The Point Live: Tomago, News deals secured, students to walk out in protest of PHON policies. As it happens.

Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister:

In December last year I stood in the rain at Tomago and told the workers ‘we have your back’. Today, alongside the NSW government, we deliver on that promise. This site isn’t just important for Newcastle and the Hunter, it’s a critical asset for the country and our manufacturing future. I’m proud of the work we’ve done with the company, with the Minns Labor Government, with local members and with the workers here on site to secure Tomago’s future beyond 2028.

Chris Minns, NSW Premier:

This is a good day for the Hunter. This agreement secures more than 1,000 jobs at Tomago and thousands more that rely on the smelter, and gives the region certainty about its future. I want to thank the Prime Minister and the Commonwealth government. We’ve worked closely together to get to this point and deliver an agreement that to find a way through and secure the future of Tomago. The Hunter has powered NSW and helped build this country for generations. This agreement is about making sure it remains an industrial and manufacturing powerhouse for generations to come. This is part of our bigger plan for the Hunter, securing the good jobs and industries that are here today, while investing $12 billion to bring train manufacturing back to the Hunter and create good, secure jobs for decades to come.

Anthony Albanese has appeared down at the Tomago aluminum smelter to sprik the government’s bailout.

At the end of last year I came here and said “We have got your back” to the workers at this facility. We have worked with the Minns Labor Government here in New South Wales to make sure that this facility has a future that is not only it being able to survive but it thriving into the future.

This is an arrangement that will deliver additional clean energy for New South Wales and for Australia. It will deliver on manufacturing jobs. It will deliver on keeping not just the thousand jobs which are here direct and 5,000 indirect in this region but the many tens of thousands of jobs that come from us being a country that makes things, and aluminium is an essential product. The idea that we sit and allow this facility to just disappear will have – would have had consequences.

We cannot afford to be at the end of supply chains. We need to be a country that makes things and there is nowhere better in Australia that has a history of making things than the Newcastle and Hunter regions. That is why this is so important right here today. I want to thank Tomago aluminium as well for investing in this region. This commitment, $2.5 billion, shared fifty-fifty between our Federal Labor Government and the New South Wales Labor Government, led by Chris Minns, is being backed by additional investment from Tomago in their future. This is a great example of governments at different levels working together to secure jobs and secure the future but also working with the private sector to secure outcomes in the national interest.

There is no question that aluminium is an essential product to be produced because it goes into everything is manufactured in this country just about. That is why we weren’t prepared to sit back and say “It is all too hard”. We have worked constructively to make sure we have a plan. I want to pay tribute to Chris Bowen and Tim Ayres, industry minister and energy minister, who have worked with their New South Wales counterparts to make sure it is delivered.

I want to pay tribute to the local members here, Meryl Swanson and my team and the New South Wales Labor team who have worked so hard to represent the workers and families here. I just met a husband and wife who have just bought a home in Raymond Terrace here. They said to me just before – I had never met them before – that this secures their future going ahead for the period ahead.

I told them we are about to open the M1 in a few weeks, I will be back in the Hunter. Further investment in Raymond Terrace and in this region, backing up the investment we have had in the Hunter Expressway. The investment in the port, the investment we have had in this region. Labor governments will back Newcastle and the Hunter.

Thousands of students are expected to protest Pauline Hanson and One Nation across the country today as part of a National Day of Action called and organised by the National Union of Students (NUS).

The NUS is the peak representative body for tertiary education students in Australia and is mobilising students nationwide against One Nation and its politics of racism, division and attacks on students and working people.

Pauline Hanson and One Nation represent the far right in Australian politics. For decades, Hanson has attacked migrants and minorities while opposing measures that would improve the lives of students, young people and workers.

One Nation has opposed making tertiary education more affordable, attacked efforts to reduce student debt and repeatedly attacked universities.

It has opposed stronger rights and conditions for workers, while attempting to blame migrants for the housing and cost-of-living crises hurting young people.

International students have increasingly become a target of One Nation’s politics. The NUS rejects attempts to turn students against their classmates and scapegoat migrants for problems they did not create.

Over the past year, sections of the media have increasingly treated Pauline Hanson and One Nation’s far-right politics as a normal part of mainstream political debate. Today’s protests reject that normalisation and demand that racism and the far right are confronted, not legitimised.

Students have a proud history of organising against racism and the far right. Today, students across the country are taking that fight to One Nation and rejecting a politics that pits students and working people against each other.

One of the things that came through from yesterday’s manifesto on unhingedness from Andrew Bragg at the National Press Club is that the opposition is rather concerned that the government is doing things.

This isn’t just about it wanting to criticise the Albanese government but that doing things like cutting the Capital Gains Tax 50% discount, limiting negative gearing, reducing the tax minimisation of discretionary trusts and now today bailing out the Tomago aluminum smelter and introducing the media bargaining code shows that a big government is something that works.

Bragg went insanely hard shouting out about “communism” because the neoliberal belief of small government, low low taxes (especially for the rich and companies) has come a gutser (as my Dad would say).

After 40+ years of pushing the lie of trickle down the voters are revolting and Bragg and his co are not coping. And thus they fall back on what worked back in the day: “communism!!”

It borrows heavily from the Republican Party in the USA where they list off all the Communism and mostly it becomes “stop threatening me with a good time” such as this warning on Fox News

What is Bragg saying is communism? Not giving self-managed super funds a 50% tax break on profits of housing investments, a building code that ensures good, safe housing for all, an investigation into AI.

I mean come on.

It truly is time to absolutely destroy the old line of Milton Friedman that “The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem” or of Ronald Reagan that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem”.

Pithy lines were used to justify dismantling the post WWII social contract and led to an absolute surge of inequality. And that was always the aim.

The rising tide might lift all boats, but the neoliberals made damn sure only a few owned a boat.

Governments have the power to do good, for the past 40 years we have had far too many excuses or why they shouldn’t.

And people wonder why the major party votes are falling.

70 leading Australian scientists have signed an open letter calling for increased science funding and a 25% tax on gas exports. 

Australian science is in crisis: 

• According to the Australian Academy of Science, Australia’s science system is going backwards, risking national capability, driving talent overseas and eroding our global competitiveness. 
• 800 jobs have been cut at the CSIRO under the Albanese Government in the crucial fields of health and biosecurity, climate, environment, agriculture and food with a further 350 more planned despite a recent increase in CSIRO funding.  
• Recent funding increases to some areas of science in the last federal budget, including to the CSIRO, have come almost entirely from cuts to science elsewhere. 
• According to Science and Technology Australia, Australia is facing a mass exodus of its science workforce with a third of surveyed workers saying they planned to leave the sector altogether.  

Meanwhile, Australia Institute research shows the Federal government is forgoing around $17 billion dollars of revenue annually that could ensure Australian science is well funded, as well as other essential services like health, education, and housing. 

“If the Australian Government imposes a 25% tax on the foreign owned corporations exporting our gas, Australia could return as a scientific powerhouse and there would still be revenue to boost funding to health, education, and housing, said Mark Ogge, Principal Advisor at The Australia Institute. 

“We used to talk about Australia punching above its weight on scientific research. Our scientists invented wi-fi, the cochlear implant, a vaccine for cervical cancer and vital contributions climate science and solar PV helping to transform the world’s energy system. 

“But since 2008, Australia’s expenditure on research and development as a percentage of GDP has declined, while in other countries it has steadily increased.

“The Australian government is playing Hunger Games with science funding, almost all of the increases in science funding in the last budget came from cuts elsewhere.” 

I’m no economist, but as I read about the rescue package for the failing Tomago aluminium smelter, of which Rio Tinto is the main and controlling shareholder, I can’t help but wonder why taxpayers are footing the bill.

This is how Forbes reported Rio’s result, just a fortnight ago:

Mining giant Rio Tinto reported a 43% surge in June half-year profit to $6.85 billion, driven by robust demand for copper and aluminum.

Rio boss Simon Trott crowed about the company’s profitability on its website:

We achieved a step-change in performance in the first half, which, alongside favourable commodity prices, delivered a 28 per cent increase in underlying EBITDA and a 75 per cent rise in free cash flow.

Our continued investment in growth drove a 3 per cent increase in copper equivalent production¹ and further strengthened our portfolio diversification, with Copper, Aluminium and Lithium contributing more than 50 per cent of underlying EBITDA.

Our strong performance is underpinned by accelerating productivity across the business. We have already banked $870 million of productivity benefits and are on track to reach an annualised run-rate of $1.8 billion by year-end, with significantly more to come as our multi-year program continues to scale.

Our strong cash flow and balance sheet allow us to declare a $3.4 billion interim ordinary dividend, up 43 per cent, as we continue to invest in high-returning growth.

I’m sure smarter folk than me will explain that it’s all about protecting jobs, particularly with so many centred in one region, and ensuring the long-term future of manufacturing blah blah blah

But flinging billions of taxpayer dollars at a facility which is majority owned by a company that makes billions ….

Independent Senator for the ACT, David Pocock, also rose last night to support the Greens motion for a minimum 25% tax on gas exports last night:

Australians know that, once our resources are gone, they’re gone. There’s no getting them back. There’s no having regret after the fact. We had this incredible amount of gas that was exported from this country and yet we look at our national deficit and it’s hurtling towards $1 trillion of national debt. It’s cold comfort to them to hear a government that is regurgitating lines from the gas industry, despite a proposal from the ACTU. The Australian Council of Trade Unions put forward the proposal that a 25 per cent gas export tax was a way for Australians to get a fair return from the gas that we export and a way to reduce the price of gas in Australia for manufacturers, households and businesses. And yet we’ve got the Labor Party not just voting against but arguing against a proposal like this which the vast majority of Australians support.

We’re not making decisions in this place like we want to be here for a long time. We’re not saying: ‘We have this resource. It’s finite. It needs to be part of the transition. Let’s actually get a fair return for it.’ We’re happy to flog it off, take the crumbs and then repeat what the gas industry says. For many years they were in denial about this. They were. They said: ‘Absolutely not. It can’t happen.’ Now they’re in delay mode. They realise that the vast majority of Australians want a better deal, and so the gas industry is trying to delay it and now the Labor Party is trying to delay it. They’re saying, ‘The petroleum resource rent tax, down the track, will give us a return.’ When you look at the Treasury numbers, we get almost as much from passport fees in this country as we do from the petroleum resource rent tax.

Aussies aren’t buying this. No wonder they’re looking at the major parties and going, ‘Well, who are you guys serving? Are you in there to make good decisions for us or are you shilling for the gas industry and shilling for the gambling industry?’ What are we here to do? This is a finite resource that belongs to all Australians. While we delay, while we dither and while the government doesn’t have the guts to put in a windfall profits tax, companies like Woodside are laughing all the way to the bank. We’ll see LNG revenue climb from $59 billion last financial year to $65 billion in 2027. You’ve got Woodside saying that they’ve had a 28 per cent jump in revenue—$6 billion in the past three months—and they’ve exported less gas. And the government says, ‘All good mate; all good.’

Communications Minister Anika Wells is currently introducing the raft of bills to the house.

Wells opens by stating that “Journalism matters” and Australians need “Strong news rooms” that report news that is “accurate timely and available wherever they live”. She argues “to deliver this we need more journalists not fewer”

The bills are “not intended to raise revenue” but that she wants social media companies and media originations to do deals.

The Bill is avaliable here

The explanatory memorandum open with the objectives:

The News Journalism Payments Bill 2026 (the Bill) establishes a statutory payment scheme (News Journalism Payment Scheme, or the Scheme) to distribute any revenue raised by the News Bargaining Incentive (NBI) to eligible news organisations in Australia. The NBI is proposed by the News Media Bargaining Charge Bill 2026.

The intent of the NBI is to incentivise commercial deals between digital platforms and news organisations that were envisioned under the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code. However, should digital platforms decide to pay the charge under the NBI instead of making commercial deals with news organisations, there needs to be a transparent and proportionate mechanism to distribute the revenue back to Australian journalism.

..

Purpose and operation of the Bill

The purpose of the Bill is to establish the News Journalism Payment Scheme to distribute any revenue raised by the NBI to eligible news organisations in Australia to support a sustainable, independent and diverse news sector.

The Scheme will support the employment of journalists that are integral to the production of public interest journalism. Additionally, the Bill has been designed to uphold the editorial independence of news organisations through the provision of clear eligibility that minimises discretionary decisions that could interfere with public interest journalist content.

We’ll have a close read of the Bill and get back with some analysis

The prayers are done and the day has started.

And with that I will hand you over to Greg and Glenn who will take you through the rest of the day.

Be good!

Ax

ANZ have reported a three month cash profit to the end of June of $1.9m – which is where it was expected, but is still up 2% from the year before.

Yesterday afternoon, the Greens moved a motion about “The need for the government to finally introduce a minimum 25% tax on gas exports to ensure Australians receive a fair return from our gas resources, as gas corporations including Shell, Santos and Woodside benefit from reported war-driven windfall revenues while Australians continue to face high energy prices and a cost of living crisis.”

Australia Institute research shows that a gas export tax could raise $17 billion per year and that failing to tax gas exports fairly means accepting bigger budget deficits, lower quality public services and rising inequality.

You can read Greens leader Larissa Waters’ speech on the need for a gas tax in full below:

Actions speak louder than words. Labor’s national platform was just amended so that it says their party wants to ensure a fairer return from our natural resources.

Well, today the Greens are giving the government a chance to vote the way that their own members want them to and vote for a minimum 25% tax on gas exports. Because right now, Australians are being taken for a ride. Japan makes more money off Australia’s gas than Australians do. They’ve had a tax on gas imports for some 50 years, so they made $8 billion a year for the last five years, largely off our gas. Eight billion dollars, while we give it away virtually for free.

Those numbers just don’t add up, and they’re not adding up for Australians either.

That’s why poll after poll shows that a majority of people support a minimum 25 per cent tax on gas exports.

That’s why just a few weeks ago my colleague and I, Senator Allman-Payne, had 80 people packed into a pub on the sunny coast and 75 of them left with a sign saying tax gas exports for their fence.

And that’s why hundreds of Queenslanders turned out last weekend to wave those same signs, all the way from Gladstone down to the Gold Coast.

People are getting behind this campaign because they know the big gas corporations are ripping them off. One in three big corporations pays no corporate tax at all, including Santos, one of the biggest gas producers and exporters in Australia. In the three months after the war in Iran began, Woodside Energy reported nearly a 30% jump in revenue. So not only are they killing the planet, but they’re making a killing while they do it. A minimum 25% gas export tax could raise around $17 billion every single year. We could use that revenue to actually help people in what is a deep and abiding cost of living crisis.

Imagine, imagine instead of leaving $17 billion in the pockets of the gas corporations, we could use it to put dental and mental health care into Medicare.

We could use it to build more public and affordable homes for people. We could fully fund public schools. We could make university free again and cancel student debt. We could put solar and batteries on every single roof in this country and invest in sustainable biofuels so that we’re protected from the next fuel crisis. And we could have real energy independence in a way that helps us tackle the climate crisis at the same time. That’s the sort of thing that $17 billion could be used to actually help Australians.

Now Labour is feeling the heat from the public on this, and that’s why they’ve changed their party platform. But words are not action. So today the Greens are giving Labour the opportunity to act and to vote for a gas export tax, because governments should work for people, not for corporate profits. And it is about time that this government started saying no to their corporate donors and started acting in the interests of Australians. That is your job as representatives and as the government that the people have elected, you’re meant to be working for people.

Instead, we see the Prime Minister continually delivering for the gas corporations and for the other corporate donors that fuel his re-election coffers, and people are sick of it. And they are seeing it more clearly, this government works for big corporations and it puts Australians last. And they’re sick of it, folks, so vote for a gas tax already.

Anara Watson

The Australia Institute has long been interested in fixing Australia’s freedom of information laws.

FOI requests from journalists and the public help hold governments to account. Just as important are the integrity agencies that oversee the FOI process.

These integrity agencies include the Commonwealth’s chronically underfunded Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) and state ombudsman offices.

These agencies have the power to overturn rejected FOI requests when they’ve been assessed incorrectly.

If the government respected its obligations under FOI law, having one of its FOI decisions overturned would be rare.

Instead, last year the OAIC overturned three in every four decisions that it reviews.

How do we know? Thanks to another FOI!

And when integrity bodies step in, Australians get more details about how government works. An FOI recently revealed how close South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas is to the Murdoch press. He has regular meetings with the editor-at-large of The Advertiser.

According to Rex Patrick, long-time FOI advocate, “For 17 months [Malinauskas] fought like hell to keep the information from the public, but he was eventually ordered by the South Australian Ombudsman to hand it over”.

Governments too often delay and deny access to keep documents from public scrutiny. Australia Institute research shows that, at least at the federal level, the government’s handling of FOIs has become less transparent and efficient in recent years.

AAP

A multibillion-dollar deal to rescue Australia’s largest aluminium smelter has brought “enormous relief” to thousands of workers and an end to months of crisis negotiations.

The Tomago Aluminium smelter in the NSW Hunter region faced closure in 2028 due to forecasts of higher energy prices.

While the government has refused to say what the revenue return for taxpayers would be, union officials described the deal as a “win for the working class” that is expected to save thousands of jobs.

The smelter is the single largest electricity user in the nation and consumes about 10 per cent of power supplies in NSW.

The Australian Energy Regulator forecast energy contract prices to double by 2029.

Electricity accounts for more than 40 per cent of its operating costs and Tomago Aluminium warned it would not remain commercially viable if prices rise.

After months of negotiations, the NSW government and the Commonwealth have agreed to commit $2.5 billion to assist in entering into long-term energy contracts to in 2029.

Tomago Aluminium have agreed to invest a further $1.1 billion to decarbonise and upgrade its facilities to better adapt to fluctuations in renewable energy supply and demand.

The focus will now move to the long-term viability of the site.

Industry Minister Tim Ayres refused to comment on what the revenue return for taxpayers would be from the investment, instead labelling it a “complex and large arrangement”.

“(This is) a tough thing for the governments to work through and to deliver together, but it’s manifestly in the national interest,” he told ABC Radio National on Wednesday, defending the bailout of one of Australia’s largest mining companies.

Even so, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said keeping the smelter operating was critical for Australia’s manufacturing future.

“In December last year, I stood in the rain at Tomago and told the workers ‘we have your back’,” Mr Albanese said in a statement. “Today, alongside the NSW government, we deliver on that promise.”

Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union NSW and ACT state secretary Brad Pidgeon said after months of uncertainty, workers can finally feel confidence about the future.

“This is a win for working class people in the Hunter that is a testament to the tireless advocacy of our members on the job,” he said.

For Brad McDougall, he said the smelter has been at the heart of the Hunter economy for decades.

“The local community has been campaigning tirelessly for the smelter to be protected, and today that hard work has finally paid off,” the Electrical Trades Union NSW/ACT organiser added.

“Thousands of local families rely on Tomago. This is a massive win.”

Premier Chris Minns welcomed the agreement, in which NSW would contribute almost half the funding.

Mr Minns said the Hunter had been an industrial and manufacturing powerhouse with the agreement to make sure it remained so “for generations to come.”

Tomago Aluminium produces up to 590,000 tonnes of aluminium a year.

Smelter chief executive Jerome Dozol warned in 2025 the facility would have to close without government intervention on future energy prices from renewable and fossil fuel sources.

Tomago smelter majority owner Rio Tinto reported increasing profits of $6.9 billion in the first half of 2026.

It’s the latest in a string of bailouts from state and federal governments for metal processing infrastructure.

The federal government has promised billions in propping up facilities including the Whyalla steelworks, Mount Isa copper smelter and the Boyne aluminium smelter in recent years.

On the housing market, the man overseeing the bank which saw a $11b yearly profit, largely because of increased interest rate payments, says:

There was certainly a lot more interest, I think, in the changes to the housing market. But as we tried to do yesterday to put some of those numbers in context, actually applications peaked in October last year. House prices peaked in March. It’s clearly a number of factors that were weighing on housing as interest rates rose, global uncertainty, and as you mentioned, some of the changes announced in the budget.

We pointed out that applications had dropped in the in the period that you mentioned, and then we basically saw that start to recover post 30 June and up slightly in the first week of August. But I think it’s always important to recognize how strongly the housing market had performed too much, up 70% over six the last six years at a national level, and we have seen changes in house prices before.

And on the Financial Services Union questions about why a bank which received $11bn in one year in profit is quibbling over staff pay rises, Matt Comyn says:

Well, we deliberately put the pay offer to through the union and to our employees last week. We believe it’s a you know it’s a very competitive offering. As you would appreciate, it’s a negotiation which is done in good faith between ourselves and the FSU. We’ll continue to engage with them, and I’m confident that we’ll be able to strike an agreement that adequately represents and rewards all of our people for the great work they do. My own salary rose to $9.1 million in the latest financial year, up from 7 million a year earlier because of bonuses from previous years that have been deferred and vested.

Q: Is that a number you’re comfortable with, given the performance of the bank in your personal contribution?

Well, obviously, as you’d appreciate, I don’t determine my own remuneration. I certainly recognize it’s a large number, as you mentioned. I actually get paid over six years, so the work that I will do this financial year, I’ll still be receiving some portions of that six years from now. Likewise, some of the remuneration that was received last year actually dates back to many years before that, and you know a large proportion of that is driven by the increase in the share price over that time.

Commonwealth Bank CEO Matt Comyn has told the ABC the CBA think rates will be kept on hold for the rest of the year:

Our economic team think rates are on hold for the rest of this year. A combination of we see the economy slowing. We believe it will slow over the course of this calendar year, although still be in positive growth. We believe inflation will come into the target band. Obviously, housing sentiment and sentiment more broadly will weigh on us. You know, softer household consumption, and then we’re forecasting two rate cuts into 2027. Clearly, there are others who believe that more rate hikes will be necessary to get inflation back into the target band. That’s that’s certainly the highest priority from a monetary policy perspective. So there is that prospect, but we believe that rates, as I said, will be on hold, easing into 2027, which I think would be good news for households.

Q: So, so how how do you achieve this? If we’re talking about the 180,000, that would include cuts to the number of backpackers and international students. National’s leader Matt Canavan said the Coalition would not cut backpackers. Do you regret freelancing on those details before they’d been settled?

Andrew Bragg:

Look, it’s something that we need to consult on. And go back and look at the speech. I was making it clear that this is the general direction of travel. These are just that you need to find a way to operationalise it, and you’d need to obviously consult with industry, with the community, and also with colleagues. That’s that’s clear. But I just think we’ve got to try and be clearer about we’re trying to to get here as a nation.

And the Canadians obviously were successful in helping their housing system by cutting migration and building more houses. This is an important of the puzzle.

Q: Let’s return to housing. Your idea of cutting the national construction code from around 2000 pages to 80 is that policy that’s been greenlit by a shadow cabinet.

Bragg:

Of course, has that part has. Of course, I mean I love the fascination with the Liberal and National Party’s internal processes. It’s very interesting. But I mean, this was in Angus Taylor’s budget reply in May, and we have committed to getting it to 200 pages, but we actually found a way to get it less than 100 pages, ostensibly by picking up the New Zealand building code, which is about 80 pages.

Q: You embraced the idea yesterday that some of the homes built under the 80-page code would need to be basic homes, perhaps without energy efficiency standards of seven stars and other amenities. Are you suggesting that to afford housing, some low-income Australians will have to accept housing that is substandard? Yes, definitely.

Bragg:

Yes, definitely. I think we’ve got to be clear there are trade-offs here.

I’ve been counseled not to use the term Maslow’s hierarchy, but some people don’t know what that means. But I mean, if if it’s more important to have a house than to not have a house, so given the affordability crisis we have in the housing system, we need to just build more houses. ACOSS has raised concerns about people getting a house that they can’t afford to run, but I mean, I mean, ACOSS also wants to have a super guaranteed 30% or something. I mean, ACOSS needs to get out and talk to more people.

For anyone needing a refresher, this is Maslow’s hierarchy – with the idea of lower needs having to be met, before people can achieve the other needs. What Bragg is saying is that the need for a house needs to be met, before you can look at heating, or cooling. Which – I am not sure when the last time Andrew Bragg lived in an Australian home without heating or cooling, but it is not, as Tim Wilson said yesterday, a case of ‘just putting a jumper on’. It impacts every level of your lived experience. You can’t get warm enough. You can’t get into the shower or toilet comfortably. You get sick. If you have elderly people or young children (or infants) you spend every moment at home trying to work out how to keep their temperature regulated. Australian homes now have heating and cooling standards for a reason. We live differently to how our grandparents did. Our homes now reflect that.

Diagram of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (five-level model). Based on his original 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” and later clarifications.

Then Andrew Bragg is up.

He’s asked about Housing Minister Clare O’Neil’s response to his speech: “A crazed, almost manic ideological fever dream. It was genuinely unhinged” and whether or not his colleagues gave him a better review:

Bragg:

I mean, I feel sorry for Claire that she feels the need to say those sort of things. I mean, I think people are very frustrated about the terrible housing system, which is corrupted, has way too much tax, way too much regulation, and I wish you’d just focus on building houses. I mean, all the promises that they made about the National Construction Code, they have failed to deliver on. They’ve made it more complex, more expensive to build, and so I think that’s what you should be focusing on.

Q: Your speech yesterday, did the opposition leader Angus Taylor did he see it before it was delivered yesterday?

Bragg:

Well, of course, I talk widely with my colleagues, and speeches are provided in advance in the usual way.

I thought it was important to give a detailed speech on housing, but it’s very hard to disconnect the housing malaise from the nation’s malaise.

Q: To go back to the question, did Angus Taylor see this speech before you delivered it?

Bragg:

Well, I’m not going into personal interactions with colleagues, and I think you would expect me to.

Q: But it’s important about whether this we heard Coalition policy yesterday, or whether we heard the world according to Andrew Bragg.

Bragg:

Well, I think we should be clear. I mean, I thought that it was important to give a detailed housing address, and I didn’t think it was possible to disconnect the housing malaise from the nation’s malaise. So, in terms of the the broader issues that were flagged, I mean these are not detailed policy prescriptions, but I thought it was important as a token of honesty to be clear about the direction of travel

Q: Should be the reduction in net migration to less than 180,000, you say is achievable. Is that what the coalition wants to do, or is that your number?

Bragg:

Again, these are not opinions. These are just the facts around the gaps that we have. I think Angus has done a very important piece of work here by putting this migration and housing nexus clearly at the center of our housing agenda. It’s one of the key ways that we can fix the housing crisis.

(That sound you hear is Matt Grudnoff yelling that housing supply has not lagged behind population growth)

OK, so now that Andrew Bragg has taken the media back to its Abundance era (the so-called progressive ‘the left can win by cutting red tape! That’s the answer to everything!’ book that swept neo-liberal economies a little while back, until people were like – dude, there is so much more to it and it sort of dropped away) and the media has decided we need to take the Angus Taylor budget-in-reply speech ‘we’ll make the building code a pamphlet’ thing seriously now that Bragg has said it (he’s a bit of a darling of centrist media), Daniel Mulino is asked all about it.

Now Bragg freelanced a bit in that speech (which was also very heavy on allegations THIS Labor government was communist government – which – COME ON) and it’s being seen as an indication that Angus Taylor is in trouble (he went rogue on areas not in his portfolio – like migration numbers) but the only other candidate they have is Andrew Hastie, who seems to be buying his time.

So let’s see.

To the questions:

Q: Moving on to another area, Liberal frontbencher Andrew Bragg addressed the National Press Club in Canberra yesterday. He said that building regulations were too complicated, and that they required gold-plated housing. He said that the National Construction Code should be reduced from around 2000 pages to 80, the government has also said you want to streamline regulations. Do you agree with him in principle?

Mulino:

Well, so when we go back to the three-day economic reform roundtable last year, better regulation was one of the key themes. It took up almost a whole day of the three days. The national construction code came up, and the fact that the code was changing every three years was seen as a challenge. It’s understandable that it’s changing because we’re trying to reflect better materials. In my own portfolio of insurance, we want the national construction code to reflect, for example, better ways of delivering and building more resilient buildings.

Q: Would 80 pages get you there? Is it available?

Mulino:

What we agreed to was to freeze the national construction code, and that was a reflection that we needed to stop that having stop that changing constantly in the course of long projects. Over time, it would be good to reduce the national construction code. I think just saying that we’re going to reduce it by 90% without having undertaken any of the detailed work is, I suspect, not realistic. There’s reasons why there’s a lot of detail in there, but what we’ve undertaken and what we’re delivering is to say to the industry what you’ve what you’ve got there is going to stay, and you can you can build houses on the basis of that code going forward. That was seen as a really significant move, and and will help the industry deliver more.

Q: As you’re saying, we’re almost a year on from this productivity economic roundtable. Why has the government been unable to significantly shift productivity in the past year?

Mulino:

Well, so in the budget, there were a number of measures identified that are going to contribute to productivity. Over $10 billion worth of measures were identified. That included the passage of the EPBC Act, a really significant measure, the freezing of the national construction.

Q: When are you going to see a difference in the productivity numbers?

Mulino:

So productivity growth tends to lag the reforms. We saw this back in the Hawke Keating years. There can be a lag of a few years. That’s the nature of the way the economy tends to incorporate these kinds of regulations.

Q: Do you think it will take until productivity improves under this government?

Mulino:

Well, we saw in the last national accounts that productivity lifted, and three of the four quarters were positive. So I think on some fronts we probably have seen a turning of the corner. But the RBA governor is outlying it as an area of concern, yeah, I don’t think you can put a particular number on when we see the impact of particular changes. But as I mentioned in the budget, we can point to a significant number of material productivity changes. We can also point to significant changes when it comes to competition policy. The most significant changes in mergers and acquisition policy in recent decades. These will have an accumulative effect and will contribute to a more productive and competitive economy.

Daniel Mulino is asked:

Q: The government will today introduce amendments to laws requiring big tech companies to pay Australian news organizations for their content either by striking agreements or paying a tax. You’ve made some changes since announcing the proposed laws last week. What are the changes?

Mulino:

So the changes that we’ve made to get this bill to the point where we can introduce it today and know that it’s going to get through the Parliament, which I’m very pleased to be able to get to, is that we’re going to change the requirement for the number of deals that have to be entered into to fully equip the obligation from six to eight, and that will lift the cap on any individual deal from 16.67 to 25, which is where it was at in the exposure draft legislation. We’re also changing the reference year to be one year closer to the current financial year, which means that will enlarge in the overall pool to take into account one extra year of growth. And we’re also going to reserve 5% of any incentive payments for AAP to reflect their critical role in the ecosystem.

Q: To simplify, do you expect Australian media organizations will get more money or less money from the tech companies than under your initial proposal.

Mulino:

So, compared to the formulation that I announced last week, because we’re changing the reference year to one year forward, it incorporates another year of growth in digital advertising revenue. So, the total pool for media will be bigger by that year of growth. So more, more for media. Yeah.

Q: By specifying that tech companies must strike deals with at least eight news organizations, is the government making a deliberate choice to support some of the smaller media companies?

Mulino:

Yes, and so that’s that obligation to enter into at least at least eight deals is if they want to fully acquit, so it still will be open to tech companies to only partially offset their obligation. But if they want to fully offset their obligation, there have to be at least eight deals. In addition to that obligation, there’s a 200% offset for small and medium players. So that’s also a very strong incentive for them to enter into agreements with regional media, with CALD media, and LGBTQI, and other other smaller players. But what I would also say is that when you look at the way that Google and even Meta, when they were engaged in deals under the previous news media bargaining code, participated, they entered into quite a large number of deals, dozens of deals. So I’m hopeful that that’s the way that they will engage with it again.

Q: Was that a mistake? And should successive governments in Australia have done more to prevent heavy industry from going offshore.

Mulino:

Well, I think there’s been a growing realisation that increasing specialisation, as a result of what you might call globalisation in the post-war era, which did lead to a lot of productivity gains and a lot of lift of living standards, it did create vulnerabilities.

And as I mentioned earlier, in the last decade, I think that’s been brought to the fore. Supply chains have become more complex and, in some instances, more fragile. And so, I think what that means is that risk has to be put into the consideration of governments and their policies

Assistant treasurer Daniel Mulino is on ABC Radio National RN Breakfast this morning, talking about the Tomago deal.

He’s been getting more and more airtime lately – including in QT – which shows that the current Labor leadership think he has future leadership potential.

Asked about the Tomago Deal, Mulino says:

Well, I think if we look at the last decade, what we’ve seen globally is that supply chain resilience is becoming increasingly important. We saw that in the post-COVID world, where supply chains seized up.

We’ve seen that with the Middle East ructions and energy supply chains. We’re one of the few countries in the world with end-to-end aluminum supply chain, and that’s really critical for transport infrastructure. It’s really critical for electricity transmission, and so this is our largest smelter.

It’s really important that it keeps going. We’ve put significant amounts of funding in 50/50, as you say, but because we have an uncapped contribution, it’s important that we get that upside, and and what we get.

Q: How much you’re expecting from that deal? The upside.

Mulino:

I don’t think there’s any particular figure that’s been put on that. But what we do know is that this is going to protect a significant number of jobs in the region and 1000s of jobs indirectly. So it’s really important for the region, but absolutely critical for one of our most important industrial supply chains. This deal is part of a shift in industrial policy following an era where the consensus was that rich countries should not subsidise heavy industry indefinitely.

Fair Agenda has taken a look at the government funding for national frontline women’s safety services and found less than $500m has been allocated over the last three years. (We spent about $16bn on fossil fuel subsidies last year).

Current funding levels are leaving thousands of women unable to access service support across jurisdictions – including 6 victim-survivors a day being turned away in NSW from homelessness services, and almost 4,000 domestic and family violence victim-survivors a year not able to access a service in Victoria when they reach out for help. [2,3]

As the Government finalises its next 5-year plan to address gender-based violence, a delegation of survivor-advocates and frontline service leaders will be at Parliament House from August 17–19 to highlight that the government’s next National Plan will fail unless it properly funds frontline services.

Daisy Gardener, Campaign Manager at Fair Agenda:

In its first 3.5 years of power, the Albanese Government has allocated as little as $457.5 million to frontline services that can be ‘accessed by individuals experiencing family, domestic and sexual violence’. It’s nowhere near enough to keep pace with growing demand. Frontline services are overwhelmed and underfunded, struggling to provide crisis shelter and other support to women trying to escape and recover from violence. A key measure of success for this government should be whether women and children can actually access frontline services when they need them.”

Kerry Staines, CEO at First Nations Advocates Against Family Violence

First Nations family violence prevention and legal services are lifelines, culturally safe, trusted, and often the only place a woman or family can turn. We don’t just respond to crises, we help communities heal and break cycles of violence. But services can’t currently help every family that needs this critical support. Governments need to urgently and sustainably fund the services our communities depend on for legal justice and to detect, and respond early to signs of violence.”

Aislinn Martin, Executive Officer, National Association of Services Against Sexual Violence

The specialist sexual violence service sector provides critical assistance to all victim-survivors, including women and children who have experienced sexual violence and child sexual abuse. Sexual violence services across Australia are critically underfunded, with some victim-survivors facing waiting lists of up to fourteen months to access counselling due to demand. The Second Action Plan must commit to establishing a dedicated funding stream for sexual violence services across all states and territories.”

Sue Webeck, Domestic Violence Crisis Service

Frontline specialist domestic and family violence services are not a luxury — they are a necessity. They provide expert risk assessment, tailored safety planning and material support, helping women navigate complex legal and support systems while holding those using violence accountable. This work can make the difference between helping a woman reach safety, healing and recovery, and grieving the loss of another woman to violence.” Kyeesha Jones, Barkindji Woman, Survivor-advocate: “Having safe, collaborative and culturally responsive care can change the trajectory of victim-survivors and their families’ lives. It was important for my family to have support and services that cared about us, while also challenging the normalisation of violence within our communities. It is crucial that sustainable and continued funding directly reaches and resources services and communities so they can continue supporting better and safer futures for our women, children and families.”

Tiffany Karlsson, Canberra Rape Crisis Centre

At the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre, we are seeing demand for our services continue to grow, but funding is not keeping pace. Government funding must reach the specialist sexual violence support services doing the work so that every victim-survivor can access timely, specialist, trauma-informed support.

AAP

Australian journalists are one step closer to being paid fairly for content hosted on social media platforms as Labor strikes a deal on news bargaining laws.

The federal government’s proposed news bargaining incentive will push companies like Google, Meta and TikTok to strike commercial deals with news organisations to use the publishers’ content on their platforms.

If deals are struck, the companies will pay a smaller share of their Australian advertising revenues to the government than if they refuse to reach agreements.

While Labor announced a final version of the legislation earlier in August following public consultation, the government has announced further changes to secure the support of the coalition.

These include increasing the number of deals tech companies will have to sign to at least eight to offset payments to the government.

Each deal will also be capped at 25 per cent of the total levy to ensure media outlets receive a reasonable cut based on reach and significance in the market.

Australian Associated Press has secured a five per cent cut of all revenue collected by the government through the news bargaining incentive.

The reforms would strengthen the national media landscape “from large companies to small ones”, Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino said.

The government was ensuring journalists got their fair share from digital platforms which benefited from Australian news, Communications Minister Anika Wells said.

“A diverse, strong and sustainable media sector is an essential part of a robust democracy,” Ms Wells said in a statement.

The changes are on top of existing measures including a grant program for small publishers and start-ups, including networking platforms like LinkedIn and broadening the definition of journalists.

Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, slammed the government’s proposed laws in June.

The tech giant labelled it an unfair tax which won’t guarantee a diverse and sustainable news sector.

Hello and welcome back to the last day of the sitting week (until next week!)

You’ll have Amy Remeikis in the morning and then Glenn Connley and Greg Jericho will sub back in to take you through the day (too much work, I’m sorry!) but you will be well covered!

They did an incredible job yesterday and also loved all the interactions with you, so keep it coming!

Today in political news, the NSW and federal governments have managed to come to an agreement over the future of the Rio Tinto Tomago smelter.

The state and federal governments will spend $2.5bn keeping the aluminium smelter open, and Rio Tinto, the majority owner, will put in at least $1.1bn. It’s the nation’s largest consumer of electricity, and uses up to 12% of the state’s energy supply.

An affordable long term power source was one of the operator’s sticking points, and a long term renewable deal is part of the saviour package. So what do you know – renewables are saving industry now. It’s almost like all those political fights trying to stop renewables was shooting Australian industry in the foot.

That’ll be formally announced later today.

The government also has a new draft media bargaining code which basically gives all the major media companies a little of what they want, reinstating the per-deal cap of 25% of the total levy, which is what Nine wanted and increasing the total number of deals to eight, which gives some of the smaller media companies a chance.

And the National Union of Students walk out will be happening today – participating high school and university students will walk out of classes and join at least eight rallies around the country, protesting against Pauline Hanson and her policies. Expect a lot of politicians and commentators to lose their minds today, as young people dare to have a voice.

We’ll be covering it all off, and more – so grab your coffee and join!