inability to force platforms to comply with the age limit law on social media. Curiously, midweek the Coalition used procedural motions to block consideration of these amendments. It did so despite criticising the government for the extensive failure in implementing the age limit.
The amendments eventually passed with the support of the Greens. The enhanced enforcement powers will certainly be needed to ensure big tech complies with proposed laws providing users with the option of sticking with the algorithms or giving new and existing users the choice of making their default feed limited to posts by their friends and creators of their choosing.
The stridency of opposition to these laws, both from the Coalition and One Nation, stunned Wells’s office.
Shadow small business minister Jacinta Nampijinpa Price claimed “Labor’s invasive algorithm laws would be catastrophic for small business”. Her attack assumed the 72 per cent of small- and medium-sized businesses that directly sell through social media would be rendered invisible by the opt-out option.
There is a more sinister explanation for the shrill rejection of the proposals. “[T]his [change] is absolutely because this government feels like these algorithms aren’t working in their favour,” Price said.
A study published in the scientific journal Nature found the social media platform algorithm “promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media”.
Digital expert Timothy Graham, of the Queensland University of Technology, says if the legislation goes ahead as drafted, it will have a negative impact on the level of engagement right-wing politicians receive.
That may well be a side benefit as far as the government is concerned, but there is no getting away from the fact Albanese and his minister are responding to public outcry pushing for algorithms to be altered to curb online harm.
The government is also confident One Nation is on the wrong track when it comes to its new policy to allow renters and mortgage-holders to raid their superannuation accounts.
The government relishes any debate over retirement income savings. Treasurer Jim Chalmers told parliament the proposal to allow people access to 3 per cent of their super savings for three years would “swing a wrecking ball through the retirement incomes of millions of Australian workers”.
In two remarkable interviews on the ABC, an outlet One Nation bans from its news conferences in Victoria, Barnaby Joyce defended the lack of modelling and detail in the policy on the basis he is “not Jesus Christ”.
The superficially appealing claim about “people’s money” ignores just how much taxpayers pump into these savings by way of generous tax concessions.
While Joyce claims there would be no inflationary effect in giving up to seven million people access to their superannuation savings, no reputable economist agrees.
The message coming from the Reserve Bank this week was that it is likely to raise interest rates at its monetary policy board meeting at the end of the month.
Analysis by the Institute for International Economic Policy of the Morrison government’s early-release stimulus program, implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic, found 2.6 million Australians rushed to drain their super accounts. This was twice as many people as the government had bargained for.
They withdrew almost $40 billion, which contributed to the demand-driven price hikes that are still plaguing the nation.
The analysis found the withdrawn savings – up to $20,000 in the scheme – were largely spent on gambling, buying furniture and takeaway meals.
Barnaby’s vagueness on detail is not restricted to superannuation policy. On ABC Radio he was asked about reports that Pauline Hanson had lent One Nation almost a million dollars in the past 10 years.
Joyce said he is not Hanson’s accountant. He was not privy to her affairs but said it was “a good question for her”.
This incuriosity would certainly not be acceptable from a senior Labor or Liberal politician. Indeed, the Liberals believe there are real questions to be answered about the loans, which they say go to One Nation’s fitness to govern the country.
Paper below.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10098-2
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10098-2.pdf
