What we learned: Monday, 13 February.
With that, we will wrap the blog for the evening.
Here were the major developments of the day – the fifteenth anniversary of the national apology to the Stolen Generations
Anthony Albanese used his speech to argue for the referendum as the next stage in Australia’s reconciliation process.
The opposition leader Peter Dutton expressed regret for boycotting the apology as part of his response to the Closing the Gap implementation report, saying he “failed to grasp the significance” of the day.
Foreign minister, Penny Wong, has claimed the former Coalition government “stuffed this market” in a discussion about Australia’s energy system, as she and Senate sparring partner Simon Birmingham took their positions again in estimates.
The home affairs department secretary, Michael Pezzullo has issued an apology to the government over the failure to renew the instrument designating Nauru as a regional processing country. Pezzullo said that the Nauru instrument sunsetting was first mentioned in a list in January 2021 of regulations that would lapse, but the department “failed to monitor and track” it.
And Dutton used the start of Question Time to ask the prime minister whether his election commitment to allow people on temporary protection and safe haven visas to apply for permanent residency would lead to an increase in “people smuggling arrivals”.
Burney tells new cross-parliamentary group of the ‘magic’ of voice referendum
The minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, says a yes vote in the voice to parliament referendum would lead to “unifying us in a way that’s never been done before”, urging supporters to back the campaign in a speech to a cross-parliamentary group boosting the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
Labor MP Gordon Reid, Liberal MP Bridget Archer and crossbencher Allegra Spender are co-chairs of the new parliamentary Friends of the Uluru Statement group, launched tonight at Parliament House. A wide range of politicians attended, including a large number of Labor MPs but also Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, Liberal MP Jenny Ware, and independents Kate Chaney and Helen Haines. Julian Leeser, shadow Indigenous Australians minister, arrived a little later after a shadow cabinet meeting
The group heard speeches from Burney, special envoy on the Uluru Statement, Pat Dodson, and yes campaign spokespeople Dean Parkin and Thomas Mayo.
Great to be in Canberra for the launch of the Parliamentary Friends of the Uluṟu Statement from the Heart.
— From The Heart (@fromtheheartau) February 13, 2023
It’s positive to see multi partisan support for the campaign, with Liberal MP Bridget Archer, Labor MP Gordon Reid and Independent Allegra Spender co-chairing the group. pic.twitter.com/B77Sf722wO
Burney thanked the cross-party group of supporters “from the bottom of my heart”.
First Nations people will be recognised in our nation’s birth certificate. And when that happens, imagine the Sunday morning after a successful referendum. We’ll probably wake up very early and feel very different, because this country will be different.
It will be a nation that has finally recognised, it will be a nation where everyone will feel part of that change. That’s the magic of this referendum.
Dodson said he believed Australians had “a knack for being generous and transformative when it counts” in big moments.
“We’re faced with another big moment. I’ve seen a few moments come and go and be lost,” he said, calling the Uluru statement and the voice concept “generous”.
Spender said she experienced “shivers” when hearing the Uluru Statement read aloud. Archer said it was “an easy yes” for her to accept a co-chair position with the group, saying it was “incumbent” on MPs to meet the Uluru Statement “in the spirit it’s given”.
I commit to walking with you to hopefully a brighter future this year.
The Liberal party is still to commit to a party room position on the voice. In a speech today, Opposition leader Peter Dutton said those questioning the Indigenous voice to parliament were “not hardhearted”.
Updated
Meanwhile, the ABC has been experiencing major outages on its websites and apps this evening, including iView. The sites appear to be back up and running now.
The ABC is aware of an issue impacting our websites and apps. We apologise for any inconvenience and are working to return our services to normal as soon as possible. pic.twitter.com/S2gzUs7InG
— abctv (@ABCTV) February 13, 2023
Australia's National broadcaster the ABC's online presence (and email) is "offline" as their domain https://t.co/oeDifG5Tmk has no posted DNS records. There will be a LOT of scrambling in Ultimo right now.
— Trevor Long (@trevorlong) February 13, 2023
Updated
Bureau cancels cyclone warning for Gulf of Carpentaria
The Bureau of Meteorology has cancelled a tropical cyclone watch in the Gulf of Carpentaria.
The BoM:
Over the next few days, the monsoon trough extends across the top end and Gulf of Carpentaria, with a low embedded in the trough near Groote Eylandt.
A severe weather warning for damaging wind and heavy rainfall has been issued for the eastern top end, including Groote Eylandt.
The Northern Territory emergency service are urging everyone in the affected areas to stay away from flooded drains, rivers, streams and waterways and not to drive into floodwaters.
Updated
On this day fifteen years ago – a rare bipartisan moment when Whitlam, Fraser and Hawke were still with us.
It’s also a pertinent reminder that a commitment to treaty for First Nations people was first promised by a prime minister back in 1988, when Hawke received The Barunga Statement from Aboriginal elders.
More than three decades later, no leader on either side of politics has succeeded.
Kevin Rudd with former Prime Ministers Bob Hawke, Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser and Paul Keating, at Parliament House, Canberra, February 13, 2008 pic.twitter.com/vTFdS7TUJ4
— Canberra Insider (@CanberraInsider) February 13, 2023
Updated
Independent MP backs government decision on TPVs
Independent MP Zoe Daniels appeared on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing earlier discussing topics of the day, including the federal government’s fulfillment of its election promise on temporary protection visas (TPVs).
She said Australia was on the “right side of history”.
It is important because members of my community and all the other crossbench communities have been coming into our offices saying please help on this issue of TPVs and shared visas and they are saying: what is the story? Am I eligible for this new one and how long will that take and how is it going to work?
My understanding is that those whose visas are soon to come up for renewal will be prioritised at the front of the queue, and so others might have to wait a few weeks.
The surveys show 75% of Australians want more humane treatment of these people. So I think we are on the right side of history there.
The decision, affecting around 19,000 people, results from years of advocacy by the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.
Its director Jana Favero appeared before Daniels, describing the events as an “emotional day” for people waiting over a decade in legal limbo.
We cannot underestimate how significant this is, and that people are finally able to rebuild their lives, finally call Australia home and most importantly finally able to start that pathway to family reunion.
It won’t happen overnight, it is a process … because it is coming on top of ten years of being denied that family reunion. So yes, it will take time but today we really just want to have a celebration of joy for those 19,000 people who have great news that has been much awaited.
Updated
Tragic end in search for missing man
In Queensland, police have located the body of a 49-year-old man who was reported missing in Lake Tinaroo.
The man was found shortly before 3.30pm within the search area where he went missing while swimming yesterday in the Tablelands.
Emergency services were called to Church Street just after 11am on Sunday to reports that a man had gone missing in the lake.
Police say the man was assisting two children return to shore when he failed to resurface. The children were assessed by paramedics on scene, and were uninjured.
Police will prepare a report for the coroner, however there are not considered to be any suspicious circumstances.
Updated
Meanwhile, back in Canberra:
At the launch of a cross-party parliamentary group backing the Uluṟu statement, Linda Burney says the voice referendum is about “unifying us in a way that’s never been done before”
— Josh Butler (@JoshButler) February 13, 2023
Says after a Yes vote, “this country wil be different…That’s the magic of this referendum” pic.twitter.com/F1jF7SAwrD
Great to be back in Canberra today for the 15th anniversary of the Apology. I spoke on the "arc of history bending slowly towards justice". So good to see so many survivors of the Stolen Generation in Parliament House. pic.twitter.com/brfuYuJUgI
— Kevin Rudd (@MrKRudd) February 13, 2023
Updated
Depth of Snowy 2.0’s ‘surface depression’ as much as 70m
As we flagged earlier today, Snowy Hydro was due up in senate estimates today, with a grilling about its latest delay likely.
One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts (like us) was keen to know about the hole, dubbed by Snowy as a “surface depression” at a key tunnelling site at its giant Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro project near Lake Tantangara.
Former acting boss, Roger Whitby conceded that “not a great deal of distance” had been drilled by the huge tunnel boring machine (dubbed “Florence”) in the past three months.
Actually, it has lately been stalled, as Snowy told us last week.
In fact, the distance between the tunnel and the hole to the surface is in the order of 50-70m, Whitby said. Roberts, who was once into mining himself, acknowledged that such a connection was no small thing, as he wrapped up his questions.
Snowy is working through the issues “closely” so that Florence is no longer bogged, Whitby said. We may find out a bit more later about what it’s going to take to un-bog the borer.
Updated
Burney urges Coalition to ‘embrace the voice’
Minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, spoke with Dana Morse on the ABC this afternoon on the fifteen-year anniversary of the Apology to the Stolen Generations.
Asked about a “pretty pointed comment” by opposition leader, Peter Dutton, who didn’t attend the breakfast for the Apology this morning – despite conceding he made the wrong decision to not be in the chamber when it occurred – Burney said it was a “mistake” Dutton didn’t attend.
There were 400 people there and the prime minister made it, so I can’t see why he couldn’t have made it. He spoke in the chamber today about the mistake that he made 15 years ago, and that’s a good thing that he made that clear.
But at the end of the day, he didn’t go, and he has an opportunity now to support the voice, and let’s hope he takes it. I am urging the Coalition, the Liberal party, to embrace the voice as many, many, many Australians have, and to not use this as a political football. This is above politics, this is about the Australian people.
Updated
Tehan criticises government decision on TPVs
Shadow immigration minister Dan Tehan appeared on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing following question time today, reflecting on the federal government’s decision to allow around 19,000 people on temporary protection and safe haven visas to seek permanent residency.
Do you acknowledge that this is the fulfilment of a commitment, and should not come as any surprise to anyone?
Tehan said the Coalition wanted to see “full disclosure” on whether the decision to take the individuals out of legal limbo would “lead to the boats starting again”.
The current prime minister stood beside Kevin Rudd, the then prime minister and said that these people would not settle in Australia. Now here we have them changing their mind.
The problem is that all this will be sent to the people smugglers, and they will be thinking about OK, how are we going to test the wheel of the government … that’s why that advice is so important.
Asked if going out and touting the return of the boats was actually running the risk of encouraging the actions he was discouraging, he replied, “we want to be … very clear that no one wants to see the 1,200 people drowning at sea”.
Updated
Many thanks to Amy Remeikis for keeping us abreast of another big news day. I’ll be with you for the next little while.
Caitlin Cassidy is going to take you through the evening. And Murph, Josh, Paul and Daniel are still working on stories, so make sure you check back for those, as well as everything else the Guardian brainstrust is putting together.
Thank you to everyone who read today, and for your time below the line –as well as your messages. For those who asked questions, I’ll get back to you this evening.
I will be back on for Politics Live early tomorrow morning – but until then, please, take care of you.
Bill Shorten takes opportunity to lambast previous government on robodebt
Just needed to wait for the transcript of this one, but for those asking, here is what Bill Shorten, minister for government services, was asked during QT.
(Shorten has been taking dixers on robodebt to provide updates on the royal commission)
Q: What has the royal commission into robodebt uncovered in relation to warnings of the i scheme’s unlawfulness?
Shorten:
Madeleine Masterton appeared as a witness to the royal commission with Victorian Legal Aid on the 31st of October last year. For the record, she’s a clinical research nurse, a credentialed diabetes educator. She’s obtained a Master of Nursing Society, University of Melbourne, a Bachelor of Arts, University of Western Australia, a grad certificate in Diabetes Education, Deakin University. She worked part time during attaining these degrees and intermittently received modest Centrelink payments.
She’s also, although it doesn’t go on her CV, a victim of the previous government’s unlawful robodebt scheme.
She received her illegal robodebt letter in mid-2018. She eventually rang Victorian Legal Aid, who supported her in an action against the government.
To stop her, on the 27th of March 2019 the government received the Masterton Advice, Exhibit 21731, which I hold in my hand. Now this advice only came to light because of the royal commission. Senate inquiries were unable to get this advice.
It’s another example that without the royal commission, which those opposite oppose, we wouldn’t know what I’m about to tell you. The advice said the applicant would have good prospects of succeeding in a claim for relief on the basis the use of the apportioned ATO data will not establish that she owed a debt under the Act. Now, magically, as happened on 76 other occasions, the government recalculated the debt down to zero when someone took them to court.
But the Masterton case had wider-ranging implications for the scheme as a whole.
The advice further notes, and I quote: “It’s clear from the above our analysis suggests that there are wider legal risks involved in the Commonwealth solely using apportioned data to determine whether a debt is owed to the Commonwealth in relation to the payment of social security depending on a fortnightly income test.”
The government were told, the former Coalition government were told unequivocally, you’ve got a problem with this scheme.
They were unequivocally told on many occasions, but in this case with the Masterton advice which the government, the former government, did not want us to see, it spells it out, spelled it out in March of 2019, 240 days before the member for Fadden, just about the last of the robodebt ministers still here, took any action on it.
What’s remarkable about Madeleine Masterton, she didn’t want to be the subject of these issues.
But she does say this at the close of her statement - the outcome of the class action is not compensation for the meals skipped, school trips foregone, the stress and fear and despair that some families, individuals no doubt experienced.
She says, and I think she speaks for all of Australia: “I would like to hear remorse from the robodebt architects for causing such harm.”
Those opposite knew and they did nothing about it for four-and-a-half years.
Updated
Perth HQ of Woodside defaced in protest over Burrup development
A West Australian musician has defaced the Perth headquarters of fossil fuel giant Woodside, in protest over the alleged destruction of ancient First Nations art in the Burrup peninsula.
Protester Trent Rojahn used a fire extinguisher filled with yellow paint to coat the glass frontage of the Mount Street headquarters, then used spray cans of paint to write the slogan “Disrupt Burrup Hub”, “Fuck Woodside” and “Six billion tonnes” on the building’s front doors.
The incident took place at 9.30am local time on Monday. Police arrived shortly after and handed Rojahn a move-on notice. No charges have yet been laid.
The action comes just three days after the Australian government nominated the Murujuga rock art – situated in the area where Woodside operates gas and fertiliser plants – for Unesco world heritage status.
Prior to the protest, Rojahn released a statement saying the yellow paint represented Burrup Hub’s carbon dioxide emissions. There are more than one million rock art paintings on the peninsula with some thought to be 50,000 years old.
The protest group Disrupt Burrup Hub took responsibility for the incident, saying in a statement that the rock art faced “total destruction within decades” if Woodside did not cease its operations in the area.
A spokesperson for Woodside said the incident was now a police matter and referred the Guardian to WA Police.
“Woodside respects people’s rights to protest lawfully and supports constructive engagement on all issues of importance to the communities where we live and work,” a Woodside statement said.
This is the second protest against Woodside from the group this year. In January, Perth artist Joana Partyka sprayed the Woodside logo in yellow paint on Frederick McCubbin’s colonial masterpiece Down on His Luck, held in the Art Gallery of WA – a protest subsequently endorsed by McCubbin’s descendants.
On Friday, Partyka pled guilty to criminal damage and was ordered to pay $7,500 in fines and costs.
Updated
That ‘conversation’ continued:
Watt: I know you’re here to hold a torch for that.
Antic:
No, no, no, no, I’m here, I’m here to pick out extraordinary statements like the Department of Home Affairs has got time in between, well, cybersecurity and other anti-terrorism. Which one minister? Which one do you think is, on a hierarchy of priorities, which one would you pick?
… Well, look, I guess the original question was: is this parody? Is this a joke? And the answer, well, no one’s no one’s asking you. We’ve already heard some …
Watt:
There’s multiple questions. But senator Antic, the whole reason that the National Emergency Management Agency was here earlier this morning, is that it sits within the Home Affairs Department. And that is based on the decision of this government that climate-induced natural disasters, which the overwhelming majority of scientists tell us …
Antic:
Could you point to one?
Watt
... are going to increase, are a threat to our country. And that means that just as the Home Affairs Department is the correct agency to be considering the potential impact of cyber attacks on our country or terrorism attacks on our country. This is a threat to our country that is appropriately dealt with by Home Affairs.
Antic:
One last question. Thank you for that, I appreciate that glowing clarification. Well Mr Pezzullo is it safe to say that the department has been captured by leftist ideology?
Watt: (laughing) I’m looking forward to hearing this answer.
Pezzullo:
Chair, I would seek some guidance from you. My understanding is that I’m here to explain our performance and the expenditure of public monies. I’m really, I don’t even know where to start.
Antic:
Just start with a yes or no.
… It was a serious question. Because I find that extraordinary.
Watt: That’s your assertion.
Antic:
Whether it’s my assertion or not, I think the Australian people would be find it extraordinary that the Department of Home Affairs is, is spending time away from cybersecurity, counterterrorism …
Pezzullo:
I can assure you that we’re not.
Antic:
So, do you want to just answer that question?
Pezzullo:
Well, on the presumption that it wasn’t a rhetorical question.
Antic:
No, it’s not a rhetorical question.
It was not a waste of time. It’s a reasonable question. I know that the left in this building think that everything relates to their issues. That’s not the case. The average Australians don’t think that. They’re worried about real issues.
Pezzullo:
Thank you for clarifying that your question to me was not rhetorical. We are captured by nothing other than the public interest. We serve the public interest under the Public Service Act. We serve the government of the day and we faithfully execute impartially and apolitically its policies. Thank you.
Antic:
Lovely summary statement.
Greens senator Nick McKim gets the call:
Pezzullo:
Please don’t ask me if I’ve been captured by leftists again.
Watt:
He will ask if you’ve been captured by rightwing extremists.
McKim:
No I won’t. I already know the answer.
Updated
Senators Antic and Pezzullo go head to head
To those watching estimates … we salute you!
Here is Liberal senator Alex Antic being very serious and taking everything very seriously, in estimates today:
Antic:
Thanks, chair. I do I just have a couple of quick questions about … Mr Pezzullo, your opening statement here, which I have in front of me, you made mention of the fact that the department’s work extends to dealing with the effects of climate change.
Pezzullo: Yes.
Antic:
And to better position Australia to deal with the increasing exposure and vulnerabilities to nationally significant crises, including those due to climate change. With the greatest of respect – is that comedy? Parody? Or is that serious?
Pezzullo: I’m not, are you referring to a question that you’ve asked me? I don’t understand.
Antic:
No, no, no, the suggestion that the Department of Home Affairs is somehow prioritising the issue of climate change. Is that a serious …?
Pezzullo:
I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, the increasing frequency and severity of weather events were responsible in supporting the Minister for Emergency Management, who happens to be at the table, with policy and legislative advice. My colleague, the coordinator general of NEMA (The National Emergency Management Agency), that was questioned this morning then delivers programs. I genuinely don’t know how to respond to a rather oddly put question. You asked me whether it’s comedy. It’s my job. I don’t, I don’t really understand what you’re asking me?
Antic:
Well, so you’re meaning to tell me that the Department of Home Affairs is prioritising the effects of climate change?
Pezzullo: When you say prioritising, it’s one of the things we work on.
Antic: It’s clearly a priority. So where would you put climate? Where would you put climate change in amongst the following? Counter terrorism, cybersecurity, migration visas, refugee humanitarian statements?
Pezzullo: I mean, I balance my work, the resources that government affords me across all of the national risks that we assist the government in managing.
Antic:
And what role does the Department of Home Affairs play in in respect of climate change.
Pezzullo:
So we’re running the national resilience taskforce, which was set up after the election, which is looking at both security as well as climate-induced national resilience challenges, which can extend from one end of the spectrum – to natural disasters and the impact on communities of frequent more persistent and more severe weather events – right through to supply-chain blockages and the issues that might arise in relation to the global access that we have to markets as a result of conflict. And you’re seeing that play out, for instance, in the Ukraine war with Russia’s illegal invasion, right through to what might happen in terms of impact on our critical national infrastructure where we were the subject of cyber attacks.
Antic:
So you say that human-induced climate change is, is somehow a credible threat to Australia’s home affairs? It is the contention?
Pezzullo:
I think it’s a credible threat to Australia and where the Home Affairs Department is.
Antic:
Does the department take a view that that climate change is human induced?
Pezzullo: Yes.
Antic:
Does it really?
Labor senator Murray Watt: Most scientists do.
Antic:
Do they? Most scientists? That’s a false statement. (ed note: it is not)
Updated
Interesting disclosures in the Senate
Further to an earlier post about senators’ disclosures of interests, it seems that a few people in the upper house have made some errors recently – glass houses and all that.
If you’ll remember, Labor senator Jana Stewart gave Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie some stick for disclosing that she received Australian Open tennis tickets in January 2022 without disclosing who gave them to her, prompting the Labor senator to muse whether this was a breach of rules requiring quick disclosures and useful detail. Liberal senator Richard Colbeck hit back with criticism that sports minister Anika Wells hadn’t disclosed some events she attended at the end of 2022.
After an afternoon tea break in the finance and public admin hearing in Senate estimates, Colbeck came back with an addendum - McKenzie had updated her register again this afternoon, and said that the January 2022 tennis tickets were actually gifted in 2023, so she’d made a mistake and her disclosure didn’t fall foul of the timing rules.
The Nationals senator has also updated her register to note the tickets came from Hancock Prospecting.
McKenzie also added more details to other disclosures that she got cricket tickets from Westpac and Cricket Australia, and other tennis tickets from Tennis Australia.
Wells, too, has updated her form. The sports minister noted she got FIFA World Cup tickets from FIFA, AFL women’s grand final tickets from the AFL, cricket tickets from Cricket Australia, and accommodation in Qatar for herself and two staff (for four nights) from the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Updated
‘We have no plans’ (for privatisation): Perrottet
New South Wales premier, Dominic Perrottet, has refused to rule out further privatisation if the Coalition is re-elected in March.
As the government sought to launch an attack on Labor’s plan to remove a controversial public sector wages cap on Monday by insisting it would put major infrastructure projects at risk and add to the state’s growing budget deficit, Perrottet was forced to address his own plans for future sales of public assets.
Despite treasurer, Matt Kean, last week appearing to rule out selling off public assets, the premier on Monday would only say the government had “no plans” for privatisation.
Asked about the difference in his own response to Kean’s, Perrottet said:
I’m not getting to semantic word games. I’ve made it very clear. We have no plans. What we have is a long term economic strategy to keep NSW moving forward that has been our approach, it’s a balanced approach to financial management in our state, a combination of affordable and sustainable debt position, asset recycling, lower taxes. That ensures the budget remains in a strong position, and we can continue to invest in the things that matter to people across our state.”
Labor has campaigned on a promise to scrap the government cap on public sector wages, while also banning future privatisations. On Monday, Perrottet held a lengthy press conference with Kean in which he presented treasury analysis which he said showed wage rises in line with inflation would cause an $8.6bn hit to the state budget.
The analysis – was also printed on the front page of Sydney’s Daily Telegraph on Monday – is based on the assumption that all public sector workers would receive a 7% pay increase in the 2023-24 financial year.
Labor has not said it would increase wages in line with inflation.
Updated
Greens senator Nick McKim had the next question and Murray Watt (the minister representing the minister for home affairs) quipped something along the lines of whether he would be asking if the department had been captured by rightwing ideology.
McKim said he knew the answer to that already.
Updated
Australia gets 76 senators and this is one of them
Meanwhile in estimates, Coalition senator Alex Antic asks Home Affairs boss Mike Pezzullo whether his department has been "captured by leftist ideology" because its work extends to dealing with climate change (it leads the government's disaster and emergency management response)
— Stephanie Dalzell (@steph_dalzell) February 13, 2023
Albanese to host prime minister of Vanuatu this week
Anthony Albanese will have another guest this week – the prime minister of Vanuatu, the Honourable Alatoi Ishmael Kalsakau, and Madame Ellene Kalsakau will be visiting Australia from the 14th to the 16th.
It’s the first time a prime minister from the republic of Vanuatu has visited since 2018.
Prime minister Kalsakau will be accompanied by a delegation including minister of tourism, trade, industry, commerce and Ni Vanuatu business development, Matai Seremaiah, and minister of agriculture, livestock, forestry, fisheries and biosecurity, Nakou Natuman.
And yes, climate will be on the agenda.
Updated
Coalition ‘stuffed’ the energy market, Wong says
Foreign minister, Penny Wong, has claimed the former Coalition government “stuffed this market” in a discussion about Australia’s energy system, as she and Senate sparring partner Simon Birmingham took their positions again in estimates.
The finance and public administration hearing has finally turned to officials from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, arriving there a few hours late after the morning’s witnesses ran well over time.
Birmingham, the shadow foreign minister and former Senate leader, came in off the long run with a series of questions about freedom of information requests for the PM’s diary, feedback on the “values based capitalism” essay from the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, and the government’s December plan to address supply and price issues in the energy market.
Wong called the opposition’s criticism of Chalmers’ essay “hysterical”, with Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet officials saying they didn’t know if they’d received any feedback on it.
As Birmingham asked about the government’s interventions in the energy sector, by putting price caps on coal and gas, Wong shot back “you stuffed this market!”
Our position is affordable supply. It might not be yours,” she said.
We didn’t really get any updates on FOI requests for Anthony Albanese’s diary, as Birmingham noted numerous requests for that information from journalists and others.
Updated
Anthony Albanese stayed in the chamber for Russell Broadbent’s statement.
He adds at the end:
On behalf of the government, I congratulate the member for Monash on his contribution here.
Not just in that speech, but over a long period of time.
The member is a sincere representative of his local community.
He’s someone who has demonstrated across a range of issues his compassion for his fellow Australians, and today he has once again brought great honour to this chamber.
Russell Broadbent:
Reflecting on the 40th anniversary of the Ash Wednesday fires, at staging point Akoonah Park, Beaconsfield my truck was stopped and told to stand aside by the district group officer until the wind change passed.
Two trucks in front of mine, Panton Hills and the Narre Warren trucks were on into the ridge to protect upper Beaconsfield.
All crew perished in the ensuing inferno.
Back at the Pakenham station, my father-in-law, the brigade captain NN Webster, took the mayday call.
He was never the same.
None of us were.
This I know of that time – when the blood of the victims, the ash of the forests, and the sweat of those facing the foe, when drowned in our tears, new life did spring forward.
But until the day came in the new dawn, when the sun would rise again over the southern hills of the Great Dividing Range to a clear smokeless sky, we had work to do.
Men, women and children to care for. Fires to suppress and communities to rebuild.
But most of all, Mr Speaker, most of all, we had a lot of grieving to do.
A lot of grieving to do.
And grieve we did.
Arm in arm, hand in hand, tear drop by blood-filled teardrop.
Here’s to you, fireman, Sam, and all who traveled with you.
Updated
Question ends.
Three more to go this week.
Russell Broadbent is giving a statement on indulgence
And what do you know – question time is STILL going. Anthony Albanese seems to want to drag out the torture for all of us lately for reasons known only to him, and I assume, Toto.
The Liberal MP for O’Connor, Rick Wilson, has a question for Amanda Rishworth:
In question time last week, the minister responded to a question from my friend, the member for Durack, and informed the House that the antisocial behaviour being experienced in the former Cashless Debit Card site in the Kimberley was due to catastrophic flooding in the region. In the Goldfield electorate, there has been no flooding. Can the minister explain why there has been increased harm as participants come off the Cashless Debit Card trial in my region?
Rishworth:
I thank the member for his question because, of course, those opposite continue their ideological love of the Cashless Debit Card.
When there was evidence after evidence that it was not making a difference.
When it comes to the Goldfields area, I am aware that the shire of Leonora has reported an increase in antisocial behaviour in their community, including an increase of hospital visitations, which has been attributed to an increase of people coming to the community from the NG Lands, noting that these lands were never in the Cashless Debit boundaries.
So, to suggest that somehow that the influx of people from areas outside the Cashless Debit Card site is somehow linked to the removal of this card is disingenuous and wrong.
I also understand that the towns of Laverton and Kambalda have also had an increase in antisocial behaviour which, has been linked to the population influx which, of course, is not unusual for this time of year.
And that most of the increase were from people from areas that were never in the Cashless Debit boundaries.
Across the region, in response to this population influx that happens at this time of the year, the city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder has implemented its Summer Response Strategy, which has seen several return-to-country trips taking place to help those who have come into town and unable to get back home.
I know that the Summer Response Strategy is also including...
Michael Sukkar pretends to have a point of order:
Mr Speaker, point of order on relevance. The minister is running out of alibis very quickly.
Milton Dick has had enough:
The member for Deakin has been continually disrupting question time today. He’s had multiple warnings and now he’s disrespected the chamber with abuse of standing orders. He will leave the chamber under 94(a).
… That will be the final warning with someone abusing standing orders. It has been continually happening. Question time will not occur with that behaviour.
Rishworth:
Thank you, Speaker. I was updating the House on the Summer Response Strategy, which has been ensuring that people in the Goldfields region are able to get back home to country. And this also includes the wrap-around supports that these people need. Of course, the coalition continues to try and draw a desperate link to anything to do with the Cashless Debit Card.
And, of course, we heard it in the chamber today, with the member for Riverina somehow suggesting that income support has been abolished in the Northern Territory. This is simply not the case.
But while those opposite continue to deliver misinformation and confusion around the country, our government will continue to do the things that work, provide the support that works, that helps people within communities.
Updated
Darren Chester is back on the front bench and has a question for Anthony Albanese:
My question is to the prime minister and I refer to the reports from the St Vincent De Paul Society showing combined gas and electricity bills for the average household have soared past $4,000 in Victoria, including in Gippsland, and average household gas bills will increase by $675, or 45%, this year.
Why have these households still not seen any relief? Prime minister, why do Australian families always pay more under Labor?
Albanese:
I thank the member for Gippsland for his question and I congratulate him on his re-elevation back to the frontbench.
Now, I’m not sure if the member for Gippsland was here in December because he did represent Australia very well with the member for Dunkley, I know, at the United Nations.
And he wants to go back, Mr Speaker! Mr Speaker. And if I sat with a mob who voted against cheaper prices, I’d want to go back too. I’d want to go back too, Mr Speaker.
But this is what the Reserve Bank of Australia put out last week about gas prices. ‘Wholesale electricity and gas prices decline in response to the announcement of the temporary price caps on domestic gas and thermal coal and energy price relief plan on 9 December 2022. Futures markets now suggest that wholesale electricity and gas prices will be lower in 2023 and 2024 than previously expected.’
That is exactly, exactly what the Reserve Bank of Australia said last year. It’s a pity that those opposite voted against, voted against that measure.
Updated
Independent MP Dr Sophie Scamps has a question for … Ed Husic:
My question is to the industry and science minister. It has become all too common to undermine the very foundations of our democracy. The National Reconstruction fund bill poses the establishment of a board that will oversee the disbursement of $15bn – the relevant ministers are set to appoint all the board members themselves. How can the minister assure the Australian people that this board will be truly independent of government?
Husic, with a rare non-dixer question to answer says:
I just want to thank the member for Mackellar. I appreciate not only the question but for the entire crossbench, if I may say, the constructive way in which you have worked with us on this.
We think this is a moment for nation building. The National Reconstruction fund is a significant investment in capability and we want people to feel like they’ve got a part to play in setting this up for the longer term because it will be important for the economy and for communities well into the future so it is important to be able to take those.
We’re not going agree on everything, obviously, but people expect the parliament will work collaboratively which is exactly what is happening from there.
Not from here (the opposition) but certainly from there.
If I may say to the member for Mackellar, there are two big motivations in terms of setting the fund up. One was obviously to attend to those supply chain issues and to learn the lessons from the pandemic –not to say we have picked those lessons up and then do nothing afterwards rather rebuild capability in those priority areas.
The second thing, member for Mackellar, that we wanted to ensure that what we saw in the last term of parliament, huge amounts of money be allocated not in the national interest but in political interest [didn’t happen]
You saw the grants, you saw the rorts, we were all shocked by that and we wanted to do better stop so this is why we announced and particularly the prime minister, when this was announced in March last year, emphasise the independence of the board.
That these decisions would be made in a way that would be independent of political decision-making and that you would have people of capability making it.
And if I could go to the heart of your question, we want to make sure that all the investment decisions will be solely made by the board and in terms of the composition that you referred to, the legislation has listed skills that we think the two responsible ministers- myself and the Minister for Finance, have to have regard to in making the appointments. Experience in things like banking and finance, venture capital. Private equity. Economics industry policy, have that industrial background that is really important.
And just like the successful CSC opposed by those opposite, we want to make sure that the NRF operates along those lines where decisions made in the national interest, not a colour-coded spreadsheet inside. Not the way they made them.
We want to make sure that these decisions get made in the national interest for the longer term benefit of the country, rebuilding manufacturing, creating jobs.
Unlike those opposite, no to jobs, no to manufacturing, no to regional opportunity.
Updated
The Liberal MP for Hughes, Jenny Ware, has a question:
When the government passed its energy market intervention it promised direct relief to the energy bills of millions of Australians. Three months later, nothing has been delivered and last Friday, the New South Wales government said it is yet to receive the support it was promised from the Albanese government…
There is so much noise, Milton Dick has to ask for silence before she finishes and the last line is…
Prime minister, why do Australian families always pay more under Labor?
Anthony Albanese:
I thank the member for Hughes for her question. It goes to two issues. One issue is the attitude of the New South Wales government towards our planet past the parliament in December and the second is what about relief?
The member for Hughes was amongst those who voted against the $1.5m, voted against it. Never, ever to be received.
And when it comes to the New South Wales government, the New South Wales treasurer and energy minister said this – we are not on the side of energy bosses, we are on the side of consumers and businesses.
Who was he talking about was on the side of energy bosses? Those opposite who voted against the plan, voted against price caps and already had an impact on prices as was identified last week.
Updated
Stephen Bates, who is still haunting the pro-tie brigade of parliament by proudly freeing his collar, has a question for the treasurer:
People in my electorate of Brisbane are struggling to see a doctor as the number of bulk-billing GPs in my community plummets. Treasurer, will you scrap the $250bn stage-three tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the wealthy, including politicians and pretty much everyone in this room, and assist people with real cost-of-living relief such boosting GP bulk-billing payments and bringing dental into Medicare?
Jim Chalmers:
As the member knows, the government’s position on stage-three tax cuts hasn’t changed. But what we will do is we will pick up and run with the two other suggestions central to his question.
I want to commend the minister for health for the work that he is doing in our cabinet and in our government to do whatever we can to strengthen Medicare.
We understand that primary healthcare is in the worst nick that it’s been in since Medicare came in 40 years ago.
And so a lot of the government’s efforts, a lot of the government’s time, a lot of the government’s resources is working under the leadership of the minister for health to strengthen Medicare and strengthen healthcare in this country. And as we have said before, we have already set aside substantial funds for that task, and if there’s more that we can responsibly do in in area, obviously we will consider doing it.
And when it comes to the rest of the member’s question about cost-of-living relief, you know, we understand that Australians, whether it be in Brisbane in your part of the world, or right around the country, people are under pressure.
And that’s why a central part of our three-point plan to address inflation is relief, cost-of-living relief for people doing it tough, whether it be their energy bills, whether it be their medicines, whether it be early childhood education, whether it be fee-free Tafe, whether it gets wages moving again - these are all essential parts of the government’s work to try and put downward pressure on inflation because people are faring, it’s very difficult for people in the economy right now when we’ve got these cost-of-living pressures coming at us from around the world but felt around the kitchen table.
And so this government will work with anyone in this country and on the crossbench to deliver responsible cost-of-living relief as part of that three-point plan.
Relief from cost-of-living pressures, repair our supply chains, and show restraint in the budget so that we can deliver some of these priorities in the most responsible way.
In case you missed it, Murph’s podcast with the prime minister also addresses this question on stage-three tax cuts. It is towards the end – and it doesn’t give a lot of hope for people holding out for a change on this.
Updated
David Littleproud has to ask this question twice because there are so many interjections as he gets about into the second half of it:
I refer to Labor’s first round of the Mobile Phone Black Spots Program, opened this month in 54 target locations. Why is it that 74% of these target locations are in Labor Party-held electorates? How is this fair and accountable for bushfire-prone communities across regional Australia, desperate for better mobile coverage?
Anthony Albanese:
Well, I will ask that the minister for communications to add to the answer, but I should give credit where credit is due to the minister for energy, who suggested I should give you both Barilaros on that question (there is much laugher and Milton Dick calls them to order)
Because, frankly, frankly, to the leader of the National Party, to come in here and ask a question about pork-barrelling…
…When the fund that was half funded by the federal government and half-funded by the New South Wales government, when the leader of the National party in New South Wales sat down and changed the rules and changed the guidelines, so that the bushfire-affected communities in the electorate of Macquarie got money taken away from them, and they looked at the colour-coded map to exclude [Labor electorates]…
What a disgrace from the National Party.
The party of sports rorts. The party of community [pool] rorts. The party…
I walk Toto sometimes... (Toto is his dog)
At this point, Paul Fletcher has a point of order on relevance and Dick tells Albanese to get on with it:
Albanese:
But the extraordinary gall of the leader of the National Party to ask this question, I mean, you know, I sometimes …
When you go for a walk near the Sydney Harbour Bridge, past North Sydney Pool, you pass a project that was funded under the regional scheme because some people from the country might swim in it sometimes!
You have got to be kidding.
The rounds, of course, that we did are about election commitments that were made.
That were made and now they’re open. That’s what occurs. That’s what occurs. That is why it’s happened in this way. But for the leader of the National Party, who I know is embarrassed by the performance of the New South Wales Nats, to ask this question is just extraordinary.
(There is no time left for Michelle Rowland to answer)
Updated
Paul Fletcher did have a point of order on relevance on that last dixer that Bowen took though:
I will concede it was a tightly drafted question. How is this program helping Australia’s status as a renewable energy superpower? How has it been received? How has it built on existing achievements? Absolutely nothing about, “Would the minister please give his usual incoherent spray...?”
So things are going really, really well.
Chris Bowen joins in on the national reconstruction fund dixer-palooza, and you have to wonder – who is any of this aimed at?
The opposition aren’t going to change their mind based on a dixer blow out, and it is not as though Australians watch question time as a general rule. In terms of social media posts, it is not exactly engaging content.
But we continue.
Updated
Angus Taylor has another question for Anthony Albanese, which brings the by now, rote groans, because it’s not a question for Jim Chalmers (Taylor doesn’t ask Chalmers questions is the ‘joke’).
Taylor:
In May last year, in response to a single rate rise, the prime minister said Australians were facing a full-blown cost of living crisis. Given that the RBA has lifted rates eight times since May, will the prime minister now accept responsibility for a cost of living crisis on his watch? Why do Australian families always pay more under Labor?
Albanese:
I agree with the bloke who said it is clear the world has changed dramatically, even in the past few months was to we have seen a rapid shift to an inflationary environment. He said that in September.
I agree with my predecessor who said there is not a lot we can do about things that are happening overseas that are impacting on our economy.
And his leader currently said nobody wants to see interest rates go up but it is a reality of a world where there is inflation. I think Australians understand that. There is a lot of pressure, upward pressure, on interest rates at the moment.
That happened when interest rates started to go up, which was on their watch.
Updated
There is another dixer on the topic of the day (for Labor at least) the national reconstructive fund.
Richard Marles takes this one, which includes this ‘burn’ on the opposition:
This is another example of the yawning gap between their announcement and their delivery. Highly productive when it came to fanfare, completely hopeless when it came to outcome.
All about the half-time entertainment, never about the game.
The AUDACITY! On the day Rihanna’s return to the stage was interrupted by a football game no less.
Updated
Sussan Ley to Anthony Albanese:
The IMF has expressly warned against Labor’s $45bn in off budget spending because it will lead to higher inflation, which of course pushes interest rates up.
Given the typical Australian mortgage has already increased by $1,400 a month under Labor, why is the prime minister ignoring the experts and implementing policies that will push these costs up even higher? Why do Australian families always pay more under Labor?
Anthony Albanese:
I thank the deputy leader for her question that goes to why is it that the Labor government is fulfilling the mandate that we received last May to establish a series of funds to make a difference to our country?
Now, the national reconstruction fund and what it will do to benefit the economy – if you have a product that I spoke about before, lithium, you can put it on a ship, export it off, wait for it to be made into a product, of a battery, or everything that goes into a solar panel is also of course produced here. We can import it back and take solar panels is a good example.
Currently, over 85% of the world’s solar panels are produced in one country. If things continue to project, that figure will rise to over 95% in a decade.
Now, if you think about the role that renewables plays and how vulnerable that makes the world to supply chains, it makes absolute economic sense for us to, where possible, make products like that here.
It is a matter not just of creating jobs here, it is a matter not just of creating a higher economic growth here, it is also a matter of our national security and our resilience, our capacity to stand up for ourselves, and that’s why we support the national reconstruction fund with $15bn in it.
We also have legislation before the house one hour housing Australia Future Fund. Both of those policies announced in budget reply speech is at a time where opposition leaders used to come up with policy.
Both of those announced, both of those taken to an election, and both of those that we got a mandate for. Now, that will produce and increase supply of housing. Now, when you build housing, you create jobs...
Ley tries to raise a point of order on relevance, and Milton Dick tells Albanese to get on with the answer.
Albanese:
The housing Australia Future Fund will not only produce increased social housing. And 4,000 of those homes is reserved for women and children escaping domestic violence. A good social policy.
Because last night and tonight and the next night, women and children searching a safe haven from a circumstance not of their arising will be forced to sleep in their car or in a park, or worse still, return to a dangerous situation.
That is why we identified this as a major issue. This is about building a national economic resilience. This should be policies that those opposite support.
We have a clear mandate for them, and we clearly will continue to support them.
Updated
So many dixers that could be press releases.
They were bad when the Coalition did them and they are bad now.
While still a backbencher, the now Speaker Milton Dick headed an inquiry into how to make QT better, which included ditching dixers for something that would be a better way for all of us to spend our time – particularly for communities who would maybe like to have some questions answered – something akin to what the UK parliament does during QT.
Alas, we have not seen any regime changes.
Updated
Allegra Spender has the first of the crossbench question:
Today, 19,000 refugees received the wonderful news that they would be granted permanent protection in Australia. However, a further 12,000 were not covered by this announcement. Some instead were covered by a failed FastTrack program. These people have lived here for a decade and I contributing to our society and they are some of the most vulnerable in our community including women for Afghanistan and Iran. What is their pathway to permanent protection?
Andrew Giles gets the call up:
I thank her for her question and her interest which she has consistently demonstrated since coming to this place on these issues of people seeking asylum and, frankly, how we can be a nation that shows our better side for the world and, indeed, in this place shows a way in which we can work through difficult policy questions in a manner that is worthy of the Australian people.
I do want to make a couple of points in response to her question, however.
Firstly is that the prime minister has made clear that what we announced today is a statement that gives effect to a long-standing commitment, a commitment for which the Albanese Labor government has a clear mandate from the Australian people; to recognise that this group of people and as members opposite will know, this is a group of people who arrived long before, before I should say, operation sovereign borders.
Perhaps they should reflect that in some of their commentary if they are to act responsibly in our national interest, in our shared interest in ensuring that our border remains secure.
I say that to members opposite.
But what our announcement does is it contemplates the circumstances of all people in this cohort. It does that and I will brief you on the details later in the day.
Let me say this; we contemplate the circumstances of all these people including a large number, 10 years on, who are yet to have a primary decision, in a manner that is consistent with due process that fundamentally comes back to this we believe that it is people who are ultimately found to have been owed protection who should be able to access this pathway.
Updated
Peter Garrett is in the gallery.
The speaker Milton Dick gives him a shout out.
Karen Andrews has the next opposition question and she is INCENSED.
INCENSED I tell you!
I refer to the fact that this prime minister has spent decades as an activist seeking to change Labor policy on border protection including campaigning against return backs, offshore processing and temporary protection visas. Can the prime minister guarantee that he has not received any advice that the government’s watering down of operation sovereign borders is likely to result in more people smuggling arrival?
(I mean, young Albanese would probably have quite a few things to say to current Albanese and not all of them favourable given his shift from hard left to the centre, but then again, Matt Canavan says he was a Marxist during uni, so you know)
Anthony Albanese:
I can guarantee that we will implement the precise policy which we took to the election. The precise policy which, which is the policy that I support because I am the leader and we took it to the election and I have not seen a need to swear myself into other portfolios.
Because, because when you lead your party to an election and when as we did last May, implement the policies that you put in place and you do not, you do not run around and undermine your ministers like your leader did to you when you were the Minister.
I can also guarantee that we will not be sending out shonky text messages on the date of the next election.
Updated
Jim Chalmers says some things that could have been a media release.
Moving on.
Question time begins
We are straight into it.
And first up Peter Dutton has a question for the PM:
Has the ... government received any warning from agencies officials or foreign governments this decision could lead to a increase in people smuggling arrivals?
Anthony Albanese:
This Government will continue to be tough on borders without being weak on humanity.
(There are quite a few interjections at this, but Albanese continues, going through how it was a Labor election promise)
He then says:
This only applies to people from 2013 or before. So what we have in terms of those people is that during the nine years in which they were in office, the nine years, not one of those people was sent back. Not one, to Afghanistan or Iran – if they are arguing that they should send back and if it had only they had a fourth term they would have acted and sent them back and they should stand up and argue that that is the case.
Dutton has a point of order – on relevance. Has there been any warnings?
Albanese doesn’t answer that part of the question:
We were clear before the election that we would do exactly what we told the Australian people we would do for the election and we have a mandate for it.
Updated
Disability royal commission received 9,000 complaints, hearing told
The disability royal commission has received more than 9,000 accounts of violence, abuse, neglect or exploitation, a hearing has been told.
Kate Eastman SC, counsel assisting the royal commission, told the inquiry on Monday it had received 9,094 accounts through submissions and private sessions as at 3 January 2023.
She said 1,198 – or 13% – related to service providers or support workers and that, of those alleged incidents, 53% were instances of violence or abuse.
The figures come after the NDIS watchdog’s first own motion investigation looked at about 7,000 “reportable incidents and complaints concerning supports to people with disability” among people living in group homes run by some of the largest providers in the country. Those complaints were received between 1 July 2018 until 30 September 2022.
The royal commission is holding one of its final hearings this week in Brisbane, exploring the role of NDIS providers, including whether organisations that have faced scrutiny during the inquiry have taken steps to improve their services.
The commission held its first hearing in September 2019.
Updated
Pezzullo apologises to government for 'regrettable, significant' Nauru lapse
The home affairs department secretary, Michael Pezzullo, has issued an apology to the government over the failure to renew the instrument designating Nauru as a regional processing country.
Pezzullo said the lapse was “regrettable, significant” and “should not have occurred”. Pezzullo said there were “several” warnings within or to the department from January 2021 onwards that the instrument was due to lapse.
Labor’s Murray Watt, representing the home affairs minister, helpfully noted that these were prior to the election of the Albanese government.
Pezzullo assures Greens senator Nick McKim there were “sufficient alternative legal authorities” to keep people on Nauru, or send them there if needed. McKim asks: which sections of the Migration Act.
Pezzullo refuses to say, because the government got AGS advice, and even nominating the sections of the Act could indirectly disclose that advice. Pezzullo takes it on notice, pending a public interest immunity claim from the minister.
Here is how Peter Dutton opened his speech during the Closing the Gap motion:
Mr Speaker, nations have complex histories.
Histories defined by achievements.
Histories marked by blemishes.
And our country is no exception.
A mature nation, though, doesn’t cherry-pick from its past; it doesn’t rewrite, or cancel parts of our history out.
Rather, a mature nation is one which speaks truthfully – and in totality – about its history.
One which embraces both the light and dark chapters of its national narrative.
Australians have every right to be proud of so much that was accomplished by our forebears.
For they helped build the modern nation in which we are so lucky to live today.
But we also acknowledge that our forebears committed serious wrongs.
The wrongs committed against the stolen generations were acknowledged by prime minister Rudd when he delivered the national apology in this place in 2008.
He offered that heartfelt apology, without qualification, on behalf of the government and the Parliament of Australia for the actions of successive governments under successive parliaments.
For the laws and policies between 1910 and 1970 which saw thousands of children forcibly taken from their families, and for the hurt, the humiliation, the pain, the grief, the suffering, the loss and indignity inflicted upon the stolen generations, their families left behind, and their descendants.
The national apology was a profound moment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who had been affected.
For Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians alike. And for our nation.
Mr Speaker, 15 years have passed since the apology.
This is an occasion for delicate reflection.
The national apology was about Australians acknowledging the sins of the past – ‘the cold, confronting, uncomfortable truth’, as prime minister Rudd put it.
And in that acknowledgement, accepting the flaws and failings inherent in our historical character with the maturity of a modern nation.
Updated
Question time is just over 30 minutes away – so make sure you grab yourself a little treat now.
Department was aware Nauru would lapse in January 2021: Pezzullo
The home affairs secretary, Michael Pezzullo, has come back into Senate estimates with new facts about the designation of Nauru as a regional processing country.
Pezzullo said that the Nauru instrument sunsetting was first mentioned in a list in January 2021 of regulations that would lapse, but the department “failed to monitor and track” it. That’s significant – because the Coalition was still in office and would be for another 16 months.
The 1 October 2022 date came and went meaning Nauru lapsed, but the department didn’t notice until 15 December and provided preliminary advice about the problem late that evening.
Pezzullo exculpated Albanese government ministers, by noting prior to then the home affairs minister, Clare O’Neil, asked on “at least seven occasions” that all administrative arrangements to support operation sovereign borders was in place, and that the immigration minister, Andrew Giles, had also asked for advice about sunsetting instruments.
Pezzullo advised that the repeal of the instrument had “no impact” on operations, and “appropriate powers remained available”.
Updated
Our Victorian colleague Benita Kolovos has pointed out this tweet – Alan Tudge doesn’t vacate the parliament until the end of this week, but the preselection jostle is WELL underway.
I'm putting my hand up for Aston 🙋🏻♀️ pic.twitter.com/CuXYg3rT0n
— Cathrine Burnett-Wake (@CatMBW) February 13, 2023
Right-wing terror threat ‘has moderated’
Earlier, Asio chief Mike Burgess was also asked by the Greens senator David Shoebridge about the small number of right-wing extremist groups listed as terrorist groups in Australia, and whether this is disproportionate to the threat. Burgess said where Asio put its resources was not driven by who was on the list and who was not. And he said some groups were “very clever” and were very careful to do things to avoid getting formally listed:
I can assure you where we know about them we prosecute them to the fullest extent of our capabilities and law.
Burgess said the threshold for formal listings was set in law, and it was a matter for parliamentarians if they wanted to amend that.
Burgess pushed back at the idea that Asio may be playing down the threat of right-wing extremism – and he gave an update on the current share of the priority domestic counter-terrorism caseload:
My organisation will focus on those who have ideology that believe violence is the answer. It was my agency, and me in my first threat assessment, which was now four years ago, where I actually raised the fact that Asio had seen a rise in nationalist and racist violent extremism. So it was my agency that called this out…
We have seen a rise in the number of cases. It did get to 50:50 with our religiously motivated violent extremism cohorts but actually has since moderated. So we’re in the territory of 70:30 - 70 religiously motivated, 30% ideologically motivated, and most of that [latter category] is nationalist and racist violent extremism. So we will - my agency will - go where the threat is. Like you’re suggesting, I’m concerned by the rise in these forms of ideologies and why they have risen.
Updated
Asio says ‘productive year’ rooting out espionage ‘problems’
The head of Asio, Mike Burgess, told a Senate estimates hearing this morning that his agency had “a very productive year last year removing espionage and foreign interference problems from this country”.
But he said he would not talk about that in detail in public.
Burgess made the comment during a series of questions from One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts about reports that China had previously set up a secretive “contact point” in Sydney. (These claims were first raised publicly last year.)
Burgess said he was “not aware of that” and “you’re assuming it’s true”. He said he relied on his agency’s own data rather than media reporting.
Burgess also told the hearing the threat of espionage and foreign interference was real:
It comes from a range of countries - and I think it’s unhelpful for me to call out specific countries.
Burgess also made clear that members of a range of diaspora communities in Australia “are not the problem”. He said foreign governments and foreign intelligence services were “the focus of myself and my agency”.
King Charles $5 note controversy resurfaces in Senate estimates
Back in the finance estimates hearing, we’re back on the controversy about King Charles not being featured on the new $5 bank note. Paul Singer, the Governor General’s official secretary, said David Hurley’s office found out about it when the Reserve Bank issued a press release publicly on 2 February.
Singer said:
There was no consultation with my office.
The first I became aware of the decision was the media release from the Reserve Bank.
Singer said he wrote to his counterpart in Buckingham Palace that day, saying he wanted to forewarn the monarchy.
He declined to detail the Governor General’s reaction, but said that Hurley “probably shared my surprise” that they only learned by press release.
Liberal senator Dean Smith asked Singer whether he would describe this episode as “a gross lack of courtesy”.
Singer said any such comments should be left to others.
Updated
Now let’s see what else happened during that hour.
Updated
I will bring you some more from these speeches a little later today – and our video team is working at creating some clips, in Mike Bowers’ absence, to take you into the chamber.
Updated
Opposition reiterates support for royal commission into abuse of Indigenous children
The shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, Julian Leeser, has also reiterated his support for a royal commission into the abuse of Indigenous children in his speech to the parliament:
Despite the progress in other areas, some of which are reported in today’s interim Closing the Gap report, this is an Australian failure. It’s a shared Australian failure.
In all too many places, alcohol is filling the most unspeakable crimes against women and children and this cannot be allowed to continue.
That’s why I support the leader of the Opposition’s call for a royal commission into the abuse of Indigenous children.
In many cases, these are the grandchildren and great grandchildren of the Stolen Generations.
The member for Maribyrnong was right to call for a royal commission into aged care, a royal commission that Prime Minister Morrison agreed to.
The prime minister when opposition leader was right to call into a royal commission for suicide.
Prime minister Morrison agreed to it.
The leader of the Opposition is right to call for a royal commission into the abuse of Indigenous children and the prime minister should agree to it as well.
Royal commissions are never comfortable, I understand that, but frankly there are a whole lot better and facing regional failure after regional failure and simply continuing with more of the same.
The prime minister and minister have spoken passionately about the voice.
I share that passion.
But it’s in our national interest to heed the voices of Indigenous Australians that are speaking now.
We must pay attention to the Voices that do not already have a platform in Australian public life and we must heed the calls of children who simple yearning is for a normal life.
The sort of life we’d hope for any of our own children.
If we’re to break the cycle we cannot afford to ignore these voices any longer.
Updated
Linda Burney finishes with:
This is about getting things done and importantly, for people to hold us to account.
Governments are better when they listen and when they are held to account.
Holding governments to account was not done in the era of the stolen generations.
One wonders if there had been a voice at the time.
Nor was anyone listening.
Today in 2023, a new generation has the chance to do things differently, to create a better future.
It is up to a new generation of Australians to help close the gap. We are a great country and we can be even greater if we get the next steps right.
By making a lasting different through practical action, one that gives Aboriginal and Torres Strait Australians a voice.
Let us seize this moment and take Australia forward for everyone.
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Linda Burney has highlighted some of the issues the new funding – just over $400m – will address.
This includes providing safe drinking water. In 2023, there are communities in Australia where there is no safe water supply.
Burney:
I want to focus on the first announcement the prime minister has made, $150m over four years to support First Nations water infrastructure and provide safe and reliable water for remote and regional communities.
It is a disgrace that in 2023 in Australia there are first Nations communities that do not have reliable access to safe drinking water. An absolute disgrace.
It is almost impossible for some people to imagine what it is like to live your whole life in a place where the water is not safe, where dialysis machines cannot work because of the water is not clean enough, and we all know of the enormous problem of renal failure in our communities.
And I want to thank the minister for the environment and water for her commitment on this.
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Anthony Albanese also became very emotional while speaking about senator Pat Dodson’s experience as a child, hiding in the grass from authorities, as they came to take children away:
When I think of the 1967 referendum and the apology, two great steps forward that we have taken together as a nation, I look to friends and colleagues who embody those moments.
I look to my dear friend, minister Burney, who was a young child when it was decided her people were worth counting as Australians. A vote where Australians were offered a choice to right a wrong and they seized it.
And I look to senator Patrick Dodson ... as a boy in Katherine, he hid in the long grass when the welfare officers and the police came to take his mates away. Think about that!
What a terrifying moment for a child.
What a formative moment in a life.
He’s seen some of our nation’s story play out before his eyes and yet senator Dodson looks back over our modern history and reminds me that amid the wrongs, there was also such kindness.
And that is the spirit of generosity that he brings to his task as a special envoy for reconciliation and implementation of the Uluru statement.
A very big-hearted Australian spirit.
In 1967, 90% of Australians voted to remove a harmful, discriminatory relic.
In 2023, our generation can go one better. Instead of removing a provision that no longer speaks for who we are, we can make a positive change that speaks for the future that we seek to build together.
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Linda Burney:
One harrowing story was from Paul. Paul’s mother was tricked into putting him into a home while she recovered from a serious illness. He was made a ward of the state and his mother’s consent was never sought.
His adopted family rejected him after seven months and Paul was placed in an orphanage and later with an abusive foster family.
In his submission, Paul said, ‘my mother never gave up trying to locate me. She wrote many letters to the state authorities, pleading with them to give her son back. Birthday and Christmas card were sent care of the welfare department.
All of these letters were shelved. The welfare department treated my mother with utter contempt, as if she never existed’.
The apology delivered by prime minister Rudd was at its core, about healing, healing deep wounds, closing a painful chapter of denial of our history and opening a new chapter of our collected story, a better chapter.
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I will bring you more from the speeches from Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton soon.
The minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, is now speaking.
‘One sweet day all the children came back, back to where the heart go strong, back to where they belong, the children came back, back where they understand, back to their mother’s land, the children came back’.
The late, great Archie Roach first performed took the children away more than 33 years ago.
Archie spoke of the truth that for many years was denied, denied by governments, and denied by parliaments.
Children were removed from their families because of the colour of their skin and it was government that did it. Most Australians did not know of this reality.
For decades, there was a stubborn silence, but many of those women have suffered a private pain of unbearable loss.
It was and is one of the darkest chapters in our history. In 1991, the royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody found that of the 99 deaths investigated, 43 were people who had been separated from their families.
By 1997, the Bringing them Home report which took evidence from hundreds of people from across the country made 54 recommendations.
The report found that one in 10 and one in three Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families between 1910 and 1970, in most of our lifetimes.
One of its key recommendations was for an apology to be given by governments. WA was the first state to issue an apology on the 27 May, 1997, closely followed by New South Wales in June of the same year and by 2001, all states and territories had issued apologies. The only holdout was the Australian government under then prime minister John Howard.
Recently I went back and looked at some of the account in the Bringing them Home report. So many tales of heartbreak, of lives changed forever.
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Peter Dutton explains why he boycotted the national apology
The opposition leader is addressing why he boycotted the national apology 15 years ago as part of his response to the Closing the Gap implementation report (a warning, this includes a reference to the death of an Indigenous woman)
I want to speak directly to those in the gallery today and further afield who are part of the stolen generation and those who are descendants or are connected to the issue and I want to say in an unscripted way – I apologise for my actions and as the prime minister is frequently able to point it out that I didn’t attend the chamber for the apology 15 years ago.
I have apologised for that in the past and I repeat that apology again today.
In 2008, I had been out of the Queensland police force for about nine years and I was still and probably truthfully to this day lived with those images of turning up to domestic violence incidents where Indigenous women and children had suffered physical abuse, certainly mental abuse, I remember clearly attending Palm Island where I brought back the body of an Indigenous woman in a body bag who had been thrust off a cliff to her death and I remember thinking at the time that those incidents were still occurring on a daily basis in 2008.
And the judgement that I formed was that if we were to make an apology, it needed to be at a time when we had addressed and we had curbed that violence and those incidents.
I failed to grasp at the time the symbolic significance to the stolen generation of the apology. It was right for prime minister Rudd to make the apology in 2008.
It’s right that we recognise the anniversary today, it’s right that the government continues its efforts and in whatever way possible, we support that bipartisan effort.
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Anthony Albanese finishes with a plea to support the voice:
This can be a moment of national unity. An extraordinary opportunity for every Australian to be counted and to be heard, to own this change and be proud of it and truly lead with the spirit of a fair-go.
We are a nation of goodwill and good heart. I believe there’s no challenge that is beyond us.
Many Aboriginal people across the country celebrate the rising of the Morning Star, it’s like ushering in a new phrase of life for the oncoming generation.
It is a transformative time of song and celebration - marking joy in the ongoing survival of their peoples.
The people of Australia through the invitation embodied in the Uluru statement have been asked to travel on this journey. We have a chance to add a bright new season to the calendar and a future that embraces all of us.
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The opposition side of the chamber isn’t as full as it could be for this Closing the Gap address.
There seems to be quite a few missing. Outside business can keep people away from the chamber, but where possible, for statements like this, people try to reschedule.
Anthony Albanese:
It is easy to say the apology did not fix everything. That is true, it did not. But what single thing can? What moment can? There is no step that can on its own get us to our destination but we keep taking steps and we keep walking.
One of the apology’s great achievements was to keep alive the faith and decency and the hope for reconciliation [from] the Uluru statement from the heart.
The apology can never be the end of a story but the close of the chapter and the beginning of a better one.
Not everyone supported the apology 15 years ago, though some have since expressed their regret.
There is a long way to go. Just how far is spelt out each year in the Closing the Gap report. As of next year, the report will be issued as it was intended in conjunction with the apology anniversary. When it was tabled a few months ago, the gaps not only persist but some are getting bigger. The report lays out forensically one lopsided statistic after another, in health, education, incarceration rates and especially damning, life expectancy.
These are not gaps, they are chasms. It is clear that not enough support has been directed towards organisations to deliver for communities.
It is clear that we have left too swiftly from a climate of federal intervention to simply telling communities, you are on your own. We have seen this in Alice Springs and in so many communities beyond.
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Closing the Gap statement returned to start of parliament year
The Albanese government has returned the Closing the Gap statement to the beginning of the parliament year (it had been moved by the previous government in recent years).
The announcement was made ahead of time ( you can catch up here if you haven’t seen it).
Here is part of Anthony Albanese’s speech:
On this day, 15 years ago, members of the stolen generations came to this parliament which for so long had cast its shadow is a pinnacle of a system that had failed them.
Historically, governments of all persuasions have failed Aboriginal and Torres Strait people, yet those members of the Stolen Generations came here, with such grace.
So much had been taken from them but their hearts had so much to give.
I say to them, your courage showed us that when we are brave enough to acknowledge failure we can find the strength to take the next step forward together.
The apology was the first act on the first parliamentary sitting day of the Rudd government.
It was certainly my proudest moment in this chamber and from prime minister Rudd we heard the words that reverberated across Australia, ‘I am sorry on behalf of our nation.’
Contrary to the doomsayers, it was a positive moment for the nation, a moment of unity, a moment on the road to healing and unburdening. And for everyone who had put themselves through the ordeal of reliving their childhood, and I thank those men and women who spoke to me this morning about their experience, this was confirmation that their voices had at last been heard.
Like prime minister Keating before him, prime minister Rudd understood that until a nation acknowledges the full truth of its history, it remains burdened by its weight.
In acknowledging the past, prime minister Rudd said we were, to quote him,” lay claim to a future that embraces all Australians”, all Australians.
Truth can be hard for those speaking it, for those listening but it is ultimately what lets us move forward as one.
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The national director at Democracy in Colour, Neha Madhok has responded to the TPV announcement – making the point, which has been made by some others, that the announcement does not cover everyone.
The government must ensure that wait times aren’t too long for people who have already had to wait years for an announcement like this.
What we find really problematic and concerning is that just last week, Labor decided to send 100 people back to offshore detention. This is at direct odds with the idea that they support people seeking safety and asylum. The federal government must have consistently humane policies affords people on temporary visas dignity and stability.
Democracy in Colour’s migration with dignity campaign is calling for greater pathways to permanency options for anyone seeking asylum, and more broadly, access to support and services for people who are living on temporary visas in Australia, and shorter and fairer processing times for everyone on a temporary visas.
The Migration with Dignity campaign is calling for:
An overhaul of the permanent residency points system to stop discriminating on the basis of race by default and create clearer pathways to permanent migration.
The ending of corporate ties to temporary migration sponsorship and stopping the privatisation of the visa system.
Allowing working migrants access to basic welfare services such as medicare.
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Nauru lapse caused by 'human and administrative error': Pezzullo
The home affairs department secretary, Michael Pezzullo, has begun giving evidence at Senate estimates.
Pezzullo said since 1 July there has been a 360,000 reduction in the visa waitlist that is now below 600,000.
Pezzullo said that the sunsetting of Nauru as a regional processing country was the result of “human and administrative error within the department”. It lapsed on 1 October, was redesignated by the minister on 5 February and approved by parliament on 7 February.
The Liberals want to ask about Nauru right away, arguing it is a cross-departmental matter. Pezzullo agrees and says he’ll get onto it immediately after lunch. So there’s a one hour break, then back into Nauru at 12.50pm.
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In case you didn’t see this yesterday, Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts wrote this piece about being removed from her home as a child:
Bridget McKenzie’s register of interests under spotlight
The finance and public administration committee has been going around the rules of politicians’ disclosures on their register of interests, with some controversy as Labor senator Jana Stewart put the scrutiny on the disclosures of Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie.
Stewart asked the Department of the Senate about the rules on disclosures, noting that McKenzie had declared “2 x Australian Open Tickets - 19 Jan 2022” two weeks ago. The Senate representatives noted senators had to declare gifts of a certain price threshold, within 35 days.
Stewart mused that declaring hospitality from 19 Jan 2022, in February 2023, was outside the 35 day window. While noting that McKenzie has declared a large number of gifts that fell well below the price threshold, including books, pins and chocolates - but also pointed out that not all the gifts included a note of where those gifts had come from.
Coalition senators on the committee raised complaints about Labor senators getting most of the time to ask questions, noting that estimates is traditionally a time where non-government senators get lots of time to scrutinise the government. The Senate representatives noted that the McKenzie example wasn’t the only time where senators had potentially failed to meet the disclosure rules.
Liberal senator Richard Colbeck then got the call, clarifying that the rules for MPs in the House of Representatives were very similar to those in the Senate. He also pointed out that sports minister Anika Wells, as of today, appeared to not have updated her register since visiting a cricket game in Hobart and the FIFA World Cup in Qatar in November.
The Senate representative said there were “cases across both houses where the strict terms of the resolutions may not have not been complied”.
Liberal senator James McGrath hit back at the Labor line of questioning, interjecting: “just check when PMO [the prime minister’s office] send you these things, to say ‘have we crossed out Ts and dotted our Is’?”
“Labor don’t have a clear record here.”
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NSW emergency official grilled over local economic recovery program
In Senate estimates, Labor’s Nita Green has been asking National Emergency Management Agency officials about the local economic recovery program, the subject of a damning NSW auditor general’s report that funds were diverted away from Labor seats.
Green asked the deputy co-ordinator general Rina Bruinsma about the fast-tracked projects stream. Bruinsma said that state and territory governments were responsible for identifying projects, the commonwealth then only checked if they met funding requirements.
The threshold was raised to $1m, which Green said was “quite important” for the audit’s finding of who got funding. Bruinsma said Nema only became aware of this after the fact.
Asked who made the decision, Bruinsma said her understanding is that project funding went through the NSW cabinet process, including their expenditure review committee. She said she “couldn’t definitively say it was a cabinet decision”.
She said:
But that wasn’t provided to us. Under the framework the commonwealth wasn’t necessarily privy to all the processes to identify projects ... In order for NSW to receive their share of the funding it had to go through NSW cabinet.
Green suggested it wasn’t just the NSW minister but also the NSW ERC who made the decision.
Bruinsma:
I can’t speak on behalf of the NSW government ... It was in that context, is all I’m saying.
After concerns were raised over the first round, the NSW government invited a commonwealth observer for subsequent rounds.
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Covid angst and volatility has reduced, Asio says
The Greens senator David Shoebridge asks about Asio’s past findings that specific issue-motivated violent extremism grew through Coivd-19 and its associated lockdowns – including sovereign citizen beliefs and anti-vaxxers. Shoebridge asks whether that landscape had changed in any way.
The Asio chief, Mike Burgess, tells the Senate estimates hearing:
In response to those people who were agitated by Covid measures and the introduction of more volatility to the mix of people who might be driven by their own grievances – and I stress I’m focusing on the small number of those that might think violence is the answer; for everyone else they’re entitled to be agitated about these things – the volatility has reduced somewhat, in particular around the Covid [measures], so there’s less angst these days. We’re not subject to mandates. Some of that feeling does live on but the number of cases we’re looking at, they’ve reduced significantly.
Whilst I said in my opening remarks that we have lowered the threat level, it is true there are less people in this country who want to conduct acts of violence in the name of their cause, there is still volatility in the mix with people who have a range of grievances around social, economic or some conspiracy theory-driven grievance, and a small percentage of them think violence is the answer. So it’s still very much in the mix but the number of caseloads that Asio is looking at has reduced.
Shoebridge asks:
Is there any link between those angry agitated – minority of those individuals – and what you describe in your annual report as the global growth in ideologically motivated violent extremism particularly nationalist or racially motivated extremists? Do you see a link between those two elements in society?
Burgess replies:
Not a direct link, no. Of course we saw a range of people across all walks of life who had problems with Covid and what was happening around them and to them, but no specific direct link in terms of: we did not see nationalist and racist violent extremists - or neo-Nazis - egging that on or running to that cause, other than of course they were using the dissatisfaction and angst as a potential recruitment mechanism. But are those ideologies linked? No they’re not.
As the Senate hearing continues, Shoebrige wants to know whether “opportunistic nasty violent rightwing ideologues may have used the anti-vax movement as a recruitment base”. Burgess says:
They were certainly using the angst as a means to promote their own cause and brand of course their recruitment.
Asked if they have had any success in that, Burgess replies:
It’s a great question, senator. It’s still very much a thing in our society, senator, sadly. They do manage to recruit some people. Would I say it’s been a bumper campaign for them? Probably not. But they continue to focus on how they will attract people to their cause.
Shoebridge persists. Did they they expand numbers through those efforts?
Burgess:
They were looking for recruitment. The overall number of cases that Asio is investigating though across the board has reduced. So whether or not they’ve been successful or not, I’m not sure I can answer that because we’re only one element and we’re not all seeing and all knowing.
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Voice referendum can offer ‘dignity, hope and the possibility of change, Kevin Rudd says
Kevin Rudd, speaking on the 15th anniversary of the national apology to the stolen generations, has also spoke about what it would mean for Australian on the international stage if the voice referendum was to fail:
I shudder to think what the reaction will be across the world were this referendum to fail. If we are seen to turn our back on a simple a request from those who have been the custodians of this ancient land the Dreamtime.
Constitutional recognition, the voice, and the outcome of this referendum will not have an impact on the lives of 25 million Australians, but it will offer dignity, hope and the possibility of change for the nearly 1 million Australians who belong to our First Nations.
Given this is the 15th anniversary of the national apology, it is also worth pointing out that one of the targets going backwards in the Closing the Gap measures, is child removal. Indigenous children are being removed from their families at higher rates than ever before.
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The international visitors keep on coming:
Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden and Prince Daniel take part in a smoking ceremony at the Museum of Australia. @SBSNews pic.twitter.com/1l38mhEfzu
— Pablo Viñales (@pablovinales) February 13, 2023
Balloons not the principal means for spying on Australia, Asio says
At the estimates committee hearing, Liberal senator Alex Antic asks the Asio boss about “the incursion of the CCP spy ballon over the United States”. Antic wants to know whether Asio is aware of any attempted incursions, threats of incursions or actual incursions over Australia.
Mike Burgess, the head of Asio, replies drily:
I don’t comment on operational matters. Of course I’m aware of the reporting around balloons and balloons allegedly being used for spying.
In my experience that is not the principal means by which people are spying on this country.
Antic asks about any other unknown devices such as UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena):
I’m not aware of any of those, no.
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[Continued from previous post]
But a dissenting report from the five Coalition members of the committee said they could not “in good conscience” support the changes. They consider it essential for the government to equally fund the ‘yes’ and’ ‘no’ campaigns, in the interests of informed debate.
Coalition MP James Stevens said:
Any kind of trickery or rigging the system and effectively trying to advantage one side of a debate over the other will only increase scepticism amongst the people of this country and will only contribute to the defeat of whatever proposition is put to them.
And it will be difficult to change the constitution anytime we try no matter what the proposition is, and why you would want to add and be saddled with the additional challenge of having made a legislative change that unwinds the precedent of supporting proper debate on changing our constitution in this nation is absolutely mystifying to those of us in the coalition.
We urge the government to dramatically reconsider the message it will send and the damage it would inflict on attempts to change the constitution by saying we don’t want to have a properly resourced argument for and against that change.
Independent MP Kate Chaney said she supported the “somewhat vague” recommendation that impartial information should be made available but had concerns about ‘racist misinformation’:
It’s essential that we do a better job of ensuring truth in political advertising. This is broader than the proposed voice referendum but concerns about racist misinformation in this context are real and sharpens the focus on truth in advertising because of the potential damage that could be done.
Chaney recommended an independent panel to fact check information disseminated in the referendum campaign.
Chaney said there should be greater transparency about campaign funding and recommended the immediate disclosure of any donation above $1,000.
For such an important referendum for the future of the country, truth and transparency are vital, and I urge the government to consider improvements to this end in the implementation of the legislation.”
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Government supported for funding neither side of voice referendum
A parliamentary inquiry into the government’s plans to amend the Referendum Machinery Act – which sets out the rules about the upcoming vote on an Indigenous voice to parliament – has tabled its report supporting the government’s changes.
The changes under consideration by the joint standing committee on electoral matters include declining to provide public funding for either the yes or no side and abolishing the printing of official pamphlets outlining the campaign arguments.
The Albanese government has since decided it will produce the pamphlets.
The committee welcomed those plans. Its report said voters need to have access to “clear, factual and impartial” information. It was broadly in favour of government’s decision not to fund either the yes or no campaigns.
Labor chair of the committee, Kate Thwaites said:
The committee recommends the government considers how best to can ensure all Australians are provided clear, factual, and impartial information as part of the referendum ... The government has announced that part of providing this information will be a yes no pamphlet, and that this will be coupled with broader efforts at providing the information Australians will need to feel assured they have been informed before they go to the polls. With these considerations and recommended recommendations in mind. That committee supports the passage of the bill.
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Electronics spending wanes
After a prolonged splurge on electronics and gadgets, Australians are starting to temper their spending.
Electronics and whitegoods retailer JB Hi-Fi has reported moderating sales growth in January, and flagged an “uncertain period” ahead after years of pandemic-fuelled purchases, according to its half year results released on Monday.
The retailer, which also owns consumer electronics chain The Good Guys, became the darling stock of the pandemic after locked-down customers rushed to buy electronics, gadgets and entertainment systems. Many Australians also had spare money for whitegoods after travel plans were cancelled.
The company’s net profit for the six-month period to December was up 14.6% to $329.9m, compared to the same period in 2021. JB Hi-Fi also raised its dividend.
Total sales at JB Hi-Fi’s Australian electronics and whitegoods stores were running about one-third higher than before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to its financial results.
But sales growth slowed in January in what could be the start of a spending pullback prompted by a series of rises in the official cash rate, pressuring mortgage holders.
The Reserve Bank of Australia has warned that “strong domestic demand” has been stoking inflationary pressures, with further increases in interest rates likely needed over the months ahead to quash those pressures.
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Espionage has supplanted terrorism, Asio chief says
The head of intelligence agency Asio is up at Senate estimates now. The director general, Mike Burgess, used his opening statement to say the current security environment is “complex, challenging and changing”.
He reiterates Asio’s position, expressed several times that espionage and foreign interference has “supplanted terrorism as our principal security concern”.
Australia is the target of sophisticated and persistent espionage and foreign interference activities from a range of hostile foreign intelligence services. These activities are an attack on our way of life.
Burgess reminds the committee that he decided late last year to lower Australia’s terrorism threat level from probable to possible. But he adds a cautionary note:
Possible does not mean negligible, however ... Threats to life will always be a priority for Asio.
Burgess says Asio will seek to stay ahead of those threats.
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Teal MPs to hold press conference shortly
The crossbench is pretty happy with Labor fulfilling its election promise to provide a pathway to permanency for temporary protection and safe haven enterprise visa holders (the refugees who arrived before operation sovereign borders in 2014)
Independent MPs Kylea Tink, Allegra Spender, Monique Ryan, Kate Chaney and Zoe Daniel will be holding a press conference on it very soon.
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Referendum Amendment Bill should be passed with amendments, committee says
This report has just dropped:
The parliament’s Electoral Matters Committee has recommended that the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Amendment Bill 2022 be passed, if amendments are made to strengthen enfranchisement and participation in the referendum, particularly of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, and clear, factual and impartial information is made accessible to all voters.
Tabling the report today the committee chair, Kate Thwaites MP, said the inquiry and the legislation were focused on technical aspects of conducting a referendum.
‘Above all, the legislation intends to modernise the referendum process and bring it into line with how recent federal elections have been conducted,’ Thwaites said.
The committee recommended that the legislation be passed, but also that:
The government consider any amendments to support increased enrolment and participation in the referendum, particularly of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, including in remote communities
The government consider any amendments that ensure clear, factual and impartial information is made accessible to all voters as part of the referendum process; and
Clear, factual and impartial information is provided in appropriate formats for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voters, and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds
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And in case you missed it:
Government should pay for NDIS carers’ annual and sick leave, union says
The Australian Services Union wants the government to pay for annual leave and sick leave for all NDIS casuals and contractors. Is that something Bill Shorten is considering?
Shorten told the ABC:
I think there’s a legitimate general issue in terms of how we remunerate people who work in the care economy, in the disability sector. For example, in terms of the specifics, we don’t have any specific arrangement that we have in mind. We were able to last July, almost straight after the election, pass on the awarding process which did see several percent of improvement in workers’ wages. The Services Union and other unions in the disability sector are saying to me, Bill, if we want the best possible workforce, we need to make sure we factor in their ability to get trained by their employers.
We need to factor in also that in this sector, a lot of disability carers won’t work for one employer their whole 15 years. The long service leave is a sort of 1970s, 1980s, 1960s proposition that you have a job to live for one employer and the care economy you move between employers, you might be a contractor you might be on one of the internet platforms.
That means that long service leaves just becomes impossible to get. So they’re saying these are important issues which go to a worker’s remuneration so we’re going to have the discussion with them, with employers, with people with disability we don’t have a specific plan specific time I’m but I think it’s wrong of the government of the day and indeed, the broader community just to think that these disability carers who really do very tough work, important work, therapeutic work, when they shouldn’t be subsidising our nation’s desire to care for some of the most vulnerable people. We should be talking about what works.
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Unlimited carbon offsets ‘cheap tickets to keep polluting’, conservationist says
The Australian Conservation Foundation’s Gavan McFadzean is pretty happy the independent senator David Pocock raised concerns about unlimited carbon offsets when it comes to the safeguard’s mechanism on ABC radio this morning.
McFadzean said the work Labor has done to restore Australia’s international reputation on climate could be “unraveled” by the inclusion of unlimited offsets:
For wealthy coal and gas companies, unlimited offsets are like cheap tickets to keep polluting business as usual.
We urge the government to revise its design so the scheme can actually become an effective tool to cut emissions from Australia’s major polluters – we can’t offset our way to net zero.
Offsets should only be used as an absolute last resort, should not be available for coal and gas companies, should only be accessed once a company can prove it is genuinely making efforts to reduce carbon, and should phase down as a share of the Safeguard Mechanism over time. Plus Australia’s carbon offsets industry needs greater scrutiny and regulation.
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How safe are MPs’ phones from hackers, senator asks in estimates
Good morning. I’ve been keeping an ear on the finance committee of Senate estimates for the last 30 minutes or so.
The Liberal senator James McGrath has just asked officials in the Department of Parliamentary Services whether or not the mobile devices allocated to MPs are safe. He means safe from hacking.
The official at the table says there are “constant” attempts to breach parliament house networks and “make targeted attacks against us”. McGrath wants a number. How many such attacks in recent months?
The official declines to say in “an open forum” but says he’ll take the question on notice.
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Flood-hit Lismore awaits buybacks
It’s been almost a year since Lismore and surrounding regions were hit by devastating floods. AAP reports that residents are still waiting for information on the buyback programs:
Almost a year on from the deadly Lismore floods, the community is still waiting for a single at-risk home to be acquired through a government repair package.
Record-breaking flooding devastated the NSW northern rivers in February and March last year, killing five people and destroying 4,000 homes.
The unprecedented devastation led to a $520m commitment from the state and federal governments to buy homes and land from people living in the most flood-prone parts of the region.
The northern rivers resilient homes fund, with a total budget of $800m, also promised flood victims the opportunity to retrofit, repair, or raise their homes to prevent future flood impact.
Close to four months on from the government announcement, locals continue to wait for land buybacks or other remediation packages to be handed out.
When asked how many home and land buybacks, retrofitting and home raising packages had been offered, a spokesperson for the Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation told AAP it expected to send offers for buybacks “in early 2023”.
The assessments of more than 6,000 registrations were in the “early phase”, she said.
It is anticipated several home owner assessments, valuations and letters of offer for voluntary buy backs under the Resilient Homes Program will be completed in early-2023, with progress updates to be provided to community.
The corporation’s customer outreach and case management pilot launched in December and voluntary buybacks in the areas most at risk of renewed flooding were being prioritised. The spokesperson said:
This early phase involves more than 130 home owners, with the program to ramp up across the region this month.
More than 6,500 people have registered for the suite of offers including buybacks, repair, retrofitting, home raising or knockdown and rebuilds.
A further 300 landowners have registered their interest in the $100m resilient land program, where the NSW government will relocate residents to new land, safe from flood impact.
Land assessments were under way, the spokesperson said, and a shortlist of landholdings was expected by March.
The corporation had held almost 50 meetings with the community and stakeholders over the past three month, she said.
Last month protesters rallied outside the corporation’s headquarters in Lismor, holding placards saying “We need answers” and “Living in Limbo – No Really Real Communication”.
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The House is about to sit at 10am.
The Senate is tied up with estimates business, so in terms of parliament movements, it is all about the House this week. But that doesn’t meant that Senate negotiations are not still going on – we just won’t see the result (if any) of those until parliament next sits in March.
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Inland Rail review reveals ‘significant concerns’
An independent review into the Inland Rail project has revealed “significant concerns” regarding governance and delivery of the multibillion-dollar rail line.
On Monday transport minister Catherine King and finance minister Katy Gallagher announced the review conducted by former Sydney Water chief executive Dr Kerry Schott to re-examine the planning, governance and delivery of Australian Rail Track Corporation’s project had been provided to the government.
In a statement, King and Gallagher said:
It reveals significant concerns about the governance and delivery of Inland Rail. The Government intends to release Dr Schott’s report and the Government’s response to its recommendations as soon as it has been fully considered.
The update was made in a press release announcing the appointment of Peter Duncan as the new chair of the ARTC board and Collette Burke as non-executive director of the board on three-year terms. Duncan, the current chair of WaterNSW, replaces Warren Truss, who stepped down as chair in November.
The Inland Rail project has garnered criticism since its construction began. Critics of the project, including the NSW Farmers Association, said they had been left feeling frustrated and “ignored” by the previous government’s failure to heed the views of regional communities.
Calls for an independent review into the project’s business case were rejected by the Morrison government on the grounds that a reassessment was “not an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars” despite the scheme’s major cost blowout.
A Senate report released in August called on the government to update the 2015 business case, which originally estimated the cost at $4.7bn. The project is now budgeted at $14.5bn, with costs estimated to exceed $20bn.
Read more about the Inland Rail review in this piece from Khaled Al Khawaldeh:
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Pocock calls safeguard mechanism ‘a massive, complicated beast’
Independent ACT senator David Pocock is a key vote for the government to get its safeguard mechanism though the Senate. Pocock told ABC radio RN Breakfast he was working through his issues carefully:
This is a massive, complicated beast, the safeguard mechanism. I’ve been having some really constructive discussions with the government. I’ll continue to do that in good faith.
But I’ve also been speaking to industry climate groups or the interested parties.
I’m running a roundtable next week, and then that the Senate inquiry process takes place after that.
So I’ll keep engaging and form a position. I do have a number of concerns, but I’m really wanting to engage and find solutions to them.
What are those concerns?
I think the biggest concern is that the government is opening the door to our biggest emitters, paying to pollute rather than becoming more efficient and decarbonising.
As it stands, we’re the only other jurisdiction in the world that allows full open access to offset emissions [apart from] Kazakhstan.
So if it were to pass as it stands, it would be Australia and Kazakhstan that allow 100% of emissions to be offset using carbon credits.
We know that there are concerns around the integrity of some of the carbon methodologies.
So for me, integrity has to be at the heart of this policy, we have to be certain that this will drive the sorts of changes that we desperately need.
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Lowe to front MPs twice this week
Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe will front MPs twice this week, starting with Wednesday morning’s estimates hearing followed by an economics committee hearing on Friday.
You have to assume a similar line of questions at both, namely what’s behind Lowe’s more hawkish tone for “further rate rises” to come, beyond last Tuesday’s rate rise – the ninth in a row.
Before last Tuesday’s rate rise, markets were expecting the RBA to nudge the cash rate to about 3.6%. As of the end of last week, investors are now much more pessimistic, tipping a peak rate of above 4.1%.
Investors continue to nudge higher their view of how high the 'terminal' RBA cash rate will go. At 4.1%, that would implies three more 25bp increases from 3.35% now. That's more than most economists and much higher than about 3.6% pre last Tuesday's rise (and hawkish comments). pic.twitter.com/urkozut9qI
— @phannam@mastodon.green (@p_hannam) February 12, 2023
Lowe’s appearance before bankers last Thursday at a lunch hosted by (the rather little known bank) Barrenjoey – as reported by the AFR – will also get scrutiny.
There’s speculation that the discussion resulted in bond yields widening (and prices falling) after the meeting but proving causation rather than correlation will be tricky.
Still, Lowe’s absence otherwise in the public arena – unlike previous starts to the year – will get some attention.
Anyway, if you’d like to hear more about what’s going on with rates and the economy more generally, we have this handy podcast out this very morning:
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‘They’ve opened the gate,’ Andrews says of visa changes
Shadow home affairs minister Karen Andrews is doing the most to make the TPV changes a Very Big Issue. Andrews does not believe there should be any changes to the Coalition’s system.
Q: Many of these people have been left in limbo for many years. Is that acceptable?
Andrews:
Obviously, we are, all Australians are always concerned about making sure that people are treated humanely, but the balance has to be keeping Australia’s borders strong and to make sure that no people risk their lives to come to Australia by boat. Now, I remember watching the stories of people being plucked out of the water where their boats had basically disintegrated. And I really wonder if the ministers responsible spoke to the officials who were out there day after day, picking bodies out of the water, because if they haven’t, they should have because that may well have affected how they decided they were going to be deal with border security here in Australia.
Q: And just to clarify, would you support this move if the government can guarantee that people from now on who try to come here will be given TPVs?
Andrews:
I don’t see how they can guarantee it because they’ve opened the gate. OK. This is the thin edge of the wedge. It’s now permanency for people, for those that have arrived before 2013, the pressure will now be on. And, I don’t know that Labor’s got the strength that it needs to be able to stand up to what’s going to be coming their way*.
*Boat turnbacks remain Labor policy. In 2008, when Labor last abolished TPVs, it also stopped naval turnbacks. That is not the case this time around.
Q: Do you think the system should remain as is or do you think there should be any changes?
Andrews:
Well, the system should remain as it was under the Coalition government, not the broken system that Labor’s now overseeing what should happen to the people who came after that deadline, there should be absolutely no changes to Operation Sovereign Borders as it was under the Coalition government. And that would mean that people who came here would remain on temporary protection visas. But those people who came here illegally should be departing the country as soon as they possibly can.
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Joyce v Plibersek
Can there be a greater punishment than being the Labor MP chosen to “debate” Barnaby Joyce on commercial TV each week?
That is Tanya Plibersek’s lot.
Here is a taste of some of the Seven network chat this morning when it came to electricity prices (Treasury has revised the increase to about 23% after the government intervention).
Power prices were always going to increase – the intervention just meant the increase wouldn’t be by as much.
Host: Tanya, let us know how much credit the government can claim here given nothing’s actually happened yet, and are they actually still going to rise just not by as much?
Plibersek:
Well this Treasury analysis shows that price rises will be moderated, they won’t go up as much as was initially predicted and that’s because our policies are working, and it’s a shame that Barnaby and his side actually voted against the policies that have brought down energy prices in Australia, on top of not doing anything when they were in government to prepare for these energy price rises.
But we know that families are still doing is tough and that’s why we’re also delivering cheaper medicine, cheaper childcare, free Tafe and higher wages.
Host: Barnaby, you guys wanted the government to act, they’ve acted, and the price rises won’t be as big, so you’re pretty satisfied, I guess?
Joyce:
Well, you just heard it there. It’s the great swindle. Remember they said they were going to bring down the price of electricity by $275. Now they’re lauding the fact that it’s still going up and it will continue to go up, and at some time in the future, listen to this, it won’t go up as much as they expected it to. Now if you think that is worth banking, good luck.
As everything, you will see Liddell get blown up* and this will be under the Labor party’s watch, another power station literally blown up, another restriction on power supplies as we reduce supply and increase price. And I don’t see anything marvellous happening in the future except a Labor party which thinks that the way to fix power prices is to cap the two evils. Remember they don’t believe in coal or gas, but they do believe in capping it because they do understand all of a sudden that it is absolutely connected to power prices.
*This was announced under the Coalition government. There were whole “big stick” threats over it. Didn’t change anything. The linear nature of time means it will close while this government is in power but it was announced while Joyce and the Coalition had some influence to do something.
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Snowy Hydro to front estimates
Also among those fronting estimates today will be Snowy Hydro and its new chief executive Dennis Barnes from about 2.45 AEDT.
There’ll be a lot to go through, including just how stuck is the big tunnel borer (dubbed “Florence”) near Lake Tantangara. We broke news of the official pausing of the borer here yesterday:
Some estimate Florence has only made 150m progress before hitting soft material that collapsed, creating a “surface depression” (or cave-in) above.
Andrew Thaler, a local whose property abuts a supplier of concrete to the project, has sent us some footage of that depression.
The ‘surface depression’ above a tunnel bearing drilled at Snowy Hydro’s 2.0 pumped hydro project. SH says drilling has ‘paused’. (Source: @andrew_thaler ) pic.twitter.com/b0pXhLu6Sy
— @phannam@mastodon.green (@p_hannam) February 12, 2023
If the giant project is significantly delayed the consequences for the national electricity market could be problematic.
Snowy’s own website still put the start date as 2025 but it’s told the Australian Energy Market Operator 30 December 2027 is the revised start date.
Anyway, an interesting estimates session looms.
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Lambie expresses reservations about voice and safeguards mechanism
Senator Jacqui Lambie, whose party has two crucial Senate votes, has expressed concerns about both the voice referendum and Labor’s safeguards mechanism bill.
On the voice, Lambie told reporters in Canberra:
I tell you what I’m going to do: I’m going out to those communities over the next three to six months and travelling where [there] used to be ... that cashless debit card. I’m going back out there to see what is happening in those communities to see if anything different is happening. Because don’t give me some nice words, if it’s not going to change the abuse and the alcoholism that’s going on in many of those Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory and Western Australia ...
I want to see practical solutions put into place now before you can convince me that that voice is going to do anything. That’s all I’m asking for and that’s what many Australians are asking for. Show us how this is going to work. Show us how this is going to make a difference in Indigenous life.
On the safeguards mechanism, she said:
There are industries out there where IT has not come through yet and they cannot reduce their emissions as much as they’re trying, and cement is one of them. You know, and when you are building somewhere in South Australia where you’re building a terminal to bring cement in from overseas where they have no emissions policies whatsoever ... we’ve got a problem.
So there needs to be a good look at those safeguards and make sure that we get it right because we do not want to be driving businesses ... out of Australia [to] places in other countries where they’ve got no emissions targets, no nothing, that’s – no one benefits out of that.
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‘Today marks the beginning of the rest of your lives’
Independent Goldstein MP Zoe Daniel has welcomed Labor’s decision to move 19,000 temporary visa holders onto a pathway for citizenship:
For the sake of the tens of thousands of people who have been waiting and desperately hoping for this day, I welcome this policy change.
Three quarters of Australians want a more humane policy towards refugees and asylum seekers. This reflects the feedback that I have received from constituents in Goldstein.
More humane policy does not have to come at the expense of strong borders.
Rigorous visa processes, including boat turn backs which evidence shows are the biggest disincentive to people getting on boats to Australia, remain central to ensuring both the safety of asylum seekers and effective management of asylum seeker applications.
Further, a regional solution must be a priority working with transit countries like Indonesia and Malaysia and, with the current mass exodus from Myanmar, Thailand.
Allowing those granted refugee status the right to fully participate in Australian society is critical to our society and our economy.
It is appropriate that refugees granted visas can work, build businesses, study, and initiate family reunion so they can progress with a full life and fully contribute to our wonderful country.
To those who have come to see me in my office, some of whom have been separated from family overseas for a decade, today marks the beginning of the rest of your lives.
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Shorten defends Lowe on lunch with bankers
Returning to his interview with ABC radio RN this morning, Bill Shorten was very forgiving of RBA governor Phil Lowe’s lunch with bankers. The Australian Financial Review reported there were some movements in bond trading during Lowe’s lunch with commercial bankers – usually Lowe makes a speech at the National Press Club but he skipped that this year.
It will be one of the questions Lowe is asked at his two appearances in front of parliamentary committees this week.
But Shorten was a little more forgiving this morning:
I don’t think there’s anything untoward from a bank talking to bankers. You know, journalists talk to journalists in parliament, we talk to other parliamentarians, so no, I don’t see anything untoward.
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Estimates on agenda
My goodness – I completely forgot – but it is estimates time!
This is the additional week the Senate won, after Labor put forward a sitting calendar that was a little short on budget estimates.
So as always, the finance and public administration committee is up with the Department of Parliamentary Services (always a fun listen) along with the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
Then there is legal and constitutional affairs where national emergency management Australia and Asio are up. Expect to hear a bit about how the Nauru designation was messed up.
The environment and communications committee has the climate change, energy, environment and water department in front of it – which means it is safeguards mechanism season bb! (Also expect why are power prices so expensive/Labor hasn’t solved world peace questions.)
And the rural and regional affairs will have the transport, regional development, communications and the arts departments, where Bridget McKenzie is sure to have a ball.
This is the first estimates where Labor has to own most of the issues, so there will be a few shoes on the other foot. No doubt Penny Wong’s eyebrow will still get a workout but it will just be from the other side of the desk.
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What’s that? The sound of outrage? Right on schedule?
Shadow home affairs minister Karen Andrews is VERY outraged at Labor allowing people on temporary protection visas a pathway to permanency:
TPVs are the backbone of the Coalition’s successful and strong border policy – Labor will no longer be able to say, ‘If you come by boat, you will not settle here.’
If you don’t support TPVs, you don’t support Operation Sovereign Borders.
After Labor abolished TPVs at the end of 2008, 60 boats arrived in 2009 – and they averaged over 195 per year under Labor between 2010-2013.
Which is not entirely correct.
Paul Karp factchecked this during the election campaign when it came up then:
In terms of boats that arrived after the Rudd government abolishing TPVs in 2008, what Andrews leaves out is that boats were also not turned back. This time round, boat turnbacks remain Labor policy. The refugees who can apply for this pathway arrived before Operation Sovereign Borders, and have been in visa limbo for a decade.
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Shorten says visa decision won’t help people smugglers
Bill Shorten is having a chat to ABC radio RN, where he is being asked about Labor’s decision (meeting an election commitment) to allow 19,000 people on temporary protection and safe haven visas to start the application process for permanency.
He is asked whether there are any fears this could be used by people smugglers, who could say, “Wait 10 years and you could maybe start the process to citizenship.”
Shorten says:
Absolutely not. No, they go to third-party countries. We don’t intend to see the the people smugglers model given any oxygen. It’s a terrible way of coming to Australia. It’s horribly unsafe. It’s fatal and deadly. So the answer’s no, no, we’re not.
The cohort of refugees who may be eligible for this change arrived 10 years ago, before Operation Sovereign Borders, and have been in visa limbo for that entire time.
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$65m for solar thermal project in South Australia
The government is investing $65m in a solar thermal project, with the funds to be awarded through Arena (the clean energy fund).
Vast Solar will get the grant for its dispatchable solar thermal technology, which minister Chris Bowen said will “use sunlight reflected off thousands of mirrors and transfer the concentrated heat via liquid sodium to molten storage tanks. The stored energy will then be used to generate electricity when it is needed.”
The large 30MW/288 MWh utility-scale plant north of Port Augusta in South Australia will create up to 450 regional jobs during construction and 70 ongoing operational roles in long-term manufacturing, plant operations and maintenance.
This project could lead to larger installations helping to firm Australia’s grid, providing reliable and cheaper energy at scale, as well as creating opportunities to export the technology and generate more jobs.
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Good morning
A very big top of the morning to you, Politics Live watchers – and a happy Galentine’s Day to those who celebrate, or even just want to.
The second sitting week of the year is going to kick off much where the first left it – talking about the voice and watching Labor adjust to the end of its transition and honeymoon period.
The next Closing the Gap implantation plan will be released, with more money to help address some major issues in some remote Indigenous communities, including a lack of a safe water supply, food security and severely overcrowded housing.
Labor is also addressing an election commitment and will begin the process that will allow people on temporary protection visas and safe haven enterprise visas to begin applying for resolution of status visas – and from there, if successful, begin the path to citizenship. Boat turnbacks remain Labor policy though and this change only applies to refugees who arrived before Operation Sovereign Borders began a decade ago.
Alan Tudge doesn’t officially vacate federal politics until the end of the week but we should find out more about when the Aston byelection will be held.
The Greens have announced Dorinda Cox as the party’s First Nations spokesperson (no surprises there) in the wake of Lidia Thorpe’s resignation from the party. Cox will help to guide the party’s First Nations’ policy in what is going to be a huge year.
It’ll also be a huge week when it comes to parliament. People want answers for the cost of living and the RBA governor Dr Phil Lowe will be appearing not once but twice before parliamentary committees to be asked about the central bank’s interest rate increases plan. With a further 800,000 people to roll off fixed rates into this new variable environment this year, MPs are getting nervous. We know what the answers will be from Lowe – none of that will change the fact that it’s going to be a tough year for a lot of people.
You’ll have Katharine Murphy leading the way this week, along with Daniel Hurst, Josh Butler and Paul Karp. Mike Bowers is on another project at the moment so I’ll have to stumble along without him. You’ll have me, Amy Remeikis, on the blog for most of the day. I’ve had three coffees already.
Ready?
Let’s get into it.
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