The Point Live: Labor focuses on passing digital duty of care, ABC bosses face estimates. As it happened..

And on that note, we are going to put the bed to sleep. Mostly because I think we all need a bit of lie down after Sarah Henderson’s estimates questions – and excellent catch by Skye that perhaps the senator may have been a little mixed up.

In case it has to be said – Israel does not have a good track record of providing proof for its claims, which it makes with impunity. If you still think, three years into a genocide and 78 years after the Nakba that Israel is above reproach and is not, as every major human rights group, scholars, the UN and anyone following along, committing genocide or that Israel has previously lied about its reasons for killing – which it’s own soldiers have admitted – then I don’t know what to tell you anymore.

Australia can’t even get answers over the killing of Zomi Frankcom.

We will be back tomorrow for inflation day, which will be announced as the RBA is in estimates hearings (maybe – things got very delayed today) and will bring you the rest of how Labor wizzes through its legislation list in the House.

Tonight Mike Bowers will be launching his book Fit to Print, which is detailed and pain staking exploration of Fairfax photography which was held by the National Library of Australia. It’s an incredible piece of photo journalism and Australian history. So we will celebrate that.

And then tomorrow- back into it all. So until then, take care of you.

Ax

Morgan Harrington

In a response to a question from One Nation Senator Malcom Roberts, Home Affairs has confirmed that there is “go slow” on the processing of applications for the Working Holiday Maker visa (of the just over 48,000 applications on hand, less than half have been granted). Home Affairs said they are trying to “moderate the growth rate” of Working Holiday Maker numbers.

Roberts then asked if a similar approach is being applied to “international students and their dependents and families? Does it apply to illegal and unskilled?” To which a Departmental spokesperson confirmed that: “we are looking across the system to make changes where they’re where they’re sensible, moderate, but adjust, and ensure government has levers to manage the volume.”

Robert’s said he was “very, very pleased to see this,” and that it “sounds like One Nation policy that you’re adopting.”

Morgan Harrington

Senator Pauline Hanson and Senator Murray Watt have had a tense exchange in Estimates about the value of government spending on multicultural programs. Evidence given by Home Affairs shows that spending on multicultural programs increased from $5.9 million in 2022-23, to $325 million in 2025-26. This included $170m in election promises, and some large grants to organisations that were victims of antisemitism.

Murray Watt interjected to defend the spending: “I’m sure you’d be aware that in the run-up to elections, governments and oppositions and other parties make election commitments. It is the case that we made election commitments to fund activity by multicultural communities and organizations, just as we made commitments to fund men’s sheds, sporting clubs, a range of different organizations.”

Senator Hanson narrowed her scope to funding for languages other than English: “Just tell me, was any grant used for any of these communities to maintain their own language and their own culture?”

Watt again defended the spending, saying that: “We think that there’s some value in Australians being able to speak a range of languages that are spoken across the world.”

Hanson: “And you think that should be at the cost of the taxpayer? … don’t you think the taxpayer would appreciate that it’s up to the household if they want to maintain their own cultural language to do it at their expense, and not the taxpayers?”

Watt: “Our government believes that there’s a lot of value to Australia in supporting multicultural communities, even if you’re only thinking about the economic opportunities, and there’s a lot more to it than that. But even if you’re thinking about the economic opportunities that Australia generates from having people from all around the world, that’s a good thing for Australia. It creates jobs right across Australia. It creates business opportunities right across Australia.”

Skye Predavec

Senator Henderson has used many of her questions to the ABC this afternoon to ask about the ABC’s hiring of a journalist that the IDF alleges was a Hamas fighter.

The most recent questions have centred on the fact that the journalist, who was killed in an IDF airstrike in October 2023, “had a Hamas ID card”, something that Henderson described as “overwhelming and very compelling” evidence.

However, the IDF’s claim that Roshdi Sarraj was a Hamas operative is, according to their website, based on “multiple intelligence sources”. None of these sources have been published or provided to the ABC, and the website makes no claim of a Hamas ID card.

The IDF also accused another Palestinian, Mahmoud Yahya Al-Sarraj, who was killed in an Israeli drone strike in May 2025 alongside a team of aid workers, of being an Engineer in Hamas’ military wing. They base this accusation on a document “located by IDF soldiers in the Gaza Strip detailing operatives in Hamas”, which the IDF claims includes a Hamas ID number.

Is it possible that Senator Henderson based her questioning on “overwhelming and very compelling” evidence about the wrong slain Palestinian journalist, one who never worked for the ABC?

We started the blog off by talking about the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s report into the aged care automated assessments (there were no questions on this in QT by the way) and also by speaking about Robodebt and the dangers of governments that don’t learn.

And well, yesterday, punitive measures for ‘failing’ to meet ‘mutual obligations’ were re-instated. Do we know if these are lawful? Who can say?

The Australian Unemployed Workers union held a protest outside the Melbourne DEWR offices in response to the reinstatement, and that we still, despite all the evidence showing it doesn’t work except to make the providers rich, give billions of dollars to ‘job network’ providers.

Thank you to the blog watcher who supplied these photos.

Greg Jericho

The ABC estimates have now turned to the Race around the Word joke about Gina Rinehart.

We truly are blessed in this country that any one person who is offended by the ABC will be defended to the hilt by both the Liberal Party and One Nation.

Liberal Senator Dean Smith starts off by suggesting “I am a person who has refrained from a lot of commentary about the ABC”

He then reads out Hugh Marks opening remarks about the programs coming up and says “But the airing of that segment on the 12^th of July has undone – has undone – whatever goodwill there might have been left in this country for the ABC – it’s like 1 step forward, 100 steps backwards.”

Seriously.

Barely anyone even saw the program and even myself as a pretty high consumer of news can’t even remember what the joke was – so I had to google to remind myself.

Whether or not the joke was satirical (and as someone with a PhD in satire I can speak on this – it seemed pretty lacking in much satirical worth) ABC estimates is a farce.

So the Coalition has a new slogan, but no new tricks. What else is new?

And the government really, really wants the digital duty of care to take off.

That’s pretty much where we are at.

Skye Predavec

One Nation’s Tyrone Whitten has accused an episode of the ABC’s Stuff the British Stole of “pushing a false consensus” on how young Australians feel about the flag.

The episode featured a redesign competition that, according to Whitten, “emphasised multicultural, inclusive or Indigenous elements”. The ABC noted that the episode centred on the Union Jack being “stolen” from the Republic of Genoa in 1190, but otherwise appeared to say little in its defence, instead saying that they provide “a good cross-section” of Australia by running programming on ANZAC and Australia Day marches, among others.

Here’s a fuller transcript.

Senator Whitten:

In the June 2026 Stuff the British Stole episode, “Flag Fall”, students at Perth Modern School were asked to redesign the Australian flag. Every feature design removed the Union Jack and emphasised multicultural, inclusive or Indigenous elements. It appears the programme has actually pushed a false consensus that is apart from the reality of how young people and young Australians feel about the flag. Are you concerned that your programming is influencing young people to reject our national symbols by creating a false consensus?

Hugh Marks (ABC Managing Director):

… I hear your concerns, I would want to ensure that … all perspectives should be considered and I would have imagined that would be the case. Maybe the challenge should have not been redesign the flag, but keep or redesign. Maybe that would have been a better challenge

Senator Whitten:

I just have an issue with encouraging our children to think about a new flag, given that brave men and women put it on their shoulder and go to war for us.

Gavin Fang (ABC Editorial Director):

I understand, Senator, but I don’t think that the ABC could be accused of not running a variety of other programming and material … we cover extensively, for example, the Anzac Day and the parades and marches around that. We run a whole series of programming on Australia Day, Australia Day marches, citizenship ceremonies and a variety of other programming.

Skye Predavec

Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson is asking the ABC about an article in the Australian titled “‘ABC’s man in Hamas’ exposed as being part of IDF’s list of terrorists”. The article reported that Roshdi Sarraj, a former ABC 730 freelancer and one of the 241 journalists killed by the Israeli military during the war in Gaza, had been put on an “IDF list of terrorists”.

But according to the ABC and the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (which researches and documents attacks on journalists, advocates for their safety, and provides emergency assistance to those at risk) Sarraj was a legitimate journalist. The IDF has not provided any evidence to the ABC to back up the claim that Sarraj was affiliated with Hamas, and the ABC has found no evidence in their own investigation.

Senator Henderson: “I want to go to the issue of the reports of a number of journalists working in the Middle East who subsequently were discovered to be operatives or associated with Hamas. [Has] the ABC hired anyone who’s subsequently been identified as being someone who’s a member of Hamas or an operative?”

Gavin Fang:

So I think you’re referring to a story that was pinpointing some work that had been done by the Committee for the Protection of Journalists. It’s an international organisation, very well respected, who maintains a list of journalists that have been killed in conflicts around the world, including in the Middle East. There was one particular item which made an allegation about a fixer that used to work for the ABC. I’d have to get you the exact year, but it was some years ago, who was killed in Gaza. The Committee for the Protection of Journalists has not removed that person from their list of journalists that have been killed, so their evident, their view is that person was a legitimate journalist.

We have attempted to get some clarification from the IDF about their position on this, and as yet they have not provided us with any evidence to suggest otherwise. So for the best of our knowledge and for the work that we have done and that the Committee for the Protection of Journalists has done, that person was a legitimate journalist that was tragically killed.

Senator Henderson: “And what evidence do you have to support that, given this person was on an IDF list of people associated with Hamas?”

Gavin Fang:

Well, I don’t think it’s incumbent on us to prove that the person, a negative in that sense, Senator. The internationally recognised list that many media organisations refer to around this, who maintain a high level of credibility around this matter, still continue to list that person as a journalist. We have asked for further evidence from the IDF, and until we are able to find something that goes to the veracity of that claim, I don’t think it’s incumbent on us to make a decision to declare that that person was a member of Hamas.

Angus Taylor:

My question is to the prime minister. I refer to my previous question. Why is this serial rapist who is on a visa here in Australia still here? Why won’t the prime minister accept responsibility for his government’s failure to protect the community from non-citizen criminals?

Tony Burke is back up.

I’m glad that this has been asked again, but I suspect the leader of the opposition won’t be by the time he hears and is reminded, and is reminded of details.

Dan Tehan has a point of order that the opening statement was not relevant.

Burke gets to the point:

Speaker, we are determined that when a minister then calls in one of these cases to make a ministerial decision, that it is one that absolutely stands up in court.

That means you have to wait for the ART to be able to release its decision before the department can prepare the brief for the minister, that’s what you have to wait to do. Because if you don’t do that, you end up failing because the decision you make, they appeal to the court and they stay because you haven’t taken into account all the relevant information. So you have to wait for the ART decision.

You have to wait for the ART decision, but allow me to also say this: in the previous question, the earlier question, which the leader of the opposition referred to, he referred to ministerial direction 110.

That has already been superseded by a decision I made a couple of months ago with respect to ministerial direction 123, and that is to take into account and to give direction to the ART, that with this new line of reasoning, it’s trying to say that oh, because you are now sending people to Nauru, if you can’t send them back to their home country, that’s too harsh. Can I say we stand on our sovereignty, on our right to deport somebody who no longer has a valid visa, and the Nauru arrangement is our way of doing that, and we make no apology for making that arrangement. And we are glad that the government of Nauru made that arrangement with us.

In direction 123, we have gone to the absolute limit of the law of being able to make sure that this into the future is not taken into account. But allow me to say this: there there has been a a letter which was agreed to, asking whether we would change the law on this exact issue so that we could give even stronger direction to the ART.

That was a letter that came to us from the leader of the opposition. We agreed on that ministerial direction 123 goes as strong as we are able to right now, but we are waiting for the day when the opposition will agree to vote for legislation that they wrote to us asking for.

Greg Jericho

Senator Henderson is still going on about the ABC having hired a journalist whom the IDF has alleged was a Hamas fighter.

It seems utterly beyond Henderson’s ability to grasp that the IDF might not be the most objective organisation to determine whether or not the people the IDF killed were journalists.

The Committee to Protect Journalism list 196 journalists killed since 7 October 2023, and wouldn’t you believe it but the IDF says 170 of them were Hamas!

Henderson is shocked SHOCKED!!! That the ABC does not just believe the IDF – the did extensive research don’t you know! “They are one of our closest allies!!!”

She suggests the ABC is being flippant about it. Hugh Marks reiterates that they asked the IDF for its evidence and the IDF has not given them any. Gee that evidence must be rock solid!

Angus Taylor asks his first question and well, you’ll see:

Prime Minister. According to the Australian newspaper, a Congolese serial rapist who abused his 13-year-old daughter has been allowed to stay in the country thanks to the government’s Direction 110. The man arrived in Australia on a refugee visa in 2008. Over 100 other hardened criminals, including rapists, pedophiles, and drug lords, have also been allowed to remain in Australia under the same direction, under this Prime Minister’s watch. Prime Minister, how on earth did you let this happen?

This is very, very low. You can not go to the ART unless there has been a visa cancellation. And you still get a chance to appeal in Australia, because that is how democracies are supposed to work. And under our visa rules, the minister can still call in a decision the tribunal has made, if the minister feels there are grounds.

So it’s not the whole story, and is also a very low way of asking about it, because the Coalition is deliberately trying to be ‘soft on borders’ again, weaponising the abuse a 13-year-old girl has received, without the full context of the response.

Tony Burke takes this one.

I am so glad that this has been raised because the information and the conclusions that are drawn there are just plain wrong, just plain wrong. And I want to explain why. Because a lot of people, understandably, have seen articles like this and have presumed that the ART decision is the end of the road on the decision making in these processes. First of all, the only reason any of these people have been before the ART, before the Administrative Review Tribunal, is because under that direction, under exactly that direction, the department had canceled the visa. Otherwise, there would have been nothing to appeal. So the direction is the reason that this process started because the department and I back the decisions that my department have made in canceling visas for exactly the sort of people he just described, so that’s the starting point. I know you’re bewildered, shaking your head. It’s actually how the system works. You can’t appeal. You can’t appeal unless the decision’s been made against you in the first place. That’s how they get to the ART. It’s not complex. Then once they get to the Administrative Review Tribunal. If the tribunal looks at the decision in a different way to how we did, then what happens? Then what happens is the minister calls the decision back in, and you look at the record over time of what happens when those decisions are called back in. Now, when the cancelations ultimately happen from the ministers. As it happens, we don’t end up with the same front page in the paper. That’s an editorial decision that is what it is, because these articles only ever come at one moment in time. And you look at each of these cases, you go through the history of them, you get the initial banning of canceling of a visa by the department. Most of those decisions stay at the ART, but some of them the ART overturns, and then overwhelmingly you find the gets called up to the minister, and the visa is canceled again, and the person is taken into detention and leaves this country as they should.

Allegra Spender then asks Chalmers:

The treasurer acknowledges that indexation on CGT has limitations when applied to low or zero cost-based businesses. That describes every low capital business built from nothing. But the fix, the innovative business CGT concession, only covers businesses that pass a narrow innovation test, leaving others who take huge risks to build medium and large businesses one of the world’s highest tax rates on capital. Why won’t the government just reduce the CGT discount on businesses to rebalance the tax system, rather than this narrow carve-out?

Chalmers:

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Thanks, the honourable member for Wentworth. I acknowledge her interest and her input in this really important area of tax reform, and I acknowledge as well the other colleagues on this side of the house who’ve engaged constructively with our ambitious tax reform agenda. And it’s good time to ask the question, Mr. Speaker, as the honourable member knows that only a couple of hours ago, we introduced the legislation into this Parliament for the innovative business carve-out in the CGT reforms, and alongside that, the reforms to the R&D tax incentive and some of the other important reforms in our tax package, mr. Speaker. And what that legislation recognises is that our startup and innovation sector is a key driver of jobs and productivity in our economy. It’s the honourable member knows, in the lead up to the budget, and then publicly from budget night, we’ve made it really clear that we would be consulting in a meaningful and genuine way about the best way to design the carveout for innovative businesses, Mr. Speaker.

We were clear in the budget that we would have arrangements for start-ups with a low or zero cost base, and the targeted concession we’re putting forward delivers on that commitment. I acknowledge that the honorable member has a different view, but in our view, we have struck the best possible outcome here: the best combination of carve-outs and concessions, which ensures that early investors in innovative startups will still receive a significant discount on a future capital gain.

Our reforms mean that for Australians looking to invest and grow their wealth, we’ve got concessions targeted at starting a new innovative business or investing in a new build, and this is part of around $4 billion in tax cuts and tax concessions to incentivise and reward innovative businesses, startups, and small businesses, Mr. Speaker.

In addition to that, as the honourable member knows, we’re expanding the venture capital incentives. That’s also in the bill that I introduced today, a very important part of our reform agenda, we’re also strengthening the performance test to ensure there are no unintended barriers to investments in areas like venture capital. Another issue that the honourable member has raised with me on other occasions. I wanted just to finish, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to point out that across this package that we introduced today, the government has run six consultation processes, and we’ve engaged with more than 500 submissions on these.

To point out that across this package that we introduced today, the government has run six consultation processes, and we’ve engaged with more than 500 submissions on these issues.

This engagement has included roundtables and bilateral engagements with peak business and industry associations, universities and academics, start-ups, incubators, innovation networks, life sciences firms, manufacturing, engineering, other key sectors, and also members of the crossbench, and of course members of the government as well. Mr. Speaker, there will always be a range of views about the best way to go about this. This consultation that we’ve done has made the reform package better, and that’s why we put it to the Parliament today.

Jim Chalmers lays the ground work with this dixer:

Tomorrow we’ll get the inflation data for the September quarter, and also the monthly data. And what we expect to see there is that the war in the Middle East is pushing up the price of fuel and other prices in our economy, and that is making our domestic inflation challenge harder, mr. Speaker. Now, this is being felt by every economy around the world in one way or another. If you look at recent inflation data in other major economies, driven by higher oil prices in annual headline terms, the U.S. went up 0.3, Germany and the U.K. 0.4, France 0.8, Italy 0.9. All of those numbers are annual headline numbers, mr. Speaker, and the latest IMF World Economic Outlook shows global inflation is on the rise, and you can see that in interest rate expectations in every major advanced economy.

Now, Mr. Speaker, here in Australia we have much lower debt than other countries, lower interest repayments, we have a stronger economy than almost all of our peers, but we do know that developments around the world are making our domestic challenges like inflation harder, and that that is putting additional pressure on families and Australians more broadly. Mr. Speaker, now markets aren’t expecting to see a big jump tomorrow in our numbers like we’ve seen in some of those other countries, but they’re also not expecting inflation to go down yet either.

We know, Mr. Speaker, that budgets aren’t the primary driver of prices in our economy, but they can play a helpful role. If you look at the last year of public final demand growth, you can see that it halved compared to the year before. So public demand is coming off in our economy, but private final demand growth tripled in that year compared to the year before, mr. Speaker. And this is why our responsible approach to managing the budget, managing the economy, is so important. It’s why we have found 180 billion dollars in savings in the budget since we came to government. It’s why the budget that we handed down from this dispatch box in May had the largest amount of savings in the history of the Commonwealth, more than 60 billion dollars in savings. It’s why we’ve banked upward revisions to revenue, kept average real spending growth lower than those opposite, Mr. Speaker, and it’s also why the mid-year budget update in December will have another savings package in it, just like the eight budgets and budget updates which preceded it, mr. Speaker. This government has had budget has had savings in every budget and budget update eight consecutive times. Those opposite didn’t have a single savings measure in their last budget, mr. Speaker. So, despite all the volatility that is coming at us from around the world, Australia is better placed. We are better prepared, and we’ve got a better plan to deal with it.

The LNP’s Michele Landry asks:

Barren Valley hotel owner Michael Nasser has warned your government’s changes to working holiday maker visas will see businesses fail left, right, and center. He said it will destroy regional Australia. There are backpackers here to do work that no one else wants to do, and we actually need them. This is the worst government policy decision that I’ve heard of in my lifetime. Why do Australians always pay the price because the Prime Minister can’t admit he’s made a mistake?

So ‘why do Australians always pay the price’ is the new slogan. Brace yourself for that.

Albanese:

I’ll have the Minister to respond, but if that was Barren River, Baron Valley Hotel, if that was the group that I think the member for Kennedy came, it might have been the same group.

Is is that right, member for Capricornia?

Well, I’m just if it’s a group that I’ve met with, I’m not certain that it is. But if it is, I met with them during the last parliamentary sitting week, and what they did was put forward very constructively the work that they do, they do fantastic work. They have accommodation there for people working on banana, bananas and avocados in particular, and they spoke about the great benefit that we had. And what I did was have a very constructive discussion with them about the changes that were proposed and ways in which we could make sure that that workforce was looked after, and I must say that the the couple who were there were delightful, hardworking Australians who are making a big difference in that part of regional Australia.

One of the things that I spoke to him about was the UK Free Trade Agreement and the impact that it has had, because at the moment people unlike backpackers from other areas of the world who have to spend time in regional Australia, at the moment those UK backpackers are arriving in very large numbers, much greater than they were previously to that arrangement being in place, and they are staying at Bondi Beach or Coogee or around, particularly the capital cities, and working in hospitality there, and that’s placing enormous pressure because it’s distorting the labor market in these areas as well. That’s just one of the areas in which we put forward, we’ll put forward changes. That requires discussions, and I’ll be meeting with Prime Minister Andy Burnham. It’s one of the issues which I committed to the publicans to raise with the Prime Minister of the UK. It’s something I’ve raised with him informally as well, because we know that these issues are very important to be dealt with, and that’s why I’ve been prepared to meet with these small businesses and engage with them constructively in order to provide assistance.

Morgan Harrington

Shoebridge has continued to grill Home Affairs about exactly what the US Government is asking Australia for under a proposed “enhanced border security partnership” agreement. Home Affairs says that they are discussing whether they would provide the biometric data of Australians to the States, or if they’d instead validate what the States holds on Australians. Senator Shoebridge asked who might be given access to this biometric data. “We know that Palantir, for example, has contracts with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. We know that Palantir is getting access to vast amounts of U.S. immigration data. Have you had any discussion about whether this information would be passed to Palantir?” After a protracted back-and-forth, a version of the question was taken on notice.

Apparently the US wants an agreement in place by 31 December. After which, they could potentially revoke visa free travel for countries that don’t have a “enhanced border security partnership” agreement in place.

Greg Jericho

Senator Whitten asked Hugh Marks about the breakdown of funding by platform (news, audio and screen).

Marks answer is pretty instructive about how things will be done at the ABC

“audiences are becoming  less concerned with whether something originated from the audio division or the news department – they’re just consuming the content. And increasingly that content is across all platforms.

It is getting more difficult to be able to distinguish between the three areas – in fact you know, I think it’ll be something where we will rally around categories of content going forward with “sport, “first nations”, “specialist content” “Australian music”… this will be the way we will set up for the future.

News has traditionally been the largest component of content spend at the ABC. I don’t anticipate reducing the budget of the news division – I think there are many areas of news that could do wit more money and then screen and audio would come in that order[of spending] – that would be the traditional way. But going forward I think you’ll find it’s going to be a lot more blurred and we’ll start to talk about genres of content rather than platforms.”

So this very much speaks to the ABC shifting more online, more “YouTube” style stuff, more podcasts, and much less people working strictly in “news”

Jason Clare again brings in the digital duty of care in a dixer about education:

I can’t think of anything worse than these nudify apps that allow sickos to cut and paste a picture of our kids and stick it onto a naked body and send it out to the world to humiliate them. It is disgusting.

And I ask us to think about this: How many times do you think these apps have been downloaded by Aussies in the last month? The answer is 200,000. It should be zero. There was a bloke in Queensland the other day that was sent to jail for using one of these apps against a 13-year-old girl, her mum gave evidence in the court about the burden she faces, knowing she’s kept this as a secret from her daughter, and that one day she’s going to find out all about this.

Now, the truth is, it should never happen in the first place, right? This bloke should never have had access to an app to be able to do this to her daughter in the first place, and that’s what the digital duty of care legislation will help us to stop, to be able to take these things down. And this week, we’ve got a chance here to come together to stop sickos like this and to help protect our kids.

All we’ve got to do is vote for it.

Darren Chester asks Albanese:

The average new mortgage holder is now paying $30,000 more per year because of the 16 interest rate rises under his government. The Prime Minister has failed to deliver the $275 reduction in household energy bills, he promised 97 times. The National Farmers Federation has warned that grocery prices will increase because of his failed working holiday maker visa changes. Why do Australians always pay the price? Because the Prime Minister won’t ever admit he’s made a mistake.

OK, so the interest rates are because of the RBA and inflation, most of which is being driven by overseas issues, supply chain increases, and DATA CENTRE INVESTMENT. The energy bill thing was from a whole arse election ago, and grocery prices increasing because of visa changes – visa changes that everyone is currently harping on about and wanting to make their own – is kinda a new level of eye roll.

Albanese:

I thank the member for his question, and it goes to, in part, I’m stunned at them raising issues of migration, access to the labor market, because the government is making sensible changes, just as we have brought down the level of net overseas migration by 45%.

What what those opposite are suggesting would decimate the agricultural sector, and we have had I have certainly had representations about that. Just as we are continuing to engage constructively with business, with business, and if and as the member might know, the offer has been there for other reforms that would further help to bring down the migration numbers and do so in a way that had no impact at all on the needs of the labor market. But those opposite, unfortunately, have chosen to not support those sensible reforms.

Dan Tehan is back (Tehan is doing this, so Angus Taylor can still look ‘civil’)

Will the Prime Minister just stop the spin and admit he was wrong.

Albanese:

It was not correct to say that the federal grant would deal with the sewer road.

Well, to to quote the state government media release of 17 September 2025, I assume it’s from the state government putting an end to sewer roads, Maryfield Golf Course, to get a whole lot better, after we made the commitment to the club, which included fixing this issue, which has been an issue since 1947, the state government have stepped in. That is a good thing. I was not aware of the state government grant. Why would I be, frankly?

But it said the grant, the grant is the grant is being administered by the infrastructure department. The state government have, in their statement, said this: the club’s growing popularity as a social and community harbors placed increased pressure on its aging septic system. The clubhouse is not currently connected to the public sewer system and relies on two old septic tanks, one of which failed and discharged wastewater onto the course, impacting golfers’

There is a point of order that is not a point of order.

Albanese continues:

(The release went on to say) and presenting an environmental risk to the nearby Cooks River, Crown Lands in the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure will provide the grant from its Crown Reserves Improvement Fund to Inner West Council to solve the problem by connecting the clubhouse to the main sewer. The New South Wales government to connect the clubhouse will pave the way for further upgrades to the golf course precinct, funded by the federal government. That’s the point here, Mr. Speaker. This is not a for-profit organisation. This is a not-for-profit on crown land managed by the local council for the benefit of the local community.

Greg Jericho

Now Sarah Henderson goes to the issue of Roshdi Sarraj, an ABC 7.30 freelancer who filed video for ABC who was killed by the IDF on 22 October 2-023 by an airstrike.

The IDF claims he was a member of Hamas. Senator Henderson wants to know if the ABC has investigated whether he was a fighter for Hamas. She talks about this as though it is fact despite it only being suggested by the IDF who are absolutely biased and for whom it is entirely self-serving to say that everyone they kill is Hamas.

Henderson suggests that makes it true, ABC Managing Director Hugh Marks says they have asked the IDF for that evidence “and we have not been provided with that”.

Henderson suggests that’s all she wants to know.

Marks also notes that the Committee for the Protection of Journalists still lists Roshidi Sarraj as one of the more than 190 journalists killed by the IDF since October 2023.

It notes:

A 31-year-old Palestinian photojournalist and co-founder of Ain Media, a Palestinian company specializing in professional media services, Roshdi Sarraj was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip, according to the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, Wafa, Sky News, and Al-Jazeera. His wife and toddler daughter were injured in the same strike, according to those sources.

Sarraj was a childhood friend of Palestinian journalist Yaser Murtaja, another co-founder of Ain Media, who was murdered on April 07, 2018, while covering protests in the area east of Khan Younis, Gaza.

Murtaja and Sarraj shared an immense passion for photography, which led them to start Ain Media in 2012. After Murtaja’s death, Sarraj continued running the company and reporting on Gaza.

According to the Turkish TRT World, Sarraj was in Saudi Arabia when the Israel-Gaza war started on October 7, and later went to Qatar for work. His widow, Shuruq Al-Ayla, told TRT that Sarraj then decided to return to Gaza to document the war.

On the morning of October 22, the family sat down to have breakfast when an Israeli missile struck the house, killing Sarraj on the spot.

In his last post on Facebook on October 13, Sarraj wrote: “We won’t leave. We’ll exit Gaza to the sky, the sky only.” On October 17, Sarraj tweeted on X: “A lack of media coverage from Gaza due to the killing [of] more than 12 journalists, the bombing, and the blackout of electricity and the Internet.  However, we are still trying to withstand and continue coverage so the world can see the Israeli crimes in Gaza.”

Bob Katter asks:

Treasurer, our biggest import item, three times bigger than any other is petrol. We export oil for 8,000 million and import petrol for 62,000 million, three times higher than any other item. Brazil is 60% ethanol. America is 16% ethanol. Australia zero. Brazil $1.60 a liter, America $1.90 a liter, Australia $2.60. 54% of Queensland’s electricity comes from China. Solar panels, coal-fired power, and ethanol will give a $20,000 Christmas present to every Australian, why won’t you deliver this Christmas present, Treasurer?

Jim Chalmers:

Thanks the Honorable Member for Kennedy for his question. I acknowledge that for as long as I have known him, he’s been a passionate supporter of the ethanol industry and the crucial role that alternative sources of fuel will play in Australia is fuel security, and it’s a really important part of the Prime Minister’s future Made in Australia agenda, and the work that he does with the Energy Minister and other ministers to make sure that we get this right, mr. Speaker. That’s why the Energy Minister and I went to the Ampol refinery in Lytton, in Brisbane, to announce the 1.1 billion dollar cleaner fuels program. We put 1.1 billion dollars behind this very important objective that we share with the member for Kennedy, which is to make sure that our fuels can be that ethanol and other sources of cleaner fuels can be part of our fuel mix.

Ethanol is estimated to be a $15 billion industry by 2050. I acknowledge the honorable member would like that to be even bigger. It will also be a really big ongoing market for Australia’s farmers. It’s no coincidence that the NFF stood up with Minister Bowen and I at the Litton refinery because they’re excited about it. There were investors there, the super sector, and others, Mr. Speaker.

So if you look at that as part of a really big effort across our government when it comes to fuel security, we got a 15 billion dollar fuel security package in the budget. It was one of the five essential elements of the budget.

One of the things that we’re proudest of in the course of the last six months or so is the steps that we are taking and have taken to enhance Australia’s fuel security when that fuel security is under maximum pressure, for obvious reasons. So, in addition to the cleaner fuels program I mentioned, seven and a half billion for the fuel and fertilizer security facility, 3.2 for the Australian Fuel Security Reserve, 2.9 for our responsible temporary relief from petrol prices. All of that is about acknowledging the pressures that the honorable member mentions in his question as well, and that’s before we get to the important work that we’re doing with our international partners to shore up our fuel security again, right across the cabinet, from the prime minister, the energy minister, and right across our team, including in my case, in three different sets of engagements in the last three weeks. Fuel security has been a big emphasis of our international engagement as well.

So we’re doing a lot of work, Mr. Speaker, and the honorable member for Kennedy, to make sure that we make the most of this opportunity when it comes to ethanol, that we make the most of every opportunity when it comes to our international partnerships. Fuel security is at a premium right now, and that’s recognised in the government’s policy agenda.

Richard Marles then moves on to the ASD report on cyber threats (which it has said is inevitably going to increase because of AI – which is not the AI going ‘rogue’ – but doing what it is programmed to do – and we are rolling out the red carpet for it.

Marles:

Today, ASD has three really important messages. If you have an old IT system connected to the internet, that is a gateway for malicious actors. You need to replace it.

Secondly, it’s important to take the time to secure and harden your IT systems, even if that means that you go offline for a couple of days.

And third, while AI represents part of the challenge here, AI is also very much part of the solution, you need to use AI to harden your systems.

There’s a lot of great AI products out there now, and through cyber.gov.au, ASD is providing a lot of advice about how to use those tools. In a more contested environment, it is possible to meet this challenge and to win, and ASD is there to help. I am very fortunate to see firsthand the incredible work which is undertaken by the men and women who serve in the Australian Signals Directorate and who each and every day are providing for the cyber defense of our country.

Richard Marles just took a dixer on the EU free trade agreement, where he said:

Now, at a time where free trade is under some siege from parts of the world. We need to stand up for a market-based economy and stand up for free trade.

What he neglected to mention was that free trade was under siege from Australia’s so-called great ‘ally’ – the United States of Donald Trump. Wonder why?

Morgan Harrington

Over in Estimates, Senator David Shoebridge has asked representatives from the Department of Home Affairs about negotiations over an “enhanced border security partnership” proposed by the US. Australians enjoy visa free travel to the USA, but new requirements from the Trump Administration could require Australians who want to go to the states to provide more information about…well, just what exactly is what Shoebridge is trying to find out. Will people’s criminal history be provided to the USA? Will their biometric information? How about other personal information related to race and political affiliation as covered by the EU’s special categories of personal information? “What elements, what identity elements, what information is the US seeking under the EBSP?”

As Australia Institute research shows, the number of Australians travelling to the United States has declined in recent years.

Dan Tehan is back and has the same question:

Q: Prime Minister, I refer to the Prime Minister’s previous answer and ask why won’t the Prime Minister admit that he was wrong?

Albanese:

I thank the member for his question, and I have said very clearly that we made the commitment. Part of the upgrade of Maryford Golf Club was going to be to fix the long-running sewerage issue.

That is not the case because the state government have stepped in and provided funding from September 2025 with the announcement that they have made, and it is similar to the seven projects announced by the member for Forest, totalling totalling 22. The member for Forest, the member for Forest is now warned, totalling 22.26 million dollars, including upgrades for the bustle to Margaret River Airport, Oval Seven and Eight at Lehne Leisure Center, funding for a new Gloucestercast Pavilion, funding for bringing up skate park, funding for Brunswick Tennis Club, and funding for South Brunswick, South Bunbury Football Club.

Now, Mr. Speaker, during election campaigns, people make commitments. I have said that was not correct. It was not correct. The state government have moved in and are funding the project.

Greg Jericho

Senator Henderson is the opposition’s main critique of the ABC and so she is up first.

She starts off with the doco that is coming out “The Rise and Fall of Allan Jones” and wants to know if they sought legal advice on it and the trailer that has already been run.

The ABC Managing Director, Hugh Marks says they won’t be running the program until the case is finished.

And with that we move on to former Four Corners reporter Mahmood Fazal (not unexpected)

Hughes says lessons have been learned, and he should have had better oversight.

Senator Henderson wants to know about the minimum qualifications for ABC journalists (because she suggests Fazal did not have them).

This is rather laughable because anyone can be a journalist.

I have been one for nearly 20 years and I did not do a degree in journalism nor a cadetship.(I did lecture it for nearly a decade at the Uni Canberra, and a couple of my students now work at the ABC)

Dan Tehan is the first person to ask a question here and he takes us back to another sitting (I am going to bet that the Coalition is doing this, because a backgrounder with grants that Helen Haines had received was distributed by the PMO to journalists (some who had asked for it) after she raised integrity issues with grant programs under the Labor government. But let’s see.

Tehan:

On 9 September 2026, the Prime Minister told this House his $6 million taxpayer-funded grant to Marrickville Golf Club was to fix sewerage flows into the Cooks River. On 10 September 2026, the Prime Minister doubled down on this claim in this House. Last week, the Department of Infrastructure confirmed to a Senate inquiry sewerage works were not in the scope of the $6 million grant. This was confirmed again at Senate estimates last night. Will the Prime Minister give Australians a straight answer, admit he misled the House, and correct the record?

Albanese:

What I’ll do, Mr. Speaker, is answer the question.

And the delivery of the grant is, of course a matter for the Department of Infrastructure. The Inner West Council confirmed to last week’s Senate inquiry that they are currently finalising the design of the entire project, including improvements to the clubhouse, stormwater harvesting, new toilet, and landscaping. This is a grant, of course, to Inner West Council as a result of an election commitment made on the 27th of April 2025, as part of the renovation of the clubhouse to boost the health of the Cooks River, which the building and securing the Marrickville Golf Club precinct announcement was made.

Sewerage issues are a long-standing concern on this site, and I’m advised that in September 2025, that is after we had made the commitment, the New South Wales government committed funding towards the sewerage-related aspects of the club.

That is investment, which is welcome, which is welcome, and I note I’m stating the facts of what is happening, and the New South Wales government are funding.

There are some interjections and Milton Dick calls for quiet. Albanese continues:

The New South Wales government is funding the sewerage-related aspects of the club, which has been an issue for a very long time. I’m advised that the club, of course, has a long history, and indeed, in the media release announcing the project, it spoke about the venue’s last major remodel being in 1947.

So this is a local club owned by the council.

Part 62, the the funding was going to be for sewerage. The New South Wales government have stepped in, which is appropriate given that New South Wales run water and sewerage, and it was election commitment, just similar to the member for Wannon’s 23 election commitments that were made, totalling a value of 26.3 million.

Tehan wants to table something from estimates which he says shows that sewerage was not a component of the grant. It is not granted.

Louise Morris

Conservation Council WA, the Australian Conservation Foundation and Greenpeace are holding a press conference in WA today, calling on the state and federal governments to heed the dire warnings of the state’s own environmental watchdog on Woodside’s Browse gas proposal.

Imagine the independent environmental regulator tells a gas giant its project is likely to cause “significant, serious and irreversible harm” to one of the most precious reef systems on Earth. Now imagine the public never hears about it.

That is what happened. A letter the WA Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) delivered to Woodside in February 2024 has now come to light, thanks to Boiling Cold and The Guardian. It is damning.

CCWA Executive Director Matt Roberts said the EPA was so concerned that it brought in independent experts to peer-review Woodside’s claims about threatened species, including green sea turtles and pygmy blue whales.

“The EPA also expressed deep concerns about the risk of oil spills,” Roberts said, warning that these events could have “irreversible” and “catastrophic” consequences for Scott Reef, the Rowley Shoals and the Kimberley coast.

The letter also shows, for the first time, that the state government’s own departments had serious concerns about the harm to WA’s oceans and marine life. Mines and Industry Regulation and Safety said it was “not clear” the risks could be reduced to acceptable levels. Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions said the project “appears to present a high risk” to threatened green turtles.

Woodside’s revised proposal in August 2025 did not fix any of this. Roberts was blunt: “It amounted to little more than rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.” The EPA itself said the changes “don’t change the previously identified key environmental factors.”

“These risks cannot be mitigated and have not been addressed in Woodside’s revised proposal,” Roberts said. “The only option now is for the EPA to reject this proposal, based on its own advice.”

Why this reaches well beyond WA

This is not only a local fight. Australia is the incoming COP31 President of Negotiations, at a time when countries are turning the Santa Marta commitment into a real process to transition away from fossil fuels. Tuvalu and Ireland are due to co-host the second conference in April 2027. Pacific nations are watching what Australia does at home, not just what it says abroad.

Browse is the test. Drilling around 50 new gas wells would lock in decades of extraction. It would depend on carbon capture and storage, which is not a climate solution at all. It is an offsetting trick that lets the pollution happen while the books look clean. Australia cannot ask the world to transition away from fossil fuels while approving a gas field our own regulator said would cause irreversible harm.

Premier Roger Cook once answered a simple question about this. Should Browse go ahead if the EPA finds an unacceptable risk to whales, turtles or from an oil spill? “No, it certainly shouldn’t,” he said. Then, in July, his government gave the project “State Significant Project” status, which carries no legal weight and only piles pressure on the regulator.

The EPA’s final decision is due later this year. It should stick to its guns and reject Browse. The Premier and the federal government should say plainly that they will respect that decision.

Greg Jericho

One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts is questioning the Office for Women about the “Gender Equity Insights 2026” report

He wants to know about “the pedestal effect” which is that men occupy a larger share of senior positions even when their share of the sector’s workforce would suggest otherwise. He points out that in the report it notes that in the Health Care and Social Assistance industry 51% of CEO are men, which means they basically it 50:50. So he suggest the problem is solved!

The officials point out that in that industry women make up 78% of the workforce, and that is the point.

He wants to know if the department looks at the “root causes for this claimed pedestal effect – for example is physical, is it behaviour is it family constraints?”

At this point we really should ponder what behavioural or physical restraints Senator Roberts thinks there are to being a CEO, became he goes on to suggest he believes “men and women should have equal opportunity but they’re not equal”

He then suggests that the report says

“that a lack of flexibility of child care or parenting is a major restriction on women in senior management but that the ABS shows that the number of women over 40 who will not have children is 22% up from 11% 22 years ago, have you tested your theory by surveying how many women in these roles are childless and how many women self-report having been passed over who had children which would prove your hypothesis. How much empirical evidence is behind this?”

Let us now remember that men have a higher average salary in 96% of all occupations

I’ll also note that average salary is pretty well tied to the more male-dominated an occupation is – essentially work done mostly by women is lower paid

And let’s just end by noting that in both the most male-dominated occupation (plumber) and the most women-dominated occupation (midwife) men have a higher average salary

So yeah, there is empirical evidence.

Over in senate estimates, Liberal senator Sarah Henderson is asking why the foreign owned News Corp media outlets don’t get government funding. She thinks it is a “very deliberate decision and very, very prejudicial”. The program she is talking about subsidises full time journalist wages, up to $39,000 or so, for three years – but only for Australian companies and organisations. Which is how most grant programs operate in Australia. The News Bargaining Code was changed to allow News Corp to take part.

Henderson is trying to pretend this has been a deliberate decision “for parts of the media it does not like”.

This is just after Henderson was questioning why Michael West Media was eligible for government grants.

Jim Chalmers has introduced the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 4) Bill 2026 which:

• Establishes the Innovative Business CGT Concession (IBCC), which will mean early investors in innovative start-ups that begin with a low or zero cost base still receive a significant discount on a future capital gain.
• Better targets the Research and Development Tax Incentive (R&DTI) from 1 July 2028 to better incentivise additional business R&D, especially by young firms.
• Expands tax incentives for venture capital from 1 July 2027 to help unlock patient capital for young, expanding firms.
• Provides business taxpayers with flexibility to report and pay their Pay As You Go (PAYG) instalments monthly to better reflect real-time business activity.
• Adjusts the settings for the electric car discount to ensure it remains fiscally sustainable and provides more targeted support for the shift to more affordable electric vehicles.

From the government release:

Businesses will remain eligible for the IBCC provided their main activities relate to innovation, with additional flexibility in the legislation to support firms as they grow and scale. The Department of Industry, Science and Resources is continuing to finalise safe harbour arrangements to provide investors with certainty about the innovation requirements.

The reforms to the R&D Tax Incentive better focus the program on core R&D activities that are experimental and contribute to the development of new knowledge, with more generous support for these activities.

We are making the R&D Tax Incentive easier to claim, with the previous requirement to separately document each supporting activity replaced with an increase to the incentive for core R&D.

We are also providing flexibility to modernise the R&D definition over time to keep pace with technological and market progress, by allowing activities that are integral to conducting core R&D to be designated for the R&DTI by legislative instrument.

The Department of Industry, Science and Resources will do further consultation on this in early 2027, responding to industry feedback on areas like clinical manufacturing and other forms of specialised technology development.

The legislation also increases the thresholds for existing venture capital incentives from 1 July 2027 to help unlock patient capital for young, expanding firms. Venture capital investors will also benefit from the IBCC where they invest in eligible companies, including where returns are paid as carried interest.

The Government thanks the many start-ups, small businesses, researchers, investors and other stakeholders who have contributed to the development of these reforms.

We will continue to consult with stakeholders on further tranches of legislation and legislative instruments as we finalise the implementation of our tax reform package.

The Transport Workers Union says that Virgin Australia cabin crew are considering industrial action, with a vote to come soon, as “their pay and conditions still have not returned to pre-pandemic levels, despite seeing the airline deliver record profits, and its owners Bain Capital extract $2.7 billion, following the private equity firm’s 2020 purchase”.

From the TWU statement:

Along with Bain recouping nearly 4 times over on its $730 million purchase, Virgin Australia also handed an eye-watering $50 million to former CEO Jayne Hrdlicka when she departed the airline in 2025 and posted a record $501 million in profit for the last financial year, after its IPO. As these Virgin employees took cuts to their pay and conditions during COVID to keep the airline running, they are now calling on Bain to reinvest the profits back into the workforce who helped deliver them.

Cabin crew workers are also calling for a reset to their conditions, including fairer rostering arrangements to reduce duty limits pushing them to exhaustion, meaningful progression through pay classifications, and better fatigue protections including increased minimum rest time.

The company continues to refuse to commit to fair rostering arrangements to reduce increasingly fatiguing duties, which have reached crisis levels among crew.

The TWU commends the Federal Government for listening to calls for a long-term solution to repair Australia’s aviation sector, with the historic decision to commit to an Aviation Industry Coordination Council. Reforming aviation will take significant time, and the industry now needs confidence Parliament is committed to rebalancing aviation, so it serves both workers and the travelling public.

The TWU and the ASU have also lodged for a Protected Action Ballot in Virgin Guest Services, where workers are similarly calling for the airline to deliver fairer rostering practices and protections for their existing conditions.

The vote comes as hundreds of Qantas ground workers prepare to take further strike action at airports across the country on Wednesday, over the airline’s continued Joyce-era tactics to drive down pay and conditions. 

Anara Watson

In yesterday’s Senate Estimates, Greens leader Senator David Shoebridge urged the Acting Commissioner Kilgour to hold a public hearing.

If the NACC did so, it would be the first in its history.

Our submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the NACC argued in June that for an anti-corruption commission, public hearings are an essential form of public communication and education, and that, because the NACC is not permitted to hold public hearings every time it would be in the public interest to do so, it is limited in this respect.

Currently, the legislation requires two things for a public hearing to be held: (1) exceptional circumstances that justify holding the hearing, or the part of the hearing, in public; and (2) that it would be in the public interest to do so.

Public hearings function as an investigative, preventative, and educative tool against corruption and misconduct. They deter people from engaging in corrupt behaviour, encourage witnesses to come forward, and create a culture of public integrity. Public hearings can also legitimise integrity bodies as they allow the public to see for themselves that justice is being done. As such, they act as a bulwark against concerns of administrative impropriety and overreach.

What’s more, Australia Institute polling has found that only 15% of Australians think public hearings should be limited to circumstances as currently prescribed by the legislation.

But while the track record might suggest otherwise, there could be hope: Acting Commissioner Kilgour said that she’d “love to do one; If I get the right matter, I will do one.”

It means the government is getting very serious about getting these bills through. Debate is going to be limited, or sent to the federation chamber, with amendments to be limited and business to be continued at the government’s pace.

Which the government can do in the House because it has the numbers.

The House sitting is now getting underway in earnest. Tony Burke is calling for the resumption of business after yesterday’s day of tribute to Helen Haines.

And then Burke re-arranges the rest of the sittings. It’s a long one, so strap in:

Mr Burke (Leader of the House), pursuant to notice, moved—That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent:

(1)on Tuesday, 27 October:

(a)a Minister introducing the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 4) Bill 2026 and the resumption of the debate being made an order of the day for a later hour;

(b)a Minister introducing the Defence Legislation Amendment (Accelerating Capability and Protecting Bases) Bill 2026;

(c)when the order of the day relating to the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026 is called on, a cognate debate taking place with the Domestic Gas Reservation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2026 and Domestic Gas Reservation Levy Bill 2026;

(d)at the adjournment of the debate on the motion for the second reading of the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026, the bill and the two related bills standing referred to the Federation Chamber for further consideration;

(e)when the order of the day relating to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 3) Bill 2026 is called on, a cognate debate taking place with the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 4) Bill 2026 and the Income Tax Rates Amendment (Minimum Tax on Discretionary Trusts) Bill 2026;

(f)after the discussion of a matter of public importance, when called on, debate on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 3) Bill 2026 and related bills continuing without interruption until the commencement of the adjournment debate at 7.30 pm; and

(g)at 8 pm, notwithstanding standing order 31, the adjournment debate being interrupted, and debate on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 3) Bill 2026 and related bills having priority until:

(i)no further Members rise to speak; or

(ii)10 pm; or

(iii)a later time specified by a Minister prior to 10 pm;at which point, the debate being adjourned and the House immediately adjourning until 9 am on Wednesday, 28 October;

(2)on Wednesday, 28 October:

(a)when the order of the day relating to the Defence Legislation Amendment (Accelerating Capability and Protecting Bases) Bill 2026 is called on, debate to resume and the bill standing referred to the Federation Chamber for further consideration at the adjournment of the debate;

(b)immediately after, the order of the day relating to the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission Bill 2026 being called on and a cognate debate taking place with the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (National Policing Information Charges) Bill 2026;

(c)at the adjournment of the debate on the motion for the second reading of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission Bill 2026, the bill and the related bill standing referred to the Federation Chamber for further consideration;

(d)immediately after the order of the day relating to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 3) Bill 2026 is called on:

(i)any second reading amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved by the Member proposing them;

(ii)the questions being put immediately on any second reading amendments and on the second reading of the bill;

(iii)if required, the bill being considered in detail and taken as a whole, with any detail amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved [together] by the Member proposing them, with:

(A)one question being put on any Government amendments;

(B)one question being put on any Opposition amendments;

(C)separate questions being put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and

(D)a separate question being put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to;

(iv)debate on any amendments provided for under paragraph 2(d)(iii) being limited to no longer than ten minutes for each question unless a Minister requires the debate to be extended; and

(v)the question being put immediately on the third reading;

(e)immediately following proceedings on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 3) Bill 2026, the order of the day relating to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 4) Bill 2026 being called on, and:

(i)any second reading amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved by the Member proposing them;

(ii)the questions being put immediately on any second reading amendments and on the second reading of the bill;

(iii)if required, the bill being considered in detail and taken as a whole, with any detail amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved [together] by the Member proposing them, with:

(A)one question being put on any Government amendments;

(B)one question being put on any Opposition amendments;

(C)separate questions being put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and

(D)a separate question being put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to;

(iv)debate on any amendments provided for under paragraph 2(e)(iii) being limited to no longer than ten minutes for each question unless a Minister requires the debate to be extended; and

(v)the question being put immediately on the third reading;

(f)immediately following proceedings on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 4) Bill 2026, the order of the day relating to the Income Tax Rates Amendment (Minimum Tax on Discretionary Trusts) Bill 2026 being called on, and:

(i)any second reading amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved by the Member proposing them;

(ii)the questions being put immediately on any second reading amendments and on the second reading of the bill;

(iii)if required, the bill being considered in detail and taken as a whole, with any detail amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved [together] by the Member proposing them, with:

(A)one question being put on any Government amendments;

(B)one question being put on any Opposition amendments;

(C)separate questions being put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and

(D)a separate question being put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to;

(iv)debate on any amendments provided for under paragraph 2(f)(iii) being limited to no longer than ten minutes for each question unless a Minister requires the debate to be extended; and

(v)the question being put immediately on the third reading;

(g)immediately following proceedings on the Income Tax Rates Amendment (Minimum Tax on Discretionary Trusts) Bill 2026, the order of the day relating to the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 being called on and debate resuming;

(h)after the discussion of a matter of public importance, when debate resumes on the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026, debate continuing without interruption until the commencement of the adjournment debate at 7.30 pm; and

(i)at 8 pm, notwithstanding standing order 31, the adjournment debate being interrupted, and debate on the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 having priority until:

(i)no further Members rise to speak; or

(ii)10 pm; or

(iii)a later time specified by a Minister prior to 10 pm;at which point, the debate being adjourned and the House immediately adjourning until 9 am on Thursday, 29 October;

(3)on Thursday, 29 October:

(a)if required, the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026, Domestic Gas Reservation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2026, Domestic Gas Reservation Levy Bill 2026 and the Defence Legislation Amendment (Accelerating Capability and Protecting Bases) Bill 2026 returned to the House for further consideration;

(b)immediately after the order of the day relating to the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 is called on:

(i)any second reading amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved by the Member proposing them;

(ii)the questions being put immediately on any second reading amendments and on the second reading of the bill;

(iii)if required, the bill being considered in detail and taken as a whole, with any detail amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved [together] by the Member proposing them, with:

(A)one question being put on any Government amendments;

(B)one question being put on any Opposition amendments;

(C)separate questions being put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and

(D)a separate question being put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to;

(iv)debate on any amendments provided for under paragraph 3(b)(iii) being limited to no longer than ten minutes for each question unless a Minister requires the debate to be extended; and

(v)the question being put immediately on the third reading;

(c)immediately following proceedings on the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026, the item of business relating to the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026 being called on, and

(i)any second reading amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved by the Member proposing them;

(ii)the questions being put immediately on any, second reading amendments [unresolved questions] and on the second reading of the bill;

(iii)if required, the bill being considered in detail and taken as a whole, with any detail amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved [together] by the Member proposing them, with:

(A)one question being put on any Government amendments;

(B)one question being put on any Opposition amendments;

(C)separate questions being put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and

(D)a separate question being put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to;

(iv)debate on any amendments provided for under paragraph 3(c)(iii) being limited to no longer than ten minutes for each question unless a Minister requires the debate to be extended; and

(v)the question being put immediately on the third reading;

(d)immediately following proceedings on the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026, the item of business relating to the Domestic Gas Reservation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2026 being called on, and:

(i)any second reading amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved by the Member proposing them;

(ii)the questions being put immediately on any, second reading amendments [unresolved questions] and on the second reading of the bill;

(iii)if required, the bill being considered in detail and taken as a whole, with any detail amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved [together] by the Member proposing them, with:

(A)one question being put on any Government amendments;

(B)one question being put on any Opposition amendments;

(C)separate questions being put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and

(D)a separate question being put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to; and

(iv)debate on any amendments provided for under paragraph 3(d)(iii) being limited to no longer than ten minutes for each question unless a Minister requires the debate to be extended; and

(v)the question being put immediately on the third reading;

(e)immediately following proceedings on the Domestic Gas Reservation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2026, the item of business relating to the Domestic Gas Reservation Levy Bill 2026 being called on, and:

(i)any second reading amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved by the Member proposing them;

(ii)the questions being put immediately on any, second reading amendments [unresolved questions] and on the second reading of the bill;

(iii)if required, the bill being considered in detail and taken as a whole, with any detail amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved [together] by the Member proposing them, with:

(A)one question being put on any Government amendments;

(B)one question being put on any Opposition amendments;

(C)separate questions being put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and

(D)a separate question being put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to;

(iv)debate on any amendments provided for under paragraph 3(e)(iii) being limited to no longer than ten minutes for each question unless a Minister requires the debate to be extended; and

(v)the question being put immediately on the third reading; and

(f)immediately following proceedings on the Domestic Gas Reservation Levy Bill 2026, the item of business relating to the Defence Legislation Amendment (Accelerating Capability and Protecting Bases) Bill 2026 being called on, and:

(i)any second reading amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved by the Member proposing them;

(ii)the questions being put immediately on any second reading amendments [unresolved questions] and on the second reading of the bill;

(iii)if required, the bill being considered in detail and taken as a whole, with any detail amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved [together] by the Member proposing them, with:

(A)one question being put on any Government amendments;

(B)one question being put on any Opposition amendments;

(C)separate questions being put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and

(D)a separate question being put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to;

(iv)debate on any amendments provided for under paragraph 3(f)(iii) being limited to no longer than ten minutes for each question unless a Minister requires the debate to be extended; and

(v)the question being put immediately on the third reading;

(4)on Monday, 23 November private Members’ business having priority from 10 am to 1.30 pm and for a further 30 minutes, following the conclusion of Question Time, any documents being presented by the Speaker and by Ministers, and any ministerial statements, by leave, being made; and

(5)any variation to this arrangement being made only on a motion moved by a Minister.

– 12:22:49 PM

Mr Burke moved, as an amendment—TBA

Greg Jericho

In the Finance Committee, One Nation Senator Tyron Whitten has decided because the Office of Women is being questioned he needs to ask about the definition of a woman.

He wants Senator Katy Gallagher to answer whether the government will change its language around “lactating person” and other gender-neutral terms.

Senator Gallagher replies that she seeks

to be respectful to all individuals regardless of how they identify, and I think some of the debates that people try to draw into a difficult, divisive and harmful, and so I prefer to have a more inclusive way of operating. That language doesn’t bother me”

Senator Whitten takes slight umbrage at this as though she is implying he is not. He says “I also try and be respectful. But I have a mother, a sister, a wife, I’ve got two daughters, I got a granddaughter, and they expect me to ask questions like this”

I mean. Cripes.

He keeps going asking questions that are about legal issue and thus not at all a matter for the committee (One Nation were on this same issue yesterday to the Attorney General Department and it was just as gross).

He then asks with a smugness that women have to put up with daily, “How are we going for an Office for Men”?

Yep we’re at the “Wait, there’s an International Women’s Day, when is the International Men’s Day??? Level of debate (It’s 19 November for those of you who celebrate).

Senator Gallagher notes that the Member for Hunter, Dan Repacholi, was appointed as the Special Envoy for Men’s Health – the first ever such appointment and that he’s doing a great job.

Senator Whitten replies “And how are we going for an Office for Men?”

To do what pray tell? Ensure the gender pay gap is bigger? Ensure more men get away with sexual violence to women? This is really just One Nation’s Family Court Day crud that everything is bad because poor men have had to give up too much to women. Seriously this just makes me want to vomit.

He ends by saying “I think the men’s issues and men’s problems are growing by the day [he doesn’t say what these are] and it would be worthy of an Office for Men because it would actually make women’s live better if we had better men, so I’ll leave it at that.”

Bill Browne

Earlier this year, a parliamentary committee in NSW recommended restricting the number of election signs that can be displayed at polling booths. Some election sign proposals can be downright undemocratic, like the ACT’s ban on any signs or canvassing within 100 metres of polling booths. On the other hand, there’s an election “arms race” where volunteers turn up in the middle of the night to block all available space with their own election signage.

The NSW committee struck a balance between a “festival of democracy” and rationing limited space by proposing a limit of six signs per party, independent or registered third-party campaigner at each polling booth. The Minns Labor Government has accepted most of the recommendations “in principle”, and has committed to legislation limiting the maximum size of any sign to 60cm x 90cm before next year’s election.

I would like to see some provision for non-registered third party campaigners. Local community groups should be able to have a presence at polling booths without registering as third parties (with all the restrictions and reporting requirements that go with it).

It’s also promising that the NSW Government is still open to changes to electoral laws before the election in March next year. While they are at it, they could introduce truth in political advertising laws including restrictions on AI deepfakes, as demanded by over 31,000 NSW residents.

Greg Jericho

One of the more funny things that happens when you ask business people about the economy is how they will pick out some random country as being the one we should emulate. Back during the GFC it was Estonia that was always mentioned because it pursued austerity.

Now it appears Greece is the most favoured nation.

Yes Greece.

In The Australian today former Reject Shop chief executive Andre Reich is quoted saying:

“The people with the lowest income are the ones who are hit hardest by overspending. Overcomplaince stifles business growth and you now have five or six departments that are all stifling growth. Removing bureaucracy is the first thing to do.

“Look what has happened with the Greek economy. They had to make tough spending cuts and were forced to deliver surpluses and now their economy is flying.”

And wow… flying is one word…

If we compare Greece and Australia, even with our pretty weak current economic growth we are doing better than Greece. Admittedly they did well in 2024, but Australia’s economy has been growing faster than Greece’s for 5 quarters now.

I guess that means we are flying as well!

But let’s give a longer look and just see the cost of all those “tough spending cuts”

I’d argue there would be very, very few people who would rather Greece’s economy to Australia’s…

The appalling alleged attack on Helen Haines has revived concerns about violence, political hostility and Australia’s mental health system.

The distress is understandable. But the public debate risks drawing conclusions that aren’t supported by the evidence.

Police have yet to establish a motive. More importantly, mental illness should not be used as shorthand for violence.

Australia isn’t experiencing a general explosion in physical assaults. According to the ABS, 1.8 per cent of Australians experienced physical assault in 2024–25, statistically unchanged from 1.7 per cent the year before and below the 2.1 per cent recorded a decade earlier.

That doesn’t diminish individual tragedies or growing threats against politicians. But it helps to put them in perspective.

Youth mental health is suffering

There is, however, another crisis with clearer evidence: young Australians’ deteriorating mental health.

The share of young people reporting a mental disorder rose from 26 per cent in 2007 to 39 per cent in 2022.

Self-reported mental health scores by age group, 2001-2024

Source: HILDA survey, 2001-2024 Note: Lines show survey–weighted mean SF-36 mental health scores (0–100; higher score indicates better mental health)

Australia Institute research documents how this has coincided with worsening economic conditions.

Since 2001:

• rents and out-of-pocket medical costs have roughly doubled in real terms
• tertiary education fees have risen 2.5-fold
• Youth Allowance and minimum wage has grown by just 10%.

These trends alone can’t establish causation. But financial stress, insecure work and unaffordable housing are well-established risks to mental wellbeing.

Yes, we need better mental health care, especially in regional Australia.

We also need to stop treating the conditions that undermine mental health as somebody else’s policy problem.

David Richardson

Anthropic has just released its initial public offering document. This IPO is basically a document that explains to investors why it wants the funds it hopes to raise and what it intends to do with those funds. The company is also obliged to publish some of the financial data that investors need to assess the company’s prospects. That includes profit and loss statements and balance sheet information.

So Anthropic proposes to sell about $100 billion worth of shares to the public. This will only be a fraction of the total shares held at the moment but the effect, it is hoped, will set a price for all its shares to give a total valuation of the company at around $2 trillion.

These are big numbers and they are in American dollars making them even bigger for an Australian observer.

Some of the main features of the recent performance of Anthropic are given in the table below.

Table 1 Anthropic financial data, 6 months to 30 June 2026, US$billions

The table shows Anthropic effectively made a massive loss, the main thing was “an increase in the fair value of our outstanding convertible promissory notes.” Essentially Anthropic has had bring into its profit and loss account, provision for adverse developments that may trigger compensation to customers. Anthropic has made a web of deals with suppliers of data centres etc that depend on its getting new work from its customers. The risks are difficult to summarise and amount to 90 pages in the IPO. However, the IPO constantly refers to Anthropic’s belief that it will remain at the frontier of AI.

We could cite Anthropic’s critics, but the risk is best described to Anthropic itself when it said:

Our recent growth may reflect early-stage adoption dynamics, the nascency of the AI market, and rapid initial customer expansion that may not be sustainable over time, and it may decline significantly and more rapidly than we anticipate, as our revenue base increases, as the market matures, and as a result of the other factors described below. We expect our revenue growth rate to decline over time. In addition, because the AI industry is very nascent, we have struggled to accurately forecast our revenue in the past and may struggle to do so in the future.

[Anthropic has] entered into purchase commitments and lease agreements, including short-term commitments, as well as leases not yet commenced … which may substantially increase our operating expenses and cash requirements. These expenditures and investments may be more costly than we expect and may not result in increased revenue or growth in our business. (emphasis added)

Ben Carroll has just posted this statement on his social media:

“If you’re a threat to a health worker at a hospital, you could be limited or banned under a workplace protection order. And if you break that order and step foot again in that hospital, you could go to jail. That’s our plan. Health workers deserve to be safe. Every ward. Every hospital. Every day.”

Now, who do we think this will impact the most? Again, no one is excusing violence and of course health care workers should be safe. At the same time, hospitals are where humans are often at their most emotional, vulnerable or irrational. So people in mental health crisis, people impacted by substances, people feeling their loved ones are not receiving care – all could potentially captured by this law, which at best will put people who desperately need help, put out on the street and at worse, will see vulnerable people not only denied care, but then also jailed.

Bill Browne

The Tasmanian Labor Opposition is putting forward a private member’s bill this week that would cap state election campaigns: independents could spend no more than $60,000 and a political party no more than $1.75 million.

One of the exciting things about the power-sharing parliament in Tasmania is that good ideas can become law even if the government of the day, the Rockliff Liberal Government, is opposed. Tasmania came within one vote of a legislated cap on firearm numbers, for example, and it is possible that a ban on “conversion practices” (attempts to suppress or eradicate a person’s sexual or gender identity) will pass later this year.

Unfortunately, Labor’s proposed spending cap looks like it has the same flaws as spending caps elsewhere in the country: it would give major parties and incumbents a major advantage, and suppress independents and new entrants.

Tasmania has proportional representation. There are seven MPs representing each of the state’s five electorates.

Labor’s spending cap would be $50,000 per candidate, or $60,000 for an independent candidate. But a party can field up to seven candidates in an electorate, allowing them to spend up to $350,000 per electorate (outspending the independent about 6-to-1). The party could then draw resources in from other electorates to spend even more than that in key races.  

And that’s all before we get to the taxpayer-funded incumbency advantages that sitting MPs receive (office, staff, travel, salary, etc). New entrants have to spend private money to cover those costs, making their effective spending cap even lower.

At the last election, political parties won between 0 and 3 seats in each electorate. Several independents won a seat each. There’s no justification for a party to outspend an independent 6-to-1 or more, when a party is chasing perhaps 3 seats.

Anara Watson

During the NACC’s appearance at Senate Estimates, Greens leader Senator David Shoebridge asked the following question:

Could I ask you about, on the 8th of July, Acting Deputy Commissioner Shakespeare’s conflict declaration covered some health department matters, and then two days later, is my understanding, Acting Deputy Shakespeare was recused from all such matters involving the health department. Can we get some clarity about what led to this? Were there any matters before the Acting Deputy Commissioner? Can you just take us through what happened here?

Here, Senator Shoebridge is referring to a story published by Michael West Media, where they say that documents obtained under FOI “raise concerns about confusion on how conflicts of interest are identified and managed at the NACC”.

Acting Commissioner Kylie Kilgour explained that:

They weren’t matters where she was the decision-maker, as when both the Acting Deputy Commissioners were appointed on our first day they were with me. We went through all of the ongoing investigations that are underway, and we conflicted … Deputy Commissioner Shakespeare and Deputy Commissioner Lowe out on matters where it was obvious they had a perceived or real conflict of interest.

I think the particular media reporting that you’re referring to was about material that we released under FOI where it was a assessment panel, decision making process. I was the decision-maker at that, so Deputy Commissioner Shakespeare was not the decision-maker, but because it’s a deliberative process where a group of us make and assess, like talk about assessments, in that particular moment, that particular declaration that she made was that she knew of somebody but never had worked closely with them. And the ruling on that particular moment, in that particular moment, was that I didn’t consider there was a perceived or actual conflict of interest because it wasn’t a close working relationship. Subsequently, after, as Deputy Commissioner Lowe and Deputy Commissioner Shakespeare and Deputy Commissioner Gauntlett, I think, had a conversation about how it might just be better to, out of an abundance of caution, whether or not individuals have real or perceived conflict of interest, a bit like what we’ve done with the Commissioner’s recusals around all defence matters that, for Deputy Commissioner Shakespeare, she was reducing, or she wouldn’t be involved in decision making on any matters involving that department because of her previous or her current role…

Shoebridge asks why, “Given what happened with Commissioner Brereton … How did you not apply that learning straight off with Acting Deputy Commissioner Shakespeare?”

Acting Commissioner Kilgour explains that it is “Because I was applying the process under our NSAP terms of reference, which is I meant to look at each case on a case-by-case basis…”

Bill Browne

Last year, the major parties (Labor, Liberal and National) struck a deal to rush through changes to Australia’s election laws, including restricting private fundraising and giving politicians tens of millions of dollars more in taxpayer funding.

I called it a “stitch up” at the time, and now the laws are being challenged in the High Court by independents Rex Patrick and Zoe Daniel for potentially breaching the constitutionally protected freedom of political communication.

It’s fun to lie to a journalist, but it’s illegal to lie to a judge. That might be why the Government has been remarkably candid about the likely effects of the new laws, as Paul Karp reports in Politico.

If the new donation rules applied at last year’s election:

• Labor would have received an additional $17.8 million and the Liberals $13.6 million in taxpayer funding.
• The parties would receive less money in private donations because donation caps apply. But those caps can be “substantially mitigated by splitting donations between state and federal branches of the party.”
• “If donors were prepared to split their donations, the financial hit at the 2025 election would have been dramatically smaller: $4.1 million for the Liberals and $2.4 million for Labor. This would have been more than made up for by an increase in public funding of $17.8 million for Labor and $13.6 million for the Liberals, leaving Labor a total of $15.4 million better off and the Liberals $9.4 million ahead.”
• “Independents seeking to break into parliament for the first time would have been the biggest losers. Nicolette Boele’s successful 2025 campaign for the seat of Bradfield in Sydney would have been $746,000 worse off if the new rules had applied.”

That adds up to a $25 million windfall for the Labor and Liberal parties, and a severe cut to the resources of the independents who have most effectively challenged major party candidates in supposedly “safe” seats. Democracy requires competitive elections, but the Albanese Government’s changes to election laws deliver taxpayer-funded largesse to established parties and put hurdles in the way of new entrants.

Skye Predavec

In early August, the ABC apologized to Gina Rinehart after she threatened the public broadcaster with legal action over a documentary short on the Race Around the World program.

At the time, Communications Minister Anika Wells described the segment as “unacceptable” and called on the ABC to apologise if the ombudsman agreed. Now, in late October, Liberal Senators are quizzing the Communications Department over why Wells “dragged her feet” and “continues to cite editorial independence” in refusing to intervene further in the ABC.

Senator Dean Smith: “We are interested here in what the minister chose to do or did not choose to do in regards to what was a very, very serious – very, very serious – matter. It goes to issues around sexual violence, goes to issue around gender portrayal. How did the minister convey the fact that she found the ABC’s broadcast with the reference to Mrs. Rinehart? How did she convey to the ABC that she found it unacceptable?”

“First of all, the Minister made her views publicly known at a press conference on the 6th of August. She also raised it with the ABC, and I said that to Senator Henderson, and I’ve taken the details of that representation on notice for you.”

Senator Sarah Henderson: “So, the issue that I’m raising is that the Minister dragged her feet for at least a week … it was a disgusting and appalling thing that was broadcast on the ABC. And what are the ramifications for it? The ombudsman, apart from the apology by the managing director, the ombudsman has apparently found there to be no breach of editorial standards, which I find completely unbelievable … are you aware of, or do you did you do you hold any other correspondence in relation to concerns raised with the ABC?”

“Sorry, so you’re describing the operation of the statutory framework for the governments of the ABC as defined by the Parliament and The matter has been referred to the Ombudsman. You don’t like the conclusion that’s been reached, but that’s the process which has been followed”

The ABC is set to appear as the next witness later this morning, so it’s unlikely this is the last mention of Race Around the World in today’s hearings.

Staff Writers

Senator Sarah Henderson is using Senate Estimates to criticise Communications Minister Anika Wells for not “initially” condemning the ABC over a skit about Gina Rinehart.

It was pointed out to the Senator that Anika Wells did in fact say she thought the segment was unacceptable when asked.

“The minister condemned the comments publicly on the 6^th of August,” said Labor Senator Nita Green.

“When she was asked about it she condemned the comments making her personal views known and also making the point the Ombudsman would be looking at this.

“The ABC is independent and we do need to be quite clear about that… we have to cautious of a minister being seen to direct the ABC in any way shape or form.”

Like a footy fan whinging that a decision that didn’t go her way, Sarah Henderson said she could not believe that the Ombudsman found the Gina Rinehart skit did not breach ABC editorial standards.

She also foreshadowed questions about the Mahmood Fazal debacle… it’s going to be a long day for the ABC, who are due to front up soon.

Angus Taylor spoke to Brisbane radio 4BC a little earlier today, to explain his services and government funding plan to pay for a tax cut plan even John Howard was forced to abandon (in the Fraser government) because of how expensive it is, which in this economic climate, would just mean the RBA increases interest rates even further. And all for the simple cost of cutting back on services even more! What could go wrong?

Here is how he explained it:

The Tax Back Guarantee, essentially, it prevents income tax rates going up, which is what happens now, as inflation rages, more and more people’s money goes into higher tax brackets just to keep up with inflation without even getting ahead, and that means you pay more tax.

So, by putting in place this Tax Back Guarantee, a typical worker, $250 better off in year one, $500 year two, $750 year three, a thousand year four, and so on. The point here is that Labor is budgeting on your income tax going up every year, forever. That’s how they budget. We will bring that to an end. Now, to do that, we’ve got to get rid of waste, and we announced yesterday $31 billion of savings: ending the climate bureaucracy, as you said, ending the big company corporate welfare, the housing bureaucracy that’s not delivering houses, and also welfare programmes and NDIS programmes to non-Australians.

So that’s $31 billion, and that’s more than enough, by the way, to pay for this tax cut. We will also help to pay for axing Labor’s taxes on small business, on savings, on investment and so on.

And what are they public about cutting? Oh you know – just climate policies.

Yeah, so the Net Zero Economy Agency – gone. We’ll get rid of the excess spending we’ve seen on all the renewables, scrapping the electric vehicle tax concessions, which we think, you know, the cost of electric vehicles is coming down. We don’t need the Government to be subsidising it. The batteries programmes that have blown out, again, again, the cost of batteries are coming down anyway, we don’t need the Government to be driving that.

The Scope 3 reporting requirements, this is all the reporting that small businesses and other businesses have to do now on a constant basis to report not just their own emissions, they’ve now got to report their customer emissions, which is insanity and costing a lot of money.

So, all of that will go. That’s just under $10 billion. That is a big start to it, and then a whole series of Labor’s housing programmes which are not delivering more houses. I mean, the number of houses being built is going backwards as we spend billions on these programmes, and then the corporate welfare, including, in particular, the green hydrogen programmes, which are not delivering anything. Chris Bowen himself has said, admitted, this is all a flop, and that money should stay in Australians’ pockets.

Further to the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s review of the automated aged care assessment system (spoiler – it is very bad) Palliative Care Australia wants aged care minister Sam Rae to urgently address the wait times for people who have life limiting illnesses.

The peak body says assessments must anticipate how people’s needs will increase as their illness progresses, so the right support is in place before a crisis.

PCA Chief Executive Officer Dr Chris Hatherly said:

Behind every assessment is a person trying to manage daily life with a serious illness, often with family and carers doing everything they can to help.

Getting these decisions wrong can leave people without essential support, put families under enormous pressure and increase the risk of avoidable hospitalisation.”

When someone is dying yet their assessed support needs are reduced, something is seriously wrong,” Dr Hatherly said.

PCA said a “particular concern is the gap facing Support at Home applicants and participants who have substantial palliative care needs but are not yet eligible, or cannot demonstrate eligibility, for the End-of-Life Pathway”.

People can experience severe symptoms, declining mobility and increasing difficulty with everyday tasks well before their final months of life,” Dr Hatherly said.

They need support when those needs arise. They should not have to wait until they are closer to death to get help.

For someone with a terminal illness, delays in access to necessary support can take away the opportunity to spend that time at home with the people they love.”

PCA has written to Minister Rae, urging him to:

• Explicitly include palliative care needs in the review’s terms of reference.
• Appoint palliative care clinical expertise to the expert advisory group.
• Ensure the review examines how assessments identify palliative care needs and translate them into appropriate support and urgency, including for people outside the End-of-Life Pathway.

While the Coalition is running on cutting housing funding, a new report from Orygen and Mission Australia has found that almost half of young people in Australia “are worried they won’t be able to afford a safe place to live in the future, while around two in five don’t feel positive about their future”.

From the statement:

The report, Making hope possible, draws on findings from the 2025 Mission Australia Youth Survey of 17,155 young people aged 14-19, examining their hopes, aspirations and confidence to navigate the challenges of adulthood.

While almost 60 per cent of young people felt positive about their future, the report found much lower levels of hope amongst certain groups:

• Only 29 per cent of gender diverse young people felt positive
• Only 40 per cent of young people not in education or employment felt positive
• Only 43 per cent of young people with a disability felt positive
• Only 43 per cent of those with a mental health condition felt positive

While about 7 in 10 young people felt confident in their ability to manage money, almost half (47 per cent) were worried about affording a safe place to live in the future, highlighting the impact of broader economic and housing pressures on young people’s hopes for the future.

Lead author from Orygen, Associate Professor Kate Filia, said young people’s hopes and confidence for the future were closely connected to their mental health and the broader circumstances shaping their lives.

“If almost half of young people are worried about safe housing, it’s not surprising we also see increasing rates of mental ill-health and psychological distress,” A/Prof. Filia said.

“The report shows that young people still have dreams and aspirations but are coming of age in a period of considerable uncertainty – shaped by rising costs, housing insecurity, climate change and rapid social and technological change – so we need to support them to navigate these concerns and feel positive about the future.

“The findings also show how important it is to target support to young people facing the biggest barriers to hope, because hope is fundamental to building confidence to pursue future aspirations.”

The report also found that young people with a less positive outlook and low confidence in dealing with practical challenges were five times more likely to experience high psychological distress and four times more likely to report feeling lonely all or most of the time.

“Giving young people access to programs that strengthen their capability and confidence, help them build practical skills and confidence to navigate transitions into adulthood – including work, study, housing, relationships and mental healthcare – should be a priority if we want young people to thrive into adulthood,” A/Prof. Filia said. 

Michael Carmody, Mission Australia’s General Manager, Centre for Evidence and Insights, said it was concerning that only 53 per cent of young people were confident they would be able to afford a safe place to live in the future.

“A safe and secure home is fundamental to young people’s wellbeing and their ability to pursue their goals and plan for the future,” Carmody said.

“When young people are worried about whether housing will be within reach, it can affect their sense of stability, opportunity and hope.

“We know these concerns are often felt most acutely by young people already experiencing disadvantage, including financial hardship, housing instability or homelessness.

“That’s why investing in early intervention, social and affordable housing, and ensuring payments like Youth Allowance meet the cost of essentials is so important.

“Together, these measures can help prevent challenges from becoming crises and give more young people the stability they need to pursue their goals and look to the future with confidence, hope and possibility.”

Key policy recommendations include:

• Embed an explicit intergenerational lens to all policy development decisions, considering the long-term impacts of economic, housing, climate, education and health policy on young people.
• Strengthen young people’s capability and confidence through programs that focus on the transition from school to further education and that build social connection.
• Target support to young people facing the greatest barriers, including raising the rate of youth allowance to reduce financial stress and distress for young people, and prioritising housing for young people at risk of, or experiencing homelessness.

The Australian College of Nursing (ACN) has put in a submission in the review of Medicare’s primary care consultation items, warning that it risks excluding nurse practitioners, despite proposing bulk-billing incentives for nurse practitioner consultations for the first time.

That’s because the proposed incentives would only apply to patients registered through MyMedicare, yet as the college explains “NP-led practices without a GP are currently ineligible to join the scheme, creating an inequitable barrier for NP and nurse-led practices”.

So in areas where there are NPs, but no GPs (regional and rural especially), the bulk billing incentives would not apply.

The college wants the government to follow through with its promise to limit barriers to entry.

ACN Chief Executive Officer Adjunct Professor Kathryn Zeitz FACN said in a statement:

The Committee’s working group noted that NP-led practices’ current ineligibility for MyMedicare was out of scope for this review.

We are calling for the final report to recommend the Government undertake a review of the MyMedicare framework and accreditation requirements that addresses the inequitable exclusion of NP- and nurse-led practices.

Nurse practitioners and nurses are independent primary healthcare providers who improve consumer access to safe, affordable and timely primary healthcare services.

If we do not better incorporate them into the primary healthcare funding architecture, we fail to future-proof the healthcare system.”

Too often, residential aged care facilities struggle to get a doctor to visit, particularly outside the cities.

Aged care nurse practitioners can help close that gap, but these rules would make it harder for them to do so.”

AAP takes this all a bit more seriously than me, so here is their report:

Washington has revealed the first nuclear submarine that will deploy to Australia under the AUKUS agreement, five years after the $386 billion defence pact was signed. 

The USS Colorado, a 10-year-old Virginia-class submarine, will make its new home at Western Australia’s HMAS Stirling from late 2027, Defence Minister Richard Marles revealed in a joint statement with his US and British counterparts on Tuesday.

It’s the first of up to four American submarines, and one from the UK, set to rotate through the base while Australian Defence Force personnel get to grips with owning and operating nuclear submarines. 

But Colorado’s arrival in Australia will be controversial because of outrage sparked in June over revelations the US would deliver lesser equipment than first promised.

Original AUKUS plans had Canberra receiving two used vessels and a brand new Virginia-class submarine before building one of its own in Adelaide.

The fact Washington would now be sending second-hand vessels was described as “trash” by Tasmanian independent senator and army veteran Jacqui Lambie, but ministers and top military brass at the time insisted used subs were the best option.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the time assured the public AUKUS was going “full-steam ahead” despite tweaks being made to the mega-money deal, which US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth reiterated on Tuesday along with Mr Marles and UK Secretary of State Wes Streeting.

Colorado is a “fast-attack” submarine, reaching more than 46km/h, compared with Australia Collins-class subs’ underwater top speed of 37km/h.

While second-hand, the Virginia class is Washington’s most advanced line of attack submersibles.

The higher-speed, longer-range vessels are needed to help Australia defend its sea trade, Mr Marles has said.

“The selection of USS Colorado … is a decisive step in strengthening collective deterrence in the Pacific,” the joint statement read.

Australia’s own nuclear subs will be conventionally armed, but the US has maintained a policy of ambiguity about whether or not assets rotating through the country are carrying nuclear weapons.

Being nuclear-powered means its range is effectively limited only by its crew’s need for food and water.

Tuesday’s statement says the AUKUS rotation arrangement will abide with all relevant non-proliferation treaties.

Greens leader David Shoebridge held a doorstop (quick press conference) a little earlier this morning, where he was asked about the Coalition’s plan (announced yesterday but only getting attention today) to cut government funding for housing and welfare in order to fund it’s tax cuts that, in the foreseeable future, the RBA would see as inflationary and increase interest rates to counter.

Shoebridge:

The Coalition comes out and says the way we we’re going to deal with inflation is to take even more out of out of people’s basic services. We know that people have been benefiting from some of these programs, the battery program, greatly saving their their energy costs. And yet the coalition wants to come out and take those things away from people. We know one of the key reasons why we’ve got inflation where it is: record corporate profits working their way through the economy and not working their way through people who need to put food on the table, but those record corporate profits are building someone’s you know luxury renovations, buying their second yacht, engaged in you know extraordinary entertainment expenses that feeds inflation into the economy. But of course, the coalition doesn’t want to touch that. Labor doesn’t want to touch that. If we want to take the heat out of this economy, we need to touch those record corporate profits that are feeding inflation into the economy.

In terms of the economic picture, given all the mainstream is going AUSTERITY NOW, a reminder that Australia has one of the lowest debt ratios in the OECD. And notice how the answer is to make people’s lives even more difficult -rather than address any of the very easy ways we could free up spending? Like taxing gas? Or scrapping AUKUS? Or breaking up monopolies?

We could have had a public system. We don’t, mostly because there wasn’t a public service John Howard didn’t see market potential in. And while this Labor government does have universal childcare as a foundational principle, it is only really possible if the system itself comes back into public hands. But we are not having that conversation yet and Greens senator and deputy leader Steph Hodgins-May thinks its beyond time we did:

This is a national crisis. Every new headline makes parents sick to their stomachs.

The media are being forced to do the job our regulators should be doing, exposing harrowing cases of abuse, neglect and safety failures in a system that is supposed to care for and educate our children.

Our early learning system is dominated by for-profit providers. Almost 98 per cent of new services over the past two years were for-profit. We’re heading in entirely the wrong direction. 

When childcare is run for profit, children’s safety is put in direct competition with the bottom line. Every dollar spent on qualified educators and adequate staffing is a dollar that can’t go to shareholders. That is a fundamental flaw in a system that should put children first, always.

Labor has responded with a series of band-aid measures that do not fix the conditions that allow harm to happen in the first place.

What families are demanding is actual federal leadership that will confront the root problem. We cannot keep treating each new scandal as an isolated failure within a system that actively causes harm. 

If we take the profit motive out of childcare, we can put public funding back into qualified educators, better staffing and high-quality care.

We need a system that is planned around children and communities, just like our primary and secondary schools, with quality and safety built in from the start.

No parent should have to drop their child off before they can go to work or study, then spend the entire day worrying about whether their child is safe.”

Anara Watson

The South Australian Premier, Peter Malinauskas, has referred the Department of Infrastructure and Transport to the state’s corruption watchdog. That referral is based on concerns surrounding a contractor working on the $15.4 billion Torrens to Darlington project – the state’s largest-ever road project.

SA’s Independent Commission Against Corruption Commissioner, Emma Townsend, has confirmed that she will conduct an evaluation of the Department.

Here’s her statement:

Over the past week there has been considerable public discourse and community concern regarding the potential for corrupt activity to occur within South Australia’s major infrastructure projects, including in relation to organised crime.

These concerns undermine community confidence in the integrity of public sector projects with significant public funding attached. They also exist against a backdrop of serious allegations and findings in other jurisdictions. This underscores the value of strong controls, policies and processes to protect against corruption, as well as support for individuals to report concerns and speak up.

I have determined that the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) will conduct an evaluation of the Department for Infrastructure and Transport, focusing on the controls and processes involved in the procurement and contract management of major infrastructure projects. This will include the frameworks and safeguards needed to protect against infiltration by organised crime, and will build upon ICAC’s previous work examining corruption risks in procurement and contract management.

Evaluations are a core statutory function of ICAC under section 7 and 40 of the Independent Commission Against Corruption Act 2012 (the ICAC Act) and are conducted with a view to advancing comprehensive systems for preventing or minimising corruption in public administration. Once complete, the findings of ICAC evaluations are tabled in Parliament and made public.

I regard this evaluation as an opportunity to support the Department to identify potential corruption risks and strengthen its existing controls if necessary.

ICAC will now develop formal terms of reference for the evaluation, with careful consideration of the appropriate scale and scope. While I am unable to predict the completion date for the evaluation at present, I expect that this will be a complex piece of work that may take considerable time and resources to complete.

I acknowledge the Premier of South Australia’s letter to me in relation to this matter, and the government’s support of an ICAC evaluation. I am independently of the view that it is in the public interest to conduct such an evaluation. As with all of the work that ICAC undertakes, this evaluation will be conducted with independence and a high level of scrutiny.

It is important to make clear that an evaluation is different to an ICAC investigation, which is conducted in private in accordance with the ICAC Act, and which investigates specific allegations of corrupt conduct in public administration. ICAC can only undertake an investigation if it receives a referral from the Office for Public Integrity in relation to a specific allegation. Under the ICAC Act, ICAC is prohibited from making any public statement that discloses information from which a person could infer that a particular matter is being or is proposed to be investigated by ICAC.

I conclude by reminding all public officers of their obligation under law to report any conduct they suspect to be corruption in public administration to the Office for Public Integrity. This obligation extends to situations where threats are made to public officers with a view to influencing the performance of their official duties.

The message is simple – if something is not right, report it.

Derek Rose and Jacob Shteyman for AAP

The number of Australians complaining about the tax office has surged as it ramps up debt collections at the same time as taxpayers struggle with rising cost pressures.

The Tax Ombudsman fielded 2376 complaints against the Australian Taxation Office in the six months to September, up 74 per cent from the same period in 2025 and 180 per cent above the same period two years ago.

Debt collection and payment-related matters each accounted for 19 per cent of complaint investigations from April to September, the agency said.

“Our latest complaint data shows more people are struggling due to the ATO’s debt collection activity or interest charges or simply need to resolve delays to payments they are due,” Tax Ombudsman Ruth Owen said.

“At a time when many Australians are facing financial distress, we are seeing increased complaints about how the ATO is collecting tax debt owed and how interest is applied to the debt, often making the amount due impossible to pay back.”

In response, an ATO spokesperson said the tax office had only received 1358 complaints over the same period, as the ombudsman’s figures included cases that were resolved without any ATO involvement or that related to the Tax Practitioners Board or state tax issues.

The ombudsman only investigated 501 complaints out of 2376 it received and found in most cases, the ATO had acted appropriately.

In 63 per cent of debt collection-related complaints, the agency found the ATO acted reasonably, down nine per cent from the same period last year.

Complaints about penalties and interest made up 18 per cent of grievances, up from 13 per cent a year ago.

Amid rising inflation and interest rates, tax liabilities were adding to mounting debts owed by taxpayers and small businesses, the ombudsman said.

Taxpayers also relied on tax refunds to maintain liquidity or pay other bills. 

“This is likely to partially explain why we have seen an increase in complaints, alongside the fact that the ATO has had to ramp up its debt collection activity to reduce the size of its collectable debt book,” the report said.

The ATO was owed $54.2 billion in outstanding tax debt in 2024/25, according to the Australian National Audit Office.

Debts owed by small businesses amounted to $35.9 billion, an increase of $19.4 billion from 2018/29.

Following a backlash to proposed tax hikes for discretionary trusts, the ATO’s announcement that it would ban credit card payments has further dented relations between the government and the business community.

“When we get feedback from businesses around the country, I think they are feeling under pressure,” Andrew McKellar, chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told Politico’s Canberra Playbook podcast.

“They’re feeling that they’re really struggling on a range of fronts, and they just see a range of decisions from government that feel disconnected from the objectives that they’re trying to achieve.”

As AAP reports:

At least nine MPs will have security crackdowns accelerated for their electorate offices, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher confirmed, after they raised concerns last week.

Security in Parliament House’s public places will also be stepped up.

MPs from across the political divide paused proceedings on Monday for a full day of tributes to Dr Haines.

“It’s very legitimate that we have a look at that and respond,” she told ABC Radio National on Tuesday.

Security is handled across several departments: the Australians Federal Police are responsible for assessments and security details, Home Affairs looks after home security, and Finance handles offices and transport. 

All three coordinate to share information, Finance secretary Matt Yannopoulos confirmed in a late-night Senate estimates sitting on Monday. 

But the updated protection would not be enough to shield women in the public eye from abuse, Ms Gallagher warned, urging social media companies to take action when threats are posted on their platforms. 

Anara Watson

Every time Parliament sits, we look back at the stories that we know thanks to freedom of information (FOI) laws. As always, FOI has played a major role in making government information available to the public. Here are five more:

1. The ABC reports that emails released under FOI reveal that “NSW’s building watchdog killed a media release detailing disciplinary action against developer Aland, despite imposing the maximum fine available and sanctioning its founder”. 
2. The Guardian used FOI laws to uncover that the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) met with representatives of Palantir. The NDIA has denied using the company’s software, but the Guardian reports that “data from the [NDIA] is being shared with the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC), which has used Palantir as part of the Fraud Fusion Taskforce of 25 government agencies that is responsible for investigating fraud.”
3. The ABC used FOI laws to report on allegations of fraud and misconduct by operators under the Cheaper Home Batteries Program. Those allegations were contained in tip-offs to the federal watchdog, but the documents obtained did not detail any regulatory action currently underway.
4. The ABC has used documents released under FOI to shine a light on government grants processes, arguing “Federal Labor asked an Adelaide council to put forward a multi-million-dollar sports precinct upgrade for federal funding before any detailed costings or formal planning had been done.”
5. Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate declared that he had a dinner with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago earlier this year. According to the ABC, “The White House has told the ABC that the US president and first lady Melania Trump ‘did not have dinner with that group’”, and a “right-to-information request for documents turned up next to no documents”.

These are just five stories unearthed thanks to FOI, but there are many more.

So, stay tuned – we have more on the way

Alice Grundy

AI behemoth Anthropic has filed a registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of a proposed initial public offering or IPO — aka listing the company on the stock market. 

The New York Times is reporting on a future of “promise and peril”. The prospectus speaks of extraordinary opportunity and one of the most consequential developments in human technology. 

As a company, they are responsible to their owners and, if the IPO proceeds, to their shareholders. It’s not their job to decide how this tool fits in our society. That’s a job for our democratically elected governments. And as Richard Denniss said in his evidence to a recent Senate committee, the business model for AI is based on the expectation that many people will lose their jobs — this is how companies can increase earnings from using AI. 

Australia needs to choose how these tools fit with our society before it feels that all the choices have been made for us. 

Steven Scheer and Emily Rose for AAP

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has boasted of his endorsement from Donald Trump on the eve of Israel’s election, ‌suggesting the two leaders could restart their war against Iran if he wins, after Trump said they should “finish the job”.

“US President Donald Trump has come with a friendship that has never existed before between an Israeli prime minister and an ‌American president. And it is doubtful we will ever have such a friendly president again,” Netanyahu said in a televised appearance on Sunday. 

“He says he is calling on you to vote for me.”

In ‌his own social media post on Sunday, Trump, who launched the Iran war jointly with Netanyahu in February, said: “Vote for Bibi Netanyahu for Prime Minister, we have to finish the job that we started!”

Netanyahu said Trump was willing to take action “that would finally, finally, remove the Iranian threat”, but only as long as Netanyahu himself remains in power.

“And I have already instructed the Mossad and the IDF (military) to bring down this regime, to bring down this regime because that is the only way to put an end to this threat,” Netanyahu said, referring to Israel’s main intelligence service and military.

Trump first endorsed Netanyahu on October 18, reiterating his support in a post on Truth Social on Sunday.

Asked by reporters later on Monday whether Netanyahu had requested the second endorsement, Trump said: “I never spoke about it”.

“I put out both endorsements. I put out both… I think he’s done a very good job as prime minister under very trying conditions.”

Netanyahu’s leading opponent, centrist former military Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, posted his own comments on social media, praising Trump as “a true friend of Israel”.

“I value his efforts and his commitment to Israel’s security, and I am confident that he will work in full co-operation with any ⁠leader chosen by the people.”

Tuesday’s vote, Israel’s first since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, is ‌the first chance for voters ​to deliver a verdict on the worst security failure in generations and the wars on multiple fronts that followed.

With Netanyahu already at the helm of the most right-wing government in Israeli history, politics have shifted even further to the ​right. 

Nearly all Jewish-led ‌parties, including that of the hawkish Eisenkot, now oppose the “two-state solution” that underpinned decades of peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

But many voters say the divisive politics of Israel’s longest-serving leader make the country weaker. Polls suggest Netanyahu’s Likud ​Party will lose seats, potentially depriving his coalition of right-wing, far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties of its narrow majority.

Eisenkot and an array of opposition parties ranging from the rump of the centre-left to the right, also have no clear path to unseat him.

Netanyahu shared an AI-generated video on Monday of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, whose father Ali Khamenei was killed on the first night of US-Israeli strikes on Iran in February. Lying in a hospital bed, the younger Khamenei says his own vote would be “definitely not Bibi. Another term like this and I will be meeting my father sooner than expected”.

On Sunday Netanyahu posted a computer-generated photo of a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv, saying Israel was in existential danger from Iran.

Q: Yesterday, Angus Taylor, the opposition leader, said that there is. He disagreed with the view that there’s a casual connection between robust parliamentary debate and political violence. Is he right? 

Well, I think it goes back to that, that robust debate is absolutely essential for holding the government to account. 

I think the Australian public expect their politicians in opposition to hold their government to account to ask questions, and quite rightly, the public expect answers to those questions, so I think there is a there is definitely an argument to say that strong debate should be absolutely supported. 

But at the same time, that debate, you know, like in any circumstance, needs to be respectful. 

And I genuinely believe that we set a standard for how we expect Australians to speak.

Angus Taylor also claimed that ‘Australians being made to feel guilty’ about their nation was also something which needed to be stopped, which is just part of how we all got here. Genuine pushback, education and reckoning with our actual past is not being made to ‘feel guilty’. But treating those who refuse to see the issues as the victims is one of the reasons Australia can never actually move forward into addressing them.

Anna Chang

Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care, Senator Anne Ruston on RN Breakfast

Q: Let’s start where we left off with the Minister, and that is on the Ombudsman’s report into this automated tool for aged care, what do you make of the findings that the ombudsman has handed down? 

Well, we’ve been saying for a very long time all of the concerns pretty much that have been raised by the ombudsman. We have been telling the parliament and telling the government for a very long time. So, I’m pleased that we have now got another independent source, because don’t forget the inspector general has also made comments very similar to what the ombudsman has said. That we’ve now got an independent report that the government can’t ignore. 

So we’re really hopeful that now the government has this independent report. It will actually listen and say that their algorithm process is fundamentally flawed. It says that any reasonable person would not think the system is fair and wouldn’t have confidence in it, and that they haven’t been transparent in what they’ve told the public and told their department that this algorithm does and doesn’t do. So, you know, it is it’s a very damning report. It’s a very damning report. We can only hope that the government now that they’ve got this will actually take notice of the ombudsman because they certainly haven’t been taking notice of the parliament. 

Q: What do you think about some of the features that are mentioned? 

Particularly, I was just mentioning to the Minister of these text boxes for assessors to type in information that that then doesn’t get considered by the tool. 

Q: What do you think about the design? 

Well, the the ombudsman doesn’t actually go into the specific design of the algorithm, but just and but does draw a very clear distinction to say that the algorithm may or may not be flawed, but people shouldn’t have any confidence because of all the other things that’s fundamentally flawed with the process. But you know, may you make a really good point. 

What’s the point of saying that you’ve got a human involved in the process with the things that the human is doing are not being considered when the assessment. 

So all these text boxes have no bearing in the determination of the computer when it decides what somebody’s assessment care needs are. 

Q: What needs to happen? 

Well, I think first and foremost the government needs to actually put proper human override back in. 

They put in an escalation pathway last week, which was a slight improvement, but it was only a band-aid on a symptom. It wasn’t solving the problem. 

They could actually reintroduce proper human override, where if the decision’s wrong, an assessor can immediately say the decision’s wrong and get that decision changed instead of making somebody go through this convoluted review process that takes another three months and doesn’t necessarily change the decision, but they also need to go back and look under the bonnet of this algorithm. 

It appears to be fundamentally flawed because of the number of bad decisions that it’s spitting out. 

They need to go back to the drawing board and actually have a look, get rid of the algorithm, and start again and rebuild it. 

I think that you know the Coalition doesn’t have a problem with using technology to help an assessor as a tool into their assessment process, but no computer should ultimately have the decision that should reside with a person. 

Members of parliament and their staff have access to a new AI tool which allegedly filters out abusive messages on social media. (What is abuse is not made clear – again, genuine and legitimate criticism of policy can be civil and not abusive) and today we are hearing that 5,000 violent messages and threats have been flagged from 22 Labor MPs social accounts in just three months.

The tool’s data flagged half of the he more than 460,000 comments between July and October as abusive.

Katy Gallagher is asked about that data on ABC radio RN Breakfast and says:

I think it is the volume that people are, you know, feeling the pressure from. I mean, I think we’ve always put up with some pretty robust feedback in politics.

Certainly, in my time in politics, but the volume, the scale, and the forcefulness of the threats and the violence and the abusive language is something that I haven’t seen.

Certainly, in the last couple of years, it’s just been increasing, and you know it weighs heavily on people. And I think from my discussions with colleagues across the parliament in the last week or so, we’ve just people have just had enough, and we’ve had enough from it from our profession, but we’ve also had enough of it right across workforces across Australia. I mean, it’s too many people that go to work and get abused for going to work.

The tool will be able to filter out those comments, with a discussion about where the more violent and threatening ones should go, and whether they should be sent to the AFP (what could go wrong).

Q: Does the tool distinguish between what it deems as violent language and and genuine feedback, because sometimes people can be genuinely furious about a government decision that’s going to affect them or goes against their views and principles.

Gallagher:

Yeah, so that’s some of what we’re learning about it. So there’s a big section called personal attack, which and then it breaks it down into offensive language, sexist, you know, racist, xenophobic, all of the different kind of categories, and and is able to categorize that. In some of the personal attack, one I think there is a crossover, but you know, it depends on your tolerance. I get between what we would perhaps say is is feedback, robust feedback, and what others who might not put up with what we do on a daily basis see as a personal attack. So there is some crossover there. I’m not pretending otherwise, but it is the volume of you know, in my accounts, half of the comments are getting quarantined. You know, if you look at sort of 50,000 comments, you know, over 20,000 of them will be quarantined under one of these categories.

The AI tool has been offered from a ‘third party organisation’ Gallagher says, which is looking at ways to address violence against women, but men are able to use the AI as well.

Q: Is there a risk of censoring genuine, robust feedback here?

Gallagher:

Look, I don’t think so. I mean, it’s really a work management tool about how we’re going to, how do we, you know, it’s very difficult to go to work every day and just be abused constantly online. So it’s about how we manage our working day and that of our staff, and I think it. The other thing that we’ve all been noticing is it has a chilling effect on people who genuinely want to engage with us. Because if you go to say my Facebook page and you want to write something about you know an issue, if it’s the the chances are you’re going to be piled on from the people who are piling onto that account, and so people are not engaging with us in those formats because it’s not safe for them either.

There is an old adage in media that if you ask a question in a headline, the answer is no. And so it is here.

Iain Anderson is asked about the dangers of a system that won’t let humans change the outcome, for human circumstances the automation is not taking into account (by design)

Anderson:

The particularly concerning risk, Sally, is that people would get an inappropriate clinical outcome. So they’d get an outcome that wouldn’t actually meet their needs. But there were also issues about delays, and there’s also a question of fairness. If you don’t know how an outcome has been decided, you don’t know whether you should, in fact, seek to have it reviewed or challenged. And it’s a fundamental concept that people should be able to challenge government decisions that have impact on their lives.

Q: When we’re talking about using automation for decision making, a lot of people’s minds go to Robodebt. These are different tools, but the broader lessons about having systems that don’t fully take into account human circumstances have the lessons of that been learnt?

Anderson:

Unfortunately, I don’t think they have. An important recommendation from the Robodebt Royal Commission was that when the government uses automation or artificial intelligence, it needs to be very transparent about how decisions are made and how the system operates. And that’s something that hasn’t happened with this. Now, very recently, the department has published a lot more information. I note that in the report. I welcome that, but it’s too early to say if they’ve really now provided the transparency that’s required, so people can understand how these significant decisions are being made.

Q: What did you make in your investigations of the responsiveness of the government as criticism started to become loud?

Well, it is pleasing to see that the department’s had a rapid review announced by the government. There’s a further review that’s now been announced. A new escalation pathway has been announced that will seek to be legislated. So that’s all great, but it’s a pity that it’s happening at this stage once the system’s already been operational for some time.

The Commonwealth Ombudsman, Iain Anderson has spoken to ABC radio RN Breakfast about the failings his office found in the system:

Well, importantly, the integrated assessment tool is not what the department consulted on or trialed. It’s different to what the department said it was, and it’s even different to what parts the department thought it was going to be. Critically, you can’t change outcomes that might be clinically inappropriate. It’s not even clear how you can change outcomes. In some circumstances, you can change inputs. This is really important. And one example, the system is designed with free text fields for assessors to put in additional information, but the algorithm isn’t able to consider what’s in the free text field, so that’s just one way you could potentially get a clinically inappropriate outcome.

So yes, that’s right – assessors can put information into the text field, but the algorithm doesn’t read the text fields. That seems like a massive issue and Anderson agrees:

Look, I think it’s it’s really problematic. I think that the assessors themselves have said it’s important to be able to put in that additional information, that richer, fuller information, to get correct outcomes. And if you can’t, then change the outcome. If that’s not being taken into account, then automatically you’ve got unfair and inconsistent outcomes. And if we look at the scale of this, we know in principle that pretty much every extended family in the country has some contact with the aged care system. Around a million Australians have undergone assessment by these mechanisms, and the aging population is growing.

And what was trialed was not what was implemented.

I appreciate that the department was working very quickly to develop something, but the changes that were made during the development process were very significant changes, and those changes weren’t what was consulted on. What was consulted on was the initial idea, and I’m really concerned that there needs to be a very thorough review of the legislation and the rules to address and the legal issues that are there to also make sure that there’s further upper consultation on how the system is working and how you can then seek to apply for a review of decisions if you have concerns about decisions.

Q: What do we see about what was going on within the department as it became apparent that there were problems? Were those higher up listening to those who were on the coal face, who were flagging that there were issues here?

Anderson:

We certainly saw senior people in the department raising concerns, saying they didn’t think that government had necessarily been properly advised on all the risks. That the system that was then being implemented was not what had been consulted on. So people were certainly raising concerns, which is pleasing. And the department and the government have, since we started our investigation, been very willing to start making changes. But I just think that they need to go further and to do that quickly.

The Commonwealth Ombudsman has looked at the automative assessments in aged care and found it very, very wanting.

You can read the report here but it is examining this part of the assessment

Following completion of the assessment questions, the IAT’s algorithm makes one of three automated decisions (automated IAT decision):

• that the older person is eligible to access aged care services under the
  Commonwealth Home Support Program (the CHSP), OR
• that the older person is eligible to access aged care services under the Support
  at Home program (the SAH program) and if so, their funding level and priority
  category, OR
• that the older persons is not eligible to access the CHSP or the SAH program.

Currently, under the law, these automated decisions cannot be overridden and changed, even if they are clinically inappropriate. These automated decisions are made by the IAT’s algorithm. Put another way, a human decision-maker does not
decide the 3 key matters described above. The CHSP and the SAH program are homebased aged care programs. The CHSP is designed to provide entry-level care for older persons who need a low level of support to live independently and safely, while the SAH program is designed to support older persons with more complex or intensive care needs.

Anyone who has anything to do with this system knows how frustrating and hopeless it can make you feel. It’s a feeling those dealing with the welfare system know well – we do not design these systems to help, but to provide the least amount of help, in the hardest way possible.

When it comes to this particular assessment, the Ombudsman found:

In our view, based on the matters below, the IAT and its associated decision-making framework do not merely have the potential to undermine public confidence in the administration of a fair and consistent assessment system. Rather, a reasonable person would, in our view, lack confidence that the system is in fact fair and consistent.

And

In our view, based on the matters below, the Department has not been reasonably oversighting the performance of assessment providers. The Department should be doing more in a range of areas to improve the operation of the SAS.

Greg Jericho

We reported yesterday on how Angus Taylor announced $31bn in spending cuts to pay for his tax cuts, but it was mostly missed given the day’s focus was on Helen Haines, and it seems like today is when most media is reporting it, so we thought we would re-up it.

You will not be surprised to discover that the cuts are just of things the opposition doesn’t like – public housing and migrants – or to be honest, doesn’t think is real – ie climate change.

The Australian has reported the following cuts:

$9.4bn over four years from net-zero initiatives, including an end to tax breaks and subsidies to home batteries and electric vehicles.

$7.3bn cut from the National Reconstruction Fund and production tax credits for green hydrogen, green aluminium and critical minerals.

$4.7bn from cutting Labor’s housing programs [whew, didn’t realise the housing crisis was over!]

$2bn from ending welfare for non-citizens [that it is an average of $500m a year shows just how little this really is given in 2028-29 $17.7bn is expected to be spent on JobSeeker]

$7.9bn by cutting the tobacco excise [yes the Libs believe cutting the excise will raise more excise because people will go back to buying legal cigarettes. This will also probably increase smoking rates, so it’s a truly cromulent health policy as well!]

All up that gets us $31.3bn.

Thing is that is over 4 years from 2028-29.

And to be honest, that is not a lot.

We can actually compare just how little it is by looking at for example how much the government is forecast to spend handing out fuel tax credits (half of which go to mining companies) over the same period.

Forget $31.3bn, the government would save $52.6bn.

Now also imagine the government kept Defence spending at the 2.03% of GDP that it is now instead of ramping it up to 2.3% of GDP (which is just an arbitrary amount designed to make Trump happy and says nothing about the quality of the spend).

That would save $29.7bn over the 4 years from 2028-29.

Combined those two measures would cut $82.4bn – more than double what the LNP is proposing.

So you know, choices can be made.

If you watched Four Corners last night, you are probably still feeling it. Seeing anyone abused is never easy, but watching children – babies – be abused is among one of the most awful things your brain can take in (and one of the many reasons I go to sleep with the faces of Palestinian children I’ve never met burned onto my eyelids).

SNAICC,  the National Voice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, has released a statement following the progam:

SNAICC’s first concern is for the children that were assaulted and abused by Edwina Ling at  Injinoo Childcare Centre, and their families. It is unacceptable that any child is abused in  early childhood education and care and it should have never happened.

Some Aboriginal community controlled early education services sit outside the National  Quality Framework. This does not mean they are not regulated to high standards of quality  and safety, but that they are regulated by state and territory governments.

SNAICC welcomes the discussion about the application of the National Quality Framework  as part of how children in early learning are kept safe. We have long advocated for nationally  consistent standards of care that reflect the importance of culture.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, like all children, deserve the highest possible  standards. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children this includes consideration of  cultural safety and connection to Country.

The overwhelming majority of Aboriginal community controlled early childhood services are  high quality. These services operate with the needs of children as their first priority, with  strong and clear child safe policies and procedures in place.

SNAICC has argued for many years that the current subsidy-based funding models are a  safety issue, not just an administrative one. When funding can’t be counted on, neither can  the continuity of care children and families depend on. Reliability of funding is reliability of  safety.

A model built for a different context can’t be expected to hold the cultural and relational  safety that community-controlled, holistic care provides. Trust and safety are built through  relationships, by a workforce families recognise as their own.

Governments have the opportunity to implement a model that reflects the cultural and  relational safety that community-controlled holistic care provides.

A national Early Education and Care Commission that is informed by Aboriginal and Torres  Strait Islander expertise presents an opportunity for this reform.

The need for a new model isn’t a new ask. It draws on the voices of ACCOs, families, and  government representatives from consultations nationwide, backed by evidence review and  independent economic modelling.

In July 2024 the Joint Council on Closing the Gap accepted a recommendation for  governments to work towards implementing it. 

It is time all governments move on putting this new model in place to ensure services have  the resources, workforce and sustainable funding to provide safe and quality care for  children.

Greg Jericho

Overnight came reports via Axios that Anthropic’s AI model (Claude) had accessed voter information in Georgia. 

Much as was the case with the Medicare AI issue recently, nothing secret was accessed. Everything Anthropic accessed was publicly available, but for a fee. All Anthropic’s AI did was vault over the paywall and accessed the data. 

So that’s nice. 

We should add that this is not some issue of the AI going rogue. This is exactly what it is programmed to do – bypass stuff that others would pay for and just gobble it up.

The Guardian’s Josh Taylopr noted on seeing my post on Bluesky about it that “I think about this a bit when AI companies say that they support changes to copyright in Australia that would require anyone who didn’t want their content fed into AI to put a “pls don’t scrape” notice on their site as though that will stop it…”

He’s right, currently AI models are ignoring all paywalls and firewalls with a regularity that suggests it sure as hell ain’t a bug, but a feature. 

All of which is to say that it is beyond time that AI companies start getting treated with at least the harshness that kids downloading Metallica songs in 2001 off of Napster were… if not rather more severely 

Hello and welcome back to The Point Live. After the tributes to Helen Haines yesterday, the House will move on to its usual business. For Labor, that’s getting some bills into the senate ahead of the end of year rush. There is not many more weeks of parliament sittings left, so this is when the government will start knuckling down, to get through its mid-term grind. The negotiations for the digital duty of care bill remain the main focus.

Anika Wells is still hoping that by some miracle, the Coalition will say yes and she can continue the streak of bipartisan tech laws, but that is unlikely to happen in this case. The Coalition are looking for more and more ways to differentiate themself from Labor, with the phrase ‘uniparty’ coming up more and more in focus groups.

Their response is to become more and more like One Nation, so it’s not exactly product differentiation from all sides, but the Coalition is feeling a bit bouyed by the Victorian situation. So, you won’t be changing up that course.

In estimates, the ABC bosses are up early. Sarah Henderson has taken it upon herself to be the critiquer in chief of the national broadcaster, so you can expect that to continue.

We’ll bring you all the day’s events, and whatever else happens you should know about, as it happens.

It’s a two coffee morning so far, but it is still early. One of the cats decided my dresser mirror would make a great jungle gym (until it didn’t) so there won’t be enough coffee in the world this morning. Hope your start to the day has been less messy.

Ready?