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 9 of 15.

In Senate question time, the Labor senator Anthony Chisholm has asked finance minister Mathias Cormannwhether it is true that just three businesses will benefit from the big business tax cut in Longman.

Cormann responds that it is “not true - the business tax cuts will benefit every company”. He launches into a case study of Qantas, and how it buys from other suppliers who will benefit from its improved performance.

This prompts a chorus of interjections from Labor senators, including Jacinta Collins suggesting this is part of the “fairy tale” of trickle down economics. She sings “trickle trickle little star” to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

The supplementary question suggests just 10 businesses in Braddon will benefit, so obviously Labor is very focused on the 28 July byelections.

Gai Brodtmann to Malcolm Turnbull:

“Company profits increased by 5.8% over the year, nearly three times as much as wages. So why does the government support cutting the penalty rates of nearly 70,000 working Australian by up to $77 a week while he is giving an $80bn handout to big business? Or is the prime minister telling hard-working Australians, including those who made his coffee this morning, to just get a better job too?”

Not surprisingly, the variation of a question we have already heard is given an answer we have already heard.

Turnbull ends with this:

No wonder the member for Grayndler is disgusted with this turn of events. No wonder the member for Grayndler has set out his challenge, a return to the values of the Labor party in challenging the pathetic class war and hypocrisy of the leader of the opposition.

We may have just heard the worst dixer this year:

Will the treasurer update the house on the importance of encouraging and rewarding aspiration through the government’s personal income tax cuts and is the treasurer aware of any alternative view that would undermine aspiration.

ANY ALTERNATIVE VIEW THAT WOULD UNDERMINE ASPIRATION.

What. Does. That. Even. Mean.

Dixers are terrible. We know this. But if this is where we are headed with them, just put them out of their misery. Honestly. WTAF does ‘any alternative view that would undermine aspiration’ actually mean in the real world?

Tax cuts are good and amazing and practically the Kanye of the parliament, according to the last dixer. Moving on.

Tanya Plibersek to Malcolm Turnbull:

“When the prime minister visited a cafe this morning did he apologise to the workers who served his coffee for supporting cuts to their penalty rates, at the same time that he is giving an $80bn handout to big business? Or is it one rule for the business the prime minister invests in, and another for the workers who serve him?”

Turnbull:

“I thank the member for her question and remind her just as supporting enterprise, supporting hard-working families getting ahead was always part of the Labor party’s ethos for over a century but now abandoned by her and her leader, the Labor party has abandoned it, any deputy Labor leader that can state aspiration is a mystery to her has lost touch with what the Labour party used to be about.

“And Mr Speaker, another thing the Labor party was founded on was the need to have an independent umpire. Founder of the AWU going back to the 19th-century, that was always the goal, an independent umpire, and in one form or another it has been part of our landscape over a century. And what we have here, we have taken the leader of the opposition, who said a couple of years ago, he said ‘I know for the last 110 years conciliation, arbitration, the ability to have an honest look at, the end of the day, hear the complaints, hear the concerns and hear the appeal is what gives the workers voice.’ Well!

“Fair Work considered the matter of penalty rates, it heard everybody, all the parties, and it made a decision. It was in an arbitrary decision, it was the decision of the independent umpire. But of course Mr Speaker, you talk about arbitrary decisions. What about the way in which unions, formerly led by the leader of the opposition, traded away one set of penalty rates after another.

“And all too often did so in return for payments by the employer to the union! Which were not disclosed! Were not disclosed! And when this shocking state of affairs was revealed in the Haydon royal commission and they introduced legislation to do no more than require unions to reveal payments they had from employers to their members, who opposed it?

“The Labor party! The Labor party has abandoned the workers! It has abandoned its values! The mystery of aspiration to the deputy leader of the opposition has not left the Labor party anywhere but utterly out of touch with the people it was once founded to represent! No wonder the member for Grayndler has had a gut full of his leader!”

I always find the mood shift from a condolence motion to QT a little weird. Can’t imagine how weird it would be for those in the chamber.

Bill Shorten to Malcolm Turnbull:

[It starts with a statement about company profits increasing almost twice as much as wage growth]. So why does this prime minister support arbitrarily cutting the penalty rates of working Australians this Sunday, while he is giving an $80bn handout to big business? Or is this just another case of the prime minister telling nearly 700,000 hard-working Australians who are again having their penalty rates arbitrarily cut, to just get a better job?

Turnbull:

“I can understand the desperation of the leader of the opposition, faced as he is with a challenge from the member for Grayndler, who has laid out his wares, laid out his wares and reminded everybody that there was a time when the Labor party stood for aspiration ... It was a party which talked about opportunity and the member for Grayndler was out of there with the most pre-briefed political speech any of us can remember, and you couldn’t move in the press gallery, Mr Speaker. There were so many people working for the Member for Grayndler, pushing through the crowds to get copies of that speech out of there.

“And do you know what, Mr Speaker? It was a speech that would have been completely unremarkable in normal times because it talked about great Labor leaders, it even talked about a great Liberal leader, John Carrick. It talked about the importance of hard work. It’s decried class war and the politics of envy. Who was it aimed at? The leader of the opposition. That is what it was all about. And so now, having been chastised by his rival, the member for Grayndler, what does he do? He goes even further to the left with one personal attack after another. He talks about penalty rates. He talks about penalty rates!

“Let’s talk about Cleanevent. Let’s talk about that. They had a penalty rate of $50 an hour under the award. They did. $50 an hour.

“Well, the leader of the opposition, that champion of the poor and oppressed, that battling advocate for the workers, he traded down to $18 an hour. $18 an hour. Well, you know what? My old friend Neville Wran used to say anybody can go to jail if they get the right lawyer, but I would say this – anybody can get their penalty rates halved if they have the leader of the opposition representing them.”

That is about the 80th time I have heard the Neville Wran quip and I am not sure how much more I have in me.

Question time is a few minutes away. There is a condolence motion for Joseph ‘Joe’ Berinson, a former minister in the Gough government.

While charities might be happy with the foreign interference changes, advocacy groups such as GetUp aren’t exactly thrilled – because they aren’t excluded.

“Saving the Great Barrier Reef is an Australian issue and a global issue. Now in working with allies across the globe to save our reef, GetUp will be classed a ‘foreign agent’ for trying to protect our national heritage, and our climate, for our children,” a spokeswoman said.

“In trying to stop overseas companies from being able to sue the Australian government thanks to the TPP, we’re acting as a ‘foreign agent’? That’s absurd, when we’re trying to do the exact opposite.

“It’s the Turnbull government that wants to open the doors to overseas corporations to control our democracy.”

Grab your afternoon pick me up – we are sliding into QT, or as it is now called, the aspiration wars.

Pauline Hanson is still saying no to the company tax cuts ... while leaving the door open. As for the government numbers, she had this to say:

Look, I have no idea, I understand they need another four votes. They haven’t got One Nation and I give the people my guarantee on that, unless they really target multinationals and it’s so important to me. We have to see a revenue stream come into the country. I was very pleased to pass the personal tax cuts last week which helps everyday working Australians, but when it comes to the corporate tax cuts, we actually supported it up to $50 million turnover. Now, let’s, you know, look at where the revenue is going to come from.

And as for the other crossbenchers and who is lobbying her:

No, I haven’t spoken to any other crossbenchers. Derryn Hinch is quite happy and he just indicated he’d like to sit down and have a cup of coffee with me, but no, any interactions with Clive Palmer’s party. That was interesting. He rang up my staff yesterday, and said, ‘Listen, I got $450 million in the bank. If I move my money overseas I’ll get an extra million dollars in it.’ He sees his lobbying on behalf of – I don’t know, himself. He is a man who couldn’t pay his workers. He’s having another tilt at politics, hopefully the people of Australia will see through that. And he said, ‘If you don’t support this,’, he said, ‘You won’t get my preferences.’

Expect this to come up in one of the QT dixers – the ABCC has put out a statement on a federal court ruling:

In a significant decision today the full federal court confirmed it will order a CFMMEU official to personally pay his penalty for breaking the law, without seeking or receiving financial assistance from the union.

This decision follows the ABCC’s successful high court appeal in February this year.

CFMMEU official Joseph Myles has been made personally liable for a $19,500 penalty following his unlawful blockade of the Regional Rail Link project site in May 2013.

In addition, the penalty imposed on the CFMMEU was almost doubled to $111,000 for three contraventions of the Fair Work Act.

The charity sector is on board with the foreign interference bill – now. From the Hands Off Our Charities statement:

The Hands Off Our Charities alliance has today expressed great relief that the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) has agreed that civil society work of charities, arts organisations and industrial associations should be exempted from registration requirements of the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Bill.

“The bipartisan recommendation to exempt charities from the registration requirements when they are doing their day-to-day work to achieve their charitable purpose is a victory for common sense. This exemption will ensure that charitable work is not unfairly targeted. We welcome the Committee’s collaboration in recognising our concerns,” said Marc Purcell, CEO of the Australian Council for International Development.

“Without these measures being implemented, the international partnerships that underpin international development, aid and conservation work could require independent charities to register as agents of foreign principals,” said David Ritter, CEO of Greenpeace Australia Pacific.

“If a charity like Caritas collaborates with an overseas government on a program to reduce violence against women in that country, and then uses information from that work in its communications to the Australian Government, the original Bill would have branded them as ‘acting on behalf of foreign principal’. We welcome the committee’s recognition that in scenarios like this, charities are not doing the bidding of any government. They are working together with a partner government to improve the effectiveness of their interventions,” said Paul O’Callaghan, CEO of Caritas Australia.

“Labelling independent charities and the people we work with as “acting on behalf of foreign principals” makes no sense and serves no public interest objective,” stressed Dr Barry Traill, Australian Director of Pew Charitable Trusts Australia. “For example this original Bill would have cast Indigenous Rangers, advocating to care for their country, as agents of foreign principals. The measures in this Bill, if not amended as the PJCIS has recommended, would have posed a grave threat to our charitable work”.

The Hands Off Our Charities alliance recognises the need for efforts to prevent foreign interference in Australian politics, but argues that the process for developing the government’s foreign influence package has been deeply flawed.

“We are relieved at the recommendations from the Committee and look forward to their full implementation in amendments to this Bill. However, our alliance remains concerned about the related Espionage Bill which is being rushed through Parliament. Efforts to protect Australian democracy from covert foreign interference should not damage our democracy and put the good work of Australia’s charities and not-for-profits at risk,” Mr Purcell concluded.

I’ve been chatting to all sides about the upcoming byelections – with Longman and Braddon the ones on everyone’s lips.

Longman looks like being OK for Labor, at this stage, but it depends on preference flows. One Nation voters don’t usually follow how to vote cards, but you still never know.

Braddon appears to be the problem for Labor – which they acknowledge in chats. There are a lot of local issues which are fuelling that one, like pokie machines, and it is going to be tough.

Plus the general feeling of apathy that comes along with a byelection – people just don’t get as engaged as they do in general elections, so that makes turnout a problem, let alone ensuring your message is cutting through. Graham Richardson wrote about that on the weekend in the Oz.

Jim Chalmers addressed that in his press conference a few minutes ago:

Obviously we’re in both of those contests to win them. We don’t – we never go into a contest like that expecting or hoping to lose. We want to make sure we give a good account of ourselves and I think for the reasons I have just identified, we’ll be very competitive. In Longman and in Braddon, [it] will be very tight... what we say to the people of Longman and to the people of Braddon is if you want a political party to put the interests of middle Australia before the interests of multinationals and the big banks and the millionaires, then people will support the Labor party. We got the better candidates, we got the better leader and better policies for both seats.

Amanda Stoker, Queensland’s newest senator, revealed a little more of her thoughts to Sky News:

On personal responsbility:

“There is a place for government support, for people who are really in need, but when we fail to help our families, fail to build the social networks that have traditionally bound us as a society we all suffer. We are a stronger, more resilient society, we get more out of life when we have strong social networks.

“...I am not saying we should limit services [in something like aged care], we should have an attitudinal change as individuals, which means we are more willing to make the sacrifices we need to, to be able to provide for those who need – it needs to be a choice.

“...I want to be it to be an individual choice. Another example is in the caring for children – there has been a lot of talk in the government sphere over many years over the importance of child care and making it accessible and affordable and all of that is true. But we should also be having a conversation about fairness for those families who choose to make the sacrifices needed to have someone at home. Maybe we could do family taxation rather than individual to try and facilitate people who want to invest more into that.”

On 18c

“Look I think 18c has got to go. I think 18c is a drag on our society. I am not saying that people need to be obnoxious, but if have freedom of speech, people can be socially called out for the things they say, which are you know, really quite out there. But being able to have the debate matters.

“And at a time where people are expressing religious views feel like they aren’t as free to do so as they once were, more than ever, those who express religious or unpopular or traditional views are being called before discrimination boards and commissions to be able to say what they believe and do what they believe, with integrity, to the things that are core to them, I think is really important.”