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One in four Australians skipping meals due to cost-of-living pressure, survey shows
The ACTU has released its latest cost of living survey showing up to a quarter of Australians are already skipping meals because of the cost of living.
Sally McManus told the ABC it is only going to get worse if something doesn’t happen to increase wages:
When you start to run out of money because of inflation and the cost of things going up and your wage is not, you obviously got to lock at your budget and work out what you can cut out and for some people, there’s nothing left to cut out other than their meals.
We know that people are spending less on all the essentials and this is, you know, obviously really bad situation for families, but also bad for the economy when people don’t have that extra money to spend, they stop spending and, you know, in local businesses. We have got to address this issue and get wages moves again.
Key events
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National cabinet is not until next week, but the usual chess game is being played ahead of agreements being finalised, as the federal government tries to come up with a solution to the energy price crisis.
Queensland and NSW are the sticking points when it comes to coal prices. There are reports those states are looking at their own coal price caps, which would mean someone (the Commonwealth) stepping in to pay compensation to the producers (ain’t capitalism grand?!) which could blow up the whole deal before it is even agreed to.
On Sky News, Tanya Plibersek said she was confident of a solution:
I don’t expect that at all. We’ve had very cooperative relations with the states on the energy crisis, and I know that my colleagues will be speaking to state leaders, the Prime Minister will be speaking to state leaders, and I have no doubt the Energy Minister is speaking to his counterparts as well.
Look, we’ve got a real problem in Australia with energy prices; we’ve had 10 years of inaction under the previous government, and of course the war in Ukraine has driven up energy costs around the world. We need to do something for families and businesses here in Australia, and I know that the State Governments are equally determined to deal with the rising cost of living too. It’s having an impact on their economies too.
The government has moved forward with the next step in its referendum planning. Linda Burney and Mark Dreyfus say it’s a necessary step to clean up some existing legislation:
Today the Government introduced the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Amendment Bill 2022, to advance the Prime Minister’s commitment to hold a referendum to enshrine an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice in the Australian Constitution.
The Referendum Act is out of step with today’s electoral laws and does not reflect modern delivery and communications methods.
The legislation will make amendments to replicate current electoral machinery provisions into the referendum context. This will ensure the voting process and experience is similar to that of a federal election.
The legislation will also ensure that the integrity and transparency measures that currently apply to federal elections will also apply to referendums.
Adeshola Ore
Victorian Liberal leadership ballot narrows to two contenders
Victorian Liberal MP Richard Riordan has confirmed he is dropping out of the party’s leadership contest.
The battle to lead the Victorian Liberal Party is now between Berwick MP Brad Battin and John Pesutto, who has won back the seat of Hawthorn after it fell to Labor at the 2018 election.
Riordan told Sky News on Thursday he would not contest the leadership ballot next week.
On Wednesday, Warrandyte MP, Ryan Smith, withdrew his candidacy and threw his support behind Battin, who he described as sharing a similar vision for the future direction of the party.
Riordan said he would throw his support behind Battan, describing his colleague as an “experienced growth area campaigner.”
Mark Dreyfus says appointment of integrity commissioner to be made in the new year
Now that the integrity commission legislation has passed the parliament, the next step is setting up the integrity commission itself.
Which means finding someone to lead it.
Mark Dreyfus told the ABC it would be a “merit” based process:
We’ve got a transparent and merit-based appointments process, as we should, and we’re now in the active search for the commissioner.
It’s a very important appointment, obviously, because that first commissioner is someone that is going to put their stamp on the character of this commission and we’ve seen that with the way in which the state commissions have unfolded. So, I’m thinking hard about who’s the right person.
We’ve got a search going on at the moment and sometime in the new year we’ll be making the announcement about the appointment. And of course, the bill provides for that appointment to go to the parliamentary oversight committee. We’ve got layers of oversight in this bill.
There was a bit of argy-bargy over the approval of the commission at the 11th hour of debate for the bill – the Liberal party wanted the oversight committee to have a 3/4 majority for approval, which the Greens were going to support if the oversight committee didn’t have a non-government MP as chair. In the end, the government got its way – the approval of the commission will be done with a simple majority (and the Greens backed down on their amendment).
Melbourne leading domestic destinations for travel spending
Seems the reports of Melbourne’s death have been greatly exaggerated – new figures from the Tourism and Transport Forum show Melbourne leading the domestic tourism travel list, as AAP reports (but international travel is still lagging).
Monthly figures from the Tourism and Transport Forum show the southern capital was the country’s top location for travel spending in October, ahead of Sydney and Brisbane.
The report, released on Thursday, also revealed Australian tourists are spending more domestically than before Covid-19 restrictions shut down the travel market.
Spending in the local industry was worth $10.1bn in October, up 9% on the same month in 2019.
The largest share of the spending was from Australians travelling within their own state.
Tourism forum chief executive, Margy Osmond, said Victoria had done a great job in attracting tourists with events, but the numbers might also have been boosted by people visiting friends and family after Melbourne’s long lockdowns.
The domestic holiday trend is expected to continue into the peak summer holiday period.
But despite the domestic travel boom, foreign visitors are still staying away from Australia’s shores amid soaring prices for international air fares.
Spending by international travellers was 16% below pre-Covid levels in October at $2.3bn.
As the speaker considers the request to refer Scott Morrison to the privileges committee, it is worth reviewing the censure motion, as seen through the eyes of Murph:
Foodbank Victoria to hold ‘no questions asked’ drive through as CEO says current situation is worst he has seen in 15 years
We have heard a lot about the impact of the rising cost of living already this morning – it is biting harder than it has in years (although of course, with the rate of social security payments, for a lot of people it has always been a harder struggle than it needs to be).
It has reached the point, though, where Foodbank Victoria CEO, Dave McNamara, says it’s the worst situation he has seen in 15 years.
Not only are some of our largest charities reporting that they’ve moved from feeding 1,000 people a week to 1,400 people a week, but our distribution has also gone up 21% – which is unheard of in the context of those fifteen years.
Foodbank Victoria is holding a “no questions asked” drive through this weekend in Melbourne, where people will be able to turn up and receive a free hamper of produce and pantry essentials.
One will be in Dandenong, starting at 11am on Sunday at the Chobani warehouse car park, 18-20 Quality Drive, Dandenong South VIC 3175.
Another will be in Epping, starting at 11am on Sunday at the Melbourne Market car park, 55 Produce Drive, Epping VIC 3076.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (or at least that everyone is about to get out of this place until February):
Paul Karp
The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, has moved to refer Scott Morrison to the privileges committee.
Bandt noted the conclusions of the Bell inquiry including that Morrison’s actions “fundamentally undermined responsible government” – which he said the house had endorsed in Wednesday’s censure.
He noted Morrison’s explanation that:
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“The ministry list referenced, as it does, that ministers may be sworn in to administer additional departments …”
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And Morrison’s own conclusion that some appointments “were unnecessary and that insufficient consideration was given to these decisions at the time, including non-disclosure”.
Bandt said that the ministry lists did not alert the house that Morrison had taken additional portfolios.
He asked the speaker to consider whether these facts “constitute a deliberate misleading of the House” and to refer the matter to the privileges committee.
Tony Burke is dealing with the house hours – it is all going to depend on how the Senate is going, he says.
So if the Senate gets through its list, then the house can be done and dusted, and if it is not, then the house may still return tomorrow or Saturday.
The speaker, Milton Dick, says he will examine the referral and make a decision.
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