The Point Live: Independents unite over 'red line', Andrew Hastie continues crusade against One Nation. As it happened.

Tomorrow will be a big day, so we are going to call it quits for this afternoon and we will be back tomorrow morning for more of the whatever it is we are calling parliament these days.

Thank you to everyone who joined us today – we feel very lucky. We hope to bring you even more tomorrow, so please come along for the ride.

And as always – take care of you.

First it was Tony Burke, then Anthony Albanese, now it’s Julie Collins.

As captured by Mike Bowers:

Greg Jericho

Hmm wonder if he will like questions about a gas tax, or the dodginess of carbon credits, or how carbon capture and storage is a boondoggle, or the $10bn+ subsidies going to fossil fuel companies?

Industry minister Tim Ayres is now holding a press conference on the Whyalla steel works – about 500 workers are slated to lose their job, although there are packages being put in place by the state and federal governments.

For ideological reasons, the Coalition have blamed renewable energy for the fact that the steel works were run by a company which was running it into the ground – Paul Barry has written a book on it called The Big Steal for any one interested in learning more.

Ayres:

This is the reason why the Albanese Government and the Peter Malinauskas government intervened to take over the steelworks and impose an administrator. The period that the GFG and Liberty Groups ran this facility into the grounds – Australians should be angry. And the people of Whyalla are angry that they were sold down the river by GFG and Liberty. Promises were made that were never kept, and the dam was done to this blast furnace facility. We’ve made the decision to intervene. There is a sales process that is going and is under way in an orderly process that will arrive at a commercial owner and operator for this facility that will deliver a bright future for steel making and iron making at Whyalla.

On the press conference that included practically everyone who matters in the Coalition – except the leader and the shadow treasurer (so I guess the original statement stands?!) Ayres says:

Mr Hastie and Mr Vanning and Senator Canavan came here and said that this was all about energy costs and net zero. I mean, that is a lie. And it’s trying to politicise the effort and struggle of ordinary Australians in manufacturing who are doing their very best – working together with unions, the business, the administrator, the governments, the joint taskforce. Everybody throwing themselves at this giant task, and all these guys can do is turn up and try to use them as political pawns in some contest between One Nation and the Nationals and the Liberals.

What they could do and what they should have done is one small thing that they could do done – go to Whyalla. Like, turn up and talk to people. Listen – don’t yell at them. Listen to the workers who have been working their guts out and have been working so hard to support a great Australian objective. I was pretty disappointed with their approach. I’m very keen, though, for Amanda to talk about the positive aspects of what it is that the two governments are working hard to achieve here.

Here is how Mike Bowers saw QT:

So after the hoo ha about Whyalla ahead of question time – and the veteran’s allied health entitlements, we get…nothing from the Coalition? No questions?

If anything says a split has happened – it is that.

Over in the house and Dai Le asks:

My question is to the Prime Minister, Prime Minister, I door knocked in Liverpool recently. Families told me they’re struggling, choosing between filling the tank and filling the fridge. In Western Sydney, petrol is heading to 220 a liter and diesel 260. Fuel excise return in full on August 3rd, pushing prices up again under your government. With Middle East crude near US 120 a barrel, will you have to fuel excise and take the pressures off families and small businesses in Fowler and Western Sydney?

Anthony Albanese:

I thank the member Fowler for her question and her acknowledgement in this chamber, that I hope all those heard that it is indeed the impact of the war in the Middle East is having an impact on fuel. It’s happening right around the world with global prices, and you know that was ridiculed by those opposite earlier on today, tax cuts, of course, came in for 65,000 taxpayers in Fowler on the first of July, 86 practices are now fully bulk billing. 97% of all practices in Fowler. There have been 23,400 visits to the urgent care clinic.

Indeed, all of them have just needed their Medicare card, saving them money, as have the 3.8 million scripps that have saved $20 million. 1483 people have been helped to buy their first home with the 5% deposit scheme in Fowler alone, and rent assistance has been given to 18,330 people. Cheaper home batteries has been delivered to more than 3,000 households in Fowler.

5,600 families have benefited from cheaper childcare, and 24,000 students benefited from to student debt

There is about to be a point of order, but the PM has decided he has concluded his answer

South Australian premier Peter Malinauskas is in high vis for unknown reasons holding a press conference on the future of the Whyalla blast furnace workers – the short version – there is a plan in place, there are two bidders to take over the steel works, that decision will be made by Christmas, a transition and support package was prepared for this, workers have the chance to take a voluntary redundancy, re-training is available and other employers are being contacted

First thing is this – this glass furnace has been in place for over 60 years. It is an old, clapped-out blast furnace that has not been well cared for or looked after, particularly by the previous owner. The blast furnace has undertaken at least three realigns since it was first commissioned in 1965.

The last realign was over 20 years ago in 2005. So, at some point or other, the blast furnace’s life was coming to an end. It’s occurred a little bit sooner than what we would otherwise have it go on to, but we accept the reality of the decision that KordaMentha has made in conjunction not just with the interests of the safety of the people that work there, but also their future operations more broadly of the plant.

Our interests as a government, first and foremost, has to be the long-term future of Whyalla – to ensure that we preserve steelmaking in Whyalla in a way that is economic and commercial for the long-term.

Those plans remain on track. Nothing that occurs today disrupts or undermines our ability to deliver the long-term vision of Whyalla, which is to have a new steelmaker with new equipment and new technology making steel in a way that sets Whyalla up for the long-term. That doesn’t change.

The decision of who will operate the steelworks into the future – because we’re now down to the final two bidders – will still be made before Christmas.

We are on track to deliver on that objective. This is something I’ve been in regular conversations with the federal government about, including with the Prime Minister directly.

And in fact, I met with the Prime Minister about it as recently as a couple of weeks ago. That process remains in train. Beyond the long-term future of Whyalla and steelmaking in this city for the benefit of the country, our other consideration, of course, is the people of Whyalla. 

Particularly those who work in and around the blast furnace now. As Sebastian outlined, that will have an impact on staffing numbers there. 

We have been putting in place – given that there was always a risk – not a risk this would occur, this was an inevitable event – but given the risk it would happen sooner than we would like – the chance to have a transition and support package that amounts to what we have today.

That represents a 50-50 split between us and the government on a $10.2 million package. We rolled out a $10.2 million package jointly funded between the state government and the federal government that does worker support, it does counselling, it does everything from reskilling and training, re-accreditation for existing skills that might be transferable, providing support for contractors that may need it – this is a comprehensive package to provide support where we can.

Beyond that, there is also the concern for the workers who will be made redundant and what happens to their entitlements. One of the great virtues of this administration being supported by the state and federal government is that we are able to ensure that any worker being made redundant through both involuntary basis but also a non-voluntary basis is paid their full entitlements. So, every worker that is made redundant through this process will receive their full entitlements.

Which, to the great credit of the union movement, are very generous. These workers who are being made redundant get access under their enterprise agreement, which is solid indeed – a credit to the union movement being able to negotiate that on their behalf.

As a government, with the federal government, we are splitting those payments 50-50 as well. So this is a lot of people who will take up a redundancy on a voluntary basis, some on an involuntary basis, but all of their entitlements will be paid in full. That’s an important principle.

Beyond that, the government – and I want to thank the Treasurer and also the Assistant Minister for leading theerts in this regard – beyond that, we’ve also been engaging with major employers in and around the Upper Spencer Gulf to ensure that any work that they’re looking for might be easily transferred out of the blast furnace. We understand that BHP are looking at at least 100 people.

David Farley gets a crossbench question and you can tell how seriously Labor is taking winning over of the One Nation MP from this answer:

Q: My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry: Sydney, 24 June, Rural Press Club. The CEO of the MDBA openly admitted disastrous shortcomings in his 2026 plan review. After considering 2,500 submissions at 150 locations with 1,000 one-on-one meetingings, he acknowledged that the socioeconomic impacts on agricultural communities were omitted. Was this done on your instruction, or were they acting with the Labor government’s endorsed approval to omit?

Julie Collins:

I thank the member for his question. I know that the member has been really interested in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and what is happening in terms of water for farmers. I also know that he is concerned to make sure that it doesn’t impact Australia’s food security. I would say to the member that the ABS figures show that the gross value of agricultural production in the Basin actually increased from $18.6 billion in 2011-12 to $30 billion in 2021 in nominal terms. What it shows is that the work in terms of the Murray-Darling Basin shows that, indeed, production is going up in the Basin area. In relation to the specifics of the question – I will talk to the minister responsible, the Minister for the Environment, and get him an answer to that question.

Anna Chang

Minister Katy Gallagher notes that it’s the second week in a row that Senator Ralph Babet (the Victorian Senator for UAP) has given his rostered QT question to Senator Malcolm Roberts, and wonders where ’the ghost of the Senate’ is.

Minister Katy Gallagher:

I thank Senator Roberts for the question. 

I think that’s the second week in a row you’ve had Senator Babet’s question. I wonder where — you lucky guy — I wonder where the ghost of the Senate is. 

We never see him anymore, do we? 

I noticed he did launch a clothing range a few days ago, though, so he had time to do that…

Q: The Prime Minister sits in the Expenditure Review Committee of Cabinet – that’s a budget committee. And he chairs Cabinet. When this funding allocation for the Marrickville Golf Course came into the meeting for sign-off, did the Prime Minister declare he was, in the words of the local mayor, “the golf club’s most famous patron and neighbour”? Did the Prime Minister declare a conflict of interest and recuse himself from the funding decision?

Anthony Albanese:

The question goes to Cabinet processes. The decision-maker is the Minister for Infrastructure. I’m not even the decision-maker.

Q: My question is to the Prime Minister: 2019 footage has emerged depicting the Prime Minister announcing to a Marrickville Golf anti-development rally, “I declare an interest – I live Inbuke Street, and I’ve been coming here for decades and using the club.” Why did the Prime Minister declare to his golf club that he owned a multimillion-dollar property next door, but fail to declare to his golf club membership to the parliament before giving them $6 million?

Albanese:

I make no apologies for the fact that I stand up for every organisation in my electorate. That’s what good local members do.

That is what I do. It has been argued that an announced honorary membership at Marrickville Golf Club in 2012 – 2012, 14 years ago – that somehow it is ongoing. 

What’s it worth? It’s worth $5 for two years, Or $15 for five years. Or $15 for five years.

…It says something about the way that the club is run, for the fact that it’s $2.50 a year for two years, but $3 a year if you take out five years’ membership, Mr Speaker.

Until last week, I was unaware of this issue. To provide certainty, I’ve written to the Secretary of the Marrickville Golf Club making it clear I decline any honorary membership of the club. I’ve also made it clear that, if I’m in a position to visit the club some time in the future – come I haven’t done since my election as Prime Minister – I’d be more than pleased to pay the $5 fee for two years’ membership.

Anna Chang

I know that it gets a bit ‘schoolyard’ (or ’theatrical’ in Question Time) and we called out Senator Tim Ayres last week for starting his answer to Senator Vanessa Bleyer (on salmon) last week with a serve of patronising.

And we see it again today with Senator Ayres’ answer to Leader of the Australian Greens, Senator Larissa Waters.

Senator Larissa Waters:

“…Why is the Albanese Government constantly doing the bidding of big polluters, you’re not making gas companies pay their fair share of tax with a gas export tax of at least 25%. 

“Instead, you’ve proposed a flimsy 20% gas reservation, which will raise no revenue, and now you’re weakening even that with a get-out-of-jail-free card for gas by making it up to 20% for a reservation, and contemplating carve-outs for gas corporations.

“When will you ever put the interests of Australians and a safe climate ahead of the interests of gas corporations?”

Senator Tim Ayres:

“Thank you to Senator Waters. I suppose it can’t be said, Senator Waters, that you’ve been doing the bidding of former Senator Bob Brown. Not… Not this week…

[interjecting]

“What what? I expect you to recover immediately…”

Chair: “Minister Ayres. You need to direct your answers to me.”

He is, of course, talking about the INFM disallowance vote last week, with Bob Brown being a strong critic of the Greens position. And that’s the thanks the Greens get for helping Labor, I guess.

Anna Chang

The first question in Senate QT goes to the Leader of the Opposition, Senator Cash, and like Tim Wilson, goes straight to Bill Kelty.

Senator Michaelia Cash:

My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Wong. 

Bill Kelty, a prominent Australian Labor Party figure and former head of the ACTU, has highlighted the disastrous policies of the Albanese Government, saying, “Real wages are not improving; they’re falling. He said that Australians can’t pay the bills, and that housing affordability is worsening because interest rates are rising and real wages are falling. 

Does the Prime Minister agree with Mr. Kelty? 

[Cash is referring to this article in the SMH here]

Minister Wong: 

The Prime Minister, the whole government understands that Australians are under real pressure with cost of living, and we understand that people across this country are genuinely finding cost of living and the cost of housing tough to deal with. 

We understand that. 

We also understand how much the world has thrown at our country over the last few years, whether it’s the global pandemic, the land war in Europe, the disruptions to trade, a new conflict in the Middle East, and of course, what I’ve spoken out on a number of occasions-the largest shock to global energy markets in history-and that has had a real impact upon our economy and has had a real impact on Australians and their families, and that is why the government is taking action and has taken action to deliver lasting relief to help Australians with the pressure here and now, and at the same time to work to make us stronger in the face of future shocks. 

Whether it’s making sure Australians can see a doctor for free and get the medicines they need for less, making sure we work to give first home buyers a fair crack, to make sure we improve the opportunities available to Australians through free TAFE.

And when it comes to wages, I would say to those opposite, we understand we understand that we have to keep doing the work to grow wages. We are. It is a good thing that annual wages have grown above 3% for 16 consecutive quarters. 16 consecutive quarters. It’s a good thing that we have the lowest average unemployment rate in half a century. It’s a good thing that we have a 1.3 million jobs created. But there is more to do. There is there is more to do, and we know… 

Senator Cash, first supplementary:

Mr Kelty also, took aim at Treasurer Chalmers, saying this: ‘You had the Treasurer say workers should be happy because their wage share is increasing, but their real wages are falling. It’s just ridiculous, and people get offended by it. They can’t pay the bills, and you tell them that your share of GDP is growing.’

Does the Prime Minister agree with Mr Kelty? 

Minister Wong:

We understand on this side the pressure that Australians are under, which is why we are focused on delivering real cost of living relief, and why we have advocated for increases in the national minimum wage, which has increased by more than $12,000 a year, that is more than a 30% increase. 

This is why we had delivered pay rises for early educators and workers in aged care. But there is more to do. We know that there is more to do. 

But I’ll take the interjection from Senator Cash because one thing we know: those opposite have never advocated for a wage increase. 

What we know about those opposite is they championed in a system where lower wages were a deliberate design feature of the Australian economy. 

That is the Liberal way: let’s deliberately try and keep wages low. That is the way that Senator Cash and her colleagues have championed. 

So I think Australians will understand what you are doing here. You have never…

Senator Cash, second supplementary: 

Mr Kelty also said the PM is telling the country with glee that the price of property is falling, yet the unaffordability rate is increasing because interest rates are rising and real wages are falling. 

Does the Prime Minister agree with Mr Kelty’s analysis? 

Minister Wong: 

Well, what I would say in relation to houses and first home buyers and affordability is this. 

We have worked through our budget to do two key things. One is to deliver tax cuts for working Australians, but the second is also to ensure that we create a more level playing field…

Chair: Order, order on my left. Order.

[descends into interjecting]

Angie Bell asks Anthony Albanese:

The Prime Minister reportedly owns a multimillion-dollar investment property just 200m away from Marrickville Golf Club, where he holds an undisclosed honorary membership. Noting the Prime Minister’s previous answers in this House, did the Prime Minister’s decision to hand a $6 million grant to Marrickville Golf Club to upgrade its clubhouse and remove the sewage stink increase the value of his investment property down the road?

Now Tony Burke is on his feet about imputations and that the question is out of order.

But Dan Tehan is READY.

He has a written point of order defence here:

To the point of order – I would like to make three points. One – the Prime Minister is responsible for the actions of this Albanese Labor government. The very least, he is officially connected to the grants program which is also part of standing order 98. Two – the Prime Minister has made statements about this matter in the House, which the Leader of the House well knows.

This opens the door for us to ask follow-up questions. I just point you, Speaker to, the ruling Speaker Smith gave Thursday 15 February 2018. Speaker Smith. Secondly, as we’ve seen before in this House, once a statement has been made, questions are asked about the statement and questions are then asked about previous answers. I think that opens the door for the question to be in order. Three – I said I had three points, right? Three…(INTERJECTIONS)

Three – you have allowed points multiple questions to be asked of the Prime Minister, which references the Prime Minister’s personal arrangements.

You have allowed this because the questions have contained a hook to contemporary policy developments. I point you to examples on Thursday 14 May 2026 and Wednesday 24 June 2026.

I make the point that it must be open to the House to question the motivation of ministers, as well as the impact of government policies, wherever that impact may be. If you were to rule that questions cannot, strictly speaking, contain imputations or arguments, then that would set a dangerous precedent.

In summary, Speaker…(INTERJECTIONS) (Milton Dick: Order! Just get to the point. I don’t want to delay Question Time any more.)

We have to be allowed to ask questions which go to the credibility of the Prime Minister.

Burke:

Mr Speaker, to the point of order – the risk of preparing a point of order in chapters is you might respond to something different to the point of order that was made. I think that’s what we have here. Nothing that’s just been raised there goes to the point of imputations. And the whole thing about whether or not a statement’s been made public goes to the rule about asking a question about someone’s previous portfolio, which would only be relevant if this was a question about 2013.

Dick asks Tehan for the question Speaker Smith ruled on. Tehan is confused. But then finds it:

It was Mr Dreyfus, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business. “My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister – that I refer to his previous answers, in addition to over $5,000 of taxpayers’ money, did McGuire’s business receive any more taxpayers’ money because any of the more than 80 attendees were booked to stay at the hotel that was selected by the government to host the event?”

Dick says that is not the same thing. He says he is going to allow the question, but wants it asked responsibly in the future.

Just to assist the House, I think we need to stick to the principles of the standing orders – not necessarily impugning anyone’s motive. 

Anthony Albanese:

That wasn’t so much a question, but a smear and its imputations are completely false and the opposition, of course, made election commitments worth $1.6 billion – over 1,000 of them. We’re happy to go through them.

He then decides he has concluded his answer.

Berries and Cream is kicked out for interjecting.

Anthony Albanese just took a dixer on this:

Over the weekend, Anthropic and others pointed to the serious risks that can emerge alongside the development and implementation of artificial intelligence.

When AI companies themselves make these observations, it is even clearer this change is something that we all must shape together – companies and governments alike taking responsibility – so that we make sure that technology works for people, so that doesn’t reduce Australians down to mere commodities to be traded.

So that people are not treated as data points or pure economic entities, but individual human beings that carry with them an inherent dignity. 

This is something that’s been recognised in a lot of the debate, including by Pope Leo with the work that he has done. That is a deep ethos that drives much of what the government is doing on tech.

As well, the News Bargaining Incentive, our social media ban for under-16s, the Digital Duty of Care, our national standards for artificial intelligence, and the Office of AI. All of this represents a challenge that will continue to exist for years and, indeed, decades ahead. At their core, all of these reforms share common, basic goals. To put people in charge. To reaffirm fundamental human values.

And to build genuine consensus. They show we take risks seriously and we take action to respond to them. And, indeed, it’s something that the whole world is dealing with. They show, also, that we’re listening to the concerns of Australians. To parents, to communities, to workers, and to business.

So that when Australians ask, “What does a future that embraces this technology look like?” we are able to answer with a confident and optimistic vision of change. Because, if we make sure that AI works for people instead of the other way around, there are incredible benefits to grasp. And I believe that Australians understand that, and they remain optimistic about those opportunities.

Our job – all of us, as a parliament and, indeed, all of us as a society – is to deliver on that optimism with practical benefits, and with technology that keeps people safe. That is our agenda, and that is our commitment that we will take forward.

Independent MP Rebekha Sharkie asks Sam Rae:

In October 2022, SA hospitals reported 60 older patients waiting for residential aged care. That figure has now ballooned to 487 older patients in SA hospitals. Australia needs 10,000 aged care beds annually to meet demand. Last year, just 800 were added, net. Over 100,000 older Australians are waiting for approved home support. Nearly 5,000 have died waiting for a package. Minister, when will the government concede, at every metric, they’re failing at aged care?

Rae:

I thank the member for Mayo for her question and acknowledge the very constructive way she engages with me and my office in her representation of older people within her electorate of Mayo.

As we know, our aged care system is in the process of being rebuilt from the ground up. We had a royal commission that exposed some of the most profound moral injustice being inflicted upon older people in our community.

Since we were elected in 2022, this Prime Minister and this government has explicitly remained committed to restructuring the entire sector, whether it be within the residential aged care space, to which the member refers, or the in-home-care space. Last Friday, an important step was taken in the residential space with Minister Butler and the state health ministers agreeing on a new national definition of “delayed discharge” rolled a week further back.

This agreed definition means that there will be, for the first time, consistent data on this issue that the member’s question raises on older people who can’t be discharged from public hospitals. Mr Speaker, the approach can’t just be about agreements – it’s about putting our money where our mouth is.

Earlier this year, the Albanese Labor government secured a historic hospital funding deal with state and territory governments with an extra $25 billion delivered to states and territory hospital systems to cut waiting lists, reduce waiting times in emergency rooms, and get long-stay older patients out of hospital.

In March, we announced an extra investment of $115 million building on the $1 billion investment in previous rounds of the Aged Care Capital Assistance Program to rapidly expand residential aged care capacity in Metropolitan Adelaide, Perth, Illawarra, and the Hunter regions of New South Wales. 

These are hot spot areas in the greatest need of residential aged care beds.

In July, we came out with the first round, with $26 million across six homes, creating extra beds in Illawarra, and 268 new beds across five sites in Adelaide.

The member’s question also pertained to Support at Home and CHS pay. Of course, we’ve got 830,000 Australians receiving care under the Commonwealth Home Support Program and roughly 400,000 Australians receiving care under Support at Home. That Support at Home system has nearly tripled since 2020 under our government, and the investments that we’ve made. Wait times are coming down under Support at Home, and people who are assessed as urgent priority always receive their packages within a month. High priority are about a month wait time. The other priority levels have come down, on average, about three months

Luke Slawomirski

Senator David Pocock is right to call out the high cost of seeing a specialist in the ACT.

Our analysis shows that ACT residents face, by far, the highest out of pocket costs for specialist care in the country.

But that’s not all. If you look at each state and territory, you will notice the strong correlation with local median income.

Some variation in fees can be expected. But a 6-fold difference (these are averages, remember) can’t be explained by business costs, patient complexity or even quality of the service. (If you believe that ACT specialists are six times better than their Tasmanian colleagues, then I’ve a lighthouse to sell to you.)

A far likelier explanation is that specialists are charging what their local market will bear.

That’s why raising Medicare rebates is unlikely to reduce out of pocket costs. Based on the evidence and past behaviour, specialists will simply raise fees by a commensurate amount.

The specialist market is broken. We describe the intervention required in our recent submission to the Parliamentary inquiry into specialist care access.

What are we doing?

Sussan Ley and Merryn York are the new appointments to the Snowy Hydro Limited board, which will do nothing to stop the revolving door complaints, or win over conservatives. Like WTAF?

Here is the statement:

The Albanese Government is pleased to announce the appointment of the Hon Sussan Ley and Ms Merryn York to the Snowy Hydro Limited Board.

Snowy Hydro is part of our national story. Today, it’s a fully Australian owned company operating the original Snowy Scheme as well as gigawatts of electricity generation across Australia.  Snowy 2.0 project will provide the large-scale storage needed to support cheaper, cleaner and more reliable power as ageing coal-fired generators retire.

Ms Ley brings extensive experience in government, environmental regulation, regional Australia and major infrastructure projects. As a former Minister for the Environment and Water, Ms Ley is familiar with Snowy 2.0’s importance and complexity and as Member for Farrer for over 24 years, she developed a detailed understanding of the importance Snowy scheme to the people of southwest NSW. 

Ms York is one of Australia’s most experienced energy leaders. She has served as Chief Executive of Powerlink Queensland and, most recently, as Executive General Manager System Design at the Australian Energy Market Operator. She will bring brings direct experience of operating and investing in large-scale infrastructure. 

As Amy pointed out, Angus Taylor suggesting Australia’s housing market has been smashed is quite stupid. 

Anna Chang

Senator Lidia Thorpe uses her Senators’ statement to speak to the Red Lines package of reforms being introduced in Parliament this week, and Amy Remeikis has reported on earlier today.

Senator Lidia Thorpe:

The Government loves to say they’re tough on crime, but not when it comes to war crimes and crimes against humanity. 

They will face a test when they vote on the red lines package. 

This package is being introduced to Parliament this week. It aims to close loopholes that allow governments and government agencies to support, be complicit in and enable genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. 

It does four things: 

One, stops this country selling weapons parts being used in war crimes and genocide; 

Two, create a new anti-genocide commissioner that will prevent companies from making money from war crimes or genocide. 

Three, bans charities and this government’s agencies from investing in companies that make money from illegal occupied territories. 

Four, it bans this country from trading in goods and services with illegal occupied territories.

It’s no surprise that the Labor government isn’t supporting the red lines package. It’s complicit in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians. 

And last week, the Government said they won’t ban trade with illegal settlements in the West Bank, despite the UK, France, Canada, and others doing just that, Albanese is standing with Trump and Netanyahu, and this Government is continuing to support the worst of all crimes, including genocide. 

They are the real criminals: the Labor Government, who is standing with Israel, is complicit in over 20,000 children being murdered at the hands of the Israeli government.

Tim Wilson asks Anthony Albanese:

Labor legend Bill Kelty says the Prime Minister is not telling the truth about the state of the economy. Mr Keelty said, “The PM is telling the country with glee that the price of property is falling, yet the unaffordability rate is increasing. Real wages are not improving in any significant way – they’re falling.”

Will the Prime Minister admit Bill Kelty is right – that housing affordability is getting worse, and real wages are going down on his watch?

Anthony Albanese:

I thank the member for Goldstein for his question. We all know Bill Kelty, mate. We all know Bill Kelty. I’ll make that point. I know Bill Kelty. And I know what he thinks of you. I know what he thinks of you.

Maybe – maybe he would have a quote for you, but it would be unprintable.

We know that Australians are under cost-of-living pressure. We know that. That’s why we’re actually taking action about it.

Now, over the last few years, the world has thrown a lot at Australia. We’ve had the global pandemic…

Just a fact. A land war in Europe. Disruptions to trade. A new conflict in the Middle East. And the biggest oil shock in history. That has a real impact. And we are taking action to deliver lasting relief helping Australians under pressure here and now.

While, at the same time, driving an agenda to make sure that we’re stronger in the face of future shocks.

The member for Goldstein used to recognise that because he spoke about intergenerational inequity in the housing market. He spoke about what needed to be done. He not only gave speeches in this place – he wrote a book about it, as the member for Ballarat has said.

Not a book I have read, I must say. But I’ve heard enough quotes from it. We are taking action so that fairness and aspiration are lasting features of Australia’s economy. Because we know that the true meaning of delivering real change is beyond these walls. That’s why we want to see every single worker get a tax cut. That’s why we went to the election, and why they all got a tax cut, and why they’ll get a tax cut next year as well.

One of the five different forms of tax cuts that we’ve implemented in our just over four years in office. And we know that they voted against them and went to an election saying they would reverse them.

Greg Jericho

Last Friday the The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare released some utterly damning research on the level of morbidity among those on welfare payments compared to  those in the community not dependent upon welfare support. 

The results are jaw dropping:

Of the 287,000 people aged 22–64 who died over the period 2012–2022, almost 3 in 5 (58.2% or 167,000 people) had received at least one of the selected income support payments during the calendar year of their death.

People receiving an income support payment had an average mortality rate of 610 deaths per 100,000 person-years, compared to 67 deaths per 100,000 person-years for people not receiving income support.

Now the figures clearly reflect that included in the count of those on welfare are those on Disability Support Pension, who usurpingly will have more health issues than the rest of the community. But the difference is across all welfare payments. 

It is quite shocking that people on unemployment benefits of Jobseeker are nearly 5 times more likely to die than those not on welfare – even worse, that disparity has widened. 

This will not be a shock to those struggling to get by on Jobseeker – living on an income nearly 50% below the poverty line

The report noted that:

Income support recipients were overrepresented in deaths from suicide, accidental poisoning and alcoholic liver disease:

• Rates of death from accidental poisoning were 22 times as high among people receiving income support, at an average of 39 deaths per 100,000 person-years, compared with 1.8 deaths per 100,000 person-years for people not receiving income support.
• Rates of death from alcoholic liver disease were 21 times as high among people receiving income support, an average of 25 deaths per 100,000 person-years, compared with 1.2 deaths per 100,000 person-years for people not receiving income support.
• Suicide deaths were 5 times as high among people receiving income support, an average of 38 deaths per 100,000 person-years, compared with 7.7 deaths per 100,000 person-years for people not receiving income support.

Poverty kills. And these figures are damning. 

Anna Chang

Senator Jacqui Lambie begins her Senators’ Statement by reading out a tirade of abuse she has received in her inbox. 

We won’t reproduce it here, so that our liveblog doesn’t get flagged on workplace computers. But suffice to say it’s pretty gross and pretty grim — it doesn’t matter what side of politics you are on.

Then Senator Lambie gets to the crux of her statement:

Senator Jacqui Lambie:

These are just a handful of messages or gutter trash, as I call them, that I got over the weekend. 

And to be honest with you, there aren’t even these aren’t even the worst ones. 

This is what is going on in our society. 

People have become too too comfortable hiding behind a screen and spewing abuse at somebody they’ve never met. 

I’ve got thick skin. I’m good with criticism. I love debate. 

I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. That is why we live in the democracy that we live in today. People are allowed to disagree with me, and I’m allowed to disagree with them, but this isn’t political debate. 

These are personal attack threats and disgusting comments that most people would never have the guts to say to somebody’s face. 

Faceless keyboard cowboys who think hiding behind a computer screen gives them permission to say whatever they like without consequences. 

Well, I’ve had a gut full of it. 

We have families and friends and staff who see and have to deal with this rubbish too? 

Holding public office does not mean we should be expected to shut up and accept this constant stream of personal abuse. 

So from now on, if you send this sort of filth to me or my office, don’t assume it will stay hidden in my inbox. 

If you are prepared to put your name to these words, you should be prepared to have these words seen by others? So you’re very lucky today that I haven’t put your last names and your email addresses out there. But you keep coming, and that’s what you’re going to find out. 

You want to play with me and be nasty to my staff? Look out! 

Angus Taylor is up and he asks:

New analysis by Aussie Home Loans shows 20% of Australians who’ve purchased a home in the past three years are now trapped in mortgage prison. A prison of falling house values, rising interest rates, and negative equity. Why won’t the Prime Minister own up and admit that smashing the housing market was Labor’s plan all along?

Smashing the housing market? House prices are still up 6% year on year. Can we have a bit of reality here please?

Anthony Albanese:

I thank the member for his question. He raises a range of issues relating to housing policy. He raises negative equity which, according to the latest RBA data, is less than 1% of all mortgage-holders – less than half of what it was under the Liberals between 2017 and 2019. ABS data shows an unprecedented 8,468 investors signed up to build a new home in the June quarter. This was 454 more than the previous record set in the previous three months. 

There was also a record $6 billion in loan value borrowed for the builds – more than $1.32 billion above the same time a year ago. More than 660,000 new homes were built under this Labor government, and a further 244,000 are now under construction. This is the highest number since records began in 1984. Housing approvals are up, climbing last financial year to their highest level since 2021. And annual construction cost inflation has fallen from a half-century high under the coalition of 17% to 3.8%. ..under our government. And, of course, one of the objectives of what we were aiming for is to give first-home buyers a crack. And the first…

And there are examples of that – in Surry Hills, the Herald Sun has reported. In Victoria, in the electorate of Menzies, Rosie and Damien Bocamasso spent months watching homes sell far beyond their budget, but refused to back down. The newlyweds, now on their honeymoon, had spent six years renting before buying their first home in Surry Hills in Melbourne’s east. Here in Canberra, estate agent Lisa Silverburg has sold a transformed 3-bedroom house in Theodore. Silverburg said there were multiple registered bidders – all of them first-home buyers, importantly. In my electorate of Ashfield, Lana and Lily Lin Lee bought their first home – a 2-bedroom flat in Ashfield. 

Not one investor bid against them. The couple were successful at the first auction that they bid at after six weeks of looking at properties and, importantly, with the assistance of the government’s 5% deposit scheme. Our policy’s aimed at giving first-home buyers a crack. And, in particular, giving young people a crack, recognising that intergenerational inequity which was there in the housing market – a housing market that was broken, that we are fixing.

Anna Chang

Senator David Pocock takes a moment to talk about the extraordinary fees Australians — and particularly Canberrans — pay for specialists. 

Canberrans pay the highest out of pocket fees in Australia.

Senator David Pocock:

I welcome today’s news that Minister Butler has asked for options to start to deal with the growth in fees to see a specialist in this country. 

Unfortunately, I wasn’t surprised to learn that Australians have paid over $4 billion, $4 billion out of pocket to see a specialist. 

It’s grown by 75% since 2019, and Canberrans pay the highest gaps in the country. 

We pay on average $605 out of pocket per service. $605 per out of pocket per service. This is $355. higher than the national average. 

Everyone here has a story about how expensive it is to see a dermatologist to get checked for breast cancer scans, to have a baby, or to have your hip replaced. 

It is a growing weight on people’s budgets, and particularly older people who may have to see a few specialists throughout the year. And don’t even get me started on ultrasounds. 

Here in the ACT, they’ll set you back $120 on average. You can go just across the border to Queanbeyan, and you’re paying $40. 

In fairness, Medicare rebates for specialists have basically not increased in decades, and affordability also matters as much as access. 

As people in Canberra know, and anyone who lives in a regional area, distance and waiting lists are a huge part of the problem. problem. 

It seems to me that we’ve not been training the right number of specialists and are struggling to keep them in the right places. 

So I commend the Minister for his focus on this, and I encourage him to pursue urgent reform. 

And looking forward to following it for people in the ACT.

Anna Chang

Senator Malcolm Roberts has used his Senators’ Statement to make Very Clear that One Nation Does Not Like the Nazi Party. Got it? Good.

So you know. Not nazis but number one with…?

Senator Malcolm Roberts:

The Attorney General called on One Nation to disavow the Nazi Party. 

Paul Sakkal, Sydney Morning Herald chief political correspondent, last Friday tried to smear One Nation on this. 

Yet a week earlier, I published my Spectator article denouncing the Nazi Party. 

Last Wednesday, in my Senator’s statement, I doubled down on my denouncement. 

In the Spectator and Senator’s statement, I asked why the Labor Party and the political left did not stand against violence in word and deed from all sides of politics, left and right, as One Nation does. 

The Sydney Morning Herald used that comment. Did not the next sentence? Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, nationalists, and if no nationalists exist in this country, we disavow them completely. 

They stand in opposition to everything One Nation believes. 

The Sydney Morning Herald ran its story as One Nation refusing to denounce Nazis when we had denounced in a speech the article quoted. 

Since then, I’ve been asked why I included nationalists in the list that I denounced. 

I’ll clarify: the Nazi Party in Australia no longer uses that name, nor the name National Socialist. The new name for the same tiny group is nationalists. 

The dictionary defines nationalism as a political ideology and sentiment that promotes the interests, cultural identity, and political independence of a particular nation above all others. 

Yet Australian Nazis are distorting this to redefine nationalism as an ideology pushing a nation’s cultural or political superiority and dominance over others. 

That’s why I prefer the term patriotism, a love of one’s country and its shared civic values. 

Everything I and One Nation do is to benefit Australians. 

We denounce vested interests and globalist agendas clearly. The Nazis are trying to corrupt the meaning of the word nationalist, so I’m pleased to celebrate being a patriot. 

Be careful, language is powerful.

Greg Jericho

In the statements before Question Time, Liberal Party MP Ben Small talked about housing prices, saying they were not high because of the capital gains tax discount or negative gearing but because of migration. 

In doing so he referenced a brochure that it seems the Liberal Party has done up on housing. 

Well the problem is, if the Libs want to blame migration, maybe they can explain why the biggest increase in house prices in the past decade occurred during the period that the COVID lockdowns meant no one was coming into Australia – migration was effectively zero. 

We had a live test of what happens when government policy juices housing demand AND we have zero migration. And guess what? House prices exploded. 

May Dolly help us all.

Anna Chang

In the Senate, we are hearing Senators’ 2 minute Senators’ statements (what MPs in the House usually devote time in the Federation Chamber to).

Senator Sarah Hanson-Young doesn’t hold back on her thoughts on Pauline Hanson and Gina Rinehart.

Senator Hanson-Young:

“Well, they say if you want a friend in politics, get a dog, but it seems as though for the Leader of One Nation, Pauline Hanson, get a Gina. 

“Now the relationship between Senator Pauline Hanson and, for that matter, Mr Barnaby Joyce and their relationship with Gina Rinehart is starting to look really, really creepy. 

“It’s off the charts. It’s weird.  

“And not only does Ms. Rinehart pay for the transportation of the leader of One Nation and her mates, paying for European holidays, for sleepovers at Gina’s house in the $20 million mansion, flights here, flights there, her own private plane, and it is all looking a bit weird. And you’ve got to ask why? 

“Why is the richest woman in the country, funding Pauline Hanson right now?

“Is it because Gina Rinehart wants to directly impact politics, have her say, have her policies implemented, get her way without daring to ever have to stand for election herself?

“Gina Rinehart seems to think that Pauline Hanson is her puppet. 

“She even drags her on stage and demands that she growls like a bulldozer. Grrrr!  [ed note: yes there was a real growl here by Senator Hanson-Young]

“It is wacky, sick, and a really, really creepy. 

“So the question is: what is Gina Reinhart getting out of Pauline Hanson and One Nation? 

“That is the question that neither of those two are willing to answer.”

Rod Campbell

Preparing for upcoming submissions, I’ve been delving back into the Institute archives.

Have a guess when we published this. Hint – the report is old enough to vote.

It was published in 2007, so it will turn 20 next year. Here’s another from that year if you’re interested in the history of dodgy carbon offsets.

Aged like fine wine.

The Coalition is blaming net zero for the permanent shut down of the Whyalla blast furnace, which has been offline since April.

The logic here is apparently – energy is too expensive to run manufacturing…so the Coalition is against the policies which would make manufacturing cheaper and that is the fault of the renewables, which is actually making energy cheaper.

So yeah – this is where we are.

What is interesting about this press conference is that there is a whole cast of players – but not Angus Taylor.

You have the member for Grey, Michael McCormack, Andrew Hastie, Matt Canavan, Dan Tehan, and Phil Thompson – and everyone is getting a speech (they are also talking about what we highlighted last week – that the house is kicking the vote down the road for the allied veteran health cap that the senate tried to scrap last Thursday)

Alice Grundy

Research Manager

Three recent cancellations of musical theatre productions prompted Academic Linda Merewyn Lorenza to write in The Conversation last week about the hurdles theatres face to increase productivity. If they can’t increase productivity, to cover costs driven higher by inflation, there are only three options:

“Companies can cut costs, but only so far. Ticket prices can be increased, but that eventually turns the cost problem into an audience problem. And public funding alone is unlikely to solve theatre’s structural economic issues.

The realistic solution is a combination of all three.”

Only, why does she assume that public funding unable to solve structural issues? As Australia Institute research has shown, philanthropy is a drop in the bucket compared with government funding. 

If Australia chose to spend the average that developed countries put towards the arts, that would mean an extra $5 billion dollars in funding. That money could cover vouchers for young people to attend theatre, like they have in France and Switzerland, or go to theatres struggling with the costs of staging productions. 

Oh the things we could afford if the government chose to raise more revenue, say, with a 25% gas export tax, for example. 

Luke Slawomirski

New Parliamentary Budget Office analysis has reignited the fight over the government’s plan to remove the additional private health insurance rebate given to people aged 65 and over.

Commissioned by independent MP Monique Ryan, it finds that about $1.56 billion of the government’s expected savings over four years would come from age pension recipients. The rest ($1.58 billion) will come from PHI-insured individuals not receiving the Age Pension.

But the PBO analysis doesn’t tell us if the age-based subsidy will cost the health system more than it saves.

The relevant questions should be : (1) how much additional care does the rebate actually buy? and (2) could the same public money be used to produce greater health benefits elsewhere?

That was the central argument in The Australia Institute’s submission on the Bill. There’s little evidence that private health relieves pressure on public hospitals. Redirecting savings into aged care, meanwhile, could reduce hospital pressure directly by helping older patients leave hospital once they no longer need acute care.

As things stand, using the savings to lift the age care pension may even be a better value proposition than subsidising PHI.

Earlier David Richardson gave a valuable fact check to claims that higher interest rates were about to blow a huge hole in the budget. 

He’s right, the rise in the interest rate that governments pay in their borrowings (known as the bond “yield”) does not apply to all borrowing. But the future interest repayments are going to rise because, as we can see, the 10 year government bond yield (essentially the interest rate the government has to pay when it borrows money long-term) has risen sharply this year

This has led the opposition, through it’s exceptionally sharp minded Treasury spokesperson, Tim Wilson, to blame the government.  

Last Thursday in Question Time, Wilson asked this of the Treasurer:

    Mr TIM WILSON (Goldstein) (14:18): My question is to the Treasurer. In Labor’s budget, it was assumed the cost of government debt would be 4.8 per cent, yet it’s already     around 5.2 per cent for a 10-year bond, with the interest bill on government debt becoming the fastest growing line in the budget. Meanwhile, major banks and economists are predicting up to two further interest rate rises this year alone. Will the Treasurer concede that his plan for higher debt and spending is forcing up interest rates?

Ahh, yes. It’s always the fault of government spending. 

The problem is the interest rates for all governments around the world are having to pay has gone up. Maybe Wilson thinks the budget deficit here in Australia is the cause of the Japanese government having to pay higher interest rates?

There’s two main reasons for the interest rate going up.

The first is the investment in datacentres and AI. The absurd bubble of investment has created a huge demand for money – and governments have to get money from pretty much the same institutions as do big companies like Meta and Apple etc who are building these  absurd civilisation killing building.

So when lenders suddenly have a lot of companies wanting their money, that means they can demand a higher interest rate. And that has flowed into the rate governments are paying. 

But the second, bigger, issue is Donald Trump and his illegal brain-dead, war on Iran.

As I noted earlier, that has sent oil price soaring (and continuing to soar). If you are lending money and you think inflation is going to be higher for longer because of those oil prices you will demand a higher interest rate – because why would you give money to someone at 3% interest if inflation is 3.5%? That would means you would lose money!

And so rates have gone up around the world since the end of February and the Iran War began.

But here’s the thing – the Australian government 10 year bond yield has gone up by less than it has for USA, UK, German and Japanese government bonds:

The German 10 year bond yield has gone up 74.8 basis points (ie 0.748%pts)

The US 10 year bond yield is up 78 basis points, Japan is up 81.9 basis points, the UK is up 88.8 basis points.

And Australia? Just 57.4 basis points.

So much for the government’s plan forcing up interest rates… 

Coalition and crossbench MPs are doing the rounds today, arguing against Labor’s plan to scrap extra private health insurance rebates for Australians over the age of 65.

The Australia Institute’s Luke Slawomirski appeared before a Parliamentary public hearing on Friday, explaining why removing the additional rebates would actually make our health system slightly fairer.

Here’s his submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry.

His key points:

• When you take into account direct subsidies and indirect costs, private health insurance rebates cost the taxpayer more than $12 billion a year, yet there is little evidence to prove they achieve their primary goal of taking pressure off the public health system.
• Removing the extra age-based system is fair, because younger, healthier Australians already subsidise older, sicker Australians. Those who currently hold health insurance are more likely to be able to absorb a reduction in their rebate.
• Claims that removing extra rebates for older Australians would cause public hospitals to be overwhelmed are overstated.
• The money saved by providing fewer subsidies for private health insurance would be better invested directly in other areas of the health system.

Canadian Senator Rosa Galvez is one of the keynote speakers at tomorrow’s Climate Integrity Summit at NSW Parliament.

She looks at what Australia and Canada – with so many similarities, not least an addiction to extracting, exporting and burning fossil fuels – can learn from each other about climate policy.

As mentioned earlier, we are now thick in the debate on the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026 in the Senate.

We have been hearing from Senators from all sides about the importance of childcare, affordable childcare, the role of early childhood education and care, that it is not ‘babysitting’ etc.

I don’t want to diminish the importance of these workers, or sentiments being shared in the Senate, but I feel like this is an appropriate moment to remind readers of the joke (but real) that if your profession has an ‘appreciation day’ then you need a pay rise.

Coalition Senators are also directly challenging Pauline Hanson and One Nation to support Early Childhood Educators, reminding the Senate of her Press Club remarks looking to overhaul childcare. So look out for more in that area between the right, far right and furthest right.

If you get a moment you should absolutely also read this piece by Greg Barns on the NT government’s addiction to punishment.

Barns at Pearls and Irritations writes:

We live in a dangerous age in Australia if you care about evidence-based policy. Governments make a point of ignoring or slurring those experts with whom they disagree.

And so it is in the Northern Territory, where relations between the CLP government and the phalanx of groups and offices in the justice space are non-existent. That hard-right government thinks detaining offenders and those accused of offences on an industrial scale, and arming the population with capsicum spray, will reduce crime in the NT. Of course, throw in the usual diet of mandatory sentencing, tougher bail laws and boastful announcements about more prisons. Then there is new child protection legislation that became law in July, which reduces the importance of Indigenous children’s connection to Country, culture and family when assessing the protection of a child.

And let’s not forget the misleading of the community about crime figures. The chief minister, Lia Finocchiaro, and her deputy, Gerard Maley, last month both, at the very least, fudged the truth in statements trumpeting supposed reductions in crime rates to levels not seen since 2017. But they knew that the data was not comparable.

Talking about statistics, the latest (March quarter 2026) data from the ABS includes a staggering bar chart. The NT, on a daily basis, has 1,444 people per 100,000 locked up. The next highest is Western Australia at 360 per 100,000.

Matt Grudnoff

The latest from One Nation on immigration represents yet another position for the party. They have had trouble trying to explain (in a consistent way) what their signature policy is.

The problem they’re having is that regional areas, were One Nation’s support is strongest, are some of the most reliant on strong immigration. But at the same time, they constantly blame all of Australia’s problems on immigrants.

This is why you hear them claim they want to cut immigration but not to the PALM scheme, which brings people from Pacific nations to work mainly in regional areas, and working holidaymakers (backpackers), who do a lot of seasonal work on Australian farms.

This all came to head recently when new One Nation MP for Farrer, David Farley, went through One Nation’s migration numbers and ended up at about the same point as Labor.

Pauline Hanson rebuked her new MP but while doing so she confirmed that the PALM scheme and working holidaymakers would not be cut. So, she effectively confirmed Farley’s numbers.

This might all be amusing for One Nation’s political opponents, but it didn’t go down very well with One Nation’s far right base. They’ve been voicing their displeasure that One Nation are seemingly no different to the major parties.

So, this week One Nation has released new numbers claiming that they will have a net-negative migration plan. That is more people would leave Australia than enter.

They claim that most of the cuts will come from international students and the families of skilled migrants. PALM and working holidaymakers won’t face any cuts.

So, the cuts will come from skill migration and international students who overwhelmingly settle in cities and won’t cut those who are mainly in regional areas.

This is a really bizarre situation. A party that has most of its support in regional areas wants to cut immigration in cities but not in the regions.

Why? Because One Nation know that migration is a net positive and they want those benefits to continue to flow to the areas where they have the most support. Let the cities take the economic hit.

But it does leave the question, why a regional party gets so concerned about immigration in big cities?

It went as well as you can expect.

Zali Steggall has released this statement:

One Nation’s immigration proposal would cut 750,000 temporary visa holders over three years and reduce net overseas migration to 130,000 a year. That is a major and ill-considered intervention in Australia’s economy.

I call on One Nation to explain what happens to the businesses, industries and essential services that rely on these workers under its destructive and divisive migration plan.

Australia’s migration system must be robust and sustainable. But we cannot forget that migrants and permanent residents are workers, taxpayers and valued members of our community.

Every 1,000 migrants generates around $124 million in economic output each year. Migrants are vital to our ability to build the homes and infrastructure Australia needs. They make up around 35% of the aged care workforce and 37% of the disability workforce, while around 30% of Australia’s doctors were trained overseas.

The warnings today from economists and industry could not be clearer. Cutting hundreds of thousands of workers while Australia is already facing critical skills shortages risks driving up costs and damaging economic growth.

David Richardson

Last Friday the Financial Review carried the headline “Bond sell-off punches $10b hole in government budgets”. The story split the $10 billion hole into $6 billion for the Commonwealth and the rest for the states and territories. This calculation seems to be based on the 50 basis points (0.5%) increase in government interest rates since the May budget.

Mortgage holders in Australia know what it is like. Soon after the Reserve Bank increases official interest rates the private banks announce their new rates. Most home buyers have variable interest rates which allows the banks to unilaterally increase the interest payments.

To get $6 billion additional interest costs for the Commonwealth you would have to get the roughly $1,000 billion debt and multiply by the increase in interest rates, 0.5% and a bit.

But wait, government debt is not like the variable mortgage. Its more like a fixed interest rate loan which protects you against interest increases.

The budget papers tell us that total government securities on issue were worth $967 billion on 1 May 2026. Of that $879 billion are government bonds which, like a fixed interest mortgage, have a fixed interest component. They also have a maturity date so a $50,000 bond will have a fixed interest component, and, on maturity, the government pays back the whole $50,000. So on maturity, if the government rolls them over and issues new debt, those new bonds will have to pay higher interest rates. (data from Budget Paper no 1, statement 7)

But some of these bonds go out to June 2054. These particular bonds will not be rolled over until then. Very little of the government debt will be rolled over in the near future so that instead of $6 billion, we estimate the additional costs to the Federal Budget will be much less.

Only about $80 billion of government bonds need to be refinanced this year and about $50 billion in short term government debt, and most of that will not pay a full years interest in 2026-27. The government might be out of pocket by perhaps around $0.25 billion this financial year.

Govt bonds that do not have to be rolled over will not cost any more to be serviced. So on these considerations the Financial Review’s calculations may be out by a factor of 20. This is a very serious error and makes a mountain out of a molehill.

If you have a fixed interest mortgage you can ride out the Reserve Bank’s interest increases without worrying, at least for the moment. The federal government is in a similar position with respect to most of its long-term debt.

Matt Grudnoff

Correction.

In a previous post I made an error. It is not nine in ten over 65s are on a full or part pension. It is actually six in ten.

The post below has been corrected.

New figures show private health insurance loophole mainly benefits richest retirees

Matt Grudnoff

Some interesting figures from Independent MP Monique Ryan via the parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) today. It shows that half the money saved from the government’s changes to the private health insurance rebate are going to come from people on the age pension.

This is terrible but not for the reasons that Ryan is claiming. What the PBO figures show is that half of the savings are coming from those on an age pension and the other half is coming from those who don’t get a pension.

But these two groups aren’t the same size. Not even close. Six in ten people aged over 65 are on a full or part pension or some kind of income support.

That means four in ten people aged over 65 are getting half the rebate. And those are the richest retirees.

But what is this change the government is proposing?

At the moment when you turn 65 you get a bigger refund from the government on your private health insurance. The government is proposing that this be changed so that it is the same as everyone else.

Not that those over 65 pay more. Just that they are treated the same as everyone else.

These new PBO numbers show that this is closing a loophole that is overwhelmingly benefiting the rich.

Greg Jericho

This morning Nicolette Boele, the Independent member for Bradfield put up a Private Member Bill calling on the government to establish a definition of Affordable Housing. 

The issue is there is no national definition.

As the explanatory memorandum points out

different commonwealth and state programs have adopted different approaches. Affordability may be measured by reference to a percentage discount from market rent, a household’s income, key or essential worker status for household members, planning controls, funding agreements or a combination of these approaches. A common approach adopted by many policy frameworks is that households should not be required to spend more than 30 per cent of gross income on housing costs. Various state affordable housing schemes also adopt income-based eligibility thresholds and rely upon community housing providers to administer and monitor compliance.

This Bill seeks one definition:

This Bill draws on these established principles to set a definition that encompasses common elements.

It defines affordability by reference to the lower of:

        • 75 per cent of market rent; or

        • 30 per cent of gross household income

It further limits eligibility to households which contain essential workers and are within defined income eligibility thresholds.

One of the issues with “affordable housing” is, as Richard Denniss has pointed out, is that “affordability” can be used by politicians to do nothing about house prices and instead say they just want incomes to rise faster. 

A definition is useful for policies aimed at public and social housing.

The bill points out that the current definition is ” typically rental housing that is offered at below-market rents” but this is just in the Home for Australia plan . This bill would seek to enshrine it in legislation. 

One problem with definitions of affordable housing that link it to a percent of gross household income is that can mean expensive housing can be deemed “affordable” if it is in expensive locations and is affordable to high income earners . This has been an issue in Victoria.

The limiting it to certain thresholds should overcome that issue. 

We shall see what community housing advocates, think, but on the face of it, this seems a good working definition that can guide policy.  

Luke Slawomirski

The federal government has released a consultation paper on excessive specialist fees. It can be boiled down to a simple question: when a specialist charges far more than their peers, or far more than the Medicare schedule fee, should government do anything about it?

The answer should be yes.

Australians are paying more to see specialists the ever before, and some are delaying or missing care as a result. In 2025, Australians spent $4.17 billion  on out-of-hospital specialist services out of their own pockets. This is up 75.8% since 2019. The cost of specialist care is growing faster than inflation.

Australia has created a system in which private specialist care is publicly subsidised but largely privately priced. This has resulted on high variation in fees for the same procedure.

The consultation paper is welcome. But it focuses on very excessive fees charged by a minority, rather than the broader affordability problem facing patients every day. To fix the systemic problems, the government  could establish a National Specialist Fee and Affordability Framework to set clear benchmarks for reasonable fees.

As we argue in our submission to a current parliamentary inquiry, specialist care should meet the central promise of Medicare: access to care according to need, not ability to pay.

Rod Campbell

Misogynist online personalities Andrew and Tristan Tate will be spending more time in jail while their extradition proceedings continue.

They face extradition from the USA to the UK where they are accused of rape, human trafficking and lots more.

An Australian vlogger called Gadget tracks the ham-fisted antics of the Tates and their lawyer. His accounts are well-worth following and often very funny.

Anna Chang

While it is an Australian workplace right to wear your club scarf at work during finals (especially in grand final week), not so in the Senate it seems.

During the last division:

President of the Senate, Senator Sue Lines:

And Senator Steele-John. Whilst I acknowledge there are many Dockers supporters in this chamber, including my good self. That scarf is a prop and needs to go. Thank you.

Anna Chang

The Senate has just voted on exempting a list of Government bills from ‘the cut-off.’

What’s ‘the cut-off’?

The cut-off was a Democrats-era innovation to stop bills from being rammed through the Senate without proper consideration of time. So on the sitting calender, there is a little scissors icon, denoting ’the cut-off’ (2/3rds of the sitting period), and a bill has to have been passed in the House ‘before the cut-off’ for it to be passed in the Senate in the same sitting period, unless an exemption from the cut-off is granted (because as per before: if you have the numbers you can do anything.)

It’s not unusual for bills to be exempted from the cut-off, but let’s see how it went.

These bills were exempted from the cut-off (so can be passed by the Senate this week)

• Knox Class Action (Facilitation) Bill 2026
• National Student Ombudsman Levy Bill 2026
• Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Amendment (National Student Ombudsman Levy) Bill 2026
• Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026.

It’s not unusual to have so many bills exempted from the cut-off, especially in the back end of the year.

But it does indicate some… ‘lack of organisation’ on the Government’s part, as it’s in control of the House and can pass whatever it wants, whenever it wants over there. Suffice to say that between uni students and childcare, the Government is looking to change what it can crow about this week from what it perhaps had planned…

But the Passenger Movement Charge Amendment Bill 2026 did not get agreement to be excluded from the cut-off, with the Coalition, Greens and some crossbenchers joining together to vote no. So won’t be passing this week unless there’s a deal and a subsequent exemption granted.

For that bill seeks to increase  the passenger movement charge (for travellers departing Australia) from $70 to $80.

Bill Browne

Former judge Mary Gaudron, the first woman to sit on the High Court of Australia, passed away over the weekend at the age of 83.

Gaudron was born to working class parents and experienced much of the sexism of 20^th Century Australia first-hand. She was forced to quit the public service upon getting married. She was refused service at a bar for being a woman. She was passed over for clerkships because of her gender, despite excellent academic results. In return, she successfully argued the 1972 Equal Pay Case for the ACTU and the Whitlam Government, after which the Arbitration Commission concluded that women have the right to “equal pay for work of equal value”.

Gaudron served on the High Court from 1987 to 2002. Among many other cases, she was a deciding vote on the Mabo case which recognised native title rights for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. In a judgement co-written with Justice William Deane, Gaudron described the dispossession of Indigenous Australians from their land as:

the darkest aspect of the history of this nation. The nation as a whole must remain diminished unless and until there is an acknowledgment of, and retreat from, those past injustices.

At the Australia Institute we were privileged to work with Gaudron in our work supporting the National Integrity Committee of former judges, of which Gaudron was a member. With her colleagues on the Committee, Gaudron made the case for a National Anti-Corruption Commission with the powers needed to root out corruption. The NACC is far from perfect, but if it weren’t for Gaudron and her fellow former judges, it would be a lot weaker or wouldn’t exist at all.

Over in the senate, Greens senator David Shoebridge is trying to move this motion:

That the Senate—
(a) notes that major global AI corporations and multiple whistleblowers from big tech are telling us that unregulated AI is a near term extinction risk and that urgent guardrails are needed; and
(b) calls on the Government to:
(i) legislate mandatory safety testing and transparency obligations for frontier AI systems, rather than relying on
industry self-regulation, and

(ii) urgently reach out to middle powers, starting with Canada, Singapore, South Korea, Japan and France, to push for a global treaty on AI regulation

Katy Gallagher said she is the minister in charge of AI and hasn’t heard from any MPs about concerns with AI in government – not sure that should be the measure, but anyways.

Here is the sheer scale of what 18,475 children’s names looks like when written together. These are the children we know who died following Israel’s assault on the civilian population in Gaza. There have been thousands more since.

Via AAP

US President Donald Trump has downplayed the risks of AI, saying “negative forces” are “bringing up things that won’t happen”, after calls by industry bosses to slow down development.

Anthropic boss Dario Amodei *said he was concerned that AI had been “advancing drastically faster”.

Amodei is worried that within six to 12 months, AI could be capable of leading a swarm that could take over the entire internet.

The entrepreneur, whose company created the AI assistant Claude, shared a three-part plan for building the technology at a “balanced rate”.

His essay, titled We Must Pace the Frontier, has been supported by other industry leaders, including Grok boss Elon Musk and OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman.

Speaking during his trip to Ireland, Trump told reporters he wasn’t concerned and the US was leading China in the development of AI.

“Frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI wins.”

“Negative forces” were “bringing up things that won’t happen”, Trump said.

In July, OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, shook the industry after saying its AI system hacked into Hugging Face, a popular platform for AI developers, on its own in an “unprecedented cyber incident”.

Amodei offered a plan to increase checks on the industry, proposing that AI companies should give access to third-party evaluators who would verify safety practices and report incidents.

“Anthropic is unilaterally committing to this step now,” he said.

The other steps would require co-ordination among the broad industry and with governments around the world, including authoritarian ones.

Amodei said AI was developing quickly, adding that companies within the industry “can and should voluntarily work together to set standards”.

Anthropic previously said it blocked efforts by bad actors to use its AI models for malicious activity, such as cyber attacks, surveillance and research that could have led to biological weapons.

Responding to Amodei’s essay on X, Musk wrote: “Dario is right.”

Open AI chief executive Altman wrote on the site: “I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier.

“This has been a primary topic of discussions we’ve had at OpenAI in recent weeks.

“Committing to having independent evaluators with employee-like access is a great idea, and we will do the same.

“We’ll have more to share soon.”

*By the way, there is a lot of astroturfing going on here – all of this is a great way of the industry getting to set what regulation it is held to.

Speaking of failures in international law, there is a bit more information on the ‘red lines’ omnibus bill which aims to have Australia respond more stringently to breaches of international law. Basically – setting up red lines that we actually act on when crossed.

Here is the statement:

Independent Members and Senators are this week introducing a package of private bills jointly into both houses of parliament that would bring Australia’s domestic legislation into line with our international obligations.

In the absence of a federal human rights act, the Red Lines package is an important suite of legislative amendments that has huge support across civil society and shifts the focus from prohibition to prevention – where it needs to be.   

The package is being co-sponsored in the Senate by Senators Thorpe, Payman, Pocock and Faruqi. It is being introduced in the House on Monday September 14th by Independent Member for Mackellar Dr Sophie Scamps MP and is being seconded by the Member for Clark Mr Andrew Wilkie MP.

The package amends a number of pieces of legislation designed to ensure Australia does not breach its international human rights obligations, including via imports, defence exports and investments.

It will be launched at a special event at Parliament House on Tuesday evening with special guest speakers Emeritus Professor Gillian Triggs AC, former President of the Australian Human Rights Commission Louise Adler AM, publisher and cultural leader Rawan Arraf, Executive Director, Australian Centre for International Justice Professor Sarah Joseph, Professor of Human Rights Law and Director of Castan Centre for Human Rights and Robert Richter KC, barrister and human rights advocate.

ACT Independent Senator David Pocock said: “Of all the many issues people contact me about, human rights and the Gaza Genocide is by far the biggest. 

“I have received thousands of emails from Canberrans desperately concerned about the indiscriminate killing we have seen overseas. At the same time we know there is huge support for a federal human rights act and legislation that will give effect in our domestic laws to the obligations we have signed up to in international treaties and conventions. This package of bills is sensible ”

Senator Lidia Thorpe said: “This country has a long history of failing to uphold and respect people’s human rights, whether that’s the rights of First Peoples here, or the human rights of people around the world.

“These bills are about turning that around. They put clear legal red lines around this country’s involvement in genocides, crimes against humanity and war crimes – the most heinous of all crimes.

“They will make sure that investment, trade, institutions and defence activities in this country cannot contribute to atrocities, no matter where.

“This is about ensuring that this country upholds fundamental human rights – rights this government is already committed to under international law – and that it ends its complicity in atrocities. That’s something that everyone should support.”

Independent Member for Mackellar Dr Sophie Scamps said:  “Despite Australia’s history as a champion of international law, including its commitment to prevent and punish genocide and prohibit torture under international treaties, we are increasingly falling short of these obligations due to critical gaps in our domestic laws.

“In the absence of a Human Rights Act, this package of legislation would ensure that Australia’s policy and actions align with international law and our human rights obligations, ensuring we are on the right side of history.

“This is not about a single country; there are grievous human rights abuses going on in countries all around the world.

“It is not nearly good enough for our government to say they are not sure if components we manufacture here in Australia are being used in F-35s that have killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza.

“There must be no doubt about the integrity of Australian defence supply chains, investments and trade to ensure that everything from local business to the Federal Government are not knowingly or unknowingly complicit in war crimes and genocide and other human rights violations.”

Senator Mehreen Faruqi, Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens and spokesperson for International Aid and Global Justice said:

“For three years, Labor has told Australians horrified by the genocide in Gaza that there is nothing our government can do. The Red Lines Bill is a comprehensive package of actions the government must take to stop Australia’s complicity in the slaughter and make sure future governments can never go down the same road. 

“The Red Lines Package gives Labor the chance to prove that all their talk about international law and human rights actually means something, by ending the Australian Government’s shameful support of genocide, apartheid and illegal occupation.

“This package is far from radical and delivers exactly what Australians expect of their government.  Australian governments and corporations should not be sending military parts, trading with, or profiting from, a genocide.”

Independent Member for Clark Andrew Wilkie said:  “Australia has often had an outsized influence in the creation and preservation of international law, including in critical matters from the peaceful scientific settlement in the Antarctic, to the end of apartheid in South Africa and the independence of East Timor. 

“The Red Lines Package would ensure Australia reaffirms its leadership on these matters and meets its moral and legal obligation not to fund, arm or invest in illegal settlements, war crimes or genocide.

“In times of increasing global uncertainty it’s more important than ever that responsible middle powers like Australia reinforce the fundamental principles of international justice and accountability that protect us here in Australia, and indeed billions of people right around the world.”

Senator Fatima Payman said: “As a middle power, Australia has a responsibility ensure its laws prevent complicity in genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. I hope that my parliamentary colleagues who personally agree with me on this stance will put their money where their mouth is by supporting this package.”

The Wall of Tears – an artwork created by American artist Phil Buehler, as a memorial to the 18,457 children known to be killed in Gaza, as a result of Israel’s assault on the civilian population, has been displayed on the parliament house lawns.

The names are those children known to have died between October 2023 and July 2025. The first name is Wesam Iyad Mohammed Abu Fsaife, a 14-year-old boy. Last is Sabah Omar Saad al-Masri, an eight-year-old girl.

From the exhibition explanation:

These names of two children mark the beginning and end of the Wall of Tears, a massive art installation measuring 15m by 3m, which was first unveiled in Brooklyn on 29 January this year, marking the anniversary of the death of Hind Rajab. The memorial was brought to Western Australia by a group of local doctors keen for their community to bear witness and to remember these  innocent children whose lives were cut short by conflict.

The rows and rows of names are punctuated by photos and stories of individual children, drawing on reports by the Guardian and Washington Post newspapers.

“If you approach from a distance, it looks like almost an abstract painting and that draws people in to see, what is that?”  according to the artist Phil Buehler. “Then you’ll see they’re names of the children killed in Gaza since 7 October and there are thousands of them stretching down the block.

“Then you’ll be drawn in further, I hope, to see the faces, read the stories of some of the few dozen I’ve scattered throughout the fence. That’s the part that gets me when I look at it. You see these faces full of joy and hope, snapshots from graduations and birthday parties and family gatherings and knowing that these kids’ lives were just cut short.”

The artist reflects: “You can’t not think about your own kids and your own families. I hope that might lead people to think about how they might help, even if it’s just, take a photo of the mural and pass it along on their social media or to their friends.”

When the exhibition was displayed in the WA parliament, WA Nationals MP Lachlan Hunter was suspended for four days after accusing WA Greens MP Sophie McNeill, who had co-hosted the event, of ‘vilifying’ the Jewish community in WA by referencing what scholars, experts, international law, Palestinians, Israel human rights groups and humanitarian groups have all called genocide.

He was suspended for not returning to the debate which was on essential services.

Today in Canberra, Amnesty International Australia will deliver a petition signed by around 125,000 people to Defence Minister Richard Marles, “demanding the Australian Government immediately end Australia’s involvement in the supply of weapons to Israel and impose a national arms embargo”.

The exhibition, and petition, is supported by Greens and independent MPs.

Greg Jericho

According to the NSW flutracking service (which you really should sign up to and help provide data). Flu symptoms are having a late season surge after what has been a pretty mild winter for the flu here in Australia.

Last year wasn’t as bad as 2024 (and yet I still caught it!), but the late winter/early spring season jump shows that it is best to stay safe. And as always, get vaccinated. 

Greg Jericho

Look I am not sure if you are aware of this, but the United States has…. what’s the technical term for it… oh yes, an incompetent, racist, dribbling, senile, corrupt, sex offender as a President.  That might not matter too much to Australians other than the fact the Albanese government has tied ourselves to him such that we are not so much “fettered to a corpse” as handcuffed to a rancid pile of excrement. 

Anyway, as for economics, Trump’s decision to be the US President dumb enough to listed to Netanyahu and bomb Iran has really been just masterful every step of the way… for Iran. 

And his continuing inability to make a deal, and continuing fighting has sent oil prices back well above US$100bbl – a mere 22% higher than they were when Trump took to Truth social to declare “mission accomplished”

This has meant Australia petrol prices have followed:

They are now at 213c/l higher than they have been since April – when the government had halved the fuel excise. 

Now the reports are that the government is mulling doing this again.  My gut is the price would nee to get closer to 230-240c/l before they would do it.

But a reminder that it costs around $850m a month to halve the excise. 

Another reminder – a 25% tax on gas exports would raise around $1,400m a month. So you know… oh and by the way, you know who rising oil prices is good for? Yep gas companies…

And here is Liberal MP Zoe McKenzie on the same topic:

So, obviously, we have had a long concern about this government’s policy settings and the fact that roughly 2 million migrants will have come in by the time of the next election without the appropriate work being done in terms of infrastructure to make sure that when people arrive, there are homes, there are houses, there are roads, there are hospitals, there are schools that are going to be able to accommodate those migrants. Can I say one thing. It’s good today to see that there is a detailed policy from One Nation on migration, because I think we’ve had three different policies from them in the last few weeks.

There was the one David Farley espoused, then there was the correction by Barnaby, then there was the correction by Mrs. Hanson herself. And then there were some more alterations to that in written form. But today there’s a written document. So, the important thing for us to understand, and I look forward to Mrs. Hanson explaining this today, in fact, is what the economic impact of those policies will be, what the impact will be, as Matt has rightly pointed out, on things like agriculture, tourism and hospitality, aged care and health care, we need to go through each industry, because at the moment, Australian industries depend on migrants to actually produce what they need to produce. I was meeting with the trucking industry on Friday.

They’re desperate for more migrants. Each one of those migrants fulfils a job in the economy and pays tax. So, when you cut by these numbers, it will have an impact depending on who you’re bringing less of into the country. And the good news is, I’m sure they’ve done the costing work I’m sure the Parliamentary Budget Office has costed it for them and I look forward to seeing that data during the day because frankly, not done well.

This will cause a recession. This will cause a giant shock to the Australian economy, which is why we on our side have been spending months going through the data and the economic impact on this country. Because that’s our job and that’s what we will do.

Labor and the Coalition have found a political unity ticket in pushing back against One Nation, but they are also dancing around the political issue they have helped create of migration.

The Coalition don’t know what their policy is yet and neither do Labor. Both think they have to do something because One Nation has made it a political issue, and both have given cover to One Nation to do this, by never really addressing it, or defending Australia’s migration history. Or why the settings are the way they are.

Here is Matt Thistlethwaite on News24 this morning on One Nation’s ‘zero migration’ policy:

This is an economy wrecking policy, Pete. Like a lot of One Nation policies, it’s big on rhetoric, small on detail, but from what I’ve read, it would dramatically affect rural and regional communities in particular to make cuts like that to temporary visas. You would have to cut the Working Holiday Maker program. That would mean that a lot of farmers —

Q Well, they say that that won’t change. They say that won’t change, Matt.

Thistlethwaite: 

Well, to make those sort of cuts, you’d need to cut those. But let’s say they cut students. That will affect rural and regional universities. Our policy was to divert a lot of those student numbers to rural and regional university. If you make cuts like that, then you’ll cut those numbers. The other aspect of the policy is to not allow people to bring their partners with them. So, let’s say you’ve got a paediatrician that’s coming from the United Kingdom to work at Westmead Children’s Hospital. Are you really going to say to that paediatrician, you can’t bring your husband and your kids? If you do, they’ll say, well, I’m not coming. Or the nuclear engineer that’s coming from the United States to work on the AUKUS program, sorry, but you can’t bring your wife and kids. They’ll simply say, I’m not coming. They’re economy wrecking policies.

Q: But what of the argument that you’re bringing in, say skilled migrants and the families aren’t skilled or not having any kind of economic benefit, which is a point that’s been put up by One Nation. Does that change things, Matt? Then I’ll go to you, Zoe.

Thistlethwaite : 

Well, a lot of the evidence is that the partners that do come do have skills and do work in the economy. So, there’s no evidence for what One Nation is saying. And we do have large skill shortages in some crucial industries in Australia, for instance, in the education sector, in the healthcare sector, these are highly skilled and highly trained individuals that are adding to the productivity of the country. That’s why we have a temporary skilled migration program to deliver those skills for the economy where we have shortages. The other point to make, Pete, is that you can only come in on a skilled visa if there’s a known shortage within your industry.

In other words, the employer has advertised for Australians and they can’t get Australians to do that work. If you’re going to say to those people, well, you can’t bring your partner, then obviously many of them won’t come.

Anna Chang

While Monday’s urgency motions in particular, often show what the Liberals and Greens priorities are for the week, it’s also true that by week two of a sitting period, we get to what can only be described as ‘deep cuts, b-sides and rarities’.

It looks like both parties are going into the week trying to ‘do their bit’ for their Victorian colleagues and the upcoming state election. 

The Coalition have stumped up a very ‘election retail politics’ motion (compared to their more ‘ranty’ fare along the same lines), and Greens have gone in with the privatisation of Melbourne Water.

Urgency motions for today:

Senator McGrath—Urgency motion—That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency—

The need to end the Albanese Government’s assault on household budgets, with Australians paying more tax, more for their mortgage or rent and more for everyday essentials, while Labor pursues even more taxes that will make it harder to get ahead

Senator McKim—Urgency motion—That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency—

The need for the Commonwealth Government to urgently intervene against any proposed plans to privatise Australian water supply, including the potential sale of Melbourne Water by the Victorian Labor government

One Nation’s migration policy is to stop all migration for three years.

Well, the Farmers Federation wants more backpacker work visas issued for the agriculture sector. So do you see how none of this migration talk is actually driven by need, but actually is just politics?

Here is what the NFF are saying:

Farmers urge Government to lift backpacker pause

The National Farmers’ Federation is calling on the Federal Government to urgently restore timely Working Holiday Maker visa processing and consult affected industries before making further changes, warning every day of uncertainty is putting more pressure on farmers, regional communities and food supply.

With Federal Parliament returning this week, the NFF and some members will be in Canberra to brief decision makers on how disruption to the program is already being felt on the ground.

Australians who want to show their support can sign the petition calling on the Government to protect Working Holiday Maker backpacker visas.

NFF President Hamish McIntyre said Working Holiday Makers were an important part of the workforce mix that keeps farms safe, productive and able to get food and fibre to market at an affordable price.

“Working Holiday Makers fill around one in seven farm jobs nationally and are especially important in peak periods, including harvest, planting and intensive production systems like dairy and horticulture,” Mr McIntyre said.

“Farmers are telling us workers they expected to arrive have not arrived, crops still need to be harvested, cows still need to be milked and the workload is being pushed onto fewer people.

“That creates serious health and safety risks and unnecessary liability. Some farmers are already working longer hours because of the workforce gap, and that is not sustainable or safe option.”

Mr McIntyre said the timing could not be more serious, with each day of slower processing or paused lodgements moving farms closer to winter grain crop and summer harvests without certainty about whether they will have the workers they need.

“If farms cannot access workers at the right time, the consequences do not stop at the farm gate. They flow through local businesses, regional economies, supply chains and ultimately all Australian at the checkout,” Mr McIntyre said.

“What agriculture needs now is immediate clarity, restored processing and genuine consultation before any further reforms are made.”

Anna Chang

The summary of the Senate’s planned business for the week, is here for those interested.

It’s always a little ‘based on a true story’ rather than set in stone, mainly because — as we saw last week — if you have the numbers you can do anything: including rearrange business. And the Government will always ram through anything contentious once they have the numbers.

Today among other things, the very nobly titled ‘Wage Justice’ bill for early childhood educators hits the Senate (subject to some boring procedural exemptions), so we have more ‘how expensive is childcare’ speeches to look forward to.

The report from the Senate inquiry into the Optus Triple Zero outage last September is also expected to be tabled today.

On Wednesday, Senator Chris Gatenby (who replaces retired Liberal Senator Wendy Askew representing Tasmania) gives his first speech. He was senior advisor to Premier Jeremy Rockliff, prior to his preselection and was previously chief of staff to Senator Richard Colbeck, and a two-time Liberal Party candidate for the state  seat of Bass (unsuccessful). So a real man of the people the Liberal Party have preselected here.

And later this week, the roster of Private Senators Bills includes Senator Alex Antic doing some anti-vax gear with a bill to repeal ‘no jab, no pay’, and a TBC from Senator Jacqui Lambie, with veterans allied health and digital duty of care being the two issues she’s been pushing the most so could get a look in here.

This week, a bunch of independent media outlets will have more of a focus on the Northern Territory and its government than usual, driven by the actions of the government which is mostly going unremarked in the rest of Australia.

Here is one of the contributions from the 7am podcast:

One by one, the Aboriginal leaders, organisations and watchdogs the Northern Territory government is supposed to work with are walking away.
The Children’s Commissioner has resigned. An Indigenous MP has left parliament after more than a decade. And now almost the entire Aboriginal side of the Territory’s Justice Policy Partnership has suspended its involvement.
They’re all making a remarkably similar complaint – that the government isn’t listening, and that the structures supposedly designed to give Aboriginal people a say have become meaningless.
Today, National Indigenous Times journalist Dechlan Brennan, on how relations got this bad – and whether a government can tackle the Territory’s enormous problems if the people most affected no longer believe there’s any point in sitting at the table.
If you enjoy 7am, the best way you can support us is by making a contribution at 7ampodcast.com.au/support.

You can find it here.

Independent MP Monique Ryan has released research by the Parliamentary Budget Office (which does treasury work for non-government MPs) which she says show that “half of the $3 billion dollars the Albanese government expects to save from scrapping private health insurance rebates for over-65s will be clawed back from pensioners”.

Ryan:

The PBO has confirmed what older Australians and the private health sector have feared: these cuts will disproportionately affect those least able to afford them,” said Dr Monique Ryan, Independent Member for Kooyong. 

After paying taxes throughout their working lives and maintaining private health insurance to meet their health needs as they age, age pension recipients will bear the brunt of the government’s changes.”  

Ryan says the PBO has found that $1.6bn of the total budget savings of $3bn by 2029-30 would be met by the nearly 1.5 million age pensioners who hold private health insurance. 

From her statement:

Most submissions to the recent committee inquiry into this legislation opposed it. Private Healthcare Australia has warned the government’s cuts will cost some retirees more than $1600 per year, while National Seniors Australia finds the average cost could be more than $1000 a year for older couples with Gold cover. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare analysis identifies a gender gap in age pension recipients: 58 per cent of women over 65 needing support, compared with 53 per cent of men. 

Dr Ryan: “This is a cash grab aimed at older Australians on low and fixed incomes during a cost-of-living crisis. Many will be forced to drop private health cover at the time in their life when they need it most. Others will downgrade their cover. Both outcomes will increase pressure on our already-stretched public hospitals. That cost has been ignored in the government’s calculations of savings from this measure.  

“Stripping rebate support from elderly Australians is an insult to people who have made valuable contributions during their working lives – who have planned and saved for their retirement. This policy treats age pensioners unfairly. It shifts responsibility for the cost of their care from the federal government onto the states and could well end up costing more than it saves. 

“There’s no doubt our private health insurance system needs reform. Every year we pay more and get less from it. But penalising those least able to absorb cost increases will achieve nothing but loss of faith in government from vulnerable older Australians.” 

Later this week Dr Ryan will move an amendment to the Bill to protect pensioners from losing the rebate.  

Glenn Connley

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been publicly warned that his proposed Digital Duty of Care laws won’t keep Australians safe.

In an open letter published in newspapers today, organisations representing a broad cross-section of Australian society say the proposed laws should be strengthened to allow Australians harmed by illegal and dangerous online content to take action to enforce the Duty of Care.

“Social media companies facilitate an enormous range of harm, including psychological illness, sexual violence, body dysmorphia and eating disorders, human trafficking, hate speech directed at vulnerable communities, racist violence, fraud, political insurrection and genocide,” the letter states.

“While we welcome the introduction of a Digital Duty of Care, the current plan gives eSafety, the regulator, a monopoly on enforcement,” said Josh Bornstein, Director, Corporate Regulation at The Australia Institute.

“The regulator already receives more than 100,000 complaints a year and can only take action for a tiny percentage of that number.  No regulator can police online safety on its own. Australians who are harmed by Big Tech should also be allowed to seek redress for a breach of the Digital Duty of Care.”

The open letter is supported by groups including the Chinese Australian Forum, the Australian Education Union, the Working with Women Alliance, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and The Australia Institute.

Just last week, The Australia Institute released new polling which showed Australians want much stronger protections than those which were proposed by the Prime Minister last week.

“The best way to have effective Digital Duty of Care laws, supported by all Australians, is to get them right the first time,” Mr Bornstein said.

“Australians want laws which protect everyone. Big Tech has facilitated death threats, rape threats, fraud, hate speech and terrorism.

“Not only have these companies facilitated enormous harm, which has already cost countless lives, they’ve actively promoted it to maximise profit. This must stop. We have learnt the lesson from workplace safety, that best practise regulation requires the combined efforts of regulators working alongside those who suffer harm. Cybersafety should be regulated in the same way.

“If the Australian government wants to be a world leader when it comes to Digital Duty of Care, strong laws which prevent harmful content must give victims, including individuals and groups, the option of taking action to protect themselves.”

Like Jane Hume, Andrew Hastie was also cautious about One Nation’s migration ‘policy’.

One Nation know they don’t need modelling, or even for the policy to make sense. They just need the headlines to take hold, because they aren’t actually planning on what happens if they have to implement this – they are just capturing voters successive right wing politicians, helped by those in the ‘sensible centre’ to legitimise it – have spent decades laying the foundation for.

The difference is One Nation now feels emboldened enough to say this all out loud. And if you don’t think they have had help from the networks which have helped do this in America and the UK and Europe, then I have a few bridges to sell you.

Hastie:

We know how we’re going to achieve that and we’re working very, very hard to get the policy right. What we don’t know about Pauline Hanson’s policy is the economic, the fiscal and the human impact it will have, she posted on Facebook in the last hour her policy. But we don’t know what the modelling or the costing is, and it’s up to her to come out and explain that to the Australian people. I’ve sat through several hours of meetings over the last week talking about these issues, and we want to get it right. We’ve said that we’re going to cut net overseas migration below the amount of houses that are built every year, because housing is a massive issue. I have Australians in my electorate living down at the beach, in their cars or in tents. We’ve got kids in caravan parks and, and tents in in the backyard of their neighbours. This is unacceptable. This is this is really bad stuff.

Labor has lost control of their borders*. And so we are cutting migration, but we’re going to get it right because it’s got to work for all Australians.

*Nope. Not defending Labor here, but the policy settings are not out of control. There is no evidence for this claim and the idea that migrants are responsible for the lack of population planning of governments is just buck shifting.

Morgan Harrington

As Pauline Hanson leads a national debate on whether or not people should be given early access to their super, spare a thought for the cohort of workers who are already allowed to access their super, but can’t seem to get it.

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) holds over $14.2 million in unclaimed super from over 30,000 people who came to Australia to work as part of the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme.  

The theory is that PALM workers collect their super when they leave Australia, as a ‘Departing Australia Superannuation Payment’ (DASP). But the process is not straightforward, and if a claim isn’t made within six months after a visa expires, a separate process of application process applies. DASP is taxed at 35%, so even those people who are successful in getting their super pay a hefty fee.

A fairer, easier system would allow PALM workers to have their super automatically deposited into a retirement fund in their home country. Australia already operates a portable superannuation scheme with New Zealand, elements of which could be replicated for the Pacific. In New Zealand, which has its own temporary worker program for people from the Pacific, visa holders can opt to have superannuation payments sent directly to funds in their home country.

Andrew Hastie is doing the media rounds this morning on Pauline Hanson.

Here he was on the Nine network a little earlier on why he is speaking up now:

Well, as you’re aware, there are legal proceedings under foot regarding war crimes. And only a week or so ago, a non-publication order was made for all the witnesses involved in that case, and my name was not included in that non-publication order. So I’m free to speak about some of these issues, as I think I’m unlikely to be called as a witness. And my issue is that, yes, it was personally offensive because I’m proud of the 12 years, eight months, multiple tours to Afghanistan that I gave to this country serving in the Australian Army. But it’s more about the veterans across this country, but particularly the more than 20 SAS combat veterans who gave evidence in the federal court some years ago. And the question for Pauline Hanson, which she hasn’t answered, which she refused to answer, is, are they traitors to. I think it’s a total slur to call anyone who has worn our uniform a traitor.

Q:So does it have anything at all to do with One Nation’s win in the secret Harbour electorate, which overlaps, of course, with your seat of Canning?

Hastie:

No it doesn’t. And the real issue of Secret Harbour is that there are forgotten Australians there. But across the country who are getting hammered by Labour’s high inflation, high immigration numbers and underinvestment in our critical infrastructure, whether it be roads, public transport and essential services like hospitals, people are angry, rightly so, and we need to work harder to build a plan and a vision for this country that delivers those people prosperity going forward.

Q: The people of Secret Harbour voted for One Nation, though. So does that prevent present an existential threat to your political career?

Hastie:

It doesn’t, Sylvia, because it was a state election contested on state issues. I’m in the federal parliament, and I believe that Angus Taylor has a strong plan for lower taxes, for cheaper power, for cutting immigration, building more homes and investing in Australians. So there were issues in Secret Harbour, certainly, that people were angry about. But the lesson for all of us is that we need to deliver for the forgotten people of Australia, the mums and dads and the seniors out there who are getting hammered by inflation, who are sick and tired of being forgotten. We’ve got to start fighting for them and that’s what the Coalition is doing today.

Q: Let’s put the politics aside for a moment, because this is clearly very personal for you. You say you’re proud of your years of service and you should be, and it deserves the respect of every single Australian, especially those of us who have never put on a uniform for the sake of our country. As an Afghanistan veteran yourself, how does it affect you personally to be accused of betraying your country?

Hastie:

Well, I’ve experienced this for for 5 or 6 months now. It’s been really hard. It’s been hard on me personally. It’s been hard on my staff, but it’s been really hard on my wife as well, who I left behind to go overseas knowing I might not return. So yeah, it is a slur. That’s why I’ve defended myself. But I’m also standing up for other veterans because it’s not just about me. And I think this sort of nasty, grubby politics underscores Pauline Hanson’s true character. And with Australia facing a once in a generation cost of living crisis, with artificial intelligence coming at us very hard and fast, I think she’s revealed that she doesn’t have what it takes to be Prime Minister of this country.

Q: You’ve said that you will keep going on this front with Pauline Hanson. What’s next? What’s the next stage of your attack against her?

Hastie:

Well, she has refused to take down the cartoon. She’s doubled down. She hasn’t apologised. Barnaby Joyce apologised and explained his situation. And I accept that. And I think that shows Barnaby Joyce to be an honourable person. Whereas Pauline Hanson has doubled down and it shows that when she’s under pressure she retreats into childish cartoons rather than being a person who can take responsibility. And I think that reveals why she’s not fit to be Prime Minister of Australia.

Environment minister Murray Watt has weighed in on the Hanson comments (which are from February – it is just now that there has been a decision to start pushing back against Hanson).

He told ABC radio RN Breakfast:

I think an apology is absolutely needed from Pauline Hanson for yet another remark that she makes, punching down on people in our community who deserve our support. I mean, last week we saw her, and recently we saw her taking on Andrew Hastie, a distinguished war veteran, and all the other people who gave evidence in that particular court case that she’s complaining about. She’s now moved on to social housing residents, and the idea that you would pick on someone’s late mother who died more than 20 years ago is cruel and despicable. I mean, I’m starting to lose count of the number of groups within our community who Pauline Hanson is picking on. She thinks workers are lazy. She doesn’t like migrants. She says parents who use childcare aren’t doing the right thing. Women experiencing domestic violence. She says that’s a two-way street.

I mean, we’re starting to run out of groups in the community that she doesn’t pick on. And at a time when Australians are doing it really tough, is the is is a government led by someone who wants to punch down on them and make life harder the way to help people get through? I don’t think it is.

The thing Watt is missing – is that Australians listening to One Nation don’t actually mind the attacks. It’s never about them (they think) – but all those other people taking advantage of what they are paying for, or missing out on.

Jane Hume is on stronger ground over whether or not Hanson should apologise for her February comments about Maryanne Albanese living in public housing (this was brought up at the time, but is an issue now because of Hanson’s attacks on Andrew Hastie)

Hume:

…these comments were gratuitous and unnecessary, and you know the idea that you would disparage people that have grown up in social housing, I think, is is a little distasteful.

I mean, it doubles down on the fact that you know Senator Hanson has also disrespected our veteran community with her atrocious comments about Andrew Hastie in that cartoon, calling a veteran a traitor.

I think is possibly the worst thing you can do. But this does seem to be a common theme in One Nation now that I do that that sort of unnecessarily provocative rhetoric.

Liberal senator Jane Hume was on ABC radio RN Breakfast this morning, walking the line between criticising One Nation’s migration policy while not criticising One Nation’s migration policy (mostly because the Coalition don’t know what they are doing yet):

Well, let’s start by saying that we agree that standards have been too low and numbers have been too high. And Angus Taylor has been saying that about our migration program since he became leader under Labor, we’ve seen the migration program run out of control*.

They’ve missed their own targets each and every year, and something has to change**.

My concern with what we’ve seen this morning from One Nation is it’s simply headline numbers without any detail of the modeling that’s underneath it, because we know that if you get your migration program wrong, well, then all Australians will pay a price.

And even already today, economists have come out and said that potentially, with the numbers that one nation are throwing around, you could send the economy into recession, and that means everybody will end up paying for a poorly thought through migration policy. Now, Labor has to release its modeling of its migration policy.

The Coalition will do the same. I think One Nation should be expected to do so too.

*It’s not any different to the Coalition settings.

**So did the Coalition.

Now, if you know a pensioner in your life, who does not have secure housing, then this should be ringing alarm bells for you. Because Barnaby Joyce and Pauline Hanson do not believe that they should have secure housing. Hanson loves to talk about how hard she worked as a small business owner, as if there is moral value in working versus not working. But for the last three decades or so, Hanson has made her money from being in, or around politics. She doesn’t show up to do the job all the time, and she is supported by billionaires. Same for Joyce, who had his rent paid for by a benefactor after losing the Nationals leadership. And these people are now saying Australians who don’t have money don’t deserve housing.

Joyce is asked about Hanson’s attacks on Anthony Albanese’s mother (in February) about living in public housing and says:

Well, I’ve said quite clearly that I don’t know the Prime Minister’s mother. I’m sure she’s a very, very good woman. And, you know, the circumstances of Mrs. Albanese, Mrs. Albanese, the Prime Minister’s mother, is is a story about her life.

But the whole, you know, log cabin story of living in a housing commission home that the Prime Minister rolls out over and over again for a person who owns multiple houses. And good luck to him, and God bless him. And he’s about to go live in a $4.5 million house on the Central Coast. It just doesn’t wash. It was interesting the first time. Interesting the second time. It’s not interesting now.

…The issue, the issue, the issue about whether people should have a long term position in public housing is a concern. We need public housing as a safety net. It shouldn’t be there sort of in continuum so that people just basically stay there forever because it makes it tougher for other people. There’s got to be a process where people utilise this safety net, but then give other people a chance to utilise that safety net.

Otherwise.We’re just we’re just never going to have enough public housing. It’s just not possible.

Sure it is. You just build public housing. Which is what Australia did in the so-called golden era of the 1950s onwards. We stopped doing that in the 1970s onwards. So we have done it. The generation Joyce speaks for, experienced that. His generation took it away.

Tanya Plibersek was on the Seven network this morning, as the tribute nominated to ‘debate’ Barnaby Joyce.

She was asked about trust in government, and whether Anthony Albanese has lost it by breaking the promise not to make any changes to housing taxes. Which was a pretty strong media narrative that didn’t apply to the attacks over the tax changes the government took to the election (and won) to change the tax settings applying to earnings over $3m in super funds. So the ‘broken promise’ narrative really just seems to apply to whatever people decide it does,

Plibersek:

…the easiest thing to do in politics is nothing. And what we saw is a real problem with young Australians locked out of the housing market. We could have done nothing as the previous government did for years, waiting for housing to become more and more unaffordable, waiting for more young Australians to be locked out of the housing market. We could have just sat on our hands and done nothing, or we could tackle the problem. And that’s what we decided.

Barnaby Joyce is pretending this is a socialist government. He is doing that because he knows that the word ‘socialist’ scares people who don’t know what it is, or that they experience elements of it – public health, public education, public services. And One Nation used to have a lot of socialist policies – like the people’s bank. It’s just we do a really good job of demonising public spending in this country and then wonder why everyone is feeling so stretched when we let the market take care of it.

Joyce (who lied about having an extra marital relationship, was found incoherent on a Canberra footpath, was a ‘drought envoy’ who filed ‘reports’ over WhatsApp after losing the Nationals leadership) says:

Well, we’ve seen the alternative socialist government. It’s going very badly debt through $1 trillion*. Now they lied. And when they lie, it’s hard to stop being a liar. They lied on the price of electricity going down or $275**. They lied about falling off a stage***. They lied about not saying that they insulted the Japanese Prime Minister****. Then they lied about a whole range of promises they made before an election as a reason for people to vote for them*****. And of course, people don’t take them seriously anymore. So any promise they make now, people say, well, whatever, you know, knock yourself out. Who cares? We just don’t believe you.

Now, of course, we want the socialist government removed as they socialise farmers private land assets as they socialise, the the risk that people take to go into small business making******. The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, a 47% equity holder in a small business, succeeds in building up from nowhere*******.If you find a mining precinct and you’re trying to develop. Develop that. If we want to go to the mining industry once more. If you’re in England, maybe 50%, 15% capital gains tax, New Zealand zero. Australia, well starts at 30 goes to 47%. These are all dramatic changes that no one was ever told about. And if we can work with people in such a form as to give confidence and supply so that they’re they removed the socialists, we’ll have that negotiation and they need to give us confidence and supply to where the government. That’ll be part of the negotiation.

*$600 million of which was from the Coalition government Joyce was a part of

**Little thing called inflation and some international oil shocks – and Joyce is against the renewable energy transistion which would help insulate Australians from these shocks

***This is so dumb

****The Japanese prime minister did not say they were insulted.

*****He doesn’t have any other examples

******WTF is he talking about?

*******This was a lie spread about social media which not only doesn’t make sense, it is not true

Sam Maiden for News dot com has the story on One Nation’s migration plan

Maiden reports it as a “reset” which includes cutting new overseas migration levels to zero. Which would mean a cut of 750,000 people for three years.

And then apparently ‘reviewed’ but somehow also resettle at 130,000 people a year, despite the fact that a review is supposed to be the thing that sets these things.

Pauline Hanson is apparently using Canada as her inspiration. We’ll have more for you soon, but this would absolutely tank Australia. You can look to the UK after Brexit what

It is no surprise that One Nation is announcing this as it is under pressure over it’s candidate choices (again), links to Gina Rinehart, calling Andrew Hastie a traitor, and sustained attacks over lack of policy cohesiveness.

But the ridiculousness of the policy won’t matter – it will kick start the debate, and then we will see some sort of panic from the government. Because that is how these things happen. You’ll also see a switch where the people pushing for cuts to migration will switch from being concerned about house prices (which have experienced a slight fall) to rents – because they can’t currently (and falsely) blame house prices on migration, so they will blame rents.

These are the same people who were against the changes to the CGT discount. But you know, policy consistency has never been thing – it’s all about the most convenient politics.

Hello and welcome to the second sitting week of this session. We don’t have too many to go, so everyone is feeling a bit antsy.

The government is keen to focus on essential services and the economy – especially as One Nation gets more popular.

There will be an announcement around grant funding for crisis housing later this morning, with $300 million in funding for about 500 more emergency homes. The government says this will help an additional 19,000 people.

Then you have the Coalition which is doing a whole lot of nothing, which is why Andrew Hastie is finding a lot of space for his crusade against One Nation. If you haven’t read it, Rob Harris and Paul Sakkal for the SMH and Age wrote a good news feature about where some of this started on Friday – you’ll find that here. That includes the genesis for the traitor line.

Then we have Anthony Albanese hitting back against Pauline Hanson for comments she had previously made about his mother on a podcast in February.

“I actually grew up in a street where we had housing commission houses there. It was a helping hand to those people, but they had jobs. And they worked.

“Housing commission houses should not be there for people to live in them for 30, 40 [years] – and he said his mother lived in the same one she was born in for 65 years.”

Maryanne had worked as a cleaner, and also suffered from crippling rheumatoid arthritis among other health conditions. She died in 2002.

That’s Albanese’s red line and he has found support from Hastie.

If Pauline Hanson wants to criticise me, then that’s fine, but my mother was way out of Pauline Hanson’s league, way out of it,” Albanese said on Sunday.

Hastie told the artist formally known as Sky News:

I think this is another indicator to the Australian people that she’s not fit to be prime minister.

I don’t think you should be talking about the late mother of anyone in this game.”

Independent MPs and senators will also be introducing private members legislation calling for Australia to find its own red lines when it comes to international laws.

From the statement this morning:

In the absence of a federal human rights act, the Red Lines package is an important suite of legislative amendments that has huge support across civil society and shifts the focus from prohibition to prevention – where it needs to be.

The package is being co-sponsored in the Senate by Senators Thorpe, Payman, Pocock and Faruqi. It is being introduced in the House on Monday September 14th by Independent Member for Mackellar Dr Sophie Scamps MP and is being seconded by the Member for Clark Mr Andrew Wilkie MP.

The package amends a number of pieces of legislation designed to ensure Australia does not breach its international human rights obligations, including via imports, defence exports and investments.

It will be launched at a special event at Parliament House on Tuesday evening with special guest speakers Emeritus Professor Gillian Triggs AC, former President of the Australian Human Rights Commission Louise Adler AM, publisher and cultural leader Rawan Arraf, Executive Director, Australian Centre for International Justice Professor Sarah Joseph, Professor of Human Rights Law and Director of Castan Centre for Human Rights and Robert Richter KC, barrister and human rights advocate.

This has been in the works for some time. but is even more timely as the government refuses to follow the UK and about 13 other countries and apply a blanket ban to Israeli trade from the West Bank (which is illegal under international law).

We’ll be following all of that and more as the day unfolds. You have Amy Remeikis and her three coffees this morning to get you started.

Ready?