Greens leader Adam Bandt asks the first of the crossbench questions. It is to Anthony Albanese:

One in three big corporations in this country pays no tax. Zero dollars in tax. Meanwhile, people can’t afford basics like going to the dentist. Why does a nurse from Coburg North pay more tax than a multinational corporation? Why won’t you make big corporations pay tax to get dental into Medicare so that, in this wealthy country of ours, everyone can get the healthcare they need?

Might be a good time to remind you of these facts:

Key facts:

• Foreign-owned gas companies export 80% of Australia’s gas
• Nurses and teachers pay more tax than the gas industry
• To date, not a single LNG project has paid a cent in Petroleum Resource Rent Tax

Anthony Albanese doesn’t bring up those facts, and instead says:

“On tax policy, in spite of his general observation, the truth is that many big companies do pay considerable amounts of tax and revenue that is then used to fund health and education.“

He goes on to say:

“We on this side of the House will always look to do more when it comes to healthcare. We will look at sensible ways of being able to move forward, because we understand how important that is. And it’s one of the great divides in Australian politics. On the weekend, we celebrated the 41st birthday of Medicare, proudly created by Labor, always strengthened by Labor.”

Oh God. Anthony Albanese then tries out a new line, which Patrick Gorman started this morning and we all hoped had been left in the bin. Where it belongs.

Albanese:

We’re thinking outside of the box, they’re thinking inside the lunchbox.

For Dolly’s sake will someone please address housing. The climate. Worsening inequality. Growing hatred on our streets. The attacks against vulnerable communities, including trans kids. The world being on fire. ANYTHING other than this guff.

The back and forths continue until we are all the metaphorical puddle on the pub floor after eating a parmi the size of Texas (Queensland) but Jim Chalmers holds back on asking whether it is now Coalition policy to raise taxes for big businesses.

Not that this would be a bad thing. Big business should be paying more tax. But lets not pretend that there is some sort of altruistic spirit behind the Coalition’s Schnitty tax breaks.

The Labor MP for Cooper, Ged Kearney, becomes the first person booted from QT in 2025. What an honour!

Angus Taylor has a question and the Labor benches (and some of the Coalition MPs) groan. Fair.

Taylor:

Treasurer, unlike small businesses, big businesses like Coles and Woolworths and Qantas can cater in house in their corporate boardrooms and do so as a tax deduction. How much does this cost the budget?

The Coalition MPs then act like they have undercovered Watergate (which lets be honest, would barely be a tweet these days) and Jim Chalmers fronts up to pretend to answer:

I was sitting there hoping they’d double down on this policy. It turns out that they have and I couldn’t be happier about that, Mr Speaker! (Labor laughs because politicians trade a sense of humour for a chance to sit on an 80s chair in the Australian parliament).

If I’m honest with you. Now, Mr Speaker, two points about the Shadow Treasurer’s question. First of all, only the Liberal and National Parties could see taxpayers and workers funding between 1.6 billion and 10 billion to shout their bosses lunch as an issue of fairness.

Only those opposite could see that as an issue of social justice, Mr Speaker. And an issue of fairness. The second point I would make is this e Mr Speaker: The nerve of these characters on a day when they have been sprung not releasing the cost of their own policy, jumping up and asking about the costing on a policy which has been longstanding…

That sets off a never ending back and forth over relevance, standing orders, and who can be more clever about not addressing issues at hand.

Labor’s Sharon Claydon gets the first dixer (a government question written by either the government tactics team or the minister’s office and asked of a government minister – it is named for advice columnist Dorothy Dix who used to write her own questions in the column she helmed) and it is:

How is the Albanese Labor Government’s responsible, economic management helping in the fight against inflation? And are there any approaches that would leave people worse off?

‘Great question’ says someone from the Labor benches who obviously has no joy in their life, if this question is their benchmark for ‘great’.

Jim Chalmers takes it to his new favourite topic – the long lunch write off (which does not include alcohol) the Coalition has offered up and everyone pretends this is the biggest issue facing Australians at the moment.

Peter Dutton opens the questions with the most obvious – a variation of a Coalition favourite – why is the Labor government so crap.

Dutton:

My question is to the Prime Minister: Under this this weak Albanese Government interest rates have increased 12 times, energy bills have risen by $1,000, living standards have collapsed, 27,000 businesses have gone insolvent and we’re at a record breaking household recession. Will the Prime Minister now apologise for promising Australians they would be better off and admit they can’t afford another three years of this weak Albanese Labor Government?

Just in case you didn’t catch it ‘weak Albanese government’ is one of the election slogans. Anthony Albanese responds with the low energy version of a press release (he obviously has the key points in front of him) which we don’t need to bore you with here (he treats it like a dixer).

Michael Sukkar gets to stand up and make his QT debut as the member for opposition business and Tony Burke gets to once again show he knows more about the standing orders than anyone of the Coalition benches and the ensuring back and forth seems to give Albanese some energy.

He finishes with:

If they had their way, there wouldn’t be cheaper medicines. If they had their way, there wouldn’t be cheaper child care. If they had their way, there wouldn’t have been any rebates on energy bills. If they had their way, there wouldn’t be tax cuts for every taxpayer.

And we now know that they have come up with a cost-of-living plan but it’s just not for workers, it’s for workers to pay for some of their mates to have lunch.

Peter Dutton also adds his thoughts on the climate disasters facing the nation on indulgence:

As the Prime Minister points out, we’re a land of great contrasts and over the break, I was with the member for Wannon and the member for Mallee in the Grampians looking at the devastation there that families faced in those small businesses and those communities.

We met with the firefighters and the rural fire brigade and the work they were doing. As a country, thank goodness, we have these people who are prepared to sacrifice in some cases their own homes and livelihoods to keep their communities safe.

And the work that is underway in North Queensland at the moment not just the response to the initial devastation, but to the clean-up will be quite phenomenal and we offer on a bipartisan basis to the Prime Minister whatever support is required to help those people through their darkest hour. I might just say on a following note in a very Australian iconic scene – I have photos sent through from friends in Townsville before who have sort of a small patch of grass left just at the backyard, the flood waters have almost inundated the home. On that grass stands about 60 kangaroos who have sought refuge from the rising flood waters.

It shows the many aspects to the devastation of the environment, to the community, and the lives of those people and the disruption to them and the schools that are closed, etc. There’s a lot of work ahead to help rebuild that part of the world and we stand ready to provide that support to them.

Again, if only someone was in some sort of position of power to actually do something to address these issues more widely to protect Australians from worsening climate disasters! Oh I know – let’s pretend we are going to do nuclear! That will do it!

The first question time of the year is about to get underway.
Speaker Milton Dick announces that Bob Katter is not in the parliament today because of the north Queensland floods, and takes the opportunity for the chamber to acknowledge the floods and the communities currently experiencing climate disasters.

If only someone in that chamber had some power to do something to ensure they didn’t get any worse!

Anthony Albanese speaks on indulgence on the floods and says he has spoken to Katter, Qld premier David Crisafulli and has also received a briefing on what is happening across the nation at the moment:

One of the things about this country is when you have a briefing and there’s flooding and massive torrential rain in the north, but extraordinary heatwaves in southern Australia, you do realise the extent of danger that we face and the fact that we could have more than one type of natural disaster at once really places a strain on emergency services.

Gee. If only the government could act. Lucky we have thoughts and prayers!

Looks like the report into the statutory review of the online safety act has been tabled. You can find the whole report, here

Given the media coverage, there has been some of this dropped out, but the whole report provides a bit more context, including what the ‘duty of care’ will mean for tech companies.

Turning to social media for a moment (and a much needed palette cleanser) and this scene from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off has been doing the rounds. Why? A little thing called…history.