RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

This week, something interesting happened in Canberra. Craig Kelly quit the Liberal Party, and in doing so took away the Coalition’s majority on the floor of the parliament.

But the Morrison government is so mired in scandal, this latest development went largely unnoticed.

Today - columnist for The Saturday Paper Paul Bongiorno on what he calls the “terrible place” in which we find our politics.

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RUBY:

Paul, Craig Kelly resigned from the Liberal Party this week. How significant is this?

PAUL:

Well, let me put it like this, Ruby. Craig Kelly's over-the-top praise of Scott Morrison as he quit the Liberal Party this week was more akin to the Mafia sending roses to its next victim.

Archival Tape -- David Koch

“Craig Kelly joins us now from Canberra - Craig Kelly, government’s lost its majority. Why put them in this position?”

PAUL:

Look, make no mistake, Kelly's departure to the crossbench is a sickening blow to the government's stability and authority.

Archival Tape -- Craig Kelly

“Well, first of all, Kochie, I've assured the Prime Minister that I'll guarantee supply and confidence”

PAUL:

In a statement to the House, Kelly said he would guarantee supply and that he would vote consistent with the policies he took as a liberal to the last election. But he made it clear in a series of interviews that he would freelance on everything else.

Archival Tape -- Craig Kelly

“I just feel that if I'm to speak out and to use my voice the best I can, this is the best decision for myself and for the people that I represent.”

PAUL:

And according to party room sources, Morrison was stung by Kelly's betrayal. The Prime Minister's face darkened when the Sydney MP rose to his feet in the closed meeting and without any forewarning, read out his resignation letter.

RUBY:

And so why did Craig Kelly resign, Paul? Is it about the falling out he had with the Prime Minister over the conspiracy theories that he posed to Facebook? Or is this about something else?

PAUL:

Well, Kelly says he's been smeared over his support for, what everyone else thinks are, snake oil remedies for COVID-19. And he wants to be able to speak out according to his conscience, he says, to save lives. A couple of weeks back, Morrison did call him in and asked him to stop undermining the government's pandemic policies, especially the vaccine rollout. But the gallery believes Kelly's refusal to sack his senior staffer, Frank Zumbo, is another factor. And on Tuesday the Prime Minister made no secret of the fact he'd raised Zumbo with Kelly and the need for him to dismiss him.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison

“I have long, long expressed to Mr Kelly my concerns about that staff member, and he has long understood what my expectations were about how he would deal with that matter.”

PAUL:

Zumbo, you may know, is the subject of persistent allegations of sexual misbehaviour in regard to young women. And last year an apprehended violence order was taken out against him. Zumbo rejects all these claims.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison

“This matter was raised by my office, Mr Speaker, both informally and directly in relation to the employment of the person who is at the centre of this, Mr Frank Zumbo, with the Member for Hughes.”

PAUL:

Well Kelly denies the pressure on him to sack Zumbo was another reason why he quit the Liberal Party. But he is staunch in his defence of his Chief of Staff, even claiming that he himself investigated the matter and found nothing in the allegations. Well, the Department of Finance and the New South Wales Police are now both investigating - and they may come to a different conclusion.

RUBY:

So, Paul, is this about the Prime Minister wanting to seem like he is taking action on sexual misconduct at a time in which his government is very much under pressure for for mishandling allegations of sexual assault?

PAUL:

Well, Ruby that's a very plausible way of looking at it. Morrison is sticking by the story that he and his office knew nothing about Brittany Higgins alleged rape until her story was about to break in the media.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison

“If there’s one thing Australian’s have learnt about me and my government it’s we’re a pretty focused bunch.”

PAUL:

The picture he paints of the government is of incredible shambles. And I think he knows it because he told parliament he'd asked his departmental secretary, Phil Gaetjens - and now listen to this - to enquire into the credibility of what his own hand-picked staff had told him.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison

“They’re important issues, and we are addressing them, and the process that we’re engaged in in a multi-party way…”

PAUL:

But remember, Morrison knew about the Zumbo story as far back as the middle of last year. And it's not clear when he first raised it with Kelly. If it was then, well, Kelly treated the advice with contempt.

RUBY:

OK, and so what should we be expecting from Craig Kelly now then, when you say that he's going to be freelancing, what policy areas are we talking about?

PAUL:

Well, mostly about COVID-19 treatments, but just as problematic for Morrison, energy and climate change. The member for Hughes, Kelly, has signalled he's much more in tune with the coal-champion Nationals than he is even with Morrison's tepid commitment to the cause. Kelly says he would not vote for measures to achieve a net zero carbon emissions target by 2050 - that's if Morrison ever gets around to making such a commitment.

RUBY:

So Craig Kelly leaving the Liberal Party makes action on climate change even less likely because Scott Morrison would have to be appealing for his vote on the crossbench.

PAUL:

Unfortunately, I think that's right. Anthony Albanese and the Labour Party have made efforts of bipartisanship for climate legislation. They were ignored last year. But Morrison is more likely to follow Malcolm Turnbull's example and not take anything to the parliament that relies on the opposition's numbers to succeed. And that means meaningful action is very, very unlikely. You know, Ruby, it's the price we pay as a nation for dumb tribalism in our politics.

RUBY:

We'll be back in a moment.

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RUBY:

Paul, we're talking about Craig Kelly's resignation from the Liberal Party. What is Scott Morrison doing to manage the risk that this creates for him on the floor of parliament?

PAUL:

Well, almost immediately after Kelly told the party room he was resigning, Scott Morrison reached out to Bob Katter, inviting him to his office to seek assurance on supply and confidence. This, Ruby, is as sure a sign as any of what little trust, if any, Morrison has for Kelly's own assurances on supply.

Archival Tape -- Bob Katter

“Um, and, ahh, I, ahh, don’t want anything to be interpreted or assumed by me quoting the, ahh, leader of the opposition, but, umm, his comment was…”

PAUL:

Ironically, last week over dinner, Kelly took Katter into his confidence, telling him of his intention to follow the example of the veteran Queensland MP and become an independent.

Archival Tape -- Bob Katter

“The saying that two days is a long time in politics is very, very true. Yesterday, the government had a majority, today they don't…”

PAUL:

Katter quit the Nationals 20 years ago. He is now, as you know, a maverick and he sees the whole thing as an opportunity.

Archival Tape -- Bob Katter

“Now, the government, the pe-...the mainstream parties in Australia have to accept that they no longer issue the edicts and we all jump when they crack the whip. Those days are over.”

PAUL:

Katter told Parliament that the government would no longer be dictating what happens in Australia. It was pretty blunt - and an indication of the struggles Morrison will now face.

Archival Tape -- Bob Katter

“The day that you could walk in this place - you big boys - and smash the dairy industry of Australia to pieces and close down manufacturing, they’re over…”

Archival Tape -- Speaker of The House

“The member’s time has expired.”

Archival Tape -- Bob Katter (off-mic)

“They’re finished, they’re done.”

RUBY:

Mm. And it isn't just Bob Katter, Paul, there are others, some in the Nationals who are feeling emboldened by Kelly's resignation.

PAUL:

That's absolutely right. Where there's a self-indulgent bunfight, there's often Barnaby Joyce.

Archival Tape -- Barnaby Joyce

“I’ve been mates with Craig for a long while, I knew Craig before he came into politics…”

PAUL:

The one time leader of the Nationals, told reporters that Kelly's departure from the Liberal Party strengthens the hands of the remaining government backbenchers. And that, of course, includes him.

Archival Tape -- Barnaby Joyce

“I think I've been around this building long enough to say majority two's better than a majority of one. And I think we're now in a position where you'd have to get the crossbench for basically every piece of leg…”

PAUL:

The foment in the Nationals is hardly discreet, and it's difficult to know what the harder driver of it is: leadership ambitions or deep-seated policy differences, particularly over energy. I think in Barnaby Joyce, the two meet, they come together.

Archival Tape -- Barnaby Joyce

“I would love him to be in the National party, but that’s really a decision for Craig, and I’m not going to start pushing somebody one direction or the other…”

PAUL:

But according to a party room source, his chances of regaining the leadership are nil. Though I've got to tell you, others aren't so sure. The return of Llew O'Brien, the Queensland National, to the Nationals’ party room at the end of last year, after he left for 10 months, was certainly seen as another number for Joyce. And I have to tell you, Llew is not making things easy for the Prime Minister either.

RUBY:

In what way?

PAUL:

Well, one of the big policy stories this week was changes to welfare payments. In the party room, O'Brien told Morrison that he couldn't support legislation that raised Newstart from 40 dollars a day to $43.60. O'Brien, like other Nationals, apparently believes there are more than enough jobs in regional Australia and that the unemployed just refuse to take them. You know, it's gob smacking from this man - his own electorate of Wide Bay has one of the highest unemployment rates in Australia at eleven point seven per cent.

Well, what's needed in O'Brien and some of these Nats’ opinions, is the disincentive to stay on the dole and take any work on offer. And Ruby that's where this week's ‘dob-seeker’ provision comes in. This is the phone line set up for bosses to report people who won’t take jobs that are offered to them. You know, it's a horrible piece of policy, and social service providers have already warned it's wide open to abuse. But the ‘dole bludger’, of course, is holy writ for conservatives, and it sure reared its head this week.

RUBY:

So, Paul, where does all of this leave the government's agenda?

PAUL:

Well, the government is left negotiating policy through its most conservative member - I should say, former member - a man who disbelieves climate science and uses his social media to stoke conspiracy theories about Coronavirus, and claims that Marxists stormed the US Capitol as part of a ‘false flag’ operation. So, Ruby, you’d have to say, the government's already weak commitment to bold reform is being held hostage to this Neanderthal view of the world. Kelly has made himself an absolute roadblock on anything he doesn't like. It's a terrible place for our politics to be and I'd have to say for our nation.

RUBY:

Paul, thank you so much for your time today.

PAUL:

Thank you, Ruby, bye.

RUBY:

You can read Paul Bongiorno’s column in The Saturday Paper tomorrow.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today -

The Australian Federal Police Commissioner has written to the Prime Minister warning delays in reporting crimes can seriously damage investigations and risk the perpetrator reoffending. The letter from Reece Kershaw to Scott Morrison comes in the wake of sexual assault allegations made by former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins.

Meanwhile, the Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has defended his decision not to tell the Prime Minister about the alleged assault, saying it was a sensitive, operational matter. Scott Morrison has said he only found out about the allegation when it was made public.

7am is a daily show from The Monthly and The Saturday Paper. It’s produced by Ruby Schwartz, Atticus Bastow, Elle Marsh, Michelle Macklem, and Cinnamon Nippard.

Brian Campeau mixes the show. Our editor is Osman Faruqi. Erik Jensen is our editor-in-chief.
Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Audio.

New episodes of 7am are released every weekday morning. Subscribe in your favourite podcast app, to make sure you don’t miss out.

I’m Ruby Jones, see you next week.