Katy Gallagher says fixing energy crisis ‘not just about tax’
Sarah Martin
The Nationals senator Susan McDonald is asking treasury officials about what modelling it has done on potential changes to the petroleum resource rent tax, known as the PRRT.
Marty Robinson from Treasury’s tax division said the department had begun looking at the PRRT regime, including the transfer pricing element for gas between upstream extraction and downstream processing.
McDonald also asked if work was being done on a potential super profit tax for the resources sector, and it sounds like a yes.
Robinson:
The government has been tasking us with looking at a range of options around responding to the energy price issue, and as I mentioned before the Treasurer has made it pretty clear that no option is being ruled out.
Finance minister Katy Gallagher said a secretaries group between departments was working collaboratively on options to put to government to consider how to respond to the energy crisis.
She said it was “not just about tax”, and other measures were also on the table.
When asked how much tax it could levy from the sector, Robinson said it would depend on the final design of the measures.
Treasury’s Diane Brown said “comprehensive” work was underway, including changes to the regulatory and tax system, and they would be costed once parameters were decided upon.
Gallagher said it was a “highly unusual” environment and the government was focused on easing energy prices where possible.
She said that once a decision was taken, then information about the cost would be made public.
McDonald asked if changing the PRRT would have the effect of lowering electricity prices.
“No options are being ruled out at this stage, the resources tax, the PRRT, hasn’t usually been used in that way, but we are not ruling anything out at this stage.”
McDonald questions whether changes to the depreciation schedule to the PRRT were on the table, Robinson says he is not aware that is under consideration.
Key events
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There have been a couple of questions from the Opposition today in various ways about why union officials are not covered by the national anti-corruption commission. They aren’t getting very far – the PM answers this one, and says merely:
Union officials, if they act corruptly in engagement with government agencies are treated like any other third party. And are covered.
Peter Dutton is called, and expresses accord with the PM’s statements on Iran:
I join the Coalition with the comments of the Prime Minister. I recognise the work of the member for Menzies and other members in this house as well, we’re met with members of the community here and the outpouring of emotion is absolutely understandable. It seems in the reporting is horrific and the treatment of women completely unacceptable.
As a member for Menzies has pointed out at a number of discussions on this issue, there is heartfelt sentiment across the aisle in relation to this issue. The Coalition will support any actions the Government takes even if it means an economic consequence for our country. There are markets otherwise that we can identify and we will work with the Government to support you in decisions because a very clear, significant, tangible message needs to be said that this type of behaviour is abhorent, unacceptable in any society and completely against the values our country.
Albanese pressed on possible Iran sanctions
There’s a question from Liberal MP Keith Wolahan about possible sanctions on Iran:
Iranian Australians are pleading with us to follow the lead of the United Kingdom, Canada and the EU and impose sanctions against a regime which has violated the rights of Iranian women. Beyond the … condemnation, what action does the government intend to take?
Anthony Albanese responds:
I had as well as the foreign minister expressed my abhorrence at the actions of the Iranian regime in clamping down on the rights of women, in particular to wear whatever they want after the tragic killing of a woman. We have seen a clampdown on women in particular in Iran.
The Labor government will continue to work with our allies including in multilateral forums such as the United Nations. I expect that this may well be a topic that is also raised at the meetings that I will be attending of global leaders over the coming week.
I thank the member for his question. I acknowledge the enormous hurt that Iranian people and Iranian women in particular are feeling at this very difficult time. Watching this clampdown on human rights in Iran for things that were this country take the granted.
We actually don’t have a vast number of economic relations between Australia and Iran.
… We will continue to speak out, we will continue to vote in the forums in which Australia has a presence, to ensure that the people of Iran who are showing great courage, showing great courage in standing up for the Human Rights Commission, know that Australia, as always and in a bipartisan way, Australia is friends of all those who stand up for their individual rights and in this case, in particular the rights of women.
Giles promises to honour Albanese government’s commitment on visas
Independent Andrew Wilkie now, who refers to Labor’s promise to abolish temporary protection visas, enterprise visas and (I think, the transcription is a bit fuzzy) to fast track the refugee process.
The minister for immigration, Andrew Giles, responds:
I acknowledge [Wilkie] and many members of the crossbench have raised this issue with me in respect of this very significant event. I’m very proud to be a member of a government that recognises that we could be resolute in maintaining strong and secure borders while not abandoning our humanity.
And this government made a commitment, as the member for Clark recognises, to transition people who … are owed our protection and on temporary protection visas to shift to permanent visas. That is a commitment we made and that I am working towards.
We are doing so …. consultatively and deliberately. Making sure that we get this right.
I welcome any further discussions with the member Clark, never the crossbench or members opposite on how we will meet this important commitment.
There’s a question about housing which I missed, I’m sorry, but Jim Chalmers talks at length in response about the housing accord and how “people are coming from everywhere to be part of this”.
Fletcher and Albanese trade barbs on energy prices
On to energy prices now. The prime minister is asked by Paul Fletcher:
You promised Australian households and businesses you would cut their power bills by $275 a year – have you apologised to Australians for your broken promise, one you have refused to repeat since the election?
Anthony Albanese responds by talking about power prices prior to the election and how high they were. He’s told to come back to the question but he doesn’t really come back to the question. He does throw in a barb about Angus “great job” Taylor though:
It is no wonder the only person who has ever said ‘great job, Angus’, is the shadow treasurer who was responsible for this debacle!
Opposition says Labor on robodebt ‘witch-hunt’ as Dreyfus condemns ‘shameful’ scheme
Another dixer on robodebt to the attorney general Mark Dreyfus – we are going to keep getting these until the end of question time – but Paul Fletcher, manager for opposition business, complains again on the same point of order as previously, essentially trying to gag discussion of the royal commission, saying “this exercise is nothing but a politicised witch-hunt”.
He’s cautioned for those comments, and eventually the question is ruled in order, and Dreyfus continues his comments:
It is shameful, our government believes in the rule of law, the former government took a cowboy approach to the legality of their actions, even with some thing as far-reaching as robodebt which ended up affecting 400,000 Australians. How could this happen? Who was responsible? What advice did they seek, what advice with a given and most important how can we make sure this never happens again? A royal commission will answer these questions and I have every confidence that this royal commission will.
Defence minister plays straight bat to strange Bob Katter question on war and guns
Bob Katter has asked a question – of sorts – about how many machine guns Australia has in its arsenal, and how many people won’t fight if there’s a war, and whether he can give the minister for defence the telephone number for “my Kalkadoon mob” who “held the British invasion at bay for years”.
Look, I’m not really sure what to tell you about this.
Anyway Richard Marles gets up and talks about the Albanese government’s defence strategy more broadly.
Clearly, we’re going to need to think in strategic terms in the future much more in terms of impactful projection. Being able to hold our adversaries at risk at far greater distances from our shores, both in terms of greater lethality as the member has alluded to, but also through the full spectrum of proportionate response. Exactly how we do that will be the work of the defence strategic review.
Shorten says young people disproportionately hurt by robodebt
Back to Shorten again, who was thrown another dixer about robodebt, this time about why the royal commission is important to young Australians.
He also tells an anecdote about a young Australian who received a debt. For brevity, I’m not going to add the anecdotes in; they are as awful and heartbreaking as any of the stories of robodebt recipients we’ve heard over the past two weeks and the years we’ve been covering this.
But here are some of Shorten’s interspersing comments:
Young Australians were a disproportionate share of the unlawful robodebt scheme. Almost half or about 195,000 of the victims of the robodebt scheme were aged under 30. In fact, 79,000 were 24 and under. Some were just kids, aged 17.
Australians deserve and need to know why an Australian government continued to run an unlawful scheme that raised hundreds of thousands of unlawful debts against innocent Australians when they must have known it was illegal.
The opposition members down the other end taunt at question time that we’re not going to find what they think we are looking for. Colleagues in this house, we already know it was unlawful … it was stupid, it was wrong. It was just wrong. But what we don’t know is why did the ministers who would the ministers keep doing it for 4.5 years? No smirks excuse the responsibility of not doing a job properly to money and hundreds of thousands of young Australians.
‘Human services stripped of humanity’: Albanese says robodebt victims owed the truth
A second dixer on Robodebt, this time for the prime minister.
Anthony Albanese starts by summarising the “trauma and fear in the name of the Australian government”, before telling the story of Tony, who got a debt notice when he had been going through cancer treatment at the time he received benefits.
At the height of the scheme, the member for Aston, who was human services minister, said this: “We will find you, we will track you down and you will have to repay those debts, and you may end up in prison.”
What we know is that at the very time, at the very time the government knew that it was illegal and unlawful in black and white.
Human services stripped of humanity. Social services without social conscience. We are, through the robodebt royal commission, trying to get to the bottom, to make sure that it can never happen again. We do need to have answers to this. The robodebt royal commission playing a critical role in exposing the events that led to such trauma for hundreds of thousands of Australians. And we owe it to them, including those who are not around any more … to get to the bottom of these facts.
Shorten takes aim at Morrison over robodebt
Shorten continues on Robodebt:
[The former prime minister] continued: “at the end of the day … ministers, I and my colleagues have to look constituents and I look them in the eye and be responsible for these decisions.”
Then he shared that memorable farmyard anecdote: “when I play rugby [my coach] described the bacon and eggs principle: the chicken is involved but the pig is committed to the task.”
He further explained his analogy: “under our system of government it must be ministers who set the policy direction, he added it is important not only to establish clear lines of accountability it is fundamental for our democracy to keep faith with the Australian people.”
The member for Cook and ministers responsible for the unlawful operation of the robodebt scheme, we don’t know if they will be called to give evidence to the royal commission but we do know this – applying his former principles, they cannot simply pass the buck onto the public service for their almost five years illegal, unlawful shakedown of hundreds of thousands of Australia’s most vulnerable citizens. I tabled the former prime minister’s speech about ministerial responsibility government policy. Thank you.
