LEGISLATION BONANZA
The final two sitting weeks of the year are upon us and there’s a bit to get through.
The AAP and Guardian Australia are among those that have had a stab at detailing the dozens of pieces of legislation set to be considered over the next fortnight.
As outlined at the end of last week, the government is expected to introduce electoral reforms today following an agreement with the Coalition and hopes to have its bill passed into law before Parliament rises for the year.
The AAP says legislation banning children under the age of 16 from social media is also set to be introduced, while the government also wants to pass reforms increasing the salaries of early childhood workers and providing relief for those with university debt.
The newswire says aged care reforms are expected to pass the Senate and legislation to keep fee-free TAFE places available will be debated. The government’s bill targeting misinformation and disinformation looks on much shakier grounds though, with AAP reminding us it has been opposed by the Coalition, the Greens have called it “pretty average” and independent Senator David Pocock claims it doesn’t strike the right balance.
Guardian Australia reckons there are 30 pieces of legislation scheduled to be considered and quotes Senate sources as saying there could be a flurry of last-minute compromises by the government to help get stalled bills passed.
Some of the most high-profile stuck bills are Help to Buy and Build to Rent. Whether the government actually wants the Coalition and/or Greens to work with them to find a compromise on housing is another question entirely, but Guardian Australia points out the Greens watered down their housing demands on Friday.
The site also flags that in dropping its demand for a climate trigger to be incorporated in the Nature Positive legislation the Greens may now be prepared to support the bills in return for an Australia-wide ban on native-forest logging. The site notes the potential compromises come after the Greens’ worse-than-expected performances in the recent ACT and Queensland elections.
Also potentially in the mix over the next two weeks is the Future Made in Australia legislation, reforms to gambling advertising, and media reform.
Amid the flurry of activity, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said some of the “range of legislation” being introduced may have to be pushed into 2025. “Some of that, of course, will be debated next year. Parliament’s coming back in February, so we expect that to happen,” Guardian Australia quotes the PM as saying.
Another thing that doesn’t look like it will be sorted in the short term is the government’s new emissions target. Under the Paris Climate Accords, Australia is expected to set a 2035 target next year. Speaking to the ABC’s Insiders, Albanese refused to commit to announcing a target ahead of the upcoming federal election.
“Our focus is on achieving the 2030 target because 2030 comes before 2035. [Voters] do know exactly what we’re doing — 43% by 2030, a target of net zero by 2050, 82% renewables by 2030,” he said.
Tackling climate change was a key topic of discussion while Albanese was at the APEC summit in Lima, Peru, last week and will also be high on the agenda when he meets with the leaders of the world’s largest economies at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the ABC highlights.
Reuters says the heads of state will spend Monday and Tuesday addressing issues from poverty and hunger to the reform of global institutions. No doubt they’ll also have time for a few words on that election everyone’s been talking about of late.
As the BBC points out, China warned the US and Donald Trump at the weekend that “a new Cold War should not be fought and cannot be won. Containing China is unwise, unacceptable and bound to fail”.
FINAL FAREWELLS
Given we’ve only got two more sitting weeks this year and there needs to be a federal election by May next year, some are beginning to say their farewells.
The AAP highlights there will be five valedictory speeches in the lower house this week, including former Labor leader and current NDIS Minister Bill Shorten, who is retiring from politics in February.
Labor’s Michelle Ananda-Rajah, Liberal MPs Nola Marino and Rowan Ramsey, and Nationals MP Mark Coulton are also set to deliver their goodbyes.
Guardian Australia has led overnight on the aforementioned electoral reforms, which as reported last week are not due to actually come into effect until after the election, and the claims they will deliver more public funding for the major parties.
Climate 200, which funded teal independent candidates at the last election, reckons Labor and the Liberals will more than double their public funding at the 2028 federal election to a combined $140 million under the proposed legislation.
Special Minister of State Don Farrell said on Friday the reforms were “designed to take big money out of Australian politics” and not to target the likes of mining magnate Clive Palmer and Climate 200 founder Simon Holmes à Court. “We’re not targeting individuals, we’re targeting the system that allows an uncapped amount of money to be spent on elections.”
Speaking to Guardian Australia, Holmes à Court said the proposals “won’t get money out of politics. In fact, they increase public funding by 2.4 times, biased heavily to go the ALP and the Coalition, entrenching the duopoly”.
The upcoming federal election will be dominated by cost of living and the economy. Those issues obviously have a new element to factor in with the return of Donald Trump. The AFR carries polling this morning which claims voters think Coalition leader Peter Dutton would be better at dealing with 78-year-old Trump than Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
The Australian Financial Review/Freshwater Strategy poll found 47% of those asked thought Dutton would be “better placed to engage and negotiate with President-elect Donald Trump, in Australia’s best interests”, compared to 36% who thought the same for Albanese. The poll also found that 55% of Australian voters feel the world will be “less safe” under Trump, with 28% thinking it will be “safer”. The paper said its latest poll showed Labor still faces the prospect of minority government next year.
Finally, AAP flags senior executives from Woolworths will be grilled at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission inquiry into the nation’s supermarkets today and tomorrow, with Coles bosses facing the inquiry later in the week.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
A 132-year-old message in a bottle has been found inside the walls of a lighthouse in Scotland.
The bottle was found by a mechanical engineer during an inspection of the Corsewall Lighthouse at the most northerly point of the Rhins of Galloway, the BBC reports.
Inside the bottle was a letter written using a quill and ink and dated September 1892.
Barry Miller, the lighthouse keeper, is quoted by The New York Times as saying: “We were shaking, especially me. I couldn’t keep my hands still, and I read the note out to the other guys.”
“We all swore ourselves to silence if it was a treasure map,” he joked. In fact, the letter was written by former engineers and lighthouse keepers who were installing a new Fresnel lens and lantern at the top of the tower, the paper said.
“This lantern was erected by James Wells Engineer, John Westwood Millwright, James Brodie Engineer and David Scott Labourer, of the firm of James Milne & Son Engineers, Milton House Works, Edinburgh, during the months from May to September and relighted on Thursday night 15th Sept 1892,” the note said.
Say What?
Polling is a science of estimation, and science has a way of periodically humbling the scientist. So, I’m humbled, yet always willing to learn from unexpected findings.
Ann Selzer
The pollster has announced she is retiring from election polling after 25 years of predicting results in Iowa, The Washington Post reports. Her final poll of the 2024 election in the Des Moines Register caused significant waves after it claimed Democrat Kamala Harris was ahead in the state. In fact, Donald Trump ended up winning it easily 56% to 43%.
CRIKEY RECAP
All troubling issues, to be sure, but also ones that don’t seem to be solved by banning teens from social media. (Also, it’s worth mentioning, issues that impact people of all ages and not just children.) These problems are just as common on messaging services like Snapchat or gaming platforms, perhaps even more so.
It’s an unenviable task precisely because it’s not grounded in real evidence. There’s nothing the government can really refer to when justifying its decision beyond anecdotes and distantly relevant research.
What’s even more concerning is that no-one seems to be asking these questions. In all of the prime minister’s media appearances, dozens of questions focused on the “how” and not the “why”. The justification for the policy has gone almost entirely uninterrogated.
The single time that a journalist came close was during a press conference last week. Albanese reverted to one of the only forms of proof he has: his own experience.
Perhaps most importantly of all, cricket provides hope for the future. Despite the best efforts of the “keep politics out of sport” crowd, Australian men’s Test captain Pat Cummins continues to “go woke” without the slightest indication that he will ever “go broke”. Cummins founded the player-led Cricket for Climate movement in 2021, aiming to “lead the way on climate solutions and create change that benefits everyone.” The sport has also stepped into other political domains, including supporting the “Yes” campaign in the Voice referendum and becoming one of the first Australian sports to introduce a trans and gender diverse inclusion policy.
Australia has changed a great deal since the days of David Boon drinking 52 beers on a flight, which helped power the great myth of Australia as the land of the larrikin. But cricket has kept pace with this changing nation. Cricket in 2024 is equitable, inclusive, progressive and diverse, reflecting modern Australia in a way no other sport does.
From kids running around in suburban parks to the gruelling Test arena, cricket continues to inspire, unite and spread joy. It is as synonymous with Australian summer as barbeques and Golden Gaytimes. It is the queen of the summertime, our beloved national sport. Long may it reign.
Administrators will tell you fervently that Australians have an admirable and resilient commitment to attending Test cricket, especially the crown jewels of the Boxing Day and New Year’s Tests — and this is true, with ratings to match. But what kind of national sport only exists in the public consciousness for a fortnight? Cricket et al’s Peter Lalor said this week that it has been “ever thus that the Australian summer doesn’t really start until Christmas for the broader public”, and he’s not wrong. The cricket season is under a never-ending assault from the football codes when it comes to narrative building, and the window for cricket is getting smaller and smaller.
This week, as India landed on our shores for the biggest Test series in recent memory, the zeitgeist was instead dominated by the leaked news that Hawthorn will be playing on a Friday night in Adelaide in six months’ time, and debates over whether Joseph Sua’ali’i’s jersey can be written off on tax as equivalent to a set of steak knives.
It is not a lost cause, not by any means. I would hope not, as Crikey’s resident cricket tragic. But if we truly want cricket to be the national sport, it needs to be put front and centre for the nation to consume it, with all the joy they used to.
Build it, and they will come.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Blasts shake key Ukraine cities, infrastructure in ‘massive’ Russian missile attack (ABC)
Far-right groups plan to hijack farmers’ protest in London against tax changes (The Guardian)
Trump signals a ‘seismic shift,’ shocking the Washington establishment (The New York Times) ($)
Musk appears to pressure Trump on Cabinet and tariffs, irking advisers (The Washington Post)
Four arrested on suspicion of insurance fraud after ‘person in bear costume’ damages cars (Sky News)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Why Australia is lagging the pack on rate cuts — Ian Verrender (ABC): Here at home, it’s a completely different story. Money markets and economists are beginning to push out their forecasts for a rate cut as the RBA continues to brush aside any chance of an imminent reduction.
A few months back, it appeared a pre-Christmas cut was on the cards. It was then pushed out to February. Now, it could be May or even later after Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock this week reiterated her hard-line message the bank hadn’t even ruled out another rise.
Ouch.
Economists give up on rate cuts. Investors and borrowers can too — Chanticleer (AFR): What’s clear is that when the RBA sits still, it sits for a long time. That doesn’t help sell-side economists who have to give their trading desk something to market — but it has always been the case. Central banks are big ships to turn around and their boards, the RBA’s in particular, take a lot of convincing to change tack.
So, despite economist calls all year for rate cuts, the RBA cash rate has been idle for 12 months now at 4.35%. It would take a shock incident for the central bank to change that in the second week of December, its final meeting this year.
