The Point Live: Nationals push for Coalition to delay mining friendly environment laws, while the fallout from Hanson's Islamophobic burqa stunt continues. As it happened

Technology hates me this week, which is quite stressful but also showing that the world wants us all to switch off.

Ted O’Brien is at the press club tomorrow, so brace yourself for that.

And the parliament will be sitting on Friday because of the environment laws, which is a punishment none of us needed.

So take tonight off.

We will be back early tomorrow – not bright, because that is impossible at the moment. But until then – take care of you Ax

A multi-million dollar funding boost for a crucial 24-hour domestic violence helpline means more calls, chats, texts and video sessions for vulnerable women and children reaching for help.

The international day for the elimination of violence against women is marked on November 25, kick-starting 16 days of activism against gender-based violence. 

Parliament House will be illuminated orange on Tuesday night to recognise the event. 

The federal government has announced an additional $41.8 million for 1800RESPECT, a hotline that provides confidential information, counselling and support for people experiencing domestic violence.

The free service available 24 hours was established in 2010 and has had a 3000 per cent increase in people contacting the service seeking help.

In 2023, the service launched an SMS channel followed by video counselling in 2024. 

In the last financial year, the service received more than 342,000 calls, video calls, online chats and texts, allowing victim-survivors to seek support via the best medium that suits their needs. 

More than 90 per cent of calls are answered within 20 seconds, and Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek paid tribute to the frontline workers committed to protecting women and children.

“We’re seeing some areas like intimate partner violence slightly decreasing, but we’re seeing big increases in young relationships, under-18s … so we need to keep evolving as this problem in our society evolves,” she told ABC radio on Tuesday. 

“I think anybody who discloses family, domestic or sexual violence needs an enormous amount of courage.

“Right across our community, there are people who are working every single day to keep women and children safe (and) I want to salute them as well.”

Ms Plibersek has called on all governments and services to do better when it comes to protecting victims of domestic violence, following media reports about the way women who have been killed were failed by police and support systems.

The government wouldn’t rest while there were still women and children impacted by gender-based violence, she told parliament. 

Too many women in Australia were living in fear of men’s violence, Women’s Minister Katy Gallagher said. 

“Services like 1800RESPECT are often the first safe door they can walk through to tell their story and get help,” she said. 

“This funding boost means more calls, more chats, more texts and more video sessions can be answered when women and their children reach out.”

1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)

Lifeline 13 11 14

Men’s Referral Service 1300 766 491

Ed Husic’s ‘breaking ranks with Labor’ speech in parliament yesterday (as reported in this blog) which claimed gas exporters are profiteering from Australians and driving up domestic energy prices, is right on the money and well backed by the data.

Gas exporters have made an estimated $100 billion in windfall profits driven by record‑high prices for Liquified Natural Gas (LNG), caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Global LNG prices surged from around $A550 a tonne of LNG in 2021 to over $A1,100 in 2022.

Despite being the world’s second-largest exporter of gas, since we don’t set aside a small portion of gas for domestic use, local prices are linked to the higher foreign prices. Local prices have been linked to foreign prices since the Australian government approved the exporting of gas from Queensland, commencing in January 2015.

According to data from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), since gas exports from Queensland started, domestic gas prices have tripled, and electricity prices have doubled. Currently, gas and electricity prices remain at near record highs. Electricity prices follow gas prices because gas-fired electricity generation is often the most expensive form of generation in Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM). The Government’s design of the NEM means the most expensive form of electricity sets the wholesale price of electricity for all users.

Ed Huric is also right in saying we don’t have a shortage of gas in Australia. Best summarised by MP Nicolette Boele as “we do not have a gas supply problem, we have a gas export problem.” According to data from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water in Australia, 83% of all gas extracted is used for export. Over the last five years, gas exports have been enough to supply domestic users for 22 years.

Finally, Ed Husic also nails the simplicity of the solution: “Our gas, our prices”. A simple way to achieve this would be the ACTU’s proposal for a 25% tax on gas exports. This would keep a greater share of Australian gas in Australia, greatly lowering gas and electricity bills for Australian households, and perhaps, save what’s left of the Australian manufacturing industry.

So what did we learn?

Again, nothing. For the second day in a row the Coalition made Chris Bowen the target, which is a short sighted strategy because the man knows parliamentary procedure and his particular brand of incensed works well for QT.

There is also no policy the Coalition can point to in terms of compare and contrast – it’s fishing and coming up with old boots.

The crossbench are trying to get something on gambling reforms – Albanese ruled out a conscience vote – not surprising, that is Labor party policy (all for one and all that) but it does show the ridiculousness of the situation – the Labor backbench are very uncomfortable with the lack of action on gambling reforms, but the leadership won’t budge.

Kate Chaney then asks the same question Andrew Wilkie just asked:

Australians are asking why the government has failed to respond to the movie review’s unanimous recommendation to ban gambling ads. No-one in this chamber is seeking to ban gambling despite what you said but when asked about reform you list actions announced before the review. Many members of your own party support and add ban. Why won’t you allow a free vote on a ban on ads for online gambling?

Anthony Albanese gives the same answer:

I thank the member for her question to me as Prime Minister but I am also leader of the Australian Labor party and we are a political party, not a bunch of individuals and what we do… What we do what we do is we make decisions, we make decisions in our caucus, in our caucus that make a difference and when we make decisions in our caucus what that does is result in action.

People have the choice, Mr Speaker about what political path they will take and how they will participate in politics. People can participate as independents and then make decisions by government and then whether they will decide or oppose them. I respect that, I respect the member for Curtin and the way she takes policy development seriously in this Chamber, and she has put forward a range of amendments to government legislation that have been supported by the government in the last time and this, and I encourage her to continue to do so. But we treat every member of the parliament with respect.

That hasn’t always been the case. That hasn’t always been the case for governments. But we do that. But we have introduced modern legislation to tackle problem gambling for any government since Federation, and one of the things that we continue to do is to work with organisations, including media organisations, including sporting organisations as well, on ways in which we can move forward to further tackle the problem gambling issue.

We will have further measures, but we won’t do it by pretending that you can just wave a wand and fix things immediately with one piece of legislation. We will continue to do it piece by piece to make a difference, and that’s precisely what we are doing.

The independent MP for Bradfield Nicolette Boele asks Chris Bowen:

The Safeguard Mechanism the government ‘s primary lever for achieving greenhouse gas emission reduction is set to be reviewed on 2026-27. In August this year the Productivity Commission recommended reducing the threshold for facilities covered by the mechanism to those taking pollution down from the 100,000 times, when will the government start the review of the Safeguard Mechanism and will except the Productivity Commission ‘s recommendation to lower the Safeguard Mechanism pollution threshold?

Chris Bowen:

I will say with the greatest of respect and seriously, the Honourable Member answered the question in the question in many respects because it was indicated in the explanatory memorandum, which accompany the safeguard reforms, that we would review the safeguard legislation in 2026 – 27, we are not yet there.

That review will begin next year. I am pleased with the way the Safeguard Mechanism reforms are working thus far. The first year shows a reduction in on-site emissions…equivalent to one-third of Australia’s domestic aviation, no small thing, a good reduction in emissions

…It’s a good policy. We will review it. The Honourable Member refers to the Productivity Commission advice report to Government- it will be considered with a range of other submissions when we begin that review next year, the Honourable Member will be welcome to put in a submission to that review and we will take it and all other submissions very seriously.

So far, the opposition has put up the LNP MP for Longman, the LNP MP for Fisher and now the LNP MP for Capricornia.

So that is three Queensland backbenchers.

The Coalition have lost relevancy and power in Queensland and from what I understand their polling is even worse than at the last election. So it is not surprising that they are going so hard to try and win back voters in what was one of their stronghold states.

If only they had some policy to go with it.

We get through some dixers – the Albanese government is great for students and the economy don’t you know (no really, they really want you to know) and then we get more from Queensland LNP MPs about WHEN WILL POWER PRICES COME DOWN.

This didn’t work during the 2025 election, and it shows no signs of working now.

Andrew Wilkie gets the first crossbench question and asks:

I recently had conversations with a significant number of government backbenchers who want gambling advertising band as unanimously endorsed in the cross party report. As I asked in my personal appeal to you a fortnight ago will you allow government members a free vote on this issue so they can exercise their own judgement, represent their communities and finally end this impasse?

Albanese says:

I thank the member for Clark for his question and for his genuine engagement on this issue. Our Labor caucus makes decisions which is why we have done more than any other government since Federation to tackle problem gambling and we will continue to work as a caucus and as a government to continue to work on these issues.

And that is it. No more from Albanese on gambling. The easiest of all the reforms

There is a back and forth over stupid things that don’t matter. We move into a dixer and then we hear that Bronwyn Bishop is in the chamber, which explains the sudden chill in the air.

We are further punished by Dan Tehan getting the next question:

The Lowy Institute reports as president of Cop30 President André Corrêa do Lago visited more than 50 countries and media reports he travelled 1200 miles the in prevalence of eight trips around it.

As president of COP31 negotiations how many countries for the Minister be required to visit, how many miles for the need to travel, how much taxpayer money will be spent on funding full-time presidential duties of the part time minister?

Dick says no more with the part time minister and warns he will boot out anyone who uses it next.

Chris Bowen:

Firstly I must correct the misperception both the Leader of the Opposition in the Shadow Minister are perpetuating. The role of the President is not a full-time position it is quite common for the role of the president of the COP, I will be president of negotiations, they are different jobs.

Last year ‘s COP president was the Minister for the Environment for Azerbaijan. The president of the first COP I went to was the Minister who continued in his role in the Egyptian Cabinet while being president of the COP. To suggest a full-time job somehow is to a complete invention. A fantasy. You can set as many times as you like it doesn’t make it true, Mr Speaker. Order. The leader of the Nationals. The leader of opposition was asked this morning by Kieran Gilbert isn’t that Australia is have a seat at the table and can share some international talks and the need of opposition replied no it’s not, no it’s not clear on….

Bowen continues and then Tehan has a point of order that is not a point of order, which incljudes the line “we don’t need a history lesson what we want to know is how much the taxpayer how much the taxpayer is going to pay from this president and part-time Minister travelling the world?”

And Dick boots him out.