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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2017/feb/15/coalition-threatens-to-raise-taxes-if-savings-are-not-passed-politics-live

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Bill Shorten urges Coalition to ditch company tax cuts instead of 'threatening' voters – question time live Bill Shorten urges Coalition to ditch company tax cuts instead of 'threatening' voters – question time live
(35 minutes later)
4.26am GMT
04:26
The senate has voted to sit late to consider the ABCC bill.
4.21am GMT
04:21
The Senate is currently voting on whether it should stay late to debate the ABCC bill until it passes.
Updated
at 4.22am GMT
4.20am GMT
04:20
Paul Karp
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.
Updated
at 4.23am GMT
4.19am GMT
04:19
Where’s Malcolm?
The West Australian is reporting that the prime minister has not been seen in the state for six months.
Updated
at 4.23am GMT
4.14am GMT
04:14
Paul Karp
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.
Updated
at 4.21am GMT
4.13am GMT
04:13
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.
Updated
at 4.19am GMT
4.07am GMT
04:07
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.
Updated
at 4.14am GMT
4.01am GMT
04:01
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.
Updated
at 4.12am GMT
3.57am GMT
03:57
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 ...
Updated
at 4.02am GMT
3.54am GMT3.54am GMT
03:5403:54
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? 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.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. 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.
Updated
at 4.06am GMT
3.49am GMT3.49am GMT
03:4903:49
A government question to Christopher Pyne about energy. He talks about how Vili’s Pies and Cakes in Adelaide needs their own generator now to guarantee electricity supply. Vili’s has a fetching photo of Tony Abbott in a hair net on their website. 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.
3.46am GMT
03:46
PM arrives for #QT @GuardianAus @gabriellechan #politicslive pic.twitter.com/2C6ownFyrG
3.46am GMT
03:46
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.)
3.41am GMT
03:41
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
3.39am GMT
03:39
NXT MP Rebekah 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 backup. 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.
3.34am GMT
03:34
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.
3.31am GMT
03:31
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 telling 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.
3.28am GMT
03:28
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.
3.22am GMT
03:22
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.
UpdatedUpdated
at 3.28am GMT at 3.57am GMT
3.21am GMT
03:21
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.)
3.16am GMT
03:16
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.