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 6 of 15.

Christian Porter is looking forward to passing the foreign interference laws:

Attorney-General, Christian Porter, welcomed the release today of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security’s (PJCIS’s) report on the Government’s Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Bill 2017.

“The Committee report is a critical step in securing the passage of this crucial legislation to help protect Australia’s democratic systems and institutions,” the Attorney-General said.

“Most importantly, the Committee report recommends the Bill be passed, reflecting a continuation of the bipartisan approach to national security legislation.

“The Turnbull Government’s number one priority is to keep Australians safe and this Bill, along with the Espionage and Foreign Interference Bill which the PJCIS reported on two weeks ago and also recommended be passed, are critical elements of achieving that objective.

“The Government intends to accept all of the Committee’s recommendations for amendments to the Bill, with a view to debating and passing both Bills into Parliament this week.

“The Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Bill creates a register for individuals or entities which are undertaking activities on behalf of foreign principals. This will provide transparency for the Australian Government and the Australian community about foreign influence in Australia.

“We don’t seek to restrict those activities through this Bill, rather to ensure such activity is undertaken in a lawful, open and transparent way.”

Two weeks ago the Government presented the Committee with a series of drafted amendments which addressed key issues of concern to stakeholders.

The Committee has made 52 recommendations, the majority of which represent minor and technical drafting amendments.

Of the significant amendments recommended by the PJCIS, more than 20 relate to the amendments previously drafted and submitted by the Attorney-General.

The most significant remaining recommendations relate to the creation of new exemptions for charities and arts groups in limited circumstances and extending requirements on former Cabinet Ministers and public servants.

The Attorney-General said the Government would consider those recommendations and was aiming to have any necessary amendments drafted ahead of introduction of the Bill next week.

“I thank the PJCIS and the co-operative approach of the Opposition to bring this inquiry to a conclusion and the delivery of today’s report,” the Attorney-General said.

Labor has distributed the transcript of Bill Shorten’s speech on the penalty rates bill. This bit lays out where I think you’ll see the election campaign going:

Now of course what we’ve seen from the government propaganda machine is they say that Labor supports cutting penalty rates because we endorse enterprise bargaining.

There is a world of difference between workers consenting and bargaining for improvements in their overall rates of pay and arbitrary penalty rate cutting with no compensation any hour of the day, any day of the week.

This government has never – and when we listen to their ministers carry on, always remember when you hear their ministers and their prime minister and they talk about workers – reality is they need to get the microscope out, they have no knowledge of how people really construct their lives.

Ask them next time: have you ever negotiated a pay rise for a worker? Have you ever sat there and bargained – constructively with business – but always on the side of workers? Have you ever stood up to improve their redundancy pay? Have you ever stood up to give them a greater say in their rosters and their shifts? Of course not.

This is a government who loves to talk about life experience – no life experience ever representing workers and getting them a better, safer, more reliable and secure job in their lives.

And of course, though, we’ll hear the other argument about penalty rates. They have a second argument, which is: we’re now in a seven-24 economy.

Somehow penalty rates are a thing of the past because somehow we now live 24 hours a day, seven days a week – as if we never did before penalty rates.

But the point about it is that if we want to have a seven-day-a-week, 24-hour economy, there’s always a worker making that happen.

And we do believe and we make no apology for saying, when you’re on 40 and 50 and 60 and 100,000 dollars a year – we actually want to see you do better. And we appreciate the work that you put in for our economy.

But fundamentally, this legislation about penalty rates goes to the heart of the national priorities of this parliament and the values of the two competing parties and movements who seek to form a government in this country.

We think that if you earn penalty rates, you’re not selfish or greedy. You’re not an inconvenience to the business. You’re not just another loaf of bread, which we should try and find the lowest unit price, as the prime minister once famously said in the exchange of labour for pay.

Richard Di Natale is speaking in support of the Labor motion. He says it is the biggest change of the corporate tax structure the nation has ever seen and deserves to be debated.

Greens and Labor staffers are also lolling at Mathias Cormann argument that the standing orders should not be suspended, because of due process and order – because of the gag order that was put on the income tax debate last week.

“Here is an opportunity through the week to debate corproate tax,” Di Natale says.

“Not to have it locked in for debate late at night ... To have it rammed through for a vote in the early hours of the morning, outside of scrutiny.”

Mathias Cormann is speaking against Penny Wong’s attempts to suspend standing orders to bring on the corporate tax debate. He says no, but only because the government is concerned with the proper and orderly order of things.

I just switched over to catch this:

Bill Shorten’s approach to this is un-Australian. Bill Shorten’s approach to this is un-Australian.

Sigh. The sooner we put to bed the “un-Australian” debate, when it’s not being used for irony purposes, the better.

Clive Palmer, who last week claimed that 20,000 people had contacted his office about joining his party in less than 24 hours, is offering free membership to United Australia, if that is your thing.

He’s also accused Pauline Hanson of stealing his GST policy. From his website:

The United Australia Party called out senator Pauline Hanson today for copying one its policies introduced in Western Australia by senator Dio Wang of the Palmer United Party.

United Australia Party federal leader Clive Palmer slammed the behaviour today, saying Senator Hanson was devoid of new ideas.

“She is stooping to plagiarising our party policies to maintain the relevance of her last remaining parliamentary colleague Peter Georgiou in Western Australia. She has no relevance left. Her party is dissolving before her eyes,” Mr Palmer said.

The copied policy was originally presented by Palmer United Party senator Dio Wang back in April 2014.

Senator Wang’s policy sought to keep 100% of the GST earned in WA to stay and be spent in WA.

At the time Senator Wang stated: “WA must see its full share of GST returned to the state to ensure our ageing schools and hospitals are upgraded, to ensure our regional communities, industries and people are supported to the best of our ability.”

Clive Palmer said One Nation would cease to exist by the next election.

“Party members are deserting Pauline Hanson and it’s easy to see why,” Mr Palmer said.

Oxfam is also in town – and campaigning against the corporate tax cuts. From the statement by Oxfam Australia’s economic policy adviser, Joy Kyriacou:

The proposed $65bn hand-out for big business would make Australia the latest country to join the global race to the bottom on corporate tax rates.

Slashing the corporate tax rate would undermine attempts to tackle inequality and poverty, both in Australia and around the world. When governments enter a race to the bottom on corporate tax rates, everyday people lose.

It is utterly inconceivable that the federal government wants to push ahead with slashing the corporate tax rate when Australian Taxation Office data shows that more than one in three large Australian companies paid no tax at all in Australia for the past three years of reporting.

Passing the corporate tax cut for large companies would be a further step in unravelling the fairness of our tax system.

Right now, the use of tax havens and other loopholes by Australian multinationals is ripping billions of dollars from public coffers in developing countries, as well as in Australia.

Oxfam estimates around $5-6bn is lost to Australia’s public purse through the tax avoidance practices of multinationals – and global estimates are that the poorest countries lose well over $100bn annually.

This is money that should be spent on the things everyday people need: schools, hospitals, roads and public infrastructure.

It would also be completely nonsensical to promise a crackdown on multinationals that are avoiding paying their fair share of tax in exchange for rewarding big business with these tax cuts.

And the stubborn push for these tax cuts comes with little evidence of benefits to the economy and community – and in exchange for no more than a ‘pinky promise’ that big business will invest more in jobs and wage growth.

What Australia should be doing is cracking down further on tax avoidance, including by introducing public country-by-country reporting that requires large companies to declare details of income, taxes paid and profits around the world.

Oxfam calls on senators to support the Australian people this week, not further profits for large companies. The corporate tax cuts for large businesses should be rejected.

Penny Wong is in the Senate attempting to suspend standing orders to bring on the company tax cut debate now.

She says if Pauline Hanson and the Centre Alliance are serious about not supporting the corporate tax cuts, then there is no reason not to bring on the debate, so they can prove it.

And if they don’t, Wong says it only proves they are seeking to say one thing before the July byelectons (where Centre Alliance and Hanson both have a lot of skin in the game) and then make a “sneaky deal” with the government in August.

Just a reminder of where question time went last week:

He does; he says I’m a snob. This is the man who’s sucked up and grovelled to Dick Pratt like there was no tomorrow. He took three trips overseas. He drank the champagne. He sucked up to the big end of town. He sold out the workers. I’ve seen a lot of wealthy people in my days, and I’ve never seen anybody more sycophantic in the presence of a billionaire than a Labor politician, and none more so than this sycophant, this groveller, this man who abandoned workers while he tucked his knees under the Pratts’ table and sucked up to Dick Pratt right up until the time when it was no longer useful for him to do it. No integrity, no consistency, no loyalty.

That was Malcolm Turnbull on Bill Shorten – don’t expect it to get any better.

The Reserve Bank's published an interesting new paper. On the effects of the federal government's temporary investment tax break for business during the GFC https://t.co/FkwCtb7cMZ #auspol Note its conclusions: pic.twitter.com/J1S80RkZ07

Liberal MP Andrew Hastie has just tabled a committee report into the foreign influence transparency scheme bill, showing that Labor and the Coalition have reached a bipartisan consensus on the bill to set up a register for lobbyists and others to declare their work for foreign entities.

The most significant proposed amendments are:

A new exemption to the requirement to register for charities, arts organisations and industrial organisations where they “are making routine representations in accordance with their respective purposes, and where the relationship with the foreign principal is well known or a matter of public record”.

Professionals such as tax agents, customs brokers and liquidators also get an exemption for their day-to-day work.

There is further narrowing of working on behalf of a foreign principal, clarifying that both the person and the foreign entity must “know or expect” that they would or might undertake the activity to influence the Australian government.

The shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, said that Labor had secured “important exemptions” in response to fears of an “unreasonable compliance burden” on the civil society sector.

Dreyfus:

It is clear the scheme was never meant to capture innocent charities, arts organisations or unions who were simply doing their job. Labor worked to ensure the scheme was better targeted, removing these organisations from its reach and improving the bill.

The amendments recommended in today’s report represent the second major set of changes to the original bill, introduced by the prime minister in December last year. Labor welcomes recognition from the government that the original bill was completely unworkable in its breadth.

Hastie told parliament Australia “can’t tolerate foreign influence that is in any way covert, coercive or corrupt”. He said where foreign influence is advanced through an intermediary, its source is disguised, such that a decision-maker may be unaware, and the aim of the register is to rectify that.

On 8 June the attorney general, Christian Porter, announced a series of amendments to the bill, including narrowing the definition of “foreign principal” to foreign governments, related entities and individuals and political organisations.

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

Claims that the profit margin of electricity retailers makes up 15-20% 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% and were 8% 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.

Reregulation is not the answer. The Australian Energy Market Commission’s review of competitiveness in the electricity retail sector found that reregulating 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.