Tue 4 Nov
This blog is now closed.
It has been another loooooooong day, so we are going to show some mercy and pull up stumps.
But we will be back tomorrow for another round of ‘how long do we have to keep doing this?!’
A very big thank you to everyone who followed along today – we will be back early tomorrow (not bright, that is too much of an ask) to bring you the Wednesday mess.
Until then – take care of you. We mean it. Ax
Someone needs to tell me what had David Littleproud and Melissa McIntosh so chatty:
As Michele Bullock keeps answering questions and suggesting that “there is still a little excess demand in the economy than we thought”, there was this fun little line in the Statement on Monetary Policy:
“There are also uncertainties regarding the assessment that monetary policy remains a little restrictive, the lags in the effect of recent monetary easing, the balance between aggregate demand and potential supply for goods and services, conditions in the labour market and the outlook for productivity growth.”
So basically the RBA is uncertain about monetary policy impacts, how much demand is in the economy, the labour market and also productivity… but you know, apart from that they really are across everything!
The ABC’s Michael Janda asks a very good question about if their forecast for unemployment to stay at 4.4% is too optimistic given it is already at 4.5%
Bullock says, nah “Those forecasts suggest there is more stability in the labour market than you might think”.
He then asks if she is worried about stagflation – where unemployment and inflation are both rising together.
She says “No, I don’t think so. We’re still inflation will come down and we have employment at a pretty good place.”
The Governor is asked about the RBA’s “technical” assumption of the cash rate cut in the Statement of Monetary Policy and whether the bank should be tempering expectations.
That assumption is purely put in to show what the market is expecting, it is NOT the RBA’s estimate. And yet every month she gets asked about this. Sigh
She then is asked a very good question about whether cutting rates was considered and were anyone worried about rising unemployment.
She says no – they only thought about keeping them steady. She says “Unemployment went up a little more than expected, but so did inflation. We are being a little cautious here as to what we read. We think there is a little information in both. Naturally, the board are concerned about employment as well because that is part of their mandate, but I would say at the moment we are a little more concerned about making sure we get inflation sustainably back in the band.”
So yes, as we noted in our media release, the RBA cares more about inflation than unemployment
Anthony Albanese says he was taught mercy by the Christian Brothers and he will end QT “for all our sakes”.
So what did we learn.
Sussan Ley is on the outer. Not only did she not open QT, or even feature in it heavily, she was pretty much ignored by her front bench and her interactions with them were limited.
When it becomes that obvious, the situation is dire. The Liberals are unlikely to move until there is someone else there to clean up the mess, but you can start the clock.
We also learnt that Ted O’Brien either doesn’t read his briefs, or gets bad advice – because whether you like him or not, Jim Chalmers is ALWAYS prepared for QT and knows his portfolio inside out. You are not going to be able to back him into making a mistake.
Everything else? Independents asking about communities, Labor still tone deaf on housing costs, Coalition MIA.
The end of this parliament year can not come soon enough for 29% of the house.
Here is some more of how Mike Bowers saw QT – Sussan Ley wasn’t receiving a lot of support from her front bench:
The Shadow Treasurer, who you would think would have an easy day given the RBA decided not to cut interest rates, unfortunately keeps finding a rake to step on.
Ted O’Brien asked the PM (who flicked the question to Chalmers) that
“RBA’s forecast for headline inflation to peak at 3.7%. In the middle of next year, well above the target band and not to return to the band until 2027. My question to the Prime Minister is, given the government’s spending is running four times faster than the economy, isn’t it time to rein the Treasure inner to stop his spending spree?”
Fair enough I guess, except Chalmers had actually read the RBA’s statement on monetary policy which contains those forecasts, and alas for O’Brien, a few others.
While the CPI is not expected to get below 3% until June 2027, the RBA notes that
Year-ended headline inflation is expected to remain above 3 per cent for much of 2026, before returning to be a little above the midpoint of the target range by late 2027.
You can see this here:
So you might think case closed, O’Brien wins.
Problem is the RBA also noted that:
Changes in the timing of electricity rebates will cause additional volatility in headline inflation over the next couple of years.
So it is really due to a lot of erratic stuff, not underlying inflation. And while it did slightly revise up the underlying inflation measure – which the RBA actually targets, the revision was small, and we’ll be back under 3% soon – not in 2027 but next year:
And then we get to O’Brien’s point about “the government’s spending is running four times faster than the economy”
Firstly, that is a rather dopey point – if the economy is running slowly, the government should be assisting to stop the economy going into a recession. The RBA estimates that GDP will only grow around 2%. That is well below the long-term average of 2.75%-3%. Given public demand on average grows at around 3.3%, anything below that is actually below what the government probably should be spending.
As it is the RBA has revised down how much the public sector is contributing to the economy. The government is not only contributing less to the economy than usual, but probably less than it should be given rising unemployment.
But when you only care is attacking government spending, as is the case for Ted O’Brien, that logic does not register.
Tim Wilson stands up at the box and Milton Dick gives the call to Andrew Gee. Again.
Wilson is made to sit down.
The Labor government continues to be tone deaf on house prices.
Then Anthony Albanese extends QT in order to smash up Tim Wilson.
Amanda Rishworth:
It has been nine weeks and four days since our legislation to protect penalty rates came into effect. This government took this action because if you work on weekends and public holidays you deserve penalty and overtime rates. And if you were one of the almost 6,000 award-reliant workers, working in Victoria today, our legislation has protected your penalty rates. Because the Albanese Labor government backs low-paid workers.
Now, Speaker, I’m asked how this compares to other approaches. Well, when our legislation was before the Parliament, the coalition used every excuse to stand in the way of action to protect penalty rates. The shadow minister nor employment did not miss an opportunity to criticise our protections of penalty rates. He claimed it does nothing for workers. Of course this is not a new position for the shadow minister.
In 2017 he voted against protecting Sunday penalty rates in the Parliament.
But it does seem, Mr Speaker, that in the past few days the shadow minister has had a change of heart. I noticed over the weekend that the shadow minister has a new-found love of public holidays. In fact, the shadow minister has declared on social media that a Wilson government, there will be a new public holiday on Melbourne Cup day.
Primarily it seems to get him out of coming to Parliament.
Now, I am not sure if this is official Liberal Party policy, but it has been enthusiastically backed by Senator Hume I note. But I hope a policy of this nature, of course, will include protection for all workers, not just politicians like he seems to advocate for.
Now, a word of caution, though, for work or so right across Australia. The workers probably shouldn’t put this public holiday in their diary just yet because according to a recent poll, even the independent member for Wentworth is a preferred Liberal leader than the member for Goldstein.
But you never know, Mr Speaker. He might just be a little slow to get out of the gate.
And we know we may see a Wilson government some time in the future. But, of course, in all seriousness, Mr Speaker, it is incredibly disappointing that we see the coalition completely talking about themselves, which days they’re gonna have off. Of course is it gonna be the member for Canning, the member for Hume or even the member for Goldstein that will lead this party? It’s only our Labor government that will back Aussie workers.