5&5: Delivering for Australians
It’s been another busy week in Canberra. While the Albanese Government is getting on with the job of delivering cost of living relief for Australians, with cheaper medicines, protecting penalty rates and cutting student debt, the Opposition are still trying to tear each other apart.
Here’s the 5&5.
BEST
Getting it done
Cheaper medicines and free life-saving scans
Barnaby’s cross walk
Olympic spirit
Business time
WORST
Women’s place
Protecting penalty rates
Net zero impact
Wake up Ted
Bring back the teapot
1. We pledged to cut 20 per cent off student debt - and reform childcare to protect our kids. This week we delivered on both. On Thursday, the two Bills passed both houses of parliament to become law. Education Minister Jason Clare told the House more than three million Australians will benefit. “Young people don't always see something for them on the ballot paper when there's an election, but they did this year and they voted for it in their millions. For young people just out of TAFE, just out of uni, just out of home and just getting started, this will take a weight off their backs.”
2. As well as introducing legislation for cheaper medicines, which will get the cost of scripts down to what they were back in 2004, Mark Butler also told the House how our new, free lung cancer scans are already saving lives. “Already thousands of Australians have lined up for their free scans and already lives have been saved. Patrick, who is 65 years of age from Melbourne, for example, just happened to get referred after a consultation on sleep apnoea and his scan found a stage one lung tumour – the size of a grape instead of the size of a grapefruit. He has had surgery and his prospects are excellent. One professional picked up a stage two lung tumour, that within as little as three months would have grown to a stage four tumour and almost certainly would have killed that patient.”
3. While our legislative agenda this fortnight has focused on cost of living - student debt, cheaper medicine, housing and penalty rates - the Opposition is still stuck on the old culture wars. Not only has Barnaby Joyce introduced a private member’s bill to take us backwards in time and stop acting on climate change by abandoning net zero, he’s become the first member of the Opposition to cross the floor this term. They only got to day seven of Parliamentary sittings before we called on a vote to make sure that Barnaby’s bill gets debated when Parliament returns. You can imagine we will have a lot to say on it. Barnaby had the same view and crossed the floor to vote with us, while every other member of the Opposition voted against the only piece of legislation they have brought forward so far, even being debated.
4. On Wednesday, the Parliament welcomed members of Australia’s 1980 Australian Olympic team who chose to compete in Moscow, despite a U-S led boycott, following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In Ancient Greece, battles used to stop for the Olympic Games, not the other way around. The PM’s speech acknowledging the athletes’ pain is worth a watch.
5. The Opposition’s attack on the Government around small business came completely undone. For ages, they’ve been quoting that 29,000 small businesses have closed. The only problem for them is that Anne Aly had the number of new businesses which have been created. “Since this Albanese Labor government took office in 2022, there are 800,000 more new small businesses operating right across Australia. They comprise female led businesses—around 35 per cent are female led—and 40 per cent on average are led by migrants, people who are aspirational, who come to this country and who see starting up a small business as a way of making a life for themselves and for their families. “
The gender pay gap is shrinking under the Albanese Government, with women now taking home on average $217.40 more per week than they did in May 2022. But as Catherine King pointed out on Tuesday, the Opposition still think women should be seen and not heard. “Just today, we had the Member for Longman claiming that quotas are a ridiculous practice and that men tend to be more drawn to vocations that involve maths and physical exertion. And I go on to quote the Member for Longman,… “women in the main tend to be drawn to careers that involve women and care like hairdressers, nursing, social workers and the like”. Well what an absolute croc. What a croc. People used to think that women were not drawn to this place, Mr Speaker. We have so many talented women in this place, with a range of backgrounds. From engineers, to doctors, to CEOs, to Paralympians and even pilots across opposite from me. This is the attitude, Member for Longman, that keeps wages for women low, stops them from putting their hands up to learn a trade, or work in STEM or represent their communities in this place. Those opposite simply do not get it. Those opposite are living decades in the past. First, it's net zero and now it is your attitudes towards women. Well, I'm here to tell them that it is 2025. Climate change is real - and gender equality is a very good thing for this country.”
2. It never changes. Liberal Tim Wilson is now the Opposition Workplace Relations spokesman, and he’s keeping true to the Liberal attitude: whenever they see a pay cut, they’re for it. So desperate to stop our Bill to protect penalty rates, he tried a new tactic. As the Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth pointed out in question time on Wednesday. “I have seen many, many creative ways that those opposite have tried to cut working people's wages and conditions, but this is the first time I have seen an attempt to send it to a committee that doesn't exist. Of course, we know the shadow minister loves grandstanding, perhaps to distract from the truth, or perhaps to distract from his lack of competence. But the truth is the coalition doesn't support protecting penalty rates.”
3. It’s not just Barnaby Joyce rolling back the clock on climate change. One Nation is at it, too. Not that it got them anywhere. “Last night there was a vote in the Senate. One Nation called on a vote opposing net zero. Now, One Nation voted for that—that was their motion—two coalition senators voted for it, two coalition senators voted against it and 22 coalition senators were outside playing Candy Crush! They didn't want anything to do with it. That's what you want—a bit of moral clarity about the big issues facing our country. Asked are they for net zero or against net zero, two are for, two are against and 22 didn't know. Those twos cancelled each other out. It was a net zero impact on the vote from those opposite! That's the sort of impact we see from the leadership and the team opposite.”
4. The Opposition has a new Shadow Treasurer, Ted O’Brien, the mastermind behind their disastrous nuclear policy. As Jim Chalmers told the House, he seems to have missed the news that inflation is down, and unemployment is on average lower than any other government in the last 50 years. “If you compare every single government of the last half-century, the government led by this guy has overseen the lowest average unemployment of any of those governments for half a century. This is precisely why the people in front of the member for Fairfax are more excited about his promotion than the people behind him, because he bowls up these absolute dollies. He's doing his best to make the former shadow treasurer look good.”
5. I never thought we’d miss our old friend, Paul Fletcher, better known as the teapot. But the new Manager of Opposition Business has got the PM longing for the past. “Every time the new Manager of Opposition Business gets up, you feel a little nostalgia for Paul Fletcher! Joni Mitchell was right: you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You've got to bring back the hand signals, the teapot!”
Now I know it’s the 5&5 but I just had to share this. On Wednesday, Anika Wells and the PM clarified that recent discussions about the Social Media ban for under 16s have not resulted in a breakdown in the relationship with Australia’s favourite children’s entertainers… the PM declared at a media conference - “My Government is pro-Wiggles!” And as regular readers of this email would know, I’m also pro Wiggles! Here’s a reminder of the time my band Left Right Out played with them in the Great Hall of Parliament.
Parliament is back at the end of August.
‘til then,
Tony
PS. I’m not sure if Barnaby Joyce has ever heard of The Weeknd, but this song could have been written for him. Have a listen to Less than zero.
PPS. We had more inspiring first speeches from our new members this week. They’re well worth a look, and are linked below: