Thank you all for following along on the blog today!

I’ll leave you with the brilliant Achol Arok and see you here for another sitting week Monday.

Tl;dr – here’s what happened in question time

• The Coalition try a few targets today, from melon-gate, to housing, to cost of living, to private health insurance rebates.

• The prime minister again refused to apologise over melon-gate, with the Coalition dedicating two of its questions to try to corner Anthony Albanese (we’ll see if they pick up the baton again next week). The Liberal MP Zoe McKenzie even tries to use a previous quote from the PM.

• Meanwhile, Albanese tried to weaponise Andrew Bragg’s press club speech and subsequent media interviews to use against the Coalition.

• Two members of the crossbench – Monique Ryan and the Greens MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown – try to push the PM on gambling reforms.

• Only Darren Chester was kicked out today, but there were some pretty rowdy moments from both sides of the House and a few behavioural warnings from Milton Dick, maybe because the MPs were eager to get out of here.

After a final dixer to emergency management minister, Kristy McBain, Anthony Albanese ends question time for the week.

Butler accuses opposition of parroting ‘pretty misleading campaign’ from insurance industry

The Liberal MP Henry Pike is next and asks the health minister why John and Sheryl in his electorate will now have to pay more than $1,000 extra because of the government’s decision to reduce health insurance premium rebates for over-65s.

Mark Butler says the insurance industry is running a “misleading campaign” on the changes.

Under the government’s modelling, about 44,000 older Australians are expected to drop their private health insurance because of the changes.

The pretty misleading campaign that this insurance industry is running about the numbers involved here that the opposition appear to be quite happy to parrot word for word. The numbers just used by the member there, are entirely different to the position we put out very clearly, that the average impact of the decision that we announced in the budget would be in the order of $220 to $250 a year.

He then accuses the opposition of not wanting to see more aged care beds (because Butler says the money saved from the extra rebate will go to aged care homes).

Dan Tehan doesn’t like this and makes a point of order, which again Milton Dick agrees with – and tells Butler to stop talking about the opposition.

Butler ends saying that over-65s (like everyone else) will still get around a quarter of their private health insurance bill rebated by taxpayers.

Should football clubs make millions in income a year from gambling companies?

Over to the crossbench, the independent Monique Ryan asks the prime minister if he thinks it’s ok that the AFL and NRL make more than $90m a year in income from gambling. “They partner with gambling companies to profit from the losses of their fans” she says.

Anthony Albanese starts by talking about how great the two biggest football codes are (it’s no surprise because he constantly talks about NRL being one of his “three faiths”).

He doesn’t address the actual question of whether those codes should get millions of gambling dollars, but does say that at least they won’t be able to sport those gambling companies on their jerseys anymore.

I would hope that there would be some acknowledgement in that clubs, NRL in particular, which currently have sponsorship on their jumpers … there’s something like 15 clubs are going to lose revenue as a result of the legislation.

Andrew Bragg had a ‘ripper’ day, Albanese says after question on negative equity

How many first home buyers are now trapped in negative equity, asks Liberal MP Melissa Price.

It takes 23 seconds for Dan Tehan to get up and make a point of order because Anthony Albanese immediately starts talking about Andrew Bragg’s “ripper” day yesterday, and quotes his press club address where he said as a “backbencher in the Morrison government I’m sorry I didn’t do more to stop the madness”.

Tehan, Tony Burke and Milton Dick quote previous rulings of former speaker Tony Smith that I’ll spare you from, and ultimately Albanese is told to continue.

The latest RBA shows less than 1% of all mortgage holders are in negative equity. OK? Point one. Point two, guess what? That’s less than half of the mortgage holders who were in negative equity under the Liberals in 2017 and 2019.

Cue some pretty rowdy shouting from the government benches.

Housing market in focus in the House of Reps

The Nationals MP David Batt is next and asks if the housing minister will “finally admit Labor’s toxic taxes have tanked the housing market?”

Housing minister Clare O’Neil says the reforms have put first home buyers on a level playing field, and then takes a turn to attack the opposition.

I’m asked about the impact of these tax reforms, let me tell the parliament what they are. These tax changes will reverse 10 years in decline of homeownership rates around our country. I understand that those opposite are the last man standing in our country who cannot see that we have a broken housing market.

The opposition makes a point of order on relevance and Milton Dick takes Dan Tehan’s side, telling O’Neil to stop attacking the Coalition and answer the question.

O’Neil says she’s “very happy to the speak to the landmark housing tax reforms”.

Darren Chester kicked out as Albanese tested on cost of living

Why is the government making Australians poorer, asks Tim Wilson, who says data today shows individuals are $1,200 poorer than they were a year ago.

Anthony Albanese says the government is focused on cost of living and rattles off a list of reforms like tax cuts and cheaper PBS medicines.

Remember the hysteria over 60-day scripts that they said would be a disaster, with I is now in place saving a Australians money.

The manager of opposition business, Dan Tehan, tries to make a point of order on relevance, but Milton Dick shuts it down, saying you get a broad answer when you ask a broad question. He also tells everyone to pipe down.

Albanese continues:

I’m about to get upset, too, because I’m about to quote the work of the current leader of the opposition, who wrote a report which said this. “In aluminium there are few prospects for growth. We cannot compete in processing. Australian aluminium smelting is uncompetitive on both capital and operating costs. Chinese smelters have a clear capital cost advantage.”

At the end, the deputy nationals leader, Darren Chester gets kicked out under 94a for continuing to shout too much.

Labor defends R&D spend as independent pushes for reform

Over to the crossbench, the independent MP Kate Chaney asks the government when it will implement the full package of reforms from the ambitious Australia report into research and development – saying that Australia ranks 40th out of 44 OECD nations for Stem graduates and invests “well below the average on research and development”.

The attorney general, Michelle Rowland, takes the question on behalf of the industry minister, Tim Ayres (who sits in the Senate).

She says the government is spending money on R&D, but it’s also up to the private sector to cough up more cash.

The fact is it will take time to deliver the reform that’s required to make good on the ambition of that report …

Ambitious Australia makes clear government funding alone cannot lift R&D performance. Industry, universities and the private sector all have a role to play.

Some opposition to proposed ban on offshore lotteries, source says

While negotiations continue on gambling reform between the government and Coalition, we’ve been told the some in the opposition are pushing against proposed ban to offshore lotteries.

One Liberal MP, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told us that they believed the proposed ban would reduce competition in the sector and was mainly to protect WA’s Lotterywest, the only government-owned lottery in Australia which says all available profits from a Lotto ticket go “straight back to the WA community”.

The WA premier, Roger Cook welcomed that legislation, and said himself it would protect Lotterywest.

Reformers associate may have ‘lied’ about contribution from Taylor, Icac hears

Pressed by counsel assisting Juliet Curtin on why Dylan Whitelaw might have thought the money was for the Reformers, the following exchange takes place with Catholic Schools NSW boss Dallas McInerney:

McInerney: “I don’t recall telling Mr Whitelaw that. I know Mr Whitelaw is proudly telling the rest of the Reformers that. That’s not a verbatim for me.”

Curtin: “So I think now what you’re suggesting is that Mr Whitelaw misinterpreted you? That’s the possible explanation you’re offering now, is it?”

McInerney: “Well, I guess, well, there’s a number of explanations I’d venture, but I guess that’s one of them.”

Curtin: “Well, what are the other ones?”

McInerney: “He lied ... He boasted. He lied.”

Curtin: “He boasted? Why would he be doing that?”

McInerney: “I think that’s best put to Mr Whitelaw. I can’t go to his motivations. What I can help you with is by confirming that that is not the commitment that came out of that meeting.”

McInerney says he does not recall if Angus Taylor made a commitment, which he has previously said would have been for internal Liberal party elections and not for the Reformers, of $15,000, or an ongoing commitment of $3,000.

Taylor has not been named in Icac’s allegations and has repeatedly denied he ever made payments to the Reformers.

When asked about the messages at the inquiry last month, Whitelaw said he did not recall sending them, nor did he recall Taylor making a financial contribution to the Reformers.

Catholic Schools CEO asked at inquiry about subsequent messages referring to Angus Taylor

Returning to the NSW Icac, Dallas McInerney has been asked about subsequent messages exchanged between the Reformers about the now-federal opposition leader Angus Taylor.

Reformers associate Dylan Whitelaw wrote to other members in the days after the “shake down Angus” message:

Dallas has told me he got the commitment from Angus, the 15k injection plus a 3k monthly donation!

McInerney, who has repeatedly denied that he asked Taylor for money for conservative factional group the Reformers, says of the message:

The only explanation I can venture, noting this is not my exchange of correspondence, is that I did emerge from that meeting with an in-principle support that the internal elections for the conservative faction, which are upcoming, would be supported in addition to our candidates in the key election seats.

‘They need to really use their brains’: Victorian One Nation MP on student protests – and being ‘one of the gayest parties’

Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell, One Nation’s sole MP in the Victorian parliament, has told reporters she thinks students protesting against her party and its leader, Pauline Hanson, are being “misled by the Socialist party”. She continued:

They need to really use their brains. They’ve got amazing brains, and they need to think critically because they’re destroying that opportunity to get into universities, to walk into jobs. You’re not going to be able to protest your way into a job or into university. You need to sit there and learn the academics.

She also claimed One Nation was “not racist”:

We’re definitely not racist. If you have a look at our followers, our members, our candidates, there is a diverse range of people.

And when asked about Barnaby Joyce’s comments that the party was “one of the gayest parties” in Australian politics, she said:

I can see where he’s coming from. We have a diverse range of people within One Nation, and that is gay and lesbian people as well. Back in the old days, gay meant happy, and I’m really happy to be a part of One Nation.

Senate forces Labor to hand over melon-gate correspondence

The Coalition and Greens have teamed up in the Senate ordering the government to hand over correspondence from Japan over melon-gate.

Liberal senator James Paterson moved that the government provide by no later than midday on Monday, 17 August 2026:

1. the official correspondence from the Government of Japan to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, reported by media outlets to have been dated 13 July 2026, concerning the Prime Minister’s comments in an interview with podcaster Nikki Osborne;

2. All correspondence between the Prime Minister’s office and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet concerning the official correspondence from the Government of Japan referred to in paragraph (a), including emails, letters, text messages, instant messages, handwritten notes, minutes, briefings and submissions; and

3. All internal documents held by the Prime Minister’s office concerning the official correspondence from the Government of Japan referred to in paragraph (a), including emails, letters, text messages, instant messages, handwritten notes, minutes, briefings and submissions.

This week the Coalition asked the Australian federal police to investigate the leaking of the memo from the Japanese government to the media.

The motion was also supported by David Pocock and One Nation.

Animal Justice MP says Carroll ‘worse’ than Allan as outdoor recreation bill passes Victorian parliament

The Animal Justice MP Georgie Purcell has issued a lengthy statement accusing Ben Carroll of being “gutless” and “worse” than Jacinta Allan after the Victorian parliament passed a bill she says will create a “shooting super agency”.

The outdoor recreation bill passed parliament today, despite pleas from Purcell and animal protection, environmental and wildlife groups. It will merge the Game Management Authority (GMA) and the Victorian Fisheries Authority into a new agency called Outdoor Recreation Victoria, which will be responsible for both the promotion and regulation of the industry, a structure she says is a “grave conflict of interest”.

It passed the upper house months ago but needed to return to the lower house for it to approve amendments. Purcell had hoped a vote would not go ahead under the new premier. She said:

Today [Carroll] had the perfect opportunity to show Victorians that he was different. He could have shown that he was a true leader by pulling the Outdoor Recreation Victoria Bill from the parliament ... After all, this piece of legislation was Jacinta Allan’s pet project that she created to shore up support for shooting and killing in Victoria – and it was amended to be even worse than her original proposal after a deal was struck with the Nationals to pass it in the upper house.

Instead, she said “when given the chance to prove that he actually is different” Carroll had Ben “cowered to the gun lobby at the first hurdle”. Purcell went on:

This is a gutless decision by a gutless premier. No matter what he tries to do now, Ben Carroll has lost all hope of repairing the disappointment and anger from the animal protection, environmental and wildlife community after the former premier’s destruction. Ben Carroll is right. He’s not Jacinta Allan – he’s worse.

Purcell has usually maintained a constructive relationship with the government but after it scrapped the group voting ticket system that helped her get elected, she appears more emboldened to speak out against them. More on GVTs here:

NSW opposition leader removes upper house member from state executive

The NSW opposition leader, Kellie Sloane, has removed upper house member Chris Rath as her representative on the party’s state executive after the NSW Icac heard evidence about how he assisted members of conservative factional group the Reformers.

On Wednesday, Jeremy Greenwood told the commission that during a parliamentary inquiry which preceded Icac’s probe, Rath sent him a photo of a committee paper with his old address saying process servers had attempt to issue him with summons there. Greenwood was read a message from Reformer Jean-Claude Perrottet advising of a committee meeting on serving summons. “Rath will tell us result after,” Jean-Claude Perrottet wrote.

The opposition leader, Kellie Sloane, has declined to make a decision about Rath’s future on her front bench until after Icac’s hearings conclude. The shadow planning and arts minister, who received a caution from the parliamentary privileges committee in 2023 and recused himself from the inquiry, has been referred to the privileges committee a second time over the incident.

In a statement following a Sydney Morning Herald report about the assistance he had provided to members of the Reformers, Rathe, said he was “apologetic”:

This Inquiry commenced in the highly politically charged context of an election campaign, and at the time I didn’t comprehend the gravity of the allegations ... I am not under investigation by Icac, nor have I been called as a witness to the inquiry or asked to provide any evidence.

Australians should get a financial stake in Tomago smelter, Greens say

The Greens say the public should get a stake in the Tomago aluminium smelter, after the government announced a $2.5bn bailout package.

The package is funded 50-50 by the New South Wales government and commonwealth.

The Greens senator Penny Allman-Payne says a public stake would ensure Australians get a proper share of wealth from national resources and increase worker security:

We can’t trust private companies with our workers, our resources, or our climate.

The big-business parties seem to love anything that privatises the profits from Australian resources. They endlessly funnel public funds into propping up the dying projects of multinational corporations, often the same corporations driving the climate crisis, with no return on investment for the everyday Australian.

Jason Clare says trust in the Australian Research Council was damaged under the Coalition

The education minister says the Australian Research Council (ARC) needs “trust” to pursue its best ideas in a dig at accusations of political interference under the Coalition.

Speaking on its 25th anniversary in Canberra on Thursday, Jason Clare said:

The role of the ARC is to give our best researchers the opportunity to follow their best ideas. And that requires something else. Trust. Trust in researchers. Trust in peer review. Trust in the institutions we establish to make these decisions.

And over the years, that trust had been damaged. Before we came to Government, the ARC was bedevilled by political interference. That wasn’t good for our universities. It wasn’t good for businesses who work with our universities either.

Clare said Labor removed the power of ministers to approve ARC grants because “politicians should not decide which physicist, historian or mathematician has written the better research proposal”.

Research excellence should be judged by people who understand the research.

National Union of Students calls out One Nation’s ‘racist policies’ ahead of nationwide protest

The National Union of Students (NUS) says they will not “sit quietly” ahead of a nationwide protest against Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, taking place from 1pm today.

The walkout was organised by the NUS, which represents tertiary education students in Australia. Students will gather in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Canberra, Adelaide, Brisbane, Newcastle and Wollongong in opposition to the party’s “racist policies”.

Its national president, Felix Hughes, said:

Pauline Hanson’s racist politics are not welcome on our campuses or in our communities. Pauline Hanson has spent decades making racism a political strategy. Students will not sit quietly while One Nation tries to drag those politics further into the mainstream.

Hughes also backed international students as “our classmates, not our enemies”:

They are not responsible for the housing crisis or the cost of living, and we will not let Hanson turn students against each other to advance her racist politics.

Students also organised mass moratorium marches against Hanson’s growing popularity in the 1990s.

Greens praise David McBride after his release from prison

The Greens are celebrating the parole of David McBride from prison today after the former army lawyer served his full non-parole period of 27 months.

Their justice spokesperson, Senator David Shoebridge, said McBride had paid a “terrible price for telling the truth”.

It’s a price no whistleblower should ever be made to pay again. The Albanese government has had the power to free David since they got elected and refused to act … David walks out of prison today and he holds his head high, having spoken the truth and faced the full force of the state.

Shoebridge also called for better protection of whistleblowers, calling McBride’s sentencing a “warning to every public servant who might one day consider speaking up”.

When I have visited him in prison during his more than two years locked up, David’s commitment to truth has been unwavering and I know he took immense comfort in the support he has in the community at large.

Minns steps in as Albanese faces more heat on melon-gate

The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, stepped in to defend the PM and deflect questions over melongate which have plagued Anthony Albanese all week.

At the press conference in Tomago earlier, Albanese was again asked what he meant by his comments and hand gestures in the now infamous Bush Deep podcast before Minns intervened and said:

Go and ask 1,000 workers what they care about today. This is the biggest announcement for this region in a generation.

Can we just talk about it for 5 minutes?

(They had spent already well over five minutes talking about the announcement).

‘A terrific speech’: Canavan supports Bragg but warns against changing backpacker visa numbers

The Nationals leader, Matt Canavan, says he doesn’t want to see working holiday visas touched in the effort to reduce migration numbers.

But he’s playing nice, saying his colleague Andrew Bragg gave a “terrific speech” to the National Press Club yesterday.

Bragg said that net overseas migration numbers should be dropped to 180,000 a year (in the 2024-25 financial year the NOM was 306,000, and is predicted to drop to about 260,000 in the 2025-26 financial year). He said the way to get there is to drop the number of international students, working holiday visas and family visas.

Canavan told a press conference a little earlier:

Look, I thought Andrew gave a terrific speech. He’s doing excellent work on exposing the deficiencies in the government’s housing agenda, the almost complete lack of homes that are being built.

All Andrew said was that we’ll look at all these things to bring migration numbers down. Now, I will say, though, that as leader of the Nationals party, we will not be changing, we’ll not be seeking changes to working holiday visa makers, because that’s not the reason why we’ve had the surge in migration.

Acoss denies Bragg’s claims they want a 30% super guarantee

The Australian council of social services (Acoss) has rebuffed Andrew Bragg’s claims this morning that they want a 30% super guarantee.

Bragg made the comments to RN Breakfast this morning, which you can read here.

The group’s position, in fact, from 2020 was that any superannuation increases above 10% needed to be based on evidence that they would benefit people on low incomes across their lifetime.

The current superannuation rate is 12%.

In a submission to the government’s retirements incomes review in 2020, Acoss stipulated that increases to super above 10% should ensure low income workers are “not forced to save too much for retirement when they face financial challenges in working life”.

Bragg’s views ‘personal’ not official policy says Taylor

Angus Taylor has not endorsed Andrew Bragg’s net overseas migration target of 180,000, and says the shadow housing minister’s speech yesterday was based on his “personal views”.

It’s a rebuke of the speech that has ruffled some feathers internally across the Coalition.

Taylor doesn’t want to put a figure on what the Coalition wants net migration to be, but says it would be capped to new housing builds.

Andrew expressed some of his personal views yesterday. I’ve made clear to him that his job is to express ... the views of the Coalition and the senior team of which he is a member when it comes to immigration policy.

Net overseas migration will depend on housing supply. It will be capped.

Taylor avoids questions on whether he spoke to McInerney about providing money to reformers

Angus Taylor has refused to answer questions on whether he spoke to Dallas McInerney about providing thousands of dollars to the reformers group.

Evidence aired in an Icac hearing showed text messages referencing Taylor had agreed to pay a $15,000 “injection” and a $3000 monthly donation to the right-wing group.

Taylor told a press conference this morning he had already answered questions about the money. He’s previously said “no payment was made”.

There’s some back and forth between him and the journalist, who says they’re asking a specific question about whether Taylor spoke to McInerney about this money.

Taylor keeps repeating, “I have said all along I’m not going to give a running commentary.”

No payment was made. I was clear about that. You get to ask the questions I get to answer them and I’ve answered the question. Happy to take other questions.

Catholic Schools NSW CEO to appear before Icac

The Catholic Schools NSW CEO, Dallas McInerney, will appear before the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac) when it resumes its hearings at 10am this morning.

As part of its investigation into alleged corruption in the NSW Liberal party, Icac is investigating whether illegal donations were made by the governing body for 600 schools in the state, arranged and approved by McInerney, to support the alleged branch stacking efforts of conservative Christian group the Reformers.

The inquiry has repeatedly heard a message sent by McInerney, who is a factional ally of federal opposition leader, Angus Taylor, to a Reformer advising of a plan to “shake down Angus for 10K”.

Taylor has not been named in Icac’s allegations and has repeatedly denied he ever made payments to the Reformers.

‘We should learn from the mistakes from the past’: Albanese

Anthony Albanese says the bailout comes back to jobs and sovereign capability, hammering in the point of Australia not being at the end of supply chains.

This is pretty front of mind at the moment, with the world having experienced multiple supply chain crunches due to global conflict in recent years.

He brings up the death of the car manufacturing industry and the closure of oil refineries in Australia as mistakes from the past that governments should learn from.

The fact that oil refineries shut in this country under the former government that now we’re having to go out there and look at how do we become more sovereign. How do we become more resilient? And the idea that we would sit back and watch this facility just disappear is not in Australia’s national interest.

This will produce a return to Australia. This is connected up with an increasing clean energy, which will drive this change through. It’s connected up with not just the jobs that are created directly here, but their indirect jobs that will flow through the manufacturing sector right throughout this country.

Albanese on Tomago smelter bailout: ‘We cannot afford to be at the end of supply chains’

Anthony Albanese and a huge entourage have arrived on site at the Tomago smelter to announce the $2.5bn bailout.

The prime minister tells the media that the bailout is vital to keep the industry alive and that the deal will deliver manufacturing jobs and “deliver additional clean energy for New South Wales and for Australia”.

The idea that we sit and allow this facility to just disappear would have had consequences. We cannot afford to be at the end of supply chains. We need to be a country that makes things and there is nowhere better in Australia that has a history of making things than the Newcastle and Hunter regions.

No evidence of H5 outbreak in Tasmania, minister says

Jumping back to Tasmania’s announcement that it has confirmed its first case of H5 bird flu after a dead brown skua was discovered on the state’s coast.

The government said the migratory seabird was found at Burgess Cove at Rocky Cape in the state’s north-west by parks and wildlife staff conducting coastal surveillance.

Minister for primary industries and water, Gavin Pearce, said Tasmania had been preparing for the arrival of the deadly virus for some time and was ready to respond.

Although we’ve had a positive detection, I want to be clear that there is no evidence of an outbreak and there is no detection in commercial poultry at this time.

We’ve been working closely with industry, wildlife and biosecurity experts to strengthen surveillance, preparedness and response arrangements across the state.

Pearce said the state had worked with the poultry sector on biosecurity preparedness and with local governments on awareness, reporting and carcass disposal.

We have … invested in decontamination units, remote piloted aircraft, mobile truck wash facilities, and a range of other important infrastructure assets to aid our response.

He said Tasmanians who see a sick or dead bird should avoid contact with the animal, record its location and report it to the emergency hotline on 1800 675 888.

Wells introduces news bargaining incentive legislation to the lower house

The communications minister, Anika Wells, has introduced the news bargaining incentive bill to the house, after making several 11th hour changes and reaching an agreement with the Coalition.

The NBI is designed to force tech giants like Facebook and TikTok to pay media outlets for the value they derive from news on their platforms.

Labor has amended the bill to require tech giants to make a minimum of eight deals with news publishers – up from six. The design of the scheme will also mean big tech platforms can only offset a maximum of 25% of their exposure to the levy with each deal, to incentivise deals being made with more outlets.

Wells tells the house that the commercial broadcaster’s share of Australian advertising expenditure fell from 43% to 17% between 2006 and 2022, and the latest deal will help keep the sector afloat.

That decline, threatens Australia’s access to quality public interest journalism. That is why the government is creating a statutory solution to support public interest journalism and the journalists who produce it.

The scheme is not about providing payments without obligations. It is about supporting journalists to remain in the jobs that are vital to the production of public interest journalism.

‘A lot of healthy gambling happens in this country’, says Nationals frontbencher

Nationals MP Kevin Hogan and Greens senator David Shoebridge have had quite the sparring match on TV this morning, debating gambling advertising.

Shoebridge has rebuked the government for working with the Coalition, claiming both are beholden to the gambling lobby – with both parties receiving donations from the lobby.

For example, the Australian Labor party, not including any individual state branches, received $71,500 from Sportsbet, while the Liberal party of Australia received $60,000 during the 2024-25 financial year. (This obviously isn’t an exhaustive list of donations from gambling companies!)

Shoebridge said:

If they want [Labor] to legislate for the public interest, not their gambling donors, if they want to protect families from seeing their family home spent on the profits of probably one of the most extractive ‘Dracula’ industries floating around, they can come and work with us, or they can work with the Coalition, who are also taking donations from the gambling industry, who have a long history of wanting to give the gambling industry what they want.

Hogan says that gambling is safer than decriminalising the “personal use of ice” and other drugs. The Greens platform states that the individual use of illegal drugs should be decriminalised. Hogan says:

Let’s decriminalise those things for personal use, that’s OK – but let’s, gee, let’s not have a gambling that come across your phone or your TV. The complete hypocrisy of the Greens. A lot of healthy gambling happens in this country. We do want people who have problems to be able to protect themselves from it.

Shoebridge scoffs at the use of “healthy gambling”.

‘Sad’ the government has to run around and bail out smelters, Paterson says

Jumping back to James Paterson’s interview on News24 earlier, the shadow defence minister said it was good that the Tomago smelter in the NSW Hunter region wasn’t shutting down, but blamed the Labor government for pushing up electricity prices.

Rio Tinto warned the government late last year that Tomago could close at the end of its current electricity supply contract due to unsustainable energy costs.

As part of the government’s bailout, it’s put forward cash to get Tomago using more renewable energy over the next decade.

Paterson says the government is “taking from taxpayers” to keep the industry afloat.

This bailout is only necessary because electricity prices have become completely unaffordable under Labor, not just for households and small businesses, but for large industrial users like Tomago … I’m glad it’s not closing, but it’s sad that we now need to be running around bailing out every industrial facility in this country apparently.

They’re just going to take from taxpayers, ultimately taxes that you and I and everyone else pays, to bail out these facilities, otherwise we’ll lose them. And I think that’s just a recipe for an inefficient sclerotic economy that can’t compete on the international stage and Australians will be poorer as a result.

Australia’s gay community is ‘politically diverse’, Nationals MP says

Nationals MP Bridget McKenzie says Australia’s gay community is politically diverse, after her former colleague turned One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce called his party “one of the gayest parties in Australia”.

That claim yesterday came after comments surfaced by a failed One Nation candidate who described same-sex attraction as a mental illness.

On the Today show earlier, McKenzie rejected the comments from that failed One Nation candidate, and claimed gay voters were flocking to the Coalition.

The gay community is politically diverse. As anyone in my home state of Victoria, many are joining the National party and the Liberal party because they’re sick of very, very bad Labor government.

Legislation forcing tech companies to pay for Australian journalism to be introduced

The government will today introduce its legislation forcing tech companies to pay for journalism in Australia after making a series of 11th-hour changes and reaching an agreement with the Coalition.

The changes to the news bargaining incentive after the negotiations will include the minimum number of deals reached to avoid paying a levy increased from six to eight news organisations and reserve 5% of any incentive payments for AAP.

Daniel Mulino, the financial services minister in charge of the legislation, says the reforms also include bringing the reference year for the payment one year forward, which “incorporates another year of growth in digital advertising revenue”.

So essentially how this works is that the value of deals struck with news organisations will be used to offset the total levy that the tech giants have to pay. But to incentivise deals with smaller publications, a deal with a small or medium news organisation would offset more of the levy.

He tells RN Breakfast:

That obligation to enter into at least eight deals is if they want to fully acquit. So it still will be open to tech companies to only partially offset their obligation. But if they want to fully offset their obligation, there have to be at least eight deals. In addition to that obligation, there’s a 200% offset for small and medium players. So that’s also a very strong incentive for them to enter into agreements with regional media, with CALD media and LGBTQI and other smaller players.

Climate group calls renewable investment to power Tomago a ‘lightbulb moment’

The Climate Council has welcomed the government’s decision to underpin nearly three gigawatts of new renewable generation and firming capacity to accelerate the decarbonisation of the Tomago facility as part of the bailout.

A senior adviser for the council, Ben McLeod, calls it a “lightbulb moment” for the clean energy industry.

Powering our single-largest electricity user with wind, solar and storage is a lightbulb moment for clean industry. This deal to lock-in the future of the Tomago smelter shows what renewable power makes possible: secure jobs, a stronger grid and less climate pollution.

Will the public see any return in revenue from the bailout?

Continuing his rounds, Tim Ayres speaks to ABC AM radio and is asked whether Australians will get a return from the bailout.

Ayres says there is a revenue sharing agreement that could see some return when aluminium prices are really high – but he doesn’t say how much we’re likely to see, and what that threshold is.

It’s a potential return to the taxpayer that means that we’ve got a shared interest in the success of this facility. It’s not a simple bailout package. This is a complex undertaking that means we’ve got shared interests in delivering for the electricity, the power purchasing agreement, the investment in new generation and transmission between the governments.

I don’t want to make predictions about the future. You’d have to have some confidence, I think, with global demand for aluminium so high. This is a crucial product.

Asked what this means for other smelter projects that might also be struggling with energy prices, and whether the government has signalled that it’s always willing to intervene, Ayres says:

We’re determined to secure our current capability and our Future Made in Australia agenda in critical minerals and metals and steel and iron is unrolling out before Australians now because it’s vital for Australia’s national interest that we deliver it.

Good morning,

Krishani Dhanji here with you for the final sitting day of the week, thanks to Martin Farrer for getting us started.

It’s going to be another busy day in the big House so lets get straight into it!