Night time political summary
I will allow senator Macdonald to continue on in the senate and in the interests of sanity, proceed to the night time summary.
- We had the dire forecasts of the intergenerational report, which indicated Australia’s gross debt could rise as high as $2.8tn in 40 years unless the parliament agreed to a series of yet-to-be-legislated budget measures. The report has already been used to frame the coming budget, with a bit of a throwback to the last budget. There is very little in there on the economic impacts of climate change. But hey, climate change could be good or could be bad.
- Scientists say notwithstanding the messages in the IGR on the need for innovation, the government has caused a funding crisis in research by tying $150m in grant funding to contentious higher education changes.
- Cadbury has passed up a controversial $16m pre-election grant from Tony Abbott on the grounds it cannot build its $66m visitor centre which was to create more jobs in Tasmania.
Thanks for your company all week and thanks to the bureau, Mike Bowers for his pictures and Daniel Hurst, Shalailah Medhora and Lenore Taylor. They are irreplaceable for providing both reportage and caffeine.
Good night.
Senator Ian Macdonald is up in the senate again, saying he is still proud to say he has not read the Forgotten Children report by the Human Rights Commission.
These children have been anything but forgotten by the Abbott government.
We don’t need a 300 page report to tell us that. We know that. That’s why the Abbott government has taken all of the children out of immigration detention in Australia. So it tells us all about that and how bad it is. We don’t need that. It’s irrelevant.
Um. I’ll leave it there.
Queensland LNP senator Matthew Canavan says the PUP motion on coal seam gas - reported earlier - is:
a communist solution to a communist situation.
He says he does not agree with the PUP motion but he agrees with the issue of more compensation to landowners effected by CSG.
Canavan is talking about the importance of water - as a public good - and how much environmental oversight Australia has.
He seems to have forgotten his government is trying to remove one layer of environmental oversight in the name of red tape reduction and devolve environmental powers back to the states. The amendment to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation has passed the house and has been blocked by senate.
National senator John Williams told the senate earlier in the debate that the Nationals had done the work on stopping the Shenhua coal mine application to allow the independent expert scientific committee to examine the application under the water trigger.
Who has now brought it to a stop? The member for New England Barnaby Joyce, the minister for agriculture took environment minister Greg Hunt up there, thank goodness the $150m scientific money is available. I give credit to the former member for New England Tony Windsor...
Greg Hunt referred the Shenhua application to the expert scientific committee last week.
Senator Bridget McKenzie is quoting the Victorian Nationals policy calling for a farmers veto on coal seam gas (which is causing a bunfight between the Victorian Liberals and Nationals.)
McKenzie is saying its a state issue and take the issue to state governments. Even though she supports the Victorian National policy on CSG.
Too often ... we have emotive responses not driven by hard science.
Updated
The senate is debating a notice of motion on coal seam gas by Palmer United Party senators Glenn Lazarus and Dio Wang.
The motion:
- acknowledges that the possible impact on human health and our water resources from coal seam gas (CSG) mining is not well understood; and
- calls on the government to: (i) act with caution and stop approving CSG projects until such time as CSG mining is considered completely safe by scientists and qualified professionals, and (ii) establish a royal commission into the human impact of CSG mining.
Greens senator Larissa Waters has spoken in favour.
National senators John Williams and Bridget McKenzie have spoken against.
One more from Ricky Muir, on his childhood. He spent two years in kindergarten, because as he said, he turned out to be anti-social.
When I was about 11 years old, my father had a bad motorcycle accident, breaking every rib front and back, breaking his collar bone and destroying ligaments in one of his ankles, my mother had a bad back that needed surgery, work was scarce and we struggled. I watched as other kids at school went on holidays with their families, wore brand name clothing, attended concerts that I would have died to attend and got to enjoy some of life’s simple luxuries that were simply out of reach for us.
And more, with a strong message to treasurer Joe Hockey who said the copayment was only worth a beer:
I don’t have a long political past to speak about. I cannot speak about a time where I was a staffer for another senator or member or speak of time spent in university whilst completing a Bachelor of Political Science. I don’t have a long seeded history with a traditional Party with deep seeded policy positions with rehearsed catch phrases to sell.
And I don’t mind.
I have a long history of living at the receiving end of legislative changes, of feeling the squeeze of new, or higher taxes, feeling the pressure and even losing sleep when you realise that the general cost of living just went up a tiny $20 dollars a week. To everyone sitting in this chamber, if you think $20 a week is nothing, or just a pack of cigarettes and or a few beers, you have never lived in the real world.
Updated
Ricky Muir on the Mike Willesee interview.
Since winning my seat I have been offered a wealth of advice, say this, do this, don’t do that and so on, but the most important thing I have learnt, and indeed have also had encouragement to do so, is to just simply be myself. Sure, I came up pretty bad in a debut interview with Mike Willesee, but I was never going to let that bring me down.
It became a point of reference for me to look back to at later stages of my life. I knew they had the footage, and I presumed they would use it, so I would like to pass on a thank you to Mike Willesee because he contributed to teaching me a valuable lesson and that really was just to be myself.
Is the system broken? Ricky Muir says no
Ricky Muir rejected the idea that the political system is broken. You people in the major parties are just doing it wrong.
Since being elected there has been plenty of commentary of how the voting system is broken and un-democratic which in my eyes completely misses the point. For my cross bench colleagues and I to be elected, people had to be voting for parties other than the major parties, and they did. A huge 24% in the senate. In my view, if you want a simple explanation of how this could occur, all the major parties need to take a long, hard look in the mirror.
I can tell you now, the system is not broken, and does not need to be fixed. Your disconnect from the average Australian, the way you treat the voters of Australia by saying one thing, but doing another is, in my view, why voters are looking for alternatives.
Then there has been statements thrown around such as the senate is dysfunctional and unworkable. Yet, when speaking to many around these halls, it seems pretty much business as usual. Perhaps people are getting the senate and the Government confused.
Notwithstanding his criticism of the majors, Ricky got a bit of love from Labor.
Good first speech @Ricky_Muir.
— Tim Watts (@TimWattsMP) March 5, 2015
Ricky Muir:
I, like so many other Australian’s, am fed up with big political campaigns where on the lead up to an election we are told “There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead” or “there’s no way that a GST will ever be part of our policy”, or perhaps in more modern times be told that there is a mandate to repeal the carbon tax, only to find out after the election that this so called mandate also includes “fixing the budget” by hurting the disadvantaged in a barrage of measures that were mute in the election campaign.
There will be no changes to education, health or the renewable energy sector, and then before you know it, BAM, we are faced with the biggest changes to our university sector since 1989 when HECS was introduced, reform that will completely change our Medicare system and could damage primary health care, potentially leading to negative health outcomes. Not to mention the complete uncertainty in the renewable sector which is affecting investment and stopping projects from beginning; projects which will create employment. This is just the tip of the iceberg and to add insult to injury, this was done with little to no consultation. That doesn’t sound like democracy to me.
And what justification is there for this? It usually sounds something like this, “we had to make the hard decisions because of the mess that was left behind because of those opposite”. Is this fair on the Australian public who voted under the impression that a Government would honour its word? I can answer that, and the simple answer is no.
Ricky Muir:
As a voter I never agreed to be restricted to a two party system and hear many others say the same.
I was continuously unsatisfied with what appeared to be our only options at the time of an election were between two parties that were so ideologically different that middle ground was nowhere to be seen.
I was unsatisfied that our elected representatives were bound by pre-conceived party positions which in turn goes against the very definition of “representative democracy” as the voices of the people that they were supposed to represent seem to somewhat fall on deaf ears.
If every person sitting in this room voted to represent their state, after taking on their constituent’s views, like I believe the senate was originally designed to achieve in 1901 when federation formed, and if all senators voted with their conscience, only then will we see the true representative democracy that Australia could be proud of.
And that is why I stood up to be heard.
Ricky Muir has described a difficult childhood, where his father was injured and the family could often not afford basic things that the other children at school had.
He does not believe parliament should be full of people from the “political class” and (somewhat proudly) cannot claim a background as a politician elsewhere, or a political staffer.
He meanders through democracy, the car industry, his kids and family and his suit. There is a lot of self-deprecating humour, a reference to Mike Willesee’s shocking interview, where he stumbled through his understanding of the balance of power.
But overall, it is a decent speech, delivered with much greater confidence than those earlier days. He came across as everyman and his plea was for people to understand life for the average “working class family”.
I will give you some excerpts shortly.
Australian Motoring Enthusiasts party senator Ricky Muir is giving his first speech. He is documenting his life in a very interesting earthy speech. More in a minute.
Working for the next generation
Scary Joe.
Open the camera!
Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm has given a speech opposing constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in parliament today.
Here is the key points of his speech:
The first statement is as follows:
The Parliament, on behalf of the people of Australia, recognises that the continent and the islands now known as Australia were first occupied by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
This is conjecture. Archaeologists make extraordinary discoveries all the time, and one of those discoveries could be that someone made it to Australia before the Aborigines. Statements like this belong in scholarly research, not legislation. Ever since the Enlightenment we have accepted that questions of fact are resolved by evidence, not by decree. You can’t legislate a fact.
The second statement is as follows:
The Parliament, on behalf of the people of Australia, acknowledges the continuing relationship of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with their traditional lands and waters.
This is stereotyping. It is likely that some Aboriginal people do nothave a relationship with traditional lands and waters. What is the Parliament doing to these people when it asserts that Aboriginal peoples have such a relationship? It is denying their Aboriginality.
The third statement is as follows:
The Parliament, on behalf of the people of Australia, acknowledges and respects the continuing cultures, languages and heritage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
This is divisive. It is likely that some Australians do not respect the cultures, languages or heritage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. What is the Parliament doing to these people when it asserts that the people of Australia respect Aboriginal cultures? It is casting them as ‘un-Australian’.
Discuss.
Clive Palmer is upset at the ‘Liberal Party publication’ that is the IGR that has “ignored the government’s own data and continued to push lies told to the electorate by the prime minister.
Question time is over red rover.
Tony Burke announces Labor frontbencher Kate Ellis is off on parental leave from today and Speaker wishes her well.
Next up - a Labor matter of public importance on the politicisation of the intergenerational report.
Tony Abbott is asked about northern Australia, which he describes as our “next frontier”.
After running through spending commitments, Abbott confirms the white paper on northern Australia will be out by mid year.
I want to confirm that by mid year the Northern Australia White Paper will be out. The focus is on building priority roads, developing water resources, attracting more investment and reducing red tape.
Agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce is going through the recent rise in some commodity prices as well as exports and the prices of goats. To Labor, “I know you would be interested in goats”.
Joyce is happy because the government is delivering.
We are delivering on drought...
It must be Thursday.
Sussan Ley, health minister, is asked about direct billing by Catherine King.
Speaker Bishop has to quell a rowdy house, particularly Mark Dreyfus, who is one of her favourites (not).
Ley cracks a few jokes about King not knowing about direct billing as Labor’s health spokesman.
The health minister describes Labor as a “policy free zone” on health, which is not such a good idea given Ley held a press conference this week to say the Medicare copayment policy had been dumped. But there was no alternative. As yet.
Malcolm Turnbull is asked about the government’s communication network for the future. He begins a dissertation on the intergenerational report and that through “every page, cries out for innovation, for science, for technology, for productivity”.
Because the reality is if we are to win the opportunities that the future offers us, if we are to seize the future in the optimistic way the Treasurer has described, as the government described, then we need to be able to embrace the future, we need to be able to embrace volatility. Volatility has to be our friend not our enemy. The future is not something we proof ourselves against. It is something we embrace.
Madam speaker 94A's Wayne Swan @gabriellechan @GuardianAus #politicslive http://t.co/HMuCaQI5t3 pic.twitter.com/oKj19kyGTr
— Mike Bowers (@mpbowers) March 5, 2015
Just on climate change, check out Lenore Taylor’s story on how it was handled in the IGR. A taste:
Five years ago the 2010 intergenerational report declared that “climate change is the largest and most significant challenge to Australia’s environment. If climate change is not addressed, the consequences for the economy, water availability and Australia’s unique environment will be severe.”
But the 2015 report has struck a markedly different tone.
Under the headline “climate change”, it records the government’s emissions reduction target and the $2.55bn emissions reduction fund that it states “will” meet this goal and “avoid achieving such reduction simply by driving domestic production offshore – a process which would cost Australian jobs for no decrease in global emissions”.
Scott Morrison, social services minister, gets a question on the IGR and the future of workforce participation.
ScoMo is talking about the government being a “glass half full” type of operation.
There are developed countries all around the world who are going through the issue of an ageing of the population and we can either see that as a glass half full or a glass half empty and on this side of the house, we see that as a glass half full...because we can see that those Australians who have driven our economy as consumers and as workers over their lifetime from birth all the way through to now will continue. We want the super consumers, the baby boomers, to continue to be the super consumers of the future, to drive their economy and drive the opportunities that we can realise.
Labor asks Abbott: Will the PM’s new-found passion for sensible conversations about facts and Australians living longer, why did the government freeze superannuation increases for 11m Australians costing billions of dollars in forgone retirement income and extra aged pension expenditure?
Abbott says because the super increase was linked to the mining tax, which we promised to dump.
Chris Bowen asks Joe Hockey: Why is the government claiming that the intergenerational report is independent when it’s actually one last desperate attempt to sell your unfair budget?
There is a whole lot of argy bargy going on, with Joe Hockey baiting Wayne Swan, Chris Bowen and Mark Dreyfus.
How’s that surplus going Member for Lilley (Swan)?
Which is possibly not the the best point for Hockey to make, when pre-election promises have shifted massively. As did Swan’s.
When Hockey said Labor’s IGR was a political document, Swan yelled: “that’s a lie”.
Madame Speaker asked him to withdraw and Swan refused.
He was thrown out of the chamber.
Labor’s Jenny Macklin asks Tony Abbott about the cuts to pension indexation.
I refer to page 69 of the intergenerational report which assumes that pension indexation will switch from CPI to the higher average weekly earnings in 2028/29. From that year, pensions would be higher than under the Prime Minister’s CPI adjustments. Will the Prime Minister now admit that pensioners will be worse off for 12 years because of his cuts to pension indexation? He can’t say no. There’s a graph in the book!
Tony Abbott says pensions will continue to go up twice a year.
This idea, Madam Speaker, that somehow there are cuts to pensions is simply false. Never ever will any pension go down.
Of course the point is that the indexation has been cut, so they continue to go up but at a slower rate.
A government question to Julie Bishop on the government’s economic diplomacy record. She is going through the Chinese, Korean and Japanese free trade agreements and how they tick the boxes on the requirements outlined in the IGR.
Labor to Abbott: Is the prime minister’s only plan for the future to make Australians work longer and to cut their pensions?
I certainly want Australians to achieve their economic potential. That’s what I want.
Pat Conroy, MP for Charlton, has been chided for making disparaging remarks about older Australians. Speaker Bishop feigns outrage and Conroy denies the remarks but withdraws “to assist the house”.
Madame speaker appears to be a good mood today.
A government question to Warren Truss, deputy PM and infrastructure guy. It’s on how much the government is investing in infrastructure, most particularly the $3bn provided for western Sydney.
*NSW election* alert.
Greens Adam Bandt followed up with another question on climate change in the IGR.
Abbott says he is “taking strong and effective action on climate change”.
By 2020, we will have delivered a 12% reduction - a 12% emissions reduction on 2005 levels and on a per capita basis we will have delivered a 30% reduction in emissions on 2005 levels, says the PM.
I know the term “previous government” was not included in that answer as much as it was in the IGR report.
Tony Abbott is asked by Labor about the IGR acknowledgement that “over the past 40 years climate change has caused the south of Australia to become hotter, drier and more vulnerable to fire. Why, then, does the report include absolutely no information about climate change over the next 40 years? Is this just another example of the prime minister’s refusal to accept the science of climate change?”
Rise above politics, says Abbott.
I do hope that the opposition may be able to lift themselves from a spirit of partisanship, lift themselves from the kind of politicking which too often disfigures debate in this parliament and try to look fairly and squarely at the issues facing the country.
Climate change via intergenerational report
I have just looked up the relevant page and here is what it says:
Governments must continue to plan for the potential ceconomic and environmental effects of climate change. Some economic effects may be beneficial - where regions become warmer or wetter this may allow for increased agricultural output - while others may be harmful.
Facts are facts. Climate change may be beneficial.
Labor asks:
I refer to page 42 of the government’s intergenerational report. Can the Prime Minister confirm that the government believes that climate change may be beneficial?
Tony Abbott:
I’m happy to say to the leader of the opposition that climate change is real. Humanity makes a difference and it’s very important for government to put in place strong and effective policies to deal with it.
Just the facts ma’m.
The intergenerational report, it’s been prepared by the experts in the Treasury. The intergenerational report, it just has facts and the facts aren’t Labor, the facts aren’t Liberal, the facts aren’t National, the facts aren’t Green. Facts are facts and what we must do as a nation is deal with the facts of the problems.
First government question on the intergenerational report. Here is the point of the report, via the prime minister.
The good news that the intergenerational report shows is that the structural reforms already proposed by this government and passed by this parliament have halved the deficit that was left to us by the former government.
In his statement, Bill Shorten addresses a common view.
Some people have said to me, “But it’s drugs. People know the law of the land they travel into and really that’s all that you can expect in this matter.” What I would say is that - and this parliament, I genuinely believe, supports - the death penalty will solve nothing. The execution of these two young men will solve nothing.
Tony Abbott:
As someone who wants nothing but good for Indonesia, as a government, as a parliament that wants nothing but good for Indonesia, we are speaking as one united voice publicly and privately in every way we can. Pull back from this brink. Pull back from this brink. Don’t just realise what is in your own best interests but realise what is in your own best values.
Tony Abbott:
This question of these impending executions, it touches our values. We are a decent and humane people who stand up for good wherever we can ask we certainly stand up for our citizens wherever we can.
I want the best for Indonesia, says Abbott, but how can it possibly help Indonesia to go ahead with these executions - some 60 foreigners.
Bill Shorten asks Tony Abbott to update the house on Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.
Abbott thanks Shorten for the bipartisan gesture and agrees Shorten should also speak.
We are all Australians first and members of political parties second.
Meanwhile, actor Billy Zane is standing in front of Blue Poles and gives our nation’s capital a big plug.
Infront of @JacksonPollack1 Blue Poles at the NGA in Canberra Australia. Great collection. Stunning futurist city. pic.twitter.com/gLbM38QSIi
— Billy Zane (@BillyZane) March 4, 2015
The conveyor belt is moving us onwards to question time at 2pm. #justsaying
ACTU: we knew about demographic challenges, now IGR will be used for austerity.
Ged Kearney, of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, says the government will use the IGR to push austerity style politics.
We’ve known for a long time is we will have demographic challenges in this country, but the government will use this as an excuse to make further cuts and subject Australians to, I guess, an austerity style of economic politics which hasn’t worked around the world.
What we do know is we need to increase productivity, we into he had toincrease women and young people’s participation in the workforce.
Acoss: IGR silent on poverty caused by government's last budget
Cassandra Goldie of the Australian Council of Social Services says some of the IGR numbers are useful but there are huge gaps.
Useful stuff = we are living longer, issues of spending in health and retirement.
Gap = what happens if we follow the government’s policies that create greater poverty.
The big gap is why have we not got the analysis about into the future, particularly on proposed policies from this government on the last federal budget, if we kept down that path.
What would be the rate of increasing poverty in Australia? What would be the rise of inequality? We have no picture of that. We know from our numbers that if we stayed on the path that the government proposed last year, we would see a serious rise in the level of poverty into Australia and a serious guide of those doing well into the future and those being seriously left behind, and we question to theTreasurer. Why have we not got that analysis in the IGR?
Don’t use it as a “blunt tool” to scare people into backing more hardline policies.
And - fix the hole in the budget caused by superannuation.
Seniors Australia: the challenge is around employment for fifty-plus
Chief executive Michael O’Neill, at National Seniors Australia, says the challenge is around productivity, particularly employment issues for people in their fifties.
It has been all too easy for commentators and others to predict the end of the world because of ageing .The economy and the outlook for the economy is actually quite positive in this report. Significantly, we’re seeing increased participation rates amongst older Australians continuing to grow. We’re rating against other OECD countries very positively in that regard.
Here’s the big BUT:
If you lose your job at 55, you will be out of work on average for 72 weeks, and with that 72 weeks you may well not get another job. That’s the kind of participation we need to deal with much more effectively than we do at the moment.
Labor’s Anthony Albanese has called on Tony Abbott to “go back to the drawing board” on a jobs plan for Tasmania now that the $16m Cadbury cash boost is expected to be ditched.
After more than 500 days of dithering and delays by Mr Abbott over Cadbury, nothing has happened.
In that time domestic tourism has plummeted, with overnight trips down 6% in the year ending September 2014 and spending down 7%.
Last year it emerged that Cadbury had provided no business case for the grant prior to the money being allocated by the Abbott government in the 2014-15 budget.
The Greens are going to move to change the charter of budget honesty to ensure the parliamentary budget office does future intergenerational reports rather than directed by treasurer.
So that we get a decent document and make sure that into the future it will be the parliamentary budget office that writes it and not the partisan politics of evidence-free zones that seem to dominate the Liberal party.
Greens leader Christine Milne says the IGR should be the “death knell” of this government.
This is a junk document and should be tossed away. Just no credibility. These people are running a policy-free zone. It’s just all ideology politics, rubbish, junk, no science, no evidence, no taking global warming seriously. It really is – it should be the death knell of this government.
Updated
Christine Milne says the IGR is:
Politics, spin, and utter rubbish, because it ignores the greatest threat to our environment and our economy and that is global warming.
Updated
Chris Bowen is speaking now. He is making the point about the political nature of the document.
Well the previous shadow treasurer said of the 2010 intergenerational report, that it contained more hot air than the Hindenberg. What he was saying is he was predicting his own intergenerational report five years later.
Bowen says the government is stuck in opposition mode and has broken a promise to get to 1% of GDP in 2028-29.
Of course Tony Abbott promised at his election campaign launch that we’d reach that situation within a decade. The government has broken yet another promise. And of course the government’s going out of their way to talk about previous policy mentioned 45 times in this document. But even as they do so, even as they engage in this political game, they do it in a way which is dishonest and incompetent.
The previous policy that this document refers to is not the policy of the previous Labor government. The previous policy in this document is from the mid-year economic forecast (Myefo) which the treasurer himself brought down, including $14bn of extra spending, including $9bn to the Reserve Bank, the doubling of the deficit.
Updated
Not talkin’ ‘bout our generation.
Point one.
Updated
Joe Hockey says if all his budget savings were passed, Australians could expect to have tax returned by the government addressing bracket creep.
Q: Would you say to Australians out there working now that if all your budget agenda was passed that you could return bracket creep to them and they could get that tax break?
Yes, of course, of course. I mean that’s self-evident.
Hockey is asked, given he is pushing innovation, isn’t it a bit silly to have a fight in the Senate over research, outlined by Brian Schmidt earlier today?
Hockey says we need the higher education reforms and does not address the government’s decision to link research and higher ed.
Also, if you are so committed to structural reforms, will you take them to the next election? In short, Hockey says we need it – but doesn’t say whether he will take anything to the next election.
I don’t think any political party, if it’s being fair dinkum with the Australian people could pretend that the status quo is acceptable. You can’t be nostalgic for 20-year-old public policy. The public policy of free education or free healthcare for everyone. That was 20 years ago.
Updated
Joe Hockey is asked if his government – or a future one – will have to look at the tax treatment of superannuation.
Hockey says he does not want to look at policies of future government but does not say address the superannuation issue – the elephant in the room. He merely says the demographic trend is marching on.
Updated
Joe Hockey mentions in passing that state governments did not want to be a part of the intergenerational report. For their own reasons. That’s their business.
The purpose of the report: a national conversation, says Joe Hockey
The treasurer wants a national conversation to “lay down a road map for the future”.
So the purpose of this IGR in this shape is to begin a conversation with the Australian people. Every town hall, every street corner, over every barbecue, we want Australians to embrace the future. It’s a great future. Our nation has a fantastic future but we’ve got to own it. We need to individually own our destiny and this is a conversation that we know the nation wants to have so we are going to work with the Australian people to develop the policies ahead that are going to make a difference to their quality of life.
Word of the day: disintermediating. Joe Hockey on what government can do to help:
So how can the government help? Well we need to enable consumers. Consumers are on the march, consumers are changing the world through the use of technology. They are disintermediating every day life and government and regulation, and consumers need to be empowered. They need to be sovereign. We’ve got to facilitate change rather than restrict change and that is a problem facing governments everywhere in the world.
Updated
Budget predictions are hard enough to make over the four-year budget cycle but...
Daniel Hurst reports:
The report also sets out some dramatic long-term budget predictions based on various scenarios. Before we delve into them it is worth pointing out that recent experience shows budget predictions are hard enough to make over the four-year budget cycle. This report deals with a 40-year outlook and includes a disclaimer that “all projections are inherently uncertain, particularly over long-time frames”.
The projections in this report are very unlikely to unfold over the next 40 years exactly as outlined … The projections are not intended to be a prediction of the future as it will actually be, rather they are designed to capture some of the fundamental trends that will influence economic and budgetary outcomes should policies remain similar to current settings.
Now, with that word of warning out of the way, here are the long-run budget scenarios:
• The “previous policy” scenario, which assumes the policy settings that were in place before Joe Hockey’s first budget last year. Under this scenario, the underlying cash deficit might reach 11.7% of gross domestic product in 2054-55, or $533 billion in today’s dollars. Net debt over the same period might rise to 122% of GDP, or about $5.6 trillion in today’s dollars. Gross debt might rise to 125% of GDP, or $5.7 billion in today’s dollars.
• The “currently legislated” scenario, which takes into account Coalition budget measures that have already passed the Senate. Under this scenario, the underlying cash deficit is projected to be 6% of GDP in 2054-55, or $267 billion in today’s dollars. Net debt in 2054-55 would be 60% of GDP, or about $2.6 trillion in today’s dollars. Gross debt in that year would be 61.8% of GDP or $2.8 trillion in today’s dollars.
•The “proposed policy” scenario, which assumes the implementation of all of the budget measures that were Coalition policy as of the December 2014 mid-year economic and fiscal outlook. Under this scenario, the budget would be in surplus from 2019-20. Net debt would decline from 15.2% of GDP now to zero in the early 2030s. Gross debt would peak at 26.1% of GDP in 2016-17 before declining, but the government would continue to maintain debt of about 13% from the late 2020s.
Updated
Joe Hockey is doing show-and-tell on the intergenerational report right now.
Lenore Taylor analysis: IGR not very scary.
Excerpts from Lenore.
Sorry, Joe but I’m still on my chair. This intergenerational report is not very scary.
It shows our living standards, our wealth, will continue to rise over the next 40 years – faster for the next 30 and then a little more slowly. (Growth in gross national income per person is projected to be 0.8% in 2015 and then increase to 1.3% by 2025, 1.5% by 2035 and then fall off to 1.3% again in 2055.)
It shows the population is ageing, which is a big challenge, but that more women and over 65s will be in the workforce, which is a good thing. (By 2055, 70% of women are projected to be in the workforce.) There are 4.5 people aged between 15 and 64 now for every person aged over 65. By 2055 there will be 2.7. But given that by then everyone will be expected to work at least until they are 70, this may not be the most relevant comparison.
And it shows that in some important areas government spending is already being constrained.
And on climate change, no probs.
As for climate change – which could have a significant effect on Australia’s economic wellbeing over the next 40 years because of its effects and the costs of doing something about it – the document mentions the “Direct Action” policy in passing, but says this is not really its focus because “government spending on the environment is not directly linked with demographic factors”.
That’s a pretty big change from the last report – in 2010 – which said “climate change is the largest and most significant challenge to Australia’s environment. If climate change is not addressed, the consequences for the economy, water availability and Australia’s unique environment will be severe.
Updated
Intergenerational report 2015 – key points
Journalists have just been released from the two-hour “lock-up” and we can now reveal details of the 2015 Intergenerational Report (including parts that were not leaked to media in advance).
Daniel Hurst reports on some of the key predictions from the report:
- The ageing of the population will continue. In 2054-55, one in 1,000 Australians will be aged over 100, compared with one in 10,000 people in 1975.
- Life expectancy will improve. In 2054-55, life expectancy at birth is projected to be 95.1 years for men and 96.6 years for women, compared today’s figures of 91.5 years for men and 93.6 years for women.
- The number of people aged 15 to 64 for every person aged 65 and over will continue to decline. This figure has already fallen from 7.3 in 1975 to 4.5 today and is expected to be 2.7 in 2054-55.
- Australia’s total population is tipped to grow at 1.3% per year, slightly below the average growth rate of the past 40 years. Such a trend would result in the Australian population increasing from 23.9 million today to 39.7 million in 2054-55.
- The participation rate for people aged over 15 years will fall from 64.6% now to 62.4% in 2054-55.
- Female employment will continue to increase. The proportion of women aged 15 to 64 with a job has risen from 46% in 1974-75 to 66% now and is projected to rise to about 70% in 2054-55.
- Australia’s economic growth will be slower than long-term trends. Average annual growth of real gross domestic product is projected to be 2.8% over the next 40 years, down from 3.1% over the past 40 years.
- Based on assumptions in the report, the average annual Australian income could increase from $66,400 now to $117,300 in 2054-55.
Just in case you could not remember, this was the original announcement by Tony Abbott of the pure Cadbury glass-and-a-half milky goodness prior to the 2013 election.
A Coalition government will contribute $16m towards a $66m upgrade of the Cadbury Chocolate factory in Claremont to boost innovation, support growth in local manufacturing jobs and expand tourism.
This commitment will re-establish Cadbury’s Hobart plant as a tourist destination that will generate economic and social benefits for Hobart and Tasmania. It will also support the construction of a new visitor centre to accommodate large tour groups and enhance tourist experiences.
Today’s announcement is all about my top three priorities for Tasmania – jobs, jobs and jobs.
It will support manufacturing, foster innovation and boost tourism in Tasmania.
It was going to do a lot for Tassie.
The Coalition’s commitment will:
- create a unique visitor tour offering a chocolate manufacturing experience (suspended in 2008), restoring a famous tourist attraction for Tasmania and the local economy;
- help create 200 new direct jobs and 120 indirect jobs by 2017;
- help secure 600 existing direct jobs and 340 existing indirect jobs;
- be the first step toward producing a 100 per cent Australian-made chocolate bar;
- help cause fresh milk supply to increase 83 million litres to 120 million litres, meaning an extra 6,000 cattle in the local dairy industry;
- boost the existing $550 million contribution of the operation to the Tasmanian economy;
- increase chocolate production to 70,000 tonnes a year, representing a 30 per cent increase and generating a $1 billion contribution to the economy; and
- provide a trial to grow cocoa in the Ord River, opening up major new agricultural opportunities and growth in that area.
Not sure what happens to all those jobs and all that milk.
Thanks to one of our dear readers, Amy Feldtmann for the link.
Coming in minutes, a precise snapshot of the intergenerational from Daniel Hurst, with analysis from Lenore Taylor.
Cadbury appears to have taken its bat home. It didn’t want to build the much vaunted tourist facility anyway. This from ABC reporter:
A media release is expected from @CadburyAU soon, to say that it didn't want to chip in its $50mill to build the visitor centre #politas
— Annah Fromberg (@AnnahFromberg) March 5, 2015
Recognise.
Recognise, the organisation committed to constitutional recognition for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, was in the house today with a pledge signed by 117 health organisations. They are supporting constitutional recognition as a way of improving health and well being, closing the gap on disadvantage and inequality.
The magic hand of Archie Roach.
Let me return briefly to the MH370.
Tony Abbott detailed some of the statistics around the efforts that went into the search of MH360.
- In the first few weeks, 28 search aircraft from Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea and the United States completed 345 sorties into the southern Indian Ocean.
- Ships from Australia, China, Malaysia, the United Kingdom and the United States also joined the search.
- As the search from the air and on the surface reached its conclusion, Australia began the largest underwater search ever carried out in an area that had never been mapped before.
- To add to the difficulty, the search zone is in the roaring 40s, one of the world’s roughest stretches of ocean.
- Area covered = more than 26,800 square km = 40% of the priority search area.
There is a build-up to the intergenerational report. The former disability commissioner, who remains irreplaceable because the government will not replace him, has wondered aloud whether people with a disability will get a look-in.
When the inter generational report comes out, will people with disability be the forgotten generation.
— Graeme Innes (@Graemeinnes) March 5, 2015
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In response on MH370, Bill Shorten is quoting the poet Shelley – Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats
Winter is come and gone
but grief returns with the revolving year.
Families are sitting in the chamber. More shortly.
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In case you are into your patrol boats, here is the guts of the Kevin Andrews’ announcement.
Today, the government announces the Request for Tender (RFT) for the replacement – Australian-made – Pacific Patrol Boats under the Pacific Maritime Security Program, Project SEA3036 Phase 1.
This project represents a significant investment in Australian defence industry with the Australian-made patrol boats worth $594m in addition to through life sustainment and personnel costs estimated at $1.38bn over 30 years.
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Just to remind you, my colleagues Lenore Taylor and Daniel Hurst are beavering away in the intergenerational report lock-up and are due out at midday.
Liberal senator Simon Birmingham is speaking about the government’s efforts on fishing for the Ludwig amendment, which tries to add more scientific assessments of fishing boats to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity amendment (EPBC).
Tony Abbott is moving a motion to mark the loss of MH370 in the lower house. That was the Malaysian Airlines plane that disappeared last year.
Every family has a story of loss ... you remain in our thoughts and prayers ... we are taking every reasonable step to bring your painful search to an end.
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Kevin Andrews is asked about Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.
He is not going to “prejudge what we do in the future”.
Defence minister Kevin Andrews announces patrol boat tender
Kevin Andrews says it’s a “week of decision and delivery for defence”.
The nub is 21 steel-hulled replacement patrol boats for Pacific neighbours.
The key – after the submarine debacle – is that the boats will be built in Australia.
They will be offered to Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Tonga, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Samoa, Vanuatu, the federated States of Micronesia, Palau, Cook Islands, Timor-Leste.
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Following on from Brian Schmidt’s comments, top researchers/scientists have written to Tony Abbott to urge his intervention.
Part of their letter reads:
Over 35,000 Australian and international researchers use NCRIS facilities, and the 27 national facilities employ over 1,700 highly skilled scientists, and support and management staff. The facilities underpin much of Australia’s $30bn annual spend on science, research and development at an operational cost of just $150m per annum (0.5% of total, and 1.6% of the Australian government science funding).
As with any major public infrastructure, the NCRIS facilities depend on secure funding to enable forward planning and efficient operation. However, with continued uncertainty over the 2015-16 operational funding included in the last budget, many of the NCRIS facilities are preparing to close.
It is signed by heavy hitters:
- Dr Ross Smith, President, Science and Technology Australia
- Ms Belinda Robinson, Chief Executive, Universities Australia
- Professor Doug Hilton, President, Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes (AAMRI)
- Dr John Beaton, Executive Director, Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia
- Professor Andrew Holmes, President, Australian Academy of Science
- Ms Robyn Porter, President, Professional Scientists Australia
- Dr Phoebe Phillips, President, Australian Society for Medical Research
- Dr Margaret Hartley, Chief Executive, Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering
- Dr Caroline Perkins, Executive Director, Regional Universities Network
- Elizabeth Foley, CEO and managing Director, Research Australia
- Mr Conor King, Executive Director, Innovative Research Universities
- Professor John Fitzgerald FAHA, President, Australian Academy of the Humanities
- Ms Vicki Thomson, Chief Executive, The Group of Eight
- Dr Tony Peacock, Chief Executive, Cooperative Research Centres Association
- Ms Renee Hindmarsh, Executive Director, Australian Technology Network
Brian Schmidt is speaking right now in parliament.
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Tony Abbott's $16m Cadbury cash handout may be withdrawn
It would appear another captain’s call is biting the dust.
@TonyAbbottMHR $16m election cash to Cadbury to be withdrawn, claims Tas ALP Opposition.Premier @WillHodgman says announcment today. #auspol
— Andrew Darby (@looksouth) March 4, 2015
Supertrawler debate in the Senate
Remember the fishing supertrawlers?
Labor’s Jo Ludwig has introduced a private bill which would toughen the processes around fishing approvals. The Senate is debating right now.
The former agriculture minister characterised it thus:
This bill will restore tough powers to the environment minister to act where new types of fishing operations seek to work in Australia and where uncertainty exists about their conduct. It provides for a scientific process to occur for up to two years, providing for an expert panel to consider the impacts of the new venture if it is declared. This will provide the community, recreational fishers and business alike with the certainty for these declared activities to operate in Australian waters. This legislation focuses on addressing uncertainty related to so-called ‘super trawler’ fishing vessels.
Coalition ministers are reminding Ludwig he was responsible for the live cattle export ban. Suffice to say, the government will not support. We are checking on the crossbenchers.
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Like I said, dawn was lovely.
Beautiful morning on a sombre day in Canberra. pic.twitter.com/ouyfLTASAE
— Anthony Byrne (@AnthonyByrne_MP) March 4, 2015
Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt: "This is not the way a grown up country behaves".
Brian Schmidt spoke about the $150m research program, launched by Julie Bishop in 2006, which has achieved great kudos and was to have a long term strategy to guarantee funding.
To suddenly put at risk the bridge between the past and the future such that all of that investment, $2bn over the last decade is suddenly put at risk, seems to be unconscionable.
Schmidt said a lot of the research facilities “cannot trade in solvent”. Schmidt’s said his own organisation, which he chairs, has to go through the process of starting to lay off staff. That will happen over the next few weeks.
Ultimately, this is not the way a grown up country behaves. It’s very childish and it’s having a profound impact on something that is going to increase the productivity of the nation. We are looking at the intergenerational report today, it’s talking about a key aspect – productivity of the future – this is a way you are going to get productivity and in the next couple of weeks we are looking at dropping our productivity of the future. Not raising it.
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Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt critical of funding impasse
Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt has described the potential science funding cuts as a “hit to research like I have never seen in the 20 years I have been in Australia”. He spoke to Ali Carabine on the ABC.
It really is the foundations of the research we do across the country, across all disciplines so it will have an enormous effect and it is something we cannot let happen.
Schmidt made the point that obviously the funding does not need to be tied to the higher education reforms, given $150m that the program is worth is small “in the scheme of things”.
That is the choice that the minister has made. This is money that every country on planet Earth spends and to suddenly think that we are not going to spend it I think is not wishful thinking on the part of the minister, it’s hazardous thinking.
Schmidt says the work that he is doing with other countries is being jeopardised and he finds it embarrassing to explain to foreign colleagues that Australia may not be able to take part due to funding.
Already it is becoming embarrassing ... they shrug their shoulders and don’t believe it’s true.
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On the game of chicken between Christopher Pyne and the Senate, here is part of the education minister’s statement.
This was an integral part of the higher education reform package announced in the 2014 budget. The funds for NCRIS only exist because of savings elsewhere in the higher education package. As I have made clear on many occasions over many months, if the higher education reforms don’t pass, funds do not exist for NCRIS. The jobs of 1,700 people will be at risk. Australian research will suffer. The way for Labor to support NCRIS, which they themselves defunded, is to support the higher education reforms. Labor needs to stop playing politics and enter negotiations with the government because it will be on the heads of Labor, the Greens and the crossbenchers if it closes.
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The intergenerational report is coming up. For a short, sharp analysis, check out Lenore Taylor’s piece on the report, which will make the case for long-term savings just as it and its leader may have lost political capital to carry it out.
The new treasury secretary (John Fraser), the previous treasury secretary (Martin Parkinson) and the treasury secretary before that (Ken Henry) have all made the case for structural changes to the budget – reductions in recurrent spending and changes to taxation, and – successive treasurers have agreed with them.
Successive oppositions have opposed even modest changes. The Coalition, in opposition, described Labor’s plan to freeze the threshold at which family benefits stopped being paid at $150,000 as “class warfare”. In government it proposed to reduce the same threshold to $100,000 in order to “end the age of entitlement” and deal with a “debt and deficit crisis”. Labor, as the government repeatedly reminds us, has voted against savings it had itself proposed in government.
Here, from Mike Bowers, a “pic fac” of the beating heart of the IGR.
And here, the infrastructure required to sustain the pic fac.
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Christopher Pyne is playing chicken with the Senate. Standing on the road are 1,700 scientists and researchers, glaring into the high beam. Their funding has been put into the contentious higher education reform bill, which Labor, the Greens and the crossbenchers do not want to pass. By hitching the measures together, Pyne is urging scientists to put the thumbscrews on the crossbenchers.
My colleague Michael Safi has a story, the top of which is:
More than two dozen research facilities are preparing to shut down as administrators warn Australian science is suffering “immense” damage as a result of the federal government’s refusal to guarantee critical infrastructure funding.
About $150m in funding for 27 research infrastructure facilities promised in last year’s federal budget has been tied to the Abbott government’s higher-education changes, which have stalled in the Senate.
The facilities have no guaranteed funding past 30 June and up to 1,700 jobs are at risk if they are forced to shut down.
Among the sites funded by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Scheme (NCRIS) is the Australian Microscopy and Microanalysis Research Facility, where scientists invented the Nanopatch, a needle-free vaccine delivery patch that could dramatically slow the spread of viruses during a pandemic.
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Good morning,
Under a beautiful dawn sky in the parliamentary forecourt, 40 or so parliamentarians and 60 plus staff and members of the public held candles to show their support for Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, who spent last night on the execution island of Nusakambangan.
It was organised by a bipartisan group of parliamentarians against the death penalty, led by Liberal MP Philip Ruddock and Labor MP Chris Hayes.
Foreign minister Julie Bishop revealed she has spoken to her counterpart Retno Marsudi to propose a prisoner swap, trading Sukumaran and Chan for Indonesian prisoners held in Australia. Bishop said it could involve a memorandum of understanding given the presidential decree for no pardons.
Marsudi committed to take the proposal to president Joko Widodo and Bishop has not heard back. She will contact Marsudi again today.
Tony Abbott has also put in a request to speak with Widodo. After the vigil, the prime minister said:
It would ennoble Indonesia if they were to extend mercy to these men, as the foreign minister has been pointing out, these men have become crime fighters and they are assets to Indonesia ... And when you have an asset you don’t destroy it.
Bishop again made the point that there are still legal proceedings continuing and that “it would be unthinkable” to go ahead with the executions at this stage. There are allegations of bribery around the first trial that are being considered by an Indonesian judicial commission.
I understand that that commission is seeking a statement from Mr Sukumaran and Mr Chan. Obviously they will have to be able to provide that statement if that commission is to have a credible hearing.
Sadly, Bishop says she has not seen any “changes of heart” and could not comprehend the show of force of Indonesian police to move the pair yesterday.
I just cannot comprehend it. They are two men described by their own prison governor as model citizens, two gentle men who pose no risk to anyone. So I cannot comprehend the manner or method of their transfer to the so-called execution island.
Bishop said she was deeply concerned over the impact of the executions not only on the Australian Indonesian relationship but at Indonesia’s reputation worldwide.
I am deeply concerned about the impact of these executions not just on the Australian relationship with Indonesia but on Indonesia’s reputation worldwide. The movement against the death penalty is very strong. The sense of injustice of state-sponsored killings is very real and we have been sending a message to Indonesia that its international standing will be damaged if it continues to execute successive numbers of citizens, particularly those who have rehabilitated in their prison system and as I have said on countless occasions, Indonesia has a story of which it can be proud. Prisoners havebeen rehabilitated in their system, that is the kind of model outcome that countriesa round the world would be proudto own.
Also on this last sitting day of the week, we have the intergenerational report coming up. There is a short lock-up of journalists to allow them to swallow and fully digest the report. I shall bring you the findings after midday. Join us below or on the Twits @gabriellechan and @mpbowers, who has produced some beautiful images of the vigil this morning.
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