The Point Live: Coalition continues to tank as parliament enters its final week. As it happened.

Recent reports that Australians have purchased up to $3.8 billion of petrol and diesel made from Russian crude oil, worth $2 billion in taxation revenue to Moscow, is a timely reminder that Russia is not the only major fossil fuel exporter that has made huge amounts of money from the war in Ukraine.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, global oil prices increased rapidly.  Natural gas prices follow crude oil prices because, quite literally, oil and gas often come from the same holes in the ground. World prices of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), the form of natural gas that is exported from Australia, surged from around $A550 a tonne of LNG in 2021 to over $A1,100 in 2022. 

The surge in LNG prices generated huge windfall profits for Australia’s predominantly foreign-owned LNG industry. According to research by Ogge, Saunders and Campbell LNG windfall profits since the invasion in 2022 have amounted to $100 billion, profiteering from the war in Ukraine.

Australian taxpayers have received little of the LNG windfall. Over half of the natural gas used in Australia for LNG exports is given away royalty free. Meanwhile, the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PPRT) is so poorly designed that in 2023 Treasury revealed that no LNG operation had ever paid PPRT, highlighting how the ATO considers the oil and gas industry to be “systemic nonpayers” of tax.

While it could be argued that better taxation of Australia’s LNG industry would mean the Australian government is also profiteering from the war in Ukraine, the $17 billion a year that would be raised from a 25% tax on LNG exports could go a long way to ensuring Australia no longer needs to rely on fossil fuel imports from Russia, or any country, and significantly reduce overall fossil fuel consumption.

There is some more stupidity from the Coalition.

Next.

Then we get back to the crossbench and some actual questions that matter with Zali Steggall asking:

Is it the government’s position that advertising online on vulnerable Australians is acceptable?

This is in response to reports in the AFR that the government will use the social media ban as cover to pass a very watered down response to the Peta Murphy review into gambling advertising.

Albanese:

No.

Sure, Jan.

My Dolly the Coalition are bad at this. And by this I mean – everything. They are essentially the political version of the movie Saving Private Ryan at the moment – except instead of saving Matt Damon, they are trying to save a tiny bit of relevancy, even if it (politically) kills them all.

The member for O’Connor (Rick Wilson if anyone cares) asks:

There were warnings in the recent energy council report in which the CEO of an energy company said that bills will increase for the next decade, Prime Minister, why is the part-time Energy Minister and full-time president more concerned with the COP31 negotiation then he is with power bills for households and businesses in Australia?

This is just so stupid my migraine fled in terror.

We interrupt QT for this rare news – Economic Justice Australia and the Australian Council of Social Service have released a statement calling out the government for misleading people about their support for the police welfare legislation.

This is rare because peak bodies usually have to play the political game and largely stay back from this style of criticism of Labor governments- think of it as keeping the powder dry (although there have been shifts away from that style of advocacy in recent years, with more of a focus on being bolshie)

The statement was just released and says:

EJA and ACOSS reject any suggestions that organisations were consulted on Schedule 5

Monday 24 November 2025

The highly contested Schedule 5 amendment to the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No.2) Bill 2025 (the Bill) has this morning taken up the majority of discussion in Senate.

During questioning about the legitimacy of the amendment, the debate included discussions about whether any organisations were consulted about Schedule 5. Led by Senators Penny Allman-Payne and Lidia Thorpe, Senator Katy Gallagher was asked whether any organisations were consulted. Comments made could have been heard as suggesting consultations did take place.

Both EJA and ACOSS would like to make clear that we were at no point consulted on the Schedule 5 amendment.

EJA and ACOSS confirm that, from the first notification from the Government about the proposed Schedule 5, both organisations have made clear we oppose the Schedule 5 amendment.

Subsequent to learning of the addition of Schedule 5 to the Bill, both organisations have put out strong statements opposing it. Each organisation has urged Parliament to reject Schedule 5.

We continue to urge all parliamentarians to reject Schedule 5 in its entirety.

Our statements are linked below for reference.

• ACOSS and EJA joint statement: Laws to cancel social security payments must be scrapped
• Media Release: EJA strongly opposes legislative amendment that would erode principles of justice for people on social security
• ACOSS calls for removal of new powers to withhold income support

David Littleproud gets the next non-government question and reminds us all while the Nationals are experiencing such drastic falls in membership.

My question is to the Prime Minister. There are less than five weeks left in 2025, when will Australian families receive your promised $275 eduction to their power bills?

Jim Chalmers, who is representing Chris Bowen (who is in Brazil for Cop) takes this and says:

Thank you, Mr Speaker and thanks to the Leader of The Nationals for his question. As we have made it really clear, Mr Speaker, and relevant experts, the Prime Minister read a few out of them a moment ago and they have made it clear, Australia’s best chance to put downward pressure on electricity prices is from introducing cleaner, cheaper, more renewable, more reliable energy sources. Mr Speaker, that never used to be controversial. For a long time it was not an especially controversial proposition, even those opposite held that view, Mr Speaker. I am asked that question by the Leader of The Nationals. The Leader of The Nationals said once before when he had a more sensible position on this, “It is a good thing that renewables are coming on, the disruptions happening with technology moving towards renewable energy particularly in storage for baseload is exciting and think it is a good thing’ and he also said “Economics will win out in the end and if baseload power can be stored in particular that is an exciting thing for the environment and for everyone’s hip pocket”, Speaker and he says “In my own electorate people are self-sustaining through solar, there is a reality that that kind of disruption is happening and that is exciting for the environment and for the hip pocket”, Mr Speaker.

Milton Dick says he wants to hear from the member for Page, which is a lie because no one wants to really hear from Kevin Hogan. He has a point of order that is not a point of order and we move on.

Chalmers:

I am asked about power bills and I am answering a question about power bills reminding the house at the Leader of The Nationals once had a more sensible position on this. The upward pressure on electricity prices in our grid Mr Speaker does not come from a new, cleaner, cheaper, renewable reliable energy, it comes from the legacy of 22 failed energy policies which saw four gigawatts of energy come out of the Greens.

Then everyone is yelling. Dick tells them to shut it and Chalmers continues, but he seems very over it all.

Richard Marles takes a dixer to deliver a love letter to Aukus. It’s like watching the middle age man try and convince his friends that the dancer does really love him back.

Dan Tehan then illuminates us with:

The Australian energy council CEO said ‘I think the storm is coming around cost and competitiveness’. Prime Minister, if the 40 per cent price rise that Australians have faced under the Albanese government are just the calm, what percentage power price rise is the storm going to bring?

SIGGGGHHHHHH.

Anthony Albanese says:

I thank the member for his question and as for what the energy sector and The Business community think about energy policy in this country, the Australian energy council CEO has said using coal for longer will increase costs rather than decrease cost.

And it also means that it is not the right market signals for new renewable investments to come in because Coalition are still sitting there blocking the system. We cannot keep coal in the system for ever. There is a large proportion that do need to exit.

The Australian industry group I’ve quoted before said, there was no interest in going backward on net zero. The Business Council of Australia CEO said this dash we need to make sure that we continue going to keep Australia as a competitive place to do business. With only the practical terms is that we need to a clear plan, a pathway towards what that net zero looks like. So there is, went on to say, so there is confidence to invest. Andrew Mackellar, CEO of ACCI, said business does need this certainty if we are going to get investments in place for the future that we need to understand what the policy is. To characterise their policy at the moment, it seems to be a bit of a plan to not have a plan, unfortunately.

Now, the Australian Energy Council when talking about the way forward said, we are now in a directory for a higher renewable system supported by renewable energy and that will give the lowest cost outcome. So that is what the experts actually had to say.

When they were in office, we had an energy system that was 50 years old. So 24 out of 28 coal-fired gas stations announced the closure and nothing replace them. You had four gigawatts leave the system and one gigawatt into the system as a result of lack of supply increases cost. What dealing with now is how we transition. Those opposite pretend that that is not the case. They pretend because they are too busy fighting the ongoing climate was that have been in place on their side for decades now, holding Australia back.

Tehan has a point of order because of course he does. Albanese sticks to his answer. We have all wasted another three minutes of our one precious life.

We re-join it as Allegra Spender asks:

Today’s rental affordability index shows two per cent of rentals are affordable for essential workers like teachers. The new homes bonus was supposed to incentivise new homes and help fix this but were just that a city likely to be this target, the effectiveness of this incentive is under question.

Would you consider reconstructing the bonus scheme to help this dates to critical rezoning, speedup approvals and build infrastructure that the states need to enforce these targets?

Clare O’Neil thanks Spender for the question and says:

It is a good one and ended reflects the real seriousness in which she engages in the housing debate. We have a crossbench here wherefore many of these one — wonderful people, housing is a critical issue in their community and they work with our government and the member for when web is one of those.

They asked about issues facing Australian renters and I agree with her, this is a critical concern of our government. We have a housing crisis in our country that has been cooking 40 years and really, the people who are bearing the biggest point of this are people who are in rental accommodation. They are feeling it in rental going up too fast and too frequently, they feel in the lack of power they have in negotiating with their landlords and speaker, a very distressing is chair of renters tell us they are they are actively fearing practically becoming homeless and that should not be happening in a country like Australia.

So one thing that the member for Wentworth has been constructive in working with the government with is understanding what the crux of this issue facing our rental population is and that is for this 40 year period, our country has not been building enough homes.

For a long time in Australia, the Commonwealth government wash their hands of this problem. As you know, most of those who are in office and government they were checked out of housing that they did not even have a Housing Minister to negotiate with. We have changed that and one of the main ways we are engaging with states and territories is throwing something the National Housing Accord. Instead of saying that our government would not take any responsibility, we have stuck — stepped up, with leaders across the country including local government and the local sector and said, if you want to get a change we need to make a difference to how…

There is a point of order on relevance and O’Neil has to stick to the topic, finishing with:

I am talking about the National Housing Accord is because the bonus that the member asked me about this at the end of the National Housing Accord. We are in constant negotiation and discussion with the states and we have a problem in our country when it has become too hard, too difficult and too lengthy to have a home built in this country estates are critically important to solving the problem and… The $3 billion incentive that the member asked me about as she has mentioned sits at the end of the Accord target and of course the state are always keen to see that money flowing to them fast enough but what I would say to the member is that the $43 billion package that sits across all of our housing policies

Quite a big part of that actually flows through the states so we had as part of the original negotiation, $1.5 billion in funding, much of that flow to the states. That Future Fund went to the states, we have $10 billion which is going to the states to deliver 10,000 homes until billion but went to them for social housing so there is a really strong partnership there and what a lot of money flowing there.

At a press conference ahead of QT, Zali Steggall was asked by a News Corp journalist if she believed the government had ‘dealt fairly’ with Linda Reynolds and her former chief of staff Fiona Brown in it’s agreement with Brittany Higgins.

A reminder that Higgins was paid out for what she experienced in her workplace in what a judge in a civil case found was rape.

If you have been reading News Corp you know why they asked the question and why. Steggall wasn’t playing and responded:

I don’t have any comment in relation to the government’s dealings with them. But I should say my sympathies are with Brittany Higgins who was found by a court to have been assaulted in her workplace, and all of us as employers take seriously that responsibility. 

And I should say, the ordeal she has been put through – and  yes, she was found to have defamed Ms Reynolds – but I don’t think any of us, and you in particular as a young woman, would ever consider putting yourself in the shoes of a person has been sexually assaulted in her workplace. 

I think the continued harassment and pursuing of this issue is disgusting.

After the press conference Steggall released a statement saying:

I accept that the defamation claims against Higgins were upheld by a court. But I’m concerned pursuing those proceeding reinforces the chilling effect defamation proceedings have over victims of sexual assault.

Brittany’s courage in coming forward led to the Set the Standard report and the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service which hopefully means Parliament House is a better workplace for everyone.