NATS STAND PROUD
Nationals Leader David Littleproud has broken ranks with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton in saying he does not support the latter’s claim the Voice to Parliament would “re-racialise” the nation, the SMH ($) reports. Littleproud says the claim would be excluded from the official No Voice referendum pamphlet, which would go to 12 million households before the vote, and said — rather carefully — that the Nats want to ensure “the tone of the pamphlet is respectful”. Dutton’s comment made a bunch of Coalition MPs uneasy, the paper says, and yesterday the opposition seemed to tone down his rhetoric by saying there should be “respectful debate on both sides of the argument”.
It comes as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Australians won’t fall for “Chicken Little” scare campaigns about the Voice — Dutton was outraged, calling the comments “completely and utterly unacceptable” and claimed Albanese basically said No voters are racist, The Daily Telegraph ($) reports. Read the PM’s speech for yourself and decide whether he did, but this Worm writer didn’t find squat. Meanwhile it looks like Dutton will wave through aged care reform, the AFR ($) reports, which aims to make the sector more sustainable through a means-tested system. “The Albanese government announced a taskforce would review the system with a view to making those with significant assets pay more,” the paper explains, and Dutton said the Coalition would get behind it as long as there was no death tax.
RENT THROUGH THE ROOF
Rent affordability is at its worst level in nearly a decade, The New Daily reports. We spend nearly a third of our income (30.8%) on rent in cities, the highest since 2014, and in regional areas it’s 33.1%. About three-quarters of renters have had the heart-sinking feeling of a rent increase notice in the past year, a report by the Reserve Bank and the Australian Bureau of Statistics found, up from a quarter before the pandemic. And the rent rises are bigger now too — about 60% of renters pay 10% or more than the last tenant, The Age ($) says. Why? Fluctuations in migration, inflation, rising interest rates and constraints on housing supply, one expert said — there are about 50,000 fewer rentals on the market than average right now.
No wonder 60% of us want a rent increase freeze, according to a poll Guardian Australia reports on this morning. Half or more of voters say the housing system is bad for renters (63%), future generations (58%) and Australia as a whole (58%). In Melbourne, median advertised rents in Melbourne’s CBD, West Melbourne, Southbank and Docklands went up $125-$150 a week in the past year to between $520 and $575 a week, the Herald Sun ($) reports. But it’s way worse in Sydney, where the median rent has surged by more than 13% over the past year to $711 a week, a good explainer from Guardian Australia says. Dismal.
QUICK OFF THE MARK
The other states are coming for WA’s GST slice after Premier Mark McGowan’s shock exit from politics, The West ($) reports. That’s according to ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr anyway, who tweeted: “WA’s GST deal is surely up for grabs now.” So what’s the deal? When the GST was introduced in 2000, it was divvied up between the states and territories using a formula called the horizontal fiscal equalisation that allocated based on need. Then WA had an unprecedented mining boom, WA today ($) explains, that saw its share of GST plummeting from $1 a person to 30 cents a person. But mining is volatile — so then-treasurer Scott Morrison updated the formula in 2018 so every state would get at least 70 cents of every dollar of GST revenue. It also saw WA (and the NT) get millions in top-up payments.
Fast-forward to now and iron ore has been surging, WA Today ($) continues, making for a pretty nice budget surplus out west each year. This year it’s predicted to be a whopping $6.6 billion from GST grants, with tens of billions pouring in from iron ore royalties. Needless to say, premiers have long been pissed about WA getting this 70 cent floor. NSW Premier Chris Minns and Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews say we should rethink the GST carve-up, The Australian ($) reports, but Treasurer Jim Chalmers has already promised WA it would not happen, news.com.au ($) reports. He says it’s because “the WA economy often keeps the wheels of the national economy turning”, but it’s probably also because WA voters were a big reason Labor won the federal election last May. Ironically, luring voters was also partly why Morrison and the Liberals introduced the policy in the first place ahead of the 2019 election.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
Hundreds of competitors are standing at the top of a near-vertical hill near Gloucester, in the UK. Some are laughing and joking while others quietly focus on the task ahead. They’ve travelled from all over: the US, Switzerland, Japan, Canada, and they’re all here to do one thing: chase a three-kilogram Double Gloucester wheel of cheese down to the bottom of the hill. It’s a “cheese-rolling extreme sporting event”, the BBC reports seriously. The gun sounds and the blokes are off — many falling, rather than running, or else combining the two in a sort of bounding tumble. But no-one is as fast as Manchester man Matt Crolla, who reaches the bottom first. The rowdy crowd goes absolutely bonkers. “I’ve not got many serious injuries!” he says triumphantly, the cheese wheel in his arms.
Then it’s time for the gals to race and they’re off, a large jumble of limbs barrelling down the hill in hot pursuit of that tasty local cheese wheel — and glory. Among the competitors is Delaney Irving, a 19-year-old who travelled all the way from Vancouver Island — she bumps her noggin on the way down, and her unconscious body tumbles across the grassy finish line first. She’s declared the champion and the crowd roars in delight. When Irving comes around in the medical tent, she’s elated. Asked how she felt the race went, she responds: “Good… now that I remember it.” Talk us through the physical and mental preparation required to win the Coopers Hill cheese chase, a BBC reporter says to Crolla. He considers the question, then responds earnestly: “I don’t think you can train for it, can you? It’s just being an idiot.”
Hoping your inner child makes an appearance during your Tuesday.
SAY WHAT?
Claims have been made that the Voice to Parliament could even have an effect on parking tickets. It’s only a matter of time before they tell us that the Voice will fade the curtains.
Anthony Albanese
Don’t fall for the scare campaigns against the Voice to Parliament, the PM urged voters, accusing the No side of “ludicrous invitations to jump at our own shadows”.
CRIKEY RECAP
“In the lead-up to the inquiry, Crikey brings you REDACTED, a series showing readers how FOI requests are used, by whom, and why they matter. The series also compares Australia’s information ecosystem to those in other major democracies, details some of the most extraordinary obstructions Australian journalists can recall, and compiles noteworthy public policy and political revelations brought to the national debate through the FOI system in recent years.
“For close observers of transparency in Australian democracy, Patrick’s case is a good place to start. Some of the documents sought by Patrick include details related to ministerial briefs on the stage three tax cuts and gas reservation policy, along with baseline schedule and milestone payment details for the Snowy 2.0 project, as well as further ministerial briefs on the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility.”
“Take, for example, the au pair controversy that embroiled then-immigration minister Peter Dutton. Dutton dominated headlines for months in 2018 for making random visa interventions to save two travellers working as au pairs from deportation at the Australian border, before being found guilty by an inquiry for misleading Parliament over his association with their prospective employers.
“The story originated from a series of freedom of information requests submitted by Lisa Martin, a journalist formerly of Australian Associated Press and later Guardian Australia, where she continued to break new details as the saga unfolded. Media executives worry that breaking stories like these via FOI is becoming increasingly difficult in the face of a dysfunctional and delayed FOI system.”
“On FOI, there has been some departure from the silliness that the national cabinet was part of the Commonwealth government cabinet and thus entitled to a cloak of secrecy, although there are other exemptions available and relied upon. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet told Senate estimates last week that it had released documents related to agenda and records of meeting, but other exemptions may cover distributed papers.
“Some ministers, including Dreyfus, have released their appointments diary, but others, including the prime minister, have not … When Greens Senator David Shoebridge, on March 28, successfully moved a reference to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee for an inquiry into the operation of FOI laws, all Labor senators voted against the reference or were absent from the vote.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Nigeria’s new President Bola Tinubu vows reset for ailing economy (Al Jazeera)
Russia hits military facility in Ukraine in new wave of strikes (Reuters)
‘Russian spy’ whale spotted off Swedish coast (euronews)
Spain’s PM calls snap election after opposition triumphs in local polls (The Guardian)
Thousands of homes under evacuation order as Halifax-area wildfire burns out of control (CBC)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Swift response needed to find Mark McGowan’s replacement as factional horse-trading begins — Keane Bourke (ABC): “Out of the 52 eligible contenders, three names are coming up time and time again. There’s his trusted deputy, Roger Cook, who helped McGowan steer the state through the early days of the pandemic as health minister. The health minister who finished the job — Amber-Jade Sanderson — is also considered a contender for the role. And finally there’s Transport Minister Rita Saffioti, who has spent the government’s time in office overseeing billions upon billions of dollars spent on infrastructure projects, steering each through the complications of COVID.
“While there’s still lots of dust to settle from Monday’s shock announcement, one thing is for sure — Labor does not want this to drag out for too long, and there’s a real risk it might. Rules introduced at a state level in the wake of the chaotic Rudd–Gillard years mean if two or more people nominate for the top job, a massive process is kicked off. It would require a vote of all the party’s rank-and-file members and likely stretch on for weeks. The key to avoiding that is for MPs to choose one replacement and choose them quickly. Parliament sits again in two weeks’ time with plenty of legislation to get through, and of course there’s a state to govern in the meantime.”
PwC scandal: Consulting firm needs to do more than offer a late apology — Eric Johnston (The Australian) ($): “With its reputation in shreds and the public and politicians circling while facing the real prospect of a police investigation, PricewaterhouseCoopers has buckled. It has finally attempted to take ownership of the tax leak debacle through a full public apology and an admission of failure. However, the unreserved apology has come months too late and is unlikely to be the circuit breaker that PwC is hoping for. Until now PwC has tried to tough it out with the view it can survive the collateral damage until the scandal involving the breach of confidential tax planning information has passed.
“But PwC’s failure has been to refuse to acknowledge the scale of the breach from the moment it happened and doing the right thing to take steps to fix it. The government-backed Tax Practitioners Board finalised its investigation last November and then head of international tax Peter Collins was suspended in January with little acknowledgment by PwC. It has only been with public outcry growing as one after another of the jaw-dropping claims have come to light — mostly around the behaviour of PwC’s Canberra-based tax business — that the firm has acted. Dogged questioning by Labor Senator Deborah O’Neill has kept the pressure on PwC.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Online
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ERM’s Matthew Klein, Gilbert + Tobin’s Ilona Millar, Microsoft’s Brett Shoemaker, and Blackmores Group’s Sally Townsend are among the speakers at a CEDA webinar exploring sustainability in business.
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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Author and former Australian chief scientist Alan Finkel will chat about his new book, Powering Up: Unleashing the Clean Energy Supply Chain, at the Wheeler Centre.
