The Greens plan on setting up an inquiry into why Labor is being so secretive around its climate risk assessment (something Zali Steggall mentioned today as well), wanting to know what is so “shocking” about it, that the government feels the need to hide it.

Larissa Waters said in a statement:

Labor’s climate risk cover up has to end – and the Greens will force them to be transparent through a Senate Inquiry.

Labor must make the Climate Risk Assessment public so Australians can see how global warming is making our country less safe, destroying the environment, and supercharging climate disasters that are already costing communities dearly.

We are extremely concerned about Labor’s decision to hide this Assessment for over nine months, and to today disregard the Senate’s orders to release it. The only reason the government would be trying to hide this report is that they don’t want you to see it before they announce inadequate 2035 climate targets.

It is set to be a damning report which reportedly shows how continued coal and gas approvals are setting our country on a path to climate ruin – with homes within 5 kilometres of the coast set to be regularly flooded, major drought risks for much of the country, and all coral reefs dead.”

The Coalition would need to support the move, but they tend to like making life difficult for the government so don’t be surprised if this gets up.

In case you were wondering what Nationals leader David Littleproud has been up to – he has been trying to reinvigorate nuclear power. He spoke to Brisbane radio 4BC this morning where he claims that the issue with nuclear was the Coalition didn’t sell it properly.

Now this is all ridiculous because by the time the Coalition is anywhere near power it will be the 2030s when all of this debate is done and dusted. None of this matters. At all. But it is keeping the Coalition at the beck and call of its junior party the Nationals who are pretty much at the capacity of the seats they could ever win (there are maybe two more – Calare and Bendigo if the circumstances were right) which is so far from government it is not worth talking about.

Yet here we are.

What will keep the Nationals in the Coalition?

Littleproud:

Well they have got on board because they accepted our terms. The four policy positions that
we weren’t prepared to walk away from which was nuclear, the Regional Australia Future Fund,
reform to the Universal Service Obligation to protect our mobile phone towers so that we can
use them in an hour of need in the bush, and divestiture powers on supermarkets.

Mike Bowers was in the chamber this morning when the LNP began debating Barnaby Joyce’s bill to scrap net zero. The chamber looked exactly as you would expect:

Barnaby Joyce and all his friends:

That feeling when you are helping to bring the Coalition to it’s endpoint:

Phil Thompson got a bit of media over this stance over the weekend. He said that while his politician’s head said the NDIS changes, which will move children on the spectrum off the NDIS into a new system managed by the states, make sense, his father’s heart disagrees.

Why? Because his young child has autism and has benefited from the NDIS supports.

So once again, we are celebrating politicians who are standing for something because they have empathy born of personal experience of what the policy would mean.

It’s the whole ‘father of daughters’ issue again – where men don’t see any issues with women safety until they have daughters. It’s also what we saw in the marriage equality debate – where MPs supported the bill because it would have impacted their loved ones.

You should not have to rely on having personal experience in order to identify good or bad policy. The counter factual is that Thompson would have been in support of the bill if not for his child – but what about everyone else’s child then? Would the testimonies from them not have counted?

LNP MP Phil Thompson has moved a motion against the Labor government changes to the NDIS:

That this House:

(1)notes:

(a)National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) providers and participants will be significantly impacted and hold grave concern regarding changes to the transport allowance arrangements that have been announced in the recent annual price review, at very short notice without consultation by the Government; and

(b)the feasibility for NDIS providers and participants to make the necessary adjustments to service delivery arrangements in such a short time period is not achievable and will be at the detriment of the participant;

(2)condemns the Government for failing to consult with the NDIS sector and failing to understand the needs of participants and providers; and

(3)calls on the Government to:

(a)defer these changes for at least three months to allow for consultation and planning around the changes to service delivery that may result from these changes; and

(b)explain how it expects community-based service providers in particular to adapt to these new pricing arrangements.

Independent MP Dai Le is speaking on her private members bill to scrap the Morrison government Jobs’ Ready graduate scheme which increased the cost of arts and humanities degrees, in a bid to get people to study what the Morrison government wanted. The scheme has failed, but the Labor government has not done anything to address the financial burdens.

Zali Steggall has also introduced her bill, calling for climate change adaption to be made a budget priority:

This bill is about certainty, independence and preparation, ensuring future governments take climate risk seriously, regardless of who is in power.

Last week, we saw the treasurer fail to address or include in his round table the impacts of climate change and rising risk. We cannot insure our way out of the climate crisis. We must have visibility on that national risk framework.

Australia can’t afford to keep just reacting after disasters strike. Planning for climate impacts is crucial. It’s how we protect our economy, our communities and our way of life.

This bill is common sense. It’s fiscally responsible and is future focused. It’s time for a reality check. Climate change is here. It’s costly and it’s accelerating.

The Nationals, the LNP, they don’t want targets or to reduce emissions, but they’re always keen for handouts when disasters strike, we need to start preparing.

Other jurisdictions and other countries have the tools, the knowledge, the ability to adapt, prepare and thrive.

The question now for the Albanese government, what will they do? Will they be brave and honest enough for the Australian people and actually address these risks or remain shackled to the fossil fuel interests and outdated policies?

This 48th parliament is an opportunity to protect Australia. Will the government be reckless and ignore this responsibility? So I urge the government and all the new MPs that have come into this place to urge for the debate and the support of this climate change national framework and adaptation Bill 2025,

Australia’s gun lobby thinks it’s “winning” according to a report in the Guardian today.

And fair enough. There are now over 4 million guns in Australia, that’s more than before the Port Arthur massacre, according to recent Australia Institute research.

The gun lobby seems particularly powerful in NSW, where the state government is looking to establish a “right to hunt”.

We pointed out in our submission to NSW Parliament that this would undermine gun policy in Australia, which is based an agreement that “firearms possession and use is a privilege that is conditional on the overriding need to ensure public safety.”

If the NSW Government and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party succeed in flipping guns from being a privilege and into a USA-style right, then they really will be winning.

The independent member for Indi, Helen Haines, seconds Andrew Wilkie’s bill:

This bill represents unfinished business when it comes to Robo debt, more than two years after the final report from the robodebt Royal Commission was handed down, it implements or complements some of the outstanding recommendation from the rec from the Royal Commission’s final report.

It sets out new positive duties that require the government to emphasize and prioritize the needs of Social Security recipients when administering Social Security law and designing systems and policies.

It mandates human oversight of debts raised above $2,000 before the decisions come into effect, or decisions which would cause the cancelation of a payment or benefit. It also mandates notifying recipients if a debt has been raised against them as a result of ultimate automation.

It places a six year time limit on debt recovery actions, among other measures.

Robodebt cannot be allowed to be forgotten or to be repeated. We cannot allow the most vulnerable in our community to come up against the might of the government of automated systems without compassion or compromise.

Yet I worry bills like this and the ethos behind them are more needed than ever.

The Commonwealth ombudsman found this month that 964 jobseeker recipients had their social security payments unlawfully terminated between April 2022 and July 2024 due to it glitches in the targeted compliance framework, which automatically canceled payments without oversight.

We can see automated automation without oversight, is still a barrier to vulnerable Australians getting the help they need.

It’s clear we have a long way to go before the lessons of Robodebt are learned and implemented. We need a true turnaround in attitudes to guard against the demonisation of welfare recipients.

Andrew Wilkie, in introducing the bill says:

I was among the first to raise the alarm with the media, with the ombudsman and with the government.

But while the media was slow to pick it up, and the then government didn’t want to hear it, my office continued to hear countless shocking stories from my electorate in Tasmania and indeed right across the country.

In one memorable case, a person presented to my office so distressed that they curled up into a ball on the floor in my waiting room and broke down in tears having a panic attack.

Of course, all now agree that Robodebt was a shameful chapter in Australia’s history. Well, maybe not all, seeing as many members of the former LNP government don’t seem to have any or many regrets about the whole sorry saga. It’s also now better understood that while the core of the scheme was found to be unlawful, many legitimate aspects of social security legislation did also encourage the situation to arise and supported it continuing unexamined for so long now, one of the core of the Royal commission’s findings was the simple fact that government services need to return to providing Australians access to an effective income support system and to ensure that they are treated with respect and dignity when they do so.

So that’s what this bill aims to do; to improve and expand the principles and duties contained in Social Security law in line with the Royal Commission recommendation relating to the effects of Robodebt on individuals, and make other changes to the Social Security law to align with recommendations on compliance activities and vulnerability automated decision making and debt recovery and collection practices in particular.