The wrap
And on that note, we’ll finish up for the day. But don’t despair – we have one more day of fun and games ahead of us before the break.
First, let’s take a look at what we learnt and what we have to look forward to.
-
Energy was still the name of the game, but bipartisan support is still up in the air.
- NBN complaints are on the rise, but the prime minister says that is to be expected as more people connect.
- Energy industry insiders believe the Neg includes a carbon price.
- Responsibility has been added to the government’s Neg talking notes, along with affordability and reliability.
- Greens senators, along with Labor, NXT and Jacqui Lambie, appear to have forced the Peter Dutton-led citizenship changes off the agenda, at least for the time being.
- You can expect another day of energy talk, as Labor continues to hammer the lack of modelling and question the savings.
That’s it from us for now. Mike Bowers and I will be back early tomorrow morning. A big thank you to the Guardian Australian brains trust and to everyone who commented, played along, or reached out on Twitter. We made it through hump day, or parliamentary Thursday, so let’s see if anyone, particularly your correspondent, has anything left in the tank for tomorrow.
And remember, we are still waiting on that high court ruling, which could be just the shot in the arm this week needs!
Thanks again and I look forward to seeing you back here tomorrow.
Updated
Just because we all need a little light relief at the end of a day, I can inform you that the Senate, led by Cory Bernardi, passed a motion:
That the Senate
(a)
takes note of an event scheduled to occur on 26 October 2017 at the
Australian National University entitled “Celebrating the 1917 Russian Revolution”, organised by Socialist Alternative;
(b)
observes that this year marks 100 years since that revolution, which led to
a litany of human rights abuses and approximately 10 million deaths;
(c)
notes that the 1917 revolution promoted Leninist and Marxist teaching to
the broader world; and
(d)
rejects any assertion that the teachings of Lenin or Marx should be
celebrated in a liberal democracy.
Updated
For anyone who cares – and I mean anyone – the last movie Malcolm Turnbull can remember seeing was the last of the Hobbit movies, with his daughter.
He still Netflix and chills, “whatever that means”, and did you know that he is a Game of Thrones fan, because I am not sure he has ever mentioned that before. In fact: BREAKING the prime minister watches Game Of Thrones.
Updated
Triple M Sydney cuts short Can’t Stand Losing You by the Police to go to Malcolm Turnbull, who opens with the “trifecta” of “affordability, reliability, responsibility”.
He says energy policy is one of the greatest challenges for government’s all over the world, as the market transitions to new technologies – and as he always says “get the politics and ideology out of it. It’s been a disaster.”
Lucky for him, the “smartest people in the room” wrote this policy, and now there is a “triple bottom line”.
Updated
An update on the citizenship bill (the one with the retroactive longer waiting periods, stricter English tests et al): it remains on the list, but it is sitting at number four on the schedule, which gives it almost bupkis chance of being reached tonight. The government has until 7.20pm to bring it up for debate, under the terms of the Greens disallowance motion, but given they have not ceded enough ground yet for the Nick Xenophon Team to even come close to giving it their support, it doesn’t look like happening.
This doesn’t mean it is dead, buried and cremated by any definition – the government can bring it back to the Senate motions paper, but to do so will require a vote. You’ll know when it gets close (if it goes away after today) when that happens.
In the meantime, the Senate is debating its matter of public importance, with today is clean energy, followed by the Greens’ disallowance of the government’s plan to strip councils of their rights to hold citizenship ceremonies, if they don’t do them on Australia Day.
Updated
Abbott is also “very, very happy” the government has dropped the clean energy target “because that was always a very bad move”:
And certainly the policy framework that the government announced yesterday will be vastly better for everyone than Labor’s plans for a 50% renewable energy target so full marks to the government for a big, big step forward, but ... there will be still renewables in the system, the more renewables there are, almost inevitably, the higher the price, because you have to have matching coal- and gas-fired power to make sure that when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine the lights will still come on, so this remains a problem.
But he applauds the dumping of subsidies for wind and solar power “absolutely”.
As I said, this is a big step in the right direction and full marks especially Josh Frydenberg, who has worked night and day and laboured mightily to bring about this very significant improvement in our policy. Good on him.
Sadly, his chat is cut short by a house division.
Updated
Tony Abbott is speaking to 2GB.
He says the health minister, Greg Hunt, is one of the smartest ministers in the cabinet. That is in context of the upcoming over-the-counter ban on codeine, which Abbott says he understands but thinks Hunt will be monitoring.
Updated
This media motion has just passed the Senate, with Labor joining with the Greens:
The Senate notes:
a) The overwhelming public support for the ABC and SBS in providing news services, quality programming including for children, and online catch up services iView and SBS On Demand.
b) The vital role of the national broadcasters in promoting a diversity of services in the Australian media environment.
c) The Liberal-National Government is waging an ideological war on public broadcasting, as evidenced by successive budget cuts, reviews and inquiries, and its recent deal with the One Nation Party in the context of the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Broadcasting Reform) Bill 2017 which includes:
a. a competitive neutrality inquiry into the ABC and SBS
b. amendments to the ABC Charter to undermine its independence
c. amendments to legislation to force the disclosure of the salaries of staff at the ABC and SBS.
The Senate agrees it will not support legislation that forces the ABC or SBS to publicise the salaries of its staff, breaching their right to privacy.
Updated
Is the national energy guarantee a carbon price?
The government has been dancing around this issue for the past day a bit, mostly because it may not want to alert the party room to the fact it might have got this by them.
But is the Neg a carbon price?
The chief executive of the Australian Energy Council, Matthew Warren has given his verdict on Sky:
Well, yes, of course it is. Anything that operates, anything that drives investment in the electricity sector in the 21st century, if is going to work, has to reflect the carbon price. There is a value that is attributed to the risk of carbon in all investments.
Updated
The communications minister, Mitch Fifield, has commended the ABC bill to the chamber, which would add “fair and balanced” to the ABC charter, which already has the word “impartial”.
It is important to recognise that the bill will not alter or diminish in any way the ABC’s independence. Objectively, there should be no concern about this proposal. The ABC’s own editorial policies require the ABC to adhere to fair treatment in the gathering and presentation of news and information, and a balance in its news reporting that follows the weight of evidence. The amendment contained in this bill simple enshrine this obligation in legislation.
As a few of you have pointed out, “fair and balanced”, which was the One Nation suggestion, was the slogan of Fox News, but it dropped it, less than a year after its creator, Roger Ailes, was fired after sexual harassment allegations.
Updated
A quick update on where Andrew Wilkie’s allegations in parliament have gone: the Greens and crossbench want a Senate inquiry:
The Australian Greens, together with Senator Jacqui Lambie and the Nick Xenophon Team are moving for a Senate inquiry into the regulation of Australia’s casino industry, after allegations of poker machine tampering levelled at Crown Casino.
Crown should not continue to operate its poker machines until a full and independent audit is undertaken, said the Australian Greens Leader, Dr Richard Di Natale.
We know that pokies cause substantial harm in the community. Actions that trap people into losing even more money are deeply concerning and need to be investigated.
Politicians at the state and federal level cannot sit by and allow such serious allegations to go unchecked. Crown has given over $1m to the LNP and ALP in the last 10 years: now we will see what that money buys them.
Updated
On Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad, Bishop says the regime will “have to be part of the negotiations towards a political solution [in Iraq]. What we don’t want to see is Syria falling to complete anarchy – there has to be a political solution.
“There is now a Raqqa civilian council which has been set up to focus on local governance in Raqqa, but the coalition will have to work with the Assad regime and Russia and Iran and others who have been backing Assad to find a political solution which involves [the] Syrians.”
Updated
Speaking on Sky, Julie Bishop says the government has not forgotten about the 110 Australians who went to fight for Islamic State.
Should they survive, about 80, maybe 83 Australians have been killed fighting for Isis by the anti-Isis forces and others ... I don’t know whether all 110 will [want to return to Australia] but there is that potential and that is why we are tracking them, they are under surveillance to the extent that we can, we are working with partners in the region to exchange information, and we will seek to track them and to intervene so they can’t carry out a terrorist attack on the way home or indeed in Australia.
Updated
To catch up on all things question time, you can head here:
Did you miss QT in the House? You can catch up on our YouTube channel: https://t.co/eUvteChVly
— Aus House of Reps (@AboutTheHouse) October 18, 2017
Sarah Hanson-Young has had a bit to say about the ABC changes the government has proposed (with a little help from One Nation, and by help, we mean demands).
The Greens communications spokeswoman said in a statement:
Australians love and trust the ABC and are sick of seeing the public broadcaster used as political punching bag.
The Greens will fight to protect the ABC from this blatant ideological attack and will do everything we can to save our public broadcaster from the government and One Nation’s axe.
First it was Tony Abbott breaking his promise not to cut the ABC’s funding; now it’s Pauline Hanson wanting to dictate how the public broadcaster does its job and how it reports on news.
It was only a few months ago that Pauline Hanson crowed about going after the ABC as revenge for the broadcaster reporting the dodgy antics the One Nation political party gets up to.
Opening up the ABC’s charter to give more coverage to the loopy ideas of anti-vaxxers or anti-science is not about making the public broadcaster ‘fair and balanced’ – it’s revenge from One Nation senators who can’t handle the truth being reported.
I’m calling on Labor and the Nick Xenophon Team to join with the Greens in voting this toxic legislation down.
Updated
We finish on an “any alternative approaches” dixer for Darren Chester, where he links the Neg to regional development and then we are done.
Small mercies.
Updated
Michelle Rowland tries again (after a dixer).
“Is the prime minister so out of touch that he doesn’t understand the people are complaining because his second-rate copper NBN is slower, more expensive and less reliable than what the prime minister promised?
Malcolm Turnbull is once again very pleased to talk on this.
I thank the honourable member for the question because it gives me an opportunity to update my earlier answer. As of today, as of the 12 ... October, the latest numbers, 6 million people are able to connect to the NBN. Nearly 40,000, nearly 40,000 premises were activated on the NBN in the last week. Labor, remember, 50,000 in six years.
The reality is this: As the honourable member knows, and she should know this, that what has been going on is that retail service providers, Telstra, TPG, have not been buying enough bandwidth to provision their customers. That is being investigated by the ACCC. It has been called out. They have been given three months to get their act together and ensure that what they promise they deliver.
It has nothing to do with whether the network is fibre to the premises, fibre to the basement, fibre to the node, the problem of under provision by retail service providers is common across all technologies. The honourable member should recall that she was part of a government that completely and utterly failed this project.
They left us a train wreck. We have turned it around. We are getting it built. We are getting it built. Over 6 million premises can connect. Over 3 million are connected and it will be finished by 2020.
Updated
We have moved on to the the NBN and Malcolm Turnbull is very happy with Labor because it “gives me an opportunity to remind honourable members once again that every 10 days the NBN under our government is connecting more Australians than Labor did in six years”.
“We are connecting between 30,000 to 40,000 premises a week! 30,000 to 40,000 premises a week! There are now 3 million customers connected ... ”
Labor starts yelling “copper” but Turnbull continues – but it is nothing we haven’t heard before.
The NBN is available at more than 6 million premises.
It is on track to be completed by 2020.
It is “well past” the halfway mark.
He’s the rubber and you’re the glue.
Updated
Chris Bowen wants Scott Morrison to confirm that the “sum total” of documentation the opposition was provided was a single letter:
Given the opposition has received absolutely no other documentation modelling or evidence from the government, can the treasurer confirm that the cabinet and the joint party room considered and adopted a major government policy based purely on the vibe?
Morrison:
The shadow treasurer is such a terrible, sad sack! Here are the papers the government has available to us that are available to the opposition. The ACCC’s inquiry into gas, Mr Speaker, the interim report and its 75 pages, the ACCC’s report into retail electricity pricing, Mr Speaker, some 175 pages. The electricity statement of opportunities prepared which I tabled, Mr Speaker. The advice the commonwealth government on dispatchable capacity, Mr Speaker. I have now a document, a statement from the cChief scientist, Dr Alan Finkel, on the Australian government’s energy announcement which he says, “The process was thorough, the emissions reduction trajectory has provided a credible ... ”
You get the idea.
Updated
Peter Dutton gets his dixer and, in a feat of verbal gymnastics, manages to link strong borders to energy policy.
But one of the things that all of these projects have in common, Mr Speaker, is they need reliable and affordable power. They must have reliable and affordable power and that is what the national energy guarantee provides, Mr Speaker. It means more capacity in the system. More supply, driving down the price, working with the other elements of the government’s energy policy which are also driving down price and driving up reliability.
Now, who could be against a policy that ensures reliability and drives down the price of energy, Mr Speaker? No sensible person would and that is why, as the minister for the environment and energy pointed out, there’s been so many third-party endorsements of this policy in the last 24 hours.
There are two people who are against it. There is the leader of the opposition, Mr Speaker, who is like the dog that caught the cow – he’s been demanding a policy on energy that would drive down prices and reliability and now he’s caught it, he doesn’t know what to do with it, Mr Speaker.
And he’s leading the Labor party into a very bad policy position because he is like the dog that caught the proverbial! The other person is the premier of South Australia, the premier of South Australia who just wants to pick a fight with Canberra!
It is here that I remind you that Tony Abbott is also against the policy. But I’m sure he’ll have more to say himself on 2GB a bit later.
Updated
Just a quick brush-up at the desk.
Updated
Christian Porter takes a question on the energy supplement for carers asked to Malcolm Turnbull and manages to get Sam Dastyari into his answer. As you read this, please be advised there is a Chinese delegation sitting in the gallery, as welcomed by Tony Smith, who found this exchange quite interesting, given the amount of chatter that started up among them.
Was the Labor’s fiscal plan saving the supplement, banking it and spending it? Absolutely. What the member for Jagajaga does is gets up here and criticises the government for making a savings measure which they have made, which they have banked and which they have already spent. And in the process of doing so, the member for Jagajaga criticises the fact that the energy guarantee has the capacity to deliver a savings in 2020 each year of up to $115 a week. Now – a year – a year.
The criticism of that is that – the criticism of that is it is not enough, Mr Speaker. In fact, Senator Dastyari tried to make that criticism today with a cheeseburger. I understand he was more of a Chinese food aficionado, but hear, hear! $115 a year is a potential saving to Australian households, it is actually significant.
It might not be significant to members opposite who prefer Chinese food but a potential $115 a year saving is very significant. It is absolutely significant when you compare it to the potential cost increases for the average electricity bill that are going to occur if you try and put$66bn worth of taxpayers’ money into subsidising renewables which members opposite also say don’t …
Updated
It might be prudent to point out that a Queensland election is expected to be called at any moment and Katter’s Australian party is fighting One Nation off in its two Queensland electorates as I post this photo.
Updated
Tanya Plibersek has the call and she asks Malcolm Turnbull about the promised drop in power prices made before coming to office, where “the Liberals promised Australians their power bills would drop by $550 a year. They didn’t.”
Scott Morrison has A LOT to say about this, but is hushed by the Speaker. Plibersek picks up where she left off, asking about the “lousy 50 cents a week in three years’ time. Why would the Australian people believe anything this prime minister says about energy prices?”
Malcolm Turnbull decides to rest his voice; Josh Frydenberg takes the floor.
“Well, Mr Speaker, I thank the member for her question. And I can read from an ACCC report,” he begins.
(“Well done, Josh,” yells a Labor MP.)
“I can read from an ACCC report which says about the abolition of the carbon tax the commonwealth treasuries estimated$550 cost saving to households is reasonable, Mr Speaker,” Frydenberg says.
Updated
Barnaby Joyce gets his daily dose of dixer and picks up from yesterday with his attack on basket weavers, but unfortunately there is no update on Moonbeam and Dewdrop from the Manic Monkey Cafe, but we do get a history lesson:
And I want to quote someone from the Labor party who was talking about that Gladstone coal-fired power station. This member said this: “Naturally the Australian Labor party welcomes the commonwealth participation in the provision of electricity in central Queensland, which is an area where power has been hardest to come by and is the most expensive in Australia.”
That member for the Labor party later went on to say about this: “The only problem he has with the coal-fired power is the advance was not a grant.”
Who was that member of the Labor party? Who could that be? Who could that be? I will take the interjection that said Mark Latham. Edward Gough Whitlam. Hasn’t the apple fallen a long way from the tree? The apple has gone all the way from central Queensland ... the basket weavers now run this – I can say to them, men and women ofAustralia, if you want to play, $66,000m then vote ... [Labor].
Some might think technologies have moved on since Whitlam’s time, but it’s good to have Joyce let those people know they are wrong.
Updated
Malcolm Turnbull is up again and being asked by Bill Shorten about the guarantee part of the national energy guarantee: just now the prime minister confirmed that his lousy 50 cent savings are only likely. Doesn’t this make a mockery of the prime minister’s so-called guarantee?”
I can ... understand the way in which the leader of the opposition is squirming on this issue. I can understand his embarrassment, having called for bipartisanship, having called for us to listen to experts, having support of the establishment of the Energy Security Board, then when these independent experts, authorities in the field give an advice that doesn’t suit him politically, he wants to attack them personally. He wants to challenge their integrity.
Yesterday, Mr Speaker, he was having a go at the integrity of the Energy Security Board. Muttering to himself, oh he was, I could hear him, muttering away to himself, talking to himself – that may well have been the case – you will get an attentive audience when he does that(!)
What we have is the advice from the Energy Security Board that will deliver affordable and reliable power. What it does is ensure that the energy market operator will not have to be as she is every other weekend intervening in the South Australian energy market calling on expensive gas-fired generation to keep the lights on because there is not enough dispatchable power in the South Australian market. What this will do is ensure that we have reliable power, that is affordable power and that we meet our emissions reduction obligations under the Paris agreement.
Updated
Bob Katter has stormed out of the chamber after he didn’t get to ask his whole question, because he ran out of time.
Here is out it went down:
Katter:
Prime minister, electricity prices in Victoria, Queensland and South Australia in the 13 years, 1989 to 2002, rose from $650 to $780, $113 in 13 years. In 2002 all pricing was done by free open market operations and the industry privatised. In the next 13 years, the price skyrockets from $810 to $2,130. A $1,300 increase. Clearly, the prime minister ...
The Speaker, Tony Smith:
The member for Kennedy will resume his seat. We will take that as a 45-second statement. We will go to the member for Chisholm.
Insert blow-up. While Katter yells that he is being “shut up” because the government doesn’t want to hear what he has to say, a comment which gets a round of applause from a gentleman in the public gallery which is not picked up by anyone else, Smith decides he has had enough.
The member for Kennedy has been asked to resume his ... The member for Kennedy will resume his seat. There was no question. There was no question. The member for Kennedy will resume his seat. The member for Kennedy will not reflect on the chair. The member for Kennedy, unlike members of the opposition, has additional time to ask a question. Special rules have been put in place to allow 45 seconds. And they were put in place principally for him. And there was 45 seconds of quotes and statements without a question. This is question time and I’m not going to be lectured by the member for Kennedy. The member for Chisholm has the call.
Katter tries to make a point of order, but he is ignored and then takes the parliamentary equivalent of picking up his bat and ball and walking home, by collecting his papers and storming out of the chamber.
And that just made filing from inside the chamber worth it, despite the neck strain.
Updated
Meanwhile, in the Senate:
Peter Whish-WIlson just called George Brandis "senator Brand-Arse" then apologised saying "that's just how I pronounce it" #auspol #SenateQT
— Paul Karp (@Paul_Karp) October 18, 2017
For context, that is over Brandis’s insistence on pronouncing Richard Di Natale’s name with his own special inflections.
Updated
Malcom Turnbull returns to answer a Bill Shorten question on whether or not Kerry Schott, talking to Lateline overnight, was correct when she said: “I don’t think anybody can guarantee a price reduction.”
This is taken as an attack on Schott. Because of course it is.
Kerry Shott is one of our nation’s greatest public servants, energy experts, economists, mathematicians, and what she said on Lateline is absolutely correct and what honourable members opposite know is the case.
The fact of the matter is this: As she said, and as we know,there are many impacts on a household’s electricity bill. Wholesale prices are one important factor. But there’s also the matter of the price of fuel, which is not affected by this policy. The price of gas.
What did Labor do to gas? They sent the price through the roof. What have we done? We have brought the price of gas down by ensuring that Australians are protected and they get the gas they need.
Another big factor, too, is the cost of networks. That is not affected by the energy guarantee, it is a separate issue. That is being attacked by the abolition of the limited merits review, now through the parliament.
The reality is, as Rod Sims has said, as Kerry Schott has said, as we all know, except those in this parallel universe of ideology and political stupidity opposite, what we all know is that energy prices are affected by many measures.
This national energy guarantee will deliver lower wholesale prices than any alternative and that’s what Australians need, reliability, affordability and responsibility. We have a plan. Labor’s just got one whine after another.
Updated
Scott Morrison gets a dixer and, in his answer, appears surprised that the opposition, would, well, oppose something the government has put forward:
Yesterday, we said yes to providing certainty for investment in boosting energy supply through the national energy guarantee that will make power more affordable, more reliable and achieve our environmental commitments. Business and industry have said yes to that, Mr Speaker. Economists have said yes to that, Mr Speaker. The chief scientist has said yes, Mr Speaker, to the national energy guarantee.
What has Labor done again? Labor has said no. Labor have no plans for investment certainty, they only have a plan to say no, Mr Speaker, on every single occasion as this government works to drive investment that support jobs,that supports certainty, that support higher-paid jobs and that support a growing economy, Mr Speaker.
What they do is they look for any excuse to say no, any and every excuse and they will sink to seeking to discredit and bully an Energy Security Board with people appointed by Labor state governments. And yet we have seen them in interview after interview seek to undermine those independently appointed members of that board, seeking to bully and intimidate like the unions they defend and protect for that behaviour in this place on every single day, Mr Speaker. The recipe from those opposite is higher taxes, higher subsidies, $66bn in higher costs for Australian business and consumers which ...
Sadly, we run out of time before we get to hear what that recipe creates.
Updated
It’s official– the government has decided on its three-word sell.
Affordable ✅ Reliable ✅ Responsible ✅
— The PMO (@thepmo) October 18, 2017
WATCH the PM on @TheTodayShow pic.twitter.com/cXDafferXo
Updated
Barnaby Joyce is his usual healthy shade of beetroot but Turnbull’s voice is already starting to fade. That’s the problem with the non-stop sell. Someone might need to pass him a Soother.
The Labor backbench is not as rowdy as the Coalition, as yet. But it is only just warming up. Turnbull takes a dixer on energy and gets to use his smartest people in the room quote again. One would assume he includes Alan Finkel in that, given that he is the chief scientist. We move on to Mark Butler and the affordability aspect of the Neg:
Last night when asked whether she would personally guarantee to the people of Australia that their energy bills will be cheaper in three years’ time under the prime minister’s latest energy policy, the chair of the Energy Security Board said: “I don’t think anybody can guarantee a price reduction.” When the chair of the government’s Energy Security Board can’t guarantee that energy prices will fall for households, why should the Australian people believe the prime minister’s so-called guarantee?
Turnbull is REALLY feeling the Halloween spirit. First werewolves, now scary movies:
One thing we can guarantee is that if you impose a $66bn subsidy on the Australian energy sector, and you get the taxpayers to pay for that, you can guarantee that electricity bills will be higher. If you continue to ignore the lead for dispatchable base-load power you will get more blackouts and then you will get more volatility.
We know how this Labor horror movie goes. It’s been playing in South Australia for years. We know what it does. They have no conception of the engineering and the economics that we need to deliver a reliable and affordable energy plan.
And as for Dr Shott, I can say to the Labor party, she can’t be intimidated. She is one of the finest public servants in this country. This is what she said, this is what she said: “The guarantee is about providing a reliable power system and meeting the emissions target set in the Paris agreement.”
What will happen when those mechanisms are put in price is prices are likely to come down and they are likely to keep coming down. That is exactly the same advice that we received in the letter from the Energy Security Board. The experts that we have been called on to listen to and take advice from.
Updated
The lols are coming early this question time. Bill Shorten opens with a question on the Coalition’s “latest energy policy” but can’t get it all the way out, because Josh Frydenberg is laughing harder than a middle-aged man watching Monty Python.
Malcolm Turnbull, obviously feeling the Halloween spirit, gets a little supernatural with his answer.
Earlier today the leader of the opposition stood in front of some solar panels. And for a little while he was talking sense and then a beam of sunlight struck the panel and he was transformed, not into a werewolf but an economic fantasist.
This is what he said. Renewable energy is getting cheaper – he did. He said it’s correct to say we have been moving down the renewable energy path and we are seeing the benefits and he said it needs to be subsidised!
Now, Mr Speaker, this is the bit that we are struggling to understand. Mr Speaker, his comrade in arms, his comrade in arms was of course the member for Sydney. She said, she’s even more emphatic, she said the renewables are becoming cheaper all the time and are already cheaper than coal. Kieran Gilbert [from Sky] was not asking an unreasonable question when he said, “So why subsidise them?” She said, “It is not about subsidies, it is about certainty.”
This is the Labor party. It is about certainty. $66bn of cost loaded on to Australian families and Australian businesses in order to subsidise technologies that are already the cheapest alternative, according to the Labor party.
Updated
Question time is almost upon us.
Taking a look at the morning’s events, energy will once again be the name of the game. But with the telecommunication ombudsman report, the NBN will most likely get a go as well.
I’m going to try to report on QT from the chamber, so wish me luck. If there are tech problems, you can bet I will be getting my running shoes on for you.
Updated
People are reacting very seriously to the allegations Andrew Wilkie raised in parliament this morning.
Vic gambling regulator STATEMENT: "We take any claims of this type extremely seriously and they will be thoroughly investigated." pic.twitter.com/Bfc3SaVHb4
— Karen Barlow (@KJBar) October 18, 2017
It looks as though Peter Dutton’s controversial citizenship bill will be struck from the Senate notice paper this evening.
Last month the Senate voted to give Dutton until today to bring his bill on for debate in the Senate because they were tired of him telling voters how crucial his bill was while simultaneously withholding it from the Senate so it couldn’t be debated.
His office has reached out to key members of the Nick Xenophon Team in the past few days to talk about making amendments to the bill but it all seems too late.
It was the NXT that derailed Dutton’s attempt last month to enact his citizenship laws, saying they could not support the bill package in its current form.
It meant the government would have to either dump the package completely, or make substantial changes, to get the bill through parliament.
In yesterday’s Coalition party-room meeting, Dutton told his colleagues that he would amend the citizenship package.
Guardian Australia has been told his office has been talking about reducing the English language test from level six (university standard) to level five, and to amend the retrospective elements of the bill that have caused consternation.
But those amendments would still not be enough to persuade the NXT to come onboard.
The NXT has previously said the bill is “fundamentally flawed” and needs considerable redrafting.
One of their major complaints is that Dutton wants to give himself – and subsequent immigration ministers – the power to overrule decisions by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal on citizenship matters.
That aspect of the bill does not appear to have been part of recent discussions about amendments.
The Greens have not been contacted by Dutton’s office in the last week. They expect the bill will be struck from the Senate notice paper this evening.
Updated
Christian Porter is defending the government’s planned welfare reforms. You may remember from earlier this morning (which already seems a lifetime ago) the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, slammed the proposed welfare drug testing trial and said it was stigmatising social security recipients.
If the real goal is to reduce the use of illegal drugs, why start with the poorest members of society? Will there also be a policy designed to drug test and crack down on the well-to-do who spend far more on drugs, and receive all sorts of tax deductions, social security payments and other government benefits? Or is it only the poorest whose drug use the government feels it should punish through social security-based measures?
Porter told Sky the measures should be given a chance.
We’ve got 100,000 people who don’t do the right thing in the system, overwhelming two-thirds of people either don’t miss any appointments over six months, or they miss one, and they tend to move off the payment very quickly, but what we have identified is the present complexities and slackness of the compliance system means we have 100,000 people who routinely miss important things like job interviews, and they get stuck on the payment. So it is a very complicated, long and important piece of legislation. I am very confident that almost all of it will go through the Senate. Obviously the contentious issue is testing drugs in welfare recipients and to mandate treatment and it is no secret that there has been some opposition to that ... I think government should be able to try things new things in the welfare space by virtue of the fact that a lot of the old approaches simply don’t work.
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Over at the Press Club and Brendan O’Connor is addressing the impact of the gig economy on industrial relations and how Labor plans on dealing with it:
Federal Labor is examining exactly what we should be doing for people who are selling their labour on particular digital platforms. Recently, we have had Airtasker negotiate with unions in New South Wales a better deal for people who are using Airtasker to find work. Labor hasn’t settled on exactly what we need to do but we will apply the values that we apply to our public policy generally. We should embrace technology but we have to ensure it is not used to obviate obligations under particular laws, to undermine people’s rights and that includes industrial rights. We have a long way to go. Not only in this country. I think globally a long way to go to tackle the complexity of what is happening with the use of technology, exemplified by Uber. We will have more to say about that before the election but it is a complex area of law and I am examining other jurisdictions as to how they are approaching it.
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Didn’t vote? You’re one of 1 million enrolled Australians who didn’t take up their democratic right and legal obligation in the same-sex marriage postal survey. AAP reports the Australian Electoral Commission’s latest annual report found a 46% increase since the 2013 election in people not voting, with the lowest turn out, 91%, since compulsory voting began in 1925.
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Julie Bishop has confirmed Australian forces have played a role in the recapture of Raqqa, which served as the Islamic State capital for some time.
AAP reports Bishop confirmed the Royal Australian Airforce provided support as part of the international coalition, but added there were complexities:
The Syrian city of Raqqa and at least 90% of territory held by Isis in Iraq has been taken back by coalition forces. About 80 Australians fighting for Isis in Iraq and Syria have been killed in the conflict and the government continues to track the movements of another 110 believed to be in the field.But as Isis forces flee south, entrenched conflicts between Iraqi and Kurdish forces have been reignited in Kirkuk and Sinjar. This is deeply troubling and it’s an example of the layers of complexity in Syria and Iraq.
Bishop said Australia remained focused on defeating IS, raising concerns it would “reappear with substance in other parts of the world including in the Philippines”.
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Scott Morrison took the Turnbull government’s message to Queensland, telling the ABC Brisbane audience the state’s Labor government’s 50% renewables target was “nuts”. That should definitely help bring Queensland on board at Coag.
He also explained exactly what the Neg was designed to do.
It works like this. You walk into the shopfront of a retailer – put it in that context – Origin, AGL, whoever it might happen to be. What they have to do, they have to buy energy from the system from all the producers, the wholesalers and others – which a) delivers on a reliability standard which is set by the Energy Market Operator and provides a portfolio of energy that meets the emissions reduction target. So, when you’re buying your energy, you know you’re getting a product which meets both reliability and meets Australia’s environmental obligations. So, this actually does deliver on the trifecta of affordability, of reliability and environmental obligations. So you get rid of the subsidies out of the system – and the reason you can do that is they’re no longer necessary, the price of renewables has come down, they can now compete on their own two feet as they should. So the energy retailers will find that the cheapest way of getting that energy package together to provide to you the customer.
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Over at the National Press Club, Brendan O’Connor is giving a speech on workplace relations.
Here’s his opening:
We cannot tackle inequality or build a future of inclusive prosperity unless Australia has a workplace relations system that is both productive and fair. We have to both address the challenges in the labour market that exist now and prepare for what is coming.
Essential to that task is striking the right balance of power between workers and employers. The tilt of bargaining power away from workers and to employers has gone too far.
Too many of our fellow Australians can no longer see the link between hard work and fair reward. Inequality is at a 75-year high. Wage growth is flat lining. Work is too often hard to find, and insecure.
For too many low and middle-income earners, access to education and training is limited. Workers don’t believe they have the power any more to negotiate a better deal at work. And many are deeply anxious about what the future will bring.
The consequences for our society and our economy are profoundly negative.
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Another question time strategy hint from Labor, with Mark Butler discussing the chief scientist.
I think Alan Finkel should be congratulated with his work over the last months, taking advice from experts overseas and through process developed a comprehensive plan. Malcolm Turnbull has turned his back on that plan. Yes, at the end of the day, Alan Finkel said there needs to be an orderly mechanism to combine climate and energy policy and he then said the clean energy target was the best mechanism. He said it was the mechanism that would deliver the best outcome for households on power prices and Josh Frydenberg reflected that when he did his presentation to the Coalition party room. He [had] a slide that said the clean energy target will lower prices. Malcolm Turnbull reflected that. The problem for us all is that Tony Abbott vetoed it and again Malcolm Turnbull ended up capitulating to Tony Abbott.
As a reminder, here is what Finkel said yesterday, when asked about the clean energy target, where he concluded there was more than one way to “skin a cat”:
The clean energy target is not a headline item. It is bullet point number two of three bullet points. It is not even introduced as a clean energy target, it is introduced as the need for a credible mechanism and there are multiple ways of achieving a credible mechanism.
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Photograph: Mike Bowers for the Guardian
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As promised ...
Also undetected yesterday because of the focus on energy, Peter Dutton told party room colleagues he would amend the citizenship package.
This is not high court citizenship issue but the becoming an Australian issue. He said the government would reduce the English test from level six (university standard) to level five.
But this won’t be enough to secure a crossbench breakthrough. The NXT says it will need more than this concession to reverse its opposition to the controversial overhaul.
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Stay tuned: we are hearing there is movement on the citizenship reforms after all. We shall have those details with you as soon as we can.
ABC reforms to be introduced to the Senate
We are moving quickly today, so please stay with me while I try and keep up.
The communications minister, Mitch Fifield, is moving forward on the ABC reforms he promised to One Nation as part of the deal for their support on the media reforms.
I’ll let Fifield explain what is going on. After all, I would hate to be accused of not being fair or balanced while reporting facts.
From his statement:
The Turnbull government will today introduce legislative reforms to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Act to enhance the ABC’s commitment to rural and regional Australia and require its news services to be fair and balanced.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation Amendment (Rural and Regional Measures) Bill 2017 will implement reforms championed by Senator Bridget McKenzie to enshrine a formal commitment to rural and regional Australia in the ABC’s charter. The bill also requires the ABC to consult on changes affecting rural and regional audiences, through the establishment of a regional advisory council.
The bill will also require there be at least two members of the ABC board with a substantial connection to, or substantial experience in, a regional area through business, industry or community involvement. The government would already satisfy this obligation through its appointments to date. The bill also introduces greater transparency by requiring a number of additional particulars to be included in its Annual Report. These amendments will ensure the ABC has an even greater focus on, and regard for, the needs of rural and regional communities.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation Amendment (Fair and Balanced) Bill 2017 will require news and information to be ‘fair’ and ‘balanced’, in addition to the already legislated requirement to be ‘accurate and impartial according to the recognised standards of objective journalism’.
The bill seeks to legislate what the ABC already expects of itself. The ABC’s own editorial policies already cover ‘fair treatment’, as well as requiring ‘a balance that follows the weight of evidence’. And the MEAA’s journalistic code of ethics refers to ‘fairness’ no less than six times.
The amendments will cement the standards expected by Australian taxpayers.
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Bob Brown wins high court fight against Tasmania's anti-protest laws
Turning my Eye of Sauron outside the Canberra bubble for just a moment (I know, I know, I should get out more) the former Greens leader Bob Brown has had a win in the high court.
Here is a bit from Michael Slezak’s report, which you’ll find here:
The former Australian Greens leader Bob Brown has won a landmark high court fight against Tasmanian anti-protest laws passed in 2014 and under which he was charged in 2016.
Brown, the third person arrested under the Workplaces (Protection from Protesters) Act 2014, argued the laws directly targeted implied freedom of political expression in the constitution and were therefore unconstitutional.
The landmark case stemmed from Brown’s arrest while filming a video about an anti-logging protest at Lapoinya state forest in Tasmania’s north-west in January 2016.
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Meanwhile Julie Bishop has announced a new consul general to Istanbul, Jeffie Kaine.
The Australian consulate general in Istanbul plays a significant role in fostering trade and investment between Turkey and Australia. Istanbul is the business and finance capital of Turkey. It generates almost one quarter of Turkey’s GDP and accommodates one fifth of Turkey’s population of almost 80 million. Istanbul is a popular destination for Australian travellers and a gateway to the Gallipoli peninsula.
Our enduring relationship with Turkey is grounded in our shared experience at the Gallipoli battles of World War I and covers a broad range of areas including Anzac commemorations, cooperation on counter-terrorism and participation in the MIKTA (Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey and Australia) forum.
Australia and Turkey enjoy close people-to-people links, with some 67,000 Australians claiming Turkish ancestry. Our economic relationship continues to strengthen, with two-way trade growing by 14.6% in 2015–16 and totalling almost $1.5bn.
Ms Kaine is a career officer with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. She was most recently director, head of mission/senior executive service section. In Canberra, she has held a range of positions, including in the Iraq taskforce and staffing branch. She has served previously overseas in the Australian permanent mission to the United Nations in Geneva and the Australian embassy in Jakarta.
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Trouble at (banking) mill
While we’ve all been focused on energy (or perhaps that’s just me), trouble has broken out inside the government on another front. This fight is over plans to regulate the salary and appointment of banking executives, which is one of the things the government is doing to hold off calls for a royal commission into the banks.
The veteran Liberal MP Russell Broadbent kicked up a stink about this package in the Coalition party room meeting yesterday, and is reserving his rights, which means he might cross the floor to vote against the change.
Broadbent has told me governments should not be regulating the internal affairs of businesses. He says that’s like Labor’s plans for bank nationalisation in the 1940s.
“This is totally at odds with what the Liberal and national parties stand for,” Broadbent said. “I think Ben Chifley tried something like this in 1947.”
He says he is not “sticking up for the banks” but for a point of principle.
All pretty interesting. We’ll keep an eye on development.
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Andrew Wilkie is speaking more about the allegations he has tabled in the parliament this morning, regarding Crown casino. He won’t go further into the allegations during the press conference because parliamentary privilege does not extend to the Senate courtyard and press conferences. But Wilkie, a whistleblower himself, says he is also not going to do anything which could identify the group which have come forward to him.
He’s calling for a parliamentary inquiry into the allegations and wants the Victorian government and the federal government to investigate what has gone on.
I’m not going to talk to the specific allegations: You know where to find them in the Hansard record if you’re interested in seeing them. What I will say is that the three whistleblowers who have approached me, I’ve met them – I’ve confirmed their identity, and I think that the allegations have enough weight to them that we should take them seriously, and they should be investigated.
It’s now up to the federal government and the Victorian state government to take strong and immediate action. The federal government because some of the allegations would involve breaches of federal law, and obviously the Victorian government because the allegations, if true, would indicate breaches of Victorian law. So, I’m now looking to the prime minister and to the premier to find out what they’re going to do about these very serious allegations. Clearly there needs to be some sort of inquiry by the relevant law enforcement and regulatory agencies and I’m also looking to the parliament to form some sort of parliamentary inquiry into these allegations, and perhaps more broadly than just Crown casino, just to be able to reassure ourselves that if these allegations are true, that at least they’re limited to Crown seen know, but we will wait and see.
Now, I’ve have seen the footage that I have tabled today of the three whistleblowers, you will see that some considerable trouble has been taken to hide their identity. And that’s fair enough because these are three men who are making very serious allegations. It is a very risky thing that they’ve decided to do, to become whistleblowers. It is not an easy road, whistleblowing in this country, but I can reassure the media, that although their identity is concealed, that I have confirmed their identity and although I cannot make any comment about the accuracy or not of their allegations, I do know that these are three people who we should listen to, and we should take their allegations very serious.
Meanwhile you can play our own interactive pokie machine to find out just how addictive they are:
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Back to the politics.
Bill Shorten is at the Mt Majura solar farm , with about half the Labor shadow cabinet (that may be a slight exaggeration, but with Mark Butler, Chris Bown and Andrew Leigh, joining him, it’s quite crowded)
Labor is still examining the policy, but they are certainly no fans of the process. From Chris Bowen:
What we saw yesterday was Turnbull energy policy 72.0. The latest attempt, as they go from crisis to crisis with an energy policy. Just a few weeks ago we were told by the prime minister a clean energy target “would certainly work” Josh Frydenberg told us it would reduce electricity prices. A few weeks before that just in the last session, we were told that the answer to Australia’s energy needs was to keep the Liddell power station open, the coal-fired power station, words that don’t utter their lips anymore. T
The prime minister says it is about engineering and, but it’s about party politics. What is particularly concerning is the lack of modelling which goes with this policy. I’ve seen more thorough modelling in a high school economics essay than the government has been able to produce this far. Particularly scary is the fact that the treasurer said this morning the Labor party has all the information that the government has. Well, I tell you what, that means the government has no information, no modelling at their disposal.
This is not the fault of the Energy Security Board. They have been given an unrealistic timetable and unrealistic task by the government, again which has been driven by the rival factional and liberal politics of the party room, not by good policy. The Labor party has been offering bipartisan support to the government for months for a proper energy policy, but we are all of a sudden expected to think that this latest thought bubble from the government which we were told last week they had a different plan, the week before that a different plan and all of a sudden this is the one that the Labor party should automatically back without the modelling and research.
The Labor party will continue to be the adults in the room in this conversation. We will continue to offer support for good policy, but policy which is supported by the evidence and the facts, and the fact that this government has put this policy together with strings and Band-Aids, with no modelling, no thorough analysis, as has been confirmed by the energy board themselves, that they have to now go to do the work, well, let’s see that work, and if they publish it all for all to see, clearly.
The government is still hoping for bipartisan support, to help give business and industry some certainty that the policy would survive beyond the next few minutes. It would also help bring the Labor states on board, which would be the easiest way for the government to get this all happening. But it probably didn’t help that Scott Morrison was demanding Labor support the policy almost immediately yesterday, before anyone had even had a look at the policy. It seems that whatever political goodwill there was regarding this, is evaporating quite rapidly.
If you missed it here’s Peter Lewis on the energy policy shambles.
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Before the politics gets in the way again, here’s a bit of what Malcolm Turnbull told our Invictus Games team:
It’s good to see so many of you again. Last time we met we were in Sydney with Prince Harry and you’ve been hanging out with him at the Invictus Games where you’ve been so successful.
It’s great to see you again Gary. You kept Julie Bishop – Julie Bishop is here – you were part of our close personal protection team in Afghanistan years ago, not long before you suffered your injuries in the Black Hawk crash. And you kept us safe. You put your life on the line with your comrades to keep us safe there as you all do and have done every day.
We live in a dangerous world. There are many people that seek to do us harm and we know that the freedoms we exercise in this parliament are due to you and those like you who have carried out with that Anzac spirit the defence of our nation for generations.
We’re surrounded by parliamentarians, the servicemen and women of tomorrow, all of these young people – their freedoms, their future depends on the sacrifices you have made and so many other brave Australians will make in the years to come.
You’re an inspiration. We thank you for what you’ve done.
And Bill Shorten:
I want you to know, just as the prime minister has said, on behalf of all Australians – that by returning from adversity, by returning from places which many Australians will never have to go, coming through that storm, that difficulty and that uncertainty – coming through the other side – you served your country again, by your inspiration.
You are proof of the human spirit’s boundless resilience. I want you to know how many people you give hope to by your effort. They mightn’t always get the chance to tell you, but trust me, you give a lot of people, a lot of hope. And you are also a reminder of the duty that we owe all of those who’ve served, the duty to support the men and women of the ADF and their families.
Looking around this room, you can almost feel and see the pride that your families have in you. You should know that every Australian wishes they could be here, telling you how proud they are of you.
You represent: the purest expression of sport, the noblest example of mateship, the very best of Australia.
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Wilkie has released a statement ahead of his press conference:
Today very serious allegations have been levelled at the poker machine industry.
Although the allegations focus on Crown in Melbourne, they could also suggest a broader pattern of behaviour in the poker machine industry, which would obviously have grave implications for people right around Australia, including in my electorate of Denison.
These allegations are obviously very serious. If members and senators, law enforcement and regulatory agencies, and the media, scrutinise the video record of the whistleblowers’ testimony, I’m sure they’ll agree that the claims warrant an immediate and strong response.
I call on the federal and Victorian governments to ensure the allegations are investigated thoroughly. The truth will not be uncovered without a parliamentary inquiry, as well as investigations by law enforcement and regulatory agencies.
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Crown Casino in the spotlight after explosive allegations
Andrew Wilkie has set off a small explosion in the House, tabling allegations from whistleblowers and using parliamentary privilege to allege “illegal machine tampering” at Victoria’s Crown casino, and worse.
We’ll bring you more on that as soon as we can. But here is a little of what he said in parliament this morning.
Although the allegations focus on Crown in Melbourne, they also suggest a broader pattern of misbehaviour in the poker machine industry and that obviously has grave implications for people right around Australia, including in my electorate in Denison. For example the whistleblowers allege illegal machine tampering, including the disabling of the lower debt options and the modifying of buttons to allow prohibited autoplay. Both of which increase ... losses. There’s software manipulating to increase gambler losses even further, in particular on weekends when the number of naive first time and casual users is obviously greater. I am horrified to recount that the Victorian commission for gaming and liquor regulation has allegedly done nothing to stop this shocking criminal misconduct. Indeed, according to the whistleblowers, in some cases the commission is clearly complicit in covering it up. Regrettably, the alleged misconduct at Crown is not limited to poker machines. Indeed, the whistleblowers also allege the casino avoids Austrack scrutiny of individuals involved in transactions over $10,000 by sometimes tolerating and even encouraging the misuse of identity documents. If these allegations are true, then Crown would be facilitating money laundering for any number of nefarious reasons for tax fraud, drug running and even terrorism.
Wilkie is due to speak on this more in a press conference very soon.
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My, my, my Malcolm Turnbull has been a busy man today.
He has just “gatecrashed” the Polished Man event staged by Josh Frydenberg and Fisher MP Andrew Wallace.
Wallace could give Taylor Swift lessons in “surprise face”.
“The Polished Man campaign aims to raise awareness about ending violence against children,” he said. “Men are encouraged to paint a fingernail to help start the conversation and show their support.
“We all have all of us, have a vested interest and a duty to look after all of our children and ensure there is no violence against children, no violence against women, and I think the Polished Man initiative is [great].”
For those wondering, Turnbull went with a Liberal blue for his nail.
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Back to the NBN, which is emerging as one of the bigger sleeper issues and is set to get bigger as more and more people are connected. The communications minister, Mitch Fifield, has responded to the latest complaint figures:
The TIO report shows that overall complaints about the NBN represent just 1% of the 2.4 million users connected to the NBN. (27,000 complaints out of 2.4 million connected NBN users at June 30, 2017)
The rise in complaints remains broadly in line with the rate of the NBN rollout. (121% increase in premises connected to the NBN, compared to a 159% increase in complaints).
The #1 source of industry complaints overall was customer services issues, which has nothing to do with the rollout of the NBN.
The #2 source of industry complaints was billing and payment issues, which has nothing to do with the rollout of the NBN. The #1 NBN-related complaint was in relation to connection delays, which demonstrates Australians want to connect to the NBN as quickly as possible.
The government is working closely with NBN Co and retailers to ensure the processes for switching to the network are meeting consumers’ needs.
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Australia’s Invictus Games team has been honoured at a reception at Parliament House, which allowed for a bit of human interaction between Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten.
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Meanwhile, Chris Bowen said Labor would be “the adults in the room” (although the room at this stage is looking like an adult daycare) when it came to energy policy.
Well what’s very clear is that the government is scrambling. We have policy on the run, we have an energy policy being put together with strings and Band-Aids. What is very clear and has been publicly confirmed by the Energy Security Board is that this policy that is being put together by the government has no modelling, we have no guarantees as has been made clear, and that this is being cobbled together in a desperate attempt to stop the Liberal party room going into meltdown and so that we can have an attempt, the latest attempt, at energy policy in Australia.
Now this is a government which has believed in an emissions intensity scheme and then didn’t, within days. It is a government which told us the clean energy target would “undoubtedly work” and that it would put downward pressure on prices and reduce energy prices, and yesterday scrapped it. Now, all of a sudden, everybody is meant to automatically and suddenly agree that the government has got it right this time, on their 72nd approach – their 72nd attempt at energy policy in Australia.
We have no modelling. The energy board has confirmed that all they have is analysis of similar policies and that now they will proceed to do modelling, after the announcement.
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Bill Shorten and Mark Butler have plans for a press conference at a solar farm today, so you can see where Labor is taking this debate.
Meanwhile, the prime minister is maintaining his (slightly annoyed) line to anyone who would question the national energy guarantee. From his doorstop press conference this morning:
Turnbull: Look the Coag set up the Energy Security Board. You know, this is its creation. There were more Labor governments involved with appointing these experts than there were Liberal ones, or Liberal-National ones. Coag has asked them for their advice on this very issue and they will obviously get the same advice. And so my message to the Labor premiers is: put the politics aside for a moment, put it aside for quite a while in fact, let’s focus on Australian families, let’s focus on delivering a genuinely bipartisan energy policy. It will be enduing, it’s based on engineering and economics and that will deliver affordable power, reliable power and meet our international commitments.
Journalist: Prime minister, the ESB has talked about the modelling and the prices. Will you release it?
Turnbull: Of course, well, the ESB – I can answer that very simply. We’ve asked them to do more modelling on this and when it’s done it will be released and it will be part of the Coag considerations, for sure.
Journalist: Will the commonwealth go it alone if the states don’t agree?
Turnbull: Look, I’m not going to speculate on that type of scenario. I am confident that common sense will prevail. I mean, Australians are fed up with all of the political partisanship. That’s why we went to Energy Security Board and we asked them to consider how we ensure we achieve this affordable, reliable and responsible outcome. I mean it’s a triple bottom line. You want to have a market that is as flexible and competitive as possible but you’ve got to ensure that it’s the lowest possible cost, that energy is reliable.
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Labor’s regional communications spokesman, Stephen Jones, has also had a swipe at the NBN rollout, in the wake of the latest telecommunications ombudsman complaint report.
Well it’s not OK. The people of Australia, the small businesses of Australia, are fed up with the government. The brags about its NBN project seems deaf to the complaints about what’s really going on. Missed appointments, connections that don’t work, services that don’t work. People are paying for a service that they simply aren’t getting and, when they try and raise a complaint, then they get the NBN ping-pong. They get bounced between the phone companies and the NBN – nobody taking responsibility.
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Paul Karp has a bit more on the Newspoll results on the marriage equality postal survey and what it all means:
On Tuesday the Labor caucus resolved to push for Liberal senator Dean Smith’s private member’s bill to be used to legislate marriage equality as soon as possible if the yes vote wins.
The move clears the way for Labor to push a bill through the Senate as early as the week of 15 November, when the Australian Bureau of Statistics announces the result, although the opposition claims it is not pre-empting the result.
John Howard has seized on Labor’s decision, telling the Australian it is an “added reason” to vote no because further exemptions to discrimination law to protect what he called religious freedom are unlikely.
Turnbull this morning — would be pleased with Yes vote but "above all" sees turnout as vindication of postal survey policy pic.twitter.com/tJl498hdUj
— Lane Sainty (@lanesainty) October 17, 2017
Just on Senate business, for those playing along at home, you may notice Peter Dutton’s citizenship reforms are well down the list. That’s a pretty big indication the Senate won’t be getting to them today, before the scheduled close of business just after 7pm. Which usually wouldn’t be a problem, except the pesky Greens, along with Labor, have passed a motion that gave the bill a deadline of close of business today, to be debated or struck from the paper. With the Nick Xenophon Team holding firm against the changes, telling the government to go back to the drawing board, it doesn’t look like Dutton’s changes will become reality anytime soon.
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The bells are ringing, signalling parliament is about to officially begin for the day.
The House schedule can be found here.
While the Senate one can be found here.
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Looking outside of energy for a moment, the Senate has the government’s welfare reforms listed for debate today – they would be the ones that introduce the drug-testing trials.
It is safe to say that the current UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Prof Philip Alston, is not a fan of the policy.
The Australian government is conflating social protection and drug enforcement policies in a way that is counter-productive, unless the main goal is to stigmatise social security recipients. If the real goal is to reduce the use of illegal drugs, why start with the poorest members of society? Will there also be a policy designed to drug test and crack down on the well-to-do who spend far more on drugs, and receive all sorts of tax deductions, social security payments and other government benefits? Or is it only the poorest whose drug use the government feels it should punish through social security-based measures?
Paul Karp will have a full report on that for you, soon.
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As predicted, Labor has honed in on the “affordability” aspect of the national energy guarantee.
Tanya Plibersek told Sky Labor would take a look at the policy but added:
What kind of government proposes something as big and serious as this without doing any modelling and without doing a regulatory impact statement? I think it is a shambles and it is driven by their internal problems. I think they wanted to announce this much later this year but Tony Abbott has put pressure on them with his outbursts in public and so they’ve gone too soon without any modelling or regulatory impact statement.
Same Dastyari meanwhile took the opportunity to launch his latest Senate doors (where the media waits to question arriving politicians) stunt, showing up with some melted soft serve and cheeseburgers.
“These are soft-serve savings,” he said. “You think it is a good idea at the start. It goes flaccid quickly and afterwards you wonder what all the fuss is about.”
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Has anyone looked up defensive in the dictionary lately?
Here is a snippet of the AM interview between Sabra Lane and Malcolm Turnbull this morning.
Lane: You are guaranteeing that they are the best informed but you are still not guaranteeing those figures.
Turnbull: Sabra, what I am guaranteeing is that we are taking advice from the best people in the field and that is unquestionably the Energy Security Board. Coag, the Labor premiers ...
Lane: We will get to a board in just a tick.
Turnbull: No, no,
Lane: I’m sorry ... prime minister ...
Turnbull: What are you apologising for?
Lane: I am sorry to interrupt you. The Coalition has made affordability an issue.
Turnbull: Yes.
Lane: There is no modelling to back the figures up.
Turnbull: They come from the Energy Security Board.
Lane: The board is made up of the regulator and the commission bodies that oversaw the last 10 years of disastrous policy in this country.
Turnbull: There is nobody better qualified to talk about the way the market operates and how we can best ensure reliability. The energy market operator is headed by Audrey Zibelman, who did a similar job in New York before she came out to Australia. She is, as she said yesterday, regularly intervening in the South Australian market to keep the lights on because of the failure of politics in South Australia and the introduction of a massive amount of wind energy in that state without the back-up or the security to ensure system reliability. So, Sabra, you can, if you wish, disrespect these distinguished and expert Australians. I don’t. I’m taking their advice and I just want to remind you that that Energy Security Board was established by Coag. There were more Labor party governments supporting the establishment of the Energy Security Board and they will give the same advice to the Coag governments as they have given to us. All I’m saying, my only request, is that their advice is considered very carefully and respectfully and, I mean, I was surprised to hear your attack on those distinguished Australians. I think you should – I think we owe them the respect that their credibility and expertise deserves. You know what we really owe is a duty to your listeners to get their power bills down and that’s why we’re taking the right advice. We are going to establish a level playing field so that technologies can compete because we owe it to Australians to take the politics and the name calling and the disrespect out of this debate, focus on the engineering and the economics. That’s what the Energy Security Board has done and that is the duty I owe to your listeners and all Australians.
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Side note – so far, well, at least as far as I can tell, government ministers have avoided calling it the Neg. It’s “the policy” or “what we are doing”. Take from that what you will.
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The treasurer, Scott Morrison, has also been sent out on the front lines and he’s been just as defensive as you would expect. Asked about the saving figures, which work out, best-case scenario, to about $2 a week (sometime between 2020-2030) he told the ABC the Neg needed to be considered with all the other changes the government has made.
“This is not the only thing the government is doing. This increases certainty. In addition to that, we’ve got the initiatives on gas, to secure gas for Australian domestic demand, the work we’ve done with the retailers, the work we’ve done on reforming the regulation. All of this means people are getting discounts now that they wouldn’t have got a year ago, two years ago because of the work the government is doing. On top of that, always a relative choice. People will always pick what the Labor party is saying which has a 45% emissions reduction target and which would require $66bn worth of subsidies that you don’t need to pay to meet our environmental obligations that we’ve set out at 26% ... There is a great light that has been shone on this. Australians have a clear choice: they can pay more for electricity under Bill Shorten or they can have lower prices under Malcolm Turnbull and the investment certainty that goes with it, that meets the environmental obligations. It’s a clear choice.
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To a sleeper issue now, but one which is annoying a lot *buffering* of, of, of *buffering* people.
The telecommunications industry ombudsman has released the latest complaint figures for 2016-17, which Labor’s communications spokeswoman, Michelle Rowland, described as a “damming indictment” of the government’s roll out of the NBN.
“The TIO reports that NBN complaints in 2016-17 surged by 159% when compared to the previous period,” she said in a statement. “Of significant concern, NBN complaints are growing 37% faster than the number of new NBN services being activated – a pattern not observed in any of the previous years.
“And, for the first time, internet services are the highest source of complaints to the TIO.”
Malcolm Turnbull is one of the staunchest defenders of the program, having overseen it while communications minister. He has repeatedly said that, given the scale of the roll out (it reached 6 million premises in August), there are going to be some bumps but he is watching it.
Here is what he told Today:
Just a fact of life, it is a bit like television. If you’ve got hardly any viewers, you won’t get a lot of complaints. With NBN, what we have now got, it is true. What we have now got is about 3 million people are actively connected on to the network. We are connecting more people every 10 days than Labor did in six years. So you get a lot more customers, they are rolling on and around 30,000, 40,000 a week. Clearly you are going to get more complaints but you know what? We aim to have 100% satisfaction. Can’t be achieved, I know that, but the goal is to ensure that the installation experience is a good one and obviously that people are satisfied with the service when they get it.
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The prime minister is also facing residual questions over Tony Abbott’s reluctance to accept the policy.
Here was his response to that on Sunrise:
We didn’t adopt the clean energy target. If we wanted to, we would have. We had reservations about it and what we have now is a recommendation from the energy security board which consists of the leaders of our energy market regulators and operators, the smartest people in the room, these other experts that everyone is telling us to listen to, this is where you find the engineering and the economics that is the guide to my government’s energy policy. The day of slogans, ideology and politics, we should put it behind us ... Industry has recognised on a truly rational and objective approach, a level playing field backed by engineering and economics.
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Malcolm Turnbull is talking to Sabra Lane on ABC and is getting very defensive over the average saving figure and whether the government can guarantee it. The short version is, it can’t. But he has turned any questioning of that figure into an attack on the experts on the energy security board. That started yesterday, when Turnbull attacked Bill Shorten for “disrespecting” those on the board, when the figure was queried.
All we have here is a calculation from the ESB. It has promised to do more modelling before Coag but, at the moment, the government can only point to a few lines. It says that should be enough. But given the amount of attention the government has focused on the affordability aspect during the power wars, it is not something that is going to go away anytime soon.
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The energy and environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, has attacked the states for expressing criticism of the national energy guarantee.
“It’s bizarre for them to be openly critical when they don’t have the detail,” he told Radio National.
Frydenberg cited endorsements of the Neg from the Grattan Institute, AGL, Energy Australia, the Australian Industry Group and BlueScope.
Asked if the Neg essentially sets an emissions intensity baseline that in effect mandates renewable energy, Frydenberg said renewables “will be absolutely critical” and electricity generators will need “a mix of assets”, including thermal generation and renewables.
“The question is: what is the lowest cost to the consumer? With technology costs coming down quite dramatically the ability to back-end [emissions reduction] is there. [The Paris agreement target] is very important to meet.”
Frydenberg noted that electricity suppliers can use “the existing contract market to source the right amount of generation” to meet the twin objectives of emissions reduction and reliability.
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Good morning and welcome to the hard energy sell
The Neg is alive and the government has embarked on a sell that could teach Hollywood studio bosses a thing or two.
The energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, was up before the sun hitting the airwaves with his brief of “affordability, reliability and responsibility”, the message having been slightly tweaked overnight to acknowledge the environment.
Malcolm Turnbull has also been beaming across commercial TV screens on the big sell but, having convinced the party room (with a few notable exceptions, Tony Abbott included), it is on to the states.
The government wants Coag to agree to this but the Labor-led states may be a problem. Speaking to Sunrise, Turnbull said this is what the states wanted, so they should get with the program.
What I am saying to everyone and to the premiers who sit around the table at our meetings; you appointed the energy security board. You appointed them as they are smart and you wanted that advice. They have given us the advice, why don’t we listen to it and follow it? Why don’t we listen to the experts we asked for advice knowing that this will mean energy is more affordable, more reliable and we will still be able to meet emission reduction commitments under the Paris treaty?
Meanwhile, Frydenberg told Sky that he reached out to Abbott, who he called a “conscientious objector” on this issue, before the party room to explain the policy to him:
I did ring him before party room and was upfront about [what the policy can do] and asked him to keep an open mind.
Labor also looks like having had a Bex and a lie down after being hit with the Coalition policy yesterday and is crafting its response. Expect it to look at the saving aspects – the $110-$115 figure is only an average, which won’t start until 2020, and there is no guarantee to those figures. Just advice the government has been given by the energy security board but, so far, the government can’t show the modelling that points to it. Or guarantee when those savings will kick in.
Turnbull is being very cagey on that point and this morning has taken any questioning or scepticism over the figures as “disrespecting” the experts. So that’s going well.
In other news, the latest Newspoll shows the yes vote has a commanding lead among people who have already voted in the marriage law postal survey, leading 59% to 38%.
So strap in and get ready for round #3478 in the energy battles. Mike Bowers is prowling the hallways, so follow him at @mpbowers or me at @amyremeikis and have a chat in the comments. I’ll look through them as the day goes on.
Let’s get started!
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