What we learned today, 27 April
Today the election campaign was all about the economy, and not all of it was stupid. There was no ceasefire in the climate wars, and the day ended with the sad news of a death at Targa Tasmania. The headline highlights included:
- Labor released its economic plan, promising to crack down on multinational tax avoidance.
- Australia’s shock inflation figure is likely to be followed by a May interest rate rise amid cost of living woes.
- Business has backed Labor’s emissions plans.
- More than 7,100 people have died from Covid, and winter is coming.
- There were reports on the suffering of aged care residents, the suffering of the Indonesian family whose son Australia jailed, the suffering of an Aboriginal woman before she died, and the suffering of those who can’t afford a home.
- And we learned more about this outbreak of acute hepatitis in young children.
- On the bright side, Labor leader Anthony Albanese confirmed that he was wearing pants while isolating at home.
Let’s do it all again tomorrow. Amy Remeikis will be with you in the morning, curating the best bits of the day. Until then!
The peak business body seems to have picked sides in the climate wars:
A Brisbane man has died and a woman has been injured at the Targa Tasmania rally.
Last year, three people were killed at the same event.
Tasmania Police have issued a statement:
Sadly, police can confirm a 59 year old Brisbane man has died in a single vehicle crash on Olivers Road, Mount Roland, this afternoon.
Around 3.30pm today, a vehicle participating in Targa Tasmania crashed over an embankment on a closed section of the event.
No other vehicles were involved. Police and emergency services were called to the scene, however the man sadly died. The female front seat passenger received non life threatening injuries in the crash.
Our thoughts are with the man’s family and his loved ones at this difficult time.
Police do not have permission from the man’s family to release his name at this time.
The crash is being investigated by police. The road remains closed while a crash investigation is carried out. A report will be prepared for the Coroner.
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AAP reports that Australia has issued more than 7,000 visas to Ukrainians, fleeing from the Russian invasion of their country. Most are temporary, and valid for three years. That allows people to work, study and access services including Medicare.
A home affairs department spokesperson said:
[The department] is progressing visa applications from Ukrainian nationals as a priority, particularly for those with a connection to Australia.
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Sharing without comment:
This is what’s left of Morrison’s Liberal Party
— Julia Banks (@juliahbanks) April 27, 2022
The reaction of their pet dogs is pretty telling too! 👇🐶#auspol h/t @dcotterill pic.twitter.com/Pb3YIGpUnY
The Liberal Democrats find this whole dual citizen thing (remember that?) confusing, while the Greens say it’s discriminatory:
A young child ended up in hospital yesterday after eating a death cap mushroom.
ACT chief health officer, Dr Kerryn Coleman, has warned Canberrans not to touch, pick or eat any wild mushrooms and to keep children and animals away from them.
Even a small amount can be lethal, whether they’re cooked or not.
Coleman said “wild mushrooms can grow anywhere in our region at any time”:
If you think you may have eaten a death cap mushroom, seek urgent medical attention at a hospital emergency department even if there are no symptoms.
Take any remaining mushroom to the hospital for identification taking precautions to reduce physical contact with the item, if possible.
Pains, nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea are some of the main symptoms of poisoning after eating mushrooms and generally occur after 6-24 hours or more.
The chances of survival increase when treatment is started early. Do not take the risk and don’t eat mushrooms you have found in the wild. All mushrooms should be bought from a reputable supplier.
Anyone who sees a death cap mushroom can report it to Access Canberra on 13 22 81.
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ABC managing director David Anderson has written to the prime minister and the leader of the opposition with a pitch for an election debate to be hosted by the public broadcaster on Monday 9 May at 8pm.
Anderson has told Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese’s teams the debate would be broadcast across all of the ABC’s platforms, including the main channel, the news channel, iview, ABC radio and the ABC’s YouTube channel.
The first 2022 debate was held last week by Sky News Australia before a live audience.
Albanese won 40% of the audience vote over Morrison’s 35% from the 100 undecided voters in the audience, while 25% remained undecided. The Sky People’s Forum had 192,000 viewers on Foxtel and 102,000 on Sky News Regional.
The ABC has proposed an hour-long debate format moderated by Insiders host David Speers. If the date is not suitable the ABC is flexible. Speers told ABC Radio’s Richard Glover:
We’re still waiting to lock in the two leaders on this, but we’re very hopeful that we can do that because as I say, a 60-minute debate, between the two leaders, I think for all to view on the ABC would be a pretty important thing as many are still to make up their minds.
“The ABC invites leaders of the main political parties to take part in a debate every federal election and 2022 is no exception,” the ABC said.
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Tasmania police have issued a statement on that Targa Tasmania crash, but there’s still not much information yet:
Police and emergency services are on the scene of a serious incident on Olivers Road, Mount Roland.
Around 3.30pm today, a vehicle participating in Targa Tasmania crashed over an embankment on a closed section of the event.
No other vehicles were involved.
Further information will be provided when available.
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This is horrible news. Targa Tasmania is where three people were killed last year. We’ll let you know more as soon as we do.
#BREAKING: Police are at the scene of a serious crash on day two of Targa Tasmania.
— Dan Smith (@0DanSmith) April 27, 2022
They say a competitor's car crashed over an embankment on a closed section of the event at Mount Roland in the state's north-west around 3:30pm. There are no further details.
I will take a bet that Josh Taylor will keep chasing this story:
Another bid for another debate:
The ABC has proposed a prime time Leaders' Debate on Monday May 9, available live across the ABC main channel, news channel, radio, iView and YouTube. The ABC's Managing Director has written to both major parties, highlighting the importance of a debate on the public broadcaster.
— David Speers (@David_Speers) April 27, 2022
Deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce brings up Zoolander (not, he won’t turn left) Labor leader Anthony Albanese confirms he was wearing iso pants, and net zero was the hero today. Josh Butler wraps up the day:
And again from AAP, on the Labor campaign trail (Labor leader Anthony Albanese is still in isolation in Sydney).
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AAP has once again been following Scott Morrison on the election trail:
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The Campaign catchup is in! If you read Katharine Murphy’s piece earlier, you’ll know she’s somewhat fired up about misinformation (and worse) on “carbon taxes”. Here she is with Jane Lee, talking about the politics and how it might play out:
Ben Smee with some more on that proposed mine (First Nations people also not happy with it):
We had the latest figures and state breakdowns earlier, but here’s the national situation at a glance – including 7,113 deaths:
This daily 📅 infographic provides a quick view of the current coronavirus (#COVID19) situation in Australia 🇦🇺
— Australian Government Department of Health (@healthgovau) April 27, 2022
Find out more here 💻 https://t.co/YcsPBOUfPb pic.twitter.com/gLJ0eTndtF
Three of Australia's big four banks predict May rate rise
Fallout continues from the – let’s face it – shock 5.1% annual CPI.
As Westpac noted, the 2.1% quarterly headline rate was outside its own top-of-the-range 2% prediction.
More than that, Westpac had pencilled in 4.9% as the most the annual rate would go. Cue: an eraser and some busy thumping of calculator buttons.
Now Westpac, ANZ and NAB all say they expect the RBA to get out that hammer, smash the glass case and hit the rate rise button next Tuesday. They expect the record low 0.1% to rise to 0.25%. The last time the RBA increased rates, its cash target rate was November, 2010.
CBA, the biggest issuer of mortgages, remains the holdout among the big four banks.
They say they will take the RBA at its word (as in the minutes for the April board meeting) and that it would wait for the underlying inflation rate to be “sustainably within” the 2-3% target range. (The underlying inflation or trimmed mean rate spiked from 2.6% for the December quarter to 3.7% in the March quarter.)
That said, the CBA recognises there’s a “clear risk” we’ll see a rate rise next Tuesday.
Bloomberg has a good finger on the pulse, and they say traders are fully pricing in a rate rise next week, with a one-in-four chance the increase won’t just be 0.15% but a rise of 0.4% to 0.5%. (Unlikely, but there you go....)
Bloomberg notes traders now fully pricing in an RBA rate rise on Tuesday to 0.25%, with a 25% chance the rise will be to 0.5%. That's after the shock 5.1% CPI print (and high underlying inflation), which topped Westpac's expectation CPI would peak at 4.9%. #AusVotes2022 #ausvotes pic.twitter.com/v0Ixst7PXu
— Peter Hannam (@p_hannam) April 27, 2022
Michele O’Neil, the Australian Council of Trade Unions president, has chimed in saying the CPI surprise underscores “the legacy of almost a decade of Coalition governments refusing to do anything to generate wage growth for working people”.
ACTU claims that wages are off $2,000 for average workers during the first half of this year alone (although we have a bit of a ways to go until June 30).
“This is the worst real pay cut for working people this century,” O’Neil says.
We won’t see how much wages went up in the March quarter to get a fairer comparison until 18 May – just three days before voters (who haven’t already voted by then) go the polls.
I am guessing not many people reading this blog will be able to say “yep, I got a 5% payrise” ...
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And here’s Robert on the argy bargy over the Coalition’s climate change targets:
The government’s position is very clear. We have agreed - both the Liberal and the National party, as a Coalition government - that we will have net zero by 2050.
Employment minister Stuart Robert is up again, this time on the ABC. He’s (again) blaming external factors on cost of living pressures. He’s asked about wage increases and starts talking about the low unemployment. “The wage price index will follow,” he says:
There is ample evidence that wages are starting to move, as you’d expect. The average earnings in the national accounts tells us they’re starting to move now. The evidence across businesses tells us they’re starting to move now as well.
So there you go. Wages will go up. Robert says.
Before we get all serious again – happy World Tapir Day from First Dog on the Moon!
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If you’ve never listened to Saved for Later, save it for later. Or don’t, listen in now!
Honestly, Michael Sun and the team make this old chook feel like one of the hep young cats. And this week’s has a political theme – the political meme:
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“Pull your head in, Matt,” is AAP’s pick of the day for the “best line”.
It came from Queensland Liberal MP Michelle Landry, and was directed at the Nationals senator Matt Canavan for saying the Coalition’s net zero ambitions were “dead”.
In there as well as well is this, from Labor campaign spokesman Jason Clare:
This bloke [the PM] is so out of touch, you’d need the Hubble [Space] telescope to find him.
Not bad. Referencing the James Webb telescope would have been even better.
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Prime minister Scott Morrison says it’s a time of “great uncertainty” with pressures on interest rates and cost of living issues. He says:
As Australia comes out of these difficult times, we don’t want them to be hit down again by forces well beyond Australia’s borders but ... what we’ve shown as a government is we’ve been able to keep as much pressure down on those forces as good governments can ... we’ve demonstrated that for now.
And that’s it, a short, sharp appearance.
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Now straight into interest rates and the cost of living. Morrison says it’s the “serious nature of what we’re seeing all around the world” – and supply issues. He says:
That has been principally driven... by the big surges in petrol prices and oil prices.
(It’s the same talking points as Robert, below. It’s the war in Europe, and supply).
“They have an impact when it comes to what people pay,” he says, saying the election is a choice about who will apply downwards pressure on interest rates.
(So, it’s all because of overseas forces, but domestically the Coalition has the power to keep it under control).
On interest rate rises:
That’s always a decision for the Reserve Bank.
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Scott Morrison press conference
Prime minister Scott Morrison is in Cairns, in a hangar, with some helicopters.
He’s talking about aviation as an essential industry in northern and remote parts of Australia (ah, hence the choppers).
Leichhardt MP Warren Entsch says they decided to create an aviation precinct to “build capacity” in the region.
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On to the safeguard mechanism now (the safeguard the Coalition put into place but is now calling a “sneaky” carbon tax).
Robert says Labor will make companies buy more carbon credits or offsets “every single year” so it’s “not longer a safeguard ... it’s a declining set of rails”.
Gilbert points our that the Business Council of Australia says Labor’s plan is “the right incentive to drive investment”.
“It doesn’t change the fact that it forces companies to pay more money year on year ... that’s a tax,” Robert says.
Probably a good place to nudge you towards Katharine Murphy’s piece again, where she eviscerates the fake fight on the fake carbon tax:
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Employment minister Stuart Robert has been asked if the government’s Covid payments were “smart” considering the rate of inflation and interest rate rises.
He is telling Sky News that supply constraints and “the war in Europe” are driving inflation.
“We stepped forward to assist Australians,’’ he says.
Host Kieran Gilbert is asking him about Labor’s plan to tax multinationals. “We’re ensuring they’re paying their fair share of taxation,” he says. “We have set a global standard for what we’re doing in this space.”
Away from politics for the merest wafer of time – this is from one of our top epidemiologists, Adrian Esterman:
Blood samples show three in four American children have had COVID https://t.co/0f9sDJC2sR via @ABCaustralia
— Professor Adrian Esterman (@profesterman) April 27, 2022
I wouldn't be at all surprised if this was true for Australia as well.
Oh, Amy Remeikis! I hope the wall turns out to be a tunnel with a light at the end of it. The election campaign firehose is not always the blast you might think it is.
And hi, everyone – deep breaths, onwards and upwards!
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That was quite the day. I am going to go stare at a wall and think about my life choices, leaving you in the hands of Tory Shepherd to take you through the afternoon.
Thank you again for your comments and thoughts – they are much appreciated. I’ll be back early tomorrow morning. Please – take care of you.
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The Australian Council of Social Service have sent a joint letter signed by 64 community organisations and advocacy groups in the welfare sector to all parties and candidates in the federal election, imploring them to commit to lifting income support payments and investing in social housing.
The signatories include Anglicare Australia, Jesuit Social Services, the National Council of Single Mothers and their Children, National Shelter, Oxfam, Mission Australia and more.
The letter calls on politicians to support:
- Raising base rates of income support to at least $70 a day to ensure people living in poverty can cover the basics and have the resources to begin new careers, retrain and look for paid work.
- Increasing Commonwealth rent assistance by 50% to better cover private rental, which has skyrocketed around Australia.
- Indexing payments in line with wages twice a year, as well as with CPI (working-age payments are currently only indexed in line with CPI).
- A federal government budget commitment to building at least 25,000 social housing properties each year.
- A National Housing Plan led by the Federal government and developed in partnership with the states and territories.
- A National Homelessness strategy that addresses access to affordable housing for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness, and other issues driving homelessness, including inadequate income support, domestic and family violence, and poor access to mental health and other services.
Housing policies from the major parties have fallen short of the sector’s hopes.
The Labor party has pledged to establish the Housing Australia Future Fund, the aim of which is to build 30,000 new social and affordable housing properties over five years, and it has also flagged that it will develop a national housing and homelessness plan.
But the party has not yet provided detail about that strategy, has not committed to increasing jobseeker payments and has also dropped plans for a review into the jobseeker rate.
The Liberal party’s housing policies have focused almost exclusively on home ownership. When I asked about policies specifically targeting renters for our story on the national rental crisis earlier today, a spokesperson for the housing and homelessness minister, Michael Sukkar, said the government’s priority was “getting more people into the housing market through our measures for first homebuyers”. They also said housing was a matter for state and local governments.
You can read more about the Greens’ plan, which includes a national charter of renters’ rights and a big social housing build, downthread.
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“Renters have been forgotten this election,” Greens leader Adam Bandt has told Guardian Australia.
As we reported this morning, soaring rental prices have left the 32% of Australians who don’t own their own home struggling under the weight of housing costs, with low-income renters hardest hit by the national crisis.
Bandt said the federal government needed to institute major reforms to ease the pressure renters were under:
There are two big reforms needed that will make life easier for renters. We need a national standard of renters’ rights to limit rent increases and give tenancy options for European-style long term leases, as well as prohibiting no grounds eviction.
The government needs to grab the steering wheel and have a big build of affordable housing that people can rent for 25% of their income. Governments have failed to build enough public housing to keep up with population growth, and that has put a lot of pressure on the rental market because you have people on the public housing waitlist seeking accomodation in private rental. It just pushes rents up and leads to homelessness.
The Greens’ policy platform includes a costed plan to build 1m new homes over 15 years that would be available for people to rent at 25% of their income, or to buy for $300k if they chose.
When asked about whether Commonwealth rent assistance ought to rise – it’s risen by only $2.50 per week for singles and $3.29 a week for couples in two years, while rents have gone up by 13.8% nationally and 20.2% in the regions – Bandt said:
In our view, the better approach is to peak rents as a proportion of people’s incomes and build enough public housing for people to rent like that if they so choose. People will pay a lot less that way, because even if rent assistance is increased, if rents keep going up at the current rate, renting will still be unaffordable for many.
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Q: On multinational taxes, can I ask for the viewers at home if there is an example of a company you can give that can be captured under this and secondly, the Business Council of Australia has pushed against the claims of Scott Morrison that Labor will introduce a carbon tax. But is it a carbon trading scheme, is that what it would be given it sets baselines and the baseline under you guys would be ramped down slowly, people can buy and sell credits? Is that not a carbon trading schemes?
Jim Chalmers:
On your first question about specific companies, what we are proposing today is not about one company or another. There are different arrangements and circumstances that each company has and the ATO secrecy rules prevent them from sharing the impacts of it.
In terms of the sectoral impact of what we are proposing, obviously the two pillars of the OECD scheme are directed towards developments in the digital economy, but our broader package does not target one sector or another.
It is a broad plan which is blind to specific company examples, to try and get the system right.
When it comes to the [climate] safeguard mechanism, once again, the government has been lying about the safeguard mechanism to try and distract from the diabolical dysfunction and division that we are seeing when it comes to their commitment to net zero by mid-century.
This Liberal-National Coalition is hopelessly split on net zero. We have a situation where Josh Frydenberg, because he is in a battle in Kooyong, is trying to pretend that the party is united behind net zero and at the same time you have a range of other members and candidates, not just Matt Canavan, saying that the commitment is flexible. This needs to be cleared up.
It’s one of the central issues of this election campaign and the governing party seeking re-election to yet another term cannot get its story straight on net zero by mid-century.
On the safeguard mechanism, as we have said now for some time, ever since the policy was released at the beginning of December and increasingly in recent days, the safeguard mechanism is about 215 entities having their obligations determined by the clean energy regulator.
They have options how they meet those obligations. Our preference is that they reduce emissions. If they are unwilling or unable to do that, they are welcome to participate by buying credits. We have said that, Chris Bowen, everyone has said that in one way or another.
Call it whatever you want, but that has been clear, it has been a consistent and clear feature of our policy since we announced it.
You mention the BCA. I want to pay tribute to the BCA because they have played an incredibly constructive role in getting, not just our policy where it is and being supportive of it, but contributing to the broader discussion as well.
The BCA is a force for good when it comes to dealing with climate change, getting cleaner and cheaper energy and more investment and more jobs, more secure jobs around Australia into the system and what they’ve said today is just the truth. Which is they have asked for improvements to the safeguard mechanism.
That is central to our policy. That is why the business community and investment community supports our policy and that’s why the government is a joke when it comes to climate change.
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Q: Housing costs is a top priority for many Australians both for home purchases and also with rental costs, what specifically is Labor doing to address those housing costs particularly given you have given up the negative gearing policy from the last election?
Jim Chalmers:
We’ve released part of our housing policy but we will have more to say about the housing policy during the course the election. As you know we think the most important place to start is with social and affordable housing and that’s why we have our housing Australia Future Fund ... That is why we are proposing other measures as well and that’s why we have been supportive of some of the government’s measures, frankly, but we will have more about housing policy before election day.
We do understand that housing, including in the numbers today, is one of the biggest contributing factors to skyrocketing costs of living and we will not be silent on that question.
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Q: Jim Chalmers, Treasury and finance over the years have done a lot of work in the region. Working with Pacific nations in things like money laundering, governance, budget and financing. Given what has happened in the Solomon Islands, do you sit stepping up. And secondly, on the Solomons, Karen Andrews says she believes that Beijing struck this arrangement with the Solomon Islands government in the middle of an election campaign quite deliberately. What is your response to that?
Jim Chalmers:
Even by the incredibly low standards of this government, I thought what Karen Andrews said was remarkably desperate. And remarkably unhinged.
The Australian people will determine who wins this election. They have a choice. Between a better future with a stronger economy under Labor or another three years of skyrocketing prices, falling real wages and all the dysfunction and drift in the states, and the corruption of the Budget we have seen over the best part of a decade on a day when inflation is going through the roof, on a day when it becomes clearer than ever that ordinary working families are falling behind and cannot get ahead, it says everything about this government that they want to make a claim like that.
Katy Gallagher:
In a general sense, and I think you saw this reflected in the policy we announced yesterday that did have a component about finance and support for the Pacific... we want to be the partner of choice for the Pacific.
If that can be assisted through APS or public sector engagement and advice, then of course that would be what we implement. What we have seen under Scott Morrison is he has vacated the field, he made jokes about the islands going underwater*, made them rewrite, or tried to bully them into rewriting outcomes for their summit, and it’s no surprise that they are now sceptical of our engagement with them.
We need to rebuild trust and make those investments where we can and, where we can use our capacity and certainly across those departments of treasury and finance to better support them, or if they are thinking that advice, then of course we would do that.
*Morrison didn’t make a joke at that time. He was there, and pointed out the microphone, but he didn’t contribute to the jokes Peter Dutton and Tony Abbott were making.
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Q: You talk about bringing power prices down and I note you say you would do that by putting more renewable energy on the market and because it’s cheap the price will come down – but that is not how the wholesale power prices is set, it’s set on the highest cost of generation, not the lowest, so will you guarantee the numbers will come down for Australians, that you’ll hit that target of bringing prices down? And senator Gallagher, Anthony Albanese said he would debate wherever and whenever with the prime minister. Channel Nine has secured a debate with the prime minister on the 8 May, will he turn up for that debate?
Jim Chalmers:
On power prices, we have released the most comprehensive modelling that an opposition has released on a policy ever. Our powering Australia plan says that by the middle of this decade we will get power prices down by $275 a year.
That is a substantial saving for people which recognises that the cheapest cost of new sources of energy is renewable, increasingly. If people are not prepared to take our word for it, they should take the word of the most respected energy economists in Australia who have done the modelling and determined that there will be substantial savings.
That will not be the only benefit from our powering Australia plan. You’ll get power bills down with cheaper and cleaner energy, it will boost investment in the economy in ways that are very helpful in our economic plan and it will create more than 600,000 jobs and five out of six of those will be in the regions!
I heard the prime minister bleating today about this press release of a jobs target. The only party going to the selection with an economic plan for after the election and with a model jobs policy is the Labor Party, and we’re go into the selection with a modelled policy that says more then 600,000 jobs will be created from our powering Australia plan, five out of six of those will be in the regions. We have a plan, they have a press release and our plan gives Australia a much better chance of growing the economy in the right way and in a way that gets power bills down, investment up, creates jobs and creates opportunities right around Australia.
And on the debate, Katy Gallagher says:
In terms of the debate, what I do know is that Anthony Albanese smashed Scott Morrison at the debate last week and so I have no doubt that it is in our interest for more debates to occur. The way these things normally happen is there is engagement between the two parties through their campaign directors.
I would suggest to Scott Morrison that that’s the way to approach settling dates, whether it be with Channel Nine or other networks about how to host and hold debates. From our point of view, let those normal arrangements occur and Anthony [Albanese]’s absolutely happy to debate Scott Morrison on those terms.
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Q: On minimum wage, in 2019, Labor were talking about the living wage, is that argument still alive under Labor today? And the ACTU are calling for a 5% increase to minimum wage. I know you said today you are not wanting to make economic forecasts but can you say in the submission that Labor would be making should it win to the Fair Work Commission, would you be putting a specific number on how much you think fair wage, minimum wage should be increased and why?
Jim Chalmers:
We will have more to say about that as the minimum wage case proceeds but as we have said ever since the ACTU released their submission, we think it is self-evident that minimum wage should keep up with the cost of living. We have said that for some time.
We have said in many cases that people on minimum wages have been the heroes of the pandemic and the thanks they get shouldn’t be another cut to their real wages so that they fall further behind and can’t get ahead.
Q: Does that mean you support the 5% minimum wage increase?
We will have more to say about the minimum wage case as it proceeds but I will run you through the principles we will adopt.
Q: Anthony Albanese has been on record saying this should be wage increases but will that not lead to further inflationary pressures which ultimately will harm wage earners?
The key is to get the economy growing in a way that does not add to the inflationary pressures. Part of getting it going the right way is to get real wages going the right way.
As it stands, people are getting absolutely smashed by this toxic combination of skyrocketing prices and falling real wages.
If we want to grow the economy in a broad and inclusive and sustainable way without adding to inflationary pressures. The absence of wages growth under this government for much of the last decade has been, in their words, a deliberate design feature of their economic policy. We take a very different approach.
Growth in real wages is about keeping up with this skyrocketing cost of living and getting ahead, and growing the economy is about how do we do that without adding to those inflationary pressures? We have a plan to do that we released it today.
The government is completely silent on what happens after the election. They’ve got a series of measures in their budget only designed to take the big problems of the economy from one side of the election and park it on the other side of election. We think there is a better way to go about that.
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Q: How much to expect to get from the OECD process versus Labor’s other measures in the $1.9bn on multinationals. Katy Gallagher, does the efficiency dividend in the public service remain under a Labor government?
Jim Chalmers:
In terms of the costing, there are four parts, as I say. We have not released a number for the two-pillar OECD approach for the same reasons the government has not. The government has committed publicly, as Andrew ran through a moment ago, to a two-pillar approach from the OECD.
Treasury considers it premature to put a number against the 50% minimum tax and the other OECD pillar, and we have taken the same approach as the government on that particular measure. It’s premature to cost that measure. There is still uncertainty around the start date of that and the Australian composition of that.
When it comes to the debt deductions measure, that will be $1.45bn over the forward estimates. When it comes to the issues around intellectual property and tax havens, that will be $445m over forward Estimates. The transparency measures have no cost.
Katy Gallagher:
We have not made any change to the efficiency dividend. I would say and I should have said this at the outset, we are as part of the announcement today reinvesting just short of $500m back into internal capability within the APS, so that will affect that a little bit.
But we see that as an important part of reducing our reliance on labour hire and contracting arrangements and rebuilding internal capability in the APS which has been eroded so much.
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'Triple whammy that Morrison has presided over': Chalmers on challenges facing households
Q: The data today shows that inflation for essential items is running higher than for nonessentials. What will Labor be doing the short term to help with the price of things like groceries? And on that point, this all adds pressure on the Reserve bank to raise interest rates next week. What would that mean for Labor and the election campaign?
Jim Chalmers:
I’m reluctant to make a political point about interest rates rising. The Reserve Bank of Australia had said for some time to expect a rise no matter who is in office and clearly after today’s incredibly high inflation number there will be more in speculation about a rate rise next week.
If you think about all the challenges Australians are facing, groceries are going up, childcare is expensive, power bills are still expensive, and to add to that pain, we will have an interest rate rise.
This is the triple whammy that Scott Morrison has presided over. Wages going backwards in real terms, cost of living going through the roof and now an interest rate rise as well.
I think Australians are worried about that because they know that the government has a plan to get them through the election but they’ve dropped the ball in the longer term when it comes to taking some of the pressure off some of these cost of living areas, where cost of living are acute. You asked about our plans. We’ve got plans to make childcare cheaper. We’ve got plans to get power bills down and we’ve got plans to get real wages going again. The government doesn’t have a sufficient plan in each of those areas to make that a reality.
Q: People are facing these pressures when they to the supermarket at the moment, so what are you going to do short-term to ease the pain?
Chalmers:
That is why we supported the cost of living measures in the Budget because we recognise people are under serious pressure right now. Our issues is that there is nothing from the government beyond that to alleviate pressures beyond that, and that’s why we have plans on childcare, in power bills and real wages.
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Q: We are seeing a lot of commitments being made and you are now saying if you when you will do an audit of waste and rorts and commitments. At the moment we have communities around Australia where they may have been priced by the Coalition money for the local oval, for a sports facility block, a hydrogen project in Townsville. All these promises are being made. What’s your commitment to those voters if there is a Labor government? Will that oval still get the money promised to it, will the hydrogen project in Townsville still get its $70m, what’s the baseline proposition from Labor on all of those commitments being made?
Jim Chalmers:
We have tried to point out specifically when a commitment has been made whether or not we will match it, and there have been some investments like the hydrogen plant we have made clear we will match it.
The government has made an extraordinary amount of commitments in this election campaign, documented in the paper we gave to you, hundreds of millions of dollars committed each day by the government. Where we think it is responsible we said we would match it, we’ve also gone about our commitments in a different way, in my view a more vigorous and robust way.
The challenge we are dealing with with this internal audit of waste and rorts in the Budget is about the accumulated damage done to the Budget for a decade, from a government which was born to rort, which has made rorting and wasting taxpayer money an art form and we want to get to the bottom of some of those issues.
Q: Doesn’t that mean that voters have the prospect of an audit if you win power and then a grant has been promised in the local community having a question mark over it, how do you get around that?
Chalmers:
If the commitment has merit we will support and match it. We’re really talking about going back to the structural problems within the Budget, developed over almost a decade now, which has turned the kind of rorting and wasting of the government has been sprung for again again into an art form. We are talking about that. That is our priority.
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Q: Do these new arrangements for multinational firms and the tax rate apply to all large multinationals including the extractive industries in Australia? And if I may, you both talked about fiscal discipline, but unless I missed it, this doesn’t commit you to restarting the normal fiscal rules which is that all expenditure is offset. Given we are in an environment of rising inflation and interest rates, when does the actual fiscal discipline start?
Jim Chalmers:
We think fiscal discipline means a Budget which reflects the economy, and our economy ... is beset by the combination of three challenges and our Budget settings are designed to meet those challenges.
Down the track, we would take advice from Treasury and finance, if they required an update to the fiscal rules, but our priority right now is reorienting the Budget away from waste and rorts towards productive investment and growing the economy without adding to inflation, boosting real wages and beginning to do with the legacy on the fiscal side that the government would be leaving us, if we were successful at the election.
Your question about the impact of the policies, there are four different categories of changes. The first category has got the two OECD pillars. Pillar one, no Australian firms affected, that just applies to the mega global multinationals.
The minimum tax proposal would impact on a small number of Australian companies. It’s for companies over $1bn but the vast majority of those are already paying more than 15% so it depends which side of that 15% threshold those companies fall on.
When it comes to our approach to debt deductions, we are talking here, we think, about 600 firms in Australia. Less than 100 companies impacted by our tax havens measure. That’s because, across the board, what this proposal is geared towards is the biggest multinationals who are moving their arrangements around the world to avoid paying tax here in Australia.
That’s the answer to those parts of the question.
Katie Gallagher:
I think Jim answered it at the beginning. In the last couple of years in particular, I think most Australians understand there are a number of different outcomes from a Budget, one is to support the economy and to manage finances responsibly. Most people would expect that.
That goes to our point around making sure investments are going to where they need to go, dealing with cost of living and getting wages moving, but also that the quality of the spend, you’re get bang for your buck in terms of the investments you’re making in aged care, childcare, infrastructure, the NBN, housing, all of those areas that will deliver a dividend to the community.
So yes there is a Budget repair job, and it would be my job to come in and look at how we sensibly deal with the Budget repair while maintaining support in those important areas of the economy.
It’s not going to be an easy job. These challenges will be there for anyone who wins the election, I hope it’s Labor, but we take the job seriously, as we do managing the Budget responsibly. From my point of view, sitting in Senate estimates hour after hour ... I’m not sure, in fact I’m positive that this government hasn’t always dealt with the Budget that way, ie made decisions that are about delivering for the Australian people and fiscally responsible.
There are example after example where they haven’t met that test. We are setting those tests for ourselves.
Updated
Will Labor extend the Coalition’s fuel excise cut or the low and medium income tax offset?
Jim Chalmers:
We haven’t committed to extending either of those two measures, we have been upfront about it since the Budget that we think it would be difficult for the government of either political persuasion to extend those cost of living measures.
We have said there is a role for cost of living relief in the near term as Australians get absolutely smashed by cost of living and falling real wages. Our beef to the government is that there is no plan beyond those temporary cost of living measures to deal with inflationary pressures in the economy.
This government after almost a decade in office is entirely bereft of any ideas beyond a plan to get them through the election. Our economic plan, which is all about building the capacity of the economy without adding to those in inflationary pressures, is all about dealing with the primary challenge we have in our economy right now which is skyrocketing inflation, which has been highlighted today by that remarkable 5.1% number.
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Asked what number Labor would put on wage increases, Jim Chalmers says:
The government has forecast wage growth 55 times and the government has been wrong 52 times.
This is a government notorious for overpromising and underdelivering on wages growth and we won’t make the same mistake. What we have said in the plan we are delivering today is there are five ways we would get real wages growing again.
First of all, making it easier for people to work more and earn more by reforming childcare. Training people for higher wage opportunities. Investing in industries where we have issues with wages growth, especially in the care economy. Supporting wage cases.
It’s not for us from opposition to create a new set of Treasury forecasts. It is for us to identify the challenge with the economy, principally falling real wages, skyrocketing inflation and nothing to show in economic terms for $1tn in debt and say what we would do about it.
We have released our plan today to say what we would do about wages. If we are successful on 21 May, we would immediately start implementing our policies in that first Budget and the forecast would be updated in the appropriate way.
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Jim Chalmers:
We would be inheriting $1tn in debt. We don’t pretend an incoming government of either political persuasion can turn that ship around quickly. When it comes to spending as well, the damage that has been done by this government, which doubled the debt even before the pandemic, means that one Budget, one term in office will not completely fix all of the damage that’s been done to the economy or the Budget.
So our responsibility is to do what we meaningfully can, to begin where we can, to start to improve the quality of the Budget. And we have deliberately been – when it comes to the multinational tax measures – we have been conservative and responsible and restrained about it. We have deliberately set the start date for two of the measures 14 months down the track to give us time to meaningfully consult. We do not pretend a new government can click its fingers and clean up all of the mess this government has created in the economy and the Budget.
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Labor senator Katy Gallagher on the budget audit:
We will also undertake an internal audit of the Coalition rorts and wasteful spending. This will be led by finance and Treasury in the first year to identify money that can be reallocated back into delivering services to the Australian people or return to the Budget to assist with budget repair.
We know the best way to fix the Budget and pay down debt is to lift growth and boost incomes, and the best way to improve the economy and lift growth is to make smart and responsible investments like our policies are to expand productive capacity so that it can grow faster than debt.
Gallagher says she has faith in treasury and finance to independently audit the budget.
Updated
Jim Chalmers:
We expect the usual breathless and unhinged scare campaigns from our political opponents. But Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg can’t have it both ways. They can’t pretend they want to do something meaningful on multinational tax avoidance at the same time as they pretend that taxes won’t go up if they are re-elected.
They are either lying to Australians about no new taxes or they are lying to 130 countries around the world that they’ve told they have will join in taking meaningful action in multinational tax avoidance.
The question for Josh Frydenberg and Scott Morrison is this: are they lying to Australians or are they lying to the global community when it comes to new taxes on multinational corporations here and around the world?
This government has announced they would do something in this area but, true to form, they have not delivered. There is always this gap between announcement and delivery when it comes to this government and we seeing it once again. It says it all about a government which is happy to take more tax from ordinary Australians so that multinationals can continue to pay low or no tax and meet their obligations.
Updated
Here is Murph with the multinational tax plan:
Jim Chalmers:
The three policies we are proposing in more detail today are, first of all, trimming spending on outsourced contractors, consultants and labour hire.
Secondly, an internal audit of waste and rorts in the first year of a new government.
Thirdly, measures to ensure multinationals pay a fair share of tax, where they make their profits and in our case, here in Australia. So we will support the OECD’s tubular policy when it comes to multinational taxes.
We will limit debt related deductions at 30% of profits consistent with the OECD’s recommended approach. We will limit the ability of multinationals to abuse Australia’s tax treaties when holding intellectual property in tax havens and we will introduce a range of transparency and reporting requirements as well.
Under the Liberals and Nationals, Australians are paying much more tax than they were when this government came to office but multinationals, at the same time, are avoiding their obligations to Australians.
Too much money is lost to Australians and the services they rely on, which suffer as a consequence of all of this revenue leakage. The same goes for Australian businesses. We want to level the playing field when it comes to tax so Australian businesses can compete and prosper as well.
Our changes to multinational tax are about levelling the playing field for Australian businesses and making sure there are funds available to fund the services like Medicare and other services that Australians rely on as well. Our proposals are responsible, they are conservative, they are measured and they are restrained.
What we are proposing here with these tax changes adds barely 0.1% to tax receipts and goes absolutely nowhere near the tax cap that the government has imposed.
Updated
Labor releases economic plan
Shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers is in Canberra, where he is launching Labor’s economic plan.
This release today could not be better timed, given we found out today that inflation in the March quarter was 5.1%*.
This is the highest inflation we have had in Australia for more than 20 years. It is the highest inflation we have had in the country since the introduction of the GST. Australians are getting absolutely smashed by the rising cost of living on Scott Morrison’s watch.
This is his triple whammy of skyrocketing costs of living, rising interest rates and falling real wages and that is what the number was all about today. This inflation number should be a wake-up call for a government is out of touch, out of plans and out of time.
These inflationary pressures have been building in the economy for some time.
I know the prime minister wanted to wave a graph around earlier today. Have a look at this graph, which is cost of living over the last year under Scott Morrison and what that shows is that the cost of living pressures have been building since before the war in Ukraine.
This is a government which takes credit for unemployment falling in welcome ways but will not take responsibility for the fact that real wages are going backwards in this country.
More substantially than they are in the US and other places as well. On Scott Morrison’s watch, prices are going through the roof, real wages are falling and interest rate rises are about to add to the pain that people feel right around Australia. In this country under Scott Morrison, everything is going up except people’s pay, and they are about to be hit with rising interest rates on top of that.
* Labor plans when to release its policies. And the CPI date is set in stone. So you could say it was actually purposely timed.
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If you need a little laugh today, this video is great.
Comedians have got political campaign satire all wrong. @danilic You need to learn from Katherine Deves, this is the funniest thing I’ve seen in ages. pic.twitter.com/SoTkl90Lom
— Darren Cotterill (@dcotterill) April 27, 2022
Updated
Josh Frydenberg seems very agitated about his independent challenger Monique Ryan.
In fact he seems very agitated about all the ‘teal’ independents.
They are running as a political party, they have no policy details, they have no costings. It’s the vibe of the thing. They are a slogan and a billboard, and nothing more.
He says the biggest issue on transparency is who they would vote for in the case of a hung parliament.
Frydenberg:
Today I’m here, in front of the full media press pack to answer your questions. This morning I was on TV doing multiple interviews. Then on radio again being interviewed. I’m subjecting myself to scrutiny every single day, multiple times. Yet these fake independents are not.
And they are asking a hundred thousand plus people in the electorate of Kooyong to take them as they say they are. With no detail, with no transparency, with no accountability, and with no integrity, around the issues that are important; they won’t reveal their funding sources, who is really pulling the strings. We know who it is yet they will not say so.
Frydenberg is the treasurer. Which is why he is doing interviews. As the treasurer.
Updated
There is growing concern about severe and acute hepatitis with no known cause affecting children aged one month old through to 16 years old in at least 12 countries. The World Health Organisation has urged health authorities worldwide to be on alert for similar cases.
So far 190 mystery cases of acute hepatitis in children have been reported, with 140 of them in Europe, mostly in the UK. Seventeen children became so sick they needed liver transplants.
A federal health department spokeswoman told Guardian Australia that there have been no increases in Australia of children hospitalised with unexplained acute hepatitis.
The Australian government Department of Health and the Communicable Diseases Network Australia have been monitoring reports of increased cases of unexplained acute hepatitis in children in the UK, Europe and the USA.
Hepatitis is the medical term for inflammation of the liver which is a general immune response to injury and infection. Symptoms of hepatitis in children may include yellowing of the skin and eyes, fever, discolouration of urine and/or faeces, itchy skin, joint stiffness, muscle aches, lethargy and nausea, vomiting and or abdominal pain.
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Q: Every sector ... bar clothing and footwear has increased... Is it correct to claim 5.1% inflation [is the fault of the] on the war on Ukraine?
Josh Frydenberg:
Just to correct you, you see transport costs playing into food and groceries on the supermarket shelves. That is what happens as a result of moving food and groceries across the country so that they are picked up by consumers.
We are seeing higher prices in a number of areas and this is largely driven by international factors. But, again, it is the forecast of Treasury, then reaffirmed independently by the secretary of Treasury and finance, just after the election was called, and we are expecting to see inflation come down and we would then see wages increase.
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Josh Frydenberg is letting forecasts do a lot of work here, rather than what the actual gains have been when it comes to wage rises (the forecast wage increases for most of the last decade have not been met):
As you know in the budget that we released two weeks ago, we forecast that wages would rise each year and would therefore be higher than inflation in the coming years. Those numbers on those forecasts were reaffirmed independently by the secretary of Treasury and secretary of finance in the pre-election fiscal outlook.
That was reaffirmed. What we are facing today is higher inflation in Australia at 5.1%. But as I pointed out, inflation is higher in the rest of the world.
What we are also saying is in a very tight labour market and in a tight labour market, employers are competing for workers and that will put upward pressure on wages.
... The expectation in the Budget was that inflation would then come down to 3% in the next year on wages would increase to 3.25%. What we are seeing now at a time of great international volatility is the impact of the war in Ukraine.
What these numbers do not take into account, the full effect of, is the halving of the fuel excise. As I said, at budget time, it is expectation of Treasury that the halving of the fuel excise would take about a quarter of a percentage point from inflation and we expect to see that in the June quarter and not the March quarter numbers that we have just announced.
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Here is what the government really wants you to take away from its messaging today, in the face of the highest inflation since the the GST was introduced.
Josh Frydenberg:
This is not a time to put at risk the gains that we have made. We have come too far. This is a time for strength and stability. This is not a time to roll the dice on fake independents, a weak Labor leader and the chaos of a hung parliament.
You know he means it because he is using his very serious voice and speaking quite slowly.
Updated
A pretty tired-looking Josh Frydenberg is speaking about the inflation increase.
He starts with fuel prices, so he can talk about the government cutting the fuel tax.
Updated
Cherelle Murphy, EY’s chief economist, lays it on the line about the RBA’s suddenly limited options for the 3 May meeting.
If the Reserve Bank wasn’t convinced that it had the evidence for a rate hike last month, it does for the May meeting next week.
A record low cash rate of 0.1% is clearly now no longer appropriate for this economy, meaning the Reserve Bank must join other central banks around the world and tighten monetary policy,” she says. “To not do so risks the RBA losing credibility.
And so, 2.30pm AEST next Tuesday looms as a key moment in the election campaign – that’s when the RBA board will announce its rates decision. Sitting on its hands will no doubt draw ire for the board from a Labor government, if that’s what we get after 21 May.
Two other dates are worth putting into your campaign calendar. On 18 May, we’ll get the wage price index data from the ABS which will most likely give Labor the chance to highlight how in real terms, wages are shrinking.
The WPI for the December quarter came in at 2.3% at an annual rate, well shy of the headline CPI figure that was then 3.5%. After today, that rabbit is at 5.1% and it’s not very likely that the wage turtle closed the gap during the first three months of 2022.
And on 19 May, just two days before polls close, we’ll get the April labour figures. We were just below 4% in March (as Anthony Albanese no doubt now recalls), and we may go lower again.
That may give the Morrison government one final chance to state “unemployment is at the lowest rate since 1974”. Should the jobless rate edge higher, that message may be muffled a bit.
Updated
There was a back and forth between Bridget McKenzie and Nic Stuart of the Canberra Times at the national press club, after the reporter asked a question about why the Nationals didn’t speak with pride about climate policies, given the impact climate change was already having on their electorates.
McKenzie:
[Regarding] the National party having strong policies, we’re articulating our vision for regional Australians every day, not just in the federal parliament but in all of the divisions, in state parliaments as well.
We want to see a prosperous, safe and secure sustainable rural and regional Australia, and that isn’t just one policy area that we’re focusing on there. We’re making sure that we’re going to be economically sustainable, that our people are well looked after. The services you enjoy here are taken for granted by people who live in Canberra, that aren’t able to be accessed 500 clicks down the road.
There is not a conceptualisation ... of political elites and cultural elites of the realities of living out in rural and regional Australia.
That’s why the National party still exists 100 years later, because we deliver for our regions, we’re very proud of our policies and we’ll continue to do.
Q: So, am I an elite?
McKenzie:
That’s for you to answer?
Q: I’m saying that I’m not. Are you saying that I am?
McKenzie:
No.
Q: Well why then, can’t I understand?
McKenzie:
Did you want to did ... be? You want to be an elite?
Q: Yeah, I’d like to be like you. A perfect retirement plan there!
McKenzie:
You don’t know my backstory.
The press club moves on.
Updated
Peter Gutwein's Tasmanian parliament replacement named
Former premier of Tasmania Peter Gutwein, who quit politics in early April, has been replaced in state parliament by a fellow Liberal and political staffer after a recount.
Gutwein resigned with an “empty tank” following two years in the top job and just 10 months after leading his party to a third-straight election win.
His departure prompted a recount in the northern electorate of Bass, which on Wednesday was won by Simon Wood.
Wood, who has worked in a constituent and community engagement role with Liberal senator Wendy Askew, received just 707 first-preference votes at the May 2021 state poll.
Under Tasmania’s Hare-Clark electoral system, a recount of Gutwein’s primary votes was undertaken to determine his replacement.
Gutwein, a 20-year political veteran, received a mammoth 32,482 first preference votes from about 67,000 formal ballots.
Wood picked up 61% of the preferences, ahead of fellow Liberal Greg Kieser (28.8%).
Wood served as an alderman in the Launceston city council from 2014-18.
Each of Tasmania’s five electorates is represented by five members of parliament, forming a 25-person lower house in which the Liberals hold 13 seats.
It is the second recount in Bass in as many months, after former education minister Sarah Courtney left politics citing a desire to spend more time with family.
Courtney, who was replaced by Liberal Lara Alexander in a recount, had also copped criticism over the timing of an overseas holiday shortly before the school year began.
Long-term deputy premier Jeremy Rockliff was elected unopposed on 8 April by the Liberal partyroom to replace Gutwein in the state’s top job.
The Liberals, who have governed since 2014, have been forced to undertake three cabinet reshuffles this year due to the departure of ministers.
(Via AAP)
Updated
Q: The [integrity] model that your government has put forward wouldn’t actually be able to capture, for example, the ministerial breach that you were involved in as it wouldn’t fall under the category of non-criminal misconduct. So how can voters trust what you say given that track record?
Bridget McKenzie:
Because I follow the Westminster conventions. That’s how you can trust it. I’m part of the side of politics that has done the heavy lifting on developing an integrity commission. Three hundred pages of legislation. I look forward to it being implemented. We need to be able to differentiate between criminal corruption and political hit jobs.
I think in a Westminster system like ours, there are conventions that ministers adhere to and appropriately so. And the public needs to be assured that public service, both political and bureaucratic. We’re not seeing that systemic political corruption that you can see in other places. So we’ve done the hard work.
We’ve got the legislation there ready to go. We took it to the last election. I would love to be standing here today with an integrity commission delivered. And that is up to the Labor party and hopefully after this election*, we’ll have the mandate and they’ll respect that.
Q: Just on the ‘political hit job standard’. Are you saying that the ministerial breach of standards was a political hit job?
McKenzie:
No, because I took responsibility. In a Westminster system, when you breach ministerial standards, it’s beholden on the minister to do the right thing and resign. That’s what I did. Over a $30 honorary membership to a gun club that’s public knowledge. If you want more details, [there is] a 6,000-word public submission on the issue.
Q: But you were returned to the front bench, just to clarify, just a year later. I’m wondering in terms of what that federal Icac might have achieved? Would it be something that you would step down for the remainder of your career? Or …
McKenzie:
At the end of the day, you serve at the prime minister and in my case, the deputy prime minister’s pleasure.
*It is not currently up to Labor. The government of the day decides the legislative agenda. The government has not introduced the legislation because it does not have agreement from its own side of politics.
Updated
Q: In the speech, you mentioned achieving a lower emissions economy by 2050, skirting around the language of net zero by 2050. If this is an absolute commitment that will be done, why not just legislate it so that candidates like Colin Boyce can’t just say that there’s wriggle room?
Bridget McKenzie:
We had the debates last year as you’ll recall. We aren’t legislating it. We put our plan to Glasgow. We’re committed to it. We can’t be clearer. Both parties of government in the Coalition are absolutely committed to moving to net zero by 2050. We’ve got the long-term plan to achieve it. We’ve also the long-term plan as I outlined today to support the regional communities that are going to be impacted by that transition going forward. So, I don’t know how we can be clearer.
A lot of countries in this debate have a plan but don’t know how they’re going to get there. We do. And we’re not going leave anyone behind in that journey to the destination.
Q: If the commitment is absolute, shouldn’t you stop the situation where the conservative side of politics is able to talk out of both sides of their mouth and to continue to appeal to a constituency that does not want to achieve net zero by 2050, by just legislating it?
McKenzie:
We’re very, very comfortable with what we took to Glasgow. That’s why we’ve handed down the budget we’ve handed down. It’s why every minister is letting the Guardian know and our Australians know that we are committed to moving to net zero by 2050. Nothing will dissuade us from that. To think that that is a war progression, I think is a mistake. Anyone who understands the development of technologies over time understands that that can be quite an up and down process. So we’ve built that into our plan as well, recognising that over time, new technologies will emerge and we will be adopting them. Right now, we’re investing in the technologies that are going to get us there in the short-term and we’ll have more to say over coming decades.
Updated
Here is the whole exchange from home affairs minister Karen Andrews on Brisbane radio 4BC this morning, where she questions the timing of China announcing its security pact with Solomon Islands, implying it could be seen as political interference.
Q: How realistic is it, Karen Andrews, that in the next year China says to the Solomon Islands, ‘hey, you know what, we’re happy to give you all this aid with your domestic security but we wouldn’t mind putting a few troops down there for something’?
Andrews:
Look, it’s very likely that they will proceed –
Q: Likely? You think it’s likely?
Andrews:
Yes, I do. I think it’s likely that that will be the path that China will be taking in the Pacific region. Now I think that there’s a number of things that we should be looking at with what is happening with China in the Pacific region and the one thing that we should be at least taking notice of, and paying attention to, is the timing of the announcements and the deals in relation to the Solomon Islands. Beijing is very clearly aware that we’re in a federal election campaign here at the moment and now we have a significant focus on what is happening in the Pacific Islands, what China is doing. Now, why now?
Why in the middle of a federal election campaign is all this coming to light? I mean, we talk about political interference and that has many forms so I think we need to be very much aware of what Beijing is doing, what its plans are, what it’s trying to achieve in the actions its taking in the Solomons, but not exclusively in the Solomons.
Q: I agree with you. There’s absolutely no doubt, no doubt if anyone thinks this isn’t right and it’s just some bloke talking on radio that doesn’t know what he’s talking about. There’s no doubt Beijing would rather have Labor in power than the Coalition in Australia, because the Coalition in Australia – and our government are the ones that have taken the fight up to them, there’s absolutely no doubt about it. And there’s no doubt Beijing knows. Beijing would know the names of candidates in every seat, you think they’re not that smart? Then you’ve had your head in the sand for a long time. Karen Andrews?
Andrews:
Of course, and China would be absolutely aware of the current members of the ministry, what their behaviour has been in the past, they would be looking at what opposition shadow ministers have said in the past. They would be very aware of where their alignment has been so yes, they would be watching very closely what is happening here, and again, I think some of the actions and the timing of that is a cause for concern.
Updated
Bridget McKenzie:
Anyone that thinks that Matt Canavan hasn’t always held the views he’s articulating this week hasn’t been paying attention since he arrived in this place. Does Matt’s views reflect the National party? No, it doesn’t.
We were very, very united in our decision to back the government’s move to net zero by 2050.
We do not back a [linear] transition, we do not back a transition to zero emissions by 2050 in a way that decimates our industrial base.
We want to see an approach which has been put forward by our government which is around employing new technologies rather than actually putting the onus if you like on businesses, which obviously affects local jobs. We don’t know what those tech will be over the next two decades. Anyone with a startup, put your hand up and I’ll invest. But the technologies we do know right now we are investing in so they are going to provide future opportunities.
The National party is absolutely lock-step united in moving our economy towards net zero by 2050, and I think we have done the right thing by the people who have sent each and everyone to parliament, and we all come from very, very different places and spaces around this great country, to make sure that any move is mitigated.
Q: You say you’re united but Matt Canavan is part of the National party.
McKenzie:
But you were suggesting he was blowing up the government. He’s not blowing up the government.
Updated
Bridget McKenzie on net zero:
I’ve been public when this debate was occurring last year about what the National party’s thinking had to be around this. As anyone who has been watching politics [knows], there is a very broad range of views on climate change within the National party party room, from net zero never, to net zero yesterday. And everything in between. But the one thing, I’ve never seen the party more united in that moment.
The one thing that we all focused on was ensuring that in the move to net zero by 2050, which the prime minister had made that commitment to, that we were able to mitigate, protect our communities in regional Australia over the next three decades and that is what our long-term plan that I’ve outlined today actually does.
This is one of the myths in this country and it’s not about whether you believe the science or not. I mean, I think that the science is settled. That’s my personal view and I’m been unequivocal about that in my time in this place. It’s about who pays the cost.
And for rural and regional Australia, because we are out of sight, out of mind, and we’re in industries that political elites and cultural elites don’t like, places of power don’t like, it’s very easy for them to make sure that we pay the cost.
And so I think as a party, we stood up in that moment and said: not a problem, but we’re going to make sure that we can care for our communities, make sure that our national economy is not going to take the hit and make sure that regions are not decimated as a result.
Updated
Bridget McKenzie:
I believe that our nation will come out of this uncertainty stronger because we will charge forward with country values, courage, candour and selflessness and service.
Updated
Environment groups say a Labor announcement of $9.8m to tackle gamba grass in the Northern Territory is a potential game changer in the fight to stop one of the greatest threats to the territory’s famous landscapes.
Gamba grass is highly invasive, grows to four metres, and is acknowledged as one of the most destructive weeds in the savannas of the Northern Territory.
It fuels hotter and more dangerous fires that threaten homes and businesses, important ecosystems, and places such as the Kakadu National Park.
Andrew Cox, the chief executive of the Invasive Species Council, says gamba grass is the “worst of the worst” because the fires it fuels are transforming the Top End, as well as increasing carbon emissions.
For years there have been calls for greater efforts to stop its spread and eradicate it.
Labor says if it is elected it will commit $9.8m for jobs to tackle the problem.
Cox says he hopes other parties will match the commitment, which has “the potential to be a real game changer” by ensuring enough resources are available to reduce gamba’s spread.
Palmerston resident Geoff Martin says the commitment is welcome.
Those of us who deal with the impacts of gamba on our properties have been calling for more government support for years, so it’s great to see it finally getting the federal attention it deserves.
Updated
The CPI figures include a lot to mull over. We noted in an earlier post that the RBA looks at the underlying rate, which came in at 3.7%, the highest since March 2009.
At a quarterly rate, though, the 1.4% is the highest since the ABS started tracking the trimmed median measure, which strips out more volatile movements, in 2002.
Of course, the central bank has to weigh up whether the March quarter was particularly bad because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sending energy prices higher.
The federal government’s 22.1-cent cut in the fuel excise will take some of the sting out of petrol prices during the June quarter (and much of the September one, before the rate is restored – assuming that’s what whoever’s in government by then does.)
Anyway, the 11% fuel price rise in the March quarter was the most since another invasion – this time by one oil producer, Iraq, of another, Kuwait, in 1990.
Economists such as David Bassanese (a former AFR correspondent) reckon the RBA can’t hold back at its 3 May board meeting and must raise the official cash rate target from its record low 0.1%.
“Pegging the first rate hike in the cycle to a high CPI outcome is best from a public presentation perspective,” he says. “It reminds the public that the RBA is targeting inflation and is actively working to contain inflation expectations in the current environment.”
The government has a different public presentation in mind, presumably but an RBA rate rise during the election campaign will dent the “but rates will be higher under Labor” refrain.
Scott Morrison, when he gets to update his CPI chart later today, can at least take some solace. At 5.1%, Australia’s headline inflation rate is lower than the US’s 8.5%, the UK’s 7% and even dear New Zealand neighbours’ 6.9%.
However, all those economies have already started lifting interest rates, so we will close the gap.
It will need some major stalling of the economy here in the June quarter for us to avoid a yearly inflation figure that’s lower than the 5.1% figure that just landed – but that won’t be good for either major party, or most of us.
Updated
Also spare a thought for the people of Lockhart in far north Queensland, as AAP reports:
Lockhart River mayor Wayne Butcher says telecommunications in his region are “ridiculous and unacceptable” after phone lines failed for the fourth time in two years.
The regional township of Lockhart River, 800 kilometres north of Cairns, is without telecommunications for the second time in April.
In 2018, the town went without contact with the outside world for six weeks after lightning struck a phone tower.
Butcher said with the threat of cyclones and weather systems in the region, he’s tired of asking for a solution that won’t come.
“We can’t run our day-to-day business, we can’t run the shire, we can’t call for an ambulance,” he said.
“It’s ridiculous and unacceptable.
“Telstra knows about it, the federal government knows about it, and we just keep knocking on their door, reminding them we’re having the same recurrence of events here, every year,” the mayor said.
AAP has sought comment from Telstra.
Australia imprisoned a 14 year old boy in an adult prison.
When he became ill, the Australian government quietly sent him home to Indonesia. Where he died.
Erwin Prayoga was 14 when he was detained on an asylum seeker boat and prosecuted as an adult people smuggler. He told Australian authorities he was 14. Police instead used a wrist X-ray - a technique they had been told was open to error and inexact - to claim he was 19yo.
— Christopher Knaus (@knausc) April 26, 2022
‘I want to know why he died’: family seeks justice over Australia’s jailing of Indonesian child. Internal documents reveal shocking miscarriage leading to imprisonment of 14yo, who became seriously ill behind bars, and was deported home, where he soon died https://t.co/fAPUBu6S8V
— Christopher Knaus (@knausc) April 26, 2022
Tim Wilson says his home was targeted by vandals.
He has repeatedly claimed throughout the election campaign that “outsiders” are coming in to his electorate to cause issues.
Sadly, my home was targeted by vandals again. For my & husband’s safety we will upgrade security again.
— Tim Wilson MP (@TimWilsonMP) April 26, 2022
AFP are being called to the Goldstein office many times.
This is not Goldstein, and many residents are saying they’re intimidated by outsiders trying to change our community
Updated
National Covid-19 update
Here are the latest coronavirus case numbers from around Australia on Wednesday, as the country records at least 46 deaths from Covid-19:
ACT
- Deaths: 0
- Cases: 997
- In hospital: 69 (with 4 people in ICU)
NSW
- Deaths: 10
- Cases: 12,188
- In hospital: 1,743 (with 10 people in ICU)
Northern Territory
- Deaths: 0
- Cases: 538
- In hospital: 56 (with 1 person in ICU)
Queensland
- Deaths: 9
- Cases: 6,848
- In hospital: 527 (with 12 people in ICU)
South Australia
- Deaths: 3
- Cases: 4,856
- In hospital: 247 (with 10 people in ICU)
Tasmania
- Deaths: 1
- Cases: 1,213
- In hospital: 40 (with 1 person in ICU)
Victoria
- Deaths: 13
- Cases: 10,734
- In hospital: 456 (with 32 people in ICU)
Western Australia
- Deaths: 10 historical deaths
- Cases: 8,392
- In hospital: 253 (with 9 people in ICU)
Updated
A little earlier this morning, Wentworth Liberal MP Dave Sharma was asked at least three times if Labor’s safeguard mechanism was a carbon tax.
He did not address it. Sharma told Laura Jayes:
You’ll have to ask them to explain what their policy is.
I’m not going to characterise it but … I’ve listened to several interviews by their spokespeople now, some of them say nothing’s going to change. Some of them say that, yes, things will change and businesses will have to find a way to purchase offsets or credits, which is going to have a cost upon the operation to their business.
If that’s the case, Labor needs to be upfront about that.
But he wouldn’t say it was a carbon tax
Updated
Scott Morrison will clearly have to update that chart he waved around at this morning’s media conference, showing Australia’s inflation lagging other rich nations.
That 5.1% CPI reading for the March quarter at an annual rate is still below the 8%-plus pace in the US, but it has already started lifting its central bank lending rate.
The focus now shifts to what the RBA will do on 3 May when the board next meets. It’s notable that RBA officials have been all but absent from the public sphere during the election campaign lest they blurt out something that might be seen as political.
Well, they can’t dodge the inflation jump. The central bank doesn’t focus on the headline number (like, say, those writing headlines), but the trimmed mean (TM) figure that strips out more volatile movements to get at the “underlying” inflation rate.
That TM figure came in at 3.7% – well outside the 2% to 3% rate the central bank targets over the “medium term”. That’s the highest since March 2009 and only going one way. That has to make a May interest rate rise a lot more likely than it was before 11.30 today.
Pressure on the RBA to life interest rates in May, prior to the 21 May federal election just went up a big notch, with CPI at 5.1% in the March quarter. Not seen since the introduction of the GST in 2000. #AusVotes2022 #ausvotes #auspol pic.twitter.com/mcMBtCGKq0
— Peter Hannam (@p_hannam) April 27, 2022
Updated
The Business Council of Australia has tweeted on the Coalition’s lies about Labor’s safeguard mechanisms:
The safeguard mechanism is already in place alongside a suite of other measures to reduce emissions, with careful consultation with industry we believe it is the right incentive to drive investment, deliver more jobs and meet our net-zero commitments. https://t.co/IfirBWxrZX
— Business Council of Australia (@BCAcomau) April 27, 2022
The concrete, bipartisan commitment to net-zero emissions was a critical step towards giving businesses the certainty they need to make investments, create new jobs, keep Australia an energy superpower and deliver affordable, reliable and secure energy.
— Business Council of Australia (@BCAcomau) April 27, 2022
Inflation increases to 5.1%
Australia’s consumer prices jumped in the March quarter, rising at the fastest annual pace since 2000, with higher fuel and food costs among items posting the biggest increases.
The CPI for the first three months of 2022 was up 5.1% from a year ago, and 2.1% higher compared with the December quarter of 2021, the ABS said in a statement. Market economists had expected annual and quarterly CPI to come in at 4.6% and 1.7%, respectively.
Fuel prices rose 11% in the quarter, with most of the increase coming before the Morrison government cut the fuel excise by 22.1 cents a litre for six months. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February was the main factor in pushing up energy costs, although they had already been trending higher as economic growth accelerated out of Covid lockdowns in many parts of the world.
The Morrison government has been bracing for a bad number, linking its $250 cost-of-living payment to 6 million recipients to coincide with today’s CPI release. This 5.1% increase will not be happily received by the Coalition.
A weekly survey of consumer sentiment by ANZ and Roy Morgan out earlier today indicated confidence had stalled after rising for three weeks following the 29 March federal budget.
Updated
The ABS has reported a year on year CPI increase of 5.1%
That is about the first time we have seen that sort of inflation number since the early 2000s.
The March quarter Consumer Price Index was reported at an increase of 2.1% this quarter.
Why does it matter? Because the RBA said it would move the cash target rate once inflation began rising – which means interest rate increases are on the cards as early as next week when the RBA meets
Updated
Queensland reports nine covid deaths
Today we have recorded 6,848 new COVID-19 cases.
— Queensland Health (@qldhealth) April 27, 2022
Sadly, we have reported 9 deaths in the past 24 hours.
Full details➡️ https://t.co/2vvTmli7qN pic.twitter.com/8QoqHeWTLc
Karen Andrews on Brisbane radio 4BC
The one thing we should at least be taking notice of and paying some attention to is the timing of the announcements and the deals in relation to the Solomon Islands. Now, Beijing is clearly very aware that we’re in a federal election campaign here at the moment and why now?
Why, right in the middle of a federal election campaign, is all this coming to light? I mean we talk about political interference and that has many forms.
Updated
Home affairs minister implies timing of China security pact is 'political interference'
Home affairs minister Karen Andrews often has a chat to Brisbane radio 4BC.
Seems like she may have gotten a little loose this morning, when she implied the timing of the Solomon Islands-China security pact could be a form of political interference.
Home Affairs Minister @karenandrewsmp is so out of depth in her security portfolio she’s embarking on flights of conspiratorial fantasy. The Govt won’t accept they have presided over one of the worst policy failures in the Pacific since WW2. When you mess up, fess up! #auspol https://t.co/tlAeMQIfTq
— Brendan O'Connor (@BOConnorMP) April 27, 2022
Updated
Jason Clare contiunues:
The government’s policy, set up by Tony Abbott, implemented by Scott Morrison, same companies under us as under them. Most of them are represented by the Business Council of Australia and the Business Council of Australia have given us recommendations how to make it work better and we’re going to do just that.
I guess the important thing here is have a look at the motivations of the Liberal party here.
They are all over the shop at the moment. You’ve got Matt Canavan now saying they’re not going to do anything, tear up net zero, we’re in the middle of an election campaign and you’ve got the government at war with itself over climate change.
I reckon – just give me one more second – I reckon most people who are watching here at the moment have had a gutful of this.
They’re sick of politicians fighting about climate change.
They just have to look out the window to know it’s real.
As long as I’ve been in parliament – and Scott Morrison and I were elected on the same day – we’ve been fighting about this. Australians know it’s real.
They just want us to do something about it and for most of the last decade, the scare campaign on this has been if you do something about it, then suddenly people are going to lose their jobs and electricity bills are going to go up. Now the reverse is true. If you do something about it, then power bills will go down and we’ll create more jobs for Aussies and that’s the essence of what this campaign is about.
The Labor party will act where the Liberal party won’t, will create more jobs and cut your power bills.
The problem this government’s got is it’s trapped in the past. Half the Liberal party, most of the National party think climate change is what happens when you go to Hawaii for a holiday. It’s time they got real.
It’s time they understand that every time they open their mouth and tell the truth on this about what they really think, they’re losing votes for Josh Frydenberg in Kooyong and Dave Sharma in Wentworth.
Updated
Labor press conference
Jason Clare is up as the Labor party spokesperson and he wants to talk about the safeguards mechanism:
This goes to show just how desperate the Liberal party have got now that they’re now saying that something that Tony Abbott created is a carbon tax. Tony Abbott apparently created a carbon tax. If you believe that, I’ve got a Harbour Bridge I’d like to sell you. The great conspiracy now in this election campaign is that apparently Tony Abbott, 10 years ago, created a carbon tax.
Forget “man didn’t land on the moon”. Apparently now Tony Abbott created the carbon tax, and not only that, had the vision to do it almost a decade ago and plant it just now in the teeth of an election campaign. It is absolute rubbish.
Updated
There are *almost* tears here:
I remember when I was down in Quilpie when the drought was on and as I looked out on the dusty plains of the property out there, what actually brought Mrs Tully at the end of the day to a tear in her eye wasn’t the fact that she’d just been through breast cancer, she’d been through a drought and they were hanging on. She was worried about boarding school fees for her kids and that they would not get left behind because they happened to live on a property in rural Australia. Important stuff, these things. It makes a big difference.
Scott Morrison is making his regional Australia pitch in Rockhampton, using some of the same lines he just used in his press conference:
I feel a great affinity and connection with Australia’s heartland. I know that’s the case where I’m … Where I live … well, before I became prime minister, in Sydney’s Sutherland shire, and I miss it terribly. I know that because I saw as a local member of parliament my community feeling and seeking to feel the terrible pain that rural and regional Australians were going through through drought. It was one of the most common calls I would get to my little electorate office in Cronulla. You won’t find any big sweeping plains in my electorate, with cattle roaming and large wheat fields. No, you won’t.
You’ll find lots of other things, which is fantastic, including the Cronulla Sharks – who won here at this very stadium, beat the Tigers I think it was, at the end of last season.
They get it too. They empathise and that’s what all Australians want to see, in towns and cities alike, to see an Australia that grows together. We have a great capacity to grow together. We can carry the best hopes of our nation and the concerns and interests of our region and as a Liberal-National Coalition we do that in government.
Updated
Consumer confidence down
It’s hard to know how much consumer confidence will translate into voter satisfaction with the current government.
You can be sure the government, though, will hope people feel upbeat when they enter the voting booth on 21 May (or the 40%-plus likely to vote before then also feel cheery).
Anyway, the latest ANZ-Roy Morgan weekly survey of sentiment shows that the past three weeks of rebounding confidence post federal budget has stalled:
Mixed data out from @ANZ_Research & Roy Morgan, with consumer confidence modestly down, stalling after three weeks of gains following the federal budget (which included halving of the fuel excise rate, lopping 22.1 cents off each litre of petrol). #ausvotes #AusVotes2022 #auspol pic.twitter.com/E1AmHvIvuv
— Peter Hannam (@p_hannam) April 27, 2022
But we’re a big country, of course. Among the major states, confidence rose in New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia, while it dropped in Victoria and Western Australia – actually a lot out west (down 12.5%).
As the bank notes (that’s almost a pun): “NSW was the only state with confidence above the neutral level of 100.” The effects of the halving of the fuel excise are wearing off a bit, particularly as petrol prices have been lately creeping up.
The other thing to highlight is that worries about inflation have also moderated slightly of late – something the Reserve Bank is particularly watching closely lest people start freaking out over how much they are paying for green beans and cucumbers (and most other produce).
The cut in fuel excise has helped ease inflationary expectations slightly. That's among the issues the RBA will be watching - are people shifting views on where prices are headed? (The excise cut lasts 6 months, or long enough to be the next government's headache.) #ausvotes pic.twitter.com/8KYbJISBaG
— Peter Hannam (@p_hannam) April 27, 2022
As ANZ economist David Plank notes, inflation concerns are now at their lowest in just over two months. However, he adds: “Today’s inflation data could have a near-term impact on sentiment, with it expected to confirm that inflation has surged.”
The ABS will release March quarter consumer price inflation shortly. The market consensus is for a headline figure of 4.6% for the year-on-year increase, and 1.7% for the quarter alone.
Ahead of the 11.30am AEST release, markets were pricing the chance of a rate rise by the RBA at the (pre-election) 3 May meeting at 44%. From June onwards, though, they expect (probably too fearfully) a steady pace of rate increases.
Ahead of today's March Qtr CPI data, it's interesting chances of a May 3rd rate rise by the RBA have lately retreated a bit. Beyond May, the market is, though, betting on steady rises for months to come. (Probably too pessimistic...perhaps by a long way.) #AusVotes2022 #ausvotes pic.twitter.com/SOqbtVGOn4
— Peter Hannam (@p_hannam) April 26, 2022
Updated
Teachers walk out over Perrottet visit
Teachers at a western Sydney school have staged a walkout ahead of a visit by the New South Wales premier, Dominic Perrottet, amid an escalating industrial dispute.
Perrottet visited the Meadowbank Education and Employment Precinct in Sydney’s north-west on Wednesday to mark the beginning of the new school term.
But about 50 teachers at Marsden High School, part of the precinct, staged a walkout. According to photographs from the ABC, the teachers held signs reading “more than thanks”, part of the NSW Teachers Federation’s campaign for increased pay.
The walkout comes after NSW teachers voted yesterday to strike next Wednesday amid concerns over wages and conditions.
Part of the action included a decision to walk off school grounds when any state government MP is visiting – the first time this kind of action has been taken in at least a decade.
There’s been increasing union unrest in NSW. The state has seen strikes from nurses, train staff, paramedics and bus drivers in recent months.
The premier’s office has been contacted for comment.
Updated
Anthony Albanese criticises Coalition 'complacency' in the Pacific
Anthony Albanese is counting down the hours to being freed from Covid isolation in his Marrickville command centre, and Skyped into Channel 10’s Studio 10 program on Wednesday morning to confirm that, yes, he is wearing pants.
“I have jeans on the bottom,” he stressed, after being asked by the show’s hosts if he was taking advantage of the work from home situation.
On day six of his isolation period, due to get out on Thursday night, Albanese admitted it was “very frustrating trying to run a campaign virtually”. He’s had a revolving cast of Labor frontbenchers taking turns as de facto campaign leader, including Jason Clare, who won plaudits last week when he stepped in
“I am captain of a great team, and Jason is certainly better looking than I am, no question about that,” Albanese laughed.
“He is a great mate, we have a fantastic team and people have stepped in.”
Scott Morrison rubbished Labor’s Pacific policy yesterday, claiming the opposition wanted to “send in the ABC”. Albanese took a crack at what he called “flippant remarks” from Morrison, saying the government should “use everything at our disposal”.
“We need to stop this complacency. It is something that characterises this government, too little, too late, whether it is for the bushfire response, whether it is rapid antigen test or responding to floods, this is a government that doesn’t act,” he claimed.
Albanese also got a rapid-fire round of questions, including one on preserving koalas. He said Labor would outline “a strategic plan to provide support for them” which would be announced “in coming days”.
Updated
When pressed by Laura Jayes on the “fantasy” that the Coalition is trying to sell – that its net zero target won’t cost anything (spoiler: it will, because that is how it works – taxpayers pay for government investment), David Littleproud gets bogged down over money which is invested over the forwards.
That money over the forwards is taxpayer funds. He calls it “Australia capital”. That’s a fancy way of saying taxpayer funds.
Updated
David Littleproud has a habit of saying the quiet things out loud.
He told Patricia Karvelas on ABC’s Radio National earlier this campaign that the Coalition’s border claims are “a scare campaign”.
And under strong questioning from Sky’s Laura Jayes, he admits what Murph was talking about in the last post.
Jayes: Did your government introduce a carbon tax by stealth when it introduced a safeguard mechanism?
Littleproud:
No. That was about making sure that we had a mechanism ... whereby we lived up to our international commitments, and we knew the guardrails in which we could work within an industry ... because it’s not just government that actually produced the emissions.
It’s everyone has a role to play in this and this was making sure that those guardrails were there. Industry could work with confidence.
And what we’ve said is we’re not going to move those guardrails. We’re leaving them there, but what Labor is saying is they’re going to move those guardrails in.
And what that means is that puts pressure on the acceleration of business to try and cut emissions at a cost. And that cost has to go back to the Australian consumer because this isn’t, you know – the safeguard mechanism isn’t a progressive tax where you’re taxed in terms of your income.
This is an arbitrary tax that you will pay on your emissions.
So it is a carbon tax in which they are bringing that entire, they are saying to industry, you have to move quicker and accelerate what you’re doing to reduce emissions. You have to do the heavy lifting ...
Jayes: Is a safeguard mechanism a tax or not?
Littleproud:
Where it sits at the moment it is not a tax, because what we’re saying is we kept the guardrails out ...
Jayes: So it is only a tax if it works. Is that right?
Littleproud:
Well if you’re paying it, it’s a tax, exactly.
If you’re shrinking that in, it becomes a real tax. What it does is it goes through being a guardrail ... that they can work within, and giving [them] time to work within. But what Labor is doing is shrinking those guardrails in to become a tax because they’re stripping those guardrails in and then means that people have to pay it.
Updated
Murph has tweeted this thread, so here it is as a standalone post:
Katharine Murphy:
The PM was asked this morning whether the government introduced a carbon tax when it introduced the safeguard mechanism in 2013.
Morrison said this:
No, the difference is, as would you know, how the thresholds work and the fact we put incentives in place.
What Labor is doing is binding them on this and issuing penalties on those companies, so they couldn’t be more different. What Labor has is a tax, a sneaky carbon tax and that’s not good for regional Australia. It is not good at all.
I think it’s important that people are very clear about what the PM is saying here.
When he argues the Coalition has a credible climate policy, he says the safeguard mechanism is part of the tool kit for net zero by 2050.
He suggests it’s a serious mechanism. But what Morrison is saying here is it isn’t a serious mechanism. The PM is criticising Labor for turning the safeguard mechanism into a mechanism that helps to drive emissions reduction. Remember both parties say they support net zero.
On the TV right now, David Littleproud is describing a functioning safeguard mechanism as a carbon tax. If it’s a carbon tax when it functions, it’s a carbon tax now, because it’s the same policy.
He then says a functioning safeguard mechanism is an arbitrary tax. It isn’t.
If the Coalition says Australia will reach net zero by 2050, there’s nothing arbitrary about it. If that’s the target, you create mechanisms, incentives, carrots and sticks, to reach the target. The government is saying safeguards are fine, as long as they don’t work.
Updated
Barnaby Joyce is also in Rockhampton today, crossing over with Scott Morrison.
Another reason we saw such an early press conference from Morrison – who was determined to only speak about what he wanted to speak about and nothing more.
Over on Sky News, David Littleproud has joined the list of National MPs dumping a bucket all over Matt Canavan.
Michelle Landry, Michael McCormack and Littleproud aren’t exactly Canavan fans (Canavan is very closely aligned with Barnaby Joyce) so it seems like they have been getting a little bit of enjoyment this morning, telling Canavan to “pull his head in”.
At the same time, no one has said anything for the last two years, during which Canavan has been doing this on every single media outlet that will have him.
Updated
Speaking of Wentworth, News.com has released this polling:
UNLUCKY CHARM: Scott Morrison risks losing NSW seat of Wentworth to independent Allegra Spender, as voters emphatically reject politics of attacking trans people to win votes in new poll including in western Sydney’s Parramatta via @EqualityAu @KosSamaras https://t.co/gFZfanENsL pic.twitter.com/weWoOyo7Yi
— Samantha Maiden (@samanthamaiden) April 26, 2022
Sacrificing inner-city seats to win those outer urban ones? That seems to be the plan.
Updated
AAP has the detail on what Australia is sending to Ukraine:
The $26.7 million worth of military assistance will see Ukraine provided with six M777 lightweight towed howitzers along with ammunition.
It takes Australia’s military assistance contribution to Ukraine to $225 million, with a further $65 million provided in humanitarian aid along with more than 70,000 tonnes of thermal coal.
That is what Scott Morrison spoke about when he was asked a question about the Solomon Islands security pact. No one had raised it and it had already been announced.
Updated
More rain for the east coast
Just when you thought the Big Wet was old news, more rain is coming for sodden parts of eastern Australia, particularly inland NSW.
More rain ahead for parts of eastern Australia that are already pretty sodden. (Victoria finally getting a bit of it.) @BOM_au pic.twitter.com/T21zJ9ynqY
— Peter Hannam (@p_hannam) April 26, 2022
It comes as NSW dams are still at an average of 93% full, including about 110% at one of the biggest, Burrendong. Sydney’s dams too remain at 99% capacity, so it won’t take much rain to spill them again.
When will the fading but still influential La Niña – which has tilted the odds in favour of above-average rain, off and on, for more than a year – disappear, you ask?
The latest fortnightly assessment from the Bureau of Meteorology reckons we have another month or so to go.
This time of year has the so-called “predictability gap” when the Pacific Ocean begins a giant reset and forecasters find it hard to see beyond it and what comes next.
But climate models are getting better, and some of those models are tilting towards a “three-peat” La Niña, for later this year.
La Niña is fading but with a chance of returning later in the year. Interest, though, may focus on the increasing chance of a negative Indian Ocean dipole from this winter. Increases odds of wet parts of eastern Australia staying wet: https://t.co/AtwZB9Fhop @BOM_au pic.twitter.com/9IdFmorCgt
— Peter Hannam (@p_hannam) April 26, 2022
Three La Niña years in a row is not very common, as we noted here last month.
While that predictability gap also holds true for the Indian Ocean, the time of the year that matters in particular for south-eastern Australian rainfall is the winter into spring period.
And as the tweeted chart shows, those models are tilting very strongly towards the negative phase of the so-called Indian Ocean Dipole.
(That gauge looks at the relative sea-surface temperatures of the western and eastern regions of the Indian Ocean. In short, a negative phase means conditions on the east – near us – favour more rain clouds forming. Much of that moisture heads south-east.)
So if those models are right, wet regions are likely to remain at risk of flooding for some time to come without a large amount of rain falling. Disaster crews, among others, will be bracing for more challenges ahead soon.
Farmers, too, will be wondering how their crops and pastures are going to fare.
Anthony Todarello, the Melbourne fruiterer (and builder) mentioned in today’s CPI preview, said produce that would normally come from Queensland and NSW was being planted at short notice in Victoria to meet market demand (at a higher cost).
Looks like we can expect more of that scrambling for some time to come.
Updated
On the Full Story podcast today, political reporter Josh Butler discusses how the teal independents running in Liberal seats – if successful – could shape the 47th parliament of Australia:
It could be this situation where every single vote is like a knife edge … if that came to pass, those independents would have a whole lot of power. They’ve basically said that they would get behind whichever party represented their values.
And if you look towards the policies of independents like Allegra Spender and the other ones in North Sydney and Mackellar and wherever – they’re talking about climate change, they’re talking about an anti-corruption body, they’re talking about making parliament a safer place, make it a more equal place in terms of gender balance.
Updated
Australia sends heavy weapons and ammunition to Ukraine
Q: Just about Sogavare. Is Australia relying on the Solomons prime minister’s word alone, that China won’t be able to build the base in Solomon Islands?
Scott Morrison:
That’s the position of their government.
Let me also highlight to you: today, earlier in the day, we have arranged – this is in relation to Ukraine – in the Ukraine, we’ll be sending six Howitzers at a cost of just $26 million.
They’re on their way this morning, the opposition was advised of that. That continues to increase our very significant investment in supporting Ukraine at a time when their freedom and their liberty is under threat. In addition to that, we also have the significant investments that we have made in relation to humanitarian support.
So that brings our total contribution to defence military assistance to Ukraine to over [he goes on with what we have sent] and Howitzer ammunition also incredibly important to what these expected conflicts and battles coming up in Ukraine.
That was a request that was made to us and we’re only too pleased to support. Australia is right out there on the leading edge in standing with people of Ukraine. There’s some 40,000 Australians of Ukrainian heritage in this country and I know that they’re proud to be part of a country, as citizens of our nation, that is standing by the people of Ukraine and standing up for of liberty.
Wherever autocrats and authoritarian regimes seek to coerce and seek to impose their will on other countries, particularly in our region, Australia is always going to stand up.
My government has always stood up.
And that’s why Australians can be confident – despite the real challenges that we face in this area, we have demonstrated when it comes to choosing who is best and who is most likely to be able to stand up on these issues, who is going to do that job, well, I think our government has shown very clearly, compared to the Labor party, that we know how to get that done. Thanks very much, everyone.
Thanks for your time. I got to give a speech this morning, as you know.
And he leaves.
Updated
Q: Prime minister, the migration of people to regions during the pandemic and rising house prizes are putting house ownership out of reach for young people in the regions. Rents are getting higher and too expensive for renters in many regions.
Is the Coalition concerned with this? And if so, how will you keep housing affordable and within reach without actually contributing to the price rises?
Scott Morrison:
The home guarantee scheme – as you know [in] the budget which we increased to 50,000 places a year – that has a dedicated component for regional Australians for that very purpose.
... It’s good that people want to move to the regions, it’s good that the economies of our regions are doing better, that’s a good thing. But that means that many of the pressures that are faced in our metropolitan areas are starting to find their way into regional communities, not unlike here, I’m sure, Michelle.
That’s why our policies on the home guarantee address that.
On rents, as you know, we have the commonwealth rental assistance scheme, it’s about over $5 billion a year, it supports 1.4 million Australians and as more regional communities get into rental stress, then that support is available to them and – in addition to the other income support they have available for them.
But the other part of our plan which has been working is through the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation.
Now, I mentioned this to this group on many occasions now. This is a government agency that I established with the state treasurers when I was treasurer, and that organisation borrows at very, very low rates and it partners by financing community housing organisations to build affordable housing. Now, around about 15,000 dwelling units that have been made possible because of that.
That will – the extra $2 billion we put into that in the budget, that will now go [to] around 29,000, or thereabouts, and what that does is it gets the solution into the community.
It means that community housing organisations that support affordable accommodation here in central Queensland or up in north Queensland, they can go, they can partner with the private sector, they can get access to finance, and they can develop affordable accommodation as part of the housing estates and apartment developments that are occurring all across the country.
Not standalone towers that sit there as, you know, looking back in the 1960s and 1970s, that’s in the way you deal with affordable housing in this country. That’s not the future. Community housing organisations supported in the way that we’re supporting them, also working with state governments to realise that, I think, is the way to achieve that, particularly in regional areas.
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Q: Prime minister, how can Australians trust that this net zero is a binding commitment if your government won’t legislate anything? And with interest rates and inflation both rising, will you completely rule out ... a sustained decrease in the fuel excise?
Scott Morrison:
On the first point – we take commitments we give as a government very seriously. I mean, we went as a Coalition last year, Michelle remembers it well, this has been an issue that has been very difficult for our side of politics.
And as prime minister, I was the first leader of our party to actually get our Coalition together on the same page on this issue.
... And you know, the great thing I love about the Liberals and the Nationals working together in government is we bring all that together.
We bring different perspectives, the understanding of regional Australia, the understanding of what’s happening in our suburban areas, the pressures that families are facing on their commutes, or the pressures they’re facing on mortgages. That’s why 300,000 Australians entered their own home in the last three years. An outstanding record for them and we’re so pleased we’re able to assist them to do that. And on this question – we had the debate, we worked through the hard issues.
We came to an agreement and I went to Glasgow and I gave that commitment as part of a formal policy of the Australian government and we put it in our commitments. So that’s our government’s policy. We did the hard yards to get everyone together and, of course, there’ll be some who disagreed with it at times and I suspect they still will but that doesn’t change the government’s policy.
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Q: On Collinsville, proponents of the coal-fired station said they need more money to complete the feasibility study which you promised the last election. Are you prepared to offer these funds to finalise the feasibility study or is the project getting buried?
Scott Morrison:
What happens with the project is up to the proponents ... We have met every commitment that I pledged to do at the last election in relation to that project. Every single commitment we gave, we met.
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Q: On the rising cost of living, Australians received $250 today. That’s going to be spent pretty quickly. So in six months’ time when that cash is gone and the fuel excise has gone back up, what will you be doing then to help the cost of living?
Scott Morrison:
That we continue to manage our finances well, that’s what put downward pressure on inflation. There’s a reason why Australia’s inflation rate is lower than New Zealand’s, lower than Canada, lower than the United Kingdom, lower than Germany, lower than the United States.
There’s a reason that Australia’s performance in employment and economic growth is stronger than all of those countries. And the reason for that is because of the sound economic management that we have demonstrated through one of the most difficult times this country has seen since the great depression, economically.
We have dealt with a crisis 30 times worse than what Labor faced during the global financial crisis and we have performed 50% better than they did on jobs. So that’s how you ensure that you can protect and provide as much certainty as you possibly can in uncertain and unstable world with an economy that has many moving parts.
My team, together, myself, and the treasurer, minister Birmingham, my whole team have been experienced in dealing with these very, very difficult issues and we’re going to need to continue to do that to ward off many of the pressures and challenges that are ahead and that’s ... the choice Australians are making about the economy they will live in. You want Anthony Albanese who’s never done a budget running this show, looking after what your finances will look like and the economy you’re living in?
Or would you like myself as prime minister with Josh Frydenberg? Together we have done four budgets. I did three as treasurer before that, and one before that as a member of the Budget Committee. At times like this, the certainty of knowing what people stand for and how they manage the economy could not be more important.
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Q: Can I pick up on a couple of things you said today. The inflation rate – what’s your advice to young families who, on the urban fringes, particularly, who are already at the edge of mortgage stress, inflation and interest rates rise – are going to feel that more keenly?
And secondly, on your point about only employers being able to give workers pay rises. Labor says it will intervene in the enterprise bargaining system at Fair Work Australia, and will put a government case for increases to the minimum wage and, in the case of aged care workers, to their wages.
Why won’t your government do that? And what’s the impact of a government intervening in those cases for wage rises?
Scott Morrison:
Well, we let the Fair Work Commission determine those matters, always have. That’s the independent umpire on these issues and that’s where it’s appropriately dealt with.
Labor writing letters doesn’t change anything. I mean, he has no magic pen that makes your wages go up. He’s just not that influential, Mr Albanese. It is a con.
He’s running around telling everybody he can lift their wages. He can’t do that. He knows he can’t do that. And it’s a false promise. Fair Work Commission, rightly, set these things out and determine the arrangements. At the last election - sorry, during this last term of Parliament, we tried to make the system work better so people could get better arrangements, more flexibility for themselves in how they do their work in places, particularly in regional Australia and Labor voted against it.
But my advice to those, as you say, on those - whether they be in the suburban parts of our cities or living here in regional parts of the country, is you have a very important choice to make at this election and it’s going to have a real impact on your future, on your job. It will have an impact on how high superannuation will go or how high interest rates may rise because we are facing those pressures and so the choice we’re asking you to make is to consider who do you think of the Liberals and the Nationals, or Labor and the Greens are more likely to be able to put downward pressure on those rising pressures on prices or on those rising pressures on interest rates?
Who has been able to keep an AAA credit rating during the course of this pandemic, one of only nine countries to do so? Who has been able to keep inflation lower than all the advanced economies of the world including here in our own region, countries like New Zealand, countries like Canada, which is very similar to Australia?
Who has been able to have the strongest rate of economic growth coming out of the pandemic compared to those same countries or the higher rate of employment growth? Australia has. And we have got an economic plan particularly here in our regions to ensure that keeps going.
So I say to them - yes, those pressures are real and they’re very, very apparent to Australians today. That’s why we have delivered the cost of living relief for now because we can, because of how we managed the economy.
So a vote for Labor will mean more uncertainty. A vote for Labor and Anthony Albanese, who you don’t know, they don’t have an economic plan, and that’s a vote for uncertainty and instability whereas a vote for the Government, for the Liberals and Nationals, you know how we have been able to manage money and to ensure wherever possible we have been putting downward pressure on those rising cost of living.
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Q: Prime minister, I want to ask you about your pledge that there’ll be no new taxes. Isn’t it the case that 10 million households will face a tax hike when you abolish the low and middle income tax offset? And how much more tax will they face on average?
Scott Morrison:
That measure was a temporary measure, has been set out in budgets and legislated ... We’re not introducing legislation to [change it]. That’s a standing feature of the tax system.
How much more tax will they face on average? Well, what Australians will always face under our government are lower taxes.
I mean, over the course of the next term, because of what we have already legislated ... the highest marginal tax rate that Australians will face, for 94% of them, is a tax rate no higher than 30 cents in the dollar.
Now, let me explain to you what that means if you’re living here in Rockhampton. We are starting to see things really turn around here in regional Australia.
We saw the same thing in Townsville. When people get those extra shifts, when people get that extra pay, when small businesses do that little bit better and all of the rest of it and they’re able to earn more, that tax rate is falling from 32.5 cents to 30 cents.
If we kept the same tax rates that we inherited from Labor, and you’re earning $90,000 today, then you would be paying more than $50 extra every week in higher taxes. That’s why I can say under the Coalition government, we can back in our lower tax guarantee, because we have delivered lower taxes, we have legislated.
Labor fought us tooth and nail every step of the way. Dragged kicking and screaming. We want to ensure that you keep more of what you earn. The other part is we will keep the speed limit on taxes. Now, I feel strongly about this. I put this speed limit in place.
... That speed limit is a guarantee to all Australians that taxes won’t be allowed to run away and run over the top of them because when it approaches that speed limit, it forces the government to say, no, we need to make more changes to reduce taxes so the economy is not overtaxed.
Labor wants to abolish the speed limit on taxes. And so there is a choice – there’s a choice between a government that has demonstrated it’s committed to lower taxes and wants to keep the limits on taxes which means you can plan for your future with confidence ... [and] Labor [which] will abolish the limit on taxes. That’s why elections are a choice. Higher taxes under Labor. Lower taxes under the Coalition.
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Q: Prime minister, on the safeguard mechanism which you’re suggesting is a sneaky carbon tax, are you seriously suggesting it is? Because if it is, did the Coalition introduce a sneaky carbon tax when it introduced the safeguard mechanism in 2013?
Morrison:
No, the difference is, as would you know, how the thresholds work and the fact we put incentives in place. What Labor is doing is binding them on this and issuing penalties on those companies, so they couldn’t be more different. What Labor has is a tax, a sneaky carbon tax and that’s not good for regional Australia. It is not good at all.
Here is environment editor Adam Morton in December last year when Labor announced its policy:
The safeguard mechanism was introduced under Tony Abbott with a promise it would put a limit on industrial emissions. In practice, it has failed – companies have consistently been allowed to increase their carbon pollution without penalty, and industrial emissions are up 17% since 2005 and 7% since the safeguard began in 2016. Both industry representatives and climate activists believe it has made the scheme a waste of time.
Greg Hunt, the scheme’s architect when environment minister, planned for emissions limits under the safeguard to eventually tighten, but the Coalition ultimately rejected forcing companies to take action. Labor is now promising to do what Hunt always intended by working with business to cut industrial greenhouse gases by 5m tonnes – about 1% of Australia’s total emissions – a year from 2023.
Combined with direct funding from business from a new $15bn national reconstruction fund, which would provide low-cost financing to industry to embrace clean solutions, the modelling suggests this will cut emissions by up to 48m tonnes a year by 2030. Bowen said on Friday he expected about 50% of the cuts through the safeguard to come through use of improved technology, the rest from companies paying for carbon offsets.
Labor has some political cover here. It is not only using an existing Coalition policy, but has adopted a model released by the Business Council of Australia in October. The government was quick to attack it anyway, describing it as a “sneaky new carbon tax”.
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Q: How sure are you that all of your candidates have been properly vetted and just one for Michelle as well – do you view net zero by 2050 as a binding target?
Michelle Landry:
Yes, I do.
Yes, I agree with the government’s position. I’m in one of the biggest coalmining electorates in the country and, you know, as a member of the National party, we had a lot of discussions about this. We have got groups like AgForce, National Farmers’ Federation, I have spoken to a lot of mining companies, everyone is working towards that target and I support the government on that.
Q: What do you say about Matthew Canavan, does he need to pull his head in?
Landry:
Yeah, pull in your head in, Matt.
Scott Morrison:
There’s a point that Matt makes which is important. You have reported on this today – and that’s Labor’s sneaky carbon tax ... which Labor is putting in place, and it’s not just on the coalmining industry. Here in Rockhampton and central Queensland, it’s on fuel supplies. It’s on petroleum, on gas, it’s on the transport sector, it’s right across the board.
And Chris Bowen has belled the cat on this, just like he did on the last election when Chris Bowen belled the cat on taxes. Here he is at it again. He’s actually told the truth. He does have a sneaky carbon tax on our traditional industries and I can tell you - that’s not good for Rockhampton, that’s not good for north Queensland, it’s certainly not good for Western Australia.
(It is not a carbon tax. The safeguard mechanism is not a carbon tax. It is Coalition policy. The tweaks Labor have made to it, to have it operate as it was intended, have been welcomed by business groups.)
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Q: On the regions you said you don’t want to see a division between the cities and the regions. But isn’t that division on display within your own team at the moment with Matthew Canavan going out there and saying things that are contrary to what you say? And is it time as, Michael McCormack says, for him to pull his head in?
Scott Morrison:
Everybody knows that Matt hasn’t been supportive of that position. There’s no news there. And as many have said today, as the treasurer said today, that’s not his party’s position.
... That’s his view, it’s no surprise. He’s held it for a long time, that debate has been done in the Coalition and is resolved. Our policy was set out very clearly. And it has the strong support of the government.
But the point you’re making, though, about regional Australia and metropolitan Australia – what I’m talking about there is ensuring that people living in the regions are getting the economic opportunities that those in the cities are, and ... I think [we will] see a continued renaissance of our regions, this is why we are investing so heavily in our regions.
There’s $21 billion alone for our regions in the budget. And a particular part of that is the transformational investments we’re making in some of the regions and unlocking the wealth.
But we’ve also got the program in regions ... which means more support for regional apprentices, more support for regional manufacturing.
More support to ensure we’re getting the cost of their electricity down and their gas feedstock down so they can compete with other businesses in the cities, and they can link up to their markets overseas with what we have been able to achieve, our India-Australia trade agreement which Dan Tehan was able to conclude just before we went into this election campaign.
We have been unlocking opportunities for regional Australia and we’re backing that in because I believe the regions is where we can really drive our economy forward and there’ll be great benefit.
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Scott Morrison:
So at this election, there is a choice – there’s no doubt about the stresses and the pressures that the Australian economy is facing, that is understood – well, it’s understood by our side of politics.
We know what the unemployment rate is. But what we need to focus on is who is going to be best able to manage those pressures going forward?
A strong economy under Liberals and Nationals? Or a weaker economy under Labor? A weaker economy under Anthony Albanese? These are the choices. This is what elections are about.
They’re about choices, about who is going to be able to better manage those big important issues that are going to determine how much you get paid in the future. The Labor party runs around saying they can put up your wage. They can’t do that. I tell you who can put up your wage – the business you work for.
Your employer can do that. And your employer can only do that if they’re running a business in a strong economy, and if they’re not in a strong economy, then they can’t.
... Now, I’ll also be talking today about our regional jobs target – 450,000 of that 1.3 million jobs that we intend to create over the next five years – created right here in regional Australia.
And what backs that in is this: under Labor, we saw a 40% increase in unemployment in our regions. Under Liberals, we have seen an almost – more than 20% fall in unemployment in our regions.
That’s the difference. Now, we had to do that through a period of drought, floods, fires, pandemic, mice plague, and we have been cutting unemployment in regional areas.
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Scott Morrison gives press conference
The PM is in Rockhampton in central Queensland, talking about the cost of living.
He’s holding the press conference two hours before the ABS releases the March CPI figures, which are expected to see inflation has increased. We get a MUCH longer spiel than usual. Morrison is getting out all the lines right now.
Morrison:
Our economy has many moving parts at the moment, all of them under stress right around the world. As I was just sharing with some of those we joined for a cup of tea earlier this morning, compared to the global financial crisis, this crisis that we have had as a result of Covid and the economic crisis that it has caused is 30 times worse than what occurred in the global financial crisis of over a decade ago.
But at the same time, Australia has performed in terms of employment 50% better than we did on that occasion.
And so despite the tremendous challenges that we face, our economic plan and our economic management is making a big difference ... despite the rising cost of living, and we will see that in inflation figures today, despite the increasing pressures on fuel prices and food and groceries – we were just there yesterday at a fruit and grocery market – the impact of the pandemic on supply chains which actually pushes up the cost of everything right across the board.
And we’re seeing this all around the world. That’s why the treasurer and I, Josh and I, understood as we went into this budget that we had to ensure that we were going to deliver cost of living relief for Australians right now, right now, because of what we’re seeing, particularly in Europe and the pressure on fuel prices and the impact of that right across the economy.
What we didn’t want to see happen as Australians were getting up off the mat from the pandemic – as they were getting more confident and getting more strong, and as our economy continued to build momentum – what we didn’t want to see happen at this crucial time is for Australians to not get support so they could push through this latest challenge when it comes to those cost of living pressures, particularly those impacted by events far away from Australia.
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Antipoverty Centre spokesperson and disability support pension recipient Kristin O’Connell said it was beyond time more Australians and those who represented them paid attention to poverty in this nation:
The welfare system is killing people. For millions of us who rely on Centrelink payments to live, and those who need support but are excluded, the social “safety” net is nothing but a well-oiled poverty machine, creating it, trapping us in it, and harming our mental and physical health.
Though our so-called political leaders may try, there is no denying we’re facing a poverty crisis that’s affecting people both in and out of work. As we saw in 2020, the fastest, most effective way to provide relief to those on the lowest incomes is through the social security system.
It must be the first and highest priority of any politician to ensure everyone has enough to live by increasing Centrelink payments to at least the Henderson poverty line. They can do this. It is a choice.
Two years to the day since unemployed people were lifted out of poverty and 50 years on from the Henderson inquiry, we find ourselves back in the horrifying situation of nearly 1 million people and their kids relying on unemployment payments that are $46 a day.
O’Connell said neither major party had offered much hope, but voters held more power than they knew:
In this election we see the potential for a historic number of minor party and independent candidates [to] take power. Those who seek their community’s support to represent them in Canberra have a moral obligation: return that support by meaningfully improving the lives of the people in your community who are worst off.
Whether it’s payment rates or unfair and dangerous requirements, we must work together to build a safety net that is genuinely safe. There is no moral position that leaves a single person on this continent in poverty, punished for unemployment that is designed into the economy.
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While we wait to see what the CPI figures are for the last month – amid speculation the RBA will decide to raise the cash rate target as early as its next meeting – which is next Tuesday – it is also worth noting that today is the anniversary of the 2020 Covid supplement, which lifted hundreds of thousands of Australians out of poverty.
2022 is fifty years since Billy McMahon set up the Commission of Inquiry into Poverty, which led to the creation of the Henderson poverty line.
How the Poverty Lines are Calculated
The poverty lines are based on a benchmark income of $62.70 per week for the December quarter 1973 established by the Henderson poverty inquiry. The benchmark income was the disposable income required to support the basic needs of a family of two adults and two dependent children. Poverty lines for other types of family are derived from the benchmark using a set of equivalence scales. The poverty lines are updated to periods subsequent to the benchmark date using an index of per capita household disposable income.
The line was created before phones and internet connections were part of life’s necessities, but it is still the best marker we have. It’s currently just over $1,000 a week. Jobseeker, as a single with dependents, is $691 a week.
The Antipoverty Centre has been working to educate more people about the levels of poverty in Australia, as well as make it an election issue.
It is launching the first three initiatives it wants an incoming government to implement, two of which specifically relate to poverty.
It is also calling on minor parties and independent candidates to attend a briefing event with them and prioritise these in potential balance of power negotiations:
Firstly, immediately increasing all income support payments to at least the Henderson poverty line (by household composition) until a new measure of poverty is developed that is fit-for-purpose in the 21st century, including an additional increase to the remote area allowance, which is currently a laughable $9 a week.
In 2020, an Acoss report showed that even when payments were at the HPL, 33% of people still regularly skipped meals and 40% couldn’t afford adequate healthcare.
Secondly, developing a new measure of poverty that is transparent, based on real living costs for people at the low end of the income scale and that ensures a fair standard of living.
The purpose of any investigation or inquiry is not just to determine how many people are affected by or living in poverty, but to determine a new, robust poverty line. Specific work must be done to adequately measure poverty for people with disability and those living in remote communities.
The new poverty line should be responsive to meaningful changes in living costs that would arise from other public investments, such as housing, health and transport. For example, significant changes in the housing market may see the poverty line reduce.
And lastly, abolishing work for the dole. Immediately make the program voluntary (as was done with the Community Development Program last year) and provide a jobseeker supplement to people who continue on a voluntary basis that ensures they receive at least the equivalent of minimum wages for their work.
Existing host sites should be given the option to apply for government funding to support the continuation of jobs being done by work for the dole participants but paid at award wages. This funding should be provided on the basis that they are sustainable jobs that could be advertised in the open market, but should be reserved for existing work for the dole participants.
Existing sites that do not have meaningful work available or are unsuccessful in securing funding to pay work for the dole award wages may continue to provide genuine volunteering options for people on payments who enjoy and want to continue the activities they’re engaged in.
Currently, charities and local governments are paid to “host” people who work (many in hard labour) for up to 25 hours a week and get 42 cents per hour.
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Victoria reports 13 Covid deaths and 10,734 new cases
These aren’t numbers – they represent people. And it’s never easy to see.
We thank everyone who got vaccinated and tested yesterday.
— VicGovDH (@VicGovDH) April 26, 2022
Our thoughts are with those in hospital, and the families of people who have lost their lives.
More data soon: https://t.co/OCCFTAtS1P#COVID19Vic #COVID19VicData pic.twitter.com/sdl04THGPL
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NSW reports 10 Covid deaths, 12,188 cases
NSW Health has reported its Covid figures for today:
COVID-19 update – Wednesday 27 April 2022
— NSW Health (@NSWHealth) April 26, 2022
In the 24-hour reporting period to 4pm yesterday:
- 96.2% of people aged 16+ have had one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine
- 94.7% of people aged 16+ have had two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine pic.twitter.com/YyeIf4m5Mn
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Indigenous affairs editor Lorena Allam has written of a coalition of legal, health and social service groups who are appealing for the government to provide assistance to Aboriginal families who have been left scrambling to try to pay for funerals after an insurer went into liquidation:
More than 120 legal, health and social services organisations have appealed to the federal government to provide urgent assistance to Aboriginal families left with no way to pay for their funerals, after their “predatory” insurer went into liquidation.
“This is one of the worst financial scandals we’ve ever seen,” they say in an open letter to both major political parties, after reports that Aboriginal families have been forced to leave the bodies of their loved ones in the morgue while they raise the money to pay for a funeral.
Youpla Group, previously known as the Aboriginal Community Benefit Fund (ACBF), was a Gold Coast-based private business that for decades allegedly aggressively sold funeral insurance almost exclusively to Aboriginal people, including children and babies.
When Youpla collapsed in March, its member contributions totalled $39.2m, according to the liquidator, who warned there was just $11.9m left. More than 13,000 low-income Aboriginal people face losing all they have paid into the fund.
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Labor’s campaign lines in the cities has been “vote for [insert moderate Liberal here] and you’re getting Barnaby Joyce”.
Josh Frydenberg, who is fending off a challenge from independent candidate Monique Ryan, was asked about that too:
A vote for Monique Ryan is a vote for Anthony Albanese. I am up against a fake independent who is a former member of the Labor party. They have no plan to meet emissions reduction targets, they have no details, they have no costings. They’re literally the vibe of the thing.
They’re just a slogan and a billboard. There is nothing behind it. Whereas we’ve got that technology investment roadmap which has more than $20 billion of taxpayers’ money put to work leveraging more than $80 billion of the private sector’s investment.
But he is very agitated about Matt Canavan this morning:
Like I said, it’s old news. He’s held that position [for some time]
What really matters is the position of the Coalition and both the prime minister and the deputy prime minister, and the deputy prime minister reaffirmed that commitment just yesterday. So we are on track to meet and beat our emissions reduction targets.
But, if you vote for these fake independents, you’re more likely to get a hung parliament and the chaos and the confusion that comes with that. And, to be honest with you, you have seen that movie before, you saw it with Labor and the Greens with Oakeshott and Windsor and there was chaos and confusion*.
And you first asked me about national security and the next will probably be the economy. These are big issues, important issues that can’t be decided by a hung parliament.
*The Labor party did not lose any votes on the floor of the parliament during this period. Which cannot be said of the Coalition, which has held the numbers in the House for almost 10 years.
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Josh Frydenberg, who was hoping to be able to talk about the one-off $250 “cost of living relief” payments being released into pensioners’ bank accounts this week, has instead been forced to address the latest split in the Coalition’s climate stance.
He spoke to the Nine network this morning after his colleague, Matt Canavan, said net zero was “dead”:
Net zero is a commitment by the Coalition that is clear, that is firm and that is non-negotiable. This is not breaking news from Matt Canavan.
This is old news. He’s held that position for some time. But it’s not the position of his party. It’s not the position of his party, it’s not the position of my party, and it’s not the position of the Coalition. What we are doing is meeting our commitments under the Paris Agreement to reduce our emissions by 26-28% by 2030 on the levels they were in 2005. Right now Australia’s emissions are down by 20% and in New Zealand they are down by just 4%, in Canada by just 1%.
And we have a technology investment road map, Karl, where we’re putting more than $20 billion of taxpayers’ money into new investments in technology and renewables, so that we can meet that target.
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Nationals deputy leader Bridget McKenzie will address the press club today.
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Major free concert for Lismore locals
Paul Kelly, Daryl Braithwaite, Lime Cordiale and Grinspoon will be playing a major free concert in Lismore next month, in an attempt to boost morale in the wake of recent flood devastation in the region.
Announced this morning by Lismore’s mayor, Steve Krieg, and tour promoter Michael Chugg, the event, One from the Heart, is offering four tickets for each family in the most affected areas – postcodes 2471, 2472 and 2480 – with an additional 1,000 tickets available to purchase for everyone else on Saturday 30 April.
The full line-up includes Dan Kelly, who will be sharing the stage with his uncle Paul, as well as The Buckleys, Darlinghurst, Sheppard and Jon Stevens, who will be playing at Lismore Showgrounds on Sunday 15 May.
In a statement, Krieg said he hopes the event will “mark a shift in the community’s mood of shock to begin the long hard road of rebuilding and restoring our homes and our community,” after the floods which hit the town twice in quick succession, impacting more than 3,000 locals on 28 February and again on 20 March.
Chugg said an event this scale would normally take four months to plan, but was pulled together within six weeks; this is “not about raising money but raising the community’s spirits”.
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The head of the office of national intelligence, Andrew Shearer, made a rare public comment at a conference last night, where he was asked about the China-Solomon Islands security pact:
It wasn’t an intelligence failure. This strategy has been unfolding for a number of years. For those of us watching closely, there were signs of this well over a decade ago. And we’ve seen this building presence across the Indo-Pacific.
We’re also concerned in such a fragile, volatile country, Chinese policing techniques and tactics we’ve seen deployed so ruthlessly in Hong Kong, for example, are completely inconsistent with the Pacific way of resolving issues, and could incite further instability and violence in the Solomon Islands.
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Scott Morrison is still campaigning in Queensland, where he is working to shore up the regional vote.
News Corp newspapers report he is aiming to remind regional voters of Bob Brown’s 2019 convoy, and stir up that bush-city divide which seems to exist in some politicians’ heads.
The Courier Mail reports Morrison will say:
Their jobs and lifestyles derided or seen as somehow unworthy, in a world where the big talkers all seem to work in government, or finance, or the tech industry or the media.
You witnessed this sort of thing first-hand at the last election – courtesy of Bob Brown and the Greens and their convoy to central Queensland. A convoy against coal jobs.
This was the Green left in this country basically saying, “We’re more virtuous than you and we think you need to change”. Now, that is not the country I know.
Updated
Peter Hannam has looked at inflation ahead of the ABS releasing its CPI figures later this morning:
Food prices will feature prominently when the Australian Bureau of Statistics releases the March quarter consumer price inflation figures on Wednesday. The so-called headline rate is set to come in at about 4.5%, not far shy of the 5% pace last reached in 2008.
The Commonwealth bank predicts food prices alone will have nearly doubled the pace of increases in the first three months of 2022 from the December quarter rising 1.3%. Petrol prices, which spiked with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, rose almost 10% in the quarter and remain elevated, even with the 22.1 cents a litre temporary cut in the fuel excise.
Another consequence of rising prices is that the Reserve Bank is running out of excuses not to lift the official cash rate target from its record low 0.1% level.
Guardian Australia is also launching its housing crisis series today, looking at housing stress across the nation. Stephanie Convery has examined rental assistance and how it is not keeping pace with housing increases:
Soaring rents have dramatically outstripped increases to the commonwealth rent assistance (CRA) payment, with house rentals in capital cities rising by an average of 13.8% over the last two years while rent assistance has risen by a maximum of 4.52%, leaving low-income renters hardest hit by the national rental crisis.
The pressure in regional areas is even more severe, with rent increases of 20.2% across the board. Almost half of low-income renters now experience rental stress, spending more than 30% of their income on rent, even with government support.
In case you didn’t catch this last night, here is Murph on the latest “carbon tax” lie:
Updated
Federal Labor says it will spend $100m on urgent housing and infrastructure in Northern Territory Aboriginal homelands, and negotiate a new remote housing agreement with the NT government, if it wins power in May.
The commitments are on top of its earlier promise to spend $200m on remote housing across Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia.
The NT is the only jurisdiction where the federal government has an agreement to fund remote housing. It is due to expire in mid-2023.
About 10,000 Aboriginal Territorians live on their country on outstations and homelands.
Labor’s Linda Burney said the commitment would undo “years of Liberal neglect”.
“Spending on health, education and employment will offer a much bigger return if we also improve access to safe and adequate housing in remote Australia,” the opposition spokesperson for Indigenous Australians said.
“Labor understands the need to work with First Nations peoples to address overcrowding and run-down housing if we are to be successful in closing the gap.”
Malarndirri McCarthy, a Labor senator for the NT, said the announcement “would go a long way towards giving hope to those who want to live back on country”.
“Morrison has been in government for almost a decade and done little to improve the livelihoods of First Nations people and their aspirations to live on homelands and outstations across the Territory,” McCarthy said.
Labor’s candidate in Lingiari, Marion Scrymgour, said it would allow traditional owners to properly care for and maintain their cultural obligations to country.
“This is an important commitment from Labor. Homelands are generally safer and provide better health outcomes for families,” Scrymgour said.
More than 62,000 Aboriginal people live in overcrowded housing in remote and very remote areas.
Labor says it will require states and territories to maintain existing investments in remote housing.
It’s all going wonderfully well in the Coalition at the moment.
🧵Dave Sharma on @RNBreakfast says net zero is the government’s policy. He says Matt Canavan lost the argument on net zero and green hydrogen #auspol
— Katharine Murphy (@murpharoo) April 26, 2022
Updated
Good morning
It’s the midway point of the midway week of an election campaign that just keeps on keeping on. Huzzah.
We start today as we left yesterday. The Coalition is all in a tither over its climate policy, with Queensland senator Matt Canavan helpfully telling anyone who will listen that net zero is “dead” and backing in fellow Queenslander, Col Boyce, the LNP’s candidate for Flynn who said there was “wriggle room” in the Morrison government’s net zero “statement”.
That’s not what inner-city Liberals have been telling their constituents though. They’ve been running on an “it’s locked in” line, which now makes it seem like the Coalition is saying one thing in the city and another in the bush – the very political sin Scott Morrison successfully accused Labor of committing at the last election.
How does Morrison respond? By making up another carbon tax scare for Labor. Except this time, it’s the Coalition government’s own policy, which Labor is taking up and pledging to improve, which has now become a carbon tax. In case it’s not clear, there is no carbon tax. Labor is taking the government’s own safeguards policy and saying it will make it work for its intended purpose. As Murph said in her comment piece yesterday:
... every time one of the current generation of Coalition politicians utters the words carbon “tax” and Labor in the same sentence, understand this: they are lying, and worse, they are fully aware they are lying.
She would know. She’s been through more than 20 years of this damaging ridiculousness. Which is something that media covering it should note, too. Just because someone labels something a carbon tax doesn’t mean there is any truth to it. Particularly when that side of politics is trying to patch over divisions of their own.
But climate isn’t the only headache for the Coalition (which is still trying to dig its way out of the foreign policy quagmire it has found itself stuck in, with red lines and “preparing for war” rhetoric creating more pits than it clears) with the consumer price index being released today at 11.30am.
It’s expected to see inflation has increased, extending the run of real wage decline. If the inflation number is high enough, speculation will start over what the RBA plans to do with the cash rate target at next week’s meeting – raising the prospect of interest rate increases.
So it’s already a big week which could get bigger. We’ll be covering all the blow by blow for you, with Murph, Daniel Hurst, Josh Butler, Sarah Martin and Paul Karp making it all make sense. Amy Remeikis is with you on the blog.
Ready? Didn’t think so. Alas, we must get started.
Let’s get into it.
