The Point Live: Labor and the Greens sees small poll bounce, fuel prices ease. As it happened

And on that note, we are going to close the blog down for the evening and pop back tomorrow with all the party room news and annoyances.

You can already tell Albanese is looking forward to it.

A very big thank you to everyone who read along with us today – it is so incredible to see more of you join us each week. Truly. We have three more days left in this sitting chunk and you are the only thing getting me through it. So thank you.

Please go and stare at a wall, or whatever else it is that gets you through this mess. We will be back early (and yes, I have seen your messages about my later than usual start times and I will stop being lazy and get back to normal – thank you for the reminders!) so until then, take care of you. Ax

Hastie:

A number of reasons. They’ve been targeting me personally. So much so that you know, Tony Burke called me two weeks ago and let me know that I have to get more security for my family home and my office, so it’s personal.

These things have consequences. But also, their policy suite has consequences for Australia.

Q: What are you most scared of?

Hastie:

What am I most scared of? Well, let’s take monoculture, for example. How do you police that? Do we want Government more involved in our lives, policing who fits into Pauline Hanson’s definition of Australian culture and who doesn’t? How do you do that? Particularly approximate with Australia looking very differently to what it was 40 years ago. She mentioned Norman Gunstan and Paul Hogan – that’s throw back to the ’80s. Are we going to watch reruns of Neighbours with Toadfish and Harold Bishop? What is monoculture? I believe that Australia is a strong country. We have people from all over the world.

Q: So are we a multicultural country?

Hastie:

Monoculture and multicultural – they’re two extremes in a sense. I think that we have a strong civil society. We have people from different backgrounds. It doesn’t what country you come from.

Q: We used the term multicultural for a long time.

Hastie:

It’s now a loaded political term.

Q: Why? It never used to be”

Hastie:

Most people when they talk about multicultural, think about different foods, different backgrounds. But in the end, we have one language, which is English. We have one set of values. We have one flag. And I think that it is fair enough that people raise questions about pockets of Sharia Law, for example, emerging to our country. We can’t Balkanise or split into tribes. So it is important.

Q: But we do have one set of laws – we don’t have a another set of laws for Muslims, do we?

Hastie:

No, but people are concerned that when people come to our country, that they obey our laws, you know, they submit to our values or embrace our values, and I think there’s a few examples where that hasn’t happened. And that’s where people are concerned. But you know, nostalgia is not helpful. 

We’re here now. How do we come together, live peacefully with our neighbours when we disagree and build our prosperity and security into the future? That’s the question.

And once government gets involved deciding who is in and who is out – that’s very problematic.

Q: But you support the bipartisan position that we are a multicultural country, still?

Hastie:

Yeah, look, I have all sorts of people. I grew up in inner city Ashfield. My father was the minister of a church where we had a Chinese, Korean, western Samoan congregation. I lived multiculturalism in that sense but they were all bound by one faith, and that’s really important. Again, I come back to the fact that if a democracy is going to function, you have to have a common set of values. It can’t be a free for all and live according to how you thing it should be. Everyone has to sign up to Australian rule of law and values.

Asked if he wants the leadership, Andrew Hastie takes another leaf out of Tzu’s book – “He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious.”

He says:

Well, I think that the question about leadership was answered back in February. Angus Taylor was elected. I’m the deputy leader in the house. I’ve got industry, sovereign capability – I’ve got a lot of work to do. My job is to support Angus and help with the policy development and keep everyone focused on what we need to do by the end of the year which is to build out the policy platform. If we don’t get that done, it doesn’t matter how many social media reels you put out there, you won’t get there. We develop the policies to build the prosperity for the future.

Told that the Coalition is nearly at ‘Greens’ level of polling support Hastie says:

…The only way is up. Sometimes you’ve got to go through the valley to get to the peak. And again, I’m not tapping the mat and that was the message that I sent out on Friday. A lot of people saying – give up, join One Nation. No, I’m a Liberal because of hold to certain values, I hold to a vision. It’s not Pauline Hanson’s monoculture.

But there is nothing to say the Coalition vote has bottomed out yet. So no, the only way is not up.

Does he think the Liberal party needs a rebrand – like his colleague Melissa McIntosh suggested on Sky News a bit earlier today?

Hastie:

I think we’ve got 82 years of political capital. People know who the Liberals are. Yes, we’re at a low, but I would be very hesitant about walking away from the Liberal Party as a brand. You know, Coca-Cola is a strong brand. People trust it, for whatever reason. I don’t drink a lot of Coke myself. But the Liberals stand for something, and it’s really important that we deliver on policy – that’s what people care about, and we’ve got to diagnose the problems. And deliver solutions for those.

Andrew Hastie is making an appearance on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing. He made news last week for sending out a missive to supporters that as One Nation has declared war on him “so they shall have war”.

He’s a big Sun Tzu fan so this should come as no surprise to people that he is RELISHING this moment.

He thinks people in his party talking about preference deals right now is stupid (looking at you, Tony Pasin)

Preference deals with normally done in the lead-up to an election – maybe eight weeks out. And talking about it 18 months away from a possible election – let’s just say that the Prime Minister went late next year – I think it signals weakness. I think it signals a lack of confidence in our values, in our party, in our policies. And weakness is provocative and it’s contagious as well. People are drawn to strength and so I think that we should be sending a strong message that we are committed to winning Government, delivering centre-right Government for the Australian people.

Does he want to call One Nation hard right though?

I don’t want to define One Nation. They’re a bit all over the place. A lot of it is motivated by grievance. A lot of One Nation voters have legitimate concerns about the country – immigration is one, energy policy is another. They are legitimate and we’ve addressed those in the policy. We’ve now got to sell them to the Australian people and win the One Nation voters back. I don’t have a bone to pick with the One Nation voter. I want them in our column and I think that we have a better pathway to delivering that centre-right government they want.

Richard Denniss has a new bite sized podcast called What’s the Point – where he is going to answer questions about what is going on in politics and policy.

You can find the first episode, here.

Here is some more of QT – lots of feels today.

Anna Chang

This statement from the Greens is re: one of the four bills which have had debate time limited to 60 minutes (~1x Government, Opposition and crossbench speech) today, and one of the bills in the bundle being guillotined through the Senate tonight, (with divisions being allowed after 6.30pm to accommodate this).

It’ll be interesting to see if any more announcements of amendments and deals to come in the next few hours before the guillotine.

Statement:

The Greens have secured amendments to the government’s Building Cooperative Workplaces Bill that will protect workers’ pay and conditions, and empower unions during industrial relations disputes. 

These changes will boost protections for workers across the country during bargaining, and in particular support educators, teachers and firefighters. They have been developed in consultation with unions and workers.

Under normal circumstances a worker can’t be left worse off as a result of EBA negotiations but existing loopholes mean the Fair Work Commission (FWC) can order that to be the case. Employers have increasingly been abusing this process by tactically delaying negotiations and denying pay rises to send the negotiations to the FWC, where workers can lose out.

Our amendment limits the terms that can be wound back by the FWC, helping disincentivise bosses from holding up negotiations with workers.

The reforms strengthen protections won by Senator Barbara Pocock and former Greens Leader Adam Bandt MP in the last Parliament, and close a loophole that employers have been using to weaken agreed terms, like consultation over uniforms which can be of critical importance to some workers. 

Bob Katter was having a good time:

Matt Grudnoff

What did we learn about the opposition and housing in today’s question time?

We learnt that the opposition either don’t understand what more affordable housing is or don’t want housing to be more affordable.

They are concerned about even small falls in house prices.

They are concerned that the ending of a 30-year house price super cycle has led to a bit of uncertainty in the housing market, leading to lower auction clearance rates.

Housing affordability is a really important issue for so many people and the opposition are walking a fine line between opposing government policy to make housing more affordable and simply opposing making housing more affordable.

Hamdi Jama

Health Minister Mark Butler is right about one thing: the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) is world‑leading.

The PBS keeps medicine prices dramatically lower than in countries like the US by negotiating directly with drug companies and prioritising cost‑effective treatments.

It means that Australians who need essential medicines, for example, for a heart condition, pay less than 100th of the price of the same drug in the US (See Table 1 for more examples).

So when we hear politicians like Butler say the PBS “can be better” or “must evolve to survive”, we need to pay attention. The pharmaceutical industry also thinks that PBS isn’t keeping up with the times, openly calling it unreasonable and discriminatory.

Not because the system fails Australians, but because it limits their profits.

Because of this, pharmaceutical companies have applied consistent political pressure for over a decade to dismantle the PBS.

Although the language of reform to modernise the PBS so that it can “survive” may sound reasonable, it reflects language used by the ‘Stronger PBS Campaign’, developed by Medicines Australia (which represents the Australian pharmaceutical industry). Butler mirroring this language may be an early sign that the Commonwealth is bowing to external pressure to undermine the PBS’s ability to negotiate lower prices.

The PBS is a life-saving system, and it deserves to be preserved just as it is, without being reshaped to suit the interests of those who have consistently opposed it.

Anne Aly, the minister for multiculturalism finishes QT with this defence of multiculturalims:

Mr Speaker, aspiration is at the heart of the Australian story. The aspiration to build a better future for themselves, and for their children. And our government believes that whether you’re born here or whether you came here, no matter what language you speak at home, what faith you practise, or where you live, every single Australian deserves the opportunity to participate, to contribute, and to succeed.

Because when we say that Australia is one of the most successful multicultural nations in the world, that is what we mean. Equality of opportunity to realise aspirations, and a shared sense of identity, and a sense of belonging. And that’s why we’re delivering real change for all Australians, Mr Speaker.

Paid parental leave, tax cuts for all workers, not just some had, but every single worker.

Raising the minimum wage for low wage workers, a fairer education system where every child gets the opportunity to realise their potential. Strengthening Medicare, cheaper medicines, urgent care clinics right across the nation. We know that a strong sense of belonging is critical to people being able to participate and contribute. That aspiration can only flourish when people have that sense of belonging. 

Now, the three right-wing parties will have you believe that Australia is weakened by our diversity. A diversity that’s etch in our landscape, and in our history. Diversity of our First Nations peoples, and those who came across the seas, from the cameleers to the convicts and settlers, the postwar migrants and refugees, and the generations since.

Small business owners, skilled workers, families, communities, nation builders. Diversity that is quite simply who we are. And yet the Leader of the Opposition cannot even bring himself to defend our diversity or our multiculturalism. And that should tell us everything about the Opposition Leader, and the three right-wing parties.

Even as they fight among themselves about who they are, or what they stand for, one thing is clear – they believe in aspiration for some.

But we believe in aspiration for all Australians.

Albanese ends question time on that and then moves into a statement congratulating the Socceroos for getting through the group stage.

So what did we learn there?

The Coalition still have nothing – and maybe are getting worse? And Labor has found something to believe in and fight for. Only took the rise of the far right to get there, but seems like Labor is willing to have these fights. Which is another out break of bravery from a fairly heads down government. Let’s see how far they take it.

Tony Burke has no time for the new One Nation MP David Farley when it comes to this question on water today.

It’s almost like Labor has decided to be adults? And…stand for things?!

Q:  My question is to the minister representing the Minister for the Environment and water: As the local member representing the vast majority of the southern Murray-Darling Basin, I asked this government request the Commonwealth environmental water holder to urgently assess if the current objectives through the additional water buy-backs has been met, and if so, I further ask all surplus water be returned to the temporary market to allow farmers to finish and plant the nation’s food crops this 2026 spring

Burke:

A couple of things with respect to the interests of the agricultural interests in the electorate of Farrer. First of all, the Commonwealth environmental water holder provides an ant report in terms of the objectives being met, and added to that, we have the review of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan happening at the moment.

The concept of surplus water, not being used to keep the basin healthy, is not something that the government does. The water that is there is to make sure that we still have a living river system, because there are no jobs on a dead river. There’s no jobs on a dead river.

And that’s the reason, the whole reason we had to have water reform, which was started with the water Act under the Howard government, I may remind people, the whole reason we had to have that reform is because when the rivers were dying, the jobs and the towns were going too.

And so, you need to have a system to make sure that with systems that have been very much allocated and allocated and allocated, to the extent the rivers were living as though they were in drought before the drought came, that meant when drought hit, it was harder and more difficult than ever.

That’s the reason we had to have water reform. That’s the reason we had to have a Murray-Darling Basin Plan. That’s the reason we have a Commonwealth environmental water holder. And when drought comes, the Commonwealth’s water holdings, which are the same range of water holdings as irrigators have, as allocations go down for the irrigators, they go down for the Commonwealth environmental water holder as well. 

The allocations, because we’ve got the water holder, a full class, the full range of classes of different water licences, are part of the Commonwealth holdings, just as they’re the holdings that irrigators rely on. You don’t want to go back, no-one should want to go back to what the system was like before we had this water reform.

Before the government had the chance with the Commonwealth environmental water holder, to make sure there is an irrigator there who was making sure the system itself stayed healthy. Because if it doesn’t happen, you then get an increase on the black water events, on all the different events that make the water unusable as well for the irrigators at the same time it’s killing the ecosystem and the natural environment. That’s why we had to have water reform.

Here we go again:

Does the minister know how many first home buyers now owe more money than their home is worth?

Clare O’Neil is annoyed:

Speaker, this is a variation on a question I have been asked multiple times. I’m not changing my answer. Speaker, the question is about house prices. And the effect of the government’s legislation that passed the Parliament on Thursday. A piece of legislation where our side of the chamber was proud to stand up for first home buyers in our country, Speaker. And it’s not the only way that we’re doing it, Speaker. Of course this is part of a massive housing agenda. That our government is implementing to try to fix a broken system, Speaker.

Let me be clear about this – yet another Question Time when those opposite come into Question Time again and again, uselessly defending a status quo that every other person in our country can see is broken. And I say to those opposite, Speaker, as I said to them last week, we have got a home ownership rate in this country falling through the floor.

There are points of order which are not points of order.

Dan Tehan tries again:

It’s just aarea.point that you have made previously which I think is a very good one. The minister was asked a specific question, she’s not entitled to then start talking about broad portfolio issues. She will need to keep her answer efficient to the question. That is you, Speaker, on 22 March…

Dick:

Wise words.Very wise words.And once again, maybe a mistiming. She was on her feet talking about the policy. So, she wasn’t being wide ranging. While those words are absolutely correct and very wise, in this case, it doesn’t apply. ‘Cause she’s talking about – yes. Good try.

O’Neil:

I’m talking, Speaker to the Parliament about the essential topic of first home buyers. And home ownership rates in this country. And Speaker, I just want to remind the Parliament and those in the public gallery with us today. We have home ownership rates in our country falling through a floor. A low income young couple in our country is half as likely to own their own home than they were in the year I was born. I would really like to understand how home ownership rates have to fall in this country for those opposite to see that we have a broken housing system in Australia. What has happened to housing in the last roughly 40 years in our country has radically changed what it means to be inspirational in Australia today. — aspirational in Australia today. We have poll after poll telling us that the majority of Australia’s young people believe they will never be able to own a home in our country. This used to be, Speaker, the party of home ownership, now they’re talking about having to get experts in to tell them what they believe in. Speaker, I just finish by…

Tehan is up again but his microphone is off so we don’t hear it.

O’Neil is back to finish:

I’m making the point to the Parliament someone here has to stand up for first home buyers and that’s exactly what Labor did on Thursday.

Kate Chaney asks Anika Wells:

I commend the government for committing to a digital duty of care. 15 years ago, we had no idea about the harms that social media would do, from radicalisation to exacerbating eating disorders. With aye, there are early signs of new types of harm, like attachment hacking and cognitive decline. Will you commit to a digital duty of care that includes an overarching duty, so it’s future proof for emerging harms, rather than limiting accountability to the harms we can identify now?

Wells:

Thank you very much to the member for Curtin for her question. And for her continuing to work with me and like-minded parliamentary colleagues on such an important space. I believe we’re at the coal face of one of the most compelling policy questions of our time. The digital duty of care, in its intent, is meant to do two things. One, to prevent or to make big tech prevent harm to their users and to prevent psychosocial harm to their users. I believe defining it as psychosocial harm is what you’re talking about.

The second element of the digital duty of care is safety by design. So, that is, switching the onus from, at the moment, them being able to do basically what they like in an unregulated space, the harm occurring, and then avenues to people who have been harmed through things like eSafety to big tech needing to do safety by design. And I think, I will call here something that Wayne Hollsworth said in our meeting and then the press conference with the Prime Minister, the social media laws, the first tranche ahead of digital duty of care.

He said when seat belts became mandatory, people didn’t immediately comply with them, it took a while for the cultural change to seep through, to now when you don’t have your seat belt on and your kids will tell you the cops will stop you. The first seat belts weren’t retractable, they were a much earlier form.

Now we have different car manufacturers compete to be the safest car on the roads. I truly believe what we’re doing here is moving from that early model, non-retractable seat belt, to a point where online tech competes to be the safest company in the space. That means we need to hold them to account, to continue to work together in a bipartisan measure, I do think we address that, but I look forward to working with you on digital duty of care in the sector.

Here we go again:

Last week, the minister said “we see periods of significant house price growth and we see the Market make a correction, and that’s what we’re seeing at the moment.” Does the minister know how many first home buyers now owe more money than their home is worth?

Clare O’Neil:

Again, I’m asked about the legislation that passed the Parliament on Thursday. Speaker, that legislation was about three really simple things, it was about giving every single worker in our country a tax cut, it was about levelling the playing field so that first home buyers have the opportunity they deserve, and it was about building a fairer tax system for the country. Now, Speaker, I’ve spoken to the Parliament before about the treasury modelling that supported these changes.

(there is another point of order on relevance)

I’m talking about the treasury modelling that supported the tax changes in the budget, that show over time house prices in Australia will continue to increase, just a little bit more slowly than they otherwise would have.

We’re talking about two percentage points difference. Those opposite I can see place no particular weight on the changes that our government is making to address a broken housing market for our country.

The coalition try to object to that, but they have already used their point of order.

Matt Grudnoff

The opposition asks about the fall in auction clearance rates. Lower auction clearance rates are a step towards more affordable housing.

Auction clearance rates are just the proportion of auctions that were successful. That is auctions where the seller, and buyer could agree on a price. A drop in auction clearance rates means that more buyers are unwilling to pay the amount that sellers are insisting on.

Effectively buyers are saying the price is too high. Given they have increased five-fold over the last 25 years and 50% since 2020, maybe they’re right.

Certainly, most people think they are. A poll last week showed that a majority (54%) of people supported lower house prices, compared to just 11% who were opposed. The remaining 35% said they were unsure or neutral.

The reality is that as the uncertainty about these changes resolves itself, sellers and buyers will get a better idea about how much housing is worth and auction clearance rates will go back up.

But in the future, there will be far less investors beating out first home buyers and increasing house prices.

Housing will be more affordable.

Anna Chang

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young uses her question to highlight a new loophole that has been created for gambling ads to be played on streaming services instead:

“Under current rules, streaming services like Kayo and Stan can’t show gambling ads between 5am and 8pm during live sport. 

“Your government’s proposed changes to gambling advertising would remove this ban, leaving online streaming services less regulated than they are right now, and less regulated than broadcast television.

“This will simply move gambling advertising dollars to streaming services, where children and their families watching live sport will be bombarded with ads.

“Senator Farrell, how can your government claim they are taking strong action to tackle gambling ads when this loophole allows for a free for all? 

Senator Don Farrell:

“The Albanese Labor Government is delivering the most significant gambling advertising reform by any Australian government ever, and we have delivered over $110 million in gambling harm reduction measures in the, in the budget, so I fundamentally reject your proposition.”

Or something. Because my god.

This is what their tactics team have come up with:

My question is to the Minister for Housing: Last week the minister admitted the value of an Australian home could collapse by up to 20% because of Labor’s tactic taxes on housing. Does the minister know how many first home buyers now own more money than their home is worth?

Clare O’Neil can’t even pretend to entertain this:

The premise of the question is factually and utterly incorrect.

Melissa McIntosh has ensured that Dan Tehan is getting his steps in today!

Clare O’Neil is asked about auction clearance rates:

My question is to the Minister for Housing: As a result of Labor’s betrayal of trust on housing taxes, auction clearance rates are plummeting across the country. With demand collapsing in the housing market, is this Labor policy working as it was designed?

O’Neil:

And I appreciate that question from the member opposite. She asked about the legislation that passed the Parliament on Thursday, Speaker. Legislation that delivered every single one of Australia’s 13 million workers with a tax cut, and legislation, Speaker, that for the first time puts first home buyers in our country on a level playing field with investors. Speaker, why has the government taken this action? With see the pain the housing crisis is causing Australians. Instead of ignoring their problems like those opposite chose to do in the nine years they were in government, we’re delivering real change for Australians.

With regard to the impact on house prices, I think the Parliament is very well versed on this one, in the medium term is the advice from treasury is that house prices will continue to rise, but a little bit more slowly than they otherwise would have. There’s a lot that goes on in house prices, and interest rates being the dominant factor. Speaker, I hope and I expect those opposite understand that the treasury modelling showed a slightly slower growth rate of about 2% slower than otherwise would have been in case. Now, what do we get from that?

We get something incredibly special. And that’s 75,000 Australians who go from renting in home ownership. And Speaker, once again, I’m hearing the guffaws and the rabble opposite me to piece together something useful and intelligent to say about housing policy.

Speaker, we had one of the frontbenchers given a notable interview today, saying that her party needs a rebrand. Let me be really clear – Speaker…

Tehan is up and O’Neil tells him across the despatch – “she’s making some good points, Dan”

Tehan asks about relevance. Milton Dick says O’Neil has to say relevant so O’Neil finishes with:

Absolutely. Very happy to do so. I’m simply making the point, Speaker, that we’ve got frontbenchers openly saying that they need to rethink the existence of their political party, on this side of the Parliament, we’re living a different experience. We don’t want any experts to tell us what the great Australian Labor Party stands for, we stand for equality, aspiration, and first home buyers of our country getting the fair go they deserve

Bob Katter is back!

To the minister representing the Minister for the Environment: Minister, the EPBC Act effectively dispossesses the people who worked and loved their land for generations, some 40,000 years. Is your government to continue lauding itself about prioritising the double degree ideological know always save the planet agenda, or are they going to give precedent to the people who created the ALP, who did hard yakka for a big quid.

Tony Burke makes sense of that, which is actually a very good question.

With respect to the EPBC Act, I will say two things relevant to the question – the first is in terms of approval times, the approval times that we’re dealing with under the new legislation are significantly improved, and meeting timelines has been a very significant shift since this government came to power. The second thing that I would point to is the legislation itself does and has always dealt with heritage listings, both national and World Heritage, where it’s not often appreciated, do not simply deal with natural values, they deal with cultural values as well, and a large number of listings, quite specifically include cultural values and it has been the legal way to make sure that the principles that he has referred to the in the question find their way into Australian law.

Anna Chang

Over in Senate QT, it’s going about as good (same) as you’d think, based on House QT.

Senator Jane Hume asks Senator Penny Wong as Minister representing the Prime Minister, about Mick Gatto and CFMEU, and Penny Wong quips:

“If you’re quoting a criminal, that’s a matter for you.”

Angus Taylor is back again with the same question:

The Treasurer has promised to fix Labor’s new tax on widows, divorcees, and victims of family and domestic violence. But he can’t say how, and he can’t say when. When will the Prime Minister step in and clean up the Treasurer’s mess?

There are no changes. Nothing has changed. And the legislation hasn’t been put forward yet, but every person and their accountant knows it is coming, so this is just a bit of ridiculousness at this point and shows the Coalition literally has nothing. It was David Pocock who raised this in the senate, a senate inquiry which raised it as an issue and Phil Coorey who asked the first question at a press conference about it. So the Coalition is playing catch up which is even sadder.

Albanese:

Well, it’s pretty bold of the Leader of the Opposition to speak about cleaning up messes. When his shadow ministers are out there saying the Liberal Party should be dissolved and start again. And start again.

Which is effectively what they’re saying.

When it comes to taxes, when his deputy leader is out there, doing interviews, speaking about egregious tax cuts, egregious tax cuts is what the – Senator Hume, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, she’s not the leader in the Senate, someone else is leader in the Senate. Someone else is deputy leader in the Senate. It’s just a shemozzle, Mr Speaker. It’s a shemozzle,

…I gave an answer to the first question, Mr Speaker, which is that none of those people will be impacted, none of them. And what we see from the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Representatives is that – you know – they are such a mess… And they talk about cleaning up. Whereas the Liberal Party can’t decide if they’re in favour of tax cuts or against them, because they voted against the tax cuts in the Parliament last week.

They then said they were for them, and then this morning they’ve said they’re egregious. I suggest that the Leader of the Opposition get his own act together, his own act together.

And we see…..we see from…..their glum faces behind, the worse he goes, the more he chirps. The worse he goes the more he chirps.

I made it very clear the no-one will be negatively impacted, the people who they speak about, should know this very clearly. We’ll make that very clear.

The fact is they don’t even know if their party should be continued into next week.

First there are welcomes to the prime minister of Vanuatu PM Jotham Napat and his delegation on the floor of parliament.

Angus Taylor is endorsing the PM’s welcome. He also uses it as a political moment to talk about the Coalition’s Pacific policy (no one cared about it though because it will never be a reality)

And then after the ‘we must stand together’ speech from Taylor is the first question:

Labor’s toxic taxes have been rushed through the Parliament. As a result, thousands of Australian women, including widows, divorcees and victims of family and domestic violence will pay more tax. Can the Prime Minister give Australians a straight answer, how much more tax will widows divorcees and victims of family violence pay because of the Treasurer’s bungled budget?

Which, lol.

Because the changes don’t come into effect until March 2027, so no one is paying more tax. And there is going to be legislation which addresses this. Because the duality of attacks on this budget have been – WHY ARE YOU RUSHING THIS IT ISN’T UNTIL MARCH NEXT YEAR and then WHY HAVEN’T YOU PASSED ALL THE LEGISLATION YET!

Albanese:

The answer is they won’t. We’ve made that – we’ve made that very clear. Mr Speaker, no wonder they’re struggling over there, Mr Speaker. We had a shadow minister earlier today speak about abandoning the Liberal Party name. She said this – I think it’s time for the Liberal Party to rebrand itself.

Dan Tehan:

Speaker, it goes to relevance. Now, the Prime Minister might have addressed in part some of the question. But it doesn’t then give him licence to then go and talk about anything else that he wants to. He has to stay on the policy subject matter and relevance. What he was talking about has nothing to do with his failure.

Milton Dick:

It’s not the way to raise the point of order with extra commentary along the line. The Prime Minister is reading a quote about the opposition. He wasn’t asked about the opposition. He did answer the question that he was asked very early in his answer. He was asked how much, and he’s answered that part. We can all agree on that. If he’s reading any quotes, he makes it directly relevant to what we was asked about. He wasn’t asked about opposition policy, he was asked about government policy. He can compare and contrast. I will listen carefully to his answer.

Albanese:

Mr Speaker, I am comparing and contrasting. A government that is determined to make a difference, a difference to people, that has introduced tax reform, something that was called for, for a long period of time. For a long period of time by people inside and outside of this Parliament. And it stands in stark contrast with the character reference given his own shadow minister, his own shadow minister, who said this, ‘some people think that we’re stuck in the past and our policies need to resonate with Australia of today and the future. 

So, I think it would be a really good time for us to revisit our values, what we stand for, and the way we project ourselves. She went on to say, we need to get some experts in. I just was inspired by Sky News.’

Melissa McIntosh (who is the shadow minister in question) looks like the teacher elected prefect who has just been caught passing notes and is still trying to blame others for it. It is a very Regina George needs her Burn Book look.

“That’s the problem,” someone from Labor yells out and everyone laughs.

Albanese finishes with:

We have a Liberal Party that isn’t liberal, a National Party that isn’t national, and a One Nation party that wants to divide the nation.

Tehan is back on his feet, but no one cares. Albanese finishes his answer.

Anna Chang

In Senators statements time, Senator Deb O’Neill, who chairs the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services, has this to say on the KPMG whistleblower scandal:

“That hearing raised significant questions about misuse of confidential client information, the firm’s internal investigations, and its reliance on a process called legal professional privilege to reduce, resist producing key documents on which it made assertions and claims, since then the matter has only led to more fallout. KPMG chair, Martin Sheppard, and two senior audit partners have resigned amidst the fallout. 

“These resignations, however, do not close the matter. They underline now more than ever why transparency is absolutely essential. This is not simply an internal corporate issue. KPMG performs work that goes to the integrity of Australia’s financial system and to public confidence in major institutions, indeed including Australian superannuation.”

Which wouldn’t usually raise an eyebrow, but for the Senator to be able to deliver this next part of her statement after her contributions in the OPD debate just hours earlier without any hint of irony, is… something.

“When serious allegations are raised, the public is entitled to much more than partial answers or carefully managed statements, and the derisory conduct of those who have inflicted such incredible suffering on whistleblowers to them to be covered up with claims of privilege, which are actually at odds with the laws of this country. 

“If KPMG wishes to truly be transparent, and if it wishes to take responsibility, then it should publish the documents provided to the committee, the legal advices in their entirety, no more fast, no more skirting around the issue, no more hiding behind legal professional privilege, the Australian public deserves the truth.”

They are holding this press conference right before question time so they have an opportunity to end the press conference and say it is because of question time (although I can hear PMO saying that it is because the prime minister has been busy with the Vanuatu meetings. Two things can be right!)

On why there has been no action on kids getting around the existing bans, Anika Wells says:

The independent regulator in this space is the eSafety Commissioner. This means that she has to take these companies to the Federal Court, and ultimately, a judge will make a decision about whether they are fined now, once we pass this legislation. $99 million.

My job as the minister is to make sure that the laws she can use and emboldening her with the ability to compel documents are as strong as possible for her to form the strongest possible case to take to the Federal Court. As the eSafety Commissioner, she must also be a model litigant. 

So that is behind the improvements to the law that we seek to move today. And I think also the fact that the cultural change around this… These companies want these laws to fail. These companies secure this research, promote this research, ask the media to cover all of the individual instances and the broader patterns around these laws not working as effectively as we would all like them to do, because they don’t want the more than 20 nations who have followed in the Prime Minister’s stand to continue it. They want them to discontinue it.

They don’t want this to flood across the globe. So I think we are also up against a very determined campaign by big tech to throw as much doubt across this as possible, to disuade other countries. That’s why we’re making so clear today that we will not back down.

Anika Wells is up as well:

The amendments will allow the eSafety Commissioner to compel documents rather than just information. So the laws as they currently stand mean that the eSafety Commissioner asks these tech companies to provide information on a monthly basis.

As you would imagine at the moment, because we believe that they are taking the micky, there’s a lot of faff about that and essentially she has to take them at their word.

By requiring documents, means that they require, like with a police investigation, minutes, emails, evidence between third party providers and the big tech companies.

So an example is also because we’re moving an amendment where she can compel documents from third party provider, age assurance companies that are doing the work for people like Meta will also be compelled to provide documents back to the eSafety Commissioner.

That forms a stronger body of evidence for a court case.

…Whilst the eSafety Commissioner would like us not to elaborate on the particular nature of documents that she might be requesting in the same way that a police investigation doesn’t go public on what kind of pieces of evidence they are compiling for an investigation before she goes to the Federal Court, you could imagine given that the test is systemic neglect, that a systemic neglect would be emboldened by documents from companies about directions to branches who are doing the impmentation, forwarded minutes and that kind of thing.

Anthony Albanese and Labor are looking to capitalise on the polls bouncing because…well, they have been doing their job and you know, governing – with ANOTHER press conference, forging ahead on the social media ban penalty increase.

This is because the social media ban is one of the more popular policies with parents, despite the fact it came from a FM radio host and also despite numerous experts saying it won’t work. And the evidence that is is not working.

But it plays well in the media, so here we are.

Albanese:

We said when we did this legislation that it wouldn’t be perfect. And indeed, we’re going to have to see over the years, the… Because technology changes with Nudify apps, with algorithms and all of the changes that occur with new technologies. We will have to be, or whoever is in government, will have to be vigilant and prepare to make changes and continue to keep on top of this issue. I want to pay tribute to Peter Dutton the former Leader of the Opposition who backed these reforms as well and made sure that they were bipartisan when the legislation carried. We will be asking for similar support across the Parliament for this legislation from both the Opposition, but crossbenchers as well. This is a national issue in the interests of our youngest and most vulnerable Australians.

We are now in the downhill slide to question time, which means it is time to get yourself a little treat! Enjoy – you have made it further than most.

You can probably expect QT to be around housing prices (the auction clearance rates falls have rich people in a tither – but remember when homes were for sale, with an actual price guide?) and the social media ban. So not a lot really.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Prime Minister of Vanuatu, Jotham Napat, signed a new treaty, the Vanuatu–Australia Nakamal Agreement, in Canberra today.
 
In Vanuatu, the Nakamal is the traditional meeting place where the community and its leaders consult and make decisions with mutual respect, trust and understanding.
 
The Nakamal Agreement elevates the partnership between Australia and Vanuatu, deepens integration between our people, strengthens the collective security of our region, and supports Vanuatu’s development aspirations and economic transformation.
 
Australia and Vanuatu share history and close cultural connections between our Melanesian, South Sea Islander and First Nations communities. Honouring and strengthening these ties is at the heart of the Agreement and will be among our earliest actions.
 
As Vanuatu’s longstanding primary policing partner, Australia will provide additional training and equipment to the Vanuatu Police Force, as well as greater maritime security, infrastructure, intelligence cooperation and cyber support.
 
Reaffirming regional leaders’ commitment that Pacific security is the shared responsibility of Pacific Islands Forum members, Vanuatu has committed to prioritise policing cooperation with Pacific Islands Forum members. Vanuatu will not allow any foreign military base or infrastructure in its territory, and will keep its critical infrastructure free from militarisation, foreign interference or unauthorised access. Vanuatu will consult Australia when it considers third party engagement in its critical infrastructure.
 
The Nakamal Agreement formalises Australia’s longstanding support to Vanuatu in response to major natural disasters. Vanuatu has committed to come to Australia, New Zealand and France first for humanitarian assistance.
 
Recognising the existential threat posed by climate change, Australia and Vanuatu will work together to transition to renewable energy sources, including by supporting on-grid and off-grid renewable energy solutions for Vanuatu’s communities.
 
We will work to make it easier for our people to move between our two countries through enhanced mobility arrangements and border systems, and will establish a new traineeships program to boost Vanuatu’s domestic workforce and skills.
 
The Nakamal Agreement will enter into force as soon as possible, following domestic processes in both countries.

For those hunting for a copy of the new Australia/Vanuatu agreement, you will find it here.

And then this is the last question:

This was originally discussed as a $500 million over 10-year agreement. This isn’t as strong from an Australian perspective as the government initially wanted. Will the government still be paying that same price to Vanuatu and Prime Minister Napat, on the issue of critical infrastructure – can you explain to Australians about why negotiations around the aspect of the agreement were so sensitive to Vanuatu and why it might require so many more months of negotiations? And could you also confirm – did Vanuatu cancel the visa of Andrew Tate?

Albanese:

On finances – we’ll be transparent as we are in these matters. They’ll be available as part of MYEFO at the end of this year. We, of course, are providing support for economic development in Vanuatu. That is in the interest of the people of Vanuatu, but also in Australia’s national interests to have economic development in our region. That is one way in which you ensure that security in the region, prosperity in the region – we have common interests here. So we’re right across our region to promote security, to promote economic development and to promote in one way, for example, that we concretely have discussed today – how do we deal with the challenge that is climate change, which is a major issue in the Pacific in a way, for example, that provides support for countries in the Pacific to be less vulnerable to shocks such as we’ve seen with the Middle East conflict and the Strait of Hormuz because of the reliance upon diesel. And that’s one reason why the issue of a growth of renewables in the region isn’t just about climate change – it’s also about economic sovereignty and making sure that countries in our region as well as Australia is less vulnerable to global shocks.

Napat:

The issue on the critical infrastructure is a very critical issue. Strictly on allowing the military to have access to the critical infrastructure. So as a nation, as a country, we have passed an act in Parliament not to allow any militarisation – to actually be used for our critical infrastructure, and we give very strict attention to all of our critical infrastructure.

And that is it – nothing on Tate.

Vanuatu’s prime minister Jotham Napat has joined Anthony Albanese for a press conference – a short press conference.

His opening remarks are the usual – happy to be here, more to discuss:

It is, indeed, a great pleasure to be in Canberra today and I thank the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for his warm welcome and generous hospitality. I had the privilege of welcoming Prime Minister Albanese to Vanuatu in September of last year. In the true spirit of the Nakamal, a place of dialogue, respect and consensus, I am delighted to be here in Canberra today to continue that conversation and to further strengthen the friendship between our nations and our people. Today marks a significant step in the Vanuatu/Australia relationship with the signing of the long awaited Nakamal agreement. Australia and Vanuatu are close neighbours – trusted partners and friends. Today’s meeting reaffirms our shared commitment to continuity and strengthing the comprehensive partnership between our two countries, founded on mutual respect, trust and our common vision for peaceful, stable and prosperous Pacific.

Then it is into the questions, where Albanese is asked about the Nakamal agreement (which was meant to be signed 10 months ago, until Napat pulled out, raising questions about China’s influence etc)

Can I ask with the Nakamal agreement – Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – why does Australia hold concerns about potential third party investment in Vanuatu’s critical infrastructure? And if Australia believes there are investments that could have negative security implications for the region, what options does Australia have under this updated Nakamal? What options are there?

And Prime Minister Napat, you said I believe in Parliament last month that the Nakamal agreement had been signed off by your council ministers. Do you anticipate that that agreement will be signed soon? Or is it possible that it will be pushed back? And you also said that there are no security elements in this agreement with China. If that is the case, and given we’ve heard a lot about trust today, is Vanuatu willing to share a copy of that agreement with Australia?

Albanese:

Well, can I firstly say that this is an agreement that recognises sovereignty. So we respect the right of all nations to make sovereign decisions about their engagement with other countries. But what this does do is to provide certainty for Australia that there will be no foreign military base. That we’ll prioritise policing cooperation with Pacific Island Forum members – something that we’ve asked for across-the-board, and that there will be any consultation on any third party engagements in critical infrastructure. And that critical infrastructure will be free from militarisation or foreign interference, and therefore, we think that this is an appropriate agreement that is a recognition of sovereignty, which at the same time, recognises Australia’s historic role as well, which is reinforced by this agreement that Australia is a security partner of choice in the Pacific. And that is… That’s an important principle.

Napat:

Currently, the Nakamal agreement is still an agreement that is yet to be signed once I get the clearance from Beijing. So currently, it’s not yet signed. We will share the agreement. There is nothing to hide. Our government is transparent. And I am so grateful that the Prime Minister has also given me the clearance to share them, the Nakamal agreement.

Luke Slawomirski

Kids deserve classrooms, sports clubs and museums that put their interests first.

But a new report has revealed the reach of coal, oil and gas companies into the places where children learn and play. The report identifies more than 260 industry-backed programs, sponsorships and partnerships — from lesson materials and teacher training to surf lifesaving and junior sport. In just six programs, researchers found more than $50 million in industry spending.

Yes, clubs and schools are often underfunded, and industry money can provide real opportunities and equipment. But corporate generosity isn’t politically neutral when a company’s future depends on public acceptance of an industry driving climate change.

Some of the resources covered in the report frame climate change around individual behaviour, adaptation and future technology, while giving limited attention to the role of coal, oil and gas in causing it. One teaching resource presents solar as unreliable and expensive, while describing coal as cheap, reliable electricity and an export earner.

That’s reputation management dressed up as education.

Children can usually recognise an advertisement. They are much less likely to see a lesson delivered by a teacher, museum educator or sports coach as a marketing exercise. That is what makes this form of influence so powerful.

We wouldn’t let tobacco companies design lessons on respiratory health. Why let fossil fuel companies to shape children’s understanding of climate change without proper safeguards either?

At a minimum, sponsorships and partnerships involving schools, children’s sport and cultural institutions could to be publicly disclosed. Educational material could be independently reviewed against the curriculum. And schools and community organisations need government funding, not corporate largesse to cover basic funding gaps.

If we were clever we’d tax fossil fuel companies properly and use some of the revenue to support community organisations.

Anara Watson

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the power of freedom of information laws – how individuals and journalists alike use them to expose shady government behaviour.

The hits keep on coming – here are five more ways FOI has worked:

1. Commonwealth Treasury was caught by the Guardian Australia “taking out the trash” on Fridays – nearly half of the FOI applications released were at the end of the week. What’s more, Treasury was found to not even have a policy for dealing with FOI requests.

2. Thanks to the FOI laws in South Australia, the ABC revealed several failures when advertising the SA Voice to Parliament election, with many South Australians unaware it was even taking place.

3. Freedom of Information laws gave the ABC access to documents which revealed the Northern Territory’s only youth mental health impatient ward was operating, despite being unsafe and not fit for purpose, posing an “unmanageable” risk to patients and staff.

4. Queensland Museum was exposed for covering up a sponsorship from fossil fuel giant, Shell, following the release of documents under the state’s information disclosure scheme. After charging more than $2,200 in application fees, Queensland Museum released 21 documents and 27 partial documents – refusing access to 454 pages of material.

5. According to documents obtained by the ABC, 10 substantiated sexual misconduct reports were not referred for Victorian Working with Children Check review. The power to not make those referrals is discretionary, but former commissioner Liana Buchanan told a parliamentary inquiry last year that she would only decide to not refer cases “in circumstances where there were no sexual elements to the conduct whatsoever”.

These stories show that, across the country, FOI laws play an important role in Australian democracy: they allow the public to access information about the governments that represent them. 

 Luke Slawomirski

Nick Cater is right to say that learning English isn’t confined to a classroom.

People learn a language by using it: at work, at their children’s school, on the sporting field, in a volunteer group, at the shops, or over a neighbour’s fence. Formal tuition matters, of course. So does making it flexible, accessible and properly evaluated. But no government program can substitute for the confidence that comes from speaking English in ordinary life. (I learned English mostly in the playground, not the classroom).

The problem is that this requires people to feel they belong.

It’s hard to urge migrants to join local institutions while public debate increasingly presents them as cause of housing shortages, traffic congestion, strained services and social division. It’s even harder when newspapers that run this rhetoric then lament a lack of integration.

English proficiency expands opportunity. It can mean better work, greater independence and fuller participation in civic life. But integration is not achieved by demanding assimilation from people while making them feel unwelcome. And language learning is social. What’s needed is patience from employers, welcoming clubs, affordable childcare, good public transport and workplaces where people can make mistakes without humiliation. Community organisations cannot deliver all this by goodwill alone. They need support and resources.

We should expect government to help newcomers learn English effectively. We should also expect Australia to provide the welcoming, practical pathways that make learning possible.

Skye Predavec

This morning, Nick Cater used an op-ed in the Australian to lament the number of Australians who speak “little or no English”.

It’s the same complaint that Pauline Hanson has been making, which we fact checked last week. Hanson says that 872,000 people speak English either poorly or not at all, but that figure includes over 100,000 people with a pretty good reason not to speak English – they’re babies.

Cater makes the same mistake in his op-ed, saying that 6,000 residents of the Immigration Minister Tony Burke’s electorate of Watson “didn’t speak English”. Over 1,200 of those people are under three years of age, so expecting them to speak any language fluently may be asking a little much.

He makes another error, claiming that all of the 872,000 nationally who speak English “not well” or “not at all” are migrants, despite hundreds of thousands of them being born here (including the babies).

It is also important to note that there’s a pretty big difference between speaking English “not at all” and “not well”, and that the self-reported nature of these figures makes it easy for someone’s humility about their language skills to inflate the numbers.

The most dishonest part of the article, however, is Cater’s longing for the halcyon days when the nonnas, mamicas and abuelas of southern Europe threw themselves into learning English. This is contrasted, of course, with the migrants of today:

It’s tempting to look back at the period of southern European migration as the glory days. Yet there is one important difference. In the 1950s, the benefits of learning English were overwhelming. As migrant communities have become larger and more economically self-sufficient, however, the incentives have diminished.

There’s one problem with this narrative: Southern Europeans weren’t any “better” at assimilating to the English language than modern-day immigrants.

Taking Cater’s example of Watson, 27% of immigrants who arrived before 2000 said they spoke English either not well or not at all. In comparison, almost a third (32%) of the southern Europeans in that group said the same thing – so Italians, Croats, Spaniards and Greeks in Watson were actually worse at learning English than the average immigrant, not better. Compare that, for example, to those who speak a South Asian language at home, only 6% of whom say they speak English at those levels.

Why does Cater assume any different? It’s hard to say for sure.

You might say that it has something to do with southern Europeans’ perceived whiteness (which is itself a relatively modern development), but I couldn’t possibly comment.

Anthony Albanese has met with the Prime Minister of the Republic of Vanuatu, the Honourable Jotham Napat.

Unsurprisingly, we have signed a new partnership with them, as Australia seeks to make itself the established ‘partner of choice’ with the Pacific:

This is a historic day for the relationship between Australia and Vanuatu. Can I thank you as well for the warm engagement that we’ve had for a long period of time. The visits that we have had to each other’s countries and the engagement between our ministers has been very positive. And we know that we are all part of the Pacific family, and they are connections that have been built up over many generations. We are deeply honoured to be Vietnam – to be Vanuatu’s primary partner across all dimensions. Across security, across the economy, and across development. And our discussions today, and the agreement that we will sign, is indeed a historic step forward.

Can I thank you as well, on a personal level? I know you have been backing in the Socceroos.

And we’ve all been watching the World Cup, and it’s been very good that we’re through to the knockout round. And Australians will be waking up at 4:00am on Saturday to watch us versus Egypt, and it’s very, very good that Australia is flying the flag for the Pacific family through the Socceroos. 

Ours is very much an equal partnership between friends and between members of the Pacific family.

And I thank you for the welcome that I had in Vanuatu last year. I look forward to further engagement. 

We agree to work together to further our shared interests etc

Anna Chang

So a follow up to last week’s sitting when the Coalition, the Greens and most of the crossbench (from David Pocock to Babet) banded together to agree to Senator Bragg’s motion for a ministerial explanation on the first home buyers scheme, for failure to comply with orders for the production of documents and gave the Minister a slap on the wrist, which culminated in this:

“until the Senate resolves that orders for the production of documents nos 27 and 119 have been satisfactorily complied with, the Minister representing the Minister for Housing be required to attend the Senate at the start of proceedings on the first day of each sitting week to provide an explanation, of no more than 5 minutes, of the failure to fully comply with the orders.”

So here we are: Senator Tim Ayres, explaining:

“Thank you, Acting Deputy President. This motion concerns two separate and distinct orders for production of documents.

“The first, OPD 27 sought advice relating to the 5% deposit scheme, as Minister O’Neill made clear at the time of response in November 2025 the Government made public interest immunity claims only over documents which would reveal cabinet deliberations or otherwise prejudice relations between the Commonwealth and the States. These are well-established and not novel grounds.

“Governments, you know, not just recently, but since the advent of Westminster governments with cabinet processes have made it clear that production of these kinds of documents would impinge upon the freedom of deliberation of the cabinet and would not be in the public interest.

“The second OPD 119 was responded to similarly, in 2025 all documents in the scope of the order were produced laying out in black and white precisely what the order sought. 

“It is completely disingenuous and an abuse of one of the Senate’s most serious powers, just like the performance that we observed a few minutes ago to continue to seek compliance on the production of documents in relation to orders which have already been provided, particularly by grouping together two unrelated orders, and what that demonstrates is a couple of things from this Opposition…“

TL;DR, Senator Ayres says they did produce the documents.

Senator Andrew Bragg’s main reply is a bit of an Opposition Talking Point sandwich, but the crux of it is that the documents were heavily redacted, it doesn’t count.:

“I take note of the Minister’s explanation, if you could call that, and I make the point that six times the Senate has sought the production of these documents, and sure, I mean, I can make an argument that a document has been provided, but if it’s redacted in the main, as these documents have been, where almost everything on the sheet of paper is covered up, then it’s hardly complying with the order…

“…It is not a credible response to say to this Parliament, ‘we have provided to you a document which is completely redacted and is not readable.’ Documents that have been provided in relation to the 5% deposits are unreadable. They are unreadable, and that is why for six occasions we have asked for these documents to be provided, and that is why the Senate has compelled this Minister to provide the answer, and we will not stop until those pieces of information are provided, because that is our job.”

Senator Barbara Pocock for the Greens backs in Bragg and the Coalition on this one:

“Well, until the Senate agrees that OPDs 27 and 119 have been complied with, Minister Ayres is going to have to keep showing up at start of every sitting week and attempt to explain why. 

“The Minister says we are confused, we are not confused. You have not complied, Minister, with what was sought and we are clear-eyed in a housing crisis the Senate deserves information we’ve been here many times before asking for this information we still don’t have it. 

“Senator Bragg‘s OPD no 27 asked for two things: it asks for any advice provided by the Treasury and the Minister for Housing since 1 January 2025 in relation to the HAFF, and to construct 100,000 new homes for first home buyers. 

“Second, it asks for any advice provided by the Treasury to the Treasurer and the Minister for Housing since 1 January 2025 in relation to the Government’s plan to enable first home buyers to purchase a home with a 5% deposit. 

“This information was first requested in July last year. And what did the Senate receive? Two emails, that’s it. And one of these emails, just a list of options for names for the Government’s commitment to build 100,000 homes. That is not advice. 

“The Senate has then further agreed to nine further motions concerning the minister’s failure to comply with the orders, rejecting a public interest immunity claim and requiring the minister to attend the Senate to explain the failure to comply with the order on five separate occasions. This is just not good enough. 

“We are in a very serious housing crisis. I am holding hearings around the country with other Senators, looking at the inequity that this housing crisis presents intergenerationally…”

Senator Deb O’Neill then gets up to run more defence for the Government:

“..,every time an unreasonable request for documents is put to the chamber and put to the public servants, that’s time they’re spending getting paperwork together to satisfy some sort of ego maniacal requirement for every single document that’s ever been written.”

And is forced to withdraw ‘ego maniacal’.

Rod Campbell

The US-Israel-Iran war messed up many schedules this year, one being the release of Australia’s official forecasts of resource prices and production, contained in the March edition of “Resources and Energy Quarterly (REQ)”.

The forecasts usually come out at the end of March but were delayed because, to put it mildly, the war made it difficult to make predictions.

These are important numbers in economist circles. At The Australia Institute we refer to the Federal Budget as ‘economist Christmas’, which would make March REQ something like ‘economist Easter’.

I’ve just had an email from Department of Industry saying that the forecast Easter eggs are expected to be released on 3 July.

Maybe it’s more like ‘economist Christmas in July’?

So things are going to be a little quieter than they usually would for the last sitting week before the break – because the government took care of it’s big legislation early last week. So there is no will they or won’t they reality TV show like moments as we slide into the winter break.

There will be the increased penalties for the social media ban, which some media outlets will try and make out to be do or die (it isn’t)

There is the gambling ‘reform’ which no one likes and centrist media outlets are taking as being the ‘sensible’ road because no one is happy – rather than putting into context that one group of stakeholders is the Australian public which experiences real harm from the gambling industry, while the other are people who exploit those people for profit.

And then there is the coalition which is still looking for relevancy, which is like searching for meaning in a Michael Bay film.

So, it is going to be a quieter one than usual. Enjoy that.

To open the batting on Monday in the other place (the Senate), Senator Michaelia Cash, seeks leave to suspend standing orders to move a censure motion, to censure the Treasurer.

“I seek leave to move a motion relating to the censure of the treasurer and the minister representing the treasurer as circulated…

“This motion is about a serious failure of ministerial accountability when ministers ask the parliament to pass major legislation, they have themselves an obligation to know it, to explain it, and to provide the Senate with the information that the Senate needs to properly scrutinise it.

“And if anyone saw the interview with the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, on the weekend, he failed on all of those accounts on this legislation. Those standards were abandoned, and that is why this motion censures the Treasurer and the Minister representing the Treasurer in the Senate…”

And then launches into Opposition talking points (imagine words like ‘contradiction’, ‘evasion’ and ‘failed the Australian people’ here), and making hay on the debate on last week’s CGT and negative gearing legislation being guillotined.

After a bit of argy-bargy, we get this from Penny Wong:

“They can’t bear the fact that their deputy leader has been very clear about what their motivation is. Tax cuts for working people are egregious. Egregious! Did you ever need an indication of what the Liberal Party really think than that? That they believe that tax cuts are egregious. 30 million Australian workers getting a tax cut is egregious. 

“Well, that tells you everything you need to know about the intent behind this motion, and the deceitfulness of those opposite in putting it forward. 

“And on that, I move that the motion be now put.”

The Senate declines to suspend standing orders to censure the Treasurer (AYES 24, NOES 33).

Senator Hume is now giving a short statement, saying the word ‘accountable’ so many times you’d think she was doing an SEO word salad.

The Greens are pushing for an inquiry into the fossil fuel industry’s influence on children. That follows report from Comms Declare, which found more than 260 programs in schools, early childhood education centre, museums, community organisations and other education materials have influence from fossil fuel companies.

The report identified “at least $50 million funding that is disclosed across just six of these programs linked to companies including Woodside, Shell, Chevron, Santos and BHP. The programs include classroom resources, lesson plans, educational activities and career pathway initiatives that promote the fossil fuel industry and downplay its role in causing climate change”.

Greens senator Steph Hodgins-May wants to have fossil fuel companies banned from classrooms and says an inquiry is needed to actually see the impact of these programs, as well as the reach of the fossil fuel companies into educational centres.

Hodgins-May

Get them young’ was Big Tobacco’s strategy, and it appears the fossil fuel industry has copied the playbook from cradle to career. They’re going after our kids.

Labor approves new coal and gas projects with one hand, takes millions in fossil fuel donations with the other, and stands by while these corporations gain access to Australian classrooms. 

Coal and gas companies are trying to convince children that the industry driving the climate crisis is somehow the solution to it. They’re rewriting the story of climate change for a generation that will live with the consequences. 

I don’t want my children pretending to drill for oil while eating a Vegemite sandwich in a Woodside-funded lesson. I want them learning evidence-based science in classrooms free from fossil fuel propaganda.

This is about social licence. These companies know their business model faces growing public scrutiny, so they’re investing in the next generation’s perceptions. They present themselves as climate heroes while downplaying the central role fossil fuels play in driving bushfires, floods, heatwaves and other climate-fuelled disasters.

Woodside, Santos, Chevron and BHP have no place in our classrooms. Fossil fuel companies teaching children about climate change is like tobacco companies teaching health education or gambling companies teaching financial literacy.

Labor has allowed this to happen on its watch. There has been no meaningful oversight, no transparency and no safeguards to protect children from corporate influence disguised as education.

We need a parliamentary inquiry to expose the extent of fossil fuel industry access to schools and children. Every company, every program, every partnership and every institution involved should be scrutinised. 

Parents deserve to know who is shaping what their children learn. Teachers deserve confidence that educational resources are accurate, independent and free from vested interests. And students deserve facts, not fossil fuel spin.

My message to the fossil fuel industry is simple: keep your hands off our kids and get out of our classrooms.

If Labor made multinational gas corporations pay their fair share of tax on the resources they export, we could properly fund public education without relying on fossil fuel-backed teaching materials.” 

Angus Taylor also thinks the voting public is angry (which is the correct take) but he thinks they are angry at Labor…which went up (slightly about 2%) in the polls) and the Coalition went down.

I think the voting public is angry. They’re angry with everything and everyone at the moment, and understandably so. I mean, this country’s heading in the wrong direction, and there’s never been so many Australians, in recent years at least, that have felt the country is heading in the wrong direction. And they’re right. It is. They are annoyed. They are angry that their standard of living is going backwards. They’re angry that hard work is being punished by this Labor government. They’re angry that their way of life is being threatened. They’re angry that their kids can’t get into a home. They’re angry that small businesses are going out backwards, their local cafe and their local builder. And so, I get that, and it is true, though, that we have to rebuild trust over time.

Look, James, you can breach trust in an instant, in an absolute instant, but it takes time to rebuild it. You can’t turn around a tanker in a few months. We have to just keep working and plugging away at axing Labor’s toxic taxes, at scrapping net zero, at ending mass migration, at putting Australians first. I know that’s what Australians want to see. They have to trust us that we’re consistent over an extended period of time in focusing on those things.

Angus Taylor is having to address the new low in Coalition polling, which was, as you remember, meant to turn around under his leadership.

He told Sydney radio 2GB:

Look, the poll that matters always, James, at the end of the day, is the election, And obviously that’s a long way off. But we do know that we’ve got some real work to do to rebuild trust with the Australian people. And that takes time. It takes discipline. It takes hard work. And we need to keep doing that. I should also say, the truth is, that Labor has been out, lying again, saying that it’s backflipped on its toxic taxes. It’s done no such thing. There are still very significant additional taxes that will be paid by small and larger businesses, and that will hurt this country. It will hurt investment. It will hurt risk-taking. It will hurt people who are having a go, which is what Labor seems to be happy to do. But we’ve got to hold them to account, and my job in the coming weeks and months will be to do exactly that.

Bill Browne

The latest polls have the Greens vote improving and the Coalition vote sinking further, suggesting the Greens could be out-polling the Liberal Party at this point.
Amy has already brought you the Newspoll and Redbridge results this morning. They have the Greens on 13% and 14% respectively.

Newspoll has the Coalition on 17% and Redbridge on 18%.

But note – the Coalition. By definition, that’s more than one party.

You can carve up the Coalition either into its two party rooms, the Liberals and Nationals, or its several “registered parties” (Liberal, National, Liberal National and Country Liberal).

Either way, if the Coalition is winning 18% of the vote, the Liberals would be lucky to get 14%.

The party of Menzies, the most successful party of government since World War 2, is at best neck-and-neck with the Greens. The Greens may even be a span ahead.

By rights, we are due for breathless headlines.

Are the Greens the next party of government?

Can Greens leader Larissa Waters become prime minister from the Senate?

Is this the political elites getting their well-deserved come-uppance for neglecting the popular will on climate change?

Don’t hold your breath. That treatment is reserved surges in far-right support. 

The tone may instead be set by Geoff Chambers of The Australian, who writes that:

“At a time when the Albanese government should be facing maximum pressure over its unpopular and big-taxing budget that broke multiple election promises, Labor has engineered a short-term recovery in Newspoll amid a conservative argument over monoculturalism and multiculturalism.”

There you go – the collapse of the Liberal Party is not a result of people changing their minds in a free democracy, just something that tricksy Labor Government has (somehow) “engineered” for the “short-term”.

AAP

But the results are even more dire for the coalition, with the much-respected Newspoll showing backing for the opposition falling to a historic low of 17 per cent.

Labor has reclaimed a narrow lead in both the Newspoll and Redbridge surveys, released on Sunday night.

Newspoll, published by The Australian, has Labor on 33 per cent (up three), with One Nation on 29 (down two) and the Greens on 14 (up two).

The Redbridge poll had Labor on 30 per cent support (up two) compared to One Nation’s 29 (down two), with the Coalition on just 18 (down two) and the Greens on 14 (up two).

That poll, reported in the Australian Financial Review, also showed Senator Hanson’s net approval falling 10 points from a neutral position to be -10.

Cabinet Minister Murray Watt said the polls could be expected to bounce around between now and a federal election two years away.

“We have seen a bit of a change in the public mood towards One Nation since Pauline Hanson’s press club speech,” he told ABC News Breakfast on Monday.

“That speech was a bit of a reality check for a lot of Australians who were thinking about voting for One Nation, because they got to see that as much as people are under pressure at the moment, things could get worse under One Nation with all the cuts they were talking about imposing.”

Labor has been battling for post-budget credibility after breaking promises on tax.

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said voters were “angry” at the system, and while he took the polling seriously, the election was still a way off.

“But we do know that we’ve got some real work to do to rebuild trust with the Australian people and that takes time,” he told 2GB radio.

The polls are the first major surveys since Senator Hanson’s speech at the National Press Club which dominated news cycles in the days following its delivery.

The One Nation leader criticised paid parental leave and suggested Australia should reject what she described as a failed policy of multiculturalism and instead become a “monoculture”.

She later claimed the Socceroos – whose squad includes migrants and former refugees – were a monoculture because they represented Australia.

The One Nation leader has also copped a blast from Paul Hogan, who Senator Hanson personally cited as an “essential feature of Australian monoculture” in her speech.

“She’s a pelican,” the beloved US-based actor and comedian told the AFR at the weekend.

“Outrageous, so racist. It sounds very much like this stupid boofhead over here, Trump.”

In the fortnight since her press club appearance, Mr Taylor also struggled to articulate his party’s position on multiculturalism alongside its own hard-line immigration policy.

The coalition is in a concerning position according to polls, sitting well below the 32 per cent support it received at the 2025 election.

It will use the final sitting week before the winter break starting Monday to ramp up its criticism of the government’s changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing.

That will include a so-called “widow’s tax” affecting jointly owned investment properties, which under Labor’s changes could see an owner lose concessions if widowed or divorced.

Debate is also certain on the child social media ban and gambling reform, given Labor is expected to table legislation for both this week.

In a bid to improve compliance with the social media age limit, the nation’s online watchdog will be given stronger enforcement powers, while the maximum fine for platforms that don’t comply will be doubled to $99 million.

On gambling, the federal government’s long-awaited crackdown on betting ads advertising will be introduced, but it is not expected to pass before politicians return to their electorates.

Alice Grundy

Lots to pick over in the Redbridge polling released over the weekend. 

One point that Phillip Coorey noted in the AFR is that

“The approval rating for One Nation’s star recruit Barnaby Joyce fell from minus 17 last month to minus 24, making him the most unpopular political figure of all those tested.”

What a field to come last in!

Human Rights Watch says the Albanese government has only accepted 128 of the 332 recommendations it received from the UN Human Rights Council in response to the fourth Universal Periodic Review in regards to jailed children, offshore detention and phasing out fossil fuel. Researcher Annabel Hennessy says that’s less than what the Coalition accepted in 2021 in response to the last review. The Coalition accepted 51% of recommendations, while Labor has accepted just 38%.

Australia claims it takes its human rights obligations seriously, yet ignored the majority of the recommendations resulting from the UN review process,” said Hennessy.

For years, other countries have called on Australia to stop incarcerating children as young as 10, end the offshore detention of asylum seekers, and take real action on climate change, yet Australia still refuses to act.

The UPR is a United Nations Human Rights Council process in which the human rights records of member states are reviewed by other states every five years.

In its response to recommendations received during the UPR, Australia said it recognised that it “must do more to address the overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the criminal justice system” and was “committed to improving youth justice outcomes.”

But as HRW points out, Australia undermined these claims by refusing to accept recommendations from 27 countries to raise the age of criminal responsibility. States have called on Australia to raise the age of criminal responsibility every UPR review cycle.

From the statement:

Currently, children as young as 10 can be held criminally responsible and incarcerated in most Australian jurisdictions. This is well below the 14-year-old minimum age of criminal responsibility recommended by United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.

First Nations children make up approximately 60 percent of those incarcerated in Australia, though they make up only about 6 percent of the child population.

Australia also did not accept recommendations from states calling for it to enact a national Human Rights Act. Australia does not have a national Human Rights Act or charter and a parliamentary inquiry recently found that while there is some protection against human rights violations in existing laws, there is an inadequate “piecemeal approach.”

On refugees and asylum seekers, Australia claimed it was committed to ensuring its migration system respected its international obligations and the human rights of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. However, it did not accept recommendations explicitly calling on it to end its offshore processing regime under which asylum seekers are forcibly transferred to the Pacific island nation of Nauru.

In response to recommendations calling for greater action on climate change, Australia said it was “playing a leadership role in global climate action” through its role as president of negotiations for COP31, this year’s annual UN climate conference, is due to be held in late 2026.

Australia accepted only 3 of 17 recommendations calling for greater action on climate change. The climate recommendations Australia did not accept included those from Pacific neighboring states, which are facing some of the greatest human rights threats because of the climate crisis. The Marshall Islands urged Australia to accelerate its transition away from fossil fuels, while Fiji called for it to legislate the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

“While Australia claims it is a global climate leader, the Albanese government continues to approve new fossil fuel projects,” Hennessy said. “Rather than more hollow words, Australia should match its rhetoric with action and with concrete plans to transition away from fossil fuels ahead of the UN climate change conference.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers was on Insiders yesterday where he was asked why the rush with passing the tax changes for houisng.

He said:

Our objective here was to provide certainty for investors and others about the core elements of this tax package and whenever tax reform is undertaken in this country, it’s hotly contested, it’s contentious, there are all kinds of predictions that the sky will fall in and all other kinds of predictions which turn out to be wrong, we expect that to be the case again.

But we’ve legislated the core elements quickly because we want to provide that level of certainty. We’re engaged in that consultation. There will, as there always has been in tax reform, be subsequent pieces of legislation as well to nail down some of the final implementation details and next steps.

From there there was a back and forth about how the government was going to ‘address’ one of the issues which came up – if a previously negatively geared property changed hands because of a death in a marriage, or a divorce, or a person was removed from a title because of domestic violence or family violence – would they still be able to negatively gear the property. Chalmers said it would be addressed in legislation, David Speers wanted to know how exactly, Chalmers said it would be addressed. It reminded me of when I would go to friend’s houses for dinner where their parents were both conflict avoidant and would have a passive aggressive argument over who forgot to buy the milk (it was never about the milk)

Skye Predavec

You’d be forgiven for tuning out of Parliament after Question Time finished last Thursday, but Liberal Senator Dean Smith raised a great point in a speech just afterwards: how is it that a party can have less than half the vote but 100% of the power?

Australians have been left scratching their head this afternoon. How can it be that a political party that got just 34.6% of the vote join with a political party in the Australian Greens who got 12% of the vote, but still have the power to legislate a budget of broken promises and lies?

By his own measure, his party has no more standing on the budget than Labor or the Greens, having received a record low 32% at the last election. But that doesn’t mean Smith’s broader point is wrong.

In 2025, Labor received 35% of the vote, but won 62% of House of Representatives seats. That’s because of Federal Parliament’s ‘winner-takes-all’ races, where each electorate gets only one MP and the losing votes don’t go anywhere.

For example, if the Australia-wide result in 2025 – Labor receiving 35% of primary votes and 55% of the two-party-preferred count – was repeated identically in all 150 seats, then Labor would have won 100% of them. That’s despite almost two-thirds of the country not putting them first on their ballot.  

If Australia switched to a system of proportional representation like the one already used in Tasmania and the ACT, it’d ensure bills with a majority of the vote in Parliament represent are backed by MPs who received the votes of most Australians – it’s something Smith might want to investigate.

Skye Predavec

Last week, the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters announced it would re-invite the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church (better known as the Exclusive Brethren) and the right-wing lobby group Advance to give evidence as part of its review of the 2025 election.

Both groups have declined to appear at previously hearings in November, March and May. If they decline the fourth invitation, JSCEM will issue a summons to compel their attendance, “an extraordinary step, but one it believes necessary.”

The power to compel witnesses to attend an inquiry is inherited from the British House of Commons as part of our Westminster system of government, as part of the inherent powers of Parliament to investigate issues of the day.

The NSW Supreme Court recently struck down the state parliament’s equivalent power, with that ruling currently under appeal in the High Court.

JSCEM compelling Advance and the Brethren, each of whose interventions into the 2025 election attracted significant controversy, is another reminder of why compelling witnesses can be so crucial to a parliament’s work.

Hello and welcome to the last week of parliament before the winter break. The Mid Winter Ball is this Wednesday (no we won’t be attending) so there is a weird festive mood in the gallery. Labor and the Greens have seen a slight poll bounce after agreeing to budget negotiations, and One Nation and the Coalition have both slipped. We are still two years out from the election, so all of this is to be taken with a grain of salt, and the slip for the Coalition is a lot worse than the slip for One Nation. Still, it has given the government a little bit of breathing room.

Labor is also managing the decline in auction clearance rates with a semi-cohesive message -that they are focussed on first home buyers. If the market is saying the prices are too high…well maybe the prices are too high? And if investors are not willing to pay sky high prices, then maybe that is another sign they were too high?

Tanya Plibersek gave the Labor masterclass this morning when she was asked about it on Network Seven this morning:

If young people feel locked out of home ownership, as they have been, that really has an impact on the cohesiveness of our nation, so we are so pleased that first home buyers are back in the market, and they’re back in a big way.

Still, no doubt we will see the sky is falling reports very soon.

Meanwhile, anyone filling up over the weekend may have noticed that fuel prices were not as crazy as they have been, with petrol prices seemingly returning to the levels they were before the United States and Israel bombed Iran. Who knows how long that will last, and the fuel that is in the tankers shouldn’t actually be impacted because it was bought in the last month, but here we are. That will also give the government a small sense of control in a crazy world.

We’ll cover the mess of the day and everything else, so we hope you will join us.

I am on coffee number two. Just easing into it today. Ready? Let’s do this.