Australia politics live: unions boss says wages need to rise after corporate ‘price gouging’; NSW election results count continues | Australian politics
ACTU: wages must increase now
Michele O’Neil on the need for wages to increase:
Look, real wages have gone backwards by the greatest-ever amount, 4.5%, in the last 12 months. We’ve never seen such a decline in workers wages in our country.
The idea that somehow we should step back from workers seeing their wage increases … the opposite is needed. People are struggling, there is a cost of living crisis, people need to see their wage increase and they need them now and we know every economist, everyone agrees that is no wage price spiral happening here.
It’s not wages that are driving inflation, the sort of things that drive inflation is record profits. Price gouging by many larger companies. These other things making the difference in terms of inflation, you cannot blame workers for that.
Workers need their share in terms of their wages and they will then spend those in those local communities and small businesses that are actually doing it tough as well.
I welcome the fact that governments are listening to what is important and you’ve seen that in the election result in New South Wales on the weekend …
You see … essential workers one day step up, save our lives, [with] your own life and family at risk, to [do] this day in, month out … while we’re in a crisis and, then not give them any wage increase? See the wages go backwards? See people abandon those industries and jobs that they love because they cannot live on them anymore and cannot handle the pressure of them?
I really welcome the fact that the New South Wales people [have approved of a] commitment by the new New South Wales government to do something about that.
Key events
North Sydney independent Kylea Tink has a question for Amanda Rishworth:
A single parent with two children loses over $100 a week in payments when their eight and is forced off the single parent payment onto another which is of lesser value. The Government is forcing people to live in poverty or retentive violence. Will the Government commit to restoring access to the parenting payment until the child is 16?
Rishworth uses a lot of words to say ‘no’.
I would like to thank the member for her question and say that the Albanese government is very much committed to supporting single parents to help them manage work and family responsibilities and of course this includes through a range of social security payments, Paid Parental Leave and cheaper childcare.
Of course, we know that Australians are doing it tough and we’re always looking at ways we can better support them and that is why we have made a number of commitments to help with the cost of living, cheaper childcare, we have cut the cost of the PBS copayment and announced the energy bill relief fund which will deliver targeted and temporary relief from power bills from eligible households including those on income support payments.
Of course, for the Social Security system, single parent can be eligible for parenting payments and as the member rightly indicated, as their child gets older, most parents are able to increase the level of employment and reduce the need for income support.
Of course, there are still those that continue to rely on income support as their child gets older and do move to the JobSeeker payment and receive higher rate as the principal carer to ensure they do get additional support.
Single parents also can get a range of extra supplements and supports.
I would say to the member, of course, this government is always looking at how we can better support Australians, particularly those on lower incomes and of course the Government recently established economic inclusion advisor committee to provide advice ahead of every federal budget on the economic inclusion and tackling disadvantage and of course some of the payments that will looked at include those been received by single parents such as parenting payments and JobSeeker payment as well as Commonwealth rent assistance.
I do not understand why those opposite are interjecting but I can tell you that this government will take those most vulnerable seriously. We will consider it through the budget context and look forward to continuing to work with the member to deliver to those most disadvantaged in Australia.
Collins uses dixer to call on MPs to pass the housing fund
Julie Collins takes a dixer on the housing fund so she can read out what should be a press release titled: PLEASE PASS THE HOUSING FUND.
But I don’t think it will move any of the votes the government needs – because the main sticking point isn’t that it is needed, it’s that it is needed SO BADLY and the government policy won’t do enough to change things.
PM urges Coalition to back housing future fund
Angus Taylor asks about mortgages and Australians struggling to make ends meet and Anthony Albanese talks about the housing future fund, instead of the audacity, so we are all reaching new heights.
Albanese:
I’m asked about housing. And the cost of housing. And I say to the member who asked the question that he does have an opportunity to do something on housing. Which is to support the Housing Australia Future Fund. That is before this parliament now. Because what the Housing Australia Future Fund along with the housing accord and along with other measures is aimed at doing, of course, is increasing supply of housing that has an impact on price. Economics 101. It has an impact.
Adeshola Ore
Victorian premier to meet China’s education minister on first day of trip
The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, is due to meet with China’s minister of education on the first day of his trip to the state’s biggest trading partner.
Andrews’ trip has sparked backlash for the exclusion of Australian media and the lack of specific detail about who he would meet. The premier said his trip would focus on boosting the number of Chinese students studying in the state.
The premier’s private office provided a brief update on Tuesday afternoon detailing a list of people Andrews will meet on his first day:
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Mr Brett Stevens, commissioner for Victoria to Greater China
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Mr Graham Fletcher, Australian ambassador to China
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Mr Li Xukui, vice-president, Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries
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His Excellency Mr Huai Jinpeng, minister of education
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Dr Yin Yong, mayor of Beijing
Question time begins
Peter Dutton has decided to ask some questions today (I told you – we are just SO lucky), so he opens up proceedings with:
Why did the prime minister repeatedly promise to cut power bills before the election but has never mentioned that promise since the election? Since the prime minister is the one who stated: “If you make a promise and a commitment, you do have to stick to it.” Did you say one thing before the election and another after it? How can Australians be expected to believe anything [this prime minister says] (it ends with a line about Australians paying the consequences of the cost living crisis).
Anthony Albanese gives the same answer he has given since becoming prime minister, with a little dig at Dutton for getting off the bench.
(Ukraine, supply chain, global inflation for those playing at home.)
Dutton tries to act very serious with a point of order, but it is not a point of order and Albanese continues to act out his one-man play, ‘one man, 5,678 answers’.
Josh Butler
Coalition will engage with voice process, but still has no position
On the voice to parliament, Peter Dutton said the Liberals would engage with the coming committee process, once the constitution alteration bill is introduced this Thursday. The Liberals still don’t have a position on the voice and it’s expected that will remain in limbo until later in the committee process.
Anthony Albanese yesterday rebuffed several questions at a press conference about the voice’s powers and whether he should heed Dutton’s request to release legal advice from the solicitor general, calling one question “very strange”.
Dutton claimed Albanese was showing “indignance” in answering questions on the voice, noting that many voters still had questions about the referendum and calling the PM’s stance “confounding”.
He also noted the furore over allegations that the Labor MP Sam Rae had said an offensive phrase to the Coalition MP Angie Bell yesterday. (Bell says she didn’t hear it, Rae says he didn’t say what was attributed to him, and the only verified allegation comes from Liberal MP Tony Pasin who says he heard something that can’t be picked up on footage from the chamber.) Dutton called the alleged words “disgraceful” and claimed Rae “didn’t have the guts to apologise” properly to Bell (Rae did apologise for the interjection but claims he didn’t say the alleged words).
Other Coalition MPs later criticised Rae, and claimed it was the latest in a string of bad behaviour from Labor MPs to conservative female pollies. One MP suggested that anyone hearing an alleged bad taste remark should stand up and flag it immediately.
Josh Butler
Dutton’s warning for federal party room over Deeming fallout
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has warned his party room about the fallout from the Victorian Liberals’ issues with Moira Deeming, saying “damage” can be caused if politicians focus on themselves.
Dutton also criticised what he called “indignance” from the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, in response to recent questions about the Indigenous voice.
At the Coalition party room meeting in Canberra today, Dutton admitted the NSW election result (where Labor won power after 12 years) was “disappointing” for his party. The opposition leader noted that there would be more soul-searching from the Coalition, after another election loss, but that a lot of the commentary about the future path of the party would be “self-serving”. Dutton noted that some people would say the party needs to go further right, while others would call for a more centrist approach.
With Dutton seeking to win office at the next federal election (due by 2025) against the backdrop of a mainland wall of Labor red, the opposition leader told his troops not to conflate state and federal issues. But then he went to the turmoil in the Victorian Liberals, where controversial MP Deeming was yesterday suspended by the party for nine months following her appearance at an anti-trans rally that was also attended by neo-Nazis.
“We can see in Victoria at the moment the damage that can be caused and the opportunities lost when we don’t act as a team, and when we talk about ourselves,” Dutton said, according to a briefing from a party room spokesperson. It was clarified that Dutton was referring to Deeming.
Dutton said the Liberal candidate in the Aston byelection, Roshena Campbell, was doing a fantastic job, and that he expected Saturday’s result to be “tight”. Earlier, we reported that Albanese had said that anything less than a 5% swing to the Liberals would be a bad result for Dutton – so both men were in the business of expectation management today.
Amy Remeikis
The metaphorical Question Time warning bell has sounded
The downhill slide to QT is about to begin, so make sure you have whatever you need to get through it. Alas, workplace health and safety rules limits what I can do, so another cup of coffee it is.
It is going to be more legacy budget hang ups versus the cost of living, with a dash of housing.
Anne Davies
Liberals predicted to take Pittwater, defeating teal independent Jacqui Scruby
The Liberals look set to claim Pittwater after the teal independent Jacqui Scruby slipped behind in the count in Pittwater this morning.
Votes cast at early voting centres in Narrabeen and Pittwater have favoured the Liberal candidate, Rory Amon, putting him ahead by 649 votes. The initial count is now complete in almost all booths and early voting centres. Postal votes are expected to run in Amon’s favour as well.
At lunchtime Amon had 50.8%of the two-party preferred vote to 49.2% for Scruby.
The result means that teal candidates did not win any of the north side seats that they contested, though two community independents running on similar environmental and pro-climate action platforms did succeed: Michael Regan in Wakehurst and Judy Hannan in Wollondilly.
Peter Hannam
Origin Energy’s prospective new owners have not contemplated selling off Eraring coal power plant
As mentioned in an earlier post, the $18.7bn takeover of Origin Energy by Brookfield and MidOcean placed a bit of question mark over the future of the energy company (and Australia’s) biggest power plant, Eraring, in New South Wales.
We noted that Brookfield and MidOcean’s media release didn’t repeat the 2025 date for Eraring that Origin had previously stated. So we asked them to clarify.
A spokesperson for Brookfield told Guardian Australia:
The earliest possible closure date for Eraring is August 2025. We have always said we won’t take capacity out of the system until replacement is online.
During the recent NSW election, Labor in particular left open the possibility of buying back Eraring if needed. (Or, at least, didn’t rule it out.) The Coalition vacillated but the now former premier Dom Perrotet indicated a buyback could be considered if needed.
Anyway, Brookfield’s spokesperson doesn’t seem keen to ventilate the idea.
We haven’t contemplated a sell back … We wouldn’t sell Eraring if it meant keeping it open longer than it needs to be.
In its statement, Brookfield played up the closure of Eraring as being key to cutting the business’s absolute carbon emissions by more than 70% by 2030 (presumably, compared with now).
One thing to keep in mind is that Origin has stated it costs $200m to $250m a year in operating and capital spending to keep the plant running now. That’s before paying for the coal. There’s a fair chance that sum isn’t going to decline in coming years.
Still, a lot can happen between now and 2025. As we noted in this pre-election piece, NSW’s electricity grid has its share of challenges ahead:
About 1200 megawatts of generation capacity will drop off the grid by 29 April, with the closure of AGL‘s Liddell power plant in NSW’s Hunter Valley.
Those power issues are also topical given the ACTU’s president, Michele O’Neil, is just now talking to the National Press Club about the need for a national energy transition authority to deal with the shift away from fossil fuels.
ACTU still negative on nuclear defence policy
The ACTU is not a fan of the nuclear sub deal (no surprise there, it has a longstanding “no nuclear” policy):
Michelle O’Neil:
The ACTU has a long-standing policy opposition to nuclear power, nuclear waste and proliferation. We also have a long-standing policy position that supports a nuclear-free defence policy. There are not new positions that have been developed in the last weeks and months. They are decades long and our position hasn’t changed.
ACTU: wages must increase now
Michele O’Neil on the need for wages to increase:
Look, real wages have gone backwards by the greatest-ever amount, 4.5%, in the last 12 months. We’ve never seen such a decline in workers wages in our country.
The idea that somehow we should step back from workers seeing their wage increases … the opposite is needed. People are struggling, there is a cost of living crisis, people need to see their wage increase and they need them now and we know every economist, everyone agrees that is no wage price spiral happening here.
It’s not wages that are driving inflation, the sort of things that drive inflation is record profits. Price gouging by many larger companies. These other things making the difference in terms of inflation, you cannot blame workers for that.
Workers need their share in terms of their wages and they will then spend those in those local communities and small businesses that are actually doing it tough as well.
I welcome the fact that governments are listening to what is important and you’ve seen that in the election result in New South Wales on the weekend …
You see … essential workers one day step up, save our lives, [with] your own life and family at risk, to [do] this day in, month out … while we’re in a crisis and, then not give them any wage increase? See the wages go backwards? See people abandon those industries and jobs that they love because they cannot live on them anymore and cannot handle the pressure of them?
I really welcome the fact that the New South Wales people [have approved of a] commitment by the new New South Wales government to do something about that.
ACTU president: leaving behind energy workers wouldn’t just be moral failure, it would be a massive missed opportunity
Back at the national press club and the ACTU’s Michele O’Neil says politicians have stood in the way of attempts to transition, much like Donald Trump hampered American communities attempts to move forward:
Here in Australia, we have our own Trumps. Politicians like Matt Canavan are more than happy to dress up and [have] coal workers as political props before hanging them out to dry. He thinks he can condescend to them because in his mind, they are just marks.
But what I know is Australian energy workers are some of the most sophisticated and knowledgeable brokers in our economy. They know our great [network] better than anyone else because they are the ones that keep it running day in and day out.
They are the express, and they know more about what is happening in our energy quickly than any politician I have met … leaving them behind in the transition wouldn’t just be a moral failure, [it] would be a massive missed opportunity.
We need their expertise and more, because we have so much more work to do. Not only to transition to net zero but realise Australia’s potential as a renewable energy superpower.
Affordable housing rally – in pictures
Guardian Australia’s photographer-at-large, Mike Bowers, was at the affordable housing rally.
None of these senators are on board with Labor’s fund, which means Labor does not have the numbers to get this through before the budget.
Caitlin Cassidy
Naplan marking underway
Marking for Naplan is now underway after a range of reforms for the annual student assessment were rolled out by the education minister, Jason Clare.
Some 4.4m online tests were completed this year amongst around 1.3 million students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9.
It followed a sharp decline in participation in 2022, with around 20,000 extra students not sitting the tests – aligning in a fall in school attendance amid Covid, floods and flu outbreaks. Around 4.3m online tests were submitted last year, the first year Naplan moved to the digital format.
Participation was lowest for disadvantaged young people, including those in regional and remote areas and for low-performing students.
The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority’s CEO, David de Carvalho, said it was a “successful test event” due to close collaboration across the sector.
For the first time this year, Naplan took place in March instead of May, while a new Naplan measurement scale was also introduced to streamline results. Assessment has moved from 10 bands to four levels of achievement: “exceeding, strong, developing and needs additional support”.
de Carvalho:
Having the tests earlier in the year means we will be able to return results to schools, parents and carers sooner, and that will help inform teaching and learning programs.
Student achievement will this year be reported using proficiency standards, which provide simple and clear information on whether students are where they should be for their year level based primarily on what they have learnt in the previous year of school. A new Naplan measurement scale and time series are also being introduced.
Recent ACARA research found the top three ways results were used amongst educators was to monitor progress over time, set goals and target teaching areas where students needed more support.
Results will be sent to schools in term two and parents in term three.
ACTU calls for ‘just energy transition’ to guide move to renewables
The main point of Michele O’Neil’s speech is the ACTU wants the government to include a national energy transition authority in this year’s budget to guide the transition to renewables.
We still have no federal justtransition policy. We still have a patchwork of uncoordinated programs and funding streams whose remit only incidentally overlap with the goals [of a] just transition declaration. This means confusion for workers and a lack of real planning for change.
Their workplaces close down and they are left stranded without [the] support they need to find a new secure job. Or they see a looming date for closure and have no certainty about … whether they will be [a] job or a future for them in their communities.
Without a well-funded, long-term plan for economic diversification, the regions [will] struggle to bring these new industries in.
This means potential investors and companies have no certainty regarding how they should or even could play their part in a genuinely just transition. Coordination is urgently needed across multiple government departments and agencies working on the energy transition.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2023/mar/28/australia-politics-live-labor-anthony-albanese-housing-future-fund-senate-greens-pocock-nsw-election-minority-chris-minns-climate-gas-bandt-bowen-safeguard Australia politics live: unions boss says wages need to rise after corporate ‘price gouging’; NSW election results count continues | Australian politics
