The Point Live: RBA to face estimates as new inflation data laid out, Greens leader to front National Press Club for first time. As it happened..

We. Have. Almost. Made. It. Through. This. Week.

Big snaps to everyone because this is a rough one and it’s hard to concentrate on the politics when so much else is going on, and I am very proud of all of you.

We will be back tomorrow with more of the ridiculousness and hopefully find some good news in amongst it all. But please – if it is sunny where you are – get some sunshine and feel the breeze. You have earned it.

Until tomorrow morning – take care of you. Ax

Skye Predavec

Australia pro-democracy activist Hiep Tran has been imprisoned in Vietnam, and has told his family that he was abducted by Vietnamese authorities from Cambodia a month ago. It’s already been discussed a few times in estimates today, but is now the subject of a frustrating exchange where Foreign Minister Penny Wong has refused to answer questions from Greens leader David Shoebridge on the basis that it would require consent from the family – only, Shoebridge says that the family’s legal representative requested he ask these questions.

Shoebridge:

The family have asked me to ask you here, will you call in the Vietnamese ambassador? And will you seek a direct explanation, one-to-one, between you and the Vietnamese ambassador? That seems the minimum that you would expect … for you to have that direct request to the ambassador come in and provide an explanation. And I don’t understand the resistance to you doing that.

Wong:

Well, Senator, please don’t politicise this. Please don’t. I’d really encourage you not to. This is an Australian citizen and that is not the request that has been, what the request you have just asserted to me is not the request that has been put to me by the family. All right, so I hope you are correct.

But what I would say is, Ms Chang can explain to you what has happened in relation to the Ambassador, and I can indicate to you that I have raised Mister Tran’s case directly with my counterpart, my ministerial counterpart.

Shoebridge:

I still do not understand why, in a situation like this, where there is a significant body of independent evidence that an Australian citizen was abducted from a third country by another country, where you have the evidence that had been given to Australian officials that I read earlier, and it’s been passed to Mr Trans’ wife that seems to confirm that … you haven’t called in the Vietnamese ambassador, to first of all make Australia’s objections and concerns 100% clear, and secondly, seek a formal explanation from Vietnam’s representative in Australia, that is the purpose of an ambassador … this is a moment for a foreign minister to step to step up and make it clear.

Wong:

But you were more interested in getting up a social media grab than on helping Mister Tran. That is offensive and wrong, and I am, I am really disappointed, I am disappointed by this. I am disappointed by you. If you want a private briefing, I will give you a private briefing. I have not. I have raised it at a ministerial level that is more senior than an ambassador. So that is the answer to your question. If you obtain privacy consent from the family, I’m happy to give you a private briefing. I’m not having a political argument in public circumstances.

Angus Blackman

Elephant?! What elephant?

On this episode of After America, Allan Behm and Dr Emma Shortis discuss key races in the midterms, the Israeli election, and the latest from the Canberra bubble on Euro-Indo-Atlanto-Pacific strategic interests.

Watch the episode on YouTube or listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

Matt Grudnoff

Oil refineries take in crude oil and turn it into refined products like petrol, diesel, or jet fuel.

We only have two oil refineries in Australia and they’re both going through a profit purple patch. Independent Kate Chaney asked about these profits in question time, claiming Ampol’s Litton refinery increased 10-fold and Viva Energy’s is up 150%.

This has happened at a time when the world price of oil has soared.

Remember that oil is the main input into the refining process.

If I told you that coffee bean prices had soared, what do you think might happen to the profitability of cafes?

Well coffee beans an important input, so higher prices mean the cafe is going to do one of two things. Take a hit to their profits or increase their prices. In reality it would probably be some combination of both.

But what you probably wouldn’t expect is the profitability of cafes to shoot up.

Why would it? Their costs have gone up.

But oil refineries take in crude oil, that has rapidly increased in price, and turn it into various fuels, which have also increased in price.

But such a big increase in profits suggests they have been increasing their prices by more than the increase in oil prices.

Another classic case of profit push inflation.

Skye Predavec

The Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee has turned its attention to Antarctica, with Liberal Senator Jessica Collins probing the University of Tasmania’s cooperation with other universities that do research in the region. The problem? One of them is from China.

Senator Collins: Is it a concern for DFAT that the University of Tasmania, which is doing [the $1.2 million Antarctic Research Project], also operates a joint masters programme with the Ocean University of China, which the US Department of War has placed on a banned entity list because of its links to the PLA Navy?

DFAT:

I can reassure you that we talk regularly with the University of Tasmania and ensure that, and it ensures that it actually has careful due diligence and controls in place to manage its sensitive research engagement, including with Chinese institutions.

Collins: I just wanted to ask about Yongshan, the Chinese Antarctic Base. There’s an accompanying airfield in Australian Antarctic Territory … Has DFAT reached out diplomatically to China about these insertions on our territory?

DFAT:

Well, I would not characterise them as insertions, Senator. Under the Antarctic Treaty, Antarctic Treaty parties, which include Australia, also China and 27 other countries, commit to certain undertakings, most importantly, Article 1, which is a non-militarisation objective, that is the peaceful uses objective.

Article 4, which, if you like, freezes and preserves the claimant system, including our claim for 42% of the continent in the Australian Antarctic Territory, and Article 7, which allows for the inspections regime with respect to Antarctic bases.

It’s a deal, it’s a compromise and provided any country [to build] any Antarctic base where it so wants to do. And that was the nature of the original if you like, deal that was struck between the United States and the then Soviet Union many, many years ago and it still applies.

So we call on all Antarctic Treaty parties to comply with their obligations, including most significantly Article 1, which as I said is a non-militarisation peaceful uses. Beyond that, we recognise that the treaty provides a right for any treaty party to establish a station.

The Bureau of Statistics today not only released the latest inflation figures, but also the latest numbers on reasons people were not working or looking for work.

Two of the biggest reasons are that they are retired so, working ain’t on the agenda, and the other is that they are studying (even though more people studying work now than in the past).

Once you exclude those reason – which are not really reasons that the government or even economists really would like to change (ok there are some who think you should work till you die and should be down the mines even when at school) – the big two reasons are “dunno” and “something”, or officially “Other reasons” and “not determined”

Seriously people – just answer the damn survey!

But once we get past those two “reasons” we see big differences.

For women the biggest reason not looking for paid work (as opposed to the actual work they are doing, work that keeps the economy going but is unpaid) is child care. 20% of women state that reason.

By contrast just 5% of men do.

For men the biggest reason is a lack of suitable work around.

Changing the figurehead does not change the apartheid system’ says Jewish Council as Israeli election results roll in

As Israel’s election result remains unclear, the Jewish Council of Australia reminds the Australian Government that increasing pressure on Israel to end its genocide and apartheid regime remains urgent no matter who ends up in power. 

Early exit polls predict Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right Likud party is likely to remain the biggest single party in the Knesset, while Gadi Eisenkot’s bloc is following closely. Voter turnout for the first election since October 7 was at its highest in two decades. 

Former General Gadi Eisenkot authored the IDF’s ‘Dayiheh doctrine’ of targeting civilian areas and infrastructure with intentionally disproportionate violence, a policy of war crimes that culminated in the Gazan genocide. Eisenkot opposes the Two State Solution, supports the continuation of the illegal settlement project in the West Bank, and is likely to continue Israel’s wars in Lebanon, Syria and Iran. 

Just yesterday, a UN Commission of Inquiry confirmed that Israel’s genocide in Gaza has continued despite the declared ceasefire, and that the state has also committed crimes against humanity and war crimes in the West Bank. 

No matter the election result, Australia must increase pressure on Israel to end the genocide and apartheid it is inflicting on Palestinians. 

The Jewish Council is calling on the Australian government to:

1. Impose sanctions against Israel and Israeli government officials responsible for war crimes;
2. End the two-way arms trade with Israel;
3. Hold Israel accountable for its blatant violations of international law;

Support the Red Lines Package that would ensure Australia does not arm, fund, or invest in genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity or illegal occupation, anywhere in the world.

So did we learn anything?

Lol no, is this your first time here?

The opposition spent couple bits on inflation and then turned to the Marrickville golf course and then questions that could have been Dorothy Dixers.

After QT Tim Wilson is up to speak on a Matter of Public Importance.

No one deserves to listen to that so I will instead leave you with the source of Berries and Cream

Kate Chaney asks and excellent question on the impact of oil prices

My question is to the minister for climate change and energy. When fuel prices spiked this year, Australians were told it was because of the war. But Australia’s two refineries are making super profits. Ampol’s profits from the Litton refinery increased tenfold, and Viva Energy’s earnings are up 150% despite selling only 1% more fuel. Australians pay for those margins at the Bowser and in the price of everything transported, taxpayers subsidize these refineries in lean years. Why shouldn’t they get a share of the windfall when refineries profit from a crisis?

She is absolutely spot on just look at this

Chris Bowen answers in a way that completely ignores the question and instead focuses on oil security.

Well, thanks very much, mr. Speaker. I thank the honorable member for her question, and indeed, the fuel prices are a result of the war in the Middle East. There’s no question about that. But of course, the government has been focused very much on fuel security over the last seven months, ensuring our immediate fuel security.

And despite the fact that others called for rationing and others predicted rationing, we have ensured by working with those refineries and our trading partners that our fuel security has been very solid over that time, but we’ve also been working on our longer-term fuel security, building the Australian Strategic Fuel Reserve announced in the budget, as well as increasing the minimum stock obligation.

But the honorable member refers to the fuel security services payment, which was a payment introduced by the previous government after four refineries shut between 2013 and 2022, we lost 25 billion liters a year worth of production. And the member for Hume, when he had my job, introduced the fuel security services payment, which does support the operation of those two refineries and does provide payments when prices are low.

Err she didn’t refer to the fuel security services payment.

I have recently announced that I would begin consultation on a new fuel security services payment for the post-2030 arrangements, because we will not see those two refineries shut. But the honorable member is essentially correct, and one of the things in the consultation paper that I released on the new regime said, and I quote: “Consideration will be given to risk sharing between the government and industry, including whether mechanisms for government to capture a share of excess profits during favorable market conditions are appropriate, and how any shared value could be reinvested to support fuel security outcomes.

So we do think it’s appropriate to ensure that while government will ensure the refineries remain open, that when there are increased profits, the taxpayer can share in that, and that is a conversation that we will have with the industry between now and the end of the year.

And I will make further announcements when those arrangements are finalized. But building our fuel security has been absolutely essential, and ensuring that Australians can benefit when profits are high from those arrangements with refineries is perfectly appropriate. That’s why we’ve flagged that.

It’s also appropriate that we continue our four-point plan for fuel security, which involves working with states on feasibility studies for more refining capacity, increasing the minimum stock obligation and the Australian fuel security reserve, developing a low-carbon fuels industry for Australia, which is great for farmers as well as improving fuel security and supporting the choices of Australians on electrification, because every 100,000 new electric vehicles adds three days’ worth of fuel supply for Australia.

So that’s a no on doing anything to ensure Australians get any of the windfall profits.

LNP MP Henry Pike asks a question that he thinks will be very tough.

My question is to the Prime Minister. This treasurer has spent $120 billion dollars more than he has saved, fueling inflation and driving up mortgage repayments by more than 30 $1,000 per year. On the Inside Politics podcast, the treasurer said, “For people who think we should cut much harder, they should nominate. I think those areas that could be cut more substantially.” Prime Minister, by his own admission, this treasurer is out of touch and out of ideas. When are you going to give the member for Parramatta a go?

Truly this is a rank full toss that the PM can dispatch to the boundary (please Travis Head, do the same tonight)

After laughing at the Opposition tactics committee, the PM gets on to a pretty full throated support of Jim Chalmers:

Well, I tell you who takes the economy seriously. It’s this treasurer, because under this treasurer, average real annual spending growth is 1.5% over the eight years to 2930. Less than half the 30-year average, and less than half of what it was under the former coalition government. This treasurer produced back-to-back surpluses. This treasurer returned 75% of revenue upgrades to the bottom line. Under this treasurer, he’s one of only nine treasurers or finance ministers around the world that has AAA credit ratings from all of the agencies.

Under this treasurer, debt in 2025 26 is nearly $198 billion dollars lower.

At this point things get very tense as Milton Disk gets very shirty at Angus Taylor letting him know that

the leader of the opposition is going to stop yelling. Order, order! You’re going to stop yelling at me. Order, or you’ll be warned, and you won’t be here. This yelling is completely unacceptable. No leader of the opposition has behaved like that.

Yeah so much for that pledge of civility.

The PM finishes:

Under this treasurer, debt in 2025-26 is 198 billion dollars lower than forecasted at the 2022 election. Saving, saving around under this treasurer, $70 billion in interest cuts costs over the decade. This is a treasurer who takes his responsibilities on the economy seriously, and it is hard to take those opposite seriously, given their performance today,

The opposition might think they have Jim Chalmers under pressure, but cripes, if that is the best they can do he is in no danger. The way to get rid of a Treasurer is make them look a fool, and make it hard for the PM to defend them.

Absolutely nothing said by the opposition is doing anything to make that the case.

Greens MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown asks about child care safety

My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, early childhood education and care is facing a reckoning, with an epidemic of safety and quality concerns in Brisbane. Seven centers have shut down with just days’ notice, leaving families stranded. We wouldn’t accept Australia’s primary and secondary schools being run for profit and shutting on a whim. Isn’t it time for the government to guarantee safe and high-quality early childhood education to all Australian families?

Jason Clare answers for the government.

You are absolutely right that our children deserve safe and high-quality early education and care. They deserve nothing less. And I have been very blunt in this place that not enough has been done by any government of any stripe in this country to make sure that our kids are safe in early education and care, whether that’s state or federal or Labor or Liberal.

And I’ve also been very determined that that change, and that is why, working with ministers right across the country, we have taken the action that we have. That includes banning mobile phones in childcare centers. I don’t think I need to remind members why we’re doing that, but I should tell members that of all the things we’ve done, that’s the one that the federal police tell me is the most important.

It’s also why we’ve set up a national register so we know who is working where and when they move from state to state. And some of the people that are arrested and are now rotting in jail are the reason for that.

It’s also why we’ve put in place national mandatory safety training, so everybody from the CEO to the board to the person who works in the kitchen to the people who work on the floor have the skills they need to spot a predator that might be hiding in plain sight, that might be grooming kids or might be grooming them. So we’re also rolling out a trial of CCTV, and I think some of the things that we saw on Four Corners on Monday night remind us why that is important as well.

It’s always amazing how privatized services inevitable fall over or fail tragically without adequate regulations. That we know this is the case however never stops business groups and conservatives suggesting we just need to cut red tape and the economy will boom.

Yeah, and the work of Royal Commissions generally booms as well..

Dr Anne Webster asks the Prime Minister about small business:

My question is to the Prime Minister. Yet another Labor Premier is fighting back against the Prime Minister’s war on small business. Yesterday, embattled Victorian Premier Ben Carroll admitted Labor’s small business tax on trusts is quote undermining business confidence. Why do Australians always pay the price because the Prime Minister can’t ever admit he’s made a mistake?

It’s always very depressing when the opposition ends every question with the same tag – this case “admit he’s made a mistake”. It is all so terrible dull and focus group work shopped that you know it could only come up by someone who hasn’t talked to a human for far too long.

The question is not much of a test for Albanese and I feel dirty even posting the transcript because seriously it feels like a Dorothy Dixer:

Labor has a number of initiatives that have assisted small business, whether they be in Victoria or New South Wales or Queensland or Tasmania wherever they are, and that is why there are an extra 265,000 small businesses since we took office. Now bringing it to a record 2.7 million, 2.7 million.

The business registration each month have risen since we’ve been in government to be almost 35% higher than they were before we came to office, and 250% higher than they were under the Howard government. There are a number of initiatives that we have made.

One of the things that we have done is to make the $20,000 instant asset write-off permanent, and we’ve made the two-year loss carryback permanent.

Interestingly, Mr. Speaker, the fact is these are both Labor initiatives. Labor first introduced the instant asset write-off in 2011. In 2011, Labor also introduced the lost carryback at that time, and those measures were unwound by the former government. But it has taken another Labor government to make both these tax measures permanent.

Zali Steggall rises to ask about deepfakes – given one had just been made of Jaquie Lambie

a recent AI-generated deepfake video targeting Senator Jackie Lambie spread false statements in her name, resulting in increased threats to her. Sportsbet also did an illegal ad using AI-generated images of real athletes without their consent. This technology is evolving fast at a time of heightened concern for the safety and security of politicians. Realistic deepfakes can damage reputations, inflame tensions, expose people to psychological harms and security risks. Will the government make the creation of dissemination of AI-generated deepfakes illegal?

The Prime Minister is very happy to answer this question and rightly adopts a tone of seirousness. He also knows this is a chance to hype the Digital Duty of Care.

They did have an impact on Senator Lambie, encouraging the sort of violent threats which we’ve seen become far too prevalent. One is one too many, it must be said, but we are seeing across across the political spectrum increased threats, particularly towards women, in this place, whether it be the House or the Senate. And I know that the member is so concerned about this, as are I’m sure members right across the spectrum. But increasingly, as well, it must be said that it’s not just about politicians.

Of course, it’s people right across the board seeing these deep fakes, and it’s hard. There’s videos of people standing outside Parliament House making statements that aren’t them, and that distorts fact from fiction, and that is a huge issue. I take these issues very seriously, and so does the government.

The Digital Duty of care is in part aimed at addressing these issues. We need to make sure that new technology works in the interests of people that it promotes, or at least as neutral on social cohesion, it doesn’t break down social cohesion and cause division, and cause anger, and cause disruption.

I’ll ask the Attorney General, who’s the acting Minister for Communications, but I make this pledge to the Member for Warringah and anyone else as well. I want to work across the parliament on these issues. I’ve had discussions, including with members opposite there, the member for Groom and I had an informal discussion yesterday about the impact of these new technologies. I know that this concerns people right across the parliament.

The Attorney General Michelle Rowland then finishes the answer:

I thank the Member for Warringah. And I note her proposed amendment this morning related to AI-generated content in the debate on the digital duty of care. As the Communications Minister said, I can confirm that an AI-generated image that causes serious harm, even if it’s not of an intimate nature, can be defined as adult cyber abuse and can be taken down by the eSafety Commissioner under the Online Safety Act.

Building on the adult cyber abuse scheme and image-based abuse scheme, the duty will also require platforms to have systems in place to prevent this harm from occurring, and material or content that does not cause serious harm is not the content of this bill. But again, just to reiterate the prime minister’s comments, this is a whole-of-government effort in responding to the safety needs here, and I look forward to continuing constructive discussions with the honorable member and anyone else in this place.

You will notice neither committed to making them illegal. It also is worth noting that given the use of deepfakes not just to offend but to mislead, a Truth in Advertising law would help prevent what is almost certainly coming where during election people will have little idea if videos of politicians saying things is true or just AI.

See more here

Amy has had to go write a column, so it is Greg here carrying on (as I’ve just finished writing my column!)

Liberal MP Melissa Price gets up to continue to ask the Prime Minister about the grant to the Marrickville golf course

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Prime Minister. Yesterday, the Prime Minister was forced to admit he was not correct to claim his $6 million grant to Marrickville Golf Club was to fix sewage flows. On what date did the prime minister become aware, and what date did the prime minister’s office become aware that the $6 million grant was not to fix sewerage flows?

The Prime Minister answers:

I thank the member for her question. I’ve said that part of the original commitment of the upgrade of Marrickville Golf Club was going to fix the long-running sewerage issue that was to be part of renovations. That isn’t the case because state government have stepped in and announced funding in September 2025. That’s a good thing.

At this point Dan Tehan gets up to table a stack of documents, including Hansard, which Tony Burke points out out is quite stupid.

Things get a bit snippy and Milton Dick is not going to have it – the quiet times of Monday’s Question Time unsurprisingly didn’t last the week.

Nothing is tabled and no more is answered and so we move on.

Anara Watson

I wrote earlier today that Adelaide City Council (ACC) has passed a motion to ban fossil fuel advertising on council-controlled signage on council property.

Clearly, that’s not popular with everyone in South Australia. According to the ABC, “The SA government has slammed [the ban], saying it could ‘jeopardise’ a major element of the Santos-sponsored Tour Down Under (TDU) cycling race”.

This is the same cycling race that had parts cancelled this year due to bushfires. During the race, the temperature hit 43 degrees, and it took place in a week where the average maximum temperature in Adelaide was over 39 degrees.

As Darcey McNamara, nature campaigner at the Conservation Council of SA, has said: “We all know that fossil fuels are the number one contributor to climate change, and community members are growing increasingly concerned about the way that they are promoted.” For that reason, the Conservation Council is leading the call for the TDU to “Dump Santos”.

But it isn’t just Santos that uses sporting events to promote its brand: sportswashing is rife in Australia. 

By sponsoring sporting events, companies can borrow the sport’s positive image to obscure harmful associations, including climate destruction.

In the words of Santos’ former CEO when announcing the company’s TDU sponsorship: “Cycling is a healthy and environmentally friendly recreational activity that is enjoyed by people of all ages, and this was part of the attraction for us.”

I guess opposites really do attract.

Kevin Hogan asks:

Last year, the prime minister declared we have dealt with inflation and boasted about falling interest rates. This morning, the ABS released inflation data showing that under Labor, price of breads up 22%, milk 29%, rents are up 25%, medical hospital services up 25%, electricity 36%, gas 42%, insurance costs up 44%, and interest rates are at their highest level in 15 years and rising. Why do Australians always pay the price? Because a prime minister can’t ever admit he’s made a mistake.

Albanese:

As I have said, Today’s figures will be received by the Australian public as being indicative of what they know is happening, what they know and are feeling. People are under pressure.

People are under pressure, and indeed, the RBA governor today said this in her opening statement to the supplementary budget estimates.

Conflict in the Middle East has this is the RBA governor, mr. Speaker. I make this point.

Order the member that the groaning that occurs opposite. This is about the RBA governor, and we should turn the temperature down. And maybe people can stop interjecting.

This is what the RBA governor has said.

The conflict in the Middle East has re-escalated, and global energy prices are now much higher than had been assumed in the August forecasts. In addition to the energy price shock, the AI boom and extreme weather events are contributing to upward pressure on a range of agriculture and technology-related prices.

We are not alone in being concerned about inflation. Central banks in many other advanced economies are responding by increasing their policy rates or signaling they will do so if needed. That was the Reserve Bank governor.

I have respect for the RBA governor. We can’t just wish away what has occurred, particularly since February 28, which has been ongoing, a conflict that we were told would last for days or weeks. That is indeed still going.

Dan Tehan has thoughts but the PM has finished his answer.

Jack Thrower

Today, the ABC reports “Australia is on track to record the highest number of road deaths in 15 years, despite a national target to halve fatalities by 2030” and that “Australia has plummeted in international road safety rankings.”

Over a thousand people die on our roads every year, and the number is rising, according to Associate Professor Milad Haghani, “the biggest increase in fatalities is among vulnerable road users like pedestrians, cyclists and motorbike riders”. Research from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows that land transport accidents are the number 1 underlying cause of death for 1-14-year-olds, 2^nd for 15- 24-year-olds and 3^rd for 25- 44-year-olds.

This isn’t inevitable. There’s much that can and should be done, for instance, lower speed limits in urban areas, designing infrastructure for safety and investing in safer transport alternatives such as rail. However, while various commentators state that vehicles “have never been safer”, the elephant in the room here is that Australia’s cars are getting much bigger and deadlier. Even with the best crash avoidance technology, a big car hitting someone on foot, a bicycle or motorbike is much deadlier simply due to their physical size and shape: being hit by an SUV or ute increases the chances of pedestrian or cyclist fatality by 44% or 82% for children.

And Australia’s fleet is getting much bigger. In the mid-1990s, about three in four (76%) new vehicle sales were ordinary cars, such as sedans and hatchbacks; today that figure is one in seven (14%). Instead, the sales of bigger vehicles have exploded. Sports utility vehicles (SUVs) have grown from one in 14 sales to three in five sales (59%). Likewise, ‘other vehicles’, a category that mostly represents utes, have grown from one in six sales (17%) to one in four (26%).

These vehicles aren’t just a problem for safety; they’re worse for the climate, air quality, insurance prices, and even finding a parking space. Government policies have allowed and encouraged people to buy big, harmful cars, including the luxury car tax ute loophole and poor enforcement of the fringe benefits tax.

Barnaby Joyce gets a question and is the One Nation way addresses the prime minister by his government name:

My question is to the Prime Minister of Commonwealth of Australia. Prime Minister, it’s quite obvious that that we have to reduce the size of government. So why don’t we look at getting rid of the Climate Change Department? There’s 8.7 billion dollars a year we spend on it. It would loosen up 5,700 full-time equivalent positions, which would go through natural attrition. It has got absolutely no prospects whatsoever of changing the climate or anything like that, and would save us from jacking up taxes on capital gains tax for small business, taxing superannuation funds, and taxing trusts.

Albanese:

There has been now decades of science and advice on climate change that it is real.

I support. responding to the science of climate change, which does represent a challenge, but also represents an enormous opportunity, because where we are positioned in Australia is because of the transition that is occurring globally when it comes to climate action.

Is that we have the critical minerals and rare earths that will go into all of the products that will make a difference.

We also have amongst the best solar resources in the sky.

We also have the opportunity to act because there is a cost of inaction as well.

What we are seeing, not the least of which is in the great state of Queensland that the member represented in the other place is increasing numbers and frequencies and intensity of extreme weather events.

Now all of those…

Milton Dick: Order, order, order. The member for White Bay will leave the chamber immediately! Swearing in the parliament is completely unacceptable, and he will leave the chamber for three hours. Honestly, we will not allow this Parliament to have that language. None of us will accept that. I won’t accept it. Australia won’t accept it.

For those wondering, Llew O’Brien called out “I call bullshit”. Which is very tame for a MP whose electorate includes Gympie.

Albanese:

Now we don’t say because Australia has always had extreme weather events that you say that every event is because of climate change. What you do say, though, is that the science told us they would be more frequent and be more intense, and that is, and that is happening.

What you do say is that the temperature in the water around our island continent is also increasing, which is having an impact, which it did in South Australia most recently, which we had to deal with a cost.

What we say is, is if you take no action whatsoever on climate change, the cost to our economy will be more.

Joyce has a point of order:

Everything you say, I respect, but there’s no chance that the 8.7 billion dollars you spend is going to change the climate back. So why spend it?

That’s a debating point Dick rules, not a point of order.

Albanese:

When it comes to funding, a member in this place said the federal government has delivered millions of dollars of investment already for renewable energy generation right here on our doorstep in places like Inverell and Glen Innes. That was the member for New England. He also said, “In fact, we’re one of the biggest renewable energy hubs in Australia.” I made sure it happened. He was right then, and he’s wrong now.

We are back to the changes in the curriculum which are coming up and will be discussed at the next education ministers round table.

As he has done all week, Jason Clare links education to the digital duty of care.

And this time he does it on anti-semitism.

There’s no place for anti-Semitism or any type of racism or any type of hate in Australia, and I think we all know that we’ve got a lot of work to do here. And part of it is the work that we do in education, and that’s why we set up the anti-Semitism education task force led by the great David Gonski.

David is a towering figure in Australia. Somebody who I know is admired and respected and loved by people right across the chamber.

And they are they are working on how we combat anti-Semitism right across the education system. Following the Bondi attack, we said that we would review the national curriculum, and that will be considered by education ministers when we meet next week.

But that’s not the end of the work that we need to do here. The truth is, it’s just the start, because kids aren’t born racist. Kids aren’t born with hate in their heart. This is something that’s learnt. It’s something that’s taught.

And I think if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ve got to look at what we can do to stop racism and hate fermenting in all its noxious forms.

Part of it is what kids are taught at school; it’s what’s in the curriculum. But part of it is what kids are taught when they go online. And I think Peter Dutton got it right this week when he called it a lawless jungle.

And just to give you a couple of horrific examples, people using artificial intelligence to make anti-Semitic songs and videos directly targeting kids, a Pixar-style animation set in a concentration camp, fake news segments denying the Holocaust, all of this designed with AI, then put on put online, and then with algorithms sent to our kids, force feeding our kids all of this sort of rubbish, serving up hate on a plate to our kids, and I think we all know if we look deep into ourselves and think about this, we need to do something about it. And this is part of what the digital duty of care legislation that passed the House of Representatives today is about doing something to crack down on these algorithms that are having this obvious impact on our kids. And it’s not just me saying this; it’s not just the government saying it. It’s also the special envoy to combat anti-Semitism, Jillian Siegel, who recently said, “My hope is that the digital duty of care will make it harder for algorithms to dish up this sort of content to Australians, particularly our children.” I say to colleagues who voted against this today, it’s not too late to change your mind and to vote for this when it gets to the Senate.

Now what he doesn’t mention there, is the question is mostly around criticism of Israel and whether that is anti-semitic. An Australian court has said no, but that hasn’t stopped the Israel lobby, helped by Jillian Siegel, pushing the line that criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. And that is what is being examined in the school curriculum. How information about Israel is taught.

Now that is a very seperate issue to what occurs on social media, which is obviously, at times, anti-Semitic.

We are about to slide into the third QT for the week, so go get yourself something to get through it and we will be right back

Q: When you became leader of the Greens, you spoke about Australians’ frustration in stronger terms. You spoke about anger, legitimate anger, and wanting to redirect that from where maybe One Nation was putting it towards more of the 1%. In light of the recent attack on Helen Haines, and the imperative to sort of draw down the balance of anger in Australian political discourse, how do you achieve that goal of redirecting or harnessing that discontent without exacerbating that problem.

David Shoebridge:

Well, you you can’t just ignore it. You can’t ignore what we’re all seeing, the disconnection, the division. It doesn’t go away with just a speech. The way that you address that anger and division is you give people some kind of hope, and you give them a political project that is vastly more than just punching down on migrants and hate and division and othering and dehumanizing. Our politics is one that is fundamentally based in the idea that every Australian deserves the respect that they’re entitled to as a unique individual, and they deserve the material supports so that they can have a good life. Now, if we we can’t do that in Australia, with all of our extraordinary advantages, this this massive continent, this incredible set of resources, and the people who, in my my reading of it want to help out their neighbors and have a history of helping out their neighbors. If we can’t do this in Australia, well then heaven help the rest of the world. And so, yeah, we can’t ignore the anger. But you know what? The job of politics is not to inflame it and fuel it. The job of politics is to address it. And you know the best thing we can do to address it right now is to meet people’s material needs, to make sure that they can pay for the food that they and their family need, that they can pay the gas bill, and they’re not scared of the insurance bill. That’s how you. That’s how you defeat anger.

Then we move into this exchange:

Q: You say that you would like to have been a historian. History is littered with tales of bad things being done when the the good look away. I want to ask you about Ukraine because something very puzzling about your policy is that you pronounce peace and non-violence, which effectively supports Vladimir Putin. (Shoebridge: I reject. ) So how do you explain such a naive policy, given that if Australia doesn’t support Zelensky and his very courageous people, it gives Vladimir Putin the upper hand?

Shoebridge:

I appreciate your careful and nuanced, and definitely non-judgmental question, and can I say I fundamentally reject the premises you put in your question, and I’ll explain why.

Since 2022, the Australian Greens have had a fundamental position. It was adopted by the party room before I came in to Parliament, and it is rock-solid support for the people of Ukraine. Rock solid support for their struggle against an illegal invasion by Russia. Rock solid support for humanitarian and direct financial support to the people of Ukraine and the government of Ukraine. Rock solid support, and we also support the most, the firmest, clearest, most unambiguous sanctions against the state of Russia. Russia’s invasion is illegal, it’s immoral, and it is wrong.

And the Australian Greens are the only political party in this country who is calling for Australia to match the sanctions regime that has been put in by the European Union that prevents Russian oil being funneled into this country through third-party refineries, such as in India and Singapore and Brunei, and then Australian motorists inadvertently feeding billions and billions of dollars into the Russian war machine. Let me finish. I can see you want to interrupt. You’ll get a second chance. Iran, you know, in 2025, Australians paid some 2.7 billion dollars for Russian oil in just 2025 alone. That’s almost double, almost double the amount that the Australian government has given to support Ukraine throughout the course of the entire war, and what we say is stop the blood money going to Russia, cut off their ability to make war against the people of Ukraine, and yes, we do, as a party of peace and non-violence, say that we’re against the international arms.

Q: But pronouncements, but Senator, pronouncements of peace and non-violence don’t win a war. Bullets and bombs win wars.

Shoebridge:

No, but cutting off the funding to bullets and bombs win wars, like the Labor Party won’t do, like One Nation won’t do, and like the Coalition do. Cutting off the funds to the Russian military is the single biggest thing.

Q: So, do you think if do you think there should be a peace between those two nations that involves Ukraine giving a lot of its land to Vladimir Putin.

Shoebridge:

Perhaps you didn’t hear the first part of my [answer], and that’s okay.

We 100% rock solid support the people of Ukraine to resist the illegal and immoral war from Russia.

Q: How do you resist …

Shoebridge:

Our position is rock solid support for financial support, rock solid support for humanitarian support, rock solid support for funding going to

Q: how do you resist without self defense?*

Shoebridge:

Rock solid opposition to Russia, but not the trade of arms. The position of the Australian Greens is the same position as the country of Austria, as Switzerland, as South Korea, and as most of the global South in this world, we do everything we can to support the people of Ukraine, and we hold true to our pillar of peace and non-violence.

*When we talk about the difference in how Ukraine’s self defence is spoken about compared to Gaza’s, this is what we mean. Palestinians are not allowed to resist, and there is no question about them being allowed to be armed to resist Israel’s military aggression.

David Shoebridge then avoids a gotcha question on Palestine and the Greens position.

The UK and Welsh Greens members have voted at a conference to make Zionism a form of racism. Do you agree, as the leader of the Australian Greens, with that position? You’re asking me about the UK Welsh Greens.

Q: I am. Okay. I’m asking about another international Greens.

Shoebridge:

No, I understand. I haven’t followed the daily workings of the UK Welsh Party, but what I’d say on that that issue is, I’m not focused on sort of abstract philosophical discussions. I’m engaged in the reality of politics, and you know what I see in front of me when it comes to Israel and Palestine, I see a genocide, and I’ll name it and I’ll call it that because that’s what I see. I see a state with an incredible amount of military power dehousing and killing hundreds of 1000s of people in Gaza and leaving two and a half million people without the basic sustenance for life.

I see an ongoing illegal occupation in the West Bank, and I’m not interested in putting a label on that, but I tell you what I am 100% interested in, and I think I’m I share this interest with millions of Australians, is stopping the brutality against the people of Palestine.

It’s about ensuring peace with justice, and in my experience, you don’t do that through labels, you do it through hard work, through principle, and through policy, and connecting with the millions of Australians who share those goals.

Q: So the question was relating to whether you think Zionism is a form of racism. Do the Australian Greens support a two-state solution? Do they also support a Jewish state?

Shoebridge:

Well, what the Australian Greens support is a solution that makes sure the people in Israel, the people in Palestine have justice and peace with security, and you know we are all watching the Netanyahu government, hopefully the former Netanyahu government, engage in actions to do everything they possibly can to destroy the prospect of a two-state solution, building settlements that completely cover the West Bank, and and in circumstances like that, our policy position is clear: the world needs to assist in coming to a solution driven by the people of Palestine, by the Israeli people, that provides all peoples peace and security. If that if if that is a two-state solution and is achievable, and that’s what the people of Palestine and Israel want. Well, absolutely, but we would not be limiting it. The core issue here is peace with justice.

Q: So, so you are not, so, if that’s what they want, you support a two-state solution, but it’s not your policy for there to be a two-state solution.

Shoebridge:

This will surprise you. I’m an Australian senator, you know, and I fundamentally believe that people on the ground should be supported with the resources to come to that just and peaceful solution. And of course, at the moment, what the world is doing is resourcing only one part of that: the Israeli state to commit this appalling ongoing genocide against the people of Palestine. What the world needs to do is is intervene in such a way so that there can be that fair and balanced negotiation, and to allow the people on the ground to determine the solution. But it comes back to this peace with justice.

A 2022 report by the Office of National Intelligence about the security impacts of climate change still has not been released. Why? And what does the report mean for the Pacific? This is what Senator David Pocock has asked Foreign Minister Penny Wong and representatives from DFAT at Estimates today.

Wong said that because it is a national security document, the report won’t be released.

Pocock also asked DFAT officials about the effect that the coming El Nino will have on the Pacific. Their answer hints at just why a four-year-old security report could be too hot to handle. 

A representative from DFAT said, “we expect there to be a peak between October now and December of this year, with the worst conditions in Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Indonesia, and then we think that that will move eastwards into this first half of 2027, where we would see more impact in Vanuatu, Tonga and Fiji.”

The DFAT representative says that the department, “was tracking weather conditions that are affecting things like water shortages, reduced agricultural production, obviously leading to food security issues, impacts on public health and impacts on hydroelectric generation and power supply. And we of course are also aware that these things can be drivers to community tensions and conflict and violence as well.”

According to DFAT, the UN is estimating that this El Nino could result in an additional 8.2 million people facing acute food insecurity in Asia and the Pacific.

While DFAT highlighted the $26 million that Australia has committed “to build community resilience and to respond to the impacts of El Nino,” leaders form the Pacific – including Vanuatu’s Minister for Climate Change Adaptation, Ralph Regenvanu and Fromer President of the Republic of Kiribati Anote Tong – have made it clear that the best way Australia can help the Pacific is by stopping the expansion of fossil fuel projects.

You can sign the Australia Institute’s petition to prevent new fossil fuel projects here.

Q: We understand that the Greens wanted a position on the Joint Select Committee for AI and did not get one. With that in mind, are you concerned that you’ve been sort of dealt out on some of these really fast-moving discussions about AI? And with the interim report that’s come from that committee, outside of some of the tax things that you’ve talked about, what would you like to see there that you haven’t seen already?

Shoebridge:

Well, you know, there’s an example of the sensible center, isn’t it? You know, Labor and the Coalition coming together to have a Labor-dominated committee populated by their close mates in the coalition to exclude critical voices.

Q: Would you call the stitch up?

Shoebridge:

Well, well, I’m not going to push against that that that definition.

Look, the idea that our answer to our economic future is to roll out the red carpet to a bunch of vampire U.S. tech bros, the billionaires who have been funding and supporting Donald Trump and his reckless right-wing attack on American society and the world. The idea that we would say, “Hang on, we want some of that. We want to roll out the red carpet and invite them into our communities,” and it goes to to what I said before about the complete absence of vision, you know, where’s the industry policy that says instead of spending the limited resources we have in the construction construction sector on building some foreign billionaire a shed for their entirely foreign-owned data center to strip mine us and send the the data and the profits offshore, we need those resources to be building people’s homes.

Or imagine if instead of the government spending hundreds of billions of dollars on making weapons of war, these nuclear submarines that may or may not come, and talking about that as the industrial salvation, imagine if instead we had the Commonwealth government talking with state governments and saying we’re going to invest this money to build trains and light rail or high speed things that people could go to work for, they could build, they’d have a sense of connection, and we’d get things that help society.

So, when it comes to what maybe a stitch up in Parliament, I’d say this to the Labor Party and the Coalition: If you think you can stitch up the Australian public, strip away creative rights, roll out the red carpet for these vampire US tech bros, and cover this country in foreign-owned data centers, well, you’re going to have a red-hot fight on that, and not just with the Greens, but with the millions of Australians who reject that visionless future for our country.

Q: There’s been plenty of discussion about one of your senators, Jordan Steele John, in the last couple of weeks, but almost none about the women at the heart of this story. What is your message to those women? Do you actually want them to speak to the independent inquiry that’s been established, and is it safe for them to do so, given that the senator has been publishing confidential letters?

Shoebridge:

Well, I said from the moment that I received that correspondence, the answer to this is a fair, an independent, an entirely inquiry, and I’m grateful to see the the WA Greens taking incredibly important steps establishing that. And I’m also grateful to see that Senator Steele- John has said he will cooperate with that.

And to all of those people in politics who know we need to be safe, that is the single clearest message that we’re saying: politics needs to be safe for women, needs to be safe for all of us, and ensuring that this is determined by that independent and fair inquiry, and people knowing that it’s independent, that it’s safe to cooperate with it, that it’s safe to communicate with it, is I think a bedrock essential. And and in terms of social media posts or media discussions not the way to resolve an issue like this. It is it is not the way.

This needs to be dealt with with the respect and the dignity and the care that it’s entitled to, and and that is that independent inquiry. So I’d say, absolutely, women and all of us deserve a safe space, and I’m doing everything I can to ensure that they have that assurance by this independent inquiry.

Q: Do you expect the independent process to be concluded before pre-selections are dealt with in the WA Senate race?

Shoebridge:

Well, I don’t see any connection between the two. I’ll be entirely clear, but but more fundamentally, it’s not for me to determine the timeline for an independent inquiry, and if I started imposing timelines on an independent inquiry, that would undermine the very independence. But as I understand it, there is a commitment to have it as timely as possible, consistent with those other core issues about procedural fairness and justice, and everybody involved in this is entitled to not be prejudged and to allow that independent inquiry to work its way through without prejudgement.

Q: Security agencies are calling on politicians to turn down the temperature. What do you make of accusations the Greens have been deliberately divisive on the war in the Middle East, is there a role for the Greens to play in having a more constructive, sober debate? And under your leadership, will the Greens move more towards the sensible center?

David Shoebridge:

Well, show me that sensible centre. I can’t see it. Is that somewhere between the Labor Party and One Nation? Is that the sensible centre? I reject that, and I also reject the argument that the kind of hate and division we hear from One Nation, openly dehumanising migrants, punching down on people with less power in politics. Some of the appalling behaviour we’ve seen in the cartoons that they put out unspeakable stuff.

I fundamentally, fundamentally reject any any any correlation between that and what we’ve been doing as a movement, supported by millions of Australians, to call out a genocide and say kids should not be killed, and to stand up and to stand up for basic human rights.

You see, equating as as your question does, and as many have, opposing a genocide, speaking the truth about an unspeakable violence in that war, to equate that with the ugly politics of one nation and the coalition in punching down on migrants, I just reject it. And again, it comes from this this lack of vision in Canberra.

The idea that the sensible center is somewhere between the Labor Party and One Nation it’s not my understanding that that’s the sensible centre of Australia. The sensible centre of Australia is much much more grounded in fairness and truth and honesty than that.

First question:

You said at the end there, your goal is to replace Labor. Now that would require a primary vote of about three times what you’ve currently got. You’re taking at least with your first speech here. It sounds like a similar policy platform, albeit in a different format to what the Greens took to the 2025 and 2022 and 2019 elections. Why do you think this time will be different if you’re going to take the same largely big corporate taxing big spending agenda that didn’t necessarily get you.

David Shoebridge:

I mean, to be fair, 2022 more seats, but lost those in 25. Why would this time be different? Well, politics is about timing and it’s about dealing with the material conditions in front of you.

And if anyone went to the election in 2025 and thought Labor’s response, which was they’re the answer to the rise of the far right, they’re the answer to economic inequality. If anyone still believes that in 2026, you know, it’s under the Labor Party that we’ve seen the rise of the far right, we’ve seen the rise of One Nation, and far from avoiding and stepping out against the politics of Donald Trump, we’ve got a prime minister who goes off to New York and mugs selfies with the leading proponent of hard right politics on the planet, and things like AUKUS continue with endless billions of dollars, not going where people are needed.

People have seen the reality of now two terms under the Labor Party and the spin that Labor gave in 2025. Nobody believes it. You talk about doubling our vote and tripling our vote.

You know our polls. I think you said are between 12 and 14 percent. Last time I checked, Labors are between 25 and 28.

We do need to double the vote, and you know what I am really excited about with this project is we’re not reaching out to 14% of the electorate. The policies that we’re proposing, it turns out, help 99% of Australians. 99% of Australians will be better off by the policies we’re putting forward today, and making it clear that our goal and the goal of politics at the moment is not managed decline. It’s not pretending that we can be here to make Labor better. They have sold their conscience, and we need to be loud and proud that our job in politics is to do what we said today to replace the Labor Party, and I don’t think people have heard that from us in the clearest possible way.

And yes, we want to fight One Nation and we want to fight the racism and division, but I say again, they rose on Labor’s watch, completely on Labor’s watch, and our way to defeat that hate and division is through the Labor Party.

And I think, you know, Steph and I have been going out and speaking about the inequality, the 1%, the cost of living, and talking about the billionaires. Do you know what? I’ve never been challenged on the substance by any journalist or any commentator. Nobody challenges the substance because you can’t challenge the substance, and Australians know that. And I am convinced that if we do this straight talking, if we talk about people’s material needs, this is how we build the movement, and this is how we deliver that goal.

He’s told to keep his answers a bit more pithy and shorter after that.

Andrew Wilkie is borrowing from an Anthony Albanese press statement from yonks ago here.

It’s one word.

“Good”.

David Shoebridge is trying to bring the optimism and joy to Australian politics. His main slogan and message? Better days are coming.

Here is the conclusion:

I want to end this speech with one simple idea.
Better days are coming.

We’re in a crisis. But what I know about this country is that when people step up and help each other, we are able to achieve
incredible things.

What we are releasing today is not the whole solution. It’s the start of rebuilding and pushing back. $1000 can be life changing for people who can’t afford $10 for a meal, and it shows that inequality is not inevitable. We can build fairness back.

We are our own people. We are culturally, environmentally, economically and politically distinct from anywhere else in the
world.

We don’t want to be a franchise of the United States, or a profit centre of global capital. We want to be a country of people who make decisions based on our interests and on the needs of our people.

For that, we cannot be fatalistic, anxious or alone. We must come together. Embrace a feeling of excitement about the future and truly believe that better days are coming.

We are a country who has yet to realise our great potential. To truly invest in the people here.

We are not here to make the current mob better, not to appeal to Labor’s missing conscience. We are here to replace Labor.

The Greens are ready to lead the way. We’re ready to fashion a new path.

David Shoebridge is still delivering his speech, but for those wondering, here is the manifesto of the Greens under his leadership:

The Greens have a vision for a better future.

It’s time to put the interests of people, and our one little planet, ahead of the profits of corporations and the ultra wealthy.
All my political life I have believed that the government should be a force for good, focused on making sure everyone has a secure home, protecting our environment, and delivering free, world-class healthcare, support and education.
We desperately need public investment in renewables, storage and electrification, and no new coal and gas. This is the basic minimum to give security to people who risk losing, or have already lost, their homes and towns to climate fuelled fires and floods.

I believe in a society that doesn’t force some tech billionaire’s AI data centres into your community to feed their profits and strip-mine us.

Where we don’t send weapons to be used in a genocide. Where supporting the rights of Palestinians to have a life of dignity is not a talking point, it’s policy.

When we don’t send billions to Trump for mythical submarines and where we don’t build very real US bases that drag us into the next US war. In fact we end AUKUS, and we do it today.

We believe that all people should be able to get a job which pays a living wage, that has rights.

We believe that homes are for living in, building a family, holding kids parties and BBQ’s.

We believe that healthcare, including mental and dental, should be accessible and affordable for all.Essential services: energy, housing, water, public transportation and education should be in public hands or have clear public alternatives, so they are run for the people who need them, not the people who are squeezing out a profit – like it used to be.

We need to put Australia’s economic security first, by electrifying everything, ending our reliance on foreign oil and petrol, so when there’s a global crisis or a war, we’re not paying $2.50/L for petrol while Ampol increases its profits by 376%.

We need a government that puts our national interest before the interests of the United States. We can be a country who stands on its own two feet. Our future should be based on choices we make, not choices made by a reckless US warmonger and his far right billionaire mates.

A country that recognises its past, by signing a Treaty with First Nations people, and a country that recognises its future is made up of people from across the world, who can put down roots with their families, communities and cultures.

Luke Slawomirski

Senator Malcolm Roberts loves an anecdote. He relayed a story from one of his constituents about difficulties with accessing a crutch.

Fair enough.

The Senator then suggests that “big government and bureaucracy” could be the reason why there are such problems with the aged care sector.

Quite a take, when you consider that the Royal Commission into Aged Care found that In residential aged care, government-run providers perform better on quality-of-care metrics than both for-profit and not-for-profit aged care provider.

Jim Chalmers has held a press conference on the inflation data:

If you look at another interesting element of the numbers today, electricity prices in the CPI fell point 8% in the month. That means since the month of June, they’ve fallen by 2.4%.

So inflation is much lower than it was in 2022, but it is still much higher than we would like. That’s the reality of it. And budgets aren’t the primary driver of prices in our economy, but we can and intend to continue to play a helpful role in the fight against inflation. That’s why we found 180 billion dollars in savings. It’s why the last budget had a record amount of savings, more than 60 billion dollars in savings in one budget.

It’s why we’ve been able to manage the budget in a much more responsible way than it was being managed by our predecessors.

If you think about the contribution being made by public sector and the private sector in the last financial year, if you compare that to the year before, public demand growth in our economy halved while private demand growth tripled, and that tells you that there are other factors at play, including the global factors that Secretary Wilkinson and Governor Bullock have been talking about through the course of today.

For every $5 of demand in our economy, four is private and one is public, and I think that’s an important bit of perspective when it comes to some of the commentary that is around today. If you think about comparing this time of this year compared to this time last year, the additional inflationary pressures have come from two sources.

Luke Slawomirski

The ABS has released its statistics on deaths for 2025.

The good news is that Australian heart disease mortality is the lowest on record (it peaked in 1968). This is due to a combination of better prevention, management and rescue. Our public hospitals are among the best in the world at saving people who present with stroke or a heart attack (over 90% of heart attacks are treated in a public hospital).

Dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, is Australia’s leading cause of death (at one in 10 deaths).

Appalling statistics on asthma and suicide

Almost 500 Australians died from asthma. That’s quite appalling. Asthma should be managed comfortably in the primary care or community setting. The number of deaths from asthma should be in single digits … not in the hundreds.

Even more appalling is that suicide was the leading cause of premature death (people aged 78 years or under). The median age was 45 years.

As I’ve written before, Australia neglects primary and preventive care. These types of outcomes are therefore unsurprising.

Greg Jericho

The RBA Governor Michel Bullock downplayed the rise in unemployment because “The share of the population with a job remains high.”

She is right – but that is mostly because of the increase of women employed relative to the past.

Male employment rates have been falling of late:

And the percent of adult men working full time is now at record lows (exclude normal period of the COVID shutdowns)

Also, as I have noted previously, we now have a record level of people working more than one job – essentially a sign that people’s main job is not paying enough or offering enough hours to pay the bills

Let’s go back to the National Press Club, where Australian Greens Leader David Shoebridge has once again voiced his support for a 25% tax on gas exports.

For months now, people across the country have been calling for a 25% tax on gas exports,” Senator Shoebridge said.  

We pay more tax on beer than the gas corporations pay on their war-soaked super profits. The campaign has huge amounts of public support.

We’d tax gas exports to raise an extra $17 billion a year, because of course we should.”

Since July 2022, Australia has missed out on more than $78 billion on revenue by not implementing a 25% tax on gas exports.

That number keeps growing… you can follow it here: https://gas.australiainstitute.org.au/

We’ll be back with more from the press club when questions start!

Australian Greens Leader David Shoebridge is making his first National Press Club Address.

He opened his address by paying tribute to Helen Haines, who is recovering after the horrific attack outside her electoral office last week.

I would also like to briefly address the grief we all feel about the appalling attack on Dr Helen Haines

Helen is a friend. Helen has principles I admire and a connection to her community that I deeply respect.

Her injuries are so hard to comprehend and the violence that caused them impossible to connect with Helen, her work, her warmth and her community support.

We need to allow the investigation by Victorian police, with the assistance of the AFP and other agencies, to conclude to help try and find some answers.

As this happens, as Helen slowly recovers, as life and work continues on with its brutal insistence, let’s try and make politics bend towards helping, towards understanding, and towards mending.

Because with Helen absent and hurting, we all need that more than ever.”

We will bring you more from the speech later – especially the questions – which tend to be most interesting part of these things.

This is a bit out of order – there has been some issues with how emails are coming through today because of some gremlin in the internet here. But here is the opener to the RBA estimates from Grogs:

The Governor of the RBA Michele Bullock begins with an opening address

“As you know, the Monetary Policy Board sets monetary policy such that inflation is expected to return to the midpoint of the 2–3 per cent target range. There is some flexibility around the timeframe over which we meet our inflation objective, to balance this with meeting our full employment objective. But it is important for the economy that inflation does not diverge from target for too long, since that risks it becoming embedded in inflation expectations, which feeds through to price and wage-setting decisions”

Yep again with the expectations.

“Our most recent published forecasts – in the August Statement on Monetary Policy – suggested that inflation would not return to around the midpoint of the target range until late 2027. At the time of the August Board meeting, we assessed that the risks to that outlook were skewed to the upside.

Developments since then suggest that although growth in the Australian economy is slowing as expected, some of the international and domestic upside risks to inflation have materialised or are materialising. Inflation will therefore likely be higher than was our base case in August.

The conflict in the Middle East has re-escalated and global energy prices are now much higher than had been assumed in the August forecasts. Oil and related prices have increased sharply again and will add materially to inflation, both directly and indirectly as businesses facing increasing pressures from higher transport and related costs attempt to pass them on. At the same time, short-term inflation expectations are elevated.

Other global cost pressures have increased. In addition to the energy price shock, the AI boom and extreme weather events are contributing to upward pressure on a range of agricultural and technology-related prices. The global AI boom is also driving stronger growth in economies that are key parts of the AI supply chain. In turn, that is driving higher global prices for some AI-related technologies that are supply constrained.“

So overseas stuff. But don’t worry that’s not everything…

“Importantly though, it is not just these global pressures that are driving inflation in Australia. While they are certainly compounding the inflation problem, we still see inflation arising from domestic capacity pressures. Despite the unemployment rate recently rising a little more than we had expected, the labour market seems a little tighter than we had previously judged. The evidence for this is elevated underlying inflationary pressures. That is, when we exclude some of the large volatile price movements such as fuel we see inflationary pressure in areas that reflect domestic demand for goods and services. And continued weak productivity growth means that the economy cannot grow strongly without putting pressure on inflation. This is a fundamental challenge for the Australian economy and for everyone’s real spending power over the next few years.”

They still think the labour market is a “little tighter than we had previously judged” FMD. This means they STILL want the unemployment rate to rise more!

She also mentions weak productivity. Well I am sorry but the main driver of weak productivity in the private sector economy is MINING!!

Matt Grudnoff

Digging into the CPI numbers there are some other interesting impacts. While the big increase has come from higher fuel prices, another area that jumped up was recreation.

This was driven, in part, because of the massive investment in data centres.

There has been a jump in games, toys and hobbies, which the ABS says was driven by price of memory and storage components. The prices of consoles and computer game PCs have been rising in price because data centres are buying up all the graphics and memory chips across the world.

The other driver of the increase in recreation was the higher prices for domestic travel and accommodation because of price rises from the September school holidays.

In coming months data centre investment is likely to push inflation much higher. Not just through computer components, but also through higher housing costs, as workers are drawn away from building houses, to building data centres.

It is also likely to push up electricity prices and possibly water prices.

It looks like Australians are going to be the losers from data centre investment.

Greg Jericho

As Matt noted the big driver of inflation is oil prices flowing through to petrol.

And this graph shows that clearly. You can actually work out the impact of separate items on inflation and when we remove automotive fuel you can see inflation is actually flat

Greg Jericho

Nick McKim asks the RBA about unemployment:

“How worried are you about the pace of the increase in unemployment and specifically what rise in unemployment would give the RBA cause for a reasonable concern that we would head into recession? And just, I mean, that’s the question, but the context here is you’ve said around two-thirds of rate rise impacts is through the exchange rate, and your former colleague Lucy Ellis said that implies a lot of pain for little effect on inflation. And if the dollar’s likely to rise off things like increasing copper demand because of AI, data centre investment, does this change your approach to targeting the exchange rate?”

Michele Bullock replies with

“So let me be right up front, we’re not targeting the exchange rate at all, Senator. It’s A freely floating exchange rate. It is basically determined in markets on the basis of interest differentials, commodity price, terms of trade, those sorts of things. We don’t think it’s out of line at the moment at all”

That is a bit weird given the RBA says two-thirds of the impact of rate rises is on the exchange rate (as Senator McKim noted). So if the main thing affected by the rates is the exchange rate – what does the RBA want the exchange rate to be? Clearly it wants it to be higher.

The RBA continues that it suggests

“our best estimates is that it’s [the exchange rate] in line with historical estimates of its long run determinants, which, as the governor said, are interest rate differentials, us versus major advanced economies and commodity prices.

Senator McKim asks again about unemployment (which was not answered)

“Oh, sorry, can I just ask the question again? Are you worried? How worried are you about the pace of the increase in the unemployment rate and what pace of increase of unemployment would give you cause for concern that we may be heading towards a recession?

Michele Bullock replies

“We’re not worried about the pace of increase in the unemployment rate at this stage. We do forecast that it has to gradually move up. That is very different than saying that people have to lose their jobs. In fact, we are forecasting that employment continues to grow. It just means that the supply of labour is growing a bit more quickly than jobs can keep up with.”

The reason Senator McKim is asking is because US economist Claudia Sahm has estimated that when the 3 months average rate of unemployment rise by 0.5% or more in a year that is a situation when a recession occurs (because historically it keeps going up – and is a good indicator because it is quicker than the GDP figures).

Here is the current situation for Australia

But don’t worry, the RBA is not worried.

Zali Steggall isn’t that blunt, but the independent MP has released a statement saying that holding up the EU Free Trade Agreement because the Coalition doesn’t like that Australia will have to meet climate commitments makes no sense:

Europe is a $30 trillion market, and it makes absolutely no sense for Australia to miss out on the opportunities a free trade deal with the EU would bring.

The EU has, or is close to, striking free trade deals around the world, including with New Zealand, Canada, South America and India. We can’t afford to be left behind while other countries increase their access to lucrative European markets.

This deal is about more than trade. It’s about creating opportunities for Australian businesses, diversifying our markets and strengthening ties with partners who share our values, particularly at a time of growing threats to democratic principles and global trade uncertainty.

Claims that the free trade deal would take away Australia’s right to set its own climate policies are simply wrong. The agreement simply requires parties to uphold their commitments under the Paris climate agreement. The Paris Agreement does not dictate Australia’s emissions targets. Those are determined through Australia’s own laws and processes.

This is a real opportunity for Australia and we need to get on with it.

The Coalition and One Nation’s continued climate denialism risks undermining Australia’s long-term economic prosperity, our competitiveness and our ability to capitalise on the global transition to cleaner industries.

Luke Slawomirski

Australians seeking an ADHD diagnosis face a choice: wait months for a specialist or pay hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars for an assessment. For regional patients, add travel.

That’s beginning to change. As the Guardian reports, specially trained GPs can now diagnose and treat ADHD in several states, with NSW and Victoria the latest to expand their role.

It’s a sensible move. GPs already manage many complex, lifelong conditions. There is no compelling reason ADHD should always require expensive specialist gatekeeping.

But expanding access must mean more than making prescriptions easier to obtain.

ADHD diagnosis requires careful assessment. Symptoms overlap with other mental health conditions, and medication carries risks. Training standards currently differ markedly between states. Consistent training, specialist backup and proper follow-up are crucial.

And medication isn’t the entire answer either. Psychological support, help at school or work, and continuity of care matter too. Without affordable access to these, reform risks simply shifting patients from specialist waiting rooms to pharmacies … via the GP.

The test is whether people receive timely, comprehensive, evidence-based care regardless of their postcode or income.

Bringing ADHD into general practice is a promising start. But governments now need to fund it properly and monitor impact and outcomes of the changes.

Greg Jericho:

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 4.3 per cent in the 12 months to September 2026, up from 4.0 per cent in the 12 months to August, according to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

Rachael McCririck, ABS head of price statistics, said: “Housing was the largest contributor to annual inflation in September, rising by 5.2 per cent.

“Annual inflation of 5.2 per cent for Housing reflected rising costs for both New dwellings and Electricity. New dwelling prices rose 4.7 per cent in the 12 months to September as builders passed on higher costs for materials and labour. This is down from 5.4 per cent in the 12 months to August.” 

Transport was the second largest contributor to annual inflation in September, rising by 8.7 per cent, due to higher automotive fuel prices.

“On a monthly basis, Automotive fuel prices rose 9.4 per cent in September, compared to a rise of 14.8 per cent in August. This was driven by higher world oil prices,” Ms McCririck said.  

When prices for some items change significantly, measures like the Trimmed mean can give more insights into how underlying inflation is trending without the impact of temporary shocks. In September, Automotive fuel was excluded from the trimmed mean and this was a key driver of the difference between headline and trimmed mean inflation. 

“Trimmed mean annual inflation was 3.6 per cent in September. Trimmed mean annual inflation in August, as released last month, was 3.6 per cent, but a change in seasonal factors has seen that revised down to 3.5 per cent,” Ms McCririck said. 

Matt Grudnoff

The most interesting thing about the latest inflation figures is how much increasing fuel costs are driving up prices.

There was a massive jump in inflation in March, after the US and Israel attacked Iran. The CPI increased to 4.6%. But after initially jumping, the world price of oil fell back as the market hoped that Trump might make a deal.

The result was that after the initial jump in March 2026, the CPI fell each month back down to 3.5% in July.

The world price of oil then jumped back up as it became clear that there was not going to be a deal in the short term. This pushed inflation back up. From 3.5% in July, to 4.3% in the latest figures for September, released today.

If you look at the latest figures and compare them to the low point in July you can see that all the increase comes from increased fuel costs in transport. If you take out the increase in transport from the latest figure, the CPI would fall to 3.5%, the same as the figure in July.

There is no doubt lots of people are going to get very excited about the higher inflation figure, particularly with regard to possible changes in interest rates. But everyone needs to remember that higher interest rates will do nothing to being down the world price of oil.

Anara Watson

Councils across Australia have called on the federal government to fund a climate compensation fund through a levy on fossil fuel production.

That’s something that the Australian Institute has advocated for, but it’s not the only thing that governments can do. 

Last night, the Adelaide City Council (ACC) passed a motion to ban fossil fuel advertising and sponsorships – joining 23 other Australian jurisdictions in imposing restrictions on the industry.

In South Australia, ACC joins Mitcham Council, which restricted fossil fuel promotions in 2023. Onkaparinga Council moved to avoid entering into new advertising or sponsorship arrangements on Council-owned or controlled property earlier this year, and the City of Charles Sturt says that “As part of our ongoing commitment to our Community and in line with our Climate Emergency Declaration, the City of Charles Sturt does not advertise fossil fuel products or companies that primarily produce fossil fuels.”

The Adelaide City Council motion also follows last week’s announcement that Adelaide University would remove Santos signage from its campus, after a campaign by staff and students. That’s just one of the many institutions that have removed Santos sponsorships over climate concerns.

Those same concerns carry over into sporting sponsorships. Over the weekend, hundreds of cyclists took to Adelaide streets calling on the SA Government to “Dump Santos” as a Tour Down Under (TDU) sponsor. 

Source: Conservation Council of South Australia, Photo by Chris Siclari

It seems that South Australians are sending a pretty strong message.

This morning the secretary of the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations Simon Duggan told senate estimates that more than 50,000 people will be invited to apply for compensation after their welfare payments were unlawfully cancelled. The unlawful cancellations were the result of the department failing to administer the Targeted Compliance Framework correctly, which is the system of penalties for compulsory activity requirements applied to about 1 million people on JobSeeker, Youth Allowance, Parenting Payment and the Disability Support Pension. 

The unlawful cancellations were first identified in 2023 and led to two Commonwealth Ombudsman reports, and the suspension of all payment cancellations related to the penalty system being paused until this week.

More than 300,000 people were identified as having their payment cancelled as a result of these penalties between 2020 and 2025. DEWR has not explained how they got from that figure to the 50,000 who will be invited to seek compensation. People who do not receive an invitation may still be eligible for compensation and can find out more on the department’s website.

Members of the government’s Targeted Compliance Framework Stakeholder Reference Group have repeatedly raised concerns with DEWR about the compensation process, particularly that it is unnecessarily burdensome for people living in poverty to prove they were harmed by losing their Centrelink payment. They have also criticised the approach to issuing invitations, rather than actively communicating to everyone who was potentially affected to let them know about the compensation scheme. 

Antipoverty Centre spokesperson and member of the DEWR Targeted Compliance Stakeholder Reference Group Kristin O’Connell:

It is not up to the department to decide whether or not these 300,000 people were harmed – if DEWR made an unlawful decision, they should repay people as an act of good faith.

And even worse than this cherrypicking is that we know the compensation scheme is already failing people, wasting their time and causing even more distress.

The Antipoverty Centre is aware that people who suffered enormously as a result of their unlawful payment cancellation have already been knocked back when they sought compensation following the process DEWR has put in place.

The government knows exactly who had their payments cancelled under these provisions – more than 300,000 people, without any effort to determine whether they would be able to survive without their income support.

They should not be making anyone jump through hoops and doing further damage. Just backpay everyone affected and offer meaningful compensation to anyone who had their life disrupted by being kicked off when they still needed income support.”

There was as bit of last minute silly buggers by the Coalition, who tried to change the bill through a motion ahead of the third reading but the digital duty of care bill has passed the house. (As it was always going to do, because the government has the numbers there).

So now it has been read for the third time, it is off to the senate, where Anika Wells will have to negotiate with the Greens, because the Coalition are a big nooooo.

Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson for AAP

Australians are literally losing sleep over global warming, an international report has revealed, as rising temperatures make it harder to rest, exercise and work outdoors. 

Climate change is also costing the Australian economy $6.6 billion a year in potential lost earnings, while contributing to more droughts and heatwaves, it found. 

Researchers released the findings in the annual Lancet Countdown report on Wednesday, which also revealed that heat-related health risks and deaths increased across the world in the decade since the Paris Agreement. 

The report’s authors called for climate change to be formally recognised and treated as a global health emergency, just weeks before world leaders were expected to meet in Turkey for the COP31 climate summit. 

Researchers from more than 100 institutions contributed to the tenth annual Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change report, led by University College London. 

They analysed the impact of climate change on human health, including heat-related deaths, infectious diseases, and risks from air pollution and food insecurity, as well as efforts to reduce fossil fuel and greenhouse gas emissions. 

The report found health risks had accelerated, with annual average heat-related deaths rising by almost 36 per cent to 540,800 between 2016 and 2023. 

In 2023, heat was linked to 710,000 deaths worldwide, and 71.5 per cent could be attributed to climate change. 

More than half of the world’s land experienced at least one month of extreme drought during 2025, it found, while more heatwaves and droughts contributed to food insecurity for an additional 127.9 million people in 2024. 

The findings clearly demonstrated the rising risks of global warming and underlined the need for greater action, Lancet Countdown executive director Professor Marina Romanello said. 

”A decade after the Paris Agreement, our findings are unambiguous: the health harms of climate change are growing faster than the world’s response to them, and in many cases even accelerating,” she said. 

”Progress has been too slow, too small, and isn’t reaching those who need it most.”

Rising night-time temperatures caused Australians to lose an average of 34 hours of sleep each year between 2021 and 2025 — 1.4 hours more than they did in earlier years, the report found. 

Australians were also exposed to more than 100 additional hours of risky outdoor conditions than in the ’90s, while heat reduced their capacity to work by an average of 127 million hours a year at a potential cost of $6.6 billion. 

The report recommended recognising climate change as a global health emergency through United Nations and World Health Organisation measures, as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Evidence for the change was clear and emission reductions must follow, Lancet Countdown board chair and former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark said.

”Governments must double down on their climate action commitments and rebuild momentum for international co-operation,” she said. 

David Richardson

We talked yesterday about how the Anthropic finances looked rather ordinary with losses of $80.7 billion in US dollars. Also Anthropic refused to make any profit forecasts or revenue projections.

However, associated with Artificial Intelligence is one company that is rolling in it, Nvidia. Here are some of the main items from its 2026 annual report.

Table 1: Nvidia Annual Report year ended 25 January 2026, US$ billions

These figures show a massive revenue of $215.9 billion with operating profit at $130.4 billion and total profit of $141.5 billion. Profit was just under two thirds of revenue and was a massive 178% of shareholders’ equity at the beginning of the financial year.

Nvidia makes cutting edge computer chips that are vital for artificial intelligence. This of course means that Nvidia has a large vested interest in keeping the chip buyers afloat. Accordingly we know that Nvidia had a substantial interest in Firmus, whose much hyped Australian float was abandoned recently. Overall in financial year 2026 Nvidia increased its holdings in marketable shares by $17 billion and in “non-marketable equity securities” (read private shares) by $19 billion. A lot of that total $36 billion would have been investments in other AI companies.

The AI environment is a complex web of companies with interlocking ownership and sales relationships, and of course, Nvidia can afford to invest heavily in its customers. But if the data centres and other planned users of Nvidia’s chips do not make good on their plans a lot of the forward orders and market expectations will be upset. We cannot know what might happen but neither do the big players in the AI environment. As Anthropic said in its prospectus “we have struggled to accurately forecast our revenue in the past and may struggle to do so in the future.”

Greg Jericho

Jane Hume is back wanting to know if the government have sent more than it has saved.

Senator Katy Gallagher gets involved to talk about all the investments the government has done and which she suggests the LNP agreed with.

Hume complains that this is wasting time (it is) and Jenny Wilkinson comes in to say she does not have the number because the budget papers don’t add up a cumulative amount.

Hume asks that it be answered by the “macro group” of Treasury that will be up later.

The question is kind of nonsensical given the changing nature of the economy over the past 5 years – a cumulative total tells us little.

She ends and Senator Malcolm Roberts is up to end things, and that basically means Jenny Wilkinson is done because Robert’s questions are about “compliance costs” and wants to know why they aren’t measured and Ms Wilkinsons essentially says she is not quite sure what he is asking for, which is a polite way of saying he is asking something that is dumb.

With that we have a break and the RBA will be up next (via video call)

Greg Jericho

Greens senator Nick McKim asks if Treasury is modelling the impact of climate change and if not why not – especially given the el nino that is heading our way right now.

Treasury notes they have done it in the Intergenerational Report.

It shows that if instead of limiting warming to 2C above pre-industrial levels as is the Paris agreement temps rise by 3C then the impact will be quite drastic

And across industries the impact will especially hit dwelling construction and services

Treasury says they are trying some new modelling and we await what they find.

Tegan George

Two United Nations human rights experts have formally challenged the Albanese government over its continued approval of coal and gas projects, raising serious allegations about Australia’s failure to protect young people from worsening climate change.

The international intervention follows an official human rights complaint lodged by nine young Australians last year, accusing the government of putting their lives, health and futures at risk through continued fossil fuel expansion and subsidies.

Environmental Justice Australia (EJA) senior lawyer Hannah White said it marked a significant development in their fight for climate action.

“Young people will spend their whole lives dealing with the consequences of decisions they had no say in,” she said.

“They should be able to trust that the adults making those decisions are looking out for them – and following the law.”

She said the government had responded by outlining its existing climate policies but did not explain how continuing to approve new coal and gas projects was consistent with protecting young people from worsening climate harm.

Among the complainants was Zhanāe Dodd, an Aboriginal woman from Gungalu Country near Rockhampton, who said digging started on her Country at the Gemini coal mine last week.

“When I found out, I felt like I’d failed. It’s hard to explain that feeling,” she said.

“As a First Nations person, Country is part of who I am. I’ve grown up with a deep responsibility to look after it.

“There’s a real sense of grief that comes with watching your Country being destroyed.”

Ms Dodd said First Nations people felt enormous pressure to defend their land from mining developments.

“How are we supposed to protect Country when our governments keep approving projects that destroy it, and we have so little power to stop them?” she asked.

Greg Jericho

Greens senator Nick McKim asks about AI datacentre construction – he wonders IF the economy is running at capacity or near to it (which essentially means we can build or spend more without causing inflation to go up) what does that mean about datacentres causing inflation.

Jenny Wilkinson agrees that it can put upward pressure into the system (she calls it a “tension” – ie more investment is usually good, but this is causing inflation so not good).

McKim wonders about the impact on housing – given there is only so much investment and workers to go around, and if datacentres are sucking it all up won’t that make things harder?

Wilkinson says they have not specifically modelled that aspect, but the Treasury does expect housing investment to fall a bit and so maybe the capacity pressures will not be so present. This doesn’t really answer the question, and McKim wants her to admit there is an impact. Wilkinson says “to the extent that this is another source for labour so it could have an impact, but if the unemployment rate rises this could mitigate that and be another source for labour”

ie

Greg Jericho

Senator Susan McDonald, who appears to think her role is to stand up for gas companies, is asking about predictions in the Intergenerational Report for gas exports.

She thinks the Treasury is wrong, because gas exports will keep growing but Treasury don’t say that.

There’s a bit of back and forth with McDonald talking about exports as though everyone in Australia gets a share of them and we are richer purely because more LNG is exported.

The heart of it is that one person in the room asking the questions does not think there is a climate crisis and we need more fossil fuels.

Luke Slawomirski

Senators are grilling Health Department officials at Estimates over the Integrated Assessment Tool (IAT), the algorithm that determines how much home care older Australians receive.

And the questions are becoming harder to dodge.

A new Commonwealth Ombudsman investigation found serious deficiencies in the system’s design, testing and oversight. The algorithm operates largely as a black box. Assessors cannot override its decisions, even when they believe the result is clinically inappropriate.

But it gets worse. The department had assured assessors they could override decisions, only to discover days before implementation that the legislation prevented it.

The consequences are that vulnerable older Australians can be assigned less support than they need, leaving families to pick up the pieces.

The government has introduced an escalation pathway and commissioned another review. But the Ombudsman wants proper human oversight, something the government has so far resisted.

After Robodebt, you’d think the lessons about automated government decision-making would have sunk in – something that the Ombudsman made very clear.

Algorithms can help allocate resources consistently and efficiently. But when a computer gets someone’s care needs wrong, a qualified human being must have the authority to put things right.

This has been a proper administrative and policy debacle. A lot of the fault rests with the Government, not the Department.

David Pocock asking a fair question: why is the Department and Government not implementing the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aged Care?

The Department is conducting a root cause analysis into it.

Bill Browne

Labor spent $2.6 million to defeat just two Queensland Greens MPs: Max Chandler-Mather in Griffith and Stephen Bates in Brisbane. That’s despite Labor Special Minister of State Don Farrell claiming: “if you can’t get your message across after spending $800,000, then maybe you shouldn’t be in politics”.

The million-dollar-plus seat campaigns confirm what the Australia Institute has long argued: the major parties are the big spenders at election time, they just don’t have to disclose seat-by-seat spending as independents do.

Paul Karp has been trawling through High Court documents from the constitutional challenge to the Albanese Government’s changes to Australia’s election laws. The scoop comes from the same government documents that revealed yesterday that the Liberal and Labor parties are on track for a $25 million taxpayer-funded windfall, while several independents would lose hundreds of thousands of dollars of funding each.

The new laws would cap seat spending at $800,000 per candidate, but there is a gaping loophole for the major parties: if they promote the party or its leadership not the specific candidate, it doesn’t count towards the seat cap.

In other words, Labor can continue its $1.3 million seat campaigns, while stopping independents from doing the same.

Greg Jericho

Andrew Bragg is up next to question Treasury.

He is all about housing and tries to suggest the changes in the budget to capital gains tax and negative gearing that also affects self-managed super funds will reduce supply, (because SMSF like negative gearing).

I’ll just put up the most recent numbers for housing loans for construction…

Also it is worth noting that in the recent Senate inquiry in the operation of the Capital Gains Tax, Senator Bragg wrote in the Opposition’s report:

“Supply is the key. Australia has gone from building 220 000 new dwellings in 2018 to only around 170 000 last year. Labor are already missing their own housing target by as many as 80 000 houses to date, as at end September 2025.”

And then two sentences later he wrote:

“The Coalition believes the current CGT discount is working as intended and should not be changed. It supports more investment, provides an incentive for new construction, and helps boost housing supply.”

So supply is down but the housing tax regime that had been in place for 26 years was “working as intended and “helps boost supply” lulz.

Bragg wants the Treasury to admit that loans for owner-occupiers is down. He is right – there was a bit of a boost at the end of last year due to the 5% deposit guarantee being introduced. That was also before the rate rises.

But as with investors there has been an increase in loans for owner-occupier construction.

Via AAP

Australia’s biggest supermarket chain has reported another rise in sales since its successful collectable figurine promotion, as it heads into the lucrative Christmas holiday period.

Woolworths, which operates more than 1,000 grocery stores across the nation, posted a 4.7 per cent rise in sales to $19.4 billion for the three months to October 4.

Most of that growth was driven by its home market, where Australian food sales rose by almost seven per cent to $14.8 billion, compared to the same period in the prior financial year.

“Sales growth in Australia is broadly in line with the first quarter post Ooshies trading, and we are well positioned for the key Christmas holiday period,” chief executive Amanda Bardwell said on Wednesday.

Greg Jericho

Jane Hume keeps on going about spending causing inflation and wants to know if Jenny Wilkinson agrees with Chris Richardson and other economists cited in the AFR.

It’s quite funny to think an economist should agree with another economist given well… famously they never do.

The issue is also a bit about the growth of government spending.

In real terms government spending did increase a fair bit in 2024-25 and 2025-26

But now the growth is actually very small – just 1.3% in real terms. Well below the median increase this century of 2.9%

Hume and others want to say the 2025-26 spending growth caused inflation – but a lot of it was due to the NDIS, Health, Defence and the Fuel Tax Credit

Sarah Spina-Matthews for AAP

Australians’ experiences of racism are being erased because of a failure to adequately collect and use data, the human rights watchdog says.

A report by the Australian Human Rights Commission has found data on race and racism in the nation is fragmented or collected inconsistently.

This means people’s experiences of racism were severely under-counted or erased, and made the “critical problem” harder to tackle, Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman said.

“We’re missing so much of the picture at the moment,” Mr Sivaraman told AAP.

“Racist violence is on our streets in the worst possible way.

“Yet we still don’t have good means of collecting data on where racism is occurring, who it is affecting, and what solutions will work best.”

He said data on racism was gathered in a piecemeal way from a combination of police reports, work by community organisations or complaints filed to the commission.

“That’s a microcosm of the racism that occurs in society,” he said.

There were also a number of barriers that prevented people from reporting racism, including fear of retaliation, the commissioner said.

“In my experience, it’s often the case that the person that reports racism or makes a complaint suffers far more than the perpetrator,” he added.

“Another problem is that people often think, ‘well, nothing’s going to happen if I report it’.”

The watchdog has called for a national anti-racism plan which would involve setting up an advisory group with First Nations representatives, as well as those from other communities.

Mr Sivaraman said this was to ensure these groups had agency over how their data was collected and used.

Australia had a troubled history of data collection, he said, particularly regarding Indigenous people.

“Data on First Peoples was collected to remove Aboriginal children from families. It was collected to force Aboriginal families into settlements and camps,” he said.

“What we need is a new way of collecting data with First Peoples that’s co-designed, that is on a strengths basis, and most importantly, that ensures data sovereignty for First Peoples.”

Greg Jericho

Senator Jane Hume opens the bowling for the opposition and shocks nobody by talking about government spending. She wants the Treasury secretary to admit that government spending is causing inflation.

Wilkinson is not stupid.

She points out the contribution of government spending is falling – I have noted this as well quite a bit:

But Hume wants Wilkinson to really admit that government spending is causing inflation.

Wilkinson points out that the big shock to inflationary pressures is due to private sector demand (she means datacentre investment)

Essentially domestic demand is broken down to 3 things – Government spending and investment (Public demand), household spending, and private investment.

And the GDP figures clearly show that she is right to say it is not government spending that has been the cause of increased demand pressures.

Greg Jericho

Jenny Wilkinson is talking about the boom in the AI being bigger than expected

She is talking about this

She also mentions the latest forecasts for future non-mining investment is also quite large (ie more datacentres)

Luke Slawomirski

Over at Senate Estimates, Anne Ruston is asking Department of Health Disability and Ageing (DOHDA) officials for an electorate-level breakdown of bulk billing rates.

A breakdown by electorate – we’re promised – will be provided a little later. A fair amount of detail is provided here. The breakdown of GP bulk billing by primary health network (PHN) is interesting.

Greg Jericho

Jenny Wilkson, the Secretary of the Treasury starts off with an opening statements that gives a bit of a summary of things

AI booming – and is adding to inflationary pressures.

Higher fuel also inflationary pressures.

Households spending is “subdued”

House prices falling – most pronounced in the wealth Sydney and Melbourne. Over all prices around the country are down 5% from the peak but still up 6% on a couple years ago.

She notes that our common use of variable mortgage rates means rate rises flow quickly to households (interestingly the RBA now says actually two-thirds of the impact of rate rises is on the exchange rate, which feels like bullshit to me)

She also mentions debt and notes Australia’s debt is much lower than others (correct)

She notes the cut to the fuel tax rebate did it’s job but was ended to prevent demand pressures (ie a worry that we might feel too rich because our petrol is so cheap… which…)

She ends by talking about the Intergeneration Report, which tbh I had completely forgotten about.

And off we go to the questions!

The Lead Commissioner of Australia’s independent, crowdfunded Public Inquiry into AUKUS has warned the Federal Government about growing community unease about the project, ahead of the release of the Inquiry’s report and recommendations next week in Canberra.

From the statement:

Lead Commissioner Peter Garrett said today that the Inquiry hearings showed successive Governments had comprehensively failed to make the case for the AUKUS submarine pact, and that the sheer scale and cost of the project meant it risked becoming a threat to social cohesion in Australia over time.

“In the absence of any social license for this deal I fear Australians struggling through the current cost-of-living crisis will come to see the AUKUS expenditure going to the US and the UK in a very poor light.

“People aren’t mugs. As well as helping fund overseas shipyard construction these submarines will generate high level nuclear waste, which remains Australia’s responsibility. Once people understand this highly dangerous material needs to be stored somewhere safely, at great expense and for a very long time, they are bound to seek answers that have simply not been provided through the AUKUS process.

“Where is the Government’s plan for this massive waste management undertaking?  It would be negligent not to have a plan, but up to now the community has been kept in the dark.

“That is unsustainable.”

A substantial number of Australians – including a former Prime Minister, former Foreign Affairs and Defence Ministers, senior academics and military experts, community groups and citizens – have presented to the Inquiry across 10 day-long hearings in 8 cities around Australia since it launched in the middle of the year.

Nearly 10,000 people watched the proceedings, either attending in person or via the live-stream.  Over 1,000 written submissions were received. 

$220,000 was raised by crowdfunding, from individual donors and from civil society organisations, in order to hold the inquiry.

The Commissioners have now drafted a comprehensive report which will be presented at the National Press Club next Wednesday November 4.

(Full disclosure: Leanne Minshell, co-CEO of The Australia Institute was on the commission)

Anara Watson

Yesterday, the first Australian to be charged under Australian deepfake pornography laws was sentenced.

According to the ABC, the 20-year-old South Australian man “previously admitted to creating sexually explicit deepfake images of a teenage girl before sharing them on online platforms Ero Me and X — formerly known as Twitter — in 2024 and 2025.”

The 20-year-old received a term of imprisonment of two years and three months, but he was released on a recognisance release order – effectively a good behaviour bond.

The now-19-year-old woman, the subject of the deepfakes, has said that “these images of me were fake but the impact they had is painfully real.”

The first time I saw my actual graduation picture was on a pornography website beside altered videos of me with my full name and school attached to it.

Every time I now see that photo, I feel sick.

You took a memory that was supposed to represent achievement, friendship and happiness and turned it into something so painful.

…

Despite everything, I will refuse to let what you did to me define me forever.

I am not your victim … I am a survivor.

You tried to reduce me to an image on a screen, but I am so much more than that.

These images were shared online, through a social media platform.

And while the government’s proposed Digital Duty of Care laws seek to address harms like this, they don’t go far enough.

Nine in ten (93%) Australians agree that online platforms should be legally required to provide a safe online environment and prevent and address illegal and harmful content.

What’s more, seven in ten (72%) Australians agree that if an individual has suffered physical or mental health harm from content on an online platform, they should be able to seek compensation from the platform.

That isn’t in the current proposal.

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

Luke Slawomirski

Australia has promised to lift preventive health spending to 5 per cent of government health expenditure by 2030. We’re currently at just 2.9 per cent.

But a new OECD study asks if we even know what we’re spending on.

Researchers examined how European countries account for preventive care. In 2023, reported spending averaged 3.1 per cent of health expenditure. Once the OECD corrected for missing or misclassified activities, it rose to 3.8 per cent. That’s almost a quarter more.

Routine health checks, occupational health, vaccinations and disease surveillance were among the omissions. Australia wasn’t included, so we shouldn’t assume the same undercount applies here.

There could be another problem, however. Standard health accounts largely exclude preventive measures delivered outside healthcare. Policies that improve housing, reduce traffic injuries or discourage unhealthy diets may deliver substantial health benefits without registering as preventive health spending.

And Australia’s own figures reveal what we prioritise. Of the $5.4 billion spent on public health in 2023–24, $2.4 billion went to immunisation.

Better accounting would help.

But meeting a spending target is a poor substitute for properly understanding which policies keep Australians healthier

Anna Chang

From the Vic Gov website:

A State Memorial Service to honour the life of Dr Tim Read will be held at 3:30pm today at Melbourne Town Hall.

Tim was elected to the Victorian Parliament in 2018, creating history to become the first Greens Member for Brunswick, and became one of its most respected parliamentarians over his eight years of service to the people of Brunswick and the state.

Before entering Parliament, Tim was a doctor and medical researcher. He began his career as a general practitioner in community health before specialising in sexual health in the public system.

As a respected researcher, Tim contributed to over 60 peer-reviewed medical publications covering topics such as the public health approaches to sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and antibiotic-resistance. Tim completed a PhD on HIV epidemiology and vaccine prevention of STIs.

Over the following eight years, he championed action on climate change, contributed significantly to public health, improved sustainable transport, and campaigned for democratic safeguards, integrity reform and stronger protections for renters.

Tim was the only medical doctor in the Victorian Parliament during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tim’s commitment to improving public health outcomes contributed to significant legislative and policy reforms, including pill testing, tobacco licensing, the abolition of public drunkenness offences, and the development of a statewide plan to eliminate congenital syphilis and HIV transmission.

Among his many achievements, Tim played a leading role in allowing gay men to donate blood and legislating a statutory ban on solitary confinement in Victorian prisons.

Tim’s ability to work across the aisle resulted in strong legislative reforms and changing the course of integrity reform in the state. Tim’s leadership and commitment to integrity and transparency resulted in him being elected the first ever non-government chair of Parliament’s Integrity and Oversight Committee.

In this role, he led an inquiry to strengthen Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission (IBAC) and anti-corruption laws, which formed the basis for transformative reforms that expanded the powers of IBAC, which passed in the days after his death.

The State Memorial will be open to the public and live streamed here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYxVxmMmlPw

In lieu of flowers, and at the request of Tim’s family, memorial donations can be made to the Inner North Community Foundation Action Fund and Friends of the Earth.

The Antipoverty Centre, which is one of the leading organisations for advocating for people living on welfare and poverty, is not impressed with the Greens offering under David Shoebridge for a $19 a week increase to Jobseeker (which would not move the dial for those living in poverty)

The Greens have said it is one policy, but there are more to come, but it will take more than tax cuts (for all, including the wealthy) and tiny increases in welfare to shift the sceptical.

The Coalition is still a no on that bill by the way.

Here was Pat Conaghan, the LNP MP for Cowper, speaking on the bill in the House last night. You’ll notice that the Coalition has suddenly discovered the Human Rights Commission and also freedom of expression (this from the party that wanted to ban pro-Palestinian protests and continues to conflate anti-genocide protests with antisemitism)

Australia is a liberal democracy. We have a proud tradition of robust debate, political disagreement and the right to challenge those in authority. Those freedoms are not always comfortable. Sometimes people say things that offend us. Sometimes they express opinions we find objectionable.

Sometimes they challenge the prevailing political or social narrative. But that is exactly why freedom of expression matters. Labor’s bill is a blank cheque for political censorship. It relies on vague definitions of online harm and compliance with the proposed digital duty of care.
Those definitions give the government and the eSafety Commission wide-ranging powers to determine what material and conduct may cause harm to children. While the minister’s discretion to prohibit any category of online harm may have been removed, the regulator is still given an extraordinary power to determine what material or conduct may be harmful.

The bill creates new categories of regulated speech that are not linked to established legal standards. There is no developed body of law or judicial decisions to guide how those categories will apply. One example is ‘material or conduct that encourages or promotes hostile attitudes towards women or gender equality’. That language raises serious interpretive questions: What is the distinction between genuinely harmful material and lawful disagreement about sex, gender equality or public policy? What happens to robust debate about social policy, education, religion, crime or cultural values? These are matters on which Australians hold deeply different views, and we have to ensure that disagreement, even strong disagreement, is not confused with unlawful or serious harmful conduct.

The Australian Human Rights Commission has identified significant areas requiring improvement, including clearer definitions of harm, tighter restrictions on rule-making powers and stronger protections for human rights.

When Australia’s national human rights institution identifies risks to freedom of expression and privacy, the appropriate response is to address those concerns before the legislation becomes law.

We cannot have a system where the boundaries of acceptable public discussion are left uncertain. When the law is uncertain and penalties can reach $109 million, the safest option for a technology company may be to remove content rather than risk regulatory action. That creates a real danger of lawful speech being suppressed, not necessarily because the government directly orders its removal but because the regulatory framework encourages excessive censorship. The Australians who pay the price are ordinary citizens.

This brings me to the most important question surrounding the legislation. Who decides what constitutes harmful material, and who decides when something crosses the line from being offensive or controversial to being unacceptable? Credible threats of violence and serious harm should never be tolerated, but the bill replaces a targeted regulatory framework with a broader obligation, requiring platforms to identify and minimise vaguely defined terms.

The duty is defined by content. Risk assessments must identify the content services are seeking to manage.

Compliance is measured by how services respond to that content. Platforms are therefore given every incentive to remove material that is lawful but controversial, politically contentious or difficult to assess.

The Democracy Counts Campaign has brought together experts in “digital rights, political transparency, media freedom and education policy call on all federal parliamentarians to support the establishment of a Digital Duty of Care”.

The group say that social media platforms prioritising “extreme and polarising content to keep users engaged, algorithms funnel people into silos and echo chambers” is “sowing division, undermining social cohesion and making it harder for citizens to participate constructively in our democracy.”

Social media corporations that profit from Australians should be subject to basic rules and standards, just like any other businesses.  

The Digital Duty of Care would allow Australians to take back some control of what they see on social media from algorithms designed to keep eyes glued to screens. 

Better rules for digital platforms can create a better internet experience for everyone. 

The Democracy Counts Campaign: 

• welcomes the removal of the broad ministerial discretion contained in the exposure draft, a concern expressed by members of its campaign alliance. 

• Supports the establishment of a private right of action against social media companies – empowering Australians to take action rather than relying only on the regulator. 

• Calls on the Australian Government to address the significant threat AI-generated deepfakes poses to electoral integrity, as flagged by the Australian Electoral Commission, and invest in education and campaigns to improve the digital literacy of Australians of all ages.   

In the immediate term, Parliament must pass the Digital Duty of Care legislation for the safety of social media users and the health of Australia’s democracy.  

Tom Mooney – Director, Democracy Counts 

“Australians deserve the same basic protections from social media platforms as we expect from any other business we deal with. Social media companies are profiting from our attention and our data, but unlike media, food, banking and other industries, there are no basic rules for social media platforms. We should be able to connect online without constantly being scammed, fed fakes or vulnerable people left to fend for themselves and a Digital Duty of Care will put some basic rules in place to make sure social media companies keep their platforms safe.” 

Peter Greste – Executive Director, Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom 

“Our democracy depends on the integrity of our information system and the public debate it informs. We have already seen the damage that an unregulated digital ecosystem can do to our community, and we cannot let that continue. We need to act to make sure that the platforms serve us rather than the unelected and unaccountable technocrats who run them.” 

Caitlin Reiger – CEO, Human Rights Law Centre 

“For too long, big tech platforms have been allowed to operate in Australia with little accountability. With power comes responsibility. The proposed duty of care is an important step forward to ensuring people can connect with their community and stay safe both online and offline. Big tech must be held to a high standard, to protect users’ safety while safeguarding our rights to freedom of expression, privacy, and to be treated with dignity and respect.” 

Tom Sulston – Head of Policy, Digital Rights Watch 

“We all deserve to use the internet to help us live our lives to the fullest. But large digital corporations harm Australians when they exploit our attention and our privacy for profit. Digital platforms harm us not only as individuals, when they feed us AI slop and hate speech through our social media feeds, but they also harm us collectively, as their influence over our information systems makes our democracy more fragile. We need the Digital Duty of Care to protect us from predatory corporations, to help us to build a thriving and diverse digital environment, and to make spaces where we can all participate as equals online.” 

Chanel Contos – Founder and CEO, Teach Us Consent 

“Young people are being bombarded with harmful content by design and for profit, and it’s time we had laws that hold tech companies to account for this. The Digital Duty of Care is a vital first step, but its effectiveness will come down to enforcement. Giving Australians the right to sue tech companies directly, and a clear path to redress, will do far more than fines alone.” 

Ashleigh Streeter-Jones – CEO, Raise Our Voice  
  
“Young people aren’t asking to be excluded from digital spaces. They’re asking for those spaces to be safer. Through Raise Our Voice in Parliament, we’ve heard young Australians call for greater accountability, stronger protections and meaningful action from the platforms shaping their online experiences. The question now is whether those with the power to act are listening.”   

Cat Rodie – Founder, School News Project 

“Young people are often described as digital natives; they have grown up with social media – but we have a responsibility to ensure the online world is a place where they can flourish. It is unfathomable that digital platforms profiting from ‘rage bait’ algorithms have not already been held to account.   
  
“Media literacy educators have been fighting an uphill battle; social media corporations must help clean up the mess they have created. The Digital Duty of Care bill will play a critical role in ensuring they do.” 

Naomi Nicholas – Director of Partnerships & Impact, Cool.org  
  
“At Cool.org, we enable young people to exercise their agency and shape a better future. But we cannot ask them to make change without protecting the democratic systems that enable it. A healthy democracy depends on a safe and trustworthy information ecosystem. A Digital Duty of Care helps ensure those profiting from our attention take responsibility for preventing harm, rather than leaving that burden to those experiencing it. 

Emma Cooney – Co-Director, Protocol Policy Lab 

“Technology has become an integral aspect of our lives. And yet, many of us see and feel the harms stemming from current platform design, ranging from social media addiction to social fragmentation. The Digital Duty of Care is the most effective way to address harmful and addictive design features that platforms have little incentive to remove on their own.”   

Business Educators Australasia  

“Our students deserve safe, healthy digital environments for learning and democratic participation. Civics and citizenship education, alongside media and digital literacy, equips students to engage critically and constructively. These efforts must be matched by a Digital Duty of Care that holds platforms accountable for harms affecting students and the wider community, including how their systems amplify harmful content.” 

John Pane – Chair, Electronic Frontiers Australia 

“Australia’s Digital Duty of Care Bill is essential to breaking the stranglehold of Big Tech’s surveillance-based business model on our society. Rather than placing safety burdens on individuals or relying on failed self-regulation, it forces platforms to proactively mitigate demonstrable risks and harms. And by targeting engagement-driven algorithms, it holds companies accountable for prioritizing profit over user safety. With its passage the Bill will protect vulnerable groups and make digital spaces safer and healthier.” 

Elfa Moraitakis – CEO, SydWest 

  “Digital platforms shape our public conversation, and they must share responsibility for its health. A Digital Duty of Care is an important step towards protecting Australians from harmful online practices and strengthening the trust and social cohesion on which our democracy depends.” 

Australia’s road toll is rising – for the sixth year in a row, fatalities on our roads are increasing and 2026 has already recorded the highest toll in 15 years, with 1334 people having died up to September. That’s up from last year at the same time, and is despite both roads and cars getting safer.

One of the reasons for the increased number of fatalities is the number of pedestrian deaths, which associate professor Milad Haghani, a Principal Fellow in Urban Resilience & Mobility at the University of Melbourne told the ABC, was partly down to cars becoming bigger and heavier.

If we do not regulate, if we do not make incentive for people to buy more reasonable-sized cars, this is going to continue, and what we end up with is an ecosystem that is increasingly risky to pedestrians and cyclists.

Anna Chang

A very grumpy Communications Minister, Anika Wells was just on RN Breakfast, and among other things, when asked about penalties on the Government’s Duty of Care Bill, had this to say:

Q. Would tying this to their global revenue would that hit them harder? 

It might, and like I said, I’m going to continue to negotiate in good faith. 

But I think what these companies care about more than penalties is their reputation and their social license, and that’s why we’ve got to get this bill passed. 

I would contend the whole reason why we need a legislated Digital Duty of Care that social media companies care more about money, but I’m also not the Communications Minister.

But perhaps the Communications Minister needs reminding of Facebook’s day of malicious compliance back in February 2021, where they claimed to comply with the proposed News Media Bargaining Code by removing “news content” from their services, but also blocked emergency services, health departments and other essential service pages.

Otherwise, she could go watch the Social Reckoning, not the best movie but still in cinemas.

Anyway, it looks like we’ll be in very protracted negotiations if this is the Government’s starting point, the Coalition don’t want to play ball, and Senator Sarah Hanson-Young outlining very clearly in a press conference with stakeholders last sitting, what the Greens are looking for to pass the Digital Duty of Care bill.

The Coalition is feeling some pressure from the Business Council and others to pass the EU Free Trade Deal.

You can see that from what Ted O’Brien is saying here, in his interview with ABC radio RN Breakfast:

We have pointed to two areas of concern. The primary area of concern for me is climate clauses. This, in fact, is not one free trade agreement. It’s two deals. One’s an FTA. The other one is actually a climate deal. It is the first time that Australia will be signing up to legal obligations regarding climate. And should those obligations be breached, then there is a risk of penalty for Australian businesses because the trade preferences can be suspended through the deal.

Now this has never happened before. The government has been quiet on this. We have grave concerns about that because if we miss our nationally determined contribution, so the Albanese government’s climate targets, and we will, by the way, even if the Albanese government is here forever, they will be missed.

Let alone a future Australian government coming in and having new policies that has a very different emissions profile*.

Well, the risk is in the contract that the the trade preferences can be suspended. That’s not fair. So I try to be very constructive here.

What I put to the government is, we both want to see a deal done. So let’s do a side letter to at least remove the climate issues off the table, because the government is saying, no, look, there’s no issue here, nothing to be concerned about. So my response to that is: let’s have that in writing.

A side letter to the contract is common practice, and it would carry the same legal status as the agreement itself. That would remove an enormous barnacle. That would then leave some of the market access issues to discuss.

*He is saying this because the Coalition wants to scrap net zero.

This is not new from the EU – to trade with the EU, you have to meet some of the EU laws. This includes removing certain chemicals and additives from products, which are now banned in Europe, which, for the beauty girlies, is why practically every brand reformulated their cult products this year, and also meeting climate obligations.

O’Brien is arguing on behalf of a future Coalition government because the Coalition has no interest in climate policies. It’s also an early example of what consequences that sort of thinking and those sorts of policies will have for Australia – we will be excluded by most of the rest of the world, where climate is not a left/right issue like it is here.

Allegra Spender is leading the debate against some of the government’s proposed start up incentive and CGT changes, while fellow independent, Monique Ryan is challenging the research and development side of the proposal.’

Ryan, and Kate Chaney, will hold a press conference later today, where they are discussing the proposed changes to the Research and Development Tax Incentive, which they say will “restrict access to refundable tax offsets for medical research and biotechnology companies less than 15 years old”.

Ryan and Chaney say that it takes more than 15 years to develop “life-changing health and research discoveries through rigorous clinical trials, regulatory approvals, and commercialisation” as a general rule, and the changes could mean that Australian researchers and companies move offshore to access more friendly policy settings.

The members will be joined by medical research leaders.

Lawfirm Slater and Gordon have announced they are investigating a potential class action “on behalf of women passengers in Australia who may have experienced sexual assault, sexual misconduct or sexual harassment by an Uber driver”.

The lawfirm says it is examining “whether Uber’s systems, policies and practices adequately protected the safety of women passengers, and whether Uber responded appropriately when complaints involving alleged driver sexual misconduct, sexual assault and sexual harassment were reported”.

The investigation will focus on whether Uber has done enough to protect women passengers using it’s service and platform, not individual drivers.

Slater and Gordon Practice Group Leader Cindy Bors:

Women should be able to get home in an Uber safely, without being frightened or violated by the person behind the wheel, or left wondering whether anyone will listen and act.

When a woman passenger reports or alleges sexual harassment, sexual misconduct or sexual assault involving an Uber driver, the systems receiving, investigating and responding to that report matter.

A key part of the investigation will be looking at how Uber screens drivers, and monitors them, as well as what safety training is provided, how complaints and reports are handled, and what safety features are built into the platform.

The investigation follows work examining complaints information, regulatory material, passenger accounts, Uber’s public safety reporting and international developments.

From the statement:

Slater and Gordon is inviting women in Australia who may have experienced sexual assault, sexual misconduct or sexual harassment by an Uber driver to register their interest at Uber Investigation – Women’s Passenger Safety | Slater and Gordon.

People do not need to have previously reported their experience to Uber or police to contact Slater and Gordon.

No finding of liability has been made and no class action has commenced at this stage. Registering interest does not commence legal proceedings or guarantee that legal action will be taken.

For more than 90 years, Slater and Gordon Lawyers has helped everyday Australians to understand their rights and seek accountability from powerful organisations and institutions, helping people and communities to get the justice they deserve.

Slater and Gordon Lawyers recognises that media coverage and public discussion of sexual assault can be distressing, particularly for people with lived experience.

If you or someone you know needs support, contact 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or text 0458 737 732 for free, confidential, 24/7 support and counselling for people impacted by sexual, domestic, or family violence. If you are in immediate danger, call 000.

650 Qantas Freight and Qantas Link ground crew have walked off the job for 24 hours, striking over stalled negotiations over the latest enterprise bargaining agreement. It’s unlikely to impact passengers, but could disrupt Australia Post and other freight deliveries.

Centre to the negotiations are some of the changes Alan Joyce made in his cost cutting era, particularly bringing in outside labour force companies to replace Qantas employed ground crews. The TWU has accused the airline of continuing to ‘splinter’ its workforce through third party contracts, which has also put safety into question. The union won a historic court battle which found the airline had illegally sacked 1700 workers in a cost cutting exercise.

Qantas Link and Australia Post say contingency measures are in place.

Hello and welcome to your Wednesday edition of The Point Live. You have a sugared up Amy Remeikis with you, along with the team and Mike Bowers who we have borrowed from The New Daily, to take you through another day of estimates hearings and the House sitting.

Labor is wizzing through its House business – all by design. Yesterday Tony Burke changed up the House business to make sure the government could get its bills through the House before the week is up, which will make for a dizzing agenda for the senate, particularly the Greens, next sitting.

Speaking of the Greens, David Shoebridge will front the National Press Club for his first address, where he will lay out the Greens tax plans – tax cuts for everyone, paid for by the resources sector. The Greens are planning for most working Australians to receive a tax cut, which will add to the tax battle ahead of the next election – but unlike the Coalition which has announced funding cuts to areas like housing and welfare to pay for its voter carrot, the Greens want a gas tax and re-designed resources rent tax, to pay for theirs.

That will surely be treated very normally, and very rationally.

We will bring you all of that as it happens, and more. It is already a three coffee morning. We have today and tomorrow to get through and I believe in us! Maybe not me, but I believe in you. And coffee.

Ready?