Labor’s Ed Husic has joined The Australia Institute and crossbench MPs at a press conference at Parliament House, suggesting the government call gas export companies’ bluff if they think actually paying for what they take would scare investors away.

Video by Mike Bowers.

The ABC is reporting that One Nation is 25 votes ahead in the electorate of Mackillop, south east of Adelaide – and is expected to go on and win the seat.

Yesterday, Labor claimed victory in Morphett, a seat held by the Liberals for almost half a century.

The current state of the lower house count is Labor 34, Liberal 5, One Nation 4, Independent 2, with 2 in doubt.

So, the Liberals retain the title of “state opposition”.

The next party room meeting is expected to be held in a banged-up old Toyota Corolla.

NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey has doubled down on his claim that free public transport.

But he’s refused to rule it out in the weeks ahead, saying the government is “keeping our powder dry”, as the crisis escalates.

Meanwhile, Tasmania has followed Victoria’s lead, announcing that there’s no need for bus travellers to tap on and off when they board and depart, from today.

Video by Mike Bowers:

Helen Haines has released a statement on the shooting of Dezi Freeman:

Over the past six months, a dark cloud has hung over the Porepunkah community. 

News this morning of the death of Mr Freeman draws this prolonged and devastating incident to a close.

This will come as a relief to the whole community – especially to the families of Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson and Senior Constable Vadim De Waart, and their colleagues.  

I thank Victoria Police, and all those involved in the search for their determination and service. 

A group of organisations is urging National Cabinet to rule out changes to the EV discount.

The organisations: Electric Vehicle Council, Rewiring Australia, the Clean Energy Council, the National Automotive Leasing and Salary Packaging Association, the Australian Finance Industry Association, the Motor Traders Association of Australia, the Australasian Fleet Management Association, BYD, Polestar, Tesla, Positive Salary Packaging, EVSE, enreal, Volkswagen Financial Services, Suzuki, GVA, MotorOne Group, Shoprite, Rubbertree, GWM, Inside Edge, Achieve Australia, EV Dealer Group, Autoleague, Automotive Leasing, Pepper Money, First Nations Finance, Unisson Disability, Driva, Tynan Motors and Uniting.

A broad coalition of organisations across the energy, automotive, finance, disability, environmental and consumer sectors is urging National Cabinet to rule out any changes to the Electric Car Discount in the May 2026 Budget, as Australia faces a worsening fuel crisis. The above signed organisations are calling on National Cabinet to agree that no changes be made to the Electric Car Discount, recognising its role in helping households shield themselves from global fuel shocks and reducing Australia’s dependence on imported oil.

Independent MP Monique Ryan:

The families who are the most energy secure right now are those with solar, home batteries, and electric vehicles. The FBT exemption has driven more than 105,000 additional EV purchases since 2022 and tripled the size of the second-hand EV market. This is the kind of policy success we should be accelerating, not abandoning.

Greens Leader, Larissa Waters:

We are at the beginning of what is going to be a deep and prolonged oil shock. Billionaires started an illegal war, oil and gas companies are reaping mega profits, and regular people are paying the price. Why on earth are the Treasurer and Energy Minister working up a full body slam against the cleanest and cheapest cars to run available to Australian motorists right now? We should be looking at ways to incentivise EV uptake and make them cheaper so more people can afford one, not making them more expensive during a fuel crisis.

Opposition leader Angus Taylor continues to sound like a mix of Peter Dutton and Sussan Ley.

Mike Bowers caught him a short time ago, offering advice to those attending the National Cabinet meeting, which began at 10am.

Video by Mike Bowers.

At this month’s South Australian election, one of the seats that has come down to the wire is Narungga – a seat on the state’s Yorke Peninsula.

At the time of writing, there is 25 votes between One Nation’s Chantelle Thomas (currently 50.1% two-candidate preferred) and Liberal Tania Stock (49.9%). Ms Stock has been gaining as the preference count continues, but she has a formidable gap to close: One Nation won 37.4% first-preference votes to the Liberals’ 22.6%.

To close that gap, Antony Green reports that the Liberals need 71% of preferences: in other words, of all those who voted for someone other than Liberal or One Nation, 71% need to have put the Liberal candidate higher than One Nation.  

The Liberals are so close thanks to those preferences: that independent, Labor, Greens and minor party voters prefer Liberals to One Nation at a rate of more than 2 to 1.

It’s an early example of the “unexpected power” that progressive and independent voters will have if One Nation continues to poll well: that Labor, Greens and other voters could be “kingmakers” whose preferences decide whether a Liberal, National or One Nation candidate wins their seat.

Bernard Keane in Crikey explains how this requires conservative candidates to think about progressive voters:

“But if the Liberals move still further to the right and become yet more like One Nation, progressive voters will have less and less reason to single out Hanson and her cronies for special preference treatment, and the remaining traditional Liberal voters — affluent, moderate, supportive of lower taxes and less regulation — will abandon the party, thereby chipping away at the last hurdles before Liberal electoral nothingness.”

I don’t mean to overstate the effect of progressive preferences. In South Australia, the Liberals won a couple of seats so handily that preferences were almost irrelevant, and others come down to a classic Labor–Liberal race where what voters think of One Nation doesn’t matter. But when a party is headed for five seats, every seat matters – and that means progressive preferences matter, even in seats where no progressive candidate is competitive.

Narungga is an early example, but it will not be the last if One Nation’s streak continues.

Stepping away from politics for a moment:

Seven months after shooting dead two police in north-east Victoria, fugitive Dezi Freeman has been shot dead by police.

He was shot at a rural property just after 8:30am, having, apparently, not left the Porepunkah region since shooting the officers on August 26 last year.

Consumer advocate, CHOICE, is launching a new campaign, demanding the government ban price gouging “whenever and wherever it happens”.

Morgan Campbell, Head of Policy at CHOICE says:

At the moment, we have a law that says it’s illegal to use your market power to keep prices artificially low, but no law that says it’s illegal to use that same market power to keep prices artificially high. That doesn’t add up. This won’t be the last time we see disruption and sudden price hikes. We need new price gouging protections for the situation we’re in right now, but also for the next one and the one after that.

I saw a reference to Newspoll on tv this morning. Labor’s primary vote is down 1% to 31%.

One Nation’s primary vote was also down 1%, to 26%, with the Greens increasing their support.

The Herald Sun (I only read it for the footy, I promise) reports this as voters: smashing support for Anthony Albanese’s government and driving support to One Nation.

You couldn’t make this stuff up.

Except, apparently, they do!

New polling conducted for the Australia Institute reveals broad support for reducing the perks which give property investors a significant advantage over owner-occupiers in the property market.

Even Liberal voters are ready to scrap the capital gains tax discount introduced by the Howard government in1999, which has enabled investors to pay tax on just half of what they make when the sell an investment property.

Similarly, a majority of voters are ready to put limits on negative gearing, which also provides huge tax breaks for investors, like making interest payments tax deductible.

In a national poll of 1502 people, conducted by YouGov, 50% of respondents agreed with the statement: The Commonwealth Government should reduce tax concessions for property investors, such as the capital gains tax discount and negative gearing. 28% disagreed.

In separate polls in the seats of Kooyong, Mackellar, Wentworth and Farrer, conducted by uComms, between 52% and 62% of respondents agreed with the same question.

Key points:

• In the national poll, Independent (63%), Labor (59%) and Greens (57%) voters believe tax concessions for property investors should be reduced.
• In the same poll, more One Nation and Liberal voters agreed than disagreed. (One Nation 45% agree/33% disagree, Liberal 44% agree/37% disagree.)
• In the seat-by-seat polling, more Liberal voters in Sussan Ley’s old seat of Farrer agreed with cutting tax concessions for property investors than disagreed. Same with One Nation voters.

“These perks have distorted the property market for a generation, skewing it massively in favour of wealthy investors at the expense of owner occupiers, particularly first home buyers,” said Matt Grudnoff, Senior Economist at The Australia Institute. 

“Not only have they been forced to compete with cashed-up investors who enjoy huge tax breaks while they pay off their investment properties – and even bigger ones when they sell them – those same tax breaks have helped send property prices out of reach for many Australians.

“It is absolutely imperative that in this year’s budget the government reverses this 25-year trend of juicing demand for housing and scrap the capital gains tax discount.

“The CGT discount is the biggest single incentive for investors. By scrapping it, the federal government will advantage first home buyers, helping more Australians into a home of their own.”

Energy Minister Chris Bowen will today introduce legislation which will enable the government to underwrite the purchase of fuel supplies.

So how will that work? Here’s the minister on ABC radio a short time ago:

The market’s getting a lot more expensive and a lot more volatile and a lot riskier. And for them, it’s very difficult to buy cargos, which are maybe $25 million or more expensive than they were a few weeks ago, in such a volatile environment with the price of oil moving around. But it’s unquestionably in the national interest that those cargos come here. So what we’ve said is we’ll set up Export Finance Australia to help these firms hedge their risk so that they can make these purchases with confidence so that they can buy these cargos and get them on the way to Australia as soon as possible.

But couldn’t these rich companies just pay more – after all, they’re charging a lot more?

Smaller players, independent distributors who do import, they obviously don’t have the same cash flow and balance strength that some of the really big players have, so they just find it impossible in this market to with confidence by very expensive tankers, which might take a month to get to Australia, and by the atime it gets to Australia, who knows what the oil price will be because of the very volatile situation in the Middle East. Then you’ve got larger players who say they’re doing it at the moment, but there’ll come a point if the price keeps going up or it gets more volatile, when they simply won’t be able to do it. Now, we don’t want to see that situation emerge. So obviously this is ahead of the curve. It’s one step ahead. It’s not something which has been essential up until now, but from this point forward, we think it’s absolutely vital that we have this flexibility.

We pointed out earlier that NSW Transport Minister John Graham won’t make public transport free, saving households money and precious fuel stocks, because it would cost “millions of dollars every single day”.

Just to the north of NSW there’s a state that’s had near-free public transport for a while now. Queensland implemented 50c public transport under Labor Premier Stephen Miles, partly funded by high coal royalties when prices are high.

Oh, look, the coal price is high, what a surprise during an energy crisis!!

In 2024, NSW belatedly increased coal royalties and yet NSW coal production increased the following year, from 229 million tonnes to 240 million tonnes.

This shows that NSW could increase coal royalties, perhaps with a higher rate when price is above US$100/t and raise plenty of money to fund public transport and other services.

NSW Transport Minister John Graham won’t give out free public transport like Victoria has because it would cost “millions of dollars every single day”.

Perhaps Minister Graham could scrap some of the state’s fossil fuel subsidies (page 56) to help out his voters:

• $225 million to underwrite Origin Energy’s coal-fired power station.
• $216 million into new coal railways in Hunter Valley (ARTC)
• $25 million left in the NSW Coal Innovation Fund that the government has just announced they are winding up anyway (p16).
• $17 million left in the Minerals and Petroleum Investment Fund and the Minerals and Petroleum Administration Funds

You’re welcome, Minister!

Treasurer Jim Chalmers is doing the media rounds this morning.

He’s not giving anything away about what National Cabinet will decide when it meets at 10am.

But he’s telling anyone who’ll listen he’s keen to avoid “COVID-style” measures, like forced fuel rationing or work-from-home mandates.

That’s after a News Corp commentator yesterday said the fuel crisis was akin to “COVID without masks”, a line he’d clearly prepared before the cameras were rolling.

The Treasurer has told ABC TV:

The best way to avoid the kind of harsher COVID-style measures is to do that work. And the better we do on the front end of this challenge we have in our economy, the more likely we are to avoid some of those harsher measures and restrictions down the track.

Mike Bowers caught him in the gallery corridor:

Demonstrators decrying President Donald Trump’s policies have taken to city streets across the US in the ‌third edition of the “No Kings” rallies.

More than 3200 events took place in all 50 US states and several cities outside the United States.

The two previous No ‌Kings events attracted millions of participants.

Singers Bruce Springsteen and Joan Baez headlined a rally at the state capital in Minnesota, where upward of 100,000 people gathered in an area that became a flashpoint over Trump’s crackdown ‌on illegal immigration and the incursion of federal immigration agents into Democratic-led urban centres.

Other large rallies took place in New York, Los Angeles and Washington DC but two-thirds of the events are happening outside major city centres, a nearly 40 per cent jump for smaller communities from the movement’s first mobilisation last June, organisers said.

On the National Mall in Washington DC, the crowd chanted pro-democracy slogans and held anti-Trump signs.

Outside one high-rise assisted-living centre in Chevy Chase, Maryland, a group of elderly people in wheelchairs held signs encouraging passing cars to “Resist tyranny,” “Honk if you want democracy” and “Dump Trump”.

In Austin, Texas, a brass band provided the soundtrack as protesters gathered outside City Hall before a march through downtown.

Thousands gathered ‌in midtown Manhattan where ‌actor Robert De Niro, one of the ⁠organisers, said that “there have been other presidents who have tested the constitutional limits of their power but none have

A spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee criticised Democratic politicians and candidates for supporting the rallies.

“These Hate America Rallies are where the far-left’s most violent, deranged fantasies get a microphone and House Democrats get their marching orders,” spokesman Mike Marinella said in a statement.

With ⁠midterm elections later this year in the US, organisers say they have seen a surge in the number of ‌people organising anti-Trump events and registering ​to participate in deeply Republican states like Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and Utah.

In northern Virginia just outside Washington DC, several hundred people began gathering close to Arlington National Cemetery before a planned march across the Potomac River to the capital city’s National Mall.

Some passing drivers honked their horns in support but others slowed down to berate the protesters.

“You’re all idiots,” one man shouted from his car.

John Ale, 57, a ​retired ​air-conditioning and heating contractor, said he drove 20 minutes from his home in Virginia to join ​the march.

“What’s happening in this country is unsustainable,” he said.

“The middle class, the little people, can’t afford to ‌live anymore. And he (Trump) is breaking the norms, the things that made us function as a country.”

Every week the federal government delays implementing a 25% gas export tax costs the Australian public around $350 million in revenue, new research from The Australia Institute reveals.

A new Gas Giveaway Tracker, unveiled today by The Australia Institute, shows the revenue that is being lost, in real time, while the government does not implement a 25% gas export tax.

The Gas Giveaway Tracker will be launched by cross-party and independent MPs and Senators in the Mural Hall at Parliament House at 10:30am today.

Key points:

• Every day the government delays implementing a 25% gas export tax cost the budget $49.8 million
  • That equates to $348.9m per week.
• By delaying a gas export tax, the Albanese government has already missed out on an estimated $68 billion since July 2022.
  • That is enough to have funded free childcare or free university and TAFE for all Australians over the same period.

“The longer we delay implementing a gas export tax, and the longer the government defends the failed PRRT, the more it is costing the Australian people,” said Dr Richard Denniss, co-CEO at The Australia Institute.

“As our gas giveaway tracker shows, every day of delay cost tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue.

“Right now, gas companies get most of the gas they export from Australia for free, thanks to government giveaways.

“Implementing a flat 25% tax on gas exports would ensure that the Australian people got a fair return for their resources.

“Australia Institute research shows voters across the political spectrum, from One Nation to the Greens, overwhelmingly support a 25% tax on gas exports.

“Properly taxing our gas exports could raise $17 billion every year to help pay for Australian schools and hospitals.”

After coming down on activists with the slogan ‘from the river to the sea’ written on t-shirts, to religious objectors to the genocide in Gaza, the Crisafulli Queensland government is now coming down on popular artist Nordacious, government name James Hillier, for his political art highlighting the ridiculousness and double standards of the freedom of expression crackdown.

Hillier, like the others identified by police as breaking the anti-democratic laws, has received notice from police that some of his art, which highlights those who have been punished for speaking out, as well as a piece which utililises John Farnham’s lyrics to Two Strong Hearts ‘like the river to the sea; have drawn the ire of the law.

There are meant to be exceptions to the Crisafulli anti-democratic Joh era laws, which can see people jailed for up to two years if they say/promote/write the phrases ‘from the river to the sea’ and ‘globalise the intifada. Intifada is just the Arabic word for awakening and has been used to mean the awakening to the apartheid and genocide Israel is carrying out against Israel (a reality the nation state’s leadership and supporter’s deny) while from the river to the sea refers to the freedom of the Palestinian people, who live under threatening apartheid conditions, which give Israeli’s free reign over their land. Critics though, are convinced that calling for the liberation of one people must mean the destruction and subjugation of another, which is a complete and deliberate misreading of what people mean.

Hillier is seeking legal advice, but like everyone fighting against this tide, is exhausted and alarmed. He says if any good comes out of it, it may have helped people who still claim politics is above them, just how draconian the laws are.

Keep an eye on this one.

The Greens are still pushing for free national public transport during the fuel crisis, an idea, which at one point last week, had the support of independents and Bridget McKenzie in the Senate.

Victoria has been the first state to jump on board, with free trips starting tomorrow.

For the slow among us, getting more people onto public transport can help free up fuel for those who actually need it. It depends on the routes, the jurisdiction and the implementation though (if we get that far) but the states don’t hate it.

Queensland is gloating, because the LNP was forced at the last election to keep the extremely popular 50c fares Queensland Labor put in place under Steven Miles. It was rubbished at first and has now proven itself an incredible idea, which has helped mean more people visit areas outside of Greater Brisbane, boasting public transport.

Hello and welcome to the last few days of parliament before the easter break. After Wednesday, the parliament won’t sit until May when Jim Chalmers hands down the budget and from all accounts, it is going to be a bit of a rough one. There is some light on the horizon though – the push to have a 25% flat tax applied to Australian gas exports is gaining momentum, and Liberal renegade Andrew Hastie’s public open mind on both that, and the housing investment tax changes has the Liberals now at a crossroads as to what they are going to do.

There is so much public support for both, that the last party to support these things is going to be the biggest losers. Hastie is best paced to see which way the wind is blowing and is not afraid to be a bit populist about it all. Populist isn’t always bad – sometimes it brings about much needed reforms and that seems to be where Hastie is going with all of this. Let’s see how many of his colleagues, who are desperate for some relevance he manages to bring along for the ride. Or at least how many are brave enough to join him.

Meanwhile the government has called National Cabinet because shiz is getting real regarding the fuel shortages. If only we had begun the transition decades ago, huh? But now we are stuck with no energy security, which means our national security is at the mercy of allies we can convince to swing us some stop gap tankers. Fuel will get to those industries that can afford to pay for it, but that is no good for every day people. Something has to give and hopefully it is our slavish devotion to fossil fuel. It’s not just transport. It is food security too. That’s going to become a bigger problem – when produce stops being affordable, you will know we are in a full blown crisis.

Now Glenn Connley will be taking you through this short week, because I have decided to ruin my life by agreeing to write another book and the deadline is this week and I have 40,000 words to write, without AI (because honestly i would rather stab myself with a rusty fork than betray people, and rely on tech barons to tell me anything).

So Glenn will take you through the sitting, along with Mike Bowers. I will be back in May, and I will be checking in when necessary, as well as writing my usual columns when the easter break ends. So please, keep me in your thoughts. There is not enough coffee in the world, but I am fueled by rages and coffee, which is obviously an editor’s dream. if you want to check in, I would also love that.

But please extend Glenn the same help, curiosity, tid bits and general humor you share with me. The Point Live is growing its audience – and we are starting to rival some of the established players, which is incredible, because honestly, in these times, you need people who are going to tell you as it is, while not hiding their ideological bent. Fake neutrality is what got us in this position. We are in the business of being as intellectually honest as we can – we won’t hide where we are coming from, but we also won’t give you vibes and hot air. We will bring you context, history and research.

And honestly – that is our only way through it. So stick with us through the next little while – we are a small team, but motivated to make things better through facts, honesty and responding to you telling us what you need and what is missing. That’s our goal – to make the world, and Australia, a little easier to understand and hopefully empower you to vote in a way that you feel furthers your interests.

So while I am in writer’s hell, spare a thought for Glenn who has been thrown in the deep end to do me a solid. I’ll be thinking of you all and I’m around if you need me. But between Glenn, the team of contributors we are building and Mike Bowers who has kindly made himself available to us, you have things pretty much covered.

May Dolly be with us all.

Ready? Glenn will jump in with you. Take care of you, and those around you Ax