Aged care and sport minister Anika Wells manages to get in a Kendrick Lamar reference into the Hansard, and not just that, but his diss track against Drake, which won him as many Grammy’s as Drake has won in his entire career (and had the entire Grammy’s crowd shouting A MINOR which…was a moment.

The coalition’s big, secretly costed policy is allowing companies to take potential clients out to taxpayer funded lunches and entertainment. So the news for Elizabeth [the person in her answer who enrolled in fee-free TAFE] is, under a Coalition government, she wouldn’t get a pay rise or tax cuts or affordable higher education.

She wouldn’t get help to care for her bonus grandfathers and grandmothers. But according to the Coalition’s publicly defined parameters of their own policy, business, could spend up to $20,000 of Elizabeth’s own taxpayer funds to attend something like for example, the Super Bowl, to lather themselves in Buffalo wings and baby back ribs, nodding along to Kendrick Lamar, all subsidised by the Australian taxpayer.

This is just another reason why those opposite are not like us. They’re not like us.

Hmmmm, not sure Peter Dutton is a fan.

Independent MP Sophie Scamps has a question about her wellbeing for future generations bill (which needs government support to go anywhere)

“For the first time in modern history, our young people will be worse off than their parents. They face converging crises of climate, environment, housing, mental ill health and so much more. It’s clear our short term, siloed thinking is failing us. Today, I introduced the Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill. Prime Minister, will you consider adopting my bill, which requires a long term lens and the Wellbeing of Future Generations to be considered in all government and public policy decision making? And if not, why not?”

Albanese does not agree to support the bill, but says he will look at the ‘ideas’. He doesn’t poopoo the idea because it turns out you need the youth vote when the linear nature of time means that millennials (who are now parents) and Gen Z suddenly have strong voting power.

The important part of his answer:

I thank the member for Mackellar for her question and for her advocacy, and I certainly commit to having a look at the ideas that have been put forward by the member for Mackellar, who plays a constructive role in this chamber.

I certainly agree and have spoken about, including in the speech that I gave at the National Press Club about the question of intergenerational inequity, because it is a genuine feeling that people have arising out of the changed circumstances which are there facing young Australians.

Young Australians are very concerned about not just their economic position and the fast changing nature of workplaces and their experiences in life, but also about dealing with the challenge of climate change and the fact that people who say, ‘oh well, you can’t make a difference immediately’ forget the fact that generations that will inherit our climate are not ones that have benefited from the growth that came from fossil fuels in the in the 20th century and 21st century.

You would think the logical thing to do then would be to STOP fossil fuels, but no. Nope, that’s not on the agenda. Yet. Eventually, politicians won’t have a choice, but the question is how much extra damage will they have caused in that time?

Someone has helped Anthony Albanese deliver the cost of living lines (or maybe repetition finally can claim a win here) as he deploys the talking points Labor want in this coming election against the Liberal MP for Menzies, Keith Wolahan.

Now the question for the member for Menzies is, is he against that additional hospital funding? Is he against the additional education funding? Because the member for Menzies, when I was in hiselectorate, or what will be his electorate that he’s running for at the next election, just a short while ago, where the Leader of the Opposition was advocating his newfound love of China and all things that are connected with China for Lunar New Year, they were up there talking about getting back on track. Now every Australian will know what that means, back to rising inflation, back to wages deliberately low, back to aged care in crisis, back to bulk billling being in free fall, back to childcare being out of reach, back to chasing manufacturing offshore, back to veterans waiting years for benefits, back to chaos and multiple ministries.

That’s what they presided over. Keep that in mind next time you hear someone talk about back on track.

That may actually be the most succinctly Albanese has delivered those lines in at least the last six months.

Jim Chalmers has been charged with establishing the Albanese government’s economic record in the mind of voters, while also telling people the Coalition want to cut.

That’s the point of this dixer and while we tend to ignore dixers (because they are press releases) this sums up what he will be saying throughout the election:

That side of the house is focused on cuts and conflict and culture wars. After three years of opposition, those opposite still don’t have any costed or coherent or credible economic policies.

All they have is secret costs and secret cuts, which will make people worse off.

And the reason they will make people worse off on that side of the house is that they can’t find 10 billion a year for free long lunches, or they can’t find the three $50 billion in cuts they say they want to impose. They can’t find the 600 billion they need for this nuclear fantasy without going after Medicare again, without going after pension indexation, without going after housing and without going after wages. And so the choice at the election is going to be really, really clear, that coalition of cuts and conflict and culture wars making Australians worse off and taking Australia backwards or this prime minister and his Labor government, getting on top of this inflation challenge, rolling out the cost of living, help making making things better for people when it comes to the tax cuts and energy bill relief and building Australia’s future.

Mark Dreyfus has just over 30 seconds left in this answer and he uses it to say:

I’m the son and the grandson of of a Holocaust survivor. I went to the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a place where a million Jews were murdered, a place where my great grandmother was murdered on the 13th of October 1942 and I say to members of this house that we’ve had a wave of anti-Semitism in this country right now. What we need is unity. We need bipartisanship, and that’s the effort that our government made.

Michael Sukkar continues to argue for a withdrawal of the comments ‘that the opposition has politicised anti-Semitism’.

Firstly, you’ve requested that the Attorney General withdraw, which I think is the right course of action. So the speaker has made that request. Secondly, the question was in relation to mandatory minimum sentencing. There was no invective in the question targeted the attorney general. We don’t and so, no, no, the Prime Minister somehow said that the Attorney General was goaded into his unparliamentary remarks. That’s not an excuse anybody, quite frankly, it’s clear cut here that there are, there are few more disgusting accusations that could be made in this house. You’ve requested that the Attorney General withdraw and he should.

He makes it clear that he wants the accusation the opposition has politicised anti-Semitism withdrawn.

Tony Burke says history aside, the opposition didn’t ask for it at the time and instead moved for Mark Dreyfus to not be heard.

Milton Dick wants everyone to move on and says Dreyfus needs to stay within the parliamentary rules, but Peter Dutton wants MORE – he wants the withdrawal.

Zali Steggall tries to bring some reason back to the house:

If that is considered unparliamentary or grounds for withdrawal or refusal, it would mean any area of policy where there is disagreement becomes something that is objectionable because it is essentially being politicised. And so I am concerned at the way in which this is positioned, because it’s the same as the nature of a policy being racist or anything like that. These are policy differences. That is the very nature of this place.

Sukkar tries one more time, but Dick says enough and goes back to his ruling that Dreyfus stick to the parliamentary rules and not be unparliamentary. He does not tell him to withdraw the comment the opposition was politicising anti-Semitism.

The division ends in the government favour (because of course it does, that is how the house in a majority government works) but the opposition is happy with having disrupted that answer from Mark Dreyfus.

Dreyfus goes to continue, but Michael Sukkar then jumps up again:

“I request that the Attorney General withdraw his highly disorderly and unparliamentary remarks. These are offensive remarks. There’s nothing more serious than the opposition being accused of politicising an issue like this. He also, he also added the word, he added the word ‘disgusting’ on at least half a dozen occasions, all right, at least half a dozen just to speak with this. So we ask he withdraw. Withdraw!”

Anthony Albanese gets to his feet:

“The decision by the opposition to try to shut down to shut down the Minister, given the statements that have been made by many members of the opposition about a range of people on this side of the house, the idea that the minister should withdraw a statement is, quite frankly, totally inconsistent with things that have been said by those opposite over a considerable period of time, the Minister, the Minister due to who he is, who he is*, the idea that he is not a strong opponent of anti-Semitism, he is someone who feels this very personally and deeply, he was being interjected against by those opposite in behavior that I regard as completely disorderly and completely unacceptable.“

*Mark Dreyfus is the son and grandson of Holocaust survivors. Three of his four great-grandparents were killed during the Holocaust.

Ahhhh, you can always count on Sussan Ley to take an actual issue deserving of further inspection and then take it to the lowest dominator possible. She does it here with this question:

In October 2019 the now Attorney General said in this place, and I quote, ‘Labor’s opposition to mandatory sentencing is well known. It is no secret. It is spelled out in our national platform. Let me be clear, we do not support mandatory sentencing’ with this in mind, and having been steamrolled by the Prime Minister on a bill that passed the House last week, can the Attorney General please detail the benefits of mandatory sentencing, which he now strongly supports?

Now Labor amending the hate speech law to include minimum mandatory sentencing, which goes against the Labor platform and takes away powers from the courts and the use of discretion for those who have the facts of a case, is an issue deserving of more attention. But like this? Cheap political points cheapen politics.

Mark Dreyfus starts by taking some political shots of his own, before moving on:

The Liberals are still baying and shouting and talking while this government acts on anti-Semitism. We have legislated to ban the Nazi salute and hate symbols. We have legislated to criminalise the glorifying of terrorist acts and possessing violent extremist material. We’ve legislated to criminalise doxing. Those opposite voted against that, and now the parliament has come together to pass a bill which criminalises hate speech.

It’s legislation that represents the toughest laws Australia has ever had against hate crimes. The legislation is a direct response to the hateful conduct happening on our streets, at our schools and our in our communities. We’re sending a clear and unambiguous message that advocating or threatening violence is not acceptable. It is criminal behavior order, and it will be treated as such.

We want all Australians to feel safe and valued in our community, and that’s what good governments do.

(Getting ahead of a point of order on relevance, Dreyfus is asked to stay relevant and so moves on to this part of his speech)

In the past few months, I’ve stood in the shadow of the main gate at the Auschwitz death camp. I’ve stood on the field where a music festival in Israel was turned into a blood bath, and I’ve stood in the ruins of a burnt out synagogue in my hometown, but those often opposite, have taken every opportunity since the 7th of October 2023 to politicize the trauma and the experiences of the Jewish people.

What a I do not need the leader of the opposition or any of those opposite to tell me what anti-Semitism is or how seriously I should take it.

Michael Sukkar then moves that Dreyfus ‘no longer be heard’ which is another political move to shut down speech.

It won’t work, as the government has the numbers in the house, but it cuts the momentum of the speech and also cuts any potential grabs the 6 o’clock news would have used this evening.

The Liberal MP for Longman, Terry Young has a question for Anthony Albanese:

Prime Minister, Australians are currently enduring a crippling cost of living crisis that also includes both a housing and power bill crisis. Now they’re facing collapse in bulk billing. Can the Prime Minister confirm the rate of bulk billing has declined from 88 per cent under the coalition to 77% today under Labor?

Albanese sends this one to Mark Butler who is DELIGHTED to take it.

Indeed, Mr. Speaker, the 88% figure the member for Longman, very unwisely, took from his tactics committee was described by the Royal College of GPs as a misleading and highly skewed figure, a misleading and highly skewed figure.

I understand why the leader of the opposition would use it, but why would the member for Longman take a sucker punch like that, Mr. Speaker? Why, when I thought the member for Longman was smarter than that? And the reason why the Royal College of GPs said this was misleading and highly skewed is that it took into account all of those COVID vaccination and other services that were required to be bulk billing, bulk bill to be delivered. The actual story of bulk billing in the last decade is a story first penned by the Leader of the Opposition when he was the Health Minister, when he said that there were too many free Medicare services, too many free Medicare services, echoing the view of his mentor, right, John Howard, who said that bulk billing was an absolute rort. Well, he tried to abolish bulk billing altogether and introduce a tax for every single Australian patient to pay every time they visited the GP….

There is a back and forth between Michael Sukkar and Tony Burke about whether or not Butler is in order, which he is. Butler finishes with:

“The history of bulk billing over the last several years, which is the point of the question, is very clear when the when the leader of the opposition, the former health minister, was not able to get his GP tax through the Senate, instead, he initiated a six year freeze to the Medicare rebate that the college of GP said when we were coming to government had resulted in a free fall in bulk billing.

Now we have put record investments to turn that around. But if there is an issue with bulk billing in this country, and we’d like to see it higher than it currently, is it all lies at the feet of this man, the letter of the opposition, who, as the Prime Minister said, was voted by Australia’s doctors as the worst health minister in the history of Medicare.

If that verdict is not enough, Mr. Speaker, perhaps another verdict is that the former Prime Minister Tony Abbott thought he was so bad he didn’t let him even deliver a second health budget.”

Max Chandler-Mather is back to haunt the prime minister with a question on tax incentives for landlords:

In five years, rents have increased 55% house prices 49% and the income a renter needs to buy a medium priced house in a capital city is $197,000, yet the Housing Minister says Labor wants house prices to keep rising.

Will Labor stop giving property investors with multiple properties big tax handouts that turbocharged house prices and deny renters the chance to buy a home and instead, finally phase out negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount?

Anthony Albanese doesn’t address the question on tax incentives, but for the first time in a long time he turns his political attack against the Coalition, rather than just the Greens in his answer. Has the government worked out that they are fighting the Coalition for government in the next election? Will wonders never cease?

Albanese:

“Indeed, fixing the affordable housing shortage is a big challenge for Australia. We have a plan that is focused on supply, because that is the key. Whether you are a homeowner, or you’re a renter, or you’re someone in social and affordable housing. And that’s why our $32 billion homes for Australia plan is worthy of support of everyone in this Parliament. And I note that eventually the cross benches reluctantly got there, sort of crab walked their way to vote for some of the plans that we’ll put forward, and in the last sitting week of December, we passed our build-to-rent incentives that are so important for private renters in Australia to make a major difference. Those opposite here are still opposed to it. Are still opposed to it. They say tax cuts for corporates. This is the same mob that was every single person who has any vague connection with a business to have free lunch for themselves and their mates.

They don’t regret the ten billion for free lunch for their mates but they’re opposed to funding for social and public housing. They’re opposed to more investment in private rentals, and they’re opposed to our Shared Equity scheme that will make a difference as well, which has been successful in Western Australia. The model now we are getting on with the job of building 1.2 million homes. And indeed, there are other things that we’re doing as well, training, more tradies, more apprenticeships, 20,000 fee free take places in construction, $10,000 apprenticeship incentives and I announced at the National Press Club something unfamiliar to most of those opposite over there, just before Australia Day or the local infrastructure announcements that we have made two rounds of local infrastructure announcements facilitating the building of new homes, whether that be through connecting electricity, connecting water, making sure that any impediments to more housing supply be removed.

Our social housing policy will lead to 55,000 homes being built. We also have provided assistance in the form of increased rent assistance in back to back budgets now more than 45% higher than at the election, in addition to helping 200,000 people into their first home sooner.”