Health News at Your Fingertips

Catherine King gives an update on foot and mouth disease and the response:

This is an issue the government takes very, very seriously and it is why we have introduced the toughest biosecurity measures ever undertaken in Australia. It has been detected in over 70 countries but immediate and pressing concern is the outbreak under control in Indonesia.

It has been detected in 22 of the 37 provinces stop the government is taking a two pronged approach by strengthening measures at our border but also working with our partners, particularly Indonesia, to prevent an outbreak coming here to the shores. An additional 14 million dollars committed to strengthen Australia prevention prevention for F&M. A million doses will be provided to Indonesia of the F&M vaccine and the government has existed through the assistance of technical support in the broader vaccination program.

We also have CSIRO Center for Disease preparedness working with the Indonesian Minister of agriculture to provide laboratory support and also essential materials. We have got the Indonesian government with signage and biosecurity measures for outgoing Australians.

We are doing everything we can to support our neighbours. It is in the interests of this country that we do so and they get this under control as quickly as possible and we are confident the Indonesian authorities are doing all they can.

Here in Australia, we funded additional biosecurity officers, security detector dogs to this task, the activation of biosecurity powers which have never been actually used before in this country, additional signage and distribution of flyers at major airports, deployment of sanitation mats, expanded social media campaigns and informing travellers of their biosecurity responsibilities.

But what we do know absolutely and utterly is that one of the highest risks is if people illegally import meat or dairy products.

We know that we have biosecurity officers checking around certain retail outlets at the moment, those imports have been stopped, and also checking all-male. What my message is particularly to the Australian people and particularly to those opposite, this is a very important task for all of us. Anyone coming in from these airports declare, declare, declare.

Absolutely make sure that you do your part to ensure that we maintain this important trade, including jeopardising the export of this important product.

Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who has been close friends with Speaker Milton Dick for almost as long as both have been in the Labor party, is in the gallery, along with the Speaker’s brother, the Queensland treasurer, Cameron Dick.

The next dixer covers ground the treasurer went through this morning.

We move on to the first of the crossbench questions, and it is Bob Katter, who gets cut off under the new time limits for questions, but Anthony Albanese gets that it is about infrastructure and answers anyway.

Albanese:

I thank the Member for Kennedy for his question and also thank him for his hospitality up in his electorate. I have indeed visited it on two occasions… (SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY) …I do not think that needed clarification from the Member for Kennedy but I thank him nonetheless for his goodwill.

Indeed, I did potentially get into some difficulty in the pub I sitting on the wrong seat, apparently, that was reserved for a very large gentleman with a hat bigger than the Member for Kennedy.

What we did is exactly look at infrastructure projects and this project, the irrigation project, I understand has had an initial business case that has been forwarded and will be examined by the Department as is appropriate. I do also note that the Flinders Shire Council has been very supportive of the project and I met with the mayor on a number of occasions.

That part of the world has an enormous opportunity with projects like big Kennedy and Little Kennedy and the Kingston project, a range of renewable energy projects, water projects, potential irrigation project to expand agriculture. I have had the privilege in for capacities of visiting with the Member of Kennedy. I know that my colleague, the Minister for the Environment and the Minister for infrastructure will look at these projects and, of course, it fits in two categories for the Minister of environment as well as looking at it in her capacity as Minister for water.

Where we can appropriately, within appropriate environmental protections, we should be looking at ways in which we can improve irrigation, expand our agricultural sector. It is important Australia plays a role and potentially a more important role as food resources around the world become more scarce, is to use the fact that we are such a vast island continent, to expand that and I look forward to working constructively with the Member for Kennedy on that.

Peter Dutton to Anthony Albanese:

My question is to the Prime Minister. Officials from the CFMEU have been charged with thousands of offences. Has the Prime Minister met with any of the union bosses accused of criminal behaviour, including sexual assault, harassment and rape?

Albanese:

Mr Speaker, if the Member opposite has an allegation or wants to know someone I met with, he should say No, he has not. If he…wants to name somebody, he is perfectly entitled to. But he is not entitled to do is to engage in that sort of smear tactics…

Dutton:

I do not know if this is a point of order but it is not an answer to the question. Have you met with these officials that have been charged with sexual harassment,…

Speaker Milton Dick:

There is no point of order, I call the Prime Minister. Completed your answer?

Albanese has. Dutton is not impressed and the Coalition benches echo that displeasure.

It seems to be a new experience for quite a few of them.

It takes time to settle into opposition.

Looking at the chamber, Labor and the crossbench is masked up – but once again, there is barely a mask to be seen on the Coalition’s opposition benches.

I’m not sure you could say it is anything other than a deliberate statement at this point.

Hasluck MP Tania Lawrence has the first dixer:

In May the Australian people voted for Albanese the Labor government with plans for a better future. How is the government working towards that goal?

Anthony Albanese:

Thank you very much the question and I congratulate the honourable member for her election to this parliament and I look forward to working with her and the other new members in this chamber is across all sides of the parliament.

On 21 May, the Australian people voted to change and we have hit the ground running as a new government. We have not wasted a day. We have put in a submission, as we said we would do, to say that people on the minimum wage of $20 and 33 cents an hour should not go backwards and remember, the election campaign I held up the dollar and said if people on the minimum wage got a dollar increase per hour than the sky would not fall in.

Those opposite said it would, that it would wreck the economy. We got a decision of 5.2% out of the Fair Work Commission and I am pleased that occurred. We also acted very quickly, faster than any previous government has, to deal with the natural disaster of the floods that have hit Queensland and NSW, once again, we had the ADF on the ground weaker than ever before.

We had payments in people’s bank account quicker than any previous natural disaster. We woke to make sure people get access to any virus in order to deal with the pandemic. Legislation introduced just today in our first week, to create jobs and skills Australia, to fix the aged care crisis, responding to the Royal commission, legislation to our climate target, something we have already submitted to a nationally determined contribution. But we have also worked very hard to restore our relationships around the world.

The truth is, we had major problems with our relationships in the Pacific, our European neighbours, particularly France, but also relationships with the United States and other countries. We hit the ground running very, very quickly, very very quickly. Indeed, on the Monday morning we were off to the Quad leaders meeting where we met with leaders.

We have an overriding philosophy that no-one is held back and left behind and that is a program this government will be proud to implement over this time and beyond.

It is the first of the dixers.

Now, you know I hate dixers and that hasn’t changed. Given the newness of this government and how it is still laying out its agenda, I will allow a few dixers at this early stage, but the moment they become press releases or just furthering agendas, they will once again cease.

The first question time begins and Peter Dutton is straight out of the blocks, with a sledge and an inside Queensland joke, which will only hit for a very niche audience:

I refer to the CCCU, to the corrupt and criminal construction union, and a successful donor to the prime minister’s party that [donated] $5m to the Labor party in the last five years and advocates for a policy which will drive up housing. It will drive up construction costs. Why is Labor making a bad situation worse?

(The CCC is the name of the Queensland corruption watchdog.)

Anthony Albanese:

I thank very much the leader of the opposition for the question and I congratulate him on his election as leader of the Liberal party and wish him well as leader of the opposition and I hope he stays there for a very, very long time.

Mr Speaker, when the ABCC is abolished the Ombudsman will enforce a fair work act in the construction sector. We come with the very simple principle, which is why should one worker in one sector be treated differently from workers in a different sector.

If people commit a crime, actions should be taken by the appropriate authorities and we’re not to take lectures from people who when they commit issues that sees them go to the back bench they come back in leadership positions. We are not going to cop lectures from those opposite [who] presided over an anything goes attitude towards taxpayers money over the last nine years.

Murph is in the chamber for question time and she tells us that Anthony Albanese’s partner, Jodie Haydon, and son, Nathan, are on the sidelines of the chamber, watching on.

It is just before question time, which means it is 90-second statements and Paul Fletcher is still complaining about the change to the standing orders.

CPI figure points to Reserve Bank rate rise in August

Peter Hannam

A couple of things to clear up. Shy of some decimal point rounding, the June quarter’s CPI at 6.1% was the highest since the June 2001 quarter.

Our earlier post erroneously had it as the most since 1990 – which the expected 6.3% pace would have been. (Lady Marmalade was top of the charts back then, if you must know.)

Analysts, though, say there’s no mistaking the problem of price pressures.

“There are no two ways about it – inflation is red hot in Australia right now, as it is in many parts of the world, and the RBA will respond by raising the cash rate again at the August board meeting next week,” Gareth Aird, the head of economics at CBA, said.

“Our central scenario for the RBA to raise the cash rate by 50 basis points [to 1.85%] at the August board meeting is unchanged.”

The dollar weakened slightly on the news, as did yields on some bonds, implying investors had been bracing for worse inflation figures.

Still, the CPI figures are likely to hurt most workers whose wages won’t be keeping up.

According to the ACTU, a worker on the average annual income of $69,000 will have experienced a $2,350 pay cut (presumably over the past year).

The ACTU president, Michele O’Neil, said the upcoming jobs summit would give unions “an opportunity to address the wages crisis, and to fix a bargaining system that has been decimated by a series of Coalition governments hellbent on taking power away from workers”.

“The need to get wages moving again is urgent,” O’Neil said. “‘Business as usual’ will not turn this around; it will not fix this.”

If the RBA does raise its cash rate by half a percentage point to 1.85% next Tuesday, it would mean an extra $140 a month in mortgage repayments assuming commercial banks pass the increase along, according to RateCity. (That also assumes you’re an average owner-occupier with $500,000 debt and 25 years remaining.)

The research director at RateCity, Sally Tindall, said such borrowers were likely paying $472 more a month on loan repayments than they were in April. “On top of rising grocery and petrol prices, that’s going to hurt,” she said.

Since the RBA is unlikely to stop raising rates after next Tuesday (unless there’s an unforeseen calamity), more strain is ahead for borrowers, Tindall said. Perhaps a lot more.

Donna Lu

CSIRO chief hails Australian scientists’ relationship with Chinese counterparts

Dr Larry Marshall:

As the head of Australia’s leading, premier science agency, does science break down geopolitical boundaries or do we throw our eggs into the American basket at the expense of working with the Chinese?

Marshall:

Science is the language that transcends these boundaries and CSIRO has had a deep relationship with the Chinese Academy of Science for more than five decades. Australia was the first western country to embrace China in that way …

On things that are global challenges, like solving a pandemic, solving climate change, global issues, [we will] absolutely work with China and we have done for more than five decades, and [we] absolutely work with the US.

The final question is from the Nobel laureate and Australian National University vice-chancellor, Prof Brian Schmidt, who asks Marshall to “articulate cleanly the value proposition that CSIRO brings to the Australian people”. Schmidt asks what more the agency could be doing to help Australia tackle the seven megatrends detailed in the decadal report.

Marshall says:

There are 39 great Australian universities and a number of other phenomenal research institutions. In the past – and CSIRO is 100 years old – like many institutions, it tended to think a bit too internally …

Brian and I have run our institutions for about the same period of time, we have tried to break that model and do much more, much deeper and more open collaboration … it is too hard to compete internationally if we try and go it alone.

Donna Lu

CSIRO chief says Australian science is helping industry be more environmentally sustainable

CSIRO’s Dr Larry Marshall is now taking questions at the National Press Club. He is asked about the state of the environment report which was released last week, and how concerned he is about the scale and rate of land clearing occurring in Australia. Marshall doesn’t answer that directly but instead discusses industry and innovation:

Wherever we can, we step in to help industry be more environmentally sustainable than they have been in the past … I grew up in an era where industry and environment were competitors. A lot of the science that CSIRO has been focused on in the last seven years has been around breaking that paradigm. We found industry is willing to change their practices if we can show them another way. Australian science, through things like FutureFeed, completely broke that nexus in. Getting rid of emissions from cattle seemed impossible until science could solve it and make it possible – it is not economically better but industry is doing it because it is the right thing to do …

Marshall is asked whether the CSIRO supports the idea of Australia having its own Silicon Valley. He says:

We shouldn’t copy Silicon Valley. Place-based innovation has its place. What is remarkable about Australia: FutureFeed was invented in Townsville, not in a big city, in Townsville. It was tested in another part of northern Queensland and eastern Victoria. I think the wave of the future is in a network. It is getting the brightest minds in the country together and technology enables us to do that in a way that Silicon Valley couldn’t have done back then. We are different … Silicon Valley did amazing things but they missed agriculture and food as an investment area.

There are multiple questions about China and geopolitics. Marshall is asked about Chinese collaboration and suggestions that CSIRO scientists have accepted Chinese Thousand Talents Plan scholarships. He says he is not aware of any instances of foreign interference or theft:

In terms of the Thousand Talents program, I don’t believe that any CSIRO person has been part of that program. We have some amazing CSIRO scientists who are of Chinese ethnic descent and they made incredible contributions to some of the innovations we have done.

Sally Sitou’s first speech to parliament – watch some highlights here

There is still a ways to go, but the parliament is starting to look a little bit more like the community it represents.

That also means we are getting a wider range of life experiences in the parliament, making for some different, but relatable for so many, first speeches.

Here is some of Sally Sitou’s first speech, which has been widely applauded – if you haven’t seen it, I recommend you give it a listen.

Greens say fossil fuel moratorium issue is not a dealbreaker – yet

Labor’s lack of a moratorium on fossil fuel projects is not a dealbreaker, the Greens say – at least, not yet.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said on Tuesday the federal government would not put a stop to new oil and gas projects because that would have a “devastating impact on the Australian economy”. Australian coal, and its emissions, would just be replaced by coal from other countries, he said.

The Greens, whose votes Labor will need in the Senate for its climate change legislation, want the ban. But leader Adam Bandt said yesterday negotiations were ongoing and his party’s role was to “push” the government towards ending fossil fuel projects.

[The idea] we can keep opening up coal and gas mines if we make climate targets, and be taken seriously by the rest of the world, is just untenable.

The rubber is going to hit the road on this very soon.

The Greens will push against the government allowing new mines over the next three years of parliament, Bandt said.

There are a “number of ways” that push could take place, he said, including a climate trigger and stopping government agencies from funding any new mines.

We’re having discussions with the government … and my job is to see where we get to and then go and take that back to the Greens party room, and we’ll make a decision about the bill on that basis.

We’re not at that point… we’re not at that point yet where we’ve talked through all of the issues.