Scott Morrison says government 'not for the big end of town' – politics live

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2018/jun/25/coalition-polls-tax-hanson-politics-live

Version 5 of 15.

The Australian Energy Council has popped up today to talk, well, energy, and it is not impressed with all this talk about re-nationalising the electricity market, which has been talked about within conservative quarters:

Claims that the profit margin of electricity retailers makes up 15-20 per cent of every household bill are wrong, and not supported by the independent assessment of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the energy industry said today.

The Australian Energy Council’s General Manager, Sarah McNamara, said “assertions that electricity retailers are making excessive profits at the expense of NSW households is not borne out by the facts.

“The ACCC is conducting a detailed analysis, based on data provided by electricity retailers, as part of its Retail Electricity Pricing Inquiry. The Inquiry is considering the drivers of electricity price increases over the past 10 years. A key area of focus for the ACCC Inquiry has been identifying retailers’ profit margins.

The Inquiry’s Preliminary Report, released in October 2017, found that retailer profit margins across the National Electricity Market ranged from 5 to 9 per cent and were 8 per cent in New South Wales, on an EBITDA basis.

“This is the most current data set available. It is incontrovertible. If we are to have a proper debate on electricity prices and the best ways to address them, these facts must be the starting point.

“The ACCC found that the key driver for higher electricity bills over the last 10 years had been previous network spending and more recently higher wholesale prices.

“Re-regulation is not the answer. The Australian Energy Market Commission’s review of competitiveness in the electricity retail sector found that re-regulating energy prices will not address affordability, and could actually make things worse by killing innovation and reducing the benefits of competition.”

Labor is not backing down from its campaign strategy – I wouldn’t be surprised if you hear Bill Shorten address the issue in parliament today (those 90-second members statements can be very handy).

Brendan O’Connor said the government had no right to complain about personal attacks when he spoke to the ABC this morning:

Well, in fact the government has – from the beginning of the Abbott government, and since then under the Turnbull Government – spent every day in parliament attacking the opposition and, indeed, making personal attacks against opposition members. Fine, but the prime minister should stand up to scrutiny and not have such a glass jaw.

He is the richest man in parliament. He stands to be the biggest beneficiary of the corporate tax cuts in the parliament. He just made a $7,000 tax cut for his income last week by voting with Pauline Hanson. I think [highlighting] this is absolutely reasonable, and I think the Australian public needs to understand more what values and what priorities the prime minister has.

The joint parliamentary committee on intelligence is presenting its report on foreign interference to the parliament - Paul Karp is having a looksie and will have the cliff notes version for you imminently.

The bipartisan report into the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Bill 2017 has just been tabled - it includes important exemptions for charities, unions and arts organisations. More details below. #auspol pic.twitter.com/ENO5tgEtpf

Soft drink producers – including big cola – are planning on cutting the sugar content in their drinks by 20% by 2025.

The health minister, Greg Hunt, is speaking on that now:

There are really three things that we are doing in conjunction with industry and the beverage council to improve the quality of our food and our beverages and the outcomes.

One, we have the healthy food partnership. The initiative follows on from the healthy food partnership, which is about ensuring that the content of food and beverages is improved over time, progressively, and in a way that is acceptable to consumers.

Secondly, we have the health star rating. So whether it is mums or dads, kids at school or at university or older Australians, they can make informed choices.

Thirdly, at this budget we contributed $230m to support sports participation – in particular, by young people but also by older Australians – and preventive health activities. So improving the ability of people to take control of their own physical lives and, particularly those who aren’t active, to be active at an appropriate level for themselves. We also contributed $125m to a chronic disease fund, which will deal with many of the issues relating to obesity, cardiovascular illness and diabetes.

Then finally, that brings me to this particular project. I want to acknowledge that the Beverage Council has worked with the cane growers, with the Farmers’ Federation, with the farming community to ensure that along with our export markets, we still see a growing market and growing jobs for and through their products, but we see better health outcomes for Australians.

The 20% by 2025 pledge will improve lives, improve health and improve the quality of outcomes for Australians of all ages.

I don’t think it can be considered entirely altruistic though. While this government has ruled out any support for a sugar tax, the chatter is getting louder and louder. And corporations don’t do things just because it feels good. The consumer mood is shifting, and companies are very, very aware of that.

Labor’s penalty rate bill hasn’t even entered the debate stage yet, but the minister for small business, Craig Laundy, has some things to say.

His office has put out a statement saying, “Bill Shorten needs to come clean on his history and the union movement’s involvement in cutting penalty rate of workers for years”.

As the national secretary of the AWU, Bill Shorten cut penalty rates for some of our lowest-paid workers. Under the infamous Cleanevent deal in 2006, he stripped workers of all penalty rates, with no compensation.

What Labor and the ACTU don’t say is that some unions have been ripping off thousands of workers, particularly young Australians, for years through wage deals that strip them of penalty rates.

What Labor and the ACTU don’t tell you is that many of these deals, done mainly by the SDA union, have cut weekend penalty rates not just by a little bit, but in some cases have:

completely cut penalty rates on Sunday

not only cut Sunday, but have also completely cut penalty rates on Saturday

This is not new – these lines have been prosecuted in both the royal commission into unions and several times in question time. Expect to hear it more.

The department of agriculture has felt the need to “clarify” media reports about the sheep in WA, after the suspension of an exporter’s licence.

The department’s main beef is over claims in some reports the sheep are “stranded”. It says not so.

It is necessary to clarify matters raised in media reports.

Following the suspension of an exporter’s licence, there are sheep currently in a registered feedlot that had been due for export.

The next steps are a commercial matter for the company concerned.

There are a number of potential options, including processing domestically and transfer to one of a number of companies that hold current live export licences and are eligible to apply for export to the Middle East or other markets.

There is also nothing, including biosecurity measures, preventing these animals from returning to the national herd.

Exporters are responsible for ensuring they meet the animal welfare requirements imposed under commonwealth and state law.

Scott Morrison found some sparkle within the Fairfax-Ipos poll this morning:

I am pleased to see today that the prime minister is by far and away preferred by the Australian people, as he should be, whether it is on managing our economy, whether it’s managing our tax system. It’s about who can be trusted [and] all of these things demonstrate again that Malcolm Turnbull is providing the right economic leadership to Australia, but an economic leadership to Australia that is guaranteeing the essential services that Australians rely upon.

Our plan for a stronger economy is working. We are seeing that in record jobs growth. More than a million jobs created since we were first elected. We want to ensure that the benefits of that plan reach all Australians. That means we need to keep going with that plan. We live in a very competitive world. Other countries all around the world have been providing tax relief and lower taxes for their businesses.

Now, that is putting us here in Australia at a disadvantage. We are not for the big end of town, particularly not when it comes to the big end of town in Paris and New York and London and Tokyo and Singapore. That is who Bill Shorten is backing now by not supporting these tax changes. The big end of town overseas should not be getting a benefit from the Australian parliament this week by rejecting the government’s plan to make sure our company taxes are more competitive. We want our businesses to be more competitive and that is what our plan will deliver.

Liberal MP Trent Zimmerman is due to move a motion (full text below), recognising that one of Australia’s first humanitarian efforts was “to mount relief efforts for orphans and other survivors of the Armenian genocide” and describing it as “one of the darkest chapters of modern human history”.

Turkey has never accepted the term “genocide” to describe the events of 1915 despite historians demolishing its denial of responsibility for up to 1.5 million deaths – so the wording of the motion and the fact it will be debated is highly politically charged.

Guardian Australia understands that Liberal MP Tim Wilson was due to speak on the motion but Stuart Robert will now speak instead. Wilson, who is of Armenian heritage, spoke in parliament in March about “the marching of Armenians to their death”.

Asked why he is no longer speaking on the motion, Wilson said:

I have made a number of public statements recognising the Armenian genocide and I will be speaking in the House later tonight on the same topic. There were three places to speak on the motion and I volunteered to give up my spot because I have made a number of statements in the past on the subject and am giving opportunity to other members.

Full text of motion on Armenian genocide, to be moved by Trent Zimmerman later today #auspol pic.twitter.com/tep3P85eLZ

Malcolm Turnbull has met with Vanuatu’s prime minister, Charlot Salwai Tabimasmas. The official take is below:

It is my great pleasure to welcome the prime minister of Vanuatu, the honourable Charlot Salwai Tabimasmas, to Australia.

Australia and Vanuatu share a long history of close co-operation and today Prime Minister Salwai and I reinforced our commitment to this deep and enduring economic and security partnership.

We agreed to commence negotiations on a bilateral security treaty on common security interests, such as humanitarian assistance and disaster response, maritime surveillance and border security, police and defence cooperation.

Australia will provide technical assistance to support Vanuatu to develop its first national security strategy. This strategy will support Vanuatu’s vision for a ‘stable, sustainable and prosperous Vanuatu’, in line with its national sustainable development plan.

We agreed to enhance official police-to-police co-operation. Australia will provide assistance to recruit and train 200 new police officers by 2020, to refurbish the existing police college in [the capital] Port Vila and to support executive leadership capacity in the Vanuatu police force.

We are furthering our cyber security partnership with $400,000 in support to strengthen the capacity of Vanuatu’s computer emergency response team and develop Vanuatu’s cyber policy and legislation.

We also agreed to deepen our co-operation on labour mobility. This will increase employment opportunities for Vanuatu’s workers in Australia and help fill critical labour gaps in Australia’s rural and regional areas.

Lastly, we will continue our long-standing support for Vanuatu’s education sector with up to $19.5m to promote better education outcomes for ni-Vanuatu boys and girls. The funding package will help improve school enrolment, literacy and numeracy rates, strengthen teacher training, provide scholarships and develop and roll out a new curriculum.

Vanuatu is one of Australia’s key partners in the Pacific. I look forward to continuing our work together to foster stability and prosperity through the implementation of Australia’s stepped-up engagement in the region.

Paul Karp wrote up the latest Pulse poll, which found that most Australians don’t feel as if they have benefited from almost three decades of consecutive growth:

After 26 consecutive years of economic growth most Australians either believe they have not benefited or don’t know if they have gained, according to a new poll.

The national poll of almost 3,000 people for the Committee for Economic Development of Australia is evidence of what it calls an ‘economic disconnect’, with perceived winners including large corporations and executives.

The results are published in Ceda’s Community Pulse 2018 report, released on Monday, and provide grist for political arguments about addressing wage stagnation through tax cuts.

You’ll find the rest of that story here

Just a totally candid moment, chillin’ with the locals.

The education minister, Simon Birmingham, has been out and about almost every day in the last week or so, as the deadline to switch over to the government’s new childcare system fast approaches. One week to go:

On average, eligible families will be $1,333 a year better off per child under the Turnbull government’s reforms, but families need to make the switch to the new system or they risk disrupting their payments.

We’re investing an extra $2.5bn and overhauling the system by retargeting subsidies to families working the most and to families earning the least, abolishing the annual rebate cap for most families, and introducing an hourly rate cap to put downward pressure on fee increases.

Parents and carers need to log on to myGov or visit www.education.gov.au/childcare and update their details if they haven’t done so already. The clock is ticking, Australia.

Labor has announced it will set up a NBN service guarantee if it wins the next election. From Michelle Rowland and Stephen Jones’ joint statement:

Labor will deliver a better experience for NBN consumers with a plan to establish an NBN service guarantee that will set regulated timeframes and wholesale service standards for:

fault rectification

installations

missed appointments

The NBN service guarantee will be enforced through financial penalties that will apply if service standards are not met.

Inside the Coalition party room, the energy debate is still bubbling away, as the energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, and the moderates work to fight off Tony Abbott’s attacks. More and more MPs – and traditional supporter groups – are lining up to talk up the policy.

How will Abbott react? Well last week he warned the government was ignoring the backbench and hinted he may cross the floor. But so far, it has been a lot of bluster, with not a lot of support – at least not from outside the usual suspects. Abbott is fighting a few battles within the party room at the moment – energy, Craig Kelly’s preselection – but doesn’t seem to be gaining that much ground, at least not yet.

Here was Malcolm Turnbull on the Neg this morning:

Well the national energy guarantee is a great policy. It will secure lower energy prices. It will secure reliable and affordable energy. You don’t have to take my word for it. Look at what the Energy Security Board says – it will reduce wholesale power prices.

In fact, we’ve already seen wholesale power prices reduced under our policies by about 30% over the last year. We’ve seen gas prices, wholesale gas prices, come down by about 50% over the last 18 months. We’re starting to see retail prices – which is obviously where it really counts, the electricity power bill you get at home – they’re starting to come down too. So we are turning the corner on higher energy prices because we have a plan for affordable and reliable energy.

The shadow finance minister, Jim Chalmers, had a chat at doors this morning, before heading into work. He said Labor was right to point out what benefit the prime minister receives from his own legislation:

Self-evidently, Malcolm Turnbull would be a big beneficiary, not just of the company tax cuts, but also the personal income tax cuts that went through the Senate last week.

It’s entirely legitimate for us to point out, as we have been doing, that Malcolm Turnbull, as a former investment banker, brings a series of influences to his job as the prime minister. It’s entirely legitimate for us to point out that Malcolm Turnbull always sides with the top end of town over middle Australia. That’s what he did last week with the income tax cuts; that’s what he’s proposing to do this week with the company tax cuts.

This is the most out-of-touch prime minister that Australia has ever had. He brings to this job, not an affinity with working people, but a preference for the investment bankers of Point Piper. We will be pointing that out in a variety of ways between now and the next election.

For those who may have missed it when we have previously talked about this stuff, we usually refer to these little mini-press conferences as “doors” because they are done at the doors to the building. There are several different entrances in this building – including through the basement (once they finally finish the renovations here), so politicians who come through the doors only do so if they have something to say. It’s usually on a bit of a roster – the spokesperson for the particular subject is sent out to lay the foundation of the line for the day.

The debate on Labor’s bill has been adjourned (date to be set) and Bob Katter is now presenting his own private member’s bill, which is on banking system reform.

Which reminds me – Gareth Hutchens is following along with the banking royal commission – so keep an eye out for his updates.