So long and all power to the Estonians
I think that’s enough for this evening. We need to fold the Politics Live tent before the afternoon degenerates into silly walks. Thanks for your company. We’ll be back again tomorrow from around 8am.
Let’s consider the embarrassment of riches that was Monday in Canberra.
- The government’s tax policy remained something of a mystery. The treasurer Scott Morrison thought the government would be careful when it came to doing anything on negative gearing. Various backbenchers aren’t all that interested in careful and would prefer nothing was done with negative gearing. The prime minister continued to avoid questions about his own policy by criticising Labor’s policy, and Labor added the NBN to its mix of daily agenda items portraying the prime minister as all fizz no pop.
- The prime minister went to Fyshwick in order to declare the next election would be about who was best placed to lead the Australian economy through its current transition. He meant himself, in case the inference of the pre-campaign counterpoint was unclear. As to election timings, the prime minister thought later in the year, while noting that all constitutional options remained open. That means what it always means: I’ll go when I think I can win.
- Harsh words continued to be said about Senate voting reform but nothing much happened beyond some experts saying the government should amend the package again to ensure it wasn’t just a new system benefitting the major parties dressed up as a new system benefitting the voters.
- There was much mystery and very few facts concerning some police inquiries in the building – a development that prompted a brief journalistic sprint around the parliament late in the day and the Labor MP Graham Perrett offering the newshounds sanctuary in his parliamentary office when security moved in to clear the circus.
You can see why enough is enough now, right?
See you all again on the morrow.
Will no-one think of the Estonians?
Looking like a complete false alarm downstairs.
@PhillipCoorey mate, I think they are with the Estonia Foreign Minister @MarinaKaljurand . I was just meeting with her, chatting innovation
— Wyatt Roy MP (@Wyatt_MP) February 29, 2016
Currently my office is offering sanctuary to the press gallery as they pursue the AFP around Parliament House. pic.twitter.com/YCcaCDDIbW
— Graham Perrett (@GrahamPerrettMP) February 29, 2016
Update from downstairs. Of sorts.
A brilliantly comical situation: Guards banned everyone from corridors. So @GrahamPerrettMP has offered "sanctuary" to a dozen journos.
— Mark Di Stefano (@MarkDiStef) February 29, 2016
We are all hearing the same intelligence, evidently. A press pack has assembled outside the office of Liberal MP Stuart Robert. No police are visible in that corridor. The sergeant’s office, I gather, is attempting move them on.
I stress there are no facts at this point. When there are facts, I’ll share them.
Folks are reporting to us that police are in the building. We’ll check this thoroughly before reporting what we’ve been told.
Hmmm, yes
The prime minister said on Sunday he’d had a long chat over the weekend with John Howard. Howard will be on Malcolm Turnbull’s mind this week because March 2 is the 20th anniversary of the election of the Howard government. Love him, loathe him, feel indifferent about him, John Howard managed to govern for more than a decade – which feels like a beacon of stability in modern political times. Turnbull will want to channel that Howardesque feeling of command and stability as he approaches the election season proper, but on his own terms.
Pure speculation on my part, but the prime minister looks like someone who’s had a big think over this past weekend. After verging quite unsuccessfully into Abbott negativity territory last week, Turnbull is back today to those exciting times. He’s building a second element to his story now, and that’s the threat Labor poses to the exciting times. To cut to the chase here, Turnbull is experimenting with how he can be more negative when his natural reflex as a political character is sunny side up. He’s not a soarer and a snarler like Paul Keating, he’s not the suburban solicitor made good that Howard crafted to perfection, with his track suited power walks, and his speaking to Neil Mitchell on the wireless every Friday morning, he’s not a brawler like Abbott – he’s his own thing.
In order to be credibly negative, his own kind of negative, Turnbull is slowing down his delivery. Labor’s deficiencies are offered up more in sorrow than in anger. It’s just natural and obvious, that he, Turnbull, the innovation man, the entrepreneur, the shape shifter, is the man for the times, the leader who can read the symptoms of the economy sufficiently to see where the traps and trip wires are. He’s trying to set up that story with a little gravitas offensive.
Consider what he said earlier today.
Let me say to you, the central issue this year, this election year, is going to be who is best able to lead Australia in this transition from the mining construction boom to the new economy?
Who is best able to ensure that we promote investment, secure jobs, encourage technology, promote innovation? Who is best able to ensure that the success of this company, CEA, will be followed by the success of many others? Who is best able to open up the markets for our exporters in every industry?
Me, me, me. Successful Malcolm. Winner picking Malcolm.
Bill .. who?
I think this is a stronger pitch than the fear and loathing nonsense last week. But his problems still remain. Until he can sort out his government’s core economic story, trying to flesh out just how you are better than your opponent is harder work. And with a campaign in sight, every attempt Turnbull makes to push forward, Labor will push back. Today Labor added the NBN to its toolbox, trying to paint a picture of a person who talks a good game but ultimately delivers very little.
Magic Mikearoo has some grand chamber shots from today. Give me a minute and I’ll be back with a short analysis of that session.
Just a quick bit of trivia for politics tragics. Centuries ago, when Tony Smith was press secretary to Peter Costello (before he became an MP and now Speaker) he was famous for furnishing the following formulation to inquisitive journalists.
Off the record.
No comment.
Not a man of loose lips, our Tony.
Turnbull has wound up question time. The shadow attorney general Mark Dreyfus wants to know what’s going on with the police.
Speaker Tony Smith tells Dreyfus he doesn’t comment on police matters. He says any queries need to be directed to the police. He says in general terms any search warrants would be executed in accordance with the rules governing privilege.
On Sky News (the network that broke the story police were on the trail of an MP), Peter Van Onselen is saying he understands the parliamentary server was accessed last week. He says he believes that was done with presiding officer cooperation.
The Member for Bowman, Andrew Laming, has a question for the minister for finance about ice. Finance? Wut? Sorry no, this question is for the justice minister, Michael Keenan.
Keenan keeps calm and carries on.
Bill Shorten is back with responsibility and the NBN. Does the prime minister accept the government’s NBN is slow, more costly than Labor’s, and late?
Turnbull repeats the ten-fold rollout figure.
The prime minister:
The approach we are taking will see [the NBN] completed sooner, at much less cost. The facts speak for themselves. The leader of the opposition can fool himself. We’re living in the real world – and the NBN is getting on with the job.
We are back to the prime minister’s failure on the NBN.
Q: Will the prime minister finally accept responsibility for the mess and the chaos he has caused?
No, he will not as it turns out. Turnbull throws the question to the minister for special projects, Paul Fletcher.
Manager of opposition business, Tony Burke, wonders how Fletcher can possibly answer that question, whether or not Turnbull takes responsibility. Surely that is a question that only Turnbull can answer?
Speaker Smith doesn’t object to Fletcher taking the question.
Fletcher answers.
We stand by [the NBN] and are proud of it.
Now we are onto the risks Labor poses for small businesses at the most exciting time in human history.
Shadow communications minister Jason Clare wants to know why the NBN is a mess. The prime minister thinks the NBN isn’t a mess. Turnbull thinks since the election the number of premises that are serviceable by the NBN has increased by ten-fold.
Labor cracks up at ten-fold.
Agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce thinks Labor is full of mad ideas.
You really do have to have a government that has its head screwed on and that’s why the Australian people will stick with the one they’ve got.
Labor leader Bill Shorten has moved onto retrospective changes and negative gearing. Shorten says he’s twice asked the prime minister to rule out making changes that would impact existing investments. The prime minister has not ruled that out, Shorten notes.
Enough about me, more about you, Bill, says Malcolm Turnbull.
What Labor is proposing is absolutely calculated to undermine our transition to the new economy.
Mr Speaker, there is a way to the future opportunities that we deserve in this, the most exciting time in human history.
Labor is standing in the way, Labor is standing in the way imposing taxes which will discourage, which will discourage the investment, the entrepreneurship, the technology, the innovation that Australians need to succeed in these times.
Malcolm Turnbull, continuing on Labor being the problem:
What Labor says is we are going to increase the tax on new investments by 50% just when the nation needs investment.
They are standing in the way of our success.
Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen is back with the excesses in negative gearing. You’ve flagged them prime minister. What are they?
The prime minister for his part would like to lay out coolly and clearly the challenges facing Australia.
Bowen would like the prime minister to answer the question.
Malcolm Turnbull:
And so we also need the best infrastructure.
Independent Cathy McGowan wants guarantees of hospital funding for Wangaratta, given there is a stoush between the Commonwealth and the Victorian government. Health minister Sussan Ley delivers a tongue lashing about the Victorian government fiddling the national health agreement.
Now a Dorothy Dixer about last week’s defence white paper for the foreign minister, Julie Bishop. (Defence minister Marise Payne is in the other chamber.)
Shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, to Malcolm Turnbull.
Q: The treasurer has expressed willingness to address excesses in negative gearing. Prime minister, what are the excesses in negative gearing?
Turnbull waves that one to Scott Morrison, who says he’s delighted to have the opportunity to critique Labor’s policy. Labor’s capital gains policy is one big fat tax on investment, Morrison says. A punishing tax on investment. On negative gearing, the treasurer doesn’t think it’s excessive that police or nurses claim rental losses.
They [Labor] think the mum and dad investors of this country are the problem. On this side of the house we know they’re the answer.
The Dorothy Dixers today are, broadly, the risks Labor poses to Australia during this time of economic transition. The Labor questions are why does the prime minister hate the treasurer and why does he say contradictory things on tax reform?
Malcolm Turnbull:
I thank the member for Sydney for her question. And I note that she is a diligent reader of The Australian Financial Review. What a pity she hasn’t been a diligent reader of her own government’s tax policy.
(Brief pause.)
Her own alternative government tax policy, I should say.
(Oopsie.)
This reminds me of prank calls my brother used to make after school when we were kids. He’d ring someone and ask them, “hey, do you live on White Street?” The person would reply “yes” (given he’d checked in the phone book the person lived in White Street). He’d then yell: “Well you’d better get off cos there’s a car coming.” This was hilarious when were in primary school.
Question time
Ho, ho, here we go. Labor’s Bill Shorten opens today on tax. It’s a question about contracting out the tax policy to his departmental head, Martin Parkinson, bypassing the treasurer.
Q: So when the prime minister of Australia doesn’t trust the treasurer of Australia to do his day job, doesn’t this prove his government has no economic plan and his economic team has no clue?
Malcolm Turnbull, who is elaborating on the pitch he unveiled in Fyshwick this morning:
The road to the new economy is an exciting one. But we have to make sure we take the right decisions to stay on track.
And Labor won’t ensure we stay on the road to the new economy with their negative gearing policy and the capital gains tax policy and their opposition to the building and construction commission, the prime minister contends.
There is a road to the new economy, Mr Speaker. Labor stands in the way.
One issue I’ve not had time to cover yet: a cross party group has given notice that they will bring forward a co-sponsored bill overturning the two decades old private member’s bill by the Liberal MP Kevin Andrews that banned the Northern Territory and ACT from legalising euthanasia. The cross party bill will go the Senate tomorrow. It’s being advanced by Greens and Labor MPs. Not sure whether there are any government MPs involved but will check, time permitting.
Latest from AFP on its parliamentary investigation pic.twitter.com/oCwGtgHX9H
— Andrew Greene (@AndrewBGreene) February 29, 2016
Bit more non-specific intelligence on police.
.@AFPhq confirms "it has been conducting inquiries with the Department of Parliamentary Services in relation to an ongoing investigation"
— Stephen Dziedzic (@stephendziedzic) February 29, 2016
I confess I took a brief break to look at Oscars frocks. Sorry. I could have lied to you but I make a point of never doing that. Looks like Fury Road is bagging a number of the smaller Oscars. Question time coming up. Concentrating now. Full throttle.
Not a side eye in sight.
Updated
I know nothing about police. Nothing.
Updated
Then a question on election timing. Which got a prime ministerial answer ruling nothing in or out.
Q: Sounds like a very sharp election pitch there. The question about the ABCC, you said it’s vital to Australia. The question is, is it so vital that if it’s not passed by the Senate you’ll dissolve both Houses of Parliament and go to the election?
(The issue of the Australian Building and Construction Commission was raised in a earlier question. If the Senate fails to pass that bill, it will be a potential double-dissolution trigger.)
Malcolm Turnbull:
I understand the perennial fascination with election dates. I’m urging the senators to pass the legislation naturally and I just say to you that while all constitutional options remain open, my expectation is, and my assumption is that the election will be held in the normal way at the normal time, which is August, September, October this year.
Updated
The ABC is now running some of Malcolm Turnbull’s press conference from earlier today. We didn’t get vision of this earlier because of the Pell testimony in Rome.
The prime minister told reporters he made no apology for taking his time with tax policy. Then he launched his first re-election pitch (to my ear anyway, as in a campaign-style pitch).
Tax first.
I think the Labor party’s latest tax announcement is a good reminder of the dangers of making policy on the run and setting out changes to, for example, tax without full and proper consideration and analysis. We make no apology for taking the economic security of Australians seriously. We make no apology for considering tax and changes to the tax system very carefully and analysing it carefully and we are doing that.
We’re undertaking that work and when it is concluded we will then present the policy to the public for their approval.
Now the election pitch.
Let me say to you, the central issue this year, this election year, is going to be who is best able to lead Australia in this transition from the mining construction boom to the new economy?
Who is best able to ensure that we promote investment, secure jobs, encourage technology, promote innovation? Who is best able to ensure that the success of this company, CEA, will be followed by the success of many others? Who is best able to open up the markets for our exporters in every industry?
Updated
Here is the AFP statement.
Statement from AFP on reported office raid. #auspol pic.twitter.com/XmGCi9ZOfm
— David Sharaz (@DavidSharaz) February 29, 2016
The innovation minister, Christopher Pyne, has told Sky he has no information about the AFP’s activities. He also thinks, if the government holds an election in July, that would not constitute an early election.
Updated
Sky is now quoting from an AFP statement (which we haven’t seen yet), which says the police have not executed a search warrant on any member of parliament. That formulation doesn’t rule out police obtaining material cooperatively with an MP. As developments come to hand, I’ll share them.
Updated
My colleagues have ruled out a bunch of other MP’s from being the object of police interest, but I don’t see much merit in sharing who isn’t the object of police interest, unless they make a public statement, a la Brough.
We expect police to comment soonish.
Mal Brough: stand down people, it ain't me
Given that Sky hint, various parliamentarians are now ruling themselves out of being the object of police inquiries.
Mal Brough:
Rumours are circulating through Parliament House that the AFP have raided my Parliament House office. These rumours are completely false. The AFP have not sought any additional assistance in any way from me since my interview on 7 January 2016.
Politics, this lunchtime
A quick summary while I have a chance. Today, Monday.
- Government MPs remain restive about the government’s tax reform plans – or lack of them – before the government’s regular party room meeting on Tuesday.
- The government, Greens, crossbenchers and Labor remain at loggerheads about last week’s proposal to reform Senate voting procedures. Two legal experts have called on the government to revise the package (which has already been revised once.)
- The treasurer, Scott “I’m a very busy man” Morrison, has made up with the radio broadcaster Ray Hadley. Let the angels rejoice.
- The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has been looking at things offsite (generally a sure sign an election lurks just around the corner) – while two colleagues feel a double dissolution is a big real deal and not a idle tactical threat.
- And LNP backbencher George Christensen thinks it would be a good idea to ban the burning of the Australian flag, because that would make Australians more free (from the scourge of the chattering classes).
And so it goes.
Updated
Sky News is reporting AFP officers have seized material from the parliamentary office of a federal politician. Sky have not named the MP. My colleagues are making calls. When there’s something to know, you’ll know it too.
My, look at that doohickey.
Updated
Hmm, what can this be?
The prime minister is currently looking at things: specifically, high tech defence equipment.
Updated
Will not be diverted by Oscar frocks, or Oscars jokes. Will. Not.
Ok, just one.
OMG HAHAHAHA pic.twitter.com/JNclhpkHvx
— Aaron (@aarxns) February 28, 2016
It looks like the prime minister has become emotional. Sadly this teaser gives me absolutely no context for his emotion, but I can tell you this much: Turnbull has been interviewed for NITV by Guardian Australia’s indigenous editor, Stan Grant.
The interview airs tonight.
I’d say mind the conservatives Malcolm but this would be 1. Silly when there is no context for these tears, and 2. Depressing and reductionist. There’s enough of that in politics without me defaulting there with scant encouragement.
What made PM @TurnbullMalcolm cry? Watch Stan Grant's interview on #ThePointNITV 9pm pic.twitter.com/2dAxqEqJIH
— NITV (@NITV) February 28, 2016
Reasons to love Politics Live readers, part two.
.@murpharoo sham and ram might be assonance where similar vowel sounds are used to connect words
— Peter Kelley (@yellekau) February 29, 2016
#Assonance
More musings. I never understand when the freedom warriors want to ban things. Rather undercuts the freedom narrative: banning things.
I should note that Christensen’s “let’s be free by banning burning of the flag” contribution did include a shout out to Donald Trump. People like Trump rise when the majority find they’ve become a minority in their own country.
Christensen for president. You read it here, first.
Updated
Reasons to love Politics Live readers. Was sham and ram onomatopoeia, I wondered to myself (and you) an hour or so ago.
@murpharoo Just in case nobody has replied to you, onomatopoeia is words that are pronounced or constructed to mimick a noise like meow bang
— PMall (@PallMall24) February 29, 2016
In case you are interested in the substance of that Christensen bill, here’s the explanatory memorandum.
The intent of this bill is to enshrine in law protection for the Australian national flag, following recent cases of flag burning in public places. It seeks to provide this protection by making it a criminal offence to wilfully destroy or otherwise mutilate the flag in circumstances where a reasonable person would infer that the dishonouring and defiling of the flag by burning or other actions is intended publicly to express contempt or disrespect for the flag or the Australian nation.
On recent occasions the flag-burning acts were undertaken to dishonour the flag in front of Australians and many present at the time, and thousands of others who witnessed the acts via media channels, found such desecration of their foremost national symbol highly offensive. In Australia we have enormous public support for protecting the flag. It is the paramount symbol of our nation. Thousands of Australian men and women have fought and died under this flag in the defence of the nation. Their sacrifice to defend our nation requires this Parliament to defend the flag for which they have fought.
And from the statement of compatibility with human rights:
The intent of this bill is to enshrine in law protection for the Australian flag, following two recent cases of flag burning in public places by counter protestors at reclaim Australia rallies.
On both occasions it must reasonably be assumed that the acts were undertaken to dishonour the flag in front of Australians who consider such desecration of their foremost national symbol as highly offensive.
Looking to the lower House now, and private member’s business. LNP backbencher George Christensen is currently trying to protect the integrity of the Australian flag.
Chattering classes, compliant and self serving media, ill winds, cultural relativism – it’s all thundering out of Christensen’s mouth right now as he makes his tabling speech.
I believe this bill is about stopping flag burnings. But we’ve segued into the racial discrimination legislation and section 18C and convenient omissions by the human rights commission.
I think Christensen’s point here is burning flags is a racist act. Patriotic Australians of European origin have as much right to be in Australia as Aborigines and other people the MP notes.
Racism is racism, you don’t have to have brown skin in order to be offended.
So, in the double dissolution corner this Monday morning: Pyne, C and Morrison, S.
My own view is once you roll the Senate voting reform dice, you are basically locking in behind a double dissolution strategy. The alternative is the government (assuming a Turnbull victory in this case study) comes back after an election to face most of the same cross benchers who are in the chamber now, except these cross benchers now know the government has taken concrete steps to get them out of the chamber and limit future representation from micro party candidates.
Doesn’t sound very tenable to me.
To another variety of door slamming, to double dissolutions. The leader of the House, Christopher Pyne, has been on Channel 7 earlier today and gave his strongest indication yet that the government would go to a double dissolution election if the Senate doesn’t pass the government’s industrial relations legislation.
We would prefer the Senate to pass the Australian building and commission bill, for example, to clean up building and construction in Australia, which is important for productivity and growth and jobs.
If they refuse to pass the legislation it makes us very difficult not to go to the polls – how else do we do the things we are elected for? We had a mandate for change before the last election, it was our policy. The crossbenchers, Labor and Greens are blocking it. Only a couple of options left available to a government in those situations.
Updated
Stephen Conroy apparently left the meeting of the electoral matters committee when members declined to allow him to hear an answer to a question. I don’t know if he slammed the door.
Sham and ram.
This is Labor’s Sam Dastyari, sledging the Greens.
Is this onomatopoeia? Sham and ram. Someone will jog my memory.
I didn’t catch the beginning of this debate, but I gather, reading between the lines, that Labor’s Stephen Conroy has been ejected from a meeting of the joint committee on electoral matters. I’ll chase particulars when there’s a moment. Labor’s Doug Cameron is now engaging on the subject of Richard Di Natale’s glass jaw. Cameron says at this rate the Greens will go the way of the Democrats – dealing their way to disappearing.
Updated
Di Natale says Labor is objecting to a short inquiry into a proposal it has no intention of supporting anyway. The Greens leader suggests Labor is hiding behind the process rather than debating the substance.
Senate Bob Day of Family First has the call now.
This is third world stuff, wiping out independents is what they do in third world countries!
Greens leader Richard Di Natale, in response to Penny Wong.
There is something that is always in short supply in this chamber, and it’s logic.
The chambers have begun their daily duties. The finance minister and special minister of state Mathias Cormann has been telling the red chamber he wants the Senate voting reform package on for debate in the middle of this week.
There’s much finger pointing down there right now. Green Lee Rhiannon is talking about Labor’s Stephen Conroy slamming a door at a meeting of the joint standing committee on electoral matters. Now Labor’s Senate leader Penny Wong is talking about strange bedfellows in politics, and ramming legislation through the Senate.
Penny Wong:
The biggest changes [to the voting system] in thirty years with half a day’s hearing!
A statement from the shadow climate minister Mark Butler, on Lenore’s story this morning about land clearing in Queensland threatening Australia’s international emissions reduction commitments.
Mark Butler:
The Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) is the centrepiece of Direct Action, which has spent the majority of its funds in land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) emissions abatement. In 2015, two ERF auctions were held, with $1.2bn spent to purchase greenhouse gas abatement of 92 Mt CO₂e. Of this, more than half (51 Mt CO₂e) was in the LULUCF sector.
In 2013-14, emissions from tree clearing in Queensland were 36 Mt CO₂e. If clearing continues at this speed, in 18 months, tree clearing in Queensland alone will negate the entire LULUCF abatement achieved by the ERF in 2015. This government has proven to be incapable of reducing emissions and taking any meaningful action on climate change.
Trying to find anyone in the government to defend the safe schools program is hard work at the moment. Readers here last week will know the government has launched a review into the program because of concerns from conservative MPs that it preaches rainbow ideology to our innocents.
Talking to a bunch of government people yesterday in preparation for another sitting week, it was clear that the prime minister really hadn’t intended to launch a full tilt review into this program. His intention was to get the education minister to focus on the complaints and report back. Be that as it may, there’s a review on now, and government defenders of the program (which aims to prevent bullying of LGBTI kids in schools) are not exactly thick on the ground.
AAP tells me Ewen Jones, a government backbencher from Queensland, is prepared to trust teachers to implement this program sensibly. Jones told reporters in Canberra on Monday that two kids at his son’s school took their own lives. Jones said his wife and younger brother were both teachers.
What we must do is make sure we are backing our professionals.
He said the program was important because if teachers were asked questions about gender and sexuality they needed the appropriate resources to be able respond.
Communications minister Mitch Fifield, on this morning’s NBN story.
The NBN is on track to meet its targets for the financial year, within the budget set out in the company’s corporate plan. Any suggestion to the contrary is just wrong. The company has met its targets for the past six quarters in a row. This is in stark contrast to management under Labor, when the company had barely managed to connect 50,000 users after four years.
Ray has had Antony Green on. Green is the ABC election analyst. Dates and double dissolutions. Those dates are critical. May 11 is the cut off date, Ray says.
Morrison agrees that’s an accurate assessment of the situation. For added drama, the treasurer notes that when it comes to double dissolutions, it is clear the prime minister isn’t bluffing. But the treasurer notes it will be Turnbull’s call whether or not we go to a double dissolution election. What would the treasurer’s counsel be, Morrison wonders? Oh come on, mate, Morrison says. Haw haw haw.
Now we are in a segment of the interview where Ray notes that the government didn’t actually own that dairy company in Tasmania (which has been a controversial recent foreign investment transaction). Not sure anyone did think the government owned the company but let’s not digress. Ray’s a bit distracted by a golf tournament.
Scott Morrison:
I knew people would be upset about [the sale] but I have to make decisions in the interest of jobs and growth in Australia.
Ray wants to know why the GST was on the table then off the table. The GST is off the table because the bill for the compensation went up and up and up, Morrison says.
How about negative gearing, Ray wonders? He references a Daily Telegraph story this morning which has some options for capping losses, including some modelling indicating what revenue could be collected.
Morrison doesn’t sound that chuffed with the modelling.
I hope the Daily Telegraph didn’t pay too much for that advice.
Ray persists. What’s going to happen on negative gearing?
We’ve made it clear the government is continuing to consider all the options.
Morrison says government’s need to be cautious when it comes to negative gearing.
Q: So you agree with John Howard then?
I think you’ve got to be very careful. We aren’t going to rush to the crazy idea Labor has put up.
Ray opens with inquiring whether the treasurer is out of witness protection.
Scott Morrison:
G’day Ray I’m glad you missed me.
Ray would like to know where he was last Monday. Morrison says last Monday I was meeting treasury officials and there was a special meeting about Senate voting reform.
Scott Morrison:
It may comes as a surprise but I have a very busy job. I’ll continue to do this where the schedule permits.
Ray thinks Scott wasn’t very good at the National Press Club the week before last.
It was a tough week.
Good news of great joy. The treasurer Scott Morrison will rejoin Ray Hadley on the wireless this morning. Readers with me last week will know that Morrison skipped his weekly Hadley spot and Ray was sad because he had wanted to berate the treasurer for coming on his show and having nothing to say. Ray will get his chance in a few minutes. Right now on 2GB, it’s apparently Tim Flannery’s fault that Australia has desalination plants.
#YouKnowItMakesSense
Before the hoo ha about tax inevitably cranks up once politics breaks clear of the early morning cover imposed by Pell’s testimony – it might be useful for some readers to have a look at this piece Tim Colebatch has written for Inside Story about the tax debate. I very much recommend it.
Colebatch (a former Age colleague of mine and that paper’s long time economic editor, now commentator-at-large) gets into the detail of Labor’s negative gearing policy and considers its potential consequences for the housing market, as well as examining the political dynamic on the government side.
Colebatch says looking at negative gearing is necessary “because the negative gearing tax break alone is now so widespread that it costs revenue – that is, other taxpayers – between $3bn and $6bn a year, depending on the level of interest rates. In effect, other taxpayers are subsidising the beneficiaries in their aspiration to become landlords.”
Tim Colebatch:
Second, unless rental investment is used to supply new housing – which only 7 per cent is – rental housing can expand only by shrinking owner-occupied housing.
Lower- and middle-income people who want to buy their own home are outbid at the auctions, and forced to remain renters. Sydney housing economist Judith Yates told the recent House of Representatives inquiry into home ownership, under Liberal MP John Alexander, that since 1981 – which was roughly when negative gearing started to spread as a tax avoidance strategy – home ownership rates among households headed by people aged twenty-five to thirty-four have fallen from 61% to 47%.
Among those aged thirty-five to forty-four, they have plunged from 75 to 64%, and among those aged forty-five to fifty-four, from 79 to 73%.
This is a cost of the tax break that’s always ignored by its supporters.
I did hear an NBN spokesman on the radio a short while ago hosing down that Fairfax story on the delays in the rollout. I’ll chase a direct quote when I get a moment. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Cardinal Pell giving his evidence via video link.
The great thing about the Politics Live community is you have eyes, everywhere.
@murpharoo Hello! No confirmation yet that the bidding on this old badge comes primarily from certain govt offices. pic.twitter.com/L54vBVkc9S
— The Matt Hatter (@MattGlassDarkly) February 28, 2016
Speaking of cross benchers, in the parallel universe that is the #BrickParliament, Jacqui Lambie has some choice words for Nick Xenophon, while friends look on. The sounds of saxophones and clarinets can be heard trilling in the background.
The other big issue of last week, reforms to the Senate voting system, is still bubbling away in the background.
The voting reform legislation, brought forward last week, abolishes group voting tickets, the party-submitted mechanism determining how preferences flow when people vote “above the line” rather than filling in all the candidate squares “below the line”. The package would also enshrine an optional preferential system above the line. Instead of just voting 1, people would be advised to fill in at least six boxes in their order of preference. The ballots would still be valid if people just voted 1: if their preferred choice did not win, the ballot would “exhaust” and not be reallocated to others.
The government, the Greens and Nick Xenophon support the proposal. Labor has been internally divided on it, but has now resolved to oppose the legislation. The cross benchers who aren’t Nick Xenophon are ropable about the proposal, viewing it as end times for micro parties.
The legislation is being examined by a super fast inquiry by the joint committee on electoral matters. I reported yesterday a submission from constitutional law expert George Williams, who thinks the package an improvement on the status quo – but he’s highlighted problems. He thinks the package as it currently stands is still weighted towards the interests of the major parties rather than the interests of voters. “In particular, introducing optional preferential above-the-line voting, while retaining full preferential voting for below the line, creates an obvious and unfortunate disparity,” Williams says in his submission to the inquiry. “The result will be a system in which below-the-line voting is significantly more onerous, thereby privileging the party-selected voting tickets applied in the case of an above-the-line vote.”
Michelle Grattan has reported a submission from a former official of the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), Michael Maley, who, like Williams, attacks the package as internally inconsistent. “Maley says the scheme proposed will create an anomaly never previously seen at Senate elections – identical preferences for candidates may produce a formal vote if the elector expresses them “above the line”, but an informal one if they are expressed “below the line” because the ballot paper would be insufficiently completed.”
The government has already had to bring forward a bunch of technical amendments when the proposal was put through the House last week – will it have to revisit the package again?
Act in haste, repent at leisure?
Looking more closely at the leaked NBN documents, the NBN Co has managed to meet only one-third of its construction targets and less than half of its design targets for fibre to the node rollout of its ambitious national broadband network. The document shows that the fibre to the node (FTTN) roll out is “significantly delayed”. By 12 February, the organisation tasked with the telecommunications infrastructure project, NBC Co, had expected 94,200 construction completions of its FTTN network, but had only managed to complete 29,000 - or one-third - of its targets. Final designs for FTTN rollouts are also behind schedule. Of the nearly 1,403,000 target, just under 663,000 homes had had their final designs completed.
Updated
To some other interesting political stories in the news cycle this morning.
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Land clearing threatens Australia’s climate targets
My colleague Lenore Taylor reports that a land-clearing surge in Queensland is set to create additional carbon dioxide emissions in just three years that are equivalent to those the federal government claims it is avoiding by paying other farmers over $670m to stop cutting down trees, according to a new analysis. “The Queensland land clearing along with weakening land clearing laws in several other states are threatening Australia’s chances of meeting the climate change targets it pledged in Paris last year and raising questions about the coalition’s “Direct Action” climate policy,” she says.
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NBN dramas
Mark Kenny from Fairfax Media reports (via leaked internal documents) that the NBN is being plagued by delays and rising costs. “By the company’s own assessment, the giant infrastructure project has fallen two-thirds short of its benchmark construction timetable. Connection costs to each house or business are also blowing out.”
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Boilover in New England?
My colleague Gabrielle Chan has obtained a poll that suggests the former independent, Tony Windsor, could potentially beat the deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce in his seat of New England. “A Reachtel poll of 712 residents in the seat of New England conducted on 11 January found 32.2% would vote for Windsor as their first preference if he returned – compared with 39.5% for Joyce. The poll found 11.2% would vote for Labor and 4.6% would vote for the Greens with 6.2% nominating others including other independents with 5.1% undecided. The Palmer United Party attracted just 1.3%. The polling results suggest if the majority of Labor and Greens preferences flowed towards Windsor, Joyce – who has been Nationals leader for less than three weeks – could lose New England.”
West Australian Liberal, Chris Back, on the ABC.
I don’t see any reason at all to change the negative gearing processes.
Welcome to Monday
Hello delightful people and welcome to Monday in Canberra, where the sky is glowering and the humidity is rising and your live blogger is relentlessly stimulant free, just high on politics. And why not? Another parliamentary week looms full of mayhem, mystery and misadventure.
Monday morning thus far has been an orderly business. The early morning news is dominated by Cardinal George Pell and the evidence he will shortly give in Rome to the royal commission into child abuse – and by various pundits who have very strong feelings that this will be Leo’s year at the Oscars.
When we roll round to federal politics, the main theme, as it was last week, is tax, and specifically what the government will or won’t do when it comes to tax reform.
It was beginning to be known late last week, but the prime minister took steps on the weekend to make it officially known that the government would produce a tax policy in advance of the May budget. No-one I spoke to yesterday was prepared to venture a concrete timing for said policy, but Laura Tingle in the Financial Review this morning says April, which is as good a punt as any given April sits neatly between the March parliamentary sittings and the May budget.
Some necessary context to explain this decision. Readers with me last week will know the government decided to go hell for leather slamming Labor’s policy on negative gearing. But the government learned last week that it is very hard to go hell for leather on an alternative policy if: 1. You don’t have a policy yourself; and 2. You are leaving open the option of doing something yourself to wind back negative gearing concessions. Hence the judgment from the Turnbull brains trust that the tax policy release could not wait until the budget.
The other factor looming broodingly in the background is the strong possibility that the government will bring down a budget and sprint off immediately into an election campaign. A pre-budget release of the tax policy would have an added benefit: it would allow a certain amount of dust to settle when it comes to tax, it would give voters five minutes to think about the alternative proposals on offer before being herded into their nearest polling place.
In any case, various backbenchers aren’t waiting for April to make their views known. I’ve quoted two in a story I wrote yesterday: Victorian Liberal Russell Broadbent is relaxed about the prime minister looking at negative gearing, while South Australian Cory Bernardi is in ‘over my dead body’ territory. On ABC radio this morning, West Australian Chris Back is also with Bernardi as president of the ‘not on your negative gearing nelly’ chapter of the Coalition party room. The restiveness points to an interesting Coalition party room meeting on Tuesday, or perhaps an interesting meeting before. The government’s backbench economics committee meets Monday morning, and the treasurer Scott Morrison suggested over the weekend that interested parliamentarians could just show up.
Enough about me, and them. More about you. Today’s comments thread is wide open for your business. Mikearoo and I are also limbering up our hamstrings on the twits. He’s @mpbowers and I’m @murpharoo You can find us there.
Hold onto your losses folks, here comes Monday.
