Greens senator Dorinda Cox has responded to the current culture war Peter Dutton is stoking with Welcome to country ceremonies:

Dutton’s attempt to re-stoke the culture wars and import Trump-like politics to Australia through attacking Welcome to country ceremonies is exactly why we need truth telling processes.

Terranullius was legally disproven, ongoing cultural and spiritual connection to this land and water continues today and First Nations people continue to fight to practice their culture.   

Welcome to country ceremonies are sacred and ground everyone in the understanding of place, people and connection. They invite people travelling, living and working on the lands of First People in Australia to be educated on its ancient history and to participate in the healing process by listening and respecting.  

First Nations people are not a political football for leaders in this country to punch down on when they are trying to lean into a racially charged far right approach. Australia has been on the reconciliation journey for 30 years, striving for healing, peace and justice. 

Dutton can’t erase our interconnected past, but recognition of differing experiences is critical to the advancement of social justice and human rights.  This includes their rights to perform ancient ceremonies grounded in respect, truth and reciprocity.  

A vote for a Dutton led Coalition Government is a dead end in race relations in Australia, his only path to the Lodge is now a cobbled together series of cultural attacks on First Peoples and their rights. The Greens will reintroduce the Federal Truth and Justice Commission Bill in the next parliament to ensure we move forward to achieve First Nations justice.

A lot is being made about S&P warning that big spending may make Australia’s AAA rating at risk.

I’ll just overlook that S&P was one of the ratings agencies that help cause the Global Financial Crisis and just note that ratings agencies always say this and then well… not much happens.

The reality is the best way to gauge the risk of Australia’s debt is to look at the 10 year bond yield on Australian government bonds. In effect this is the interest rate the government pays when it borrows money. At the moment the rate is around 4.4%. Back when S&P gave Australia a AAA rating and back when Australia had budget surpluses due to the mining boom, the rate was around 5.5%.

Australia is seen as less risky now to lend money to than it was when we had no net debt.

Labor probably doesn’t really think it can win Peter Dutton’s marginal seat of Dickson, but forcing the Opposition Leader to spend some time at home this week would be a win.

Jim Chalmers couldn’t resist finishing his media conference (outlining Labor’s election costings) without a nuclear dig at Mr Dutton.

Peter Dutton was asked last night would he be happy to have a nuclear power plant in his suburb? In his local community? Dickson? His answer was “Yeah, I would”. To all of those people in that wonderful part of South East Queensland, in the electorate of Dickson, you all need to know that your local member wants to build a nuclear reactor in your suburb. (Labor candidate) Ali France is not going to build a nuclear reactor in your local community but Peter Dutton wants to. I would encourage you to think about that as you choose your local member. Peter Dutton wants to build a nuclear reactor in the suburbs of Dickson and Ms France never would.

Jim Chalmers expands on that claim a Dutton government would endanger the nation’s triple A credit rating:

The biggest risk to our AAA credit rating is Peter Dutton and the coalition. They won’t come clean on their cuts. They’ve got more than $60 billion of commitments. They won’t say where the money’s coming from. They’ve got a $600 billion off-budget fund on the way which is their nuclear reactors. So, what we’ve shown and what the ratings agencies will know now that we’ve released our costings is the budget, under us, is in a stronger position at the end of the election campaign than it was at the beginning. And that is a powerful demonstration of our responsible economic management. It also sets up a pretty clear choice. Peter Dutton’s got secret costs and secret cuts. He won’t come clean on those cuts because Australians will be worse off. When Peter Dutton cuts, Australians will pay. And so, if the ratings agencies are worried about spending, we’ve been able to put their concerns to rest by releasing our costings today. It is long past time for Peter Dutton to do the same.

Treasurer, Jim Chalmers:

Labor is the only party going to this election on Saturday with a costed, coherent, and credible plan for our economy to build on the progress that we’ve made together as Australians. We are providing the stability and the responsibility Peter Dutton proposes an unacceptable risk to household budgets, to the national budget, to our economy, and also to our AAA credit rating as well. In uncertain times, in volatile times, we don’t need a volatile leader like Peter Dutton, who lashes out when he’s under pressure. We need to see the stability, the responsibility, that only Anthony Albanese can provide – which I think is highlighted by the costings that we release today.

Jim Chalmers challenges Peter Dutton and Angus Taylor to release their costings “immediately”.

We’ve made it very clear what our costs are and how we will pay for the commitments that we have made in this election campaign. This continues a record of responsible economic management. It is long past time for the coalition to come clean on their secret cuts to pay for their nuclear reactors. They need to come clean on what their secret cuts for nuclear reactors means for Medicare, for pensions and payments, for skills and housing, and other essential investments in the budget. We have put our costings out on the Monday of the final week of the election campaign. We call on the coalition to release their costs and their cuts immediately. By our count, they have committed more than $60 billion in this election campaign and in their policy commitments, and that’s before we get to their $600 billion of nuclear reactors.

Jim Chalmers and Katy Gallagher are speaking Brisbane, releasing Labor’s policy costings for its election commitments.

Jim Chalmers:

The costings that we release today show that we will more than offset our election campaign commitments in every year of the forward estimates. We will finish this election campaign with the budget in a stronger position than at the start of the election campaign. We have improved the budget position by more than $1 billion comparing the pre-election outlook to the costings that we release today.

Katy Gallagher:

We will find a whole-of-government save in the order of $6.4 billion. This will be focused on non-wage expenses, so not on people or on programs, but on all of the other expenses and resourcing that whole of government has. We’ve managed in the first term to find about $5.3 billion in savings in those areas. So this is really a continuation of that effort.

An interesting about-face today from former Liberal MP Jason Falinski, now head of right-wing campaign group Australians for Prosperity. He wrote in a fundraising email:

“Extremism has always benefited from an under-informed people, which is precisely why Anthony Albanese, Adam Bandt, and Simon Holmes a Court’s Teals are carrying out the most sweeping assault program of propaganda in Australian electoral history.

“Albanese is proposing to introduce Orwellian “truth in political advertising” laws that will severely limit Australians’ free speech rights.

“He is backed by Zali Steggall.”

When he was in Parliament, Falinski was a champion of truth in political advertising laws. Ahead of the 2019 election, he said:

“We definitely need rules in political advertising to make sure that people are not misleading the voters when it comes to making a decision about who to vote for. We have truth in advertising across the board. It just doesn’t apply to political campaigns.” After the election, he collaborated with independent MP Zali Steggall on a submission which used Australia Institute research to make the case for truth in political advertising laws, concluding:

“In order for Australia to keep up with international best practice and build confidence in our democratic systems we strongly urge that the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters investigates options to ensure truth in political advertising.” Truth in political advertising laws are overwhelmingly popular among Australians of all political persuasions. They have existed in South Australia for forty years, where academic research shows they are supported by most political participants, “have had no ‘chilling’ effect on freedom of speech” and “have undoubtedly changed the face of electoral campaigning” because party directors closely scrutinise all political ads for accuracy.

As Falinski pointed out in 2019, truth in advertising is no less than we already expect of for-profit corporations.

The ACT adopted truth in political advertising laws in 2020, with the unanimous support of Labor, Liberal and Greens parliamentarians, and last year Liberal Opposition Leader described them as “probably welcome”.

Australians for Prosperity has reportedly failed to authorise its social media advertising and run paid ads that feature people who did not consent to have their interviews used in that way.

Does material like this further strengthen the case for clear, nationally consistent and constitutional truth in political advertising laws?

Yesterday in Hobart over 6,000 people rallied to protest against the harmful impacts of the foreign owned salmon industry in Tasmania. The Australia Institute’s Tasmanian director, Eloise Carr, spoke to rally participants about recent changes to national nature laws and how we are taking this issue to the UN.

Seventeen civil society organisations have written to UNESCO and the IUCN asking for World Heritage Centre officials to visit Tasmania and assess the damage the salmon industry is doing to Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Area.  This would be a huge international embarrassment, but it needs to happen. Macquarie Harbour and the endangered Maugean Skate are running out of time and options.

The Australian government has weakened the nation’s environmental laws for its own cheap, domestic political purposes. It was rushed, mismanaged, completely devoid of scrutiny, and rammed through parliament in the dead of night, with the support of the opposition, while Members of Parliament were focused on the federal budget. 

The world is watching in horror as a supposedly progressive government puts World Heritage wilderness and a globally renowned native species – also recognised for its World Heritage value – at risk of extinction. It is shameful, and the world must hold the Australian government to account.

Wanning Sun, a professor of media and cultural studies at the University of Technology, Sydney has written an interesting piece for Crikey on how some Chinese voters are viewing the Coalition’s election promises:

Many voters today likely associate Pezzullo with this misconduct, but to most Chinese Australians, his name is synonymous with war-mongering. The former public servant is a long-term staunch national security hawk who wants the US-Australia alliance to “go on a war footing”, and has speculated that a conflict with China may be “only 33 months away”. Mere days ago, on ANZAC Day, Pezzullo again sounded the alarm that “the drums are beating once again”

The prospect of Dutton bringing back Pezzullo is a source of disquiet for many Chinese Australians. Curiously, it was only last month that Pezzullo appeared to serve no value to the Coalition except as a scapegoat. Speaking to a large crowd of Chinese Australians in downtown Sydney, Liberal MP and candidate for Menzies Keith Wolahan was keen to disabuse his audience of the notion that the opposition leader was a war-monger, clarifying that “Peter Dutton never said ‘drums of war’. It was Mike Pezzullo.”

You can read the whole piece, here.