The Point Live: Sussan Ley finishes off worst week as leader so far. As it happened

LNP MP Angie Bell, who has seen her profile rise under Sussan Ley’s leadership and is one of her bigger defenders asked the resources minister:

Yesterday the West Australian Premier Roger Cook was wandering around parliament pleading with every Minister who would listen to please, please, please, not cave into the Labor left dominated backbench on the EPBC bills. Will the minister listened to the Premier of her own state premier or All her all left-wing backbench.

Now there is a bit to this because Madeleine King IS in the left wing (whatever that means these days in Labor) and also, it is the Coalition who is not passing the EPBC laws, not Labor. So Cook was asking the ministers to keep the bill as it is, because the mining industry and states captured by the mining industry (like the West) want it passed as it works for them (which is why the Greens don’t like it)

In the midst of all of this, Husic yells out “YOU FORGOT MAMDANI” in the list of Bell’s LEFT WING SCARIES and when he is booted out under 94A fist pumps and says “GO ZOHRAN”

So, looks like there is one true believer in the Labor party.

The Liberal MP for Monash, Mary Aldred asks Anthony Albanese:

My question is to the Prime Minister according to Anglicare 2025 cost of living index single parents families on minimum wage are left each week with $1 after covering essential expenses like rent transport and food. Foodbank’s 2025 hunger report states nearly 68% of single parent households are now going hungry.

Prime Minister, in light of these disturbing figures why are more Australians going hungry under Labor?

Albanese:

I thank the member for her question and of course she is new to this house and has not been here when all of…when all of the cuts that have been made by the former government in, when they were in office or the pluses that we have moved in of cost-of-living health that were opposed by her Liberal-National Party colleagues.

So I wish the Member all the best in encouraging a turnaround in the Liberal Party ‘s position when it comes to assisting people, when it comes to assisting people. All the measures we have put in place whether it be the changes to Medicare, the improvements and cuts to the cost of medicines, the improvements to the minimum wage the improvements to taxpayers with tax cuts all the measures we have put forward have been opposed by those opposite. Opposed by those opposite. So we understand that the job of assisting people is never done.

That’s why we are focused on, that’s why we also point out just the fact that those opposite when they were in government $20 million from Foodbank every year. They interject again. They interject again. They put it back so they can see the cuts were there each and every year and may say we put it back. One of the things I am very proud of is in our first budgets we changed the single-parent payment so it applied until the youngest child reaches the age of 14. (This was something that Labor changed originally)

Something that was never done by those opposite and one thing I won’t be lectured about by those opposite… Kids from single-parent families. That’s something I won’t be lectured by a bunch of people. Who have never seen an increase in living standards that they did not oppose who just stand up and continue to argue against minimum wage increases, continue to argue about tax cuts and who are Leader of the Opposition who gave a speech about the culture of dependency. What do you think that means? What do you think that means? That means cuts, more cuts and even more cuts and we know that’s the case because that’s their form.

Anthony Albanese gets a dixer about what the government is doing (this is pretty much the dixer, I am not joking – things get loose this close to the end of the year) and he uses it to thank Flossie, the 12 year old who did a school report on the impacts social media can have on the brains of children, and now wants students to sign a pledge that they won’t go on social media until they are over 16. She gets a round of applause from the chamber. (She also gave a friendship bracelet to the PM which gets an awww)

Monique Ryan asks Anthony Albanese (somewhat expected given the roundtable she held today with medical and university researchers)

My question is to the Prime Minister to be promised Australian medical research saves lives and boost the economy, it improves our domestic security and provides age the region stopping the Medical Research Future Fund established to support the set with a year.

Your Government is spending only $650 million annually.

Could you please tell the dozens of medical researchers in the gallery today, why it is you are withholding the support that we committed to, and the sector needs and deserves? the call health and ageing.

Mark Butler takes this one:

Thank you to the Prime Minister giving me the opportunity to answer members question was up can I say how much we value your experience and contributions to health policy generally but particularly the time you are taking to represent and advocate the interests of medical research Institute sector which has been in the building over the last several days.

You and I were both at the dinner the other night with a number of members at least on this side of the House. Senator Ruston was there also. This is a question you asked before over the last couple of weeks to me and to the Treasurer.

Our position has not changed. I do want to take the opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to the MRFF – this is an institution of which both sides of the House can be properly initiated the process to set it up when we were last in government.

I had ministerial responsibility for this area. To their credit it was put in place and now has a capital of about $24 billion by the former government and as you say, as the Member says, it distributes about $650 million each and every year. I heard some remarks release from the Member and a number of the institutes earlier today about the success rate and applicants that have not been able to receive funding from the MRFF as the Member well knows.

Success rates for all the government research funds are well short of 100%. Well short of 100% of good where the applicant’s are actually able to receive funding and I think actually the MRFF has a success rate above the others. It’s about 30%, has been about 30% through the course of its time. PARC I think has a success rate close to 20%, the MER EA from in HRM C of 50%.

We’d all like that to be higher. But the MR FF performs pretty well. As the Treasurer said last week though I think the government is taking this very seriously. As I said and the Treasurer said, we are pulling together a single United national health and medical research strategy under the leadership of Rosemary Hucks PAO. Former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Health, I can’t believe the Leader of the Opposition is interjecting. Such is life. Once that strategy is delivered as a final document and it will be very shortly we will use that and a 10-year statutory review of the MRFF that the Treasurer and Minister for Finance recently received and published to consider a range of things including the matter that the Member has now raised a few times in Question Time over the last couple of weeks and was the subject of quite some advocacy by the medical research Institute also

Chris Bowen takes a dixer just so he can say: “the party of Menzies has become the party of Sky News frenzies” and Dugald Dick makes note that the member for Cook (whose name I learnt against my will) and the Nationals leader interjected nine and 11 times and they can now shut it.

Ted O’Brien then steps up for his ritual humiliation (it’s like a kink at this point)

The RBA ‘s forecast shows that if it were to offer any further rate relief, inflation would not get back to the 2.5% target. Noting the National accounts show Government consumption still growing faster than household consumption, will the Treasurer admit, that with his foot on the accelerator and the governors on the break, he is making it impossible for the RBA to offer further relief?

Jim Chalmers (who is feeling a bit calmer than yesterday, but no less annoyed it seems says)

Not for the first time the Shadow treasurers foot is in his mouth and the reason for that is the Reserve Bank made it very clear, in the course of coming to its decision earlier in the week, that Government spending had nothing to do with it.

They did not mention it in the press conference, they didn’t mention it with the press release and when they released the updated forecasts, when they released their updated forecasts, they downgraded their expectations for public spending on our economy.

One of the things that is happening in our economy I acknowledge there are a number of challenges but one of the welcome developments in our economy, is that the private sector has been taking over.

Over the last two or three-quarters the private sector has been regaining, resuming its rightful role as the primary driver of growth in our economy, for the last two-quarters public demand has made no contribution to growth.

The shadow treasurer really ought to know that, Mr Speaker. Now, in a week, with the opposition leaders judgement has been repeatedly called into question, I wanted to say I think it’s a credit to the strategic nous of the leader of opposition to give the shadow treasurer a question because nothing does the shadow treasurers leadership ambitions more harm, then to stand him in front of a microphone that is turned on.

A microphone that is turned on because I have already answered this question, Mr Speaker, earlier in the week and I made it very clear earlier in the week, Mr Speaker. I made it very clear earlier in the week, Mr Speaker. That if he is saying, that the Budget is the primary determinant of movements with interest rates in our economy, and we have had three interest rate cuts this year, including two interest rate since the Budget I handed down from the dispatch box in March Mr Speaker.

And if he wants to be honest about the view of the Reserve Bank, I encourage him to check out what Reserve Bank Governor said about the two surpluses we have delivered, and in the third year, the deficit is much smaller than we inherited and because of all of that debt is much lower as well compared to other countries and also I would say compared to what we inherited from those opposite.

The last point I would make, Mr Speaker, the shadow treasurer is precisely the last person I will take advice from when it comes to responsible economic management, is the guy who wanted to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars to build nuclear reactors which would push the price of electricity up not down.

First there is a big thank you to Australia’s winter Olympians and Para-Olympians who are about to head off to Italy for the 2026 Winter Olympics.

Ali France is wearing her Australian scarf which her colleagues can be seen asking about (France is a world champion para-athlete) and a mention of Zali Steggall (an winter Olympic medalist) before we move on to the questions.

Sussan Ley is back to cost of living:

Food banks 2025 report shockingly reveals that 20% of Australian households are severely food insecure and that parents are skipping meals so their kids can eat. Commenting on Labor’s cost of living measures food bank has said they “Didn’t translate to food on the tables”. Why are more Australians going hungry under Labor?

(A reminder that charity is a failure of government policy and if people were paid directly, they wouldn’t need to access services like Foodbank)

Albanese:

Thank you while the modern Liberal Party is not so much a broad church these days as a temple of doom. They talk everything down, each and every day, they vote against… (INTERJECTIONS). They argue opposing tax cuts somehow does not make a difference to the capacity of people to get by. They argue that cheaper medicines won’t assist people to get the healthcare that they need. They argue that free TAFE is something that people don’t value to be able to get a job and up skill themselves because they won’t value it. They argue the creation of over 1 million jobs in just over… The interjections they do it again, they won’t learn. They did not read Dennis Shanahan’s comments over the last 24 hours. Because if they did… (INTERJECTIONS).

(The Oz long term writer did a Twitch-like stream commentary of QT for the Oz, and concluded they were the weakest opposition he has seen in 40 years, which – WELCOME TO THE PARTY DENIS)

Anyway, there are interjections and relevance points and yadda yadda but there is no answer.

Question time is being delayed by a division to change the standing orders on the debate of the environmental protection laws.

The questioning time, is almost upon us.

Get what you need. We won’t judge.

While all attention is on federal Coalition climate denial, the NSW Labor Government just keeps expanding coal mines.

For example, climate arch villains Peabody are trying to expand the Wilpinjong mine near Mudgee, with submissions published today, including ours.

You might remember Peabody from the “Advanced Energy for Life” PR campaign, which tried to argue that the coal industry was really interested in helping poor people get out of “energy poverty”. It didn’t work out well.

Hilariously, Peabody itself does not donate any money, staff time, expertise or discounted fuel to anti-energy poverty projects around the world. In fact, the handful of coal companies that did participate in energy poverty alleviation projects did so…by funding renewable energy.

Back in Mudgee, Peabody are proposing a mine expansion that they say would lose them $123 million.

Why would they do that?…because it would facilitate a huge future expansion that would be disastrous for the climate and the community in Wollar near the mine.

The NSW Government is also looking to expand the neighbouring Ulan mine, the huge Hunter Valley Operations mine and a bunch of others.

This is the main game!! Coalition climate denial and Labor renewable talking points are diversions!

No new coal mines!

Our secret squirrel friends in the senate (of which there are many, don’t be going hunting) have let us know that the government has run out of time in the senate to do government business, which means the police welfare powers amendment will be kicked into the next sitting.