Australia politics live: Labor says climate wars ‘in retreat’ after Greens decide to back bill; Barilaro inquiry continues; 66 Covid deaths

‘Good day for Australia’

Chris Bowen says today is a good day (cue Ice Cube):

It is a good day for Australia. A good day therefore the economy, a good day for the future. The climate wars may not be over, but they are suddenly in retreat, under this government.

Updated at 23.40 EDT

Key events

Crossbenchers oppose Labor’s super changes

Paul Karp

Paul Karp

Crossbench senators are lining up to oppose Labor’s plan to water down super funds’ disclosure of political donations and ad spending.

Opposition from Jacqui Lambie, David Pocock and Ralph Babet to the draft regulations could force assistant treasurer, Stephen Jones, back to the drawing board or risk defeat in the Senate.

In July Jones released draft regulations that would remove the requirements for super funds to itemise their spending on political donations, payments made to related parties and marketing, allowing them to declare only totals for those categories.

The regulations would water down reforms passed by the Morrison government, aimed at discouraging super funds’ advocacy through donations, advertising and news, including support for The New Daily website.

Jones said that “unnecessary regulatory measures can impose a significant administration cost on funds and their members”.

He announced a treasury review to consider “concerns relating to the regulatory complexity of best financial interests duty requirements”, consultation for which closed on Friday.

The shadow assistant treasurer, Stuart Robert, has confirmed the Coalition will seek to disallow the regulation if and when it has made, and has written to the crossbench seeking their support. The Greens would likely have the casting vote in any disallowance vote.

Babet told Guardian Australia that “full and frank disclosure of how superannuation funds are spent on behalf of members is essential”.

“It comes a question of ‘does a super member stand to benefit from funding advertising or donation to any political party?’.”

In Senate question time on Tuesday, Lambie said it was “basic common sense” that money be spent in members best interests, and questioned whether Labor cared if “directors spend Australians’ retirement money on stuff they don’t need”.

Lambie said super funds make donations that “many members do not know and which I do not like” but “at least they have to tell members who they’re donating to and how much they’re giving them”.

Lambie questioned whether the changes were “really just about hiding super money going to Labor and the unions”. The finance minister, Katy Gallagher, rejected that, but took other questions on notice.

On Wednesday Lambie confirmed if the regulations are in line with the draft “we’ll move to disallow them”. “This is about making sure there’s transparency and accountability on all sides of politics,” she told Guardian Australia.

“If you only care about integrity and transparency when it’s applied to your opponents, you don’t care about integrity at all.”

A spokeswoman for Pocock told Guardian Australia he also has concerns about the regulation diluting transparency requirements. The Greens have not revealed their position.

Earlier on Wednesday, Robert told reporters in Canberra that Labor’s first move by treasury was “to water down transparency when it comes to superannuation”.

Robert said the Coalition changes ensure “full disclosure of donations, sponsorships, [and] payments for union picnics” due to concerns that $85m had been given by super funds in undisclosed payments.

Jones has defended the changes, arguing itemised statements “didn’t align with the accounting standards” and created a “red-tape nightmare”.

“If anyone thinks providing somebody with a 300-page document, line by line by line is providing greater accountability, that’s pretty out of touch with the way that most members interact with this,” Jones told The Australian.

The Greens senator Barbara Pocock will chair a select committee on work and care.

The South Australian senator said:

We need a work-care system built for the 21st century that assists working carers.

Establishing a parliamentary inquiry to examine the current work and care system and how we can create an economy that is care inclusive and narrows inequality, was a priority for me, and I’m pleased the senate has supported it’s establishment.

I have spent my life fighting for the rights of working people, women and low-income workers. I am an Economist and Emeritus professor and established and led the Centre for Work + Life at the University of South Australia. I am thrilled to bring this experience to the role of chair of this committee.

Working carers make up a huge proportion of the Australian workforce. In 2022, 2 million Australians provided unpaid assistance to others with a disability, long-term health condition or due to old age (ABS, 2022).

Working carers need free, accessible, quality childcare. It is as essential to working life as the road that gets us to work.

Australia’s workplace laws need a renovation to give job security, appropriate leave, and decent pay to working carers.

We need to fix the work and care regimes that we labour under in Australia.

The royal Australian college of GPs has welcomed the news covid vaccines will be approved for eligible children under five.

RACGP President Adj. Professor Karen Price said it was another positive step forward in the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

“This is promising news for Australian families,” he said.

“With tens of thousands of new COVID-19 cases emerging every day in communities across Australia, including in children aged 6 months to five years, it could not come at a better time. Once again, I remind everyone that all the COVID-19 vaccines are extremely safe and effective and will significantly reduce the incidence of people suffering severe effects from the virus, including hospitalisation or worse.”

But the RACGP President warned that practices delivering COVID-19 vaccines needed more assistance

This latest announcement is good news, but it will add another layer of work for practices who have put their hands up to help deliver these vaccines,” she said.

Please be patient and don’t all rush forward at once making immediate demands for the vaccine from your usual GP. Initial supplies will be arriving in Australia later this week and given the relatively small size of the cohort to be vaccinated it is likely only a small number of practices will deliver this vaccine.

These clinics will be identified on the Vaccine Clinic Finder and bookings will open later this month, so please be patient and respectful towards general practice staff because even if they are one of the vaccination sites they won’t be able to accommodate your child right away. In terms of children under five who aren’t yet eligible, the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, or ATAGI, will continue to monitor the evidence.

This latest announcement is yet another reminder that practices need more support from government. We are already flat out delivering COVID-19 vaccines and influenza vaccines as well as delivering care to people who have delayed consultations and screenings during the pandemic. It is important to keep in mind too that delivering vaccines to children, particularly young children, is more time intensive and complicated compared to adults.

If we are to continue as the backbone of the vaccine rollout, we really need more support from the new Government. Many practices are having enormous difficulty absorbing the cost of taking part in the rollout. We didn’t sign up to make money but at the end of the day we must make ends meet because no one benefits when a practice has to shut up shop or drop out of the vaccine rollout.

That is why once again the RACGP urges the Government to step up and provide more funding for practices. If that occurs, practices will be able to run more after-hours and weekend vaccination clinics and get more vaccines in arms as soon as possible for our kids.”

Christopher Knaus

Christopher Knaus

Australian activist Drew Pavlou has tweeted that he may leave the United Kingdom due to delays in a police investigation into a false bomb threat against the Chinese embassy in London. Pavlou was arrested after a “small peaceful human rights protest” outside the Chinese embassy. He had intended to glue his hand to the building.

But prior to the protest, an email account that used Pavlou’s name sent a false bomb threat to the embassy.

The Metropolitan police confirmed it had received a report of a bomb threat made by email. It said it had arrested a man outside the embassy because of his “suspicious behaviour”. Its investigations are ongoing.

Pavlou has categorically denied that he sent the email and says it was clearly a fake. On Wednesday, Pavlou tweeted that he was considering leaving the UK. He said it had been 12 days since his arrest and that the investigation was dragging out.

Met Police want to drag this out forever to punish me. I’m not waiting around in limbo, I’m booking a flight out of the UK, charge me or drop the case

— Drew Pavlou (@DrewPavlou) August 2, 2022

Updated at 02.03 EDT

Well, it has been absolutely non-stop since 7am this morning, so if you are still standing, take this as as moment to have a bit of a switch off and touch some grass.

Further to the obsession with ties and dress codes by some members of the Coalition on the parliament, our international site editor, Graham Russell, reminds me that NZ is, as it often is, already on the right side of this debate:

Updated at 01.49 EDT

Here is some of how Mike Bowers saw question time.

Ted O’Brien and Barnaby Joyce
That feeling when you get to review nuclear again, even though you did a whole report on it which was largely ignored just a little while ago – Ted O’Brien and Barnaby Joyce. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
Dr Sophie Scamps
The Independent member for Mackellar, Dr Sophie Scamps, bringing some decorum back to the House. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
Chris Bowen
Chris Bowen continues his good day. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Updated at 01.45 EDT

Barilaro inquiry: London trade job recipient was ‘added to the process late’

Tamsin Rose and Michael McGowan have this report on the ongoing Barilaro inquiry:

The inquiry has turned to the appointment of Stephen Cartwright to the UK agent general and senior trade and investment commissioner role based in London.

Investment NSW head Amy Brown told the inquiry that there had been a different preferred candidate for the position before Cartwright was “added to the process late” after interviews had already been undertaken. He was eventually given the job.

Brown told the hearing she got the impression that Cartwright “felt he had some sort of elevated status”.

She said that during a meeting in front of other colleagues he said he would “go to the deputy premier or the premier” when contract negotiations became difficult.

She said:

If things were getting too difficult he seemed to find it a bit of a go-to statement to say he would go to the deputy premier or the premier.

When negotiations got difficult … he said ‘well I’ll just elevate this to the deputy premier or the premier’.

Given that process happened last year, Brown is going back to check her notes to say whether the premier was Gladys Berejiklian or Dominic Perrottet at the time.

While Brown said the alleged comments had not affected her contract negotiations, she got the impression from dealing with Cartwright that his former role as head of the NSW Business Chamber meant he had a relationship with ministers.

Brown also said that the decision to publicly announce Cartwright as the London agent general – which occurred on the same day as Berejiklian stood down as premier and was attended by both John Barilaro and Perrottet – happened before the contract negotiations were complete.

There was “contention around the interpretation of the contract”, so it was “still live”, she said.

Brown did not reveal whose decision it was to proceed with the announcement.

The Guardian has approached Cartwright for comment.

Updated at 01.54 EDT

Death to ties.

The speaker just ruled that Max Chandler-Mather’s decision to forgo wearing a tie was not a violation of the standing orders, after a point of order from the Nationals’ Pat Conaghan on Chandler-Mather’s “state of undress”. A big win for those among us who hate ties.

— Michael Read (@michael_read_) August 3, 2022

Updated at 01.31 EDT

National Covid summary: 66 deaths reported

Here are the latest Coronavirus numbers from around Australia today, as the country records at least 66 deaths from Covid-19:

ACT

  • Deaths: 1
  • Cases: 889
  • In hospital: 143 (with 2 people in ICU)

NSW

  • Deaths: 39
  • Cases: 16,648
  • In hospital: 2,288 (with 67 people in ICU)

Northern Territory

  • Deaths: 1
  • Cases: 366
  • In hospital: 57 (with 1 person in ICU)

Queensland

  • Deaths: 6
  • Cases: 6,399
  • In hospital: 788 (with 22 people in ICU)

South Australia

  • Deaths: 6
  • Cases: 2,860
  • In hospital: 337 (with 11 people in ICU)

Tasmania

  • Deaths: 3
  • Cases: 892
  • In hospital: 101 (with 7 people in ICU)

Victoria

  • Deaths: 6
  • Cases: 9,122
  • In hospital: 743 (with 40 people in ICU)

Western Australia

  • Deaths: 4 (dating back to 28 July)
  • Cases: 4,062
  • In hospital: 404 (with 12 people in ICU)

Updated at 01.35 EDT

Mike Bowers has been absolutely everywhere today.

He caught Adam Bandt at the press club announcing the Greens would support Labor’s climate legislation – while continuing to push the government to go further.

Adam Bandt
Adam Bandt addresses the National Press Club. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Gotta love an A4 notebook. (Again – no tie. We assume Bert van Manen is taking deep breathes somewhere.)

Adam Bandt
Adam Bandt prepares to address the National Press Club, sans tie. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Bowers then ran over to the prime minister’s courtyard, where there were lots of hand movements:

Anthony Albanese and Chris Bowen
Anthony Albanese and Chris Bowen taking questions before Question Time. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
Anthony Albanese and Chris Bowen raising hands
*Algernop Krieger voice* Jazz Hands! Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Updated at 01.31 EDT

Question time ends

With Ed Husic having concluded his answer, question time ends.

One more to go.

Updated at 01.23 EDT

Tamsin Rose will have a post on this for you in just a moment:

Wowee. Amy Brown tells inquiry there was a preferred candidate for the senior trade job in London before the eventual appointee Stephen Cartwright was “added to the process late”. Brown says she got the impression Cartwright “felt he had some sort of elevated status” 1/2…

— Michael McGowan (@mmcgowan) August 3, 2022

She says contract negs w Cartwright were “difficult”, and that he “seemed to find it a bit of a go-to statement to say he would go to the deputy premier or the premier”. Brown says she has to check timing to say whether ‘premier’ means current or former premier.

— Michael McGowan (@mmcgowan) August 3, 2022

Josh Taylor

Josh Taylor

Telstra reaches agreement with ACCC after accusations of attempting to hinder Optus deployment of 5G

Telstra registered hundreds of new sites to use its low-band spectrum in a move that Optus said was “gaming the system” to delay the company’s 5G network rollout.

Optus won the rights to use all available 900MHz spectrum at an auction at the end of last year, with intention to use it for 5G.

Telstra currently holds a licence for parts of the 900MHz spectrum band until 30 June 2024, but had not registered a new site to use the spectrum since 2016.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority said in December last year it would consider allowing Optus early access to the 900MHz spectrum band, and in January Telstra registered 315 sites in major cities, or inner regional areas to use the 900MHz spectrum band. It subsequently deregistered 153 of these sites.

The company has now made an undertaking with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to deregister the remaining 162 sites after the ACCC investigated and said it was concerned the registrations “had the substantial purpose or likely of preventing or hindering Optus from deployment of its 5G network”

ACCC’s commissioner, Liza Carver, said:

Telstra’s undertaking will ensure Optus is not hindered from expanding its 5G rollout, giving more Australians access to a choice of 5G services in regional and metropolitan Australia.

Telstra disagreed with the ACCC’s findings, arguing the focus was “on improving service for our customers, including relieving 3G congestion in some parts of regional Australia.”

A Telstra spokesperson said:

We identified an opportunity to reduce congestion in a small number of places by moving 3G traffic onto our 900 MHz spectrum, given it is unused and we own until 2024. At the same time this would free up 850 MHz spectrum to meet the growing demands of our 5G customers.

The spokesperson said Telstra filed the undertaking to avoid a case being drawn out, costly, and time-consuming, and it would use the 900MHz spectrum in areas where Optus’ 5G rollout is not advancing.

Optus’ VP of regulatory and public affairs, Andrew Sheridan, said:

Optus was concerned that our major competitor was gaming the system to delay our 5G rollout to gain an unfair advantage and deny Australians choice.

We are pleased with the actions taken by the ACCC to promote 5G competition for Australia’s consumers and businesses.

Updated at 01.21 EDT

While Husic completes his dixer which could have been a press release, Josh Taylor has an update for you.

Updated at 01.35 EDT

Ed Husic gets a dixer.

Moving on.

Updated at 01.18 EDT

Butler: rural priority changes will begin to undo damage to Medicare

Andrew Gee to Mark Butler:

Why has the government changed the distribution priority area classification for rural doctor shortages to now include outer metropolitan areas, in a move the Rural Doctors Association of Australia warns will wreak havoc in the bush and it could cost lives of rural and remote patients? Why is the government putting the lives of rural Australians at risk?

Butler:

…the position we inherited from those opposite is that it has never been harder, never been more expensive to so a doctor than it became under this government. After nine long years of cuts and neglect to Medicare.

Let me just run through for context what exactly led to the decisions I’ve been asked about: back in 2019, the former government ripped away the ability to recruit overseas trained doctors from a 140 GP regions. 140 GP regions, which for years have depended upon overseas-trained doctors to fill their consulting rooms, had that removed in the stroke of a pen.

I can tell you on this side a number of MPs organised discussions with patient groups and with doctors to run through what that had meant to those local communities. Members in the Hunter Valley, the member for Shortland, Patterson, the candidate for Leichhardt, and the senator for Far North Queensland said to me what that meant for the people of Cairns. What it meant for the Hunter Valley to have those consulting rooms hollowed out … with the stroke of a pen by the former government.

And we took an evidence-based approach to this question. We had a long Senate inquiry that took evidence from patient groups, from doctor’s groups, local communities about what exactly that had meant for people wanting to go in and see a GP. It lifted the lid on the impact of that decision by the Morrison government back in 2019.

Now the former government had pretended recruiting a doctor in the Hunter Valley was the same as recruiting a doctor in Mosman. After three years of their experiment, ripping out from regional Australia the ability to recruit those GPs…

Paul Fletcher tries his luck with another point of order:

The question asked specifically about the Rural Doctors Association of Australia warning this will wreak havoc in the bush.

There is no point of order.

Butler:

We make no apology for making it easy to see a doctor in this country or strengthen Medicare after nine long years of cuts and neglect.

As the member and those opposite should know, a range of incentives continue to be in place: for example the workplace incentive program that provides up to $60,000 additional incentives for those modified Monash areas, number three to seven, that continue to provide additional incentive to [go to] rural health areas.

There is still much to do to undo the damage of those opposite.

Strengthening Medicare can’t happen overnight, but we make no apology for starting to undo the damage inflicted after nine long years of their cuts and neglect to the Medicare system.

Updated at 01.18 EDT