The Point Live: Coalition net zero saga drags on. As it happened.

Liberal senator James Paterson spoke to ABC News Breakfast this morning and said he believes the Liberal party can win back seats in the cities, because Tim Wilson did it:

It’s self-evidently true that in the most urbanised democracy in the Western world, the Liberal Party must compete in our suburbs and in our cities. And we demonstrated, even in a disappointing election result last time, that we can do that. Tim Wilson won the inner-city seat of Goldstein back from the Teals. And I’m confident we can win more seats like that, as well as our traditional strongholds, for example, in Melbourne, like Menzies and, Aston and, Chisholm and Deakin. And it will require a policy which gets the balance right. I think it will be important for the Liberal Party to demonstrate we are committed to emissions reduction, that Australia will do our fair share, but that we also won’t ask Australians to do more than the rest of the world or go ahead of the rest of the world at the expense of our own economy or their electricity bills

And does he believe the Coalition should stay together at any cost?

I mean, it’s self-evidently a true statement that if the Liberal Party and National Party views are completely irreconcilable, then we couldn’t be in Coalition. But it is my very, very strong preference that we remain in Coalition because we cannot form government without being in Coalition with the National Party. And history shows what happens when Liberal and National Parties do not run in Coalition. The 1987 election is not widely remembered as a great success for either the Liberal or National Parties. And we should all be determined to ensure that doesn’t happen again

Reading through the Hansard and yesterday Katy Gallagher was able to get a little kick in at Andrew Bragg during senate question time after he interjected on an answer she was giving on housing:

I heard Senator Bragg before. He’s concerned about demand-side policies. Well, I was concerned to read the transcript yesterday of your interview with Patricia Karvelas, when you just dumped super for housing and everything that you’ve stood for. And all your colleagues say, ‘We’re not going to do that anymore. We’ll just let that go.’ That was at 3.35 yesterday, on a day when more than 30 members of the opposition were racing to get interview spot in the press gallery. You couldn’t get a spot in the press gallery yesterday. It was like a stampede. But Senator Bragg just managed to nick that little 15-minute interview, where he was able to dump super for housing.

Anika Wells is speaking on the government’s decision to add more sites to the social media ban, which will now include Reddit and Kick. (The Sizzle’s and Crikey’s Cam Wilson has been very good on this ban from the start, if you are looking for someone to follow on this sort of reporting).

Asked about kids already talking about how they will get around it, Wells says:

I’ve got lots to say about this. Kids will be kids. There will be kids today that manage to procure themselves alcohol, despite the fact that it is against the law to buy alcohol if you’re under 18 in Australia.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have a law preventing under-18s from buying alcohol in Australia. This is about a cultural change and moving people away from having every single interaction they have as a 13-year-old, 12-year-old, 8-year-old, being online and being in real life, trying to give them 36 months back to develop those relationships and develop that resilience themselves before giving them the opportunity of having a social media platform.

I think – I don’t know if you want to speak to the ins and outs about how people will get around it – but I’ve been enjoying some of the social media content talking about how they are under 16 and don’t like the laws and how they’re going to get around it, therefore identifying themselves as someone who is under 16 and their accounts will need to be deactivated.

When TikTok went offline for 24 hours in the States, people tried all kinds of methods to get around that, VPNs, etc, and were in the vast majority, unsuccessful.

On that previous post, here is a statement from Greens senator Penny Allman-Payne on the lack of action over robodebt:

Jenny Miller and Kath Madgwick, the mothers of Rhys Cauzzo and Jarrad Madgwick, who each took their own lives after receiving an illegal and inaccurate Robodebt notice, are in Canberra today to again call for accountability for Robodebt and an end to the targeting of welfare recipients by government.

To date, not a single Minister or public official has been held accountable for the scheme described as one of the worst failures of public administration in memory.

Madgwick and Miller are in Parliament today to see their change.org petition with over 15,000 signatures tabled by the Greens spokesperson for Social Services, Senator Penny Allman-Payne, and will stand alongside Greens Senators to call for accountability and justice for Robodebt.

Targets of Robodebt and their families who had put their faith in the Robodebt Royal Commission, the NACC, and the government, have become frustrated by a lack of accountability for Robodebt and the continuation of unlawful punishment of welfare recipients.

In their call for accountability, Madgwick and Miller have called for NACC Commissioner Brereton to be dismissed from his position, for the sealed chapter of the Royal Commission to be released, and for the Robodebt Royal Commission to be fully implemented.

Labor have failed to implement key recommendations despite having previously agreed ‘in principle’ to all of the recommendations, including crucially:

• Reinstating the 6 year limit of recovery of debts
• Establishing a duty of care for the Department of Social Services that prioritises the needs of social security recipients while administering the law,
• Restricting the kinds of decisions which can be made or automated without human oversight
• Better protections for people experiencing hardship from receiving compliance notices.

During Senate Estimates earlier this year, Services Australia were revealed to still be chasing billions of dollars in decades-old welfare debts, dating as far back as 1979, and contrary to the Royal Commission.

A Private Members Bill to implement the outstanding recommendations has been introduced by Senator Allman-Payne in the Senate and crossbench MPs Andrew Wilkie and Helen Haines in the House.

In echoes of Robodebt, the Government continues with its punishing ‘mutual obligations’ regime, under which privatised job agencies have issued over 2 million payment suspensions to JobSeekers in the past year, despite damning advice the Targeted Compliance Framework which underpins the system may not be lawful. 

An estimated 310,000 Centrelink recipients had their payments unlawfully cancelled under the mutual obligations system. In recent Estimates, neither the Minister nor public servants could defend the lawfulness of the system under which payment suspensions continue to this day with little oversight.

That bill that the government has tacked the police powers over welfare also includes a new amendment which allows for….automated debt recovery. You know – the thing that has been found to have caused so much harm in the past?

The government wants to make the unlawful, lawful, despite the fact that it causes harm. The bill that the ridiculous amendment is attached to, is also a mess. Shocking, I know.

It’s official – the teal independents are against the government’s environmental ‘protections’ reforms. Which as we noted yesterday isn’t a big deal on the numbers (because the government controls the numbers in the House where most sit) but is for public perception of the bill.

The government can not pretend that its bill is good for the environment when the independents elected on climate action do not agree that it is good for the environment. And they are right – because the bill makes it easier to approve coal and gas mines.

How can you make it easier to approve coal and gas and then claim you are protecting the environment? You can’t.

Zali Steggall, Allegra Spender, Monique Ryan and Nicolette Boele and others are holding a press conference on that very issue a bit later this morning.

Renewables are the cheapest form of electricity generation, and this is being highlighted by the fact that soon electricity will be free for 3 hours a day.

The Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen has announced that he will change the default market offer to force power companies to offer 3 hours of free electricity in the middle of the day from next July.

This will initially be for NSW, southeast Queensland, and South Australia. It will be available to all households who have smart meters.

Solar power is producing an abundance of electricity in the middle of the day, pushing down electricity prices.

Households wanting to take advantage of this could schedule to run their dishwashers, washing machines, dryers and hot water systems when free electricity is available. The government estimates this could save up to $800 a year.

Making electricity free in the middle of the day will encourage households to shift their demand for electricity to when there is this glut of supply, and away from times of peak demand, usually in the late afternoon and evening.

This is called load shifting and it will not only save people money because they are “buying” electricity when it is free, but also because it will reduce peak demand in the afternoons and evenings, meaning less generating capacity needs to be built.

Importantly, this will mean the benefit of solar power will be extended to people who aren’t able to instal solar panels, perhaps because they live in an apartment, or they rent.

But the government could go further and save people even more money. You can read all about how in the The Point.

Late yesterday in the senate, the Greens got the Coalition across the line to support an inquiry into the capital gains tax discount (in exchange for the Greens support for an inquiry into productivity – no, the Coalition have not decided they are against the CGT discount) which is going to mean one of the biggest issues in housing affordability will be looked at for the first time in ages.

But both major parties are in lockstep in wanting to see house prices continue to rise, because now we are in a cycle where the moment you are in the housing market, you can not afford for house prices to drop, or you will be in massive financial trouble. HUZZAH. (There are ways around this by the way, but they all need government intervention)

Clare O’Neil was asked about the government’s 5% deposit scheme which has further increased house prices and said:

House prices are rising too fast in our country and this has been an issue for our nation for 40 years.

Now there is no question that over that 40‑year period it’s gotten much harder for our younger generation to get into home ownership, and I talk to lots of people who are, you know, in a couple, delaying having children because of their issues with housing; I talk to people who are in their 40s who would absolutely have owned their own home a generation ago who are now today not able to get that opportunity.

Now the housing crisis is a complicated thing. What I want people at home to know is you’ve got the most ambitious Australian Government on housing that our country has had since the post‑war period. We’re building more homes, we’re helping renters, and yes, we are getting more Australians into home ownership.

Now we do not shy away from that. Our 5 per cent deposit program has over the course of our government, over more than three and a half years, gotten 197,000 young people into their first home where they otherwise wouldn’t have that opportunity; they’re paying off their own mortgage rather than someone else’s, they’ve got safety and security.

Now it’s just one piece of what our government is doing, but I want people at home to know that we understand the pain that housing is causing families, and that’s why we are so busy and active on that issue.

Paul Sakkal at the SMH had a story about Andrew Hastie, Angus Taylor and other conservatives meeting at a Canberra restaurant on Monday night, where Ley’s future was on the menu.

Sakkal reports it is not settled yet when the challenge will occur (which is also what I am hearing – mostly because it is not in the interests of Taylor to launch a challenge when there is still so much left undecided and so much weight being thrown around) and Ley is asked if she is worred:

Ley:

Not at all. It’s totally unremarkable for colleagues to get together and have meals. And I speak to those colleagues and indeed all of my colleagues almost every single day that I’m here in Parliament. People can make what amusing asides they want on photos that are, as I said, completely unremarkable.

Sussan Ley has obviously decided that the best defence is a good offence and has done as much media as possible this morning, including with the Seven Network, which also opened on whether she was ditching net zero to save her leadership:

The Liberal party room will meet sooner rather than later, certainly before parliament resumes after this week and we will come to a Liberal Party position, Nat. So I appreciate that you’ve repeated some speculation and some commentary, but I want to make it very clear that the Liberal Party will come to its own decision in our own party room, exactly as I said we would on day one of my leadership where I said I wouldn’t be making any captain’s calls, I would be listening to my colleagues, to every single member of my team. I’m proud of the contribution that every single one of them is making in the Liberal Party, where as people would expect, there are a range of views. That’s a good thing.

And on being dragged further to the right and into election obscurity by the Nationals Barnaby Joyce (who has been doing a very public victory lap openly saying that, just to rub it all in) Ley says:

As I said before, when I became Leader, the Nationals would make their own decisions, and they have. I don’t determine their timeline, they don’t determine ours. I had a conversation with David Littleproud on Sunday. It was a friendly conversation, as per usual, and we said we’d come together after our respective party rooms had worked through this and come to a Coalition position. What we believe Nat, is that the Liberal and National parties are stronger together as a Coalition, because we both equally want to fight this awful Labor government.