Night-time politics
- Today the government raised the possibility of tax rises if the Coalition’s budget omnibus savings bill is not supported in the Senate. Reports (by Michelle Grattan) surfaced that the prime minister’s office had urged the treasurer to be cautious about tying the omnibus bill to the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The treasurer did not respond to those reports but not good to have the PM and the treasurer at odds – if that is the case. It is clear that the link to the NDIS put the Senate crossbench off the bill. So, still, the family benefit and welfare cuts from Tony Abbott’s 2014 budget hang around like a bad smell. But without enough votes in the Senate, the cuts remain unloved.
- Plans for tougher penalties for politicians who misuse their travel allowances, proposed by the independents and Greens in the lower house, were soundly rejected by the Coalition and Labor. But the majors supported reforms that have a penalty
- But Australian Conservative senator Cory Bernardi proposes to amend the bill to dump the gold pass travel entitlements to make it tougher in the Senate. He wants to restrict the pension scheme to prime ministers who have been in the job for a qualifying time. Bernardi also wants to stop previous politicians from accessing their pensions until 60. That would affect all politicians who retired prior to 2004 who are under 60 now.
- The federal director of the Liberal party, Tony Nutt, is all for a ban on foreign political donations if it includes associated entities such as Get Up.
- The Coalition continued to hammer Labor’s renewables policy, which is the existing target of 23.5% by 2020 and a “goal” of 50% by 2030.
- The government has succeeded in forcing the Senate to sit up until midnight to pass the ABCC bill, in the parliament again after Derryn Hinch changed his mind over Christmas. If the bill does not pass, the government have threatened to sit until might tomorrow. Take your medicine, children.
Thanks for your time and to my brains trust, Paul Karp, Gareth Hutchens and Katharine Murphy.
Mike Bowers take a bow.
I will leave you with Matt Hatter with a visual representation of the climate policy debate.
@gabriellechan 💃..and so the Dance of the ETS begins again, to the meh of the many & the frothing horror of the powerful, well funded few.💃 pic.twitter.com/6aOAP5HsrO
— The Matt Hatter (@MattGlassDarkly) February 15, 2017
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The Turnbull government’s senior economics team has been stealing the spotlight this week with its warnings about possible tax increases.
Maybe that’s why junior minister Michael Sukkar has decided to pick a fight with his counterpart, the shadow assistant treasurer, Andrew Leigh?
He must want some of that spotlight, too.
But he’s accusing Leigh of misunderstanding Australia’s dividend imputation system, which may not end well.
Leigh has many personal qualities, one of which is an obsessive need to understand the tax system, another of which is pedantry.
Let’s see how it ends.
Sukkar’s press release:
In an interview on Sky News Australia, Andrew Leigh said the following to justify Labor’s anti-competitive policies on tax:
What Australians have to recognise is that our corporate rate has dividend imputation. That means we take a third of the company tax revenue and we give it back. So a corporate tax rate of 30% with imputation raises as much as a rate of 20% without imputation.
This statement is plainly false.
Dividend imputation does not – in any way – alter the amount of tax paid by companies. Dividends are paid to shareholders in after tax proceeds.
Dividend imputation does not reduce the corporate tax rate.
Dividend imputation does not reduce the tax paid by corporate entities.
And for foreign companies investing in Australia – for whom Australia is competing with many lower taxing first-world economies – dividend imputation provides no benefit.
So either Andrew Leigh is hopelessly incompetent and doesn’t understand our tax system, or is deliberately misleading Australians.
Leigh’s press release [he apparently couldn’t help himself]:
In a confused media release today, assistant Treasury minister Michael Sukkar suggests that we should ignore dividend imputation when discussing Australia’s company tax rate.
Dividend imputation reduces the revenue available to government. Most of the countries that the government likes to compare Australia’s company tax rate with do not have dividend imputation.
Research by Macquarie University Professor Geoffrey Kingston estimates that dividend imputation returns about one-third of the corporate tax revenue to taxpayers.
So a corporate tax rate of 30% with imputation raises as much as a rate of 20% without imputation.
Worryingly, Mr Sukkar seems not to understand this basic fact.
This latest gaffe comes just weeks after Mr Sukkar refused to rule out making all mortgage interest payments tax deductible, which the Grattan Institute estimates would cost the budget $19bn a year.
With an economic team like this, it’s little wonder that Australia’s net debt will soon be twice as large as it was when the Abbott-Turnbull government took office in 2013.
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Senate committee on marriage equality rejects right to conscientiously object
A Senate inquiry into marriage equality has rejected creating a right to “conscientiously object” to same-sex weddings, removing one of the main impediments to legislating the social change.
The Senate committee on the government’s same-sex marriage bill exposure draft released its consensus report on Wednesday, raising hopes of cross-party cooperation to legislate it in this term of parliament.
The report recommends creating a new category of independent religious celebrants to cater for people with religious beliefs who want to be able to refuse same-sex couples, as ministers of religion are able to do.
But the committee recommended removing the ability to reject same-sex weddings on the basis of “conscientious objection”, meaning only religious belief will be able to ground the rejection.
It also recommended that anti-discrimination laws should be reviewed to better balance equality and freedom of religion.
A cross-party group of Liberal moderates, Labor, the Greens and Nick Xenophon Team intend the report to help modify the exposure draft and produce a marriage equality bill to pass the Senate and put pressure on the Liberal party room for a free vote.
The Senate committee examining the government’s same-sex marriage bill exposure draft is due to release its report after 5pm.
Guardian Australia understands the committee – which includes marriage equality opponent David Fawcett, pro-marriage equality Liberals Dean Smith and James Paterson, Labor, the Greens and Nick Xenophon Team’s Skye Kakoschke-Moore – has produced a consensus report.
The fact the committee was able to reach a consensus will raise hopes of a cross-party marriage equality bill and possibly force reconsideration of a free vote in the Liberal party room.
Smith, who has described the plebiscite policy as “dead”, and a group of moderates including Trent Zimmerman and Tim Wilson believe the government position must default to a free vote, as Tony Abbott said the 44th parliament would be the last to be bound on same-sex marriage.
Conservative figures Tony Abbott, George Christensen and Josh Frydenberg have moved to shut the call down, while others including the leader of the House, Christopher Pyne, seem open to it if and when a bill is produced.
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The other point Peter Whish-Wilson made was that Pauline Hanson voted for a tax cut – the one for those over $80,000 to address bracket creep – so she had effectively delivered a boost to Fahour’s executive salary by $315 per year.
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Pauline Hanson has won the matter of public importance around the salary of the Australia Post chief executive, Ahmed Fahour.
Due to excessive remuneration paid to the CEO and their directors, the need to remove and replace the board of Australia Post.
Hanson has spoken against the salary since the issue has been running. Here is an example:
I'm so angry to see Australia Post paid its CEO, Ahmed Fahour $5.6 million last year. I don't care what others say! THIS IS TAXPAYER MONEY! pic.twitter.com/GXHkWI852k
— Pauline Hanson (@PaulineHansonOz) February 8, 2017
The Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson, who has campaigned against excessive executive salaries, has just stood up in the debate and accused Hanson of pushing this issue because Fahour is a Muslim. He mentions a blog post on the One Nation website that stresses Fahour is “Lebanese-born”.
Pauline Hanson is doing this because Ahmed Fahour is a Muslim. A high-profile, successful Muslim.
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So as we stumble down the weed-infested path to yet another soul-destroying carbon policy debate, this week former Abbott chief of staff Peta Credlin confirms the political nature of the campaign, nothing to do with the environment.
Peta Credlin says the carbon tax wasn't about environmentalism #pmlive #auspol pic.twitter.com/H3VyXvE4yI
— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) February 14, 2017
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Chris Bowen has spoken to David Speers on Sky with a confusing interview.
But working through the details, this is what I have gleaned re renewables.
1. Labor’s existing policy on the RET is the current level – 23.5% of Australia’s electricity generation in 2020 will be from renewable sources – which is a bipartisan position.
2. Then, Labor has an objective of getting to 50% renewables by 2030 which is beyond the RET. Bowen says this “goal” – his word – is supported by a range of policy initiatives, (including an emissions trading scheme and electricity emissions trading scheme). The policy says Labor will “ensure that 50% of the nation’s electricity is sourced from renewable energy by 2030”.
Q: Objective sounds a lot softer than a RET?
Well it’s further out isn’t it than the renewable energy target? ... Independent analysis has shown it will create 28,000 jobs (net) and create billions of dollars of investment. That is the cost ... what is (Coalition) policy to meet the Paris targets? What is their cost?
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A rare Coalition ministerial turfing.
Matched by a not-so-rare Labor eviction.
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The Senate has voted to sit late to consider the ABCC bill.
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The Senate is currently voting on whether it should stay late to debate the ABCC bill until it passes.
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Labor’s shadow employment minister, Brendan O’Connor, has circulated a series of amendments to the ABCC bill, now that debate has been reopened by Derryn Hinch agreeing to trim the period of the building code phase-in period.
The amendments:
- Hold that to the extent the code is inconsistent with the Fair Work Act, the government’s procurement policy does not apply
- Exempt essential services from the code, due to reports it will cause industrial action at electricity grid companies, including in South Australia
- Allow agreements to specify the number of apprentices to be employed and to allow checks that workers can legally work in Australia
The amendments haven’t gone to the Greens party room but they are inclined to support them – but no word back from the Nick Xenophon Team on their position.
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Where’s Malcolm?
The West Australian is reporting that the prime minister has not been seen in the state for six months.
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The Liberal defector and senator Cory Bernardi has asked his first question in Senate question time since he formed the Australian Conservatives.
He asked if the Coalition would introduce real-time disclosure of commonwealth spending, prefacing the question with the observation that public debt amounts to $90,000 per Australian child.
The finance minister, Mathias Cormann, said the Coalition shared his concern about the state of the budget and noted that Bernardi was, until recently, “a valued member of the team that worked to repair the damage Labor did to the budget with $250bn of budget improvements over the medium term”.
Cormann called on Bernardi to pass the omnibus welfare bill and said he would take the suggestion of real-time disclosure of spending on notice.
His first question shows Bernardi plans to outflank the Coalition on the right in fiscal policy, taking up the Abbott line that the government hasn’t done enough to cut the deficit because it was scared off by the 2014 budget.
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Anthony Albanese to Malcolm Turnbull: The government’s punished Victorians for electing a Labor government but [is] shortchanging them on infrastructure funding ... Victoria receives 8%, despite having 25% of the nation’s population. Why is the prime minister now holding West Australians hostage by threatening to withhold $1.2bn in funding, because [the] future Labor government would not proceed with their discredited Perth freight link?
Turnbull:
The honourable member has overlooked the fact that Western Australia is a great exporting state and it needs the infrastructure to get the exports to the market and to the port.
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Labor to the transport minister, Darren Chester: Is the prime minister aware that the Perth freight link will not take freight to the ports but stops 3km short of it? Why is this discredited project a priority for the prime minister instead of expanding transport in Perth through the Metronet?
(Remember the freight link was supported by the Coalition and Metronet was supported by Labor at the last election.)
Chester does not answer the question.
The closest he gets is,
the freight link will give significant travel time savings for the community in Western Australia.
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Bowen to Morrison: Can the treasurer confirm in the last bill, he has introduced a bill with cuts to family, pensioners, carers and new mums and held the NDIS to ransom, threatened to increase taxes on all Australians, while persisting with his $50bn of company tax cuts. Does this show the treasurer is incompetent and out of touch?
The question is hard to answer and Morrison does not.
Those mock opposite, Mr Speaker, every time I raise the issue they want to spend more money on welfare and send the bill to their kids. If you want to raise spending on welfare and keep it at high levels, at least have the courage to insist that the generation that you say wants that higher welfare also pays for it, and don’t send the bill to the children of the future on their credit card.
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The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, is asked a government question about hardworking Australians etc etc.
It gives him the chance to raise the numbers of 457 temporary workers brought in under Bill Shorten as workplace relations minister. Then he combines it with foreign electricians who have experience with generators, “in hot demand in South Australia”.
Geddit? May the gods save me ...
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Bowen to Morrison: Bowen asks about the Michelle Grattan report that the treasurer was responsible for the link between the NDIS and the omnibus. Bowen asks whether Morrison was thrown under the omnibus?
Morrison does not answer the question but says Chris Bowen used to “parade himself around the board rooms”, pretending to be the reasonable face of Labor economic policy.
This is a shadow treasurer who knows better but is under the thumb of a weak and unprincipled leader of the opposition who will say anything, and do anything, and it’s a shame that he signed up to it.
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A government question to Christopher Pyne about energy. He talks about how Vili’s pies and cakes in Adelaide needs its own generator now to guarantee electricity supply. Vili’s has a fetching photo of Tony Abbott in a hairnet on its website.
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PM arrives for #QT @GuardianAus @gabriellechan #politicslive pic.twitter.com/2C6ownFyrG
— Mikearoo (@mpbowers) February 15, 2017
There is a question to Barnaby Joyce in which he riffs on Bill Shorten’s electric blue suit.
Then Plibersek asks Morrison: Today, the Financial Review reports that Labor needs to suggest alternative measures. For more than a year now, Labor has been calling for reforms to negative gearing and capital gains tax which deliver the budget more than $37bn over the medium term?
Morrison says what I was saying is, Labor needs to identify other ways that NDIS can be afforded.
(For much of question time, it is as if there is a glass wall down the middle and neither side can hear the other.)
This is the aforementioned One Nation candidate, via Greens senator Scott Ludlam.
Colin Barnett, you now own this #GayNaziMindControl candidate c/- One Nation. How's that going? https://t.co/z8MSWveyzJ #wapol pic.twitter.com/mWnFge5z4u
— Scott Ludlam (@SenatorLudlam) February 14, 2017
NXT MP Rebekha Sharkie: In regional areas, when with we have a bushfire, our power is often cut. No power in a few hours means no mobile phone network. There is no legislation for telcos to provide back-up. Does the prime minister agree that high risk bushfire areas need such protection and, if so, what will the government do it keep our telecommunications safe?
Minister Paul Fletcher and the prime minister talk about the government’s mobile blackspot program. He takes the point that it is important but the mobile blackspot program is the only answer provided for people in those areas.
She’s absolutely right to make the point it’s very important that we have to the maximum extent possible ... reliability in telecommunications networks and that includes robustness in the face of emergencies, such as bushfires, which can obviously have an impact on the network and can also have an impact on individuals and their homes.
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Tony Burke to Malcolm Turnbull: [Turnbull] defended his industry minister, describing One Nation as more sophisticated. One Nation in Western Australia has said the gay community has developed a covert mind control project to campaign for marriage equality, using the strategies developed by the Nazis and the Soviets. How long can the Turnbull government continue to make excuses for One Nation?
Turnbull again compares the Liberals deal with One Nation as not as bad as Labor taking preferences from the Greens,
which advocates, advocates legalising drugs of addiction, it advocates abandoning the US alliance, it advocates de-industrialising Australia, and I don’t believe the Labor party agrees with any of those policies.
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The second government question is on the government’s plan for growing a competitive economy. (With the associated Labor alternative plan.)
Scott Morrison:
Those opposite are like a father and mother taking their kids out for a dinner and they order up big, they order up big, everything they can, put it on the table, put it on the table, and then, before the bill comes, they walk out the door and they do a runner, leaving the kids to pay the bill.
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Chris Bowen to Scott Morrison: The treasurer is threatening to increase taxes on Australians. Will the treasurer be increasing the GST to 15%, extending the GST to fresh food, or is everything on the table again?
Morrison says Labor should mend their ways and pass the omnibus savings.
Morrison says Labor wants to increase taxes because they are not passing the savings.
The government has absolutely no desire whatsoever to increase taxes on the Australian people.
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First government question to Turnbull: Will the prime minister update the house on how the government is reducing cost of living pressures and helping hard-working Australians to get ahead, including in my electorate of Dunkley?
Turnbull goes to the cost of Labor’s renewable energy targets.
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Shorten to Turnbull: Will the prime minister withdraw his $50m tax cut for big business, instead of threatening to increase the taxes for every Australian?
Turnbull says Shorten has argued for a cut in company tax cut before.
Turnbull doesn’t answer the question.
Speaker Smith warns he will not cop constant interjections.
I am not going to sound like a broken record all through question time.
(For young people, a record was the music thing before Spotify.)
Bill Shorten also traverses the history of the fall of Singapore and then about its effect on those who came home, who were marked forever by what they had endured”.
The Burma Thai railway runs straight through the heart the nation, and even as the veterans pass, the shadow lingers still. Frankly, that anyone survived is a miracle of the human spirit. But so many of our men and women came home is a tribute to the resilience of their spirit and I think also the depth of loyalty they showed to their brothers, far from home in a world, a world away from the war they had imagined, there was nevertheless a profound Australian quality, their solidarity.
He pays homage to Labor prime minister John Curtin, who enunciated the pivot away from Britain.
We would, in Curtin’s words, fight and work as we have never worked and fought before. While we sit here in this Parliament, I think all of us do not underestimate the difficulty and the courage that that decision took, or the magnitude in the shift in the national mindset. Robert Menzies had said that Great Britain is at war, therefore Australia is at war.
Now with invasion on the door step, Japanese bombs to rain on Darwin within the week. With Australia threatened in a war barely contemplated at the beginning of the war, Curtin spoke for our Australian identity that was more than just an outpost of empire. He spoke for a proud people determined to defend their country. He stood up to Churchill. He spoke in the honest language of equals.
Malcolm Turnbull remembers Tom Uren, Alexander Downer (senior) and other members who became prisoners of the Japanese.
His speech covers broad history of the fall and the personal history, remembering his stepmother’s father, following on to defeat of Japan.
In an age where ancient enmities seem to re-emerge, it’s remarkable that it was the generation who fought and suffered in the war against Japan that, in 1957, entered into the commerce agreement with Japan. That’s the foundation of our strong and growing economic and strategic partnership. What a generation. What a generation.
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Malcolm Turnbull starts with a statement on the fall of Singapore.
Singapore fell to the imperial forces of Japan. It was a shattering moment. Australians had believed the might of the Royal Navy and the guns of Singapore’s island fortress would keep it safe. The fall began, as Curtin said, the battle for Australia. Almost 1800 Australians died and more than 1300 were wounded in the fight for Malay and the defence of Singapore.
Question time coming up.
Nick Xenophon labels CFMEU dishonest and devious
Nick Xenophon has had a pretty fiery contribution in Senate debate on whether to trim the phase-in period for the building code.
He’s been riled up by a Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union advertising campaign against him, saying his vote for the Australian Building and Construction Commission meant he had “sold out” on job safety on apprentices.
Xenophon started by labelling the campaign not just post-truth but “dishonest, devious, misleading, mischievous, manipulative, aggressive, unethical and – dare I say it – corrupt”.
He has sought an apology and retraction from the union in a legal letter threatening possible defamation proceedings.
Xenophon used his speech to outline his commitment to safety and various positive changes he had made to the ABCC bill and building code, including a legislative note that agreements are allowed to encourage employment of apprentices.
On safety, he said the Coalition’s 2016 code was better than Labor’s 2013 code in several respects including counting builders’ safety record before awarding government work and said that unions could still exercise right of entry for safety concerns.
On the substance of the bill, Xenophon said the changes were needed because small and medium builders were “suffering unduly” from union pressure to sign agreements that don’t comply with the code.
The bill will now go to committee stage.
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Liberal boss Tony Nutt calls for foreign donation ban on all entities including Get Up
A ban on receiving foreign donations should apply across the board to Australian political parties, associated entities and activist groups, the Liberal party has submitted to a parliamentary committee.
The Liberal party director, Tony Nutt, told the committee on Wednesday that a level playing field would mean applying the ban to groups such as GetUp engaged in political campaigning.
Labor’s assistant national secretary, Paul Erickson, supported the level playing field in principle and consideration of extending the ban to associated entities or third parties undertaking campaign activities.
The joint standing committee on electoral matters is inquiring into foreign donations after reports that international environmental charities funded opposition to the Adani coalmine and concerns that Russia interfered in the United States presidential election in favour of Donald Trump, albeit through hacking rather than donations.
Nutt said that a foreign donation ban was a necessary prudential measure to prevent interference in elections by foreign entities, including states, who have “no legitimate role in our democratic society”.
Nutt said that rules “should be set in such a way as to capture all participants” in the democratic process.
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The Matt Hatter Moment on entitlements.
@gabriellechan 🚁Hello🚁 Seems the ALP & LNP are opponents until it's suggested there be consequences for systemic entitlement abuse. Then... pic.twitter.com/K323XBheYy
— The Matt Hatter (@MattGlassDarkly) February 15, 2017
Lunchtime politics
- The Coalition and Labor rejected attempts by the independents and minor parties to further toughen penalties on members who misuse their travel allowance. The bills to set up an independent authority and penalise those who wrongly claim expenses are in the process of going through the lower house. Cory Bernardi intends to amend the bills by change the rules so already retired politicians cannot access their pensions until 60. This will rattle retired (but younger) politicians who get a lifetime pension for service before 2004.
- The treasurer and finance minister have raised the prospect of increasing taxes if the Senate does not pass the omnibus bill – having first linked it to NDIS and the childcare package. The prime minister has supported this “obvious” conclusion (of tax increases) if people want a balanced budget and don’t pass savings. Chris Bowen says the omnibus bill is a slow motion train wreck.
- Bill Shorten has done a bit of ducking and weaving on the costings for the NDIS and the cost of the renewable energy target.
- A ban on receiving foreign donations should apply across the board to Australian political parties, associated entities and activist groups, the Liberal party has submitted to a parliamentary committee. The Liberal party director, Tony Nutt, told the committee on Wednesday that a level playing field would mean applying the ban to groups such as GetUp engaged in political campaigning.
- Malcolm Turnbull has met with the prime minister of Sri Lanka.
- The amendment following the Hinch backflip on the Australian Building and Construction Commission bill is currently being debated in the Senate.
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Drain the swamp: pollies should not access pensions until they are 60, says Bernardi
With the entitlements bill now passing the lower house, eyes will switch to the Senate.
Newly minted Australian Conservatives senator Cory Bernardi is warming his jets for a little intervention in the red place on this legislative package.
He has three amendments on the boil. They would do a couple of things: Bernardi wants to implement a qualifying period for all prime ministers to access their benefits post service.
The other change would involve restricting the access the parliamentarians to the very generous defined benefits superannuation scheme that covers MPs elected before 2004.
Bernardi wants to prevent all current and former parliamentarians from accessing their defined benefits pension before they turn 60.
Once people wrap their minds round this little sortie, it will go off like a little hydrogen bomb in political circles, because the proposed amendments would affect current superannuants.
Bernardi has told Politics Live: “If the government maintains retrospective legislation is in the public interest for parliamentary entitlements then the area that arouses the most ire from the public is the annual unfunded pension payment that applies to some politicians respective of their age.
“Does anyone think it is reasonable for a politician to retire in their 30s and remain on the public purse for the rest of their lives?
“If the government is serious about cleaning up Canberra, then they can start here.”
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A number of members have referenced the lack of clarity around claiming travel expenses. Adam Bandt is one who has asked the finance department if a proposed travel claim was in the rules. The department advises the member must make the decision themselves.
Bandt says the authority has no teeth because it does not include anything about compliance. There is also no clear distinction regarding misuse versus a slip-up such as filling out a form wrongly.
Bandt says the Greens will move in the Senate to give the entitlements authority some teeth.
We’ve got to make sure this is a watchdog, not a lapdog.
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There are no government members speaking on the entitlements bill. Odd.
The Labor MP Tony Zappia is speaking to the entitlements bill. He says the public humiliation involved when members are caught out misusing their entitlements more than the 25% penalty contained in the reforms.
The costs of oversight may be be higher than the savings made but then that is the cost of transparency.
But Zappia also says members cannot fulfil their role as parliamentarians if they are not properly supported with proper allowances. He says Labor supports the reforms because,
if nothing else it will add to the transparency and oversight which the public have been calling for for sometime.
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On entitlements, Cathy McGowan says the increasing vote going to independents and minor parties coalesces around these sorts of issues of trust.
It’s not that you can’t trust parliamentarians ... there are clearly some people whom you can trust. Look at that last vote. People are getting that the major parties are not properly representing them.
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Backs to the wall.
Here is a clearer shot of the vote, lost by the independents and minors, for tougher penalties for wrongly claiming entitlements.
Note, most the major parties members are hiding up the back, which made it harder for Bowers to record the chamber. It is never a good look to vote down tougher penalties for politicians wrongly claiming work expenses.
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Entitlements will go to the Senate so I best clarify the parts of the sum.
The previous bill contained the guts of the rule changes.
That bill adds the 25% penalty if politicians claim wrongly and it also lowers the age for children’s travel entitlements from below 25 and below 18 and below. Senior officers are ministers, prime minister, opposition leader and speaker and Senate president.
The bill changes the name of the entitlement from the Life Gold Pass to the Parliamentary Retirement Travel Entitlement, and reduce, remove and reform benefits under the entitlement. This is the text:
- Imposes time limits, after which a person’s ability to access travel under the Parliamentary Retirement Travel Entitlement expires, including that the entitlement of all persons (other than a former prime minister) expire at the commencement of this bill;
- Imposes additional limits on access to the entitlement, closing it to people who had not met the qualifying periods before 14 May 2014 and mandating that no person who retires after the commencement of this bill can access benefits under the scheme, unless they are the prime minister or a former prime minister when they retire;
- Provides for future prime ministers who had not entered or re-entered the parliament before 6 March 2012 to become a holder of a Parliamentary Retirement Travel Entitlement;
- Reduces the number of trips available per financial year under the Parliamentary Retirement Travel Entitlement;
- Removes the ability of spouses or de facto partners, other than those of a retired former prime minster, to access travel under the Parliamentary Retirement Travel Entitlement; and
- requires that travel under the Parliamentary Retirement Travel Entitlement be for a purpose that is for the public benefit and not for a commercial purpose or a private purpose.
It also removes the travel entitlements for the spouse or de facto partners of the prime ministers or a sitting former prime ministers.
This bill has passed the lower house.
Now the chamber is on to the bill that sets up the independent expenses authority.
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The lonely road.
Cross bench calls for tougher penalties for breaches of entitlements-voted down by govt. & opposition @gabriellechan pic.twitter.com/pyrJvToF0C
— Mikearoo (@mpbowers) February 15, 2017
Be it on your heads, minor parties warn the majors on entitlements.
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The House is now voting on the NXT amendment for tougher penalties for members who break the rules on entitlements.
Here we will see the Coalition and Labor lining up on one side and four lonely minors/independents on the other.
Not suprisingly, the major parties win the vote.
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Mayo MP Rebekha Sharkie also wants to toughen penalties for politicians who rort the entitlements system. The independents are supporting a 200% penalty for first-time/rare offenders and 400% for repeat offenders.
The recipient is liable to pay the commonwealth, by way of penalty for the contravention of section 7A (the current contravention), an amount equal to:
(a) if the recipient has not contravened that section, or has contravened that section once, during the period of 12 months immediately preceding the day on which the claim to which the current contravention relates is made — 200% of the amount to which this section applies; and
(b) if the recipient has contravened that section 2 or more times during the period of 12 months immediately preceding the day on which the claim to which the current contravention relates is made — 400% of the amount to which this section applies.
The proposed bill – supported by the Coalition and Labor would require that “if an adjustment to certain travel claims is made or required”, a loading of 25% in addition to the full amount of the adjustment will apply.
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Independents and Greens push for tougher penalties for repeated entitlement rorts
Independent Andrew Wilkie, NXT Rebekha Sharkie, Greens MP Adam Bandt and independent Cathy McGowan have all spoken forcefully in favour of tougher penalties for MPs and senators who misuse parliamentary entitlements.
Wilkie makes the point that if the person in the street stole money, they are dealt with by the police. Why should politicians be treated differently?
Michael Sukkar, representing the government, said to suggest that a member of parliament should be subjected criminal provisions was:
nothing more than a stunt.
He said the government is not going to change the laws “for a headline for the crossbenchers”.
Adam Bandt says none of the crossbenchers were suggesting anyone should go to jail for a slip-up.
None of us are saying that ... But if you deliberately go out and flout them then surely you have to be held to a higher standard than if you just slip up by filling out the form wrong ... Don’t build up a straw man.
Sukkar quips:
As I passed [Bandt] in business class as I walked down to economy on the way back to Melbourne, I didn’t realise he was such a bastion of virtue.
Wilkie tells Sukkar it was cheap shot.
It’s not about the rules or whether former health minister was inside the rules or outside the rules, its about whether we were acting ethically.
If the community had confidence that we are good members and work hard, they will probably forgive us if some of us sit at the front of the plane or not. But confidence is at rock bottom now ... it’s about right or wrong.
*this post has been amended. It was previously reported that the amendment contained police referrals. This was an earlier motion released by Andrew Wilkie but not moved today.
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In the Senate is Derryn Hinch, who backflipped on the start date for the building code in the Australian Building Construction Commission (ABCC) laws which passed late last year. After insisting on a later date, Hinch wanted to bring forward the date.
Hinch says:
I changed my mind ... I got some new facts ... I contacted the PM ... I did not horse trade ... I did not hold out for any favour in return ... If you are involved in something that is hurting people, then man up.
Labor are opposing the amendment. Xenophon are expected to support the Hinch change which would see the building code start in nine months instead of two years.
The government are attempting to push it through and move on to the parliamentary entitlements bill, assuming it passes the lower house.
Once that entitlements bill comes into the Senate, we are expecting to see some amendments from Cory Bernardi, LNP senator Ian Macdonald and the Greens.
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In the lower house, the parliamentary debate continues on parliamentary entitlements. This dumps the lifetime free travel gold pass for longer-serving MPs, senators and prime ministers. LNP MP Warren Entsch, who opposed the retrospective nature of the bill, spoke against it. He said it is not a matter of snouts in the trough, it is that it is retrospective. He reminds the parliament that he also opposed retrospective changes to superannuation under the government’s reforms.
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The social services minister, Christian Porter, has rejected Shorten’s claim that Labor ever fully costed the NDIS. He says, we all know about the Medicare levy but the other savings were nebulous. He says the document Labor uses to prove they fully costed the NDIS when in government was not a budget document but a “glossy” (which are the marketing documents which explain the budget).
The problem has always been that these mysterious “other savings” of about $2.4bn in 2019-20 (the first full year of operation of the NDIS) were never identified in any meaningful way nor identified in any budget paper that linked them in any way to the NDIS.
When that issue was raised in Senate estimates in June 2013, Treasury’s response, when asked whether these “other savings” measures could be listed in detail; was, “the short answer is no”.
Labor at the time also variously claimed that savings made from superannuation and private health insurance changes (which was supposed to part-pay for the NDIS) would be used for budget repair or to fund dental health measures.
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Chris Bowen came out a moment ago, referencing Michelle Grattan’s story in the Conversation. Grattan reported that the prime minister’s office were unhappy with the treasurer linking the omnibus bill to the NDIS.
Grattan reports:
[The linking] was soon portrayed as a reprehensible use of the disabled as a bargaining chip. As the NXT said in its Tuesday statement, it was considered to be “‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’ and viewed in the same way as holding childcare reforms hostage to family tax benefit cuts”.
“As a negotiating tactic, this is as subtle as a sledgehammer,” Nick Xenophon said.
[Christian] Porter wore much of the public odium. But the hypothecation idea had come from Morrison.
Interestingly, there had been some resistance from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to the timing of announcing it.
The PMO urged caution. It was felt that the government’s selling of the childcare package was going well – so why introduce this new element now? But Morrison, for whatever reason, was insistent.
Chris Bowen calls the omnibus bill a slow-motion train wreck.
It is an extraordinary thing. Does the prime minister have confidence in Scott Morrison? I wouldn’t blame him if he has lost confidence, but if he has lost confidence, he should say so. His office, Malcolm Turnbull’s office, briefing backgrounding, undermining the treasurer, says it all about this government.
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This morning, with Sabra Lane, Bill Shorten was repeatedly pressed over how much the renewable energy targets would cost. He mentioned a market trading scheme, an emissions trading scheme, looking at the rate of land clearing and further investment in in solar power. But he did not answer the question on cost.
For me the answer to the question about cost is that there is a cost in not acting.
Sabra Lane: Consumers are entitled to know how much it will cost them.
Well, consumers are already voting with their feet with the expansion of solar panels.
Lane: And they’re entitled to know how much a 50%, you know, a 50% target will cost them?
Our answer is very, very straightforward. We think the cost of not acting is far greater. We don’t think we could sustain the cost as the Liberals are saying, of building new coal-fired power generation on the scale which Mr Turnbull is saying and we don’t think that from insurance to drought to extreme weather events, that we can simply go business as usual.
Turnbull used the press conference with the Sri Lankan prime minister to attack Shorten.
You saw Mr Shorten this morning in what must have been a real – a triple train wreck of an interview. He was unable to say how the NDIS would be paid for – this is our big national disability insurance scheme – and he acknowledged he had no way of paying for that.
He acknowledged he had no idea what his reckless renewable energy target would cost, or what its consequences would be, so he confirmed precisely the criticism that we’ve made about Mr Shorten, that he is literally clueless on this subject, mindless, just like South Australia has been.
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Apologies readers. Having terrible tech difficulties this morning. More content coming shortly, including remainder of PM’s press conference and Labor’s Chris Bowen.
Malcolm Turnbull says the treasurer’s suggestion of tax increases if the savings measures fail was a statement of the obvious.
The point that the treasurer is making is what my father-in-law would describe as a penetrating glimpse of the obvious, is that those who oppose savings measures by definition are supporting tax increases – if you assume that they want to bring the budget back into balance.
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Wickremesinghe says it is quite safe for Sri Lankan asylum seekers to return.
It is quite safe in Sri Lanka. We just started a missing persons office. It is quite safe for them to come back. Some of them have left from places where conflict didn’t even take place. All of them are not even Tamils and even we want all the Tamils to come back. We should not make a mess of ourselves like they’ve gone and done in Europe and the Middle East.
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Sri Lankan prime minister: asylum seekers can come back but they broke the law
Q: What about people who have already gone and have been turned away and have been sent to these island camps and there have been certain human rights allegations as well?
Wickremesinghe:
Well, they left Sri Lanka illegally. They are welcome to return to Sri Lanka and we won’t prosecute them, so they can come back to Sri Lanka, and we will have them, but remember, they broke the law in coming to Australia, attempting to come to Australia.
First off the bat, Wickremesinghe is asked whether there have been talks on asylum seekers, given many refugees have come from Sri Lanka.
We are looking at investment to further develop Sri Lanka. There are no need for people to be coming in here.
The prime minister is speaking now with the prime minister of Sri Lanka, Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Turnbull mentions the links in education, sport and other areas.
Wickremesinghe says Australia and Sri Lanka have signed two agreements.
We signed two important agreements today, one on economic development, but that was not complete without the one on sports. So, Sri Lanka and Australia have shared a common past. There are many values we inherited from the British empire to which we added our own values, and Australia today is one of the leading members of the Asia-Pacific region.
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Liberals have spent the last couple of days sticking it to WA Nationals leader Brendon Grylls, who runs a very different game than his federal National counterparts.
The guy that put the Liberal-One Nation preference deal together, West Australian and federal finance minister Mathias Cormann, was not backing down from the deal last night on Lateline.
The Nationals in WA have preferenced other parties ahead of Liberal party candidates in the upper house in WA even since Brendon Grylls has been the leader of the National party at the 2008 election.
So since 2008, the Nationals have preferenced One Nation, Family First, the Christian Democrats and the Shooters and Fishers and now the Greens ahead of Liberal party candidates.
That is just consistent with the approach for some time and that is because in Western Australia the National party is not in coalition with the Liberal party, not because we wouldn’t want to be, but because that is the choice that the National party has made.
(He started it.)
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The following people are speaking at 10.30am to call on the government to end its automated debt program.
- Linda Burney MP, ALP
- Senator Richard Di Natale, Greens
- Senator Rachel Siewert, Greens
- Rebekah Sharkie MP, Nick Xenophon Team
- Andrew Wilkie MP, Independent
- Dr Andrej Panjkov, victim of false Centrelink debt
- Cassandra Goldie, Acoss
- Ged Kearney, ACTU
- Nadine Flood, CPSU
- Paul Oosting, GetUp
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To be clear on the Cory Bernardi position, the senator made his position clear on 7.30 Report last night – sending the signal he will not be an automatic ticker of government legislation.
He told Andrew Probyn:
I was prepared to consider it on its merits, that there was going to be a net saving to the budget and that the $4bn or $5bn was going to be available to repay debt.
But yesterday, when I realised they would be robbing Peter to pay Paul, and put it into another big-spending government program, I’m reconsidering whether I can support this bill.
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In parliament today, we have these bills:
Introduced:
- Biosecurity Amendment (Ballast Water and Other Measures)
- Native Title Amendment (Indigenous Land Use Agreements) - This is the bill seeks to amend law so that all Indigenous owners do not need to sign land use agreements. It resulted from a recent federal court decision and is worth watching.
- Customs Tariff Proposal (No. 1) 2017
Resumption of debate:
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Parliamentary Entitlements Legislation Amendment - this is the “Sussan Ley amendment”, committed to by the prime minister after the Christmas scandal that led to her resignation.
- Treasury Laws Amendment (Bourke Street Fund) - related to the Melbourne tragedy.
- Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority
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Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority (Consequential Amendments)
-
National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account
The new independent Cory Bernardi is speaking to Kieran Gilbert on Sky.
He is not inclined to support the omnibus bill and he thinks any savings should be going towards paying off debt.
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The joint standing committee on electoral matters is doing a short, sharp hearing this morning between 8am and midday. This is the hearing that investigates the last election and is also looking at the political donations system.
The Labor party is appearing now. The Liberal party’s federal director, Tony Nutt, will be on after 10am.
If you are tragic, like me, you can watch it over the interwebs here. Look for joint standing committee on electoral matters.
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Paul Farrell has been looking at donations from the firearms lobby.
Australian political parties accepted more than $300,000 in donations over 12 months from the firearms lobby, gun suppliers and manufacturers, sparking concern among gun control groups.
An analysis of the latest Australian Electoral Commission donation disclosures by Gun Control Australia has revealed that firearms groups donated $353,000 to various federal political bodies around the country. The donations were made in the 2015-16 financial year, during a period when there was intense political focus on firearms regulation in Australia.
What has triggered the row that is splitting the Coalition? Plus four other questions about Australia’s gun control laws.
The federal government has been considering a review of the national firearms agreement after the Martin Place siege, which could bring sweeping changes to the regulation of firearms across the country.
Malcolm Turnbull has done an early interview with local radio in Canberra. He is also meeting with Ranil Wickremesinghe, prime minister of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.
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The government says the $4bn in omnibus savings are necessary not only to pay for the childcare package but the National Disability Insurance Scheme because Labor had not funded it properly.
In 2013, Labor raised the Medicare levy by half a percentage point to part pay for the NDIS. This is its document at the time:
People with disability, their families and carers deserve certainty that DisabilityCare Australia will be funded over the longer term. For this reason, from 1 July 2014 the Medicare levy will increase by half a percentage point from 1.5 to 2% of taxable income. Between 2014-15 and 2018-19 approximately $20.4bn will be raised as a result of this increase.
Bill Shorten said this morning:
I was there when Jenny Macklin outlined we would increase the Medicare levy and we would make other savings.
In 2013, Labor estimated that between 2014-15 and 2018-19 approximately $20.4bn would be raised as a result of this increase.
The other savings measures from the 2013 report were:
To ensure that DisabilityCare Australia will be fully funded, the government has needed to make tough decisions. This important reform will be delivered through part of the savings from reforms to the government’s assistance for private health insurance, reforms to retirement incomes and the phase-out of the net medical expenses tax offset as DisabilityCare rolls out and other long-term savings decisions in the 2013-14 budget. Together with the increase to the Medicare levy and contributions from state and territory governments, these measures will make room in the budget for DisabilityCare Australia into the future.
I will try to bring you more detail on those savings measures and what became of them through the day.
Shorten said on radio this morning that there was an assumption that people with severe and profound disabilities live on the moon. They are paid for through a mishmash of services, he says.
We are already paying for it.
He says the simple answer to the budget problem is to dump the $50bn in corporate tax cuts that go to banks and multinationals.
Why are they saying [corporate tax cut] is sacred, that is off limits, that must happen, but you – the rest of Australia – can pay more or lose more?
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Good morning taxpayers one and all,
Let’s update the story so far. Nick Xenophon hammered the final nail in the coffin of the omnibus bill that was going to cut from welfare, pensions and family tax benefits in return for increased subsidies for childcare. Together, NXT, Labor and the Greens, have enough votes to block the bill.
This morning, the Coalition has opened the door to a tax increase. Mathias Cormann told Lateline last night:
If the parliament were not to pass spending reductions, if the parliament were not to legislate savings and we need to ensure that we bring the budget back to balance and that we pay for the government’s spending, then of course tax increases become the only option.
Bill Shorten says meh. He has been talking to Sabra Lane this morning on AM.
We don’t think that is necessary, frankly.
A tax increase really is the last arrow in the quiver for the Coalition. They only pull it out when all else fails, given it scares the bejesus out of the voters. So methinks this element will dominate the day.
Let’s get cracking. Both chambers of the parliament sit at 9.30am. We have the the Senate committee report on the exposure draft of the same-sex marriage bill. This is the bill we would have had if the plebiscite had been held and if a majority of members were prepared to support it.
And I will have the parliamentary program to you shortly and chapter and verse on the Shorten interview. In the meantime, get among it on the thread, or on the Twits or Facebook. I am @gabriellechan and @mpbowers is haunting the building. Up, up and away.
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