What we learned today, Tuesday 6 February
And with that, we are going to put the blog to bed. Before we go, let’s recap the big headlines:
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, says the Coalition won’t stand in the way of Labor’s changes to the stage-three tax cuts, all but assuring they will pass parliament this month.
The RBA governor, Michele Bullock, predicts inflation will return to its target range of 2% to 3% in 2025, and has left the interest rate unchanged for a second month in a row. But hasn’t yet ruled out further interest rises for this year.
Government funding to private schools has increased by 15% in a single year and is vastly outpacing funding to public schools, according to the Productivity Commission’s latest report on education services.
Ben Roberts-Smith’s defamation trial was given no evidence that “blooding the rookie” could only mean procuring a murder, the war veteran’s lawyers have argued.
Penny Wong has accused the Greens of ‘weaponising’ the conflict in Gaza after Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi grilled Labor over the its pause in UNRWA funding, saying the decision comes at a time when Labor ‘couldn’t sink any lower on Palestine’.
David Littleproud has stopped short of calling for a complete moratorium on renewable energy projects, instead telling a rally against the federal government’s rollout of wind and solar farms there’s time to “pause” and “plan” as the rollout gets underway.
The New South Wales government will ban offshore gas and mineral exploration to protect the natural environment from damage as part of a bill to be introduced to parliament this week.
Queensland will invest $5.4m to enforce a ban on rent bidding as part of a housing plan announced today.
Updated
A women is in a serious but stable condition after she was attacked by a dog in south-west Sydney.
Emergency services were called to the scene shortly before 1pm today after reports of the attack in Condell Park.
Police Tasered the dog to stop the attack on the 53-year-old after a failed attempt by bystanders to intervene.
The women was treated at the scene at was later taken to Liverpool hospital.
Police are investigating the circumstances surrounding the incident.
School dropouts and the public v private funding gap: five takeaways from the Productivity Commission’s education report
School refusal is on the rise, teenagers are dropping out at record rates and public schools are continuing to lose out on funding.
The Productivity Commission’s latest report on education services, released Monday night, is grim reading for the sector, as governments grapple to close disadvantage gaps across the nation.
Here are the five main takeaways.
Private school funding is outpacing the public system
One in two Indigenous teens did not finish year 12
The gap in school performance between regions and cities has widened
Retention rates are at a record low
Half of high school students skipped classes last year
More on the five main takeaways here:
Ex-Tropical Cyclone Kirrily dumps months of rain in a day
Ex-cyclone Kirrily has finally left Australia after dumping several months worth of rain in NSW while the flood emergency remains in parts of Queensland, AAP reports.
Some 86mm fell at White Cliffs in northwestern NSW in the 24 hours to 9am on Tuesday – four times the February average, according to Bureau of Meteorology senior metrologist Dean Narramore.
He said much of the state was hit with 30mm to 50mm, with 86mm recorded at Kiama on the south coast and 64mm at Orange:
[It was] widespread soaking rainfall, some of those fell in quick time, which led to localised flash flooding particularly around the White Cliffs area.
The SES rescued two people from cars at Albion Park on the south coast and one at Campbelltown, with volunteers called to 174 incidents in 24 hours.
The Warragamba Dam in the Blue Mountains is at 97% capacity, up from 94% in October.
13 flood warnings remain active in Queensland after widespread heavy rainfall in the past week.
Major warnings have been issued for the state’s north-west at the Burketown airstrip following rapid river rises at the weekend, and for Walkers Bend along the Flinders River.
Major alerts are also in place for towns along the Moonie and Balonne rivers in south-east Queensland.
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Ben Roberts-Smith defamation appeal: no evidence ‘blooding the rookie’ could only mean procuring a murder, court told
Ben Roberts-Smith’s defamation trial was given no evidence that “blooding the rookie” could only mean procuring a murder, the war veteran’s lawyers have argued.
On Tuesday morning, Roberts-Smith’s barrister, Bret Walker SC, took issue with Justice Anthony Besanko’s finding in June 2023 that Roberts-Smith, while a member of the Special Air Service Regiment in 2009, ordered a less experienced soldier to execute an elderly, unarmed Afghan man in order to “blood the rookie”.
Walker said there needed to be a focus on what “blooding the rookie” meant “because there is, with great respect to the soldiers in question, I’m afraid, just as much an application to legitimate killing, which some may say is part and parcel of a soldier’s job”.
More on this story here:
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Current renewables rollout ‘pure insanity’, Littleproud says
David Littleproud has stopped short of calling for a complete moratorium on renewable energy projects, instead saying there’s time to “pause” and “plan” as the rollout gets underway.
The Nationals leader on Tuesday spoke at a rally against the federal government’s rollout of wind and solar farms and community batteries, describing their proposed placement in prime agricultural land as “pure insanity” and adding there’s a “case to constrain” future renewables to solar panels in the cities.
Under Labor’s plan, the energy grid will be made up of 82% of renewable energy by the end of the decade. Offshore wind farms are being planned in the Hunter and Illawarra region as part of the government’s ambitious target.
But Littleproud, who was among a number of Nationals MPs and senators to speak at the rally, called the renewables rollout “reckless” and said it was “ideology that does not meet the practical reality”.
Littleproud told the rally audience:
We can pause and we can plan and we can get this right ... There is now a case to constrain future renewables to simply solar panels on rooftops where the concentration of population and concentration of power is required in capital cities, not tearing up prime agricultural land, not tearing up native vegetation, destroying the very thing that they’re there to protect. This is pure insanity.
A short video, published on Twitter/X by the Smart Energy Council on Tuesday, captured Littleproud saying “you got it just there” as he walked away from the rally when asked whether he was calling for a “moratorium” on renewable energy.
The energy minister, Chris Bowen, used question time to attack Littleproud’s attendance at the rally.
We want to see regional Australians benefit from renewable energy, we want to see renewable energy in the best interest of all Australians. What we will not be doing, Mr Speaker, is pausing or having a moratorium as the deputy leader of the opposition is [proposing], because the last decade was pause enough.
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If you’re just catching up on today’s news, my colleague Antoun Issa has a rundown of the top stories here in our afternoon update:
NSW to ban offshore gas and mineral exploration in coastal waters
The New South Wales government will ban offshore gas and mineral exploration to protect the natural environment from damage as part of a bill to be introduced to parliament this week.
The environment minister, Penny Sharpe, said the government understood a majority of people in the state did not support offshore mining. The legislation was a reflection of that.
The bill seeks to ban sea bed petroleum and mineral exploration and recovery in NSW coastal waters.
Sharpe said:
The passage of this bill will give certainty that our government is prioritising environmental protection and our own local interests. This bill is a sensible amendment to our legislation to protect NSW against the risks of offshore mining.
The legislation would not cover activities the government deems to benefit the environment, including collecting sand to help prevent coastal erosion.
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Thank you Amy Remeikis for guiding us through a busy sitting day. I’ll now be bringing you the latest news until this evening.
With the parliament starting to settle down for the evening, I am going to hand you over to Jordyn Beazley for what is left in the day.
It has been truly wonderful being back with you all – thank you so much for popping back here on the first sitting day – I know you have other options so it means the world that you come to visit here. Thank you. I’ll be back early tomorrow morning for the second sitting day – and a reminder, we also have estimates next week and a third sitting week at the end of the month, so we will be seeing a lot of each other this Feb. I am looking forward to it.
In the mean time – take care of you.
Here is how Mike Bowers saw QT:
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Human error behind miscalculation of triple zero calls, Optus acting CEO tells inquiry
Late last month, Optus announced that it wasn’t 229 people who called triple zero during the 8 November network outage who couldn’t connect to emergency services, but actually 2,468 people.
In a letter to the Senate inquiry into the Optus outage, published this week, Optus’s acting CEO, Michael Venter, explained that it was human error that missed the total number of calls that couldn’t connect at the time.
The file that was used to determine what welfare checks would be performed arose from a search of the system using an incorrect parameter. This human error resulted in incomplete data being extracted from that system, which then became the base source for the subsequent 229 welfare checks to be carried out.
Venter said that an independent third party will review Optus’s welfare check obligations.
The committee will hold a second hearing into the outage on Friday, hearing from rivals Telstra and TPG, as well as Home Affairs and Social Services and the sector regulators. The report is due to parliament at the end of February.
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The press conference with the RBA governor is getting into the (monetary policy) weeds here which is interesting for people who have an in-depth knowledge of monetary policy, but the RBA will publish this as a transcript if you want all those nitty gritty answers.
And Guardian Australian reporter Peter Hannam is there to catch you up on anything I haven’t covered here.
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How did some of the new changes to the board meeting go?
Michele Bullock:
The two-day meeting. I think I answered earlier that I thought it was really good. I thought we weren’t as time constrained. We did have time to let conversations go on. And debate across the board at the same time to table. I thought that was a success.
The other thing I would draw your attention to – maybe you noticed it, maybe you didn’t – the statement on monetary policy looks different. I hope what it is is more accessible and plain speaking and drawing people’s attention to what’s important, what the board thinks is important, the bank thinks it is important, much more readily so that people hopefully can use that much more readily to understand where we’re coming from. We think that’s one part of the process but there’s more to come.
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How does Michele Bullock know how Australians are faring:
We have a business liason program where we talk to lots and lots of businesses, small, large. We also talk to community organisations. We talk to organisations like Acoss and beyondblue, those sorts of organisations.
I can assure you I get lots of letters from the public. I read those. I understand those issues.
The challenge for the board is that we have one instrument that works in aggregate and it impacts demand and it does have distributional issues because interest rates affect different people in different ways. I come back to the point that what is really hurting people at the moment, the big thing is inflation.
Groceries increased by 20% in the last six years. That’s massive. That is really hurting people, particularly on low incomes. That’s why I know it’s really hard for people to under stand this when they are impacted by interest rate rises but the alternative is much, much worse. If we can just get inflation down, then that will benefit everyone and interest rates can come back to a more normal level. That’s the critical thing
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On the issue of unemployment (which can be used as a lever to keep inflation down) Michele Bullock says:
In the new statement on the conduct of monetary policy, the board has agreed with the government - full employment, which basically means employment which is consistent with inflation sustainably in the band.
The board is very conscious of that and that gets a lot of attention in board meetings. We’re very conscious that employment is very important for people. It’s important for them meeting their financial obligations, obviously. It’s important for good mental health reasons and so on. It gets a lot of consideration. The point I would make - and this is in the forecast as well - is that we still have employment growing.
We want employment to continue growing.
Mechanically, what happens, though, is if we slow growth in employment - because we do still feel that there’s tightness in the labour market, so a little bit overtight - it’s eased, but a little bit overtight - slowing the growth in employment so it’s not quite keeping up with the labour force mechanically - that moves into a rise in the unemployment rate.
But employment is still growing. Job opportunities are still growing. That, I think, is the balance we are trying to achieve. That’s really what we’re aiming at. And the board, I can assure you, is very, very focused on that.
What keeps Michele Bullock up at night?
(This is the first of these press conferences so you are going to get these questions)
I’d like to say nothing keeps me up at night, but that wouldn’t be true. Look, what worries me most, I think, is that we don’t manage to bring inflation back down to target without collateral damage, if you like, with more damage in the labour market than we can avoid.
I really, really am convinced, and the board is convinced too, that we can manage this.
The risks on the upside - there are risks on the upside which are sitting out there. There’s still supply-side issues going on at the moment. And although traditionally we would think we would look through supply-side issues, sometimes if it gets entrenched in people’s expectations, you can’t entirely look through. So I think the thing that worries me is that we get some more shocks and we don’t know where they’re coming from.
You look at the last few years - pandemic, Ukraine, Middle East. What’s going to come from left field? That’s what worries me. What I don’t know is coming, and what the implications of that might be for inflation and inflation expectations. And how do we handle it?
RBA governor quizzed on inflation, rates and Taylor Swift
What about Taylor Swift inflation? (This is the inflation that has been attributed to Swift, and the money which has been injected into economies where she has held concerts. It is also being used to describe children asking their parents for more money to cover Swift tickets, accomodation or transport –all of which have increased around the time of her events)
Michele Bullock:
I know all about Taylor Swift inflation as well, myself. I think the bottom line on services - we’re talking to colleagues about what services inflation is, because I think people don’t quite really get what it is.
One of my colleagues said services inflation is anything that you can’t drop on your foot, right? So all of these sorts of things you’re talking about.
Monetary policy, it’s true, works on the demand side. And to the extent that some of these things you’re talking about - like insurance and electricity and these sorts of things that have been driven by other things - monetary policy doesn’t directly impact that. But it can indirectly impact, because these sorts of costs go into business costs, obviously - non-labour costs - and to the extent that demand is tempered, it tempers the ability of them to pass on costs.
This is the way that you can end up with an indirect impact of monetary policy on these sorts of services. On Taylor Swift tickets - I’d say that, from my own experience that my kids put money away to do it. They forewent other things in order to be able to afford Taylor Swift.
So I think there’s also issues - people are deciding what’s really important to them and what’s not as important to them. Clearly, for a lot of people, Taylor Swift is very important.
Guardian Australia’s Greg Jericho wrote a bit about Swiftonomics last year:
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So what would Michele Bullock say to mortgage holders who are counting on rate cuts?
If you look at the forecasts - the point I’d make about the forecast is that there is a cash rate assumption in the forecasts and, there has to be. We need some sort of assumption to work with there.
But I emphasise the word “assumption”. It isn’t a commitment, a forecast, or even an expectation. It’s something to work with.
As we move out with our forecast, it gets more uncertain. It might be we’ve already emphasised that there could be risks on the upside - there could be risks on the downside.
If the risks on the downside present themselves, then we have the options of cutting interest rates. If the risks on the upside eventuate, then we might have to look at whether or not we need to increase again.
But I think the point is that we need to make sure that we don’t have to backtrack on inflation.
That inflation doesn’t get away. We do need to make sure we’re making progress and we need to convince that that progress is going to continue.
That’s what’s going to help, ultimately, mortgage-holders and everyone.
Is Michele Bullock saying rate cuts are ruled out for this year?
Bullock:
As I said earlier, we haven’t ruled anything out and we haven’t ruled anything in. So I would say we have maintained the option that it might be that there has to be more rate rises, but the option’s in.
The option here is we need to be maintained because we need to be driven by the data.
I come back to the point that I made earlier - I really understand that the mortgage-holders are sweating on this. I do understand that.
But the big issue that’s confronting not just mortgage-holders, but everyone, is inflation. And the fact that inflation so high in so many parts of their lives at the moment is what’s really hurting them.
What’s really important here is that we address that issue for people. That will help mortgage-holders. I know that they’re doing it tough. But it will also help renters, for example, who don’t have mortgages, and also are experiencing these inflationary pulses. So, in the end, I think that’s why we need to stay the
Was it a mistake for the RBA to raise rates in November?
Has the RBA overdone the rate rises?
Michele Bullock:
The short answer is that we didn’t make a mistake. That was based on - all of this is based on risk and risk management framework, in some sense.
What we’re doing here is we’re trying to balance bringing inflation down versus keeping the employment gains of the pandemic that we made, which has been great.
At the same time, we don’t want inflationary expectations to rise, which would make the job harder and ultimately be more costly. On that basis, the raise in November - the risks had shifted to the upside. And in order to mitigate some of those, to give a bit more assurance, that was the appropriate move at the time.
I don’t need to remind you, probably - you’d know this - that we haven’t gone up as far as other countries have gone up.
Because we are trying very hard to make sure that we bring this balance in in terms of the employment and the inflation objectives.
Updated
Will the government’s changes to the stage-three tax legislation add to the inflation challenge?
Michele Bullock:
I don’t think it’s a material issue. If you look at Treasury’s analysis, which was published on the website, they actually did a little bit of analysis to look at what might happen depending on different marginal propensities to consume.
The bottom line really is that the fiscal envelope is the same. It’s the same amount of money being handed out to households, but distributed slightly differently. We don’t think it has any implications for our forecasts.
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Asked about productivity, Michele Bullock says:
… Concentrating on quarterly movements in productivity, I don’t think, is particularly helpful.
So I think we need to take a step back.
We have assumptions in our forecasts that productivity will return to some sort of long-run trend which will be positive, because that’s really important for the economy to continue growing.
And I’m confident that that will occur, but I think concentrating on quarterly ups and downs is sort of distracting.
It’s a bit noisy. So I think we just need to take a step back. Ultimately, I think productivity is going to return to the Australian economy. Technology will help. There is business investment going on. And I think these things are all positive for productivity looking out further - not looking at the quarterly ups and downs.
Updated
Michele Bullock:
So, in short, by introduction, high inflation is bad for everyone. It’s still high. We still have got a little way to get it down. And that’s what our job and our focus is for the next little while.
RBA predicts inflation to drop by 2025
Michele Bullock:
For that reason, what we’ve seen is a very rapid rise in interest rates over the last 18-24 months, and it’s been rapid because, first of all, we had to remove all of that stimulus that we had from the pandemic, and then we had to obviously address inflation, which means we had to get interest rates into restrictive territory.
That said, the inflation rate still has a “4” in front of it. It’s fair to say the board does understand that people are doing it tough. And a big reason for that is inflation. That’s why it’s really important we get inflation down. We have made good progress. Absolutely, we’ve made good progress.
But there is more work to do. The job’s not done.
And the best thing that we can do with our tool is help households deal with the cost of living by getting inflation down. That’s our aim. We want it back in the background again, when people aren’t worrying about it.
So, looking ahead, we’re forecasting inflation - we’re expecting, our central forecast is that inflation will return to the target range of 2% to 3% in 2025, and will reach the midpoint of the target range in 2026.
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The RBA governor, Michele Bullock is holding her first post-board meeting press conference.
The RBA hired Sally Cray, who was Malcolm Turnbull’s right hand fixer-in-chief late least year – it is not a coincidence. Cray’s expertise in honing messages is one of the reasons she was brought on board, and for someone like Bullock, who has spent most of her career at the RBA, not facing press conferences – especially not of this nature (press conferences after speeches with mostly financial types isn’t exactly the same) – it is absolutely needed.
Bullock (who is speaking in a much more relaxed way than I have previously seen) opens with:
First thing I wanted to do was reflect a little bit on where we’ve come from over the last three-to-four years. Because I think we tend to forget it. We had a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. And this was something that was entirely out of anyone’s experience.
And in that context, what we did was we took the cash rate - among other things, but the tool we had, that cash rate – to practically 0%. That was emergency settings. It was never going to stay there forever. I don’t know watt you’d describe as normal, but possibly the situation we’re in now is back to more normal than it was certainly during those pandemic periods, and certainly during the dark days of 2020 and 2021 when we were in lockdown.
Now, the situation obviously is that we’re fighting inflation, and the point about this is that inflation hurts all Australians.
I think, for many Australians, the last two decades prior to the pandemic, inflation was about 2%. It was in the background. People weren’t focused on it. Some prices were sort of increasing a bit more slowly. Others a bit more fast. But basically, it was in the background. People weren’t worrying about it. That’s not the case anymore. Everyone is focusing on inflation.
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In among all of that, question time ended.
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Anthony Albanese continued:
What we have been trying to address is the cost-of-living pressures, including on the people that the member for Indi raises.
They were particularly beneficiaries of our rent assistance increase, the largest increase in some 30 years.
They benefited from the increase in jobseeker and other payments that we introduced as part of our last Budget.
They benefited certainly from the cheaper medicines policy where Australians are benefited to the tune of $250m last year and that of course was disproportionately towards lower income earners and particularly older Australians who were on those regular pharmaceuticals, whether it be for heart treatment or diabetes or other treatments as well.
In addition to that, the government will continue to consider, as we have said, in the lead up to the May budget, what further measures we can put in place.
The parenting payment made a difference to 67,000 single mums as a result of the changes we have put in place, we will continue to examine what we can do, but these tax cuts are particularly aimed at middle Australia. We make no apologies for that, they are aimed at middle Australia to provide them [relief].
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Independent MP Helen Haines asked about people earning under the tax free threshold and what they can expect in terms of cost of living relief:
There are 25,000 people who have incomes below the tax-free threshold and these tax as well not for money back in their pocket. There are also 20,000 people on the age pension, a thousand more on other payments like jobseeker who are struggling with strict fixed income. What new action will you take now to address cost of living pressures for these people?
Anthony Albanese said:
We had a meeting earlier today and talked about the tax cuts that were introduced by the treasurer at 12 o’clock and indeed, the people of regional Australia will in particular benefit from the Labor tax cuts that we have to deal with cost of living and in Indi, some 80% of taxpayers will get even more, but 100% of taxpayers will get a tax cut.
One of the things that the Treasury analysis that we released spoke about bracket creep, and particularly those on low incomes … cutting the tax rate from 19% to 15%, according to the Treasury, they said this in the documentation that we released.
By releasing the first tax rate from 19% to 16%, the redesign reproduces a smaller increase in average tax rate for the first seven income deciles over the next 10 years.
In other words, reduces bracket creep even for these groups compared to stage three and a no change scenario.
(This is where Angus Taylor got booted)
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Angus Taylor got booted under 94A for interjecting during an answer from Anthony Albanese on the tax changes:
Paul Karp heard him saying “you don’t even understand bracket creep. Asks your economists - the real ones, not that one over there”.
He was pointing either at Andrew Charlton or the advisers box, saying to ask them rather than Chalmers.
Michael Sukkar had also been booted a little earlier for his interjections.
David Littleproud asked Chris Bowen:
Multinational developers unable to ride roughshod over communities on the government’s reckless race to 80% renewables by 2030. The government’s Dyer review found that 90% of people affected are [unhappy with their treatment]. Will the minister finally listen to the concerns of communities and establish a proper community consultation assessment process that protects regional communities against renewable projects?
Woo-ee – if he thinks renewables are bad, just wait until he hears how fossil fuel companies treat Indigenous communities!
Bowen says he ordered the review to ensure better community consultation and then goes through the organisations who are happy with the changes to consultation the government is making. He then says:
What we will not be doing, Mr Speaker, is pausing or having a moratorium as the deputy leader of the proposition [suggested this morningl, because the last decade was because enough. The last decade was pause enough. We saw another example of that last night on the television, Mr Speaker.
I am not normally one for horror movies, but last night’s viewing was pretty compelling. We saw last night the national energy guarantee, remember that? The same people that killed that are still here, still here sitting on the opposition. We agree, Mr Speaker, on this side of the house, recognise that renewable energy [is the future]
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Here is that moment Daniel Hurst reported on a little earlier, when Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi asked Penny Wong about Australia’s suspended UNRWA funding:
Markets react to RBA decision
Bets shifted slightly after the RBA’s verdict and accompanying forecasts, while stocks dipped briefly. That slight frisson probably relates more to the likelihood that rate cuts might be a bit later and more drawn-out than thought before today.
But the difference is modest.
Basically, the central bank thinks the risks to the domestic outlook are “broadly balanced”, which means it’s happy with its current settings.
The bank’s statement on monetary policy - which journalists have been poring over in a lock-up - noted market expectations the cash rate would “remain around its current level of 4.35% until mid-2024 before declining to around 3.25% by the middle of 2026”.
That’s not necessarily where things will land, black swans and all that.
The RBA notably barely changed its forecasts for how soon it expects inflation to drop back to its preferred 2-3% target range. It did, though, trim its forecast near-term price changes.
It now expects both consumer price inflation and its trimmed mean measure – which strips out more volatile movements – to ease to 2.8% by the end of 2025. Its November forecast had those rates at 2.9% by then.
The range midpoint - of 2.5% - would be approached by mid-2026. Way into the next federal election cycle by then.
“Recent high inflation is consistent with excess demand in the economy and strong domestic cost pressures,” the statement said. “Services inflation remains high despite having passed its peak, while goods inflation has recorded substantial declines.”
The good news is that wage increases should exceed inflation from here on for a while - clawing back some of the drop in real wages over the past two years.
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Senator presses Albanese government over ICJ ruling
In Senate question time, the Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi also pressed the government over its response to the international court of justice’s ruling last month in relation to South Africa’s case against Israel under the genocide convention.
Faruqi said:
We’re coming up to week two of complete silence from the Labor government on the international court of justice ruling which found that Israel is plausibly committing genocide* and gave a clear signal to Australia to stop aiding, abetting and shielding Israel. Minister, when will the Labor government break its cowardly silence on the ICJ ruling?
Before we go on, a quick reminder: the ICJ has not yet ruled substantively on South Africa’s allegations that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza (that process could take years). However, in a provisional ruling on 26 January, the ICJ found “a real and imminent risk that irreparable prejudice” will be caused to the rights of Palestinians:
In the court’s view, the facts and circumstances mentioned above are sufficient to conclude that at least some of the rights claimed by South Africa and for which it is seeking protection are plausible. This is the case with respect to the right of the Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide and related prohibited acts identified in Article III, and the right of South Africa to seek Israel’s compliance with the latter’s obligations under the convention.
The ICJ ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts” within the scope of the genocide convention and also to “prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide”.
In response to the question, the foreign minister, Penny Wong, said Faruqi “again” had “not looked at what we have done and said”.
Wong pointed to a joint statement issued by the Australian and New Zealand governments after meetings of defence and foreign ministers in Melbourne last week.
Paragraph 18 said:
Ministers noted the international court of justice’s (ICJ) ruling on provisional measures in South Africa’s case against Israel. Ministers expressed their respect for the independence of the ICJ and the critical role it plays in upholding international law and the rules-based order, and noted that decisions of the ICJ are binding on the parties to the case. Ministers expect Israel to act in accordance with the ICJ’s ruling, including to enable the provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance.
Wong told the Senate the statement specifically expressed “our shared expectation … that Israel will act in accordance with the ICJ’s ruling”.
Wong added:
Now you might not think that’s of significance where two Five Eyes countries say that. I beg to differ.
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Anyway, here is how Sussan Ley is dealing with it
#Breaking: The Treasurer just refused to rule out changing negative gearing.
— Sussan Ley (@sussanley) February 6, 2024
#Breaking: The Prime Minister just refused to rule out taxing the family home.
— Sussan Ley (@sussanley) February 6, 2024
Politicians co-opting the overused #BREAKING needs to stop, by the way. It hurts the eyes.
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So it is back to Jim Chalmers:
It beggars belief that the guy who is not asked me a question in more than six months is chirping about relevance.
What would you know about relevance. What would the member for Hume know about relevance to make I say once again for those opposite I have dealt with this question publicly in the recent past and the point I make once again, Mr Speaker, is it is almost three o’clock on the day that we introduced legislation to give a bigger tax cut for more workers to help with the cost of living.
They still have not asked us a question at 10 to 3 about the legislation I introduced at noon today and we all know what is going on here, Mr Speaker. They want to ask us a question about all of the things we have not said we are doing because they cannot defend their position on the thing that we have said we are doing.
Angus Taylor then asks Jim Chalmers a direct question, which is cause for celebration among the Labor benches – the last time Taylor asked Chalmers a question was six months ago.
Chalmers is asked if he will rule out changes to negative gearing. (Yes, we are still there)
Chalmers:
I say to the tactics committee on that side it is probably not the worst court to deny him a question for more than six months because the prime minister, myself in press conferences, we have dealt with this already and we know what this is all about.
The position they have taken out the tax cuts, which are before the parliament. It is so incoherent and unintelligible and incomprehensible they cannot ask about the tax cuts which are before the parliament as of noon today.
Paul Fletcher wants an answer dammit! And he is using his best Sydney university debating voice to demand one!
Milton Dick, in the style of a Queenslander who has had to drink in Sydney pubs and deal with people asking what school you went to and then being asked ‘where?!’ like you have said Mars, decides he has had enough of the demands.
As we begin this week and this parliamentary term, this parliamentary session, I cannot make a minister answer a question yes or no. I want to make that clear to everyone. I can make sure they are directly relevant under the standing orders and to remind all members, if you wish to change the standing orders, that is up to the house to decide that but as they stand now, you may not like the answer, may not agree, but I simply cannot ask a minister or a prime minister to answer a question yes or no as you would like.
Updated
Jim Chalmers on another dixer on the stage-three tax cut changes:
The Opposition don’t like our changes, because they would prefer wages to be lower and inflation to be higher, and they want tax cuts to be skewed to the highest incomes.
Their position has been indefensible, unintelligible, incoherent and unsustainable, and we saw that again, Mr Speaker.
On the Saturday the [shadow treasurer] called my changes Marxism. By the afternoon, on 2GB, he was saying he might vote for them.
Mr Speaker, the opposition leader called for an election on a policy that he is now voting for!
That would be a pretty strange election, Mr Speaker, and a pretty strange debate. Imagine how angry he would get if this was about something he was voting against, Mr Speaker!
The only clarity we get is from the member for Farrrah. She was asked will they roll back our changes and she said, ‘That is absolutely our position’. No matter what they say today, they are still out of touch, they still want to roll it back, and they still have no alternatives.
Updated
As expected, the RBA left its cash rate unchanged at 4.35% - as all economists surveyed by Reuters had tipped.
The focus will be on the wording of the RBA board’s statement.
While recent data indicate that inflation is easing, it remains high”, the statement said.
The Board expects that it will be some time yet before inflation is sustainably in the target range,” it said.
The path of interest rates that will best ensure that inflation returns to target in a reasonable timeframe will depend upon the data and the evolving assessment of risks, and a further increase in interest rates cannot be ruled out.
The February update of the RBA’s statement of monetary policy, which contains all its forecasts, was somewhat hawkish. That implies that while there may not be another rate rise in this series, any reduction might take some time coming.
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Penny Wong said that Australia had suspended funding to UNRWA “along with many of our like minded partners”. She told the Senate:
It is of deep regret whilst the government is seeking to use our voice to advocate for the release of hostages, for the protection of civilian lives, for humanitarian access and for a pathway out of this conflict, we do not have partners in this effort in either the opposition or the Greens.
They would rather see a community divided and they would rather try to use this to pick off votes. And that is the similarity between the opposition and the Greens.
I’d remind the Greens we still have 130 hostages being held by Hamas. I remind those opposite [the Coalition] that there are 1.7 million people in Gaza who are internally displaced.
The reality is that we are seeking to play a constructive role. There are two parties in this place who are playing politics with this conflict. One of them has just asked me a question.
The Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi, standing to ask a supplementary question, replied:
Minister, I did not need a lesson in gaslighting.
Over in Senate question time, there has been a fiery exchange between the Greens and the government over the pause in funding to UNRWA, a key UN agency delivering aid to Palestinians in Gaza.
It prompted the foreign minister, Penny Wong, to accuse both the Greens and the Coalition of “dividing the Australian community and weaponising this horrific conflict”.
The Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi began her questioning of Wong in the Senate by saying the pause of funding to UNRWA came at a time when it might have been thought that Labor “couldn’t sink any lower”. Faruqi referred to “four months of Israel’s genocide” in Gaza and warned against “further enabling collective punishment of Palestinians”.
Faruqi asked Wong to explain what evidence she weighed up before making the “catastrophic” decision to suspend $6m in funding to UNRWA that the government had pledged in mid-January.
In reply, Wong told the Senate:
The opposition leader, Mr Dutton, and the Greens are on a unity ticket, which is all about dividing the Australian community and weaponising this horrific conflict.
You’re the same – you are.
Amid interjections, the Liberal senator Paul Scarr objected to “the conflation of the Greens’ position with Peter Dutton”.
Wong continued to say that two facts must not be ignored. She said one was that UNRWA did “life-saving work”. She said the Australian government had previously doubled Australia’s core funding to UNRWA but this was a point that the Greens did not “acknowledge”.
Wong added, in relation to the investigation that some UNRWA staff may have participated in the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October:
The second point is the recent allegations against its staff are grave and need to be investigated. Those facts are both true
Updated
Jim Chalmers takes a dixer to talk about the RBA decision:
The independent Reserve Bank kept interest rates on hold at 4.35 % today. This is a decision which will be welcomed right around the country.
This will come as welcome relief for Australians are already under the pump.
As the Reserve Bank said in its statement released a few minutes ago, there are encouraging signs in our economy. Inflation is moderating but they recognise as we do, inflation is still too high in our economy. That is why this decision and the inflation figures we sought last week.
They show we are making welcome and encouraging progress in this fight against inflation and that our policies are helping to get inflation down working in concert with the Reserve Bank but it’s not mission accomplished.
Updated
But Labor’s Julian Hill decides he will go where the PM doesn’t:
Well, I suppose it makes sense that Susssan Ley would be desperately concerned about negative gearing.
— Julian Hill MP (@JulianHillMP) February 6, 2024
And she certainly doesn’t want to talk about Labor’s tax cuts for all taxpayers. #auspol #qt pic.twitter.com/VaDIvheM38
Back to question time and the opposition’s strategy appears to be getting the government to rule out any other future tax changes to anything that exists within our tax system.
Sussan Ley:
Will the prime minister rule out any changes to the current tax treatment of negative gearing?
As Anthony Albanese kicks off what is clearly an enjoyable moment for him, Peter Dutton jumps in with a point of order (it has been 30 seconds) and is shut down, because it has been 30 seconds. (And ministers get a preamble)
Stephen Jones then gets warned after telling Dutton to ‘smile, Pete’ and Labor seems to be having a jolly time all round.
Albanese:
We did see a slight curling of the corner there. I thought it was going to come out. That smile we were promised. He asked about negative gearing. I will quote negative gearing what he, one of his team has had to say about that. Member for Menzies. Those opposite like talking about each other so why not add to it?
For Nemesis perhaps, episode four, The Dutton Years. (A reference to the ABC show on the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison years)
“We should not be afraid to consider tax changes whether they be capping.”
Sussan Ley asks if Albanese is being relevant. He is literally talking about negative gearing, but that doesn’t matter – the point is to interrupt the flow so the point isn’t made and make it look like the PM is avoiding the question, for the 6pm news.
Albanese:
I resisted talking about negative gearing and the member opposite.
The answer goes on, but you get the picture.
Updated
RBA holds rates at 4.35%
In what is not a surprise, the RBA has decided to hold rates at 4.35%
What everyone is going to be looking at now is the commentary the RBA board will give around its decision – what it is looking at, what it is looking towards and what is worrying it.
A reminder though that inflation for December came in lower than the RBA’s own forecasts (which is uses to make these decisions).
Job numbers have been weaker than expected, retail sales are down and the economy is slowing down, so now the RBA has to work out whether it has overshot with the rate rises. The RBA would say no, it is still above the RBA’s target band (2-3%) at 4.1%, so the RBA would say there is work to do.
More detail here from Guardian Australia’s Peter Hannam:
Updated
The first dixer is on cost of living relief.
Which is timed for the RBA’s first announcement for the year. Most people are expecting the RBA will hold the rate at where it is. We’ll learn how true those expectations are in about 30 seconds.
Albanese defends stage-three tax changes in rowdy question time
Anthony Albanese:
We have just introduced very significant legislation before this parliament to give every Australian a tax cut.
Every Australian taxpayer, whether they own their home or not, all 13.6 million of them ...
They’ve [the opposition] had two weeks to think about their first question ... and it has nothing to do with what we’re doing. And something to do … with something that no one will ever do. They’ve had a fortnight to think of it, Mr Speaker. Because they’ve been all over the shop, Mr Speaker. When it became clear that we were going to have a position of supporting every taxpayer getting a tax cut, the deputy leader of the opposition – because the leader went missing for a while – the deputy leader charged out there. And she said, ‘We will fight this legislation in the parliament’.
She went on, Mr Speaker. She said, ‘We don’t even know what it will look like.’ She actually said that.
There are a bunch of interjections, a shot of Sussan Ley looking dejected, and a warning to Labor MP Josh Burns on his birthday.
Peter Dutton makes a point of order that is not a point of order.
It’s like we never left.
Updated
Question time begins
Peter Dutton:
Will the prime minister rule out changing the current tax treatment of the family home?
The house gets rowdy right off the bat, before the prime minister says a single word, because it is that sort of day.
The Coalition is trying to create a scare campaign around what taxes *could* be changed – like changing capital gains etc around the ‘family’ home, which is something no one is suggesting.
But then again, the 2019 election was fought, in some areas, on a death tax that no one was talking about or planning – so who knows?
Updated
Ahead of question time, there is a condolence motion for Lowitja O’Donoghue, a Yankunytjatjara leader and activist who died on 4 February, at the age of 91.
Senator accuses Albanese of ‘running scared’ on treaty
Independent senator Lidia Thorpe held a press conference earlier where she criticised the Albanese government for “dodging questions on truth and treaty”.
My colleague, Josh Butler, had asked the prime minister on Tuesday morning whether he was still committed to the Makaratta commission following the outcome of the voice referendum.
During the 2022 federal election, Labor had promised $27m for a Makarrata commission, part of the Uluru statement, to oversee truth and treaty processes. In the October 2022 budget, $5.8m was provided to begin setting up the commission.
On Tuesday, Anthony Albanese said: “What we’re committed to is what we said during the referendum.”
Thorpe accused Labor and Albanese of “running scared” on truth-telling and treaty. She said she had been given no updates on the next steps for the commission.
I think the Labor party are a secret society on treaty and truth telling ... There are rumours around that – from Labor people – that they don’t want to touch treaty. I think that they’re frightened because we’ve got an election looming.
In December, the agency for Indigenous Australians declined to say whether work to establish the body had ceased or is continuing following the referendum’s outcome.
Updated
Victoria police have also released some further information regarding the incident at premier Jacinta Allan‘s office.
They allege it occurred on 2 February just before 2.30am, when two unknown offenders approached Allan’s Mollison Street office in Bendigo and “threw a brick three times at the window, causing it to break”.
Police have released images of the two offenders, whom they described as wearing all black clothing and face coverings, with black backpacks.
Anyone who witnessed the incident or has information has been urged to contact Crime Stoppers.
Updated
There is now just over ten minutes until the first question time of the year.
I think we all know how it will go. Go grab something to make life easier, if you can.
Scott Morrison addressed the meeting, as one of several speakers who rose to discuss the tax plan. The spokesperson said Morrison spoke about the principles of the multi-stage tax plan, which he claimed was about creating a “fairer” tax system – and that he was “pleased we were going to stand firm to the commitments we made”.
Around five Coalition MPs addressed the meeting. The spokesperson said the meeting “overwhelmingly” supported not standing in the way of the government’s plan, and that while one of the speakers – we don’t know who - spoke against the idea initially, eventually they were talked around into backing it.
Dutton also paid tribute to Morrison, following his recent announcement of his looming retirement from politics. Dutton especially noted the “pressure of high office”, and the “vitriol” faced by Morrison’s family and children.
According to the spokesperson, Dutton said:
The strength and support of his family should also be acknowledged.
We want to express our gratitude to Jenny and Lily and Abbey for all that they have done for their country.
Updated
Coalition will send stage-three tax proposals to committee
The Coalition will seek to push Labor’s stage-three tax changes to a committee inquiry, despite agreeing to back the reforms in what was described as an “extremely united” party room meeting.
Former PM Scott Morrison, whose government legislated the original stage-three plan, spoke in favour of the Coalition backing the tax plan.
The tax changes were the big topic as the opposition met for their caucus meeting today. Opposition leader Peter Dutton claimed prime minister Anthony Albanese was “at his core... dishonest” over the stage-three reform.
A party room spokesperson said the meeting debated whether they could move specific amendments of their own or back only certain parts of Labor’s changes (for instance, one colleague asked whether they could support the increase in the tax-free threshold but oppose other sections). But the Coalition deemed that the structure of Labor’s amendments meant they had to vote for the whole thing, and couldn’t choose individual parts to support or oppose.
Still no word on what the Coalition’s proposed amendments might be, but the party room spokesperson said they may be “both” substantive and symbolic. We reported earlier that the Coalition’s amendments may be more symbolic in nature, restating their commitment to the principles of the original stage-three plan.
The spokesperson said the Coalition’s amendments would reflect “the principles we stand for”.
Updated
Animal liberationists smash MP’s office window
The Animal Liberation Front has claimed responsibility for smashing the windows of premier Jacinta Allan’s electorate office in Bendigo East.
The group say they did so in response to the cabinet’s decision last week to ignore a parliamentary inquiry recommending a ban on duck hunting.
Allan said in a statement:
This behaviour is disgraceful and there is no place in Victoria for faceless cowards who use bricks and violence. As Victoria police is investigating, it would be inappropriate to comment further.
Updated
Department rejects exporter’s bid to transport livestock via South Africa
We understand the department of agriculture is still working through the issue of the live export ship that was ordered to abandon its voyage from Perth to the Middle East due to Houthi rebel attacks in the Red Sea. About 16,5000 head of sheep and cattle have been stranded on the ship since 5 January. Only a couple of hundred head of cattle have been unloaded.
As AAP reports:
On Monday, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry announced it had rejected the exporter’s request to again send the livestock towards the Middle East.
“The application submitted on 26 January 2024 for the re-export of livestock onboard the MV Bahijah to Israel via the Cape of Good Hope has not been approved by my department,” department secretary Adam Fennessy told reporters in Canberra.
The department said it was continuing to work with relevant stakeholders to manage the health and welfare of the livestock and uphold Australia’s biosecurity.
“The next steps for the livestock onboard the vessel are commercial decisions for the exporter to make,” Fennessy said.
A number of animals onboard the MV Bahijah have reportedly died, including some of the cattle offloaded on Friday, according to RSPCA WA.
Updated
‘These are questions of science’: SA Labor will not support inquiry into transgender care
Dipping into South Australian politics for a moment:
Transgender care is best left to science, South Australian premier Peter Malinauskas said this morning, and Labor will not support the push for a parliamentary inquiry into it.
Journalist turned MLC, Frank Pangallo, is the latest politician to push for an inquiry, saying it was “perhaps one of the most complex and controversial medical issues confronting our society today”. He has been calling for an inquiry into the assessment treatment of people with gender dysphoria.
The Australian reported this morning that the idea had broad support in parliament and that some Labor MPs would vote for it if there was a conscience vote – the only way it could pass the upper house. Malinauskas said this morning there was no precedent for a conscience vote and that Labor did not support it. The Greens also oppose it, and together they have the numbers to block it. Malinauskas said such an inquiry would “only seek to perpetuate the culture wars”. He said:
These are questions of science and best practice in terms of medicine, as distinct from a political forum for people to prosecute the culture wars, which I think people know I’m not particularly keen on.
Updated
Birmingham moves motion calling for PM to ‘apologise for betraying taxpayers’ over stage three
The Liberal senator Simon Birmingham has opened the Senate proceedings with a motion to suspend standing orders on … how terrible the Albanese government is for changing the stage-three tax legislation, even though the Coalition is going to vote for the changes.
Here is the motion:
… The Albanese Labor government has betrayed Australian taxpayers, killed reform of the tax system, trashed aspiration for millions of workers, and can’t be trusted on negative gearing, capital gains tax, and the family home;
b) notes that under the Albanese Labor government real net disposable income per person has fallen by 8.6%, resulting in an average income earner being nearly $8,000 worse off due to rising mortgage payments, falling real wages, and increasing taxes;
and c) calls on the prime minister to apologise for betraying Australian taxpayers.
The Coalition is voting for this “betrayal” and says it is left with no choice but to vote for it, because it is not going to stand in the way of helping Australians. That is what the argument distills down to. “We think this is terrible, and awful and no good, but it is going to help people and we don’t want to stand in the way of that.”
Updated
Here is Dutton speaking about how terrible the stage three tax changes are – so terrible in fact, that the Coalition is left with no choice but to support them.
This is basically the same strategy Labor used when supporting the Morrison stage three tax changes in the first place. The Australian parliament is nothing but a renewable debate source.
Updated
Eric Abetz, who became famous in parliamentary circles for “Abetzimates” – which was Abetz leading the Coalition attacks against the ABC during estimates – is now speaking to the ABC about King Charles’s cancer diagnosis (he is part of the Australian Monarchists League).
Updated
New member for Mulgrave Eden Foster enters Victorian lower house
Back in the Victorian parliament and Labor MP Eden Foster, who replaces the former premier Daniel Andrews as member for Mulgrave, also took her seat in the lower house for the first time.
She was walked in by Gabrielle Williams and Meng Heang Tak – Labor MPs in her neighbouring electorates, as in tradition.
Foster will deliver her maiden speech late today.
Updated
The video team are unbelievably quick – I was just about to hunt this down, but they have already prepared it for you – how Anthony Albanese opened the first parliamentary sitting year (with a message for King Charles):
Updated
The “terrible changes that will actually help people so even the Coalition has to vote for them” stage-three tax legislation has been introduced to the parliament.
Updated
More Victorian MPs sitting out of Lord’s Prayer as state parliament resumes
Heading to the Victorian parliament for a moment – more Labor MPs in Victorian parliament’s lower house have chosen to abstain from the daily reading of the Lord’s Prayer.
Jordan Crugnale, Mat Hilakari, Paul Mercurio and Michaela Settle joined their colleagues Paul Edbrooke and Dylan Wight in sitting out the prayer when state parliament resumed for the first time this year on Tuesday.
Edbrooke and Wight were the first Labor MPs in the lower house to stop attending the prayer in protest, after Pope Francis called for a global ban on surrogacy.
Their decision sparked a debate around whether the prayer was inclusive of all Victorians, with the premier, Jacinta Allan, receptive to change. Here’s a story I wrote about the issue at the time:
Updated
Peter Dutton:
The Coalition will not stand in the way of providing support to Australians doing it tough. The prime minister has made this change for his own political survival. We are supporting this change not to support the prime minister’s lie but to support those families who need help now. Because Labor has made decisions that have made it much harder for those families and that is the position we have adopted as a party room.
Soooooo, “the change is bad and terrible, but it will help people so we will support it” seems to be the line the Coalition is running here.
Or, the old “bitch and fold” in action.
Updated
Dutton says Albanese ‘deceived the public’ over stage three as Coalition prepares to vote for changes
Peter Dutton then moves on to the stage-three tax cuts and the Coalition’s newest favourite line, “the liar in the Lodge”.
As you know, this morning the Coalition party room met and we dealt with what has been an egregious lie by the prime minister.
I think again Australians have been shocked to know they have a liar in the Lodge, and a prime minister who looks the Australian public in the eye and is prepared to lie to them.
He promised on 97 occasions that power prices would come down*. He has never mentioned that figure since the election.
He promised on the voice he would give the detail to the Australian public**. The [referendum] vote was last October. The detail has still not been provided***.
The prime minister deliberately deceived the Australian public on the voice, deceived the public in relation to bring down energy costs and deceived the public in relation to the tax cuts which are promised on more than 100 occasions.
He has taken the money away from the proposed stage-three tax cuts which have been legislated, robbed that money and put it into the proposal he has on the table at the moment****.
*by 2025
**The detail was there
***Why would there be legislation on a referendum that failed?
****This makes no sense.
And after all of that, Dutton says – but we will vote for the changes.
Updated
PM urges awareness and cancer screening in statement to lower house on King Charles
At the same time Peter Dutton is holding this press conference, Anthony Albanese is delivering a statement in the house on King Charles.
Albanese:
I also want to send a clear message to King Charles. I’m sure all Australians would wish him well in his fight against the diagnosis of cancer. As I said, it is an opportunity, though, for a good message to come and I know the palace has been pushing this message but particularly for men who don’t go to the doctors regularly and people [who] are busy with their lives running kids around to school and sport, busy with work. Early diagnosis of many cancers will mean the ability to treat the cancer and for people to increase their chances of survival and something we should all take very seriously.
Updated
‘I stand shoulder to shoulder’ with PM in condemnation of Yang Hengjun’s death sentence: Dutton
Peter Dutton is holding his first official press conference of the sitting year, surrounded by his treasury team. He starts it off with a comment on the suspended death sentence given to Australian academic Dr Yang Hengjun.
I think all Australians are shocked in relation to the sentence handed down in Beijing to Australian citizen Dr Yang. We need to call out egregious behaviour and it is not just Dr Yang.
There are many other freedom fighters and people speaking up for civil rights and human rights who will never see the light of day again.
It is time for our country and for other countries of similar values around the world to be very frank about the human rights abuses that have taken place, and as we know, in relation to Australian citizens in the past, there have been circumstances where natural justice has been denied, where people have been detained beyond the sentence of a court and there are many issues that we need to deal with.
But in relation to Dr Yang, I think most Australians would be shocked and appalled with the sentence, and I stand shoulder to shoulder with the prime minister in condemning the situation that Dr Yang finds himself in.
Medical assistance needs to be provided as a matter of urgency and I think the president and others would do well to reconsider this matter because I think it not only has a very negative impact personally on Dr Yang but it also tarnishes the reputation of the People’s Republic of China as well.
Updated
The bells are ringing – which means the first sitting for 2024 is about to get underway.
Huzzah.
There will be some usual business to tidy up, a bit on the Dunkley by-election and then Jim Chalmers will introduce the stage three tax cut changes to the house.
Coalition amendments to stage three changes may be purely symbolic
The Coalition’s party room meeting has now concluded.
The Coalition amendments to Labor’s tax plan will highlight the Albanese government’s broken promise and recommit the opposition to the principles of stage three.
We’ve spoken to a number of MPs and there are a diversity of opinions about how this is going to be achieved. Several think the amendments will be second reading amendments, which are purely symbolic.
One or two think this either wasn’t spelled out, or think it’s still possible that the Coalition could attempt a substantive amendment to abolish the 37% tax bracket.
Either way, it looks like we have a case of what Amy Remeikis famously described as a “bitch and fold”. Further detail on the Coalition tax plan will come closer to the election.
Updated
Potential for ‘absolute ban’ on penalties against workers who disconnect after hours, says Burke
What does that potentially mean in the real world?
Not necessarily fines for employers – but no penalties for employees. These are all hypotheticals at the moment, as nothing has been agreed on, but it is where the conversation is going.
Tony Burke:
One of the ways instead of the fines of doing it is simply having an absolute ban on there being a penalty on the worker for disengaging.
So, if the worker disconnects, if they decide they’re not going to have their phone with them, if they decide they’re not going to be checking their work emails, then absolutely no penalty can be brought against them. And that sort of protection would give you a way of doing it without fines on the employer.
Updated
Labor negotiating with Greens on ‘right to disconnect’ as part of IR reforms
Tony Burke will also be working to get his final tranche of IR reforms through the Senate. Negotiations with the crossbench are ongoing, including on the Greens’ demand for the right to disconnect.
What does that mean? It means that once you have finished work, you have the right to disconnect from your workplace – given how much work is online now, employees often feel pressure to continue to check their emails and message threads and continue to work, even when they are off the clock. It’s not a new concept – France has already introduced it – but a right to disconnect would mean that workers could say ‘see ya’ and not have to check in until they are back on deck.
Burke told the ABC this morning that his starting point is “there’s a whole lot that is completely reasonable from the employer. It’s completely reasonable sending emails. It’s completely reasonable contacting people for shifts. All those sorts of things are completely reasonable, and we don’t want to get in the way of that”.
But he does see room for changes.
I’ll just add now what’s reasonable for a worker. Some people are paid an allowance to be always on call.
But if you’re in a job where you’re only paid for the exact hours that you’re working, some people are now constantly in a situation of getting in trouble if they’re not checking their emails, being expected to be working for a whole lot of time that they’re not being paid. That’s just unreasonable.
The starting point of workplace relations law in Australia is meant to be that when you work, you are being paid to work.
Updated
The parliament sitting will get under way in just over 30 minutes.
The stage three tax changes will be the first bills put on the agenda.
Updated
Here is what that rally looks like:
Updated
Anyways, here was the debate in Australia ten years ago.
Joe Hockey:
I drive from Sydney to Canberra … to go to parliament, and I just look at those wind turbines around Lake George and I am just appalled.
Updated
Barnaby Joyce took the stage a moment ago to rally against renewables but it was wind turbines, in particular, that captured his ire.
The former deputy prime minister said Australians will have to foot the bill for taking down the towers once they’re decommissioned.
”It’s a massive multi-national swindle underpinned by your taxpayers dollars,” he said.
He urges the crowd to go home and recruit more for the cause.
“You’re the army. This is the start, okay? ... I want you to go home and get more. I want you to get fired up. I want you to talk to your local members and remind them that they might not have a job after the next election,” he said.
Just checking in with Sarah Basford Canales who is at the anti-renewables rally (yes, this is something that is happening in 2024 Australia).
Barnaby Joyce is taking time out of his busy “who really killed JFK” research schedule to rally an “army”.
Cool beans.
Barnaby Joyce is now up at the "reckless renewables" rally. He calls wind turbines "filth" and tells the crowd they're the army and this is just the start #auspol pic.twitter.com/eIm5Er2qfW
— Sarah Basford Canales (@sbasfordcanales) February 5, 2024
Updated
Greens in talks with Labor over stage three
The Greens are in talks with the government and the opposition about the stage three tax changes amid speculation the package could be referred to a committee inquiry.
The Greens are still not impressed with the Albanese government’s tax package, believing it’s not as fair as it could be, but they believe the matter of how quickly or otherwise the Senate deals with the bill and any amendments is still not settled.
For the time being, the Greens are in talks with the government and opposition and have not yet finalised their position or tactics.
Updated
Queensland to spend $5.4m to enforce rent bidding ban
Queensland will invest $5.4m to enforce a ban on rent bidding as part of a housing plan announced today.
Guardian Australia can reveal the state government will bolster the “proactive compliance” capacity of the Residential Tenancies Authority to enforce the rental sector’s code of conduct.
The government believes this is necessary to deter unlawful behaviour by property owners and managers as the housing crisis bites.
It comes after the government announced it would rent bidding in the state and provide an additional $390m in funding for homelessness services.
Updated
Coalition votes to back Labor's changes to stage-three tax cuts
The Coalition will seek to amend but ultimately not oppose Labor’s changes to stage three tax cuts that redistribute benefits to low and middle income earners.
The Coalition party room met on Tuesday, endorsing a decision of the shadow cabinet not to vote against the Labor tax plan despite weeks of arguing Anthony Albanese had lied and reneged on his commitment to stage three tax cuts before the 2022 election.
We’ve confirmed this decision with several Coalition sources, but we’re not yet clear on what the amendments to Labor’s bill will be.
This clears the way for the $359bn 10 year tax cut package to pass parliament in February ahead of the changes taking effect in July. The Labor plan delivers bigger savings to all taxpayers earning less than $146,486 and doubles tax relief for those on the average income.
Senior Coalition shadow ministers have been repositioning on Labor’s tax plan since last week, insisting that it is the party of lower tax and promising not to seek to repeal the changes.
The decision not to oppose Labor’s plan creates a wider dilemma over whether to recommit to remove the 37% tax bracket, the centrepiece of stage three tax cuts, or propose an alternative to redistribute the $28bn more tax raised by Labor’s plan over 10 years.
The Coalition’s decision also sidelines the Greens, who had attempted to use their Senate voting bloc to lobby for an increase to jobseeker payments and raising the tax free threshold from $18,200.
Updated
Consumer confidence up slightly while inflation expectations lower
There’s certainly cost-of-living pain out there as households battle to keep under a roof and pay for groceries and bills. That said, consumer confidence is no longer on the skids – perhaps as rate cut hopes rise – but also because of the government’s revised tax plans, according to ANZ and Roy Morgan.
Modest uptick in consumer confidence, with rejigged Stage 3 tax cuts a possible influence. (Source: @ANZ_Research, @RoyMorganAus ) pic.twitter.com/P5KREV3uaY
— @phannam@mastodon.green (@p_hannam) February 5, 2024
Inflation expectations, too, are moving in the right direction. This gauge, of course, can be fickle, but it’s one the RBA governor, Michele Bullock, has spoken about as very much on her radar.
An inflation expectations have ticked down, and are now at the lowest since February 2022. (#RBA board might note over morning tea...) pic.twitter.com/IAsHANtKBc
— @phannam@mastodon.green (@p_hannam) February 5, 2024
The timing of rate cuts will hinge in part on how much the jobless rate rises – which, of course, is something to be welcomed. December did produce a bad result with employers shedding 65,000 positions (and 106,000 full-time ones) even if the jobless rate was unchanged at 3.9%.
There’s no sign, though, of the bottom falling out of the labour market, at least according to job ads data.
And reinforcing the view the economy seems to be holding up, job ads have lately nudged higher - and remain well above the average over the past 15 years.
— @phannam@mastodon.green (@p_hannam) February 5, 2024
(Source: @anz_research, @indeed ) pic.twitter.com/iRB847EBYA
And, as ANZ noted yesterday, the December quarterly business survey by rival NAB found roughly four in five businesses report labour as a constraint to production.
Whether those constraints are prodding them to pay staff more, we’ll find out on 21 February with the ABS releasing the December quarter wage price index. The RBA will be watching closely, too.
Updated
Big four banks predict RBA rate cut won’t come until well into second half of 2024
As noted earlier, the RBA‘s first board meeting for 2024 is likely to leave its key interest rate unchanged at its 12-year high of 4.35%. (If there’s a change, 29 economists surveyed by Reuters will have some explaining to do.)
The RBA governor, Michele Bullock, will hold a media conference at 3.30pm AEDT, an hour after the rates verdict lands. Much attention is likely to focus on whether there’s any chance of another rate rise (a diminishing one) but hence how soon the central bank will be cutting the rate.
As things stand now, investors are “fully pricing in” the first rate cut to come by August, assuming that slice is 25 basis points. If the RBA’s trim was 15bp (to make it a neater 4.25%), then May would be a 100% chance, or so the ASX tracker says.
Economists from the big four banks, though, have a bit more of a cautious view, and aren’t pencilling a cut until well into the second half of 2024 (and not many of them, save CBA):
Ahead of today's RBA interest rate decision and updated forecasts, the major banks are forecasting a cut until well into the second half of 2024. (Source: @RateCity ) pic.twitter.com/ndDWUW6H8z
— @phannam@mastodon.green (@p_hannam) February 5, 2024
Updated
Former Liberal/UAP MP Craig Kelly is at the rally – and has spent his time outside parliament honing his AI skills, as this tweet from yesterday attests.
The “boys” seem to be missing faces in the second row.
The boys are ready for tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/3oKG8mjSD9
— Craig Kelly (@CKellyUAP) February 5, 2024
Updated
Nationals’ Jacinta Price tells anti-renewables rally ‘you are the custodians of our land’
The Nationals senator Jacinta Price is now speaking at the rally, where she’s spruiking nuclear power.
Price is certainly a popular politician at the rally. We already spotted some no campaign shirts in the crowd.
She’s cheered and applauded as she walks on the rally stage to say:
You are the custodians of our land.
You know better than anybody the importance of taking care of our natural environment, you know better than anybody what it means to provide from the regions for the entire nation, for the Australian people, for those in the inner cities.
Price talked about how she drove across Australia after the voice referendum and was disturbed by the sight of wind turbines.
Nuclear is certainly the direction we need to go and I know Australians want this.
(A reminder the only viable small modular nuclear reactor was abandoned because of cost – and that by the time Australia built one, even if it started today, renewables would still be cheaper than nuclear power.)
Updated
Craig Kelly, Ralph Babet and Jacinta Price spotted at ‘reckless renewables’ rally
The “reckless renewables” rally has kicked off on parliament house’s front lawn where the national anthem has just played to start the proceedings.
The main focus is to oppose the federal government’s rollout of renewable energy but it’s a broad church of opinions and political groups here.
We’ve already spotted former MP Craig Kelly, UAP senator Ralph Babet and NT Country Liberal senator Jacinta Price in the crowd. We’re also expecting Barnaby Joyce to take to the microphone podium this morning.
Updated
The party room meetings are under way – over in the Coalition party room we are hearing from MPs that the room has voted not to stand in the way of the stage three tax cuts.
Which is what we expected – and was all but confirmed last night – what that means is that the Coalition won’t vote against Labor’s changes, or hold them up, but will develop their own tax plan before the next election.
In the meantime the Coalition will continue to hammer Labor on bracket creep (focused on the reinstatement of the 37c tax bracket).
Paul Karp will have more for you very soon.
Updated
Today’s RBA meeting is the first of the new regime – which means there will be a press conference straight after it, as part of the new mandate to better explain decisions.
It is also one of only eight meetings this year. Previously, there had been 11 meetings a year. This was also a suggestion of the RBA review ordered by Jim Chalmers, with the idea being that the RBA board will have more data to work with, so it will be more responsive to what is actually happening, rather than trying to guess what will happen from the previous month’s data.
But that has created the new worry that the RBA will act in advance of what might happen, because it has fewer meetings to actually change things – for instance, raising rates by more than it would have previously, because it is trying to address what it thinks could happen between meetings. Which obviously is going to have an impact on people with mortgages.
Allegra Spender to back stage three tax cut changes
The Wentworth independent MP Allegra Spender says she will back the changes to the stage three tax cuts after consulting with her community:
Of the nearly 1,700 people who responded to our community survey, more than two-thirds backed the decision to re-shape the tax cuts, including many people who will be worse off as a result. So many people have spoken to me about how they’re struggling with cost-of-living pressures and these changes will give them support when they really need it.
Spender says that around a quarter of the survey respondents wanted to retain the original stage three proposal and 30% supported other measures to address cost-of-living pressures.
Updated
Oh and for those wondering, Scott Morrison said he would be leaving parliament at the end of February – which would be the last sitting week scheduled for this month.
So don’t expect any last speeches this week.
Being a Tuesday, there are the party room meetings to get through before the parliament actually gets down to the business of sitting.
That will begin at noon (ASDT)
In the meantime, here is Firstdog’s take on the annual first sitting day:
Liberals ‘tightening the screws on themselves’ over stage three, PM says
The transcript for Anthony Albanese’s first press conference of the parliamentary year has just lobbed, and it included this last answer to a question on the Liberals and stage three:
[The Liberal party have] been tightening the screws on themselves as they tie themselves in knots. First they said they’d fight it. Then they said they’d roll it back. Now they say they’ll have a different position completely. Then they say, ‘Oh, we’ll wait and we’ll decide in weeks to come’.
We provided the legislation to all of the parliament. We’ve said very clearly, there are two options here. Our option is to give every taxpayer a tax cut; is to overwhelmingly benefit low and middle income Australians; is firmly targeted at middle Australia, as well as providing economic benefits. It’s the right decision done for the right reasons at the right time. And that’s what we’ll be advocating in the parliament.
Updated
Parties consider stage three changes with Dunkley byelection in mind
The argument the Coalition is shaping up is that Labor is only making changes to the stage-three tax policy because the Dunkley byelection is in about a month’s time and it is all geared around that.
There is some truth to that, in terms of timing. The Dunkley byelection will be a tough one for Labor to win – Peta Murphy held the seat (which is not naturally a Labor seat) through her personal appeal with electors. But voters are suffering under a slowing economy and the government is seen as being slow to act on cost-of-living relief, and that is a fairly easy argument for the Liberals to mount at the byelection.
Labor, though, also has an eye on the coming election. The Albanese government honeymoon is well and truly over and the loss of the voice referendum marked a shift in voters’ goodwill. And so, the government is acting, by doing something on a policy that never truly sat right with it.
But that is not to say that there is nothing in the Coalition’s arguments about bracket creep. Because there are people who feel that too. And nothing seems to win a tax argument in Australia like the thought that you might miss out on something you could eventually reach (Howard’s battlers, franking credits, ma-and-pa investors etc).
So it is an old playbook, reimagined.
Updated
Senator says Coalition will create new tax policy going forward
Earlier this morning, the Liberal senator Andrew Bragg had a chat to ABC radio RN Breakfast where he firmed up the Coalition’s position on stage three.
The short version; they won’t stand in the way of the changes, but will create new tax policy moving forward.
I don’t think we should stand in the way of Australians getting a tax cut. But the problem here is that it’s a tax cut today, but higher taxes in the future because, of course, bracket creep will guarantee that more Australians, when they do more work, more hours, more shifts, will ultimately pay more tax in the long term, which is why we abolished the 37 cents in the dollar threshold in the first place.
… We have to make the important point here that returning a tax bracket into the system, i.e, a new tax, which is the 37 cent threshold, is a very bad idea because it would damage aspiration.
And so we don’t believe that that should be part of our policy, and that’s something that we’ll consider between now and the next election.
Updated
‘Rally against reckless renewables’ outside parliament
Outside the parliament and there is the “rally against reckless renewables” protest which is well under way.
Lots of red ensigns about and YouTube journalist Rukshan Fernando, who became somewhat of a hero to the anti-lockdown protest movement, has been spotted walking around parliament with the ‘UAP senator Ralph Babet.
It is going to be one of those days.
Updated
Australian Republic Movement sends well wishes to King Charles after cancer diagnosis
The Australian Republic Movement has also sent its well wishes to King Charles following the monarch’s cancer diagnosis.
The national director and CEO, Isaac Jeffrey, said it was “an incredibly challenging and private time for any family” and thanked the king for raising public awareness.
I wish Charles the best for his treatment, and a speedy and complete recovery. I send our thoughts to him, Camilla and their family.
Updated
On the stage three tax cut changes that all indications point to the Coalition supporting, Simon Birmingham said:
We believe that tax reform as we legislated was important to achieve and we still believe it is important for the future. Let’s remember that the stage three, the Coalition had legislated in government, was abolishing the 37 cent in the dollar tax bracket*, outright eliminating bracket creep for the vast majority of working Australians. Labor’s proposal keeps that 37 cent in the dollar. It keeps bracket creep and therefore actually grabs an extra $28 billion from Australians over the next few years in extra tax the government will take.
…Our concern is for Australian households, and we want to see every household pay as little tax as possible and get whatever they can in terms of support for the huge pressures they are facing right now and that they’re facing as a result of what adds up to some $8,000 on average, that they are worse off over the last 12 months alone.
*Just a reminder that the original stage three tax cuts, passed by the Turnbull government while Scott Morrison was treasurer, left the 37c bracket where it was. It was the Morrison government changes which scrapped the 37c bracket and also changed the 32.5c bracket to 30c (done while Josh Frydenberg was treasurer)
Turnbull argued at the time that the changes made by the Morrison government made the tax system more costly without making it more equitable.
Birmingham on Yang Hengjun sentence
The Liberal senator Simon Birmingham was out and about early this morning, getting ahead of the day. He told ABC News Breakfast he expected “strong and direct” action in response to the suspended death sentence Australian academic Dr Yang Hengjun was given by a Chinese court:
It’s important that, in every single engagement our prime minister, our foreign minister and all our officials have, the case of Dr Yang is clearly laid out for the Chinese. The anguish and anger that exists across Australia should be made clear and felt in Beijing, and the expectations of Australia that he ought to receive treatment that ultimately enables his release and return to Australia need to continue to be made clear.
Now, we will be seeking briefings in the normal course of events as an opposition to understand the behind-the-scenes steps and how these decisions can best be calibrated. But it is critical that we make sure Australia’s feelings are heard, and that in no way in the days, weeks, months or if need be, years ahead, should this case be allowed to slip from mind or from advocacy.
Updated
Back to ‘broken promises’
And of course, someone asks about “broken promises” on the stage-three tax cuts.
Anthony Albanese says:
I went to the National Press Club and said very clearly that the government had changed its position because of cost-of-living pressures. I was quite clear about us changing our position and why we were doing it. I note – I note – the various reports today saying that the Liberal party has changed its position on stage-three tax cuts.
If this is carved in stone, how is it that they have changed their position?
If they are fair dinkum, then their response must be to not only oppose what we are putting forward with our legislation we’ll introduce today, but to promise to roll it back.
Unless they do that, then it’s all just wind. It’s all just politics. What we are about is people, not politics.
I watched this whole debate away from Canberra and it all seemed quite far away. Do we want governments to react to changing circumstances or do we want them to be bound by arbitrary promises the press gallery elicit during election campaigns that are increasingly about gotcha moments?
Because who is that actually serving? Every government breaks election promises. Some are just better at the sell.
And when the broken promise has an adverse effect, sure, go nuts. But if the “broken promise” actually creates better policy that helps more people – isn’t that what we want?
Watching the fallout of a government announcing it was changing a policy that was created five years ago among Canberra watchers and comparing that to the reactions of normal people was, as you could expect, chalk and cheese. The biggest reaction I got while on the Gold Coast was “what’s stage three?”.
Updated
PM asked about Uluru statement
Back to domestic matters, Anthony Albanese is asked whether his government is still committed to the other parts of the Uluru statement from the heart – truth and treaty. The commitment was for the whole statement to be acted on, but once the voice went down in the referendum, truth and treaty appeared to have been shelved. Albanese says:
What we’re committed to is what we said during the referendum. What the voice to Parliament was about was making a practical difference on housing, on health, in education, on all of those measures.
We’re looking at ways in which we can advance those. We’re doing work particularly on employment, making sure that real jobs are created with real training and real skills to lift up opportunity for First Nations people.
We’ll be having more to say when we respond to the Closing the Gap statement which we’ll be doing in coming weeks.
Updated
‘What we won’t do is conduct diplomatic negotiations through the media’
Anthony Albanese sticks to his habit of not doing diplomacy through the media and says any action Australia takes will be conveyed directly to China:
We will respond very directly to China. We’ll respond directly and clearly and unequivocally to China. What we won’t do is conduct diplomatic negotiations through the media. That’s not what we do. We’ve made our position very clear. The details of which we will make directly to China.
Updated
China has been told of ‘outrage’ at Yang Hengjun verdict, PM says
On the suspended death sentence Australian academic Yang Hengjun received in China, Anthony Albanese said:
Well, we have conveyed, firstly, to China our dismay, our despair, our frustration – but to put it really simply, our outrage – at this verdict. This is a very harsh sentence on Dr Yang, who is a man who’s not in good health.
We will continue to make the strongest representations. We of course called in the ambassador yesterday – but we will make representations at all levels …
We have said very clearly that we’ll cooperate with China where we can, but we’ll disagree where we must. We must disagree with this harsh action by China. We have done so. We will continue to do so.
(Calling in the ambassador is the diplomatic version of “explain yourself” and is an official lever used between countries to express dissatisfaction with something that has occurred.)
Updated
‘We want to see his majesty return to full duties as soon as possible,’ Albanese says
The bells have stopped tolling and Anthony Albanese is speaking outside St Andrew’s. His first comments are about King Charles:
All Australians will be sending their best wishes to King Charles for a speedy recovery. This is difficult news, and we hope for King Charles, for his majesty, and for all of their family, all the very best. We want to see his majesty return to full duties as soon as possible. We of course look forward to the commonwealth heads of government meeting held in our region. And of course, we have invited King Charles to visit Australia, and we sincerely hope that that is able to occur.
Updated
The first parliament sitting of the year church service is complete and, once the bells stop ringing, we will hear from the prime minister.
Updated
‘Price gouging’ report due
The former chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Prof Allan Fels AO will hand his report into “price gouging and unfair practices” to ACTU secretary Sally McManus today.
The ACTU commissioned Fels to undertake an inquiry into Australia’s prices, back when big wigs were pretending that the record profits corporations were making were just one big coincidence and the real inflation driver was workers’ wages. We are all pretty across what the report is going to say, I think.
Since then, the Albanese government has ordered its own inquiry into the prices of Australian supermarkets, so I don’t know, maybe everyone who was pointing to the record profits Australian businesses were making was on to something.
Updated
King wished a speedy recovery
The Australian Monarchist League has wished King Charles a speedy recovery in response to the news he has been diagnosed with cancer.
The AML, which includes former Liberal senator Eric Abetz, said “the prayers thoughts and best wishes of all Australians of goodwill* will be with the King of Australia and his family as they face this health challenge together”.
*Nice caveat there
Updated
Interest rate decision due
Just in case there wasn’t enough on today, it is also RBA meeting day, which means we will get another interest rate decision.
Turns out the data has caught up to what people were already feeling – inflation is slowing but so is the economy (who would have thought that forcing people who pay for housing to pay more for that housing through either interest rate or rent hikes would mean that they would have less to spend in other parts of the economy and that would have an impact?!) so no one is predicting the RBA will raise rates today.
Instead, the experts expect a hold or a decrease in rates, which is not as outlandish as it seems, given that there had been expectations earlier in 2023 that by the end of 2023, rates would begin to trend downwards again.
That didn’t happen, which means the focus is on the early part of this year. Given we are in a cost-of-living crisis that seems to be driven by housing, there are going to be a lot of eyes on the RBA for the next 12 months.
Updated
School funding data
(continued from previous post)
The latest data shows 31.4% of government school students are from a low socioeconomic background, compared with just 13.2% of non-government school students.
Last year Guardian Australia revealed private school funding had increased at almost double the rate of government school funding in the decade since the landmark Gonski review recommended changes designed to fund Australian schools according to need.
From 2012 to 2021, per-student funding to independent and Catholic schools rose by 34% and 31% respectively, while funding to public schools increased by just 17%.
Updated
Equity gaps in education highlighted
Government funding to private schools has increased by 15% in a single year and is vastly outpacing funding to public schools, despite Labor’s commitment to close continued equity gaps in education.
Yesterday the Productivity Commission’s report on government services showed non-government schools received $19.9bn in 2021-22, a $2.6bn increase from 2020-21 ($17.3bn) and equating to a 15% annual jump.
Some $2.3bn came from the commonwealth – which provides the bulk of private school funding.
Government schools received $58.7bn, a $3.8bn increase from the previous year ($54.9bn) and just a 7% increase overall.
In total, governments spent $78.7bn on school education in 2021-22, with states and territories funding 68.1% of the total, slightly less than 2020-21 (69.2%).
It comes as nationally, government schools carry a higher proportion of students from equity groups including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, students from poor backgrounds, students with disabilities and geographically remote students.
(continued in next post)
Updated
Stephen Jones goes on the attack
The finance services minister, Stephen Jones, who is a favourite target of the Coalition, has started the parliamentary year on the offence, pointing out that the opposition has still not named a shadow finance services minister.
Stuart Robert had the gig but he resigned from parliament in May last year (how time flies), and so far, the position has remained vacant.
Jones says Australians “deserve more than an empty chair from the Liberals” but there are those in the Liberal party who argue that an empty chair might do a better job than Jones does.
Updated
Church service marks start of parliamentary year
Before the argy bargy of parliament starts, there is the annual start of the parliament year church service – this year it’s at St Andrew’s.
There is always some sort of sermon on togetherness and unity, which the MPs all nod along to and then seem to forget the moment they are on the church steps.
Updated
Coalition likely to back tax changes after shadow cabinet meeting
The shadow cabinet met last night to discuss Labor’s proposed revamp of stage-three tax cuts.
We understand from several Coalition sources that the majority view in the opposition leadership is not to block Labor’s tax cuts, which deliver bigger cuts to low- and middle-income earners. This is consistent with the holding line that the Coalition are the parties of lower tax and would not be taking money off anyone.
Given all the Coalition rhetoric attacking Anthony Albanese for abandoning stage three, we thought it might try to promise to abolish the 37% tax rate in addition to Labor’s changes. Apparently not.
The Australian reports that the Coalition will look for a new policy to improve the budget bottom line and hand back bracket creep. This is consistent with what one source told us – that it is not feasible for the Coalition to come up with a new policy in two weeks.
The opposition may avoid getting wedged on tax by Labor’s plan but it will need to do a lot more work to create its own. Labor’s plan is budget-neutral over four years but gives back $28bn less tax over 10 – so there is some money to play with, but not for several years.
It’s also unclear how Peter Dutton will maintain the rage about stage three if the Coalition is no longer proposing to deliver it. Perhaps it was spooked by Jim Chalmers’ sums that doing Labor’s plan and stage three together would cost $40bn.
The tax plan will be discussed in the Coalition party room today.
Updated
Good morning
Welcome to the first sitting day for 2024.
We arrive in the middle of Australia’s latest tax battle for voters hearts and minds – the Coalition, after a big song and dance about broken promises (which was completely ridiculous) will now not stand in the way or delay the Albanese government changes to the stage-three tax cuts.
Instead the Coalition is going to try to shape the battle around what it would do and how Labor is still failing on the tax front.
So consider this week a forerunner for your immediate future.
We’ll have all the rest of the parliament shenanigans – we are now officially back in the re-election zone, so it can only get more unhinged from here.
You have Paul Karp, Josh Butler, Daniel Hurst and Sarah Basford Canales to guide you through the week, with Mike Bowers already in the building and sniffing out what’s what. And you have me, Amy Remeikis, back with you for another parliamentary year.
I’ve already had three coffees. Ready?
Let’s get into it.
Updated
Opponents of ‘reckless renewables’ to protest in Canberra
Community groups and politicians opposing offshore windfarms and “reckless renewables” will converge on the lawns of Parliament House this morning.
Despite the wet weather, organisers are expecting a turnout of at least 1,000 people to oppose the federal government’s rollout of renewable energy, which includes wind and solar farms, batteries and the transmission lines needed to connect power to homes and businesses.
The rally, which is described as “grassroots”, has particular issue with the government’s “short, insincere, and unacknowledged community consultation”.
It is urging the government to suspend the rollout of renewables until a Senate inquiry is launched looking into the “technical veracity as well as the excessive economic, social and environmental costs”. It is also calling for the nuclear power ban to be overturned.
One of the rally’s organisers, Sandra Bourke, told my colleague Ariel Bogle she isn’t a climate change denier or against renewables. She said she’s instead against the pace of the government’s rollout of renewables without adequate community consultation.
A list of Nationals and Liberal MPs and senators are listed as speaking at the event, including Barnaby Joyce and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, alongside members of One Nation and the United Australia party.
But the rally will be countered by progressive advocacy group, Get Up, which has organised a pro-renewables roaming billboard to circle Parliament House all day.
Get Up’s CEO Larissa Baldwin-Roberts said:
Our political leaders should be supporting communities in the face of climate impacts and phasing out polluting fossil fuels with a fast, fair transition to clean renewable energy ... instead, hard-right politicians like Barnaby Joyce are spreading lies and disinformation to stop progress on climate action for their mining mates, win back power, and tank renewable energy.
Updated
National seats stand to gain most from tax cut reforms, analysis shows
The progressive thinktank Australia Institute has released an analysis about the winners from Labor’s proposed tax changes, finding that taxpayers in Nationals seats stand to gain the most.
The Nationals’ 16 electorates are set to receive an extra $451m a year in tax cuts, an average of $326 a taxpayer. That’s $100 more than the average taxpayer in Liberal seats ($226) and Labor seats ($229).
Of Australia’s 151 electorates, 127 will be better off under the restructured cuts, with just 24 worse off.
Australia Institute senior economist, Matt Grudnoff, said:
The majority of taxpayers across Labor, Liberal and Coalition electorates will be winners under the government’s restructured tax cuts ... If the Nationals, in particular, were to vote against this legislation, then taxpayers in their electorates would have the most to lose.
This shows just how damaging Coalition’s original Stage 3 cuts were to Australia’s social and economic fabric. Redistributing the bulk of the tax cuts to low- and- middle- income earners will help those doing it the toughest while preserving the progressive nature of our tax system.
The Australia Institute analysis confirms earlier analyses by the treasurer’s office and the Australian National University’s Ben Phillips that working class outer urban and regional seats stand to gain the most.
Updated
The ‘right decision at the right time’
A parliamentary showdown is looming on the future of stage-three tax cut changes, with laws enshrining the alterations to be introduced to parliament, Australian Associated Press reports.
Legislation backing broader tax cuts will be brought forward to the House of Representatives today as federal parliament meets for the first sitting day for 2024.
While the government has come under fire from the opposition for breaking an election commitment to leave the stage-three tax cuts untouched, prime minister Anthony Albanese signalled that the move was necessary. He told a caucus meeting yesterday:
This will be a debate that we’re not just willing to have, but enthusiastic about having, because it is about looking after people.
We’ve made a right decision at the right time, for the right reasons.
Under the tax changes, people earning under $150,000 will receive a larger tax cut, while those earning above that amount will still receive benefits but less than previously forecast under the original stage-three proposal.
Updated
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live politics blog. My name’s Martin Farrer and I’m here to bring you the overnight headlines before Amy Remeikis returns to the chair for 2024’s first sitting week.
Peter Dutton is poised to accept Labor’s changes to the Coalition’s stage-three tax cuts after party room meetings today. Reports suggest Dutton, who at first vowed to repeal the changes in full, will agree to the tweaks that will put more money back into the pockets of low- and middle-income earners by making planned tax cuts for the wealthy smaller. Legislation backing the Labor changes will be brought forward to the House of Representatives today, as federal parliament meets for the first sitting day for the year. More coming up.
Community groups and politicians opposing offshore windfarms and “reckless renewables” will converge on the lawns of Parliament House this morning as their campaign gathers momentum. It is expected that about 1,000 people opposed to the federal government’s rollout of renewable energy, which includes wind and solar farms, batteries and the transmission lines needed to connect power to homes and businesses, will join the protest backed by some notable Coalition figures such as Barnaby Joyce and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.
Talking of the Coalition, it was a rollicking second episode of the ABC documentary Nemesis last night with Malcolm Turnbull unloading on his enemies. Focusing on his term as prime minister between 2016 and 2018, the exposé of Coalition infighting heard Turnbull describe his then-treasurer Scott Morrison as “duplicitous”, recall that Tony Abbott promised to be “very fucking difficult” as revenge for being ousted in a coup in 2016, and dismiss Dutton as a “thug”. All that and a tetchy phone call with Donald Trump, plus handling Joyce’s infidelity.
