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

Independent senator Lidia Thorpe has been arguing against the bill from the beginning:

This morning I will be tabling a letter from more than 100 concerned groups and organisations –
including the Law Council, Aboriginal legal services, and disability groups – calling on the
Government to remove Schedule 5 from this legislation.
Labor tried to sneak this in at the last minute, bypassing even the House of Representatives. As a
member of the Human Rights Committee, I can tell you it never came before us for scrutiny.
This is a dodgy attempt to demonise the most vulnerable people in this country.
We will pass the bill without Schedule 5. But if the Government continues to bully us into passing it
with Schedule 5, then we will bring the house down – because we have to protect vulnerable people.
What Minister Plibersek said about me supporting rapists and murderers is absolutely outrageous. I
refute it completely. And it is not just me calling this out – there are more than 100 organisations
demanding this schedule be removed.
Labor needs to stop demonising our communities and do the right thin

Maiy Azize Anglicare Australia said the bill punishes people before they are convicted:

People will be able to have their Centrelink payments cancelled and lose their homes, lose their income, lose their ability to buy food.
Our agencies know that once someone loses their home, there is almost no way back – even if they
are later found innocent, even if they are eventually paid back.
This is completely unfair and would never be tolerated for any other group in society.
As Kristin said, changes like this create the impression that anyone on Centrelink is suspect. Even
people who have done nothing wrong end up being treated as though they are.
We are calling on the Government to withdraw these changes, and calling on the Senate to reject
them.

John Stainsby from the Australian Council of Social Service agreed:

The bill before Parliament today was not intended to give police extra powers over people on low incomes. It was intended to resolve issues for people who had debts unlawfully raised under the
income-apportionment calculation.
It is right that the Government is trying to make progress on that issue. But we are not here talking
about income apportionment today.

We are talking about Schedule 5, which was introduced via
amendment – after proper parliamentary scrutiny was no longer possible – and which does
something entirely unrelated to the rest of the bill.

Schedule 5 gives the policing Minister new powers to cancel a person’s income support payment if
they are accused of a serious crime – crucially, before they have been charged.

This is a dangerous step towards using the social security system as a policing tool, and it overrides
the presumption of innocence, a fundamental legal principle.

There is no evidence this will make the community safer. There are no robust protections for
dependants, including children. And the measure will exacerbate systemic inequality – particularly
for groups who already face disproportionate contact with the justice system, including First Nations people and people with disability.
Because it was inserted late, Schedule 5 avoided assessment by the Parliamentary Joint Committee
on Human Rights.
This proposal faces opposition across the community – from legal experts, community organisations, and groups representing marginalised people. It threatens rights and liberties we all value.
ACOSS joins legal experts and community advocates in urging the Government to remove Schedule 5 from this bill.

Kristin O’Connell from the Antipoverty Centre had this to say about the amendment to give police powers over welfare:

We’re here today to talk about an egregious attack on the rule of law. First Nations people will be
disproportionately harmed by the new powers the Government is attempting to give itself.
As Royal Commissioner Catherine Holmes warned, politicians must stop the easy populism of antiwelfare rhetoric. But that is exactly what Minister Plibersek and the Labor Government are doing
with this bill.

The underhanded nature of this amendment – sneaking in a drastic attack on the rule of law at the
last minute, after inquiries had already concluded – is shameful. Many of you may not know this, but the Minister then went on Sky News to say that we all “support people who are rapists and child
abusers.” It is disgusting.

I’m here today on behalf of groups representing single mothers, Aboriginal women’s legal services,
disabled people, welfare advocates, and many others. And we are saying clearly: this is absolutely
unacceptable.
It is unacceptable because of the process. It is unacceptable because it removes the presumption of innocence from people simply because of their income level. That presumption is foundational to
the rule of law.

If this bill passes, 5.5 million people will no longer have equality before the law.
This bill was supposed to address the Government’s own unlawful raising and collection of
Centrelink debts. Instead, the Government has decided to fuel more anti-welfare sentiment,
stigmatise people further, and cause more harm to welfare recipients and their families – who will
also be punished under this bill.

Well let me just pick my jaw up from the floor, because who on earth could have thought that more public housing might be a solution?

Oh that’s right. Everyone (but also us here, here, here, here and here and… well you get the idea).

Public and social housing is one of the major aspects missing from the Australian housing puzzle for well over 25 years. Way back in the mists of time (you know the 1960s and 1970s) public housing was not a rarity. Each year around 120 new public sector dwelling were being built per 100,000 residents. It’s why when Anthony Albanese talks about how he grew up in public housing, it actually doesn’t quite have the same meaning as it does now.

Public housing was not uncommon. I grew up in a small town in South Australia. My dad was a public-school teacher and for a few years we lived in a house owned by the state education department, and we lived in an area with a large numbers of public housing. It wasn’t great by any means, but not rare.

But the shift away from public-housing began in the 1980s as neoliberalism took hold, and really let fly after 1995. From the turn of the century, less than 20 dwellings per 100,000 residents have been built each quarter:

So, the long-term situation is bad. That is a lot of years of the public sector abandoning the field to the private sector to undo. Add in that since 1999 the private sector has also had the 50% capital gains tax discount and you end up with a housing market where the private sector is supercharged and given free reign.

So no, the 5% deposit guarantee is not going to undo anything.

But the good news is that there is a slight increase in the public and social housing.

If we look at the period since the GFC stimulus, the past year does look more promising – a nice increase in the number of public-sector dwellings being built.

But there is such a long way to go.

The government plans under the HAFF to build 55,000 social and affordable homes in 5 years. That works out at around 40 per 100,000 residents – or more than double the 15 currently being built.

You don’t undo 25 years of housing policy failure with a few tweaks. We have Defence Housing Australia. Why not Nurses Housing Australia, or Teachers Housing Australia, or… Housing Australia!

The capital gains discount clearly needs to be repealed but governments around Australia need to recommit to building public housing like was common back when the dream of owning your own home was a realistic ambition.

Here is how Mike Bowers has seen the morning:

Last week Climate Minister Chris Bowen was at COP30 in Brazil, where, at the very last minute, Australia signed onto something known as the “BELEM DECLARATION ON THE TRANSITION AWAY FROM FOSSIL FUELS”.

The Declaration is what it sounds like – a plan to collectively work towards “a just, orderly and equitable transition away from fossil fuels”, with a point specifically on helping countries “reduce structural dependence on fossil fuel…importation”.

By our calculations, Australia was in the Belem Declaration for less than 24 hours when Prime Minister Albanese said this at a press conference:

JOURNALIST: Do you understand how people would understand that now that you’ve signed up to this declaration that there would be movement on tapering off coal exports or gas exports or gas in general? You’re saying that that’s not the case at all?

PRIME MINISTER: No.

So somehow Australia is both helping countries reduce gas and coal imports while expanding our exports of gas and coal.

Less fossil fuels with more fossil fuels.

File this one with “Peace through war”. “Transparency through secrecy”. “Acting and not acting on gambling”.

Skye Predavec
Researcher

In a Newspoll published yesterday, voters were asked who they preferred as leader of the Liberal Party. The favourite? “Don’t know” had 31% support among those intending to vote for the Coalition.

In second place was Sussan Ley with 28%, followed by Andrew Hastie with 20%.

The result has heightened speculation of a leadership spill sometime this week – the last chance for one this year.

If that happens, Sussan Ley’s leadership would be cut short before it reached 200 days, making her the shortest-serving leader of the Liberal Party or its predecessors – ever.

But it also prompts another question: If the Opposition is so divided that it can’t offer an alternative government, what is the point of it?

As my colleague Bill Browne wrote last week, having a single opposition party is increasingly out of step with the way Australians are voting – 2025 was the first election where more people voted for independents and minor parties than the Liberal-National Coalition.

When the Nationals (briefly) quit the Coalition earlier this year, the Liberals were left with no more lower house seats than the crossbench, leading Independent Andrew Wilkie to provocatively suggest “The crossbench could become the Opposition, and a crossbencher the Opposition Leader”.

If a so-called Opposition is so divided that its own voter base has no clear preference on a leader and has no serious path to government, does it make sense to call it the alternative government? 

Australians need new language to describe the distribution of power in multi-party democracies, where there are sometimes many oppositions, and sometimes none.

In the meantime, it remains to be seen whether Ley’s leadership will survive the week, or if she can last longer than a head of lettuce.

Hunter MP Dan Repacholi who recently shaved off his beard on live TV for charity has come to parliament wearing a TradeMutt, a brand created by Ed Ross and Dan Allen after the loss of a friend to suicide. It’s usually tailored for workshirts, and the bold prints are designed to spark conversations about men’s mental health.

Mike Bowers was at the press conference:

Today the Financial Review carries an opinion piece by the Managing Director and CEO of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Mark Riotti, arguing that the red-tape burden is holding us back. He has announced the release of a report they commissioned arguing that the cost of federal regulatory compliance was 5.8% of GDP last year. He admits some regulation is necessary to protect consumers and investors but he claims we have gone too far.

This is the sort of judgement that is in the eye of the beholder, and we can all disagree. But to restore some balance we need only think about child abuse in childcare with the overwhelming problems being in the for-profit sector where the profit motive encourages businesses to cut corners at the expense of maintaining appropriate standards.

Riotti might also think back to the Hayne Royal Commission which revealed serious cultural problems in the finance sector. Banking staff were incentivised to rip off investors rather than managing wealth for the benefit of the investors as they pretended.  

It reminded us of the Presidential Address to the American Finance Association by Professor Luigi Zingales who warned that “in the financial sector fraud has become a feature and not a bug” and the reason: “If the most profitable line of business is to dupe investors with complex financial products, competitive pressure will induce financial firms to innovate along that dimension.”

The perverse impact of the profit motive is not confined to the finance sector. It seems that whenever there is an opportunity to profit with anti-social activity someone will be attracted into that pursuit. Unfortunately anti-social business practices are endemic.

Over the years Woolworths has had more press releases and court action than most other companies with prosecutions resulting in heavy fines. Woolworths seems to be one of Australia’s worst corporate recidivists and continues to “play chicken” with the law.  

The federal income tax legislation is now a massive document. Why is that? Because Parliament enjoys making new laws? Or because taxpayers, especially wealthy non-wage earners are motivated to find ways to avoid or evade paying tax?