The Point Live: Australia under pressure to sanction Israeli traders in the West Bank and right wingers push back against proposed social media changes. As it happened.

And on that note, we are going to put the blog to sleep until tomorrow morning.

Hopefully we’ll get started tomorrow without the tech problems which plagued my brain and the blogue (sic) this morning.

Thank you to everyone who joined us today – was an absolute thrill to spend the day bemoaning the state of our democracy together.
Let’s do it all again tomorrow – until then – take care of you. And those around of you. Ax

Anna Chang

The Coalition, Australian Greens and Senator David Pocock have successfully moved a joint motion in the Senate, that reaffirms the Senate’s expectations on the broadcast and publication of Senate proceedings, and: they. are. not. fucking. around.

Senators Cash, Waters and David Pocock: To move—That the Senate—

1. reaffirms that:
   1. the powers of the Senate and its committees to conduct inquiries, ask questions, obtain information and require the production of documents are essential to the Senate’s constitutional functions of scrutiny and accountability,
   2. the conduct of Senate committee proceedings, including the examination of witnesses and the recording, broadcasting and publication of public proceedings, is governed by the standing orders, resolutions and other orders of the Senate and decisions of the relevant committee,
   3. it is for the Senate or the relevant committee, and not an individual witness, department, agency or executive government body, to determine the conduct of committee proceedings and whether an objection to questioning, publication or broadcasting should be upheld, and
   4. public servants appearing before parliamentary committees have a duty to cooperate with parliamentary inquiries and provide information, consistent with their obligations under the Public Service Act 1999 to uphold the Australian Public Service (APS) values, including the requirement that the APS be open and accountable, subject to established procedures for witness protection and public interest immunity claims;
2. rejects any attempt by an Executive Government department, agency, officer or other body to impose a consent requirement or otherwise assert a veto over the questioning of witnesses or the recording, broadcasting, fair and accurate reporting or republication of public committee proceedings;
3. affirms that legitimate concerns about the safety, welfare or treatment of witnesses should be addressed through the established powers and procedures of the Senate and its committees;
4. calls on the Government to ensure that Commonwealth departments and agencies, the Secretaries Board and Australian Public Service officers are reminded of their duty to cooperate with parliamentary committee inquiries and that executive policies, guidance or instructions must not diminish, qualify or supersede the powers, privileges, procedures or orders of the Senate and its committees; and
5. requires:
   1. the chairs of Senate committees to draw this resolution to the attention of any witness who seeks to impose a condition on the questioning, recording, broadcasting, publication or republication of their evidence inconsistent with this resolution, and
   2. the Clerk to draw this resolution to the attention of the Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Australian Public Service Commissioner and the heads of departments and agencies appearing before Senate committees.

Pauline Hanson really loves dressing like Beetlejuice. And it’s not even Halloween.

She was banging on about some motion. Nice to see she turned up to parliament for a change.

Unfortunately you don’t have to say her name three times to see her. She just appears when she wants.

You get the feeling Albanese is enjoying some of this old school politics over grant spending.

These two have had a bromance that dates back years. Michael McCormack used to go to Albanese for advice on how to fix transport issues when McCormack was transport minister and Albanese was in opposition (and not even in the portfolio) – that’s how much they like each other.

Over in senate question time, independent senator Lidia Thorpe asked more about the sanctions Australia says it will be applying in response to Israeli’s violence against Palestinians and the forced removal of Palestinians from their West Bank homes.

…What unintended consequences is the Albanese government concerned about?

Penny Wong:

I did indicate that in addition to what we had, the action we have already taken, we were intending to take further targeted action.

So, and if I can indicate to you right now, Australians can’t trade with sanctioned individuals or entities in the West Bank, and the sanctions we apply, we impose, apply to Australia citizens and corporations wherever they are in the world.

So Australian law already bans buying, importing, or transporting goods from sanctioned individuals and entities, and individuals who commit sanctions offenses can receive up to 10 years imprisonment and a fine of up to 910,000, or three times the value of the relevant transaction.

Businesses can be fined up to 3.64 million, or three times the value of the transaction.

In relation to settlements, we’ve been clear: the Netanyahu government’s actions in the West Bank, the rapid expansion of settlements, the proposed E1 settlement development, and flagrant settler violence are extinguishing the possibility of a two-state solution, and that remains the only path to enduring peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians. That is why, with international partners, we recognize the state of Palestine.

That is why we are strengthening the institutional foundations of the state, and it’s why, with partners, we’ve imposed travel bans and the targeted financial sanctions on Israeli ministers and others I described earlier.

Yesterday I did announce we are continuing to pursue further targeted measures in coordination with international partners to deter illegal settlements and settler violence. I would note, in response to our actions, Australia has revoked…sorry, in response to Australia’s actions, Israel has revoked the visas of Australian diplomats, effectively expelling them from Ramallah (which is in Palestine. This happened in 2025)

Thorpe:

The UK, France, and Canada are banning imports from illegal settlements. Meanwhile, the Israeli ambassador was in Parliament’s private members’ dining room this week, dining and enjoying full privileges. Why is this government so weak on Israel’s war crimes? Do you need to ask permission from the ambassador before you do anything?

Wong:

Well, I would make the point that I think Prime Minister Netanyahu has expressed very publicly his criticism of the Albanese government’s actions in relation to Israel, in relation to Gaza, in relation to the West Bank, and as I have just said, Israel has in fact revoked the visas of Australian diplomats in response to some of the action we have taken, effectively expelling them from Ramallah.

So I would just make the point that this is Senator Thorpe’s question. I did not know the ambassador was in the building. I do not know why he was in the building, but what I would say to you is, well, I’m just saying, I do not know that. What I would say is, I think we have taken action that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government has made very clear that that they are more than displeased with, but we have done so because it’s the right thing to do.

Thorpe:

How does the Israeli ambassador get into a private members’ dining room where you are required to have a member present with you? How is he allowed to be in there and break all of the rules without a member of parliament sitting with him or escorting him.

Wong:

Well, Senator, I think that’s probably a question to the presiding officers in relation to the use of the facilities. I have not been, other than to give a speech at one of the in one of the ante rooms or the annexes. I have not been in the private dining room for some time.

So, and until you raised it with me, I was not aware of his presence.

It’s a matter for the ambassador to explain and whoever was engaging with him. What I would say is we disagree most strongly, we disagree most strongly with the position that the Netanyahu government has been engaging in in relation to the settlements in the West Bank.

We’ve made that clear. We’ve sanctioned individuals. We’ve sanctioned entities. And I announced yesterday we would take further targeted action.

Andrew Hastie has hit back at One Nation for a cartoon depicting him as a “traitor” after he stood up and testified his truth in the Ben Roberts-Smith trial.

Hastie has been the only Liberal MP to be consistent on this. As well as consistent on why he gave evidence in the federal court. It’s missed all the time, but it was Ben Roberts-Smith’s fellow soldiers who blew the whistle on him. So for those arguing ‘fog of war’ in response to the allegations, there are those who know what the fog of war is, and still testified what they saw.

Hastie told News24 (formally Sky News)

I would say that Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce are lying cowards and I will say it again so there is no ambiguity, they are lying cowards. They are trashing my service record, they called me a traitor to my own country. It’s not just about me, it’s about the other veterans. Are they saying the same thing was the other 20 SAS veterans who gave evidence under oath in the Federal Court? Are they also traitors to their own country? I’m calling on them to own this cartoon, and if they only, step into the house or outside the house, I don’t care, use parliamentary privilege or don’t, and explain why I and other veterans and serving members of the ADF rethink war crimes are wrong are traitors to their country, and if not, they should delete the cartoon.

Mike Bowers caught some of his visitors:

Former Labor turned independent senator Fatima Payman (who left the party after not being able to speak out against the Gaza genocide) has returned from parental leave and is parenting a baby, while also attending the senate session.

She has just posted this to social media:

Watching question time lately always feels like you’ve been walking down stairs and missed one, landing on one lower down than you expected. Your fine, but your body feels jarred.

And so again it was today. There are actual issues the government could be made to address, but are not. Mostly because on those issues, they look to the Coalition for support and the Coalition is happy to give it.

So instead, we get this.

Kate Chaney asks:

It’s now been more than three years since the Robodebt Royal Commission recommended legislated guard rails around automation in government but Australians are still waiting. Automating critical decisions in aged care and the NDIS without consistent transparency or safeguards means Robodebt 2.0 might not be so far away A when will you legislate a framework for automated decision making that includes safeguards, human overright and transparency, like the bill I introduced this week?

Michele Rowland:

As the member points out, it is indeed the genesis of why we are pursuing automated decision making across government and with an appropriate safeguards framework. That’s to ensure Australians never suffer a repeat of the former government’s illegal and harmful Robodebt scheme.

That’s why we have the development of a consistent whole of government framework for automated decision making and that will be implementing the decisions of the Robodebt Royal Commission. We have adopted the framework that will regulate government’s use of ADM, ensuring individuals can reap the benefits of automation without having their rights and entitlements compromised.

The framework will include robust safeguards that ensure transparency, human oversight and review rights. The design and operation of these safeguards has been and will continue to be informed by extensive consultations including with the public, industry, experts and advocacy group I can assure the member and the House that the government is taking a careful and methodical approach to the development of the ADM framework. T

horough and appropriate consultation is necessary to ensure reform can actually be implemented but also that we strengthen how services are delivered in order to best coordinate this reform across government, a dedicated task force has been established within my department to deliver this important work.

I can assure the member it is working at pace. The Albanese government’s approach is focused on delivery in the future, enabling Australians to adopt new technologies responsibly, deliver high quality services more efficiently and prevent the systemic failures identified in the Robodebt Royal Commission.

I know the honourable member will appreciate that this is a whole of government endeavour. It is imperative that we get this right. It has been worked on swiftly as possible to ensure the strong possible safeguards. We all wanted to see this reform realised and I can assure the honourable member we’re determined to make this happen. I will be meeting with the honourable member this week to discuss this issue and I’m happy to engage with any other member in this place on these important matters.

We are back to the tobacco excise:

You have now refused, on five occasions in question time, to answer whether you will cut the tobacco excise. This morning on the Today show you dodged it again. Why won’t you give Australians a straight answer? Will you cut the tobacco excise, yes or no, Prime Minister?

Mark Butler takes it:

I thank the member again for her questio about reversing excise increases that have taken place over the last number of years under this government, just under 40 per cent increased – under the former government 215 per cent increase to excise.

Not a single dollar into enforcement. Not a single dollar into public health campaigns. At the same time allowing disposable vapes to flood into this country and flood our school yards and now they want to bring it back because they’ve heard parents saying, ‘Gee, I wish vapes were brought back to our school yards. Gee, I wish the vapes were cheaper….

…I know the member comes at this position. We might disagree on some detail from a good position. She, like every member of this House, wants to find a way to fight the criminals. Wants to find a way to fight the fact that over a number of years there has been a very big increase in the illicit tobacco market.

We have taken the view, unlike those opposite when in government that, we needed to boost our enforcement resources. We needed to give the ADF resources to stop the flood, initially of vapes and then illicit tobacco and we have done that. We have also taken the view that we need to work in cooperation with the state governments. Those opposite didn’t do that. We have take an different view. Some states are leading the way. Queensland under the LNP, the South Australian government, we’re pleased that the biggest states are coming to the party as well and, of course, this government, as I have said, and so many other ministers have said, of course we are open to other sensible ideas about how we can fight organised crime while not prejudicing our most important public health campaign. But this is the problem I have with the announcements that One Nation first made and then, sure enough led by the nose, the Coalition followed.

Darren Chester asks:

Prime Minister, full membership of the Marrickville golf course costs $1100. Given the value of his membership exceeds the gift threshold will he correct the record and upgrade his register of interests today.I

Anthony Albanese:

As I have said to – previously here, apparently I am told in 2012, 14 years ago, I was given an honorary social membership…of Marrickville golf club.(

I don’t play golf, Mr Speaker. I leave that to my Deputy Prime Minister, who is a very good golfer, who is a very good golfer of course I can talk about tennis all day. But for them to draw this extraordinarily long bow – I not have a card as I do not have a card as a member of the Marrickville golf club, I don’t belong to the executive of the Marrickville golf club. I used to walk my dog on Marrickville golf club and I must say as well I have been to the birthday for Lewis the Caboodle and dogs on the fair way of Marrickville golf club.

I have done that.

It is known as Royal Marrickville as tongue-in-cheek, sending up Royal Sydney.

When I get a membership such as Royal Sydney it is declared. It is declared. The fact is that in 2012, they said ‘You’re an honorary member’. I don’t have a card, I never got anything, I don’t use the facilities, I don’t do anything whatsoever for it.

But the inner west council wants to fix the Cooks River, wants to fix it and at the moment raw sewerage flows when there is flooding on the floodplain which is where the golf course is.

Now, I have been involved in a campaign to defend Marrickville golf club when the council or some people in the council, the Greens wanted to stop it being a golf club and wanted it for passive open spcace.

…They made some decision to give me an honorary membership. I’m not aware of anything since in that 14 years. A bit has passed since then. With regard to honorary memberships of the club. But if you’re a good local member, a whole lot of people will give you honorary membership of things if you’re a good local member who stands up for your electorate, that will occur.

When it comes to Royal Marrickville golf club, as I’ll happily call it, I encourage people to join the golf club, to use the facilities there.

And to engage with it, because it is a vital local community club. It’s a local club, as the membership shows, which is $5 for two years…

And we are back:

On what date was the minister first made aware of allegations of fraud impacting the government’s cheaper home batteries program?

Chris Bowen:

When the cheaper homeEnergy.batteries program was implemented on 1 July 2025, I instigated a committee which consists of the Clean Energy Regulator and the industry bodies and industry representatives which has been meeting regularly and keeping me advised of progress and all issues. 

I have received regular progress reports from the Clean Energy Regulator directly and those regular progress reports have told me that the number of complaints as a proportion of installations for cheaper home batteries since this program was introduced have halved. 

Complaints per thousand installations have halved since this came in.

Again I say to those opposite, 535,833 Australian houses have installed cheaper home batteries.

Bowen is told to be relevant and finishes with some anger:

….I started receiving updates on the implement aches of the program on 1 July 2025 and have received them regularly. Those updates have shown they the manager of Opposition’s claims of systemic fraud are not true, and are a lie.

Jim Chalmers continues trying out parts of his routine against the Coalition through dixers.

They would slash retirement incomes and smash the budget just to imitate One Nation. 

The only difference of opinion over there between the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation is what to get Gina for her birthday. Otherwise, they are completely as one.

But the differences between this side of the House and that side of the House are absolutely clear. Labor backs workers and we back their super. We will defend superannuation till our last breath. 

But that brown coalition of orange and blue is anti-super for one reason, and that’s because they’re anti-worker.

Here we go again.

Dan Tehan asks:

Can the Minister guarantee that all batteries installed under the government’s cheaper home batteries program have been installed safety and in compliance with technical requirements?

Chris Bowen:

What I can guarantee is that every single cheaper home battery has been installed under the small scale renewable energy scheme which is one of the world’s most rigorous schemes for compliance which has been operating under governments of both persuasions and ministers of both persuasions and has ensured the safe rollout of more than 4 million rooftop solar installations and more than half a million cheaper home battery installations.

The member refers to complaints about cheaper home batteries.

I can confirm that this scheme has received 315 complaints in relation to the small scale renewable energy scheme which covers solar panel installations, battery inalations and hot water installationings.

That is 0.04 per cent of installations in the last 12 months. 0.04 per cent.

Of those, 106 matters were refer Ford other enforcement and 17 matters have needed to be progressed for formal investigations, 17 out of more than 530,000 cheaper home battery installations and 800,000 others. 

That’s 0.02 per cent of installed systems referred for formal investigation and 0.01 per cent referred for other enforcement agencies.

….I think every Australian of reasonableness and good faith knows that every electrical instrument and application comes with risk. A television has risks an oven has risk. Every electrical item has risks. Cars have risks. That’s why you have strict regulation and enforcement and compliance.

That’s why the Clean Energy Regulator and other bodies and state bodies regulates the installation of cheaper home batteries. The regulator has appeared before the Senate before the cheaper home battery was introduced. Do you know the how many times the Opposition has asked the regulator questions at Senate estimates? Zero. They haven’t asked them.

The cheaper home batteries scheme…is being implemented by the government but installed by the private sector, more than 12,000 installers across the country. I’ve got to say, these are highly credentialed, well qualified hard working Australians and they do not need to be defamed by the member for Wannon or anyone else. I don’t know why the Opposition is opposed to small business who are committing no crime other than helping Australians reduce their bills to zero.

These Australian businesses who are growing, working day and night and on the weekends deserve better than to be defamed by the member for Wannon who is a disgrace.

Monique Ryan asks: Prime Minister, every electorate in Australia has a need for infrastructure funding for important and worthy projects. But under your invitation only scheme, funding went – for every dollar that was spent- $17 for every Labor seat – for a non-independent seat. Don’t you agree that government spending should be based on merit and need and should be transparent rather than being based on retaining and winning marginal seats?

Albanese:

I thank the member for Kooyong for her question. And for her regular advocacy for projects in her electorate. As has all of the members up in that corner, including the member for Mackellar next to you, who got to major upgrade of Mona Vale Road, not promised for a long period of time, but after being committed to from the crossbench.

Just as when by-elections are on, I get lobbied as well by members on the crossbench.

I make this point on the program (Independent MP Sophie Scamps is booted for interjections)

….Members across this Parliament make representations to government and political parties make election commitments during election campaigns. And the three projects that are referred to in my electorate, I hesitate to find anyone who would regard them as not being worthwhile.

Fixing a women’s health centre literally that needed repair after more than 50 years of providing services. A project dealing with women and children having a safe place to go, escaping a domestic violence.(INTERJECTIONS)And an environmental…and an environmental project stopping raw sewerage going into the Cooks River during flooding.(INTERJECTIONS)That is the system that occurred. 

Those three projects are in my electorate, certainly, I am proud to say, were all worthwhile. All of them providing community benefit, or benefit for people who are most in need. 

Greg Jericho

Today the latest figures on industrial disputes were released.

It shows that in the year to the June quarter there was 193,000 days lost to industrial disputes, down from 200,300 in the year to March.

This is pretty much around where it has been since WorkChoices:

We always hear things about strikes being terrible – but of course that’s because most reporting always comes from a company profit point of view. The thing is industrial disputes are a vital part of bargaining for higher wages. And after the recent increases in wages to catch up with the higher inflation of 2022 and 2023 we are back at the long-term trend point where it is clear – fewer strikes leads to lower wage growth

Tony Pasin asks:

My question is to the Prime Minister. 73 per cent of funding from Labor’s $560 million secret invite only grant scream went to projects in Labor electorates including a $6 million grant to the Marrickville golf of which the Prime Minister has not declared his own honorary membership.

When the Prime Minister said, and I quote, ‘Shameless pork-barrelling must stop and it will under a Labor government’, was that just another broken promise?

Albanese:

I really, really do thank the member for Barker for that question. He asked about grants through a program of Federal election commitments that were made including those in my electorate. 

There were three grants in my electorate. One was for Leichhardt women’s health centre that has been there since the 1970s, one of the first feminised women’s health centres that existed throughout Australia.(INTERJECTIONS)

It is in a suburban area in Leichhardt on a corner of…(INTERJECTIONS) and has been there for over 50 years, providing services for women who need those health services. And it is for fixing up Leichhardt women’s health centre.

The second was to St Vincent’s de-Paul for fixing up the refuge where women and children escaping domestic violence…for women and children escaping domestic violence so they have somewhere to go, that is fit for purpose, through St Vincent de-Paul. 

And the third project is for inner west council that own the public golf course at Marrickville. What that is for is because it’s existed for a long period of time, almost a hundred years, and they have a septic because, when it is on the floodplain, when it floods in Marrickville, raw sewerage flows into to Cook River. That is what the funding is for.

This is a public golf course, known affectionately as Royal Marrickville, tongue-in-cheek because it’s public and is used by the community. And I’m very proud of community organisations such as that.

I’m asked about honorary membership. In 2012, I’d been advised that I got honorary membership, someone made a decision.(INTERJECTIONS)

I don’t have a card.

I don’t go to the club.(INTERJECTIONS)14 years ago.

If anyone wants to join what is affectionately known as Royal Marrickville, what they need for two years membership is $5. It will get them two years membership. For two years.(INTERJECTIONS)

It used to be $2 but it’s gone up to $2.50.(INTERJECTIONS)

This is a local community based organisation.(INTERJECTIONS)

So fixing up the Cook River, women’s health centres and fixing up a refuge for women and children escaping violence.

I support every one of the grants as a local member and I’m proud to defend my electorate the inner west of Sydney.

Anika Wells takes a dixer to swipe at the Coalition for its rejection of the social media duty of care she is putting forward:

Today marks 72 days since I stood in in place on behalf of Australian parents and introduced an urgent online safety bill to the Parliament.

A four-page bill asking for two critical tools needed to help the e-safety commissioner hold billion-dollar social media companies accountable for the harm they causing their kids. 70 days for them to sharpen them against the law today marks 70 days since the coalition and Greens team up to put politics and platforms before parents and delay the passage of this bill. 70 days for young people to keep being harmed by targeted algorithms, doom scrolling, notifications and toxic things. 70 days for big tech to their legal strategy against our world-leading law.

This is the dawdling that emboldens social media companies to get away with harming our kids for so long.

As law-makers we have to be as agile as the technology we are trying to protect our kids from. 

This law was the first of its kind in the world and we were clear from the start that it would need to be updated through implementation.

I was surprised to hear the coalition shadow minister (Sarah Henderson) for communications criticising our proposal to empower to eSafety commissioner to examine decision makers and big tech from under oath.

She said it was draconian.

Someone should let the senator know that it was the Coalition government who first gave the eSafety commission that are power to examine witnesses in 2021.

Clearly for the coalition is this not about parents, this is about politics and that is why in a vote just a few hours ago in the Senate the coalition moved further to the right and voted with to try to block this bill, to strengthen the social media minimum age law. 

Unlike the coalition, the Albanese Labor government will leave no stone untermed to making sure the independent regulator, the eSafety Commissioner has everything she needs to hold these companies to account. Because as Emma Mason, the mother to Tilly who died by suicide at the age of 15 told the recent Senate inquiry, “This needs to be seen as a failure of social media companies to take reasonable steps. Not a failure of the law. Iterations of laws not a sign of weak answer it’s a mechanism forestrengthening legislation. Courts clarify, gaps are identified, government amend. The Greens and Coalition must put politics aside and pass this urgent bill today.

The Coalition’s tactics team continues, to paraphrase Churchill, to compress the largest number of ideas into the smallest amount of thought.

The first question is about a ‘tax on babies’ which is all about trusts and only speaks to just how many Liberal MPs have trusts. Because I don’t know about you, but this has never been an issue for me or anyone I know.

Q: The Treasurer has been forced into a series of humiliating tax back downs on everything from small businesses to widows. Yet it’s been revealed today that the Treasure senior introducing a new toxic tax on babies. Will the Prime Minister overrule his Treasurer for the fourth time and scrap his cruel tax on babies?

FFS.

….I’m not taking lectures on taxes from a party who’s been sprung there week with a plan to increase income taxes on millions of Australian workers. That’s the first(INTERJECTIONS)point. 

The second point is these are the same characters that say that we should consult more and then when we consult they say that we should consult less.

They’ve got to make up their mind. It’s got to be within or to other. No wonder the Liberal Party is dying in his arms.

When it comes to the changes in the budget that go to trust…(INTERJECTIONS)

The changes in the budget don’t limit the way that trustes have the flexibility to add beneficiaries in the future.

The option that we have put forward in the draft legislation is about providing another way for existing trusts to set out fixed interest without requiring a restructure, something they called for, but it is entirely optional for trusts to make use of this.

.Also to nominate, distribute future income to an eligible company. They can use the election and retain the flexibility…(INTERJECTIONS)

Now, I can hear the interjections about taking tax policies to the election. We well remember the tax policy they took to the election which was to increase income taxes on every single Australian worker….

There is a point of order that is not a point of order. And honestly, the world is burning. WTF is this?

A reminder we are left with these sorts of questions because the Coalition is on the same side as Labor (and vice versa) on all the things that actually need questions – the US alliance, climate, Israel, fossil fuels – they are in agreement.

Will Nicholas, Noah Secomb and Andrew Brown for AAP

Australia’s fresh assault on social media platforms has prompted its most important ally to fire off a warning about “extortion” of the online sector.

The missive came from from the White House on Wednesday, after Labor unveiled its digital duty of care reforms to enforce minimum standards on social media platforms and let users choose what they see on their feeds.

Fines of $100 million for non-compliant tech companies and taller guardrails against harmful and illegal content also feature in the sweeping changes, which the government proposed on Tuesday. 

“President Trump has unequivocally warned trading partners against imposing digital services taxes, fines, and other forms of extortion on America’s leading technology sector,” the administration’s spokesman Kush Desai told the Sydney Morning Herald.

“The administration remains committed to raising these issues with our trading partners.”

AAP has contacted the US State Department.

But it was unclear whether Washington would flex its economic muscles to bat for big tech companies, University of Sydney technology regulation researcher Rob Nicholls told AAP.

He said it was unlikely the US would take action, unless the issue got linked to midterm elections.

“The current … tariffs that were imposed after arguments that we have modern slavery in all of our supply chains, that’s almost certainly not true,” Dr Nicholls said.

Australia was one of 60 economies whose exports were slapped with 12.5 per cent tariffs in July over supposedly importing goods produced with forced labour.

“To add on more tariffs is is going to be a challenge,” Dr Nicholls said. 

While Canberra was on the leading edge of global social media regulation, big tech companies had weathered similar reforms overseas without much complaint, according to Dr Nicholls.

“There’s a digital duty of care already in the UK, the Digital Markets Act in the EU creates similar types of regulatory burden, so none of this is dramatically new,” he said.

“Platforms aren’t that keen on it, but they’ve lived with it.”

He said a decision to tax tech giants on their income from streaming and cloud computing services, handed down separately by the Australian Taxation Office on Friday, was much more likely to be a sticking point.

Communications Minister Anika Wells also played down the White House’s frustration with the proposed changes to social media. 

“I wouldn’t characterise that statement as (calling the regulations extortion) whatsoever,” she told reporters.

She alluded to the prime minister’s upcoming visit to New York to spruik the reforms before the United Nations, where he may also meet with US President Donald Trump.

“We’re a sovereign nation. We’re proud to stand up for Australian parents and kids, and (the prime minister) looks forward to hopefully seeing the president when he goes to the UN.”

This is the second time in less than a month the United States has bristled over Labor’s crackdown on big tech, after a new law to tax digital platforms unless they strike deals with Australian media was labelled a “shakedown” in August.

Americans for Tax Reform, a Trump-aligned lobby group, demanded the US hike tariffs on Australia in response to the news bargaining incentive, which imposed a 2.75 per cent levy on platforms’ digital advertising revenue unless they paid Australian outlets.

Let’s take a look at some of the reactions to that speech shall we?

Kyle Robertson, Research Director, Market Forces:

Santos’ decisions to invest in huge new gas export projects have drained Australia’s domestic market and contributed to a near four-fold increase in gas prices.

Why should the Australian public believe anything Santos says about domestic energy security when its business model relies on drilling and shipping gas overseas?

Santos’ claims that it is providing energy security are bogus, as its plans to unleash the Beetaloo climate bomb will see Australians facing higher energy costs, increased cost of living, and devastating climate-fuelled disasters.”

Josh Runciman, Lead Analyst for Australian Gas at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA):

We should be cautious about accepting the Santos CEO’s claims about energy security, in light of the company’s record of driving up gas prices and worsening domestic shortages.

The Santos-backed GLNG project has siphoned more than 1000 petajoules of gas from the domestic market since 2017, equivalent to more than two years of domestic demand. That is despite the company originally assuring regulators the project would have no direct impact on our gas prices.

It is unsurprising that oil and gas companies would be pressing governments to allow more drilling, but this is more about boosting their bottom lines than helping Australian households and businesses. The best and fastest route to greater energy security is to deploy renewable energy and batteries, electrify as much of our economy as possible, and ensure a reservation policy delivers gas to the domestic market.

It would be a risky strategy for Australia to assume fossil fuel exports will hold up in the medium to long term. Across Asia, our trading partners are increasingly viewing imported oil and gas as a strategic vulnerability.”

Tim Baxter, owner and founder of Naru Research:

Kevin Gallagher’s speech was about ‘Australia’s energy opportunity in an uncertain world’ but what he really means is ‘help my polluting gas company cash in on this crisis’.

Kevin Gallagher quoted from the International Energy Agency, but forgot to mention the IEA’s findings that Australia’s increasing use of our own solar and wind power and battery storage is shielding us from the worst of this fossil fuel crisis. 

He claims the oil and gas industry ‘needs no subsidies nor asks for them’, but that is completely false. Santos’s Moomba carbon capture and storage project has received a $15 million grant from the federal government plus federal carbon credits. The Northern Territory has also struck a secret take or pay agreement for Beetaloo gas. And in June, Santos struck a deal with the South Australian government that Kevin Gallagher described as a ‘high-return opportunity’.

His company is more honest in its own presentations to investors, revealing Santos sees its Australian operations as a chance to secure higher margins to benefit shareholders. After the way its GLNG project has distorted the east coast gas market and driven up prices, Santos has no right to give a self-interested lecture on energy security.

Australia’s trading partners are rethinking their exposure to volatile, expensive fossil fuels. South Korea sees this fossil fuel supply crisis as a reason to speed up the use of renewable energy and Thailand is also looking to reduce imports of LNG.”

Asked by a reporter at the Australian:

Mr Gallagher for speaking to us. You said we need to get more gas out of the ground so I wanted to get you to rank the Labor Party, the Federal Labor Party, the Coalition, and One Nation, so measured on that goal, your goal, we need to get more gas out of the ground, let’s do 1, 2, 3, how would you rank those three? (LAUGHTER) And if you want to give commentary on the approaches, do that, but the ranking is key?

Santos Dude:

Let me start by saying I’m not going to rank them and you’re probably not surprised by that. I would say that I think it’s very important that the Government work with the Coalition to get this right for the longer term. It’s really important that this is a bipartisan reservation scheme, I think, that serves the country over 20, 30 years into the future so we get a stable environment to encourage that future investment.

Q: OK. I will press you a little bit. One more go at ranking?

Santos Dude:

Not ranking. I would say I think there’s a recognition with all political parties now of the role that gas has to play and the dual relationship we have with our Asian partners where we supply primary energy and they supply refined products back to us. And maybe that was not uppermost in all of our minds prior to the recent conflicts in the Strait of Hormuz.

Q: Can I ask about climate disaster? You mentioned the Beetaloo Basin could provide more than 40 years of gas for domestic and export markets if developed. Analysts have found its output would generate more than 50 years of Australia’s total current emissions. The Northern Territory had five overlapping national climate disasters just last wet season. Are you concerned by the contribution that Beetaloo gas development would have on extreme weather and disaster in Northern Territory? Or is Australia maybe too concerned? Should we set some level of that concern aside, just as Woodside has moved to retreat from its targets following a position more closely alined with Santos’s own?

Santos dude:

I’ve got to congratulate you on getting about 10 different questions in there. I’ll try and address them and if I miss anything, please pull me up. Let me start by saying, first of all n my speech I talked about demand for gas not going away, right?

Demand is going to be there*, irrespective of what we do here in Australia.

So it really… If we shut down gas here in Australia, they will just get it from somewhere else and I would propose that it’s likely to be somewhere that doesn’t have as high Environmental Standards and environmental controls as we have here in Australia. And therefore it’s probably a worse environmental outcome for the planet. And so the fact is gas demand is high and as I talked about, the additive nature of all forms of energy right now, the focus needs to be on decarbonising the primary energy supply.

We are really pleased that back in 2021, we took-at-an FID decision on the Moomba carbon capture and storage project and we faced a lot of opposition and today it accounts for one-third of the total emission reductions attributable to the safeguard mechanism in the last reporting period. **

That has the ability to scale up and to contribute a lot more to decarbonisation. So Santos’s view is that we want to continue investing in carbon capture and storage so we can continue to decarbonise our oil and gas developments into the future. We believe it’s a technology that’s proven. ***

It’s one of the only technologies we’re all relying on to help fight climate change that is purchase and it’s successful and we want to keep investing in that. But as I say, if we just don’t develop the boot loo, that will not result in that val of gas not being consumed in the market. It will just be delivered from somewhere else.But in the long term, that’s the issue – that demand is so high.

Q: Are you not concerned that we’re not able to replace that demand with an alternative source?

Santos dude:

As I also said in my speech, if you take gas out of the equation, the market doesn’t go to renewables****. We may wish it would, but it doesn’t. It goes to coal. And that’s been proven time and time again. And I think gas’s biggest advantage from a climate perspective is that by putting more and more gas into the market, you’ll squeeze coal out by keeping prices competitive with coal. Thank you.

*Demand is going away as key markets like Japan and others in Asia diversify away from fossil fuels faster – energy security is now national security in a big way

**Pollution permission slips

***It is not proven. That’s the problem with it. The only thing that is proven is ACTUALLY lowering emissions, by stopping coal and gas projects.

****Big nope to that.

Q: Would Santos be better served by a 20% reservation policy? Or a tax on gas exports at a reasonable amount?

Santos dude:

Well, look, I mean I’m not going to speculate on hypotheticals, although it’s a good try.

But what I would say is that the one we’re dealing with now is reservation and, like I say, the Foreign Minister said you could view that as a form of tax* to bring additional benefits to the Australian public.

For us, we want it get the settings right and I am genuinely wanting something that works in the national interest, that works for domestic-only for producers, for manufacturers and works for our Asian partners who have invested heavily in these projects, tens and 20s of billions of dollars over the years in investment. I think what is also important to recognise here is that Santos is an Australian company, right?

So it’s critical that we get this right so we can encourage more investment into Australia, into our projects**. We want to develop in Australia over the longer term, because whilst we value all of the support we get from our international partners, what we do know in our industry is once Australia dries up, they move on***. They’ll move on to their next jurisdiction, wherever that might be and Santos will be in Australia for the lopping haul so we need to work with the Government to get settings right for the long haul.

*It’s nothing like a tax. It’s reserving more gas for domestic use. Not a tax.

**Investment into a private company does nothing for the Australian people

***What does that mean?

Greg Jericho

Gallagher said in his speech “Kevin Gallagher “It’s a myth that Australia gets less out of its oil and gas industry than Norway and Qatar.”

Sorry it’s not a myth at all.

He goes on to say Qatar is different. Yeah it is – the Qataris get 5 times more revenue

Greg Jericho

Luca Ittimani from Guardian Australia actually raised the issue that has not got a mention thus far:

Can I ask about climate disaster? You mentioned the Beetaloo Basin could provide more than 40 years of gas for domestic and export markets if developed. Analysts have found its output would generate more than 50 years of Australia’s total current emissions. The Northern Territory had five overlapping national climate disasters just last wet season. Are you concerned by the contribution that Beetaloo gas development would have on extreme weather and disaster in Northern Territory? Or is Australia maybe too concerned? Should we set some level of that concern aside, just as Woodside has moved to retreat from its targets following a position more closely alined with Santos’s

Gallagher replies:

Let me start by saying, first of all n my speech I talked about demand for gas not going away, right? Demand is going to be there, irrespective of what we do here in Australia. So it really… If we shut down gas here in Australia, they will just get it from somewhere else

This is what is known as the drug dealers defence – if I didn’t sell these people cocaine, they’d buy it from someone else.

He then goes on to talk up carbon capture and storage (CCS)

We are really pleased that back in 2021, we took-at-an FID decision on the Moomba carbon capture and storage project and we faced a lot of opposition and today it accounts for one-third of the total emission reductions attributable to the safeguard mechanism in the last reporting period. That has the ability to scale up and to contribute a lot more to decarbonisation. So Santos’s view is that we want to continue investing in carbon capture and storage so we can continue to decarbonise our oil and gas developments into the future. We believe it’s a technology that’s proven. It’s one of the only technologies we’re all relying on to help fight climate change that is purchase and it’s successful and we want to keep investing in that. 

CCS is such a boondoggle. Perhaps the biggest going around right now.

Australia emits 11 times more CO2 than is captured by CCS:

Gallagher then follows up by suggesting:

if you take gas out of the equation, the market doesn’t go to renewables. We may wish it would, but it doesn’t. It goes to coal. And that’s been proven time and time again. And I think gas’s biggest advantage from a climate perspective is that by putting more and more gas into the market, you’ll squeeze coal out by keeping prices competitive with coal.

This is another version of the drug dealer’s defence: if I didn’t sell these people cocaine they’d buy heroin from someone else.

Awful stuff, really.

I mean come on. Get a fricken grip. The gas industry is a very small employer. Yes the average pay is high – but the total amount of wages is not. The total wages paid into the economy by the gas industry is about the same as the adult education sector.

The difference is the profits:

The gas industry has the highest profit margins in Australia

Not surprising given any gas offshore is essential free, and if it is on land – like most of Santos’ gas – they don’t have to worry about PRRT.

That is something often unsaid by Santos if the gas comes from the land, they are not subject to PRRT – even though Santos converts that gas to LNG and exports it!

That is a big reason why LNG exports have exploded and PRRT has basically tanked

Greg Jericho

Kevin Gallagher is asked a question from The Australian:

The Government hasn’t ruled out a gas export tax in the long term. Do you worry that, after the current crisis dies down, this is something that Labor could pursue? And are investors concerned about this?

Wow. Hard hitting!

Gallagher answered:

Look, I’d be misleading you if I said investors don’t ask about it. So I guess that means they’re concerned about it. What I would say is that, you know, I agree with the Foreign Minister, who says that there are many ways for Australians to benefit from their natural resources and, you know, two ways could be tax and reservation and that reservation could be seen as another form of tax. And so I think, when I think of it through that lens, I think reservation would be part of that returning additional benefit to the Australian people.

In terms of our industry, we pay considerable taxes and that’s all I can really say. $22 billion or so in 23-24 for Santos. $600 million last year in royalties and taxes.

And I would say, you know, even in PRRT, Santos over the last eight years has paid more than 10% of the total PRRT in Australia over the last eight years and that’s predominantly from a domestic gas project in Western Australia. So, look, I mean, do I think it’s gone away? No, I don’t. I think the debate will be with us for a while. Yeah, it would be on the mind of investors.

First off. Boasting about paying 10% of PRRT is the hollowest of boasts. What percent of total profits is that? And that is also the point – he’s talking about a domestic gas project – what about the export projects? Santos’ major gas projects are in Queensland – how much PRRT have they paid from those? None.

A gas reservation policy IS NOT a form of tax. It raised no revenue. NONE.

A 25% tax on gas exports would raise $17bn – more than enough to pay for putting Dental in Medicare, with money to spare.

And just a reminder here’s Santos and all its subsidiaries tax paid over the past decade

Let’s get into some questions. Greg Jennett uses his moderator privilege to ask the first question:

Q: Kevin, thank you. I want to pick up on a couple of the themes of your speech. And I’ll open the batting before throwing over to our working press colleagues in the room. So, as we start to consider and discuss a domestic reservation policy, as proposed in draft form by the government, much has been written and said about Santos’s Gladstone LNG project, overcommitting in its sales contracts for exports and thus having to purchase – I think the word “plunder” has been used as well – domestic gas to make up the shortfall. Now, I saw a line in an ABC article by Daniel Mercer a few days ago, sourced to a Santos spokeswoman, and it said, “Santos did not intend to contract new gas supplies from the domestic market to meet any LNG, that is export shortfalls, from this year onwards.” Now, that would be a marked departure from past practice. Is that guaranteed – that you will, into the future, have all export LNG orders covered with no purchase or supplementation by domestic gas?

Santos dude:

Thank you for that question, Greg. Look, it would appear that I’m living rent free in a few of the heads around our competitors in Gladstone at this point in time. While that may be the case, I’m not going to comment on the debate between the different projects. I can only focus on the projects that Santos operates and Santos’s LNG is one of those projects. What I would say is my focus here today is not to talk about different structures or reservation policies that give anybody a self-interest benefit in the short term, but more thinking about something that is focused in the national interest and in the longer term. We wrote to AEMO in 2025 as a joint venture and theydid point out, AEMO, then, that beyond our equity gas and the foundation gas from our equity partner Santos and our strategic partners, Senex and Meridian, whose fields would never have been developed but for the investment of GLNG, and both of which contribute to the domestic market as well, GLNG will not contract any third-party gas going forward and it will meet its commitments and mitigate any shortfalls through other means.

Q: Which means?

Santos dude:

Whatever they may be and they would be confidential and commercial with our joint venture partners.

Q: Could that be importation from third parties? in this country, over in the west…

Santos dude:

No, no, what we are talking about is we will mitigate – we can set ACQ levels, our contract quantity levels, to levels we agree with our buyers on an annualised basis but supply it from those sources only going forward. We have one contract with AGL that expires in 2027. We’ve said publicly and we’ve said to AEMO that we will not renew that contract and is 15 petajoules a year made available to the domestic market from 2027. In the meantime, we’ll continue to invest around $1 billion every year in drilling now supply in our own acreage for GLNG and around $400 million a year continuing to drill in the Cooper basin to meet those obligations.

Greg Jericho

Before we get there let me just put up the growth of Santos’ and Woodside’s share prices since the start of the Iran War and since the Budget when the government announced the gas reservations policy

The gas reservation policy has not hurt Santos at all. And they are making money hand over fist at the moment due to the Iran War.

Let’s also have a look at Santos’ tax paying over the past decade

Gallagher said that “it is not true that east coast gas supply issues were caused by Queensland’s LNG export industry”.

Well it is clear gas prices paid by Australians have risen faster since LNG exports became the name of the game

He also says that “here at home, we do not have a gas short age – we have enormous gas resources, we just have to get more gas out of the ground.”

Well he is right we don’t have a gas shortage, 83% of our gas is exported or used to covert gas to LNG to be exported:

Over at the National Press Club, Kevin Gallagher, the managing director and CEO of Santos is delivering his address. Because of the unusual nature of inviting a fossil fuel executive to address the press club, the moderator, Greg Jennett has taken the extra step of explaining the invitation:

Just some observations around context with Kevin’s appearance today. Everyone in this room and in the audience across the nation knows full well that energy security is a massive consideration across the globe for countries, as it is here in Australia.

And the contribution of gas in particular, whether that’s frozen and exported, or piped and burnt here, is very hotly contested, indeed.

We hear participants engage in this ongoing energy debate daily, demanding different things in this country. One is that we shouldn’t extract another molecule of it on environmental reasons.

The other is that huge additional supplies are needed for industry to have affordable access and for backing up electricity in this country.

Whether we did or did not produce more of it – greater amounts should be held back for use in this country, is another demand.

Companies that produce the gas should be paying more in taxes and royalties – at least for the exported portions of it. And, of course, Asian investors and customers having their say from time to time on their expectation that they can get this gas that they’ve agreed to buy to fuel their industries, and thus making the products that we buy as consumers here.

So these are strands of the debate that Santos finds itself entangled in each and every day.

In fact, it now finds itself… Kevin, I think it is fair to say, pitched against not only one climate and environment groups, but two – Government policy makers from time to time, and 3 – it’s been reported, even by commercial rivals within the industry.

So no doubt Kevin and will address that in his speech. And if he doesn’t, rest assured, Kevin, we’ll be asking questions about it because that’s what we do hear. We should flag, of course, that we do try to canvass as many perspectives here as possible here at the Club and we will be having opposing views on gas in particular. Senator David Pocock will be joining us here next month… Next month, I should say, as will the Resources Minister Madeleine King* so you might view today as rolling contributions.

*Not sure Madeleine King would be seen as holding any opposing views to a gas executive, given how captured she is as resources minister, where even her colleagues joke that she’s to the right of Matt Canavan when it comes to gas.

Tanya Plibersek ends with (and a reminder that while this is all true, Australia is a nation which still shackles detained or incarcerated women when they give birth, and strip searches children (and in the NT, child removal laws have been re-legislated) which are all forms of supported state violence against women and children):

I grew up in an Australia where family, domestic, and sexual violence was often viewed as a private issue, not a crime.

Where politicians, many in this very house, argued that the first funding for women’s refuges would destroy the family, as if it was the escape from violence breaking up homes, not the violence itself.

Today, by contrast, governments at all levels accept that keeping women and children safe is a public responsibility.

We fund and visit the refuges that were once vilified. States and territories have introduced important changes, like affirmative consent laws and laws against coercive control, and victim survivors who suffered in silence are helping design policies to keep others safe.

None of that happened by accident. It happened because of relentless pressure from ordinary people, from women who spoke up when they were told to be quiet, from advocates who wouldn’t take no for an answer, communities who took to the streets, governments who listened, created new laws and invested in services, and Australians across the country-ordinary people who changed what they were prepared to accept.

That’s how culture shifts.

Yes, governments at all levels must lead, because there are responsibilities that only governments can carry.

But we can’t do this work alone.

There are things unfolding in homes, schools, workplaces, and sporting clubs that we simply don’t see.

Just as there are men who kill women, who’ve never previously come into contact with our justice systems until the worst has happened, until it’s too late.

So, to Australians who are listening across the country today, my message is very clear: you have more power than you think.

Take a disclosure seriously.

Show your children that love never requires control.

Model respect at every opportunity. Teach the boys in your life the value of empathy, and that women and girls’ boundaries aren’t obstacles to overcome.

These feel like small acts, but taken together, they can make a radical difference.

We have changed this country before. Now is the time to move together to change it again.

We owe the women and children who’ve had their lives stolen by this violence more than our horror. We owe them action.

It’s not good. Which we knew, but hearing the stark figures is still always a blow – they are now at their highest reported level since reporting began 33 years ago.

Tanya Plibersek has delivered her statement to parliament.

Here is who was in the parliament to hear it:

Plibersek:

When we talk about the challenges of ending this violence, hope can feel like an impossible word, especially when we consider how technology and social media are creating new avenues for abuse and amplifying the misogyny that often underpins it.

But in the opening pages of this year’s report, Commissioner Cronin reminds us that hope is a muscle, and that if we want to become a country where women and children can live free from violence, we need to exercise that muscle, I think the other ingredient is belief.

We must believe that this violence is preventable to have any chance of stopping it. Just as we must refuse to coexist with it, normalize it, or accept it as inevitable.

Crucially, we also have to understand this as a collective problem, one that requires collective action.

Anara Watson

I wrote on yesterday’s blog about six recent examples of Australia’s freedom of information laws at work.

In it, I included a story about the shambolic South Australian Election. The ABC had reported that documents released under South Australia’s FOI laws revealed the chaos behind the scenes at the state election earlier this year.

Today, the ABC reported that the Electoral Commission of South Australia (ECSA) ignored polling officials who were willing to work – despite complaints from those working that they were understaffed.

Crispin Boxall, a retired Australian Defence Force member who had worked three previous elections, told the ABC that he never received a response to his application: “Because the confirmation email said, ‘thanks very much for applying, we’ll be in touch with you nearer the time to discuss specifics’, I left it like that and allowed a month or two to go past.”

Mr Boxall said that he “just thought that they must be so flat out they must already have enough staff that they’re not contacting people they don’t need” and that “It wasn’t till I read [the ABC’s] article that I realised actually it’s quite likely that there’s something bigger afoot here”.

Thanks to South Australia’s FOI laws, the public learned about the problems that plagued the election, and the people involved got a clearer picture of what happened.

Journalism is a public good. When paired with the nation’s FOI laws, it helps expose what governments would rather keep hidden – and can give others the confidence to speak up.

Anthony Albanese has paid tribute to Blanche d’Alpuget, Bob Hawke’s official biographer and later wife:

With the passing of Blanche d’Alpuget overnight, Australia has lost a true one-off.

As a writer, she was at home in fiction as she was in non-fiction, working in each realm with a keen eye for every telling detail that opened up the humanity of her subject to her readers.

Blanche’s novels were compelling works of verve and originality, and her biographies comprehensive and definitive – most famously those she wrote of Bob Hawke, who became her great love and ultimately her husband.

It is so fitting that Blanche’s final message to us all is this: “Our highest calling and greatest achievement is love, the rule of life. Love one another.”

Our hearts right now with her family and all who loved her.

May Blanche d’Alpuget rest in peace.

Matt Grudnoff

There are three ways you can increase the amount of stuff an economy can make. You can increase the size of the workforce, either with a bigger population or a larger proportion of that population that work (participation). Or you can increase the amount of stuff each worker produces (productivity).

Economists call it the three Ps: Population, Participation, and Productivity.

Increase any of these and the economy can make more stuff.

Early childhood education and care acts directly on one of these, participation. When young families have access to high quality, affordable early childhood education and care then parents are able to go back into the workforce.

Anna Chang was earlier reporting that the House was discussing early childhood education and care including paying childcare workers more.

Previous Australia Institute research showed Australia would be billions of dollars a year better off if it improved early childhood education and care.

We have also argued that Australia should get rid of for-profit providers. Government and not-for-profit providers consistently rank higher on measures of quality than for-profit providers.

When it comes to schooling, for-profit providers are ineligible for government funding. What we call private schools are actually not-for-profits. There is no reason the same rules shouldn’t apply to childcare.

The transcript for the Hunter press conference has just dropped – there were a couple of questions on the new section of the M1 and then this:

Q: A few questions to you, Prime Minister. Did your office identify the Marrickville Golf Club for funding as part of the major and local community infrastructure program?
 
Albanese:

No, no. It was an election commitment, an election commitment that we’re delivering, because we’re a good government and when we say we’ll do something, like this road, we bring forward funding. And you know, the ABC have been told this, they’ve chosen not to report it in the way in which the facts are there. This is a par 62 local golf course which is used on some days. They use it to close off the first fairway because people go and have picnics by the river. There are – as the ABC has reported, I did campaign to keep the golf course available because I didn’t want that really important space, of which there isn’t enough in the Inner West for people to enjoy amenity. I make no apologies for that, like I make no apologies for supporting the Greenway project and other projects in my electorate.
 

Q: But, Prime Minister, these, I understand, were an invite only grant, so was it you or your office personally that recommended this project?
 
Albanese:

No, no. It was an election commitment, an election commitment that we’re delivering, because we’re a good government and when we say we’ll do something, like this road, we bring forward funding. And you know, the ABC have been told this, they’ve chosen not to report it in the way in which the facts are there. This is a par 62 local golf course which is used on some days. They use it to close off the first fairway because people go and have picnics by the river. There are – as the ABC has reported, I did campaign to keep the golf course available because I didn’t want that really important space, of which there isn’t enough in the Inner West for people to enjoy amenity. I make no apologies for that, like I make no apologies for supporting the Greenway project and other projects in my electorate.
 

Q: Just on another matter concerning the Hunter. You just approved the Central Queensland Mine extension. Does this mean anything in regards to the Hunter Valley HVO proposed extension?

Albanese:

No. It means these things are all done on their merits. Thank you. We’ve got to get on.

If you’d like to read more about how how policy settings are designed to make things as easy as possible for fossil fuel companies – at the expense of everyday Australians, Michael West Media has this story on Inpex and what is happening in the NT.

The mechanism enabling the Territory’s largesse towards the gas companies is the 2008 Project Development Agreement between the NT Government, INPEX Browse Ltd, and Total E&P Australie Pty Ltd.

Clause 14 contains “fiscal stability provisions” that protect INPEX from changes in tax law. If the NT passes legislation causing INPEX “loss of profit,” the government must compensate it, with disputes settled in confidential arbitration.

This creates a regulatory straitjacket where the NT cannot impose new taxes or royalties, environmental regulations can be challenged, and any “discriminatory change in law” triggers compensation. In effect,

Luke Slawomirski



Nearly one-third of medical graduates are now training to become GPs. This is a good thing. One of the ways to tackle our rising levels of chronic disease is more investment in good primary care.

But simply producing more doctors won’t solve problems, especially with rural healthcare.

In Cloncurry, Queensland, doctors are salaried by Queensland Health, but also work from a community general practice. Medicare revenue flows back to Queensland Health. The local council helps with accommodation. In Clermont, after the town lost its permanent GP, the Royal Flying Doctor Service has stepped in, using the same fly-in doctors on a regular rotation to preserve some continuity of care.

These are sensible solutions…but they’re also workarounds.

Australia’s usual model of general practice relies heavily on private businesses earning revenue for each service they provide. That can work reasonably well where there are lots of patients and doctors (i.e. cities). It works less reliably in a town of a few thousand people, where maintaining a viable practice can depend on rents, accommodation, hospital arrangements and whether somebody can cobble together funding from three levels of government.

The result is what the RACGP calls ‘patchy’ coverage.

Around seven million Australians live outside major cities. Australia Institute research shows that rural areas have far lower Medicare expenditure per capita than metropolitan regions.

The outcomes – premature death and avoidable hospitalisations – are, frankly, appalling.

Perhaps the lesson from Cloncurry is that we should stop thinking that the market is a solution. In places where the invisible hand struggles to sustain healthcare, governments can commission it directly: salaried clinicians, multidisciplinary teams, shared infrastructure and integration between hospitals and primary care.

Most Australians don’t care about the business model. They just want to be able to see a doctor when they need to.

From the JCA statement:

The Jewish Council of Australia welcomes moves by twelve countries including the UK, Canada, and France in restricting trade with illegal West Bank settlements and urges Australia to follow suit. 

The move to ban imports comes after an Israeli government announcement that it was pressing ahead with development of ‘E1’, an illegal development of 4,000 housing units for Jewish Israelis in the occupied West Bank that would effectively divide it in two. 

It follows years of escalating settler terrorism, where, according to Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, settlers have terrorised Palestinian villages on a daily basis with tacit support of the Israeli government. These attacks reached a two decade high last year, but only three per cent of such attacks resulted in any form of criminal conviction. 

The Jewish Council supports the decision of the twelve countries who have put trade restrictions on illegal Israeli settlements and urges the Australian government to do the same and then go further, imposing country-level sanctions. Other measures adopted by the UK include the banning of advertising of settlements in Britain, targeted sanctions against individuals and businesses profiting from settlement construction and further restrictions on weapons trade. 

Bart Shteinman, Executive Officer at the Jewish Council of Australia said:

“Banning imports from settlements deemed illegal by the United Nations under Article 49 of the Geneva Convention is the bare minimum. Once again Australia is at the back of the pack when it comes to upholding our international law obligations.

“Israel has made no secret of its intentions behind the expansion of settlements in the West Bank. Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich has explicitly stated that developing E1 would “bury” Palestinian statehood. 

“The immediate diplomatic backlash to the ban from Israel only proves how closely the settler movement works with the Israeli government. Settler violence and settlement expansion are part of the same enterprise – funded through government budgets and facilitated by the Israeli military. 

“This genocidal regime will continue to operate with impunity until more countries take action. Australia’s desire to continue doing trade with illegal entities while paying lip service to human rights concerns is beyond comprehension. 

“Many Australians are aghast that our government cannot do the bare minimum to protect Palestinians and that inaction does damage to our social cohesion. 

“In the 1980s the Hawke government led the international community against apartheid South Africa. The Albanese government must rediscover that resolve and take action immediately.” 

We’ve been talking a lot this week about Australian “sovereignty” (though usually without saying what we mean by that) under the Aukus nuclear-powered submarine deal.

Proponents of the deal argue that Australia will maintain “sovereign” decision-making power over the promised submarines (assuming we ever get any). As I’ve argued elsewhere – that claim does not stand up to the most basic historical scrutiny. No American administration would hand over submarines that it does not ultimately control. Why would it do that?

Anyway. Just in case we needed a reminder, as Amy has been covering here, this week the Australian government has indicated that it will exercise Australian “sovereignty” and make some new laws regulating technology.

How well do you think the Trump administration has responded to that small exercise of basic independence? As the SMH reports, the White House economics spokesperson said that “President Trump has unequivocally warned trading partners against imposing digital services taxes, fines, and other forms of extortion on America’s leading technology sector.”

Hmmmm. The security kids get cross when we make obvious connections between capital-D Defence issues and normie domestic policy. But the connection is clear.

President Donald Trump is bent on creating a world where he decides what is and isn’t allowed.  Whether we like it or not, that also applies to mythical submarines, and, in Trump’s world, other fantastical creatures of the deep.

Trump is also enabling and encouraging this kind of behaviour from other governments – ideological allies who feel they have his protection. It is not a coincidence that that the Israeli ambassador to Australia today issued a similar warning to the Australian government that it should not follow in the footsteps of the UK government in sanctioning illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

There are “warnings” everywhere. In response to Trump administration’s “warning” about tech regulation, the PM said that the Australian government will make policy “based upon the Australian national interest”. And that, Prime Minister, is what “sovereignty” is.

In the face of the US and Israeli government’s assaults on law, decency, and the sovereignty of other nations, that seems like a good bet. Perhaps one we should be consistent on. 

David Richardson
Senior Research Fellow

Apple prices are in the news and prices reflect badly on the supermarkets. The news report on the ABC site says that data collated by Apple and Pear Australia Limited (APAL) reveals the price paid for apples in the shops grew at a significantly higher rate than the price that was paid to the grower.

APAL claims the profit margin on apples went as high as 65% in early 2026.

APAL wants the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to better police the relationship between major supermarkets and the farmers that supply their produce.

Well may APAL ask the ACCC to investigate. Our inspection of the Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows the retail markup of 60% on the farmers’ price where produce goes direct from the farm to retailer. That seems like an extraordinarily high markup and probably reflects a lack of genuine competition.  

In their annual reports released a few weeks ago Coles declared a 2025-26 profit of $1.5 billion while Woolies declared a profit of $1.6 billion for the same period.

The Australia Institute has previously discussed the supermarket rip offs with the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) taking legal action against the duopoly of Coles and Woolworths. Greg Jericho pointed out that a lot of inflation is caused by “companies abusing market power to raise prices” yet the Reserve Bank responds with higher interest rates.

We fear that as the Reserve Bank raises interest rates it gives the supermarket another excuse to raise prices.

Coles annual report shows it spent $538 million on financing costs while Woolies spent a net $829 million on financing costs. Increasing interest rates will increase the companies’ finance costs. Coles and Woolies are powerful companies, they don’t have to pay extra finance costs out of their own incomes, they will pass them on to you, the customer, in the form of higher prices.

Anna Chang

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that the primary (or actual?) job of our Members of Parliament is as legislators, so let’s take a Quick Look at what’s going on in the House.

While yesterday we had babies (actual) in the Senate (this is Amy Remeikis’ gag, not mine), today we have Early Childhood Education and Care (actual) in the House.

The House is currently debating a bill to extend and continue its 15% pay rise for early childhood education and care workers, (the legislation very nobly or justifiably called ‘Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Work’) so we are hearing a lot about the importance of early childhood, as we should!

This whole morning we have heard from MPs from all sides about the importance of early childhood education and care, and I certainly hope that their offices do the work of clipping them for social media, and we see more value placed on these workers (and in turn, even higher wages — because as the gag goes, if your job has an ‘appreciation day’, you’re underpaid.)

Here is some of Independent Member for Warringah, Zali Steggall’s contribution to the debate.:

“Early childhood education and care is essential to how they organise their lives, whether parents can work, whether the household budget adds up, and whether their children have a safe and nurturing place to learn and attend then primary school prepared, because that early those early childhood years, it is education. It prepares them for that learning environment. 

“We need a system that families can afford, that values its workforce, and that puts the rights of children at the center of every decision, this bill makes a contribution to that, but there is much more to do. 

“The bill supports the extension of the worker retention payment to 30 June 2028. It is by backed by a further $3.6 billion commitment. It sustains the support for the 15% wage increase and enables funding conditions relating to quality and child safety. I welcome that support. 

“Early childhood educators carry enormous responsibility. We expect them to understand child development, support additional needs, recognise risks, and build trusting relationships with children and their families, their remuneration should reflect those skills. 

“And as a society, we must value those skills. Childcare is a fundamental workforce capability, and early education to children. It is also a sector that needs to attract capable people, train them properly, and give experienced staff a reason to stay. Enthusiasm for the work cannot compensate indefinitely for inadequate pay or unsustainable conditions.“

Also, as someone who doesn’t have children, I’ve never really thought about this part before or had it laid out like this.

“…So I’ve also spoken about my own experience juggling childcare while studying and practicing as a barrister. And like many parents, I relied on different forms of care, help from grandparents, and the system just doesn’t reflect the realities of working families, and whilst it has improved, it has not come a long way. 

“There are still massive discrepancies in our system, especially in our tax sector. 

“It just infuriated me how often the fact that those childcare costs, which were ultimately absolutely necessary to enable me to go and do my work. I simply couldn’t be in two places at once. 

“But yet they’re not tax deductible. 

“But I can’t tell you how many times male colleagues would joke about the fact that they could go on their surfing trips or their ski trips, organise a couple of lectures for their continuing professional development at the same time, and then the entire trip was tax deductible. 

“But yet, that expensive childcare, which was essential to me doing my job, was not. This is an area that must be addressed and rectified. 

“When mothers reduce their hours of because of care responsibilities, and it is parents, but it is more overwhelmingly mothers that end up with having that. 

“But it is changing slowly.“

Lucinda Garbutt-Young for AAP

The prime minister is leaving the door open to cutting Australia’s tobacco excise, as his government faces increasing pressure to curb the sale of illegal cigarettes.

Just last week, the government slammed the coalition’s pledge to slice the excise by 80 per cent, saying the parties were beholden to Big Tobacco and the policies would lead to increased smoking rates.

On Wednesday, Anthony Albanese was asked in an interview on Nine’s Today program whether he was guaranteeing there would be no cuts to the excise under a Labor government.

”No, what I’m guaranteeing is we’ll take on the criminals. That’s what we’re doing … We’re not about to wave the white flag.”

Labor has increased the excise by 34 per cent since coming to government in 2022, which political opponents say has contributed to a burgeoning black market and a wave of firebombings on tobacco and vape sellers in the major cities.

Making legal vapes and smokes more affordable through cutting the excise and making legal products “isn’t going to help”, Mr Albanese said.

“State governments as well have a responsibility to crack down on shops that are selling illegal products,” he said. 

His comments come as One Nation’s deputy leader Barnaby Joyce said any alternative to the reducing the excise would let crime thrive.

Mr Joyce, whose party has pledged a 75 per cent cut to the excise, accused the government of allowing money to reach the “‘mafia” through low prices from illegal products that legitimate sellers could not compete with. 

“What you’ve done is you’ve created a market for the mafia, and if you think you can beat it, there’s a little story about this guy called Al Capone. Go have a read of it,” he told media on Wednesday. 

“Both of them (legal and illegal cigarettes) are going to kill you, ladies and gentlemen, but at least one gives you the option to know what is actually killing you.”

The coalition has so far not modelled how its proposed cut would affect smoking rates, with Liberal Senator Jonno Duniam using historical evidence from Canada to defend the strategy.

That country raised tobacco taxes through the 1980s, before slashing them in 1994 following a rise in crime. It led to a short spike in smoking before the rates ultimately fell, Senator Duniam told ABC’s Insiders on Sunday.

Tasmania has discovered a way to improve its health system’s performance: lower the definition of success!

The state Health Department’s new target allows up to 30 per cent of elective surgery patients to wait longer than the clinically recommended time for their operation (facepalm emoji).

About 9,500 Tasmanians are currently waiting for elective surgery in the public system. In July, only 59 per cent of operations were performed within the recommended timeframe, down from 64 per cent a year earlier. Among the most urgent patients (those who should receive surgery within 30 days) only 65 per cent were treated on time.

The department says its new target is a realistic reflection of demand and capacity.

That rather misses the point of a clinical target.

The recommended waiting times exist because clinicians have judged how long patients can safely or reasonably wait for treatment. They aren’t supposed to expand and contract according to how many beds happen to be available.

But there’s something important in the department’s explanation.

It says hospital capacity is being squeezed partly because patients who no longer need hospital care can’t be discharged due to shortages of aged care and NDIS placements.

That’s a reminder that (a) hospital waiting lists aren’t just a hospital problem, and (b) the solution isn’t simply more specialists.

A bed occupied unnecessarily because an older person cannot get aged care is unavailable for somebody coming out of surgery. Poor primary care drives avoidable hospital demand. Disability, mental health and community services all affect what happens inside hospitals.

This is why endlessly announcing more elective surgery “blitzes” never fixes the underlying problem. Neither will more specialists who, all other things being equal, will sit idle while a bed is freed up or (more likely) go into private practice.

Publishing realistic forecasts of what its health service can deliver is good. But a forecast and a target are different.

If the clinically appropriate standard is beyond the health system’s current capacity, the sensible response is to increase capacity and remove the bottlenecks – especially primary care, and social support for disabled and older Australians. Just as well the Australian government is increasing NDIS spending … Oh wait, silly me!

While changing the target might make failure look more respectable, it doesn’t help people treat improve their health.

Matt Grudnoff
Senior Economist

Apparently Trump is sad that Australia has been clamping down on the excesses of US big tech companies.

He doesn’t like the idea that the Australian government might try to protect Australians from harmful content. He doesn’t like the idea that Australia might collect more tax from them. And he doesn’t like the news media bargaining code.

This is according to various US business groups.

Trump himself has been quiet on the subject. At the moment he is having much larger fights on trade with China and Canada.

But even if Trump bothered to look into it, what recent events have highlighted is there is very little the President can do.

The US courts keep declaring his tariffs illegal and the way he implements them makes them largely ineffective.

But regardless, the Australian government should make laws and do things that are in the interests of Australians.

I great example of this is on the pharmaceutical benefits scheme (PBS). US pharmaceutical companies hate the PBS because they buy US drugs at a low price. These companies make much larger profits selling drugs to people in the US compared to selling in Australia.

But there is bipartisan support for not caving in to US pharmaceutical on the PBS.

To understand why have a look at the table below that shows just how much more common prescription medications are in the US compared to Australia.

It’s incredible what we let social media companies get away with.

Reset Tech research out today finds that there’s more than 200 Facebook pages impersonating Australian politicians like Anthony Albanese, Angus Taylor and Pauline Hanson. Facebook profits from that engagement – and on some of the pages, kicks back some of those profits to the scammers running them. 

We let Facebook profit off foreign interference in Australian politics. A digital duty of care would be a great help, but hardly sufficient for what the digital giants get away with.

When AI is used to create convincing simulations of people, it’s called a deepfake. I wrote earlier this year about how deepfakes [thepoint.com.au/explainers/260416-deepfakes-are-changing-political-campaigning-for-the-worse]are changing political campaigning for the worse. And with the rise of generative AI models like ChatGPT and Grok, it’s only gotten easier to churn out misleading and deceptive content.

There’s also no laws against lying in political advertising, whether through a deepfake or any other medium. It’s an easy remedy. The Albanese Government literally drafted the legislation and tabled it in Parliament back in 2024, including provisions that specifically cover deepfakes – something South Australia didn’t have to account for when it passed its leading truth in political advertising laws back in 1985. 

But instead of implementing Labor policy and passing truth in political advertising laws, the Albanese Government focused on unfair and expensive changes to election laws in a stitch up with the Liberal Party. They let the truth in politics laws lapse, and have ignored them in this term of parliament altogether. 

I still have hope that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will announce he’s keeping his commitment to truth in political advertising laws – and that it’s not just one of his deepfake doppelgangers saying something out of character.

Anna Chang

Speaking of inquiries, though, two Senate inquiries did get up yesterday after the liveblog closed for the day, so here’s a quick update.

The first is from Senator David Shoebridge, on transnational repression and foreign interference, which will certainly be interesting. 

It’s been referred to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee for inquiry and to report by 31 May 2027.

The terms of reference are as follows:

Noting the Joint Statement on Transnational Repression adopted by the 56th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, the following matter be referred to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee for inquiry and report by 31 May 2027: 

Transnational repression and foreign interference, with particular reference to:

(a) the nature, scale and methods of transnational repression activities affecting individuals and communities in Australia;

(b) the impact on diaspora communities, democratic engagement and public advocacy of transnational repression;

(c) the adequacy of current legislative and institutional frameworks to address transnational repression in Australia;

(d) existing and needed protection and support mechanisms for affected individuals and communities including education and community engagement strategies;

(e) how to support individuals and targeted communities to effectively respond to transnational repression with both community and government collaboration;

(f) international cooperation and global best practice to address transnational repression;

(g) recommendations for legislative and policy reforms; and

(h) any other related matters.

And the second inquiry that got up yesterday is from Senator David Pocock, on the regulation and continued use of paraquat (which is a herbicide / weed killer), and has been referred to the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee, to report by the first sitting day of 2027.

Terms of reference are as follows:

That the following matter be referred to the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee for inquiry and report by the first sitting day of 2027:

The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority’s (APVMA) June 2026 decision regarding paraquat, with reference to:

(a) the scientific evidence considered by the APVMA in reaching its decision;

(b) the adequacy, transparency and independence of the APVMA’s decision-making process;

(c) the current evidence regarding any association between paraquat exposure and Parkinson’s disease and other neurological conditions;

(d) the implications of the decision for farmers, agricultural workers, rural and regional communities, golfers and others who may be exposed to paraquat;

(e) the extent to which Australia’s regulatory framework appropriately responds to emerging scientific evidence and uncertainty regarding the long-term health impacts of agricultural chemicals;

(f) international approaches to the regulation of paraquat and other agricultural chemicals with potential long-term health impacts;

(g) whether any changes to Australia’s regulatory framework are required to ensure public confidence in the assessment of agricultural chemicals; and

(h) any related matters.

Victorian Greens MP Ellen Sandell has questioned the state’s new Premier, Ben Carroll, over Labor’s most recent approvals of fossil fuel projects:

Premier, more than 1300 people have been confirmed dead from flash flooding in Nepal caused by a collapsing glacier due to unprecedented global warming. Wildfires have been raging across Indonesia for weeks. Now scientists say that there is no way to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees. Yet, despite all of this, we have seen the Labor government, under previous Premier Jacinta Allan, approve five fossil fuel projects in the last year, including gas drilling near the Twelve Apostles, and pledge to fast-track more gas projects. Premier, we are about to head into a super El Niño here in Victoria. Will you continue down the path of approving new fossil fuels, or will you commit to banning approving any new fossil fuel projects in Victoria?

Premier, Ben Carroll:

I think what Nepal did show is that climate change is real, that the melting of the glaciers and whatever happens in Nepal affects the rest of the world. We all do know that Nepal, when it comes to climate change, has minimal effect on the world, but they are having devastating effects there now. I do believe in climate change, and I do believe in climate action. Whether it is tackling transport emissions, like our government is doing with the work of Minister D’Ambrosio, or whether it is the offshore wind auction that we have just commenced as well, we are on the side of action on this side of the chamber, not just words.

Follow up questions from Ellen Sandell:

Premier, the science is very clear that fossil fuels cause climate change and the world cannot afford one more new fossil fuel project if we want to avert the worst impacts of climate change. Climate change is already having a devastating impact on our communities here in Victoria – fires, floods, extreme weather, a super El Niño. Parts of Victoria are already becoming uninsurable and in fact uninhabitable, so will you commit to a ban on any new fossil fuel projects in Victoria?

Premier:

Our government has made record investments in renewable energy. We know the natural assets we have – solar, wind. These are important resources. We know the green transition is an important opportunity for jobs, and having free TAFE and making sure everyone can participate in this transition is what our government will always do.

I guess that’s a no to a ban then?

Greg Jericho

Ok, let’s see if things improve after Hauser’s opening salvo on how good things are going.

ANDREW HAUSER: There are three risks we think that might mean inflation is going up, not down. One is the Middle East and the ongoing crisis there. One is a really unexpected global boom driven by AI, and one is the weakness of the supply potential of the Australian economy.

Cool. Middle East, AI and supply potential.

Rate will do next to bugger all about the Middle East – a very marginal bit of exchange rate affect, but it has next to no impact on il prices.

AI Boom? Great we need higher interest rates because spivs are investing in datacentres which will generate little economic activity outside diverting construction jobs away from housing, and a stonking large amount on imports.

Supply potential. The RBA believes 2% GDP growth is as good as we can do.

Did he mention profits? Oh dear no. Of course not. By the way…

He continues

ANDREW HAUSER: No, we certainly don’t know what it’s going to say. We’ve had an inflation number actually a couple of weeks ago and it was a little stronger than we’d expected and the market expected. And the growth numbers that came out last week were also a bit stronger.

Oh “expected”. Maybe the problem is not that the results were above expectations but that your expectations were wrong. Also who cares about expectations, what about the actual figures!

Inflation fell from 3.8% to 3.5% and GDP growth was just 0.4%.

God damn, this pretense that rates should go up due to expectations. Give me fricken strength.

Clearly house prices are falling. Consumers are very unhappy, frankly. Consumer confidence is low. We had some surveys out today on the corporate sector as well. So there is a balanced picture in terms of the outlook, but we are very focused on those upside risks to inflation.

I guess consumers aren’t unhappy enough?

SARAH FERGUSON:  But is that something that could make you decide not to raise rates because it does seem to look inevitable from this point.

ANDREW HAUSER:  Well, the word inevitable is yours, very cleverly done, but it wasn’t my word. We’ll debate that as a board and I could tell you today what I think I might want to do, but there’s nine people voting on it. So you’d be mad to take my advice. 

To be fair he has to say that. But given all his talk about the upside risks it very much has been read by the market as preparing us for a rate rise. Right now it is about a 68% chance of it happening at the next meeting on 29th of this month

But the more likely scenario is them raising rate in November on Melbourne Cup day

The Senate has kicked off this morning with Private Senators’ Bill time (1hr 10min), with today’s allocated to the Coalition. They have therefore spent the last hour and ten discussing Senator Hume’s mechanism for them to talk about ‘union busting’ and the CFMEU in the Senate Fair Work Amendment (Disqualified Officers) Bill.

This morning is a good reminder that for the most part, Private Senators’ Bills is not legislation written with the intent of being passed and becoming law (with a few notable exceptions such as the Marriage Equality Bill), but are used as a means to highlight a particular issue (via the media, speeches in Parliament, or both) or as a mechanism to send an issue to a parliamentary inquiry by sending the Private Senators Bill in question to an inquiry.

As the government spruiks it’s (typically watered-down) social media protections, there’s a push by the nation’s most senior public servants for some special social media protections of their own.

A committee made up of the heads of federal government departments wants a ban on clips from things like Senate Estimates and Committees being shared on social media – you know, the place where more Australians get their news than anywhere else.

Just like our Parliament and courts, these hearings are public for a number of reasons … transparency, accountability, scrutiny to name a few. This is epic overreach.

Senator Bridget McKenzie suggested this morning that her handling of the sports rorts grants scandal, in which she failed to declare a perceived conflict of interest in a shooting club that received a government grant, is equivalent to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s failure to declare an honorary membership at a golf club that received a government grant. And since she resigned for failing to declare a conflict, the implication is that he should as well.

To be clear, while Senator McKenzie’s failure to declare a conflict may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, the sports rorts grants scheme was outrageous on its own merits. Here’s SBS at the time:

Almost half of the projects funded under the coalition’s $100 million sports grants program were ineligible, despite assurances from the prime minister that no rules had been broken.

A Senate inquiry launched on Thursday also heard there were at least 28 versions of a colour-coded spreadsheet detailing which groups would receive funding and the electorate where they were located.

The spreadsheet was shared with Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s office and showed applications could swing from approved to denied within hours without explanation.

There’s your scandal, and it doesn’t turn on whether or not the Coalition Government had done all its disclosures correctly.

This is not to defend the Albanese Government’s own grants scheme. It may well deserve the criticism directed at it. But to suggest that one undeclared perceived conflict of interest was the root problem with sports rorts is to re-write history.

Detailed new analysis of the Victorian Opposition’s plan to bring the state budget into surplus within six years reveals significant flaws and uncosted proposals which could make Victoria’s fiscal position worse.

It finds the centrepiece – a pledge to save $22 billion from a public service hiring freeze – simply does not withstand scrutiny.

To deliver the promised savings, the analysis finds the Victorian Liberals would need to halve the public service, which would have substantial flow-on consequences.

Opposition Leader Jess Wilson claims the $22 billion could come from a hiring freeze on back office roles. The analysis describes this as implausible.

The  analysis also finds that the Coalition’s vague plans to cut payroll tax, expand stamp duty exemptions and provide land tax relief would be expensive and benefit high income households much more than ordinary Victorians.

Key points:

• Saving $22 billion in public sector job cuts would require the elimination of around 31,700 jobs by 2036-37. There are currently 58,169 public servants in Victoria, excluding statutory authorities, corporations, schools and hospitals.
  • This measure has the potential to drive Victoria’s unemployment rate from a projected 4.75% up to 5.4%.
  • The alternative, contracting out and using labour hire services, is unnecessarily expensive.
• The analysis describes the Coalition’s vague pledge to “end waste” by scrapping the machete bin program and pot plants for the Suburban Rail Loop Authority as “trivial and is simply lost in rounding errors”.
• There is nothing to support the claim that repealing the Treaty Process and First People’s Assembly would save $1 billion.
• A plan to use windfall revenue to pay down debt is described as “meaningless”.
• The Coalition plan includes significant but uncosted spending, including:
  • A pledge to deliver cost of living relief. If the government intervened to save Victorians just 1% of what they currently spend, it would cost between $4 billion and $4.7 billion a year.
  • A pledge to cut payroll tax for some private schools would be of most benefit to those sending their children to the most expensive schools in the state.
  • A plan to deliver local infrastructure, which hints at diverting money away from major projects, offers no detail, costings or tangible proposals.

“The Opposition plan to bring the budget to surplus by 2032 is not credible. It’s a bit rich to even call it a plan,” said Dr Richard Denniss, co-CEO of The Australia Institute. 

“This is a vague collection of dot points, slogans and populist pledges with very little detail. Where they have attempted to put a dollar figure beside the so-called savings, many of the numbers simply don’t add up.

“The plan to save $22 billion through public service job cuts is implausible. To achieve that level of savings, you’d need to slash around 31,700 jobs. That would gut the public service. To claim this could be achieved with a few back office jobs is nonsense.

“The plan also includes additional costs to the budget bottom line. Things like cutting payroll tax for some public schools won’t save those doing it hardest a single cent.

“The Opposition claims it wants to make Victoria the best place to do business but constantly talks the state down, claiming its fiscal position is out of control. The Oxford Economics Global Cities Index ranks Melbourne sixth in the world. Its rankings are based on economics, human capital, quality of life, environment and governance. 

“It might make political sense for the Victorian Liberals to talk the state down and exaggerate its so-called economic woes, but it makes no economic sense.

“It’s not all doom and gloom. Victoria’s public sector assets are growing far faster than public debt. When that happens with a private company, it’s share price rises rapidly. Another good measure of Victoria’s progress is government net worth at $40,442 for every Victorian, which is expected to increase by another $3,300 over the forward estimates.”

Greg Jericho

It is a long one, so let’s do it in bite size portion.

He got off to a bad start

ANDREW HAUSER:  Well, as you say, Sarah, actually the economy in Australia in many ways is doing quite well. We’ve got growth roughly at trend. We have unemployment near historic lows, employment growth driven by the market sector, and real household incomes are growing pretty strongly. 

Growth “roughly at trend” What. The. Hell.

GDP growth in the June quarter was 0.4%, in the March quarter it was 0.3% – for a 6 months growth of 0.7% in the time that the RBA has raised interest rates 3 times. That is almost HALF of “at trend”.

Yes unemployment at 4.5% is near historic lows, if you ignore the actual historic lows of 3.4% in 2022 or the 38 months over 2002 to 2025 when unemployment was either below of just on 4%. Choosing historic lows to mean past 40 years, when you don’t do the same for GDP growth is a bit disingenuous.

Real Household incomes are growing pretty strongly? I mean it was… until the start of this year when the RBA began raising rates. In the last 6 months average quarterly gross household income has gone up $63, but average mortgage repayment have gone up $145 – so real household incomes are falling, overwhelmingly because in interest rates

Even the annual growth of real income ain’t fantastic, unless you are comparing it to the woeful period before the pandemic when the RBA was cutting rates to try to get some life into the economy:

Louise Morris

The Greens are trying to resolve an issue that pits their existing NSW and federal policy position that does not support public forests being traded into carbon offset projects, the Improved Native Forest Management credits scheme, seeking guarantees from Labor that coal and gas companies will be locked out of buying credits generated by the Great Koala National Park, ahead of a Senate vote the Nationals have forced next week. Something the Australia Institute has previously called ‘The Minns Principle’ when previously proposed by the NSW Premier, but was rejected by Minister Bowen. Perhaps it is back in play?

But the koala park is just the first test case. INFM is a national method, available to any public native forest still being logged, in NSW, Tasmania and every other state that hasn’t ended the practice. Whatever precedent is set this week will apply to the rest of the public native forest estate, not just one park.

Environmental groups have called it a test of Larissa Waters’ leadership. The Greens left their party room meeting without a final position but are negotiating with the government on two fronts: making the NSW coal and gas exclusion enforceable and closing a loophole that could let native forests be reclassified as plantations.

It’s the right fight, but a partial one. The government is reportedly reluctant to fully back the exclusion because it risks undermining the Safeguard Mechanism’s credibility. That reluctance is telling. It shows the problem was never really about who buys the credits. It’s about a scheme that keeps generating credits and allows unlimited offsets for covered facilities.

Every carbon credit issued licenses pollution somewhere. Barring coal and gas companies from INFM credits specifically doesn’t shrink the offset pool, it still increase it and then just redirects these new offset options. As Wilderness Society CEO Kirsty Howey put it, protecting a forest cannot become a permission slip for a fossil fuel company to keep polluting somewhere else.

This is where the Greens’ leverage could do more than fix one method. With the Safeguard Mechanism review underway, there’s an opening to negotiate reforms that outlast this vote:

Cap offset use. Big polluters should be reducing emissions at the source, not using unlimited offsets to meet targets on paper while continuing to pollute, and often expand emissions, in the real world.

End offsets for coal, oil and gas extraction. No new fossil fuel project should be able to offset its way to approval.

Rule out native forests as a carbon commodity. Standing native forests aren’t a new carbon credit source, in NSW, Tasmania or anywhere else, and must not be added to the pool of offsets available to Australia’s top emitters. Once forest protection is priced into a market, every state still logging public native forests gets a new incentive to hold out for a carbon deal rather than legislate an end to the practice, as Western Australia and Victoria have already done without a single offset.

Sue Higginson has argued the Greens shouldn’t make INFM the hill to die on, warning a “no” vote could hand the field to lower-quality credits. That may be true for this method alone. But it’s an argument for winning the bigger reforms, not for accepting unlimited offsetting as the price of a park that was promised without conditions in the first place.

The INFM vote is one skirmish over one park. The Safeguard review is where the Greens can change what offsetting is allowed to mean for every forest still on the chopping block.

Alice Grundy

Late yesterday we learnt how Australian high school students are faring compared with international counterparts … and it’s not good. The results for the 2025 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test found Australian students are performing worse in reading and maths. In science students are almost one year of learning behind students who sat the exam in 2006.

This is despite Australia having the most expensive high school system for families in the developed world, as our research has shown. Why does it cost so much? This is driven by the fees of private schools – where more and more students go, even though, as polling shows, a third of private school parents would send their kids to public schools if they were better funded.

Australian schools are not funded to the standard agreed by state, federal and territory governments and won’t be until 2034 at the earliest. But can we really afford to wait?

Independents Andrew Gee and Bob Katter are trying to suspend standing orders in the house to debate a motion against the gun buyback.

The government usually allows these sorts of things to have a few speeches and then kicks the debate to a time no one is paying attention. They’ll do that here too.

Andrew Gee moved—That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Calare moving the following motion—That this House:

(1)notes:

(a)that the state and federal government firearm buyback amounts to legalised theft from law-abiding firearm owners;

(b)the flawed gun buyback and so-called compensation scheme is sending law-abiding firearm businesses broke;

(c)these measures unfairly target responsible firearm owners and legitimate firearm businesses, while doing nothing to address the threat posed by criminals and terrorists who obtain and use illegal firearms; and

(d)instead of targeting hardworking, law-abiding Australians, state, territory and federal governments should be:

(i)targeting criminals, organised crime groups, and terrorists who pose a genuine threat to community safety;

(ii)taking stronger action to remove illegal guns from Australian streets and to investigate, prosecute and punish those who traffic, possess, sell and use illegal guns; and

(iii)undertaking a comprehensive investigation into the intelligence and security failures that contributed to the horrific Bondi terrorist attack;

(2)calls on the New South Wales and federal governments to immediately repeal these flawed and grossly unfair gun laws and buyback scheme; and

(3)further calls on all governments to focus their efforts on combatting criminal activity, terrorism and the illegal firearms trade, rather than making law-abiding firearm owners and legitimate firearm businesses scapegoats for government failures.

While the focus is on whether or not a free $5 membership from 15 years ago should have been declared or not or whether the prime minister should resign over it, and Liberal party card carrying mortgage brokers campaigning against tax changes, and whether allowing people control over their social media feeds is actually government censorship, things the government actually should be criticised for – it’s constant refusal to sanction Israel over its genocidal and ethnic cleansing policies, it’s half assed commitment to climate action, it’s continual approval of coal and gas mines, the shrugs which greet actual suppression of liberties – goes largely uncommented from.

Here was Greens senator Nick McKim in the senate yesterday:

Australians are speaking out in increasing numbers about the genocide in Gaza—the killing, the starvation, the wanton destruction Israel is inflicting in Palestine. But, instead of listening, Labor and coalition governments are cracking down on Australians who are speaking out against it—silencing, surveilling, tracking down and punishing Australians who object.

Harmless words have been outlawed.

Protests have been banned in unconstitutional witch hunts. People’s jobs and livelihoods have been destroyed. This is part of a deliberate, concerted campaign by Labor, by the Liberals, by One Nation, by sections of our media, by the Zionist lobby to undermine democratic rights and our democracy.

People protesting the visit of the Israeli president were attacked by police—punched, pepper-sprayed, dragged away while praying—and yet Israeli soldiers were welcomed into Australia with open arms and ran in the Sydney Marathon while being protected by the very same police force that conducted those atrocities. The hypocrisy absolutely stinks.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth in today’s Australia: there are worse consequences for speaking out against a genocide than there are for participating in one. Labor and the Liberals have picked a side here. They’ve aligned with the genocide, and they’ve aligned against Australians speaking out against that genocide.

History will condemn them for that choice.

And here was Penny Wong:

For years, Australia has worked with international partners to build momentum for peace and to keep a two-state solution alive. The Netanyahu government’s actions in the West Bank, the rapid expansion of settlements, the proposed E1 settlement development and flagrant settler violence are extinguishing the possibility of a two-state solution.

A two-state solution is the only path to enduring peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians.
This is why, with partners, we recognised Palestine and are strengthening the institutional foundations of the State of Palestine.

With partners, we imposed travel bans and targeted sanctions on Israeli ministers and others for their role in illegal settlements and settler violence. We have stated businesses should not bid for construction tenders for illegal settlement developments.

Today, I can announce Australia is pursuing further targeted measures in coordination with international partners to deter illegal settlements and settler violence. Australia is not, at this time, pursuing a blanket-style import ban.

We have concerns about the implementation of a blanket ban and unintended consequences for Australian businesses, for Palestinians and for Israelis, and we will continue to work with partners to protect the prospects of a two-state solution. Australia continues to call on Israel to take urgent steps to address the situation on the ground, including to stop settlers from destroying properties, displacing families and beating, torturing, sexually assaulting and killing Palestinians.

We condemn Hamas’s ongoing acts of terror, which undermine a two-state solution. We want to see Hamas demilitarised in line with the Gaza peace plan. Hamas must play no role in the State of Palestine

Is anyone asking why we are prioritising businesses which are choosing to do business with people set up in illegal settlements and in support of the terror being inflicted upon Palestinians? And why, in a statement which lists what is happening to Palestinians, does Wong raise Hamas, WHICH IS NOT IN THE WEST BANK? Do we see how normalised this is now? That no one bats an eyelash over this conflation?!

Someone signed in the mortgage broker and social media stunt slave Joseph Daoud into the press gallery so he could talk about the massive impact the CGT changes will have on the universe.

This man, who has bought billboards, media, paid $16,000 to play tennis with the prime minister, and for ‘Stop the Tax’ to be written in the sky above Canberra (which my four year old saw and assumed was a warning that it was swoopy boy season (magpie season for those without children)) is trying very hard to cry poor over a tax setting change that will give first home owners a chance of entering the market.

Oh, and he’s a member of the Liberal party. SHOCK.

If this doesn’t sum up what is wrong with our political debates, I don’t know what will.

Hearing Bridget McKenzie lecture people about declarations is quite something.

But here she is responding to Albanese’s response about the honourable membership he said he received 15 years ago to the Marrickville golf club (which he doesn’t attend) which is now in the news because the council which runs the golf course received a government grant to stop raw sewerage from flowing into the Cook river.

When you make decisions about what is and isn’t stories – like avoiding anything involving Israel – then this is what you are left with.

McKenzie says:

Well, I thought that was a very interesting response. As you know, Sally, I resigned my ministerial portfolio because of a perceived conflict of interest. I had an honorary membership that I didn’t know I had from a gun club that I decided under the guidelines to award funding to, so women and disabled members could actually go to the toilet on site. A $36,000 grant. So I have been very surprised by the story today, in the of the ABCs, that the Prime Minister has held an honorary membership to a golf club in his electorate that received a $6 million grant in a grant program that was closed, non-competitive, and we’re only one golf club out of the 1600 golf clubs across the country was invited to participate, and I I don’t know what guidelines Andrew [Charlton] was quoting from, but I’ve got the code of conduct for ministers that the prime minister himself has signed the forward for, talking about high ethical standards for his ministers and his government, and in part three it goes directly to conflicts of interest.

Ministers must declare and register their personal interests, including but not limited to pecuniary interests. So that means whether you get a financial benefit from it or not. And so, if you do hold an honorary membership of a local club, you need to declare that so that when it receives funding, as this golf club in Marrickville did, the public is very clear of that you’ve taken steps to deal with that potential and perceived or actual conflict of interest in the awarding of funding.

Q: What do you think of all this unfolding now?

McKenzie:

I think I think the Parliament must do its job. We’re all – when you see trust eroding across the public in Parliament, in parliamentarians, in the political class, it’s beholden on all of us to actually uphold the system that we’re a part of. So I can only speak for myself. I chose to resign.

Are we fricking kidding with this? THIS is what McKenzie thinks is eroding trust in democracy? Cry me a fricking river.

We mentioned this morning that the right wingers were going to go a bit nuts about the proposed (very tame, very soft) changes to social media as part of the digital duty of care, because they know it will impact them the most (there is a lot in there, about our political discourse and how we just sort of accept this as normal).

They’ll claim its a free speech issue, which is what will take off in their corner of the internet – but it is important to remember here, in these very tame, very soft proposed laws, that the government will be making no decisions about content – that is up to you.

But that is enough to kick start the right wing warriors.

Here is Matt ‘teaching consent is feminisation of the curriculum’ Canavan complaining about it on the Nine network this morning:

Well, this this bill gives the minister the power to determine what is harmful conduct. And in the minister’s own words, she thinks that people have stopped trusting her because of social media.

I mean, you used to the Labor Party people don’t trust you because you lied to us at the election about taxes. And I don’t think proven liars should be given the power to decide what’s harmful online.

That’s what the bill says. Now, clearly, the Labor Party have given up on trying to lower prices and trying to cut taxes, on trying to lower migration, and now they’re going to try and ban you from complaining about it.

These people are not impartial in their own words. This is to tilt the political field in their favour. They’re not impartial. This is like this bill is like putting Anthony Albanese in charge of refereeing a South Sydney Rabbitohs game. He wouldn’t be an impartial judge. These people aren’t impartial judge, and we should not allow this type of censorship to emerge in a free and open country.

Again, the government won’t have control over content – you will just be able to decide what you want to see on your own social media feed – what the social media company chooses to push, or who you follow – but immediately, they have jumped to pushing these lies about the very lame and very tame proposed changes.

Says a lot don’t you think?

The ABC interview continued:

Q: What’s happening in the Solomon Islands. Have you reached a nearly $1 billion deal to try to shore up the fragile relationship with the country’s Prime Minister, Matthew Wale?

Albanese:

You know what I do when I negotiate with country, I negotiate with them and their leaders and not on the ABC, with respect. 

Q: And fair enough, is the reporting on this wrong? Is that something else that you would like to correct about the ABC?

Albanese:

No, we’re in discussions. The ABC should stand up for the national interests, that’s what I do. And for the national interest, I’ll engage on behalf of Australia to make sure that we defend our interests and I’ll continue to do so. We have a range of agreements we’ve reached alliances with Papua New Guinea and with Fiji. Agreements with Vanuatu, with Nauru. We have said very clearly we’re in discussions with the Solomon Islands, with Prime Minister Wale. And we look forward to successfully completing those discussions.

Host: Alright, we’ll watch this space. And I would add – I think that the ABC does stand up for the national interest, Prime Minister.

The prime minister has chosen to be jovial this morning in his morning rounds of media.

On Nine the focus was crime, and on the ABC it was what sports memberships the prime minister had.

He’s north of Newcastle to talk road infrastructure – 15km of new M1 highway to Raymond Terrace, which is being billed as ‘traffic light free from Melbourne to Coffs Harbour’ (and the Coffs bypass extending that to the Qld border).

Here is how some of the ABC interview went down:

Host: I’m sure you’ve seen this story, the ABC has it on the top of its website, about alleged pork-barrelling by your government. Do you have an honorary membership to the Marrickville golf club? And have you declared it?

Albanese:

I’m very glad that you asked this question. You know what, there’s three grants in my electorate. One of them is for Leichhardt Women’s Health Centre. That’s one of the first women’s health centres that was ever established in Australia – specifically helping women. It’s been there since the 1970s and it’s for the upgrade of that.I’m sure that they do very important work. 

Q: Can I take you back to the question, though. Do you have a membership?

Albanese:

Well, I’ll give you the answer. The second grant is for St Vincent’s, and what that is is St Vincent De Paul for a shelter for women and children escaping domestic violence. The third grant is for the Inner West Council who own the Marrickville golf course and run it. At the moment, the course has been there a long time. It’s a public course. It’s used by lots of community members back to for many years, 1962. It’s available to everyone.

Host: I’ve seen you talk about why you And what it’s for.

Albanese:

Yeah,like it.what it’s for, because the ABC were told information they chose not to publish appropriately. What it’s for is for at the moment, because it is on a flood area by the Cook’s River – when it rains and there’s flooding, raw sewerage goes into the Cooks River. That’s what it’s for – for fixing that. I make no apologies for my electorate being serviced by me as a good local member, these three grants. They’re all appropriate. Apparently about 15 years ago, and the ABC were told this…

Host: OK, so we’ll get to this. So you do have a membership?Apparently someone said…

Albanese:

No, I don’t have a membership. 15 years ago, they gave an honorary membership… You know how much membership costs apparently according to the article. Apparently it costs 5 bucks to join! I don’t play golf. I’m a tennis player rather than a golf player. And like a lot of organisations in my seat, a lot of clubs, local community, they say – oh, we’ll give the local member honorary membership. Apparently that happened 15 years ago or something. I haven’t been into the clubhouse for many, many years. And the ABC chose to do this, that’s up to them. But I make no apologies for the fact that this was

Host: So, should you have declared this or fixed this, though? Or did you not even know that you were an honorary member?

Albanese:

No, 15 years ago, someone decided to say – oh, we’ll make him an honorary member. I don’t have a card. I don’t go in there. I haven’t been in there for years. I used to walk my dog along the path, and lots of people do, because it’s a community club. The ABC were told this!

Host: We’ll move on.

Albanese:

And the ABC should do better!

Here is what Chris Sidoti, former Australian Human Rights commissioner and one of three  UN commission of inquiry into human rights in Israel and the occupied territories outlined as Australia’s responsibilities in 2024, in response to the ICJ’s advisory opinion on Israel’s actions in Palestine, particularly the West Bank.

Daniel Hurst, then foreign affairs and defence corro for the Guardian reported:

The ICJ stated that Israel’s “sustained abuse” of its position as an occupying power had rendered its presence in the territories it seized in the six-day war in 1967 as “unlawful”.

It said all countries were “under an obligation not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence” including by preventing “trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation”.

Sidoti said any action should focus on the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) rather than Israel, but he acknowledged the practical difficulties that could arise in distinguishing between the two.

“If a state like Australia is trying to implement the court’s decision and target economic relationships that support the settlements, and is not sure whether some product which is stamped ‘made in Israel’ is made in the settlements or not, the onus shifts to the State of Israel itself to establish that a product was made in Israel or in the OPT,” Sidoti said.

“And if Israel fails to establish that, then the other state, the trading state, is entitled to take broad action [and] is required to take broad action under the ICJ decision, even if it may have an impact beyond the occupied Palestinian territory.”

Seems pretty clear.

Hello and welcome to Wednesday’s sitting day. The prime minister is doing the rounds of the morning TVs and radio shows – that’s how you can tell the government is serious about something – and it’s all about the social media proposed legislation which was announced yesterday. The main point of the digital duty of care is that users would have choice over what they saw in their feeds – either who they actively choose to follow, or what the social media pushed into your feed. This has the right wing of the parliament a bit upset, because they are usually the ones who benefit from the sorts of things the government is hoping people won’t chose to see.

Once again, instead of forcing the social media companies to clean up their act, the onus is still on users, and the only reason the government is acting on what has been a problem for a very long time, is because it’s having an impact on them now. After the budget, where the misinformation took hold like wildfire – anyone remember the ‘government will own 40% of your business’ line? – Labor began to get antsy about what the next election would look like. There is still no interest from the major parties in supporting truth in political advertising, so instead, it’ll be about giving people choice about what their feeds will look like, and the government is hoping that most people will choose to go back to following friends and family.

So you’ll start to see the conservatives and right wingers get very upset about all of this and claim it is an attack on freedom of speech. Which, well, it’s a choice. No one is banned, and no one is being forced to not follow accounts, but that won’t matter as this campaign takes off.

The latest report into Australia’s sexual and domestic violence rates will be delivered to the parliament by Tanya Plibersek today, and it is not looking great. At all. There has been no drop. The SMH has written a preview here, but anyone who follows Sherele Moody and Femicide Watch knows there has been no change.

And it won’t get as much attention, but Australia is still refusing to sanction trade with Israeli businesses operating in the West Bank. Even though that is the most basic international response to illegal settlements. The terror Israeli settlers have inflicted on Palestinians living in the West Bank – forcing them out through violence, threats of violence and slaughtering their livestock and poisoning their water wells, all sanctioned by Israel, through its military which lends support to the settlers, or passively stands by as Palestinians are attacked, is not new, but it is increasing to the point where experts are labelling it ethnic cleansing.

Penny Wong was asked about it in the senate yesterday and said Australia would be imposing sanctions, but not blanket bans. She is worried about the “impact on Australian businesses” which tracks – it’s always money. Even when we know it’s wrong, it always comes down to money. The UK is going further than Australia, with prime minister Andy Burnham writing in the Guardian:

For too long, we have been hesitant to act, fearful of being accused of being anti-Israel. Today we are announcing carefully judged, targeted steps that are not aimed at the Israeli people, but at the unacceptable policies of the current Israeli government.


Australia can’t even do that.

We’ll cover it all off, and more, as the day unfolds. I have coffee number three on the boil – so come join us?