Key events
Labor’s nature positive legislation will once again be on the agenda, and it comes as business turns its eye to the link between the environment and economy (yes, I know).
Adam Morton has covered some of that off here:
Former Treasury secretary Ken Henry has a bit to say about that.
The Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation chair will also speak at the Global Nature Positive Summit and told AAP:
We’re all suffering an extreme form of cognitive dissonance.Australia celebrates being a natural resources superpower, digging up coal and extracting gas to ship overseas.
We refuse to see a connection between that and the climate change-induced nature destruction that we’re experiencing.
We don’t account for it, we don’t consider ourselves responsible for those carbon emissions … surely we’re capable of seeing that one thing is contributing to the other, but we don’t.
McKenzie comments on Payman
Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie, speaking on the same Nine program, was a little more positive:
I absolutely agree with Senator Payman’s comments that Albo should actually stick to his day job in addressing the cost of living crisis and the real concerns of everyday Australians, instead of treating her like a wayward teenager rather than a member of the Australian Senate.
So, you know, I think everybody’s entitled to run. She shouldn’t be intimidated to be running at the next election. She’s representing the state of WA in the Australian Senate for the next five years. I look forward to working with her.
Labor say Payman party affiliation ‘a matter for her’
WA senator Fatima Payman will announce her own political party this week. There has been some back and forth (through the media) between figures from Payman’s former party, Labor and the senator for days.
Rishworth was asked about the forthcoming party announcement and said:
To be honest, what Senator Payman does is a matter for her. If she really wanted to be endorsed by the Australian people, she could stand down for the Senate and run herself at the next election. But it’s really a matter for her. She wouldn’t be the first, and won’t be the last senator that gets elected with a different party and then decides to split from that party and run as an Independent. That’s entirely a matter for her.
Rishworth says Labor mindful of security situation as it works on Lebanon evacuation flights
A big focus of the early morning political interviews has been the evacuation flights for Australians out of Lebanon.
Amanda Rishworth, the social services minister, was asked about it on the Nine network and said:
We have been able to get a number of Australians, in fact over 1,000 Australians, out of Beirut, but there are still over 3,000 people indicating they would like to leave Lebanon. So, it is really important that we continue working on this, but we do have to be mindful of the security situation along with a number of other factors.
So my strong message and the message of the government is for people to take any opportunity if they want to leave, to get out. To take the first opportunity that comes their way. But we will keep, of course, working to support Australians to get out of Beirut. But we do have to be mindful of the security circumstances and other factors at play as well.
Greens announce anti-genocide press conference before parliamentary sitting
It is party room meeting day, so the parliament won’t sit until midday.
That leaves plenty of time for press conferences in the morning. Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi has announced an interesting one for 10.45 which will no doubt get a lot of attention:
Senator Mehreen Faruqi, Greens Deputy Leader with Senator Lidia Thorpe, Senator Fatima Payman, Leah House, Dr. Ola Aldassi, Dr. Bushra Othman, Dr. Musameh Muntaser, Vivienne Porzsolt, Tamara Ashmar, Sara Saleh, Diana Abdel-Rahman OAM and Olivia Serougi
The topic: “The people united against genocide”
Independents to hold press conference on gambling ad ban
Independent MPs Zoe Daniel and Kate Chaney have invited a group of Australians “with lived experience of the harm caused by their gambling addiction” to the parliament, as part of their push to have the government commit to a full ban on gambling advertising.
They’ll hold a press conference ahead of question time this afternoon.
The electrician union’s anti-nuclear ads
Paul Karp
The Electrical Trades Union has launched an anti-nuclear ad, attacking Peter Dutton’s policy by highlighting the estimated $600bn price tag of introducing civilian nuclear energy.
The campaign will launch initially for catchup TV and digital viewers (streaming services) across key areas of Queensland in the federal electorates of Capricornia, Flynn, Blair, Bonner, Dickson and Longman, before expanding ahead of the 2025 federal election.
The ETU’s national secretary, Michael Wright, said:
Renewables and batteries in Australia are producing so much low-cost energy we are on track to hit climate targets. This will create nearly 100,000 more jobs for electricians by 2050 – so many that we need to rewire our training system to skill up enough people.
The challenge of training 100,000 locals for rewarding, secure renewable energy jobs is a good problem to have and we would like to keep it and solve it.
We are very concerned that a rapid change in direction to high-cost nuclear with decades-long timelines would derail this momentum and rob the next generation of electrical workers of renewable transition opportunities.
We think that people have the right to ask questions about this plan, about the costs, about the length of time, and about why we would need nuclear when energy from batteries and low-cost renewables have gathered so much momentum in such a short period of time.
O’Neil: ‘There will not be endless opportunities to get government assistance to leave Lebanon’
O’Neil was asked about Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and said:
You heard the deputy prime minister speak on the weekend about our belief that Israel has the right to defend itself. And I’ll leave the commentary about the situation there to the foreign minister and the deputy prime minister.
What I will say is that our government has a clear role here in trying to assist Australians who are stuck in Lebanon.
You [ABC] said 349 came through last night. I was actually tearing up a little bit watching those people come back to the airport and into the loving arms of their families.
We’re working assiduously to try to assist Australians who are in trouble there and I’ll repeat the government’s message again that for anyone Australians who are in Lebanon, now is the time to get out.
There will not be endless opportunities to get government assistance to leave Lebanon and I’d really ask everyone who is there to register with Dfat and take the first flight that’s offered to you to get home to safety.
O’Neil says 40,000 who would benefit from home ownership changes is ‘a lot of people’
One of the criticisms of the help-to-buy equity scheme is that it would only be open to 40,000 people. Clare O’Neil says in the context of the first home owners market, that is “a lot of people”.
We’re in a market where about 100,000 people are buying their first home each year. We’d be adding 10,000 additional people to that.
So that’s 10,000 people whose lives are changed. There’s not many moments in the parliament where we get the power to make a difference that big and I’d say you can have debates about the merits of this scheme, but 40,000 people having their lives transformed by government is a pretty big and important thing.
Labor accuses Greens of ‘voting against their own policy’ over housing bill block
On the negotiation stall, Clare O’Neil blamed the Greens:
We’ve had a number of attempts to get to a position of reaching agreement about this so we can get the help to people who need it but I have to tell you, the distinct impression I get is that Greens in particular don’t really want to see this bill pass the parliament.
What they’re saying is they would prefer to have a fight over making real progress for real people.
I say to all your viewers at home this is not an abstract political debate. This is 40,000 actual people, actual childcare workers, actual aged care workers, whose lives will be transformed if we’re able to get this bill through the parliament and I remind your viewers too that it’s Greens party policy to build a scheme like this – they’re effectively going into the parliament and voting against their own policy and that tells us very clearly that this is all about politics.
We want to make progress, progress for real people and that’s why we’re bringing this back in to try to get it through the parliament.
Labor to reintroduce housing bills despite no agreements in negotiations
The government has not budged on negotiations for either of its housing bills.
The Greens want changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax, rent caps and more affordable homes built by the government.
The Coalition hasn’t set out its demands as clearly (it pretty much said no from the outset) but it has been pushing its own plans to make superannuation available for first home buyers.
But the government hasn’t exactly come to the table on either of these. So why is it reintroducing the help to buy equity scheme in the Senate this week?
The housing minister, Clare O’Neil, told ABC News Breakfast:
This is a really important piece of legislation that’s going to help 40,000 childcare workers, factory workers, cleaners, get into home ownership in circumstances where they’d otherwise have no real chance of doing so.
This is exactly what citizens expect of the parliament at a time like this.
We’ve got a housing crisis on our hands in this country and it’s affecting terribly the lives of people around the nation, but particularly those low- and middle-income earners who are stuck in a rent trap.
This is not the full answer, of course, for all those people but it’s a really important part of the answer and the Greens and the Liberals are today standing in the path of these very deserving people from getting government support to help put a secure roof over their head and they need to be accountable for that.