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Greens leader blasts Labor’s ‘craven’ decision to back tax cuts
Over in the Greens camp, they are still not loving the tax cuts, to put it mildly.
Greens leader Adam Bandt said the “craven” decision to back the cuts in their first budget would increase cost of living pressures and erode social democracy, warning the party would not back austerity measures to help the federal government fund stage-three cuts for high income earners.
The cost of living crisis will get worse because Labor is giving tax cuts to politicians and billionaires instead of getting dental into Medicare and making childcare free. Labor can’t cry poor in this budget while spending over $243bn on tax cuts for the wealthy.
Labor’s flat tax nightmare is tearing down social democracy, ripping money from public services to pay for $9,000 tax cuts for politicians and billionaires. With the public, unions and welfare groups all opposed to these tax cuts for the wealthy, the Greens will fight to make sure Labor’s craven capitulation is short-lived.
Key events
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Lisa Cox
In the Beetaloo inquiry, Tamboran Resources has confirmed the company cut fences to access a property owned by a pastoral company it has been in a legal dispute with over land access.
But the company’s chief executive, Joel Riddle, said it was “categorically false we’ve done anything to pressure anyone”.
Tamboran has been locked in a dispute with Rallen Australia, one of the nation’s biggest pastoral landholders.
Rallen has steadfastly opposed Tamboran’s plans to frack on its land resulting in Tamboran taking the matter to the Northern Territory’s Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
Under questioning from the Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, Riddle told this morning’s hearing the company respected “the rights and views of all pastoralists in the Beetaloo”.
Hanson-Young:
Cutting someone’s fence doesn’t sound like respectful relations.
Riddle:
Respectfully, that is within the regulations so we were abiding by the law in doing that.
Earlier in the hearing, Riddle claimed reserves like the Beetaloo were “critical’ to lowering greenhouse gas emissions because they were “low CO2 reserves”.
Riddle said:
The Beetaloo today is Australia’s greatest emissions reduction opportunity.
In its submission to the inquiry, Tamboran called on the federal government to rewrite its climate change legislation to abandon the “unattainable” objective of trying to limit global heating to 1.5C.
Riddle told the hearing the Beetaloo would provide “critical feedstock” for industrial processes and it was “simple reality” it should be urgently developed.
Peter Hannam
New legislation on how to safeguard the Safeguard Mechanism
Energy and climate minister Chris Bowen has also told the AFR summit that he will release the draft legislation today on modify how the so-called Safeguard Mechanism will generate credits.
A reminder this mechanism was the “cunning plan” by then Liberal environment minister Greg Hunt that was intended to ensure Australia’s big carbon polluters didn’t keep lifting emissions while the Abbott government was shelling out billions of dollars to various schemes to cut emissions. (Spoiler: the mechanism was never enforced, so industrial carbon emissions kept rising.)
“Today, I am releasing draft legislation which will enable the Safeguard Mechanism to provide credits to those large industrial facilities which come in under their baseline,” Bowen said in his speech. (Those credits, if traded, might even hint at a (gasp) carbon price.)
This creates a key financial incentive for Safeguard facilities to make the step
changes needed to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
Consultation on the draft bill will last about three weeks, and Bowen plans to
introduce the Safeguard Mechanism Credits Bill into Parliament in November.
One issue of interest is whether firms will be able to buy credits from overseas. To this end, Bowen says integrity of the credits (are they based on real emission reductions) will be a priority.
Even strong advocates of the use of international credits recognise that we are several years off being able to assert that these requirements can be met. And so, I will continue to consider the legislative framework around international credits as part of the consultation and design process for our Safeguard reforms.
Hold your horses, in other words. With a review of domestic credits under way too by former chief scientist Ian Chubb, this is a policy issue that will get a lot more scrutiny in the not too distant future.
Labor sees the bill as an echo of the Coalition’s, but the question is whether they will support it now they are in opposition. Watch this space.
Don’t blame renewables for energy price hikes, Bowen says
Peter Hannam
Chris Bowen, the federal energy and climate minister, is speaking this morning at an AFR conference in Sydney.
As is usual, Bowen tees off at the “lost decade” of energy policy, and the fact there are only 86 months to achieve an “energy revolution” before 2030.
He also has a crack at those blaming renewable energy for the looming energy crisis in Europe and rising energy prices everywhere.
I’ve seen plenty of right-wing commentators in Australia say that what we are seeing in Europe is the result of moving to renewables too quickly.
This is the latest catch-cry of those who seek to deny and delay action in Australia, like we haven’t had enough denial and delay in Australia over the last ten years.
He says this was one of the risks from the European crisis: “That this fundamentally dishonest narrative takes a hold.”
“The European energy crisis wasn’t caused by renewables – it was caused by the withdrawal of one source of fuel from one country,” Bowen says, aiming a barb at Russia and its leader, a certain Vlad Putin. “Run by one war criminal.”
The price of gas in Europe is around nine times that of renewables, and yet some geniuses argue the problem is too much reliance on renewables.
Perth, let’s gooo.
Anthony Albanese confirms he will host Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Perth in just under two weeks. Perth, the capital of the Indo-Pacific! pic.twitter.com/YbmZ6Tm10F
— Stephen Dziedzic (@stephendziedzic) October 9, 2022
Lisa Cox
Tamboran Resources fronts Senate inquiry into gas exploration in Beetaloo Basin
Lisa Cox has the latest in Canberra, where Tamboran Resources has fronted a Senate inquiry into gas exploration and production in the Beetaloo Basin after refusing to appear at hearings earlier this year.
The company’s chief executive, Joel Riddle, has been grilled by the Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young about a $7.5m grant the company received from the previous government.
Riddle told the senate committee Tamboran had applied for three times that amount – a total of three grants of $7.5m each for three separate wells – but was only eligible for one of the grants due to legal challenges that resulted in delays for two of the wells.
He said the company had received $4.2m of the grant so far as a rebate for drilling activity. Riddle said the $7.5m made a “material” difference to Tamboran’s operations because it allowed the company to offset about 25% of the drilling costs.
Hanson-Young:
Do you think the taxpayer should have to cover 25% of an operation like yours?
Riddle:
I think the merits of the grant scheme is in the hands of parliament.
Hanson-Young:
Are you saying you couldn’t get a loan of $7.5m to cover the gap?
Riddle:
Capital raising is something I’m very focused on and it’s very challenging for a non-producing facility like Tamboran.
Riddle said the company was one of the few operators in the Beetaloo “that have no revenue, no cash flow”.
Hanson-Young said although the company was in a “difficult spot” that did not mean taxpayers should have to fund it.
I come from the view of if you can’t do it maybe you should be looking at your project. Not everybody gets a subsidy.
Also happening today … Labor has backed the former Coalition government in supporting development of the resource-rich Beetaloo Basin, about 500km south-east of Darwin.
The previous federal government helped speed up gas exploration in the basin by handing tens of millions of dollars to fracking companies to incentivise exploration as part of its so-called “gas-led recovery”.
Read more from Christopher Knaus here:
Greens leader blasts Labor’s ‘craven’ decision to back tax cuts
Over in the Greens camp, they are still not loving the tax cuts, to put it mildly.
Greens leader Adam Bandt said the “craven” decision to back the cuts in their first budget would increase cost of living pressures and erode social democracy, warning the party would not back austerity measures to help the federal government fund stage-three cuts for high income earners.
The cost of living crisis will get worse because Labor is giving tax cuts to politicians and billionaires instead of getting dental into Medicare and making childcare free. Labor can’t cry poor in this budget while spending over $243bn on tax cuts for the wealthy.
Labor’s flat tax nightmare is tearing down social democracy, ripping money from public services to pay for $9,000 tax cuts for politicians and billionaires. With the public, unions and welfare groups all opposed to these tax cuts for the wealthy, the Greens will fight to make sure Labor’s craven capitulation is short-lived.
Haines welcomes ‘broader conversation’ about tax reform
Haines was also asked about the controversial stage-three tax cuts.
She wasn’t as strong as fellow independent MP Dai Le, who this morning called for them to be abandoned, but said she welcomed discussion taking place.
We see challenges across the globe when it comes to our global economy. Australia is not immune to that. We’ve had calls for reform in our taxation system for many, many years. So, I think … the prime minister has made it clear there will be no changes to his policy. We won’t see that in this particular budget. But I welcome a broader conversation about how to reform our taxation system more broadly.
When I first came to parliament in 2019, I had real concerns about the stage-three tax cuts to be putting that into legislation so far out from when they would be applied. It didn’t seem prudent to me. In terms of the constituents I represent, there’s not a lot of people in that high-income tax bracket. However, there’s room to move potentially in adjusting some of these tax cuts for middle income people. Low income people most certainly. But what I want to see is evidence-based discussion and the opportunity to do broader reform in our taxation system.
Speaking of 2019:
‘It’s time for this to stop’: independent MP on parties abusing taxpayer money for political ads
Independent MP Helen Haines is appearing on ABC News following the release of a Grattan Institute report today which found nearly a quarter of tax-payer funded advertising spending is politicised.
She said the findings were “disturbing” and integrity in government is bigger than the upcoming anti-corruption commission. Last week, Haines was appointed deputy chair of the Joint Committee on National Anti-Corruption Commission Legislation – a significant move as an independent MP.
I think taxpayers expect that their money is spent in the public interest. And when we hear that around $50m per year in government advertising is more likely directed towards political purposes than the public good, then cynicism rises and that’s bad, public trust is diminished and confidence in government is diminished.
Haines said public funds needed to be spent in the public good, to promote positive messages like Covid health advice and flood watch information.
It’s time for this to stop. I think what we’ve seen is a pattern of behaviour that’s the same irrespective of who is in government … we’ve seen diminishing trust in public officials over a long period of time. This kind of political advertising only reinforces that.
The Grattan report has put forward some recommendations. One of which is that there’s an independent panel that assesses government advertising. I think that’s an idea with really good merit. When each government is umpire of its own behaviour it’s clear they’re not really playing by the rules the public expects.
Homelessness rose by 10% in NSW since pandemic began, report shows
Homelessness has increased by around 10% in New South Wales since the pandemic began, estimated to cost the economy between $524.5m and $2.5bn over the next six years.
That’s according to a new report released today, which found there has been an additional 3,700 homeless people in the state since 2020, with more people seeking assistance from specialist services.
The report, released by Impact Economic and Policy and commissioned by peak homelessness bodies, suggested 54,000 households have entered or experienced a worsening in housing stress since the start of the pandemic.
NSW Council of Social Service CEO Joanna Quilty said urgent action was needed to address housing stress:
The past two years of major disruptions brought by fires, floods and the pandemic have exposed the underlying failures of housing policy in NSW and across Australia. It is a disgrace that in Australia, a place that was once considered the ‘Lucky Country’, we have soaring rates of housing stress and homelessness while cost of living pressures continue to mount.
Aboriginal Community Housing Industry Association CEO Lisa Sampson said grassroots Aboriginal organisations needed an adequate seat at the table.
The report found there’s an overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians experiencing seeking assistance. Almost 30% of clients of specialist homelessness services in NSW are Aboriginal, compared to representing 3.4% of the overall population.
Aboriginal families, their communities and Aboriginal community-controlled organisations banded together to help one another through the successive crises … support needs to be channelled through Aboriginal community-controlled grassroots organisations. Empowerment requires meaningful contribution by all levels of government, investment in Aboriginal-led housing development … along with the simultaneous dismantling of deeply embedded systemic barriers.
The report recommends the NSW government should build an additional 5,000 social housing units annually, implement stamp duty and tenancy reform and commit to an increase in rental assistance.
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