Dreyfus and Cash share conflicting accounts of heated meeting over religious discrimination bill
Paul Karp
The attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, met with his shadow counterpart, Michaelia Cash, to discuss the religious discrimination bill today. Labor has said that it wants bipartisan support for the bill, while the Coalition wants it released publicly.
Accounts of the meeting are highly disputed, with both sides accusing the other of aggressive behaviour including raised voices – which both deny.
Cash said:
I was appalled by Mr Dreyfus’s behaviour. Mr Dreyfus needs to stop playing games with his religious discrimination legislation. As I told Mr Dreyfus he needs to take on board the feedback he has received from the faith communities and release his legislation publicly.
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Labor is considering whether and how to respond but, from its perspective, Cash was spoiling for a fight to blame the government for a breakdown in negotiations.
We can’t say with certainty what happened in the room, but we can definitively say no progress was made with the opposition to pass the bill.
Key events
For a recap on religious discrimination/freedom (depending on how you are looking at it), Sarah Basford Canales prepared this a little earlier this year, with the wonderful video team:
The Greens senator David Shoebridge is making the same point:
Ending discrimination against students and teachers is too important for it to stall in a shouting match between the Coalition and Labor. It is incredibly frustrating this is the path the Albanese government appears to have chosen.
Ending discrimination against students and teachers is too important for it to stall in a shouting match between the Coalition and Labor. It is incredibly frustrating this is the path the Albanese Govt appears to have chosen. pic.twitter.com/4ni8obpmqp
— David Shoebridge (@DavidShoebridge) May 28, 2024
Greens emphasise that crossbench could put religious freedom bill over the line
The Greens are still making the point to the government that they do not need to work with the Coalition to pass the religious freedom legislation – they can work with the Greens.
The government says it wants bipartisan support for the legislation, which is why it is focused on the Coalition, but there are some pretty big sticking points.
Brisbane Greens MP Stephen Bates has posted to X to say there is another option the government is ignoring:
The gov could work with the Greens and the xbench to pass reforms that provide countless school students and educators the freedom to be themselves. Yet they seem unwilling to take this path. The fight to end discrimination cannot stop because the LNP wants it to.
The gov could work with the Greens and the xbench to pass reforms that provide countless school students and educators the freedom to be themselves.
Yet they seem unwilling to take this path.
The fight to end discrimination cannot stop because the LNP wants it to.
— Stephen Bates (@stephenbatesmp) May 28, 2024
Husic’s company tax comments ‘out of touch’, Greens say
The Greens economics spokesman, Nick McKim, is not a fan of Ed Husic’s comments to the AFR’s AI summit about the need to talk about lowering company tax.
McKim says the comments are “out of touch”.
Instead of reducing corporate taxes, we should be introducing a super profits tax to make sure that the corporations who have driven inflation contribute to a fairer society.
Lowering corporate taxes would also sabotage our climate efforts, rewarding industries that pollute our environment.
Fossil fuel corporations already enjoy substantial subsidies. Our priority should be holding them accountable for their environmental impact.
Sarah Basford Canales
Hume asks for update on Jenkins recommendations including a doctor at Parliament House
The Department of Parliamentary Services is still fronting senators in estimates despite being scheduled to finish at midday.
The Liberal senator Jane Hume is asking for an update about the outcomes of recommendations from a landmark review into Parliament House culture by the former sex discrimination commissioner Kate Jenkins.
One of the recommendations is to have a doctor on site within Parliament House during sitting weeks. In a feasibility study for the DPS, the annual cost of having a doctor on site sit at around $361,000.
Hume asks: “Do you know how much the department has spent on designer furniture in the last decade? $3.698m in the last decade, so around $360,000 a year on designer furniture, rather than a doctor on site in this building, which was not just recommended by Kate Jenkins but is being demanded by our staff.”
The Senate president, Sue Lines, later responds “the vast bulk of staff don’t work in this building – they work in electorate offices … a GP here [in Parliament House] does not assist a staff member working in Darwin or in Perth or wherever they work across this country in any shape”.
Sarah Basford Canales
Australian Christian Lobby decries government ‘transparency crisis’
In an odd turn of events, the Australian Christian Lobby – best known for its fierce opposition to marriage equality – has declared there’s a “transparency crisis” across Australian governments.
Citing recent Freedom of Information (FoI) knockbacks (we feel you) and recent reporting over the Department of Parliamentary Services’ exemption from FoI laws, the ACL’s national director for politics, Wendy Francis, has had enough with the broken regime.
She wants an FoI overhaul and a promise to “reduce the use of exemptions, exceptions, and redactions while introducing real penalties for non-compliance”.
Francis says:
It’s time to end the secrecy and lack of accountability in government at every level … Democracy depends on transparency. No more excuses, no more delays, no more denials. Access to public information should be non-negotiable.
You won’t get any complaints from me here on greater transparency.
However, the kicker is the ACL is trying to get data as part of its campaign against gender-affirming surgery and those requests have been largely knocked back.
And after one last dixer, question time ends.
Don’t get too excited – there is another one tomorrow.
Taylor asks treasurer if company tax rate should be cut
Angus Taylor has a question for Jim Chalmers.
What. A. Day.
Taylor:
Does the treasurer agree with the minister for industry that there should be a reduction in the company tax rate?
Chalmers:
It’s a very welcome opportunity, a very rare opportunity indeed, to get a question from the shadow treasurer, even though a budget was handed down from this dispatch box a couple of weeks ago.
Mr Speaker, I saw the comments that the industry minister made at the Fin Review gathering earlier today, and they are entirely consistent with the sorts of things that we have been saying for some time.
And what he said was, was that the corporate tax system has a role to play in incentivising manufacturing capital, and it might just have dawned on those opposite, but that was a central feature of the budget two weeks ago to use the tax system to incentivise the kind of investment and production that we want to see to power the good, secure, well-paid jobs of the future in industries like manufacturing.
I say in addition to that, Mr Speaker, that the industry minister and I, indeed the energy minister, the resources minister, the prime minister, the infrastructure minister and others, have worked very, very closely to put together a tax package in this budget that we’re very proud of and we’re very proud of it, because it recognises that we can use the tax system and tax breaks for corporate Australia to incentivise a future made in Australia, Mr Speaker. And so a large proportion, indeed most of the $23bn of the Future Made in Australia package that I announced from this dispatch box almost exactly two weeks ago was about company tax reform in the form of production tax credits.
Benita Kolovos
Victorian government to review admin burden on teachers
The Victorian education minister, Ben Carroll, has just announced he has commissioned an independent review into the burden of administration tasks on teachers and principals in government schools.
Led by the researcher Katie Roberts-Hull, Carroll said the review would provide recommendations to the government by December on how to help schools and principals manage and reduce this workload.
He said it was a repeated complaint from teachers and school leaders that they were tied up with administrative and compliance activities rather than focusing on teaching and learning.
Carroll said:
School leaders, teachers and staff play a vital role in supporting young Victorians – while administration is a necessary part of their roles, we need to make sure they have as much time as possible to teach and support students.
Andrew Giles is asked another version of the same question he has been asked by the Coalition since the beginning of QT and gives the same answer.
As I’ve said in relation to similar questions, this is a visa that was cancelled and remained cancelled by my department in line with ministerial direction 99. I believe these visas should remain cancelled and I prioritise the number of cases for urgent cancellation in consideration to that effect.
Tink asks treasurer about decision not to raise jobseeker in the budget
The North Sydney independent MP, Kylea Tink, wants to know from Jim Chalmers what analysis the government undertook before it decided not to raise the rate of jobseeker, as recommended by the economic inclusion advisement committee, in the most recent budget.
Chalmers goes through what the government has done (raise rent assistance, which not everyone is able to receive and works out, at the maximum rate, to about an extra $9 a week, the previous $40 a fortnight rise to jobseeker and indexation) but does not answer Tink’s question.
Chalmers:
We will continue to do what we can to help people who are doing it tough. We have made some progress, but we acknowledge in the member’s question and in all of the engagement that the minister and I do with the sector, that there is an appetite to go further. And what we have shown, I think, in the course of our three budgets, is a willingness to do that where we can.
There is another question to Andrew Giles, which prompts the same answer we have heard since the beginning of question time.
Caitlin Cassidy
Adelaide University officially registered as a new higher education provider
In big news for the university sector, Adelaide University has been officially registered as a new higher education provider by the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA).
The institution is being created as a merger of the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia, with registration marking the next major step forward in opening the campus, slated for January 2026.
In 2022, the state government held a review into the viability of merging the two campuses, backed by the state opposition but contentious among existing academics. This decision means Adelaide University is registered for a period of seven years.
The Adelaide University co-vice chancellors, Prof David Lloyd and Prof Peter Høj, said it was a “significant milestone” in the creation of a new university.
This is an important step forward in the formal regulatory process and provides absolute confidence in our stated ambition as we prepare to launch the nation’s new for-purpose university.
Adelaide University has a compelling reason to exist – to enable educational excellence, equitable access, and excellent research become a driving force for good with impact that transcends borders – and we look forward to taking the new institution to the world.
Bandt asks PM to reaffirm Australia’s full commitment to ICC
The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, asks Anthony Albanese:
Will you condemn the calls from the leader of the opposition that Australia should consider cutting ties with the international criminal court if it issues warrants for the arrest of members of Israel’s war cabinet, and will you reaffirm Australia’s full commitment to the court, including that Australia will seek to arrest any person for whom the court issues a warrant, such as the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu?
Albanese doesn’t answer the question directly:
This government and indeed this parliament has been very clear from the beginning. We joined together, most of us, to condemn the terrorist attacks of October 7. We regard Hamas as a terrorist group. We have called upon Hamas to immediately release all hostages, and there is no equivalence between Hamas and Israel. We said in a motion, carried last October, that we recognise Israel’s right to defend itself, but we also reiterated this parliament’s stance, that Australia’s consistent position in all contexts is to call for the protection of civilian lives and the observance of international law. We have been consistent.
I note as well the impact that has occurred recently in Rafah. We consistently have opposed the ground offensive in Rafah. We expressed our concern that the impact that that would have, given that more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people were sheltering in Rafah, and were told to go to Rafah, where they would be safe.
We must have a humanitarian ceasefire so that civilian life can be protected. We must have increased humanitarian assistance delivered to Gaza. Every innocent life matters, whether it is Israeli or Palestinian, and my government consistently and will consistently support a two-state solution, which recognises the right of both Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security with prosperity.
Giles gets another opposition question
Andrew Giles gets the next opposition question and it is again about someone who had a visa cancelled because of an alleged crime, which was reinstated by an independent tribunal. Ministerial direction 99 was again raised.
Giles gives the same answer:
I say again that the department cancelled the visas of all these people. I say also that there are five primary considerations, all of which are given equal weighting in ministerial direction 99 that need to be taken into consideration. These are protection of the Australian community from criminal conduct, family violence, strength, nature and duration of ties to Australia, best interests of minor children and the expectations of the Australian community. Direction 99 did not decrease the importance placed on considerations such as the expectations of the Australian community on community safety. That remains unchanged under this government.
Peter Hannam
Fossil fuel holdings have increased in many super funds, Market Forces says
Market Forces has released a report today detailing how superannuation funds are – so far – not walking the talk about decarbonising their holdings.
Its headline findings are that 30 of the nation’s biggest super funds have 9% of their members’ investments in what they call “Climate Wreckers Index companies”.
In the two years from December 2021 to the end of 2023, funds’ holdings of firms with big coal and gas exposure doubled from $19bn to $39bn.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the carbon spectrum, holdings of clean energy companies (drawn from the Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Global Clean Energy Index) actually fell by $500m over those two years to $7.7bn. That’s about 2% of funds’ holdings.
There are a couple of caveats to the report. One is that Market Forces counts BHP as a “wrecker” because of its coking coal assets.
BHP is a behemoth and many funds would find it hard to avoid having some of the miner’s stock in their holdings. (The company might say: we dig copper, cobalt and other metals that the renewables transition needs.)
The other caveat is that some of those movements have to do with shifts in stock prices. About one-third of the increase in fossil fuel stocks came from increased purchases of those shares by funds. These included Australian Super buying “tens of millions of Woodside shares”, according to the report lead, Brett Morgan.
As for the clean energy side of the ledger, the market capital value of such firms fell 15% over that time, Market Forces says. That explains the shrinking share of funds’ holdings.
Still, the group notes super funds talk up their net zero credentials. Based on comparison for these two years at least, we’re not seeing a decarbonisation trend matching that rhetoric.
Another opposition question to Giles
There is another opposition question to Andrew Giles about direction 99 and the answer is pretty much the same:
As I have already said, my thoughts, and the thoughts of all members, I’m sure, are with the family of the victim here. This was a visa that was cancelled, and remained cancelled by my department, under direction 99. Direction 99 did not and does not decrease the importance placed on expectation such as the expectation of the Australian community and the protection of the community from crime. This remains unchanged under this government. Community safety remains the highest priority of this government and, I say again, these were decisions made by an independent tribunal.
‘In the darkest hour, Australia will be there’: Marles speaks about PNG landslide and Noumea unrest
Richard Marles took a dixer on what Australia has been doing in PNG and Noumea.
On PNG, Marles says:
In addition to the disaster response experts who are on their way to PNG now, the emphasis is on helping those who are displaced, and so we are working on transporting 750 family-sized shelters to the site. There is more that we are seeking to do.
But, to be frank, part of the issue here is about not overwhelming a system which is currently under a lot of stress.
But what every Australian should know, and more importantly what every Papua New Guinean should know, is that we will do everything within our power in this moment to help Papua New Guinea through this most difficult time.
And on Noumea, Marles says:
If I can just briefly mention New Caledonia – over the last couple of weeks we have seen unrest, and the origins of this obviously go back decades. The answer to this has been and continues to be ongoing dialogue. We very much welcome the visit of President Macron to Noumea, and we’re working with our French neighbours about how we can provide assistance in this context as well.
What we have done is provide eight flights over the course of the last week or so in which we’ve transported about 500 people to Australia, most of whom are Australian citizens.
These two very different incidents remind us of one central fact. We are members of the Pacific family. And every person in the Pacific should know that, in the darkest hour, Australia will be there.
Back to QT and Peter Dutton asks another question about the ministerial direction 99 and how it was used by an administrative appeals tribunal to reinstate a visa (the case is before the courts).
Andrew Giles says:
Direction 99 did not decrease the importance placed on considerations such as the expectations of the Australian community and the protection of the community from crime. That is a very important point here, as well as the fact that the visa in question was cancelled and remained cancelled by my department in accordance with ministerial direction 99. A number of cases were not raised with me by my department, and I’ve asked my department … for an explanation why.
(The gap there is because of interjections from the opposition.)
My department is now looking at all these cases as a priority, and they are all under cancellation consideration.
