The Point Live: 'Reform' now at the centre of budget discussions, as government braces for worsening global financial crisis. All the day's events, live

Housing minister Clare O’Neil has released the Housing Australia update – “the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council’s first Quarterly Outlook shows building approvals and commencements have both increased by 17 per cent since the Accord began, while more than 219,000 homes have been completed over the past five quarters”.

The government has a target of 1.2 million new homes over the next five years. It is not going to achieve that, but having the target means that more homes have been built than otherwise would have. (Although that is going to get even harder given the fuel crisis the US and Israel have created, given that PVC pipes, which is kinda important to the new build process, are made from fuel products, and we don’t make them here – we import them. And they are already getting harder to access, which means that builds are going to start slowing down again because of supply chain issues).

O’Neil wanted to take a moment to acknowledge that new homes were being built ’10 per cent faster’ and “real construction costs” were stabilising – for the last five quarters they have been 0.9 per cent lower. That is not going to be the case moving forward, but I guess you take the wins when you can as a minister.

A reminder though – supply isn’t the problem in our housing market. As Everyone’s Home Maiy Azize says, it is a distribution problem. And the way you fix that is through tax reform, particularly through the CGT discount.

Which, for the first time in a long time, is actually on the table. Let’s see shall we?

The Peter Whish-Wilson led inquiry into climate integrity information (also known as the mis/disinformation inquiry) tabled its report late last night.

You can find that here.

Whish-Wilson:

This inquiry was primarily intended to raise education and awareness on this critical matter, and start a national conversation on what needs to be done to improve transparency and accountability around false, misleading, and deceptive information that has for years challenged science and undermined climate action in Australia.

Evidence was provided that a ‘denial machine’ has deliberately obstructed climate and energy policy for decades in Australia. This ‘denial machine’ has included conservative think tanks, law firms, PR firms, consultancies, third-party campaign groups and some conservative media outlets. 

For those who care about a safe climate future, this is deeply concerning.

This is a complex issue and requires a comprehensive set of solutions to address it, and the Greens are pleased with a number of recommendations made by the Committee to improve climate information integrity.   

There was a majority report that the Greens, Liberal and Labor MPs on the committee managed to come to, including 21 recommendations, including exploring “funding models for independent monitoring support (for example, via an Australian Internet Observatory) to track hidden digital influence ecosystems and provide independent transparency and accountability of platforms”.

Glenn Connley

A hearing will be held at Parliament House today, looking at ways to attract more donations to the struggling arts sector, as part of a Parliamentary Inquiry into Arts and Cultural Philanthropy.

An Australia Institute submission to the inquiry has found that asking artists to beg for more money from donors ignores the much bigger issue of chronic underfunding of the arts.

The arts sector was devastated by the COVID pandemic and has never truly recovered. Once-iconic music festivals have been cancelled. Venues have closed. Artists are living in poverty.

The long-running cost-of-living crisis has left Australian consumers with very little money to spend on artistic pleasures like a trip to a gallery, buying a book, watching a movie or seeing a band.

The submission states that “this is a critical time for supporting Australian arts and culture”.

Key points:

• In real terms, arts funding is at its lowest point since 2017/18
• Australia has the 7th-lowest arts spending in the OECD
• Despite the cost of living crisis, arts spending has been cut by more than half a billion dollars a year
• While Australia-wide employment has grown by 13% since the end of the COVID pandemic, the arts sector has only just returned to pre-pandemic levels

“Artists, authors, musicians and other creatives have a huge impact on Australian culture, how Australians see themselves, and how the world sees Australians,” said Skye Predavec, Researcher at The Australia Institute.

“Australia’s arts and culture cannot be produced overseas, and cannot be moved offshore. It must be made here.

“The arts sector is in crisis, still recovering from COVID and the cost-of-living crisis. It needs support to survive.

“Australian governments have a duty to invest in the arts, but in real terms, their arts funding is at its lowest point since 2017. Philanthropy is too small to fill the gap left behind by hundreds of millions of dollars in underinvestment.”

ABC journalists are striking today from 11am, for the first time in 20 years. It’s a 24-hour strike and will mean that the flagship evening programs will be replaced be replaced by BBC content (for the most part).

Not the entire workforce is unionised – I think it is at around 60% these days, and a lot of the non-unionised workforce (who aren’t protected in strike action) will be working, along with casuals and short term contract staff who don’t feel they have the option of joining the strike, given the insecure nature of their position.

So you’ll still be seeing some familiar ABC names and faces for the next 24 hours, but for the most part, it is tools down.

At 11:30am the February inflation figures will come out.

My suspicion is they will show the inflation has increased a touch from 3.8% in January.

My suspicion as well is that within 5 minutes we will have all begun to ignore them as out of date. Because remember these figures will be based on an average of prices across all of February, and alas for the ABS, (and those civilians in Iran) on 28 February, the USA and Israel began attacking Iran.

Take petrol prices. In Sydney the average across February was already out of date by the end of the month, and even the most recent average for what we have seen in March seems woefully old news:

So whatever the figures come in at, the very sad thing is we know that the March figures will be worse. And even sadder is that the RBA will try to fix this by raising interest rates because it believes the reason inflation is rising is that too few people are unemployed, and not that Donald Trump and Netanyahu are deranged war criminals.

Hello and welcome back to parliament and the Point Live, where we all get to descend into the abyss together. FUN!

It’s inflation figure day and after the pomp and ceremony of the EU president’s visit yesterday, it’s back to what are we going to do with the worsening global economic shocks fuelled by the US and Israel’s decision to wage war against Iran, an opponent that actually has the capability to fight back and also follow through.

Trump now claims that he has achieved regime change and the US has found someone to talk to. Which – Trump lies. But the US is heavily invested in getting out of Iran as quickly as possible, and that self interest is a driving force for Australia’s number one ‘ally’. Israel has been urging for a ground invasion, and it’s bombing of Gaza and Lebanon have not stopped, so there is obviously no back down there.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed and are still being killed. Fuel price increases cause domestic pain, and the economic pain coming down the pipeline is going to hurt the most economically vulnerable in Australia the most, but let’s not forget who is paying the biggest price here.

The ABS will release the February inflation figures later this morning and that’s expected to show an uptick in inflation. Why? Because the US and Israel attacked Iran at the end of February and petrol prices increased almost overnight. It’s averaged out over the month, but that’s going to cause an issue.

We’ll be covering that, the government response and everything else that comes along today. You have Amy Remeikis with you. I burnt the first coffee, so I am staring at the second on the stove like a very tired hawk. I may burn the second. Come along and find out.