Thread by @iMusing

good morning from unceded Terramerragal clan lands☀️today on #Insiders are Guardian politics legend Amy Remeikis, ABC everyman Stan Grant and Westralian politics corro Lanai Scarr. The interview is with shadow defence minister Brendan O’Connor.

opening spiel: the prime minister promises a massive troop build up (by 2040) but there were not enough on the ground when needed. #Insiders

what’s the Morrison perspective, skip? Well, the prime minister “played it safe” in Lismore and was “careful to avoid any confrontations” - where “confrontation” means voters expressing their opinion to a politician. #Insiders

the montage is politicians and journalists on the climate floods. “You know things are bad when Scott Morrison does not want a camera” says the voiceover at one stage (Speers?) with footage of Cobargo. The McKenzie train wreck gets a run. #Insiders

#MakingNews is French-German-Russian talks which achieved nothing. Future “peace talks” could take place in Jerusalem. #Insiders

apparently Perrottet rejected two offers of ADF support? Nobody is any clearer on who asks who for orders or permission on deploying the troops, a confusion created by Morrison in 2019. Speers editorialises that there will be more climate disasters. #Insiders

panel. Scarr opens by carefully framing climate catastrophe as “natural” disasters. Was it a state level failure or Defence? Scarr does not know, but then nobody in the gallery does. She says the fact remains people are homeless and suffering. #Insiders

the NSW government failed people, the federal government failed people, says Remeikis. They are being told there are payments but people are not getting the money, and politicians are bickering, it is not good enough she says. #Insiders

it is important to understand [who failed and how] Speers puts to Grant, who somehow segues off to post Cold War compact and back to neoliberalism and its obsession with market mythology [paraphrased] off to Katrina, Brexit and says “it is structural”. #Insiders

we have hollowed our communities, destroyed services, left people behind, all around the world, says Grant. Speers says Morrison “offered an apology of sorts” and plays a clip of the gaslighting nonpology. #Insiders

he was “sensitive to the anger on the ground” says Speers. Lmao sensitive to the political implications for himself, sez me. Scarr says there are arguments for and against the no-cameras decision and discusses the Oz Harvest position. #Insiders

we are along so much of emergency responders, says Remeikis. The community are begging for help, she says. Yes the government does need to crack open the funding and invest in mitigation. She rejects the “land of extremes” (Mackellar defence) narrative. #Insiders

the McKenzie train wreck gets another run. “Reduce red tape” drink. #Insiders

Scarr says the states asking for ADF claims are politicking and is “technically not true”. Speers repeats the ludicrous idea that a federal emergency power to unilaterally deploy the troops is about income support. #Insiders

the community is stepping up because the government failed to, says Remeikis. Speers veers back to what Morrison says about payments which are flowing or not or need the troops to cut the red tape or something #Insiders

we keep needing to find more money, says Grant. Debt like we have not seen outside war time. More emergencies, more services, more money, interest rates increasing, higher debt costs, and the geopolitics of China as our biggest trading partner - Grant. #Insiders

segue to the interview is another clip of Morrison, proselytising his “neighbour helping neighbour” approach to catastrophic climate events, which he says has “always” been the first response in straya to “natural disasters”. #Insiders

interview. Speers reads out a shopping list of troops, helicopters etc, as Dutton and Morrison always do. O’Conner says the prime minister is too slow to act and too quick to blame others. He says operational decisions are made by ADF personnel. #Insiders

are you saying as minister you would step in and order more helicopters to be deployed [paraphrased]? Obviously O’Connor said no such thing. He responds by pointing to the need for political will to actually deploy assistance. Speers repeats the wedge Q. #Insiders

the prime minister can make a decision to declare a national emergency, says O’Connor. Under the legislation. The Queensland Premier said it should have been done earlier. He should not have waited until he held private meetings in Lismore. #Insiders

the idea of a standing emergency response force. O’Connor says a Labor government would make a series of decisions based on climate change threat assessment and it may be expanding defence or “some other form” of emergency taskforce. #Insiders

the constant deployment of ADF to help communities is not sustainable, says O’Connor. So a civilian outfit? O’Connor says there will be increasing disasters and we need to do more. Expensive tho, says Speers. More expensive to not act, says O’Connor. #Insiders

[the bloated and wasteful] Defence spending. Did Labor cut defence spending too far? Well we were responding to a global financial crisis at the time, says O’Connor. He cites average Defence spending over Rudd Gillard years. Nobody raise the monumental waste. #Insiders

the prime minister has too often used national security as a partisan plaything, says O’Connor. On subs tho? asks Speers. Is Labor support a blank cheque? There is no such thing as a blank cheque, David, says O’Connor. He mentions the waste of the cancelled French subs. #Insiders

this is quite the feat. Speers is attacking Labor for spending less than the Coalition on Defence and attacking Labor for a future hypothetical spend - which they have not committed to - but the Coalition has. #Insiders

back to panel. Speers says blank cheque for the eleventieth time. He then loyally advertises a Morrison announcement about a base for non-existent submarines. We do not know when we will get them, says Grant. China is talking about hypersonic weapons, he says. #Insiders

Grant canvasses the Lowy institute speeches and says Labor has an internal debate about defence. Albanese knows this, he is focusing on the Rudd defence position. He accused Labor of being contradictory and inconsistent (15 years ago). #Insiders

the government is very very very keen for a khaki election, says Remeikis. It has been quite some time since Labor was in power, and she is not sure, says Remeikis, that voters are deciding their vote on a promise of thousands more troops by 2040. #Insiders

we live in a dangerous volatile environment, says Grant. Voters may not be voting on it now but they will have to in the future? Is that what he said? China China, says Grant. We cut to a clip of Zelenskyy (I think). #Insiders

Scarr says Morrison has announced more lethal and non-lethal support for Ukraine. One plane load of medical supplies has landed. Heroic stuff. Grant says there is red line that Putin made very clear. I missed what the clear line is tho #Insiders

fuel prices, which were rising long before the Putin invasion, which fire not prevent Speers from claiming that high fuel prices are Putin’s fault. Remeikis describes the gap between what we are told about the economy and widespread economic insecurity for many. #Insiders

the death of Labor senator Kimberley Kitching. Scarr says the Senator spoke out for what she believed in and calls her a Bill Shorten captain’s pick. Clip of Shorten on the stress of party politics. #Insiders

we then get more on Labor internals. In a segment purportedly about a woman who died at age 52 of a heart attack. Scarr then says “some people” say Shorten “should not have made it so political”. #Insiders

he spoke from his heart and we should not tell people how to grieve, says Remeikis, and offers an overview of the Kitching style and highlights the humanity of politicians. #Insiders

for his turn memorialising Kitching, Grant talks about sanctions. She was interested in foreign policy, apparently. #Insiders

IWD. Remeikis says the anger has not dissipated and there needs to be more diversity in the campaign. Scarr says “it will play a role in this election”. Apparently “it” is “Womens issues”.
Fact check: the problem is male violence. #Insiders

#TalkingPictures is up. Glenn Le Lievre is a back to you David Speers man.

https://twitter.com/InsidersABC/status/1502780223372374020

#FinalObservations 1 is Grant talking about Nixon in China fifty years ago and asks us to imagine a Biden Xi moment. #Insiders

#FinalObservations 2 is Amy Remeikis asking us to remember that Indigenous communities are in mourning following the Rolfe verdict. #Insiders

#FinalObservations 3 is Lanai Scarr saying Morrison will visit WA which will be a “battleground state” (they all are) for the first time in ages. #Insiders

the outtake is Queensland Auslan interpreter and the bird, a tawny frogmouth I think they said. #Insiders

this has been another edition of watching #Insiders so you don’t have to👋🏼👋🏼👋🏼

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