Transport department boss quizzed over Taylor Swift T-shirt
Elias Visontay
It’s been a relatively uneventful start to transport and infrastructure Senate estimates on Tuesday.
With public servants so far answering questions related to corporate matters of infrastructure, transport and regional development administration, the topic of the department secretary Jim Betts’ preference for statement T-shirts over corporate attire has again come to the fore.
The Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie, who like her fellow Coalition senators has become known for pushing Betts with pointed questions and criticism of a reliance on answering questions on notice during previous estimates hearings, took a lighter tone on Tuesday.
McKenzie asked: “I hope you didn’t think because I hadn’t mentioned this in the first hour that I haven’t been watching your T-shirt efforts over time. Have you changed your mind since last estimates, are you now a fan of Taylor Swift,” she said, referencing her line of questioning from the previous estimates hearing inquiring if departmental staff had scheduled work travel that coincided with the pop star’s concerts dates.
I feel like I’m living rent-free in your head, but at the supply and logistics conference last week I was told when I got there in the afternoon that you indeed had taken the time to.
Betts interrupted: “Yep, exactly, so I was wearing a Taylor Swift T-shirt last week at a freight and logistics conference, thank you for asking.”
McKenzie queried: “Why did you choose Taytay?”
Betts responded: “It was a gift from one of my staff and I also thought you might enjoy it because I knew you were speaking later on in the agenda and it might come up at Senate estimates.”
McKenzie: “Well I did, I did, so I thought that was very sweet of you.”
Betts: “It’s the least I could do if you’re living rent-free in my head.”
Key events
Dr Christos Christou is asked about Israel’s claims Gaza’s hospitals were being used by Hamas and says:
What we ask is for everyone to respect the wars laws of war. Respect hospitals. Many times I have been asked and I really never heard anything from any of my colleagues about anything happening inside the hospital other than being full of patients, that sometimes we have been asked to activate even within a couple of hours which is impossible. So when you asked me what is happening inside the hospital, I can tell you that is just a desperate situation for the patients, and that is what we see.
Christou says he and MSF staff are exhausted and the message – that medical aid and the ability to transfer patients outside of Gaza for treatment is desperately needed is not getting through:
Nothing changes, that is why sometimes we feel like it is not for us anymore. That is why we address these [forums].
Our people are exhausted. I have crossed the line. You can imagine eight months, working days and nights, witnessing all this, members of their families. Not being safe anywhere. I think we still try to find the words, we cannot find them. We tried to collect the evidence. It is not for us anymore.
Daniel Hurst asks: What is the latest information you have about the types of injuries, the extent of the damage in the injuries?
Christou:
The latest tragic incident, we happen to have our stabilisation and treatment point. It is a small clinical facility, very close to the place that was bombarded, close to that informal camp with the tents.
We received more than 128 patients there. The situation as you can imagine it depends, some are very severely injured and others could not even make it after a couple of hours.
The numbers are everywhere now shared. If I remember we have more than 30 or 40 people confirmed killed and there are many more they are still trying to assess where they are. But what is important in this question as I describe the situation is to understand these little facilities are there to stabilise the patient, where they can get more advanced surgical treatment but these places do not exist anymore. There is no trauma centre any more, there is no hospital, they are barely functioning, they are overworked.
Dr Christos Christou says MSF has a meeting with Penny Wong tomorrow and will present a petition with 85,000 signatures from Australians to do more.
Christou said:
Everywhere we are and wherever we have a presence be that operational or institutional, we try to engage with everybody and especially with authorities.
It was after I have returned back from a visit to Palestine that we drafted an open letter and my colleagues in the [United] States and members of the States to explain the seriousness of the situation and that was also escalated up to the United Nations Security Council and also the United States were holding regular meetings, to bear and advocate what we I what we try to do is to let them be fully aware of what we witness on the ground.
We are one of the very few that we have all this evidence that is based on a neutral assessment of the needs.
Doctors ‘the voices of the people that we are there to support’, MSF chief says
Dr Christos Christou, the Médecins Sans Frontières International president, is taking questions at the National Press Club.
He is asked about the MSF charter and neutrality and the organisation’s call for sanctions against Israel and the responsibility of other nations to uphold international law. He says:
The first thing in our charter is the medical action. This is our basic act of solidarity. Medical action [and] wherever possible combine bearing witness and advocating about what we see – becoming, in other words, the voices of the people that we are there to support.
And then, of course, we have to do that as doctors, which means we always impartially assess the needs and which used to go there where most of the needs exist.
And we do that also thanks to our work financially independent and also within the spirit of neutrality.
If we follow the order and are in extremely challenging situations, exceptional crisis, like the ones I described before, what matters is again to stand by the people no matter what this means.
Sometimes we may feel that we cross lines, but we never crossed the line of defending humanity, we will always do that.
Peter Hannam
Retail sales eke out 0.1% increase as households skimp where they can
The latest retail sales figures for April underscore what most of us know already: inflation and higher mortgage repayments are forcing households to skimp where we can.
Last month, retail turnover eked out a 0.1% increase but not enough to erase the 0.4% decline in March, the Australian Bureau of Statistics says. According to Moody’s Analytics, retail sales have been stagnant since December.
Another weak month for retail sales up just 0.1% in April, and 1.3% from a year earlier. (That’s a real decrease of more than 2% even before the population increase is taken into account.) @ABSStats pic.twitter.com/YMoG6dZ375
— @phannam@mastodon.green (@p_hannam) May 28, 2024
From a year earlier, turnover was 1.3% higher. However, inflation was running at an annual pace of about 3.5%, so it’s firmly negative in real terms. (We’ll get April CPI figures tomorrow, and expectations are that the figure will land close to March’s 3.5% pace.)
Discretionary spending is wilting, particularly for clothing and footwear (though presumably some of that would be non-discretionary).
If you’re a retailer in Victoria you might be doing it particularly tough just now. (NSW bounced back from worst to first on a monthly basis.)
Since consumption is the largest part of the economy, such a weak retailing result will bolster the “economic doves” who want to see an RBA rate cut soon. (Today’s figures would tend to undermine the view of those wanting to see the central bank lift the cash rate from 4.35% to stymie inflation.)
The stage-three tax cuts and energy rebates will start to ease households’ squeeze from 1 July. Retailers will be hoping for some extra spending to head their way (but presumably not too much, too soon to disturb the RBA board room).
Sarah Basford Canales
The Department of Parliamentary Services secretary, Rob Stefanic, is still facing questions about a perceived conflict of interest with a former colleague.
Stefanic is facing scrutiny over an alleged relationship with his subordinate, the former deputy secretary Cate Saunders, but Stefanic earlier said they were not in a relationship while he was her boss.
Saunders left her role as deputy secretary and chief operating officer of the DPS for a temporary secondment at Services Australia in April 2023 after first joining Parliament House in 2017, according to the latest DPS annual report.
The senators were told Saunders left the public service with an incentive to retire months after beginning her secondment.
Stefanic said he declared a formal conflict of interest declaration to the former APS commissioner Peter Woolcott in August 2022 and had “ongoing dialogue” to seek advice on “various matters”.
But the secretary, who has been in the role since 2015, said there was no documentation produced on these meetings or in relation to the management of the conflict to his knowledge.
In response to questioning by the Liberal senator Jane Hume, Stefanic said he continued to deal with personal leave approvals, which he deemed “not controversial”.
Stefanic said he made a formal declaration with the current presiding officers, Senate president Sue Lines and speaker Milton Dick, on 20 June 2023. He said it was for a “perceived” conflict of interest.
The questioning continues.
Josh Butler
Department of Parliamentary Services boss grilled over relationship with former deputy
The Department of Parliamentary Services secretary, Rob Stefanic, has complained of a “repeated violation” of his personal privacy in relation to scrutiny over a relationship with his former deputy secretary Cate Saunders.
In a Senate estimates hearing this morning, in response to questions from One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts, Stefanic was critical of media coverage of the situation.
Stefanic initially said he was “not prepared to entertain any questions that speak to my personal privacy”, when Roberts asked if he was in a relationship with Saunders when she was given a redundancy package on her exit from the public service.
Stefanic told the Senate he had “unsuccessfully tried to communicate to members of the media, that I’ve taken all reasonable steps to declare all conflicts of interest as appropriate”.
I have acted appropriately at all times.
Stefanic said the situation was “actually not new” and said his privacy had been “considerably violated in this process”.
However, upon repeated questioning from Roberts, Stefanic said he was not in a relationship with Saunders when he was her boss.
Roberts said Stefanic should “put an end to it” by answering questions on the issue, adding “taxpayers have a right to know what’s going on in the Department of Parliamentary Services”.
Stefanic responded: “To that end senator, I’ll give you a simple answer, which is no.”
The committee went on a short break after this, to return shortly.
The National Press Club address is being delivered by Dr Christos Christou, Médecins Sans Frontières International president today.
Christou has begun speaking and Daniel Hurst is covering the speech. As always, we will bring you elements of what is being said, as well as cover parts of the question and answer session.
Paul Karp
Paterson asks home affairs chief about guidance from PM’s office on answering Senate estimates questions
The shadow home affairs minister, James Paterson, is asking officials about guidance he says was distributed by the prime minister’s office entitled “Approaches to Senate estimates questions on notice asked of multiple agencies”. Essentially, the Coalition is pursuing the line that this is a handbook teaching officials how to obfuscate at Senate estimates.
The home affairs department’s secretary, Stephanie Foster, says that she has seen guidance from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Foster says that it is guidance only, and it’s clear that it is up to officials how to answer questions and that they must do so in line with the Senate’s instructions to witnesses.
Labor’s Murray Watt says that questions on notice have doubled since the Coalition was in opposition, some pursuing matters of public interest and some not. He gives the example of questions asking what temperature the office thermostat is set at. The guidance is to try to avoid diverting resources to “trivialities”.
Foster insists that she and her senior officers all understand it is guidance only, and that she has departed from it on occasion when she thought it appropriate to do so.
Transport department boss quizzed over Taylor Swift T-shirt
Elias Visontay
It’s been a relatively uneventful start to transport and infrastructure Senate estimates on Tuesday.
With public servants so far answering questions related to corporate matters of infrastructure, transport and regional development administration, the topic of the department secretary Jim Betts’ preference for statement T-shirts over corporate attire has again come to the fore.
The Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie, who like her fellow Coalition senators has become known for pushing Betts with pointed questions and criticism of a reliance on answering questions on notice during previous estimates hearings, took a lighter tone on Tuesday.
McKenzie asked: “I hope you didn’t think because I hadn’t mentioned this in the first hour that I haven’t been watching your T-shirt efforts over time. Have you changed your mind since last estimates, are you now a fan of Taylor Swift,” she said, referencing her line of questioning from the previous estimates hearing inquiring if departmental staff had scheduled work travel that coincided with the pop star’s concerts dates.
I feel like I’m living rent-free in your head, but at the supply and logistics conference last week I was told when I got there in the afternoon that you indeed had taken the time to.
Betts interrupted: “Yep, exactly, so I was wearing a Taylor Swift T-shirt last week at a freight and logistics conference, thank you for asking.”
McKenzie queried: “Why did you choose Taytay?”
Betts responded: “It was a gift from one of my staff and I also thought you might enjoy it because I knew you were speaking later on in the agenda and it might come up at Senate estimates.”
McKenzie: “Well I did, I did, so I thought that was very sweet of you.”
Betts: “It’s the least I could do if you’re living rent-free in my head.”
Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS) estimates has moved on to the Parliamentary Budget Office and the parliamentary budget officer Dr Stein Helgeby has told the Senate president, Sue Lines, and speaker, Milton Dick (the presiding officers), he will not seek reappointment when his term expires in November of this year.
A merit-based recruitment process to find his replacement will begin soon.
Cabinet is ‘crafting the offer for a second term’, Albanese tells MPs
Karen Middleton
Anthony Albanese has told Labor MPs that cabinet’s work is now concentrating on “crafting the offer for a second term”, as ministers get out and sell the budget’s key measures to voters.
“Crafting the offer” is political campaign jargon, which means cabinet is focused on its plan to win the next election.
Albanese reminded his colleagues that the government was now in the final 12 months of its first term and repeated his post-budget message he cost-of-living measures in the budget included “a tax cut for every taxpayer, an energy rebate for every Australian, benefits for students and a future made in Australia”.
He described Peter Dutton’s budget reply speech as having “no costings, no media release – just chaos and confusion”.
Here is what the House program looks like today.
The House will sit, so bills will be introduced, debated and passed, but the Senate won’t sit until Senate estimates is completed, so no legislation will pass the parliament this sitting fortnight.