Key events
Queensland records 1,116 new Covid cases
Queensland has recorded 1,166 new cases on Sunday morning, 377 people in hospital, and 13 people in ICU.
The state does not report its Covid deaths on Sunday or Morning but adds them to its Tuesday totals.
Here is the footage from one of the clearer moments of the interview with Barnaby Joyce this morning – and credit has to go to Speers here for staying on the question in what was a quite a hostile interview.
ACT records no new Covid deaths
No one with Covid-19 has died in Australian Capital Territory overnight, with the territory recording 186 new cases on Sunday morning, 120 people in hospital, three in ICU and one on ventilation.
ACT COVID-19 update – 21 August 2022
🦠 COVID-19 case numbers
◾ New cases today: 186 (92 PCR and 94 RAT)
◾ Active cases: 1,874
◾ Total cases since March 2020: 200,343 pic.twitter.com/u5en2lWoJE— ACT Health (@ACTHealth) August 21, 2022
🏥 COVID-19 hospital numbers
◾ In hospital: 120
◾ In ICU: 3
◾ Ventilated: 1
◾ Lives lost: 0
◾ Total lives lost since March 2020: 117
ℹ For more detail, including an age breakdown of case numbers, please visit https://t.co/qRDoepyJkh— ACT Health (@ACTHealth) August 21, 2022
Tory Shepherd
How the Overland Telegraph brought colonial triumph and Aboriginal devastation
In 1872, 150 years ago on Monday, Australia celebrated its connection to the world. A heroic effort had conquered the tyranny of distance, and the Overland Telegraph, stretching more than 3,000km from Adelaide to Darwin, was heralded as a triumph.
In 1872, 150 years ago on Monday, the devastating effects of colonisation were being felt through the middle of Australia. The telegraph line brought settlers, the destruction of the environment and death for Aboriginal people.
Both stories are true.
The idea to link Australia by telegraph to the world took shape as Britain began to send undersea cables across vast portions of the globe from the 1850s, but the task of crossing the continent from south to north appeared too daunting for many years, not least after the disastrous Burke and Wills expedition of 1861.
But the following year the Scottish explorer John McDouall Stuart travelled from South Australia to the north coast and back, demonstrating that the journey was eminently possible, however arduous.
For more on how this journey forced a lethal confrontation between European colonisation and First Nations peoples, read the full feature on the 150th anniversary of the Overland Telegraph by Guardian Australia report Tory Shepherd.
Tasmania records no new Covid deaths
No one with Covid-19 has died in Tasmania overnight, with the state recording 213 new cases on Sunday morning, 56 people in hospital, and three in ICU.
PM on potential ban on internal combustion engines in the 2030s
Albanese was also asked about the potential for a ban on internal combustion engines in the 2030s.
Albanese does say his government will move to introduce such a ban but points to the decisions that are being made by governments and car companies oversees:
That will be decisions made by the companies involved, but what we know is that all the research isn’t going into internal combustion engines, it is going into electric vehicles and low emissions vehicles. That is what the Japanese, the European, the American suppliers are all doing.
Morrison scandal another example of ‘concentration of power’, Albanese says
Speaking to Sky News this morning prime minister Anthony Albanese has addressed additional questions about the ongoing scandal involved Scott Morrison’s power sharing arrangement.
Asked about reports that Morrison signed off as $828m in industry grants while acting as both industry minister and prime minister, Albanese said it was an another example of the concentration of power under his predecessor.
What we saw here is another element of the concentration of power in the hands of the former prime minister. The former prime minister made himself the final arbiter of decision making over the modern manufacturing grants and over $800m was approved by the prime minister rather than by the industry minister.
Of course we know now that at the time Scott Morrison was also the industry minister at the time that he signed off, but he signed off as the prime minister on these grants, rather than leaving it in the hands of the minister, which would be the normal process.
Albanese was asked about whether there were any other examples where Morrison used powers but said the government was still waiting for further advice.
The prime minister said the industry grants will be honoured and “viewed on their merits”. He said many were “announced but not contracted” and that the department is reviewing these announcements.
We want to make sure that proper process takes place here and what we’ve seen with the former government is that the process was just thrown out the window. The Westminster traditions were trashed, proper parliamentary processes were ignored, and people were kept in the dark from this shadow government that was operating.
Barnaby Joyce says he negotiated extra staff for the Nationals
Another key point from that interview with Joyce is that he said he had negotiated extra staff for the Nationals. Here is the part of the exchange where he discusses it:
Joyce: Well, I had negotiated an extra minister which we were not entitled to. I had another person on ERC which–
Speers: So this was a trade-off.
Joyce: I had negotiated more staff than the National party which we were not entitled to. We brought about one of the biggest deals in looking after regional Australia in the history of Australia.
This seems new. Did we previously know that the Nats had negotiated extra staff?
Barnaby Joyce on who was the responsible minister for resources
Barnaby Joyce is done now but I just wanted to circle back to post some transcript of the conversation with the former deputy prime minister just to illustrate how truly weird that entire exchange was.
Keep in mind there was a fair bit of crosstalk, with Joyce employing the time honoured tactic of attempting to ask his interviewer questions when he felt threatened and then going on the attack – because as we all know the best defence is a good offence.
But here is a taste of what just happened:
Speers: It is not for me to answer these questions.
Joyce: I put it to you–
Speers: It is a good question then. Just to be clear on this, you felt you would lose the extra ministry and staff–
Joyce: No, I didn’t.
Speers: If you and so on pushed back on Scott Morrison on taking away the extra portfolio?
Joyce: David, I didn’t feel. I was absolutely certain that would have happened. I negotiated the portfolio.
Speers: He said that?
Joyce: No, he didn’t, don’t be so obtuse. You can work these, because, David, I’ve been in politics about 18 years, mate, I know how it works. Now we are hyperventilating – I listen to your panel – you’re going off the dial! It is not the issue that you think it is. Out there are other things that are permeating. The nuclear debate has gone off the table. We should be manufacturing small modular reactors. Manufacture them, they will be ubiquitous, all across the world. Crazy.
Speers: I’m not suggesting that they are not issues. This is a fundamental principle of our Westminster system. Who was the responsible minister?
Joyce: I gave you my answer at the start.
Speers: Who was the responsible minister for resources?
Joyce: Well, it ultimately really remained with Keith. It was the Pep-11 decision, David.
Speers: Who was the responsible minister on that decision?
Joyce: Mate, I just gave you the answer. It is ultimately Keith Pitt on everything. It was the Pep-11 decision. Don’t ask me a third time.
Speers: Well, I’m still confused, was it Scott Morrison or Keith Pitt?
Joyce: There is nothing confusing about it, David, listen to me. Keith Pitt was the minister, and there is no trick to this. I’m giving you a straight answer. Keith Pitt was responsible on all issues. One issue, Pep-11. What do I need to do? Do I need to write it to you and hand it to you in a letter? It is as clear as that.
I don’t know about you, but it certainly did not seem to me like Joyce was giving a straight answer.
Pep-11 decision was ‘made by the prime minister’, Joyce says
After a detour into something about people shopping at the IGA and petrol prices, Speers is trying to pin down Joyce:
How many times do you want to ask me this, David? This is like the seventh time. I told you, I didn’t know when I came in because the decision was made before me. There was no distinct conversation that happened, it happened obliquely over a period of time. The only decision revolved around the Pep-11 decision. The Pep-11 decision was made by the prime minister. It is on file. You can watch it yourself. There is a press conference. What else do you want?
Morrison never explicitly stated he was minister for resources, Joyce says
Speers:
You never knew [Scott Morrison] was the minister for resources?
Joyce:
He never said to me: “I was the minister for resources.” He never said that to me.
Speers:
Did you at any point wonder how on earth he could make this decision, the power rested with the minister for resources?
Joyce:
Well, he never said he was. He obviously had the power to do it. As I said before, you just take the decision back to cabinet and re-litigate it.
Speers:
But he didn’t. You weren’t curious as to how he did this?
Joyce:
No, no not particularly.
Perhaps a timely reminder that Joyce was once deputy prime minister.
Joyce questioned on Morrison’s overrule of Pep-11 decision
The conversation has now turned to the Pep-11 decision and who was the minister responsible. Keith Pitt was the minister, but Scott Morrison had the authority and ultimately made the decision by overruling Pitt.
Speers is asking why didn’t Joyce tell anyone about the power sharing relationship – and it’s getting weird pretty quick. Joyce has attacked the ABC Insiders panel, Speers and is refusing to answer a question: why weren’t people told?
Joyce:
I told you I found out about it subsequently. I proved to you that the prime minister of the day made the decision.
Joyce doesn’t appear to have proved anything, however.
This is a little hard to keep up with as Joyce is all over the road here, but he’s saying that he can’t remember being explicitly directly told of the power sharing arrangement and seems to be describing it at as a process by which he came to understand something was going on. Eventually Morrison made a comment saying he can overrule a minister.
He’s then asked about how he reacted to Morrison “sidelining” the Nationals by giving them an extra minister and then take it away.
Joyce is asked whether Scott Morrison directly told him.
Joyce:
No, it doesn’t work out like that, David.
It worked out that over a period of time where the prime minister, Scott Morrison got to a position and said: “I can overrule him.”
Barnaby Joyce ‘wasn’t aware at the start’ of Morrison’s secret ministries
Barnaby Joyce is now speaking to ABC Insiders host David Speers where he is asked when he was told about Morrison’s taking over of additional portfolios.
He says he arrived there “obliquely”. Joyce says he “wasn’t aware of it at the start” because it happened before he became the Nationals leader.
Then over a period of time and discussions to the Pep-11 it became more apparent that the prime minister had greater powers than I initially assumed.
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