Category: Australia

Labor’s Senate President Sue Lines (who last week said we should ditch the Lord’s Prayer at the opening of each day’s sitting) directed Thorpe to say the oath properly. Thorpe did so, but in a tone of such naked sarcasm that no one could mistake her in her contemplation.

It was a stunt, sure. But it is pretty wild that Australian parliamentarians are made to declare allegiance to the Queen.

And while Liz may never have donned a pith helmet herself, it’s undeniable she is the figurehead of an ex-colonial power which has a great deal of blood on her hands. The confrontation of this history means even royal tours these days are fraught.

Once, royals could rely on polite silence when visiting the Commonwealth outposts their forebears exploited. No more – in March, when Prince William and his wife Kate, our future queen, took an eight-day tour of Belize, Bahamas and Jamaica, it wasn’t all flag-waving children and military parades.

In Belize, they faced protests. In Jamaica, the prime minister told the Cambridges his country would be “moving on” to become a republic (just as Barbados did in 2021), and in the Bahamas a government committee urged the royals to make a “full and formal apology for their crimes against humanity”. Yikes.

loading

We are living through an exciting period when history is being re-examined, and there is a heightened awareness of the damage wrought by colonialism.

In 2021, Scott Morrison’s government announced that the words “young and free” would be swapped for “one and free” in the national anthem (interestingly, the change was made by proclamation of the governor-general, the Crown’s representative).

It now seems astonishing how easily Aboriginal history was erased when the anthem was proclaimed in 1984 (again, by the governor-general).

Living royals are not the only ones feeling insecure – historical figures are also falling victim to this spirit of reappraisal, a trend that has picked up speed following the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020.

Winston Churchill is still venerated by many politicians, and seen, by older generations at least, as a symbol of anti-fascist defiance and patriotic heroism.

New biographies change the lens – a 2021 book on Churchill by Geoffrey Wheatcroft portrays Churchill as “not just a racist but a hypocrite, a dissembler, a narcissist, an opportunist, an imperialist, a drunk, a strategic bungler, a tax dodger, a neglectful father, a credit-hogging author, a terrible judge of character and, most of all, a masterful mythmaker”, in the words of the New York Times. oof.

Another recent biography by Tariq Ali argues that the post-war veneration of Churchill represents a nostalgia for empire.

Churchill led the fight against Nazi Germany, and saved the world from fascism.

But there is no doubt he was racist – he used the n-word and he called Chinese people “pigtails”.

loading

Ali points out that in 1937 the great man said indigenous people in North America and Australia had been colonized by a “stronger race, a higher-grade race”.

The BBC coverage of the current Commonwealth Games has been tinged with skepticism, with one studio presenter asking her sports panel: “What does the Commonwealth mean in modern society?”

The diversity of the new parliament has been much commented upon.

Lidia Thorpe and Chandler-Mather are Greens politicians, and Thorpe is Indigenous, but perhaps the real “diversity” they represent is their relative youth. Thorpe is 48, a member of Generation X, and Chandler-Mather is just 30, a Millennial with a more relaxed concept of masculinity.

After he was chastised for his nude neck, he posted a TikTok video highlighting the fact that his question, once he was allowed to ask it, had been about public housing.

Likewise, the new teal independents are largely Gen X women.

They look young compared to the older male politicians who have traditionally dominated our politics, in their suits.

And their ties, of course.

The Opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up here.

Almost as soon as his victory became apparent, Pocock began to shape the debate on climate. He was the first of the crossbenchers to indicate he would support the Albanese government’s 43 per cent emissions reduction target, saying while he wanted a more ambitious goal, the “community wants to see us banking some gains”.

His pragmatism squeezed the Greens, who risked being seen as an obstructionist if they too didn’t back it in. As the first two weeks of the new parliament drew to a close on Thursday, the Albanese government had chalked up a major victory – its landmark bill to legislate the target passed the lower house, with the Greens agreeing to vote for it after securing drafting changes to ensure the 43 per cent target was a floor and not a ceiling.

Pocock is now preparing to test his influence when the bill hits the Senate in September. He has teamed up with Tasmanian crossbenchers Jacqui Lambie and Tammy Tyrrell in drafting an amendment that will require the federal government to show how its policies align with Australia hitting the target.

The move is a postscript to his first speech; he won’t stand in the way, but neither will he be a rubber stamp.

Pocock is, of course, no stranger to the national spotlight. His sporting prowess and social activism have been traversed in countless newspaper profiles, features and TV interviews over the years. He was famously arrested in 2014 for chaining himself to a tractor in protest against a new coal mine in northern NSW, and together with now-wife Emma made headlines when in 2010 they boycotted signing their marriage certificates until same-sex marriage was legalized.

It is all the more striking, then, that Pocock in person is extremely reserved. A self-described introvert, he says he spoke to more people on the campaign trail than he has in the past decade.

“I’m not great at small talk,” he says in an interview with the herald and The Age. “But talking about issues that are interesting and that I believe in, I love it.”

He lacks the bombastic, brash personality that has helped catapult others onto the Senate crossbench and is cut from a decidedly different cloth to the mercurial and unvarnished Lambie or One Nation’s Pauline Hanson. Quiet and contemplative, his sentences from him are punctuated by long pauses as he converts thoughts into words.

“One of the downsides is that it can come across as arrogance because you’re a little bit quieter than people expect and maybe seem aloof. But sometimes you just don’t want to talk,” he says.

loading

Lambie, for what it’s worth, says Pocock will be no pushover in the Senate, but confesses she was among the many skeptics who doubted he would make it.

“I told him ‘I admire you, but there’s no way you’ll win’,” she said, relaying a chat she had with Pocock after he announced his campaign. “We’re all still laughing about it.”

As candidates go, Pocock was a unicorn that political strategists dream of finding, capable of peeling votes away from both Liberals and Labor. His profile of him was established, his progressive bona fides well-known and his rugby career would help endear him to conservative voters not rusted on to the Liberal Party, or so the thinking went.

But history and precedent were stacked against him – no independent had ever disrupted the major-party duopoly and won an ACT Senate seat. A confluence of circumstances cracked open a window of possibility. As the bell tolled on the last parliament, a series of scandals and policy missteps had beleaguered the Morrison government and the Liberals were on the nose around the country.

In the ACT – where Labor has been in power for two decades at a territory level (in more recent times, in formal coalition with the Greens), Liberal Senator Zed Seselja’s ultra-conservative brand of politics was seen as a particular weakness, including by some in his own party. If ever Pocock was going to run, this was the election to do it.

“I had a bunch of people in Canberra last year hassling me, saying a lot of people might not think this, but we really do: there is a pathway for an independent senator if we can get the right candidate,” Pocock says.

“I thought, if I don’t actually just have a crack at this I’m going to regret it. I didn’t want to be sitting around after the election or in a few years, thinking ‘I wonder what would have happened if I had run?’”

By securing more than 20 per cent of first preferences, Pocock leapfrogged Seselja into the second Senate spot, upending four decades of political lore that ACT voters would only ever send one Liberal and one Labor senator to the red chamber.

His political career marks the next chapter for the Zimbabwean boy who dreamt of playing for the Springboks but became a Wallaby instead. Widely lauded as one of rugby’s greatest ever players, Pocock officially retired from international competition in 2020, having played 83 tests for Australia, including as captain for the 2012 season.

Does he miss it?

“Not really. I loved it. It was a childhood dream and I really enjoyed it. I played my first professional game in 2006 [and my last in] 2020. So, long enough,” he says.

Nonetheless, he pulled on a Queensland jersey (borrowed from Canberra Raiders veteran Josh Papalii) this week as he took to the field for the Parliamentary Friends of Rugby League’s annual State of Origin touch football match. Albanese, an avid NRL fan who had been drafted for the NSW team, called it the “greatest scandal” since South Sydney legend Greg Inglis chose the maroon jersey over the blues.

loading

It has only fueled speculation inside the Canberra press gallery that Pocock will again emerge from retirement for the annual “pollies v press” rugby match. Will he join the likes of Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce, a fixture in the politicians’ side, and lace up his boots once again?

“I’ve had a few calls,” he says.

“I don’t know what position [Joyce] plays. We could be a good combo. That’s the great thing about sport, it brings people together.”

The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.

“When people told me their stories, there were a lot of things that only the government could change – whether that was isolation, whether that was a secure job. And that’s what really got me into politics,” she says.

“What really struck me working as a psychologist, even though it was a brief time, was that every time there’s one person coming through your door, you’re able to help one person, but there’s someone else to help.

“And with politics, you actually can change a whole lot of people’s lives at once. You can make them better at once, or you can make them worse depending on where you are.”

She then set about getting elected for the Labor Party, winning the seat of Kingston in 2007 at the age of 29.

A member of Labor’s Right faction, Rishworth says she has learned a few things over the course of the Rudd and Gillard governments and then nine years in opposition, including to never lose touch with the electorate.

loading

“Knowing that you’ve got to listen, not just to the things people raise, but the things people are not telling you as well,” she says.

“You can’t turn off to constructive criticism. In parliament, which is a very combative environment… you do have to, while not taking on too much negative criticism that’s very personal, stay open to listening to constructive criticism and keep listening.”

In her first two weeks of parliament as minister, Rishworth has introduced legislation to abolish the cashless debit card and create paid domestic violence leave.

The first move led Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to accuse Labor of appeasing an “inner city woke audience”, but Rishworth is not taking a backwards step.

“There’s been a lot of rhetoric and a lot of ideology. But I think I’d start with the premise that the evidence just isn’t there to show that the cashless debit card actually did what it was intended to do,” she says.

Next on her agenda are more measures to tackle domestic violence and online gambling, supporting more women to be able to go back to work and more support for early childhood learning.

Raising two young children with husband Timothy – a computer programmer – while in parliament, Rishworth says she understands the importance of helping families strike a work-life balance. She says her two sons of her, three-year-old Oscar and seven-year-old Percy, have also shown her the importance of early childhood development.

For this cabinet minister, politics is a helping profession.