What we learned today, Thursday 14 September
And that’s where we’ll wrap up today. Thanks so much for your company.
Here’s a little of what we learned:
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has said there are no negative ongoing impacts of British colonisation on Indigenous Australians, dismissing concerns about intergenerational trauma. Linda Burney called the comments “offensive”.
A Senate inquiry into Victoria’s cancellation of the 2026 Commonwealth Games has recommended the federal government urgently intervene to save the event.
An inquiry report into Australia’s consent laws found university students who have experienced sexual violence are being significantly re-traumatised by the treatment of their university.
Employers hired almost 65,000 more workers in August, many more than expected, improving the prospects that the economy will avoid a hard landing but also raising the possibility the Reserve Bank may hike interest rates again.
The millionaire property developer Tim Gurner says he deeply regrets the comments he made suggesting Australia needs unemployment to increase by 40% to 50%.
Full-scale strikes at Chevron’s liquefied natural gas facilities in Australia started this morning, putting global energy markets on edge amid a protracted industrial dispute.
Former Australian defence force members who work for foreign military organisations without approval from the Australian government face up to 20 years in jail under proposed new laws.
And the AFL great Michael Long completed his long walk to Canberra in support of the Indigenous voice.
Updated
Burney condemns ‘offensive’ Price comments on colonisation
The minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, has condemned Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s comments at the National Press Club, where she said that colonisation has had no ongoing negative impacts on Indigenous Australians.
Burney said:
Those comments are offensive. It denies the experience of so many First Nations families. We only have to look at the Stolen Generations and the impacts that has had, in terms of ongoing trauma and pain. Her comments are a betrayal of so many people’s stories.
Recent reporting by my colleagues Lorena Allam and Sarah Collard on the possible clandestine graves at Kinchela boys’ home and the survivors who are still dealing with the horrors of the place is likely to point to just one such experience:
Updated
Tim Gurner 'deeply regrets' calling for rise in unemployment
Millionaire property developer Tim Gurner says he deeply regrets the comments he made at a property summit on Tuesday that drew fierce backlash after he suggested Australia needs unemployment to increase by 40% to 50%.
In a statement, Gurner said:
At the AFR Property Summit this week I made some remarks about unemployment and productivity in Australia that I deeply regret and were wrong.
There are clearly important conversations to have in this environment of high inflation, pricing pressures on housing and rentals due to a lack of supply, and other cost of living issues. My comments were deeply insensitive to employees, tradies and families across Australia who are affected by these cost-of-living pressures and job losses.
I want to be clear: I do appreciate that when someone loses their job it has a profound impact on them and their families and I sincerely regret that my words did not convey empathy for those in that situation.
Gurner told the property summit on Tuesday that “we need to see pain in the economy”.
“There’s been a systematic change where employees feel the employer is extremely lucky to have them as opposed to the other way around. So it’s a dynamic that has to change. We’ve got to kill that attitude and that has to come through hurting the economy,” he said. “We need to see unemployment rise, unemployment has to jump 40, 50%.”
More on Gurner’s comments at the property summit here:
Updated
Earlier we brought you news on Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s comments at the National Press Club, where she said in response to a question from my colleague Josh Butler that colonisation has had no ongoing negative impacts on Indigenous Australians.
When asked to clarify whether she thought any Indigenous people were suffering negative impacts of colonisation, Nampijinpa Price responded: “No.”
I’ll be honest with you, I do not think so. A positive impact, absolutely. I mean, now we have running water, readily available food.
If you missed it, Josh has the full story here:
Updated
Defence force should not be ‘the first call’ in natural disasters, Labor MP says
The Labor MP Julian Hill says the growing pressure placed on the Australian Defence Force to respond to natural disasters “cannot continue”.
Speaking on ABC Afternoon Briefing, he says:
More than 50% of ADF members in the last four years have been involved in responding to a domestic crisis. They cannot be seen as a shadow workforce.
Members of the opposition sometimes don’t like to accept that, but we can foresee clearly that in the coming years defence will be called on to respond to our Pacific Islander neighbours and disasters in the region.
The states and territories have to lift their game and their investments and improve their own capabilities so that defence is not seen as the first call. Communities need to be supported but the ADF can’t be that first line of defence.
Asked whether providing natural disaster relief left Australia weak to their adversaries, Hill says:
That absolutely is a vulnerability, from a national security point of view that has been observed.
We can’t both help people domestically, fulfil our obligations in the region and respond to military contingencies.
Updated
Future Matildas Women’s World Cup matches to remain on free-to-air TV
Future Matildas Women’s World Cup matches have been added to the anti-siphoning list, ensuring they remain on free-to-air TV.
The anti-siphoning list gives free-to-air broadcasters the first chance to acquire rights to major sporting events, and the scheme is currently under review.
Debate over free viewing access made headlines during the 2023 women’s tournament as fans came to realise all 64 matches could only be accessed on streaming platform Optus Sport with a subscription.
However, if the Matildas’ matches had been on the anti-siphoning list prior to the Women’s World Cup it would not have changed the broadcast arrangements as Channel Seven broadcast all seven games on free-to-air.
The federal communications minister, Michelle Rowland, said the government recognised the need for events of national importance to be freely accessible.
The Matildas’ incredible performance in the 2023 Fifa Women’s World Cup brought us together as a nation and will be talked about for years to come – we all shared in the excitement as the team progressed from stage to stage.
Every Australian deserves the chance to enjoy live and free coverage of these events, no matter where they live or what they earn. This amendment to the list will help to support this outcome.
Socceroos World Cup matches are also included in the amendment, as well as either of the national teams’ qualifying games played in Australia.
Bidding for Australian media rights to the 2027 Women’s World Cup – for which a host country has not been announced – close on 19 September 2023.
Updated
Continuing on from our prior post, here are the inquiry’s four recommendations relating to the cancellation of the Commonwealth Games:
Recommendation 1:
The committee recommends that the Australian government takes on a facilitation and coordination role in order to salvage the 2026 Commonwealth Games being held in Australia. This should include establishing a forum by the end of 2023 to bring together representatives from federal, state and local government, business associations and community groups, to examine options to salvage the event, which could be reduced or decentralised “if necessary”.
Recommendation 2:
If stakeholders cannot agree on an approach to salvage the Games, the committee recommends that the Australian government develops a policy to address the missed opportunities and impacts from the cancellation of Victoria 2026.
Recommendation 3:
The committee recommends that the Australian government develops guidelines for future major sporting events which make Commonwealth funding, regulatory, policy and operational support conditional on state and territory governments being required to notify the Australian Government well in advance of cancelling, or making major changes to, a major sporting event for which hosting rights have been awarded.
Recommendation 4:
The committee recommends that the Australian government encourages the Victorian government to prioritise the delivery of its $2 billion alternative rural and regional funding package, including by publicly releasing full details on where funding will be allocated, what projects it will be allocated to, and accountable timeframes for delivery.
Updated
Senate inquiry recommends federal government save 2026 Commonwealth Games
A Senate inquiry into Victoria’s cancellation of the 2026 Commonwealth Games has recommended the federal government urgently intervene to save the event.
The inquiry’s interim report, tabled in parliament on Thursday, urged the federal government to work to find another state to hold the event, which is considered an ideal warm-up for the 2032 Olympics and Paralympics being staged in Queensland. It reads:
The committee was surprised and disappointed to observe the passive approach the government appears to be taking in relation to the cancellation. While the abrupt cancellation of the 2026 Commonwealth Games is not the Australian government’s fault, the consequences affect Australia’s reputation and therefore there is a role for the Australian government to get active in trying to find a solution.
The committee, chaired by the Nationals senator Matt Canavan, said it had not reached a review on an alternative city that could host the games, but noted the local government in the Gold Coast was interested:
This is a matter for the Australian government to evaluate. However, given the constrained timeframe to salvage the games, and concurrent fiscal and cost of living pressures, the committee endorses the principle that alternative options should maximise the use of existing sporting, transport and housing infrastructure across Australia.
Updated
A big thank you to Amy Remeikis for guiding us through the last sitting fortnight. I’ll now be with you until this evening.
The parliament is slowly drawing to a close, and I will hand you over to Jordyn Beazley to take you through the evening.
The team are all still madly beavering away, so make sure you check back to see the fruits of their labour. Politics live will stand adjourned while the parliament does (although we will be bringing you coverage of the voice referendum day) but the usual Australia live blog will be in its place to take you through all the news.
We will be back here on 16 October.
To everyone who has followed along with us this last sitting fortnight – thank you so much. It means a lot that you would choose to spend your time watching what is happening in your parliament – and it helps make your democracy stronger. It has been a bruising couple of weeks by any measure. And the next month is going to be rough for a lot of people, for many reasons. So please, more than usual – take care of you, and those around you. It matters.
Teachers pay $159m a year out of their own pockets for equipment and activities, research finds
Teachers are paying hundreds of dollars out of their own pocket to ensure students don’t miss out on necessary equipment and activities, new research shows.
The national polling commissioned by the Australian Education Union (AEU) found 85% of public school teachers were spending additional money, with the average amount sitting just over $885 a year.
Based on the national average, total spending was estimate at $159m a year.
The AEU federal president, Correna Haythorpe, said the spending reflected the underfunding of schools to the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) – the minimum amount agreed to by governments to meet the needs of children.
Only 1.3% of public schools have reached the threshold, and the ACT is the only state or territory to have met it.
Haythorpe said:
This spending reflects the dedication and commitment of teachers in public schools ... [but] unfortunately, it also reflects the failure of the commonwealth and state and territory governments to fund public schools to their own funding standard.
The fact that teachers and principals are running sausage sizzles to pay for the basics is a sad reflection on the current priorities of governments in this country.
The research also found 72% of public school principals had undertaken fundraising in the past year, predominantly for classroom equipment.
The main items teachers were buying with their money was stationery, classroom equipment, library resources and textbooks.
Updated
A senate inquiry into Victoria’s cancellation of the 2026 Commonwealth Games has recommended the federal government urgently intervene to save the event.
The inquiry’s interim report, tabled in parliament on Thursday, urged the federal government to work to find another state to hold the event, which is considered an ideal warm-up for the 2032 Olympics and Paralympics being staged in Queensland. It reads:
The committee was surprised and disappointed to observe the passive approach the government appears to be taking in relation to the cancellation. While the abrupt cancellation of the 2026 Commonwealth Games is not the Australian government’s fault, the consequences affect Australia’s reputation and therefore there is a role for the Australian government to get active in trying to find a solution.
The committee - which is chaired by Nationals Senator Matt Canavan, said it has not reached a review on an alternative city which could host the games but noted the local government in the Gold Coast was interested:
This is a matter for the Australian government to evaluate. However, given the constrained timeframe to salvage the games, and concurrent fiscal and cost of living pressures, the committee endorses the principle that alternative options should maximise the use of existing sporting, transport and housing infrastructure across Australia.
Updated
No campaign leader Price given extra protection amid security concerns
On the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing, the Nationals leader, David Littleproud, says Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (who sits in their party room as a Country Liberal party MP) has had an increase in her protection when she is in public:
I don’t think it is wise for me to comment about the details of that protection but we take the advice of the Australian federal police and have every confidence in what they are able to gather about what that threat may be, but there is obviously a heightened … concern about Jacinta’s public safety, and it is important, from the prime minister, Peter Dutton and myself, to make sure we set the right tone for the balance of this referendum and that’s what I intend to do. We have done that for nearly eight months now since we came out and we will continue to do that as Nationals.
He says his office has also seen an increase in abuse:
Even my office has had phone calls, it is really ramped up in the abuse my staff have copped. And it is really not on. Obviously my staff are an extension of me … but my statements have never been disrespectful in this conversation, in this national debate.
I believe the Nationals above any political party have led ... this better than anyone else in setting the tone and setting the respect, and I say to every Australian, please, this is a deeply personal decision for you to make, just make it yourself. You don’t need to get angry and overreach.
Updated
Consent laws inquiry calls for changes to how the system deals with sexual assault allegations
The committee started with the question of whether or not Australia needed to standardise consent laws across Australia.
The answer it has come up with, is yes.
But the committee very quickly learned, through the testimony of survivors, advocates and researchers just how pointless consent laws would be alone, if there wasn’t a massive change in how the system deals with sexual assault allegations, and unless society at large shifts in its attitudes.
Including on the issue of “rape myths” – which are myths people believe about how a rape victim should have behaved before, during and after an assault. Juries are often asked if the behaviour of someone making an accusation of sexual assault “accords with their view” of how a rape victim would act.
But the truth is, no one knows how they would react until it happens to them. There are documented fear responses and while fight or flight gets all the attention, freeze and fawn (going along with something to minimise harm or fearing death) are just as valid.
Part of combating that means addressing responses within the system itself, with the recommendations to:
The committee recommends that the Commonwealth government, through the Police Ministers Council, develops principles to guide ongoing specialist education and training to state and territory law enforcement officers, to ensure culturally appropriate and trauma-informed responses to victim-survivors of sexual assault.
But also:
The committee recommends that the Attorney-General’s Department, in collaboration with the Australian Institute of Judicial Administration and other relevant stakeholders, develops and delivers a National Sexual Violence Bench Book, to assist judicial officers to recognise and respond to sexual violence in a culturally appropriate and trauma-informed manner. This resource should specifically address rape myths and misconceptions.
And yes, that includes juries:
The committee recommends that the Australian Law Reform Commission considers whether model jury directions should be developed as part of any initiative to harmonise Australia’s sexual consent laws. This model should include express requirements as to the timing and circumstances in which jury directions must be given.
Updated
Universities 'protecting their brand, not their students': Larissa Waters
There are 17 recommendations in the 121-page report – including this for universities:
The committee recommends that the Commonwealth government commissions an independent review of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency’s response to sexual violence on university campuses.
The Greens senator Larissa Waters, who is also speaking on the report (Nita Green is away from work), says the universities are “protecting their brand, not their students”.
The report is scathing of the university sector and its response to sexual assault. Absolutely scathing.
The committee found:
It is totally without surprise that universities’ responses to sexual assault contribute to low reporting rates and increasing demand for specialist student support services. University students who have experienced sexual violence are being significantly re-traumatised and, in some instances, are unable to continue their higher education, as a consequence of their treatment by their university. The committee cannot over-emphasise how troubled it is by these outcomes, nor over-state how disappointed it is in the university sector’s overall response.
Updated
University sector failing to appropriately respond to sexual violence, Scarr tells Senate
Paul Scarr is now directly addressing the university sector in his remarks to the Senate, paying tribute to the End Rape on Campus founder Sharna Bremner and Nina Funnell for their evidence about what has been happening in universities.
Scarr said the committee heard:
… the most disturbing evidence in relation to the failure of our university sector to appropriately respond to the issue of sexual violence on university campuses around this nation.
… I want to quote directly from the report and this is a paragraph which we considered very carefully in terms of composing this inquiry report, paragraph 5.105. “It is a serious indictment of Australia’s university sector and the regulator, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, that dedicated and courageous advocates for university students who have suffered from sexual violence on campus should hold the view that the process of making complaints and how universities and the regulator deal with such compliance is causing great trauma to the victims of sexual violence.”
Updated
Consent laws inquiry report is tabled in the Senate
The Liberal senator Paul Scarr is tabling the inquiry report into consent laws in Australia in the Senate.
Scarr was the head of the committee, which also featured Labor’s Nita Green and the Greens’ Larissa Waters.
The three were in lockstep as a committee and were often in shock at what they heard from survivors of sexual assault.
We will bring you the recommendations very soon – there are a lot.
Updated
Labor labels Dutton ‘a wrecker’ as voice debate consumes final question time before referendum
Just going through the question time transcription and there were, in some of the dixers from senior ministers, references to Peter Dutton being “a wrecker”.
That isn’t by accident. In her column in the Sydney Morning Herald, Niki Savva quoted one MP, in the context of “even Liberals opposing the voice believe the tenor of the no campaign will ensure reward if the referendum fails” as saying “he will be seen as a wrecker”.
The government has adopted that terminology. Previously, it was “blocker”. They have moved on from that, and if the referendum fails next month (and polls suggest it will) then the groundwork is being laid to put that failure directly at the feet of the opposition leader.
On the flipside, Dutton and the opposition have tried to get ahead of that, by claiming in recent weeks that it is the prime minister who has “divided” the country by holding the referendum.
The politics will roll on, but scars will remain on all sides.
Updated
The final question time ahead of the referendum has concluded.
When parliament rises at the end of this sitting, it won’t sit again until 16 October.
Updated
Most of the Coalition MPs are wearing R U OK badges on their lapels.
Just noting that.
The Nationals MP Kevin Hogan asks Linda Burney:
Does the minister recall making the following statement in July 2019 when speaking about the federal treaty: “It could be about fiscal arrangements.”
(A reminder that the referendum is about the voice, not treaty.)
Hogan is asked to repeat the question. “It’s already been asked,” someone in the Labor benches says.
Sussan Ley asks that the speaker apply his warnings to interjectors equally, pointing out the minister for home affairs, Clare O’Neil, is “a serial offender”.
Milton Dick takes the point of order and formally warns O’Neil.
Burney begins answering about the voice but the moment Paul Fletcher gets up to ask about relevance, she sits and says she has concluded her answer.
Updated
Bonza chief criticises aviation green paper’s timing
Tim Jordan, the CEO of fledgling budget airline Bonza, has raised concern that the Albanese government’s landmark aviation planning document is considering a timeframe that is out of touch with the industry.
Last Thursday, the transport minister, Catherine King, released the aviation green paper, the precursor to next year’s white paper which will set out long-term policy priorities for the sector.
The industry had previously raised concern at the pace of the planning process – the green paper was released months late – and on Thursday, Jordan said he gets “very nervous” with the “short-term” timeframe of 2030 outlined in the green paper.
Jordan said:
Our industry worries about minutes and seconds, so when someone defines something as ‘short-term’ as being 2030 that concerns me.
Updated
Parliament passes bill to support work of Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide
Stepping away from question time for a moment, and the government has welcomed the parliament’s passage of new laws that it says will “support the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide to complete its important work”.
The legislation has been passed a day after Nick Kaldas, the head of the royal commission, gave a blistering speech that complained of delays and stonewalling from government departments during the inquiry.
However, the legislation was already in train when he gave his speech.
The government, which has not granted an extension to the royal commission beyond its existing reporting date of 17 June 2024, says the new laws will make it possible for more people to participate in face-to-face private sessions.
The attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, and the minister for veterans’ affairs and defence personnel, Matt Keogh, said in a joint statement:
Private sessions enable individuals to share their personal experience with a royal commission in a trauma-informed and less formal setting than a hearing.
Currently, only a commissioner can hold a private session. The Royal Commissions Amendment (Private Sessions) Act 2023 will change this by enabling a suitably qualified, experienced and appropriately senior staff member of the Defence and Veteran Suicide Royal Commission to be authorised as an ‘assistant commissioner’ to conduct private sessions.
Since it commenced in July 2021, the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide has carried out 535 private sessions with another 400 remaining to be done before the Commission reports.
The Albanese government is committed to supporting the important work of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide and this new power will make it possible for the royal commission to conduct all of the registered sessions face-to-face.
Updated
Angus Taylor asks Linda Burney:
In July 2018, the minister said, “It could be about fiscal arrangements”, does the minister now stand by that statement.
Daniel Hurst hears Anthony Albanese say “what a joke” at the question.
Burney:
Let us be extraordinarily clear, the voice will be a committee of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that will give advice and ,as the prime minister says, it is about the validity and power of those ideas. The voice will also include Indigenous Australians from every state and territory, the Torres Strait Islands and representatives from the regions and remote communities. Members of the voice will be chosen by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the local area and also for a fixed period.
There is a point of order on relevance and Burney is asked to be relevant to the question. She finishes with:
The voice referendum is 14 October and I invite you to get on board.
Updated
The Liberal MP Tony Pasin has also been booted from the chamber.
The speaker, Milton Dick, is not playing today. He has been like this all week – after Kylea Tink spoke about the standards of the house last week and the behaviour within the chamber, Dick took it seriously and he has been using a heavy hand with the warnings. It has mostly kept the chamber in line.
Updated
Bonza chief pleads with government to disrupt airline duopoly
The CEO of fledgling budget airline Bonza has blasted a lack of political will from government to disrupt the “cosy duopoly” that Qantas and Virgin enjoy in Australian aviation, suggesting a failure to act on slot hoarding is against the “national interest”.
Tim Jordan told the Centre for Aviation (Capa) conference in Brisbane today the industry must “shake off the shackles” of the duopoly, which operates about 90% of domestic aviation, and said his airline, which is yet to service Sydney, could have 20 routes out of the city up and running by the end of next year if the government cracked down on major carriers strategically scheduling then cancelling services to block competitors.
Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin have long denied they are “slot hoarding”, but critics point to high cancellation rates, the 2021 government-ordered Harris review, and a recent investigation from the consumer watchdog as proof of the behaviour.
Jordan said:
There’s been enough independent reports out there to say effectively that ‘slot hoarding’ has been going on. The fact that cancellation rates in Sydney are three to four times the average seen in other markets that also happen to experience weather and other things. It isn’t a natural phenomenon. There’s something going on.
If there was political willing to change the status quo … You’ve got slots over here, which are actually delivering nothing, because they get cancelled. Month in month out, they get cancelled so they deliver nothing to the economy, nothing to tourism, nothing to customers. Nothing apart from reinforcing the duopoly – or those slots can be allocated to (smaller) carriers that will utilise those slots will open up brand new destinations.
That seems like that should be in the national interest. That is a national asset. Which is not being fully utilised … If Australia is ever going to break the cosy duopoly, now’s the time, and it needs to be encouraged through government. Now is the time to do it.
Updated
David Littleproud breaks the non-stop run of voice questions and asks Catherine King:
I refer to the discussion the minister had with Vanessa Hudson regarding Qatar, prior to the minister’s decision. What was the content of that discussion.
King:
I haven’t had any discussions with Vanessa Hudson about the Qatar decision at all.
Updated
The Liberal MP Melissa McIntosh asks Linda Burney:
On Tuesday the minister was asked about gender parity on the voice. Minister Burney responded by outlining principles in relation to this matter. Can the minister now inform the house exactly how gender parity on the voice will be achieved?
I can answer this one – through legislation. Which the opposition helps shape. Because that is how the parliament works.
Linda Burney says:
It is very similar to a question I received earlier in the week. And one I can say very clearly is that the principles of the voice are agreed to. And they outline clearly their way in which the voice will be have gender parity. In fact it’s not a new idea and didn’t come about in the last 12 months. It was something that was very heavily suggested in the Julian Leeser-Patrick Dodson inquiry some years ago. It is important that we have gender parity. It is not difficult to achieve.
The most important thing about this voice is, as the prime minister has said, it is an advisory body to the parliament.
It’s the third part of the amendment also says that you – everyone in this chamber, in this house – will have a role in determining the scope and the function and how the voice will operate. This is an important point. I will just reiterate the voice is advisory, it will not deliver programs and it has no veto power.
Updated
The Liberal MP Angie Bell asks Anthony Albanese one of the staple opposition questions:
What areas of government policies do not effect Indigenous Australians?
Albanese starts with the usual answer (which is reading the question) and there are a whole heap of the usual “point of order, is he being relevant” “point of order, yes” back and forth, and there are so many interjections that Albanese can barely get out a line before someone is called to order.
Barnaby Joyce is made to withdraw a comment (which I didn’t catch) and the answer comes to its conclusion – but we have all seen this dance before.
Updated
The housing dixer answers have been too much for the shadow housing minister and he has now been booted under 94A.
I still remain unconvinced that being put in a time out from the chamber is a punishment, but here we are.
Just some modern history which might be relevant today – here is a story Lorena Allam reported in 2022:
Attempts at the mass killing of Aboriginal people were still being made as recently as 1981, according to a historian who has spent the past four years researching colonial violence in the Northern Territory.
Dr Robyn Smith, who has worked on the University of Newcastle’s colonial frontier massacres map project, says she has also found attempts at massacres in the 1930s and 40s.
These horrors are not on the map because fewer than six people died – the research team’s strict criterion for inclusion. But Smith says it shows the violence of the frontier did not abate over time.
“It says that the NT was still the frontier. Even though they might not have been successful, in a sense, the intention was to kill people,” Smith says.
This occurred in March 1981, about six weeks before Jacinta Price was born.
Updated
On the dixers, there is a bit of a theme emerging here (they have mostly been on housing).
Labor dixxers on housing from Peter Khalil (Wills), Kate Thwaites (Jaga Jaga) and Michele Ananda-Rajah (Higgins).
— Paul Karp (@Paul_Karp) September 14, 2023
Two of those three have significantly higher than average proportion of renters.#qt #auspol pic.twitter.com/5YkBWYIXK9
Updated
Michael Long is in the gallery to hear question time today.
Anthony Albanese answers that question with:
I agree that Australians in general are generous people. They are fundamentally decent.
I call for everyone, regardless of what way they vote in a democratic referendum. I respect Australians, each and every one of them. I call upon everyone in this debate to be respectful, to carry themselves like my friend Michael Long who joins us in the gallery.
I joined Michael Long today.
Michael has walked from Melbourne to Parliament House, just as he did in 2004. He did so then because so many of his friends and family and people he knew were dying. He was sick of attending funerals.
Now, almost 20 years later, the gap has not closed. Michael Long has walked a long way. He is asking Australians to walk just a short way. To walk a short way. To quote the Uluru statement, to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future. That’s what we are being asked to do. To show the generosity and character of the Australian people.
What Indigenous people for 65,000 years, and particularly since 1788, have suffered. Have suffered a loss. We have an eight-year life expectancy gap.
We have a greater chance of an Indigenous young male going to jail than going to university.
We cannot do things the same way and expect different outcomes. Michael Long has come to parliament today. It’s up to us to carry his message of love and hope and reconciliation. Away from the parliament and back to the people in our electorates.
In the next four weeks Australians can take the next step to a better future. By writing yes. That is all we are being asked to do. To write yes. Walk those few steps is what we are being asked to do.
That step will give our nation the opportunity to take, recognition of different recognition reconciliation and closing the gap.
This is about recognition of First Nations people in our Constitution district. The power of its ideas. Has no right of veto, has no capacity to direct the government or direct the parliament. The primacy of the parliament is there. I think it’s a pity that, these interjections occur. Consistent with what Michael said this morning, in his letter, former prime minister Howard was asked Australians ‘to maintain the rage’. This is about love and reconciliation and bringing people together. That’s what Michael Long is about.
Updated
Ley asks PM about Marcia Langton comments on ‘hard no’ voters
Sussan Ley has the next non-government question and asks Anthony Albanese:
In July this year, Indigenous voice architect and member of the government’s referendum working group Prof Marcia Langton said, quote, 20% of the Australian population are deeply racist. Does the prime minister agree with this statement?
This is in reference to a talk Langton gave at the University of Queensland. She was talking about “the hard no” voters, which she said made up about 20% of the referendum voters.
Her quote was:
The surge of racist nonsense is confined to a minority of Australians.
Ordinary Australians are thinking yes – of course I am voting for the voice – and that would be 48-49%.
Then there is hard no voters – and I am hoping they are about 20% – and they are the ones spewing racism.
Research has found that some 20% of Australians hold racist views. In 2021, Amnesty Australia’s research concluded it was a growing problem in Australia.
Langton has a PhD and is considered one of the nation’s foremost experts in anthropology and Indigenous studies.
Updated
‘We are prepared to be positive’: Albanese talks up referendum
Anthony Albanese says in response:
I await their points of order about sledging from [the opposition]. I await and draw everyone’s attention to the nature of that question. That says a lot about the character of this opposition.
It is negative. It’s angry. It’s hostile and seeks to divide. Never seeks to bring people together.
This comes at a time when today we have figures showing employment has increased by 64,900. Labor participation is up to 67%. A record. More than two-thirds of Australians participating in the labour market. With the unemployment rate in August remaining at 3.7 %. Mr Speaker, that is an envy of the world. We’ve now [seen] more than 550,000 jobs have been created. On our watch. Since we came to office.
What we have opposite, just like we have with the Housing Australia Future Fund legislation earlier, is an obsession with voting no to everything, an obsession with just being negative. Including an obsession with being negative about the referendum that Australians will get to vote on on October 14.
Mr Speaker, yesterday as part of my job as prime minister I met the National Science and Technology Council. Yesterday we had a terrific meeting along with the science minister. It brings together the chief scientist and all of the best scientific brains in this country. And yesterday we heard from … [a] woman who has done research about science and the impact of First Nations science.
She spoke about how when Europeans came to south-west Sydney, they named Cabramatta after the Indigenous Australian eating the cohbra grub. The reasons they were eating them was because it provided an antidote to smallpox. And now in the United States, they have found it is an antidote to superbugs. It’s an example of whereby we are just prepared to listen, prepared to embrace, prepared to be positive. This can be a win. For Indigenous Australians and also a win for our nation.
Updated
Dutton claims Albanese incompetence is ‘dividing our country’
Peter Dutton has the first question – it is to Anthony Albanese:
The prime minister’s political game-playing is costing families and businesses.
… Despite this the prime minister’s priority is to pursue a divisive Canberra-based voice proposal while refusing to condemn comments that Australians are either racist or stupid. When will the prime minister admit his incompetent mishandling of issues is hurting Australians and dividing our country?
*quick check on some of those points in the question.
The “Australians are either racist or stupid” comment is in reference to comments Prof Marcia Langton made, which she has explained. She was talking about the no camp (the campaign) arguments in the context of explaining an erroneous belief a woman at a forum held, that voting yes would mean Indigenous people would receive compensation. Langton explained that you only receive compensation if you are legally entitled to it, and the voice would not change that. She then spoke about “pulling apart” a lot of the no camp arguments, and at the base of them you would find racism, or sheer stupidity. That was in regards to some of the arguments which have been made.
Updated
Central Land Council boss responds to Price speech
The Central Land Council chief executive, Les Turner, has responded to Jacinta Price’s speech:
The elected grass roots representatives of Aboriginal people across the southern half of the Northern Territory have made it very clear that they need a voice to parliament because they do not feel heard by politicians such as Senator Price.
They have consistently said she does not represent them and has no record of working constructively with them on solutions that make a difference on the ground.
In April, the entire membership of the council – 90 leaders representing dozens of remote communities in central Australia – issued an extraordinary joint statement rejecting Price, saying she “needs to stop pretending we are her people”.
The CLC’s 90 members, elected by their communities to sit on the council, represent about 24,000 Aboriginal people across 777,000 sq km and more than 15 different language groups in central Australia.
Updated
Last question time before referendum begins
The last question time before the voice referendum is held is about to start.
Let’s hope that everyone in that chamber chooses to remember the bigger picture. Doubtful, but we hope.
Updated
Greens condemn Coalition bid to stop the ACT from decriminalising drugs
A little earlier, the Greens senator David Shoebridge was joined by ACT Greens leader Shane Rattenbury and ACT MLA Johnathan Davis to condemn the Coalition’s attempt to stop the nation’s capital from decriminalising drugs.
The ACT law passed last year in an effort to focus the territory’s approach to harm minimisation as opposed to punishing people with small amounts for personal use.
The law, which will come into effect next month, will decriminalise heroin, cocaine and speed.
The Liberal senator Michaelia Cash introduced a “dangerous drugs” bill on Thursday, aiming to pass a new federal law that would neutralise the ACT’s law.
Naturally, the ACT government is outraged and both the territory and federal Greens have accused the Coalition of treating Canberrans as “second-class citizens”.
Shoebridge also described Cash’s bill as being from the 1950s and said the Coalition’s real fear is that it will work:
I think when you peel back what’s behind this from both opposition leader [Peter] Dutton and Senator Cash, what you see is not fear about this not working, the fear they have is that this will work – people will get the care they need. There won’t be a rise in drug use. It’ll be a success that all the evidence says it will be and that will be an ideal example for the rest of the country. Peter Dutton’s fear is that this legislation by the ACT Assembly will work, that’s why he wants to stop it.
Updated
Q: Do you agree with regional and local voices being legislated as put forward by the opposition leader, Peter Dutton?
Jacinta Price:
At this stage there are certainly conversations taking place and need to be had. That is within our party rooms, within shadow cabinet, to determine what it might look like to amplify and support regional and remote communities, particularly Indigenous people in those communities going forward.
And I am absolutely going to be front and centre with those discussions and those determinations going forward. I look forward to that.
Updated
Q: Your home in the Northern Territory does not count as a state. That means the 85,000 people living in the Northern Territory who make up about a third of the state’s population and about a third of Australia’s Indigenous population are partially disenfranchised. You constantly advocate for First Nations people from the bush and to have their voices heard. How do you feel about the fact that voters partially raise.
Jacinta Price:
They have been exploited again for the purpose of somebody else’s agenda. I’ve seen this over and over again.
It has come from the Uluru statement from the heart, which by the way the word Uluru I know from speaking to some Anangu people, [they are not happy] the landmark, the name has been exploited for the purpose of … the referendum.
Their voices are not being heard and isn’t that just ironic that their voices are not heard although the yes campaign have exploited their land for the purposes of this referendum. This is what has continued to occur.
As I said, because the couple who have had an education and access to media have controlled the narrative of Indigenous policy without letting those in remote communities really have a voice.
And what they claim, that this is about them, it is not about them.
There are those proponents of the boys who have had years at the table. This failure is their responsibility also. They now seek for a transfer of power through our constitution so that they can never be dismantled.
But it is incumbent upon every single one of us, not to just fly in a group of yes campaigners to celebrate six years since the signing of the Uluru statement from the heart and ignore the locals, and we are the only locals that are in attendance and not just the paid dancers, they actually need to listen to people on the ground, which is certainly what I have been doing.
… It is dividing our nation. Those 250 signatories – some of them don’t even know what they were signing. They don’t represent all of Indigenous Australia.
We would not get a group of white Australians together to determine policy for white Australia and then say that this little group represents all of what Australia is*.
We do not do that to any other racial group in this country and have to stop doing it to Aboriginal people.
(*that is pretty much the parliament)
Updated
Q: Both the yes and no campaigns want to see the lives Indigenous Australians improve. And obviously the conclusions about how to do that are vastly different. If a no vote succeeds on referendum day, will the lives of Indigenous Australians be better on the day after the referendum?
Jacinta Price:
Well, that is... (LAUGHTER), I guess because the prime minister has ignored our most marginalised people, the answer is no.
He could be working to fix conditions for ... Vote yes for this referendum and I will give an example of Yipirinya school in Alice Springs where our most marginalised students of our community who are often on the streets late at night … and they have put forward a proposal to Minister Burney about the need for accommodation, for staff and students, if that accommodation was built already, their lives would already be improve.
So you could say that by October 14 there would be some improvement for some people stop like that are ignored. There are members in this group here today of Aboriginal women who have been trying to be heard by the Labor government but are being used as political footballs and ignored.
But if they were listened to right now, instead of pushing for a voice, if the government is, we might have some kind of improvement. By October 14, if this goes down, I have been working now and will continue to work with my Coalition colleagues to make sure we will bring about the changes required and start from a position of reality.
Updated
Q: We are moving into an area that goes well beyond the voice, but I have talked to Indigenous people, and I’m sure others have too, who talk about generations of trauma among Indigenous Australians as a result of colonisation. Whether that means that colonisation continues now is probably a separate question. But would you accept there has been generations of trauma as a result of that history?
Jacinta Price:
I guess that would mean those of us whose ancestors were dispossessed of their own country and brought [as] convicts in chains are suffering from intergenerational trauma. So I should be doubly suffering from intergenerational trauma.
There are big laughs from Price’s supporters at this.
Updated
Q: A quick follow-up, you do not believe there is any negative ongoing colonialist impacts on Indigenous Australians?
Jacinta Price:
No, there is no ongoing negative impacts of colonisation.
I have suggested that particularly for my family and remote communities, again, who lived very close to traditional culture, who experienced the highest rates of violence in the country, family violence, interpersonal violence, they experience that not because of the effects of colonisation but because it is expected that young girls are married off to older husbands and arranged marriages.
Women, we have not had a feminist movement for Aboriginal women because we have expected to toe the line for the rights of our race, but they have been second-place rights.
There are still people living this way in this country and yet those who have held the narrative because they have had an education and access to media ignore the plight of those in community. And this cannot continue to go on.
Updated
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price says colonisation had 'a positive impact, absolutely'
Josh Butler asks:
Q: In your speech you claim some Indigenous organisations want to demonise colonial settlement. Do you believe the history of colonisation continues to have an impact on some Indigenous Australians?
Jacinta Price:
No. I will be honest with you. No, I do not think so.
A positive impact, absolutely.
I mean, now we have running water, readily available food, everything that my grandfather had when he was going up, when he first [met] white fellas in his adolescence, we now have.
Otherwise he would have had to live off the land, provide for his family and all of those measures which Aboriginal Australians, many of us, have the same opportunities as all other Australians in this country and recently have probably one of the greatest systems around the world in terms of a democratic structure in comparison to other countries.
It is why migrants flock to Australia to call Australia home because the opportunity that exists for all Australians – but if we keep telling Aboriginal people that they are victims, we are effectively removing their agency and giving them the expectation that someone else is responsible for their lives.
That is the worst possible thing you can do to any human being, to tell them that they are a victim without agency. And that is what I refuse to do.
Updated
Q: Picking up on what you said before, we are now overrepresented in parliament and the comments in your speech that your voices are being heard. Do you see it as part of your job as a senator for the Northern Territory to consult with and represent the views of people from western New South Wales or northern Queensland?
Jacinta Price:
I think it is my role as the shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, certainly, it is my responsibility to ensure that I am here hearing the views of many around the country. I am a federal representative and so I obviously am accountable to all Australians as well.
Updated
‘What would be different under a Coalition government?’
Q: You spoke about accountability in your speech. Whether or not the voice passes the Albanese government will be accountable for what has passed. The opposition government has not been fantastic on Indigenous rights in the past. Four out of 18 close the gap targets have met the targets, we can go on and I am sure you know the statistics. What would be different under another Coalition government? Why should the Australian parliament be trusted to close that gap?
Jacinta Price:
Sure, I think this goes to the fact that what we have wanted is more Aboriginal representation in parliament across the board. We are now overrepresented, being 4% of parliament and 3% of the population.
We’re bringing something new that has not been done before. I know that certainly, among some of the organisations that set before us and that it estimates, had never had to contend with a number of Aboriginal senators, female senators, sitting before them and asking them hard questions.
A first-time accountability has occurred. And there is reason for that, because as I’ve mentioned, Aboriginal policy has come from ideology.
Many leaders have been too scared to actually apply accountability for been called racist. The trash for fear of being called. We have a stifled debate, a stifled ... to do with it, we start treating Aboriginal people like Australian citizens. That is what I can guarantee going forward, treating Australians equally and prioritise our most marginalised, no matter who they.
Updated
Q: Last week, an alliance of child protection agencies called for the establishment of a national independent commissioner for the protection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and they say such a role is necessary to address critically high levels of disadvantage. Do you agree such a role could make a difference?
Jacinta Price:
Well, I have concerns with that because once again it is asking for separatism. When Peter Dutton came to Alice Springs and spoke to members of my community, very concerned foster parents of Aboriginal children, spoke to the children themselves in those positions, he come to the conclusion that we need a royal commission into the sexual abuse of Aboriginal children.
The leading national body that is the advocacy group for Aboriginal children downplayed the claims of high rates of sexual abuse of Aboriginal children.
What concerns me about calling for a commission like this is that we are setting up yet another expensive position. Who will occupy this position? Another ideologue or someone prepared to look at the circumstances Indigenous children are currently facing?
A lot of Indigenous policy, its starting point comes from ideology as opposed to fact and reality and what is going on on the ground. I would be hesitant, until we held a royal commission into the sexual abuse of Aboriginal children, as to whether we should establish such a position going forward.
Updated
Price continues
Q: You have criticised the voice because of the division you say it would create and at the idea of preferential treatment for one group, and at the same time you have accepted the shadow Indigenous Australian portfolio. So what is your key policy for Indigenous Australians? And should the portfolio and shadow portfolio exist?
Jacinta Price:
That is a really good question because I think I have said publicly that ultimately, the voice is contradictory in itself because it is about closing the gap, but if you constitutionally enshrine it that is suggesting the gap will exist in perpetuity and that is not what we want. The same can be said for the portfolio that I hold.
I would hope to see that one day in our country, we would not require such a portfolio because if we do not have that portfolio it means that everybody is taking advantage of the same opportunities that our country has to offer ...
Q: Doesn’t exist now, under that thinking, was that we do not want to see a separation? Why should it exist now?
Price:
It does exist. It already exists. That is what I have been given the responsibility to be part of and it is incumbent on me, and my colleagues, to use such a position because, let’s not forget, it is a position of power to hold to account those that we are responsible for within this portfolio.
So there are over 3,000 Aboriginal organisations and many of whom the responsibility of this portfolio go under so therefore if you’re responsible for such, you should be holding to account those under you that are supposed to be delivering the outcomes because government might hold the posting but it is everybody’s responsibility going forward and that is the accountability that I do not believe has been applied effectively enough previously.
Updated
Price continues
Q: You said the voice risks undermining the authority of MPs in parliament, including the many Indigenous MPs you have listed. Would not local and regional voices present the same risk to state parliaments, to local governments where you have said so? What is the rationale if the national voice undermines the fundamental right of parliament?
Jacinta Price:
We are talking about constitutional and enshrining an unknown entity. Activists have suggested it would be weaponised to punish parliamentarians such as myself so that objective is there for those that want to occupy positions of power on this voice.
Now, what we want to do as a coalition is amplify people in regional and remote communities. I probably would not have used the word voice. It is what I have been actively doing and why I have unknown members of our community in the room today who have been trying to be heard by those in power, were not being heard and I would suggest that we need to be effective in Canberra, not voice and need to be listening to our regions because that is where the most marginalised exist.
Updated
Jacinta Price: ‘We have all the mechanisms in place to apply accountability’
Q: You said a no vote would mean governments would take greater accountability when it comes to Indigenous people but how do you account it under standing structures. Do you support a second referendum and will you campaign for it?
Jacinta Price:
We have all the mechanisms in place to apply accountability. Prime minister Anthony Albanese is not applying the mechanisms.
That is why I and Kerrynne Liddle want an inquiry into land council authorities, Aboriginal organisations, land councils funded to represent the views of Indigenous Australians.
I want to recognise a woman who was upset earlier. She has thought all her life to be heard by representatives of these organisations and has been ignored and disrespected as a traditional owner.
That is what myself and my colleague, Kerrynne Liddle, want, to apply accountability to these organisations that were responsible for the lives of those most marginalised and we have the structure that currently exists to do that. It is an absolute lie to suggest that we cannot use what we have already to do that.
Updated
Jacinta Price: ‘I do not agree with blood tests’
Q: Does that mean you can then, what Gary Johns has said, talking about blood tests for instance?
Jacinta Price:
I do not agree with blood tests, I do not agree with blood tests certainly. What I do believe in is, perhaps, if we served Australians on the basis of need instead of race, we would not see that individuals claiming to be Indigenous, that we know is a problem in the religious community, a wonderful academic has written a lot about this, a lot of box ticks taking away opportunity from our most needed.
They absolutely need to be dealt with but if we saved Australians on the basis of need not race those opportunists would disappear quick smart. (there is applause here).
And just under the second point, quickly, I know you asked, firstly, I am very grateful for my leaders and their leadership in suddenly backing me and all the way to stand in opposition to the voice, that our national come out early to say no to a divided country and I would suggest that it is Albanese’s leadership that is on the line first.
Updated
Jacinta Price: ‘I condemn all kinds of horrible behaviour that has come out as a result of [the voice campaign]’
Q: I want to ask about the lobby group Advance, with which you are associated. You have outlined a whole series of arguments today not based on racial prejudice but some of the key members of Advance including Gary Johns and David Adler have [been accused] of racism for their comments, accusing Indigenous people of blackface, saying Indigenous people need to conduct blood test to receive welfare payments. Advance was also responsible for the cartoon that Channel 9 needed to edit, do you feel responsible for these people on the campaign and condemn them, and also some Nationals colleagues believe you could someday lead the party, there is an issue in the chamber but would you be open to it?
Jacinta Price:
So... Let’s start with the first question. (There is laughter)
Let’s start with your first question. From the moment the referendum was launched by our prime minister, our nation has been divided.
We have seen ugliness on display from right across the board. I know myself, Warren Mundine, have been the subject of horrible racial vilification, right up to my personal phone number was on Twitter yesterday and I was absolutely bombarded with the most revolting messages, voicemail messages, that you can think of.
I am no stranger to horrible, horrible abuse and what I will say is that the prime minister needs to take responsibility for the division we are now confronted with.
He chose to take this path to divide our nation, to not undergo the appropriate processes, to involve the Australian people in constitutional conventions and to bring everybody along for the ride and I condemn all kinds of horrible behaviour that has come out as a result of this.
Updated
Price is asked about references to race in the constitution
Q: The leader of the opposition Peter Dutton has suggested a second referendum should this one fail, and if he is elected as prime minister in 2025. As you mentioned, proposing symbolic recognition. In your speech you said the constitution belongs to all Australians, so if such a referendum was held, would you see it as an opportunity to also remove the references of race in our constitution?
Jacinta Price:
Again, that would come down to what the conversations that need to take place among the Australia people, Indigenous, non-Indigenous, constitutional conventions that need to take place to understand what direction, whether it would be about removing that particular chapter also, but as I said, I would be wanting to make sure the Australian people were all in favour of the direction that we would take in that way.
Updated
Jacinta Price is asked what sort of Indigenous recognition would be acceptable
Q: I’m seeking clarity and I refer back to your first speech where you said that you had more than your fill of being symbolically recognised. Do you support, as a principal, constitutional recognition of Indigenous people, whether it is a second referendum or not on the principle – do you support constitutional recognition?
Jacinta Price:
I have certainly stated it publicly and quite often that I support recognition of Indigenous Australians, I just simply can’t support this proposal where there is a known voice entity attached to recognition.
And I support the idea of using common sense approaches toward improving the lives of our most marginalised.
(You will note the word “constitutional” was missing from there)
On that, the next question is:
Further to that question or comment, we have heard Peter Dutton pledged to a second referendum should this fail, we have heard David Littleproud register leadership to restart the process on constitutional recognition. As you said today, words matter - what sort of recognition would be acceptable to you, would avoid the separation in the constitution that you are clearly concerned about?
Price:
What I think hasn’t happened throughout this process is that the Labor government haven’t held constitutional conventions to understand from the Australian people what recognition might look like that would provide a majority of Australian support towards recognition.
And so it is our understanding as the Coalition we have had a long held commitment to recognition, but we would want to absolutely follow the appropriate processes to ensure that those conversations had taken place right across the country involving everybody, that is what needs to be done and hasn’t happened.
Updated
Jacinta Price: ‘Not all Indigenous Australians are marginalised’
Q: I will start with a question about something that is meant to be at the foundation of this entire debate about the voice because it is meant to be about closing the gap, fixing Indigenous disadvantage. There is a scenario where I guess in your ideal world you will defeat the voice, you will also be part of a Coalition government in the future, so what is it that you would do differently now to fix that Indigenous disadvantage on things like health and education?
Jacinta Price:
Well, I wouldn’t assume that we are all disadvantaged for no other reason other than our racial heritage.
I would focus our efforts where our marginalised exist and prioritised our most marginalised.
And as I have I have pointed out with my work for the Centre for Independent Studies not all Indigenous Australians are marginalised, the further you move away from a capital city the more marginalised Australians become.
So that includes a growing middle class of Indigenous Australians or those of Indigenous heritage and our capital cities and other places, and our most marginalised and remote communities, and those of the individuals whose first language is usually not English.
They don’t have access to services, the same sort of education as those in our capital cities, and certainly those who live close to traditional way of life, where things like cultural payback exists in their day-to-day lives, where it is thought that any premature death or illness is caused through sorcery, and somebody must be held responsible for that, and a form of payback is provided, so therefore violence is accepted. They are some of our most marginalised.
But I would also, as I have set out to do with my colleague Kerrynne Liddle, I want to understand, it is my responsibility as a parliamentarian to put the questions to the current structures, the organisations, the statutory authorities that receive federal funding to improve the lives of our most marginalised.
They are responsible as well. This is why we need an inquiry to understand where that money is being spent, understand where it is providing outcomes and support those efforts further, where it is being misused and called to account those who are misusing those funds. We need to understand all of this.
It has been acknowledged by the government, acknowledged by many that there have been many values but there is no appetite to fix the current structures that exist, only to add to it with this voice, but that is what I would be aiming for with my Coalition colleagues.
Updated
The question and answer session for Jacinta Price’s speech is about to start.
The senator ran six minutes over, which limits the q and a time.
Queensland unions ‘fed up with the Palaszczuk government’
Several thousands unionists have rallied out the front of Queensland parliament to call for a crackdown on safety.
The CFMEU and ETU say Queenslanders are “fed up with the Palaszczuk government” for their lack of action.
Secretary Michael Ravbar said the government’s recent legislative review of the workplace health and safety act had left out a number of key issues. He pointed to the failure to include a requirement for female toilet amenities on major building sites.
He said nothing less than a total overhaul of WorkSafe Queensland would be enough.
Queensland’s workplace safety laws are sub-standard, the regulator is unresponsive and the attitude of the minister for industrial relations is a disgrace.
We have a bureaucracy that refuses to modernise dangerously outdated safety regulations and a safety inspectorate that acts like a protection racket for dodgy developers and contractors.
Union leaders were ushered into parliament for a meeting with minister Grace Grace.
Updated
Chalmers says job figures ‘tremendous’ but rates, inflation and China slowdown will ‘weigh on economy’
Treasurer Jim Chalmers, not surprisingly, has welcomed the August jobs figures, describing them as “a tremendous result and a testament to the resilience of the Australian economy and the Australian people”.
Chalmers noted that the participation rate was at a record high and said the jobs creation tally since the Albanese government had come to power now reaches 550,000, or the most by “any new government”.
Still, he said high interest rates (at least compared with the recent past), high but moderating inflation and continuing global uncertainty – particularly over China’s slowdown – would “inevitably weigh on our economy and our labour market in the year ahead”.
That tempered triumphalism makes sense, and is echoed by economists’ reaction. ANZ’s Adam Boyton, for instance, said the headline gain of 64,900 jobs masked a “more mixed” picture.
“Yes, the labour market is still very solid but slack is creeping in (witness the increase in the underemployment rate to 6.6% in August from 6.4% in July),” he said. As a result, the bank is sticking with its view that the RBA will stay put “for quite some time”.
Updated
The national press club is under renovation, which means this is not your usual press club event – there is no lunch. Senator Price is speaking to a room with a small amount of chairs set up for supporters (there are several members of the Coalition present) as well as journalists.
Jacinta Price: ‘I have been told I’m a sell-out’
I have been told that by speaking out, by amplifying the voices of the victims and the vulnerable, by bringing attention to the rampant abuse and neglect that I am repeating the words of the oppressor.
I have been told I’m a sell-out. I’ve been racially abused, vilified, name called and threatened with violence. And why?
Because I want to stop children from being abused. Because I want to stop women and men from being killed.
The truth is for all the moral posturing and virtue signalling about truth telling, there is no genuine appetite in Canberra to tell the truth or to hear the truth.
This could not be any clearer than in this government’s referendum on the voice. Australians desperately want to do the right thing for their fellow Australians regardless of background.
Many who have engaged with this proposal hoping to find a way to help the Indigenous Australians who most need assistance are left disappointed.
They are left with the falsehoods, misleading information and promises that can’t be kept. And should never have been made.
The voice is flawed in its foundations. It is built on lies and an aggressive attempt to fracture our nation’s founding document and divide the country built upon it.
Updated
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price at the National Press Club
Liberal senator Jacinta Price has begun her press club address:
Today is the first time that I have addressed the press club as the shadow minister for Indigenous Australians. It’s actually the second time I’ve been given the opportunity to address the National Press Club and the first was in November of 2016 when I stood alongside Marcia Langton and Josephine Cashman to address the critical issue of family violence and sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities.
Three Aboriginal women speaking with one goal. To tackle the scourge of Indigenous family violence. Marcia cautioned me prior to the address, saying that I should not draw a link between the high rates of Indigenous community violence and the acceptance of violence within traditional culture.
Her suggestion is that there is no correlation.
My experience screamed otherwise.
So I could not bring myself to expunge a painful truth for the sake of the audience who might not want to hear it. I could not sugarcoat the reality of so many communities because it would be otherwise unpalatable.
Updated
NSW jobless rate up to 3.6%
The labour market rankings among states and territories continues its recent shift, with New South Wales in particular showing a sharp reversal.
Excluding the ACT, which seems quite volatile, NSW had been able to boast the lowest jobless rate of late, with even a 2 “handle” as recently as June. That’s looking a bit unlikely to be matched, with NSW’s rate jumping 0.7 percentage points in two months to clock in at 3.6% in August.
Other big states seem to be taking up the slack, with Victoria’s jobless rate edging down to 3.5% (from 3.6%) in the month. Queensland’s rate also improved to 4.1% from 4.5%, while Western Australia’s worsened to 3.8% from 3.4% in July.
The ACT, meanwhile, had an unemployment rate of 3.1% (bouncing back from July’s 3.8%) to be the lowest in the land again.
Updated
Liberal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price is about to deliver her National Press Club address.
Josh Butler is there, but we will keep you updated on the speech and question and answer session.
Updated
Mike Bowers caught the chat between Anthony Albanese and Andrew Wilkie as the prime minister left the chamber this morning;
There is no conspiracy here – these things are just interesting to note. The last time we saw Albanese having a chat to an MP in the parliament it was Adam Bandt and the next week the housing Australia future fund deal was announced.
Updated
Days lost to strikes in year to June 67,000, after 234,000 the previous year
Employer groups’ fears that new industrial relations policies would lead to a spike in strikes are – so far at least – proving to be unfounded.
Data out today from the ABS found there were 71 disputes in the June quarter, or 30 more than in the March quarter. Working days lost were 10,200, up about half from the 7,700 in the first three months of the year.
For the whole year to June though, the number of days lost totalled 67,100, or barely a quarter of the 234,600 recorded in the previous 12 months. Not quite all quiet on the industrial front, but hardly a picnic of proletarian protests either.
Updated
Striking bilateral deals on airline flight capacity ‘takes two to tango’
A federal transport department assistant secretary has said Australia’s aviation and tourism sectors “shouldn’t get too gloomy” about international flight capacity to Australia, despite the rejection of Qatar Airways’ request to almost double its capacity.
Jim Wolfe, assistant secretary for international aviation at the department of infrastructure and transport, told the Centre for Aviation (Capa) conference in Brisbane on Thursday that Australia’s seven largest tourist arrival markets all have open sky agreements with limits on adding extra flights.
Wolfe then said “it takes two to tango” when striking bilateral air agreements to allow more flights between two countries.
Wolfe said:
[With] a lot of our agreements, there’s lots of capacity there, but the airlines are making a decision waiting for commercial reasons as to what level of capacity they are currently flying back into Australia. One of our jobs, all of our jobs, is going to be to try to attract more capacity back in which is available. Part of my job, of course, is where appropriate to seek to increase that capacity.
Now I have to say it takes two to tango. Bilateral agreements between two countries. We might have a view, the other country might have a view, at the end of the day we have to try and reach an agreement. Sometimes that’s not as straightforward.
I think we need to be a little bit careful about this suggestion that somehow there’s all these restrictions in place.
Updated
The economy remains a jobs-making machine
The overall takeaway from the jobs figures is that the economy remains a jobs-making machine. The 64,900 additional new jobs last month were mostly part-time positions (all but 2,800 of them), but it easily reversed the almost 15,000 roles shed last month.
Perhaps the surprise in the numbers was the soaring participation rate, which climbed from 66.7% to a record 70%. That’s why the jobless rate was steady at 3.7% in August rather than falling.
Bjorn Jarvis, ABS head of labour statistics, said the average growth of employment in the past two months was around 32,000 people or similar to the average growth over the past year.
The participation rate also increased, up to a record high of 67% in August, which, together with the high employment-to-population ratio [of 64.5%], continues to reflect a tight labour market,” Jarvis said.
Despite a 0.5% fall in August, hours worked were 3.7% higher than August 2022, continuing to reflect faster growth than the 3% per cent annual increase in employment.
Updated
Katy Gallagher is asked about delay to parliament’s new HR body
Just before the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service passed, minister for women Katy Gallagher addressed some of the commentary around delays to the enforcement aspect for parliament’s new HR body.
Kate Jenkins’ Set the Standard report had originally recommended the body, to be known as the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission, should be up and running within 12 months.
That report was released in November 2021 so we’re well past that initial timeline.
The IPSC is envisaged as a body that will be able to investigate complaints of bad behaviour made against politicians and have the ability to sanction them.
It’s the sanctioning part that will be tricky because parliament isn’t quite like other workplaces - you can’t just sack an MP or senator who has serious allegations made against them.
But back to Gallagher. She said the delay was, in part, due to Labor being elected and that not being taken into account as part of Jenkins’ recommendations.
Gallagher said:
We have consulted with Kate Jenkins ... there was an acknowledgment certainly from her that, in her timing of the recommendation, she hadn’t accounted for the election period and the change of government and all that comes with that, and was comfortable that the PLT was progressing the recommendations in good time.
Everyone is very clear that [the IPSC] is the next big piece of work that we’ve got to work through. But we also accept that this is a big structural change to this parliament and that people have views about it.
Updated
Push for Queensland legislation on CCC reports
The Queensland government is refusing to commit to urgently legislate to return the power to publish reports to the state’s anti-corruption organisation.
The high court yesterday ruled that the Crime and Corruption Commission could not release a report into former public trustee Peter Carne, partly because it didn’t recommend him for criminal charges.
In question time, shadow attorney general Tim Nicholls demanded to know if the government would pass retroactive legislation.
The CCC says not being able to report on its investigations reduces transparency and is clearly not in the public interest,” Nicholls said.
Is the reason the premier has not yet agreed to retrospective legislation because it is in the Labor government’s interest, not the public interest?
Premier Annastacia Paluszczuk responded that there had been a legal process.
The CCC has written to the attorney general and she is seeking urgent legal advice.
Opposition leader David Crisafulli pointed out that Carne’s legal challenge is three years old.
Updated
‘I hope our nation still cares’
Michael Long, who re-created his famous 2004 walk from Melbourne to Canberra to raise support for the voice, held a press conference this morning with Anthony Albanese and Linda Burney upon reaching Parliament House.
He was asked by Murph what his message was to those planning on voting no in the referendum, and he said:
Well, looking at it optimistically, and I’ve seen along the walk the support through the bigger towns and smaller towns. And it’s been overwhelming support.
We’re not a perfect country, but we’ve been really focused on 14 October. And I think it’s time now, as a nation, to have those respectful conversations and to move forward. Because we’re better than that. And I hope our nation still cares, still cares, from the bottom of our hearts, not just to think with their minds, but the heart. We need to move on as a nation. And this referendum, it’s so important that we move together as a nation.
Updated
More people want more work
For those needing a refresher, the “underemployed” measure you see there (which increased 0.2% to 6.6% in the last month) are people who are employed but not getting as many hours as they would like. So they would like more work but are unable to get it.
It’s one of the underlying measures of the labour force data that can give you hints about where things are heading. And at the moment there are growing numbers of people who want more work than they are able to get.
Updated
Why has the unemployment rate remained unchanged?
As Peter Hannam says, it is because the economy added almost 65,000 more jobs in August, most of them part-time, enough to leave the jobless rate unchanged at 3.7%, the ABS said.
Hannam:
Economists had predicted employers would add only 25,000 new roles, so the job creation spurt will point to a tight labour market, and with that a slightly higher chance that the Reserve Bank will need another interest rate rise to cool the economy.
Updated
Unemployment rate remains steady in August
The unemployment figures are in – here is your quick take (Peter Hannam will have more for you very soon)
In trend terms, in August 2023:
unemployment rate remained at 3.7%.
participation rate increased to 67.0%.
employment increased to 14,096,100.
employment to population ratio remained at 64.5%.
underemployment rate increased to 6.5%.
monthly hours worked increased to 1,954 million.
In seasonally adjusted terms, in August 2023:
unemployment rate remained at 3.7%.
participation rate increased to 67.0%.
employment increased to 14,107,900.
employment to population ratio increased to 64.5%.
underemployment rate increased to 6.6%.
monthly hours worked decreased to 1,941 million.
full-time employment increased by 2,800 to 9,849,800 people.
part-time employment increased by 62,100 to 4,258,100 people.
Updated
Just having a look at the ABS site while we wait for the August labour force figures to drop and the personal safety report is highlighted.
In news that will shock absolutely no one – men feel safer alone at night than women.
I. wonder. why.
Bill to establish new parliamentary HR body passes Senate with cross-party support
The Parliamentary Workplace Support Service, a centralised HR body for parliamentarians and staff within the house, has passed the Senate.
After a few speeches in the upper house this morning, the bill sailed through with multi-partisan support.
Finance minister Katy Gallagher said the hard work to set up an enforcement body with the power to investigate complaints and sanction MPs for bad behaviour started now.
Greens senator Larissa Waters welcomed the step but flagged more needed to be done.
Waters said:
Passing these bills today is a step in the right direction, but it is a tiny step. Cultural diversity is still lacking in our workplace. Parliament is still not a safe, equal, inclusive and respectful workplace for everyone.
The Greens will continue to push for the reforms to parliamentary culture, including an enforceable code of conduct for politicians and senior staff, to be rolled out nationally as a matter of urgency.
Updated
‘People’s house’ consultation model launched today to better connect voters with MPs
A new public consultation model is being launched at parliament house today. It is called ‘the people’s house,’ and it has been created by consultancy group democracyCo with input from Labor Canberra MP Alicia Payne and Liberal Casey MP Aaron Violi.
The model helps and encourages MPs to hold forums, with the goal of hearing from a more diverse range of community voices, and in turn, better connect communities with their representatives.
If it sounds familiar it’s because it’s what we have seen independent candidates, particularly Cathy McGowan’s ‘voice’ group, use to increasing success to encourage more community input in MP decisions.
Updated
Ahead of jobs data, market watchers keen to see if employers have taken on more staff
We’ll get August jobs data from the ABS, kicking off the first batch of key numbers on the state of the economy as of last month.
As always, the labour market numbers offer a suite of figures to leap on. Usually the jobless rate gets the headline, and economists are expecting that to remain at July’s 3.7% level.
But often more telling is what employers have been up to. Have they added more staff, particularly full-time roles? Nab notes the economy needs to keep finding 33,000 new jobs each month to keep up with the swelling workforce. Economists tip that number was 25,000 extra jobs last month.
And then there’s the participation rate, sitting at 66.7% in July. If that were to decline again, we could get the unemployment rate falling even if employers didn’t add new positions.
Anyway, so much hangs on the health of the labour market, not least the ability of people to keep meeting mortgage repayments and also higher cost of living (e.g. petrol prices). If it turns out to be a weak figure, the Reserve Bank will be less likely to lift its interest rate again, while a big hiring month will make more economists wonder if there is another rate hike (or more) to come.
Stay tuned for the 11.30am Aest release.
Updated
Consent laws committee report due to be tabled today
While we are on rare moments of bipartisanship, the committee report looking at consent laws across Australia is due to be tabled today.
We look forward to seeing their recommendations, particularly when it comes to survivors dealing with the justice system, and how universities have been handling complaints.
Updated
Proposed HR body ‘critical’ to parliament’s reputation, says Nationals’ Davey
Nationals senator Perin Davey is now speaking on the bill to establish a new parliamentary HR body, called the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service.
Davey, who is a member of the Parliamentary Leadership Taskforce, has described passing this bill as “critical to the future reputation of this workplace”.
Davey quotes from the former sex discrimination commissioner Kate Jenkins‘ Set the Standard report: “[Parliament] should set the standard for workplace culture. Not the floor of what the culture should be.”
In a rare bipartisan moment, she thanks finance minister Katy Gallagher and her Coalition colleague Senator Jane Hume for their “common sense and practicality”.
Updated
While the speeches continue, Anthony Albanese got up and spoke to independent Tasmanian MP Andrew Wilkie on his way out – and Wilkie got to his feet and followed the prime minister out, with the two having a private chat outside of the media’s sight outside the chamber.
Interesting.
NSW will increase inspections of sales of illegal vapes, says health minister
The New South Wales Health Minister, Ryan Park, says a 500% increase in the number of vapes seized in the state over the past three years means the government needs to do more to stamp out the issue.
His comments come after Guardian Australia revealed more than 182,000 vapes were seized by NSW Health across the state last year, up from 30,000 in 2020 and 76,000 in 2021.
Park said:
I think, without a doubt, there are more vapes out there and that’s why we’re going to continue to put significant resources into increasing inspections.
This is an issue that concerns parents right across NSW, but it also concerns health care professionals because of the potential long-term impact on young people.
Do we need to do more? Absolutely.
Updated
Minns confident Taskforce Magnus will arrest suspected gangland shooters
The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, says he has full confidence in the state’s police force to tackle gun violence after a second shooting in Sydney in as many days.
A 29-year-old man was found by police with gunshot wounds to his body and head at a home in the city’s west on Wednesday night, the day after a 27-year-old man was shot in a suspected targeted attack in the south-western suburbs.
Police have not said whether this week’s shootings are linked to a string of recent gangland attacks that left several people dead or seriously injured, which are being investigated by a special taskforce.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday morning, Minns said he was confident Taskforce Magnus - set up five weeks ago - would result in the perpetrators being arrested.
Just give them time. Breaking up these criminal networks often does mean going out to different gangs in a different sequence.
Those that commit murder or robbery or dealing drugs are routinely caught at scale by NSW police and they end up spending the rest of their lives in tiny prison cells.
Updated
Greens want parliamentary HR enforcement body set up as soon as possible
Over in the Senate, the bill to establish a permanent parliamentary HR body is being discussed.
If passed, which it looks almost certain to, it will centralise human resources support for parliamentarians and staffers, offering support, information and training about acceptable workplace behaviour.
It will have interim powers to investigate complaints ahead of an enforcement body, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission (IPSC), being established in the first half of next year.
Greens senators Larissa Waters and Mehreen Faruqi support the bill but are both pushing for the IPSC to be established as soon as possible.
Waters said:
I know that the work to set up that [IPSC] body is, and will continue to be, complex, but there’s no doubt that it’s been too slow ...
When female MPs are being subjected to sexist, intimidating, rude behaviour, you can only imagine how much worse it is for staff. And we said we were going to set the standard and turn the page. It’s time for us to make good on those commitments. And one of the hurdles that was identified in [The Australian Human Rights Commission’s] Set the Standard report was that staff are reluctant to come forward if they know there’s not going to be any consequences ... so that is why we desperately need to get on with the establishment of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission.
Updated
In the house, the shadow housing minister Michael Sukkar has spent most of his reply speech on the housing Australia future fund amendment debate talking about the Labor party ‘paying the ransom’ to the Greens.
The ‘ransom’ was an extra $1bn on top of the $2bn already committed for social and affordable housing.
So not sure who the loser is there?
Palaszczuk government won’t intervene to sanction police who made racist comments
The Palaszczuk government won’t intervene to sanction police officers who went unpunished for making racist comments in a Brisbane watch house, despite the premier condemning the behaviour.
Recordings published exclusively by Guardian Australia reveal officers joking about “beating and burying black people”, calling a black detainee a “gorilla in the mist” after watching him take a shower, and referring to Nigerians as “jigaboos.”
Guardian Australia learned this week that three officers were dealt with via “local management resolution”, which included training and a conversation with a supervisor.
Queensland’s police minister, Mark Ryan, says he “absolutely” condemns and has “zero tolerance” for racism. He told reporters on Tuesday if a member of his staff made similar comments there would be consequences.
Queenslanders expect high standards of the police service. When those standards aren’t met there should be consequences for actions.
But the premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, said it would be “inappropriate” for the government to interfere in the matter.
Disciplinary actions are a matter for the police commissioner,” a spokesperson said.
Greens MP for Maiwar, Michael Berkman, said her response was “a complete cop out and a bald-faced lie”.
The buck stops with the government for this kind of misconduct in the QPS or any other member of the executive.
Updated
Passage of housing fund will round off government’s major election promises, says Albanese
Anthony Albanese says the passage of the housing Australia future fund completes the major election policy commitments his government made – along with cheaper childcare, a national reconstruction fund, reforming aged care, and rewiring the nation.
He says government MPs will leave the chamber today and campaign for the voice as the next step towards reconciliation.
Updated
Teals lose motion to suspend standing orders so chamber could call for release of climate security report
The teals lost that suspension order 75 to 13
The house business has been suspended though, to deal with the amendments made by the senate on the housing Australia future fund.
Anthony Albanese is using the opportunity to give a speech on the fund.
Updated
Government failed to explain why it rejected Qatar bid for more flights, says Flight Centre boss
Flight Centre Group CEO Graham “Skroo” Turner says the Albanese government’s rejection of Qatar Airways’ request to almost its double flights is harming Australian jobs, despite the transport minister claiming she made the decision to protect such jobs.
Turner – who is running an ad campaign urging the government to reverse its decision as he believes more flights would bring down international airfares – told the Centre for Aviation (Capa) conference in Brisbane on Thursday the government’s reasoning remains “a mystery”.
The reality is we haven’t had any decent answers on this from the government,” Turner said.
He said the government’s justification that the decision was in the “national interest” did not consider the prices working-class Australians were having to pay to fly overseas for travel and to see their families.
Turner said blocking extra Qatar flights was harming its partner airline Virgin Australia and its domestic operations from what could be more demand for domestic flights from inbound foreign tourists.
If anyone’s going to lose out on that decision it’s going to be Virgin and the jobs they wouldn’t have otherwise. So it’s a real blow.”
You can read more about the saga here:
Updated
The chamber is dividing – the teals have no chance of winning this
Government stands firm on keeping climate security risk assessment secret
Defence minister Richard Marles is not in the chamber to hear this debate, leaving it to climate change minister Chris Bowen to respond.
Bowen says the government will not support the motion, and says no national security report like this has been released “ever” and the government will “respect that precedent”.
So, no report will be forthcoming, declassified or not.
Updated
Zali Steggall: climate policy suffers while parliament ‘kept in the dark’ about true scale of security risks
Zali Steggall:
What reason does the Australian government have for keeping secret what it knows about the magnitude of climate-related security risks in Australia?
Why have other political parties and relevant committees of the Senate and House of Representatives not been briefed on the contents of the ONI report?
How can members of parliament effectively discharge their duties and oversee policy-making and departmental performance in defence, climate, immigration, intelligence and foreign affairs portfolios when crucial information pertaining to climate risk has not been made available to them?
Our elected officials cannot do their job of making and reviewing climate policy when they are kept in the dark by government about the true scale of security risks emerging from climate change.
Updated
Kylea Tink is joining the call to suspend standing orders.
The teals are, as usual, in lockstep when it comes to climate issues.
The argument is that a declassified version of the report – countries such as the US and UK have released their own versions – will help let everyone know what the landscape looks like, so there is a cohesive response and everyone knows what we are dealing with.
Updated
Independents push for release of declassified version of climate security risk assessment
Back in the chamber, fellow independent Kate Chaney is seconding Zali Steggall’s motion to suspend standing orders so the chamber can call on the government to release a declassified version of the ONI climate security risk assessment.
Chaney says history will judge how members vote on the motion.
Updated
Andrews government unlikely to meet 2024 deadline for Victorian ALP anti- branch stacking recommendations, says Ibac
Victoria’s integrity agencies say it is unlikely the Andrews government will meet its 2024 deadline to implement recommendations of an inquiry into branch stacking.
The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (Ibac) and the Victorian Ombudsman tabled a progress report on their Operation Watts investigation in parliament on Thursday.
The joint inquiry examined the practice of branch stacking in the Victorian branch of the Australian Labor party, which resulted in the alleged misuse of public funds for party political purposes and subversion of parliamentary standards and processes.
It made 21 recommendations that were accepted by premier, Daniel Andrews, who provided the Department of Parliamentary Services with $8.52m to implement the changes. A team was also set up within the Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPC) to draft necessary law changes.
The agencies, however, say the government hasn’t given them a timeframe to introduce a bill to parliament, nor provided them with a draft. The progress report states:
More than a year has elapsed since our recommendations to establish a Parliamentary Ethics Committee and the Parliamentary Integrity Commissioner were accepted. DPC has assured us that the enabling legislation is being worked on, but it has not yet indicated a timeframe for its introduction to parliament beyond reiterating the government’s commitment to implement key reforms by June 2024.
The agencies also say despite a commitment from the premier to consult with MPs from all parties on the changes in 2023, this hasn’t occurred.
The report states that for any reforms to be implemented by mid-2024, the legislation will have to pass parliament by December this year, which is looking unlikely:
Given the usual timeframe for the creation of new statutory bodies and the commitments set out above, it seems unlikely the government will meet its deadline. A public update on the likely introduction of this legislation would help to reassure the community of the government’s commitment to supporting parliamentary integrity and accountability.
Updated
In the house, Zali Steggall is moving a motion to suspend standing orders to bring on debate about the need for the government to release a declassified version of the Office of National Intelligence climate risk security assessment.
Dan Hurst has written on it previously here:
The housing Australia future fund legislation is doing a nice little dance between the chambers.
The House of Representatives have made the amendments requested by the #Senate to the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill 2023 and the bill has now been read a third time (passed). The House will now consider the amendment made by the Senate.
— Australian Senate (@AuSenate) September 13, 2023
The senate can’t amend money bills (that pesky constitution again). So, if there are amendments, it requests the house makes them. The house (government) amends the bill if it agrees, and then sends the amended bill back to the senate to pass it.
Just another quirk of your democracy.
Updated
Here is a little more from the last leg of Michael Long’s Long walk to parliament:
Updated
Qantas leaders pull out of aviation conference
Qantas group leaders have abandoned their speaking commitments at a major aviation conference, as the airline’s reputational crisis continues.
Jetstar CEO Stephanie Tully and Qantas executive manager of global sales and distribution Igor Kwiatkowski had both been advertised as speaking on panels about the state of the Australian air industry at the Centre for Aviation’s (Capa) conference in Brisbane on Thursday and Friday.
Guardian Australia understands the Qantas leaders abruptly pulled out in the days before the conference and did not send representatives to speak in their place. Leaders from Virgin Australia, Bonza and various global airlines and airports will speak at the event.
It follows weeks of turmoil at Qantas. In less than a month, the airline went from posting a record $2.47bn profit and weathering anger over its flight credits and high cancellations rate to facing legal action from the consumer watchdog about allegations it sold tickets for thousands of flights it had already cancelled.
On Wednesday, Qantas learned it faces hundreds of millions in compensation costs after it lost its final appeal at the high court challenging a finding that it illegally outsourced 1700 ground handlers.
Comment was sought from Qantas.
Updated
In more cheery news for this Thursday
Legislation targeting former ADF who train foreign militaries comes before parliament
The parliament sitting has begun. The house is looking at the legislation Daniel Hurst flagged earlier, which will make it an offence of up to 20 years imprisonment, if defence force personnel do unauthorised work for a foreign nation.
Over in the senate, there is some usual senate business, and then it should deal with the third reading of the housing Australia future fund bill (the amendments have been ticked off by the house) which, all going well, should see it passed.
Updated
Sussan Ley says she’s ‘sad’ about the prospects for reconciliation
Sussan Ley continued her key lines of attack against the yes campaign in a doorstop (quick press conference) this morning and then finished her introductory spiel with
I’m sad for the prospects of reconciliation in this country
Updated
The voice is a request from Indigenous Australians to be heard on issues that affect them, says ACTU’s O’Neil
ACTU president Michele O’Neil spoke to ABC radio RN Breakfast about the Nine newspaper story that yes campaigners were being encouraged to tell the public the no campaign was “vilifying Aboriginal people” and “distracting” from what the voice debate is actually about.
(The no campaign script was telling volunteers to use fear over facts)
O’Neil said:
I think it’s important in this debate that people have the facts, and that they understand that this is a really simple request from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and one where it’s not complicated and so having time to talk to people to take them through the fact that this is about practical change for people, better health care outcomes, better education outcomes, better opportunity to have your voice heard, is something that we should welcome that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have asked us to do.
It’s about respect for that 65,000 years, recognition for that connection to this culture for that long, in this country for that long and then of course, having an opportunity to be heard on issues that affect them.
We all want that, you know, we all want to be listened to and it’s not a big ask. So, I think people talking to people about the real issues is a good thing.
Updated
Voice will provide new approach to closing the gap, Michael Long says
AFL legend Michael Long explained why he re-created his famous 2004 walk in support of Indigenous Australians , this time in support of the voice.
He said:
In the 19 years since that meeting, the gap between non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australians has not closed. In some areas it has widened, according to our Productivity Commission latest report. That is why we set out from Melbourne again, 19 days ago. A yes vote in the referendum on the voice to parliament will give Indigenous people the self-determination that we asked all those years ago. It will give this nation a new approach to closing the gap and it will allow this nation to embrace the fullness of our history.
Updated
McManus: Unions will ‘fight until the end’ against companies that treat workers badly
Sally McManus said the Qantas decision was proof that unions will ‘fight until the end’.
I think it is a message to corporate Australia that if you go about making up schemes or thinking through with your lawyers the way you can get away with doing something that anyone will [be] seeing as immoral and treating workers with disrespect, the union movement will fight until the end.
It was a risk for the TWU to do this. It cost a lot of money. They don’t have the same deep pockets as Qantas.
If they lost yesterday, they would have had to pay for the costs of Qantas’ lawyers but they stuck by people anyway. When you stick together you can achieve things.
Hopefully, it is a message to corporate Australia that working people in Australia have still got fight and that if this happens, we will take it on.
Updated
Plibersek’s relief that Great Barrier Reef won’t be listed as ‘in danger’ met with anger on social media
Environment minister Tanya Plibersek posted this last night – the responses to it are pretty much what you would expect, given the continued approval of coal mines and gas field expansion.
We’ve just heard that the United Nations committee responsible for World Heritage has confirmed the Great Barrier Reef will not be listed as in danger. Our government has wasted no time acting on climate change and better protecting our precious Reef - and the world has noticed.… pic.twitter.com/KKBMfSpmvg
— Tanya Plibersek (@tanya_plibersek) September 13, 2023
Updated
ACTU’s McManus wants sacked Qantas workers ‘fairly’ compensated
Back to the ABC and ACTU boss Sally McManus is asked what next after a workers’ victory in the high court against Qantas yesterday.
McManus says:
Firstly, it is a huge case to go through. It is the largest case of illegal sackings that the country has had.
There is a bit for court to consider. There is some matters to do with making sure that people, their wages are compensated. A lot of people have been unemployed for the last three years. If you are in your 60s and you are a baggage handler, it is hard getting a job.
Plus, there is the mental trauma people have gone through which was significant for lots of them. That will have to be carefully worked through. It starts off in the courts next week.
The union wants to see those workers fairly compensated but fairly also means carefully working that through.
We hope Qantas drops the cloak of arrogance that they have had for a long time; it is that arrogance that got them into a situation when they were treating the workers and customers how they have. This is an opportunity out of this bad situation for them to show that they are different.
Updated
Mike Bowers and Katharine Murphy followed the last leg of the Long walk to parliament:
Updated
In case you missed it yesterday, this is what Sussan Ley was asked about on ABC News Breakfast:
No vote on Indigenous voice ahead in every state, says Guardian’s poll tracker
Where is the voice polling at?
No is ahead in every state, according to the Guardian’s poll tracker:
Updated
Chevron’s gas workers to start rolling strikes
Full-scale strikes at Chevron’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities in Australia are due to start this morning, putting global energy markets on edge amid a protracted industrial dispute.
The escalation of the industrial action comes after a breakdown in negotiations over pay and conditions in a sector that typically uses individual contracts.
Hundreds of workers at the Gorgon and Wheatstone facilities, which account for about 7% of global LNG supply, are scheduled to start two weeks of 24-hour strikes early on Thursday.
The Australian Workers’ Union and Maritime Union of Australia are trying to lock in industry standard wage rates and conditions. They recently reached an agreement with Woodside.
While most LNG shipped from Australia’s north and west goes to Asian markets, any prolonged supply reduction will mean buyers will look for other sources. This has triggered volatility in European gas prices in recent weeks.
Updated
Ley defends text messages about postal votes that link to a Liberal Party-authorised website
That leads to this back and forth:
Q: [While] we’re talking about misinformation - text messages that are being sent out to voters asking them to apply for a postal vote and linking through to a Liberal Party-authorised website?
Sussan Ley:
Look, the no campaign is not the Liberal Party. Everyone, by the way, is entitled to a postal vote because that helps people ...
Q: Linking through to a Liberal Party-authorised website ...
Ley:
Well, that helps people...
Q: They can get it from the AEC
Ley:
Yes, that’s right. But we’ve always been involved in distributing postal votes, both sides of politics have. I come back to the main point - we want to help rural and regional Australians vote. We want to give them access to that.
The actual campaign itself and the conduct of them matters for them. So, whenever people say to me, the yes campaign said this or the no campaign said that, I simply say: “Those are matters for those campaigns to defend. The Liberal Party is not running the no campaign.”
But what the Liberal Party very much wants is a respectful tone to this debate. And Australians need explanations. They’re not getting that. And this is running off the rails and the Prime Minister is yet to show the leadership that we need, both in this Parliament and in this community. We leave here - we have four weeks until the referendum. We absolutely need those answers so Australians can make informed decisions.
The detail has been released. The referendum is on whether or not an Indigenous advisory body should be added to the constitution. The legislation would be created if the yes vote passes the double majority. Sussan Ley, as a member of parliament, would have a role in that. It’s the same as during an election campaign, when a political party releases a policy – you get the detail about what it would be about, but you don’t see the legislation unless they win the election and once the parliament is formed. Once that happens, the legislation is introduced, put through committee inquiry, argued and debated, possibly amended, and then either passed or not.
The Liberal party has been holding the government responsible for the yes campaign.
Updated
Ley says government should distance itself from Langton, says Australia not a racist country
On ABC News Breakfast, Sussan Ley is asked ‘So, you’re not backing away from it?’ and says:
I’m not. This is not about Liberal versus Labor. It’s about the campaign and the messaging and the refusal of this government to actually distance itself, or condemn, the people who are saying these things.
Look, one in five Australians are not spewing racism. We are not a racist country.
It is OK to vote no without this condemnation.
And yesterday in Parliament, we had Linda Burney call for respectful debate, yes.
But directly after that, we had both the Treasurer and the Attorney-General making the most awful insults, which the Treasurer then had to subsequently withdraw, and we had the Attorney-General - responsible for the AFP, the first law officer in the land - claiming misinformation.
Now, I should point out that there’s a bill before the parliament that makes the spreading of misinformation and disinformation an offence, and he’s standing there in the parliament, loosely using those claims against the Opposition.
Marcia Langton herself has said that “of course” there are not racist reasons for voting no, and that she does not believe that most Australians are racist.
Peter Dutton has not condemned the comments by Gary Johns.
The treasurer and attorney-general were running through the false claims Dutton had made about the voice during the campaign and for spreading misinformation. Jim Chalmers withdrew his remarks “to assist the house” for the debate to continue.
Updated
Amnesty International 2021 report found racism a growing problem in Australia
Amnesty International has taken a look at racism in Australia.
Here is what it found in 2021:
In its inaugural human rights report, the Amnesty International Human Rights Barometer, 84% of Australians believe in freedom from discrimination and 78% believe in freedom of religion and culture.
Almost two thirds of respondents (64%) said that Australia was a successful multicultural society, while only half of respondents (47%) believed there was a problem with racism and more than a quarter thought we didn’t have a problem with racism at all. Worryingly, 63% of the respondents also said they believed that some ethnic groups and cultures don’t want to fit into the “Australian” way of life.
It’s clear then that racism not only exists, it is a growing problem in Australia.
Western Sydney University released a landmark project in 2017, with a national survey on racism and among it’s findings:
Almost one-quarter (23%) of all respondents stated that some migrant groups do not belong in, or should not be welcomed to, Australia
Updated
Liberals’ Sussan Ley repeats criticism of Marcia Langton’s no campaign comments
As the Long walkers head to their final destination in support of the voice, deputy leader Sussan Ley is on ABC TV News Breakfast talking about Prof Marcia Langton’s comments:
She did say that because she was describing the arguments of the no campaign, she wasn’t therefore describing the people.
But, unfortunately, later she did also - or she was reported to have said that one in five Australians are spewing racism.
So, that’s 20% of Australians. And, unfortunately, that does need to be called out. She does need to be responsible for those remarks. And by suggesting that the arguments at the heart of the no campaign are either racist or stupid is an incredible reflection on Australians who are considering, or wanting, to vote no.
And, unfortunately, we didn’t have the minister for Indigenous Australians in the Parliament yesterday either distance herself from the appointment of Marcia Langton to her own Referendum Working Group, where she has been, of course, a co-designer of the voice itself.
Updated
Laws ‘not intended to prevent Australians from working overseas or with all foreign governments or militaries’
[continued from previous post]
When considering requests, the defence minister will consider factors including the type of work the individual performed in Defence and the type of information they had access to; the length of time they worked in that role; the type of work they would be doing in their new role; and the foreign country for which the person will be working.
Marles will tell parliament the new laws are “not intended to prevent Australians from working overseas or with all foreign governments or militaries”. According to extracts distributed in advance, Marles will say:
Rather, our legislative intent is to prevent individuals with knowledge of sensitive Defence information from training or working for certain foreign militaries or governments where that activity would put Australia’s national security at risk …
The protection of our nation’s secrets and sensitive information is central to preserving Australia’s national security and to keeping Australians safe.
The “complex” bill is expected to be considered by the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security (PJCIS), and the government will promise to work collaboratively across the parliament to ensure the legislation is effective.
Updated
New laws target former ADF members who train foreign militaries
Former Australian defence force members who work for foreign military organisations without approval from the Australian government face up to 20 years in jail under proposed new laws.
The federal government will today introduce a bill to parliament that it argues strengthens Australia’s ability “to protect the unwanted transfer of sensitive defence information to foreign militaries”.
It will extend existing laws so that they apply to accumulated knowledge, skills, experience and information. The moves stem from a review sparked by reports last year that highly skilled former ADF personnel, including pilots, may have been approached to provide military training to China.
The new legislation, called the defence amendment (safeguarding Australia’s military secrets) bill 2023, is expected to require certain former members of the ADF and former Department of Defence public servants to obtain authorisation if they intend to work for a foreign military, foreign government or foreign government entity. Doing so without approval could be subject to a penalty of up to 20 years’ imprisonment.
But the defence minister, Richard Marles, plans to exclude proposed work for any of Australia’s Five Eyes partners – the US, the UK, Canada and New Zealand – from the legislation. Government sources argued the proposed laws would also “provide greater confidence to our key security partners – including under our Aukus arrangements”.
The bill is also expected to say that any Australian who seeks to provide training in relation to military techniques or controlled military items – such as weapons, missiles, ammunition – to foreign militaries without approval could also face up to 20 years’ imprisonment.
If the Australian government grants a person approval subject to a condition and the individual breaches that condition, the maximum penalty will be five years’ imprisonment.
Updated
Albanese walks with Liberals’ Leeser and Archer in support of Indigenous voice
As Amy has flagged, Anthony Albanese has joined AFL great Michael Long on his long walk to parliament in support of the voice. It’s a crisp spring morning in Canberra.
A large contingent of MPs from across the spectrum have joined the walk across Kings Ave bridge. Locals are joining in as we go.
The tone in the parliament this week has been punishing.
The spirit by the lake could not be more different. Albanese was joined at the start of the walk by Liberals Julian Leeser and Bridget Archer who continue to argue the moral and practical case for the voice.
An Albanese staffer signalled to the prime minister that the two Liberals were just behind him. Albanese beckoned them forward. They walked together.
Albanese looked for a moment as if he might well up. He gathered himself and picked up the pace. The John Farnham ballad is on high rotation.
Updated
We’ll be hearing from Michael Long and the Long walkers very soon.
In other news ahead of us, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price will give an address to the national press club and then she is down for an event with the Australian newspaper later this afternoon.
The unemployment data for August will also be released.
Former ADF members could face jail if they do unauthorised work for foreign military organisations
In other news, the government is introducing legislation today, which would mean veterans face up to 20 years’ jail if they do unauthorised work for a foreign government.
Matt Keogh says it is necessary:
[It’s an issue that’s been identified across international media and domestically, but we need to make sure that there are absolutely no loopholes or ability for people to think that they can operate contrary to Australia’s national interest.
And so we’re making sure that our laws clearly identify and make it clear to any veteran to any firm former service personnel to public servants that have worked in defence that we take the integrity of our information, our national security information and training very seriously, and that we are going to properly regulate any work that they do for a foreign military or companies associated with them so that we’re protecting our national interest.
Updated
Veterans’ affairs minister ‘sorry’ for those who suffered abuse while in military
So what did Matt Keogh make of the commissioner’s (scathing) criticism?
Keogh:
Well, I think the criticisms that the commissioner made yesterday are ones that we’ve long acknowledged. It’s why I made an apology in the parliament last year for the problems and issues that have been the consequence of actions by the Department of Defence by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs.
We have not been trying to sort of say that everything’s rosy and peaches, we’ve said they’re clearly problems. It’s why we called for the royal commission.
We’re sorry that people have been confronted with bad behaviour cultural issues abuse whilst serving in defence, that they haven’t received the service that they should have received from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. And whilst that’s not a [universal] experience, it’s important to acknowledge these problems and that’s why we want the recommendations from the royal commission so we can get on with the job with making this right.
Updated
Government ‘implementing’ recommendations of royal commission, minister says
Sabra Lane doesn’t let Matt Keogh get away with giving the lines and asks:
The commissioner was very clear that his criticism was about how defence has handled this and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs has handled these matters. Over time he pointed to the 25 years’ worth of inquiries and recommendations that have not been fully implemented by successive governments.
Keogh:
And we’ve absolutely acknowledged that on our watch. We have got about implementing the recommendations that were presented to us by the royal commission in its interim report, and we’re doing further work as well. And we’ve been working with the royal commission to understand where it’s heading and what it needs in terms of providing information to the royal commission, which I know the commissioner referred to, they certainly had difficulty with with these matters.
We engaged with them very early on coming into government about these to make sure that we understood understood the difficulties they were having, myself, the minister for defence, the attorney general we all met with our departments to make sure that they were very clear that we expected information to be provided to the royal commission, and we’re working with them to ensure they get all the information that can be provided to them and the information that they need.
Updated
Matt Keogh responds:
We’re absolutely following the royal commission and implementing its recommendations when it handed down its interim report in August last year. We responded the very next month with the formal government response to those recommendations and I was able to provide a report to the royal commission last month, a year after its interim report outlining all of the steps that the government has taken and is taking in relation to those recommendations. We’ve taken action on all of those recommendations a large number of them, we have now fully implemented, as well. We’re taking this very seriously.
Updated
A career in defence is a good one, says veterans’ affairs minister after blistering speech by royal commissioner on veteran suicide
On ABC radio, AM veterans’ affairs minister Matt Keogh is not having a very good time explaining to Sabra Lane why any young Australian would join the defence force, given the picture royal commissioner Nick Kaldas painted yesterday in a National Press Club address.
As Daniel Hurst reported:
Keogh tells Sabra Lane:
I think the royal commission have painted a picture that was pretty clear actually that a career in defence is a good one that the vast majority of people who serve in our defence force have very successful positive careers and go on to have very successful civilian lives after they left defence, as well.
And we know for young people today they’re looking for a sense of purpose in their careers and the defence force absolutely provides that sense of purpose in contributing to our nation and our national security.
Lane:
Were we watching and listening to the same event? Mr Kaldas has said that the defence [force] is waiting until the inquiry is over to resume business as usual. That departments including veterans affairs are stonewalling and it’s using every trick in the book to stop his inquiry from finding out information. It’s unusual to hear such a blistering criticism while an inquiry is actually under way. What commitment can you give that the government will heed his warnings?
Updated
AFL great Michael Long to complete Long Walk for Indigenous voice today
AFL great Michael Long is finishing his long walk this morning – he started from Wurundjeri Country (Melbourne) on 27 August and is walking the final leg in Ngunnawal-Ngambri Country (Canberra) with the prime minister and other politicians who are in support of a yes vote.
Mike Bowers and Katharine Murphy are following along for the final stretch.
Walking this morning, for yes #auspol pic.twitter.com/btbJ9NTrls
— Katharine Murphy (@murpharoo) September 13, 2023
Updated
Good morning
Thank you Martin for starting us off this morning and catching us up.
You’ve got Amy Remeikis to guide you through the last sitting day for a month –meaning it is also the last sitting day before the referendum. Parliament won’t sit again until 16 October after today.
Ready? Let’s get into it.
Greens want more federal funds for public schools
Caitlin Cassidy reports:
The Greens will today introduce a bill for the commonwealth to direct greater funding to public schools to close the continued education gap with the private system.
Greens senator Penny Allman-Payne said the Australian education amendment (save our public schools) bill 2023 signalled an intention to open up a new battleground with the federal government on public education.
It would abolish the 20% cap on the commonwealth’s share of total public school funding, replacing it with a 25% minimum contribution, while also amending the Act to require the education minister to ensure “every school-aged child in Australia has access to a fully funded government school”.
Under existing funding arrangements, states and territories deliver 80% of public school funding and the federal government 20%.
Allman-Payne said Australia’s public school system was “on the brink”:
Ninety-eight per cent of public schools in the country are underfunded ... schools don’t have the money to pay for the bare minimum level of staffing and educational resources they need. We have an absurd situation where the federal government, with vastly more revenue than the states and territories, is chiefly responsible for propping up the overfunded private sector.
The 20-80 funding split isn’t some immutable law of nature – it’s the result of decades of boneheaded policy decisions and an unwillingness by the political establishment to take on private schools.
The federal government has committed to delivering 100% of the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) to all public schools, without a timeline in place.
Allman-Payne said this must occur at the next National School Reform Agreement (NSRA), due to be handed down at the end of the year.
If that means that the federal government has to tip in 25%, 30% or 40% to make it happen, then that’s what should happen.
Updated
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our rolling news coverage. I’m Martin Farrer and I’ve got some of our top overnight stories before Amy Remeikis picks up the slack in a short while.
Our top story this morning shows that the regulators responsible for keeping tabs on Qantas are among those C-suite bosses granted access to Australia’s invite-only Chairman’s Lounge, a luxurious and controversial perk the airline gives to influential policymakers. They include the ACCC competition boss Gina Cass-Gottlieb and Asic corporate watchdog chair Joseph Longo. The Guardian is not suggesting they have any conflict of interest but the story raises concerns about the airline’s soft power influence.
There’s some dispiriting news for supporters of the Indigenous voice to parliament with our story that polls suggest the proposal looks increasingly likely to be rejected in next month’s referendum, with models estimating that the no campaign is leading in every state. Support for a yes vote has dropped by about 21 percentage points nationally over the past year, our poll tracker shows. Support is standing up among young voters but it has fallen among 35-to054-year-olds and those over 55. All the same, former Coalition frontbencher and yes supporter Julian Leeser gives an impassioned call for a yes vote, and AFL legend Michael Long and fellow activists have written an open letter to Anthony Albanese pleading with him to keep positive.
More than 60 Australian federal politicians are today explicitly calling on the US to drop the prosecution of Julian Assange, warning of “a sharp and sustained outcry in Australia” if the WikiLeaks founder is extradited. With a small cross-party delegation due to fly to Washington next week, our exclusive story reveals that the lobbying trip has won the open support of 63 members of Australia’s House of Representatives and Senate.
The government will introduce a complex piece of legislation today which means former Australian defence force members who work for foreign military organisations without approval from the Australian government could face up to 20 years in jail. It follows the scare last year when it emerged that highly skilled former ADF personnel, including pilots, may have been approached to provide military training to China. More coming on this.
