The Point Live: Coalition net zero fight looming. As it happened.

The Australia Institute is hosting a revenue summit at parliament tomorrow, where there will be all sorts of speakers, with all sorts of ideas for raising revenue, better tackle tax reform and housing, as well as help future proof industries, like manufacturing. Former RBA Governor Bernie Fraser will deliver a speech (named for him) tonight to help set the tone.

So I need to go get ready for all of that and bringing you the important parts from tomorrow, as well as what is happening in the parliament.

It’ll be at least a five coffee day. Pray for me.

In the meantime, thank you to all those who joined us today, and all those who came for the first time today – my goodness there were a lot of you! And we really appreciate it. We will be continuing to grow this project, and you’ll find The Point growing every week as we build something that hopefully looks more at the issues you need to know about, without the guff.

Speaking of guff, Dan Tehan is now on the TV, so we are going to run (there is a limit of how much punishment any one person should be made to take)

(For the record, he is avoiding answering questions on whether the Coalition still supports an east coast gas reserve, which was policy under Peter Dutton)

We’ll bring you more of the mess tomorrow – until then, get into good trouble and take care of you.

Patricia Karvelas then points out that contradiction we just highlighted:

Q: Isn’t it at odds with ‘everything is on the table? We’re prepared to do anything’? You’re saying ‘this is not a fait accompli, we’re not going to save this if we think it’s too high cost’?”

Tim Ayres:

Both of those things are true.

Karvelas:They’re at odds.

Ayres:

We will look at every responsible option, that means engaging with every option and working them through.

Because he was in the senate (and we try to avoid that place as much as possible) let’s see what Tim Ayres has to say about Tomago on Afternoon Briefing.

(He is the responsible minister, but other ministers took the questions during QT)

We have been engaged in a disciplined way with the owners of this facility, the State Government, for the future pathway through for this facility, the same way we’re engaged in Queensland in a similar facility and the government in Tasmania and Rio Tinto over the future of bell Bay. There is a different approach in each of the states from the facility.

Is the NSW government on the same page?

We’re working very closely with New South Wales. There’s a shared approach and the only way that you get to a successful outcome in a disciplined way that reflects all of the – all of the pressures that there are on governments in these kind of situations, is to have a shared approach between the governments and also the company in its investment strategy and its business plan and commercial viability.

But could it be too expensive?

In every discussion we’ll examine every opportunity. This is an important part of Australia’s aluminium sector. It’s not the only smelter in the country. But it’s important, it’s been there since 1984, it employs a lot of people. We’ll look at every option, but the future is uncertain. I really want to underscore this, there’s not a guaranteed outcome here by any stretch of the imagination.

Which is not what Pat Conroy and Chris Bowen were indicating in question time.

I was going to leave this entire stupidity, but Mark Di Stefano has the right take here:

Top Optus executives are set to be grilled over the telco’s disastrous handling of a deadly triple-zero outage, with calls for scrutiny of the emergency phone network.

A joint bid between the Greens and coalition for an inquiry into the September outage, which is linked to three deaths, is expected to pass the Senate on Tuesday.

The minor party wants to put the “blowtorch” on Optus and the communications watchdog’s relationship with the telco.

Optus executives might face a probe at Parliament House as early as Monday.

Opposition communications spokeswoman Melissa McIntosh said the triple-zero network needed to examined.

“I want the whole triple-zero ecosystem to be questioned and to be tested, to be prodded, and for people to have reassurance that every part of that process, every part of the business process, contract, everything is investigated,” she said.

Liberal senator Sarah Henderson, who will move to set up the inquiry, called on Communications Minister Anika Wells to appear before the sought probe.

A triple-zero custodian will be set up following the passage of legislation in the upper house on Tuesday to increase penalties for breaches to $30 million.

While the Australian Communications and Media Authority has set up its own inquiry into the outage, Senator Henderson said it was “woefully inadequate and riddled with conflicts of interest”.

An Optus spokesperson said the company had commissioned an independent review and was co-operating with the communications watchdog.

The minister has meanwhile notified the communications watchdog of an intention to establish a public register of network outages to ensure people are aware in real time.

“Triple zero is a critical public safety system and Australians need confidence that it will be available when they need it,” Ms Wells said.

How did Mike Bowers see QT?

(Captions by me – I will not let Mike take the fire I deserve)

Michael McCormack and all his friends

You just know that Chris Bowen would have been insufferable at school. You just know.

A lovely reader just asked me what I do immediately after question time.

I make a cup of tea (usually about my eighth for the day) and I spend a few minutes doing the Pablo Escobar alone meme.

Stupidly, the Coalition then use a question on whether or not the government will apologise for its energy policies. Which, look – there is obviously a lot governments should apologise for. And while it can be doing more on energy (a lot more – and the ACTU seem to be thinking the same thing given its recent campaigns) Tomago is not the result of Labor’s policies.

The Coalition, like all oppositions, is relying on these questions getting traction in the media, but not the answers, or the context. It’s lazy and dumb and does nothing to help the debate.

So what did we learn in that session?

The Coalition worked out that the CFMEU attacks were probably not nation grabbing so how lucky (again DEIDRE CHAMBERS) that there was a story on energy price predictions from before the election (which were mostly public) in the newspapers today. Of higher importance was the Tomago news, which is not new, but does show the pressure on the manufacturing industry in this country, which is not at all aided by the largely free-ride gas companies have received in this country.

The Coalition are smart enough to recognise that, but not to follow it through to a conclusion that would actually put the government under pressure – because, apart from the brief foray into gas policy (which included reserves and potential future taxes) under Peter Dutton, it has largely folded on the issue of gas. Which means it attacks Labor on renewables, which is not the problem, allowing Labor to just turn it back on the Coalition and its poor record on climate.

Independent MP Helen Haines gets a question:

My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure: The major and local community infrastructure program opened on 1 September as an invitation-only program providing up to $560 million to identified projects. With the merit-based growing regions program now out of money, organisations and councils in my electorate are asking how can they be invited to apply to this program? Minister, how does a community organisation or local government secure an invitation to the major and local community infrastructure program?

Catherine King:

As the member would know and I have had numerous discussions with her about this is, that, at elections, political parties make election commitments, and then under the grant rules, we are required to establish a program to then fund, assess and contract those election commitments. That is what that fund does.

That is the same way in which the community development grants program of those opposite was supposed to be used but, if I’m asked about that, I might talk a little bit more about that as well. But of course, in terms of what we are delivering in community infrastructure currently, we are already delivering billions of dollars of community infrastructure projects across our regions and our suburbs. Those programs have included $317.65 million through for suburbs, $67.6 million under the Urban Precincts and Partnerships Program, and the $230.3 million..

Haines has a point of order on relevance:

I appreciate the list the minister’s giving us, but the question was – how do our local councils and community organisations secure an invitation to this special program?

Milton Dick says he’ll keep listening that King stays relevant.

King is not happy:

I have specifically answered your question in relation to that program and what the requirements of me are under that particular program.

As I was saying, we are delivering billions of dollars of community infrastructure projects right the way through the regions and our suburbs.

And I note, in particular, there are a number of projects being delivered in the member’s own seat at the moment. She’s done very well out of the regional precincts and partnerships program, and the urban precincts and growing regions program as well.

And those projects, I know, are incredibly important to her community, because she’s advocated very strongly for them. From the Benalla Art Gallery, Eildon Community Hub, the baseball club, they are all community projects that have been delivered in the member for Indi’s electorate. There are projects I could list in seats across the country that I could indicate from the elects of those opposite and on the crossbench. The roads of Significance funding – an increase for local road funding right the way across the country in our regional areas.

Reader Pageboi has responded to one of the posts on energy costs:

I really appreciate the work TAI and others like Punters Politics are doing on the Gas problem, but I don’t think gas is the whole story. there’s also the insane decision to privatise the system, especially transmission and retail, all of which have to make their profits and must also be contributing to high prices. Just like child and aged care we shouldn’t have profit in essential services

So let’s take a look at that, from a report Dave Richardson did on this recently:

• AGL makes $755.01 profit per customer, per year for household electricity
• Origin makes $595.25 profit per customer, per year for household electricity
• AGL makes $414.04 profit per customer, per year for household gas
• Origin makes $417.57 profit per customer, per year for household gas
• Between June 1995 and June 2024, electricity prices increased at more than twice the rate of inflation.
• Between June 1995 and June 2024 gas prices increased at three times the rate of inflation.
• For every $100 of an AGL customer’s electricity bill $35 is profit, $34 goes to “network costs” (such as the cost of using poles and wires), $15 goes to “other costs” (such as advertising) and just $12 is spent generating electricity. $4 covers “depreciation and amortisation”.