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.