Former Liberal MP Craig Kelly could sink super reforms
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The government’s signature superannuation reform package may struggle to clear the lower house, with renegade former Liberal MP Craig Kelly saying he is unhappy with several aspects of the Your Future, Your Super bill.
Mr Kelly, who quit the Liberal Party in February, told
The Australian Financial Review he thinks “several provisions of the bill are contrary to Liberal party values”, including the directions power giving the Treasurer the ability to ban investments that do not align with the national interest.
The provision, also opposed by Labor, would allow the government “to prohibit certain payments and investments where they are considered to be unsuitable expenditure by trustees in any circumstance.”
âWhat are you going to do? Have passport police set up between Tweed Heads and the Gold Coast? I mean, for goodness sake,â he said on Monday morning.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and Queensland Nationals senator Matt Canavan were both concerned such a plan would in effect create two classes of citizens.
âI think itâs unconstitutional,â Senator Hanson told Sky News.
Crossbench senator Rex Patrick said it was a distraction from issues with the rollout.
âOnce weâve got enough people who have signed on to get the vaccine, I think all these issues of passports go away,â he told Sky News.
Coronavirus Australia: Paul Kelly says Australia needs as many incentives as we can to get people vaccinated watoday.com.au - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from watoday.com.au Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Craig Kelly’s controversial appearance on a podcast hosted by disgraced celebrity chef Pete Evans saw the Liberal MP attack health bureaucrats who he claimed were giving “dud advice” to government, as the men bonded over what they perceived to be unfair media reporting.
Just hours after the podcast was published on Evans’ subscription-only website, Mr Kelly tangled with Labor shadow minister Tanya Plibersek in a hallway argument, before he was privately and publicly rebuked by Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
“Views expressed by the Member for Hughes do not align with my views, or the views of the advice that has been provided to me by the Chief Medical Officer,” Mr Morrison told the federal parliament on Wednesday.
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at 10:40 am on May 5, 2021 | 16 comments
The Australian has released a stunning series of reports (here and here) on Victoria’s latest hotel quarantine failure, which seeded the state’s third hard lockdown in February and resulted in international arrivals being banned for two months.
The allegations are based on a secret Victorian Government report leaked to the paper, entitled
Hotel Quarantine Outbreak Retrospective CQV Infection Prevention & Control March 2021, which reveals that the third lockdown was not caused by a man using a nebuliser, but rather the virus was released into a corridor during the lengthy swabbing of a woman in an open doorway.