2 hours ago
‘Important day for tax reform’: government hails deal with Greens
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is now addressing reporters at Parliament House with the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, finance minister Katy Gallagher, and NDIS minister Mark Butler.
Albanese says the changes that were announced in the budget (and have since been heavily amended) are important and ambitious.
He also takes a dig at the Liberals, s and One Nation who will oppose it.
I expect that just as the three rightwing parties have opposed every tax cut, every pay rise for workers, every cost of living measure, every policy to build more homes and help more people buy their first home, they will oppose these measures and continue in their race to the bottom to see who can be more anti-aspirational, more anti-worker and confirm they are defined purely by what they are against.
Chalmers says today is an “important day for tax reform”, and he, like the PM, is probably breathing a heavy sigh of relief with the changes now guaranteed passage through parliament.
He acknowledges his colleagues for making the deal.
Economic reform is never easy, especially tax reform, but it’s worth it when you are delivering that real change that the prime minister has been referring to. The passage of these bills will mean a fair go for first home buyers, tax cuts for workers and a fairer tax system as well.
Key events
Albanese calls Hanson’s monomulture push a ‘nonsense argument’
Jumping back into the prime minister’s press conference, Anthony Albanese is asked about Pauline Hanson’s comments that Australia should be “monocultural” not multicultural.
The PM calls it a “nonsense argument” and says that from the first fleet to our Socceroos team (who we will all be watching at 12pm AEST on Friday), Australia has always been multicultural.
We had from the arrival of the first fleet, not everyone was one [culture].
When we look at the Socceroos, we see examples of that rich culture, people who are proud of their ethnicity, of who they are, but also who are proud Australians in representing our great nation and the whole country will be cheering them on on Friday at 12 o’clock, and I hope that the country stops for a little bit during that time.
It’s who we are, so it’s really a nonsense argument to go back to something that was actually never there.
Controversial herbicide paraquat to remain legal in Australia despite links to Parkinson’s
Anne Davies
The herbicide paraquat, banned in over 70 countries, will remain legal in Australia despite Parkinson’s disease groups, scientists and neurologists arguing there is a strong correlation between exposure and the incidence of the disease.
The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) gazetted a final regulatory decision on Tuesday following the reconsideration of both paraquat and a related chemical, diquat.
The APVMA CEO, Scott Hansen, said the reviews applied contemporary risk management frameworks to rigorous scientific investigation of the impacts of paraquat and diquat on human health and the environment. Hansen said:
Both chemicals remain available for use with significant new restrictions on application rates and permitted uses.
To protect users from acute exposure, new restrictions will phase out backpack sprayers and require enclosed mixing and loading systems for all uses, and enhanced personal protection equipment.
Overall, the maximum rate of application on paraquat and diquat will be 231grams per hectare, when it was previously 1,150 grams per hectare.
During the review process, the APVMA received 171 submissions from scientists, doctors, the agricultural industry and other interested parties.
In making its decision, the authority said it “found the weight of evidence did not show that paraquat exposure through approved uses increases the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease”.
The Parkinson’s Australia chief executive, Olivia Nassaris, said she was deeply disappointed in the review outcome.
“Seventy countries have banned the use of paraquat. Are the lives of Australians less valuable?” she said on Tuesday.
Is a $1m home affordable for young people?
Reporter Evelyn Manfield asks the prime minister whether he believes that $1m, the typical price for an apartment in the suburb of Marrickville, in the PM’s electorate of Grayndler, is “affordable” for young people.
As a former Sydneysider myself, for those unfamiliar with that particular terrain, Marrickville is what I would describe as an industrial-chic suburb with lots of bars, micro-brewries, cafes and lots of young people who really want to live there (many of them rent).
The PM can’t really answer the question:
Well, it depends on what their income is. It depends on all of their status, which is there. So people are, you know, we want to give young people a fair crack at owning their own home, that is what these are aimed at doing.
Jim Chalmers then gets a follow-up question on whether older people looking to sell their homes should be concerned that prices in some areas are falling.
He says that prices were falling before the budget was released.
Whether you’re talking about house prices or about auction clearance rates, we were seeing some of them begin to soften even before the budget, and that’s because there are a number of factors at play when it comes to auctions and when it comes to house prices, including movements in interest rates, global and domestic economic conditions, and also tax settings.
Butler ‘utterly convinced’ his NDIS reforms are the right package
My colleague, Josh Butler, follows up and asks Mark Butler – the health and NDIS minister – whether the eight-week extension will see any further changes to the package, or if the government will spend the entire time trying to sell those changes to the public and people with a disability.
Butler doubles down and says he still believes these reforms are the right way to go.
He says he gets it’s a hard change but the government’s job is to “clarify exactly what that impact will be”.
I’m convinced is the right package of reforms. I mean, there are some minor changes at the edges that we’ve already announced over the course of this morning to particularly clarify our intention and to provide reassurance to people about what is going to change and what is not going to change, but I’m utterly convinced that the package of reform that we worked on for months, frankly … is the right package of changes.
Asked about concerns over automated decision-making included in the NDIS reforms, Butler says the government is “treading very carefully”.
We are treading very carefully into any use of automated decision-making … obviously, we’re taking advice from a range of bodies like the one that you’ve mentioned. I’ve made it very clear that any use of ADM would be simply about administrative processes, certainly not about anything more substantive than that.
PM and Butler stand firm against changes to NDIS reforms
Anthony Albanese is asked whether, after the longer inquiry process, Labor would be open to more changes to the NDIS reforms.
The prime minister says that when Labor was first elected into office, the disability insurance scheme was growing at 22% per year which was unsustainable, and that the reforms need to be made.
What we want to make sure is that reform occurs, so that everyone who needs the support at the NDIS with a disability receives the support that they need, but so that we get rid of and deal with some of the waste and anomalies, which are there, which don’t assist people with disabilities.
Neither he nor Mark Butler indicate that they will make other changes. Butler says that the extra time will help the government communicate the changes better to the disability community.
I, and many members of government are obviously engaging with people with disability to help to explain the government’s reasoning behind this package and to dispel some of the misapprehensions about what it’s going to mean for participants, and the extra eight weeks of the hearing will provide us with more opportunity to do that.
Butler adds the government is working with the states, who need to be on board for the changes to actually work.
Six-month delay on NDIS bill would have cost billions, Butler says
The health and NDIS minister, Mark Butler, who was also sitting at the negotiating table to land a deal with the Greens, confirms that there will be an eight-week extension to the NDIS inquiry process.
But Butler says he still believes that the changes are “absolutely the right package for the NDIS”.
He says the extension will allow the government to provide more assurances around the bill, as opposed to a six-month delay which was proposed by the Coalition which would have cost billions.
A six-month extension would cost the budget billions of dollars, but would also delay our ability to get those cost blowouts under control, to clear up eligibility rules, and to crack down on the fraud and the integrity issues that the community knows are there with the NDIS, and that is why we have agreed to an extension of this inquiry …
This is another opportunity for us to provide ongoing reassurances about our intentions around this package, and the degree to which this is an important reform to secure the long-term future of this important social program.
‘Important day for tax reform’: government hails deal with Greens
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is now addressing reporters at Parliament House with the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, finance minister Katy Gallagher, and NDIS minister Mark Butler.
Albanese says the changes that were announced in the budget (and have since been heavily amended) are important and ambitious.
He also takes a dig at the Liberals, s and One Nation who will oppose it.
I expect that just as the three rightwing parties have opposed every tax cut, every pay rise for workers, every cost of living measure, every policy to build more homes and help more people buy their first home, they will oppose these measures and continue in their race to the bottom to see who can be more anti-aspirational, more anti-worker and confirm they are defined purely by what they are against.
Chalmers says today is an “important day for tax reform”, and he, like the PM, is probably breathing a heavy sigh of relief with the changes now guaranteed passage through parliament.
He acknowledges his colleagues for making the deal.
Economic reform is never easy, especially tax reform, but it’s worth it when you are delivering that real change that the prime minister has been referring to. The passage of these bills will mean a fair go for first home buyers, tax cuts for workers and a fairer tax system as well.
KPMG chair and audit partners resign amid alleged leaking scandal
Catie McLeod
Leaving that press conference for a moment, the chair of the Australian arm of global accounting firm KPMG and two partners have resigned amid a growing scandal over alleged leaks of clients’ confidential information.
KPMG announced earlier today that national chair, Martin Sheppard, and audit partners Paul Rogers and Eileen Hoggett would leave the firm.
They will follow KPMG’s Australian chief executive, Andrew Yates, and the national managing partner of audit and assurance, Julian McPherson, out the door.
In addition to the new leadership changes, KPMG has also announced “a governance overhaul and a comprehensive action plan to address integrity issues and strengthen accountability across the firm”.
We’ll bring you more details shortly.
NDIS changes still ‘clear and present danger to the life and liberties of disabled people’, Steele-John says
Jordon Steele-John, the Greens NDIS spokesperson, says no matter what his party will not pass the NDIS bill, but they have secured some changes to it.
He says under the original reforms, the government could force people to undergo medical interventions before accessing the NDIS.
The protections that the Greens have secured ensure that these interventions cannot be restrictive practices, such as forced medication, and that they must be available through the public health system.
I am confident that these amendments will provide and have secured additional protections from what is in the legislation currently. Let me be clear, however, this legislation, while improved by these protections, still represents a clear and present danger to the life and liberties of disabled people.
Tax reform amendments will ‘take some demand out of the housing market’, McKim says
The Greens treasury spokesperson, Nick McKim, also piles on the criticism saying that the government met the once in a political generation opportunity in “classic Labor style with an abject lack of ambition.”
He explains a little more what the Greens have actually amended.
The Greens have wound back ministerial powers which McKim says would have allowed treasurer Chalmers, or any future treasurer, to make changes to the laws, including eligibility for carve outs.
On the other change, McKim says there will now be a ban on people using their self-managed super funds to purchase residential properties:
This has been a recommendation that’s consistently been made by financial stability reviews … This will take some demand out of the housing market, and it will mean that there is less opportunity for people in self-managed super funds to show up to auctions and use their tax advantages to outbid renters and prospective first home buyers.
Tax changes ‘small step in the right direction’, say Greens
The Greens have made a deal with the government on negative gearing and capital gains tax changes, but they’re letting you know they’re still not happy with all the settings.
Speaking to reporters in parliament, Greens leader Larissa Waters says the government has left $33bn on the table by allowing existing negative gearing arrangements to continue (according to their modelling).
Despite some ongoing disappointment, Waters says the Greens will still support the government to pass the bill this sitting fortnight.
What a missed opportunity to actually step up and fix the housing crisis.
On balance, this package is a small step in the right direction. It is a small step. It could have been so much better, but it is a small step in the right direction, and the Greens will vote to see it pass the parliament this fortnight.
On the NDIS changes, Waters repeats that the Greens have secured an extension to the inquiry of eight weeks, but the aim is still to see the bill withdrawn entirely.
She says:
This government has proposed the biggest cut to a social support program in the history of the parliament. They are punching down on people with a disability because they didn’t have the guts to raise revenue with a gas export tax, or by cancelling Aukus, or buying just one less second-hand submarine from Donald Trump, and nor did they have the guts to properly tackle the superwealthy property investors that have pushed up house prices.
Josh Butler
Greens expecting extra hearings, extended submissions deadline for NDIS inquiry
The Greens will demand that the extended inquiry into Labor’s NDIS changes includes new public hearings and an extension to the period for public submissions, in a bid to keep pressuring the government to drop or radically rework their planned reforms.
While it doesn’t sound like the minor party got an ironclad deal for new hearings, we understand that the Greens will seek to lock in those details this week in parliament as part of normal Senate machinery processes – and could change their mind on supporting Labor’s tax reforms if that doesn’t happen.
Interestingly, Anthony Albanese’s press release welcoming the Greens’ tax support doesn’t mention changes to the NDIS inquiry – only that “the Government will also support amendments to the NDIS legislation to clarify the implementation of the reforms”.
The Greens say they will help support the passage of Labor’s tax legislation this week, likely on Thursday.
They are intractably opposed to the NDIS bill, and party room sources said they’d made it very clear to the government that they wouldn’t vote for it in any form. It’s understood that the Greens will also keep pushing to delay the NDIS changes after the 14 August deadline for the inquiry extension, with this eight-week window characterised as a minimum delay from the Greens’ point of view.
The NDIS inquiry is expected to release an interim report today. This report was previously expected to be a final report, but that’s now obviously changed with the legislation negotiations.
We’ll be hearing from the Greens in a moment on their deal with Labor. After that we’ll be getting a press conference from the prime minister, Anthony Albanese.
It’s all happening!
Government confirms tax reform bill will pass this sitting fortnight
The government have now also confirmed the deal with the Greens on amendments to the CGT and negative gearing changes as well as the NDIS overhaul.
A statement by prime minister Anthony Albanese, treasurer Jim Chalmers, and finance minister Katy Gallagher says the government will support a Greens amendment banning future limited recourse borrowing arrangements (LRBAs) for residential property by superannuation funds.
The government says superannuation funds are largely prohibited from borrowing money to invest, with the exception of LRBAs that are used by self-managed super funds.
These arrangements constitute less than 1% of total residential property borrowing and less than half a per cent of new residential borrowing each year.
The statement reads:
Passage of this important legislation this fortnight will provide workers, businesses and investors certainty about the core tax settings that will apply from 1 July 2027.
The government will continue to develop further tranches of legislation to implement the budget tax reform package, consistent with the process for legislating other large tax reform packages in the past.
Greens say they have negotiated key concessions on Labor’s tax reforms
We have some more details on the deal the Greens have made with Labor.
The Greens say they have negotiated some key concessions on the changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax.
The party says it has secured an amendment to “prevent wealthy property investors from exploiting a loophole to use self-managed super funds to buy up tax-advantaged investment properties” and wind back ministerial discretionary powers.
They’re still not happy about the grandfathering of negative gearing arrangements for existing property owners.
On the NDIS inquiry, the Greens have secured an eight-week extension, meaning it will now report back on 14 August.
The Greens say that will build pressure on the two major parties to withdraw the bill entirely.
They also say “as a precaution” they’ve negotiated amendments to the NDIS bill to limit ministerial powers and ensure greater transparency on automated decision-making.
Greens leader Larissa Waters said:
The inquiry hearings have only confirmed what we knew – this is an appalling and dangerously irresponsible bill.
Greens will vote for tax reforms after deal that includes extension of NDIS inquiry
Josh Butler
In some breaking news, the Greens say they will support Labor’s negative gearing and capital gains tax changes this fortnight in the Senate, assuring the passage of the government’s contentious bill.
The Greens say in a statement they have also negotiated for the extension of the NDIS inquiry until 14 August, and say they will keep pushing for the government to drop their bill entirely.
Greens leader Larissa Waters said:
Backing this bill puts an end date on these tax breaks – but Labor’s low ambition means that inequality and the housing crisis will be worse for longer. This enduring housing crisis will be squarely of Labor’s design.
More to come as we get it.
There are some pretty crucial party room meetings taking place today, with the government trying desperately to make a deal on its CGT and negative gearing legislation and NDIS reforms.
The party rooms of Labor, the Greens and Coalition each meet on Tuesday mornings ahead of a noon sitting, and we can expect some discussion on negotiations of the two critical changes.
We’ll keep our eyes peeled and ears on the ground for any movement, and bring it to you as soon as it comes.
‘Students are skipping meals’ to study, says Haines
Independent MP Helen Haines and senator David Pocock will table a petition in Parliament today with 43,000 signatures, pushing for the government to pay for practical placements for allied health professionals – like physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech pathologists, psychologists.
A student survey from Charles Sturt University found 45% of polled students say financial stress could force them to withdraw before completing their degree.
At La Trobe University, 65% of respondents said cost‑of‑living pressures are impacting their study, and 23% were considering a study break.
Many of the degrees offered at those universities require compulsory prac placements that are unpaid.
At the same time, there are shortages around the country of allied health workers, which are driving increased wait times for disability supports, according to Disability Services.
Haines said:
Students are skipping meals, running down their savings and working multiple jobs just to stay in their degrees. When essential placements are unpaid, it becomes significantly harder for students to complete the qualifications our workforce relies on.
Pocock calls for plan on migration, as poll shows declining support for multiculturalism
Australia is undergoing a historic decline in support for multiculturalism, according to the Lowy Institute’s annual poll, amid a groundswell of fear rooted in mounting economic pessimism and an increasingly illiberal and chaotic world order.
The Lowy poll is the latest edition of the country’s longest-running survey of Australians’ opinions of the world and their place in it, and revealed a record low 31% of the more than 2,000 people surveyed had faith in the United States to act responsibly on the world stage, and just one in five trust the president, Donald Trump, to do the right thing.
David Pocock was asked about the polling on RN Breakfast earlier this morning and he said he was “really not surprised when you see the pressures on housing and cost of living”.
He criticised the lack of planning for migration and infrastructure:
We should have a plan when it comes to migration and population. We should be looking at the impacts on infrastructure, the impacts on housing, the impacts on the environment. Currently, there’s none of that.
Come up with the plan for this: How big do we want to be as a country? What are the trade-offs? What are the skills that we need? And let’s move forward. And I think that takes away some of the opportunism and some of the really terrible politics that scapegoats migrants when it comes to housing.
