Australian politics live: Chalmers says Liberal migration policy ‘determined by One Nation’; PM denies giving reference for sacked Labor staffer
Liberal policy ‘determined by One Nation in the cockpit of a plane donated by a billionaire’, Chalmers says
Nationals MP Kevin Hogan is up next and asks the treasurer how the government can be trusted when it’s blown a $7bn hole in the budget after the prime minister said the refugee intake would remain at 20,000.
For the backstory on that one, read here.
Jim Chalmers decides to take a quick jab at his counterpart, shadow treasurer Tim Wilson, joking that the opposition probably gave the question to the Nats, not expecting him to still be here in QT (because he pretty often gets kicked out).
He says more seriously that the government is working to make the migration system “robust” and one that works in the national interest.
Then decides to get a bit personal again.
The difference between this side of the house and that side of the house is our migration policy is determined by cabinet ministers in the cabinet room. The Liberal party’s migration policy is determined by One Nation in the cockpit of a plane donated by a billionaire.
Barnaby Joyce fist bumps the air at the shout out.
Key events
Luca Ittimani
Abbott says Australians don’t want frontier wars or ‘drug wars’ in the War Memorial
Tony Abbott has said the War Memorial should not be dedicated to the frontier wars between Indigenous people and settlers, just as it should leave out the “drug wars” in suburban Sydney.
The former prime minister said the massacres should not be considered a war between nations, nor even a civil war, addressing the “Imperialism and Resistance” conference at the memorial today. He said:
What about the fights between First Nations which were frequent and often deadly? How could events such as the Eureka Stockade or even the apprehension of the Kelly Gang be excluded? …
It would be a big stretch to ask the Australian people to describe as war all acts of politically motivated violence, as it were, or of violence between significant groups of people. I mean the tabloids might say there’s a drug war in western Sydney, but I don’t know whether we would want to put that into the Australian War Memorial for instance, however serious.
The War Memorial has no separate gallery on colonisation but is considering more work to reflect the conflicts after the first fleet’s 1788 arrival.
Abbott said there were “lots of terrible things that undoubtedly happened” and singled out a court case over the 1838 Myall Creek massacre as a “regrettably rare show of British justice”. He accused colonial Queensland’s native mounted police of “indiscriminate killing” which went “unrecorded as a matter of policy”. But he downplayed an academic’s massacre map and their estimate of 11,000 deaths from conflict as a “guesstimate”.
Researchers this week estimated there were roughly 2.2m Indigenous people before 1788, with fewer than a tenth thereafter. Abbott declined to comment on the study but said it was “way, way, way larger” than previously recognised estimates. He said:
Obviously, population decline from let’s say 300,000 to 100,000 is a catastrophic decline.
Question time ends
And after that final dixer, the PM brings question time to an end for the fortnight.
Milton Dick has helmed a bit of chaos in the House.
Meaning to call on the member for Hume, David Moncrieff, for a dixer, he instead accidentally calls on the member for Moncrieff, Angie Bell – an honest mistake.
Everyone laughs it off and he apologises, which leaves the Coalition roaring with laughter.
“That’s how you do it!” shouts Nationals deputy leader, Darren Chester (a nod to Anthony Albanese not apologising over melon-gate).
Dan Tehan gets up to acknowledge the apology, but Dick laughs it off and tell him to sit down and be serious:
Yes, we don’t need acknowledgement, we need you to resume your seat.
Albanese questioned on funding for AI Safety Institute
Independent Kate Chaney asks if the government will increase funding for the AI Safety Institute, after AI leaders just this week said the technology was developing faster than it can be controlled.
Anthony Albanese spends most of the answer talking about how good the institute is but doesn’t say whether he’ll give it any more money.
Chaney tries to make that point – that she asked about funding specifically – but Milton Dick says the prime minister is being relevant.
It’s just been established, it’s just been established, less than one year ago … we want to make sure this follows best practice.
Perhaps that means it’s too soon to give it a funding boost?
Albanese says he didn’t give Muldoon a reference for Australia Day role
After ducking questions in question time yesterday and today, Anthony Albanese finally gives a us a clear “no” when asked again whether he provided Rhys Muldoon a reference for his Australia Day ambassador role.
It’s fourth time lucky for the Coalition.
Albanese dodges questions on his ‘foul-mouthed friend’
Anthony Albanese has continued to dodge questions on whether he provided a reference for Rhys Muldoon, the ex-Play School host who was sacked from a casual Labor staffing role with Tasmanian senator Richard Dowling after old slur-ridden tweets were resurfaced.
Liberal frontbencher Angie Bell says the prime minister twice avoided the question yesterday and asks a third time if a reference was ever provided to what she calls his “foul-mouthed friend”.
The prime minister repeats lines that Muldoon’s social media posts were “completely inappropriate”.
I’m advised that Mr Muldoon has been Australia Day ambassador since 2014. It’s clearly not appropriate for that to occur. And as I have said I wasn’t aware of his comments until they were raised in the media. Neither was Senator Dowling. Senator Dowling took immediate action and that is appropriate.
There’s no mention of references.
No dollar figure on government spend on green hydrogen
How much has been spent on green hydrogen asks One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce.
Spoiler alert, halfway through Chris Bowen’s answer Joyce stands up to make a point of order because we’ve got no dollar figure.
Bowen says there are a few different programs that could fund green hydrogen, some only disburse money when green hydrogen is actually produced.
Bowen says more broadly that green hydrogen is still an important part of the energy transition and takes a swipe at the opposition:
I want to give credit where it’s due. I stand on the shoulder of giants because my predecessor as Minister for Energy, the member for Hume, said, on eight occasions that hydrogen would be responsible for $50 billion of additional GDP by 2050.
“Hydrogen. Not green hydrogen!” shouts Angus Taylor from across the despatch box.
After the point of order, Bowen still can’t get us a dollar figure, but says he’ll come back to Joyce with an answer.
Coalition calls for Keogh to apologise following allied health cap backdown
The veterans’ affairs minister, Matt Keogh, has been asked to apologise to veterans and resign after he this morning announced a backflip on the government’s controversial $5,000 allied health caps.
Keogh says the government listened and engaged with veterans – which causes the opposition to arc up. Veterans have accused Keogh of not meeting with them or hearing them.
He doesn’t apologise – and unsurprisingly doesn’t say he will resign.
We committed to listen, and we did. And we heard. We have responded as part of that, we are not proceeding with the threshold. But we are also ensuring that we are increasing that access to allied healthcare by maintaining that increase in fees so that allied health professionals will continue to service our veteran community, which is so vitally important.
Keogh says the government has passed legislation through the Senate today that goes to 40 of the recommendations from the royal commission into defence and veterans’ suicides.
The opposition tries to make a point of order, but Keogh sits down, indicating he’s finished his answer.
Albanese challenged to face workers in Whyalla
Changing tack, Liberal MP Tom Venning asks Anthony Albanese whether he will visit Whyalla and face the hundreds of workers who have lost their jobs “under Labor’s future made offshore”, before he heads to New York.
Albanese is leaving tomorrow morning – so won’t go.
But he tries to do a bit of a compare and contrast on how many times he’s gone compared with the opposition.
I’ll compare how many times I’ve been to Whyalla compared with the frontbench there. We’ll add it up. I don’t know if the member for Canning [Andrew Hastie] has been to Whyalla or the leader of the opposition, he’s probably been there to check that it was still there. Remember when they were in government they said it would disappear off the map?
‘They’ve got a lot of nerve’: Chalmers hits back as Coalition attacks Labor on productivity
Tim Wilson has gone for a bit of a character hit on Jim Chalmers, asking how many more chances the treasurer will get – between “Labor legend Bill Kelty’s” criticisms of him, Labor backbenchers briefing out their budget concerns to the media, and reports that he’s switching from a 20-year to 30-year averages for productivity to “pump up his numbers”.
Chalmers seizes on the third point and says the opposition “has a lot of nerve” asking about productivity, accusing them of presiding over the weakest decade in over 60 years in terms of productivity.
They’ve got a lot of nerve asking about productivity. They did nothing, nothing about productivity in their wasted decade of missed opportunities in office.
One of the first things I did as Treasurer was to get rid of the Coalition’s dodgy productivity assumption and make it more realistic on the advice of the Treasury department.
He says the government’s long term productivity assumption sits at 1.2 – somewhere in between the UK which uses 1.5, the US that uses 1.4 and New Zealand that uses 0.9.
‘We must shape AI or it will shape us’: Albanese
Over to the crossbench, Greens MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown asks whether the government will legislate to force datacentres to build at least enough renewables to power themselves, and in the mean time, place a moratorium on new datacentre approvals.
Anthony Albanese says these discussions are being had and that datacentres will be forced to build renewables, but they won’t be forced to only use renewables for power. He also doesn’t want a moratorium on approvals.
If there is surplus energy in gas, for example, in some areas then we would allow that to be used on the proviso that it does not put pressure on the system and therefore put pressure on prices that ordinary Australians are paying. Why is that important? That’s important because you need social licence for these institutions.
We’re working constructively to make sure that that social licence is available, is absolutely critical. We have said very clearly that we must shape AI or it will shape us.
Tom McIlroy
Parents, teachers, coaches have a role in preventing radicalisation: Burke
Jumping back to the end of his address to the National Press Club, Tony Burke was asked about reports in The Australian documenting four major terror plots that had been disrupted since the deadly Bondi beach shootings in December.
The alleged schemes were all thwarted in the first six months of the year, with five males, including three teenagers, charged.
Burke said that work is under way right now to consider changes to the terror threat level system, including possibly changing categories such as “probable” to give the public a better understanding of the likely threat.
Burke mentioned advertising related to the national security hotline and said a real risk was young men and boys engaging with people or AI chatbots online and becoming radicalised.
We’ve talked today about what comes over the border and who comes over the border. Can I also say we need to be really careful about what comes over the browser.
We have real national security risks there, particularly for young people. So, one of the challenges in any advertising campaign there is, what do we do for parents to notice what signals there might be?
Burke said parents, teachers, school coaches and other trusted adults were best placed to notice small changes in behaviour and language which might indicate possible risk of radicalisation.
In those cases, he said it could be advisable for adults to call the government’s national security hotline. All calls are investigated and care applied to help children and families.
The advertising campaign on that, I think, is the biggest risk that we need to get moving on. Because that’s the bit that people are most likely to be unaware of.
Liberal policy ‘determined by One Nation in the cockpit of a plane donated by a billionaire’, Chalmers says
Nationals MP Kevin Hogan is up next and asks the treasurer how the government can be trusted when it’s blown a $7bn hole in the budget after the prime minister said the refugee intake would remain at 20,000.
For the backstory on that one, read here.
Jim Chalmers decides to take a quick jab at his counterpart, shadow treasurer Tim Wilson, joking that the opposition probably gave the question to the Nats, not expecting him to still be here in QT (because he pretty often gets kicked out).
He says more seriously that the government is working to make the migration system “robust” and one that works in the national interest.
Then decides to get a bit personal again.
The difference between this side of the house and that side of the house is our migration policy is determined by cabinet ministers in the cabinet room. The Liberal party’s migration policy is determined by One Nation in the cockpit of a plane donated by a billionaire.
Barnaby Joyce fist bumps the air at the shout out.
It’s question time!
Angus Taylor begins and asks why the government did not announce new cuts to migration levels today.
Tony Burke, who has raced back to parliament from the National Press Club, says doing so would trash the economy.
Let me say this to the leader of the opposition, as I said to the National Press Club today. If you make cuts too deep, too hard in the immigration system, you trash the Australian economy.
“You’ve already done that mate,” shouts someone from the opposition benches.
Burke asks Taylor if he’s been listening to his own backbench who have been calling for more backpackers to support regional areas.
Does he understand that the people who have jobs at our universities, funded by international education, are Australian citizens with real jobs? Does he understand that the people who work there have real jobs? Does he understand that the small businesses that exist off the back of international education also are people with real jobs?
What we don’t need is random dog whistling and someone wanting to claim that … they want all the numbers to be lower except every visa that might affect their electorate.
“That’s a slur!” shouts Taylor.
