‘There is so much we’re doing for middle Australia’: Chalmers
[Continued from last post]
Because the key part of getting the wages moving again in this country are for a decade of stagnation is about middle Australia. So much of what we’re doing in strengthening Medicare is about middle Australia.
You know, so much of what we’re doing in making medicines cheaper, so much … of the benefit from the price caps in the energy market, are flowing through to middle Australia.
The cheaper early childhood education, which … some of you have given us stick for being too generous to middle Australia – that will be a gamechanger for working parents when that comes in on 1 July.
There is so much we’re doing for middle Australia in this budget. But when it comes to social security, I think there are good reasons why we prioritised the most vulnerable.
I’m not associating you necessarily with [the] piece of madness that I heard from Angus Taylor yesterday, but we’re in the same general area when he told David Lipson that what worried him about our changes in social security was that it meant that the broader Australian community would be funding help for the most vulnerable.
That is the whole basis of social security.
(There is applause in the room at this.)
Key events
Benita Kolovos
Victorian MP David Limbrick has welcomed the decision to deny bail to serial killer Paul Denyer, saying it is a relief to the families and friends of his victims.
Limbrick had been in a relationship with Natalie Russell for six months when she was the final victim of Denyer.
Denyer was sentenced to three life sentences later in 1993 after pleading guilty to the murders of Russell, Elizabeth Stevens and Debbie Fream, all committed in the Frankston area during a seven-week period earlier that year.
The Court of Appeal overturned Justice Vincent’s decision and imposed a minimum sentence of 30 years.
Limbrick told reporters outside Victoria parliament Denyer had been denied bail:
This is the result that we were hoping for all along that parole would be denied so it’s good that that’s happened. We’ve been dreading this for 30 years. I think the thing that we need to do now is look at what happens going forward, because it’s my understanding that parole can be applied for as many times as they want in the future. This has been a really traumatic process for all of the friends and families indeed for everyone in everyone in Frankston. I don’t want people to have to be re traumatized by this over and over again,
Asked how he’d like Russell to be remembered, Limbrick said:
She was a young woman about to embark on one of the most exciting phases of her life. She had that snatched away from her so cruelly and senselessly. I just want people to think about what might have been and what was taken away from us.
Paul Karp
Senate rejects Labor’s bid to debate housing bill
The Senate has rejected Labor’s bid to debate its housing Australia future fund bill and guarantee a vote by 1pm Thursday.
The vote went down 23 votes (Labor and the Jacqui Lambie Network) to 42 (with the Coalition, Greens, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, Ralph Babet, and independent David Pocock opposed).
Labor was pitching this as an early test for the Greens, and whether they will side with the Coalition – but given criticisms of the government that they haven’t offered enough in negotiations, there was some crossbench support for not rushing the bill.
The motion had proposed to restart debate on the bill at 6pm with a second reading bill, extend sitting hours tonight to 10pm and have a final vote tomorrow at 1pm.
If the Coalition won’t support an hours motion the bill might be in limbo this week.
Here is a little bit more from question time as seen by Mike Bowers:
Stuart Robert not in the House of Reps on Wednesday
So no, Stuart Robert was not in the chamber (that hole is where Robert, the shadow assistant treasurer would usually sit).
It is not clear whether he will be returning to parliament or not.
Lehrmann case inquiry chair considered closing hearings to media over ‘loathsome’ reporting
Nino Bucci
The chair of an inquiry into the prosecution of Bruce Lehrmann has slammed media reporting of his hearings, saying he considered closing them to the public because of “loathsome” stories that may have been in contempt and defamed Brittany Higgins.
Walter Sofronoff KC adjourned the hearing on Wednesday afternoon while he considered closing the proceedings to the media.
He returned a short time later, saying that he had decided with “some trepidation” that he would allow the hearings to continue, but that he would not hesitate to act if further acts of “scandalous”, “unjustified” and “prurient” journalism resulted from the inquiry.
Sofronoff said:
I have been made very sensitive to the damage that can be done and it will now take very little more for me to go about my work in a very different way.
He said the offending media outlets should do everything that can be done to remove the stories.
The inquiry continues.
Senate holds condolence motion for former Labor minister Stewart West
The Senate is holding a condolence motion for former Labor minister Stewart West, who died in March, just short of his 89th birthday.
‘The influence of Yunupingu was omnipresent in the community,’ Dutton says
And from Peter Dutton’s speech:
When I visited Arnhem Land in February, the influence of Yunupingu was omnipresent in the community. Indeed, the progress one sees in Gove in the Top End reminds us of what can be for people in other Indigenous communities. Yunupingu’s presence will always be felt in what he built. In what he did. In Arnhem Land. In the Northern Land Council. At Garma. Across the nation.
On the day of his passing – and in the days since – thousands of tributes are testimony to the nature and to the measure of the man.
He has rightly been described as ‘a giant’, ‘a titan’, ‘a national treasure’. As ‘wise’, ‘widely respected’, and ‘a beacon of inspiration’ As a ‘strong, deep and practical’ man.
And as ‘one of the greatest Indigenous leaders modern Australia has produced’.
Indeed, having received the highest of accolades our country can bestow being named an Australian of the Year and made a Member of the Order of Australia.
He is not just a great Indigenous Australian, but one of our greatest Australians. And he left our world too early.
But he would have taken comfort in the fact that he did so on his land and among his people for whom he fought his entire life.
PM pays tribute to Yunupingu
Here is a little more from the condolence motion ahead of question time:
With the passing of Yunupingu, Australia has lost a leader and a statesman. Our hearts go out to the Yolngu people, the Gumatj clan, and the great Yunupingu family.
Yunupingu now walks in another place, but he has left such great footsteps for us to follow here in this one. pic.twitter.com/LFrrrea253
— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) May 10, 2023
Question time ends
Anthony Albanese finishes question time with a rah-rah dixer on how the government is building Australia’s future – but everyone seems pretty tired by this point and it is nothing we haven’t heard before, including in press releases.
And with that, question time ends.
Rick Wilson, the Liberal MP for O’Connor asks:
People have said we expect inflation to be stubbornly higher than the Reserve Bank target until physical 2026. Why has the prime minister brought down a budget which makes inflation worse?
Jim Chalmers takes this one:
I will do something unusual, Mr Speaker. I will give credit to the Opposition tactic committee. It decided not to give that question to Angus.
The Liberal member for Petrie, Luke Howarth, seems to think his main role now is to make point of orders about reflections on members when there are no reflections on members. He does so here and Milton Dick has had enough.
The member for Petrie knows that is not a proper use of the standing orders.
He boots Howarth from the chamber.
Government tries to continue housing future fund debate in Senate
Over in the Senate, the government wants to extend the sitting time so it can continue the housing future fund debate.
PM says his budget ‘targeted the most vulnerable while not adding to inflationary pressure’
Anthony Albanese doesn’t answer the question and instead says:
The budget we brought down last night, I am proud of because it does provide a strong foundation we need going forward. Taking pressure off families, targeted the most vulnerable while not adding to inflationary pressure.
That is the task we set ourselves at the expenditure review committee, that was led by the treasurer and finance minister.
One of the things I said during the election campaign when I was asked about jobseeker is Labor is the party that will also look after the disadvantaged.
(He goes through the other measures including the Medicare changes.)
Those opposite scoff. It is about making sure you get access to a doctor with all you need is your Medicare card, not your credit card. It has been well received by state and territory governments across the country. As a result of the measures that we put in place they came in on January 1, already in the first four months of the year, Australia has paid $76 million less for their prescriptions. $76 million less. That is because of this budget, another six million Australians will pay less for their medicine.
As a result of this budget, 480,000 Australians will get access in total to the free Tafe. It is about getting people into employment, offering them the skills so that they get a job so they get off jobseeker.
