Australia Institute Live: Senate expresses its official 'displeasure' over Greens senator Gaza protest on first day of parliament business. As it happened.

On that cheery note, we are going to close the blog down, but we will be back with you early tomorrow morning.

The ICJ will hand down its decision on whether states have binding obligations to act to prevent climate harm and protect present and future generations. Australia is arguing that we don’t beyond international agreements, like Paris.

So that is going to be a bit of a day.
There is also another question time.

So enjoy your evening. Thank you so much for joining us today – we do not take it for granted. Thank you for all your comments as well! It means the world.

Until then, take care of you Ax

Bridget McKenzie is next up on the ABC and she was asked about the One Nation protest yesterday, when they turned their backs en masse to the Welcome to Country.

Does McKenzie think that protest is disrespectful and should be punished by the senate?

McKenzie:

I think we all have to be be respectful in the chamber and on a day like yesterday it is not a day for politics, we have our representative, our sovereign, our head of state to the Governor-General who was rightfully above politics setting out her agenda for her government in this parliament.

That is our constitutional requirement, and irrespective of whether you won or lost the election, whether you like or hate the ceremony that goes around it, because that is for the Government to decide, how the ceremony is conducted, it is about respecting our democracy.

I chose to face the chair in the chamber and, on a significant day like that, respectfully listen to the Welcome to Country. One Nation chose to turn their back.

Other senators that have issues with things in the chambers like prayers every morning.

So should all disrespect be treated equally?

McKenzie:

Disrespect is one thing and politicisation of the sovereign is another and I think on a whole number of levels, Senator Faruqi breached standing orders by bringing a prop and abusing the Prime Minister on his way out and so on a lot of levels it was appalling behaviour and I’m glad she won’t be going on delegations, I would have liked to have seen her kicked out of the Senate for the week.

On the Greens call to sanction Israel, Ed Husic says:

I have said previously it was an important step and these are all step towards trying… (Q: Would you like to see more?)

I will answer your question in a clear-cut way. We are trying to encourage the Netanyahu government, a number of countries are saying clearly and if you look at the statement itself the other big thing about it is a lot of allies of Israel signed up to that statement, so pretty significant. If they fail to respond it will be up to the international community to take further steps and certainly the Australian government as part of a broader coalition should be prepared to take further steps.

There have only been two sanctions, some settlers sanctions in times past under what the government has done.

I previously said and I believe the decision makers responsible for the conduct of the operations that have seen nearly 60,000 people killed, innocent civilians, those people should be held to account and I also said being completely direct it should not be something applied across the populace of Israel, just like I do not want to see the broad populace of Palestinians affected by actions. They should be targeted towards decision-makers.

Labor MP Ed Husic is using his time on the backbench to speak on whatever he pleases.

He tells the ABC he spoke at the Voices for Gaza vigil because he felt it was important:

I don’t think it was a particularly heretical act of participate in making sure those killed in Gaza are not forgotten and it was hard I have to say reading those names.

They were either teenagers, young children and in some cases babies and reading out the names and even harder on a day where we have heard 15 people have died of starvation, including one six week old baby. I met today with an Australian medical practitioner who has worked in the Nassar Hospital, recounted her experiences, how difficult it was to treat people.

The fact doctors and nurses are giving up their meals so others can have food, even though it is important they be sustained to do the crucial work they are doing, so it is hard and I think it is a human thing to do to make sure those people are not forgotten and there are a number of parliamentarians that took place in coming back to the question you put, I would not have been surprised if it was difficult to take part in it.

Oh look, the Australian government has quietly handed over another $800 million to the Trump administration as part of the Aukus deal. 

The money – now $1.6 billion, after the Deputy PM handed over the first $800 mil in February – is for the US shipbuilding industry, to which we’ve promised $3 billion total by the end of the year. It’s supposed to help them up their production so they can meet their own targets, before the start handing over a few second-hand submarines to Australia. Except that would require a fourfold increase in production rates. Which is, to put it mildly, pretty unlikely. And even if that did eventuate, the president (whoever that happens to be) might decide not to sell them to Australia anyway, just cos. And if he (let’s be real, it will be a he) doesn’t, then too bad. That money comes with no strings attached. We don’t get it back if the subs don’t materialise.

But we can trust Trump to stick to a deal, right? Right?

Oh I missed one!

Grogs wanted you to know:

Question on women,

Yes things are better on the gender pay gap score, but the gender pay gap is done by looking at average earnings across all occupations. When we look at each occupation individually however, it is clear that the gender pay gap remains very much an issue

To close out the day, here is some of what Mike Bowers saw today:

And from question time – when you are just thrilled the parliament is back:

With the UK announcing it’ll lower the voting age to 16 and Monique Ryan pledging to introduce a new Private Members Bill doing the same here, voting rights for yooths is a hot topic. But what would that look like? 

Does anywhere else do this? 

There are precedents for what lowering the voting age would look like. Eight countries: Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, East Timor, Greece, Indonesia, Scotland and Wales have all already done so, with other countries planning to follow suit.  

How many people are we talking? 

There are 581,000 people aged 16-17 in Australia, meaning that lowering the voting age could expand the 18-million strong electoral roll by 3.2% at most. That’s less than the 700,000 people enfranchised when Australia’s voting age dropped to 18 in 1973.  

Those youngins aren’t spread evenly – Jim Chalmers’ seat of Rankin would see its enrolment grow the most if the voting age were lowered, adding another 5,000 constituents.   

What would it do to the political landscape? 

In short: very little. Just as lowering the voting age to 18 in 1973 didn’t stop the Whitlam government being voted out in a landslide two years later, lowering it to 16 wouldn’t shift election results. 

The Tories have accused British Labour of attempting to rig the next election by expanding the franchise. It’s a curious line of attack considering polls that show the addition of 16 and 17-year-olds would boost Labour’s vote by just 0.2%. 

Time to dust off your phrenology textbook? 

If you were wondering how the prefrontal cortex factors into this conversation, never fear! Nick Cater is on the case.  

In his editorial in The Australian, Cater noted that “Clinical evidence shows the prefrontal cortex … is not fully developed in the average human until around the age of 25”, and yearned for debate over “whether voting should be confined to citizens capable of managing impulses, weighing trade-offs and engaging with complex decisions”. 

Now, unless you want to break out some phrenology callipers and measure voters’ skulls before they head into vote, there isn’t really a way to judge the minds of all 18 million people on the electoral roll – and that doesn’t change for 16-year-olds. But to address his main point: 

Are 16 and 17-year-olds ready for the task? 

As far as any group can be, yes.  

We already trust Aussies aged 16 and 17 to get a job, pay taxes, join the army, and drive a car, among other things. There’s an old saying, “no taxation without representation”, which seems to apply. 

International research also shows lowering the voting age results in higher youth political engagement.  

At the end of the day, voting is a right in this country. And if we don’t trust our 16-year-olds to cast a ballot maybe we should be questioning our education system, not their pre-frontal cortexes. 

Returning to question time for a moment, let’s just look at what we have learned:

The Coalition thinks that people with more than $3 million in super are the people most in need. They asked more question on this issue than any other.

After an election where the Coalition were largely wiped out and punished for not focusing on issues that Australians were concerned with, it is surprising that this is the issue they want to focus on.

They could have focused on:

• People with mortgages.
• Renters.
• Families with kids in childcare.

Instead, they want to focus on the government wanting to reduce (but not get rid of completely) the tax concession going to wealthy people with massive super balances. This is the issue that the Coalition wants to highlight.

It’s hard to see them fighting their way back to relevance with this strategy.

Two enormous issues were largely (though not completely) ignored.

The biggest issue during the election campaign was housing but it didn’t get much of a look in. And when it did, the Minister for Housing largely said that it was about building more houses, which is a state issue.

Childcare is the other big issue and is causing a lot of anxiety among parents. It got one question, and it was good to see that this looks like an issue that will have the full support of the whole parliament. But wouldn’t it have been great if question time was used to tease out what the government was going to do on this and how they thought it was going to fix the problem.

50 Ayes and 11 noes for holding up a sign.

This is not a technical censure, but a chastising. But HONESTLY

Lots of laughter and chat as the senators do this.

The disconnect between the senate chamber right now and what is happening in the world is enough to give you whiplash.

Labor doesn’t agree with the Coalition’s amendment censure motion, which includes invoking standing order 203, if she doesn’t apologise. That would allow the senate to suspend Faruqi from the chambe.

So Labor is saying no to that. But given the government and the opposition are in favour of the substance of censuring Faruqi, this motion will pass.

Mehreen Faruqi continues:

I do want to draw attention to the words of Martin Luther King in his Letter from Birmingham Jail. And it seems especially relevant while you all sit here and censure me for big for breaking what you call the decorum of Parliament, of my failure to be polite or respectful while a genocide unfolds, while kids are being killed.

He wrote of his frustration with the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice, who seeks only the absence of tension rather than the presence of justice, who says, I agree with the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your ways of achieving it. Who has a paternalistic belief they can set the timetable and decorum of another people’s freedom. Well, you can set your standards because you don’t want to see the truth. You don’t want to do anything about the genocide.

And one day, you know what? One day, you will all have to explain to your children and grandchildren where you stood when tens of thousands of men, women and children were being slaughtered. And I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes then, because you are all on the wrong side of history.

Instead of sanctioning me, maybe you should think about sanctioning Israel. They are the ones starving and slaughtering and displacing Palestinians, blowing up hospitals, obliterating schools, wiping out entire bloodlines.

But you ignore all of that. You ignore your constituents, you ignore your communities. You just can’t even read the room. You can’t engage with people in your own communities.

You have for 21 months, and much longer than that, crying out for you to do something, to take real action to stop this genocide, to stop the starvation, to sanction Israel. But I’m not really holding out my hope, honestly, but I can tell you this, the Greens will not be silent as this genocide unfolds. You will not be able to intimidate me or any of my colleagues, and we will never stop fighting for freedom, for Palestine and all those oppressed people.

She starts saying “from the river to the sea..” but her microphone is cut off with Sue Lines saying her speaking time is expired.

Mehreen Faruqi is now speaking.

Gaza is starving. Words won’t feed them. Sanction Israel. That is the truth on the sign that I held up in the Senate yesterday. And I will not back down from this call because Palestinians are being murdered, starved and displaced by Israel as we speak, and all you can do is crack down on people who protest, who tell the truth, who hold up a mirror to you all for your silence and complicity, labor and the coalition in this chamber wants to avoid the truth. You don’t want to see it or hear it, and now here we are. You want me. You want to force me to apologize for telling the truth. Well Well done. You can all pat yourselves on the back and move on.

Move on while Palestinians are slaughtered.

Faruqi continues:

MPs here and outside of here are accusing me of being disrespectful and denigrating the Parliament, and you should all reflect for a minute even on your silence and your complicity and even enabling of a genocide that is what degrades this place that is what reflects fully on this place, not a sign trying to wake you up from your moral stupor.

But you know what you are.

You are more focused on cracking down on black and brown women in this Parliament. You’ve done this before

There is OUTRAGE at this and Katy Gallagher asks for comment to be withdrawn.

I just think that Senator Faruqi should withdraw the allegation that senators are being racist in this chamber. That is the the obvious imputation from what she just said about all of us,

So a brown woman is being told to withdraw the comment that the senate has been more focused on cracking down on black and brown women in the parliament by a white woman. That’s what happened.

Faruqi doesn’t want to withdraw the comment and asks that the president review it, but withdraws so she can continue her speech.

A man wearing a keffiyeh started yelling from the public gallery and was taken out of the gallery by security after a request from senate president Sue Lines. The main senate chamber televised feed dropped out as it was happening.

So Labor is trying to pretend that because of the ceremony of the day, that it is completely sacrosanct compared to other days and therefore no protest can be held, because the sanctity of the parliament is injured.

That it is nothing to do with the issue Mehreen Faruqi was protesting – in this case GENOCIDE – but the fact that she protested on a day of ceremony.

To where you have to wonder what the point of the parliament is. If you can not peacefully protest a genocide in the parliament because that is such a wound to the parliament itself, then what is the point?

The issue does matter. History tells us that. This is not to advance a personal cause or ideology. It is an obligation to anyone who seeks to uphold international and humanitarian law. It is incumbent on all of us to do all we can to bring attention to the loss of life, war crimes and genocidal acts.

Gaza IS starving. Words WON’T feed them. There are actions we can take, including sanctioning Israel.

But instead, we are spending time discussing how the ceremony of a democratic nation was briefly interrupted.

This is the sort of thing history judges and goes WTAF were they doing.

Larissa Waters says it is a disgrace that the government and opposition is seeking to censure Mehreen Faruqi for a “peaceful protest” while ignoring what is happening in Gaza and refusing to actually act.

Waters:

What they shouldn’t be doing is disciplining anyone who dares to speak out, who dares to speak the truth, either in this place or anywhere, and the very idea that we’re discussing disciplining Senator Faruqi for holding up a piece of paper raising attention to the plight of those starving in Gaza, whilst completely ignoring the fact that One Nation senators turned their backs on the Welcome to Country only proves how out of touch with ordinary people this place is so I want to acknowledge everyone who is being honest about the genocide in Gaza, including the staunch and courageous Senator Faruqi, and I want to acknowledge everyone who’s calling on this government to do more.

And I want to salute the hearts of all those people who’ve been out the front of the building these last few days demanding action from our government. And I want to recognise the academics, the students, the journalists, the artists who have refused to remain silent despite the great person. personal cost that it has taken the Greens will not be silent.

Labor senator Katy Gallagher says it is “about the rules”

If I could just follow up on a couple of things that the leader of the Greens says, in particular her concern that this is about us trying to control or not allowing someone to who wants to dare to speak.

I mean, that is absolutely not what this is about. And I think Senator Faruqi has so many opportunities to speak, as every other senator does, to raise issues, but everyone else to the largest part possible does it in accordance with the standing orders and the rules of this place. And if we had to pretend that they don’t matter and they don’t exist anymore, nobody would ever have an opportunity to have a right to say anything in this place.

That is the rules that we all sign up for when we come into this place. Obviously Senator Faruqi feels that she is exempt from those rules.

But the rules allow all participate as senators in this chamber. That’s why they are important, and that’s why I think on the first day of the 48th parliament, the fact that the Opening of Parliament, where we had the Governor General, Her Excellency in the chair, the Chief Justice, and others in this chamber, to recognise, you know, that most important day in our democratic system, to represent the will of the Australian people through our formal processes, to have that used as an opportunity to be disorderly, I think disappointed everybody because of the importance of that day. Senator Faruqi has and will no doubt continue to make her points, as she’s able to do as a senator but in this case, but what happened yesterday was disorderly, and there has to be consequence for that, or there are no point to our standing orders at all.

Over in the senate, the government and opposition are joining together to chastise Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi after she held up a sign in the senate yesterday that said

“Gaza is starving. Words won’t feed them. Sanction Israel.”

After Anthony Albanese left the senate yesterday after his address, Faruqi called out:

“Prime minister, Gaza is starving, will you sanction Israel?”

Both Michaelia Cash and Penny Wong are policing Faruqi for the protest, and are seeking to ban her from any delegation for her time in the parliament, as well as apologise to the senate, the prime minister and the Governor-general.

Larissa Waters is now defending Faruqi.

Out of all the issues the Coalition could have used as its major issue in the first question time, focusing on rich people is very, very on brand.

Makes sense though, Sussan Ley met with Julie Bishop yesterday to talk higher education.

Leopards, spots – you know the rest

From Andrew Gee: “The rural doctor shortage crisis is devastating for Calare residents. Country people have shorter life expectancies than city people. It’s outrageous. The Charles Sturt University School of Rural Medicine opened five years ago to train doctors in the bush for practice in the bush, with 37 Commonwealth supported students. It hasn’t been given any more student places since. When will your government take effective action to a fix? The rural doctor shortage crisis?”

This is a very big issue and one we have looked at in the past. Last year Matt Grudnoff noted that “Research shows people living in rural areas have a much lower life expectancy”

He wrote that life expectancy falls even more for people who live in electorates outside the capital cities.

In electorates where the majority of people live in major regional cities life expectancy falls by more than a year (1.1) compared with outer metro electorates. In rural electorates the results are even worse. Almost half a year (0.4) lower than provincial electorates.

This means that those in inner metro electorates can expect to live on average 2.3 years longer than there fellow Australians in rural electorates.

But this is more than just about the distance from healthcare services. This is about rich and poor. In South Australia the relatively wealthy rural electorate of Mayo has an average life expectancy of 84.5 years, while the relatively poor outer metro electorate of Spence has a life expectancy 4 years lower than that at 80.5 years.

It is even worse for indigenous Australians. The Northern Territory electorate of Lingiari, which has the highest proportion of indigenous Australians, has the lowest average life expectancy at just 75.5 years.

We now have Ted O’Brien complaining that the government hasn’t ruled out taxing more unrealised gains and Anthony Albanese gets excited because there is nothing that excites Albanese, Chris Bowen and Jim Chalmers more than getting to respond to an O’Brien question. Now that Steven Hamilton is his chief of staff, there is going to be a lot more enjoyment in certain Labor quarters in stepping up to that plate.

Albanese has some sport and then O’Brien has a point of order. Milton Dick asks if Albanese has concluded his answer, to which Albanese responds:

We might give him a go.

But Milton Dick is trying really, really hard to have some sort of order so he defends O’Brien:

It’s not about giving anyone a go. The deputy leader is entitled to a point of order, and he’ll now make it.

But Ted O’Brien has to Ted O’Brien:

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. And we have had over two minutes of a preamble from the Prime Minister..it’s on relevance. He hasn’t actually answered the question. He has dodged the same question the treasurer has dodged. What do you….

Alex Hawke tries to jump in to help, but Dick shuts everyone down to try and save all of us from this:

Albanese:

The policy that we have is the one that we took to the election and the policy that we have is for lower taxes. The policy that they have is for higher taxes.

The independent MP for Curtin Kate Chaney asked Anika Wells (communications and sport, because there is NO conflict in those portfolios! (sarcasm, obvs) about the gambling ad reforms.

Wells said nothing we haven’t heard before.

Senior economist Matt Grudnoff chimes in here:

There are few things that unite Australians more than stopping gambling ads. Despite this, a gambling ban can’t get through parliament. The Coalition have indicated they are in favour of restrictions. Basically the entire crossbench are in favour of it.

The damage that gambling is doing to our society, partiuclarly young men, is well known. But still no action.

This is something that the parliament, civil society, and the general public, needs to push the government on. We need change.

“On 28 February 2023, the Treasurer said, ‘Labor’s unfair super tax on unrealised capital gapes would apply to’ Around 80,000 people.” Does the Treasurer stand by that number?”

Not sure what Wilson is on about here – other than he thinks he is really good at asking questions.

The 80,000 numbers is still pretty much the ballpark number – and it remains around 0.5% of everyone with super. It might be a slight touch bigger now given we’re using 2022-23 figures.

Nine media reports ASFA using ATO tax stats to find that “about 77,400 – or more than nine in 10 affected individuals – have super balances of more than $3 million but less than $10 million.

The remaining 7 per cent have between $10 million and $50 million banked up in super, while about 100 Australians – less than 1 per cent of those affected and less than 0.005 per cent of the population – have nest eggs exceeding $50 million.”

Wilson is probably trying to suggest that in 30 years this will rise to 10%? But given he has not followed up his question with a “gotcha” question. I remain mystified by his point.

My GOD this is low energy. Come on guys, you haven’t done this since March. Where is the pizazz? Where is the zsa zsa tsu? The RIZZ?

Someone get some more Gen Zs in the chamber STAT.

Tim Wilson is back and asking his first question and it is 2019 all over again.

Wilson asks about the super tax concessions as well – “my question is to the Treasurer. On 28 February 2023, the Treasurer said, ‘Labor’s unfair super tax on unrealised capital gapes would apply to’ Around 80,000 people.” Does the Treasurer stand by that number?”

Probably a good time to remind our gentle readers that Wilson ran the anti-franking credits change campaign in the 2019 election, even chairing an inquiry into it. At the time Wilson was also an investor and shareholder in Wilson Asset Management, which was founded (and from memory, chaired) by Geoff Wilson, a relative of his.

Jim Chalmers answers:

First of all, Mr Speaker, I didn’t describe it the way that the honourable member has said. That’s the first point. Second point is that when we announced the policy the expectation was that there would be about 0.5% of people in the superannuation system impacted by what is a very modest change in terms of the impact on individuals but it would make a meaningful contribution to making the superannuation system more sustainable, that remains our view.

About 0.5% of people and that obviously varies from fund to fund. If you think about the fund that was in the paper today, their expectations at host plus is that 57 members out of 1.86 million members would be impacted by the modest changes that we are proposing.

As the Assistant Treasurer said a moment ago, we are the big believers in superannuation. We’re about strengthening superannuation and those opposite are about weakening superannuation. For evidence of that, Mr Speaker, think about the fact that on 1 July this year we completed the journey to 12 per cent compulsory superannuation.

That’s something we’re very proud of on this side of the House. So, too, are we proud to be paying the superannuation guarantee on government paid parental leave for the first time ever, Mr Speaker. I shout out the Minister here for the work that we did on that in the last term of Parliament.

Part of our responsibility to the superannuation system is to make sure that it is treated in a concessional way, that those concessions are generous but also and that they are sustainable. After these changes are implemented, there still will be generous tax concessions for everyone in the superannuation system but for the 0.5% of people with balances more than $3 million, remembering the average retirement ball about is about $340,000…

(Wilson has a point of order that is not a point of order)

Chalmers:

It remains our expectation about 0.5% of people in the superannuation system will be impacted by this modest change.

They’ll still get very generous tax concessions in superannuation, it will be slightly less generous. For example, someone with $3 million instead of getting a $14,000 tax break they’ll get a $13,000 tax break for their investment. So it continues to be concessional. I think the respected financial commentator Noel Whittaker has made a similar point, it remains concessional for everyone but a bit less so for people with more than $3 million.

I think what this question shows apart from the fact that that Shadow Treasurer has already been benched is this side of the House cutting taxes for 14 million Australians that, side of the House going to the House for 0.5% of people in the superannuation system who already have more than $3 million in super.

Let’s take a look at the chamber thanks to Mike Bowers:

Deputy Liberal leader Ted O’Brien now gets a chance on the big floor and he looks very pleased with himself as he asks Jim Chalmers:

Will the government rule out ever taxing unrealised capital gains on anything beyond superannuation?

This is all so ridiculous. We already tax unrealised capital gains. It’s land tax. You can build wealth on unrealised capital gains. That’s called equity. This is the unrealised capital gains for people who have more than $3m in their superannuation.

This is what the Coalition are focusing on. The tiny percentage of people who have obscene wealth and have used the vehicle meant for retirement to build more wealth for their children to inherit. If you are worried about your farm, don’t put your farm in your super fund!

Greg Jericho

Remember the changes only apply to super balances above $3m. And people with more than $3 million in super have an average income of $381,000, so they are pretty cash rich as well.

And also remember the changes will not actually mean most people even with more than $3m will have to pay much more in tax.

Under the govts changes if you have a $3m super balance and it goes up 10% to $3.3m you will have to pay just $4,091 in tax – a mere 0.9%

If someone with $3m in super can’t find $4,091 in cash, then their problems are not with the govt’s tax changes but their own way of managing finances.

David Littleproud is allowed to ask a question now and he asks:

Can the Assistant Treasurer clarify how Labor’s super tax on unreal capital gains would operate for a farmer who has their farm held in a self-managed superannuation fund when they’ve had a failed season with no income?

Oooh, oohh – I know this one! If they have had a failed season with no income, then they probably wouldn’t have to pay because there wouldn’t be earnings above the $3m, because the super fund would have had no earnings!

And if there were, then why is the farm in the self managed super fund? Is it just a tax dodge? Because that is not what superannuation is meant to be for.

The independent MP for Bradfield (pending the federal court recount decision) Nicolette Boele asks her first question:

My question is to the minister representing the Minister for the Environment. One of the first act government was to approve the extension of the north-west gas project knocking in millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas in this century. Whenever she has made unpopular decisions in the term the Minister for the Environment said she was simply following the law. Minister, you are the law. When will the pro-fossil fuel Albanese government stop gas lighting the Australian public and implement the changes it has long promised on our environmental reforms?

(The environment minister Murray Watt is in the senate, so there is a house representative for him)

And it is Tony Burke (the busiest man in the parliament after the PM)

The first thing to say with respect to the north-west shelf is there are two sets of legal provisions. There are the legal provisions that we have made on environmental law, which go to a range of environmental treaties, that’s their basis and they are handle primarily by the Minister for the Environment and there’s a series of other pieces of legislation handled by the minister for climate change that make sure that we are doing what the government has said we will do with respect to emissions.

The project on the north-west shelf that the member for Bradfield refers to is subjected to both.

So in terms of the impact on climate change it is subject to the Safeguard Mechanism. It’s subject to the Safeguard Mechanism because it’s a high-emitting project. The laws that we passed with respect to climate change apply to that project. But at the same time when the Environment Minister considers environmental law, that’s where they consider a series of other issues, including threatened species and in this case quite specifically having to consider issues around heritage and in particular issues relating to rock art.

There are specific conditions that the proposed decision – at the moment it’s a proposed decision, the final decision hasn’t come down but the Environment Minister has put forward a proposed decision and with respect to the concerns about potential impact on the nearby rock art, there are conditions on air emissions which have been put forward in that proposed decision. In terms of the impact on climate change, it’s affected by the other legislation we have put in place and in terms of the heritage impact it’s affected specifically by the EPBC act, what’s known as our environmental legislation.

The member would be aware of the different things that have been said already by the government and particularly by the Environment Minister in terms of the work that the government is doing both with industry stakeholders and with environmental groups to try to make sure that we can bring environmental law reform together in this term.

They negotiation is happening that, work is happening because at the moment until we’re able to get environmental laws that are fit for purpose, we have a situation where no-one wins in terms of business wants to be able to make sure it can get decisions in a timely way, and from the environment perspective we wanna make sure we’re able to protect our precious environment and our often heritage. The has made clear that work is being done and it’s being done by the government.

Now Burke mentions the ‘conditions’ there – but we don’t know what they are. That’s being kept secret. So do we get to hear them now they are being mentioned in parliament?

Sussan Ley does her first point of order which is not a point of order! We are really ticking off the bingo card here.

Ley:

The Prime Minister is not addressing the particular tax that he knows the I am asking about the superannuation tax. The tax that we referred to in the question is not being addressed by the Prime Minister.

Milton Dick tells her it is not a point of order as the prime minister is talking about tax and she can’t bring in new information.

Albanese:

I was talking about tax policy and that was what I was asked about and our tax policy was clear. We want people to earn more and keep more of what they earn. That’s our tax policy.

Those opposite, the Liberal and National Party went to the election on May 3 calling for higher taxes and bigger deficits. That is what their platform was at the election.

And no wonder there’s a vacancy down there, Mr Speaker, because those opposite were rejected because Australians do want to earn more and they want to keep more of what they earn and that is what we will deliver.

Anthony Albanese answered the super tax question by pointing out there has been an election since it was introduced:

Well, tax was an issue at the last election. It was an issue on May 3. In the budget brought down by the Treasurer in March, we had not one tax cut but two tax cuts, and we brought forward the legislation before this Parliament and we passed it on the Wednesday and then it went through the Senate as well later that day.

So, as a direct result of the actions that we have taken, we will see income tax cuts for all 14 million taxpayers following up from the income tax cuts that we delivered last July for all 14 million taxpayers, delivered on July 1 next year and then a further tax cut the year after, on July 1 the year after.

Now, that is action that we took, and today, of course, Parliament has begun.

We have had our first piece of legislation, was to assist people, assist people, by putting more dollars in their pockets with the 20 per cent cut in student debt, delivering benefits on average of $5,500.

But had we not been successful on May 3, we know what the first piece of legislation was going to be.

Because, remarkably, those opposite went to an election saying that they would actually introduce legislation to increase income taxes, for every single Australian taxpayer by increasing that first marginal tax rate not once but twice.

Senior economist Matt Grudnoff is also not impressed:

Susan Ley’s first question in the new Parliament is complaining about people with $3 million super balances having to pay a bit more tax. Wow. It’s good to see the Coalition is interested in the issues of everyday Australians.

Sussan Ley is back.  This time she asks:

Under Labor’s superannuation tax policy, Australians are forced to find cash they don’t have to pay tax for income they haven’t earned Prime Minister, it takes a lot to unite Paul Keating and John Howard but both are totally against this unfair tax.

Will the Prime Minister abandon his plans to work with the Greens and instead join me, the crossbench, Paul Keating and John Howard to reject this unfair tax?

This is sigggghhhhhhh. 

As Greg Jericho has pointed out numerous times:

We have a system where it is considered right that the poorest people in Australia are penalised if their assets go above $314,000 but where parts of the media come out against a proposal that if someone’s super goes up $314,000 in a year from $3m they should pay $4,462 (1.4%) in tax Please. The only reason there is so much outrage over this is if the rich and vested interested are annoyed people might realise just how big of a rort they have going.

Currently these massive unrealised capital gains in super can keep going up and people pay no tax on them (unrealised, you see!) and then when they are retired they can sell them (ie realise them), and then pay … errr zero tax.

Under these changes they would have to pay 15% on the share of earnings above $3m.Yeah, end of times.

Heck even normal capital gains outside of super gets a great deal.

If you have held an asset for over a year you will get a 50% tax discount on the profit.

Earn $250,000 in capital gains, you get $125,000 tax free.Earn $250,000 in income, you get $18,200 tax free.

Little wonder the rich love capital gains. The 0.2% of taxpayers who make $1m each year account for 41% of all capital gains:

We have a general rule of not reporting on dixers (questions written by the government for government ministers) but given it is the first one of this parliament, it is always important to look at who gets it.

Ali France is given the honour.

You can usually tell who the government wants to be asking the first questions in QT, because they also get the first speech slots as well (you can’t ask a question or speak in the parliament until you have done your first speech)

Sussan Ley is straight up and has her first question as leader – on housing.

Q: The Liberal Party I lead will always champion policies to help more Australians into a home of their own. But under Labor the homeownership dream has never been further out of reach. The Prime Minister promised to deliver 1.2 million homes but he has let down young Australians by delivering just 17. With leaked Treasury advice confirming this is a broken promise, will the Prime Minister abandon his failing policies and work constructively with the Coalition to address Labor’s housing crisis?

Clare O’Neil interjects and Milton Dick puts on his Dugald face (Milton is his middle name) and tells her to NOT TRY HIM

The Minister for Housing, it is the first question of this term. Trust me. Do not interject before a Minister, including the Prime Minister, has begun their answer.

Anthony Albanese takes the question:

Well, there is a housing Minister for the LNP from Queensland called Sam O’Connor. This is what he had to say. ‘A major milestone’s been reached with construction under way on one of the Gold Coast’s largest social and affordable housing projects. The high-rise supportive housing project is being delivered by the Australian government’s housing Australia future fund.” He went on to say, ‘Importantly, this project will provide 200 vulnerable Gold Coast households with much more than a safe and secure roof over their heads. ‘

The Master Builders Australia support our programs, the 1.2 million homes we say is achievable. For the first time we have seen a federal government actually recognise that they’ve got a leadership role in resolving this problem. Up until the Albanese government, we have seen federal governments say no. It’s a problem of the states, it’s a problem of local government. Who might they have been speaking about? The former government that, over the nine long years didn’t bother to have a housing minister for half of the time, had complete contempt for public housing, provided no incentives for…

It goes on, but we have heard it all before. Sussan Ley tries to interject but is also told to NOT TRY DUGALD

The chamber is into member statements – which means we are getting closer to the first question time.

Go touch some grass, or feel the sunshine on your face. Get a sweet treat. Do something to affirm life.

It is about to be drained from you.

LNP senator Matt Canavan who used to love cosplaying as a miner while resources minister, has remembered he is, in fact, an economist.

He has a bit of a chat about the senate motion he has put forward for debate tomorrow –

The current health and future of the Australian metals manufacturing industry including the alumina, aluminium, lead, zinc, copper and nickel industries, with reference to:
(a) the impact of increasing energy costs, technological change, industrial relation regimes, workforce challenges and the
broader regulatory environment;
(b) distortions in global supply chains that impact the viability of Australian metals manufacturing;
(c) the cost of metals manufacturing businesses meeting climate change targets;
(d) the viability of government interventions to sustain Australian metals manufacturing;
(e) the potential for energy investments to help reduce costs for Australian metals manufacturing;
(f) the viability of further public-private partnerships;
(g) the impact on regions, our national security and economy if metals manufacturing declines in Australia; and
(h) any other related matter

(The motion is basically just ‘net zero is killing us, let’s have a committee about it’ in a sheep suit)

But then some questions start getting a little tricky and Canavan ends the press conference, with all the Nationals filing in behind him. If you have ever seen a sheep change direction and take the flock with it, that’s the image they seem to be going for.

The question that ended it all? If the Liberals decide they want net zero, then where is the future for the Coalition to remain a Coalition?

Canavan:

I don’t talk in hypotheticals. I think, I think, look, my position, my position, is very well known, of course. I mean, I think what would be good post election is we all have those conversations in the joint party room, and hopefully that will happen at some point. We’ve had difficult issues like this before in the last decade in my time here, and they’re always the sky’s Chicken Little sky falling in type conclusions made. But we find a way. We find a way. We find a way.

The Nationals who are against net zero are now holding a press conference where Bridget McKenzie is very, very exercised over all the people in country communities who are apparently having their lives ruined by renewables.

The Nationals are now also very concerned over the nickel industry and smelters.

McKenzie:

This isn’t some political argument, it is real people, real communities, who want to keep doing what they’re doing, and it is this government’s policies that have put all of these jobs at risk, which is why the union movement itself has a problem with this government’s policies.

So I would love you to ask the Industry Minister Tim Ayres about what he is doing to save these jobs, what the industrial relations minister is doing to save these jobs, what the Regional Development Minister is doing to save these jobs. Because right now, literally right now, nothing, and we’re shoveling money out, hand over fist.

Ahead of the first question time (where Sussan Ley will be leading the tactics committee asking the opposition questions, alongside…Alex Hawke) here is something that will make just as much sense as what we are about to hear in QT:

Joshua Black

University leaders are keeping their institutions in the news for all the wrong reasons. Yesterday, it was University of Technology Sydney’s (UTS) turn for a round of bad press. Five of its executives – including the Vice-Chancellor – zipped to the US for two alumni events in May, at a total cost of $140,000.

This is the same university that hired KPMG (at a cost of $4.8 million) to provide advice on how to cut $100 million from annual expenditure by the end of next year. While university leaders are jetting around the world, consultants are cooking up twin crises of finance and integrity at home.

Even for a large institution, $4.8 million is a huge amount of money. A brief glance at UTS’s 2024 annual report shows that this sum equates to:

· Half of UTS’s 2024 expenditure on laboratory supplies ($9.5 million).

· 87% of its insurance bill ($5.5 million).

· More than the entirety of UTS’s telecommunications expenses (nearly $3.4 million in 2024).

The KPMG contract itself costs the equivalent of 5% of UTS’s new savings target. (Face-palm.)

This kind of university largesse gives consultants not just millions of dollars at universities’ expense, but also a seat at the table where decisions about the future of these same universities are made.

UTS has been open about its KPMG contract. Others are not so transparent.

· The embattled Australian National University has been nothing but secretive about its reliance on Nous Consulting Group, who helped the current leadership cook up a $250 million cost-cutting adventure. Only through FOI documents did the public learn how integral Nous was to the whole process.

· When the University of South Australia’s council voted to merge with the University of Adelaide back in 2023, consultants from Accenture were in the room. They had prepared the feasibility study that led to the decision, and their presence was confidential until FOI documents brought it to light.

How do we address consultants’ influence on campus? First, the individual Acts governing Australia’s universities could be changed so that staff and students are meaningfully, democratically represented on university councils. (Corporate types are currently overrepresented on these bodies.)

State governments could introduce laws that require universities to report itemised consultancy spending for all contracts above $10,000. Such rules exist already in Victoria, ensuring greater transparency of their universities’ expenditure.

A national whistleblower protection authority, covering the public sector more broadly as well as universities specifically, would help to mitigate secrecy and unaccountability in university governance and spending.

Until we see big, meaningful reforms like these, university leaders can expect more criticism of the kind they’ve been experiencing lately.

Last November, the Albanese Government announced a promise to cut all existing student HELP loans by 20%. It was a key Labor federal election promise, one that the Coalition opposed. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese repeatedly pledged that it would be the first bill put before the new parliament.

The bill – formally the Universities Accord (Cutting Student Debt by 20 Per Cent) Bill 2025 – promises to benefit three million Australians with a student loan and forgive $16 billion worth of existing debt. As the education minister’s media release today points out, the whole thing is conceived as “cost of living relief for the Australian people”.

But the title of the bill is kind of a red herring. The “Universities Accord” was, in a nutshell, a massive review of the structural flaws in Australia’s university system. There’s little in its Final Report about student debt forgiveness, certainly not “one-off” relief packages. There are a few lines about waiving some “life-long debts”, but even these are followed by the conclusion that waiving debt does nothing to address the integrity of the fee system as a whole.

To be fair to Clare, there is a little bit of Accord-inspired structural reform in the bill. Specifically, the bill offers a new “fairer repayment system” that raises the income threshold at which people start paying back their HELP debt (from $54,435 up to $67,000). It also ensures that debt repayments are based on income above that threshold, rather than total income.

The explanatory memorandum is at pains to show that this change “addresses recommendation 16(b) in the Accord’s Final Report”. But what were the Accord’s other recommendations for student debt reform?

First, a major change to the way HELP debt is indexed over time. Instead of debts rising with inflation every year (which led to a 7 per cent spike in debts back in 2023), the report said debts should rise with whatever is lower – inflation or the wage price index (WPI). The government did, in fact, implement this reform in 2024.

Second, the report also recommended that the Morrison Government’s Job-ready Graduates (JRG) package, with its massive fee hikes for humanities, society and culture, and communications students, be scrapped. JRG means people studying these courses end up with higher debts than they used to (sometimes as high as $50,000), and take even longer to pay them off. As the report says, a fairer HECS-HELP system would charge students based on their projected lifetime earnings.

So far, JRG has been kept firmly in the too-hard-basket. But scrapping JRG and reforming student fees is a much-needed reform, one wholly deserving of the “Universities Accord” title. The new Australian Tertiary Education Commission, established on 1 July, has been asked to start work on this straight away, but the federal government will ultimately be asked to take the decisions that matter.

Cutting student debt is nice for some, but bigger reform would be better for everyone.

Over in the senate the crossbench have also been trying to get the bills they had left over from the last parliament which were not addressed, re-introduced into this parliament.

The first day of business of a new parliament is a lot of this work – dealing with the things that were left to wither on the vine during the last parliament.

For David Pocock, that looks like these bills:

1. Copyright Legislation Amendment (Fair Pay for Radio Play) Bill 2023;
2. Electoral Legislation Amendment (Fair Territory Representation) Bill 2024;
3. Lobbying (Improving Government Honesty and Trust) Bill 2025; and
4. National Housing and Homelessness Plan Bill 2024.

LNP senator Matt Canavan is making moves in the senate – he just put this on the senate papers:

That the following matter be referred to the Economics References Committee for inquiry and report by the last sitting day
in 2025:
The current health and future of the Australian metals manufacturing industry including the alumina, aluminium, lead, zinc, copper and nickel industries, with reference to:
(a) the impact of increasing energy costs, technological change, industrial relation regimes, workforce challenges and the
broader regulatory environment;
(b) distortions in global supply chains that impact the viability of Australian metals manufacturing;
(c) the cost of metals manufacturing businesses meeting climate change targets;
(d) the viability of government interventions to sustain Australian metals manufacturing;
(e) the potential for energy investments to help reduce costs for Australian metals manufacturing;
(f) the viability of further public-private partnerships;
(g) the impact on regions, our national security and economy if metals manufacturing declines in Australia; and
(h) any other related matter.

Mike Bowers has spent some time capturing some first speeches moment in the chamber:

Jason Clare also introduced Labor’s bill to tackle some of the issues with childcare workers and children safety, given some of the cases we have seen lately. The bill’s main point is that it will strip government funding from ‘unsafe’ centres.

Georgie Dent from advocacy group The Parenthood says the government should be looking at creating an “independent national body to oversee early childhood education and care” as the “most effective way for the government to ensure children are safe”.  

Dent:

Right now, there is no national body to ensure that every single early learning centre across Australia is providing safe and high-quality education and care. Nor is there a single source of truth for parents to turn to in such distressing times. 

We need national coordination on everything from processes for hiring new staff, educator training and background checks, to body safety protocol and government funding arrangements. All levels of government need to work together and provide adequate resourcing to the regulatory bodies in the system. 

That’s what an Independent National Early Childhood Commission – as was recommended by the Productivity Commission last year – could have the power to achieve. 

Parents shouldn’t have to worry about the quality and safety of centres. At the absolute baseline, parents deserve to know that their child is safe in care. But without a national leader to oversee, monitor and regulate quality and safety, the onus is still on parents, many of whom have little choice around their reliance on childcare. 

Ahead of this year’s Federal Election, the Prime Minister said that he wanted universal early childhood education and care to be his legacy. 

The Federal Government has already taken steps towards a universal system with their accessibility and affordability measures, but safety and quality must be at the heart of systemic reform. A National Commission would address all of these issues, and ensure that every child in Australia has access to safe, high-quality, inclusive and affordable care.

We urge the Federal Government to prioritise the establishment of a National Early Childhood Commission,” said Ms Dent.

So why does Michael McCormack hate net zero? Because of the farmers, apparently.

They’re all facing these shysters who come in, these spiffs who come in and ride roughshod over over farmers.

They’re signing up one neighbor and then not the other and often they’re brother and sister. They’re dividing families.

They’re ruining friendships that have been going not for years, but for generations.

I mean, between Binalong and Browning, a great little area, peaceful, idyllic area, putting up 90 260m wind turbines, wind towers.

I mean, nobody should have to live with that right on their doorstep when there’s absolutely no benefit to them. It’s destroying lives. It’s destroying livelihoods. …I’m very much against that. I’m very much worried about the cost of power when we’re getting left behind, and we’ve got the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, wanting to do a productivity forum, and we’re not talking about how we’re going to have cheap energy. I mean, this is a crock. It is an absolute crock..

You know what actually is terrible? Coal-fired power stations.

But the Coalition opposition to wind turbines is not new, or particularly original. In 2014, then-Liberal treasurer Joe Hockey said his eyes were offended by the sight of wind turbines driving into Australia.

We have some beautiful landscapes in Australia, and frankly, putting up those towers is just to me, quite appalling in those places.

I drive from Sydney to Canberra … to go to parliament, and I just look at those wind turbines around Lake George and I am just appalled.

The LNP in Queensland are cancelling renewables projects, even where the community wants them.

So this is not new. It doesn’t matter what the Nationals do here – they will blow up the Coalition and also consign their own party and relevance to the dustbin of history – but they will continue the culture wars to the bitter end.

Michael McCormack is the latest former Nationals leader to appear on Sky today.

Barnaby Joyce was there earlier today (apparently net zero is the ‘head of the serpent’) and the current Nationals leader David Littleproud (if you don’t have a clock on his leadership going, you are late) also made an appearance to pretend everything was fine.

So now TipTop (our name for him because he is as white bread as you can get) is now against net zero because the party room is and Joyce is behind McCormack as leader because there is no chance Joyce will ever get the numbers again, but McCormack could. And the enemy of my enemy…..

Anyways, it is ON:

David Littleproud is the leader. All of our seats in the Lower House were returned to the last the last Parliament, and and David, as he said this morning, will will do what the party wants as the leader, and that is his obligation and duty. And look, I support David. I do. I’ve never said that I don’t.

The address-in-reply to the Governor-general’s speech (where they read a speech prepared by the government to the senate, about the government’s agenda. It is all very weird) was happening in the chamber.

Now it has moved back to first speeches. Ben Small, the new Liberal MP for Forrest (who took over from the retired Nola Marino) is giving his first speech.

Independent Senator Fatima Payman is also looking for some documents:

The federal government is about to be forced to release a draft response to a landmark gambling reform report, which has been left untouched for more than two years.

Communications Minister Anika Wells, who picked up the portfolio after Labor’s May 3 election win, has flagged upcoming changes to gambling advertising.

Her first meeting outside of department briefings was with Rod Glover, the husband of late Labor MP Peta Murphy, who championed a ban on gambling ads.

A draft response by the communications department to the “you win some, you lose more” report handed down by a bipartisan parliamentary committee was prepared for the previous minister in November 2024.

But the department refused to release the 32-page document under freedom of information laws.

The Murphy report’s key recommendation was to phase out gambling advertising on television and online, which received unanimous support from Labor, coalition and crossbench MPs on the committee.

Labor’s draft policy, which was never formally released but briefed to stakeholders in mid-2024, included banning betting ads during, before and after live sports broadcasts and limiting them to two an hour outside of that parameter.

Independent senator David Pocock is pushing to have the draft recommendations and ministerial briefings released under a Senate order for the production of documents, after freedom of information requests were similarly rejected.

The Liberals and the Greens have given their support, meaning his order is set to pass the Senate on Wednesday, giving Labor until the end of the month to comply or explain why they will continue to keep the documents secret.

A third order requests correspondence between the prime minister and gambling sector representatives and lobbying efforts from sporting codes after he intervened to shelve any action before the election.

Labor’s inaction was “one of the biggest failures of the last parliament and a wrong I hope we can right this time”, Senator Pocock told AAP.

Reform advocates are keen to find a middle ground, arguing the longer the status quo goes on, the more people are being hurt as there are few restrictions on gambling advertising.

While stakeholders are pushing for a blanket ban, there is an openness to compromise on restricting when betting ads can be broadcast on live TV.

They’re also pushing hard for a complete advertising ban on social media and on inducements, which is when gambling companies entice people to bet more by offering incentives such as bonus bets.

But the gambling lobby is strongly against a blanket social media ban, instead saying technology could be used to avoid targeting children.

The sector is similarly opposed to stopping inducements.

There is a willingness to discuss stopping broad inducement advertising, but gambling companies want to retain the right to push advertising to people signed up to their platforms

The Murphy review recommended that the government immediately prohibit online gambling inducements and their advertising.

Commercial broadcasters and sports codes argued they needed advertising revenue to stay viable, while gambling companies warned a blanket ban would push Australians into using illegal overseas wagering sites.

The AFL and NRL receive tens of millions of dollars a year as a cut from gambling agencies.

Some advocates are hopeful there will be an announcement on the next steps before the end of the year, with the federal government yet to respond to the landmark report 25 months after it was handed down.

National Gambling Helpline 1800 858 858

Today there has been some pretty credulous reporting around the traps by journalists who should know better about a Centre for Independent Studies report that suggest government spending is out of control.

I don’t really want to get into a think tank war, but this report got big coverage in the AFR and might spur some debate so I thought it worth running a comb through the pages and see if we find any lice.

And yeah we do. A lot.

I know some of you are stretched for time, so here’s a quick summary of the paper:

1. Police, teachers, doctors, nurses, firefighters, defence personnel and anyone working in care are unproductive because they get money via the govt (just trust us this must be true)
2. Relying on public health is less productive than… errr what happens in the USA (oh dear)
3. Australia has a big public sector (if you exclude the biggest spending nations and also ignore the data that shows we actually have a very small govt)
4. Countries with big public sectors are inefficient (but please don’t ask us to provide any evidence of this) 
5. If we have more govt spending then we will have less charity and philanthropy (seriously)

Ok, So now you know the big strokes, let’s get into it.

First off the report was given a cosy run in the AFR with the headline “More than 50pc of voters now rely on government for their main income”. This if course is meant to scare you because it wants you to think they are talking about welfare dependency because of the idiotic belief that providing assistance for those on low-incomes or with caring and disability concern is a bad thing. The only problem is that JUST LAST WEEK the Parliamentary Library put out a report on “Working-age income support recipients”.

What did it find?

• In June 2023, close to 12% of the population aged 15–64 received income support payments—the lowest level in more than 45 years. June 2024 was only slightly higher at around 13%.
• The long-term decline in working-age welfare receipt is partly due to previous governments’ policy changes restricting eligibility for some payments, phasing-out other payments, and tight targeting through means testing.

So clearly the suggestion that somehow Australians are massively dependant upon welfare is wrong. So what is the CIS talking about?

They are talking about public servants which includes (hold your breath) teachers, public nurses and doctors, care workers, defence personnel, police, and anyone who receives money through the NDIS (eg a speech therapist whose patient is NDIS funded) – basically anyone who can be included in the “non-market” sector of the economy.  

Yeah. Suddenly it all seems rather a stretch. Once they add that up and also welfare recipients the paper says “it is likely that more than half of voters rely on government for most of their income.” Cripes, couldn’t even be bothered actually providing a precise number.

Ok, so why is this even a bad thing? Well the CIS says “Bigger government also corrodes ‘social capital’, which is a way of describing the ties that keep society functioning effectively — such as extended family supports, philanthropy, charities, volunteering and the spirit of self-reliance in place of state dependency.”

Seriously. They are arguing that big govt is bad because it lessens the need for philanthropy.

Talk about threatening us all with a good time.

They also think that teachers, nurses, police, defence personal are in effect leeches on society because they are “dependent” on govt funding and this means they will all want wage rises which means more govt spending.  

They also suggest that the government arguing for better pay for care workers was a bad thing. The report doesn’t want to think they are cruel, because it notes that “this is not to deny that many of these workers perform useful and sometimes vital services for the rest of the population and are motivated by high ideals of service.” But you know… fuck ‘em.

Because the paper is pretending to be a serious bit of analysis instead of a ideological brain fart, it tries to link all this government spending  with productivity. Does it do this with data and facts? Oh my sweet naive child. Please no. Merely the paper asserts that “As government spending grows, the marginal benefits become smaller while the marginal costs of financing the higher spending through taxation or borrowing increase.” Any proof of this? Nope.

For example, they could have compared the level of government spending and productivity across the advanced economies in the OECD. But then that would have shown that higher govt spending is associated with economies with higher levels of productivity. Oops

So what is the up shot? Apparently we are “moving toward European-style welfare state dimensions.”

Please. If only. This claim is completely without any basis in reality or fact. As we know welfare dependency is at record lows. But idiotic ideological reports its seems continue to grow…

There is a bit of too and fro over some of the changing standing orders in the house.

Governments usually use the first sitting of the parliament to update the standing orders – which are the rules which govern the chambers.

Last parliament, Labor updated the standing orders to allow for more questions from the crossbench, which the Coalition were not happy about because it meant they got less.

This time round, Labor is changing the standing orders so when recording a vote, if there is six or less people against the vote, then those names will be recorded, but the ayes and the absents will not.

It is not a huge deal, but it does make the job of some of the accountability sites which have sprung up which look at how MPs vote on issues, a little harder. Some of those sites already struggled when votes were recorded ‘on the voices’ which means that it’s the louder ayes or noes.

But if you vote against something, your vote will be recorded.

Zali Steggall moved this change to disorderly conduct:

A Member’s conduct shall be considered disorderly if the Member has:

 (a)persistently and wilfully obstructed the House;

 (b)used objectionable words, which he or she has refused to withdraw;

 (c)persistently and wilfully refused to conform to a standing order;

 (d)wilfully disobeyed an order of the House;

 (e)persistently and wilfully disregarded the authority of the Speaker; or

 (f)been considered by the Speaker to have behaved in a disorderly manner, including behaviour that is intimidating, harassing or bullying.

And then Allegra Spender tried – but the question was ‘put and negatived’ which means the government said no

We’re so often told that domestic and foreign policy are entirely separate things. That our alliance with the US is “above” presidents and prime ministers, and sometimes, above politics altogether.

As Amy reported this morning, just last night the Australian Foreign Minister got stuck in to the Coalition because they “always seek to create domestic politics in circumstances where you really need to be adult and mature and navigate a diplomatic relationship.”

Tell that to President Trump, who’s busy projecting his hateful domestic politics out into the world. Today, the US Olympic Committee has effectively banned trans women from participation in Olympic sports, in direct response to a Trump Executive Order.

That’s going to highlight some big questions facing progressive governments across the world – how can they, in good faith, send trans and non-binary athletes to the LA Olympics in 2028, when their safety might be at risk?

And of course it’s not just trans people who might be in danger. Athletes have already been denied entry into the US because of Trump’s travel bans, and there are big questions about not just the Olympics but the FIFA World Cup too, which the US is hosting next year. Athletes, national sports bodies and spectators are going to have to weigh up some serious risks to their safety versus participating in those global competitions. A bunch of countries are already issuing travel advisories to trans and non-binary people.

If you want to read more about this issue, I had a chat to the ABC about it last week. 

This is all happening as part of the Trump administration’s radical approach to gender more broadly. At the same time as the administration is attacking and undermining trans rights, it’s reminding women where it thinks they belong. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth just removed the first woman to head the US Naval Academy and replaced her with a man. Hegseth is, in the words of Tom Nichols over at The Atlantic (not exactly a radical himself) “on a mission to erase women from the top ranks of the U.S. armed forces.” 

These are just more examples of how, no matter how much we might want to, we can’t draw lines between what happens inside the US and what it does in the world.

Jason Clare introduces the HECS bill. (Photo by Mike Bowers for The New Daily)

Labor are VERY happy with this bill. There were social media videos ready to go from yesterday preparing for this.

Here is what Jason Clare had to say in his media list (which the prime minister also jumped in on)

We promised we would cut your student debt by 20 per cent and we are delivering.

This is a big deal for 3 million Australians, in particular, a lot of young Australians.

Just out of uni, just getting started, this will take a weight off their back.

It will also cut their annual repayments. For someone earning $70,000 a year, it will cut the amount they have to repay every year by $1,300.”

That’s real help with the cost of living. It means more money in your pocket, not the government’s.”

Barnaby Joyce just popped up to the parliamentary press gallery to have a spray about net zero.

Which is hilarious, because the Nationals are going to blow up the Coalition over this and it doesn’t matter. It truly does not matter for Australian policy where the Nationals or the Coalition land on this because they are not going to be in power for six years.

But anyway, we all need some sport from time to time.

Here is what Liberal senator Jane Hume had to say about net zero this morning on Sky News:

Over and over again now, the electorate has told us that they want to see a net zero energy future. They want to see emissions down. That’s what successive elections have told us. Now, my personal opinion is that this is profoundly important for not just the electorate, but also for our country. We want to make sure, though, that that transition to a lower emissions future is seen through the lens of an economic problem, because that is exactly what it is. We want to make sure that we have abundant energy in this country, but we also want to make sure that we bring down emissions and that we make sure that we have a better future and a better planet for our children and their children.”

So that is going to be fun!

The SMH has a story this morning reporting on comments by the Deputy to the Associate Director (Defence) in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) (phew), Jerry Hendrix. The comments are old – he made them last year – but they’re being dragged up because Hendrix is now supposed to be overseeing the revitalisation of the sluggish American shipbuilding industry – the same one that needs to catch up on its own production needs before it can hand over any submarines to Australia as part of the Aukus deal (which is very unlikely).

Hendrix said that “the Australians have been noticeably fickle” about the deal. Which, lol. This is coming from the same administration that has itself put the deal to a review because it’s not convinced it’s consistent with Trump’s “America First” agenda. It’s also the same administration that accepted an $800 million no-strings-attached deposit and then turned around and slapped tariffs on Australian aluminium and steel. Oh, and the same one that is threatening Australian pharmaceutical exports because our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme gets a fair price for life-saving medicines from US drug companies. Maybe we could talk about being “noticeably fickle” about free trade agreements?

It’s also worth mentioning that Hendrix is now in this role partly because the administration is – you guessed it – a bit fickle. Not that long ago, Trump issued an executive order setting up a shipbuilding unit in the National Security Council – where you’d expect something like this to sit. But that didn’t last. As the SMH reports, the NSC was downsized, the guy who was originally in charge left for the private sector, and the role was moved to OMB. That’s important too, but for less fickle reasons. OMB sits in the Executive Branch and “serves the President of the United States in overseeing the implementation of his vision.” OMB was specifically identified by Project 2025 as a vehicle for further concentrating power and authority in the hands of the president.

That’s the same president the Australian government is relying on to stick to the Aukus deal. A deal it is currently reviewing. It looks increasingly likely that the review will come back demanding what could be described as conditionality on steroids. Australia getting those Virginia class submarines will be conditional on two factors: first, the needs of the US Navy being met in all respects first, which even the Americans think is unlikely. And second, an Australian pre-commitment to future US military adventures. That should be a red line for any sovereign nation. And it should encourage us to be as fickle as possible and rethink the deal in its entirety.

It shouldn’t have to be said, but really – in a healthy democracy, putting a deal the size and scope of Aukus to a parliamentary review should be welcome. Not least because we’re now dealing with an administration that at best could be described as “fickle”. 

If you’re feeling fickle yourself, you can pop on over and sign our petition calling for a parliamentary inquiry into the Aukus deal. 

It turns out our governments aren’t just giving most of our gas away for free to foreign owned gas corporates. They’re also handing back the much of the meagre royalties they do bother to collect!

Yes, that’s right. The same governments who don’t charge any royalties on over half the gas exported from Australia, who managed to concocted a Petroleum Resource Rent Tax that no gas export projects has ever paid, are now funneling the meagre royalties they do collect on oil back to Chevron, Santos and Exxon.

That’s at least $500 million, almost half the royalties these companies have paid for their lucrative Barrow Island oil project over the last 40 years, to clean up the environmental destruction of one of WA’s most important ecosystems.

Yes, these companies have managed turn WA’s second largest island, and formerly pristine Class A nature Reserve, Barrow Island, into a “contaminate site” as it is now classified by the WA Government. Even if thats possible, itwill cost a bomb, and Ausie taxpyers will food the bill.

If you or I get caught littering, we pay a fine. If Big Gas destroy an island, they get a tax refund.

Its complete policy and regulatory failure. Big Gas has captured out governments. Surely its time for a comprehensive public inquiry into the mismanagement of Australia’s gas resources!

I’ve asked organisers for a list of politicians who have read out names from the book of Palestinian children killed by Israel. This vigil comes after Australia signed a statement calling for an immediate end to Israel’s war on Gaza by the way. It’s not as if it’s ‘complicated’.

Ed Husic – Labor

Mehreen Faruqi – Greens

David Shoebridge – Greens

Larissa Waters – Greens

Nick McKim – Greens

Penny Allman-Payne – Greens

David Pocock – Independent

Independents Andrew Wilkie and Fatima Payman are scheduled to read names later today. Labor’s Alicia Payne had been scheduled (and was among the list of names on the vigil’s media alert, but cancelled. Independent Sophie Scamps came to the vigil but did not read names.

Other notable names include Mohamed Duar, the Amnesty Lead for the Occupied Territories of Palestine, Dr Jordy Silverstein, cultural historian and advocate , Sarah Schwartz, lawyer and executive officer of the Jewish council of Australia, Suzan Waheb, the president of the Palestinian Christians Australia, Sara Saleh, author and poet, Ahmed Abadia from the Palestine Justice Movement in Sydney, author, broadcaster, writer and speaker Clementine Ford and First Nations rapper Dobby and so many more – health care workers, midwives, actors, activists and just people who needed to do more than just watch.

Meanwhile Sussan Ley did the rounds this morning. She is trying to keep a chipper face on things.

Asked how she was feeling by the Nine Network,and whether it was a bit frosty in the church yesterday (you can see the pics below where Mike Bowers caught Ley and Albanese looking like divorced parents at a wedding) Ley said:

It’s terrific to be back doing a strong job in opposition, holding the government to account, and working constructively for the national interest for the Australian people. The Prime Minister and I are fine, by the way. We see each other at many public events, and we see each across the despatch box, too. And we’ll be doing that today at 2pm.

Sorry for the whiplash in posts. Covering Australian politics while bearing witness to a genocide is a strange time.

Jason Clare has introduced the legislation to cut existing HECS/HELP debts by 20%.

That will help those who are already in uni, or have been, but it does nothing to help those who are entering uni and paying the fees set by the Morrison government, which Labor have not addressed.

Clare says it’s ‘under review’ which is cool, but also, Labor has been in power for three years now, so it’s not as if they haven’t had time.

And a reminder – Australians pay more HECS than gas companies pay PRRT

I just spent 10 minutes reading three pages of names of children who have been killed in Gaza by Israel over the last 22 months.

This is just the names who have been recorded.

They are babies. Just kids.

At the same time there is a giant group having a photo outside the house, jovial, enjoying their time outside Australia’s parliament, in front of a building built on a hill, with a lawn on top because politicians should always remember the people sit on top of them.

That group are looking towards the War Memorial, which honours Australian soldiers who have served, and lost so much including their lives, for Australia. Including those soldiers who who fought and died in battles in Palestine.

We are supposed to up hold the freedoms they fought for. That’s why the parliament looks towards the war memorial – to remember the cost of freedom.

We are failing. We are failing. We are failing.

Independent ACT senator David Pocock is now reading names.

He too is getting very emotional as he reads the ages of the children.

There are a handful of people observing the vigil, and they are all connected to the organisations which have been advocating for Palestine.

It’s very disappointing to see how few people from inside the parliament, have stepped outside to at least witness the vigil.

We have dropped by the Voices for Gaza vigil, where Labor’s Ed Husic just finished reading a list of names from the book of children who have been killed by Israel. There are 17,000 names in the book and it only covers the deaths of children recorded before all of Gaza’s civil and health systems collapsed. There are thousands more.

Husic thanked organisers for letting him be part of it. He was visibly moved by reading the names of infant children.

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare will introduce legislation to slash student debt by 20 per cent and increase the income that graduates need to earn before minimum repayments kick in.

It’s the first bill that the Albanese government will put before parliament at the start of its second term. 

People earning between $60,000 and $180,000 will save hundreds of dollars each year under the changes. 

Someone on $70,000 will save the most, $1300 a year, on minimum repayments due to an increase to the thresholds at which the debts must be paid back.

Savings vary between incomes in the bracket, with people pocketing anywhere from $200 to $850.

Bruce Chapman said it would make it fairer by giving those on lower salaries more money in their pockets, while their debts remain the same in nominal terms.

“It looks bigger, in real terms it’s not bigger,” the architect of the HECS scheme told AAP. 

But the top priority should be reviewing the price of each degree because humanities students finish with the highest level of debt and end up being the lowest-paid graduates.

“All the prices are wrong,” Professor Chapman said.

Mr Clare said reforms were being looked at, after the failure of the former Liberal government’s job ready program.

The program aimed to fill skills shortages by making it cheaper to study courses like teaching, nursing and psychology while doubling the cost of popular degrees including law, communications, business, humanities and the arts.

“If the intention there was to reduce the number of people doing arts degrees, it hasn’t worked,” Mr Clare said.

“People study the courses they’re interested in, that they want to do, that they love.”

The universities accord final report branded the program “deeply unfair” because it punished students following their interest, and called for it to be scrapped.

It recommended that fees reflect future earning potential, as part of 47 recommendations to reform the sector.

Other aspects about how HECS is paid off also needed to be addressed, Prof Chapman said.

The segment ends with Albanese asking for luck for the first question time of the new parliament later today.

Kyle says he hopes none of the Greens bring up his show again, as “they are not fans of the show”.

Albanese says, “well, they are difficult people”.

And that has been another episode of the Prime Minister of Australia does FM radio.

Kyle and Jackie O are now speaking to the prime minister about their producer Peter who often goes to Russia and has just returned from a trip to Moscow.

Kyle (who has spoken about his time being homeless) then asks Anthony Albanese about homelessness and what he is doing about it.

They will have a chat about it.

Does Anthony Albanese get woken up by a security person “or some sort of servant or something?”

No.

He gets woken up by Toto.

“She jumps up, ‘I want to go outside, I want to go outside’.”

There is also a special phone that also rings from time to time, including the time Joe Biden rang to say that he couldn’t come to Australia for the Quad meeting. It also rang when the Queen died.

“I have no idea what the number is,” Albanese said of ‘the phone’.

There is a bit of a trip down memory lane about Operation London Bridge (the protocol when the Queen died”.

Now we are talking about what Albanese wears to sleep, if anything.

“No one wants to know,” Albanese says, in the truest words spoken this week.

Anthony Albanese is continuing his media policy of speaking to everyone – he will be speaking to Kyle and Jackie O in the next ten minutes or so.

There will no doubt be a lot of Black Sabbath talk, given the death of Ozzy Osbourne.

The Greens may be preparing for the first parliament sitting, but they too have to wrangle with internal issues. The party co-founder, Drew Hutton, was expelled from the party after he refused to delete transphobic comments made by others commenting on a Facebook post he made in 2022.

Hutton did an interview with ABC’s 7.30 overnight, where accused the Greens of being “authoritarian and aggressive”.

You can read about the interview here.

Capital cities across Australia could face scorching temperatures exceeding 50C alongside a surge in extreme fire days unless the nation urgently slashes climate pollution and adopts a strong 2035 emissions target, the Climate Council warns.

The independent climate science organisation finds climate change is accelerating faster than previously predicted, and global efforts to combat it are falling dangerously short.

The Climate Council’s Stronger Target, Safer Future report published on Wednesday calls for Australia to cut climate pollution by 75 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, and reach net zero by 2035.

Chief executive Amanda McKenzie told AAP the federal government needed to step up and tackle the crisis when delivering its 2035 targets in the coming months.

A weak climate target was not a passive choice, she said.

“We found the weaker the target, the more risk of damage and disaster. We wanted to emphasise that if you’re advocating for weak targets, that is an active commitment to greater global disruption and damage,” Ms McKenzie said.

“Those who advocate for weak targets must articulate clearly their costed plans to support, relocate or protect the Australian community through unprecedented social and economic breakdown.”

The report revealed that Australia has already warmed by an average of 1.51C since national records began in 1910.

If global temperatures rise by 3C, the country would become unrecognisable after suffering catastrophic impacts.

Days reaching 50C could be common in cities such as Sydney and Melbourne and the number of extreme fire days could double.

A one-metre rise in sea levels, which is possible by the end of the century could put 160,000 to 250,000 properties at risk of coastal flooding.

“The combination of rising sea levels and increasingly intense low-pressure systems and cyclones greatly increases the damage from storm surges, inundation and coastal erosion,” the report says.

“Extreme heat, bushfires and severe storms put mounting pressure on urban infrastructure and dwellings, rendering many properties and businesses uninsurable.”

The report reveals strong targets are essential to protect Australians from worsening climate harm, open economic opportunities in clean industries, and enhance security relationships in the region.

It noted any target set lower than this raises the level of risk for families, community, economy and national security.

Australia also faces a staggering $4.2 trillion economic hit over the next 50 years if climate continues unchecked, the report found.

The federal government will set an “ambitious and achievable” 2035 emissions reduction target and commit to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, with its Net Zero Plan due in late-2025.

The pledge aligns with the Paris agreement, which Australia and 195 other parties adopted in 2015, which aims to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C and less than 2C.

Hannah Thomas, who may lose her eye after being injured in a ‘police interaction’ (got to love the legal terms has spoken to journalist Amelia Brace at 10 News+ about what happened last month:

It all happened very fast, and I remember feeling like that impact on my head and just thinking, ‘Oh my God, like, what was that?’” Thomas told Amelia Brace.

Then I was dragged away to another point. And at that point, I realised the extent just because of the throbbing. And I was like, ‘Oh, my face just does not feel normal.’

And I think at that point I was already like, ‘Oh my God. I think my sight might be affected.’”

Thomas says that “even if I don’t lose the eye, I don’t know how much vision I’m getting back.”

You can read more on that, here in The New Daily.

The Guardian reported last week that police were yet to withdraw the protest charge against Thomas

The Voices for Gaza vigil continues outside the parliament.

Organised by Action Aid Australia, Amnesty International Australia, Caritas, ChildFund Australia, MAA International, Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Oxfam Australia, Plan International Australia, Save the Children Australia, the vigil has seen people read out the names of the 17,000 children killed by Israel in Gaza.  

That was the full list before all health and civil infrastructure collapsed in Gaza.  The list would be much longer now.

People read names in the pouring rain last night and continued this morning.  They will keep going until the book is completed.  It is hard going, but necessary. 

Australia has signed up to the statement calling for an immediate end to Israel’s slaughter, but Australia also still sends weapon parts that end up in planes and weapons being used to kill Palestinian civilians.  Australia has not sanctioned Israel, it maintains diplomatic relations, and while the language has become stronger, it is still not clear. 

The Coalition meanwhile sees anything other than full throated support for Israel’s genocidal acts in Gaza as an attack on Israel.

The CSIRO has some fun news this morning – it has launched Genome Tracker, a world-first tool tracking Australia’s progress in sequencing the full genomes (genetic blueprints) of the nation’s 250,000 or so known and catalogued animals.

What that means is that it is working towards getting a full genetic blueprint of all the plants and animal species in Australia, which should provide insights into not just our environment, but what keeps it alive.

From the statement:

CSIRO’s Dr Kathryn Hall, ARGA project lead, said Genome Tracker is a step change in how genomic data coverage can be tracked, assessed and prioritised.

“Whole genome sequencing for plants and animals provides insights for ecology, conservation biology, agriculture and biosecurity,” Dr Hall said.

“It lets us peer back through evolutionary time to understand how species have adapted to the unique landscapes of Australia.

“Genome Tracker clearly shows which parts of the family tree of life have strong representation and which are under-sequenced or entirely missing.

“It helps researchers map existing genomic coverage and highlights under-represented areas for research.”

The ultimate goal is to have genomes published for a wide cross-section of Australian biodiversity.

Here is some of what we know so far:

• Tasmanian Devil (Sarcophilus harrisii): Australia’s first published genome.Released in 2011, it was critical for research into Devil Facial Tumour Disease, conservation, and as a model for cancer resistance studies.
• Tammar Wallaby (Notamacropus eugenii): The first kangaroo genome, fullypublished in 2012 after three years of work. It revealed the genes for encoding special antimicrobial proteins in its milk and around 1,500 smell-related genes.
• Regent Honeyeater (Anthochaera phrygia): The first honeyeater genome was published in 2019. It showed only a 9 per cent loss of genetic diversity despite low population numbers, highlighting the need to preserve remaining genetic diversity and prevent inbreeding.
• Numbat (Myrmecobius fasciatus): Published in 2022, the genome showed they have reduced bitter and sweet taste receptors, but enhanced umami receptors, as an adaptation to their specialised termite diet.
• Orange-bellied Parrot (Neophema chrysogaster): Genome published in 2025, the first for a critically endangered parrot. It will help strengthen captive breeding programs. The first parrot genome was only published in 2024.
• Southern Corroboree Frog (Pseudophryne corroboree): Published in 2025, this genome is three times the size of the human genome. The genome will help researchers understand which genes affect resistance or susceptibility to the chytrid disease. Ultimately, the conservation goal is to breed frogs’ resistance to the chytrid fungus for release back into the wild.

Ali France spoke about a lot of the people who helped her in life, personally, professionally and politically, but it is obvious a love for her sons is her true guiding force. She spoke of Zac, and of Henry, who died last year and how her grief was the undercurrent for her third campaign to unseat Peter Dutton.

The 2025 campaign was obviously my best,
And that is quite a bizarre thing because behind the curtain I was grieving and desperately wanting to hold my son Henry. 
He passed on February 20 2024, after an 18 month battle with Leukemia.
The week before, he was able to come home for a couple of nights.
He asked to sleep in my bed, next to his mum, like he did for years when he was little.
I watched him breath all night, in awe of him, his courage and his ability to smile every day despite unbelievable pain and the never-ending hospital stays and treatment.
I am so grateful for those hours.
He told me many times, that this election was my time.
He was convinced I would win and said a number of times, ‘don’t make me the excuse for you not doing important things’.
His words, his courage, were with me every day of the campaign.
Henry was instrumental in getting me to this place. 

When asked ahead of the campaign, I said I didn’t think that France would be able to win – that she had come close and Dutton could never bank on a safe seat, but that he had always managed to pull it off in his local community. I underestimated not just France, but the people of Dickson and their desire for change. It’s a good reminder that all politics is local, and there is only so much people will take.

We mentioned a little earlier that Ali France’s first speech to the parliament led to some tears in the chamber and beyond. Here is a small taste:

My journey to this place is not a sad story, nor is it a happy one, it is a human story.
It will shape me as a representative and has narrowed my focus…but it is not especially unique.  Most of the people I represent in the electorate of Dickson share a life of ups, downs, success, hardship, loss and happiness.  Winning Dickson was highly unlikely… and to some an insurmountable mountain.  With the very best Labor Party branch members, it took 7 years to climb, as a single mum, with one leg, battling one of the most prolific politicians of our time.

Highly unlikely, was also how the doctors described the death of my darling boy Henry from Leukemia last year, aged 19.  Despite the very best public healthcare, he is not with us… and he is so desperately missed. 

People often ask ‘how are you standing’.

I say, on one leg.

In that same interview, Penny Wong described diplomacy as a “tightrope” particularly when it came to balancing the US and China:

In terms of the United States, they are our ally. They’re our principal strategic partner. They are also our largest investment partner. None of that changes.

China is our most important trading destination. And it is such an important power in our region. We know that there are times where we will disagree with what China articulates.

But the world is not only those two relationships.”

Perhaps 2025 Wong should have a chat to 2020 Wong who wrote the essay, the ‘End of Orthodoxy’

Then, Wong argued:

Australia must take risks and have the confidence to shape the outcomes it seeks, she says, “rather than being caught in the slipstream” of US-China competition.

Australia will need to work harder to manage the risks and consequences of escalation, with “a greater premium on self-reliance and the preparedness to assert our interests”.

Perhaps a start would be reviewing the Aukus agreement (Australia is the only major party who isn’t reviewing it) to see whether the deal concocted in political interests rather than national ones, actually is a good move for Australia.

Late yesterday afternoon, after the blog was closed, Penny Wong gave an interview to Sky News where she discussed the statement she signed on Australia’s behalf calling for the immediate end of Israel’s war on Gaza. (As you can imagine the language in the statement was more passive).
The US didn’t sign the statement and the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, is having conniptions over it. Wong said:

First, it’s good to remember that President Trump has been a very strong advocate for a ceasefire and hostage deal, and so are we. The second point I’d make is, I think, the statement, which was signed by a number of U.S. Allies, so the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, Japan, as well as us. You know, I was one of 28, actually, Foreign Ministers representing our nations who signed up to the statement. You know, I think that statement reflects the real distress that Australians, so many Australians, feel about what they’re seeing in Gaza. You know, they are concerned, distressed, by the catastrophic humanitarian situation that we are seeing.

… I speak for Australia, and what I can say to you is that we are where so many in the international community are, which is, you know, we are clear in our condemnation of Hamas. We are clear in our condemnation of their ideology and their actions. We call for the release of hostages. We also say that civilians must be protected. We say aid must be delivered unimpeded. And these are all important to the Australian people.

Wong said she believed “President Trump has the greatest chance of any political leader of brokering a ceasefire”, using the Israel-Iran ceasefire as proof of his effectiveness.

…The U.S. President is the one who can most deliver the ceasefire that he and others, including Australia, have called for.

And on the Coalition’s criticism of Anthony Albanese not yet meeting with Trump, Wong said:

My criticism of the Coalition, which I have to say was not only accurate before the 2022 election, but also in the last term, and appears to be accurate this term, is that they don’t learn, and they always seek to create domestic politics in circumstances where you really need to be adult and mature and navigate a diplomatic relationship. That’s my criticism.

Barnaby Joyce has helpfully said he would vote for Michael McCormack in any future Nationals leadership tilt in an interview with the Australian newspaper, and McCormack says he will be voting for Joyce’s bill to scrap net zero (the bill that has no chance of getting anywhere in the parliament, but sure will suck up a lot of headlines and help hasten the end of this Coalition)

You can read the Australian article, here.

It includes this gem:

Mr Joyce said he would “happily back Michael for leader” but he was not agitating for a leadership change, despite admitting his relationship with Mr Littleproud had “broken down”. “Was I making calls on Michael’s behalf? Yes, I was,” Mr Joyce said. “If someone said ‘would you back Michael for leader? Yeah, I would. But am I going to move to create a change? No, I’m not.”

Hello and welcome to the actual first day of business in the 48th parliament.

There was quite a bit of emotion late yesterday as the first speeches began being read in the chambers. Ali France, the Labor MP for Dickson’s speech brought quite a few people to tears – in and out of the chamber.

We’ll have some of the first speeches a little later. We can also bring you more from the chamber thanks to Mike Bowers and The New Daily.

Today is the day business starts in the house of representatives (and the chamber).

Barnaby Joyce will be introducing his private members bill (co sponsored with other LNP MPs) to scrap net zero which is just the laugh we all need. Joyce likes to think of himself as a conviction politician – the conviction being whatever serves his own political needs best at the time being the conviction he’ll hold.

Lyle Shelton (there is a blast from the past) who is now with Family First has welcomed Joyce’s switch away from net zero (because there is one way to win voters back to the Coalition – appeal to fringe parties like Family First!) but says Joyce also owes Australians an apology for ever supporting it:

It was Joyce, as Deputy Prime Minister, and his Nationals’ party room who signed off on sending Scott Morrison to Glasgow in 2021 to pledge Australia to net zero by 2050. The consequences of that Coalition decision — soaring power bills, an unstable electricity grid, vandalised farmland, and economic pain — are now plain for all to see. Even current Nationals leader David Littleproud admits net zero is “almost impossible”.

Joyce is right to say the Coalition must stop copying Labor and offer voters a clear alternative. But Australians deserve an explanation: what has changed since 2021? If net zero was bad policy then, why support it? If it’s bad policy now, why not admit it was a mistake and say sorry?

Why didn’t he put up a private members’ bill in the last Parliament?

Just poetry.

Labor is focusing on lowering HECS/HELP debt by 20% for those with existing university debt (but again, it must be noted not doing anything to lower the cost of the degrees the Morrison government increased), legislating the new penalty rate regime and introducing legislation to address child care worker safety concerns.

The Coalition is still trying to pretend it is relevant (great sport) and the Greens are finding their feet.

And the world remains on fire.

The Voices of Gaza protest continues with people reading out the names of children who have been killed by Israel during its unrelenting slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. They read through freezing rain and wind last night in Canberra and are still going this morning. The weight of the book of 17,000 names should weigh on all of our consciences.

We’ll continue to cover what happens in the parliament, as well as outside, as the day unfolds.

Ready? It’s a three coffee day. Let’s get into it.