[ad_1]
Bandt lashes Labor: I want to hear less talk about missiles and more about fixing the housing crisis
Taking questions, Bandt is getting fired up saying he wants to hear less talk about missiles from the PM and more about a housing crisis that is leaving pregnant women couch surfing:
I’m just furious that the Government says that there’s a quarter of a trillion dollars for stage-three tax cuts and $368bn for nuclear submarines but can’t commit to lifting single parents and job seekers and people with a disability out of poverty.
This is why Labor is a centre-right party that prioritises tax cuts for the wealthy over building more public housing. And the prime minister has spent the last three days dressing himself in khaki and talking about tax cuts for the wealthy, while people live in poverty.
In my electorate, there are people living in tents because they can’t afford a place to live. I’m trying to find houses for pregnant women who are couch surfing. We have people who are spending 60% of their income on rent and queues at food banks are growing. And meanwhile, the prime minister goes and talks about missiles.
I want to hear less talk from the prime minister about missiles and more about funding a rent freeze and lifting people out of poverty. Because in a wealthy country like ours, where Labor can afford a quarter of a trillion dollars to give Clive Palmer and Gina Rinehart a tax cut, it makes me incredibly angry that they’re leaving people in poverty and then tinkering around the ends and saying – maybe we’ll raise income support by a little bit. I want to hear less talk about missiles and more about fixing the rental and housing crisis and building an adequate number of public housing so that everyone in this country has a place to live.
The crowd applauds.
Key events
Taylor is asked what he thinks about calls which are coming even from within Labor ranks to raise Jobseeker. He points to how the opposition raised Jobseeker during the pandemic before adding:
But right now the best way to help someone who is looking for a job is to help them get a job. We have over 420,000 vacancies in the economy, this is completely unprecedented.
Reporter:
So just to be clear, you don’t think an increase of JobSeeker is necessary?
Taylor:
What we think right now is the priority has to be getting people to work… It is a priority because it simultaneously raises the income of the person finding a job and takes pressure off inflation because there is more capacity to supply and that puts downward pressure on prices.
Angus Taylor repeats call for the government to lower taxes
Taylor repeats his call for the government to lower, not raise taxes, and flags the possibility Labor could have its eye on franking credits, superannuation and stage-three tax cuts:
We know we have a government that wants to hit Australians with taxes on franking credits which are so essential to particularly older Australians’ incomes. We know this is a government that is coming after Australian superannuation and we know this is a government that would love to get rid of the stage-three tax cuts, despite the fact that Australians are being pushed up into higher tax bracket with income tax brackets. And with inflation, it’s now the time to take pressure off Australians and the income tax they are paying but this is a government that would support pressure, extra pressure on.
Taylor says the upcoming budget is the government’s opportunity to deal with inflationary pressures “head on”:
It is nigh on a year since they’ve been in government and we still do not see a plan that is going to contain inflation.
… The government must take responsibility – it is time for the government to recognise that inflation comes from Canberra.
The first thing the government can do in the budget is to re-establish a commitment to budget balance.… Why does that matter so much? Because of the government having to borrow more that puts upward pressure on interest rates for all Australians. They are competing, the government is competing with Australian businesses and households to borrow money and that puts upward pressure on it interest rates and inflation.
Households suffering due to ‘rampant’ inflation, shadow treasurer says
The shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor, does not agree with the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, that inflation is moderating. Speaking in Canberra, Taylor says:
When the ABS announced that inflation is running rampant at 7%. At 7%. We have heard the treasurer say that inflation is moderating. If this is moderation, then heaven help us.
Heaven help us because as I get around Australia, get around to households and businesses, they are seeing extraordinary pain that is from the cost-of-living pressures.
This is clearly a treasurer who does not understand the pains are being felt, if he thinks this is moderation. The truth of the matter is what we saw in the data today, is inflation increases or inflation strength in our broad range of goods and services. It is almost across the board.
… It is not confined to specific supply chains, this is rampant inflation right across our economy.
Bandt: Albanese government is making Australia less safe
Adam Bandt has accused the Albanese government of signing Australia up to go to war again with the US “whenever the US decides on its next military adventurism”.
Continued his criticisms of the Aukus deal, Bandt says he agrees with Paul Keating that the actions the Albanese government has taken are the wrong ones.
Asked about national security Bandt says:
One of our biggest concerns about the direction that the government is taking is that it makes Australia less safe. One of the biggest threats to Australia is the risk of conflict between the US and China. That would be disastrous for the world. But for Australia as well.
Australia’s role as a country that has a relationship with both of those countries must be to try to de-escalate tensions. And instead, the government is going in a different direction, which is joining one side of the conflict unequivocally and making the Australian Defence Force an offshoot of the US Defence Force and signing Australia up to go to war again with the US whenever the US decides on its next military adventurism.
That does not make Australia more safe. It makes Australia less safe. So our concern is that what Australia should be doing – and on this, here’s where I agree with Paul Keating. I think that foreign minister Penny Wong’s rhetoric on this is right and a welcome change from the last government. But the actions are something completely different. The actions are writing an open chequebook to the US for Australia to start buying military equipment that is about being an offshoot of the US in the next offensive action that it decides to engage in in our region. So we want to see Australia made safer. That doesn’t come by spending $368bn on nuclear submarines.
Circling back to the treasurer’s press conference, Jim Chalmers was asked about the shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor’s opinion that the government should be able to deliver a surplus.
Chalmers has hit back that Taylor is the “poster child” for the trillion dollars of the country’s debt:
The shadow treasurer was a cabinet minister in a government which had almost nothing to show for $1 trillion of debt.
I don’t think people take Angus Taylor seriously when it comes to the Budget. He is in many ways the poster child for the waste and rorts which defined the wasted decade and the trillion dollars of Liberal debt that we inherited.
We’ve made it really clear that we see a substantial part of our job in this Budget and otherwise to clean up the mess that we were left. Now, the Budget will improve substantially this year and next year as a consequence of low unemployment and good prices for our exports, but a lot of the pressures on the Budget intensify rather than ease after that.
Josh Butler
Pharmacy Guild president Trent Twomey has launched an extraordinary attack on the federal government’s plans to allow people to get two months’ worth of medication scripts at one time, alleging it would send pharmacies broke and owners bankrupt, and claiming the Labor government “don’t give a shit”.
Twomey, one of the few voices unhappy with the government’s changes, accused Labor politicians of “taking their phones off the hook” when he tried to call and complain about it. In a press conference at Parliament House, with several community pharmacists, Twomey claimed businesses would go bust due to them receiving less money in dispensing fees – and alleged health minister Mark Butler “doesn’t seem to give a shit”.
Twomey said:
If those spin doctors down there don’t want to believe what I’ve got to say, get off your arse and talk to these guys.
I’ve had Labor party senators and MPs just take their phones off the hook because they don’t give a shit … they just don’t care.
As Paul has just reported in his article above, the government had anticipated strong pushback from the Pharmacy Guild. Today, Butler announced that 6 million Australians accessing 325 common medicines will be eligible for two-month prescriptions for the price of one.
The Australian Medical Association, Royal College of General Practitioners and Consumer Health Forum have backed the changes, saying it would make it easier to see GPs and cut costs for patients. Butler, speaking before Twomey’s press conference, cautioned against “scare campaigns being put by the pharmacy lobby group”.
I advise people to take advice around medicine supply and shortages from our medicines authorities rather than the pharmacy lobby group.
Twomey also rubbished claims that there were few supply shortages to worry about. Several pharmacists at the press conference spoke about experiencing shortfalls of medicine – one claimed that the true issue of shortages was “five times as big” as the government claimed.
Bandt lashes Labor: I want to hear less talk about missiles and more about fixing the housing crisis
Taking questions, Bandt is getting fired up saying he wants to hear less talk about missiles from the PM and more about a housing crisis that is leaving pregnant women couch surfing:
I’m just furious that the Government says that there’s a quarter of a trillion dollars for stage-three tax cuts and $368bn for nuclear submarines but can’t commit to lifting single parents and job seekers and people with a disability out of poverty.
This is why Labor is a centre-right party that prioritises tax cuts for the wealthy over building more public housing. And the prime minister has spent the last three days dressing himself in khaki and talking about tax cuts for the wealthy, while people live in poverty.
In my electorate, there are people living in tents because they can’t afford a place to live. I’m trying to find houses for pregnant women who are couch surfing. We have people who are spending 60% of their income on rent and queues at food banks are growing. And meanwhile, the prime minister goes and talks about missiles.
I want to hear less talk from the prime minister about missiles and more about funding a rent freeze and lifting people out of poverty. Because in a wealthy country like ours, where Labor can afford a quarter of a trillion dollars to give Clive Palmer and Gina Rinehart a tax cut, it makes me incredibly angry that they’re leaving people in poverty and then tinkering around the ends and saying – maybe we’ll raise income support by a little bit. I want to hear less talk about missiles and more about fixing the rental and housing crisis and building an adequate number of public housing so that everyone in this country has a place to live.
The crowd applauds.
Adam Bandt says rent freeze is possible with ‘wall-to-wall’ Labor governments
The Greens leader Adam Bandt is telling the National Press Club that freezing residential rents is possible thanks to “wall-to-wall Labor state governments”.
Bandt is accusing the Albanese government of not keeping up with the “sea change in Australia’s housing system:
If Labor wants our support on the housing bill, it needs to come to the table on the rental crisis and on building more public and affordable housing.
With all of the question time contempt about a rent freeze being pixie dust and his reported delight about campaigning at the next election on the housing bill failing in the Senate, the prime minister needs to understand that this isn’t an inner-city council meeting and a chance to get even with the Greens. This is a full-blown nationwide rental crisis that needs to be confronted.
The prime minister’s scorn shows he hasn’t kept up with the sea change in Australia’s housing system. There is now a third of the country who rent. As a group, renters have been ignored by the old parties. The Greens campaigned strongly on representer rights at the federal election and our vote wept up.
Read Paul Karp’s full preview of the speech here:
Chalmers on Hecs debts: ‘Our job is to get on top of this inflation challenge’
Chalmers is also asked about student HECS debts, which are set to increase at possibly one of the most astronomical percentages in history:
Do you think that young people have any trouble paying off their HECS debts?
Chalmers:
Of course they do. One of the good things about the HECS system is it means people only begin to pay back a sliver, a portion of their education costs when they earn a certain amount of money. And the arrangements for HECS and for university loans and education loans have been unchanged by this government this is long-standing practice.
People pay it back when they reach a certain level of income, which I think is appropriate. Obviously, this inflation in our economy has a lot of consequences.
Our job is to try and get on top of this inflation challenge in our economy to provide assistance where we can do that in the most responsible way and that’s what we’re doing.
[ad_2]
Source link
