Tony Abbott has reshuffled his cabinet in response to Assistant Treasurer Arthur Sinodinos’s announcement of his decision to step down, together with the government’s general state of disarray. The principal changes are that Defence Minister David Johnston has been dumped from cabinet to the back bench, and Sussan Ley fills his cabinet vacancy as Health Minister, having previously been Assistant Education Minister. This initiates a game of musical chairs in which Defence goes to Kevin Andrews; Andrews’ portfolio of Social Services goes to Scott Morrison; and Morrison’s portfolio of Immigration and Border Protection goes to Peter Dutton, the former Health Minister.
The promotion of Ley and the departure of Sinodinos leaves two vacancies in the outer ministry, which are filled by the promotion from parliamentary secretary of Josh Frydenberg, who takes Sinodinos’s role, and Simon Birmingham, who takes Ley’s. The second casualty of the reshuffle together with Johnston is Queensland Senator Brett Mason, who has lost his position as parliamentary secretary. The three parliamentary secretary vacancies are filled by Christian Porter, slightly compensating the Western Australian contingent for the dumping of Johnston; and Kelly O’Dwyer and Karen Andrews, who together with Ley’s promotion to cabinet alleviate the front-bench’s glaring deficiency of women.
All of which gives me a helpful opportunity to launch a new thread as the Christmas/New Year poll drought takes hold. There is also the following to relate:
• The one new poll to keep us amused is an Essential Research survey conducted for The Australian, which found Chris Bowen with a narrow 29% to 27% lead over Joe Hockey on the question of “who would you trust to handle the economy”, compared with a lead for Hockey of 34% to 23% in August. More contentiously, respondents were asked to nominate “Australia’s best treasurer of the past 40 years”, but with only five options included – it apparently being taken for granted that no one would nominate Jim Cairns, Bill Hayden, Phillip Lynch, John Kerin, Ralph Willis, John Dawkins or Chris Bowen, even to the extent that no “others” option was included. The responses ran, in order, Peter Costello (30%), Paul Keating (18%), John Howard (12%), Wayne Swan (8%), Joe Hockey (4%). The Australian’s report by Troy Bramston rather audaciously sold this Hockey being “regarded as the worst treasurer of the past 40 years”. Even when better structured than this, I doubt the utility of such polls, which often reflect the degree of competition for the esteem of partisans of one side over the other. It would be more instructive if respondents were rate each contestant in turn favourably or unfavourably. More on this from Kevin Bonham
• Labor is set to have two changes to its Senate line-up early in the new year, the first being the result of John Faulkner’s retirement next month. His vacancy will be filled by Jenny McAllister, the party’s national president and a colleague of Faulkner in the Left, who joined him in advocating for reform to the party’s preselection processes earlier in the year. McAllister was preselected to replace Faulkner in July after he announced he would not contest the next election.
• Labor’s Senate position in the Australian Capital Territory is set to pass from Kate Lundy to Katy Gallagher, following the former’s surprise announcement last month of her intention to retire, and the latter’s resignation from her position as the ACT’s Chief Minister. Lundy will depart on March 31, creating a casual vacancy to be filled by Gallagher the following day. Gallagher was encouraged to take the position by Senator Penny Wong, who shares her alignment with the Left, and Bill Shorten. She has been succeeded as Chief Minister by her former deputy, Andrew Barr, a move which had Gallagher’s endorsement despite Barr’s alignment with the Right.
• Katy Gallagher’s vacancy in the ACT region of Molonglo will be determined by a countback, with reference to Gallagher’s preference votes from the last election. According to Kirsten Lawson of the Canberra Times, “Labor number-crunchers” expect the seat to go to Meegan Fitzharris, chief-of-staff to Andrew Barr, who was the third-strongest performing candidate on Labor’s ticket at the 2012 election with 2.9% of the vote, behind Gallagher (26.2%) and Barr (4.2%). Preferences nonetheless resulted in the third Labor seat going to incumbent Simon Corbell (2.1%).
Actually, I think we’re up to “To Play The King” now 😛
Wouldn’t it be interesting if The Adults decided to cull a couple of hundred “units” from the former Immigration Ministers Spin Department and as a result some disgruntled ‘units’ started to do a bit of leaking.
I reckon there could be some very interesting yarns and stories that could come out of the Morrisons Operations Soveriegn Spin Team
wrong topic I know, but it seems warnings come too late – or via old slow technology – or get ignored
Saturday’s shooting might have been prevented, Bratton said, because Baltimore County detectives tried to warn the NYPD that Brinsley had shot his former girlfriend in Maryland, had connections to Brooklyn’s East Flatbush area and was now targeting police. But the warning — in the form of a fax machine message that included a photo — came too late.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/20/nypd-officers-dead-brooklyn-shooting_n_6360434.html
From the previous thread:
The whole reshuffle looks very much as if it was all hatched in the Prime Minister’s Office. Not much evidence of his having truly consulted his senior ministers. Abbott and Credlin are going to have to wear the fallout.
The smaller states have been dudded: WA has lost a senior minister and only gained a parl sec (Mesma must be spewing). Qld has copped a hospital pass (Dutton to Immigration) and had a parl sec swapped – Mason for Ciobo (don’t know what is behind that).
Dutton and Andrews at least are likely to have extreme difficulty getting across the details of their new portfolios, given that they are both of very limited ability, and are likely to be pretty resentful of that.
Lots of material for a bit of discontent.
dave
Posted Sunday, December 21, 2014 at 5:17 pm | Permalink
Turnbull as Treasurer might have provide a better chance of a reset. Its in this area that the tories need a competent and effective minister. Turnbull would have communicated better and maybe even have sold some of the unfair policies.
Most of the media and business community would have given him a fair run and he probably would have been well received by voters.
Instead, poor old Joe, the cigar sucking plonker has been left there to wallow. Doubtful if he even he believes he is capable of doing the job.
Abbott have given Labor a Christmas and New Years present IMO.
Andrews to Defence. FFS. More Chaplains for the troops? More onwards Christian Soldiers music? Take his Relationship Counseling vouchers with him?
Those who were boned or not promoted will have already started plotting. Plenty of time over the holidays to brood on it all while on the booze.
Is ‘Ley’, ‘Lay’ or ‘Lee’.
Spiers just made it ‘Lee’?
ABC24 says ‘Johnston leaving Cabinet’.
How gentle.
AJM
How the hell is Dutton going to be able to blame everything on the Member for Sydney.
Should be some fun times on the floor of the House of Reps
Bw
[Is ‘Ley’, ‘Lay’ or ‘Lee’.]
In German = Lie.
How is immigration a “hospital pass”?
Boerwar
ABC24 were saying ‘Lee’
jeffemu
Morrison’s spin doctors will be thrashing around aimlessly. Dutton is so silent that they will have difficulty in finding things not to say!
Wonder how Corrmann is going to like sharing the economic decision making with Freudenberg – budget process should be interesting.
Also interesting that the only really senior minister who got the complete shove was the one who had unambiguously fucked up, despite several others having severely underperformed (Hockey, Dutton, Andrews, Pyne).
Perhaps shows how weak Abbott’s position really is.
WB
[How is immigration a “hospital pass”?]
Follow on from my comment earlier where I said I think it will turn to shit without someone of Morrison’s intensity driving it.
[ Also interesting that the only really senior minister who got the complete shove was the one who had unambiguously fucked up ]
Abbott is on the record right up to the time Johnston was boned as telling us all what a great job he was doing.
The lies just flow effortlessly off abbott’s forked tongue.
Dutton might find immigration suits him.
He hardly spoke a word in six years as opposition health spokesman, and has been well nigh invisible while the copayment storm whirled around him.
That suggests the secrecy regime installed at immigration by Morrison will suit him right down to the ground .
Anyone want to bet On when he might call a press conference?
ABC24 talking about music.
All 4 with 1/8th of a Schooner done …
Full on wank.
WB
Re: immigration being a hospital pass.
There was a rumour going around last year that Dutton did not actually want Health and went to Abbott and asked for a change out of Health soon after they won government.
According to the very same set of rumours, Dutton was made to keep Health against his wishes, but got Sport as a consolation extra so that he could go to some international sporting events.
I have no way of verifying any of the above, such rumours being as common as mud and just as transparent.
Now Dutton gets to clean up Morrison’s sweepings after Morrison has declared victory.
The best Dutton can do is to maintain the status quo.
How sad.
[The best Dutton can do is to maintain the status quo.]
Or resign.
Johnston’s failure in Defence mainly serves to demonstrate that second-tier performers will soon struggle in that portfolio. Unless you have an almost unlimited capacity for administrative and policy work, excellent leadership skills and a tough political mind, you will not make it.
Why on earth would such a job be entrusted to Andrews? On a good day, he’s almost comatose. Perhaps his main strength is is his loyalty to Abbott…It’s not possible to see what else he has done to merit a promotion.
Carey,
You might say that. I could not possibly comment.
I don’t think Immigration is a hospital pass. Morrison has put everything in place and Dutton just needs to hold the line. It certainly used to he a hospital pass, almost as bad as Health minister in state governments, where you are guaranteed one front page scandal per week and an impossible job of saving money.
Boewar
That explains the comment om Dutton in The West Australian the other day where political editor Andrew Probyn said Dutton’s “heart wasn’t in health”
Curious that he would spend so many years as oppo spokesman and then want out. Maybe the reality was that he knew he was out if his depth but nobody else either wanted the gig or would have been any better.
Dio
Andrews can just go to sleep for months (and hand out vouchers).
[ That suggests the secrecy regime installed at immigration by Morrison will suit him right down to the ground . ]
I doubt the media or the public would wear ‘secrecy’ in the SS area. People have already had a gutful of the mob. Its crap and unfair policies which are the problem not ‘selling’.
In summary of these changes I assess it all as “Keep Digging”.
Abbott also need to do something about the speaker. Fail.
[Posted Sunday, December 21, 2014 at 5:55 pm | PERMALINK
@NewsAustralia: Reaction on private Facebook groups for Australian military families to ‘Defence Minister Kevin Andrews’ a mix of fury and shock #auspol]
After the Defence pay and conditions cut fiasco, putting Mr WorKChoices in charge is a dumb idea. Against all conventional wisdom, Abbott’s ‘hamfisted reshuffle may lose him the military vote
[The reshuffle removes the problem of Johnston and resolves the lingering difficulty caused by Arthur Sinodinos’s dodgy memory and poor judgment at Australian Water Holdings, and allows the government to start afresh in the crucial Health portfolio with a more positive, competent and articulate minister than Dutton. However, the problem of Joe Hockey remains, and that is a problem of greater ongoing concern for the government than a bumbler like Johnston.]
Keane
http://www.crikey.com.au/2014/12/21/abbott-reshuffles-to-reset-and-refocus/
[rossmcg
Posted Sunday, December 21, 2014 at 5:54 pm | Permalink
Boewar
That explains the comment om Dutton in The West Australian the other day where political editor Andrew Probyn said Dutton’s “heart wasn’t in health”
Curious that he would spend so many years as oppo spokesman and then want out. Maybe the reality was that he knew he was out if his depth but nobody else either wanted the gig or would have been any better.]
That is a straw in the wind. Another one was the view expressed by someone in the Gubby side that Dutton had taken ‘…one for the team’.
A reasonable conclusion would be that Dutton can’t get out of his own way.
[Katharine Murphy @murpharoo 2h2 hours ago
Social services is high profile? Would be the first time ever if Morrison manages to make that portfolio high profile.
Michelle Grattan @michellegrattan 35m35 minutes ago
@murpharoo he will]
Social services should be high profile IMO.
Morrison has done Bush’s ‘Mission Accomplished’ and has moved right along.
Dutton can have all the fun he likes in the consequential mire.
[Carey,
You might say that. I could not possibly comment.]
🙂
I was hoping somebody would take it.
I don’t like these words of Abbott. Everyone is just a widget in the clockwork economy.
“The minister for social services is essentially a ministry for economic participation and it is essential to have a minister of Scott’s drive and competence in this role.”
Has Abbott wasted the sort of opportunity that incumbency bestows on embattled prime ministers?
Is he evens?
Or is he ahead?
My view is that, in terms of Cabinet capability and energy, he is slightly ahead of where he was before the reshuffle.
But not nearly as much as he might have been had he had a burst of chutzpah combined with machismo.
He needed to shirtfront all his duds.
[lizzie
Posted Sunday, December 21, 2014 at 6:03 pm | Permalink
I don’t like these words of Abbott. Everyone is just a widget in the clockwork economy.
“The minister for social services is essentially a ministry for economic participation and it is essential to have a minister of Scott’s drive and competence in this role.”]
It is a bizarre description of SS.
[10
William Bowe
How is immigration a “hospital pass”?]
There are some High Court decisions due out any day now. Depending how they go, they have the potential to completely up-end the existing legislative and administrative apple cart. It’s possible this portfolio will again become a source of unending political losses.
While Abbott appears to have (quite misplaced) confidence in Dutton, neother of them should be feeling relaxed about this. Dutton does not have the political skills to run an easy portfolio, let alone a tough one.
For a Coalition Government, Immigration is an easy gig because your base doesn’t really expect any compassion. I wouldn’t call it a hospital pass at all.
Morrison’s appointment is interesting. It shows they are going to go hard against social security and services soon and they want the government’s bastard helming it. However, if it turns out to be too Quixotic a task, it’ll take Morrison down a peg and reduce the threat of his ascension for a while.
Considering the “worst offenders” are still in their posts, I’d say that this reshuffle, with a few token gestures and face changes, is an attempt to try and give the appearance of going in a new direction, when, in fact, they are just increasing their speed down the current course.
Tweet find from over the road.
[Jack Sumner @preciouspress
Follow
@MikeCarlton01 Morrison, Minister for Social Services, soon to introduce Temporary Existence Visas.]
[32
lizzie
I don’t like these words of Abbott. Everyone is just a widget in the clockwork economy.
“The minister for social services is essentially a ministry for economic participation and it is essential to have a minister of Scott’s drive and competence in this role.”]
Got a link?
The new Departmentof Social Services, formerly known as FAHCSIA is a backwate when it comes to the central role of government.
Ambitious Morrison has been moved sideways as reward for rattling the PMO cage.
Dutton has seriously pissed off the doctors, who are a key part of the Liberal consensus. So Dutton gets the boot, with the friendly Leys brought in to listen more carefully to the rent seekers. Dutton has tin ear, more suited to Immigration.
As for Andrews (Onward Christian Soldiers keeps humming in my ear, dammit), his soul mate Abbott made it clear in his pressed that Abbott was “The Team Captain” when it came to Defence.
Johnston may become another disgruntled Mr Potatohead like McClelland in the previous government.
Dutton’s 9 years as a plod suits his demotion* to Immigration. In fact I think I offered it as a possible reshuffle option for Abbott.
* Immigration is always the last choice APS recruits put on their job applications, the brightest seldom end up there.
Carey Moore
[Considering the “worst offenders” are still in their posts, I’d say that this reshuffle, with a few token gestures and face changes, is an attempt to try and give the appearance of going in a new direction, when, in fact, they are just increasing their speed down the current course.]
Bingo!!
[Kate Ellis @KateEllisMP · 40m 40 minutes ago
Abbott’s decision to remove early childhood & child care from the education portfolio and give it to Scott Morrison is pretty terrifying.]
Dutton can only keep the boats stopped. Status quo.
The best he can hope for is that Manus and Nauru don’t erupt, and that asylum seekers being transferred to the mainland or who are on TPVs don’t start doing illegal things to Australian citizens.
As unemployment creeps up, Dutton may come under pressure to explain why he is letting in 200,000 people a year, slathering the nation with 457s, and why he can’t stop illegal immigrants from doing as much of the rural work as they are now doing.
While I would not rate it as a hospital pass, it is hard to see any of that being the sort of career stepping stone that Morrison used it for.
It is care and maintenance with some fraught left field unknown unknowns lurking around the place.
As for the Coalition base, I can’t see Dutton ever doing filthy bastard like Morrison did it. Morrison loved it. He was a natural.
Dutton couldn’t frighten a fly.
[34
Boerwar
“The minister for social services is essentially a ministry for economic participation and it is essential to have a minister of Scott’s drive and competence in this role.”
It is a bizarre description of SS.]
This is code for a tough line on the unemployed, on disability support, on support for students and on workforce participation for older Australians.
Also of note
The Industry Department is renamed as the Department of Industry and Science. (DIS)
Training gets excised out of Industry, and placed in the new Department of Education and Training. (DET).
New logos and acronyms….
poroti
[Jack Sumner @preciouspress
Follow
@MikeCarlton01 Morrison, Minister for Social Services, soon to introduce Temporary Existence Visas.]
My thoughts exactly! Wonder what will happen to the $7 co-payment now?
briefly
Shorter Abbott on SS “I know there’s no jobs out there but you on Newstart and DSP are just gonna have to suck it up”
[ruawake
Posted Sunday, December 21, 2014 at 6:12 pm | PERMALINK
Dutton’s 9 years as a plod suits his demotion* to Immigration. In fact I think I offered it as a possible reshuffle option for Abbott.
* Immigration is always the last choice APS recruits put on their job applications, the brightest seldom end up there.]
The Department of Veterans Affairs is below Immi, though things may have changed in recent times…
sprocket,
Scot Morrison is Minister for SS.
s
The focus groups must have been telling them that the citizenry didn’t quite get it that wrecking CSIRO etc, etc, etc, was such a good idea now that no-one wants to pay top dollar for iron ore, natural gas or coal.
The test for the change of name to ‘Industry and Science’ is really whether some extra resources will go into the portfolio.
Going on their track record, that would be SFA.
Fig Leaf stuff.