This week, the federal opposition chose to spend most of its time in parliament attacking Labor over Gazan refugees, although no one has been able to leave Gaza for months due to the ongoing war.
Peter Dutton’s motto appears to be: if in doubt, hit down. Georgia’s Senator Raphael Warnock spoke about another politician with a similar MO at last week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago when he said, ‘People who have no vision, traffic in division.’
And so it is that Peter Dutton is now suggesting that large numbers of Hamas sympathisers are coming into Australia, contributing to the housing crisis and importing terrorism. The facts are that 2,900 visas have been granted to people fleeing Gaza, but only 1,300 managed to make it out before the borders were closed. Over 7,000 other applications were rejected.
The asylum-seekers who have made it to safety are now being re-traumatised by Dutton and his cheer squad.
ASIO have publicly noted that the real security risks right now are mostly from hard right actors whipped up by disinformation, as we have recently seen play out in the UK, with horrific results. But Dutton chose to ignore that advice, instead pretending that vulnerable people fleeing a war zone where thousands of children are dying are a danger to Australia.
In parliament, independent MP Zali Steggall told Dutton to ‘stop being racist’, and was then forced to withdraw.
Other politicians from Josh Burns to Dai Le stood to remind Mr Dutton of the historical precedents of his behaviour, but the opposition leader was unmoved, and doubled down.
Is Australia with him? We will find out next year.
What else?
The Albanese government did manage to get a couple of things done before parliament rose for another two week break.
They joined with the opposition to pass reforms to the National Disability Insurance Scheme which they say will save $14 billion over four years – but this is not a cut, apparently. The Greens have described the changes as a ‘betrayal’ by Labor.
After a series of scandals, the CFMEU has gone into administration in order to stamp out corruption in the building industry. As Albo put it, ‘We know that trade unionists do a great job when they look after the wages and conditions of their members, but there’s no place for corruption or intimidation in the building industry.’
Down in Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie lost two of her three members in the newly elected state government, who were apparently tired of their boss sticking her oar into every decision. They will now sit as independents. Undaunted, Ms Lambie is sailing on. She says she will run Senate candidates in NSW, Queensland and SA at the next federal election.
At the other end of the country, Labor were wiped out in the Northern Territory election, which was dominated by crime and government debt issues. Unfortunately there’s no sign of any new political response to the unfolding major crime of fossil fuel interests polluting the groundwater of the Territory and hastening the climate crisis.
Near Muswellbrook, there were two significant earthquakes very close to one of the biggest coal mines in NSW, with further aftershocks expected.
The associated fault line runs close to the site of a proposed nuclear reactor, if Peter Dutton manages to turn his radioactive thought bubble into a reality.
As if the Hunter Valley hasn’t suffered enough.
Gina weighs in
Finally, billionaire Gina Rinehart took a break from swanning around with Olympians and weighed into politics this week via an address in Townsville, with calls to ‘drill, baby, drill and dig, baby, dig’. Now there’s a novel idea.
Ms Rinehart also called for an Israeli-style defensive missile dome around export hubs and compulsory national service, before blaming migrants for the high cost of housing, alleged crime increases, and pressures on the health system.
The Liberals’ brains trust revealed at last!
Originally from Canberra, David Lowe is an award-winning film-maker, writer and photographer with particular interests in the environment and politics. He’s known for his campaigning work with Cloudcatcher Media.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
