The interview ended with:

Q: We’ve got listeners, we can see it on the text line – they want to hear you talk more about Gaza, cost of living, climate change, on top of the Australian music climate. It’s been like, over a year since you’ve been on our current affairs program, Hack. Can we ask you while you’re here, will you commit to coming back to chat with the journalist, versus two comedians, Dave Marchese, in the next month, to speak about, you know, those key issues?
 
Albanese:

Oh, sure. Always happy to have a chat. And I think I’m pretty accountable. In the last, in the last week, I did Insiders yesterday. I did 7.30 Report last Monday. I did ABC Afternoon Briefing last Wednesday. So, I certainly make myself available, and particularly to the ABC.

Anthony Albanese spoke to Triple J FM radio this morning, because what else would you expect from the prime minister who for awhile there was known as ‘DJ Albo’ the Monday after the Hottest 100?

Here is how that chat went:

PRIME MINISTER: It was fabulous. I was listening here in The Lodge in Canberra and I listened to the last, I guess about 35 songs. 35 down to one, because I had flown down from Sydney. But I was watching online as they popped up. I mean, some of them, sometimes they popped up, as you know, before they actually came on. And so –
 
LUKA MULLER, HOST: Called out by the PM, brutal.
 
CARISTO: Our socials team. No, it does happen, you know.
 
PRIME MINISTER: It was absolutely fabulous. And I’m old enough to know that the first Hottest 100 was won by Love Will Tear Us Apart. And it wasn’t the first, the top 100 of that year, it was of every year. So, people pitched in and Joy Division won the first time, and then gradually then it evolved into an annual, an annual event night. I still have about ten of the CDs going back – I don’t even know if the CDs are made these days of the Hottest 100, because it was always, you got about 30 of  the best tracks.
 
CARISTO: Wow, you with the stats there PM, on the Hottest 100. Doing our job. I mean, how did your votes go in the end? How many of your votes made the countdown?
 
PRIME MINISTER: I got five out of ten, which was, which was pretty good, I thought. I did have a whole lot. It was really hard. I liked the way the system worked, that you could have essentially a short list or, I had a short list of about 25 and I kept changing. It took me days to press the submit button because I kept changing my mind. One of the ones was Never Tear Us Apart and I ended up not, not making it. It was on there a couple of times and it was off and it was on again.
 
MULLER: Almost backed a winner, but not quite then. I’d love to hear you talk about, yeah, Never Tear Us Apart. So, you were 24 when the winning track, Never Tear Us Apart by INXS came out. Can you take us back to a young Albanese at that age? Were you a music lover? Were you going to gigs?
 
PRIME MINISTER: I certainly was. And I grew up in – I was very lucky to grow up in Sydney at a time where you could see in INXS, Cold Chisel, Midnight Oil, Spiderbait, The Le Hoodoo Gurus, as they were called originally. A whole bunch of these bands in, in local pubs, you know, The Annandale, The Lansdowne, The Hummingbirds, which I don’t think The Hummingbirds made it. They were on my list and off my list a few times. But there were so many great bands you could see for very little money, some of them for free. And it was a great time. And in ‘88 I did the Australian young person’s thing of backpacking around Europe, and at that time, INXS and Midnight Oil were huge. That was when they exploded internationally. And so –
 
MULLER: I’m happy to hear you say that.
 
PRIME MINISTER: If you’re out at clubs there, you could hear that song. So, it reminds me of being in Europe.
 

Also: the country is not too reliant on income tax.

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg Jericho and Elinor Johnston-Leek debunk some long-standing myths about the Australian economy, discuss cuts to HECS and examine the latest in Trump’s beef beef.

Last week there was a bit of a story that went around most media about the head of the Productivity Commission, Danielle Wood, saying that full-time workers would be at least $14,000 better off by 2035 if productivity growth could be boosted from its current low level to its historic average.

What do they mean by this?

Well, the best way to measure productivity (which is how much output is done in the economy (ie things made, services done) with our time and equipment)) is in a 4 yearly average growth (because the annual figures just around a lot) and as you can see we are currently well down on the historical average.

This is an issue because theoretically when we produce more with our time, that means out living standards should go up – because we should get a pay rise for making/doing more stuff in the same amount of time, and that can happen and not cause inflation because we are (just to say it again) making/doing more stuff with the same amount of time.

Now am as a rule very reticent to call bullshit on anything by the Productivity Commission (that’s a joke for those still yet to have their first coffee), but there are a couple problems with the whole $14,000 better off claim.

The first thing is it is based on wonderful modelling called CGE (Computable General Equilibrium). As Richard Denniss and Matt Saunders wrote in their paper on the topic in January the CGE modelling has more than a few assumptions that that render them pretty limited in their ability to suggest what will happen in the real world. And that is fine, so long as you know that. The problem is CGE modelling in Australia has jumped from universities to the public services (like the RBA and PC and Treasury) and are held up as virtual fact, rather than assumptions.

Saying that workers will be $14,000 better off due to better productivity growth assumes that the benefits automatically flow to workers.

The problem is this does not happen. In the real world, the benefits of productivity are fought over in wage negotiations.

As Jim Stanford (former director of the Centre for Future Work) writes in his paper on productivity out today, since 2000 that “productivity grew four times faster since 2000 than average wages adjusted for consumer prices… If workers had received wage increases since 2000 that matched productivity growth, wages would be as much as 18% higher than they are at present – worth $350 per week, or $18,000 per year.”

So sure, productivity should lead to better living standards, but you can’t just assume it will. As Jim writes: “The fruits of productivity growth have been disproportionately captured in the form of business profits, dividend payouts, and executive compensation. It is only through deliberate measures to ensure productivity growth is reflected in improved compensation and conditions for workers that Australian workers can have any confidence their contributions to improved productivity will pay off in better lives.”

American drug companies are complaining to Trump that they pay get less than they would like from Australia’s drug purchasing and approval arrangements. Meantime they pay almost no tax on the profits they do make in Australia according to a report in today’s Financial Review.

Five foreign companies; Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, had revenue of $4,750 million but paid tax of only $99.7 million, just 2%.

We don’t have enough information to know exactly but we know these companies exploit things like payments for licensing Intellectual Property. These are payments to head office or more likely an Irish subsidiary.

Intellectual Property gives its owner a monopoly profit but these companies are effectively able to nominate which jurisdiction is to tax that monopoly profit. They arrange things so that licensing fees go to low tax jurisdictions. This is multinational tax avoidance 101.

Some years ago we put a proposal to the Senate that effectively said monopoly profit should be allocated among jurisdictions according to sales. Either that or the tax office just ignores such payments between 100% owned subsidiaries. See Corporate tax avoidance: Submission. Those changes would massively boost tax paid by these and other high-tech industries in Australia.  

https://www.afr.com/companies/healthcare-and-fitness/drug-giants-targeting-australia-s-pbs-are-paying-tiny-amounts-of-tax-20250723-p5mh4l

Colin Boyle moves on to how unfair it is that renewables receive government subsidies, while leaving out that so too do fossil fuels. He uses this example:

We also have three coal fired power stations in the electorate of Flint, Callide, Gladstone and Stanwell in Rockhampton. What becomes of that base load power when it gets put in a position where it cannot compete in the marketplace to sell energy because of the mandates and the RET subsidies that the renewable energy sector gets, and what we are doing are driving small business and individuals to the wall. We’ve got people living in cars and people living in tents because they cannot afford their electricity bill. And it’s time. This stopped. That’s dumped this net zero, it is economic madness, it is overseeing the demise of business, industry, and prosperity.

Callide and Stanwell (the Rocky one) are STATE owned coal fired power stations, so they already receive government subsidies. Renewable energy is cheaper, which is one of the reason the private market is pulling out of fossil fuels (coal at least) for power (gas is another story despite being a fossil fuel and contributing to our emissions and high power prices) and are not to blame for higher power bills. The aging coal fired power assets ARE contributing, but no one is arguing against base load power here.

This bill is based in a fantasy set in the 1950s. Much like the Nationals.

Barnaby Joyce finishes with:

Of course I can say it now because I’m not bound by Cabinet solidarity. I acknowledge that maybe it was cowardly of me in the past, I acknowledge that. Right, but I gotta do it now, and others are going to do it as well, and I commend this bill to the House

The political powerhouse that is Colin Boyce (LNP MP for Flynn) is seconding the motion.

Again, this is going nowhere. But Labor will let it run because of how Labor looks in comparison and the trouble it causes internally with the Coalition.

Barnaby Joyce is now posing the question:

“If it doesn’t change the weather, than who benefits?”

He answers that:

“Billionaires”.

Which of course, is very different from the billionaires which benefit from fossil fuels. VERY DIFFERENT

Barnaby Joyce is introducing the scrap net-zero bill, where he is blaming all the world’s ills, as well as the domestic issues, on net zero.

This bill will be going nowhere. Labor will let it run though because it provides cover for the bare minimum it is doing, and makes it looks so much better than what it is.

Joyce has moved on to ‘the defence of our nation’ as being under threat because of net zero.

So excited is Barnaby, that he held a press conference outside parliament house.

Your anti-net zero warriors (so much diversity!)