The Point Live: Digital Duty of Care legislation to be introduced with the Greens in the driving seat, One Nation slips in polls. All the day's events, as it happened.

After whatever that mess was, we will close up the blog and put it to bed, ready for whatever mess comes tomorrow.

It is party room meeting tomorrow, which means you’ll see the MPs out and about and then silent for a bit and then out and about again. And there will be the same conversations – digital duty of care, small business and surcharges. Apparently, there is nothing else happening in Australia. Or the world. Aren’t we lucky? (this is sacasm).

But a very big thank you to all of you who joined – your support is very appreciated. So until tomorrow- take care of you.

Ax

The Greens have been speaking on this since it was announced. They want the government to assure people that the planned execution of a US prisoner that they have played with live streamed will not be available in Australia.

Sarah Hanson-Young:

This is an unconscionable, abhorrent act which will expose an immeasurable amount of people to harm, including millions of Australians, including children.

This act of state-sanctioned killing should have no place in any society, let alone ours. It cannot be allowed to circulate unchecked and unregulated across the feeds of Australians and our children.  

Let’s be clear: the Australian Government can stop this barbaric content from appearing on our feeds. 

They have done so before in the wake of the Christchurch attack, when the eSafety Commissioner issued a directive to block eight sites hosting the video and manifesto of this dreadful act of terrorism. 

Both the Online Safety Act and the Criminal Code give the eSafety Commissioner and the Government the powers and tools they need to stop this footage from appearing in Australians’ feeds. The Government just needs to find the courage to act now before it’s too late. 

We cannot sit back and hope Big Tech will do the right thing. When have they ever put people’s safety ahead of their profits?

Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and their tech-bro mates cannot be allowed to put our online safety at risk to boost their own profits.

Countries around the world are stepping up and looking at how they can protect their people from this horrific footage. Australia must do the same.

We have an opportunity to show leadership in this space, and a real chance not only to protect Australians, but also set a global precedent of how this vile material must be dealt with.

First, we have an indulgence motion from Anthony Albanese to…Speaker Milton Dick.

On the weekend, Milton Dick was named the leader of the International Parliamentary Union – the first time an Australian has held that position in 138 years.

Dick is very, very good at his job as speaker and is liked across the chamber for his fairness. He takes it seriously, which is not something you can say for everyone who has sat in that chair.

Albanese:

that you are the best speaker that I’ve seen in my time in the House of Representatives, and that is to your great credit. And on the weekend, that was acknowledged as president with your election as president of the Interparliamentary Union. Now that is a body that has been around for 138 years, but has never had anyone from this part of the world as its president. And at a time where democracy is under challenge, that is the truth.

Where democratic values need to be nurtured, where young people worryingly, in surveys by the Lowy Institute, for example, the figures on democracy versus authoritarianism are not going in the right direction.

Your absolute vigilance and the work that you do, going into schools right across the parliament, right across the country, to promote democracy, your bringing together of the youth parliament for the first time here, as well, your commitment to civic education is a good thing that I’m sure you will now spread to other parts of the world. Your election is a great personal achievement for you, but importantly as well, it’s a proud moment for our nation, for Australia, when Australia has a candidate for positions.

We back them, and I know that your candidacy had the backing of. I saw people from across the parliament there in Tanzania backing your candidacy, and that is a good thing. Australia is a middle power, but we punch above our weight on the global stage. That’s a good thing. Your election adds another forum in which Australia will have a louder voice as a result of your success. So I have no doubt you’ll be a champion for democracy at a time where democracy needs all the friends it can get.

What else did we learn? Not a lot. The Coalition is still stuck on small details – rather than any big themes – and it is not doing any of us any good.

Anna Chang

We have reported in the past that the Senate at time refer to Senator Ralph Babet as ‘the Ghost of the Senate’, so it’s only fair that we let you know that the Ghost of the Senate is back today.

Is it because it’s Spooktober? Is it because a Vic Election is coming up? Who knows how ghosts work.

Senator Ralph Babet:

My question is for the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Minister Wong. 

Minister, six months ago, I asked you if it was in the national interest to permit for importation of all fuels, even if these fuels originate from Russia. 

Your answer was, and I’ll quote here: “With respect, Senator Brett, your support for President Putin’s regime is a disgrace. Now, Minister, I note that a few days ago, President Donald Trump announced that the United States would purchase Russian diesel to help ease pressure on American families. 

Well, Minister, my question: is the President of the United States also a disgrace?

Minister Wong:

Well, Senator Babet, you mentioned the question six months ago, and I have to say it’s good to have you back, mate. 

And in fact, this is the first question you’ve asked in six months. It’s, like, six months since your last question. And in fact, during that time, you haven’t actually spoken on government legislation. I know, it’s embarrassing. 

Senator Babet: Relevance, President, please answer the question. Is the President of the U.S. a disgrace?

Chair: Thank you, Senator Babet. There was a time frame referred to in your question. The Minister is being relevant.

Minister Wong:

The time frame referred to in the question, which was the last time you graced us with your presence, mate. 

The last time you graced us with your presence. In between then and now, we’ve been, you know, people have been observing on Facebook and Instagram your magical mystery tour. 

I did wonder if you’re actually overseas, maybe meeting with the people who manufacture your supposed Australia First merchandise, but apparently you were just holidaying in Europe. 

We have a clear position on Russia and Ukraine, but we believe that Russia’s breach of the UN Charter, but in its invasion of Ukraine, was illegal, was wrong, and we will continue to stand with Ukraine. 

Now, I understand you want to stand with President Putin against Ukraine. I completely disagree with you, and I do think that is a shameful position. 

We will not be changing our position. 

If you want to talk about what’s disgraceful, I think it’s disgraceful that a Senator rocks up here, takes six months before he actually turns up to do some work, continues to pull his salary whilst posting his holiday pics everywhere.

Bit of a meeting of the minds happening on the crossbench a little earlier this morning. As seen by Mike Bowers:

Bob Katter:

You’re aware that North Queensland’s state government is 3,000km away. Queensland’s budget is $70 billion – this is also the amount that will be squandered on a two-week athletic meet called the Olympics. Brisbane has 1.1 million people – North Queensland, 1 million people. Prime Minister, can a report be drafted on the viability of a North Queensland state where, at present, 1,000 million in mining and 1,000 million in irrigated agriculture are both on hold by a government based 3,000km away?

Albanese:

Well, I thank the member for Kennedy for his question – a question that, I’ve got to say, was not on my bingo card. The idea of a break-up of the states – including the great state of Queensland – would, of course, perhaps see a Premier Katter in Far North Queensland, which might or might not be a good thing. It would weaken the Queensland State of Origin team somewhat, given the magnificent players who’ve come from places like Cloncurry and Mount Isa. And I know that, as we go forward, I understand that Queensland is such a big state, which is why I have visited the member for Kennedy on multiple occasions in Cloncurry – I’ve been at the MountIsa Rodeo with the member for Kennedy.

In Cloncurry, we built the Cloncurry Bypass. We’re dealing with the challenges for the flood that have impacted Cloncurry – Julia Creek, all these magnificent communities… I’ve been into some pubs and sat in the wrong seat with the member for Kennedy, as the member for Kennedy would recall – a 7ft gentleman asked me to move, and I moved very quickly.

But there is certainly a case for making sure that Far North Queensland gets its share of resources, and particularly, infrastructure – that’s why I’m very proud of the Ansie River Bridge, the upgrade to Karumba Airport, the visits to Normanton and all of those communities that I’ve had, together with obviously the work that the member for Leichhardt does – the magnificent work that he does in Cairns as well.

As well as, of course – I’m not sure where the Torres Strait would fit under the member for Kennedy’s analysis, but I do want to say, with regard to the Olympics, one of the things that will happen is some events are throughout regional Queensland as well – something I’ve emphasised with Premier Crisafulli.

The Queensland Olympics, I think, will be a great thing for Queensland and for economic activity and for jobs and for making a big difference for Queensland. I know the infrastructure that was built for the Sydney Olympics, like the infrastructure was built for the Melbourne Olympics, has lasted and has produced an outstanding outcome. We’re working constructively.

I had a discussion with Greg Norman last week, who’s the federal representative on the Olympics Committee, to make sure it’s the best it can be.

David Richardson

The Reserve Bank has increased interest rates four times this year in part because they think the labour market is still too tight. More recently they have added the view that demand in the market for goods and services is running up against capacity.

Recently the Australian Bureau of Statistics published the latest job vacancy figures for Australia which show that the number of job vacancies peaked at 473,000 in May 2022 but have since fallen 31% to 325,000.

Vacancies offer a tangible bit of information that goes to the question of whether the labour market is tight. By contrast, the Reserve Bank uses concepts such as “excess demand” and the “natural rate of unemployment”, concepts that cannot be observed but have to be inferred from other indicators, such as wage and price increases themselves.

What about using vacancies as an indicator of labour market tightness? 

Data on job vacancies can be used in conjunction with unemployment data to throw light on the labour market tightness or otherwise.

There is a long tradition that regards equilibrium in the labour market as when there is equality in the number of vacancies and the number of unemployed people seeking work. The more vacancies there are compared with job seekers then the more does labour market power reside with the workers. However, the fewer vacancies to job seekers the more does power reside with the bosses.

Recent research published by the (US) National Bureau of Economic Research uses the equality of vacancies and the unemployed to define the “efficiency unemployment rate”. The idea is that when vacancies equal the unemployed, any remaining unemployment is explained by a mismatch between the jobseekers and the job vacancies or maybe they just haven’t hooked up with each other just yet. This equality is easy to measure and is a more sensible measure of labour market equilibrium. Hence for example, the OECD uses the vacancy to unemployment ratio as a measure of tightness without treating the equality as an equilibrium. For some reason the RBA does not like to directly compare vacancies with the unemployment numbers.

Figure 1 is designed to show Australia’s recent experience with vacancies and unemployment. Over the 7-year period shown here, the ratio of vacancies to the number of unemployed has never been 100 or above which would have indicated balance in the labour market. The closest Australia came to balance was the August 2022 quarter when unemployment was an historic low of 3.4%.

Figure 1: Ratio of vacancies to the number of unemployed, % quarterly

Source: ABS (2026) Labour Force, Australia, July 2026, at https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/employment-and-unemployment/labour-force-australia/latest-release#data-downloads and ABS (2026) Job Vacancies, Australia, May 2026, at https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/jobs/job-vacancies-australia/may-2026

Figure 1 clearly shows the ratio of vacancies to unemployment was very low leading up to the pandemic but then peaked at 93% in August 2022, presumably as a result of the stimulus at early in the pandemic. Since then there has been a strong downward trend in the ratio which most recently (August 2026) stood at 45%. Clearly balance in the labour market has turned against the unemployed despite the RBA insisting that labour market conditions remain “tight”.

The graph above clearly shows that labour market power has turned further against workers since the pandemic.

And if you have ever wondered about the logic of the RBA talking about the “full employment level of unemployment” you are certainly not alone.

Rod Campbell

Last week, the High Court ruled in favour of a NSW community group opposed to a large coal mine in the Hunter Valley.

In response, Angus Taylor and Matt Canavan put out a press release promising to change climate and planning laws to prevent such judgements in the future.

It’s not clear how a future Taylor-Canavan Government could legally “ensure State and Territory laws cannot require overseas emissions from Australian resource exports to be considered in project assessment”.

But the bigger claim is that “Shutting down our mining projects…makes not one degree of difference”.

Except shutting down mining projects has made a difference, including one in Taylor’s own electorate.

Over the last decade three major South Korean-backed coal mines were stopped in NSW. This contributed to South Korea’s largest power company committing to phase out coal by 2050, and then the Korean government following with a similar commitment.

South Korea brought this forward to 2040 at the last round of climate talks in Brazil and this week announced a major expansion of renewable energy.

Australian coal supply does matter and activists stopping mines in NSW has global impact.

The shadow minister for small business is finally allowed to ask a question about small business.

Angie Bell (who is facing a very strong pre-selection challenge for her Gold Coast seat (from a man, ofc) asks:

My question is to the Minister for Small Business: After Labor’s bungled ban on small business using credit cards to pay their tax bills, one of your Labor colleagues said, “We have a Small Business Minister who knows nothing about small business.” When was the minister first informed of the credit-card ban, and by whom?

The minister for small business, Anne Aly answers:

We, on this side of the House, understand how important small businesses are for our economy, for our communities. Just last week, I was out in regional Queensland in the member for Maranoa’s seat, meeting with small businesses there, where I had a roundtable with small businesses at the local cafe there.

Speaking to them about the issues that matter to them, shortly after, I went up to Darwin and met with small businesses in Darwin as well. Every time I meet with small businesses, I ask them for their challenges and their opportunities. There’s no doubt that small businesses are doing it tough. The costs of doing businesses are getting higher, margins are getting thinner, and businesses are struggling through.

But that’s why this government, in the last budget, dedicated $3.8 million to assist small businesses – why this government has made permanent the $20,000 instant asset write-off, and businesses right across Australia have been using the instant asset write-off to ensure that they have cashflow…

Dan Tehan has thoughts. No one needs to hear them.

Aly:

As I was saying, one of the demonstrations – it’s all very well to talk about small businesses – cosplaying small businesses, making reels where you’re pretending to be a small business…..actually going out and speaking to small businesses means that we have a government that acts in the interests of small businesses.

In making the instant asset write-off permanent, in making the 2-year loss carry-back permanent, in delivering assistance to small businesses where they need it most and when they need it most. And importantly, every time I go and speak to small businesses – whether it’s in the member for Maranoa’s seat, whether it’s in Darwin, whether it’s in rural and Australia, or whether it’s in the cities, the thing that they ask for the most is access to workers.

That’s why we have free TAFE. That’s why we have apprenticeship schemes to enable those businesses to access the workers that they need. The Prime Minister went through some numbers earlier, and I think they warrant repeating. Those numbers mean something. Those numbers of the more than 600,000 new businesses that have started – the numbers that show record numbers of new businesses starting since we came into government – record numbers every day and every month – demonstrate something. They demonstrate something beyond numbers. They demonstrate the initiative…

Milton Dick has to intervene because of the interjections.

Aly runs out of time to make her final point (that there are 900 businesses opening a day)

Jim Chalmers also took a dixer on the proposed discretionary trust changes which are coming:

The trust reforms that we will introduce this week have gone through multiple rounds of consultation and don’t start until the middle of 2028. 95% of Australians don’t get income from trusts, and less than 10% of small businesses will be affected by our changes.

About 90% of total private wealth in trusts is held by the wealthiest 10% of households. So our changes will better align the tax treatment of income from assets and income from wages and help fund tax cuts for workers. Those opposite voted against tax cuts for workers before the election and after the election.

Now, they’ve made well over $110 billion in unfunded commitments since then, which would double the deficits and, by their own logic, push up inflation and interest rates.

Now, we hear that Josh Frydenberg wants to jack up the GST as well. That rings a bell. In fact, the House should be aware that, in the Shadow Treasurer’s first speech in this place, he called for a 20% GST. A 20% GST.

So now, the Leader of the Opposition is being stalked from the inside by the member for Canning. He’s being stalked from the outside by the failed former member for Kooyong.

We are getting on with the job of reforming the tax system, improving the budget, and providing the responsible economic management which underpins the AAA credit rating – just reaffirmed by all three major credit ratings agencies.

Tim Wilson is up:

After Labor’s bungled ban on small business using credit cards to pay their tax bills, one of your aspiring backbench Labor colleagues made the following admission: “There is no-one in Cabinet with any small business experience.” When will the Prime Minister start listening to small business, overrule his Treasurer, and scrap Labor’s credit-card ban for good?

Albanese:

I give him some points for courage….By talking about comments about our frontbench, given that you’ve got Josh Frydenberg, a predecessor, out there… ..out there campaigning openly, campaigning openly against the frontbench on the other side, saying that they’re not up to it, calling for an increase in the GST… most remarkably, actually saying that they spent too much and wasted money during the COVID crisis.

If only Mr Frydenberg was in a position to have some influence during that time…! But perhaps the spending was the result of the other bloke who was also the Treasurer, Scott Morrison.

Dan Tehan has a point of order that is not a point of order.

Albanese:

I understand why they don’t want to talk about the issue that they raised of people’s comments about frontbenchers – about frontbenchers – because, when they were there, made the extraordinary decision to turn up at CPAC over the weekend…(INTERJECTIONS)..turn up at CPAC, they weren’t talking there about policies of small business, Mr Speaker. They weren’t talking about policies of small business. They weren’t talking about policies of big business. They were getting lessons, of all people, from the only person in the Western world who makes Tony Abbott’s period as PM look long, which is Liz Truss, who lasted 45 days. 45 days as the PM. That’s who they get lessons from.

He has concluded his answer.

 Anna Chang

The Greens’ attempt to ‘replace Labor’ begins with a question on the Government’s ‘failure to increase real wages.’

Senator David Shoebridge:

My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister. 

Minister, wages are going backwards under the Albanese government right now. People in Australia are earning in real terms no more than they had in 2011, falling back to where they were 15 years ago. While people work longer, take on two jobs, and see their lives getting harder, how do you explain the Albanese Labor Government’s failure to increase real wages? 

Minister Penny Wong:

“Thank you, President. Thank you, Senator Shoebridge, and I’ll take the opportunity to congratulate you, Senator Shoebridge, and Senator Hodgins-May, on your election. It is a… it is a very.. it’s a real honour to lead your party in this place, and I acknowledge your election in relation to wages.”

[ note: this is very polite but also just time wasting tactics by the Minister]

“Well, we obviously we have done an enormous amount of work to improve, do what we could to improve Australia’s Australians’ wages, and you’ve seen the benefits of that. You’ve seen the benefits of that, particularly in the care economy. 

“You’ve seen the benefits of that to early childhood, early education, early childhood educators. You’ve seen the benefit of that in a whole range of care economy professions that Senator Walsh speaks about regularly. And as a consequence of that, we have seen the gender pay gap reduce. So that is a good thing. We have also, as a government, ensured that there have been increases in the minimum wage. 

“And unlike those opposite, we do not take the view that low wages are a deliberate design feature of our economy. We want them to continue.

“But you would know, Senator, that the government does not control inflation, the government, particularly inflation that is primarily primarily driven by the largest impact on energy global energy markets that the world has seen, with consequences throughout our economy, and we also know that continuing to invest in the to remove the capacity constraints in the economy is a focus of this government. Hence, our investment in infrastructure and in human capital.

“So there is no magic wand which will ensure that we can we can…”

Chair: “Thank you, Minister. The time answering questions has expired”

This is worth updating everyone on, because of how much this will impact Australians’ lives:

Indeed, AI offers extraordinary opportunities for Australia. For our growth, for our investment, for productivity, for businesses such as those I’ll speak with tonight at the Australian Industry Group to use AI to benefit their productivity and, therefore, to be able to grow.

Our government knows that, and that’s why we’re legislating Australian standards for AI. And that’s why we’re also consulting across the board, engaging seriously with other nations, as well as with AI companies themselves, so we can make sure that AI stands for Australia’s interests.

Harnessing its power as a tool to help us build a stronger economy. But we know that we need humanity to shape AI, rather than the other way around. And that is why we’ve established the AI committee that has been stood up in a bipartisan fashion and has already begun its work under the leadership of the member for Maribyrnong and Senator Duniam in the other place. Because the hack by a frontier AI agent into government websites brought home to Australians that some of the risks which are there are very real indeed.

We took strong action on that, and made our notions clear that the breach was completely unacceptable.

But it is clear for everyone to see that the AI genie is well and truly out of the bottle. We can’t pretend that it doesn’t exist and it isn’t already having an impact on the way that we work, the way that we engage – indeed, the way that politics is conducted as well. And that is why what really matters is how we respond to it – how we intervene and shape it. And that is why, as well, we’ve engaged not just domestically, but we’re engaging with global companies and we’re engaging with other nations as well. And we did that at the United Nations’ General Assembly last month. We did that, as well, in the meetings that we have continued to hold with the major companies.

We’re going to make sure that Australia can gain from the benefits that can come from AI whilst mitigating the risks. That is the way forward. That is what is in Australia’s national interest. And that is what we will continue to do. And I encourage every member of this House to engage with this process, because this will be one of the dominant issues over the next decade and beyond.

If you want to know what else is personally shaping the PM’s thinking on this, read the Pope’s letter on it. He has mentioned it numerous times.

Genocidal denying Angus Taylor asks the prime minister:

Australians are pleading with this Prime Minister to end his war on small business. Since Labor came to power, over 50,000 businesses have gone bust. Killed by power bills no-one can afford, new taxes no-one voted for, and a credit-card ban no-one was told about. When will this Prime Minister start listening to Australians who have a go and stop waging war on small businesses?

Albanese:

Small business is absolutely vital to the Australian economy – no question about that – and we want small business to grow and to thrive. And we pay tribute to those who aspire, who take risks, who invest in not just themselves and their families, but they invest in the future of the Australian economy. And that’s why we’ve taken action to back small business. We’ve made the $20,000 instant asset write-off permanent so small business can invest in the tools and the technology and the equipment that they need to grow. We legislated a permanent loss carry-back tax offset to support small businesses’ cashflow and resilience.

And last week, of course, the government stepped in for the decision that was made by the ATO with regard to changes for credit-card payments.

We back Australia’s small businesses. We value their contribution. And, indeed, under Labor, the number of small businesses since we came to office is today 2.7 million. That is 265,000 more than were there when we came to office in 2022.

People talk about insolvencies – according to ASIC data, insolvencies under this government, as a proportion of all companies, has averaged 0.32%. The rate under the Howard government was 0.5%. Average monthly new company registrations are higher under this government..than any government on record.

And an average of 900 companies have been created each day of this government. Each day. 900.

So, 30 have become insolvent. 900 have been created.

So we haven’t had any mention of the genocide of the Palestinian people, until now from Angus Taylor:

Even today, there are those who deceitfully accuse Israel of genocide, and yet turn a blind eye to groups and regimes with real genocidal intent. Such perversions of the truth and lack of moral clarity help to fuel anti-Semitism and make it permissible. The fight against anti-Semitism is, therefore, a fight for the truth – a fight that continues on our soil too. And the fight for the truth is about acknowledging and combating all forms of anti-Semitism – especially Islamist extremism.

Genocidal scholars, anyone with eyes, humanitarian organisations, the United Nations are among those who have named the genocide against Palestinians what it is – a genocide – have just been labeled as ‘deceitful’ by the leader of the Coalition. Three years into the genocide.

The statements are exactly as you would expect.

Anna Chang

The Coalition has gone in all guns blazing on credit card surcharges. Senator Michaelia Cash is on message with her first question in the Senate.

Senator Michaelia Cash: 

Does the Prime Minister seriously expect Australia’s small businesses to believe his promise that banning credit card surcharges will save them money. When his own tax office decided that the very same policy was so financially damaging, it would stop accepting credit card payments altogether.

Senator Penny Wong’s answer is about transparency and the workings of the ATO.

Anna Chang

Senator Lidia Thorpe gives a two minute statement on her bill to ban shackling of people during childbirth.

Childbirth is traumatic enough. That people are shackled while giving birth is abhorrent.

That we as a nation need legislation to explicitly outlaw this horrendous practice is itself an indictment of where we are as a society. That the major parties are seemingly unwilling to pass this legislation (or propose their own, should they wish) is beyond words.

Senator Lidia Thorpe:

Surprise, surprise! Labor and the Coalition don’t want to pass my bill banning shackling of people during childbirth when it’s voted on this Thursday. 

As usual, they’re handballing it to states and territories. 

It’s a joke. States and territories are racing to be as cruel as possible to people in prison. 

If Labor doesn’t show leadership, states and territories will never change. What part of rehabilitation is this? It only causes more harm. 

How many more people will have to go through this? How many more babies will be put at risk? Governments love talking about do the crime and do the time. What crimes have these unborn babies committed? Why are they subjected to danger and lifelong trauma? 

Overwhelming evidence to the inquiry said this bill is urgent. 

State and territory policies have failed, and Commonwealth action is necessary. 

Shackling during childbirth was described as barbaric, convict era, cruel, and degrading. 

Evidence was clear that the Commonwealth Government has powers to stop it. 

This open letter, signed by 1000s of people, calls on the Government to pass this bill, and it’s backed by the obstetricians, the gynecologists college, the nursing union, the midwives board, and many, many others, implementing this bill doesn’t require any big overhaul or massive cost. 

Labor, you have the opportunity to end a barbaric, inhumane, outdated practice, senators in this chamber on Thursday. If you don’t pass this bill, you are all voting for literal torture of unborn babies and their parents.

You will hear a lot about the end of surcharges in this question time. Instead of blaming banks who could absorb this cost (and I am going to go out on a limb and assume that there would be a much cheaper way found of doing e-transfers if they were made to) we are blaming the government who said that consumers shouldn’t have to pay to use their card. The Coalition see this as a gift and have been going after the government for about a week on it, so you’ll be hearing more on that.

Before it gets underway in the House, the prime minister (and later Angus Taylor) has a statement on the 25 year commemoration of Operation Slipper – when we illegally invaded Afghanistan.

Not mentioned in any of these reports is how John Howard got around the governor-general at the time who wanted to see the legal advice that what we were doing was sound, by finding a loophole that let a minister deploy troops, not the GG. We knew what we were doing.

We are into the MP airing of the grievances, which is how we know we are very close to question time.

Brace yourself – there has been three weeks since the last one and nothing has gotten better. It will be ROUGH.

Malcolm Roberts takes his 2 minute Senators Statement to take a swipe at the Australia Institute.

“Last month, the Australia Institute stated that big government serves the interests of everyday Australians, and small government only serves the rich. 

“The point was to attack as neoliberal policies that One Nation is promoting. It fails to understand One Nation’s central belief is that an economy run for the benefit of the people will grow wealth and abundance for all, reducing the need for government support as people take care of themselves? 

“It fails to understand that it’s not the size of government; it’s what government does that counts. 

“The Australia Institute advocates an inheritance tax to target, in their words, quote, “the untaxed compounding of intergenerational wealth.” 

“One Nation calls that wealth that parents build up during a lifetime of hard work. People getting ahead-that’s what it is. What parents do is to work hard and to pass the benefit to their children. 

“The political left hate people becoming self-sufficient because economic resilience removes subservience to government, the fundamental difference between One Nation and Labor-Greens socialism is economic independence. 

“Small businesses in, the Australia Institute cites, with a proposed 2% wealth tax on assets over $5 million, not income, assets. 

“The losers from this include farmers, truckers, restaurants, fishing, farmers, fast food, franchises, childcare. These Australians are asset rich, income poor. 

“Paying a $100,000 annual tax will force them out of business. One Nation rejects a wealth tax and an inheritance tax. 

“The Albanese Labor Government listened to the Australian Institute when they advocated recent capital gains tax changes. 

“The Treasurer needs to stop pushing socialism. Founded on ideology, not economics, these changes have caused a housing price crash, wiping billions from our national estate and placing many young Australians who use the 5% deposit scheme in negative equity. 

“Thanks, Treasurer. Now please stop helping. Enough. Bring on the next election so one nation can slay the socialist dragon.”

You may not realise it – and I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t, given how little mainstream media pays attention to it – but it is anti-poverty week.

And so who better to hear from, then the Anti-Poverty Centre, who are being very clear on who they think should be heard from this week. And it is not charities or politicians.

(You can see what events they recommend, here)

From the Anti-Poverty Centre:

Social services minister Tanya Plibersek marked the first day of Anti-Poverty Week with a shameful announcement: one-off grants of $2 million will go to poverty profiteering foodbanks, $2 million to emergency relief in rural and remote areas, and another $1 million going to a helpline for people in debt.

This amounts to less than $1 per welfare recipient that will likely be spent on salaries and admin costs, not poor people. Foodbanks offer unreasonably priced, substandard goods. Emergency relief is supposed to be for people dealing with unexpected emergencies, not chronic government-induced poverty. The National Debt Helpline can do very little to help people who simply do not have enough money to live.

Anti-Poverty week should not be about presenting welfare recipients as pitiful objects. It should be a time for politicians to be scrutinised for choices that kill people through poverty, residualised public housing and violating unemployed people’s agency by forcing them into compulsory activities.

Currently, the main unemployment payment is $412 a week – 40% below the poverty line. More than 1 million people rely on unemployment payments, around 40% of whom are disabled. 20% of people on the JobSeeker payment is employed, subjected to an effective marginal tax rate of 75% for every dollar of gross income above $128 a week. Welfare recipients are not falling behind, we are held back.

People on the two main working age payments (JobSeeker and DSP) make up around a third of all suicide deaths among working age adults. People on JobSeeker represent 20% of all suicide deaths among those aged 15 to 66 years old.

167,000 people on income support aged between 22 to 64 years old died between 2012 and 2022 – 58.2% of all deaths for people in this age group. Those on JobSeeker aged 35 to 44 are 9.6 times more likely to die than their peers.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of Australia continues to pursue policies intended to increase the number of unemployed people with no interest in how those people will financially or psychologically survive.

*All of the apologies in the world to the Anti-Poverty CENTRE for the previous post. My brain, she be a struggling.

Speaking on health, over in the house, independent MP Andrew Wilkie has moved this motion:

That this House:

(1)notes that:

(a)private hospitals perform more than two-thirds of planned surgeries, and deliver essential healthcare across Australia, including in regional areas;

(b)private healthcare exists to provide choice, not to compensate for a public system in logjam;

(c)rising costs relative to revenue have driven hospital closures and sales, with obstetrics and mental health services under particular pressure;

(d)hundreds of thousands of Australians are downgrading their private cover as its value erodes, a trend the Government’s cut to the seniors’ private health insurance rebate will accelerate, adding further pressure to the public system;

(e)private health regulation was designed for an earlier era of high membership, not-for-profit insurers and larger hospital numbers, and now lacks flexibility to respond to demographic change, contract imbalances and economic shocks;

(f)no dedicated, whole-of-system mechanism exists to balance the interests of patients, doctors, hospitals, insurers and device manufacturers; and

(g)selective contracting and vertical integration increasingly threaten patient choice and the doctor-patient relationship; and

(2)calls on the Government to establish an independent statutory Private Health System Authority within the Health portfolio to:

(a)monitor and report on the sector’s financial sustainability, from premiums and benefit payouts to regional hospital viability;

(b)ensure fair insurer-hospital and insurer-practitioner contracting, including sustainable payment arrangements given bargaining power discrepancies;

(c)safeguard against managed care by assessing arrangements on their actual effect, not stated intent, where they restrict patient choice, interfere with clinically appropriate care, or distort clinical decisions, including in emerging hospital-in-the-home care;

(d)advise government on policy levers, including premiums, rebates, product tier design and risk equalisation, to lift coverage and reverse the drift to exclusionary products; and

(e)oversee safe, clinically-led expansion of out-of-hospital care that is properly funded and benchmarked, without shifting cost or risk to patients and families.

Luke Slawomirski

Two stories last week captured much of what’s wrong with Australia’s health system.

First, the ABC reported that 6,436 older Australians died in 2025–26 while waiting for government-funded home care. That’s an average of 17 people every day. More than 106,000 people were still on the official waiting list at the end of June.

The figures don’t tell us whether the delays contributed to those deaths. But they do tell us that thousands of older Australians are reaching the end of their lives without receiving care they’ve been assessed as needing.

Then came news from Queensland, where 42 per cent of patients arriving by ambulance at major public hospitals waited more than 30 minutes to be transferred into emergency departments. The figure has barely improved in two years.

These might appear to be separate problems, but they’re closely connected.

Queensland Health recently revealed that more than 1,400 patients are occupying public hospital beds despite being medically ready for discharge. Over 1,100 are waiting for residential aged care.

Stranded patients

When hospital beds are occupied by people who no longer need acute care, patients waiting in emergency can’t be admitted. Emergency departments fill up, and ambulances can’t hand over their patients.

The problem extends well beyond Queensland. A recent Australian Medical Association report found that patients waiting for residential aged care occupied more than 460,000 hospital bed-days nationally in 2023–24, up 61 per cent in just three years.

Home- and residential aged care waiting lists are different. But both reflect a system failing to provide appropriate support outside hospitals.

An absurd situation

Financially speaking, the situation is absurd. Governments end up providing expensive hospital care when much cheaper community or aged-care services could often meet patients’ needs.

Divided responsibilities is a key problem. The Commonwealth funds aged care, while state governments bear much of the cost of overcrowded public hospitals and ambulance delays.

Politicians respond to ramping by promising more hospital beds. But we should also be asking why existing beds are being occupied by people who shouldn’t need to be there.

Fixing aged care might be one of the most effective ways to fix our hospitals.

Luke Slawomirski

Governments love building hospitals. They’re expensive, impressive and make for great photo opportunities.

Staffing them is another matter.

Melbourne’s new Footscray Hospital is a case in point. Opened in February at a cost of $1.5 billion, it promised more than 500 beds and an additional 15,000 patients treated every year.

But an ABC 7.30 investigation last week revealed that around 170 beds remain unopened, along with at least two operating theatres. Doctors say staffing shortages are contributing to worsening emergency department delays.

Patients now wait an average of 31 minutes to see a doctor or nurse in emergency, more than twice the Victorian average of 15 minutes.

The Victorian government argues that the hospital was always intended to open in stages. It says 331 beds are operating, already 23 per cent more than at the old Footscray Hospital.

Fair enough…but the Health Minister couldn’t say when the remaining beds would open.

Footscray hospital illustrates two broader problems

First, a hospital bed without nurses is just furniture. An operating theatre without surgeons, anaesthetists and support staff is an expensive room.

The key constraint on providing healthcare services is – and always will be – human capital. Every clinician recruited to work in Footscray has to come from somewhere, i.e. another community misses out.

It’s a zero-sum game.

Second, equating acute healthcare services with better health is problematic.

There’s nothing wrong with building new hospitals. But the ultimate measure of health investment should be population health, which has a lot more to do with lifestyle, diet, education and our living environment than the number of hospital beds available.

The Christian fundamentalist activist Joanna Howe is very, very activated over Allegra Spender’s private members’ bill which would stop religious organisations from being able to discriminate against students or employees because of their sexuality. Howe is having a very normal one and calling it the ‘end of Christianity’ which seems like a pretty big stretch, but that’s where the far right lands on things these days. It is always, always the end of days (which some of them seem to be actively rooting for).

Equality Australia has welcomed the bill (which will only move forward if the government accepts it, which, given its history on this, they will not.)

Equality Australia CEO Anna Brown:

With the support of the Greens, there is a clear path through parliament to pass this bill. The question is whether the government is serious about honouring the commitment it made to our community and women’s groups all those years ago.

A gay student should not have to hide who they are to have a shot at leadership or live in fear of being expelled, and no woman should ever risk losing her job because she falls pregnant outside marriage.

These are basic questions of fairness, and it is unacceptable that in Australia today people are still left without protections against this kind of discrimination.

We urge the federal government and all federal MPs to seize this opportunity and finally deliver these long-overdue reforms.

Behind these legal carve-outs are real people facing real consequences. We’re talking about people’s education, their livelihoods and their futures.” 

Former student of a Christian school in Sydney, James Elliot-Watson who made a very big splash a few years ago when this issue was last raised for telling the government to just do it says:

I was just a teenager when my school told me I couldn’t become a prefect because I came out as gay, told me to not to tell other people and referred me to counselling to change my sexuality.

My school treated me as less worthy of opportunities, acceptance and patience simply because of who I am, my humanity.

No young person should have to experience that. We’ve had years of broken promises that the laws will change, but right now we’re leaving kids across the country at risk of the same treatment that I faced.

I’ll say what I said two years ago: it’s time for the government to do their job and protect vulnerable kids from being discriminated against by their own schools.

How many more teachers and students have to suffer before we finally see real action? This isn’t about religious freedom, this is about protecting students and staff from discrimination that is unacceptable in every other area of modern Australia.” 

Over in the senate, Pauline Hanson seems to be having some thoughts.

She does not appear used to it.

Matt Grudnoff

Latest data from Cotality shows the increase in rents is slowing down. This is exactly the opposite of what all the shouting claimed would happen after the tax changes in the budget.

Let’s go back five months to May when the Government announced changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax (CGT). The initial reaction from investors, real estate agents, and everybody else that benefits from rapidly rising house prices was to loudly announce this would push house prices down.

The expectation was that homeowners would be outraged that their home might drop a bit in value. The response was not what they expected.

Most people were pleased with the falls. The common response was “Good, this is making housing more affordable for young people trying to get into the market.”

Failing to convince people to panic about a small dip in house prices, they shifted tactics and began to claim that this would push up rents.

The idea was that the tax changes would discourage investors, reducing the number of investment properties and this would push up rents. It was just simple demand and supply, we were told.

Just as an aside, this should always have set off people’s BS alarms. Why would the owners of rental properties be worried about rents rising? This would be like gas companies worrying that the price of gas was going up.

The problem with their claims was that this didn’t take account of the fact that when landlords sold their properties, they didn’t just disappear. As they get out of the market, this creates space for more first home buyers, most of whom were previously renters.

As I explained at the time, the tax changes should have no impact on rents.

Five months later and we have not seen an acceleration of rent increases. They’re increasing at the same rate as before the tax changes.

To be clear rents are still increasing too quickly. But there is no evidence that the tax changes have kicked rents up.

And the latest data seems to be showing vacancy rates rising and rents slowing down. It is still too early to say anything definitively. We will have to see what happens over the coming months.

But what this shows is that we probably shouldn’t listen to the self-interested squealing from those that have been making huge returns from rapidly rising house prices.

AAP

Australians would be able to sue big tech companies directly for online harm under a proposed deal to pass Labor’s online safety crackdown.

The Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill is among a clutch of legislation the government is hoping to pass as parliament resumes sitting from Monday.

The bill will put the onus on social media companies to ensure under-18s aren’t exposed to harmful content, such as pornography, bullying and material that glorifies crime.

The Greens are expected to support the laws following the removal of a controversial clause giving the communications minister sweeping discretion.

But the minor party believes the legislation does not go far enough, calling on the government to give people safe legal pathways to get compensation from tech companies if they are harmed by online content.

“These huge tech companies make billions of dollars trapping Australians on their addictive platforms,” Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.

“To change their behaviour, they will only respond to one thing: penalties that really hit their bottom line.

“To meaningfully change the behaviour of big tech companies, the digital duty of care laws must include the right for Australians who have been harmed online to be able to take legal action and seek compensation for the damage done.”

The plan comes as the government grapples with its approach to an upcoming execution by firing squad in the United States, expected to be live-streamed in December.

The Trump administration plans to show the execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, but there have been calls for it to be blocked in Australia.

The return to parliament comes as multiple polls point to a slide in support for One Nation from recent highs.

The anti-immigration party was behind Labor for primary support in the latest Newspoll and Resolve surveys, while a DemosAU analysis for Capital Brief suggested it was losing momentum in its regional heartland.

The latter data, based on polling of 9740 Australian voters in August and September, suggested Labor would likely win a slender majority in parliament if an election were to be held.

Its central projection was for One Nation to win 24 seats, while the coalition would lose eight from its current tally to sit on 34.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will welcome King Abdullah II of Jordan to Canberra.

Jordan is a key defence partner for Australia and a major player in the Middle East, where war continues to rage.

David Richardson

An opinion piece in the Australian Financial Review today has pointed to the beneficial effect of industry super funds in protecting Australians from a massive potential rip off. It was looking like Australians were to lose a lot of money by investing in an Australian high-tech company Firmus. Firmus wanted to raise $8 billion by going public and listing on the Australian stock exchange. Our super funds saved us from that.

Some background based on a report in Forbes: Firmus is a private company with investments in data centres. Forbes says “Firmus is what’s known as a “neocloud.” … Neoclouds buy their own chips – mostly Nvidia GPUs – and sell that compute capacity.” We understand too that Nvidia backs Firmus, Nvidia is a top-end chip maker and one of the world’s largest companies.

Forbes does not allege any criminal activity in the planned float but notes that one of Firmus’s principals was convicted for insider trading in the past.

In short, Firmus planned to issue shares at $11 a share to raise $8 billion which would have valued the company at $43 billion. That would have been a massive increase on its apparent valuation of under $2 billion in just over a year.

Back to Australian super funds. The AFR article says the super funds have shown “they are not dummies susceptible to the latest overhyped spiel from capital-hungry chancers selling half-baked ideas.” With the refusal of industry super funds to get on board Firmus has had to withdraw the planned float.

In addition to saving us from Firmus the AFR article is full of praise for Australia’s super system and criticises One Nation and the Coalition for not getting behind this “global gold standard in the long game of building a richer and more resilient nation”.

Emma Shortis

Asked about the Trump administration’s plans to livestream an execution by firing squad on radio this morning, Assistant Treasurer Dan Mulino said that “I don’t want to comment on the domestic politics of any other country when it comes to matters like this.”

Except that Australia does comment on matters like this, all the time. In fact, it is the stated position of this government to comment on matters exactly like this. In April 2026 (yes, this year) the Australian government responded to an inquiry into Australia’s efforts to advocate for the worldwide abolition of the death penalty. The government responded to that inquiry in detail. In its response (which you can read in full here), the government noted:

Australia undertakes a principled and global approach to its advocacy on the death penalty, urging all retentionist countries to take steps towards complete abolition. The Government will continue to advocate for the global abolition of the death penalty through bilateral, multilateral and regional mechanisms.

Constancy and courage are two important indicators of a nation’s self-belief and moral compass. Exceptions on the grounds of “domestic issues” suggest weakness and accommodation, not courage and constancy.

Independent MP Allegra Spender will introduce a private members’ bill that she hopes will amend the laws that “allow religious schools to sack teachers and expel students because they are gay, transgender, unmarried, or become pregnant or divorce“.

That’s right – we are back in the midst of religious freedoms! 

As Spender says in the release:

Under the Sex Discrimination Act, religious schools are exempt from key federal protections, which allows them to sack teachers because of protected characteristics, such as their marital status or sexuality, and allows them to expel students for similar reasons. The Sex Discrimination and Fair Work Amendment (Equality in Treatment in Religious Schools) Bill 2026 closes that gap.  

The Bill protects students and teachers from discrimination because of who they are. It also protects the right of religious schools, of all religions, to appoint people of faith, to promote people to substantial leadership roles based on faith, and to teach according to their beliefs. 

The Albanese Government promised to implement this reform before the 2022 election, and in 2024, the Australian Law Reform Commission recommended the same. We are now halfway through this Government’s second term, and still no action.  

Which – yup – the government did say they would address it. And then they backed off because the Coalition had a cry. And the government never chooses to go down the path of negotiating with the Greens on these issues because it doesn’t actually want to be progressive.

Here is Spender:

Most Australians would be surprised to learn that under federal law today, a religious school can still expel a student or sack a teacher simply for becoming pregnant, getting divorced or being gay. Schools should be places where students are protected, where they can grow and be themselves. These laws do the opposite. “I’ve spoken to people who lost their jobs because they got divorced. Inquiries have heard from teachers who were let go after marrying their same-sex partner, or after becoming pregnant through IVF. Most Australians would be surprised to learn that under federal law today, a religious school can still expel a student or sack a teacher simply for becoming pregnant, getting divorced or being gay. 

Schools should be places where students are protected, where they can grow and be themselves. These laws do the opposite. “I’ve spoken to people who lost their jobs because they got divorced. Inquiries have heard from teachers who were let go after marrying their same-sex partner, or after becoming pregnant through IVF. 

“States and territories have each changed their own exemptions in different ways. In NSW and WA, students have no protection, while in other jurisdictions they do, and protections for teachers vary from place to place. The result is a confusing patchwork, where whether you can be sacked or expelled for who you are depends on where you live. 

“The Labor party has had a commitment to make these changes but has failed to act. There is a pathway through the parliament for these. If they aren’t going to act now, when will they?” 

David Pocock has spent part of the morning with a person in a furry costume.

It was part of a joint press conference with The Wilderness Society and Birdlife to launch a new report: ‘Logging to Extinction: the Urgent Case of the Swift Parrot’. The demand is the Federal Government halt plans to devolve approval powers for logging to Tasmania. 

Greens Senator Nick McKim and independents Monique Ryan, Sophie Scamps and Zali Steggall were also there.

Luke Slawomirski 

In Australia, any suggestion of taxing capital more heavily brings the familiar warning: entrepreneurs will leave, investment will dry up and jobs will disappear.  

During this year’s capital gains tax debate, Seek co-founder Paul Bassat warned that startup founders would leave Australia “in big numbers”.  

Norway offers a test of that claim. 

Between 2021 and 2024, Norway raised taxes on business wealth and dividends, almost doubling the effective wealth tax rate on company shares.  

Cue headlines about an exodus of billionaires. 

A new study by economist Marius Ring finds some truth in the exodus story: about 100 people left the country because of the reforms. 

But he found no significant exodus of startup founders or inventors. Firms owned by affected taxpayers showed no overall decline in investment or increase in bankruptcies.  

Meanwhile, revenue generated by the wealth tax increased by more than 70%, even accounting for departures. 

Norway’s annual wealth tax differs from Australia’s capital gains tax. 

But the findings challenge the familiar claim that taxing wealthy investors more heavily will damage the economy. 

Perhaps it’s time Australia’s tax debate paid more attention to evidence and less attention to self-interested threats.

Rod Campbell

We blogged earlier about how the Federal Government seems set to not just ignore the obvious gas policy of a 25% export tax, but to have a reservation policy that will benefit ultimate villains, Santos.

The source of Santos’ superpowers is South Australia. Check out our 2024 report on The oil and gas industry in South Australia, and here are a few fun facts:

• Santos CEO Kevin Gallagher was named as the most powerful person in South Australia, in 2023. The Premier, Peter Malinauskas, came in third.
• The Premier’s brother was Head of External Affairs at Santos at the time.
• Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis once told a gas industry conference that the “South Australian Government is at your disposal”.
• SA Senator and Foreign Minister Penny Wong really likes Santos.

The source of this power appears to be personal connections, because it certainly isn’t taxes, royalties or jobs:

• 0.1% of SA jobs are in oil and gas extraction. More people work in mushroom and vegetable growing.
• 0.4% of the State Government’s revenue is oil and gas royalties. More state government services in South Australia are funded by the lottery than by royalties from the oil and gas industry.
• Santos paid zero company tax for 11th year in a row, ATO data shows

Greg Jericho

The Newspoll out today also asked about government spending.

As is often the case with such polls the question was pretty loaded and also the options are a bit dopey.

The poll question asked how the government should respond to high inflation and cost-of-living pressures.

“After combining the highest priority and second-highest priority for voters, lowering government spending (55 per cent) topped the list of actions followed by subsidising essentials such as energy and fuel (51 per cent), cutting income taxes (31 per cent), reducing regulation and costs for business (27 per cent), and offering one-off payments (11 per cent).”

The funny thing of course is that subsidising essentials such as energy and fuel means increasing government spending and cutting income taxes would increase the budget deficit.

So that means 55% of respondents want lower spending and 51% also want higher spending and 31% want a bigger deficit,

So yeah, have fun squaring that circle.

Interestingly this week the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook is due to be released. It has already put out a couple chapters, including one that looks at the impact of various policies that deal with cost-of-living shocks.

The IMF looked at two policy options – income support (ie giving people money) or price suppression (ie things like energy subsidies or cutting the fuel excise)

It found that income support actually increases inflation in the short term, while price-suppression lowers it.

By contrast income support lifts household consumption by more.

Price suppression polices cost more. And as a result, the IMF thinks income support is better, because the IMF always hates government spending. 

But if you want to deal with actual short-term inflation, price suppression is clearly the way to go. It has an instant impact on the prices of necessities and lowers the inflation expectations. 

This would suggest the government did the right thing in providing energy subsides in 2023-24 and the fuel excise cut this year. Yes it is more costly than proving income support to a small segments, but if you want to reduce inflation, reducing prices is the best way to do it.

His Majesty King Abdullah II ibn Al Hussein of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan will visit to Australia from 13 to 14 October 2026.

The PMO says in its official release:
 
Australia and Jordan share a warm relationship, underpinned by defence and security cooperation.
 
Our countries are working together to advance peace and regional security, support humanitarian efforts, to counter terrorism and violent extremism, to grow trade and to strengthen cooperation on resources, energy, and the environment.
 
His Majesty will visit Canberra for a range of meetings, as well as defence and cultural engagements.
 
King Abdullah II’s last official visit to Australia was in 2016.
 

It’s rare to see this many names on a media release:

“The Albanese government’s latest attack on our FOI laws must be stopped – my bill does that.” Senator Jacqui Lambie

Since coming to power in 2022, the Albanese government has been on a mission – not to strengthen Australia’s Freedom of Information Laws but to water them down.

In 2025 the Government introduced the FOI Amendment Bill 2025, which the Government cynically stated was a ‘reform’ package; but it was ‘reform’ directed towards obstruction and secrecy, not openness and transparency.

“That Bill had no friends! But thanks to civil society groups and the Crossbench, the government shelved the legislation in March 2026. But the government’s war on our FOI laws has gone on.” Senator Lambie said today.

Because that legislation failed, the Albanese government and through the Attorney General is attempting to put in place a chilling effect, so that Australian citizens will be scared to lodge an FOI request in the first place!

In the past three months, two FOI wins by former Senator Rex Patrick have been appealed to the Federal Court by the Government, with one of the orders being sought in each of the proceedings is costs, if Mr Patrick is unsuccessful in defending either of his wins.

“Whilst I’m the first victim of the Government’s new secrecy strategy, this is not about me. I’m big enough and ugly enough to look after myself. The important thing here is that we put an end to this new anti-transparency tactic so that everyday Australians can use FOI to participate in democracy and scrutinise their government, without having to worry about losing their house.” Rex Patrick said today

If this precedent stands, it means that Australians could be facing costs of up to a $300,000 for each FOI decision the Government appeals. In other words, even if you win your FOI case, you can still lose – big time!

“Australians know the term ‘coercive control’ – what the federal Labor government is doing is financial coercion.” Senator Lambie said today.

When a citizen gets into the Federal Court, it’s all very technical, and unless they are an experienced barrister, they are going to lose. So, the citizen needs to be able to find another $150,000 to pay for experienced legal representation while also risking $150,000 in adverse costs. That’s a $300,000 bill to get access to information about government.

“This Government seems intent on shutting citizens out of the courts with the threat of punishing costs orders – a typical litigation tactic of the well-heeled bully.” Said Geoffrey Watson SC

The Auditor-Generals’ audit into FOI this year, across the entities they examined; found 54% of FOI decisions made by Government taken to the Information Commissioner resulted in a decision with more information being released. But those challenges will never happen if people fear the government will take them to the cleaners if they win.

This week Senator Jacqui Lambie is introducing a bill to ensure that the Government meets a citizen’s reasonable legal costs if it appeals a citizen’s FOI win to the Federal Court from either the Information Commissioner or the Administrative Review Tribunal.

“Australians are losing trust in government and politicians – behaviour like this isn’t helping. If the government wants the Australian people to trust them, they should stop this financial coercion now and support my bill!” Senator Lambie said

This is not an unprecedented provision. Lambie’s Bill is modelled off section 40(8) of the South Australian FOI Act which mandates, when a South Australian wins an Ombudsman’s FOI review, that the reasonable costs of any Government appeals are met by the appealing department. It’s like that in SA because the government recognises they should treat their citizens fairly, as a model litigant.


Comments attributable to David Pocock, Senator, ACT

“Our FOI laws are meant to give Australians a right to access government-held information. After all, taxpayers should be able to see how their money is being spent and how our country is being governed. Restricting access through bullying tactics goes against the spirit of our laws and has a chilling effect on Australians seeking to bring transparency to government. As the then opposition leader Anthony Albanese said in 2022 ‘[t]he health of our democracy, the integrity of our institutions, the transparency and fairness of our laws… are a defence against the threat of modern authoritarianism.’”

Comments attributable to Dr Monique Ryan

“The Albanese Government is the most secretive federal government in decades. It protects lobbyists, keeps ministerial diaries closed, and has repeatedly made FoI requests more challenging and more expensive. We must stop Anthony Albanese from using the courts, and the threat of massive legal costs, to intimidate Australians seeking truth and transparency in government.” Dr Monique Ryan

Comments attributable to Dr Helen Haines

“Freedom of Information only works if ordinary Australians can actually use it. Nobody should face financial ruin just for seeking access to government documents.

We need to be making it easier for Australians to hold governments to account – not creating a chilling effect where people decide it’s too risky to even ask questions. The right to know shouldn’t depend on the size of your bank account.”

Comments attributable to Andrew Wilkie

“Transparency is the cornerstone of our democracy, and efforts to undermine the Freedom of Information regime should be strongly resisted. The imbalance of power and resources between an individual and a government are so vast, we should be seeking to close that gulf, not widen it.”

Comments attributable to Allegra Spender MP Community Strong

“The Albanese government should be restoring reduced trust in politics by increasing transparency, instead it is going the other way. First by trying to restrict FOI transparency through legislation, and now by trying to impose litigation costs when it loses in court.
I support Senator Lambie’s bill and call on the PM to live up to his words when he was Opposition Leader.”

Peter Greste, Executive Director, Alliance for Journalist Freedom

“In a world of diminishing transparency, FOI remains one of the few tools that journalists have to get real, unfiltered information from the government. The decision to go to the Federal Court to seek costs in an FOI case risks setting a precedent that could break some newsrooms who are only acting in the public interest. At a minimum, it is likely to become a significant deterrent. And it is the Australian public who will lose out.” 

Anna Chang

We can see the toplines of both the Greens and the Coalition strategies in their Monday urgency motions — the first urgency motions of a new sitting period are usually each party’s best work, and then they kind of… devolve from there.

So, with cost-of-living being top of mind for many, it’s hip-pocket politics for both the Coalition and the Greens in the Senate: tackling the supermarket duopoly for the Greens, and credit card surcharges from the Coalition. 

Senator McKim—Urgency motion—

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency—

The need for the Government to step in to break up the Coles and Woolworths

duopoly and provide cost-of-living relief for Australians by rolling out publicly owned

supermarkets.

Leader of the Opposition in the Senate (Senator Cash)—Urgency motion—

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency—

The Albanese Government’s staggering incompetence in pretending that banning

credit card surcharges eliminates transaction costs, when those costs are merely

hidden from consumers or passed on through higher prices, while the Australian

Taxation Office refuses to absorb those same costs and instead plans to stop

accepting credit cards, exposing how utterly clueless Prime Minister Anthony

Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers are about running a small business.

The MPs are pouring into the chambers for the first time in three weeks – the whole sitting has a sense of ‘end of school year’ about it, even though it’s only October. That’s because there is only single digits in terms of the number of sittings left. We have one at the end of the month (house only and estimates) and then a senate only sitting and then one last joint sitting in November and then that’s it.

Rod Campbell

The government’s gas reservation policy is in the news and the ABC has a story up about how the proposal has ‘Santos-sized loopholes’ in it, according to the Paul Farrow from the Australian Workers Union.

There are no words and not even any emojis that can express how outrageous…and unsurprising this is.

Santos literally said in 2014 that its:

“aim in [east coast gas exports] was always as much about raising the domestic gas price… as it was about the [export] project.”

Santos has nakedly stated that its aim was to make Australians pay more for their own gas. And yet here we are with a gas policy that not only will not raise any money for the taxpayer but could let THE COMPANY THAT CAUSED THE PROBLEM get away with it.

If you have any word/emoji suggestions for this, please put them in comments.

Further to Grog’s post there, Santos might not be worried about the gas reservation, but the Queensland LNP government is pretending it is. It wants the gas reservation policy to only apply to new gas, because it’s allegedly worried about its contracts.

Which is doubly laughable, once you learn that China is now on-selling about the same amount of gas (in terms of volume) as it receives from it’s Queensland contracts. Because it has so much gas it has now joined Japan in creating its own gas market from Australian gas. Isn’t that neat?

Greg Jericho

There is a report in the ABC today with the headline “Critics say ‘Santos-sized loopholes’ will make gas reservation a joke”

And look, the critics are right.

The gas reservation policy is notionally meant to force gas exporters to have up to 20 per cent of their production for the domestic market in a bid. But there be exemptions and loopholes, and Santos, which exports its gas out of the Gladstone LNG terminal will likely benefit the most because the draft plan enables existing export contracts to be exempt, and crucially extensions to those contracts as well.  

That could mean Santos just keeps extending and never having to worry about the reservation.

In reality Santos is not worried about the reservation, and neither are investors.

Since the Budget (when the policy was announced) Santos’s share price has gone up 11%. By contrast Woodside – which largely operates on the West Coast and already has to deal with the WA reservation scheme – has only gone up 1.56%, while the overall share market is down 0.9%

No one thinks the reservation will hurt Santos’ business.

And neither will it raise a dollar of revenue.

A 25% gas export tax? Well that’s $17bn a year in tax… I guess Santos and Woodside and other though deserve than money more than the rest of us…

Matt Grudnoff

New research from the Australia Institute looks at who benefits from Labor’s income tax cuts. The big change that Labor made was modifying the Stage 3 tax cuts. They have since also cut the tax rate of the bottom tax bracket from 16% to 14%.

For those that don’t remember, the Stage 3 tax cuts were huge tax cuts that were originally legislated by the previous Coalition Government that cut tax mainly for high income earners. They came into effect in 2024-25.

The original Stage 3 cuts were very unfair. Half of their benefit went to those earning more than $180,000 per year. Meanwhile people earning less that $45,000 didn’t get anything. For context $45,000 was the full-time minimum wage at the time.

The changes Labor made to Stage 3, along with the cuts in more recent years have redirected billions of dollars to low- and middle-income earners. About half of all taxpayers got the largest benefit, that’s people earning between $45,000 and $135,000. They are getting an extra $1,340 per year. Nine in ten taxpayers are better off.

If we look at who benefited by age, we can see that all age groups are better off, but young people have been the biggest beneficiaries. Taxpayers under 25 are on average over $1,000 a year better off, with those aged 25 to 34 on average $880 a year better off.

These tax cuts have provided important cost of living relief to those who need it most. The changes to the original Stage 3 tax cuts stopped highly regressive taxes that would have stripped out a whole tax bracket.

The benefits of these changes continue to flow to all taxpayers, not just those at the very top.

Anna Chang

Today in the Senate, Nats Senator Bridget McKenzie has a couple of interesting motions aiming to summon the Minister to explain the Major and Community Infrastructure Program grants saga — we’ll keep you posted with how they go.

It’s maybe a bit rich that it’s Bridget McKenzie, given she was the Minister at the centre of the Morrison Government’s OG sports-rorts saga.

Perhaps it’s a matter of McKenzie giving back to this Labor Government exactly what she copped from them in Opposition (…or the screenwriters having all the same characters we know and love back for the Sports Rorts sequel.)

Either way, pork barrelling stinks, it doesn’t matter which side of politics is doing it.

The other interesting note from the Senate notice paper, is that apparently, Bridget McKenzie is the ‘Leader of the Nationals in the Senate’, which, of course, is something we usually see when the party leader is a Member of the the House of Reps. 

But, if Bridget McKenzie is the Leader of the Nationals in the Senate, then where exactly is Senator Matt Canavan?

Former senator Rex Patrick is back in parliament, with Monique Ryan and Jacqui Lambie, talking about the attacks the government has made on freedom of information laws. The Labor government has made it much harder to access documents, arguing it is cutting down on excess work for the public service, but Patrick and co argue it is actually cutting down on transparency.

AAP

The government has defended a messy transition period that is set to cost millions of dollars as it covers the bill for businesses’ card surcharges on tax payments.

The Australian Taxation Office planned to stop accepting credit card payments for tax bills from December following a Reserve Bank-led ban on card surcharges.

But the federal government announced on Friday it would cover the cost for the tax office to continue to accept credit card payments from small businesses until mid-2027 after backlash over the change.

It extended a transition period from two months to almost a year as part of the intervention.

But Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino said the exact cost to taxpayers for doing so would not be announced until the mid-year budget update, due in December.

“The costs are partly dependent on ongoing negotiations between the ATO and the credit card companies,” he told ABC Radio on Monday.

ATO commissioner Rob Heferen previously said merchant fees were expected to cost the tax office almost $200 million annually, which it could not absorb.

Asked if the government had failed to show proper oversight, Mr Mulino said conversations about the change were ongoing.

“Those conversations will hopefully yield benefits for the taxpayer,” he said.

“We heard loud and clear that small businesses found it to be an insufficient transition period.”

Labor frontbencher Kristy McBain said the Reserve Bank should go even further by preventing banks from charging small businesses for point-of-sale fees.

“These banks are making billions of dollars in profits every year and small businesses are already paying account keeping fees and a range of other fees directly to their banks,” she told Seven’s Sunrise program.

Shadow treasurer Tim Wilson said the about-face on tax payments showed the government didn’t understand how small businesses operated.

“The treasurer’s had to back down again after realising he didn’t understand the impact of his changes,” he said.

The government is also expected to introduce a minimum 30 per cent tax on distributions from discretionary trusts in the current sitting week, which the coalition opposes on the grounds it would impact small businesses.

Mr Wilson said there was no way for the government to protect businesses and bring in the change, particularly at a time when profits were already declining.

“The whole proposition is that they think that there are these family distributions to minimise tax and that’s not why small businesses use trusts,” he said.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers maintained his government had consulted closely with business owners.

Alice Grundy

Paul Krugman, economist and New York Times columnist asked in his Substack yesterday, “Will AI crowd out jobs?” His answer is yes but perhaps not in the way that you might expect. 

He discusses models that show “hyperscalers” will spend more than $10 trillion on data centres, money that will come from other parts of the economy. 

“And because data centers employ so few people, a back-of-the-envelope estimate yields a number that made even my eyes bug out: the capital invested in data centers will employ roughly ten million fewer workers than that capital would have employed if invested elsewhere.

This doesn’t mean that unemployment will rise by 10 million. It means, instead, that reduced demand for labor will put downward pressure on wages and shift the balance of economic power, which has already been moving against labor, even more in capital’s favor. Even before the rise of AI, we were experiencing a rapid decline in the share of national income going to wages relative to profits, along with rising oligarchy. The anti-labor effects of AI will accelerate that trend.”

It’s not too late to take action on data centres and AI but if nothing changes we are on a worrying trajectory. If you’re keen to hear more about data centres and the hype around “investment”, tune in to What’s the point of data centres with Richard Denniss. 

Alice Grundy

On Friday the South Australian government announced a “not a just a file” campaign as part of a crackdown on 3D printed firearms. Over the last five and half years, South Australia Police have seized 81 3D printed firearms and more than 173 firearm parts.  

3D printed guns are scary. They are cheap, easy to make and easy to dispose of. But while any measure to improve firearm safety is welcome, if the government were serious about guns, they would follow the lead of NSW and introduce caps on the number of firearms an individual can own. There isn’t very recent data but for the most-recent available data, it was clear that the biggest single source of new firearms onto the black market was stolen licensed firearms. 

SA is not very transparent when it comes to firearm data but looking at other jurisdictions, theft of traditional firearms is a big problem. In Tasmania from September 2025 to August 2026, 155 firearms were stolen and only 27 have been recovered. 

If SA were serious about firearm safety, they could also increase transparency around the number of licensed firearms there are in the community and expedite the process for a National Firearms Register. Home Affairs still says this will be operational in 2028 despite all states and territories agreeing to create one after the Port Arthur massacre and again in 2017. 

In a bit of a turnabout, the National Farmers Federation wants ALL parties (they mean the Coalition) to support at least some of the changes in the government’s proposed discretionary trusts legislation. Here is the whole release (you can see from the language used that they are in support – it’s a good lesson in language framing. There is a reminder that the measure was put forward months ago (they’ll say rushed if they are against it, even if it’s the same time period), that there has been consultation (which here the group consider to be favourable to them, hence ‘careful and considered’), has independent stats to back it all up (it’s the ATO, not a poll) and has declared it ‘sensible and practical’)

The National Farmers’ Federation (NFF) is urging all parties and the crossbench to support the Federal Government’s decision to exempt primary production income from the proposed minimum tax on discretionary trusts.

NFF President Hamish McIntyre said the exemption, announced as part of the Government’s broader tax reform package in the May Federal Budget, was a careful and considered recognition of the unique nature of farming and the longstanding, legitimate use of trusts in Australian agriculture.

“Trusts are a core business structure used by thousands of family farms to manage risk, protect assets, support succession planning and invest for the long term,” Mr McIntyre said.

“ATO data shows there are more than 37,000 trusts operating in agriculture, fisheries and forestry. These structures are deeply embedded in the sector because they help farming families build resilience and plan for the future.”

Mr McIntyre said successive governments had long recognised primary production as a distinct category within Australia’s tax system.

“Farm businesses face income volatility unlike most other sectors. Farmers contend with drought, natural disasters, seasonal conditions and fluctuating commodity prices while often being asset-rich but cash-poor.

“The Government recognised these realities when it announced the exemption as part of the original reform package, and Parliament should support that sensible and practical approach.”

Mr McIntyre said the NFF had made a clear case that reforms designed to address concerns elsewhere in the economy should not inadvertently undermine farm business resilience or make it harder to transfer family farms between generations.

“We strongly welcome the Government’s decision to legislate the exemption for primary production income, providing critical certainty for farming families.”

Mr McIntyre said the NFF would continue working with Treasury to ensure the reforms reflected the increasingly diverse nature of modern farm businesses.

“As farmers continue to build resilience through activities such as renewable energy, agritourism and environmental markets, it’s important these reforms are implemented in a way that minimises complexity, reduces compliance burden and provides certainty.

“As the peak body for Australian farmers, our focus is on ensuring these reforms reflect the realities of farming and continue to support the businesses that produce Australia’s food and fibre.”

AAP has reported on the latest waves surrounding a Josh Frydenberg comeback, which this time comes in the form of his political memoir:

A former Liberal heavyweight has used an interview to slam his party’s work, while gearing up to make his own political return. 

Ex-treasurer Josh Frydenberg used a 60 Minutes interview on Sunday to attack Angus Taylor’s leadership, which he said had contributed to Liberal polling being at an “all-time low”. 

“Things have to change, because there’s something existential about the threat that I think the party now faces,” he said. 

Asked whether Mr Taylor would be upset by the criticism, he said: ” … He’s getting that from lots of corners. People are saying that the Liberal Party needs to do better.”

Excerpts from Mr Frydenberg’s memoir, which is likely to contain policy suggestions, have fuelled rumours that he is planning to make a political comeback. 

“Look, I certainly haven’t closed the door, but I don’t need to rush to a decision. The next election is 18 months away,” he told 60 Minutes.

Mr Frydenberg held the seat of Kooyong for 12 years from 2010 and was the Treasurer in the Morrison government, including through COVID-19. 

He lost the seat to independent MP Monique Ryan at the 2022 election, in which she won almost 53 per cent of the two-party preferred vote. 

Dr Ryan appeared unfazed by her competition’s possible return. 

“I’m not bothered either way,” she told Nine’s Today Show on Monday morning.

“Josh does have a track record with the Kooyong community. 

“He was the member for that seat for 12 years, and in 2022, our community rejected him because they were so frustrated with his inability to affect any change to government policy on climate change. 

“People were unhappy with his economic management.”

Shadow treasurer Tim Wilson encouraged people to “put themselves forward” as candidates to create a stronger Liberal Party. 

“I encourage them to do so, so they can be part of a winning team. So we can have an Angus Taylor-led government,” he told ABC Radio National.

“What we need is people who’ve got courage in their hearts and are prepared to make the sacrifices necessary for public office.”

But Mr Taylor will need considerable swings in polling to win. Redbridge polling, released on Sunday, showed just 22 per cent of those surveyed wanted him as prime minister, compared to 32 per cent wanting Anthony Albanese and 26 per cent in favour of Pauline Hanson. 

Tim Wilson is asked whether the Greens desire for the US government’s livestreamed execution (of a person, by the way – we are talking about a human) to be blocked from Australia, and answers with ‘hmmmm, violence is bad, but what about censorship?’

Look, my basic principle is we shouldn’t be promoting that sort of violence, and so my fundamental view is yes, I think it’s enormously problematic to tolerate this type of behaviour.

But the challenge is going to be how do you do that in a way that doesn’t amount to a censorship ban on the internet…if it’s going to be live streamed, how are you going to do that without creating the artifice to be able to block content on the internet and create an online portal of censorship? And I don’t know the specifics of that. I’ll have to leave that to others.

The Coalition have found its line when it comes to rumours Josh Frydenberg wants to return to parliament (he would have to win a seat first, but these things are always spoken about as foregone conclusions when it comes to former MPs – there were rumours for years Tony Abbott would return, and they have only increased since he took over the Liberal party presidency, with the NSW Central Coast/Hunter region now being pinpointed as Abbott’s preferred region)

Wilson on Frydenberg says:

I think it’s always good to have candidates who want to step up and run and make sure we pick up seats so that Angus Taylor can be Prime Minister of this country. What we need is people who’ve got courage in their hearts and prepared to make the sacrifices necessary for public office, so I have no issue with people putting themselves forward. I encourage them to do so, so they can be part of a winning team, so we can have an Angus Taylor-led government.

The PMO have had a fun morning reminding people who may have missed Frydenberg on 60 Minutes last night of these comments:

Host: You accuse the Coalition of losing touch with the electorate and getting stuck in ideological feuds and vendettas. Ouch.

Frydenberg: The polls are showing that the Liberal Party is at an all-time low. And so, things have to change. Because there’s something existential about the threat that I think the party now faces.

Host: Will Angus Taylor welcome you telling him that he’s getting it wrong?

Frydenberg: I think he’s getting that from lots of corners. People are saying that the Liberal Party needs to do better.

…Host: So, can you say hand on heart that you really would not still like to be PM?

Frydenberg:: Look, I certainly haven’t closed the door, but I don’t need to rush to a decision. The next election is 18 months away.

Greg Jericho

Last week Trump announced he was breaking the sanctions against Russia and would allow imports of diesel from the nation currently waging an illegal war on Ukraine.

That of course is no shock to anyone who has been paying attention for the past decade – Trump clearly is Putin’s man. The numbers are not huge. The 300,000 tonnes to be delivered straight away is equal to about 2.25 million barrels of diesel – or about a day and half’s worth of what the USA exports. It will not make a blip really on the oil price, so it was less about improving oil prices and more about giving Putin some cash from the sale. 

As it is oil price remain above US$100bbl, and the attack on the airport in Saudi capital Riyadh (which was likely by Yemen Houthis) will do little to have markets thinking the situation in the Middle East is calming down. 

This has meant petrol prices here have kept rising and for the first time since March we now consistently have unleaded above 240c/l (oddly petrol prices have risen since the RBA raised rate at the end of September – don’t the world’s oil buyers know the RBA is reducing inflation??)

Now look I know this is a tough time, but I want you to know it’s not all bad, the gas companies and fuel refiners are doing well

Maybe Santos will finally make enough money to pay some tax? I doubt it…

Tim Wilson, or as he is known here, Berries and Cream, is next up on ABC radio RN Breakfast, where he explains why the Coalition doesn’t like the bill (it’s mostly because the Coalition doesn’t like tax changes of any kind that remove the subsidies which have been put in place for business or wealthy people) but Wilson says:

People set up the structures of their small business to give them asset protection, and they make financial decisions based on that. For the government to come along, change the law without taking to consultation, particularly an election, is directly undermining the foundations of hundreds of 1000s of small businesses all around the country. They can dress it up however they like, but it doesn’t change the fact there was no consultation. It did not get taken to an election, and it’s going to cause chaos for financing of small businesses into the future.

The thing about ‘they didn’t take it to the election’ is that it doesn’t matter – because Wilson led the fight to stop changes the government did take to the election, like the superannuation changes, that were flagged in the Albanese government first term, taken to the election, won, and then ripped apart by people like Wilson. The mandate that is always spoken about when governments make changes outside it, doesn’t matter when it comes to political opposition.

There are changes to discretionary trusts which are coming through legislation, and the Coalition are again, already against them, before the bill has been presented.

Mulino says the government has worked with stakeholders on draft legislation:

People pay when they earn income through trusts versus when they earn income from working, from providing their labor. These are changes that have been called for by experts for decades. If we go back to major reviews in the 1970s and all the way through the Howard government, the Henry review, even the Abbott government’s review, these changes to trust taxation have been called for. These are really important changes. I would say to the opposition and to the Greens, they should engage with these much-needed and fair reforms on good in good on good faith. And these are reforms that are needed for our tax system and for the fairness of our economy.

Assistant treasurer and current flavour of the month (at least when it comes to the PMO) Daniel Mulino spoke to ABC radio RN Breakfast where the social media legislation came up, and he was asked about Trump’s plan to livestream an execution.

Mulino

So I don’t want to comment on the domestic politics of any other country when it comes to matters like this.

But what I would say again, in terms of the specifics of whether or not this should be shown on social media, that we’ve been leaning in more generally on protections in that place.

Greg Jericho

This morning the Australia Institute has released a paper looking at the impact of the changes to the Capital Gaints Tax (CGT) discount and negative gearing. It seems quite clear that (shock of all shocks) a housing policy that removed the biggest distortion in the system has worked. Housing prices have fallen and housing is more affordable. 

The 50% CGT discount was always a gift for investors – it meant they only paid tax on half of the profit when they sold a property. Combined with negative gearing it meant investors had the tax system working for them while renting out a property and also when selling it. 

Everyone knew this, but for 25 years governments pretended it was not the cause of higher prices. 

Now it is clear to all that was. 

It’s a bit humorous looking back just a few months at how some of those on the conservative side of politics and economics have changed their turn. 

When the government announced the removal of the 50% CGT discount and also removed negative gearing except for new housing there was a fair bit of condescension at the move.

One economist in the AFR wrote that “The idea that house prices in Australia exploded because of the CGT discount is wrong, intellectually lazy, and a classic example of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.” The same economist has more recently been quoted saying “it was ‘hard to draw any other conclusion’ that changes to the CGT, negative gearing and discretionary trust rules had contributed to the decline in house prices”. Ahh well, never wrong for long, I guess…

For everyone else it was clear all the futzing about with first home buyer grants, 5% deposit guarantees and all other policy that just introduced more distortions into the system to try to undo the big distortion of giving investors a leg up to bid against home owner was never going to work.

The 50% CGT discount and negative gearing needed to be undone. 

And now that is has, the talk has quickly shifted to how far prices might fall. Talk of a 10% fall is almost taken as given… which would take average prices back to… checks notes… 2024 prices. In Brisbane, where house prices have gone up 83% in the past 5 years, a 10% fall would only take prices back to where the were in the second half of last year. 

This is not to say removing the CGT discount has failed – but just to highlight how massive the problem is. 

At least the corner seems to have been turned. 

After the budget, the opposition criticised the policy as being a killer to housing supply – that it would stop investors building homes, or as senators Andrew Bragg and David Sharma wrote in their dissenting report on the Senates Inquiry into “Operation of the Capital Gains Tax Discount”

    “Abolition of the CGT discount would discourage new construction, undermine supply, and so push housing prices up. It is simple economics.”

And yet the latest lending figures revealed in June a record 8,468 investor loans for the construction of dwelling – up 4.4% on the March quarter and 20.3% higher than the year before. In the same quarter, investor loans for established dwellings fell 14% and were flat over the year.

Investor loans for construction of dwellings and for established dwelling usually follow the same path, so the fact that loans for established houses are falling with construction is rising is a very good sing that the policy is working. 

But then that is to expected when you have a tax system that now encourages construction – it’s simple economics. 

Hello and welcome back to The Point Live. Parliament has a one week sitting scheduled, and it is going to be a bit jammed back, because we are on the downhill slide to the end of the year and any chance to actually legislate.

The government’s big move this week will be introducing its digital duty of care legislation. The Coalition have said they are not in support of the legislation, so that leaves the government to negotiate with the Greens. It’ll be the first round of negotiation with David Shoebridge as leader, which will be new for the government, who have made no bones about not liking him (which says a lot if they also don’t have those same issues with Angus Taylor).

Shoebridge wants to ban the importation of pervert glasses into Australia – that’s the Meta sunglasses that record you without you even knowing – and given the government’s discomfort with that particular tech, it will be an interesting debate.

Meanwhile the Coalition is still unable to explain its migration policy without slogans, with every answer containing just one. Listening to Taylor is like listening to a AI chat bot in beta mode, but that doesn’t mean that the policy is not being taken seriously. And with One Nation seeing a slight dip in the polls, it just encourages the Coalition. Which is also looking at another year of will he or won’t he with Josh Frydenberg, who has his memoir coming out, which is chock full of ideas of what he would do if he was returned to politics. There are elements in the Liberal party who see Frydenberg as the saviour of the centre, as if he didn’t completely fall into line with Scott Morrison and parrot every idea of that particular government. But this is where we are.

We’ll cover all of that and more. I am travelling for work and unable to source coffee at this point, so it’s a sad morning here. Will we make it to 9am at this stage? I’ll keep you updated. But let’s leap into the abyss together.