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Thu 6 Feb

Australia Institute Live: Coalition remembers cost of living is an issue in Albanese's absence - as it happened

Amy Remeikis – Chief Political Analyst

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Live Updates

Good night

Well those Tuesday morning feels like it was about a decade ago, which is a sure sign that the end of the parliament week is upon us.

Richard Marles is headed to Washington to meet with US defence secretary Pete Hegseth (a Trump appointee who seems to have been chosen as a humiliation test for the Republican senators confirming him) and Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton will spend the weekend on the faux-election campaign.

And then before we know it, it will be Monday and the start of the new parliament week! Aren’t we lucky!

We will be back to cover all the parliamentary happenings from sparrows on Monday morning, and we hope you join us, as we continue to see what this little blog becomes. That thousands of you have already come and had a look – and stuck around – has been heartening to us all. We really just want to provide a little bit more value in how your democracy is presented and deliver the hits (and snaps, rare as they are) when needed, as well as have a little bit of fun where we can.

But it is your heart, and your interest in your democracy which drives us. It matters. You matter. And we are grateful to have you with us.

Still though – please take some time to find little moments of joy over the next few days. We have a pretty rough trot ahead of us – globally and at home – and you need to make sure you rest, as well as find some light in life’s little mundane beautiful moments. It’s important.

Until Monday, take care of you. Amy x

Polly Hemming, the director of the Institute’s Climate and Energy Program has had an article published on The Mandarin, which you can read, in full, here.

It’s on Australia’s responsibility on the world stage, particularly when it comes to our obligations to the world, and our region, on climate. And how we are failing.

Hemming writes much more eloquently than I, so you I’ll direct you to her own words below:

Nature’s invertebrates are masterful shape-shifters. Sea cucumbers can liquify their tissues to squeeze through the tiniest cracks, then reinflate themselves when danger passes. Sea anemones contract into nearly invisible balls during low tide, only to bloom into magnificent forms when conditions improve. Nemertean worms can stretch to many times their length or contract to a tenth of their size depending on circumstance.

The ancient survival strategies of the spineless — compensating for a lack of structural integrity through remarkable adaptability — find an uncomfortable echo in modern Australian foreign policy.

Like a threatened sea anemone, Australia can contract into near invisibility when responsibility calls. While the Australian government promotes Australia’s influential role as a renewable energy “superpower”, contributing to global decarbonisation, it minimises its role as one of the world’s largest fossil fuel exporters, claiming Australia is responsible for just 1.3% of global emissions. When standing up to regional powers is required, Australia becomes too small and powerless to resist trade pressure — forgetting we’re the world’s 13th largest economy.

Yet like these adaptable creatures, Australia also knows when to expand. When seeking influence in the Pacific, Australia suddenly inflates into a significant regional power. When pursuing defence contracts or trade deals, it becomes a crucial middle power player to justify spending hundreds of billions on military kit. When courting allies, it transforms into an indispensable strategic partner. The diplomatic equivalent of a nemertean worm, Australia stretches or contracts its perceived influence to whatever size suits the moment.

For those who missed it earlier today (understandable, an hour of Auspol is like a month in the real world. It’s like Interstellar that way) the Australia Institute’s International and Security Affairs program has a new report out on Palestine and Australia’s role in upholding international law and human rights:

The January 2025 ceasefire notwithstanding, the outlook for Palestinians remains bleak.

In the pursuit of Hamas’s destruction—an understandably appealing but completely unrealistic objective—Israel has turned Gaza into an uninhabitable wasteland. At least 46,000 Palestinians have been killed, perhaps a majority of them women and children and non-combatants. Most of its housing and public infrastructure has been reduced to rubble. At least 1.9 million Palestinians are once again displaced.

Facing the likelihood of a continuing, mutually degrading cycle of violence in the Middle East, Australia needs to address the consequences for our interests, and for the values we uphold.

You can find the whole report, here

Some gas facts for Woodside

Rod Campbell
Research Director

Everyone from the Traditional Owners to Jimmy Barnes are opposed to the North West Shelf gas export project, but Woodside boss Meg O’Neil is going to talk it up anyway.

There are many reasons why everyone (except gas executives and the WA Government) hates this project, but let’s stick to three.

1.      It will increase WA gas and electricity prices. This project will strengthen the link between WA and international gas prices pushing up WA prices, that have already tripled.

2.      It will damage rock art that is 40,000 years old and culturally priceless.

3.      It will cause 4.3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.  

Apparently O’Neil will attempt to jujitsu this last point to claim that the project is actually good for the climate because Woodside’s customers would choose to burn gas not coal.

This is a particularly strange point for her to push because it has been contradicted by the CSIRO in a report commissioned (and covered up) by…checks notes…Woodside itself.

The International Energy Agency has also debunked this, making it clear that serious climate action will see “renewables and efficiency do the heavy lifting, [with] coal-to-gas switching [contributing just] 8% of the emissions savings required”.

Angus Blackman
Podcast producer

The Government’s proposed changes to our electoral laws are on the notice board for today.

These are the ‘once-in-a-generation’ reforms that the Government tried to ram through in the final two weeks of parliament last year, before pulling them when they didn’t get the support.

On the latest episode of Follow the Money, Democracy & Accountability Director Bill Browne speaks with Ebony Bennett about what’s wrong with the legislation, how it can be improved, and the recent political donations data dump from the Australian Electoral Commission.

What did we learn in question time?

Question time ends with a whimper, which is on trend for the vibe of the week.

So what did we learn?

Well, we learned more about who Labor thinks is in trouble at the next election. Once again the dixers went to MPs who are all facing very serious election challenges. Labor ministers made sure to be even more lavish in their praise of those asking the dixers than usual, which is perfect fodder for all those social media clips their staffers will no doubt be busy clipping up as we speak.

What else did we learn?

Well, with Anthony Albanese not present for political attacks over the nontroversy Peter Dutton is trying to whip up over when he was told of the police investigation into the planned caravan bomb attack against Sydney’s Jewish community, the Coalition remembered cost of living might be an issue people care about.

The thing is, apart from some of the cherry picking of numbers, every Coalition attack on cost of living is dulled by the fact the Coalition, under Dutton’s leadership, has voted most of the cost of living relief measures. Dutton’s strategy as leader has been to oppose as much as possible to create division, which is all well and good on the floor of the parliament, but step outside into the real world and people just see wreckers. There is a lot of anger at the Labor goverment at the moment, but that anger isn’t necessarily translating to an embracing of the Coalition. People are just sick of both major parties, which is why the coming election – and the independent and minor party vote – is going to be very interesting.

Allegra Spender asks Tanya Plibersek (who is representing the workplace relations minister, Murray Watt)

Small businesses in Wentworth are really struggling and one of the main reasons is complex regulation that has gotten worse this term. Members of the crossbench wrote to the government to raise the threshold of the definition of small business from 15-25 workers.

…Will the government support this reasonable and measurable practical implementation of a policy that would support small business?”

Tanya Plibersek says…kinda, but no.

There are a series of different definitions of small business through different pieces of legislation is, most members are aware. What needs to be remembered when people have their own commonsense view of what a small business is is under workplace relations Legislation, overwhelmingly in those figures, casuals are not counted. So when you consider a workplace that has 16 employees, that may in fact represent a much larger workplace and if you were to take that to 25, there are an good number, a very good number there are no person that were considered to be small businesses which would suddenly find the workforce there exempt from whole lot of rights that this parliament decided workers should have stop we want to make sure we get the balance right in providing the distinction between acknowledging the different pressures of small businesses are under particularly with paperwork, but making sure that the definitions are realistic because with every exemption, it carries two consequences.

One, it does mean for those businesses, they do have an easy compliance burden, that is true, but it does also mean that the workers who work there have fewer rights than they would have another business was not making the changing definition is a very big step and given the way many businesses are structured in respect to casuals, that is why we have not been supporting a change in that number.

Nationals leader David Littleproud then asks Tanya Plibersek to rule out bringing in any future nature protection bill, which seriously….come on.

Independent MP Zoe Daniel asks Richard Marles (who is being deliberately ignored by the Coalition)

Last week I met with Holly Morton Bowles’ father. Holly and Bianca Jones died after consuming alcohol in Laos last year. The family are desperate for information about the investigation and whether anyone will be held responsible. They are concerned about protecting other young travelers like their precious girls. What progress has been made on this important matter?

Marles:

“I thank the member for her question. I also thank her for her advocacy and giving voice to the families of Holly and Bianca. What happened to Holly and Bianca struck at the heart of the nation and all of us stand in the embrace of her family and it is unimaginable to think about what they are going through in facing the loss of their beautiful daughters.

What is understandable is a desire on their part, as you have raised here, to find out more information but ultimately to find out who did this terrible act and to see the perpetrators of this crime brought to justice and held to account.

This is an investigation which is being undertaken by the authorities in Laos. The Australian Federal Police have made an offer to the authorities in Laos to provide their assistance in the investigation and there is a whole lot of capability that the Australian Federal Police could bring to bear in terms of this investigation.

I have to report, sadly to the house, that, at this point, the Laos authorities have not taken up that invitation on the part of – that offer on the part of the Australian Federal Police but I would want to assure the families of Bianca and Holly that we remain in contact with the Laos authorities and that the offer of assistance is being consistently offered and raised with the Laos authorities.

Beyond that, I want to make this point as well. The Minister for Foreign Affairs has spoken to her counterpart in Laos and made clear that it is the expectation of the Australian government that there be a thorough investigation into these events, into this crime and that the perpetrators be found. That is the expectation in the context of our relationship with Laos. That has been directly related by the Minister for Foreign Affairs to her counterpart and we will continue to press Laos to pursue this investigation as we will continue to offer the assistance of the Australian government through the Australian Federal Police in this investigation. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade have been in contact with Bianca and Holly’s families and they will continue to do so. Any information that we have we want to share with them. I really do want to finish in thanking and acknowledging you for your advocacy on their behalf. I know it means a lot to them but it means a lot to this house and it means a lot to this nation.

Continuing the tradition of having MPs facing tough election battles asking the question – next up is Meryl Swanson who is in a lot of trouble in Paterson.

Then it’s Tania Lawrence who rounds out the Labor problem seats in WA with Hasluck.

And then we get Rob Mitchell who is in a lot of trouble in the Victorian seat of McEwen.

After a dixer from Shayne Neumann, the Queensland Blair MP (the Coalition have this on their target list, but Labor think they will hold the seat) we get Sussan Ley who has taken to asking her questions in the same voice you interrogators overseeing torture use in the movies.

Does minister still support introduction of a Federal Environmental Protection Agency, including in Western Australia?

This question has been asked because WA in particular were very cranky with any sort of nature positive laws and WA Labor were pretty vocal in that. With a state election next month (which WA Labor will win, but there will be a swing back to the Liberals in a correction of the last election) and the federal election coming up (where WA seats will be very important for Labor in holding government/scraping by in minority) the Liberals are whirring up a nature positive scare campaign.

Tanya Plibersek:

I am so delighted to get this question from the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. She is one of the strongest advocates for environmental law reform, she in fact was… (Milton Dick has to call for order)

…The Deputy Leader of the Opposition was the Environment Minister for a time, many people don’t remember that but she was.

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition, when professor Graeme Samuel presented the previous government with his review of John Howard’s broken environmental laws that made a strong case that our laws did indeed need reforming.

(Sussan Ley raises a point of order which is not a point of order. Plibersek continues)

I will just go to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition’s exact quote in 2021 ‘The environment protection and biodiversity conservation act 1999 is 20 years old and needs modernising to ensure Australia can meet current and future environment and heritage protection challenges’.

We made very clear through our Nature Positive plan and through our laws that we wanted to see progress. Progress to deliver stronger protection for nature and progress to provide faster, clearer decisions for business. There is no business in the country that believes the environment laws are working to progress projects quickly and there is no environmental organisation or anyone with any common sense that thinks that our laws are working to protect nature effectively either.

Sadly, we took a very balanced package through the House of Representatives, we took it to the Senate, unfortunately, the Liberals and Nationals once again teamed up with the Greens political party to delay and to obfuscate and to refuse to make progress on our environmental law reforms which would have delivered a strong independent EPA, with strong new powers and penalties but would have also delivered faster, clearer decisions for business, based on greater regional planning, more transparency, more data and clearer decision-making processes.

Sadly, the Senate, we have at the moment, doesn’t allow us to progress every piece of legislation that we put to it and we have taken the legislation off the notice paper because we see that the deliberate delays and denial of those opposite teamed up with the Greens political party, means there was no path through in this parliament.

Jim Chalmers answers that insurance question with:

Insurance has been one of the big drivers of the inflation challenge in our economy. And even as we’ve made some really quite substantial progress in a lot of the other categories and insurance, I think from memory, came off a little bit in the most recent data stop it is still a big and prominent part of the CPI.

It is a big and prominent part of the CPI. Now, the shadow treasurer has raised this as a challenge. I think we had already acknowledged in a number of different ways, my colleagues and I are dealing with challenge of higher insurance premiums.

I think we’re seeing with more and more frequent natural disasters including the one we are seeing in North and Far Queensland, play out right now, that that is having an impact on premiums. As the shadow treasurer keeps chipping away, as I try and give him an answer to his question I assume then that he has some kind of policy to deal with higher insurance premiums and if he doesn’t, if he doesn’t, then he should say so, Mr Speaker the only policy those opposite have when it comes to natural disasters is to include it in the $350 billion of what they describe as wasteful spending and in the midyear budget update that I released with Minister Gallagher, one of the pressures on the budget which they describe as wasteful is another couple of billion dollars for a natural disaster recovery and he asked me what does natural disasters have to do with insurance?

He asks me what does insurance have to do with natural disasters, he asked me. And doesn’t like to say it all, Mr Speaker, about the poor quality of those opposite. Funding natural disaster relief and response, getting inflation down, Mr Speaker, at the same time as we acknowledge and insurance is a big part of the CPI basket and if he has any ideas or alternatives about how to get those premiums down, he should tell the house.

Angus Taylor is back, this time on insurance:

Can the Treasurer confirm the cost of insurance has risen 19 per cent since the election of the Albanese Labor government?

There is a key reason for that:

Around the world, climate change is increasing the costs of insurance and Australia is no exception.

Between 2022 and 2023, the average home insurance premium in Australia rose by 14%, the biggest rise in a decade.

Major floods in eastern Australia pushed insured losses in 2022 to a record $7 billion, almost double previous records. Perhaps more alarmingly, since 2013, insured losses in each year have exceeded the combined losses of the five years from 2000 to 2004.

Modelling from The McKell Institute estimated that the direct cost of natural disasters in Australia could reach $35 billion per year (in 2022 dollars) by mid-century, an average of more than $2,500 per household per year. However, such averages hide more than they reveal. In areas at high risk of extreme weather events, insurance costs are multiples of national averages.

You can read more on that research, here

The Coaltition has apparently realised the cost of living might be an issue, after two days of the nontroversy that is when did police tell the prime minister of their ongoing investigation.

Angus Taylor asks:

Can the Treasurer confirmed the cost of gas has risen 34 per cent during Labor’s cost-of-living crisis since the election of the Albanese Labor government?

Jim Chalmers:

Imagine asking about gas prices when they came in here at the end of our first year we were in government and voted against our gas caps? Imagine being so slow on the uptake – imagine being so slow on the uptake that he comes in here and asks about gas prices when Australians needed you to act on gas prices, you are nowhere to be found. The reason that is top of mind, Mr Speaker, is because in the same legislation they also voted against electricity bill relief, Mr Speaker. The end of 2022 when we were dealing with the fallout of the last Energy Minister, now that shadow treasurer, came in here and we asked the whole parliament to side with the Australian people, and they were nowhere to be found and they have got form on that front, Mr Speaker. They abandoned Middle Australia on tax cuts as well. They abandoned Middle Australia and cheaper childhood education as my ministerial colleague was telling you about a moment ago. They abandoned middle Australia on rent assistance. Right across the board when it comes to cost-of-living, they were nowhere to be found.

The next dixer is from Boothby MP Louise Miller-Frost – who is not in quite as much trouble as some of the other MPs we have seen today, but is still facing a strong challenge from the former Liberal MP for the seat, Nicolle Flint.

After Miller-Frost is is Zaneta Mascarenhas who is defending the WA electorate of Swan, which is one of the Liberal target seats. Mascarenhas was also given the last 90-second statement spot ahead of QT, which is the prime real estate in terms of MP airing of the grievances, as it usually is caught by the TV broadcast ahead of question time beginning.

Kooyong independent MP Monique Ryan gets the first crossbench question, asking Tanya Plibersek:

On 21 May 2022 in his victory speech, the prime minister said “Together we can end the climate wars”. Yesterday your government dropped – moved to drop the Environmental Protection Agency off the Senate bill.

I ask you, Minister, is this how the climate wars end?

Tanya Plibersek:

Thank you, very much to the member for Kooyong for her question and also to those other members that are on the cross bench today that actually supported our Nature Positive laws when they passed through the House of Representatives. I think everybody agrees that our Nature laws need reform. Unfortunately, the Liberals and Nationals teamed up with the Greens political party to block that in the Senate. Just as they teamed up to block the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (drink!) and that led to 80 million extra tonnes of carbon dioxide pollution entering our atmosphere.

I think Greens political party voters would be surprised to learn that the political party that purports to stand up for the environment wasn’t prepared to vote for a strong new cop on the beat*, an Environment Protection Agency with strong new powers and penalties. They weren’t prepared to vote for better data, more transparency and a world first definition of Nature Positive. I think that the Liberals and Nationals voters would be surprised to know that those opposite voted against faster approvals for projects, based on better data and more regional planning. What is clear is that if people want real progress on nature law reform, then they have to vote Labor in the House of Representatives and in the Senate as well. We know on this side that Australians love camping, they love fishing, bushwalking, boating, they love going for a swim and we need to preserve nature for the future. We want our kid and grand kids to be able to see a koala in the wild. That is why we have got to act now. The difference could not be starker. This side has added more ocean under protection, an area larger than the size of Germany and Italy combined to the waters under protection, those opposite cut marine parks.

We saved the Great Barrier Reef from an in-danger listing** and those opposite have climate policies that put it in (danger. We have doubled funding to national parks, those opposite let our national parks fall into disrepair, to the extent that there were crocodile warning signs falling onto the ground and missing because those opposite let our national parks decline. We have invested more than half a billion dollars to better protect our threatened species. Those opposite cut funding to the environment department by 40%. We are increasing recycling by 1.3 million tonnes a year, those opposite voted with the Greens to make it easier to export our garbage overseas. I want to thank the member for her question because she has shown that by working cooperatively, we can make progress instead of just blocking.”

*The Greens were trying to negotiate with Labor on the bill, but Labor didn’t want the Greens amendments.

**’Saving’ an environmental site from an ‘in-danger’ listing is a matter of lobbyng UNESCO member states. It’s a political move, not an environmental one. The Coalition did the same thing.

The next dixer goes to Fiona Phillips, the member for Gilmore, who holds Labor’s most marginal seat and is facing losing her electorate to the Liberals’ Andrew Constance.

Angus Taylor gets another go (you can’t keep a Rhodes scholar down!) and asks Jim Chalmers:

Can the treasurer confirm that housing rents have risen 17% during Labor’s cost of living crisis since the election of the Albanese Labor Government?

Chalmers turns up to the despatch box with the verbal equivalent of ‘earrings off, rings up’ (as we used to say on the Gold Coast) and says:

“I can confirm that rents would be higher were it not for our Commonwealth rent assistance. I would remind the house again that when this side of the house was there for Australian renters*, those opposite described two permanent increases in Commonwealth rent assistance as a sugar hit and wasteful spending.

It is another welcome opportunity to remind the house and the people at home that when those opposite talk about $50 billion in wasteful spending, included in that is investment in housing and the two consecutive increases in Commonwealth rent assistance, so that rent in the December quarter went up 0.6% through the Year 6.4% but it would have beep higher were it not for the Commonwealth rent assistance that we have been providing and they have been opposing.

In every question that we have had so far, there is a hint and the hint is this – when they talk about the $350 billion, when they talk about our cost of living help, they will come after it if they win the election later this year. They will come after all of it. The worst thing about that thanks is bad enough as it is. The worst thing about that is that they won’t tell Australians all about it until after the election. They have already made it clear that they don’t support our Commonwealth rent assistance, two rounds taking some of the edge out of the rental pressures that do exist in our economy, that we do acknowledge are making life harder for people who are in the rental market. We are putting so much effort into building more homes, that is why, when you oppose building more homes, you are standing in the way of renters getting more affordable rents. We are proud of what we have done to provide cost of living help. We remind people once again that if those opposite had their way, inflation would be higher when it comes to rents, Australians would be thousands of dollars worse off and they would be even worse off still if they win the election.”

*I can hear Max Chandler-Mather’s eye twitch from here

Remember what we said yesterday about watching who gets the dixers and what that says about seats Labor is worried about?

Well, Tangney Labor MP Sam Lim gets the first one today – Lim represents one of the WA seats on a knife edge, which is being watched very, very closely.

Jim Chalmers runs with this answer:

The nerve of these characters asking about the cost of living after they opposed all of our efforts to help Australians with the cost of living. Now, if you had been there for Australians when we wanted to give them tax cuts, energy bill relief, cheaper early childhood education, cheaper medicines, better wages, help with rent, if you had been there for Australians then and that would warrant you baying and coming up and asking about the cost of living.

As the Prime Minister said in response to this question when he last after, if you look at the last year of food inflation it is 3.80% stop if you look at the last year under those opposite it was 5.9 per cent.

So I appreciate the shadow treasurer and he is usually comically incompetent way asking me to remind the house that food inflation over the last year is almost precisely half of food inflation under those opposite in their last year, Mr Speaker.

On this side of the house, our primary focus is the cost of living. That is why we are rolling out that cost of if you look at the cost of living index that was released the other day, lower growth in living costs across every household type compared to at the time of the election and so that is another reminder, Mr Speaker, that although inflation is still too high, although Australians are still under too much pressure, we have made some welcome and encouraging progress in the fight against inflation and we saw that in the numbers last year Wednesday. Mr Speaker, there are two things that make the shadow treasurer really angry. First of all when inflation goes down, as it did on Wednesday and secondly when the public finds at the cost of his policies.

Michael Sukkar has a point of order about relevance, but that has never stopped Jim Chalmers and it doesn’t now either.

Angus Taylor opens up the questioning and it is to Treasurer Jim Chalmers:

Can the Treasurer tell Australian by what percentage the cost of food has gone up during Labor’s cost-of-living crisis since the election of the Albanese Labor government?

Oooh – we have the answer to that!

Food and non-alcoholic beverage have gone up 12% since June 2022

But in June 2020 they were going up 5.9% a year, now they are rising at 3.0%

Yesterday, Taylor and Jane Hume held a press conference where they used the March 2022 quarter (which was 19.4%), ignoring the June 2022 quarter.

Funny that.

Question time begins

The questions will start in just a moment – first up is a condolence motion for John Moore, a Liberal minister in the Fraser and Howard governments.

Richard Marles is in the big seat today, as Anthony Albanese is in Queensland

Peter Dutton says the Coalition ‘don’t have capacity to model’ climate policy from opposition

Peter Dutton then claims that you can not model policies from opposition. (That sound you hear is 2019 Bill Shorten and Chris Bowen firing themselves into the sun)

And the point that I’ve made in relation to 2035 to your question is that we don’t have the capacity to model in Opposition. The Government has a lot of modelling – and you would have expected them to have released the detail of their 2035 target by February. They’ve chosen not to do that because they don’t want to tell Australians about their secret plan which will backup the cost of electricity.

The opposition do not have access to Treasury modelling, that is true. But they do have the parliamentary budget office and they can get third party modelling done – Frontier Economics says they did the nuclear modeling as a freebie for the opposition, but the opposition has been using it to spruik their policy.

Anyone who remembers the great SHOW US YOUR COSTINGS war of the 2019 election will know that it is, of course, possible to show some sort of costings, but not necessarily treasury level models. But it IS possible to have an idea that you use to shape policy.

Let’s go back to Peter Dutton’s earlier press conference (a rare event in Canberra) where he was asked about whether or not the Coalition would have a 2035 target.

The short answer is no.

He says:

Well, that’s not the only thing the Labor has accused me of, of course. There are many things I stand accused of from the Labor Party so I’d put it in that context.

Our judgement is very clear and we’ve been very specific in relation to it. We have a target for net zero by 2025. We support renewables in the system – very important point to make, often overlooked by our critics. We support, though, a firming-up of that unreliable power, of the part-time power, by reliable power. Now, green hydrogen is not a reality. Investment is backing out of that at a million miles an hour, both commercial and government investment. So let’s be realistic about the Government’s plan for 2035 and 2035 and beyond. It’s based on a significant element of green hydrogen which is not commercially

Ok, so will the party HE leads have a 2035 target?

Dutton:

The government’s policy on green hydrogen is not scalable and not safe to transport at the moment in the way that they’re proposing. That’s, I think, is important to point out in terms of the likelihood of achieving targets.

Now, we’ll sign up to targets that we believe are in our country’s best interests. I do believe that as we get toward 2050, particularly with nuclear coming in in 2035, that that will allow us a step change, which has been the experience in other countries, which is why many people on the left and many greens around the world are supportive of nuclear power, because it’s zero emissions and provides the base load required to firm up the renewables in the system and if you don’t like fossil fuels and green hydrogen is not a reality and the battery technology is not as far advanced as you would want, then I think you’re starting to run out of options, which is why Labor’s negotiating to extend the life of coal-fired power stations at the moment.

Remember the future gas strategy?

Research Director

Remember the Future Gas Strategy? That time the Australian Government decided to ignore climate science and to keep the gas industry going “through to 2050 and beyond”.

The Strategy was quickly and thoroughly debunked, but it raised the question of who the hell came up with all this?!

Senator David Pocock chased this up in a recent Senate Estimates and the answers to his questions have just been published (See questions 24 to 27).

Senator Pocock asked what input foreign governments had into the Future Gas Strategy. As it turns out, some got quite a lot, while others not so much.

Japan had a lot of input (question 26):

The Department met with Japanese stakeholders during the Future Gas Strategy consultation period, including government officials from Japan. The Department received 15 submissions from Japanese stakeholders, including one from the Japanese Government. Of these submissions, seven have been published on the Department’s website and eight were submitted confidentially, including the submission from the Japanese Government.

Funnily enough, Japanese gas companies and consumers benefit a lot from Australia’s policy of giving away our gas royalty-free.

Meanwhile, Australia’s Pacific ‘family’, who are most at risk from climate change caused by Australian gas exports, did not get much of a say. The Department told Senator Pocock that Australia’s embassies in the Pacific “were informed about the release of the Future Gas Strategy consultation paper” but no actual meetings or submissions took place.

This is all pretty true to form. Japan has enormous influence on Australia’s energy policy, seeing fit to lecture Australians about coal royalties, gas exports and whatever else they feel like. Do not miss this video of Australian diplomats and their children backing in Japan’s disposal of nuclear-contaminated water into the Pacific.

Dutton today vs Dutton in the past on international law

The Albanese government is facing criticism, and rightly so, for its refusal to stand up for international law and human rights in the face of what Donald Trump is declaring the US will do in Gaza.

But Peter Dutton, who declared Trump’s plan an example of “big thinking” on Sydney radio this morning should not escape scrutiny either.

Mostly because it is a completely hypocritical position from Dutton, who has commented freely about the need to uphold international law when it comes to China and Russia.

For example, in August 2022 Dutton took aim at China and President Xi in particular, for a change in policy on Taiwan:

The Chinese Communist Party has been very clear about their intent in relation to Taiwan and there were plenty within Europe that didn’t believe that President Putin was going to go into the Ukraine.

What I don’t want to see is instability in our region and a situation unfold in Taiwan where innocent women and children are the main victims, similar to what we’ve seen, in the Ukraine. That’s not something that any of us would want to see. I think it’s why it’s important to call out the behaviour.

I think it’s also important to point out that New Zealand hasn’t changed its values, Australia hasn’t changed its values or approach, similarly for Vietnam or for Indonesia, for the French, who are obviously heavily involved in the Indo Pacific.

What’s changed here – the non-adherence to the rule of international law – is the action of the Chinese Government under President Xi. It’s a very different country, and we’ve supported the Government in their stance in calling out that behavior because if we don’t shine a light on it, if we think it’s going away, and that we can avoid conflict by saying nothing – I just don’t think that’s a reality.”

https://www.peterdutton.com.au/leader-of-the-opposition-transcript-interview-with-patricia-karvelas-rn-breakfast/

And then in February 2023, Dutton was asked if he supported then prime minister Scott Morrison’s push “to consider sanctions against China over human rights abuses in Xinjiang?”

Dutton responded:

“I think it’s important to stand up for the values that we believe in. We believe in the rule of law, we believe in democracy, we believe in human rights, and where countries – whether it’s China or elsewhere – are committing or are alleged to be committing human rights abuses, then we’re right to call that out. As a responsible global citizen, Australians would expect us, where we see human rights abuses, whether it’s in Iran, China or Russia or other parts of the world, our country – and this is not a partisan issue, it’s not just a Liberal view, it’s a bipartisan view – that we would call out that behaviour, that conduct, and in many instances at the UN or elsewhere, we would speak out against it or indeed we would take action otherwise.”

https://www.peterdutton.com.au/leader-of-the-opposition-transcript-doorstop-wantirna-south/

And then in August, 2024 Dutton spoke of the importance of upholding international law in a Sky News interview:

“I think in the West we need to realise that our civilisation as we know it, our democracy, our rule of law, the adherence to international law – all of that is under threat.”

https://www.peterdutton.com.au/leader-of-the-opposition-transcript-interview-with-sharri-markson-sky-news-3/

Albanese: ‘What do you think a two-state solution is?’

The prime minister continues to be defensive about his lack of criticism over Donald Trump’s illegal and immoral Gaza plan, but he did show a little bit of bite in response to this final question.

Question: You said you don’t want to take running commentary on what the US president says, have you reached out to the US for more detail on Mr Trump’s proposal?

Anthony Albanese:

We’ll continue to take our position which is what we have done for a long period of time. It’s a bipartisan position for a two-state solution.

Q: Your British counterpart says that Palestinians must be allowed to rebuild and return to their homes in Gaza. Do you agree?

Albanese:

“What do you think a two-state solution is?

Anthony Albanese hits back at Peter Dutton

Anthony Albanese is asked about Peter Dutton’s ‘demand’ for an independent inquiry into when he was told the of the planned caravan attack and says:

So, Peter Dutton wants resources of the Australian Federal Police and the intelligence agencies to stop doing what they’re doing, chasing down these criminals, arresting them, putting them in the clink, instead he wants a political process. It says more about Peter Dutton than anything else. My priority is to work with our agencies. I support the Australian Federal Police. I support ASIO and our intelligence agencies, including the Australian Signals Directorate, and the work they’re doing.

...I get briefed regularly. What they want is for us to be successful in doing what they’re doing. Another person was arrested under the operation yesterday. There’s been multiple arrests, multiple charges. What you need to do when there’s an activity that involves people where the AFP have said very clearly that people are being paid, are being paid, they don’t know who’s doing the paying – is to track those people through intelligence. You track who is ringing them, who’s paying them, where are the payments being made? You track the money trail.

You don’t have to be someone who watches CSI* every week to know that that is the important process. Not these political games. I frankly think it’s extraordinary that Peter Dutton thinks this is the way to go. But for Peter Dutton, there is no issue too big for him to show how small his approach to politics is. And to attempt to play politics. What I will do is to back intelligence agencies, what I will do is to not reveal information that is sensitive for things that are ongoing investigations. This is an ongoing investigation. I find it remarkable that Peter Dutton says that should stop while we do some sort of party committee process.

*Anthony Albanese needs to update his pop culture references – CSI ended in 2015.

Anthony Albanese, emergency services minister Jenny McAllister and Queensland premier David Crisafulli are holding a joint press conference in north Queensland to discuss the flood response.

Financial help has been expanded and the ADF is involved in terms of attempting to shore up infrastructure.

Albanese says he spoke with Crisafulli a few days ago about the “appropriate time for me to come” but out-going Coalition senator Hollie Hughes (who lost preselection for her senate spot) has raised some eyebrows this morning in the senate when she criticised Albanese for missing parliament:

“The boss is away, he is on a plane to Townsville, doesn’t want to talk to the Australian people through the parliament today. He’s up there, it’s convenient timing some may say.”

There is no doubt the hate crimes bill, with the amendments for mandatory sentencing will pass the senate, given the Coalition are in support.

But the inclusion of mandatory sentencing, which goes against the Labor party platform is continuing to cause ripples:

Anthony Albanese will miss question time today because he is in Queensland visiting the flood zones.

In the meantime, the government has announced financial support and a pause to mutual obligatations for those impacted by the climate disaster:

The Albanese Government is activating additional financial support for communities directly affected by the recent floods in North Queensland through the Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment (AGDRP).
 
The AGDRP offers residents $1,000 per eligible adult and $400 per eligible child for people who suffered serious damage or injury as a result of the floods, to help with the costs of recovery.
 
Applications for the AGDRP will open at 2pm local time on Thursday, 6 February for affected people in the localities of Cardwell and Giru and the Local Government Area (LGA) of Hinchinbrook.
 
Before they claim, people can check their eligibility on the Services Australia website at: servicesaustralia.gov.au/disastersupport
 
The easiest way to claim is online through myGov. If people need help to claim, they can call the Australian Government Emergency Information Line on 180 22 66.
 
People impacted by the floods can also pause or change their Centrelink debt repayments using the Money You Owe service online in either their Centrelink online account, or Express Plus Centrelink mobile app. Alternatively, they can call 1800 076 072.

Peter Dutton says “I’ve been clear, we’re not having 36,000 additional public servants in Canberra”.

Again those ‘additional’ public servants were largely in place of consultants hired by the Morrison government which cost about three times as much to do the same job.

Asked if he would limit spending on consultants, Dutton says:

We’ve said clearly that we will cut back on wasteful spending and if there is wasteful spending taking place, it should be cut and that’s what’s going to get our economy back on track. It’s what’s going to allow us to pay for the services in the NDIS, in defence, in veterans and many other portfolios that people expect and there’s no sense pretending that you can continue to jack up government expenditure to give people the cuts they desire, to have a downward pressure on inflation.” “

So that is no commitment there.

He then goes on about wanting to bring inflation down. Inflation is falling. It’s within the RBA’s target range. The rest is just political guffe.

Peter Dutton then moves on to a favoured conservative talking point, where he says he won’t cut ‘front line positions’ when it comes to the public service.

We’re not cutting front-line positions. I want more money to front-line services. I want more money to health and education. I want to make sure that we can get the GPs into areas at the moment where they’re not practising. They’re small businesses that have been crushed by the costs of running a practice and it’s why we’ve made announcements in relation to putting more money into GP training. I want more… GPs to access money that otherwise, in a finite budget can be spent on public servants or on providing support through Medicare item numbers to make it more attractive to get them into regions

Campbell Newman who put a razor through the Queensland public service also used this line ‘frontline positions’ and by that, the Coalition mean doctors, police, firefighters, paramedics, nurses and teachers, etc.

But all of those positions are supported by the public service behind them. Education policy, bulk billing, emergency service preparedness, equipment purchasing, claim forwarding – all of it – is done by those working behind the front facing roles.

Bulkbilling is still well behind where it needs to be, but rates have begun to increase again after the Albanese government tripled the bulkbilling incentive rates.

On his plans to cut the public service, Peter Dutton won’t say by how much but keeps pointing to the 36,000 figure hired by the Labor government.

We’ll make announcements in relation to our policies in due course but I do note that with 36,000 additional, that brings the public service up to over 200,000. That’s much higher than in the Rudd-Gillard years. It adds significantly and I just don’t find any Australians who say that it’s easier to deal with the Government as a result of employing 36,000 more public servants.

This is not true.

In terms of the public service, the APS’s own public reports shows that in June 2008 (when Rudd was PM) , there were 159,299 federal public servants, which was 0.75% of the Australian population and 1.52% of the working age population. In 2012 (when Gillard was prime minister) the records show there were 167,343 employed APS workers which was 0.74% of the population and 1.53% of the working population.

The most recent data shows in June 2024 there were 185,343 APS workers, which is 0.68% of the population (lower than Rudd or Gillard years) and 1.36% of the working age population (which is again, lower).

And yes, this is higher than the Morrison government (150,360 APS workers, which was 0.59% of the population and 1.28% of the working age population) but that doesn’t mean money was saved.

In the final year of the Morrison government, the Coalition paid consultants $20.8bn, which is the equivalent of 54,000 full time public servants. That’s $20.8bn to the private sector to do the job the public service was already doing.

The royal commission into veteran affairs found that the time to process claims made my veterans for some much needed help was made worse by the department not having enough staff to handle the workload. That has been a finding echoed across Services Australia and other departments where wait times for claim processing ballooned.

Fact checking Peter Dutton

Ok, let’s go on to the first claim:

We look like a credible alternative government. We’ve put pressure on a bad government. We’ve come up with policies and worked very hard over the course of the last 2.5 years to put policies together and we’ll disclose those as we get closer to the election.

The Coalition has not ‘come up with policies’ in the way Dutton is implying here. Scratch beneath the surface and there is very little detail, or even intent, on putting them into practice.

The nuclear policy is a pamphlet, with Coalition insiders privately admitting it will never happen. Dutton himself was in knots to explain in during his most recent Insiders interview where he admitted that the first nuclear reactor would not be operating for at least a decade (if all went perfectly to plan) and the claimed 44% reduction in electricity bills is a fundamental misunderstanding of how electricity prices work.

Dutton’s other hallmark election policy was to cut migration. But after Angus Taylor became muddied on the detail and the Business Council of Australia lobbied against the plan (because the BCA knows Australia’s labour force operates on migration) Dutton said he would then announce those plans after the election.

So we have a policy to announce policies after the election for two of the fundamental policies the Coalition have been talking about. The others are allegedly coming during the election campaign, but the detail, as Dutton said on Insiders on Sunday, would be coming after the election.

We are going to need just a little minute to bring you more from Peter Dutton because there is A LOT to be fact checked there. A lot. And just presenting the information without the context or being able to point out where he is deliberately muddying the issues or just straight up lying is not doing anyone any good.

It was just this morning that Peter Dutton excused Donald Trump’s illegal and immoral ethnic cleansing plan for the Palestinians (which includes the US take over of a sovereign state) as “big thinking”.

Dutton is now applying his own ‘big thinking’ into demanding an inquiry into when the prime minister was told of an investigation that the police are still conducting, and have not raised issues over in terms of resources, or the investigation itself, because that is apparently the big security issue at hand here. Not the investigation. Which he has declined to receive a briefing about.

“Was it a political reason, did Mark Dreyfus know, was the prime minister’s chief-of-staff informed? Did the Prime Minister’s National Security Advisor get a briefing? My recollection in government was the federal police would call up and speak to advisers or my chief-of-staff or me as Minister with raw intelligence because they were worried, probably, about covering their own backsides if an event happened and the minister had been notified.

How can we conceive of a position where the prime minister of our country is not aware of a landmass terrorist attack that could have resulted in a 40 metre blast zone and hundreds of people losing their lives? I think they are reasonable questions, not politically based. This is a matter of national security and it can’t be repeated and I’m not aware of any precedent for it before.

You may also remember that police have said that they had to go public before they wanted to because of a leak to News Corp’s Daily Telegraph. The NSW police commissioner has since said that journalists were just doing their job, but a week later the leader of the Coalition has turned this into an issue of when the prime minister was advised.

To give an idea of how ridiculous this ‘inquiry into when the prime minister was told the date of a police investigation’ is, from the same political party who could not disclose when the prime minister’s office was made aware of rape allegations from a government staffer, Peter Dutton is not concerned with what security details are made public.

It should be made public and there should be transparency around it because it is without precedent. There is no way in the world that the Prime Minister would be kept in the dark for 10 days about an alleged terrorist plot that could kill hundreds of Australians. Why was the Premier of New South Wales notified about it if there was a national security imperative to keep it from political leaders? It just doesn’t add up. If there are elements that need to be redacted, if they need to be kept secret for national security reasons I’m sure that can be facilitated in the report. The Prime Minister’s arguments, again, he has had a number of different positions, but this argument that somehow it’s a breach of national security if he declares what date he was advised by the police – that it just doesn’t wash and no-one should accept that.”

This from the party of ‘on-water matters’. From the man, who, when minister, said that women being held in detention on Nauru were “trying it on” with rape claims so they could come to Australia to receive abortion healthcare. Who won’t release any policy detail until AFTER the election. Who leads a party that won’t even release the figures on how much it costs tax breaks for small business lunches.

Continuing his political strategy of contest for the sake of it, Peter Dutton is continuing to push the line that Anthony Albanese wasn’t told of the police investigation into the caravan of explosives in NSW, which investigators say was part of planned mass casualty attack against Sydney’s Jewish community for 10 days as the biggest issue in Australia.

He has now written demanding an “independent inquiry” into it.

Can we all just take a small step back here and think about what the point of all of this is? What Dutton is actually trying to achieve? Is there anything that aids the police investigation through this, or helps keep people safe? Is there any point to any of this other than political goal scoring from the opposition leader?

Dutton is trying to make the date the prime minister was told of a thwarted planned attack a national security issue, but won’t take a briefing with national security agencies about what they know.

Zoe Daniel says mandatory sentences ‘do not reflect good governance’

The hate crime legislation has passed the house, following the government’s decision to include mandatory sentencing. Independent MP Zoe Daniel supported the bill, but voted against the amendment to include mandatory sentencing. She explains why in this statement:

The alarming spike in antisemitism across our country is unacceptable. Goldstein is home to the third largest Jewish community in Australia – holocaust survivors and their descendants, who came to Australia for safety. This is something to be proud of. We all have a right to feel safe in our communities, and this right must be protected.

This is why I have fought for, and helped achieve, fast tracked security grants, an antisemitism envoy, and the outlawing of doxing among other measures.

Today, the Criminal Code Amendment (Hate Crimes) Bill 2024 passed the House of Representatives.

I have previously called for this legislation to be progressed, and I support its passage because hate has no place in Australian society.

As this legislation came to a vote in the House of Representatives, my decision was to vote against the government’s amendment to incorporate into the Bill mandatory minimum sentences.

Community safety is paramount, and so is good policymaking. Mandatory minimum sentences do not reflect good parliamentary practice or good governance. Nor do they respect the sanctity of Australia’s constitution and separation of powers, and the importance judicial independence.

This is a principle that I have long stood for; while sentencing guidelines may sit within the law, the implementation of the punishment is a matter for the judicial branch, not the executive. Such provisions in legislation are an overreach.

This has long been Labor policy also, but under pressure from the Opposition, the government caved on its principles.

The amended legislation has now passed the House.

Chief economist Greg Jericho should still be resting after a nasty bike accident over the weekend (he is OK, but it was still a big knock so he needs time to recover) but he is an absolute glutton for punishment – so he still wrote his regular column for Guardian Australia.

You can read that here, but it expands on some things he was explaining yesterday in the blog (when he should have been resting):

The government is struggling to talk up the fact that inflation is well and truly under control. CPI rose just 2.4% on the past year. That’s right in the Goldilocks zone.

But that ignores that people don’t care too much about annual growth of prices – they care about how much prices have gone up by.

If the price of something goes up 7.5% in one year, then 3.3% in the following and is now rising at 3.0%, people will not care too much about the 3.0% because they still feel the impact of the 7.5% – and that, overall, prices over that time have gone up 12%.

This is why the opposition on Tuesday asked the prime minister how much the cost of food has risen since he took office (12%). But Albanese was also right to point out that when Labor was elected food prices were rising at 5.9% a year and are now rising just 3.0%.

So he is right, but will it convince anyone?

We are getting a rare Peter Dutton Canberra press conference.

Dutton holds press conferences but not overly often in Canberra with the press gallery. He’s more of a fan of the easy media one-on-ones and press conferences in places where he knows the media doesn’t have the same historical memory of things he has said, or where certain policies are at.

Also on the morning agenda was the hate crime legislation. Labor has now said it supports mandatory minimum sentences (at least one year in prison in this case) which goes against the Labor party platform, but isn’t without precedent for a Labor government (child sex offences for instance).

The Coalition have been calling for harsher penalties for months with this legislation and last night Tony Burke came back into the chamber to say Labor would be supporting an amendment to the bill which includes mandatory minimum sentencing. This hasn’t come out of nowhere and it would be unfair to say it has just been the Coalition pressure which has led to this – my spies tell me its been under discussion for sometime within caucus.

Anthony Albanese pointed to that in an interview with the Nine network this morning:

We go through all of our proper processes on these items. Caucus approve everything that we do, we have a Caucus committee process. But we believe that the strongest action is required here. We have, as I said, we introduced this legislation last year to outlaw Nazi symbols and hate symbols as well. Things like those flags that praise, essentially, terrorist organisations. We outlawed them before that. There wasn’t any legislation, it took our Government to do so. My Government will continue to take the strongest possible action, will continue to work with the AFP, with state police agencies, with intelligence agencies to make sure – and I can confirm as well that we have now a further arrest has taken place under Operation Avalite and those arrests are continuing, whether it be by state police agencies or now the AFP through the operation that we established.

In absolutely shocking news to anyone who hasn’t been paying attention (which includes Australia’s major parties, apparently), the IEEFA | Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis has found that the ‘golden age of gas’ has been more’s fool’s gold than anything.

IEEFA Kevin Morrison has released a report examining the last decade of Queensland’s LNG industry and found that it has “failed to live up to the hype” and has been “plagued by cost blowouts and billions in asset writedowns” where the “only ones paying more for their gas are Aussies as the exports have driven up domestic prices”.

Who would have thunk it?

Oh – everyone who has every looked at it. Including the Australia Institute which has also been trying to sound the economic alarms (as well as the climate ones) for years.

You can read some of the facts, here. Just something to keep in mind as Woodside continues their PR push at the Melbourne press club later today.

Anthony Albanese did the rounds of all media this morning, where he basically said the same thing over and over.

Here is what he said on the Seven network about the alliance with the United States:

Well, we have an alliance with the United States. It’s a very important one. We have an important economic relationship, an important defence relationship, including through AUKUS. We engage on matters that directly affect that relationship and it’s a constructive one. They’re an important nation for us and indeed for the world.

It’s that sort of inflexible thinking that has seen Australia follow the US into all sorts of horrors and mis-steps. But here we are.

In an earlier interview on Sky, Anthony Albanese was asked about Labor’s proposed superannuation changes and the impact they would have on people on the defined benefits scheme.

You can read about why the very modest superannuation changes (which are not moving anywhere) are a good idea, from chief economist Greg Jericho, here.

Albanese says:

“It would have an impact on it. It would mean that for a very small percentage of the population, a very small percentage indeed*, that they would make additional contributions to revenue. That is how it would impact the system. Overwhelmingly people would not be impacted. And it is a fairness measure to take into account that the superannuation system is very important, but it’s very generous at the high end and that is why we’re proposing this change. At the moment it doesn’t have support of the Parliament.

Again – how small? About 80,000 people. That’s it. That’s the change.

A very big part of the MAGA cult, like all populist movements, is that there is not reason or rationality behind the support, but a feverish devotion to a personality. Donald Trump went to the election promising “America First” which included removing US troops from the Middle East. One of his first declarations has been he wants to send US troops into Gaza, to ‘take it’, and ‘own’ it, which is, as any reasonable person can conclude, the exact opposite of pulling troops out. But it doesn’t matter to MAGA because the policies don’t matter to MAGA – just Trump.

Peter Dutton apes that logic here:

“I think if you look at the President’s track record, there’s a lot of desire to do that deal, to get that outcome, and that people contribute to it. Part of the reason he won the election is that there are many Americans in middle America, as there are in middle Australia here at the moment, who feel ripped off by the system, who feel that, ‘well, why are we paying as American taxpayers for peace in the Middle East, or peace in Europe?’, and ‘why are we paying more at the bowser? Or why are we paying more for our insurance premiums? Or more for our mortgages? Because our Government is out spending our money that we’ve paid in taxes on causes around the world’.  

So, I think when you look at it in that context, it’s perfectly reasonable that he would try and leverage near neighbours who don’t want to take any Gazans, any Palestinians – that’s the reality of the position of many of the near neighbours – he wants them to contribute to a peaceful solution, to a rebuild. They should be the objectives of every person that we want peace and stability for Palestinians, for Israel, for the region – and that’s, I think, what he’s trying to achieve.”  

Award winning political commentator and author (and former Costello

Trump made it profitable for leaders to smear or sneer at experts, including scientists, electoral commissioners, intelligence chiefs, economists, the courts or political reporters. Dutton followed his lead.

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Illustration; Dionne Gain
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Political leadership

The worst thing about Dutton’s distraction tactics? They’re paying off

Award-winning political commentator and author (and former senior advisor to John Howard and Peter Costello) Niki Savva has again turned her insightful mind to Peter Dutton and his election strategy. In her most recent opinion piece in the Nine papers, Savva remarks on how closely Dutton is attempting to ape Donald Trump:

Dutton, again following Trump’s lead, successfully marketed himself as the strong man of Australian politics, taking that as licence to politicise every occasion – be it his Christmas Day message, Australia Day or way, way down low on whether Penny Wong and Mark Dreyfus should have represented Australia at Auschwitz.

We reached that sorry state when those arguing for a change to Australia Day risked being labelled unpatriotic or accused of loving their country less, while criticism of the Israeli government drew charges of antisemitism or indifference to atrocities committed against Jews.

It was with that in mind as we listened to the latest love-in between Dutton and his fan club, Sydney radio 2GB.

Dutton has had a long standing love affair with the talk back station, and although Ray Hadley remains his number one Stan, he is also pretty cosy on air with Ben Fordham. It was Fordham Dutton spoke today, to pay homage to Trump’s “big thinking” – in response to Trump’s illegal and immoral declaration on Gaza.

Dutton:

I think he’s serious about making sure that there’s not a threat to Israel and we can’t have another repeat of October 7 because it was the biggest attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust, and I think he genuinely wants to see a chance of peace, he wants to see people living not in squalor, but living in a safe environment with good housing for their children. I think he believes that there are other countries – that I think you rightly point out, I think you’ve nailed it – he wants other countries in the region to step up and take responsibility, as he’s done with NATO in Europe, asking them to spend more on their defence budgets to protect themselves, instead of always relying on the United States.  

So, what I’d say about President Trump and I think a lot of people realise this, but I think a lot are coming to grips with it as well, is he’s a big thinker and a deal maker. He’s not become the President of the United States for a second time by being anything other than shrewd. You’ve seen it in his business life, and the art of the deal is incredibly important to him, that both sides of the deal are contributing, that nobody’s ripping each other off, and I think there’s a desire for peace here from every reasonable person, and hopefully it can be achieved.  

Anthony Albanese will spend most of the morning in Townsville, and he will be holding a press conference with the Queensland LNP premier, David Crisafulli a little later today.

He is in north Queensland for a flood tour and to discuss what additional support the federal government can provide.

He told the ABC this morning:

“The ADF are going to build a temporary structure over that bridge to make sure that that access to Ingham is available. At the moment it’s quite difficult to get food and supplies around some of the parts here in North Queensland. We’re using Australian Defence Force choppers to get those supplies in. In addition to that, shout out to Singapore. They’ve made a couple of Chinooks available that are here for training of their defence forces. Showing the sort of solidarity that we expect from our neighbours at this difficult time. Look, you can probably, I don’t know if you can hear the rain here, but it is torrential here in Townsville. These are tough times but North Queenslanders are tough people. My Government is on the ground providing whatever resources are required. We’ve had Senator McAllister, the Minister for Emergency Management, here working hand in hand with the Premier of Queensland, David Crisafulli. We met last night, I approved eight local government areas to get support for infrastructure build back last night. Individual support is being provided as well. We need to fix this bridge temporarily, but as well, I’ve discussed with the Premier, we need to build back better. This bridge, when you see the photos of it, clearly is too low and we are working on that and we’ll work together to achieve that.”

The bells are ringing, which means the parliament session is about to get underway.

It looks like being a bit of a messy day.

Trump ‘madness’ on Gaza a “wake up call” for the world, says Francesca Albanese

Francesca Albanese also said that while the US president was speaking nonsense, “at the same time, it cannot be ignored, because it’s absolutely, utterly unlawful”.

This is a declaration that the United States intend to commit a crime of forced displacement of the Palestinian people, and also it’s an act of aggression.

When Donald Trump says, ‘we will own Gaza’, again, this is madness. We get it. But the implications is that the President of the United States says that its country is ready to commit an act of aggression. There are two crimes involved here, and this is for me, a wake up call, a wake up call for the 191 members of the United Nations so that, so that they get back to census and rediscover the importance of the international law as a framework to rule the international system, which is something that everyone has lost in the in the last years and possibly decades.

We have had a little more time to go back and transcribe some more of what United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese had to say this morning on ABC radio RN Breakfast.

President Trump has learned lessons from the Israelis. For 76 years they’ve tried to forcibly displace the Palestinians. And 56, years of trying to forcibly displace the Palestinians from the little that remains of Palestine, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Even 15 months of genocide in Gaza have not succeeded to forcibly displace the Palestinians in Gaza.

I would like the Australians to realize that the people in Gaza have remained after, under the carpet bombing of Israel, and not pushed toward the Rafah border, because this is the thing. This is what indigenous people do. They stick to the land, because the land is not where they live. The land is who they are. And this is why the Palestinians are not going anywhere.

Dr Emma Shortis and Allan Behm conclude that even without the immediate prospect of a Palestinian state, ‘there is a global and regional imperative to stabilise the balance of interests across the Middle East. Consideration towards a way to support the creation of a supra-national forum, akin to ASEAN or even the European Union model, could promote long-term peace and prevent future destruction’.

And Australia has a role to play in supporting long term, genuine peacebuilding.

“In response to any conflict, Australia must maintain consistency between the democratic values we uphold at home as intrinsic to our identity, and those we seek to defend abroad,” Shortis said.

“We can not afford to ignore the consequences of the conflict in Gaza, which pose deep and lasting questions about our values.”

Behm says that defending the values Australia purports to hold, “are central to defending our interests, our identity, and our long-term international reputation”.

“Finding a conductive environment for a settlement between the parties will be difficult to achieve, but even if it failed, the world would not be worse off for trying.”

“We can not afford to ignore the consequences of the conflict in Gaza, which pose deep and lasting questions about our values” – Dr Emma Shortis

Dr Emma Shortis and Allan Behm, the director and advisor to the institute’s International and Security Affairs Program have written a report on what Australia’s response should be to what has been happening in Palestine, based on our obligations under international law and commitment to human rights,

Shortis and Behm say:

In light of these developments, and in response into United States President Donald Trump saying the US will “take over” the Gaza Strip and move Palestinian people elsewhere, Australia must act with urgency to protect its interests and uphold its values on the global stage by:

  • Continuing to press for a sustained and lasting ceasefire in Gaza.
  • Continuing to support Palestinian self-determination and the human rights of Palestinians.
  • Increasing direct humanitarian aid to the region, and substantially contributing to relief through UNRWA.
  • Affirming commitment to international law, including supporting the findings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and encouraging the enforcement of International Criminal Court (ICC) warrants.
  • Avoiding falling into the trap of the two-state solution paradigm, which lacks a clear path to Palestinian self-determination.

Rather than supporting temporary peacekeeping efforts, Australia must focus on securing long-term stability in the region.

Fostering dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians must be prioritised, facilitating an integrated economic, political, and security framework where both Jews and Palestinians can coexist equally.

The ABC’s Global Affairs editor, John Lyons, has raised another issue in Donald Trump’s illegal declaration the United States would ‘own’ Gaza in his latest analysis of the situation for the broadcaster:

There are massive oil and gas reserves just off the coast of Gaza, which, if there was a Palestinian state, would would revert to Palestine, which clearly the Israelis have often talked about and thought about. There was a study done in 2019 saying that the amount of recoverable oil is estimated at 1.7 billion barrels, according to a major economic survey, and so that if Donald Trump’s plan went ahead, where the US Army essentially went in, seized Gaza and demolished what’s left of it, and then turned it into a sort of new Riviera on the Middle East, presumably America would and Israel would lay claim to that massive supply of oil and gas.”

The oil and gas reserves in Palestine’s waters are not often spoken about in mainstream media’s appraisal of what is happening in Gaza and why, so it is refreshing to hear an expert raise it so matter of factly.

ABC Gippsland has reported former Liberal MP turned independent Russell Broadbent WILL re-contest his seat of Monash at the next election.

Broadbent quit the Liberal party after he lost preselection in the seat he has held since 1990. There were questions over whether he would stand as an independent in the seat, but Broadbent has told local reporters he is all in.

I’ve never faced a political situation like we face now,” he said.

The nation could be going into a situation with a hung parliament, and I believe all the experience that I have will make a difference, not only locally, but federally.”

Why is this important? Well, there is also a community independent running in the seat and so the Liberals are facing a contested vote from a few quarters now, including from a very popular local member who has refused to go quietly. That is going to impact on the Liberal vote, and Monash is one of the seats the Coalition thought it had in the bag. It will be an interesting contest.

Anthony Albanese is then asked whether he believes Australia will be a ‘target’ of Trump’s tariffs and says:

Well, you raise that issue, but there’s been two different positions in the last week. On Canada. And on tariffs. On Canada. And on tariffs. And that points towards the need to back, not comment on every statement that is made every day. I

I’ll tell you what my priority is today, it’s helping the people of helping the people of north Queensland, that’s where I can make a difference

For Australians, I think overwhelmingly that’s the focus of Australians. The press conference yesterday announcing $1.7 billion of additional funding for public hospitals. That’s what people are talking about around the water coolers, that can make a difference to them.

Dear Dolly we are at the ‘water cooler’ stage of the election cycle.

Asked the same question another way on ABC News Breakfast, Anthony Albanese says:

“I have said that I’m not going to respond to every statement, every day, that’s made. I will determine and my government will determine Australia’s position which has been Australia’s position which has been consistent for a long period of time. And that is consistent as well with what the world has said. And I might say as well, is consistent with a long standing US policy.

Asked if he believes Donald Trump is serious, Albanese says:

I’m not going to run a commentary on the president’s motivations.

Anthony Albanese again refuses to criticise illegal Trump plan

In north Queensland, where it is still pouring with rain, Anthony Albanese is again asked about Donald Trump’s throwing away of international law, as he declared the United States would illegally ‘own’ Gaza and turn it into another Riverina, ethincially cleansing the Palestinian people by their forced displacement into surrounding states and says:

We support the same position today that we did yesterday, the same position today that we did yesterday morning and the day before. Our position has been long standing and position has been long standing and bipartisan, two states in the region, the state of Israel having to right to exist and recognised by the states around it, living in peace and security. And the right of Palestinians to live in their own state as well. That’s our long standing position. It remains our standing position.

Francesca Albanese was also scathing of countries which have not stood up for Palestine, or international law. She says:

If Australia is not ready to recognize the state of Palestine, it has nothing to say about how the two state solution is done. It has nothing to contribute with when it comes to the two state solution, but it still has obligations under international law not to aid and assist a system that is committing international crimes as Israel is doing.

Asked what the people in Gaza are going through, Albanese says:

I will try, although not being a Gaza person myself, I might have my own limitations. You will appreciate that. But one thing is clear is that for 16 months now, the world has been completely oblivious about the suffering of the Palestinians.

There are nearly 70,000 people who have been killed in Gaza. 40% of the Palestinians in Gaza are taking care of children who are not theirs, and this is because dozens of thousands of children have become orphans. It’s incredible.

I mean, 70% of the victims are women and children, and has been steadily so since October, and it’s all documented what I’m saying.

The people in Gaza are special, and those who have been to Gaza understand what I’m saying. They’re extremely resilient. They’ve gone through five major wars between 2007 and 2023 and now through a genocide and assault, and they still remain resilient, but still we shouldn’t romanticise these [people].

These are highly traumatised people. There are medical experts who who say that everyone in Gaza is in need for psychological counseling. There are 5000 people who have completely lost cognitive capacity. On top of the 100,000 of people who are wounded, there are genocide survivors, and we don’t know what’s going to happen to them.

So now imagine, in all this coming back to the rubble as they collect the the remains of their their community, because northern Gaza is not just rubble, it is littered with bodies of Palestinians who have been killed by the Israeli army. And while this happens, they hear a guy in the US president who says that is going to that he owns Gaza and is going to forcibly remove them? Hey, they might be laughing. I mean, knowing the people in Gaza, they might be laughing saying, ‘who’s this idiot?’

The Prime Minister is in Queensland this morning, visiting the flood zone, so probably didn’t listen to Francesca Albanese’s interview live. But he is about to appear on ABC News Breakfast TV, where he will no doubt be asked about it.

Francesca Albanese calls Albanese government refusal to criticise Trump Gaza declarations ‘pathetic’

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese is speaking to ABC Radio RN Breakfast about Donald Trump’s illegal declaration about ‘owning’ Gaza yesterday.

In her typical forthright fashion, Albanese sticks to the law, and history, in her answers about how she is viewing the world’s response to Gaza and Palestine.

She calls Anthony Albanese’s refusal to comment on Trump’s illegal declaration “pathetic” and says she understands why Australians’ “want another Albanese”.

When one question comes with the preface “in terms of the allegations of genocide, for what has already occurred (in Gaza) these, of course, were allegations that are brought by South Africa to the International Court of Justice, they remain as allegations at this stage, because that court process is yet to be resolved” Albanese interrupts and says:

Excuse me, would you say the same thing of the Armenian genocide because there was not an ICJ determination? Would you say the same thing of the Jewish genocide because there was not the determination? Would you say the same thing of the Aboriginal genocide in Australia? So excuse me, I mean, there has never been such a consensus of human rights organisation in genocides, scholars and others that this is genocide. However, keep on telling what you think, but this is a genocide, and even if it was not that, in January last year, the ICJ recognised the plausible risk of genocide. This should have been enough to trigger the responsibility of countries to intervene. What international community, including Australia have done is no thing this is what we need to talk about.

Sorry to interrupt you.

Good morning

Good morning and welcome to Thursday, also known as parliament Friday.  Parliament will sit again next week, but Thursday sittings usually mean the MPs are a little antsy and start looking at the exits.  Particularly in election years.

But first there is the business of the day to get through.  Labor is looking at what amendments to the hate law legislation it takes on and that now includes mandatory sentencing.  Tony Burke came back into the house late last night to say Labor would support the Coalition push for mandatory minimum sentences for terrorism offences, which would mean a minimum sentence of one year in prison for anyone found guilty of terrorism or displaying a Nazi symbol or making the Nazi salute.

That goes against the Labor party platform, which is against mandatory minimum sentences, as their effectiveness is under question, while also taking away power from the courts to apply discretion. Still, we are in an election year and Labor has been facing unrelenting pressure from the Coalition on this issue, with Peter Dutton accusing Anthony Albanese of being ‘weak’. So here we are.

Health minister Mark Butler is continuing to spruik the $1.7bn in additional health spending the government announced yesterday, which is a one year deal struck with the states and territories and is to be used to clear some of the emergency wait times for surgery.

Labor is clearing the decks ahead of the election, where it is trying to minimise as many issues as possible.  The Bruce Highway funding deal was another example of that.

Meanwhile, Richard Marles will fly to Washington later this afternoon for a meeting with Trump appointee Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host with white supremacist tattoos who will now head up the US Defence portfolio. The Albanese government has refused to say anything against Trump’s illegal plan to ‘own’ Gaza and forcibly displace the Palestinian people into surrounding states.

We’ll cover all the day’s events and more – so hope you stick with us. I’ve got my third coffee on the stove, and am eyeing off the chocolate box. It is going to be one of those days.

Ready?

Let’s get into it.