The Point Live: Coalition still to land a blow on Albanese-less Labor, surprise surge in inflation. As it happened.

In actual news, the prime minister delivered his opening address to the summit late yesterday. Here was the main message:

Above all, Australia’s partnership with ASEAN is anchored in deep trust between our nations and enduring friendship between our peoples.
 
Just as our region’s prosperity has been created through shared opportunity.
 
Our security depends on our collective responsibility – and our shared agency.
 
We cannot succumb to the fatalism that assumes our future is pre-determined.
 
None of us are mere spectators.
 
We are participants, we are responsible, together we will shape our future.
 
We must work together to choose and build the security and prosperity we want for our citizens.
 
In this, we all have a part to play.

If you want to know how desperate Sussan Ley’s attempt to slam Anthony Albanese for wearing a t-shirt was, here is some of Zoe McKenzie, usually a fairly sensible member of the Liberal party, trying to defend Ley’s speech making it an issue. This was from Afternoon Briefing on the ABC yesterday.

McKenzie:

Yeah. Look, the point is – he’s a man of a certain age. Get out of the T-shirts, trying to look cool, I say. And particularly the really ill chosen ones, right? Most people know that that is a reference to what happened in Nazi concentration camps. You just don’t wear it.

Host: I don’t think most people do.

McKenzie:

Really? Well the Prime Minister clearly did, because he discussed it in a podcast in 2022 so maybe just leave that one at home and get a different one. He was in America, I’m sure I could pick up different ones, or better yet, wear an Australian band.

(That’s how you know the talking points went out to the Coalition MPs, which is usually part of damage control – it would have included Albanese talking about Joy Division at one point. Given the podcast was referenced in some of the media reports and that’s not something most journalists would jump to looking up themselves, you can bet it was also part of the shit sheet sent out by her office as well (we are not on the list, so can’t say for sure). And he is a baby boomer, so of course he would know the origins of the band’s name. It was a pretty popular band in Australia and topped the first versions of the Triple J hottest 100 two years in a row with Love Will Tear Us Apart – back when people had to physically write in with their votes.)

Host: An Australian band. It’s a good point, but, but is it really worth Sussan Ley standing up in the parliament before Question Time to raise it?

McKenzie: 

I suspect she’s had a lot of correspondence today, whether it’s emails or text messages about people telling them how offended, how offended they were by him wearing it. It’s not it’s not hard to pick a different T-shirt.

Sure, sure, sure. Australians are notoriously annoyed by bands.

Host: Cancel culture, you’re not into that? 

McKenzie: 

But he’s the Prime Minister. No, I’m not into that, but he’s the Prime Minister. And again, I’d say the crime is actually wearing band T-shirts when you’re a man of a certain age. But nevertheless, he could have picked a better one. 

Host: Okay, you think the crime is wearing band T-shirts –

McKenzie 

Trying to be cool when you’re not.

This is what they are left with now. There is back and forth lamenting their Gen Z kids thinking older people are losers (they are not wrong on this) and then we get to Labor MP Patrick Gorman who is asked to defend the prime minister wearing a band t-shirt.

WTF is wrong with us.

Gorman:

I try and not comment on my colleagues’ clothing at the best of times. I think it’s a band T-shirt of a band that he has been very open he is a fan of. I think that is okay for the Prime Minister to like a band, a well-loved band – their music has been around for a few decades now –

Host: But even as he has discussed that it was raised with him. I mean, you know, I don’t know if there should be a Royal Commission into this, but is it bad judgement?

Gorman: 

I thought it was an odd speech from Sussan Ley to give just before Question Time. She could have given a speech where she finally showed some appreciation for the important work we have done for Australian jobs on the world stage. She chose not to do that. I think the fact that we’re sitting here debating a T-shirt for a band that millions of Australians love. ‘Love will Tear us Apart,’ that is a well-liked song. I think the fact we’re debating this is – there are big issues in the world, I don’t think band T-shirts of mainstream bands is one of them.

F*ck me.

Hello and welcome back to the parliament sitting and The Point Live.

It’s Wednesday, which means it’s the busiest day of the sitting. Not just in terms of parliament business, but also in making any points that you need air for, or to start laying the ground work for Thursday shenanigans.

This week is a bit fraught for the Coalition as they have a million different fires burning within their party room, which makes the message kinda a bit confused. It has been unable to land a blow on the Labor party, despite Anthony Albanese’s absence, because it can’t find a theme which doesn’t just get turned back on it.

It started the week with the CFMEU – which doesn’t exactly win hearts and minds not already engaged in ideological battles. Yesterday, it was the potential closure of the Tomago smelter, which is stronger ground, but not how the Coalition handled it – because it is ham strung by its own lack of policies, it could only attack Labor on renewables, which is very easily batted away.

And then there is the back bencher meeting to talk climate and net zero this Friday, which is not the end off the Coalition’s woes, but it will give it more to break apart on. The choice (for the party, none of this matters in terms of the nation’s policies) is scrap net zero and give up on ever winning government (which would also lead to the end of the party) or keep it and have a bunch of MPs leave (which will also lead to the end of the party).

Good times, well done, fantastic work.

Meanwhile, it is stuck in culture wars, with Sussan Ley yesterday digging deep into the bowels of far-right social media (and Sky After Dark, also known as SAD) for a short speech on how tasteless/offensive it was that Albanese wore a Joy Division t-shirt (the name’s origins are from the 1950s book, House of Dolls, which was about women kept as sexual slaves by the Nazis, who referred to them as the ‘Joy divisions’. It was an attempt to remind people of some of their lesser known, but still horrifying crimes).

This is only an issue because it was amplified by the media, otherwise most people would have no idea it happened. (I envy them). Ley’s office emailed the speech around the press gallery to ensure it received notice. As is pointed out in the AFR many of the outlets now clutching their pearls had made light hearted jokes of the t-shirt when the image was first taken – it took five days for Ley and her office to pick up on the far right conspiracy brewing on social media over the shirt and Albanese’s reason for wearing it, which was amplified by SAD and then questioned in the Oz and then raised by Ley in parliament.

So this is where we start today. The dumbest of timelines.

You’ll also hear from speakers and panels at the Revenue Summit, hosted by the Australia Institute, which will discuss new ideas of raising revenue and solving some of our big issues in housing, tax reform and inequality.

You’ve got me, Amy Remeikis for most of the day, with Mike Bowers of the New Daily lending us his lens to take you into the parliament.

It is at least a three coffee morning. And maybe a banana-caramel Haighs chocolate frog (a friend gave me two yesterday and holy moly – I have now tasted happiness)

Ready? Let’s get into it.