Government will not lift welfare payments despite recommendation – as it happened | Australian politics

What we learned today, Tuesday 18 April

Thanks for following along on the blog today. Here is a wrap of the day’s biggest stories:

• The shadow home affairs minister, Karen Andrews, announced that she is quitting the Coalition frontbench and will not recontest the next election. She also said she will not be campaigning for a no vote in the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum.

• Senator James Paterson has taken up Andrews’ role, while Jacinta Price became the shadow minister for Indigenous Australians and Kerrynne Liddle the shadow minister for child protection and prevention of domestic violence as part of a Coalition cabinet reshuffle.

• Guardian Australia understands that the government will not lift jobseeker payments, despite advice for a “substantial increase” from the interim economic inclusion advisory committee.

• After much back and forth, the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, says he did not raise specific instances of alleged child abuse with Anthony Albanese but maintains that he raised broad concerns about assaults in Indigenous communities in private and in parliament.

• The NDIS minister, Bill Shorten, praised the NDIS during a National Press Club address today, arguing it is “the difference between a life and a living death for many vulnerable Australians” and laying out six policy directions for the scheme.

• The Queensland government introduced legislation to limit rent increases to once a year in a bid to “give renters a fair go”.

• Australia’s international student sector has become a “Ponzi scheme” due to loopholes on work rights introduced by the former federal government that have attracted the “wrong type of student”, an inquiry has been told.

Queensland rental cap passes parliament, MP tweets

According to the Labor MP Yvette D’Ath, the Queensland government’s plan to cap rental increases to once a year has just passed parliament.

Earlier this afternoon, my colleague Eden Gillespie reported that the last-minute amendments to limit the frequency of rent increases were introduced into parliament to the Palaszczuk government’s electoral reform bill.

In Queensland currently, landlords can currently increase rents every six months. The new plan would bring the state in line with other Australian jurisdictions like Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and New South Wales.

NDIS has ‘lost its way under Labor’, opposition says

The shadow minister for the NDIS, Michael Sukkar, said the scheme has “lost its way under Labor” in a statement published this afternoon.

This follows on from the NDIS minister, Bill Shorten’s address at the National Press Club today.

In a statement, Sukkar said NDIS participants and taxpayers were keen to hear how the government would tackle “the worsening challenges faced by the NDIS” during today’s address, but were “left none the wiser”.

He said:

After nearly 12 months of kicking key decisions down the road, all Bill Shorten could provide was the usual prevaricating motherhood statements, identifying issues without providing detailed solutions.

Instead of focusing on workforce provider shortages, this Minister was more fixated on the bureaucracy within the NDIA, failing to address the core issues participants face within the scheme and refusing to detail any policy decisions or a legislative reform agenda.

Sukkar said the government “must now provide certainty to participants and outline the therapies and services that the government inevitably intends to cut”.

In his address, Shorten argued the NDIS suffered under the nine years of Coalition government and his greatest regret is that the scheme “has been at the mercy of administrative vandals for 90% of its existence”.

Shorten also said:

And at no point have I come under any pressure from the treasurer or anyone else to say that somehow we’ve got to slash and burn the NDIS to subsidise something else.

Government will not lift jobseeker, despite call for ‘substantial increase’

Paul Karp

It’s been a big day of news, so make sure to get across all the biggest headlines with this great wrap from my colleague Antoun Issa:

Breaking from our political reporter Josh Butler:

Cyclist hit by train at Ascot Park in Adelaide

Emergency services were at the scene of a serious rail crash at Ascot Park near Adelaide this afternoon, involving a cyclist and a train.

According to South Australia Police, at 3pm today police and paramedics were called to the train crossing on Sixth Avenue and Railway Terrace after reports a cyclist was struck by a train.

The Noarlunga line has been shut down until further notice, and Sixth Avenue at the intersection of Railway Terrace is closed to traffic.

Major Crash investigators are making their way to the scene.

The public are asked to avoid the area.

Pauline Hanson refuses to apologise for offensive NDIS cartoons

Earlier in the day, the One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, issued a statement in which she refused to apologise for an offensive cartoon posted to social media earlier this month, which mocked the National Disability Insurance Scheme and included offensive depictions of people with a disability.

The clip was posted as part of Pauline Hanson’s Please Explain YouTube series, and describes the NDIS as a “scam” and a “rort”.

In her statement, Hanson said she is “not going to apologise for our cartoons”:

Satire has been an effective political communication tool for centuries and our cartoons are resonating strongly with the hundreds of thousands of Australians watching them every week.

Hanson argues those who criticised the cartoon and defended the NDIS had “completely missed the point”.

Instead of wetting their pants over a clever cartoon, groups which advocate for disabled Australians should have been at the forefront demanding NDIS reform.

This comes as the NDIS minister, Bill Shorten, spoke at the National Press Club today and described the scheme as “the difference between a life and a living death for many vulnerable Australians”.

Liberal and Labor MPs at odds over voice’s ability to spur ‘action on the ground’

On Afternoon Briefing, the Liberal MP James Stevens is asked for his thoughts on the Coalition’s new frontbench and what it means for the no campaign on the voice.

[Jacinta Price and Kerrynne Liddle] are both women with very significant personal and lived experience of the real challenges facing Indigenous communities and the disadvantage they are facing, and I think that underscores what our argument is to the people of this country.

We need to do better by our Indigenous Australians and we want to focus on on-the-ground, practical measures. That starts by acknowledging they are existing, which is difficult to get the prime minister to do at the moment.

The reshuffle that Peter Dutton announced this morning underscores that we’ve got a genuine … practical approach to addressing Indigenous disadvantage and we think that is where the government needs to be focused …

The Labor MP Louise Miller–Frost said it is “incorrect” to suggest a dichotomy between the voice and action on the ground:

The voice is about informing actions on the ground so that when we are adding taxpayer money, trying to make life better and trying to close the gap, we actually have information from those people on the ground around Australia [who are] most affected, about what will work for them.

It’s the ‘nothing about me without me’ principle that is so common in public health. Of course, there will be action on the ground, but we need them to be the right actions.

Dutton’s voice decision ‘doing a huge disservice’ to community: Sarah Hanson-Young

Australian and New Zealand armies sign Plan Anzac

Following on from O’Neil’s comments, it was announced this afternoon the Australian and New Zealand armies will build on their history of cooperation with Plan Anzac.

The bilateral agreement is designed to increase capacity to operate together with a framework for engagement, enabling the two armies to exchange views and share situational awareness, capability, training and readiness.

The Australian chief of army, Lt Gen Simon Stuart, said the agreement would increase cooperation between the two armies:

Plan Anzac builds on our significant history of partnership by strengthening our army-to-army relationships, enhancing interoperability, capacity, ability to jointly support combat operations as well as joint capabilities to meet today’s challenges.

This partnership will see both armies better prepared to work together to support security and stability missions, and humanitarian aid and disaster relief operations.

The New Zealand chief of army, Maj Gen John Boswell, said Plan Anzac was a step forward for the trans-Tasman strategic partnership.

Outgoing shadow home affairs minister Karen Andrews ‘should feel really proud’ of her work: Clare O’Neil

O’Neil also spoke on Karen Andrews’ decision to quit the frontbench and step down as shadow home affairs minister today. Andrews occupied the ministry immediately before O’Neil.

She said:

We are from different sides of politics, [but I] think anyone who puts their hand up to serve their community – and the way that she did, representing a local area for 13 years – deserves huge commendation.

We have lots of different views around this parliament but we are actually all [here for] the right reasons and I’m sure that Karen should feel really proud about the work she has done … I wish her all the very best for the future.

Close Australia-NZ relationship ‘not reflected in public policy’: Clare O’Neil

The home affairs minister, Clare O’Neil, is speaking on ABC Afternoon Briefing about Australia’s relationship with New Zealand ahead of the NZ prime minister Chris Hipkins’ visit to Australia this weekend.

Hipkins has said he hopes to improve the pathways for New Zealanders living and working in Australia, which O’Neil called a “running sore in the relationship we have with our deeply beloved family and friends across the ditch”.

There is no two countries in the world, probably, closer than Australia and New Zealand. That is not reflected in public policy and a lot of your viewers might know that New Zealanders living in Australia have very different rights and entitlements then Australians do living in [New Zealand], so this is the point that the prime minister has talked about quite a bit …

When asked if any agreement is being made, O’Neil said:

I will let the prime minister speak a little bit more about that.

Any specific allegations of child abuse known by Dutton ‘should be reported to police’, says Albanese

Wrapping up the Sky News interview, Andrew Clennell asks Albanese about something Peter Dutton said earlier in the day:

Clennell:

Mr Dutton said to me this afternoon that he told you in a conversation last year that there were public servants who did not want to remove kids who were sexually abused in the Northern Territory. He admitted he didn’t tell you about any particular case … Do you recall that conversation?

Albanese:

He just said himself that he didn’t raise any specific allegation with me. He just said that in that interview. I didn’t see the interview live, but he just said it, which is very different from what he said in the Northern Territory, very different, where he suggested that he had told something specifically to me … Where’s the specific allegation here?

… I find child abuse abhorrent, I’m sure Peter Dutton does too. If there’s any specific allegation, it should be reported to the police.

PM stays quiet on possibility of raising jobseeker payment rate

Circling back to Anthony Albanese’s interview on Sky News, he is asked about the possibility of raising jobseeker payments.

Albanese remained tight-lipped and pointed to the upcoming budget in two weeks’ time, but also said these measures are considered “in a context”, pointing to inflationary pressure.

He said:

A Labor government will always look for ways in which we can provide assistance to those in need. It is of course in a context, and the context is we don’t want to add to an inflationary pressure and we inherited a trillion dollars of debt from the former government, without any plan for future economic growth.

That’s what investment in childcare and addressing skill shortages, addressing the new economy through a national reconstruction fund is about as well.

So you’ll see a comprehensive plan from the government consistent with the commitments that we took to the federal election in 2018 … and we’ll also be considering the context of we’re dealing with globally, those economic headwinds which are there.