Chalmers says opposition having ‘meltdown’ not marketing problem
Labor are trying to squeeze out all they can from Melissa McIntosh’s rebrand comments yesterday (and her doubling down today).
During a dixer, Jim Chalmers says the opposition aren’t having a marketing problem, but a “meltdown”.
He says the three rightwing parties “share a divisive, anti-worker, anti-housing agenda and that, more than anything, explains the mess that they’re in”.
It is not a marketing problem over there, it is a meltdown. The member for Hume [Angus Taylor] said his leadership was a change or die moment and he made the wrong choice. He said it was a change or die moment and then he forgot to change. So that leaves only one option.
Key events
Angus Taylor is back, and makes a second attempt to push the PM on alleged CFMEU corruption.
He asks the PM to confirm that no taxpayer funds have directly or indirectly been handed to any criminal underworld figures.
Anthony Albanese says that he expelled former Victorian CFMEU boss John Setka from the Labor party, and put the union into administration.
Within three weeks of my election as Leader of the Opposition I took on some people, such as John Setka, I expelled him from the Labor Party. He took action and took us to court. He appealed that court action and we defended that and John Setka remains outside the Labor Party. We also have excluded the CFMEU from being affiliates of the Labor Party. We also put the CFMEU into administration.
The opposition tries to make a point of order on relevance – but the PM’s already sat down and finished his answer.
Albanese questioned on alleged CFMEU corruption in Victoria
Liberal MP Mary Aldred is next and asks the prime minister about his interview on 730 last night, where he was asked about alleged CFMEU corruption.
He was asked for assurances that no commonwealth funding would end up in the hands of organised crime – to which Anthony Albanese responded “of course”.
Albanese gives a very short answer saying he opposes corruption:
I, like the Victorian Premier, was opposed to corruption in any form. It is up to authorities, wherever there is evidence, as I said last night, for action to be taken by those authorities, should there be any evidence of corrupt conduct.
Hamilton throws himself out of QT
Liberal MP, Garth Hamilton, just dramatically saw himself out of the chamber, after saying “bullshit” during a dixer.
The minister for emergency management, Kristy McBain, was referring to a story in Nine Newspapers, which reported Angus Taylor was accused of claiming that authorities deliberately allowed the devastating 2003 Snowy Mountains bushfires to burn because they were in a wilderness area.
McBain says:
That is absolutely shameful. I am disgusted and so are the first responders who have come into my office to complain about it.
While she speaks, Hamilton swears, slams his desk shut with a bang, and immediately starts walking out.
Labor MPs shout and gesture at him to the Speaker for walking out. Hamilton throws his hand up, gives the Speaker a quick bow and then exits.
Independent Zali Steggall then called on Hamilton to be “named” in the House (which would ban him from the chamber for 24 hours).
Milton Dick says he didn’t see what transpired but tells everyone to reflect on their behaviour and allows McBain to finish her answer.
A little earlier, Liberal MP Andrew Wallace also left the chamber without being prompted after making quite a bit of noise.
Coalition ‘becoming desperate and pathetic’, says Chalmers
Liberal MP Zoe McKenzie asks: why was it fair for Jim Chalmers to previously benefit from negative gearing and “rip up the same opportunity for millions of aspirational Australians?”
There’s some back and forth over whether that question is allowed under standing orders. Milton Dick says he doesn’t like the “imputation” in the question, and warns “it is a dangerous slope to go down for everyone in the house if we are going to open this can of worms up.”
He allows the question, but says he’ll let Chalmers give a broad answer (ie not really answer the question).
Chalmers starts saying he reckons that dangerous slope is why no one on the frontbench of the Coalition asked the question.
Just like the leader of the opposition, the questions from the Liberal and National party are becoming desperate and more than a little bit pathetic …
Not everybody fails upwards up the ladder like the leader of the opposition does. Not everybody starts their life at the top of the ladder and there is not much point in a ladder if the first few rungs are missing. That is the case when it comes to the housing market in this country.
Chalmers says opposition having ‘meltdown’ not marketing problem
Labor are trying to squeeze out all they can from Melissa McIntosh’s rebrand comments yesterday (and her doubling down today).
During a dixer, Jim Chalmers says the opposition aren’t having a marketing problem, but a “meltdown”.
He says the three rightwing parties “share a divisive, anti-worker, anti-housing agenda and that, more than anything, explains the mess that they’re in”.
It is not a marketing problem over there, it is a meltdown. The member for Hume [Angus Taylor] said his leadership was a change or die moment and he made the wrong choice. He said it was a change or die moment and then he forgot to change. So that leaves only one option.
Labor and Liberals rinse and repeat on house pricing questions
Tim Wilson is next to the despatch box, and tries a slightly more specific question, asking if the government received modelling or advice from Treasury or Apra (the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority) on whether any first home buyers would go into negative equity because of “Labor’s deliberate correction”.
The Coalition is trying to corner O’Neil over her comments last week that the country is experiencing a “correction” in the housing market. Jim Chalmers had to intervene, saying O’Neil meant it in a general, not a technical sense.
O’Neil says it’s the same question as Taylor’s and offers a very similar answer.
The impact of the budget changes on house prices is actually in the budget documents ,and I would really encourage those opposite to have regard to those documents.
I am going to refer to page five of the fact sheet on CGT and negative gearing and I am quoting directly from the budget: ‘Treasury modelling suggests the reforms will increase the owner/occupier share of housing, resulting in about 75,000 additional owner/occupiers over the next decade.’
It’s question time!
After a brief distraction from a very dramatic penalty shootout between the Netherlands and Morocco (which saw the latter come out on top), our attention has returned to the house.
Angus Taylor begins question time, asking Clare O’Neil how many first home buyers have fallen into negative equity since the budget.
Negative equity is where a person has paid a certain price for a house, and has a certain amount of debt, but in the circumstance that house prices drop they now they owe more than the market value of the property.
It’s a similar line of questioning to yesterday – which O’Neil points out, and says sarcastically, “let me go through it again for those who are slower on the uptake”.
O’Neil spends the time trying to defend Labor’s budget policies – to grandfather negative gearing and change capital gains tax discounts, and points back to Treasury modelling.
Those opposite have availed themselves of the information about the Treasury modelling, surely, which suggests a slower rate of growth of two percentage points. That ballpark figure is backed up by other major models, including that of the Commonwealth Bank and the Grattan Institute.
Low risk to human health from bird flu at this stage, says chief veterinarian officer
The chief veterinarian officer, Beth Cookson, is with Collins and says that there have been almost 100 negative tests for the virus.
She, like Collins, tells the public to continue reporting any sick or dead wildlife, but to not touch or come into contact with them.
Cookson adds there’s low risk to human health at this stage.
I think it’s a real strength of our biosecurity system that we have detected these individual cases. Of course, I would acknowledge that these birds are active in our southern waters during this period of year, and the climatic conditions do mean that they are occasionally sighted on the southern shoreline.
Fifth migratory bird tests positive to bird flu
Julie Collins, the agriculture minister, says a fifth case of the H5 bird flu has been detected in Australia in a migratory sea bird.
She’s hosting a press conference at Parliament House, and says that there is no evidence of mass mortalities in wildlife, and no evidence it has spread into poultry or agriculture systems.
This giant petrel was found at Roses Beach in West Australia. This brings the total number of confirmed H5 detections to 5 in migratory seabirds. 4 of these detections were from seabirds in Western Australia, and the one seabird that was found in South Australia.
It’s not unexpected that other migratory seabirds may have also arrived at other locations along Australia’s coastline.
Collins says the government and authorities are well prepared to deal with the outbreak.
Pasin says comments to work with One Nation ‘misinterpreted’
Liberal frontbencher and staunch conservative, Tony Pasin, has said that his comments suggesting the Liberals and One Nation allocate seats to run in were “misinterpreted”.
He’s standing at Matt Canavan’s press conference and is asked if he still stands by that previous call.
Pasin reportedly told The Australian newspaper earlier this month:
We should work hand-in-glove to defeat Labor. We should work together to identify which seats are more appropriately targeted by a One Nation candidate or a Liberal candidate.
Pasin – after a bit of back-and-forth in the press conference – said “my comments to that regard have been misinterpreted”.
We should do everything we can to defeat Labor. It’s not a suggestion that we shouldn’t run against each other.
Before he got to that part of the answer, Pasin gave an unequivocal slap down of Melissa McIntosh’s call for a rebrand and a relook at the Liberals’ values, saying “the Liberal party values are timeless, and my attitude has always been that I want the Liberal party to be the very best version of itself”.
Sarah Basford Canales
Review into how much top public office holders are taking home
Few outside Canberra might be familiar with the Remuneration Tribunal, but it’s essentially an independent umpire in charge of setting the salary packages for federal office holders.
It’s in the midst of looking at a whole range of remuneration packages provided to the top mandarins and boffins in the federal bureaucracy to see whether there needs to be more consistency in how much they’re all taking home.
It’s a good question to ask because on a quick glance, its consultation paper, released today, shows the range of salaries for top officials goes from $144,020 a year for the chair of the Tiwi Land Council to more than $1m a year for the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority. The roles are quite different but it still represents a wide gap.
The paper says about 70% of remuneration packages for the top jobs fall between $300,000 and $600,000.
