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‘The RBA do have our support’

Anthony Albanese was also asked if he had faith in the RBA governor Phil Lowe after the football game this morning, in an interview with the Nine Network:

He does, and the RBA do have our support. They are an independent authority. Look, we recognise that people are doing it really tough and people are worried about increases in their mortgage.

That was foreshadowed well before the federal election that that would occur. The RBA are in charge of monetary policy, of course, and the independent Reserve Bank will make their decision this morning.

But we are very conscious of the feelings that are out there that people are doing it tough and every half a per cent or quarter of a per cent in interest rates means higher payments for people and that means they are having to make choices about how they get by.

On the fuel excise, Albanese echoed Jim Chalmers and said:

We acknowledge that people are getting it tough, we get that completely, but we also know that we inherited a trillion dollars of debt from the former government and unless that has got under control, then people will do it tough down the track because it will have an impact on the economy.

So we are very conscious about that. Jim Chalmers gave an economic statement last week to the parliament. We will be bring bringing down our product in October.

Josh Butler

Blues triumph in parliamentary state of origin touch footy

Prime minister Anthony Albanese was accused of a “dodgy” try by his Queensland opponents as NSW won the annual parliamentary state of origin touch footy match this morning.

There will be a few sore hamstrings in Parliament House this morning after politicians and staffers squared off on a chilly morning for the interstate bragging rights in the charity match. NSW captain Pat Conroy assembled a formidable squad including Albanese, Michael McCormack, Alex Hawke, “Big Dan” Repacholi and Channel Nine commentator/NRLW star Ruan Sims; Queensland captain, sports minister Anika Wells, led a team including Murray Watt, Nationals leader David Littleproud, Graham Perrett, NRL CEO Andrew Abdo, and, controversially, ACT senator David Pocock.

The greatest scandal since [Greg Inglis] playing for Queensland,” Albanese joked in a Channel Nine interview from the sidelines.

(To be fair, Pocock lived in Queensland first, after moving from South Africa as a child, before moving to the ACT. Barnaby Joyce, now representing the NSW seat of New England, also ran out for Queensland.)

With 6 foot 8 Repacholi, Wallabies international Pocock, and a handful of Canberra Raiders stars on the field, the game was arguably the most fearsome sight seen on the Senate fields since Senator Glenn “Brick with Eyes” Lazarus terrorised the press v pollies games during the 44th parliament.

LD scored the first try, and looked dangerous, with Perrett a livewire from the back of the ruck, Pocock giving good service from dummy half and Joyce trying to throw a few dummy passes. But NSW steamed back to score three in a row, with Albanese scoring the third on the stroke of halftime.

Queensland players including Nationals MP Keith Pitt jeered from the sidelines, accusing Wells of letting Albanese slip through to plant the ball down. Wells swore she got a touch on the PM before he scored, with Watt – a close Albanese ally – accusing his boss of claiming a “dodgy try”.

Watt joked about he handing in his resignation. Albanese shot back that he might name the Queensland senator to a junior committee role instead.

As the former Nationals leadership team of McCormack and Littleproud good-naturedly wrestled on the sidelines, Queensland MP Garth Hamilton arguably committed a professional foul as he bodychecked a Pocock staffer who tried a chip-and-chase kick over the defensive line.

Albanese told Channel Nine:

Barnaby has very short stints on the field. Even though he represents the NSW seat, he has a Maroons jersey on as well. There should be an inquiry into some of these players and where they are playing for.

The game ended 3-1 to the Blues, with Conroy lifting the trophy for yet another year.

‘My responsibility is to make the Reserve Bank’s job as easy as possible’

There are just two things Jim Chalmers is being asked about lately.

Whether or not he will continue the fuel excise pause (it’s a no at this stage) …

We’ve made it clear for some time now that it would be too expensive to continue that fuel excise relief indefinitely. Even to extend it by six months would cost something like $3bn … It would be too expensive to continue it forever.

… and whether RBA governor Phil Lowe has his support:

My focus isn’t on the Reserve Bank governor. I don’t think this is a time to take pot shots at Phil Lowe. My responsibility is to make the Reserve Bank’s job as easy as possible. That means not splashing cash around unnecessarily. It means dealing with the supply side issues in the economy where we can so that we make the job of the Reserve Bank easier, not harder.

Now, I’ve got a Reserve Bank review for a reason. I want our central bank to be the best in the world to have the best set of institutional arrangements. That’s not about taking pot shots at anyone. It’s about making sure going forward that we’ve got the best monetary policy setting in the world.

The Reserve Bank governor himself multiple times now has been quite upfront about the language that he’s used in the past to describe the future movement of interest rates. He has said publicly that the circumstances changed faster than the Reserve Bank anticipated. These are not decisions taken by the government. They are decisions taken by an independent Reserve Bank and they can explain and defend their own decisions.

Queensland Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather congratulated after first speech

The first speeches continued last night. Mike Bowers was in the chamber when the new member for Griffith, Max Chandler-Mather, gave his speech.

Some special visitors from the Senate came to watch as well.

Labor unlikely to extend the fuel excise cut

Asked about the fuel excise in that same interview, Jim Chalmers said:

I’ve been really upfront with people, Charles, for some time now – before the election, during the election and after the election – and pointed out that extending that would cost some billions of dollars and the budget can’t afford that. We’ve inherited a budget which is absolutely heaving with a trillion dollars in Liberal party debt. And when interest rates are rising, it actually costs more and more to service that debt.

The fastest-growing area of government spending in the budget is actually servicing the debt that we’ve inherited because, as interest rates rise, it becomes more expensive to pay that back. So every dollar borrowed, whether it’s by our predecessors or by the new government costs more to pay back and we need to be conscious about that. We need to be responsible about that and upfront about that. And that’s what we’re being.

So it does not look promising.

Today ‘a difficult day for Australians with a mortgage’, Jim Chalmers says

Now that rates are going up the governor of the RBA, Philip Lowe, is coming under pressure, with a lot of media focusing on the governor as though he is solely responsible for the decision. Jim Chalmers was asked if he still had faith in the governor in an interview with the Nine network this morning:

This isn’t about any one individual. This is about a difficult day for Australians with a mortgage, another difficult day I think everybody is bracing for the interest rate rise that the governor and the Reserve Bank board has flagged.

These decisions are taken independently by the Reserve Bank, by its board and by its governor. People are expecting this outcome today. But it won’t make it any easier.

My job is not to take pot shots at the governor, my job is to do what we can in the government to alleviate some of these inflationary pressures that we’re seeing in the economy. And that’s what our focus is.

Peter Hannam

East coast gas shortages in the spotlight

Gas shortages – or the risk of them – in the east coast remains in the news this morning, with many media reports picking over the ACCC’s “scathing”/ “damning”/ “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad” gas industry report released yesterday.

The resources minister, Madeleine King, has taken the first step in reining in the big three LNG exporters by “triggering the trigger”, as she told RN Breakfast this morning.

She’s signalled she may make use of the Australian domestic gas security mechanism to ensure those big (mostly foreign-owned) gas producers don’t ship all of the expected 167 petajoules of gas that is not yet contracted. The ACCC says about a third of that is needed to keep the home fires burning.

We looked a bit of how we got into this mess in this piece today:

The most telling chart comes via the Australia Institute, which marks the original sign when the industry and governments (both Labor and Liberal) designed a market without reserving supply for domestic use (unlike WA):

Anyway, King for now is hoping that by asking the gas producers to play nicely and not ship all of that gas offshore will be enough.

Dark comments about the loss of “social licence” seems to be as far as the government is prepared to go for now … rather than, say, imposing a windfall tax that might actually rake back some of the surplus profit gas producers are earning for not doing anything at all (thank Russia’s Vladimir Putin for pushing up global prices).

It will be interesting to see if any of the new MPs (Labor or others) start calling for such a tax, particularly if jobs start to be lost in firms unable to pay the energy bills.

Another interest point is the lack of interest from King or others to go after NSW or Victoria for not producing more gas. That’s despite prodding by journalists and some fairly hysterical language in some papers.

In fact, as we noted yesterday, the ACCC left out all references to the states being to blame for the problem, compared with previous gas reviews. As Tennant Reed, AiGroup’s energy guru, notes, NSW’s Narrabri gas project is years from starting and the onus now very much sits with Santos, its developer.

For Victoria, the onshore conventional gas (ie, not fracked coal seams) bans have also gone. At its most productive, though, Victoria’s extra output would only be in the order of 15PJ a year, Reed says.

That’s a modest addition at the most in an annual production nudging 2000PJ, so perhaps the blame game should look elsewhere.

Sarah Hanson-Young says Lidia Thorpe has every right to express herself

Sarah Hanson-Young was also asked about senator Lidia Thorpe calling the Queen a coloniser during her swearing-in in the Senate yesterday:

She said Thorpe had every right to express herself:

Look, I think this is an issue for not just First Nations people.

This is an issue for lots of Australians, myself included. I want us to be a republic. I’m a strong believer and supporter of a republic. There is a big push and concern that unless you have strong voices advocating for change, that these things just get put in the too-hard basket. I’m proud of our team. I’m proud of the diversity of our team. And of course, First Nations people, whether they are across the rest of the country or here in this parliament have a diversity of their own voices as well. Lidia is forthright, she’s strong.

But she is determined to give First Nations people a voice in this parliament … Lidia took the action she felt comfortable with, that she, you know, made a stand.

I support her. She’s been re-elected. Victorians have backed her. She has every right to sit in the chamber as any of the rest of us. She wasn’t here last week because she was ill. I’m glad to have her back. I’m glad to see her standing strong.

Sarah Hanson-Young was also asked how the discussions between the Greens and the government over the climate change bill were going. The government cannot pass the bill through the parliament without the Greens’ support.

Hanson-Young:

We are in good conversations with the government. Those discussions are continuing.

The Greens will be discussing this issue again at our party room meeting today to discuss and go over what changes the government has committed to.

It’s a welcome move that the government has made some changes that the Greens have pushed for, that is important. But what is even more important than that, is this 43% is not enough to reduce the pollution at the rates and in the timeframe needed. We all know that.

The science says that. We need real action on the table. So regardless of whether this 43% target bill passes the parliament, what comes next is what is most important.

Because we need to cut pollution, and we need to be doing it faster, and harder and deeper.

We need to get out of any suggestion that we need new fossil fuel projects here in Australia.

Australia has a big role to play internationally. We have this government saying they want to bring the UN climate conference to Australia, well, they’re going to have to do much more than 43% otherwise, we continue to be a laughing stock on the world stage.

Sadly, and most importantly, we will be left behind when the transition is on everywhere else. Australian businesses will lose out and our climate will continue to get worse.

Gas companies ‘taking us all for a ride’, Sarah Hanson-Young says

The Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young had a bit to say about Australia’s gas situation on the ABC this morning – particularly given that this isn’t about supply, it’s about the amount which has been quarantined for domestic supply:

It’s quite obvious that the system, as it is, is broken. These big gas companies have been ripping off customers, consumers, households and small businesses for far too long.

They’re making windfall profits. They’re not paying enough tax. And they’re taking Australians for a ride. There is no shortage of gas here in Australia. We’ve got plenty of it.

It’s just that these big corporations are wanting to make more profits, don’t pay any tax.

Most of it goes overseas and Australians are left high and dry. We need to change the system.

One of the things we’ve got to really do is fast track the transition … of our energy grid making sure we have it powered by renewables and storage. That would make cheaper, more reliable power and push down prices very, very quickly.

Department of Parliamentary Services defends air quality in Parliament House amid Covid surge

The Department of Parliamentary Services wasn’t happy with my comment yesterday about the airflow in the building (in relation to people not wearing masks despite the advice and Covid infections) and has sent through this statement:

DPS regularly engages independent experts to monitor air quality in Parliament House. This monitoring reinforces the effectiveness of the Parliament House ventilation system, with all air quality measures, including in the Press Gallery, well within required thresholds.

Moderates in Coalition may be open to Labor’s climate policy

Labor’s climate policy is yet to go through the Coalition party room but Peter Dutton made a decision the party would not support it.

That has left some moderates unsettled – Bridget Archer and Andrew Bragg have not ruled out crossing the floor.

Warren Entsch has told Murph and Sarah Martin he has an “open mind” on the legislation. From their report:

The veteran Liberal MP Warren Entsch says he is open-minded about Labor’s bill to enshrine a 43% emissions reduction target if he can be convinced the Albanese government has a concrete plan to achieve the cut without driving up power prices.

Ahead of the first substantive Coalition party room meeting of the 47th parliament on Tuesday, Entsch told Guardian Australia he was seeking advice on the bill and might lend support if there was evidence to suggest the number wasn’t a “brain fart”.

RBA expected to lift interest rates today

Peter Hannam

Unless you’re living under a rock you’ll have probably heard that the Reserve Bank board will very likely raise its main interest rate later today at 2.30pm AEST.

We previewed the meeting here, noting among other things that energy prices might be ebbing (deflating some of the need for an extension of the 22.1c/litre petrol excise cut beyond its 28 September expiry).

We haven’t had a rate rise of larger than 50 basis points (or half a percentage point) since 1994 when there were a couple of 1 percentage point rate hikes.

They came within a five-month period when there were three RBA rate rises totalling 2.75 percentage points – that’s the last time the central bank was this active.

Back then, though, the following move didn’t come until July 1996 when the RBA began the first of six rate cuts that stretched out over about 2.5 years.

Nobody, though, is expecting Tuesday’s move – the fourth rate rise in four months – to be the last increase.

Investors have a market they can bet on what the RBA will do, and as of yesterday evening they were wagering on a 65 basis point rise today to 2% as a 67% chance.

And expect more rate rises to come – just how many and how large will play out for the rest of the year and into the next one.

Happy Tuesday!

The political parties will hold their party room meetings and work out positions on issues and legislation, but today is all about the Reserve Bank of Australia and the slated rate rise.

With inflation having risen since the last quarter, all economists seem to agree there is another rise coming from the RBA, which is hoping that sharp rises now will head off problems down the track.

But that just means people are being hit twice – in their daily spend and their mortgages. It seems incredible that after all these years there doesn’t seem to be any other ideas of how to handle rising inflation other than to raise interest rates, but here we are.

There are a lot of eyes on the RBA governor, Philip Lowe, and the board as to how high the rate rise will be this month, given the already sharp increases. We know that the RBA believes it needs to take the cash rate to 3% before the end of the year, so mortgage holders are being told to brace for more pain.

Meanwhile, the government is under pressure to extend the fuel excise pause the previous government had in place. It’s due to expire in September (the date the Morrison government set) but, with petrol prices still high despite the 22c cut, the Albanese government is being asked to keep the pause going. Treasurer Jim Chalmers says that will cost the budget too much given all the other pressures it is under, but given household budgetary pressures, it may be a fight Labor isn’t willing to have this early in the term.

And of course there is still climate and the issue of gas supply.

We’ll cover all of that and more as the day unfolds. You have Mike Bowers with you, with Katharine Murphy leading the way. Sarah Martin, Paul Karp, Josh Butler and Tory Shepherd will help guide you through exactly what is happening while I – Amy Remeikis – drink too much coffee and try to keep up.

I’m on cup No 3 already, if anyone was wondering.

Ready?