Earlier today, the charities sector flagged their serious concerns with the Electoral Reform Bill at a press conference this morning.

A deal has been done with the Coalition and Labor to pass this bill without the independents getting a look-in.

Bill Browne has some thoughts – he points out that we have seen this happen before, when the then Labor opposition bitch and folded on the Morrison government’s campaigners’ bill

There are exemptions for the major parties, the Minerals Council, the Business Council and the Cormack Foundation (a major Liberal party fundraising machine) but not charities. Tells you where the priorities are with the bill, huh.

There is still time for the deal to fall apart – the Coalition could change its mind. It probably won’t, but it could.

Anthony Albanese gets to add to his answer and does so:

They don’t want people to know about the three policies they’ve got! I’m just trying to help them out, Mr Speaker. I’m just trying to help them out.

Make no mistake – if this bloke [Peter Dutton] becomes prime minister over here, he’ll be sending Australians the bill. That is the fact. He’ll make you pay. He will make you pay. You won’t get lunch, but you will pay the bill when the lunch bill comes for those three your taxes that you will pay for. You won’t get any electricity from nuclear reactors either, but you’ll pay the bill. You’ll pay the bill. And that is all you get from those opposite just complaint, talking Australia down, yesterday he was out there cheering for higher interest rates, this Leader of the Opposition as well, because they don’t want Australians to succeed, because they see that as a way through for them.

It is Ted O’Brien time! It is very rare for O’Brien to ever see his presence greeted with anything approximating an exclamation mark, but here at Australia Institute Live we like to see dreams come true.

Super Ted has dragged himself from 100 Acre Woods to ask:

My question goes to the Prime Minister. The Albanese Labor Government has created a cost-of-living crisis, a gas crisis, a crime crisis, a rent crisis, an energy crisis and a housing crisis. The Prime Minister promised on nearly 100 occasions that he would cut power bills by $275 a year. With families now paying up to $1,000 more than Labor promised, can the Prime Minister point to a single Australian paying less for energy now than they were three years ago?

Anthony Albanese:

We have faced serious global challenges over the past three years and Australians have done the hard work. Australians have done the hard work to turn things around and we are seeing results. The fact is that inflation is coming down. Down to 2.4% from the 6%-plus that we inherited.

Wages are rising, making a standings difference as well. Taxes have been lowered as a result of the Government’s changes that we made, legislated through this Parliament that those opposite said we should call an election over they hated it so much and of course we have had a range of cost-of-living measures that I’m asked about.

All of them have something in common. They were opposed by those opposite, including the member for Fairfax. The member for Fairfax was one of the people who opposed the $300 rebate on energy bills for every single Australian household.

Now, that has made a difference, opposed by those opposite like they opposed cheaper medicines that benefited Australians to the tune of $3 billion.

They opposed cheaper childcare that deliver cheaper costs on average of $3,700. They opposed measures put in place but they’ve come up with some policies, including the member for Fairfax. They came up with three policies in total.

So to give the member for Fairfax credit, he is one-third of the brains trust of those opposite. They came up with a $600 billion nuclear plan. $600 billion. $600 billion then they came up with, of course, another plan $10 billion for long lunches for business. They had that and then of course they’ve come up with a third plan announced on the Insiders program that they’re going to cut everything to pay for it.

Super Ted has a point of order. On relevance. As if anything in that place is relevant.

“The Albanese Labor Government has created a cost-of-living crisis, a gas crisis a crime crisis, an energy cries us and a housing crisis. Living standards have suffered the biggest collapse in the developed world. Australian households have been in recession for more than… Household recession for more than 700 days,the longest on record. Prime Minister, why are Australians paying the price for Labor’s economic incompetence?”

I do love a precise question. Ok let’s go through this.

Created a cost-of-living crisis? Err no. Prices rose as a result of the end of the pandemic, supply chain blockages and companies taking advantage of this to put up prices. Inflation here in Australia has gone up and down at pretty much the same pace as in the USA and Canada – places which the govt’s policies don’t have a lot of impact.

Gas crisis? What already? The “gas crisis” is a confected outrage that come around every 6 months or so mostly driven by gas companies trying to demand the opening of more gas fields. Ther eis not gas crisis in Australia, no gas shortage. We export around than 80% of our gas. More gas is used to convert gas to LNP than us issued by the entire Australian manufacturing industry.

Energy crisis? Errr not sure what Angus is talking about here…. But while energy prices have risen, it is worth noting that the government’s energy subsidy has dropped energy prices by about 21% since June 2023 and if it was not for the subsidy energy people would be paying about 47% more for electricity than they are now.  

Housing crisis? Angus might like to ponder that in the last 3 years of the Morrison govt, Sydney median house prices rose 50%. Housing affordability has been in crisis since the introduction of the 50% Capital Gains tax discount. It is not the fault of the Labor govt, although it is fair to say the govt’s policies are (as Matt Grudnoff put it when her appeared before the Senate committee on the matter) at best, not making anything worse.

Living standards have certainly fallen – one understated issue about the fall is that the previous decade before 2022 (ie the period of the LNP govt) living standards grow at an historically slow pace. It meant that the fall during the period of inflation was enough to wipe away that 10 years of growth. Angus might likwe to ponder that the only way to improve living standards is to have incomes grow faster than prices, and yet the LNP has consistently voted against legislation with has given workers more power to bargain for those higher incomes.

Michael Sukkar has the next question.

Now that he can’t get kicked out under 94A anymore because he has a serious chamber job (he was the reigning 2024 champion for being booted from the house) he has to ask the joke questions to get some sort of rush and remind himself he likes his job.

Sukkar:

“Will the Prime Minister rule out a appointing his close friend Alan Joyce as CEO of the new Albo Air?“

Tony Burke says the question is out of order, but Albanese is happy to answer it because of course he is, because the Coalition has just handed him the reins to his high horse:

Having seen the mess that the previous people who were operating REX Airlines who have close links with a political party – not ours – in having dilutions of grandeur, being given by the former government $150 million, untied, of taxpayers’ money during the pandemic, on top of JobKeeper, who chose, rather than fix up the Saab aircraft, who chose, who with dilutions of grandeur to buy or lease big aircraft to try and compete on Sydney-to-Melbourne route and drove an airline into the ground, following the following airlines that were grounded under the former government – Pacific Air Express, Jet Go, Brindabella, Tiger and Virgin and others all went into either administration or fell apart – they then… we fix the problems that they created and they come up with that sort of childishness, childishness, for – as we have said before, the only time Alan Joyce got to a Prime Minister’s residence was under the former Government, Scott Morrison.

That shows how seriously they take regional Australia. Let me name these towns – Ceduna, Moruya, Narendra, Parkes, Coober Pedy, Esperance, can are von, Winton and Mornington Island. You know what they have in common? They would all be isolated from being able to get health care. They’d be isolated from being able to get freight.

They’d all be isolated from those small businesses being able to operate properly. And every one of them, every one of them are being represented by those people over there, but they have this contempt for them that this clown asks a question like that, Mr Speaker. Well, here’s what a serious member of the National Party had to say. Had to say. “If not for REX, they wouldn’t be able to get doctors, nurses, vaccines and most importantly medication. People in those towns would also then notable able to make it to their capital city medical appointments. But it’s more than just health and we all know that. It’s business. It’s tourism. It’s so many aspects of modern living,” that is why he went on to say, “I’ve raised the possibility of the Federal Government having an equity stake in REX to ensure the airline’s future.” That’s a real leader sitting down the end over there for the National Party. And you, Sir, are not fit to represent a serious job in this Parliament.

The Greens MP for Brisbane, Stephen Bates (who is facing a big fight to hang on to his seat against Labor and Liberal challenges – Labor could pick this seat up with Green preferences) asks Anthony Albanese:

Currently, billionaires are making out like bandits, while everyone else is being squeezed. Yesterday, the Greens announced a plan for Australia’s 150 billionaires to pay an annual 10% billionaire tax on net wealth, raising $50 billion over the decade. Prime Minister, do you agree it is time billionaires paid their fair share to ensure everyone can get access to the services they need such as seeing the GP for free?

(This comes after the Greens released costings showing if the billionaires were taxed, then GP visits, dental and heavily subsidised public transport could be paid for under their policy settings)

Anthony Albanese, who at one point in his political career would have been screaming Eat the Rich as well says:

I thank the member for Brisbane for his question and I’m surprised that he stopped at 10%. Why not 20%? 30%? 40%? 50%? Because that’s the difference between a political party that seeks to form government and a party of protest that can say whatever they like. Things don’t have to add up as long as it sounds good.

Hmmmm, mature. Really reading the room there (the room being the electorate)

Albanese continues:

The reason why there are Queensland Greens in this House is because the Queensland LNP chose to target Jackie Trad and put a Queensland Green in the Queensland Parliament*. That is why they sit up there in the corner, Mr Speaker. That is precisely why that occurred.

So when we come to the question that’s been asked, I certainly believe in a fair taxation system and I believe that people should pay their fair share and I understand certainly that there is concern, particularly amongst young Australians that they aren’t getting a fair crack, which is why we have a range of measures be it the measures that the Housing Minister just indicated, to deal with affordability of housing going forward.

That is why, as well, we, upon being elected, will cut student debt by 20%, by 20%, following up from the $3 billion that we cancelled already. We, when we weigh up a budget and a fiscal position, we always look for what is fair, but what we do as well is make sure that things are responsible and that they do add up, that they do add up, and the sort of gestures I understand are populism of either the left or the right is a bit of a fashion these days, but we do what we do as a responsible party of Australia’s centre-left**, is to put forward responsible policies that add up, that seek to keep an economy growing, that seek to have ongoing investment in the creation of jobs and growth in our economy, that seek to make sure that no-one is left behind by making sure that we have an appropriate welfare system and an appropriate social services, be it in education or health, but also that we make sure no-one else held back. We are the party of opportunity, so we look for opportunity at every attempt and that is why we are the party of progress, not the party of protest.

*This is true. While the Greens had been growing support in Jackie Trad’s seat (campaigns headed up by Max Chandler-Mather) it was the LNP decision to preference the Greens over Trad which ended Labor’s hold on the West End seat. The election before Trad lost, Tim Nicholls (then leading the LNP) came under fire for preferencing Trad over the Greens, thereby saving her seat, with Nicholls saying it made more sense to him as the LNP leader to have a Labor MP, rather than a Green in the parliament. But in the next election, that decision was reversed and the rest is history.)

**Is the responsible party of the centre-left in the room with us now?

In the meantime, here is what Anthony Albanese has to say:

“I’ll try to go through some of the items, Well, our economy, of course, is growing, unlike, unlike most of the advanced economies in the world… We haven’t had a single Order. quarter of negative growth. We’ve continued to have positive growth. Inflation is down, down to 2.4%. Down from the 6% that we inherited. Wages are up, inflation down, wages up.

As a result, indeed, pay packets are growing at the fastest pace since 2012. That’s very important and, of course, at the same time, we have delivered tax cuts for every single taxpayer, opposed by those opposite because we want people to earn more and we want more people to keep more of what they earn. Earn more and keep more of what they earn. Those opposite want people to work longer for less. Longer for less. Unemployment is, of course, low.

We have had the fastest employment growth, faster than any of the G7 nations, and we’re really proud of that. 1.1 million jobs created on our watch, more than any government since federation.

So you would think, at a time where we have had global economic difficulties, global inflation have had an impact around the world, that when you piece all that together – economy growing, inflation down, unemployment low, wages up – you would think that there would be… You’d think that there would be some support from those opposite… The Shadow Treasurer has asked his question. But in fact it’s happened in spite of their opposition, because all of our cost-of-living measures, whether it was energy bill relief, cheaper childcare, cheaper medicines, extra bulk billed GP appointments, free TAFE, the largest rent assistance incede in 30 years, student debt relief for 3 million families – they’ve opposed every single one of those measures and indeed, if they had their way, Australians would be $7,200 worse off on average*.

And if they get their way, if they get their way, Australians are in great risk from this mob. It’s $350 billion in cuts that they’ve said they will make but they won’t tell you what they will be and that’s before they make room for $600 billion nuclear fantasy. I thank the Shadow Treasurer very much for his question.“

*This is based on treasury analysis Chalmers asked for, if the cost of living measures the Coalition opposed never happened. It also includes the changes to the stage three tax cuts not going through – the Coalition did support that, but originally opposed it (a classic Bitch and Fold) and then said it would reinstate the original stage three, but hasn’t said much more about that lately. But also, you don’t get a cookie for this kind of stuff, no matter how much the government wishes voters would think about what they would have been through, if it wasn’t for certain measures being put in place. Just because it may have been tougher doesn’t mean it is not tough now.

Angus Taylor is up! And he is back to asking Anthony Albanese questions (there is a running joke that he is afraid of asking Jim Chalmers questions because the only time Chalmers gets to pretend to be Paul Keating is when he is fronting up to Taylor in QT)

The Albanese Labor Government has created a cost-of-living crisis, a gas crisis a crime crisis, an energy cries us and a housing crisis. Living standards have suffered the biggest collapse in the developed world. Australian households have been in recession for more than… Household recession for more than 700 days, the longest on record. Prime Minister, why are Australians paying the price for Labor’s economic incompetence?

Greg Jericho is back in the office today following his bike crash last week, which means I can now just yell at him to answer these questions for me. The yelling has been done and he is putting something together for you.

We mentioned this a little earlier today – but it should surprise no one that Labor voted against re-establishing the Medevac laws it supported in 2019 when Scott Morrison was prime minister.

It’s a dixer, so let’s check in with the climate integrity summit, where Fiji’s former Reserve Bank Governor said Australia’s credibility being questioned in the Pacific;

During his address to the Climate Integrity Summit, Unity Fiji Party Leader and former Governor of the Reserve Bank of Fiji, Savenaca Narube, questioned whether Australia has made good on what it says on the global stage.

Here’s a reminder of what Penny Wong said back in 2022 in a speech in Fiji:

“This is a different Australian government and a different Australia, and we will stand shoulder to shoulder with you, our Pacific family, in response to this crisis.”

He has pointed out the perception of pacific people towards people is not great, saying it can be summed up in one word: credibility.

“Australia’s actions clearly does not match its words,” Mr Narube said.

Mr Narube said leaders from the Pacific can’t understand why Australia is subsidising fossil fuels.

“Even from an Australian perspective, the fossil fuel subsidy makes little economic sense.”

He said Australia needs to work on closing the “credibility gap”.