And on that note, we are going to shut down Australia Institute Live’s trial run and let it get some sleep.

Thank you to the thousands who came and had a look – and stuck around – and please send through your thoughts as users (amy.remeikis@australiainstitute.org.au) (and yes, we are working on commenting options, because I miss your views on a blog too!).

We will be running this during parliament, the election and special events, so thanks for coming along as we build this together. You are a huge part of what we are doing and we truly appreciate you spending some time with us, and engaging with your democracy.

We’ll see you back here soon – until then, do good and take care of you. Amy x

In other news, a record number of journalists were killed in 2024, according to a report by US non-profit organisation Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), reports AAP:

At least 124 journalists and media workers were killed, with nearly two-thirds of them Palestinians killed in Israel’s war in Gaza, the CPJ said.

“The toll of conflict on the press is most glaring in the unprecedented number of journalists and media workers killed in the Israel-Gaza war, 85 in 2024, and 78 in 2023.”

The CPJ said the number of conflicts globally – whether political, criminal or military in nature – had doubled in the past five years.

“All of the 2024 killings point to the increased dangers facing reporters and media workers – and the threat that poses to the flow of information worldwide.”

Outside of the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, CPJ documented the killing of 39 other journalists and media workers in 16 nations, with the deadliest being Sudan, Pakistan, Mexico, Syria, Myanmar, Iraq and Haiti.

It is the highest toll since the CPJ began collecting data more than three decades ago. The previous record was 113 journalists killed in 2007, during the Iraq War.

“Conditions can grow more lethal for the press when those who kill journalists are not held to account. And fewer journalists means less information for citizens seeking the truth,” the CPJ warned.

Forty-three of those killed in 2024 were freelancers, “another grim new record for self-employed members of the press who often face the most danger because they have the fewest resources,” the CPJ said.

Under international humanitarian law, journalists are considered civilians and targeting them in a conflict is a war crime.

Thirty-one of those freelancers were killed in Gaza, more than double the 14 killed in 2023.

The Greens are also jumping on the ‘this is what we have done’ bandwagon as everyone hedges bets around whether this is the last parliament or not.

The three ‘Greens win in parliament to Dutton-proof our future’ are listed as:

Subsidised childcare now, not after the election – Early Childhood Education & Care (3 day guarantee)

Backing Clean energy in law until 2030 – Electricity Infrastructure Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. 

No future for fossil fuels or uranium under Future Made in Australia 

So not a bad fortnight’s work.

Anthony Albanese sticks around after QT to hear Bob Katter’s statement on indulgence about helps for the floods and better road infrastructure in north Queensland and to respond. He makes a point of saying how well the federal government has been working with the state LNP Queensland government to respond to the floods disaster.

That’s because a) that’s what you would expect from governments during a climate disaster where lives and livelihoods are on the line and b) well David Crisafulli and Peter Dutton aren’t exactly best friends.

Looking back at question time, which, given we are in the pointy end of the election cycle could be the last one (although Labor peeps are still pointing to May, at least privately – but honestly, who the hell knows and ultimately, it truly doesn’t matter) you could see two things at play:

The Coalition continuing to push what it could out of the anti-Semitic allegations

The Coalition trying to make a point of Labor’s term as ‘1,000 days in power’ (the language being a deliberate choice because it makes it seem like it has been a lot longer than almost three years) and the failures it sees from what was promised to what was delivered (housing, energy prices etc) and Labor seeking to cement its record against the Coalition – while reminding everyone that Peter Dutton has been in parliament for a long, long time and a major part of the former ten years of Coalition governments.

And this is what you are going to see in the election campaign proper. Day in, day out.

Anthony Albanese ends with this:

We have an economy that is growing. We have inflation which is down to a 4-year low. We have wages that are up, pay packets growing at the fastest pace since 2012, unemployment on average is at the lowest it has been under any government in 50 years. The context of a global economic crisis. 1.1 million jobs created – more than two-thirds of them have been full-time. We had the smallest gender pay gap on record. Fewer days lost to industrial disputes, a record number of small businesses and record business investment. We have delivered tax cuts for every single taxpayer, cost of living support rollout, energy bill relief, Cheaper Child Care Bill, cheaper medicines, extra GPs, extra GP appointments and fee-free-TAFE – the largest increase in Rent Assistance of 45% over two increases in 30 years. Student debt relief for 3 million Australians with more to come.

The first back-to-back surpluses in two decades. Less debts to the tune of $200 billion saved as a result of the hard work that we have done.

I am asked about alternatives. The Leader of the Opposition was a senior Minister for everyday of the former government. Every day. Every Australian will remember all too well what he means when he speaks about going back, back to rising inflation, back to wages being kept deliberately low, back to aged care in crisis, bulk billing in freefall, childcare being out of reach, back to chasing manufacturing offshore, back to Australia being completely isolated on the world stage, back to secret ministries and robodebt, back to wasting hundreds of millions of dollars of community car Parkes that were not anywhere near train station.

At the beginning of the show, he was appointed Health Minister, he was so bad that he was dumped by Tony Abbott but you know what was worse? He was replaced by Sussan Ley.

And then question time ends.

Anthony Albanese seems to be winding up for the big finish here with this dixer.

This answer smells like the last QT of this session (and maybe the parliament) is done.

Back to the non-government questions and one which actually matters to people, Andrew Wilkie asks:

In 2023, National Cabinet agreed on nine reforms under a better deal for renters. Both National Shelter and the tenants union note that in Tasmania the state government is not pursuing six of the nine reforms so why is the Tasmanian Government allowed to slow walk these reforms and will the federal government inject some urgency into nationally consistent protections for renters?

Housing minister Clare O’Neil:

I want to thank the Member for Clark for his question about a subject that we have a really shared passion for and that is the situation faced by renters across our country right now.

I know that the member will be meeting with his constituents, as I do, not necessarily young renters, but renters who are middle aged, have children of their own and are living in that precarious situation where they get move from property to property and sometimes have to move their kids from school to school.

This is something I don’t want to see and people sometimes asked me in this job “What gets me out of bed in the morning” and one of them is this.

If we go back to the year I was born, 60% of low income people owned their own home. Today it is 20%. This tells us we have not only a long-term issue with housing in our country but because just because of housing the experience of low income people is different to what it was 40 years ago. Implicit in the member’s question is an acknowledgement that these really important issues of the rights of renters sit at the state level.

Almost all previous governments have said ‘we want nothing to do with this problem” but that does not been the case with this government. The Prime Minister has placed housing at the heart of our government’s agenda and instead of ignoring this problem has sat down with the states, made an agreement, the National Housing Accord, and part of that is asking the states to sign up to these things like banning competitive rent increases and minimum standards for rental accommodation. The member asked about the performance of the Tasmanian Government. Each of the states reports to me in their progress and the last report I received was December 2024.

Tasmania reported that they are complete on seven of nine of their requirements and two of mine are in progress, so I see you shaking your head there. The National Shelter numbers are from earlier and I think that explains the discrepancy but if the member does not mind I would appreciate the opportunity to sit down with him and go through the report and I am happy to sit down with him and push the government to move faster. No-one wants the states to move faster on this than me. It is an important part of the Government’s aged housing agenda and I thank him for his question.

Jason Clare received a dixer so he could take some shots at the Coalition’s tax breaks for schnitties and steaks policy and show why he remains the government’s best communicator when it comes to delivering the lines:

Just over an hour ago we passed laws through this place that will help more kids get a great start in life. That will help kids get ready to start school, that will guarantee their mums and dads get access to government supported early education and care and if you ever need an example of the difference between us and them, between the Labor Party and the Liberal Party, this is it because they voted against it.

They voted against legislation to help some of the most disadvantaged kids and this country to get the early education that they need to start school ready to learn, it is a real-life example of opening the doors of opportunity for our kids and they voted to slam it shut. And here is the kicker, the argument that they use is that we cannot afford it.

But apparently we can afford billions of dollars for bosses to have lunch on the taxpayer. There is the difference. A three day guarantee for our kids and the Labor or make a free cause guarantee for bosses under the Liberal Party and this is not the only place where the difference is clear. We are fixing the funding of our schools and tying that funding to the sort of things that will help children who fall behind in school to catch up through things like free tutoring. If they went, that all goes.

Free tutoring replaced by free lunches again, leaving our kids [behind]. If we win the election, we will also do something else, we will cut student debt of three million Australians by 20 per cent. If they win, that will not happen either because they opposing that as well.

Mr Speaker, this was the press release from the shadow treasurer on 3 November on the day they said they were opposed to cutting student debt by 20 per cent and I promise you I’m not making this up. Their argument for opposing is this,’ there are no free lunches in economics. ‘ It turns out that there is. But only for the bosses. A bit of taxpayer funded chicken stuffed in a duck stuffed in a turkey which is a perfect analogy for this policy because I think most Australians will think it is stuffed.

Just returning to the Coalition’s attack against the Greens from earlier in question time.

A lot of the criticism against the Greens has been because of the party’s criticism against Israel’s military actions in Gaza and the West Bank. It has argued against genocide and pushed for Australia to stand up for international law and human rights. The Greens are not alone – the ICC has an arrest warrant out for Israel’s leader. Multiple human rights agencies have called what has happened in Gaza a genocide. Israel was found to be using starvation as a tool of war – against human right laws (and humanity) by Human Rights Watch. The actions of a nation state are not beyond criticism.

But as we have seen during the testimony from former senior ABC managers in the Antoinette Lattouf case in the federal court, and has we have seen multiple times since Israel entered Gaza in its latest (and deadliest) military campaign, criticism of Israel, has, in a lot of cases, become conflated with anti-Semitism.

As the Jewish Council of Australia has made clear on multiple occasions, it is not anti-Semitic to criticise the state of Israel’s actions and conflating the two does not make Jewish people safer.

But the Coalition, aided in a lot of cases by a media scared of having to defend itself from anti-Semitic allegations and a government desperately trying to keep its head down on the issue, often conflates criticism of a nation state’s military actions and plans, which are in conflict with international law, with being anti-Semitic and run with it.

Anti-Semitism is real and terrifying. Everyone deserves to be safe and feel safe. It is a horror that so many people don’t feel safe in Australia – and that should be addressed across the board, not just when it is politically expedient.

Here is some of what the chamber looks like thanks to Mike Bowers’ social media: