Category Archives: Australian politics

Victorian public schools to get free lunches under opposition election pledge

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The opt-in program would be implemented by the end of 2026 in an effort to ease cost of living pressures and support nutrition of students

All Victorian public school students would be provided with free lunches under a major cost-of-living election pledge by the state’s opposition.

The healthy lunches program was unveiled on Sunday, just weeks before early voting opens on 14 November for the state election where more than half of voters are expected to cast their ballot paper before polling day.

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‘Full responsibility’: Michaelia Cash challenges Labor on security after repatriation of families from Syria

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Government says process was informed by national security advice, individual assessments and detailed work by security agencies

The Albanese government must assume “full responsibility” if there is any risk to Australians from repatriating women and children from Syrian camps after the fall of Islamic State, Michaelia Cash has warned.

The former attorney general made the remarks following the return of four Australian women and 13 children to Sydney on Saturday.

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Treasurer says gas review likely to result in mandatory code of conduct as energy costs soar

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Government has also not ruled out using threat of export limits to guarantee more domestic supply, Jim Chalmers says

The Albanese government will toughen gas market regulation and intends to make the industry code of conduct mandatory, with the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, also not ruling out export limits or cash handouts as soaring bills put pressure on household budgets.

On Sunday, Chalmers signalled a review, announced in the budget and being conducted by the competition regulator, would likely include mandatory price regulation and a requirement for “meaningful offers” to domestic consumers.

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Coalition attacks repatriation of women and children from Syria – as it happened

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A further 40 who remain in Syria are expected to be returned in two separate repatriations in coming weeks. This blog is now closed

Victorian flood risk persists with downpours ahead

Persistent rain may cause more flash flooding across Victoria over the long weekend as the state braces for possibly its coldest Melbourne Cup Day in nearly three decades, AAP reports.

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Australian women and children trapped in Syria back in Sydney as Coalition condemns ‘inexcusable’ mission

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Children in a ‘wild new world’ but mothers could face continued controls, including ankle monitors and curfews

Four Australian women and 13 children who had been detained in an internally displaced persons camp since the fall of Islamic State in 2019 in Syria have arrived safely in Sydney.

However, the mothers, who were partners to Islamic State members, could face continued controls, including ankle monitors and curfews, based off a fear they had been radicalised while in Syria.

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Australia drops opposition to treaty banning nuclear weapons at UN vote

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After former Coalition government repeatedly sided with US against it, Labor has shifted position to abstain

Australia has dropped its opposition to a landmark treaty banning nuclear weapons in a vote at the United Nations in New York on Saturday.

While Australia was yet to actually join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the shift in its voting position to “abstain” after five years of “no” is seen by campaigners as a sign of progress given the former Coalition government repeatedly sided with the United States against it.

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Parks director should be accountable for ‘offence’ to Kakadu sacred site, protection authority says

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AAPA seeks leave to appeal against NT supreme court decision that found director is exempt from prosecution under state’s laws

A fight to hold Parks Australia to account over a walking track built through a sacred site in the Kakadu national park could be heading to the high court after a lower court found a Northern Territory law did not apply to the federal organisation.

The Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority (AAPA) has sought leave to appeal against a decision by the NT supreme court in September which found the director of Parks Australia was exempt from prosecution under the NT Aboriginal Sacred Sites Act.

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No immediate power price relief for households and businesses as Australia’s energy ministers meet

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Ministers agree to give regulator more powers to ensure supplies while plans for a capacity market could be ready in December

Households and businesses will get no immediate relief on their utility bills after Friday’s meeting of energy ministers, with discussions instead aimed at ensuring electricity and gas supplies will be ample next winter.

Federal, state and territory energy ministers gathered in Melbourne for an update on power and gas markets, and to discuss progress on creating some form of a capacity market that would bolster the reliance of the energy sector as coal-fired plants exit.

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Australia news live: Noel Pearson says ‘racism will diminish’ with Indigenous recognition; energy ministers to look at gas price cap

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In his Boyer lecture, Pearson said Australia’s ‘terrible ideology of the denial of recognition’ needs to end. Follow the day’s news live

Perrottet calls for greater infrastructure funding

Perrottet also used the press conference to call for greater infrastructure funding for NSW from the federal government, as he has done many times in recent weeks.

There are other states who aren’t doing the heavy lifting, and I say to them, start building as much as we are in our great state.

We should continue to get more funding from a commonwealth government. I’m always going to stand up for the people of NSW.

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Labor government locks in compensation scheme for financial misconduct victims despite ‘god-like powers’ warnings

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Minister for financial services says government’s accountability regime is ‘locked and loaded’ and will not be changed

The Labor government will push ahead with a new compensation scheme for victims of financial misconduct, refusing to water down civil penalties for the finance sector, and rejecting a claim it would give the responsible minister “god-like powers” to punish banks.

The assistant treasurer and minister for financial services, Stephen Jones, said the government’s financial accountability regime was “locked and loaded” and will not be changed, and rejected Liberal senator Andrew Bragg’s call to have parliament determine the scope of a new levy on financial industry members that will pay for the scheme.

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Federal budget 2022 reply speech live: opposition leader Peter Dutton to respond to Labor’s October budget – latest updates

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Leader of the opposition to give his reply to the treasurer Jim Chalmers’ first budget. Follow the day’s news live

The Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi will give notice of a private senator’s bill she will introduce today aiming to halt the indexation on student loans and increase the repayment threshold to above the median wage.

Faruqi says it is one way which would help ease the cost of living burden on people with student debt:

Student debt is no small problem. About three million people in Australia have the burden of student debt.

At a time when the cost of living is biting hard, governments can no longer ignore the student debt crisis and its impacts.

What we have said all the time is that we want wages to grow, and we want them to stay growing. Not to have a short-term growth and then have at the expense of potentially higher unemployment.

So that’s the first thing. The second thing is we’ve got to get an IR system that drives productivity. That’s not about working harder for less, it’s about working smarter. It’s about creating the environment where people use new technology, where they innovate, where they share ideas, where they open new markets, where they have more skilled people.

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Federal budget: Jim Chalmers flags intervention in energy market as prices surge

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ACCC to review gas industry as Labor’s budget forecasts point to a 56% rise in power prices over the next two years

The Albanese government has asked the competition watchdog to review the code of conduct covering the gas industry and recommend options to toughen the current regime in the hope of delivering energy price relief to households and businesses.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission confirmed it had new riding instructions from the government after the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, on Wednesday flagged fresh government intervention in the energy market.

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Treasurer says Taylor’s fingerprints ‘all over’ energy policy chaos – as it happened

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Over on Sky News, the questions were all about the next budget:

Host: Joining us live now in Canberra is the prime minister, Anthony Albanese. Prime minister, good morning to you. So, a safe budget to pay for your election commitments. Are tax increases and spending cuts next?

Hang on, Pete. We’ve just had the budget last night. You’re now talking about future budgets. Let’s talk about what we did last night. What we did last night was to fulfil our election commitments, provide cost-of-living relief with cheaper childcare, cheaper medicines, more paid parental leave, more support for affordable housing. And we want to get wages moving again. We did all that without putting pressure on inflation by targeting our investments in things like infrastructure, improving the National Broadband Network, making sure that there’s that growth in the economy without putting pressure on inflation. That was our focus last night. And we managed to achieve it.

Look, we inherited a trillion dollars of debt, Peter, as you know. We inherited a trillion dollars of debt with not much to show for it. What we did last night was to make $22bn of savings. We took the revenue gains that have come through, 99% of those revenue increases from the higher costs of fuel and energy, we put them straight to the budget bottom line, 99% of them. So it was a responsible budget that saw a significant drop in the deficit to $37bn from what was anticipated. That is a responsible thing to do. Because we want to make sure that we fight inflation because that is necessary if we’re going to get real wages moving in the way that we want them to.

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Australia’s inflation rate hits 7.3%, the highest since 1990, heaping pressure on households

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Families and businesses feeling the pinch as soaring CPI ensures more interest rate rises to come

Australia’s inflation rate accelerated in the September quarter as energy prices soared, heaping pressure on households and businesses and ensuring more interest rate rises to come.

The consumer prices index (CPI) has risen 7.3% over the past year and increased by 1.8% in the July to September period, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday. Economists had predicted annual CPI would quicken to 7% from the 6.1% pace reported in the previous quarter.

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Medibank confirms hacker had access to data of all 3.9 million customers

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Data breach, which exposed all Medibank, ahm and international student data, could cost health insurer $35m

Medibank has revealed all of its 3.9 million customers have had their data exposed to a hacker, in a significant escalation of the cyber-attack on the Australian health insurer.

In an update to the Australian Stock Exchange on Wednesday, the company said that since Tuesday’s announcement that all customer data may have been exposed, the investigation into the breach has now established the hacker had access to all Medibank, ahm and international student customers’ personal data, and significant amounts of health claims data.

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Government to crack down on NDIS provider fraud amid warning scheme will soon cost $50bn annually

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Bill Shorten says $126m earmarked in Labor’s October budget will help protect national disability insurance scheme ‘from crooks’

The federal government is creating a “fraud fusion taskforce” to try to claw back nearly $300m from national disability insurance scheme providers, amid warnings the NDIS could cost more than $50bn annually within four years.

The new body, which will replace the existing NDIS fraud taskforce, will target “fraud and serious non-compliance” with the help of law enforcement, regulatory and intelligence agencies.

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Jim Chalmers’ first budget comes amid a darkening economic outlook. Here’s what could go wrong

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The federal budget forecasts growth of 3.25% this year but hints at a slowing global economy with high inflation and interest rates

The resilience of Australian households to soaring expenses and the nascent recovery of China’s economy will likely determine whether Jim Chalmers’ first budget is a charm or chimera.

This year’s forecast for Australia’s economy to grow 3.25% may be the best this side of the next federal election as the Reserve Bank tries to douse inflation with another 75 basis points of interest rate hikes. The outlook, though, is darkening at home and abroad, adding to looming fiscal strains.

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Australian budget forecasts heavy hit to economy due to floods and disasters

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Estimates growth will lose about quarter of a percentage point during the current quarter, or about $5bn in economic activity, because of flooding

The increasing frequency of weather disasters will take its toll on the economy in the near term and force the government to fork out hundreds of millions of dollars to build resilience for more to come.

As Australia endures its third La Niña event in as many years, the budget estimates growth will lose about quarter of a percentage point during the current quarter, or about $5bn in economic activity, because of the flooding across the country’s south-east.

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Labor pledges extra $200m in Australian aid for Ukraine and $500m for veterans in budget

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Albanese government unveils big boost to Pacific aid partly offset by axing Coalition’s agriculture visa while sparing defence from major cuts

The Albanese government has earmarked more than $200m for additional help for Ukraine and $500m to support Australian veterans and their families, while largely sparing defence from major funding cuts.

But a massive boost in aid to the Pacific and the expansion of Pacific worker schemes announced in Tuesday’s budget will be partly offset by a $213m cut to the previous Morrison government’s programs in the foreign affairs portfolio.

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Labor hints at more controls on energy sector – as it happened

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We will be breaking into the political coverage today to keep you updated on the floods as well:

Overnight, residents of the north west NSW town of Narrabri have been ordered to evacuate due to flooding, with the SES issuing the warnings for the town’s industrial and residential areas.

The rivers are very, very full and, of course, our dams are mostly at full capacity at present. So, even the smallest rainfall can cause an elevated risk of flash flooding and riverine flooding. We will see rivers decline, but the risk is real.

We are bracing for another wet weather system into the state on the weekend.

He is a friend of Australia as the UK is a friend of Australia. We congratulate him on his elevation to the Prime Ministership. The UK, like Australia, has no shortage of challenges and no shortage of economic challenges.

So, we wish Rishi Sunak well. Some of us had the opportunity to work with him briefly when we first came to government. I was able to exchange messages with him when he was unsuccessful in the last leadership ballot. I think it says something about his commitment and his persistence, the way that he conducted himself in the interim. I don’t think it’s insignificant that a country like the United Kingdom has its first Prime Minister of colour.

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