Dubai Weekly
Key events 39m ago What we learned today, Wednesday 14 October 2h ago Trade minister says Coalition MPs walked out of meeting on EU trade deal 2h ago RBA warns staff pay rise ‘will not proceed’ if rejected ahead of vote 3h ago Tl;dr here’s what happened in question time 4h ago ‘Put your politics to the side’, Wells urges Coalition on online safety 4h ago Taylor claims Albanese repeatedly ‘humiliated’ Chalmers 5h ago High court decision will have no impact on federal fossil fuel project approvals, King says 5h ago King says gas reservation plan will 'push down' prices at some stage 6h ago Bell confirms she reached out to Aly over ‘poor choice of words’ 6h ago Hume says Bell ‘reached out’ to Aly after ‘shamed and stoned’ comments 7h ago Nationals bring pineapples to parliament to warn against ‘risky’ imports 8h ago Australia and Jordan sign joint statement on defence and security 8h ago Coalition bid to send trust tax bill to inquiry fails ... for now 9h ago Chalmers introduces trusts tax legislation to the House 9h ago Albanese says ‘thoughts and prayers’ with Pope Leo XIV following cancer diagnosis 9h ago Bell’s comments said ‘in the heat of the moment’ says Hanson 10h ago Nationals MP defends Bell’s ‘shamed and stoned’ comments 11h ago PM says he intervened on ATO credit card ban 12h ago Labor to introduce gas reservation scheme bill with a fifth to stay onshore 12h ago Chalmers warns against scolding One Nation voters: 'Feelings are as real as facts' Aly says grant to Islamic media company being revoked The Coalition sets its sights back on Anne Aly , but this time on her multicultural affairs portfolio. Liberal frontbencher Julian Leeser asks why the government gave a $300,000 grant to One Path Network, an Islamic media company which he says compared Israel to Nazi Germany and claimed the firebombing of a Jewish childcare centre was staged. Aly says the grant decision was made by the department, not her.
She adds the department has sent the group a “notice of intention to terminate which begins the process to revoke the grant”. double quotation mark The grants process has supported a wide range of community media outlets and the department is now, as I mentioned – has now delivered a notice of intention to terminate. ‘Something you could look up on Wikipedia’: Bowen and Tehan fight over pre-Cop event Shadow energy minister, Dan Tehan , changes tack and asks the energy minister, Chris Bowen , if the pre-Cop meeting in Tuvalu was powered by diesel generators and whether Australian taxpayer dollars funded the event. Bowen starts talking about the Fijian energy system which he says does primarily run on fossil fuels.
He quickly gets pulled up by the opposition, and initially denies that they asked about Tuvalu – not Fiji. ‘Fiji is not Hawaii’ ... Chris Bowen (R) with Lynda Tabuya (C), Fiji’s Minister for Information, Environment and Climate Change, and Pacific Islands Forum Secretary General Baron Waqa, in Nadi last week.
Photograph: Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images Bowen then rephrases: double quotation mark Whether it is Fiji or Tuvalu or Palau, they are all powered by diesel and a they’re all trying to change that. That’s a great revelation, something you could look up on Wikipedia. Yes, Pacific Islands are powered by diesel primarily.
Something they are trying to change. Bowen accuses Tehan and Angus Taylor of “utter contempt” having “criticised the prime minister and I for going to Fiji and wearing what we were asked to wear by the Fijian government and called them Hawaiian shirts. Fiji is not Hawaii.” Taylor shouts “utter contempt for you”, from across the dispatch box.
Bowen says: double quotation mark We don’t joke about climate change in the Pacific, we work with our Pacific family and you should be ashamed of yourself. Taylor claims Albanese repeatedly ‘humiliated’ Chalmers How much more humiliation will Jim Chalmers endure before the PM puts him out of his misery and sacks him, asks Angus Taylor . The leader of the opposition is trying to stoke the fire, and says the PM was forced to step in to clean up the treasurer’s mess on the ATO credit card ban and before that stepped in to stop the taxing of unrealised capital gains on small businesses.
Anthony Albanese tries to pour cold water over the commentary that he went over Chalmers’ head to delay the credit card ban. Everything is, like, totally fine he says. double quotation mark The whole premise of it is completely wrong. The treasurer and I had a discussion last week.
We convened the expenditure review committee, and we unanimously, right across the leadership of the government, agreed that the decision by the ATO, to have a limited period of pause on the ban. Taylor tries to make a point of order, but you regular readers of the blog will know that if the opposition leader – as he has here – has asked a broad political question, he’ll get a broad political answer. Albanese then pulls out the Josh Frydenberg card: double quotation mark Our version of aspiration is health, housing, jobs and opportunity.
The Liberal party version of aspiration is Josh Frydenberg. There he is, a failed treasurer who couldn’t even hold his seat ... And overcoming his innate shyness to be out there.
You can’t turn on a TV without seeing Josh Frydenberg. He’s out there every single day. Aly under the spotlight as Coalition continues crusade over small businesses Nationals MP Alison Penfold is up next and asks Anne Aly a similar question – quoting an unnamed Labor source “not happy about these compounding attacks on small business” and asks when the government will “stop waging war” on small business.
Aly also gives a similar answer. She says (again) that the country has seen “record numbers of small businesses opening”, and then reads out a few pro-small biz policies. double quotation mark I meet with small businesses regularly and regularly they tell me that the two measures that government has introduced, the $20,000 instant asset write-off being made permanent. The two–year loss carry back being made permanent have made a huge difference to them.
Aly, for anyone interested at home, is wearing a large-ish pink brooch in the shape of a balloon dog. It’s question time! There is no respite for Anne Aly , who is under the spotlight again today.
The Liberal MP Mary Aldred says “Labor MPs are sounding the alarm about the minister’s war on small business” and asks when Labor will “stop waging war” on small business. Aly defends herself and says a record 385,000 businesses were added to the economy last year and that 1.4m businesses have been registered since Labor came to office. double quotation mark That’s 35% higher than under the previous government, and 2.5 times higher than under the Howard government. Insolvencies as a proportion is around half of what it averaged under the Howard government.
Anne Aly during question time. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP King says Beetaloo Basin emissions are ‘accounted for and offset’ My colleague Sarah Basford Canales asks Madeleine King if she’s personally comfortable with the decades’ worth of emissions that will be released from the Beetaloo Basin every year. King was celebrating the project in the Northern Territory at its first gas tap last month .
She suggests that the emissions shouldn’t be a problem and that they’re all “accounted for”. double quotation mark My understanding, from those recommendations, is that the emissions are accounted for and offset but I would have to check that. Having said that, we have a federal mechanism checking that. If there are emissions over a certain volume, those facilities connected to that come under the safeguard mechanism and that is how we manage dealing with emissions in this country.
What’s the safeguard mechanism, you ask? My colleague Adam Morton has you (and me) covered: High court decision will have no impact on federal fossil fuel project approvals, King says Following a high court decision that will force the New South Wales government to consider climate change impact on future fossil fuel project approvals, Madeleine King is asked if this will have any impact on federal decisions. No, is the short answer.
King says the NSW government had conditions aimed at minimising scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions in place which a planning commission had to consider. The majority of the court found the NSW Independent Planning Commission failed to consider those conditions. She tells the press club: double quotation mark What this decision has said, ‘Well, this part of what you had in your conditions were not looked at so you’re going to have to look at them again’, it really is a technical but important argument about planning commissions following the rules that state governments have put in place.
Now, the federal government doesn’t have the same legislative set up around scope 3 emissions, so it won’t apply to federal government approvals. It’s not in our legislation so no it won’t. Resources minister Madeleine King at the National Press Club.
Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP King says gas reservation plan will 'push down' prices at some stage Madeleine King is asked how long it will take for the gas reservation scheme (that requires gas producers to reserve 20% of their gas for local use) to reduce energy prices. She confirms that the reservation scheme will “push down” prices, but won’t specify when. King does say there will be an implementation year for the changes to take effect, i.e. don’t expect cheaper gas immediately. double quotation mark We are very focused in the design of this reservation scheme in making sure Australians, Australian consumers and Australian businesses, do get access to affordable gas.
We expect the oversupply part of the reservation to put that modest oversupply into the system which will push down those prices. So we do expect to see that downward pressure on prices. Australia needs to counter Chinese dominance in critical minerals: King The resources minister, Madeleine King , says China has had a several decades head start on Australia in building a critical minerals processing industry, so we need to move faster.
She says China’s dominance across the sector wouldn’t be a problem, except that they’ve in the last few years taken to imposing export controls and bans on other countries including Australia. Speaking to the National Press Club, King says China has for decades “recognised minerals processing as a strategically important industry and built it up to such an extraordinary scale that midstream and downstream global supply chains are now wholly concentrated in that one country.” double quotation mark This would be less of an issue but for the rapid increase in recent years in export controls, restrictions and bans right across the whole supply chain. Let me set out the scale of the challenge.
Australia has had to start, almost from scratch, to build an industry that our largest trading partner, and the second biggest economy in the world, has invested in massively and consistently for three decades. Pioneers of this industry have been highlighting this problem for years ... And the truth is, together, we’re making genuine progress in meeting this challenge.
Australia is stepping up to take on its responsibility to lead on critical minerals and rare earths globally. Resources minister Madeleine King at the National Press Club. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP Josh Butler Labor’s digital duty of care legislation likely to face scrutiny in Senate Anika Wells is expected to introduce the government’s digital duty of care legislation tomorrow, but it’s thought likely the contentious legislation will face the rigour of a Senate inquiry.
Labor sources are still confident the bill could pass by the end of the year, and say they’re not worried or surprised that it will be referred to a committee. But it is expected the Greens and Coalition , for different reasons, will look to have the bill probed before the Senate votes on it. The Coalition is, at this stage, not prepared to even negotiate on the bill, with communications shadow minister Sarah Henderson saying this week that the government should scrap it entirely and that the opposition believed it was beyond amending.
The Greens, however, are broadly on board with the proposed changes but want them to go further in taking action on big tech. New Greens leader David Shoebridge said he was happy for the bill to pass by year’s end, but wanted an inquiry to look at it first. It’s looking likely that, later this afternoon, the Senate will seek to push DDOC to an inquiry.
Wells is at the National Press Club tomorrow, where she will give a speech on the legislation and take questions. Anika Wells. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
Source: The Guardian
