The parliament sitting is kicking along very slowly today – which is by design.

The government wants attention on the chaos within the Coalition and all the rogue members who are starting to break ranks on all sorts of things (climate, gender etc) and to have that take up as much oxygen as possible. So don’t expect too much from the government if they can help it.

The opposition has been making a lot of elevated levels of business insolvencies in the last few years. They are saying that business has been abandoned by the government.

But the Reserve Bank looked into this issue and found it had more to do with the winding back of pandemic era support measures. During the pandemic insolvencies were exceptionally low. The recent increase in insolvencies on a cumulative basis remain slightly below the pre-pandemic trend.

Basically, policies during the pandemic supported businesses and meant that very few of them went insolvent. Far less than you would expect during a recession, but even much less than would be expected in normal economic times. Some of the businesses that were protected by these policies would have gone insolvent with or without the pandemic. The support measures only delayed the inevitable.

Now that the support measures have been wound back, we’re seeing a catch up in insolvencies.

Here is why Boele said she ran:

In recent history, the three key assumptions most of us accepted were that democracy could closely coexist with more or less unfettered capitalism, that it could be successfully navigated between technocracy and ideology, between cultural warriors and pragmatists, and that externalities like climate change and global conflicts could be ignored.

None of these assumptions are correct. And worse, they’re likely misleading. Distractions from the real challenges that we face. My three decades of working in finance energy and climate has shown me that capitalism needs well functioning democracies, ones where governments set clear rules, where independent institutions referee those rules, and where the rules are efficient and effective to protect the citizens and the consumers from bullies, scammers and corrupt actors.

Market players cannot effectively contribute to a strong economy amid uncertainty, when the direction of play is unclear, or when the rules of the game are changed, every time the red and the blue team change the captain’s chair, and with them, they take their ideologies and their special interests.

And what’s more, and I’ve heard this over and over again from the people of Bradfield, there’s a widespread conviction that political parties and therefore the parliament itself, are incapable of dealing with systemic, long standing issues.

We fail to properly regulate online media platforms. We fail to implement the reform agenda necessary to act on climate change, the existential crisis of our time we tinker around the edges of housing affordability, Australia’s gambling addiction, and making our taxation system fairer. And worse still, even if there is an inquiry or a commission that delivers a report, which is a thoroughly public and deliberative process, our parliament, the parties that comprise it and the special interests that they represent usually fail to deliver on the recommendations Gonski on education. Samuel on the environment, Henry on tax, Sackville on disability.

I could go on.

The new independent MP for Bradfield, Nicolette Boele has delivered her first speech in the House of Representatives.

Boele is still facing a last minute challenge by the un-successful Liberal candidate in the federal court over the seat (the Libs want the federal court to rule on ‘borderline’ ballots) but challenges do not stop Boele was being able to take her seat until the court says otherwise (if it does)

Mike Bowers was there:

It wasn’t exactly a full house:

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie has spoken in the Federation chamber (the spill over chamber for the House of Representatives) where he has criticised the government’s hesitation is upholding international law when it comes to Israel:

We should be alarmed with the Federal Government mostly shrugging off breaches of international law in its reaction to Israel’s genocide in Palestine, and with it ignoring international law completely in its approval of the US bombing of Iran. The Federal Opposition’s mocking of the defenders of international law as misty-eyed nostalgics is no better,” Mr Wilkie will say.

It seems Australian governments believe that when it comes to our friends, might makes right; but that a rules-based order should apply to everyone else.

For instance the Government will rightly call for international law to apply to China in Tibet, the South China Sea and Taiwan, to Russia in Ukraine, and to Iran in their nuclear program; but it doesn’t have the guts most of the time to also apply it to Israel and the US. And of course Australia has been willing to break international law itself, for instance when we helped invade Iraq in 2003, and every time we turn around, lock up and send offshore the many asylum seekers desperate for our protection. Mind you it’s always open to us to start doing better, and I suggest immediately recognising the State of Palestine would be a solid start.

Now I’m clear-eyed about the issues with the international rules-based order, and the criticism it faces for things like an ineffective UN Security Council and problems with enforcement. However those are not reasons to abandon our support for international law, but rather to demonstrate consistency in the ethical standards we hold and to work harder together to improve its principles and its application.”

Greens senator David Shoebridge has been appointed to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Anti-Corruption Committee. The senate has passed that message to the House.

The house is concerning itself with this motion debate from Tim Wilson (nature is healing etc)

That this House:

(1)acknowledges 2.5 million small businesses have been abandoned by the Government;

(2)notes the Government has:

(a)achieved a record number of small business insolvencies this financial year;

(b)done nothing to create an environment for small businesses to thrive; and

(c)made it more difficult than ever to do business in Australia; and

(3)calls on the Government to prioritise the problems facing small businesses by:

(a)removing excessive regulation it insists on applying to small business;

(b)scrapping its plans to impose a family savings tax on unrealised capital gains; and

(c)backing small business to make it easier to employ Australians.

.

Today independents Zali Steggall MP, Senator David Pocock and Kate Chaney MP introduced a bill to parliament that would, if it passes, give us truth in political advertising laws in federal elections. It’s called the Electoral Communications Bill.  

Truth in political advertising laws 

At this year’s federal election, it was perfectly legal to lie in a political ad.  

That’s not true in every Australian election, and it doesn’t have to be true federally either.  

South Australia has had truth in political advertising laws for 40 years now. The ACT adopted them five years ago with unanimous support: Labor, Liberal and Greens voted together.  

These laws allow members of the public to make complaints about misleading advertising, to be investigated by the electoral commission. If the complaint is substantiated, the ad should be withdrawn and retracted (in other words, stop publishing it and explain what was misleading.) 

Over 12,000 Australians have already signed the Australia Institute’s petition calling for these laws at the federal level.  

How would the bill work? 

The Electoral Communications Bill innovates on the South Australian model: but instead of placing responsibility for laws in the hands of the election commissioner, it would make this the responsibility of a panel headed by a former judge.  

Since electoral commissioners are historically reluctant to take responsibility for truth in political advertising laws, creating a separate role makes sense.  

While the panel can request a withdrawal or retraction, enforcement would only occur via the courts, which is appropriate given the separation of powers. 

The bill also covers AI-generated deepfakes, something that wasn’t an issue in 1985 when South Australia was drafting its laws!  

Haven’t we seen this bill before? 

The independents’ bill appears to be identical to a bill that the Albanese Labor Government introduced last year.  

It’s a reminder that we would already have truth in political advertising laws had Labor prioritised legislating them. Instead, Labor spent its time and effort doing a deal with the Liberals to increase taxpayer funding for political parties.  

Truth in political advertising laws are in the Labor Party platform. Labor’s chief strategist Paul Erikson says the party’s election ads would “sail through” any truth in politics framework. 

With a landslide Labor majority in the House and Labor–Greens control of the Senate, plus champions among the large independent crossbench, there are no barriers to getting them passed by the end of the year.  

If you missed it, Polly Hemming was in The Saturday Paper this weekend with a blistering piece on the disempowerment of consumer public services:

https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/life/2025/07/26/the-disempowerment-the-consumer-public-services

In more ‘the Coalition isn’t pulling out of this as one party’ news, Family First is “warmly” welcoming SA Liberal senator Alex Antic’s latest push to restore the biological definition of woman to the Sex Discrimination Act.

There is no reason for this other than a culture war. Absolutely none. But there are Liberals who are more than happy to play into that, Antic being one of them.