That's it for today, thanks for reading
Here are the main stories on Tuesday 2 June:
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About 100,000 of the country’s lowest paid employees will receive an above-inflation pay rise of 6% from July as part of the Fair Work Commission’s annual review that also delivered a 4.75% boost to 2.7 million workers on award wages;
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Treasurer Jim Chalmers says the voter shift towards One Nation is being driven by the economy, which he says the government doesn’t dismiss;
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Chalmers’ comments came as Commonwealth Bank analysts said they believed the economy may have stalled through the first three months of 2026, suggesting growth was already slowing sharply before the outbreak of the US-Israel war on Iran;
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Former SAS corporal Ben Roberts-Smith will not see the full brief of war crimes allegations against him for months because the case contains classified national security information;
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Australia’s population ticked over 28 million, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics;
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Australia needs a backup plan for the Aukus submarine agreement, Labor MP Ed Husic has warned, arguing sluggish US production and the “transactional nature” of the Trump administration have put the multibillion-dollar defence deal at risk;
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The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations has said the Targeted Compliance Framework, the IT system that runs Australia’s controversial mutual obligations regime, will be offline until 2027; and
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The same department paid around $3.8m in personal protection for the former administrator of the CFMEU, Mark Irving, Senate estimates has heard.
We will see you here again for more news tomorrow.
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Murray Watt needed personal security after sending CFMEU into administration
In Senate estimates, it’s been revealed Minister for the Environment and Water Murray Watt also needed personal security after sending the CFMEU into administration.
Liberal senator Jane Hume asked the former minister of DEWR if he also had personal security, after it was revealed the government has paid millions of dollars to keep former administrator Mark Irving and his successor, Union executive Michael Crosby, safe.
Asked if he also needed security, Watt said:
I did for a period of time, yeah.... I’m not sure that it’s wise for anyone to talk about what security arrangements.
All I’ll say is that there were a number of criminal elements around the country who were not very happy when this government initiated an administration of that union. Because it stood to disrupt their business model and those criminal elements operate in a way to express their displeasure that maybe you and I wouldn’t operate in. I’ll just say that.
It was revealed that Sally McManus also had personal security, but Watt made it clear the government had not paid for this.
Acoss boss says returning to automated system for welfare ‘will cause serious harm’ to those in poverty
The acting CEO of Acoss, Edwina MacDonald, has also responded to news Department of Employment and Workplace Relations will be turning the TCF, the automated system that runs mutual obligations, back on in 2027. It is currently off after the department discovered it was making illegal choices, impacting welfare recipients’ payments.
MacDonald said:
Switching punitive policies back on will not help anyone to secure paid work, but it will cause serious harm to people who are already living in poverty. Removing a person’s vital income support payment for four weeks is inhumane and completely disproportionate.
Financial penalties disproportionately impact people with the most substantial barriers to paid work, including people who are homeless and those with significant mental health issues. Removing the income of people living in these circumstances achieves no purpose other than punishment.
Last week the minister acknowledged that mutual obligation activities are not helping many people to access paid work, yet this week we have the government doubling down on extremely harmful penalties which target the most disadvantaged people in our society. This failed and harmful compliance system must be scrapped.
The TCF will likely be discussed in estimates tomorrow morning, and I will bring you more then.
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‘Shocking disregard for safety’: AMA Queensland criticises e-vehicle backdown
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) in Queensland has slammed the state government’s backflip on bans for e-vehicle use by under-16s, saying it shows a “shocking disregard for safety”.
The transport minister, Brent Mickelberg, announced this morning that his bill would be amended to allow children between 12 and 17 to ride an e-vehicle with parental supervision.
The AMA Queensland president, Associate Prof Erica Gannon, said “this decision puts us right back where we started, with children being injured and killed”.
She said “a straight ban would have kept rules clear, rather than put more pressure, as well as potential punishment, on parents”. AMAQ also opposes amendments allowing people with a disability who would have been banned from riding an e-vehicle to get a medical exemption.
The legislation targets both illegal overpowered e-vehicles and legal ones. There has only been a single fatal accident involving a legal e-bike since the start of last year, a pensioner killed by a car at an intersection on Bribie Island. Queensland recorded a 16-year record 306 road deaths last year, almost all of them to cars, trucks and motorbikes. This year’s road toll is 21.2% higher than at the same time last year, according to the latest update from the Department for Transport and Main Roads.
Earlier today, active transport group Amy’s Foundation has thrown its support behind Queensland’s e-vehicle legislation.
Standing alongside Mickelberg this morning, the managing director, Katherine Bates, said “something had to be done, and we support the government for implementing these nation-leading changes to do that”.
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Aged care algorithm still under scrutiny in estimates
Senator Penny Allman-Payne said in Senate estimates that aside from aged care, there is “no other area of healthcare” where an algorithm is making final decisions about people’s care.
Questioning department officials about the use of an algorithm to assess an older person’s required level of support at home, which cannot be overridden by a human when it gets a decision wrong, Allman-Payne said:
People walk into a hospital and they speak to a doctor and the doctor assesses the care that they need, and yet we’re saying that if you’re old, well, someone can put some inputs into a program, and then it’s going to spit out [a decision].
Yet there’s no other area of healthcare where we say that’s appropriate, and yet we’re saying this is OK for older people, even when we know that the outcomes are not helping a lot of people. It seems like a bureaucratic solution to an insufficiency of funding and care problem.
A department official responded that “highly trained” assessors were inputting data that informed the algorithm’s decision.
Allman-Payne questioned why those same highly trained staff were not then allowed to override the algorithm when the tool gets an assessment wrong.
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Government says ‘not everyone is happy’ after geriatricians excluded from aged-assistance algorithm
Meanwhile Senator David Pocock has questioned why no geriatricians were involved in developing the “support at home” algorithm, also raising concerns that it is under-assessing people’s care needs with no ability for a human to override flawed outcomes.
Pocock has received a letter from the peak body for geriatricians outlining concerns that the algorithm under-assesses or fails to recognise sensory impairment increases risk of falls, medication issues, delirium, elder abuse and social isolation.
Greg Pugh from the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing said: “So we are listening to what the public are telling us … I accept that not everyone is happy with the outcome”.
Read more:
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Labor’s assistant tech minister wants to convince Australians AI is good
The assistant minister for technology, Andrew Charlton, says the government has to convince Australians that artificial intelligence delivers benefits.
Charlton, a great friend to the tech industry within the Albanese government, has told the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing:
We have an opportunity right now in Australia to build a domestic artificial intelligence industry. That opportunity is important.
It will mean the difference between Australia renting that intelligence from the rest of the world, in perpetuity, or building and having our own artificial intelligence industry.
We have everything in Australia we need, all the building blocks to build that industry but the one limiting factor, which will be most important, is trust, whether we can convince Australians and whether the industry can convince Australians that this is in their best interests …
We are getting in front of [concerns] so we can look the Australian people in the eye and say these datacentres, these pieces of infrastructure for the new digital economy, are not pushing up your power prices, are not restricting your access to water.
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At least 150,000 Australians paying for AI, from just over 60,000 a year ago, Westpac analysis shows
More than 150,000 Australians pay for a subscription to an AI service such as ChatGPT and Claude, a huge increase from three years ago, AAP reports.
An analysis of 8.3 billion Westpac customer credit card and debit card transactions in March has found those retail customers paid for at least one AI subscription a month, with an average monthly spend of $37.
That’s a nearly 14-fold increase from the 11,000 Australians that paid to use AI in March 2023, and a 145% jump from those paying to use it a year ago.
There was a rapid growth in the use of AI, Westpac’s chief AI officer, Dan Jermyn, said.
Year-on-year, the pick-up is accelerating, not just progressing at the same rate.
Westpac has about 10 million customers in its retail businesses, including its St George, BankSA and Bank of Melbourne brands.
Their $5.6, AI monthly spend is just a fraction of Westpac customer’s $6.7bn annual outplay on subscriptions, but Jermyn compared it to streaming services.
Not too long ago such services didn’t exist, with Netflix launching in Australia in 2015, but now it and similar services are household staples, he said:
I think you’re going to see AI tools becoming a mainstream utility like that, not just a niche extra.
Westpac’s figures identified spending on AI services such as ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity, but didn’t include Google’s Gemini, where access to the chatbot’s premium service is included as part of a larger package of tools. Many more Australians would be using free AI services, Jermyn said.
The large increase in subscribers has likely been triggered by services such as Claude Code and OpenAI Codex, AI-powered coding assistants for software engineers, Jermyn said.
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James Boag’s to stop making beer in Tasmania as costs rise and sales fall
James Boag’s will stop making beer at its Tasmanian home after more than 140 years, AAP reports.
Owner Lion, a subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate Kirin, has blamed declining beer sales nationwide as one reason for its shutdown of the brewery in Launceston in northern Tasmania.
The brewery opened in 1881, with Scotland’s James Boag and his son taking over two years later.
Lion said the brewery was currently operating at about one-fifth of its capacity and would close in November, with James Boag’s production to continue on mainland Australia. It said in a statement today:
Long-term decline in the national beer market has caused the brewery to run significantly under capacity for many years. This, combined with significant cost inflation, means the brewery is no longer viable.
In 2024, James Boag’s shifted some of its production from the brewery to mainland Australia, saying it was spending $1.5m per year on shipping out of Tasmania.
The company said 42 jobs at the brewery will be “impacted” and redeployment opportunities will be discussed with staff.
A recently revamped brewhouse at the site, which has a sales and hospitality team, will remain operational.
Lion’s decision was deeply concerning and extremely disappointing, Tasmania’s premier, Jeremy Rockliff, said.
Labor MP Janie Finlay said the shutdown would be a “gut punch” for Launceston and workers who had kept one of Tasmania’s most renown brands going for generations.
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Violet CoCo calls on Victoria Labor government to cancel 2028 Land Forces defence expo
Australian climate activist Violet CoCo, one of the 11 Australians who joined more than 400 people from around the world on an aid flotilla to Gaza that was detained by Israel, has come to the Victorian parliament to request a meeting with the premier, Jacinta Allan.
CoCo, who has made a number of allegations including being detained by Israeli soldiers at gunpoint, stripped of her clothes and pushed into a shipping container where she was beaten, kicked and sexually assaulted before being thrown into a prison yard, said she had personally written to Allan and hadn’t heard back.
She called on the premier to cancel the Land Forces defence expo, scheduled for 2028. The state last held the convention in 2024, which sparked mass protests and accusations of police misconduct.
Coco said:
We want Jacinta Allan to meet with us to hear the stories of the brutality that we faced at the hands of the Israeli government and soldiers, and we want them to cancel this conference. We want them to divest in the two-way arms trade between Israel and this continent.
Asked about the potential for violence at the 2028 expo, she said:
If you’re concerned about violence in our streets, you should be concerned about what’s being sold inside that conference that ends in the deaths of children.
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Many of the ‘support at home’ algorithm decisions found to be incorrect
More aged care “support at home” funding decisions that have come before the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing for review between November and March have been changed or approved for reassessment than have been confirmed as being correct, Senate estimates has heard.
Under questioning by Greens senator Penny Allman-Payne, department officials said 92 decisions made by the “support at home” assessment algorithm had been deemed upon review as appropriate, while 132 had been varied or set aside, which means the person can get their “support at home” assessment redone.
Meanwhile, 215 people had withdrawn their application for a review, while 102 review applications were deemed by the department as having no legal standing, estimates heard.
Read more:
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Labor’s Andrew Charlton won’t say if CGT consultation could take months
Andrew Charlton has not ruled out a months-long timeline for tweaks to Labor’s capital gains reforms.
The Labor frontbencher is taking a leading role in consulting business on the reforms.
Asked if it will take months, Charlton said on the ABC:
Let’s see how long the process takes … We need to get it right … that is the most important thing and going through a consultation process that delivers the right outcome is the best thing for Australia.
Separately, Larissa Waters, the Greens leader, avoided making predictions on when the initial legislation for the tax reforms would pass the Senate. She told the ABC:
We will see what the inquiry reveals. There’s certainly a lot of questions that we will be asking. We expect to learn a lot from it and then we will make our decisions.
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Liberal frontbencher says ‘we should be working together’ with One Nation
Garth Hamilton, the Liberal frontbencher, has said One Nation, Nationals and Liberals should be working together in politics.
Hamilton, the shadow assistant minister for energy security, still took a shot at Pauline Hanson along the way, saying collaboration would only be a good idea if it was genuine. He told the ABC:
We should be working together. I think anyone who is of the centre right should be working together.
That requires working and turning up to work, which is another point that I am happy to make: quite frankly, the numbers we saw this week of Pauline’s attendance rates haven’t been very impressive for someone who says she is ready to be prime minister.
We want to work together … You can have parties work together. We have seen Labor and the Greens work together on a number of issues and get things done and be happy to lend a shoulder together to get something done.
If the offer from One Nation to work together is genuine, sure, great. This is about putting the Australian people first and we need to have a little bit of humility in that.
He also cheered on today’s increase in minimum wages.
I support the independent process and yes, I want people to have good jobs and wages. That is an important process and something across the breadth of Australia’s history we can be proud of. I think we do have some pretty good conditions in Australia and I hope that continues.
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CBA warns economy may have stalled in early 2026
Commonwealth Bank analysts believe the economy may have stalled through the first three months of 2026, suggesting growth was already slowing sharply before the outbreak of the US-Israel war on Iran.
Economists have been trimming their estimates ahead of tomorrow morning’s release of national accounts for the March quarter, after trade figures showed net exports would drag on real GDP growth by more than expected.
The prediction for flat quarterly growth follows an 0.3% increase in the three months to December. If the CBA forecasts prove correct, the economy will have expanded by 2.1% through the year to March, from 2.6%.
Westpac also slashed its growth estimates for the March quarter, and said there was now “the possibility of an outright contraction” in the current quarter. Its economists wrote:
Today’s data confirms that the economy was slowing before the conflict in the Middle East had really started to impact.
Westpac and NAB analysts estimate real GDP growth of 0.3% in the three months to March, and 2.4% in annual terms.
As mentioned, we’ll find out the actual number when the Australian Bureau of Statistics releases the figures tomorrow at 11:30am.
Waters says Greens vote holding steady against One Nation
The Greens leader does not believe One Nation is taking her party’s voters but believes the party is distracting and exploiting angry voters.
Larissa Waters has told the ABC:
I am worried that peoples’ anger is being exploited by Pauline Hanson to [pit] them against each other as a distraction from fixing the wealth inequality that the system is perpetuating.
Is One Nation taking Greens votes?
I don’t know. Our vote has remained steady. I think what is clear is people are looking for an alternative.
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Greens leader says Ed Husic welcome to join party
Larissa Waters, the Greens leader, says Ed Husic would be welcome in the Greens.
Husic, the Labor backbencher, has publicly criticised the Aukus deal today, in comments not dissimilar to arguments made by the Greens.
Asked if Husic would be welcomed into the Greens, Waters told the ABC:
Sure. We are very much welcoming people that share our values.
He has played an important role for his party in holding them to account. I am not sure they are listening to him as much as I think they should. We welcome any voices that are speaking for Australia’s best interests.
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Ex-Labor minister praises ‘courageous’ Husic after Aukus attack
The former Labor minister, Kim Carr, has praised Ed Husic as “courageous” after he broke ranks to question the Aukus nuclear submarine deal.
Carr, a longtime Aukus critic, said it was clear the security pact that Scott Morrison signed up to – and Labor agreed to continue – was “increasingly seen as a dud”.
The former industry minister told Guardian Australia:
Aukus commits Australia to an extremely expensive, high-risk, long-term military project that deepens dependence on an increasingly erratic United States, while delivering uncertain strategic benefits decades into the future.
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Nearly one quarter of aged care assessments conducted remotely
In Senate estimates, the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing has provided data to Senator Anne Ruston that shows almost one-quarter (24%) of assessments for aged care support at-home packages are conducted remotely, with no in-person contact, and fed into an algorithm that has no human override over the decision.
The data provided to Ruston shows the waiting list is at 200,000, which includes both the number of older people waiting to be assessed and those waiting for the package they have been approved for.
Ruston said:
Older Australians are waiting months just to be assessed for support and when that appointment finally comes, one in four will never meet their assessor in person.
Labor has designed a system where support is determined by a faceless, phone-based assessment that’s fed into a computerised algorithm with no human override.
We are already seeing people with worsening health conditions including those living with ALS, dementia and other progressive, degenerative diseases having their support cut back by this flawed tool.
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Watt and Hume clash over minimum wage rise
In the Senate education and employment legislation committee, the increase in the minimum wage has just been discussed.
Asked what the response has been this afternoon, the minister for the environment and water, Murray Watt, said:
I’m not entirely clear where the Liberal and National parties stand on it. Senator Hume has described real wage increases as “the worst things for Australians”.
Jane Hume interjected, saying Watt must not have watched her most recent press conference during the lunch break, because she said nothing like that.
He continued:
Senator Hanson did not support an increase in the minimum wage, which I found surprising because she says she stands up for battlers.
We support and welcome the decision the commission has handed down.
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Watch video: Neale Daniher, MND campaigner and AFL great, honoured in Victorian parliament
Continuing from our previous post …
Labor MP Emma Vulin told the chamber that Neale was one of the first people who reached out to her when she was diagnosed with MND in 2024:
He didn’t know me from a bar of soap, but he invited my partner, Matt and me into his home.
We sat with Neale and his beautiful wife, Jan, and had an honest conversation about what was ahead. He didn’t sugarcoat things. He told me what I needed to know about maintaining independence, about equipment I would need and planning ahead, and the realities of this disease, but he also gave me and my family something incredibly important. He gave his kindness, generosity and hope.
Since then, I have heard the same story from countless others living with MND. Neil reached out, he made time, and he took people under his wing.
A state funeral service will be held for Daniher on Wednesday 10 June at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. This will be just two days after the AFL’s Big Freeze, an annual fundraising and awareness campaign spearheaded by Daniher that has raised more than $100m for research projects.
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Victorian parliament pays tribute to Neale Daniher
The Victorian parliament has paid tribute to the former AFL footballer and coach Neale Daniher, who died last week, 13 years after being diagnosed with motor neurone disease.
The premier, Jacinta Allan, led condolence motions in the lower house on Tuesday afternoon, describing Neale as a “deep thinker” and “a fierce competitor” whose influence “reached far beyond the football field”.
She said instead of stepping away from public life following his diagnosis, she said Daniher co-founded the charity FightMND and created an “army to fight this cruel disease”:
He chose to let people see what MND does, because he knew that if people understood it, they might help fight it for a long time. A diagnosis of MND carried a terrible darkness, too few answers, too little awareness, too little research, too little that families could hold on to. And Neale changed that. He made people look at it, he made people learn its name, and because of him, there is now a stream of light where there was once very little. There’s more research, more support, more awareness, more hope.
The opposition leader, Jess Wilson, said Daniher was also a local constituent in her electorate of Kew, who she said “faced one of life’s cruelest challenges with a level of courage, grace, and good humour that few of us could ever hope to match”.
We didn’t just lose a hero, we lost one of our own, a local, a friend, a neighbour, a family member.
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What allegations does Ben Roberts-Smith deny?
For context on our previous post, Ben Roberts-Smith was arrested at Sydney airport in April, and charged with five separate counts of the war crime of murder. Each federal charge carries a potential penalty of life imprisonment.
He was released on bail, under strict reporting conditions and having surrendered his passport, after his father Len, a former Western Australian supreme court judge, posted a $250,000 surety.
Roberts-Smith previously mounted a failed defamation case after three newspapers printed allegations of war crimes against him in 2018. He lost, with a federal court judge finding, on balance of probabilities, Roberts-Smith had committed four murders while serving in the Australian military.
The five counts of murder Roberts-Smith has been criminally charged with relate to three alleged incidents.
In 2009, he is alleged to have shot dead a disabled man called Ahmadullah, who had a prosthetic leg, machine-gunning him to death outside a compound called Whiskey 108, after Ahmadullah and his father were found hiding in a tunnel and surrendered, unarmed, to Australia troops.
Roberts-Smith is also alleged to have been complicit in the execution of Ahmadullah’s father, Mohammed Essa, by a junior soldier ordered to shoot him.
In September 2012, in the southern Afghan village of Darwan, Roberts-Smith is alleged to have kicked a handcuffed prisoner called Ali Jan off a 10-metre cliff before ordering that the injured man be shot dead, an order that was followed.
One month later at Syahchow, Roberts-Smith – who was patrol commander – and two subordinate soldiers allegedly took two handcuffed prisoners to the edge of a corn field.
Both prisoners were allegedly executed by the Australian soldiers, at least one on Roberts-Smith’s orders. Roberts-Smith is then alleged to have thrown a grenade that exploded on the bodies in an effort to disguise the murders, the court documents claim.
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Ben Roberts-Smith will not see full brief of war crimes allegations for months
Former SAS corporal Ben Roberts-Smith will not see the full brief of war crimes allegations against him for months because the case contains classified national security information.
Roberts-Smith, a recipient of the Victoria Cross, was charged in April with five counts of the war crime of murder, allegedly committed across three incidents between 2009 and 2012, during his service with the Australian SAS in Afghanistan.
The 47-year-old, currently on strict bail conditions, denies the allegations.
But serving the brief of evidence against him has been delayed by months because of strict national security laws, Sydney’s Downing Centre local court heard Thursday.
Crown prosecutor Chelsea Brain said Roberts-Smith could not be given the full brief of evidence against him until orders protecting sensitive information were made by the court.
The application over the secret material was made by the commonwealth government.
Roberts-Smith’s solicitor Karen Espiner told the court that her client, crown prosecutors, and the government would likely agree to how the classified documents should be handled.
Judge Susan Horan will have to be convinced the orders are necessary during a hearing on 1 September.
Under the National Security Information Act, a judge can make orders around the disclosure, storage, protection, handling and destruction of classified material during a criminal matter.
Roberts-Smith has not entered pleas to any of the charges but has said he would use the upcoming trial to clear his name.
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Online retailers including Amazon and eBay ordered to take down ‘potential deadly’ magnet games
The consumer watchdog has ordered online retailers including Amazon and eBay to remove products marketed for children that contain magnets that could be deadly if swallowed.
Earlier today, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) announced it had asked several online marketplaces to take down “banned and potentially deadly” toys and games containing small high-powered magnets.
Catriona Lowe, one of the ACCC’s deputy chairs, said:
Small high-powered magnets can cause catastrophic, life-threatening internal injuries if swallowed, particularly for young children. Multiple magnets can stick together in the intestine or digestive tissue. They are also a choking risk.
We are extremely concerned that our investigation has detected sellers listing these banned products on online marketplaces, and we urge all online marketplaces to do more to prevent listings of these products to keep consumers, and especially young children, safe.
The ACCC has been investigating products marketed for children such as “magnetic chess” which are being sold to Australians online, despite such products being permanently banned under consumer law.
In a statement, the ACCC said it had sent Amazon, eBay, Kogan, and Fruugo take down requests for the affected listings and sought additional measures to be taken to prevent sellers relisting the same or similar products.
All four retailers have committed to taking these actions and to contacting affected customers to warn them about the safety risks, the ACCC said.
Kogan, Amazon and Fruugo have also provided, or offered to provide, refunds to customers that purchased the affected products subject to the ACCC’s investigation.
Updated
Thanks Krishani Dhanji for guiding us through the first sitting day this week. I’ll be with you for this rest of the afternoon.
Thanks for following along on the blog, that’s all from me today!
I’ll leave you with the great Luca Ittimani for the rest of the afternoon, and see you back here bright and early tomorrow.
Government spent $3.8m on personal protection for CFMEU administrator
The department of employment and workplace relations paid around $3.8m in personal protection for the former administrator of the CFMEU, Mark Irving, Senate estimates has heard.
Irving spent 20 months in the role, during which he fired hundreds of people and was subjected to death threats.
On top of this, $5m has been set aside in the 26/27 budget to protect his successor, union executive Michael Crosby.
Asked about the cost of security, the environment minister Murray Watt said it was “the responsibility” of the government to keep the administrator safe. He said:
The organised crime elements who have infiltrated the construction industry have made their profits by dealing with the union and some employers. Not just the union. And I think it is fair for the government to pay for protecting the life of someone who has taken on a role because of a decision of this parliament.
The AFP currently has three investigations into unlawful conduct across the building industry.
Working with Home Affairs, the department undertakes regular security checks for the administrator and provides protection. The threats were being made by organised criminals outside the CFMEU, DEWR said. First Assistant Secretary Sarah Godden said:
The AFP, while obviously not divulging, conveyed to us that the threats made against Irving’s life were not only credible but by people with the means and motive to carry them out.
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Tl;dr here’s what happened in question time
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The opposition focused questions again on the capital gains tax changes today, pressing Labor on the estimated $77bn tax take from the changes.
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The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, went in with a few personal attacks on Tim Wilson, calling him “not the sharpest tool in the shed”.
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Labor and the Coalition traded barbs over migration numbers, but housing minister, Clare O’Neil, tested Milton Dick’s patience.
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Two MPs were kicked out today – Liberal Andrew Wallace who was booted after the first question, and Labor’s Luke Gosling who was also yeeted early in the piece.
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Independent MP Rebekha Sharkie asked about the government’s support at home package.
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Allegra Spender asked about gambling inducements advertising – in her answer, Anika Wells didn’t mention the word inducements once.
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Labor in ‘revolt’ over Aukus: Paterson
The shadow defence minister, James Paterson, claims Labor is in “revolt” over Aukus after backbencher Ed Husic called for a rethink over the security pact.
Paterson said the defence minister, Richard Marles, should haul Husic into line and demonstrate that Labor is “100%” committed to the submarine deal.
Speaking to reporters in Parliament House, the Victorian senator said:
It’s absolutely legitimate to ask questions about how this government is going about delivering Aukus, about the details of Aukus. What is much more concerning is to have a former cabinet minister still in the Labor caucus questioning the merits of Aukus altogether and suggest that it be reopened for a caucus result. How would that be interpreted in foreign capitals in Washington DC, in London, in Beijing?
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Question time ends
A slightly shorter question time than usual today. After a final dixer to the health minister, Mark Butler, Anthony Albanese calls time on QT.
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Anika Wells dodges question on gambling inducements by talking about other reforms
Independent MP Allegra Spender asks the government about gambling inducements – she says Tim Costello (a leading anti-gambling advocate) described gambling company inducements, such as bonus bets and boosted odds, “as the most evil and predatory feature of the gambling industry”, while the Murphy review recommended the immediate banning of all inducements and inducement advertising.
So why hasn’t the government undertaken those recommendations, she asks?
The communications minister, Anika Wells, says the government’s gambling reforms will “minimise children’s exposure to wagering advertising”.
We will deliver a significant package … with measures that will reduce the harm from gambling. The package has been carefully developed with harm minimisation at front of mind to stop the deluge of gambling advertising.
While she’s speaking, independent Kate Chaney shouts out “what about inducements?”
Spender stands up to make a point of order, saying she was specifically asking about inducements, but Milton Dick rules Wells is being relevant.
Wells continues: “These reforms are important. The community expects to see them implemented in a timely manner.”
She doesn’t actually say the word inducement in her answer once.
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Housing minister asked to stop talking about Coalition in answering migration question
Liberal MP Leon Rebello asks the government if it has made the housing situation worse through its migration intake, referencing a previously unreleased note from the Reserve Bank that migration policy is the main way that the government influences the housing market.
He has to ask the question a second time because the government MPs are shouting.
The housing minister, Clare O’Neil, says it’s an important question and that Labor is bringing migration numbers down.
It takes a little bit of moxie to be coming into this parliament and asking me, as housing minister, questions about the housing crisis that those opposite played a very significant hand in creating for our country.
She spends most of the time attacking the opposition, which prompts manager of opposition business, Dan Tehan to make a point of order on relevance.
Tony Burke says that it was due to when the Coalition was in government during Covid that there was a backlog of migrants who arrived under the Labor government, but Tehan counters shouting, “You brought them all in!”
Milton Dick sides with the opposition and tells O’Neil to go back to the question and stop talking about the Coalition.
She doesn’t:
Unfortunately the member finds himself in a political party that played a significant role in bringing us to where we are today.
Dick isn’t happy about the answer, and says O’Neil “was going close to defying the speaker”.
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Independent MP asks: ‘What does it take for a dying person to actually get support at home?’
Back to the crossbench, independent Rebekha Sharkie asks the aged care minister what it takes for a dying person to “actually get support at home”.
She says Greg in her electorate has 12 months to live, but has been assessed by the department as medium priority, will wait most of his remaining life for support, and has said contact with the ministerial office has “been fruitless”.
The minister, Sam Rae, says the population is “ageing rapidly and demand for care is growing accordingly”.
In some cases people such as Greg have gone through the assessment process and are still waiting to receive the care they need our government is responding to this challenge.
He then starts running through the stats of how many older Australians are on support at home packages. Sharkie tries to make a point of order, saying that Rae isn’t addressing Greg’s scenario. The speaker, Milton Dick says he heard Rae say Greg’s name so is being relevant.
Rae continues:
I can assure you that I have the greatest personal sympathy for Greg and other people that are in the circumstances that he faces. That is why through this budget we have attributed additional funding to look at the prioritisation and mechanism of the national priority system to ensure people get the care they need.
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Nationals ask for clarity on ‘new build’ under housing changes
Nationals MP, Michelle Landry, says that the government’s bills do not define what a new build is, so asks: “If someone builds a new second dwelling on an existing title, is the whole title now considered a new dwelling?”
That is: if someone has a single dwelling and builds a duplex on the land, do they qualify for the tax concessions?
The housing minister, Clare O’Neil, gives a very short response, and doesn’t provide much clarity.
The answer in its entirety:
A new dwelling is one that genuinely adds new to housing supply.
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Chalmers says Liberals trying to defend ‘broken status quo’
Liberal MP Zoe McKenzie gets a go next and asks Jim Chalmers if he will confirm that the government’s tax bill will “grant him extraordinary powers to slash the $250 tax offset to zero whenever he likes without taking it back to the parliament?”
This morning Chalmers was asked a similar question on morning media, and said that the assertion that he has “god-like powers” under the legislation was a “beat-up”.
Chalmers again has a jab at Tim Wilson, and says “Mr Speaker, I would haven’t given another question to Goldstein either.”
The truth is, the fact is that it’s not unusual for tax laws to work this way or for definitions to be finalised by legislative instrument. They can be disallowed by the parliament.
McKenzie stands up to make a point of order on relevance:
I think what the treasurer is trying to say is “yes”.
Milton Dick calls that an “abuse” of standing orders and gives her a warning. Chalmers continues:
Those opposite want to pretend that these are unusual arrangements. They are not.
The reason they want to pretend is because they can’t defend their actual position which is to go to the wall for a broken status quo that particularly locks too many young Australians out of the housing market.
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Wilson ‘not the sharpest tool in the shed’, says Chalmers
It feels like it’s been a while since Jim Chalmers has been asked a question by the opposition – most have been aimed at the PM, but it’s the treasurer’s time back in the spotlight.
The shadow treasurer, Tim Wilson, asks Chalmers if he’ll confirm that the government has claimed $410 of extra tax from the average worker through bracket creep in the last 12 months and that the working Australians tax offset “will be chewed up by bracket creep within a year?”
Chalmers gets personal immediately:
Mr Speaker, if anybody is looking for evidence the member for Goldstein is not the sharpest tool in the shed, how about him asking about tax cuts on a day that their party room decided to vote against tax cuts for 13 million Australian workers?
Wilson gets up to make a point of order, but Labor MP Luke Gosling makes a remark, which gets him kicked out of the chamber by Milton Dick.
Wilson says he knows Chalmers “enjoys throwing abuse”, but argues he’s not answering the question. Dick tells Chalmers to stop talking about opposition policies.
Chalmers continues:
Now, when it comes to returning bracket creep, this is a government which has returned bracket creep on five occasions, using three different mechanisms … If they had their way, Australians would pay higher income taxes not lower.
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Government says draft environmental standards to be released in ‘coming weeks’ for consultation
When will the remaining national environmental standards under the environment protection and biodiversity conservation (EPBC) Act be released to the public, asks independent MP Helen Haines.
She says the environment minister agreed to community engagement on the standards as part of reforms, but it’s been six months and “we’ve only seen drafts of two of the five standards.”
Tony Burke (representing the environment minister, Murray Watt) says the standards in question are “supplementary guidelines to get the system up and running”.
He says consultation on the first standard has just closed, while the second is open and closes soon. The remaining are coming soon, Burke says:
The standard raised in the question is, as well as these standards being out for consultation, community consultation itself will have a standard, and I’m advised that work on that is well progressed to this standard and the government anticipated it will be released for its consultation in coming weeks.
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Taylor tests PM on budget tax take
Angus Taylor is back and asks the same question, “will the prime minister confirm that Australian also pay $77bn more tax than they get back?”
It’s a bit tighter this time, so Taylor is hoping for a more direct answer.
The $77bn dollar figure the Treasury’s estimate of how much more the government could earn from the tax reforms including negative gearing and CGT over a decade.
Anthony Albanese shakes his head as he comes up to the despatch box and says the question “didn’t really make sense”.
They oppose income tax cuts, and the other thing that they oppose is the real wage increases … consistently we [have] made submissions to the Fair Work Commission arguing for increases in real wages, something those opposite have never, ever, ever done.
Taylor tries to make a point of order on relevance, but leader of the house, Tony Burke, counters saying that because the question ended with “and what they get back” (which isn’t 100% accurate), “then the full relationship is able to be answered and is relevant”. That’s the rules for you!
The PM then goes back to the wedge that the opposition doesn’t support income tax cuts (because the Coalition will be voting against the whole tax package).
We on this side of the House stand for working Australians. We stand wages, lower income taxes, and for people to earn more and keep more of what they earn.
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Question time begins as Andrew Wallace first MP to be booted
Angus Taylor begins by asking the prime minister if he will confirm Australians will “pay $77bn more tax than they get back”, after the Treasury secretary Jenny Wilkinson last week said on the changes to the CGT and negative gearing: “Revenue needs to be raised from somewhere”.
Milton Dick immediately tells the opposition to pipe down, saying, “We don’t need the “wows””.
Anthony Albanese begins his answer saying that he can confirm that “Labor is the party of aspiration”, which naturally gets a chorus of groans and shouts from the Coalition.
It rebalances the ledger, so that young people have an opportunity [to buy their first home] and we saw that just on the weekend.
The opposition tries to make a point of order but they don’t get very far. Then the PM comes back swinging, taking aim at Tony Abbott’s appointment as the Liberal party national president:
He [Abbott] did seven interviews yesterday because he knows that this bloke just ain’t up to the job.
At the end of the answer, Liberal MP Andrew Wallace gets booted for interjecting 10 times.
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Advocate says mutual obligations system shows ‘punishment is being prioritised over accountability and the law’
Earlier, we reported from Senate estimates that the Targeted Compliance Framework, the IT system that runs Australia’s controversial mutual obligations regime, will be offline until 2027.
The automated IT system was illegally cancelling people’s payments.
Welfare advocate at the Antipoverty Centre Jeremy Poxon has responded, saying it “was madness” to announce the return of the TCF and payment cancellations, when the department “can’t even answer basic questions about the legality of the scheme”:
At every turn, the Department has failed to demonstrate to stakeholders or the general public how the TCF can be brought into lawful operation.
In fact, the department doesn’t even know how many people have been impacted by unlawful TCF decisions, as evidenced by the latest budget papers listing compensation for TCF victims as “unquantifiable”. Speed-running cancellations back into operation once again shows that punishment is being prioritised over accountability and the law.
Despite the Ombudsman’s ongoing concerns about high numbers of incorrect payment suspensions, these punishments from job providers have continued. To date, the Department is yet to provide any evidence that they’re lawful.
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In pics: parliament today
As we near the downhill slide towards question time, let’s take a look at what has been going on around parliament today.
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Only 40% of aged care support at home algorithm decisions found to be appropriate
Of the aged care support at home funding decisions that have been reviewed by the department of health and ageing for review between November and March, more have been changed or approved for reassessment than have been confirmed as correct, Senate estimates has heard.
Under questioning by Greens Senator Penny Allman-Payne, department of health and ageing officials said 92 decisions made by the support at home assessment algorithm had been deemed upon review as appropriate, while 132 had been varied or set aside, which means the person can get their support at home assessment redone.
Meanwhile 215 people had withdrawn their application for a review, while 102 review applications were deemed by the department as having no legal standing, estimates heard.
Read more:
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Taylor tries to thwart debate on CGT bill
There are some political shenanigans going on in the house today over the government’s budget bill – which includes changes to the capital gains tax discount, negative gearing, the working Australian tax offset and standard tax deductions.
The opposition leader, Angus Taylor, who has said the party will vote against the bill, tries to put some roadblocks on the legislation being debated (which would delay it being passed). He also calls on the government to pass laws to index personal income tax brackets to end bracket creep (a policy he announced in his budget reply).
In response, the leader of the house, Tony Burke, moves to suspend standing orders to essentially bulldoze that roadblock, and ensure that it’s passed tonight. The government has the numbers so it’s not hard to predict which way the vote will go.
Earlier on, Taylor addressed the house attacking the government’s bill:
The government’s CGT changes will shut down growth enabling investment, they will obliterate opportunity. And they will kneecap so many Australians. It’s no wonder that we see Australians expressing their frustration.
Some are doing it in satirical ways. And every day there’s new AI memes, depicting the prime minister as a business co-owner, a co-founder who never puts his shoulder to the wheel.
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‘We are not going to get the deal that was promised to us’: Husic calls for a rethink on Aukus
Labor MP Ed Husic says Australia will not get the Aukus deal promised by the US, and says the government should rethink the pact.
Guardian Australia understands Husic was the MP who raised concerns about the deal in Labor’s party room meeting earlier this morning.
Speaking to Sky News, Husic says he won’t go into what was said in that meeting, but voices several concerns over the agreement.
He says that the deal today is different to what the Morrison government promised when initially signing alongside then US-president Joe Biden and the UK, and adds “you can see how the Trump administration behaves, it should be rethought”.
We need to be open as a nation that we are not going to get the deal that was promised to us … and given how transactional the Trump administration is, you can almost imagine them saying we give you these, you will do this with them, and so there’s an active sovereignty question there.
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Chalmers shuts down question on internal concerns over Aukus
Chalmers is asked about reports (see here for Tom McIlroy’s earlier post) about a Labor MP criticising the Aukus agreement during Labor’s party room meeting this morning, after the government announced it would receive three used Virginia class submarines from the US and no new ones.
Chalmers quickly shut down the question, and said he wouldn’t discuss anything that was said in the party room meeting.
We support the Aukus arrangements and I don’t get into the details of discussions in the parliamentary [party room].
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Chalmers denies he has special power to define scope of tax reforms
Jim Chalmers has again claimed the idea he has significant powers under the tax reform laws is a “beat-up”.
A number of elements of the legislation give the treasurer discretion to define how it applies, for example what types of properties can still access negative gearing or the old 50% capital gains tax discount.
Chalmers said:
It is not unusual for tax laws to work this way or forward definitions to be finalised in legislative instruments. Those legislative instruments often can be disallowed by the parliament …
People who invest in new builds which genuinely add to supply will be able to choose between the existing 50% discount or a discount for inflation. So the examples that we have used are: investors in new apartments, developments and subdivisions will get the choice of discount, but not if it’s a simple knockdown-rebuild or a renovation.
Chalmers says the bills in the house this week will go to the Senate “as soon as possible”, while further legislation for the tax reforms will be subject to the consultation with business groups currently under way.
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Chalmers claims Coalition standing in the way of tax cuts
Jim Chalmers has framed the Coalition’s decision this morning to vote against Labor’s budget tax measures as a vote to “oppose tax cuts”.
Labor is pushing its tax reforms through parliament this week. Chalmers said:
[About] the decision that the Coalition party room has just taken to oppose tax cuts and to oppose housing once again – what this decision from the Coalition party room shows is they have not learned a thing from the first term of this government.
They have not changed a bit since the last election. If anything they are performing worse now than they were under Sussan Ley. And the reason for that is very clear.
The Liberals and Nationals are trying to stand in the way of tax cuts for millions of Australian workers and they are trying to make it harder, not easier, for more Australians, especially young Australians, to buy their first home.
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Chalmers says workers ‘need and deserve’ 4.75% minimum wage boost
The employment minister, Amanda Rishworth, has just stood up in Canberra, cheering the Fair Work Commission’s minimum wage decision this morning.
She said:
[Those] who rely on the national minimum wage will be paid over $1,000 a week …
The government has advocated … for an economically sustainable real wage increase and has welcomed the commission’s decision today because it is a win for working Australians.
We also welcome the larger increase that has been delivered for our lowest paid workers.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said:
This week and this government is all about higher wages, lower taxes and a fair go for first home buyers …
This is the pay rise that millions of Australian workers need and deserve. This is the sustainable real wage increase that the government has called for and we’re pleased to see it delivered in today’s decision …
When it comes to these cost-of-living pressures Australians are confronting right now, we see decent pay as part of the solution, not part of the problem.
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House of Reps sitting late this week as Labor pushes budget through
The lower house will sit late into the night tonight and tomorrow, as the government seeks to push the first tranche of its budget legislation through parliament.
Leader of the house, Tony Burke, moved this morning that the House of Representatives stay in session until as late as 10pm on Tuesday and Wednesday, giving as many MPs a chance to speak as possible, before the government’s plan to pass the bill on Thursday.
Labor has a strong majority in the lower house, so it will almost surely get its way on the timing.
Liberal MP and manager of opposition business, Dan Tehan, sought to amend Burke’s motion to require all government MPs to speak on the tax bill.
Tehan claimed all Labor MPs should have to speak in order to “own this deceit”, again criticising the government’s proposals on negative gearing, capital gains tax and family trusts.
Tehan said:
We want every single one of you to come in, look the Australian people in the eye, and say ‘we said one thing before the election and we’re doing the opposite now’.
Tehan’s motion was defeated when Labor voted against it.
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Farley walks in with Joyce for swearing-in
More on how David Farley, One Nation’s candidate at the Farrer byelection, was officially been sworn in as a member of parliament:
After parliament opened, with the speaker Milton Dick delivering an acknowledgement of country, reading the Lords Prayer and members standing, Dick said:
I have received a return to the writ which I issued on 1 April 2026 for the election of a member to serve for the electoral division of Farrer, in the State of New South Wales, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of the honourable Sussan Ley. By the endorsement on the writ, it was certified that David Farley had been elected.
Farley was ushered into the house, with fellow One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce walking by his side. Farley then made and subscribed the oath of allegiance required by law. He was asked:
Do you, David Farley, swear that you will be faithful and bear true allegiance to his majesty King Charles III, his heirs and successors, according to law, so help you God?
Farely said: “I do, so help me God.” He signed papers then walks up to the speaker, who says: “Congratulations, welcome.” Farley said:
Thank you. Look forward to working with you.
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One Nation’s David Farley sworn in as member for Farrer
David Farley has been officially sworn in as a member of the House of Representatives, after winning the byelection for Farrer last month.
It is a historic moment, with this being the first time a One Nation MP has been elected to the lower house under the party’s own banner (showing exactly how far away the “Pauline Hanson for PM” discussion is from reality, with the party only needing another 74 seats to take majority government...)
For keen students, you might remember Barnaby Joyce was elected as a Nationals MP and defected last year, while Pauline Hanson’s 1996 election to the lower house came when her name was listed as a Liberal candidate on ballot papers.
Farley swore the oath of office, as required, and took his seat next to Joyce in the back row of parliament. Several Coalition MPs shook Farley’s hand as he joined the parliament officially, as did crossbencher Dai Le – but cameras cut away before we could see if any Labor MPs followed suit.
Hanson herself was in the visitors’ seating on the floor of parliament to watch Farley joining the lower house, alongside her other Senate colleagues Malcolm Roberts, Sean Bell and Tyron Whitten.
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Coalition continues attacking CGT changes
The Coalition’s opposition to the capital gains tax changes has continued in Senate estimates, with Nationals senator Susan McDonald pressing the industry minister, Tim Ayres, over which businesses the government has consulted with.
McDonald questioned Ayres over whether any businesses had told the government they backed the changes, and who had been part of consultations. Ayres said the consultation was being led by the treasury department, but the assistant minister for technology, Andrew Charlton – who is inside Ayres’ industry portfolio – is also involved.
Ayres declined to say which businesses were being consulted, and also whether any had told him they supported the changes.
McDonald, the Queensland senator, was critical that the minister wouldn’t detail more about the consultations.
Department officials noted that treasury officials – who will be before estimates on Wednesday – would have more to say.
McDonald claimed in a statement later:
The minister couldn’t even give a region or area with a business that supported it either. In fact, there were no startups and no small businesses named that supports its budget, because Labor knows this is a terrible budget that will destroy small businesses and destroy ambition and risk.
The Nationals leader, Matt Canavan, is still calling for an early election – even though the Nationals would likely be wiped out, based on current polls. He said in a statement.
The Australian people and small businesses should have a choice about whether they sign up to the Labor party’s plan to the biggest tax grab in history. That’s why we believe an election should be called immediately.
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Labor MP critical of Aukus submarine deal at party meeting
The minister for defence industry, Pat Conroy, has defended Labor’s decision to purchase three secondhand American nuclear submarines as part of the Aukus deal.
Despite Labor expressing confidence in the deal since winning government in 2022, on Sunday the defence minister, Richard Marles, announced Australia would buy three secondhand American Virginia-class submarines, instead of at least one brand new vessel from the US.
In a meeting of the Labor caucus at Parliament House on Tuesday, one MP asked if the party’s position from when the deal was first announced still stood, given the changes to the multi-decade deal announced in the past few days.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, told the meeting that Labor had very little detail from the Morrison government when it signed on to Aukus in 2021.
Conroy said that when Labor MPs and the then shadow cabinet signed on to Aukus, there was no agreement for the Virginia-class submarines to be sold to Australia. The decision was whether Labor would permit a nuclear build in the country. An agreement for the Virginia-class submarines to be sold to Australia came later.
Conroy said buying three secondhand Virginias, instead of two old boats and one new, would be “much easier” for Australia to manage “because those three subs will all be of the same type”.
It is also a more cost-effective arrangement.
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Budget will benefit ‘vast majority’ of Australians: Albanese
Amid growing dissatisfaction with last month’s federal budget, the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has defended Labor’s tax reform plans and called moves to improve housing affordability “pro-aspiration and pro-supply”.
Speaking to a closed-door meeting of the Labor caucus this morning, Albanese said Labor wants young people to have a better chance to enter the housing market.
The government expects debate on the budget legislation to begin today, with the legislation due to be voted on sometime on Thursday. After that, it will move to the Senate and a planned parliamentary inquiry in the final two weeks of June.
“At a time when so many people don’t think the system is working for them, we are working to change the system to give people a better chance,” Albanese told the meeting at Parliament House.
This is a real change in the interests of the vast majority of Australians.
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Older Australians waiting months for support at home
Senate estimates has heard there are 100,191 elderly people waiting for support at home funding that they have been approved for, but have not yet received.
People waiting for high-priority support are waiting for an average of 1.3 months, those at a medium priority are waiting an average of almost eight months and those waiting for a standard level of care are waiting more than 10 months, estimates heard.
Staff from the Department of Health and Ageing said while high and medium priority wait times had decreased, standard support wait times had increased.
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Wage rise ‘too much to bear’ for some small businesses: industry group
The reaction to the Fair Work decision is coming in thick and fast – it’s a decision that has significant political implications at a time when the economy and cost of living is firmly in the spotlight.
The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s David Alexander is in the Parliament’s mural hall – which, as our Patrick Commins noted earlier, is jam-packed with advocates and pollies waiting to talk about the goings on of the day.
Alexander says that the FWC’s decision could lead to some businesses raising their prices, which would add to inflation, or be a tipping point for others.
For some small businesses, this will be too much to bear. So they’re being asked to wear an increase in their wage costs of 4.75%. So for some businesses, they will pass that on, and it’ll end up in inflation. For others, they’ll wear it themselves – it could be the tipping point for some businesses. Others will scale back their investment intentions. So this is not good news for the business community.
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‘A really good outcome’: ACTU welcomes minimum wage decision
The Australian council of trade unions secretary, Sally McManus, has welcomed the fair work commission’s decision to increase the minimum and award wages by 4.75% at a press conference in Sydney.
She says the decision to award a 6% increase to 100,000 of the lowest-paid Australians. The ACTU had been pushing for a 6% wage rise for all minimum-wage workers.
But she adds that the increase should have been higher.
This is a really good outcome for everyone struggling with cost of living, in particular of course lowest-paid Aussies are the ones that are struggling the most with cost of living and they need this pay rise, absolutely.
We would love the Fair Work Commission to make a decision that catches everyone up immediately. In order to do that, as they said, it would need to be a 5% increase.
She says the “only spanner in the works” is the US president, Donald Trump, and the conflict in the Middle East which could continue to fuel domestic inflation.
Hopefully, if the war ends, this will mean that throughout the whole calendar year that people will keep ahead of the cost of living.
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Greens senator slams minimum wage decision
Greens senator Barbara Pocock has slammed this morning’s 4.75% minimum wage increase, saying the Fair Work Commission had “decided to erode the wages of some of the lowest paid workers”.
“The Fair Work Commission’s decision today amounts to a real wage cut for millions of Australians,” she said in a statement.
Even with this 4.75% increase in the minimum wage, low-paid workers still face an uphill battle as wages have failed to keep up with inflation.
Since Labor came into power, real wages have decreased by 1% while rents have increased by more than 22%. How on earth can renters keep a roof over their head?
Pocock did not mention the higher 6% for the roughly 100,000 lowest paid employees.
Business groups and unions are due to front the press pack this morning, but there’s a bit of a traffic jam in Parliament house’s mural hall - a favourite spot for media conferences.
The Coalition says it “supports the independent process to determine the minimum wage increase of 4.75%”, but shadow minister for employment, Jane Hume, added:
There is little comfort in a wage increase if Labor’s inflation simply eats it away.
Coalition to vote against Labor’s tax changes
Angus Taylor’s opposition has confirmed it will oppose Labor’s changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax ahead of debate in the lower house on Tuesday.
The Coalition resolved its position at a party room meeting this morning, which was hardly surprising given the opposition has vowed to repeal what it describes as “toxic taxes” if he wins the next election.
Labor has included its $250 “working Australians tax offset” in the same legislation, which is a measure the Coalition supports but will be forced to vote against given its opposition to the wider package.
Guardian Australian understands the opposition will seek to amend the bill to instead include its proposal to index the tax brackets to inflation.
That attempt will fail given Labor’s numbers in the lower house, but the Coalition will push ahead regardless, hoping to create the impression that the government is opposed to combating bracket creep.
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Health department defends internal testing of aged care algorithm
Independent Senator David Pocock had grilled Department of Health and Aged Care officials in Senate estimates about creating an algorithm used to assess the home care needs of older Australians in-house, and testing it internally without consulting any aged care advocates or experts about the final version of the algorithm.
The department confirmed it validated the algorithm in-house.
Department officials said while the final algorithm was not consulted on, it had undergone many reiterations and assessments before being finalised.
“We have tended to move away from kind of end-point evaluation of the final product to think about what are all the steps on the way through that have led to give confidence that something leads to the right outcome,” Pocock was told.
Greg Pugh said the department ran the algorithm through a process of refinement on more than 200,000 completed assessments over 2024 and 2025 ... “all of that work ensured that those algorithms would be achieving those reliable outcomes when support at home commenced,” he said.
Pocock said the current algorithm in its final, current form should also have been clinically assessed.
He gave the example of an experienced geriatrician who contacted him about a patient with significant visual impairment who was assessed by the algorithm as needing a level two support package, “but any experienced clinician could see that the man needed a level four”.
Because of inadequate support, the man’s daughter has now moved in with him, Pocock said, “and while he waits for reassessment, she’s using up her long-service leave because he’s obviously now at significant risk of injury”.
Pugh said it was not appropriate to “readily dismiss all of the professional clinical work” that went into designing the assessment and algorithm before the final version was implemented.
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Former Labor minister launches public Aukus inquiry
The former Labor minister Peter Garrett has launched the public inquiry into the Aukus nuclear submarine agreement, alongside independent MPs David Pocock and Andrew Wilkie.
Garrett says he sees no evidence that the US military industrial base has sufficient output to build submarines for Australia – putting at risk the costly deal with Australia and the UK.
Garrett will have four fellow commissioners for the five-month inquiry: former chief of defence Chris Barrie, former Western Australian premier and Keating government minister Carmen Lawrence, as well as the Australia Institute’s co-CEO Leanne Minshull and Karina Lester, a Yankunytjatjara community leader.
The inquiry is due to report by the end of October.
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Fair Work Commission president ‘regrets’ no real pay increase for award workers
The Fair Work Commission’s president, Justice Adam Hatcher, described it as “regrettable” that this morning’s minimum wage decision for a 4.75% increase could not deliver a real pay rise for the millions of workers on award wages.
Hatcher said “a fundamental consideration” was that most employees on modern awards “are still in the position that their wage rates in real terms remain lower than what they were in July 2021 prior to the post pandemic spike in inflation”.
The real wage gap … has particularly affected the living standards of the low paid and their capacity to meet their needs.
This was the background to the higher 6% increase in the pay rates of roughly 100,000 employees on the very lowest wages.
The RBA forecasts inflation will hit 4.8% by June, and Hatcher said “it would now take a wage increase of well over 5% to close the real wage gap”.
We have concluded, regrettably, that it would not be practicable or responsible in the current uncertain circumstances to award a real wage increase for employees reliant on modern award wage rates that would be sufficient to close the real wage gap entirely,” he said.
However, we consider that we should at least ensure that modern award-related employees generally are not worse off in real terms than they were as at one July 2025, and that we should also take additional measures to protect the position of the very lowest paid workers under modern awards.
Solomon Islands prime minister attends welcome to country in Canberra
The Solomon Islands prime minister, Matthew Wale, is in Canberra this morning ahead of high-level meetings and has attended a welcome to country ceremony.
Wale replaced the former PM Jeremiah Manele, who was ousted from power in a no-confidence vote earlier this month. Wale has long advocated a more cautious approach on ties with Beijing and is expected to push for a closer security relationship with Australia and the United States in office.
He will attend talks with the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, on Wednesday.
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No consultation before aged care algorithm was implemented
Greg Pugh, from the Department of Health and Aged care, confirmed in Senate estimates that no aged care provider, advocacy group or expert was consulted when the government made the decision to remove the ability for aged care assessors to override the outcomes of an aged care assessment tool.
The Integrated Assessment Tool (IAT) involves an assessor asking an older person questions about their physical, social and personal circumstances. An algorithm then determines the level of support and funding for home support that person is entitled to.
The department’s user manual states that assessors must accept the IAT’s classification outcome when assigning home support, with assessors telling Guardian Australia their role had effectively been reduced to data entry.
Aged care assessors said people are being under-assessed by the algorithm and are not getting the level of support needed, and that they have no ability to override the algorithm when it makes a wrong assessment. This is leaving people with inadequate care, they said.
Asked by Greens Senator Penny Allman-Payne whether the department consulted anyone on removing human override from the algorithm, Pugh said:
In terms of if we ever consulted one individual provider or older person about the removal of the override, I believe the answer that is no.
Liberal Senator Anne Ruston asked whether the algorithm in its current form was trialled by the department. Department staff confirmed it was not tested, but that the algorithm evolved on the basis of being trialed and tested internally in earlier versions.
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‘I’ll never begrudge a pay rise’, Paterson says
James Paterson says workers deserve a pay rise, but says that increasing wages at this rate is not sustainable, because inflation at this rate is unsustainable.
Speaking to Sky News, the shadow defence minister said workers are “treading water” and the decision to increase the minimum and award wages by 4.75% over the next year is just to stop them from going backwards.
I’ll never begrudge a pay rise for Australian workers and I understand why in Labor’s high-inflation environment this is necessary to stop Australian workers going even further backwards.
The core of the problem is out-of-control inflation and we need to get that urgently under control because over the long term it’s not sustainable to keep increasing wages at this kind of rate because it’s not sustainable to have inflation at this rate.
He takes aim at the government over its spending and tells Labor to reign it in to slow down inflation (he doesn’t specify exactly where).
Updated
Greens say government grants for in-home childcare a ‘Bandaid solution’
The government has announced $5m in grants for in-home childcare, as nearly a third of the sector faces the risk of shutting down.
The little-known taxpayer supported program is a last resort service used by about 800 families with children who cannot access mainstream care, including because they live in remote locations, have serious illness or a disability, or because their parents work unusual hours.
But the sector isn’t eligible for government-funded pay rises for workers in mainstream childcare centres, which means that families are absorbing the costs of worker wage rises.
Instead the government has said a new “grant opportunity” will help services with ongoing operational costs and support financial viability. The minister for early childhood education, Jess Walsh, says:
I know that In Home Care is important to the around 800 families who use it and who, for a range of reasons, can’t participate in centre-based care. This grant will mean providers can keep delivering quality care for these families.
But the Greens have called the grants a “Bandaid solution”. Senator Steph Hodgins-May accused the government of “being caught on the back foot and … scrambling to avoid criticism”:
This is a Bandaid solution designed to distract families from their failure to properly support in-home care … This one-off grant doesn’t provide the long-term solution the sector deserves.
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‘Human error’ behind anti-Liberal press release, employment department says
In Senate estimates, the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations has been asked why an anti-Liberal press release was up on the department’s website for over 48 hours.
The department said it came from the minister’s office, and there was a process error that allowed it to go up.
The department can’t say what communication happened between the minister’s office and the staff member for it to go up on the department’s website. The chief operating officer, Catherine Rule:
It was human error. By a junior staff member that lead to it being published. Once we became aware, it was removed. We will have had discussions with the staff member involved. This is not our usual practice.
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Lowest paid workers get 6% boost to their wages
About 100,000 of the country’s lowest paid employees will actually be getting a 6% increase in their pay as a result of this morning’s minimum wage decision.
Announcing the 4.75% decision this morning applicable to the roughly 2.8m workers on award wages, the Fair Work Commission’s president, Justice Adam Hatcher, announced the lowest ongoing wage rate for employees will climb from nearly $24.95 per hour, to $26.44 - a lift of just under 6%.
Hatcher said this year’s decision, which applies from 1 July, was “particularly challenging” in the context of surging fuel prices adding to already existing inflationary pressures.
Hatcher pointed that falling living standards had hit the lowest paid the hardest, justifying what he called “additional measures” to protect more vulnerable employees.
The higher increase for the lowest paid reflected a “structural adjustment” to pay classifications, he said.
Nearly 3 million workers to receive a 4.75% pay rise
Nearly 3 million workers will receive a 4.75% pay rise after the Fair Work Commission handed down its annual minimum wage decision.
Unions had demanded a higher 6% pay increase after last month’s budget projected inflation reaching 5% in the year to June. A peak employers’ association, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, was calling for a 3.5% increase.
The government estimates that fewer than 80,000 Australians are paid the current national minimum wage of $24.95 an hour, or $948 for a 38-hour working week.
But the change in the minimum wage affects about 2.8 million employees who have their pay set by an modern award.
Cost of living has been the No 1 issue weighing on Australian households since inflation tore through the economy in the wake of the Covid-19 lockdowns.
The previous minimum wage increase was 3.5% for 2025-26.
Inflation was 4.2% in the year to April, according to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures, and the budget also predicted consumer price growth could push beyond 5% should the Middle East conflict extend further and oil prices climb higher for longer.
With the Reserve Bank warning it may have to hike interest rates further to squash any signs an inflationary mindset has taken hold of the country, Jim Chalmers, the treasurer, has called for a “real” wage increase, but added that it also needed to be “sustainable”.
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Queensland reverses course on e-mobility legislation
Queensland’s government has announced it will roll back some of the most controversial elements of legislation cracking down on e-bikes and e-scooters – amending age limits, licensing requirements and a planned 10km/h speed limit.
Active transport user groups had criticised the legislation as unreasonably restricting access to the vehicles without any justification, particularly for disabled users. Food delivery companies and hire firms also warned during a parliamentary inquiry that the laws would affect their businesses, or even make them unviable.
Under the changes announced by the state transport minister, Brent Mickelberg, this morning, riders aged 12-17 can use e-mobility devices with parental supervision and those with a medical condition or disability who don’t have a licence will be able to use e-mobility devices under a medical exemption framework.
There will also be specific carveouts for recreational environments such as rail trails, Mickelberg said. The standard for compliant devices has also been eased to make devices that meet any past or future European standard legal, he said.
The speed limit will be reset to 25km/h on shared pathways or 12km/h where passing pedestrians. They represent almost all of Brisbane’s safe cycling network; many riders told the committee they were concerned the low speed limit could have forced them off safe protected cycling lanes on to dangerous main roads.
The laws are expected to “reduce congestion” on footpaths by allowing more e-vehicles to ride on the road, the government says. Mickelberg said:
The legislation this week will be tweaked, will be amended, to ensure that we strike the right balance.
And I’m confident that our legislation will strike the right balance of cracking down on those who do the wrong thing, while facilitating the lawful and reasonable use of e-mobility devices for those who want to do the right thing.
There are a host of new fines and punishments for e-vehicle users in the legislation, including the power to seize non-compliant vehicles, random breath testing requirements and the power to fine parents if their children rides illegally.
The legislation will pass later this week to take effect on 1 July.
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Controversial mutual obligations system offline until 2027
In Senate estimates, the Department of Workplace Education and Employment has said the Targeted Compliance Framework, the IT system that runs Australia’s controversial mutual obligations regime, will be offline until 2027.
The automated IT system was illegally cancelling people’s payments.
The new department secretary, Simon Duggan, said:
By early 2027, we expect that all remaining provisions of the TCF will resume operation, namely section 42 AF relating to persistent mutual obligation failures, cancellations under section 42 AG relating to work refusal failures, and section 42 AH relating to unemployment failures while receiving a participation payment.
This timeframe reflects the greater complexity of returning these elements to lawful administration, including the need for more substantive changes to IT systems, procedures and training for human decision makers.
In the meantime, people in the employment services system are still required to meet their broader mutual obligation requirements, including attending appointments with their providers, undertaking skill-building activities, attending job interviews and accepting any offers of a suitable job as set out in their job plan.
There will be more on this during Senate estimates hearings tomorrow.
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Fair Work Commission to decide on minimum wage increase
The Fair Work Commission will make its decision on how much to raise the minimum wage and award wages at 10am this morning.
The decision will impact around 3 million Australians, and take effect from July.
This morning, the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said workers deserve a “decent real increase”, but the government won’t specify exactly what that should be (the same approach they’ve taken in previous years).
The trade unions are calling for a 6% increase, while business groups are calling for a 3.9% bump.
But the peak small business body has called for a temporary wage freeze, with increases to come only in December. One Nation’s Pauline Hanson has suggested there should be no increase at all this year.
The Reserve Bank expects headline inflation to hit 4.8% by the end of June and underlying inflation to hit 3.8%.
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Husic welcomes sanctions over settler violence in the West Bank
Labor MP Ed Husic has welcomed the federal government’s latest round sanctions on three Israeli individuals and four entities in response to escalating settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Husic last week called for more action against Israel, including new sanctions.
The violence we have witnessed in the Occupied Palestinian Territories has been allowed to go on too long and it’s critical the international community take a stand against it.
As someone who as urged our government to take tougher measures against this – and the Netanyahu government’s failure to observe international humanitarian law – I welcome today’s announcement as an important step … [there is] more to be done.
The foreign minister, Penny Wong, said the organisations would face targeted financial sanctions while the individuals will be the subject of travel bans to Australia.
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Greens accuse billionaires of buying increasing political influence
Greens leader Larissa Waters is unsurprisingly unhappy with Oxfam’s analysis of rich listers showing the wealth of Australia’s billionaires increased by $25.67bn in the past year.
That’s equivalent to almost $50,000 a minute.
But she says they’re “using it to buy more political influence”, and that the major parties won’t do anything to stop them.
Billionaires have their fingerprints all over Australian politicians. The major parties aren’t interested in fixing anything, they won’t bite the hand that feeds them.
And One Nation? They’re not here to change the system, they serve the same billionaires and vested interests.
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Australian population surpasses 28 million
Australia’s population has just ticked over 28 million, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. We surpassed the milestone just before 6am this morning, and right now that count has just hit 28,000,159.
What’s that based on?
The ABS calculates based on the estimated population at 1 July 2025 and then adds on the following.
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One birth every 2 minutes and 16 seconds.
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One death every 3 minutes and 33 seconds.
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One person arriving to live in Australia every 59 seconds.
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One Australian resident leaving to live overseas every 2 minutes and 35 seconds.
It adds up to a total population increase of one person every 1 minutes and 15 seconds.
You can see the population clock from the bureau here.
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Victorian government introduces tougher IVF regulation
The Victorian health minister, Harriet Shing, says the IVF industry will face greater scrutiny under new laws being introduced to parliament today.
Speaking to reporters outside parliament, Shing says the legislation today to overhaul assisted reproductive technology (ART) safeguards, including greater powers to cancel an IVF clinics registration or for their premises to be inspected and documents seized.
It follows a national review into the sector last year after the Monash IVF embryo mix up scandal.
This is something which states worked with Victoria as we initiated the review to ensure we could get that collaborative effort. We know that across Australia … people who are wanting to welcome a baby into their lives, deserve onerous and rigorous standards to be applied to IVF providers. We also know that there are a number of private providers that work across different jurisdictions, so it’s really important that there is legislation that is consistent around Australia to enable people to get the confidence they need.
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Liberal party considering legal position over proposed donation laws
The Victorian shadow attorney general, Liberal MP James Newbury, says his party is considering its legal position over the government’s proposed donation laws.
As we reported late last week, the Labor government will introduce legislation to parliament this week to cap donations at $10,000 and increase administrative funding for exisiting MPs after the high court struck down the state’s donation laws in April.
The government – which must rely on either the cross-bench or the Coalition to pass legislation – conceded it would have to do away with so-called “nominated entities”, which effectively allowed the major parties access to legacy funds.
The nominated entity clause prompted the high court challenge.
Newbury told reporters without nominated entities the “established money in the political system is banned, except from the unions to the Labor party, the proposed laws are rigged”.
Newbury said:
Last night, at 11pm the government provided a final draft of the bill that’s being introduced. We have very, very deep concerns about what the government is proposing, our concerns are that the proposed laws have more constitutional flaws than the previous laws. We are considering our legal position.
He added that he was also concerned the increased administrative funding would be challenged by the high court:
If you take into account the increase in public funding versus where the donation caps are, there in my view are serious concerns about protecting incumbency, and when you read the high court’s judgment they spoke quite specifically not only to nominated entities but barriers to entry effectively, and when you increase public funding strongly for incumbents, but keep caps on donations low, you are actually entrenching that advantage. So both points, I think, are worth raising with the premier, both that, but also the fact that the only big money they’re allowing is union money.
Chalmers defends government’s housing record following secret RBA note
Jim Chalmers has defended the government’s housing targets, following reporting in Nine Newspapers of an internal memo from the Reserve Bank labelling Labor’s first three years of housing policy “relatively modest”.
The documents obtained by Nine Newspapers were prepared for members ahead of an RBA board meeting in May last year.
The treasurer, who spoke to reporters in the press gallery corridor between interviews this morning, said substantial steps had been taken since the note was written.
In our first term, we’re playing catch up on housing, because our predecessors had neglected housing for the best part of a decade. So, we’ve got this primary focus on supply. You can’t build 1.2 million homes overnight, it takes time …
So I’ve seen those stories, but we have taken very substantial additional steps since then.
Hanson’s attendance ‘up to Pauline’, says Farley
One Nation representative, David Farley, says it’s up to Pauline Hanson on when and how she attends parliament, skirting questions about her track record on RN Breakfast earlier this morning
Farley, who won the Farrer byelection in May, will be sworn into Parliament this morning.
Asked whether he commit to attending all sessions of Parliament, Farley says “that’s my objective, unless something calls me with a greater urgency outside of it”.
I’m not exactly sure if, you know, besides reading the press on the weekend, Pauline’s attendance record and understanding it. But it’s up to Pauline to see where she’s more effective. And I’ll leave that to that question for Pauline.
Just last week Hanson posted a photograph on social media (while estimates was on) of herself and mining magnate Clive Palmer enjoying a lunch in Queensland for her birthday.
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Hanson ‘can’t even be bothered showing up to do her job’: Paterson
The shadow defence minister, James Paterson, has taken a jab at Pauline Hanson’s attendance in parliament, and says it reflects badly on her.
Reporting in The Australian yesterday found Hanson had skipped 88% of Senate estimates hearings. There’s “no more important forum” than estimates for an opposition or crossbencher, Paterson says.
Asked whether people at home flocking towards One Nation would care about her attendance, Paterson said, “they may or they may not, but I still think it’s important because senators are paid very well by taxpayers to do our job”:
If 88% of the time Senator Hanson can’t even be bothered showing up to do her job, to advocate for her constituents, I think that reflects badly on her commitment to her job.
Paterson agrees with Chalmers that the biggest driver of One Nation’s popularity is the economy. But he also says the public are “animated” by cultural issues.
I think the biggest driver is the economy. I think it’s the loss of living standards that Australians have suffered in the post-pandemic era, which has meant they’re very disillusioned with the direction of their country and they are looking for alternatives. But they are also animated by cultural issues. They are animated by the flag, anthem and Anzac Day. They’re also very concerned about immigration.
I think it’s in Australia’s interest that mainstream politics resolves those problems, solves them in a way that minor parties have no interest in actually solving them. They just want to mine them for political grievance.
That last line sounds pretty similar to what Chalmers was just saying about the Coalition and One Nation.
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‘Real risk of capability gap emerging’: Paterson
The shadow defence minister, James Paterson, is next in the RN Breakfast hot seat, and voices concern over yesterday’s announcement that Australia will receive three used Virginia-class submarines from the United States under the Aukus agreement.
Paterson says that the boats have a lifespan of around 33 years and we would be receiving them when they are already a decade old, which could open up some capability gaps in the future.
It means they need to be replaced sooner by other submarines. And that’s the SSN Aukus program, which is the Australian program to build nuclear submarines with the United Kingdom. If that doesn’t happen on plan and on schedule, and these are megaprojects that have high risks, then you have a real risk of a capability gap emerging.
Paterson says that in the government’s “optimal pathway” plan, Australia was to receive one new Virginia class submarine, and two secondhand ones.
Host Sally Sara asks if it’s worth taking the three secondhand subs to maintain a good relationship with the US, but Paterson says, “not in my view, no”.
I think the most important thing about this program is securing Australia’s national interest, about being able to defend our values, about how to defend our country ultimately and we shouldn’t swap that for praise from a foreign government. We should do what we believe is in our national interest.
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Treasurer says shift towards One Nation economic in nature
Chalmers says the voter shift towards One Nation is being driven by the economy, which he says the government doesn’t dismiss.
But he adds that Labor wants to address it, whereas the opposition and One Nation want to use it for political point scoring.
One Nation’s primary vote has been quickly catching up to Labor and one poll in the Financial Review on Sunday showed the minor party had overtaken the government.
Chalmers says:
People do have legitimate concerns about how the war in the Middle East is playing out and the hefty price that we are paying for it in inflation here at home. And so we don’t dismiss for one second or disregard for one moment the very legitimate concern that people have about where they fit in our economy and in our society.
The difference between us and the three-ring circus on the right of politics is that they want to benefit politically from this sense of dislocation, whereas we want to address it.
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Chalmers prepared to take the ‘political hit’ for CGT changes
Jim Chalmers has said from the beginning that he understands his budget is contentious, but new polling from Redbridge shows that the measures haven’t been a hit with the young people it’s supposed to help either.
Polling shows that 51% of millennial voters believe the budget would be bad for them personally.
Chalmers tells RN Breakfast again that he didn’t expect to be popular, particularly in a difficult economic time. The government’s also left itself plenty of room before the next election when the polls actually count.
Chalmers says:
I would rather get the policy right and take a political hit for that than to take a much easier decision politically, which is to leave everything exactly as it is.
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‘Our job here is not to target a particular price outcome’: Chalmers
Jim Chalmers says auction clearance rates were already slowing before the budget, as prices across capital cities face a fall of up to 10%.
Speaking to RN Breakfast, Chalmers reiterates that the Treasury department predicts house prices will continue to increase, but more slowly, and says first home buyers should be getting a fair chance at auctions.
Host, Sally Sara asks if it’s a good thing if prices go backwards. Chalmers says:
Our job here is not to target a particular price outcome. Our job here is to make sure that there are more affordable options for first home buyers to get a toehold in what has been historically a really difficult market …
The tax changes aren’t the only factor here. The last few decisions from the independent Reserve Bank are playing a role, the softer economic conditions are playing a role as well.
Asked whether he’s concerned that first home buyers using the 5% deposit scheme could end up with negative equity in their first few years of ownership, Chalmers says “no”, because housing is a medium term, or long term investment, not a short term one.
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Government places new sanctions in response to settler violence in the West Bank
The foreign minister, Penny Wong, has announced new sanctions by the commonwealth over three Israeli individuals and four entities in response to “escalating settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank”.
The entities will receive targeted financial sanctions while the individuals will receive travel bans to Australia.
Wong says the new sanctions have been coordinated with New Zealand and other nations.
In a statement, Wong’s said:
For the first time, designated entities now include farming outposts that serve as hubs for settler violence.
Settler violence is used to displace Palestinians and perpetuate the settlement enterprise, through destruction of property, displacement of families, beatings, sexual assault, and torture, resulting in serious injuries and deaths.
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‘A beat up’: Chalmers refutes having godlike powers over CGT details
Jim Chalmers, heading over to the Today Show studios, is challenged over the government’s power to add details on the capital gains tax changes, after the first tranche of legislation was introduced last week.
The treasurer said that more details, after the government finishes its consultation with the start up and business industry, will be added to subsequent legislation.
Asked by host Sarah Abo if he’s given himself “godlike powers” to make changes to that legislation, Chalmers says, “of course not”.
This is another beat up. It’s not unusual in tax legislation for the definitions to be settled in what’s called legislative instruments.
Updated
Chalmers says minimum wage workers deserve a ‘decent real increase’
Jim Chalmers starts on the ABC’s News Breakfast and says that workers deserve a “real” wage rise ahead of the Fair Work Commission’s decision on the next minimum wage increase. A real wage rise means a rise above the rate of inflation.
But the government won’t – and previously hasn’t – specified a number. The treasurer says that’s for “good reason”, but that Labor has “made our views clear on this occasion, as we have on other occasions”.
Workers on the minimum wage and on awards need and deserve a decent real increase today.
We’ve made that very clear [that] higher wages and lower taxes are the best way to help working people with the cost of living by making sure that people are earning more and keeping more of what they earn.
The increase will come into effect on 1 July. The Australian Council of Trade Unions has been pushing for a 6% wage rise.
Updated
Good morning, Krishani Dhanji here with you, thanks to Martin Farrer for getting us started.
Ahead of today’s minimum wage announcement, the treasurer is doing the media rounds, making his way through the press gallery. The government is still on the budget sell, after some mixed reviews (to say the least) about the capital gains tax changes.
And there will be plenty on in estimates – we’ll be keeping a close eye on that.
Let’s get stuck in!
Greens to question US use of Australian naval base
Speaking of Aukus, Australian Associated Press reports that defence officials will be scrutinised today over how the US is designating a key Australian naval base for the Aukus pact.
The Greens are expected to use Senate estimates today to press officials and the Albanese government about HMAS Stirling in Western Australia being classed as a US shore installation.
A US government procurement site has since April referred to the base as “Naval Support Activity Stirling”.
Bases located in the US and across the world are referred to as being used as part of “naval support activity”. What that actually means is unknown.
The Greens’ defence spokesperson, David Shoebridge, will also grill officials about how taxpayers will pay for infrastructure, in addition to an announcement Australia will no longer buy new nuclear-powered submarines from the US.
Updated
Peter Garrett is going to head an independent, community-funded inquiry into the Aukus submarine pact.
He’s told the ABC this morning he wants to “give Australians the opportunity to ask the questions that haven’t been answered up to now about this extraordinary deal”.
He says:
This was the most significant, and by far the most costly decision made in secret by an Australian government, tying us to two other sovereign governments, and taking out an extraordinary amount of taxpayers’ money on a proposition which has got a lot of distinct and very difficult complexities and potential problems lying up ahead.
Read our full story here:
Australia's ebola screening measures sufficient and border closures not needed: health department
Australia is screening overseas arrivals for Ebola and does not need to close its borders as the disease’s outbreak worsens in central Africa, the health department says
Canada has suspended immigration procedures for those travelling from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and South Sudan and required anyone arriving from countries with Ebola cases to quarantine for three weeks. The US has also issued limits.
Australia has not brought in such measures. A spokesperson for the Department of Health said on Monday:
Australia has strong border health measures to screen for people who may be symptomatic with very serious communicable diseases like Ebola disease.
We do not need to close Australia’s borders to safely manage the current risk, which remains low for Australia.
We are aware of measures taken by some other countries, and we decide on the measures most appropriate for Australia based on Australia’s circumstances.
The spokesperson said the government had put up signs at Australian airports for arrivals from DRC or Uganda, with a QR code that provides information on symptoms and what to do if they develop. They said:
Anyone who has signs or symptoms on arrival will be identified by the existing screening measures.
The department and the Australian Centre for Disease Control are monitoring the global situation and will work with border agencies to implement additional measures if the assessed risk changes.
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Minimum wage increase to be announced today
The Fair Work Commission will this morning hand down its decision on how far to raise minimum and award wages from July.
Business groups have called for increases of up to 3.9%. The peak small business body has called for a temporary wage freeze, with increases to come only in December.
One Nation’s Pauline Hanson has suggested there should be no increase at all this year.
The Albanese government has called for a “sustainable real wage increase”. It has declined to specify how big the increase should be, or even what inflation measure or what period of time it wants the Commission to consider.
The Reserve Bank expects headline inflation to hit 4.8% by the end of June and underlying inflation to hit 3.8%.
Trade unions are calling for a 6% increase for 3 million of Australia’s lowest paid workers, arguing pay should rise faster than inflation.
It is not clear where the wage panel is leaning, though one of its members has implied a 6% increase would stoke inflation.
The decision will be announced from 10am.
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One Nation ‘not our enemy but an opponent’, Liberal senator says
James Paterson, the shadow defence minister, says that One Nation’s “increased prominence” should bring “increased scrutiny”, brushing off suggestions from new party president Tony Abbott that the Liberals should not fight with parties to their political right.
Paterson told the ABC on Monday night:
One Nation are not our enemy but they are a political opponent, they are trying to take votes and seats off the Liberal party.
Their increased prominence in the polls brings increased legitimate scrutiny on their performance, on their policies, on their candidates, on their conduct.
Paterson went on to quote a story from The Australian that reported One Nation’s leader, Pauline Hanson, missed 88% of Senate estimates hearings in the past decade.
When asked directly by comments from Abbott that suggested the Liberals should not fight with One Nation, Paterson responded:
It’s up to the parliamentary party to chart our own course, and I’m very clear about our role in this.
It’s not really his role as party president, it’s an organisational role, his role is to rally the troops, to raise money, to get the campaign organisations fighting fit, I’m very pleased he’s put his hand up for that role, he’ll be outstanding in it.
Updated
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live politics blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it will be Krishani Dhanji with the main action.
James Paterson, the shadow defence minister, has told 7.30 that One Nation’s increased prominence should bring increased scrutiny. He says the party is not the Coalition’s enemy but “an opponent”. More coming up.
The Fair Work Commission will this morning hand down its decision on how far to raise minimum and award wages from July. More details up soon.
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