The Point Live: Coalition continues to tank as parliament enters its final week. As it happened.

Given the clusterf*ck that is the senate at the moment and not much doing in the house, we will put the blog to sleep for a small bit – but fear not – we will be back very early tomorrow morning.

It has been A day of just depressing nothingness. That always has me in two minds – because how lucky we are as a country that for the most part, our politics is boring, but how depressing is it that so much is taken for granted and stunts like the one Hanson pulled are just expected as part of the show.

Our government could be doing more and for reasons completely unknown, is choosing the path of the least possible.

And so, we continue the fight for a braver, fairer Australia – and we are so lucky to have you along for the ride. Thank you. It means the world.

So until tomorrow – take care of you. And those around you. It can be rough out there and people like Hanson make it so much rougher.

Ax

And there we have it – unity of a sort in the senate, with the chamber agreeing to officially suspend Hanson until she complies with the order to apologise.

This has happened before. Hanson grandstands and then makes herself the victim in the apology.

Independent senator Fatima Payman, who wears a hijabi said Hanson was “disgraceful” and demanded the senate act against Hanson’s disrespect of the Muslim community.

Penny Wong has moved a motion to suspend Hanson from the senate sittings.

The senate is in complete chaos and is now suspended while it deals with it.

The senate is in absolute uproar, and Hanson has now been ‘named’ by the senate, which means she needs to give an apology or explanation to the senate for her behaviour.

Unlike the house, the senate president can’t boot people out of the chamber – only the senate has the power to do that, through a vote and follows a lengthy procedure. But the president can force explanations.

We are all David Pocock. Photo: Mike Bowers

The One Nation leader is back in the senate wearing a burqa. Not only is this disrespectful, xenophobic and tired, it is also a repeat of what she did back in the day’s of George Brandis’s ‘you have a right to be a bigot’ speech.

The only reason she is doing it is to capture more headlines. Disgraceful. What a punish of a human.

Let’s take a look at some of what Mike Bowers saw during QT shall we?

The face of someone who is completely unbothered and unaffected:

Something, something tail wagging…

Totally normal people having a totally normal convo

So many lols

When the principal walks past

Re-watching some of a motion from this morning that I missed while watching press conferences (I am but two eyes, two ears and two unco hands) Labor MP Ed Husic had some things to say about gas.

Husic sais that he agreed that Australians deserved “a gas market that is predictable and reliable, affordable and transparent”.

It is not a radical proposition,” he said.

“But right now our gas system defies even the gravity of basic economic logic. The consequences are felt in households, factories and businesses across the country. We face a projected seasonal gas shortfall by 2028 – not because we don’t have enough gas, but because the gas that comes from beneath Australian soil is prioritised for customers offshore, rather than customers onshore.

Pre-pandemic gas prices sat around $3 to $4 a gigojoule. Today, it is around $10.30. When I said our gas prices defy the gravity of conventional economics, I mean this; domestic gas demand has actually fallen but the supply has been shunted off shore and that is largely why prices haven’t fallen.

The market is fundamentally distorted.

Husic said his government has been the first to tackle some of that distortion, even as the Coalition rejected the intervention into the gas market, and the industry cried foul.

Husic went on to say that “predictable voices will tell you, ‘all we need is more supply’. That’s misleading. We need supply at the right prices.”

He said that the contracts manufacturers are forced to sign with gas companies undercut their ability to do business and a “complete re think” was needed to ensure “Australian resources” serve “Australian interests”.

In this country it is almost as if we are embarrassed at possessing so much resources and calls for controls over gas companies being able to sell uncontracted gas overseas at the expense of the domestic market.

The Australian Financial Review has had another go at the Victorian Government this time based on a report of the Victorian  Auditor General’s Office (VAGO). The Fin turns a fairly deadpan treatment into emotive language such as the “Victorian Labor government has blown a $50.6 billion hole in the state’s finances over the past six years”.

Notice that 6 years includes the COVID period when deficits skyrocketed at all levels of government; Commonwealth, state and local.

If you keep reading you will eventually find that there was an operating cash surplus of $3.2 billion in 2024-25. The $50.6 billion hole was based on a non-cash definition of the budget balance. Without going into the technicalities note that we usually talk about the federal budget on a cash basis. Cash accounting is simply the difference in money coming in versus money going out – that’s the same accounting as you use when you follow your weekly bank balance. It makes sense at the state level as well.

But all that is looking in the rear vision mirror.

The Victorian budget papers look forward and show net operating cash flows of $6.2 billion in 2025-26 and $26.5 billion over the forward estimates. The Fin does not look at that.

The Fin’s story didn’t get past the introductory parts of the VAGO report so there was no mention of the even bigger cash deficits when you take into account Victoria’s investment in infrastructure, dwellings, roads, rail, bridges and the rest.

But, and this is the interesting thing, if you look at the Victorian Government’s total assets you find net worth has increased and is expected to increase by another $29.5 billion from $170.8 billion to $200.3 billion over the period to June 2029. That will be a net worth of around $28,000 for every man, woman and child in Victoria by 2029. 

Even during the worst of COVID, the Victorian net worth continued to grow.

As you rummage through the budget accounts and the VAGO contribution it is hard to appreciate what is really going on. Hidden behind the cold numbers are the benefits Victorians get through their various health, education and other services as well as the infrastructure. This is not to say everything is perfect, the states are crying out for more capital spending. Think of potholes, traffic congestion, crowded public transport, the need for more health facilities, schools, public housing etc. These shortages need addressing yet those at the Fin are hung up on debt, deficits and keeping taxes low. We should instead by focused on unleashing the full potential of the states.

Question time is still going but honestly, we have seen enough.

So let’s take a look at what we have learned.

Labor seems to be intent on making this week all about what it thinks it has achieved and throwing that all up in bright shiny lights. It is by design – not just because it is the end of the year, but because it wants to show what the Coalition can not – unity and policy.

The Coalition is really trying to Gretchen Weiner it’s way through its net zero mess by trying to pretend there is any legitimacy in its position.

And repeat. That’s where we will be all week.

Labor MP Cassandra Fernando just asked a dixer – she has returned to parliament with her new born. Mike Bowers caught this photo just ahead of QT, as Fernando delivered a speech while holding her little one: