The Point Live: Coalition still to land a blow on Albanese-less Labor, surprise surge in inflation. As it happened.

Given the mess of the day, we are going to pull up stumps, but we will be back tomorrow for the last day of this sitting week (there is one more, how lucky are we).

Walking around the parliament you can see people are already over it, which usually doesn’t happen until the Tuesday of the second week. Seems like this time, your parliamentarians are over-achieving when it comes to guff.

Thank you to everyone who sat through today – we are no doubt about to get a wave of messiness tomorrow, so make sure you get your rest. I have a feeling you are going to need it.

We’ll see you back early tomorrow. Until then, take care of you.

Over in the senate and Alex Antic is trying to get his Childhood Gender Transition Prohibition Bill back on the notice paper.

Greens senator Nick McKim just gave a lesson in fire and fury as he lashed out at Antic’s politics and that of the Coalition more generally when it comes to trans-people, including the Queensland government’s cynical use of a ministerial direction to restore a puberty blocker ban, after the supreme court upheld a parent’s challenge.

This division will be lost, but that it is happening at all is just ugh.

Question time may have ended but – on the other side of the same building – the Revenue Summit rolls on.

We are now hearing from a panel about how inequality and wealth is entrenched and growing, but not inevitable

“We need to reduce inequality to have a vibrant society,” said Dr Richard Denniss, co-CEO of The Australia Institute.

As Dr Denniss has said before, taxing things we don’t like to subsidise things we do like and need is economics 101.  

Dr Cassandra Goldie, CEO of the Australian Council of Social Service, presented some statistics that show how wide the gap is. 

“Both on income and on wealth, there has been siginficant acceleration on inequality,” Dr Goldie said. 

“We are going in the wrong direction if you care about greater equality”. 

She also pointed out how Australia is a low taxing nation by OECD standards, and a low spending nation by those same standards. 

It is a big reason why so many people in what is a rich country are living in poverty.

Kasy Chambers, Executive Director of Anglicare is arguing the case for investing increased revenue in people, particularly those who need it most, with initiatives like better employment programs. 

Dr Mark Zirnsak, Secretariat at the Tax Justice Network Australia, says a fairer tax system is a no-brainer.

He says it would ensure governments have revenue to provide services like health care clinics, schools, aged care, mental health services and law enforcement.

Thank you to Glenn for looking after The Point Live while I ranted about housing and heard from people much smarter than me (one of my favourite things to-be-honest) you have Amy Remeikis back with you for the next little bit.

Having looked at question time, you could almost see the relief from the Opposition benches that the inflation figures gave them something to talk about. And something meaty at that. While it is normal for an opposition to have to pivot when figures like that drop, there wasn’t much meat behind what they were pushing, which suggests they still don’t have a handle on where to take *gestures* any of this.

Australia’s natural environment is in crisis and its wealth is disappearing into the hands of a few powerful fossil fuel companies – but it doesn’t have to be this way.

On this episode of Follow the Money, Rod Campbell and Ebony Bennett discuss the lack of political will to properly protect the natural environment, a proposal for a 25% gas export tax to replace the Petroleum Resources Rent Tax, and new research showing that Adani cost Queenslanders hundreds of millions of dollars by selling coal at mates’ rates.

While people are talking about revenue-raising at The Australia Institute’s Revenue Summit, the Australian Taxation Office has sidelined the person who uncovered PwC’s leaking of confidential government information.

Michael O’Neill, a long-time public servant in the ATO, led the investigation into consultancy giant PwC’s conduct, which found that a former partner there had leaked confidential government briefings with clients. 

So, an expert at the PwC was being contracted by the Commonwealth government to help design laws which would ensure multinational companies paid a fairer share of their taxes. The same expert then turned around to share the confidential knowledge from that work with his clients, so that they could design ways to get around paying the new tax.

This was uncovered by the investigation of the Tax Practitioners Board (a regulatory body) headed by Michael O’Neill.

Only yesterday the Tax Practitioners Board announced another investigation into the PwC. And now they are supposed to proceed without the highly experienced investigator who broke open the case.

Is Australia serious about getting companies to pay their fair share of taxes? Are we serious about corporate accountability?

At the very least, Australians deserve to know why Mr O’Neill has been moved on.

Residents of the external Australian territory of Norfolk Island will have to wait at least another year before democracy can be restored.

The local council was sacked and administrators appointed in 2021 after a series of serious financial problems.

Prior to 2015, the island had its own Legislative Assembly.

Now, it’s being governed by two bureaucrats.

It is not represented in a state parliament and, in one of the great quirks of our federal parliament, islanders vote in the federal electorate of Bean in the ACT.

A short time ago, the Minister for Local Government and Territories, Kristy McBain, released a statement saying administrators Scott Mason and Gary Mottau would continue to be the quasi-Kings of the island until the end of next year.

The Australian government is committed to restoring local democracy on Norfolk Island. 

This extension supports a stable transition as we work together to deliver a governance model that reflects local needs and aspirations. 

I look forward to continue working with Scott and Gary to support a sustainable transition for Norfolk Island and its bright future.

Darren Chester, Member for Gippsland:

The New South Wales RSL has given evidence to the Senate inquiry into Labor’s defence honours Bill, saying it is disgraceful. “This bill will be completely detrimental to not only their physical health and mental health dash it will also devalue their service.” Minister, you know this bill strips away rights from veterans and ADF personnel who have delivered the freedoms we enjoy in our nation today. Will the government finally admit it has made a mistake and just bin this disgraceful bill?

Matt Keogh, Minister for Veterans Affairs:

I thank the member for his question because it provides me with a great opportunity to provide him and the House with some clarifications on the matters that he has raised. I’m grateful for that opportunity ’cause I’ve seen, over the course of the last few days, his blood pressure really rise, his anxiety level really rise, which might be of concern for members of our House about the member for Gippsland. But what I’m more concerned with is the way in which he has conducted his opposition

Speaker:

It doesn’t work that way. The member for Gippsland has asked a question. The minister’s answering. We’ve got to respect each other here. No more interjections from the member for Gippsland. I can hear you, trust me. I’ll give the call to the minister now to answer and return to the question.

Matt Keogh, Minister for Veterans Affairs:

What’s concerned me is the way in which the member for Gippsland has engaged in debate on this bill, creating anxiety and uncertainty and unclarity across the veteran community in respect to what this legislation is about. What I’ve encountered as a Minister for Veterans’ Affairs is concerns that have been raised by the defence honours and awards tribunal about the difficulty that it has confronted over many years over different chairpersons of that tribunal of dealing with long historical cases in front of it, and making sure that it is able to remain relevant in the work that it does to ensure that our veterans and our serving personnel can have decisions made by defence properly reviewed. And I think people understand. I know in my engagement with the veteran community around this bill and around many issues surrounding medals that they want to ensure that those decisions can be properly based in evidence, which is why we have many reviews of these matters, that they can be properly based in evidence, and that we see the integrity in the way in which that system operates. That’s what these amendments are designed to achieve. What is particularly troubling, though, is the way in which the member opposite, the Shadow Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, given he is a former Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and Defence Personnel should know better – is the way in which he has tried to suggest that these amendments would remove the capacity to be able to award honours to serving personnel.

Last night, ABC 7:30 reported that 9,000 firearms have been stolen in Australia over the last five years, with only one in four recovered. That’s one gun stolen every four hours.

The report was built on new research by Rod Campbell and Skye Predavec – and you can read it now on the Australia Institute website.

But the research only exists because of freedom of information laws. While some states made the information available on request, others required the Australia Institute to file a formal application for the information.

The report, Firearm theft in Australia: Two decades of stolen guns, is a practical example of why freedom of information laws matter. What Skye and Rod unearthed is of real public interest, with implications for public safety and government policy – but it wasn’t published by default.

That’s why it’s so concerning that the federal FOI system is broken – with fewer requests being granted in full and decisions taking longer than ever to process. Instead of addressing the culture of secrecy within departments and ministerial offices, the Albanese government is trying to put more barriers in place.

Over 7,000 people have already signed our petition calling for an end to government secrecy.

Looking through the responses from state and territory governments to Rod and Skye’s FOI requests, I was impressed. They certainly weren’t perfect, with some information missing or ambiguous. But compared to my experience in the federal system, state and territory public servants seemed quick, responsive and cooperative.

Democracy is a feedback loop, with the public passing judgement on the government at each election and the government acting in the name of the public. Without access to government information, that feedback loop breaks.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke sends the house into a chilled silence, answering a question about the need for a new AFP taskforce, which was launched a couple of hours ago.

Taskforce Pompilid has been set up to investigate a harrowing new trend, where vulnerable young women and girls are being “hunted, stalked and drawn-in”, coerced into carrying out serious acts of self-harm and violence.

Tony Burke:

The purpose of this taskforce is to deal with a form of exploitation and sadism that we all wish we didn’t have to be aware of. This is effectively because of an online network where the perpetrators are principally young boys and young men from Western, English-speaking backgrounds, and the victims are overwhelmingly young girls had a history of low self-esteem, mental health disorders, histories of self-harm, eating disorders, and other attributes that might lead them to seek connection online. The method has been that victims are pressured initially into providing compromising or sensitive information or images. Once the images have been provided, they are then blackmailed. Blackmailed into escalating acts of violence targeted at themselves, at their siblings, sometimes at strangers, sometimes at pets. In establishing the taskforce, the Federal Police are bringing together officers from their cyber, their counter-terrorism, their intelligence division, and also from the Australian Centre for Countering Child Exploitation.

Federal Police has received just over 100 reports of sadistic online exploitation. These reports have been received, some from our international law enforcement partners, some from the United States Center, and some from members of the public. It’s resulted in nine international and three domestic arrests. While the Australian Federal Police are doing their work with the taskforce, parents and children will often ask what they can do. The four pieces of advice from the Australian Federal Police are these: Stop the chat. Take screen shots, especially of the offender’s username. Report and block the account. Screen shot your own account information as well. And of course, all this information and the capacity to report is at the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation’s website, accce.gov.au. The best thing that anyone can, do no matter whether they’re involved or whether they know a friend is, is to tell someone about it. Tell someone it is not their fault. While the commissioner mentioned today that it has always taken a village to raise a child, sometimes it takes a country to protect them. Those people who are feeling threatened or exploited by these networks need to know that the Federal Police are there with them, protecting them. The government is there. The entire parliament is there. And the Australian people stand together with the work of the Australian Federal Police.

Shadow Treasurer Ted O’Brien is on his feet again, with another question to Treasurer Jim Chalmers about today’s inflation uptick.

The Treasurer has gone from bored eye rolling to annoyed tutting.

Ted O’Brien:

Will the Treasurer now concede it is time to stop Labor’s spending spree?

Jim Chalmers:

You can’t believe a word he says. The way that he just characterised my earlier answer has no relationship with reality. Leaving that aside for one moment, I think the Shadow Treasurer, once again, has impeccable timing, asking me about government spending and the budget position in the week that Fitch ratings agency has reaffirmed Australia’s triple A credit rating. The reason they’ve done that is because our budget position is one of the strongest in the G20. That’s because, unlike those opposite in ways unrecognisable to them in government, we’ve banked most of the upward revisions to revenue. We’ve found $100 billion in savings. We delivered two surpluses in our first two years when those opposite couldn’t deliver a single one in nine years. We’ve got the deficit down to about a fifth of what we inherited from those opposite. We’ve got debt down by $188 billion since we came to office, and that’s saving the Australian people $60 billion in interest … We’ll stack up our record against yours any day.

Back at the Revenue Summit we are hearing from a panel about ways to fix Australia’s housing policy.

In Australia we are seeing rising rents, declining home ownership and policies that favour cashed-up investors.

Josie Lee from Oxfam Australia argues Australia’s tax system is “fueling inequality”.

“We are seeing a system in Australia that is failing to tax wealth,” said Ms Lee.

“Negative gearing and the capital gains tax… has been driving up housing prices.

“If we really want to tackle the problem, scrapping the capital gains tax is a winner”.

Maiy Azize from Everybody’s Home says incresaed revenue would allow the government to make a huge investment in public and community housing.

“The government is taking a lot of action – the wrong type of action,” she said.

Advocate Jordan van den Lamb, also known as ‘Purple Pingers’, highlighted housing inaccessibility and the large number of long-term vacant properties that remain unoccupied amid our national housing crisis.

He said politicians are scared to lose votes and that’s why they are not doing anything to fix housing.

“Meanwhile, people are dying,” he said.

Shadow Treasurer Ted O’Brien has another crack on inflation:

Yesterday, the governor of the Reserve Bank said a 0.9% increase in core inflation would be “a material miss”. Today, it came in even higher. Given the Treasurer always takes credit for when inflation falls, will he now take responsibility for today’s news of inflation increasing?

Treasurer, Jim Chalmers:

Actually, I share credit when inflation comes down, as I have on many occasions from this dispatch box. I make the point that government is playing a helpful and meaningful role in our economic progress, but that the credit belongs to the Australian people, who work hard and provide for their loved ones and do the best they can. So if he’s going to get a very rare question, he may as well get it right and quote me accurately. I always share credit when things go well in our economy. And I take responsibility for working through the challenges as they present themselves in our economy. I take responsibility for the fact that this Cabinet and this government has cleaned up much of the mess that those opposite left us in the budget. I take responsibility for the fact that we work together with the Australian people to deliver two surpluses when those opposite couldn’t deliver a single one in nine years. I take responsibility for the fact that we’ve got real wages growing again after a decade of deliberate wage suppression and wage stagnation. We take responsibility for the fact that living standards are recovering after they were falling sharply under those opposite. We take responsibility to work through the challenges in our economy, whether those challenges are inflation or business investment or more work that we need to do when it comes to the sustainability of the budget. 

The first crossbench question comes from Rebekha Sharkie on out of pocket expenses for older Australians on home care packages.

Rebekha Sharkie, Member for Mayo:

Fred has a Level 3 Home Care Package. Today, his package covers his needs to stay home. Fred’s been advised, once Support at Home starts this Saturday, he will pay $21.87 out of pocket for each hour of cleaning, gardening, and meal preparation. Fred can’t afford this, and says he’ll be forced to cancel his care package. Can the minister explain how Fred not being able to afford homecare is putting the “care” into “aged care”?

Sam Rae, Minister for Aged Care:

The Albanese Labor government’s once-in-a-generation aged care reforms are focused on ensuring that we have an equitable and sustainable aged care system that delivers the care that every older person across our country needs and deserves. The new funding model is designed to make our aged care system more sustainable and to encourage investment in new facilities. These are both important parts of our plan to support the growing needs of an ageing population. In the next 40 years, the number of Australians aged over 65 is expected to more than double, while those 85 or older will more than triple. We worked closely with those opposite to seek a bipartisan approach to aged care sector sustainability. The new Aged Care Act, which starts this weekend, legislates a new funding model which was developed in response to expert advice from the Aged Care Taskforce. Under the new model, people who can contribute to their care will, while people who are less well-off will receive extra support. These changes are about ensuring that the government can afford to continue as the primary funder of the aged care system. Importantly, the government will continue to cover the full cost of clinical care for all residential and in-home care. A key feature of Support at Home is the services list, which outlines services that can be accessed under the program. The department engaged with it a range of aged care stakeholders to test and refine the Support at Home service list to ensure it recognises the needs of older people in the context of the broader universal health system, including Medicare. There are protections in place so that people aren’t worse off. A person who is in residential aged care when the new laws come in will remain under the current means-testing arrangements unless they choose to opt in to the new system, and with Support at Home, the in-home care program, the no-worse-off principle applies so, anyone who was in the system before 12 September 2024 will have their contributions grandfathered. Older people having difficulty paying their co-contributions will be able to apply for very substantial hardship assistance through Services Australia and a lifetime contribution cap will apply for everybody. Our goal is to make sure that every older person across Australia can access the safe, dignified, and high-quality care that they need and deserve.

Opposition Leader, Sussan Ley:

Earlier this year, the Treasurer went on a victory lap, declaring inflation is down substantially and in a sustained way. Yet today, inflation has shot up above all expectations, jumping to 3.2%. This means no relief for households, no relief when seeing the doctor, no rate cuts in sight and families paying an additional $1,800 on their mortgage. With Australians suffering through the largest decline in living standards in the developed world, why is it, when Labor fails, Australians always foot the bill?

Treasurer, Jim Chalmers:

If the Opposition Leader really cared about cost-of-living pressures, she wouldn’t have just gone to an election promising to increase taxes on every single taxpaying Australian worker. If they cared about cost-of-living pressures, they wouldn’t oppose our efforts to provide responsible cost-of-living relief. 

Inflation is higher than we’d like, but it is around half what we inherited from those opposite. And so, if those opposite want to make this point about inflation at 3%, what do they say about inflation that they had running north of 6% and rising when we came to office? Inflation is half what we inherited from those opposite … they were spending more, they had bigger deficits, and they had more debt. The point that I would make about the numbers today more specifically is that the headline number increased largely as a result of the end of state energy rebates, but it is still much lower than its peak.

First question is from Opposition Leader Sussan Ley to Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles.

It’s a loose reference to today’s slight uptick in the national inflation rate.

Sussan Ley:

Because of Labor’s economic vandalism, households are paying 15% more for their food, 20% more for their insurance and nearly 40% more for their electricity in the last year alone. Australians are suffering through the largest decline in living standards in the developed world during Labor’s cost-of-living crisis. Why is it that, when Labor fails, Australians are always left to foot the bill?

Richard Marles:

What today’s figures demonstrate is that Australian households are still under pressure and we understand that the work is never done, which is why we will continue to pursue cost-of-living measures. But it is worth noting that even the headline inflation rate today is about half of the headline inflation rate that we inherited when we came to office. Indeed, the core inflation rate today means that, for three successive quarters, the core inflation rate has been within the Reserve Bank band. That is in no small part due to the way in which we have been managing, in a prudent way, the Commonwealth budget. Annual spending growth under our government over the last three years has averaged at about 1.2%. When those opposite were in government, the average increase in annual spending was around 4.1%. They doubled debt before the pandemic, and they left us with a trillion dollars of debt with absolutely nothing to show for it.

Ebony Bennett, Deputy Director of  The Australia Institute, has told the Revenue Summit that Australians are right to demand better scrutiny of the $368 billion AUKUS agreement.

Research from The Australia Institute shows two-thirds of Australians want a review of AUKUS, while fewer than half think it will make us safer. 

“The AUKUS deal comes with no guarantees for Australia,” Ms Bennett said. 

“Not only do we have no guarantees, there’s nothing in the print (or fine print) to say that if Australia doesn’t get submarines there’s no guarantee Australia will get its money back. “

“That is what the Australian government has signed up to”. 

Imagine what else Australia could spend $368 billion on… 

You can sign a petition calling on a Parliamentary Inquiry into AUKUS here: https://nb.australiainstitute.org.au/aukus_parliamentary_inquiry_now

As US President Donald Trump prepares to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time since 2019, he’s coming off the back of what many in his administration will view as triumphant tour of South East Asia. 

In Malaysia, he pitched himself again for the Nobel Peace Prize, claiming credit for the ceasefire between Thailand and Cambodia (never mind that it was largely mediated and delivered by Malaysia). He made his role in signing the ceasefire a condition of his visit to Malaysia, once again upstaging his host.

In Japan, he addressed US troops and crowed about Japanese investment in America. He also signed critical minerals deals with both Japan and Malaysia (newsflash: we aren’t special).

But as usual with Trump, the devil is in the (lack of) detail. Malaysia seems to have only promised to not do something: it “committed to refrain from banning, or imposing quotas on, exports to the United States of critical minerals or rare earth elements”.

Same with Japan, where the two nations agreed only to “support the supply of raw and processed critical minerals and rare earths crucial to the domestic industries of the United States and Japan.”

Xi is many things, but silly is not one of them – he knows who he’s dealing with. Trump might think he’s walking into the meeting with the upper hand after all this deal making and his promises of a great new deal with China. We can never really know how these things will go, but it seems likely Xi will give Trump his deal, in the full knowledge that Trump only wants the glory and a photo op.

In the words of Matt Duss from the Centre for International Policy in Washington, D.C.: “You can’t trust Donald Trump. But you can trust Donald Trump to be Donald Trump.”

The President’s self-interest is usually at the heart of his “deals”. We’ll know more after their meeting on Thursday, but as always – treat Trump’s big announcements with the scepticism they deserve.

We are in the down hill slide towards question time, which means we don’t have long to hold on to whatever is left of your sanity today.

I’ll be speaking on a panel at 2pm, which means I will miss this QT (oh, how will I survive?!) which means you’ll be in the hands of Glenn Connley for the worst hour of the day.

Go grab whatever you need to get through it. Dealer’s choice.

Back at the Revenue Summit we are hearing from a panel about the cost of energy, and how big, foreign-owned gas companies are taking the piss out of Australians. 

“The gas price hurts everybody,” said Geoff Crittenden, CEO of Weld Australia. 

The discussion is about how in other sectors, users pay for what they consume (bakers pay for flour, builders pay for bricks, commuters pay for public transport).

However, foreign companies pay little to no royalties, petrouleum resources rent tax, or corporate tax. 

Deidre Willmott, Strategic Advisor at Fortescue, has been talking about the need move away from disesel subsidies and instead redirect incentives towards cleaner technologies. 

Greg Jericho, Chief Economist at The Australia Institute, has highlighted the many ways that “big gas is taking the piss”. 

Australians pay more in HECS than gas companies pay in PRRT,” said Mr Jericho.

In Western Australia, drivers pay more rego than gas pays royalties, and gamblers in Western Australia pay more tax from gambling than gas does from royalties”. 

Incredible, given WA doesn’t even have poker machines. 

This is something that survivors of sexual harassment and abuse have been advocating for on a national level and now Victoria has just passed the first tranche of legislation allowing people to break the gag clause in workplace sexual harassment cases.

As AAP reports:

Workers who sign a future non-disclosure agreement for sexual harassment will be able to break it under Australian-first state laws.

Long-awaited legislation was introduced to Victorian parliament on Wednesday to restrict the use of NDAs in workplace sexual harassment cases.

It would ban the agreements unless requested by a victim, stop employers from pressuring or influencing their decision and enable workers to terminate NDAs after providing 12 months’ notice.

There would be mandatory information statements and a cooling off period before signing, with workers still empowered to speak openly to police, medical experts or legal professionals.

Premier Jacinta Allan said the laws were an Australian-first and would curtail workplaces settling workplace sexual harassment complaints out of court.

The “entrenched practice” was leading to patterns of predatory behaviour being “covered up”, she said.

EY Chief Economist Cherelle Murphy also has some thoughts on the inflation numbers. Here is how she has interpreted them:

Annual headline inflation moved above the target band to 3.2 per cent in the year to the September quarter, up from 2.1 per cent in the June quarter. This jump was mainly driven by a 23.6 per cent increase in electricity prices over the year to September, as rebates in Western Australia, Queensland and Tasmania were used up. These changes were known to the market, meaning the data are quite a bit stronger than the collective expectation of a 3.0 per cent increase and the Reserve Bank’s forecast for a 3.0 per cent rise in the CPI in the year to the December quarter. 

Quarterly CPI inflation accelerated to 1.3 per cent in the September quarter, after a 0.7 per cent rise in the June quarter. This was the highest quarterly rise in the CPI since March 2023, with housing, recreation and culture, and transport the main contributors. Electricity prices were 9 per cent higher in the quarter given annual price increases and the timing of electricity rebates.  

Underlying inflation, as measured by the trimmed mean, which takes out the impact of volatile prices (including electricity) also ticked up, to 3.0 per cent in annual terms. This was higher than the June quarter read of 2.7 per cent and was also stronger than the market and Reserve Bank expectations. Worryingly, it is moving away from the midpoint of the Reserve Bank’s target band after being within target for the past two quarters.  

Services inflation rose by 3.5 per cent in annual terms, from 3.3 per cent in the June quarter, due in part to rising dental and vet services, as well as domestic holiday travel. Goods inflation surged to 3.0 per cent over the year to the September quarter, from just 1.1 per cent in the June quarter given higher electricity prices.  

The re-acceleration of the quarterly CPI will make the Reserve Bank very uncomfortable and means that a rate cut is off the table for the 3-4 November Monetary Policy Board meeting and a December rate move looks highly unlikely too. The Reserve Bank may very well continue the rate-cutting cycle next year, but the Board will want to ensure that inflation is moving back to the midpoint of the target band. It will also need to monitor conditions in the labour market. The slightly softer than expected September read for the labour force is not being viewed by the Reserve Bank as a reason to cut rates and so the inflation and labour indicators are consistent with a cautious approach at the moment. The Reserve Bank does not (at this stage) expect the labour market to soften much further, but if there were to be a rise in the unemployment rate, the monetary policy meeting decision would be much more complicated.  

Staff Writers

Speaking to the Revenue Summit, Independent Economist Saul Eslake says federal reform to the GST would deliver significant revenue. 

Recent analysis by The Australia Institute revealed that Australian states and territories are being short-changed tens of billions of dollars in GST revenue – enough to pay for some of the nation’s biggest infrastructure projects.

In fact, if the GST had kept up with economic growth, as it was intended to do, states and territories would have received an additional $231 billion in revenue in the time since it was introduced.

Let’s go back to the Revenue Summit at Parliament House, where Independent Economist Saul Eslake is talking about the problems with the current tax framework. 

He says without reform, Australia’s tax system is not going to generate enough revenue to pay for additional spending.

“Australia is unusually reliant on personal income tax (compared to other western economies),” he said. 

He said this is amounting more and more to an unfair burden on younger people, who rely on wages for income, compared to older Australians.

It’s a bit of a long one from the treasurer’s office today, which tells you there is a bit more than usual going on behind these numbers:

New figures from the ABS show that underlying inflation was at the top of the target band in the September quarter.

This means underlying inflation has now been between two and three per cent for three consecutive quarters.

While headline inflation increased last quarter, this was largely as a result of the end of state energy rebates, and it remains much lower than its peak.

Inflation has ticked up today, but it’s much lower than what we inherited, and that reflects the substantial progress we’ve made together in our economy.

When we came to office, inflation was high and rising rapidly – now it’s much lower.

Underlying inflation was almost five per cent when we came to office. It was 3.0 per cent through the year to the September quarter.

When we came to office, headline inflation was 6.1 per cent and climbing – now it’s about half of that.

Headline inflation was 3.2 per cent through the year to the September quarter.

While monthly headline inflation did tick up to 3.5 per cent, the Annual Trimmed Mean measure was in the band for the tenth consecutive month at 2.8 per cent.

The progress we’ve made on inflation has given the Reserve Bank confidence to cut rates three times this year.

The global economy is volatile and uncertain and that impacts inflation in economies around the world.

Inflation has ticked up in the most recent data for every major advanced economy, except the United Kingdom where it was flat but remains much higher than here.

We’ve also seen core inflation tick up in the Euro area.

Our policies including energy rebates, cheaper child care and our back to back boosts to Commonwealth Rent Assistance have helped to directly reduce inflation when it was at its peak, to allow time for the structural drivers of inflation to settle and for underlying inflation to return to the RBA’s target band.

Since Labor was elected, inflation is down, debt is down, real wages are growing, unemployment is low, and interest rates have fallen.

While we’ve made good progress on the economy together, we recognise the job is far from over because people are still under pressure, which is why we’re continuing to roll out responsible cost of living relief including tax cuts for every taxpayer, slashing student debt, cheaper medicines and more bulk billing.

Labor’s economic plan is all about helping with the cost of living at the same time as we modernise Australia’s economy to boost living standards.

We know the best way to improve living standards is to make our economy more productive and resilient and our budget more sustainable and that’s our focus.

Electricity prices jumped as state based rebates ended. This can be expected to continue for a little while yet as the support from state and federal governments is removed.

There was a big increase in property rates and charges as state and local  governments adjust these in the September quarter each year. Rising house prices may well be fueling this increase.

What the new figures really highlight is that this increase has been driven by non-discretionary items, things that people can’t do without. This means that it will hit poorer people harder.

On the positive side the increases in rents continues to slow. Food inflation was also steady a 3%.

These figures will make an interest rate cut next week less likely. While there is nothing that should give the RBA real concern, the board has been very timid in cutting rates and they are likely to use this as an excuse to keep rates on hold.

Ben Udy, lead economist for Oxford Economics Australia, has analysed today’s inflation data and he is feeling a little more optimistic about future rate cuts:

Udy says:

• The 1.3% q/q rise in the CPI was faster than the RBA had been anticipating and delivers the knockout blow to any remaining hope of a November rate cut. While the uptick in the unemployment rate in September had created a tricky situation for the Bank to navigate, the strength of the Q3 inflation data more than offsets any concern about the labour market.
• The inflation strength was driven by a broad-based increase in prices. To be sure,  the anticipated 9.0% q/q rise in electricity prices, as the government’s energy subsidies ended, played a big part. But trimmed mean inflation – which removes extreme price movements – still rose 1.0% q/q in the quarter to be 3.0% higher than a year ago. What’s more, annual services inflation edged up to 3.5% from 3.3% in June.
• The upshot is that inflation is too hot and too widespread for the RBA to consider a November rate cut.
• Looking ahead, we still think rate relief is on the way. The strength in today’s inflation data is largely temporary; as the impact of the unwind in electricity rebates fades, wage growth continues to cool, and global trade disruption increases the flow of cheaper imports into Australia, we expect inflation to ease meaningfully over the year ahead. At the same time, we expect the deterioration in the labour market to persist, forcing the Bank to cut rates toward neutral. We’ve pencilled in two rate cuts in the first half of 2026.

Murray Watt also tells Jake Evans that the Coalition and Greens have ‘already paid a price’ for blocking the government’s ‘reforms’, so he hopes they reflect on that and pass his environment bill (a reminder Labor had done a deal with the Greens in the last parliament to pass the bill, but Anthony Albanese pulled it because it made people like WA premier Roger Cook and the mining industry sad)

Watt:

It would be a very poor signal from the Coalition and the Greens coming out of an election where they both paid a political price for blocking the government’s reforms. If they have not heard that message from Australians that people want us to get on with it.

We are trying to achieve progress here, progress for the environment in progress for business and for housing and other things like that and I think it would be a very sad reflection on the Coalition and the Greens if they repeat what they did last time and simply get in the way and obstruct for their own political gain.

We know that there are all sorts of leadership turmoil within the Coalition and it would be really disappointing for the country if Sussan Ley put her own political interest and her survival over the needs of the environment and business and, equally it would be a terrible outcome for the environment if the Greens absolutism and refusal to sit down and talk and make progress means that the environment continues to suffer.

Can Murray Watt say how much faster his laws would speed up approvals (which is one of the aims for the laws, under this government)

He tells the ABC’s Jake Evans:

It is difficult to speculate precisely because it does depend on the individual project but the aim of these reforms is to make sure that we can get assessments and approvals done in years rather than decades and months rather than years. Even some of the changes to the approach we have undertaken in the last few months are seeing approvals get through more quickly than they have traditionally done but the reality is that the processes under the current legislation are still very time-consuming and very confusing for people and they are holding things up.

In the last 10 years, 271 projects have come up for approval and 269 were given the big green tick.

The RBA was expecting to see a big jump in headline inflation – that is everything, but the increase in underlying inflation has been a surprise (underlying has all the volatile stuff taken out – trimmed mean is the average of the trimmed CPI basket – they ‘trim’ the big price movements from both ends and look at what is left)

Headline increased from 2.1 to 3.2 and underlying increased from 2.7 to 3%

So far, other than electricity it is not immediately obvious why that happened. There will be a lot of economists pouring over spreadsheets at the moment.

Well, senior economist Matt Grudnoff will have more for you soon.

But it will mean, based on what the RBA looks at, no rate cut at next week’s meeting.

Michelle Marquardt, ABS head of prices statistics, said:

The CPI rose 1.3 per cent in the September 2025 quarter, which is the highest quarterly rise since March 2023. The largest contributor to this quarterly movement was Electricity costs, which rose by 9.0 per cent.

Part of the reason for the increase in electricity costs is because the subsidies the government applied have flown through the system and expired.

The ABS has released the latest inflation data and says:

Trimmed mean annual inflation was 3.0 per cent to the September 2025 quarter, up from 2.7 per cent to the June quarter. This is the first time Trimmed mean annual inflation has increased since December 2022.

(It is 3.2% through the year)

Trimmed mean was up 1% for the quarter and 3% through the year

The Greens have joined the Coalition in welcoming the national auditor’s decision to take a look at the Housing Australia Future Fund.

Senator Barbara Pocock said:

From day one, the Greens warned that Labor’s Housing Australia Future Fund was too complex and too slow to deliver homes for the tens of thousands of Australians caught in a deep housing crisis.

The Greens welcome the ANAO audit. Australians deserve to know why Treasury designed such a convoluted scheme that even developers say they can’t make money off.

Hundreds of millions have been allocated but it appears very little of it has been spent on building homes. That’s unacceptable in the middle of a housing crisis.

This is a billion-dollar fund with little to show for it. The HAFF is a slow, clumsy, and cost-ineffective way to fund housing and it’s opening the door for private developers to profit while people can’t find a home.

Why isn’t the government investing directly in public and community housing? The government should be directly investing in public and community housing. It’s faster, cheaper, and it worked the last time Australia faced a housing crisis in the postwar years. We know we can do it. We’ve done it before.

Labor has already admitted it won’t meet its 1.2 million homes target and the HAFF is part of that failure. The resignation of Housing Australia’s Chair and the ANAO’s investigation shows the HAFF is in disarray.

It shouldn’t be this hard to build homes in a country that has solved housing shortages before through direct public investment. The HAFF is poor in design and poor in delivery. As a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee of Public Accounts and Audits, I’ll be closely scrutinising the ANAO’s findings to make sure Australians get answers.”

Liam O’Brien, Assistant Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, is speaking to the Revenue Summit about how a tax on gas exports could fix Australia’s housing problem.

The ACTU has proposed a 25% tax on revenue from gas exports to replace the “broken” Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT). 

“Australians are getting ripped off by the gas industry,” Mr O’Brien said.

“The rate of tax we collect from PRRT is laughable… (it is) riddled with loopholes.” 

Analysis by The Australia Institute shows ACTU’s call for a 25% tax on revenue from gas exports to replace the  would raise around $12.5 billion annually, enough to triple the Australian government’s housing expenditure.

Further to the new BOM website kerfuffle, it would be remiss of us to point out that this very liveblog has had a new website refresh of its own.

It turns out the best time to launch a new website is when the BOM launches a worse one (maybe?)

Thank you for all the kind words about the Australia Institute’s new initiative, The Point, and for all your patience with the little crinkles and technical bumps we’ve experienced along the way.

Please keep any feedback coming, and so long as the Nationals don’t call for a review, we’ll count it as a win.

(and therein ends the short commercial break, and back to regular live blog programming…)

An expert in carbon pricing has told the 2025 Revenue Summit that Australia is “on the path to comprehensive failure” without the urgent reintroduction of a carbon price. 

“There is a lot to like on putting a price on carbon emissions,” said Dr Ingrid Burford, Carbon Pricing and Policy Lead at The Superpower Institute. 

Dr Burford highlighted three big policy problems, which a simple solution like the carbon tax (which we already has seen worked in 2012), could help fix.

The biggest priorities she identified were:

• Australia need to decarbonise the economy (and fast) 
• Australia’s unsustainable budget
• Australia long-term economic challenges. 

The spokesperson for Everybody’s Home, Maiy Azize has written an op-ed for The Point, which you can read in full here, but we have pulled out parts for you to enjoy, here:

Fixing short-stay deductions should be the beginning, not the end, of reform. Australia’s entire system of investor tax breaks needs to be phased out and replaced with a big investment in public and community housing. Ending deductions for short-stays is a logical first step.

Ending negative gearing deductions for short-stay properties would be a fair and obvious first step. It would bring tax policy into line with what its defenders claim it does: supporting long-term rental housing. And it would mark the beginning of a broader shift toward fairness, away from policies that inflate prices and towards ones that expand supply.

Predictably, defenders of these concessions have argued that removing them for short-stays would achieve little. They claim most of these homes would never be available to renters anyway, and that they are permanent holiday houses. But if that’s true, then ending the subsidies won’t harm the market and will save hundreds of millions in public money. Taxpayers will stop footing the bill for holiday homes.

And if they’re wrong – if these tax breaks are what’s keeping so many homes tied up in short-stay listings – then ending them will bring those homes back into the rental market. Either way, Australia wins.

Our tax system should serve the public, not subsidise speculation. Reforming investor tax breaks would be fair, responsible, and is long overdue. It would send a clear signal that our housing system should put people before profits, and that in a country as wealthy as Australia, we can and must do better than using public money to fund empty holiday homes while millions struggle to find somewhere to live.

Maiy Azize will be speaking at the Australia Institute’s Revenue Summit later on today, and will be joining Senator David Pocock, Senator Barbara Pocock, Alan Kohler, Richard Denniss and Bill Code at the APH Theatre 6.30pm tonight for a panel discussion on how we fix Austalia’s Housing Affordability crisis + a special screening of documentary SOLD! WHO BROKE THE AUSTRALIAN DREAM featuring Mark Humphries. RSVP here.

Former Queensland Premier and state Labor leader Steven Miles has presented to the Revenue Summit, explaining why his state was ahead when it comes to coal royalties. 

When Miles was in power, the government changed its royalty scheme so mining companies paid more of the windfall from their profits to the state. That has already seen a financial boon for Queenslanders.

The Australia Institute estimates that the revised policy raised $4.3 billion in revenue in 2022-23.

“Because of this budget boost… we were able to deliver the biggest cost-of-living package in the country,” he said. 

Among the changes, kids got free kindergarten, and hospitals received funding boosts. 

So maybe it can be that easy.

Labor and the Coalition have voted against David Pocock’s private members bill that sought to enshrine a duty of care for future generations in legislation.

There was one exception – South Australian Liberal Senator Andrew McLachlan CSC crossed the floor and was one of the 14 votes for the bill (along with the Greens and independents Fatima Payman and Tammy Tyrrell)

The bill that would have imposed a statutory duty on decision makers:

1. To consider the likely impact of decisions that could harm the climate on the health and wellbeing of current and future children as the paramount consideration; and
    
2. Not to make a decision that could harm the climate if the decision poses a material risk of harm to the health and wellbeing of current and future children in Australia.

A petition supporting the bill has been signed by more than 26,300 people.

The Liberal Opposition in the ACT Legislative Assembly has dwindled from nine seats to seven after two MPs were suspended from the Liberal party room for voting against the party line. 

That means the crossbench of Greens, independents and now rebel Liberals outnumbers the official Opposition – unless the Liberals can reconcile.

What provoked Liberal Opposition Leader Leanne Castley to cut her parliamentary strength by one-fifth?

Elizabeth Lee (who led the party in the 2024 territory election) and former shadow minister Peter Cain voted for a Greens motion to extend the 2026 sitting calendar from 12 weeks to 13. In other words, they wanted the Legislative Assembly to sit for an extra week to give more time for legislation to be debated, the government to be questioned, and so on.

The motion was unsuccessful, so there will only be 12 sitting weeks next year – down from as many as 15 weeks in earlier years.

As I told WIN News last night, it seems like a weird “purity test” for the Liberals to insist on. The Liberals have always made it a point of pride that, unlike the Labor Party, they allow MPs to vote with their conscience. In this case, Lee and Cain weren’t even rebelling on party policy, but on parliamentary administration.

The Legislative Assembly is the Australian Capital Territory’s parliament. It is elected by proportional representation, so each electorate has five local members. While Labor has been in government in the ACT since 2001, for most of that time they have been in minority: governing with or otherwise sharing power with the Greens.

A larger crossbench gives the Labor Government three options for getting legislation passed: vote with the Liberals, vote with the Greens or vote with independents and suspended Liberals. That would be a coup for Chief Minister Andrew Barr, who has already celebrated being able to move away from the Greens towards “the centre” in this term.  

Federal politicians have demanded an immediate review of the Bureau of Meteorology’s revamped website after residents reported feeling unprepared during recent storms.

The bureau launched its controversial website on October 22, prompting Nationals Leader David Littleproud to criticise it as difficult to navigate and missing key tools relied on by farmers and rural communities.

The $4.1 million site redesign sparked complaints it was hard to use and did not indicate storm severity after wild weather wreaked havoc across Queensland and Victoria at the weekend.

“I am hearing from many locals that the new platform no longer allows them to enter GPS coordinates for their specific property locations, restricting searches to towns or postcodes,” Mr Littleproud said.

“As a result, families, businesses and farmers are unable to access vital, localised data such as river heights and rainfall information.”

The bureau’s acting chief executive Peter Stone defended the revamped site last week, saying it makes daily weather information and warnings easier to access. 

“We designed the new website in consultation with the community to make sure it delivers the benefits people want and need,” Dr Stone said.

The new website features design and functionality improvements to the most used pages, including forecasts, observations and weather warnings. 

Queensland farmer Paul White says the new website was “hopeless”.

“My main problem is that I have 6500 acres that go under flood waters and we have a gauging station that is 10 kilometres upstream from us,” Mr White said.

“When we have heavy rain I monitor that 24/7 because I have livestock and machinery. But now, I don’t see any meter heights anymore.”

Federal environment minister Murray Watt has since met with the bureau, saying the site was not meeting many users’ expectations.

He confirmed the bureau was considering the feedback and what adjustments could be made. 

“Australians deserve to have confidence in these important services,” Mr Watt said in a statement on Tuesday.

“The BOM website is a critical tool to ensure public safety, particularly during the High Risk Weather Season and it must deliver the quality information our hardworking BOM staff are known for.”

Hundreds of Queenslanders were still without power on Wednesday morning after wild weather hit at the start of the official storm season, which spans October to April.

About 11,000 claims have been received to date from Queenslanders, the Insurance Council of Australia said, with the weekend storms set to be escalated to an “Insurance Catastrophe” if numbers increase.

Taking you back to the Revenue Summit, where Professor Janine Dixon ,Director of the Centre of Policy Studies at Victoria University has made her address. 

The context of her speech is around the Productivity Commission reviving the idea that a company tax cut would boost prosperity, despite a study the PC commissioned showing Australians could end up worse off. 

“To make it simple: if you want more revenue, tax cuts are not the way,” Professor Dixon said.

Professor Dixon argues that GDP growth does not mean higher prosperity and estimates Australians could be $300 worse off per person. 

Basically, she said, the benefits of a company tax cut would flow to foreign investors who would receive windfall gains on past investments because the tax rate dropped. That would lead to overseas shareholders pocketing the benefits, while Australians see a decline in services, like welfare.

And it’s not like we have never done that before (ahem, gas exports)

Australian Greens Leader Larissa Waters has addressed the Revenue Summit, and says many Australians are struggling to pay for day-to-day costs: housing, food, climate, education, healthcare. 

“Corporate profits and bank balances of billionaires soar… it feels unfair because it is,” Senator Waters said. 

“Inequality is the driving force and the gap just keeps getting bigger.” 

Senator Waters pointed to the recent backdown from Labor on the superannuation changes as an example of government backing down to big business.  

She also said that capital gains discounts are needed to help address housing inequality.

“Neither major party is prepared to do anything to address housing inequality… it is unfair but it is by design,” she said.

Senator Waters has also highlighted unfair fossil fuel subsidies, and the flawed petroleum reosruces rent tax. She said that is money that could better be used to address inequality. 

Senator Waters said Since 2001, every single resources minister bar one has left parliament and gone to work for the resources industry. 

(What a coincidence.)

But Senator Waters said that change is possible. 

“We are not powerless here, there is hope,” she said. 

“These politicians have forgotten who they work for and we must remind them who they work for”. 

OK, inflation. What is the landscape looking like? Most economists are expecting a jump in the trimmed mean (the average once all the volatile bits are taken out) and are hoping it comes in at 0.8% or lower for the quarter.

If inflation comes in at 0.9% or higher, it will mean that inflation is coming in a lot higher than the RBA was anticipating (it had forecast it at 0.6% for this point in the cycle) and so if it is 0.9% or higher, then a rate cut next week is off the table, (and the conversation about will it raise rates, begins anew).

The unemployment rate is rising, which is something the RBA wanted, because it is stuck in the thinking that it is “too tight” to manage inflation, even though inflation dropped while unemployment was low. That does not fit the models, so the RBA and all those very employed, highly paid people making decisions on this, get quite uncomfortable when unemployment is lower than they think is correct.

It is very rare that they remember that they are talking about people. People who are made to subsist on below-poverty line welfare payments, because we punish them for taking one for the country and making it easier for RBA board members to sleep at night. (Yes this bothers me and it should bother you too, so no, I will not be ‘objective’ about people’s suffering because it makes the models look better)

Let’s go to the 2025 Revenue Summit. 

In his opening remarks, Australia Institute co-CEO Dr Richard Denniss pointed out Australia has one of the most ineffective tax systems in the world, despite being one of the richest counties in the world. 

“Santos has not paid company tax for 10 years in a row,” Dr Denniss said. 

“Property developers… pay no tax, and the artists pay tax on prizes they earn.

“These are choices we make as a society”. 

Dr Denniss said what Australia chooses to tax and subsidies pays a huge role in how we shape society, and society can’t be reshaped unless the tax system is. 

The Australia Institute’s Revenue Summit brings together economists and leading experts to discuss revenue options to meet Australia’s spending needs.

This year’s summit will contextualise debt, explore potential new means of revenue, challenge paradigms and reassess public spending priorities.

Speakers incldue: 

Hon Steven Miles MP, Former Premier of Queensland (2023-2024), Queensland State Opposition Leader

• Senator Larissa Waters, Leader of the Australian Greens, Senator for Queensland
• Senator David Pocock, Independent Senator for the Australian Capital Territory
• Dr Sophie Scamps MP, Federal Independent Member for Mackellar
• Leanne Minshull, co-Chief Executive Officer, The Australia Institute
• Dr Richard Denniss, co-Chief Executive Officer, The Australia Institute

On Friday, RBA Governor Michele Bullock repeated her predecessor, Phil Lowe’s complaints from 2020 that stamp duty tax was a handbrake on housing and productivity. (Stamp duty is what jurisdictions charge for doing the paperwork of transactions – and because of how the constitution limited how states could raise taxes, it is one of the main state budget revenue streams, which is why it goes up, rather than down. It’s now about $15,000 or so on the purchase of a house in NSW)

Everyone always complains about stamp duty, but no one actually knows how to get rid of it, given the revenue raising constraints previously mentioned.

Asked about Bullock’s re-raising of the issue Clare O’Neil said:

I’ve been really clear and on the record about this. Stamp duty does bring with it a host of things that aren’t great for Australians. It makes it much more difficult for families to move; it makes it harder for people to downsize and in that sense it’s not the ideal tax.

But having said those things, it is absolutely not a Commonwealth issue, and this is something that State Governments are very reliant on and it’s very difficult for them to change.

What’s really important to me with housing is that we don’t lose sight of the main game. We’ve got housing challenges in our country because for 40 years we haven’t been building enough homes, and our big focus is making sure that we address that problem. That’s why our Government’s got this huge $43 billion agenda that we are rolling out to build more homes, help renters get a better deal and make sure that more Australians get into homeownership.

…Some of the States have made attempts to move away from stamp duty and I’ve been really supportive about those, but this is a really big challenge that State Governments face and I would never, you know, get too into commentary about how they should deal with those things. These are State issues. Our role as a Federal Government is to do everything that we can to confront a housing crisis that’s been cooking in our country for 40 years, and you’re seeing our Government do that. Taking the Commonwealth from really not having anything to do with housing, the former Government for most of their period didn’t even have a Housing Minister, they were so checked out. This is a central focus of our Government, we’re building more homes, we’re getting renters a better deal and getting more Australians into homeownership.

So does Bridget McKenzie think it should be scraped?

Absolutely. If it’s, you know, if you’re going to actually be spending 65 grand to downsize your average home once the kids leave and free that home up for a new family, that’s a huge cost impost. And what the Reserve Bank Governor’s trying to do is actually encourage the Federal Government to take a leadership role, because housing and rent are skyrocketing. People are being, young people are being locked out of the housing market. And Clare, the reality is your housing fund has been referred to the Auditor‑General because it’s not building the houses that are actually needed. So I think the Federal Government has a lot of levers available to it to encourage States to get on board with reducing the barriers at their level, whilst also incentivising through their own mechanisms.

So Clare can talk all the talking points she likes on housing, the fact is their migration program combined with the lack of supply is meaning housing prices is going up and none of their solutions are working. In fact their own housing fund has been referred to the Auditor‑General for investigation for not getting any houses built.

Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie does not appear to be on-board Liberal leader Sussan Ley’s t-shirt attack. (Every time I think I have written the most stupid sentence possible about Auspol, I realise it is possible to go even stupider. The limit does not exist)

Labor minister Clare O’Neil was asked about it on the Seven network this morning and said:

We’ve got a Jewish community in our country at the moment that’s going through some really, really difficult challenges, and I am much more concerned about the fact that I’ve got Jewish kids in my electorate who are too scared to wear their school uniform, than I am about the PM’s choice of t-shirt.

I actually think this kind of ridiculous commentary trivialises and politicises the serious antisemitism that communities around our country are facing, and I just want the Coalition to get with the program here. Get on the side of the Australian people and focus and talk about the issues that matter to them, not try to make some fake news things out of a t-shirt that the Prime Minister is wearing when he gets off a plane. This is just ridiculous.

McKenzie, her debate partner for the segment, agreed. Because she like Joy Division.

Listening to Clare you’d think that this Government was taking tough action on home grown antisemitism here. They’ve got the report from their own antisemitism envoy sitting on their desk and they are yet to act on the recommendations, and they were given it in April.

Just on the t-shirt issue, look, there’s a lot to legitimately criticise the Prime Minister about; trillion-dollar debt, skyrocketing house prices, and job losses in our heavy industrial sector. Wearing a t-shirt isn’t one of them. I’m part of the troubled and forgotten X generation that came of age listening and dancing to Joy Division and New Order.

So yeah, get on with acting on antisemitism, Clare, instead of using this as a shield against your own inaction.

Not sure Labor is using this as a ‘shield’ given it was Ley who brought it up, but the spirit of ‘this is so stupid’ was at least there. And that really says it all right there doesn’t it? This is so stupid not even Bridget McKenzie wants in on it.

In case you were wondering if the Liberals had abandoned their own obsessions with culture wars, it is my unpleasant duty to inform you that Liberal senator Sarah Henderson is hosting Sall Grover in the parliament today. If you don’t know who Grover is, congratulations, I again envy you. Grover has made binary beliefs her entire identity and she has been supported in the political space by others who see no issue with marginalising one of the most vulnerable and marginalised groups of people among us, who want for nothing more than to live their lives.

One of the federal government’s signature housing policies is being audited amid concerns the $10 billion scheme may not be producing value for money.

The Housing Australia Future Fund was set up in 2023 to help tackle a national shortage of dwellings, and aimed to build 40,000 social and affordable homes by 2028.

But slow progress on the construction of new properties, along with reports that the average cost of a home under the scheme was more than $750,000, prompted the Opposition’s housing spokesman Andrew Bragg to request an investigation from the Australian National Audit Office.

“This is going to be a massive overpayment of taxpayer funds, which I think is a disgrace,” he told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday.

In a letter responding to Senator Bragg, Auditor-General Caralee McLiesh said a probe was already underway, and would be tabled in Parliament in June 2026.

“The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) will examine if Treasury effectively designed the HAFF and if it established effective delivery arrangements,” she wrote.

Senator Bragg claimed the National Anti Corruption Commission may also need to investigate whether big super funds had an unfair say in the design of the scheme.

A spokesman for Housing Minister Clare O’Neil sought to play down the audit, saying it was not uncommon for the office to investigate big projects.

“The ANAO commenced this audit more than a month ago,” the spokesman said.

“We look forward to its findings and see it as an opportunity to potentially improve on the HAFF.”

The housing fund was initally seeded with $10 billion in funding.

That money was invested in a similar way to other government funds, with the returns being used to build new social and affordable homes.

But the program has come under criticism after it was revealed the first few hundred homes under the scheme were existing dwellings which the government had bought, not built from scratch.

It is quarterly inflation data day, which has a lot of economists very excited.

The reason for the excitement is because it will point to what the RBA might do next. So far, it has been holding, and using the monthly figures (which are less reliable) as its reasoning. Quarterly always gives the better picture, and its what most economists rely on to see what is actually happening in the economy.

Just for the historical types out there, it is worth reminding people that there was a very big centrist push to ‘understand’ Hitler in the 1930s, with many praising the German leader (who had never been shy about his genocidal desires and hatreds) for his leadership and nationalist zeal.

That included, at one point in time, Robert Menzies, the founder of the modern Liberal party, who was reported to have given a speech to the national woman’s league, while attorney-general where he admired Hitler’s leadership style:

(That’s from the Port Pirie Recorder. You can find the record, here.)

If the Liberal party is still around by the next election, will it have a housing policy?

Bragg says yes:

There will policy on homelessness. There be a policy on affordable housing and social housing. These are important areas. But it is not, ultimately, going to be the main game. Because we need to build more houses in Australia. We have a major housing supply problem. Housing supply has this government. Under the last government, we were getting about 200,000 houses a year on That’s crashed down to houses a year on average despite the government wasting billions of dollars. So you’ve got to build more houses. The government’s failed to do that. Now, the audit office is going to look at how much taxpayer funds have been wasted. As I say, I’m very concerned that taxpayers are paying more than double or sometimes three times the average cost of a house in this scheme. So it’s very worrying.

But he says it won’t be by raising taxes:

As you know, about half the cost of building a new house goes in taxes and regulation. So I just think that raising taxes isn’t going to help.(It would cut down on people snapping up investment properties and then betting on the market increasing to make money) I think we want to have an easier system in which to build a house. We won’t have a plan to raise taxes. Our plan will be about building the houses through supply and development. We’ll be pro-Yes, In My Back Yard, we’ll be against the NIMBYs and supporting home ownership.

…Frankly, we’re going to be Australia’s last chance to get the Australian dream back on track. Because the housing stuff has been a disaster under Labor. The housing fund now is becoming like Pink Batts 2.0

People died in the pink batts installation scheme, which after many inquiries was revealed to be because of businesses cutting training in an attempt to cash in on a government scheme, rather than the scheme itself. To try and link the two is disingenuous at best. Bragg would know that, but the Liberals are at the point where desperation is driving their rhetoric, which is never a good sign.

After trying to defend Sussan Ley’s attack against Anthony Albanese wearing a Joy Division t-shirt (which as the ABC host rightly points out, was an issue not touched by any of Australia’s major Jewish groups yesterday or in the days since he stepped off the plane wearing it) shadow housing minister Andrew Bragg turns to his Coalition colleague Bridget McKenzie saying it was not the job of Nationals MPs to get Liberals elected.

Bragg told the ABC:

The Liberal Party has to look after itself but, clearly, we’re in coalition with the Nats. That’s something that’s held the country in good stead for many decades. And I hope that continues for many years. Because ultimately, we want to see the centre-right be maintained as a serious political force. That’s the best thing for our democracy. And that’s why we’re working through all these issues with the Nats. Look, I know that you probably find interesting to talk about, but we do have a culture of openness in the Liberal Party and the National Party, and we seem to talk about a lot of things. I mean, frankly, I wonder what the nation would talk about if the Liberal Party died. Because I think we’d sort of run out of things to discuss.

Later in the interview Bragg says net zero is a “non-negotiable’ for him.

Anthony Albanese is going to leave ASEAN and head to Korea for the APEC summit. Albanese will also hold some more meetings and lay a wreath for Australian soldiers killed during the Korean war.

Foreign minister Penny Wong will also attend the summit and will represent Australia at the APEC ministerial meeting.

Wong:

APEC meets at a critical time for our region and the world. Rising trade tensions and economic uncertainty mean Australia must continue to champion open markets and fair rules that deliver for Australian businesses and workers.

One in four Australian jobs rely on trade. At APEC, I will continue our work to keep markets open, reduce barriers and create new opportunities for Australian exporters.

Australia’s priorities include making cross-border trade more efficient through paperless trade, promoting policy reforms for trade in services, and advancing the economic empowerment of all peoples.

We are committed to strengthening the World Trade Organization and the transparent, rules-based trading system that underpins our economy. These rules protect smaller economies and ensure Australian producers and exporters have fair access to global markets.

Glenn Connley

More than 2,000 guns are stolen every year in Australia, according to new research by The Australia Institute. 

That’s one every four hours.

Based on data obtained from police in each state and territory, the paper reveals that at least 9,000 guns have been stolen since 2020 and over 44,000 since 2000. 

The new report builds on previous research showing there are now over 4 million guns in Australia, more than before the Port Arthur killings, and the subsequent reforms under the Howard Government.  

“Thousands of guns are flowing into the hands of criminals every year, putting Australians in danger,” said Rod Campbell, Research Director at The Australia Institute. 

“There are record numbers of guns in Australia and this research shows how easily they can fall into the hands of criminals. 

“Theft of legal guns is the main source of illegal guns in Australia, not 3D printing or illegal imports. It’s pretty simple – the more legal guns there are in Australia, the more illegal guns there will be. 

“Australia would be safer with fewer guns in the community overall, and governments need to work to reduce the number of guns in Australia and in each state and territory.  

“State and federal governments have been complacent, perhaps believing that gun control in Australia was sorted by the Howard Government in the 1990s. 

“This research shows that gun control and keeping the community safe requires ongoing efforts from all levels of government. 

“Australians might be shocked to discover that the Howard-era National Firearms Agreement has still not been completed. 

“If we don’t want to go down the path of America, all states and territories can follow Western Australia’s lead of capping the number of guns any one person can own.   

“There’s a clear path forward for governments to act.” 

The Australian Conservation Foundation has announced it will be launching a new legal challenge against environment minister, Murray Watt over his decision to allow the extension of Woodside’s North West Shelf gas project (that will now run until 2070. Watt is yet to reject any proposal for coal or gas).

The ACF will argue Watt failed to “consider the devastating climate impacts” when he made the approval. It’s arguing that Watt was not legally permitted to exclude the climate damage caused by the project when making his decision under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. It’s the second case ACF have filed against Watt this month and if successful could set a very important precedent for how these decisions are made.

ACF’s Legal Counsel Adam Beeson said in a statement:

When Labor came to power, we expected better. Minister Watt had clear scientific evidence and a chance to make a better decision than the previous Coalition government, but he backed in Sussan Ley’s flawed call and ignored the climate consequences of Woodside’s massive gas expansion.” 

…This gas project will generate nearly four billion tonnes of emissions. That’s almost ten times Australia’s annual domestic pollution. Yet our Environment Minister has decided that’s just a drop in the ocean. We vehemently disagree.

Beeson said the court was not the first choice, but the group, who are represented by Environmental Justice Australia, don’t have many other options.

Litigation is not easy. It’s risky and it’s expensive. We wouldn’t do this if we had any other option. And importantly, we wouldn’t have to take this route if Australia had strong nature laws to begin with, which made the government’s responsibility to deal with climate pollution crystal clear. 

But because our current nature laws are shockingly broken and favour polluting industries over the nature they claim to protect, litigation is necessary to argue that the Minister was required to deal with climate pollution.  

This case brings home why it’s so important Labor gets on with the task this week of making our national environment law actually work for nature.  

The test of Labor’s commitment will be the legislation that is tabled in Parliament this week. We need our new nature laws be up to the task of stopping terrible polluting projects from being rubber stamped in the first place.” 

Watt’s preference is to work with the Coalition on passing the legislation, bypassing the Greens who want stronger environmental protections.

As all of these summits do, we eventually got to China, with Albanese asked what he meant when he told the ASEAN summit participants that ‘none of us are spectators’ and Anwar asked if ‘friends fire flares’ in relation to China’s recent response to an Australian plane in the South China Sea.

Can I say in terms of us not being spectators, what that means is that we’re not observers. We help create our own future and create history and that engagement, we’re not passive, we’re participants. And it’s a different perspective that you have. Whereas you know people in the media are observers and your job is to commentate, our job is to think about how we can shape the change that’s occurring.

One of the issues that we have discussed today, for example, is the impact of artificial intelligence, new technology. This is a challenge of leaders globally that we have. This is going to have an impact. It’s having impact in the debate in Australia about, you know, cultural appropriation, including appropriation of media, intellectual property, the work that journalists do. Is that fair game just for someone to grab and not pay a fee for it? We don’t think that is, which is why we have the Media Bargaining Code that we are trying to advance. So it is a matter of our perspective trying to look at what are the challenges and what’s the role of government in shaping the response to those challenges. And somehow sometimes anticipating and helping to create the future, if you like, rather than just responding after the event.

Anwar:

Once we establish the facts, we will raise. Engagement does not mean condoning whatever exercises. And the Chinese know that in my private exchanges with the President of China, and I know we represent a very small country and a relatively small economy. But still we represent a nation and we have the right to express because we need the wisdom not to be seen, to be unnecessarily combative. But we should bring it up once it is established, and we will seriously if it is established. I will do my part. Because I think it’s important for all of us to express whether publicly or privately or whatever form, our concern that these region must remain free. And the policy of centrality does not mean that we don’t see any centrality means we do express, and we have centrality. But we do engage with the issues of Gaza or Russia, Ukraine.

Asked what was next in building the relationship between the two nations, beyond the MOUs signed during the summit, Albanese said:

I’m very confident about the agreements that have been reached because they build on the foundation which is there. This is a relationship of trust and engagement that has been developed over a long period of time, which has been assisted by the people to people relations.

I hope that it’s obvious that we are friends here on a personal level, that we engage regularly. We have had discussions, so I thank the Prime Minister for his very warm congratulations after our election that was held some months ago now as well. So it’s building on that as well. So I’m very confident that we will be able to do so. And the example of the education, or achievements and that engagement that’s occurring this morning, seeing young people, including young Malaysians, who participated in our Young Leaders’ Dialogue that’s occurring is just an example of those relationships.

Following the ASEAN summit, Albanese met with the prime minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim and the pair held a brief joint press conference.

Anwar opened with some glowing praise:

I’ve said this earlier that Prime Minister Albanese has been a good friend. You’ve been very supportive of our ventures and my meetings with him have been very fruitful, very candid, very open and both of us have really committed to enhance bilateral relations in terms of serious trade, investment ventures and this decision of Monash University to operate from TRX City the prestigious area is something very impressive. It signifies a clear commitment on the part of Australia to take Malaysia very seriously and now with the bank and the port facility and I commend him for this commitment and support.

He promised to come again early next year, and both of us will visit the university. And as a good politician, he honours his promise. I have no doubt about that. That’s why he won comfortably in the last elections. Convincingly.

He then went to Australia’s position on Gaza:

I’m also thankful that you’ve taken a strong position on cessation of hostilities in Gaza. Here, people are very passionate and I’ve been to Australia, people also very, very strong. And I have also had discussions with the President Donald Trump on this to make sure that this first phase is effective and then proceed on the more comprehensive solution to the conflict, including two-state solution because that’s to me particular because in this days and age you talk about democratic transition, talk mobilisation, multilateralism and you condone these killings is just totally unacceptable and hypocritical.

So I do express my appreciation to Penny Wong earlier and now to you that you take that position. At least to stop these hostilities and stop the killings and get humanitarian assistance in and work towards a more comprehensive solution.

So thank you again, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for being here and more important as a friend, as a true friend we have committed to come again early next year.

In actual news, the prime minister delivered his opening address to the summit late yesterday. Here was the main message:

Above all, Australia’s partnership with ASEAN is anchored in deep trust between our nations and enduring friendship between our peoples.
 
Just as our region’s prosperity has been created through shared opportunity.
 
Our security depends on our collective responsibility – and our shared agency.
 
We cannot succumb to the fatalism that assumes our future is pre-determined.
 
None of us are mere spectators.
 
We are participants, we are responsible, together we will shape our future.
 
We must work together to choose and build the security and prosperity we want for our citizens.
 
In this, we all have a part to play.

If you want to know how desperate Sussan Ley’s attempt to slam Anthony Albanese for wearing a t-shirt was, here is some of Zoe McKenzie, usually a fairly sensible member of the Liberal party, trying to defend Ley’s speech making it an issue. This was from Afternoon Briefing on the ABC yesterday.

McKenzie:

Yeah. Look, the point is – he’s a man of a certain age. Get out of the T-shirts, trying to look cool, I say. And particularly the really ill chosen ones, right? Most people know that that is a reference to what happened in Nazi concentration camps. You just don’t wear it.

Host: I don’t think most people do.

McKenzie:

Really? Well the Prime Minister clearly did, because he discussed it in a podcast in 2022 so maybe just leave that one at home and get a different one. He was in America, I’m sure I could pick up different ones, or better yet, wear an Australian band.

(That’s how you know the talking points went out to the Coalition MPs, which is usually part of damage control – it would have included Albanese talking about Joy Division at one point. Given the podcast was referenced in some of the media reports and that’s not something most journalists would jump to looking up themselves, you can bet it was also part of the shit sheet sent out by her office as well (we are not on the list, so can’t say for sure). And he is a baby boomer, so of course he would know the origins of the band’s name. It was a pretty popular band in Australia and topped the first versions of the Triple J hottest 100 two years in a row with Love Will Tear Us Apart – back when people had to physically write in with their votes.)

Host: An Australian band. It’s a good point, but, but is it really worth Sussan Ley standing up in the parliament before Question Time to raise it?

McKenzie: 

I suspect she’s had a lot of correspondence today, whether it’s emails or text messages about people telling them how offended, how offended they were by him wearing it. It’s not it’s not hard to pick a different T-shirt.

Sure, sure, sure. Australians are notoriously annoyed by bands.

Host: Cancel culture, you’re not into that? 

McKenzie: 

But he’s the Prime Minister. No, I’m not into that, but he’s the Prime Minister. And again, I’d say the crime is actually wearing band T-shirts when you’re a man of a certain age. But nevertheless, he could have picked a better one. 

Host: Okay, you think the crime is wearing band T-shirts –

McKenzie 

Trying to be cool when you’re not.

This is what they are left with now. There is back and forth lamenting their Gen Z kids thinking older people are losers (they are not wrong on this) and then we get to Labor MP Patrick Gorman who is asked to defend the prime minister wearing a band t-shirt.

WTF is wrong with us.

Gorman:

I try and not comment on my colleagues’ clothing at the best of times. I think it’s a band T-shirt of a band that he has been very open he is a fan of. I think that is okay for the Prime Minister to like a band, a well-loved band – their music has been around for a few decades now –

Host: But even as he has discussed that it was raised with him. I mean, you know, I don’t know if there should be a Royal Commission into this, but is it bad judgement?

Gorman: 

I thought it was an odd speech from Sussan Ley to give just before Question Time. She could have given a speech where she finally showed some appreciation for the important work we have done for Australian jobs on the world stage. She chose not to do that. I think the fact that we’re sitting here debating a T-shirt for a band that millions of Australians love. ‘Love will Tear us Apart,’ that is a well-liked song. I think the fact we’re debating this is – there are big issues in the world, I don’t think band T-shirts of mainstream bands is one of them.

F*ck me.

Hello and welcome back to the parliament sitting and The Point Live.

It’s Wednesday, which means it’s the busiest day of the sitting. Not just in terms of parliament business, but also in making any points that you need air for, or to start laying the ground work for Thursday shenanigans.

This week is a bit fraught for the Coalition as they have a million different fires burning within their party room, which makes the message kinda a bit confused. It has been unable to land a blow on the Labor party, despite Anthony Albanese’s absence, because it can’t find a theme which doesn’t just get turned back on it.

It started the week with the CFMEU – which doesn’t exactly win hearts and minds not already engaged in ideological battles. Yesterday, it was the potential closure of the Tomago smelter, which is stronger ground, but not how the Coalition handled it – because it is ham strung by its own lack of policies, it could only attack Labor on renewables, which is very easily batted away.

And then there is the back bencher meeting to talk climate and net zero this Friday, which is not the end off the Coalition’s woes, but it will give it more to break apart on. The choice (for the party, none of this matters in terms of the nation’s policies) is scrap net zero and give up on ever winning government (which would also lead to the end of the party) or keep it and have a bunch of MPs leave (which will also lead to the end of the party).

Good times, well done, fantastic work.

Meanwhile, it is stuck in culture wars, with Sussan Ley yesterday digging deep into the bowels of far-right social media (and Sky After Dark, also known as SAD) for a short speech on how tasteless/offensive it was that Albanese wore a Joy Division t-shirt (the name’s origins are from the 1950s book, House of Dolls, which was about women kept as sexual slaves by the Nazis, who referred to them as the ‘Joy divisions’. It was an attempt to remind people of some of their lesser known, but still horrifying crimes).

This is only an issue because it was amplified by the media, otherwise most people would have no idea it happened. (I envy them). Ley’s office emailed the speech around the press gallery to ensure it received notice. As is pointed out in the AFR many of the outlets now clutching their pearls had made light hearted jokes of the t-shirt when the image was first taken – it took five days for Ley and her office to pick up on the far right conspiracy brewing on social media over the shirt and Albanese’s reason for wearing it, which was amplified by SAD and then questioned in the Oz and then raised by Ley in parliament.

So this is where we start today. The dumbest of timelines.

You’ll also hear from speakers and panels at the Revenue Summit, hosted by the Australia Institute, which will discuss new ideas of raising revenue and solving some of our big issues in housing, tax reform and inequality.

You’ve got me, Amy Remeikis for most of the day, with Mike Bowers of the New Daily lending us his lens to take you into the parliament.

It is at least a three coffee morning. And maybe a banana-caramel Haighs chocolate frog (a friend gave me two yesterday and holy moly – I have now tasted happiness)

Ready? Let’s get into it.