Chalmers says Nationals ‘making it up as they go along’ on competition policy
Jim Chalmers, though, says he won’t be pushed on divestiture powers for the supermarkets:
Now the difference between us and the Coalition is we devise and implement our competition policy in a considered and a methodical way, relying heavily on the advice of the ACCC and others.
What we see with our opponents is the Nationals making it up as they go along, riding roughshod over the Liberals, rolling Angus Taylor once again like he’s been rolled on tax and he’s been rolled on public funding for nuclear reactors as well. So this is the same kind of shambles as we saw with nuclear and with migration. They can’t explain the most basic details.
One of the reasons why the last three big reviews of competition policy hasn’t recommended we go down this path is because of the possible unintended consequences. If you made supermarkets sell, are they allowed to sell to another big rival? Does it mean they close down more stores in local communities? And does that mean less competition rather than more competition in local communities?
Chalmers is also keen to point out the doubts those in the Liberal party have previously expressed about the idea:
Not that long ago Jane Hume was saying that she was worried that divestiture wouldn’t decrease prices. She’s on the record as recently as April making that clear.
So we make our competition policy on the advice of the ACCC, not on the advice of the National party riding roughshod over the Liberals.
Key events
Peter Hannam
The New South Wales government has today given fast-track approval for six projects related to renewable energy, including three pumped hydro projects.
The six now have so-called “critical state significant infrastructure” status, bringing to 24 renewables-related projects earmarked for streamlined approval since the Minns government took office, the state says.
After the federal opposition announced last month it would build (with federal funds) seven nuclear plants from the mid-2030s if it won office, NSW’s granting of the project is a reminder that the energy transition is proceeding apace (though that pace needs to quicken).
Three of the six are pumped hydro projects which are not “weather-dependent” – countering one of the gripes about renewable energy from the pro-nuclear crowd. These ventures link an upper dam with a lower one with a tunnel, using times of cheap power to pump water up and then releasing it when electricity prices are high.
One of these projects involves EnergyAustralia making use of Lake Lyell near its Mount Piper coal-fired power stations – the site of one of Peter Dutton‘s proposed nuke alternatives. Another is at Mussellbrook where AGL Energy wants to redevelop a former coal mine, while Yancoal is exploring using an old coal mine to build a pumped hydro and solar plant near Stratford.
It’s perhaps fitting that ex-fossil fuel sites get repurposed for renewable energy (and probably saves a bit of rehabilitation dough in the process).
The other three fast-tracked projects involve transmission links, including for the New England Renewable Energy Zone. This zone could perhaps have done with a bit of a higher priority early on.
The NSW government last year pushed back the “initial energisation” date for this zone – and its proposed first stage of 2.5 gigawatts of solar and wind farms – almost three years to 2031.
Not everybody noticed, though, with the Australian Energy Market Operator still listing its start-up date as 2028-29 as recently as last week.
A “miscommunication” is to blame, a NSW official tells Guardian Australia.
Attorney general has framework for a human rights act ‘on a silver platter’, Rosalind Croucher says
On the question of a human rights act and what the attorney general should do, Rosalind Croucher says it is up to him but he has the framework “on a silver platter”.
It’s not for me to set agendas for the attorney. The attorney committed to the process by getting the parliamentary joint committee to consider a human rights framework for Australia.
He’s initiated that action.
He has their report. So his commitment to the idea of changing, modernising, providing a human rights framework for today’s Australia is real. Now, he has the series of reports, as I said, not flippantly but seriously, on a silver platter or at least on his desk.
He has those reports.
There are other issues – the religious discrimination issue is obviously a live issue. There are other commitments that the government has made, including the amendment to the Sex Discrimination Act as a priority. There are many issues. In terms of the what next? That is for him. He has this body of work.
And what I would like to see, as the next step, is the introduction of an exposure or the development and introduction of an exposure draft bill based on the model that was used as the centrepiece in the report of the parliamentary joint committee, and open it up through that vehicle for further consultation and engagement, which people want to have. But on an exposure draft bill that. That’s what I would like to see. And you can ask the attorney – throw him the challenges that you would like to make. But it is now up to him.
Human rights protections ‘shouldn’t be party political issue’, Rosalind Croucher says
Back to the press club address – what does Rosalind Croucher think of Anthony Albanese’s commitment to having bipartisan agreement on the religious discrimination legislation before moving ahead with it?
Croucher:
Politics is always a deal.
In any government, the introduction of legislation is a matter for the politics of the day. What I can say is that the commitment by our governments over the years – whether it is a Coalition government or a Labor government – they have agreed in equal measure in signing up to international treaties. It should not be a party political issue whether we bring human rights promises in terms of protections into our own legal system.
Karen Middleton
Greens undecided on whether they will repeat motion to recognise Palestinian state
The Greens are still refusing to say whether they will seize the opportunity before parliament rises on Thursday afternoon for a five-week break to ask the Senate to vote on another motion seeking to recognise a Palestinian state.
Senator Nick McKim said the party was still deciding whether to repeat the motion it put last week, which saw Labor senator Fatima Payman defy her party’s position and cross the floor to vote for it.
Payman has said she is abstaining from all votes this week except anything she considers a matter of conscience, in the wake of her indefinite suspension from the Labor caucus and all of its internal committees and communications for declaring she would repeat last week’s action if the opportunity arose.
McKim said the Greens’ motivation was to push Labor to exert more pressure on the Israeli government to end the war in Gaza.
What I will say is that our focus will remain as it has been on trying to force Labor into sanctioning the Israeli government and trying to force Labor out of complicity in a genocide,” McKim told journalists. “So, everything that we have done has been about making sure that we stand up for Palestinians in Palestine, making sure we stand up for Palestinian Australians and making sure we put the pressure on Labor to do the right thing.
Over in the house, Tanya Plibersek’s “nature positive” legislation (the one with the EPA) is going through its votes.
There is a bit of a hold-up with some divisions but the government wants this passed before QT and so it will be (although it won’t be voted on in the Senate this week).
Tracking costs
As Sarah Basford Canales reported last week, Bill Shorten has launched a website cost tracker for the cost he says the delay in passing his controversial NDIS legislation in the Senate is costing Australians.
You can find that at www.outoftouchwithcostofliving.com
The Unemployed Workers Union has its own website tracker – the cost of not raising the jobseeker rate above the Henderson poverty line, while at the same time what the government is spending on private job agencies.
You can find that one at www.outoftouchwithcostofliving.org.au
Human rights commission ‘often misunderstood’, outgoing president says
Now at the end of her seven year term as the human rights commission president, Rosalind Croucher has had a few words about the organisation itself and how it is often misunderstood.
It is a wondrous organisation, full of extraordinary, largely unsung, people.
However, this wonder is, for me, tempered by one of the most surprising aspects of leading the commission: that despite our role being clearly and expressly laid out in legislation, it is often, wilfully or otherwise, misunderstood.
Commonly expressed canards about the commission include: references to people being ‘hauled before the Human Rights Commission’; disappointment being expressed when we don’t ‘prosecute’ someone, and the very generalised criticism about being ‘absent’ in commenting on an issue, usually at a global or international level, and usually expressed as ‘where is the Human Rights Commission?’
These critiques – and critics – misunderstand several key parameters: that we are obliged to consider all complaints that are sent to us; that no one is ‘hauled before us’ – we provide a dispute resolution process that is neutral, voluntary and low cost, and fewer than 4% of the thousands of matters conciliated each year by us ever go anywhere near a court; that the accepting of a complaint does not automatically mean that the commission considers it to have merit; that we have no power to prosecute anyone and do not instigate complaint ourselves; and that our role is about human rights issues in Australia – we are not a public commentator at large on the state of the world.
Rosalind Croucher is about to start her press club address – we will bring you the highlights.
Retail sales up 0.6% in month, double the rate forecast by economists
Peter Hannam
Two batches of figures out today from the ABS point to stronger than expected economy activity – but that’s because expectations were pretty grim to start with.
Retail sales were 0.6% higher in June than in May, or twice the meagre growth rate anticipated by economists. Still, they were up only 1.7% from May 2023 and given the inflation rate was 4%, they were down more than 2% in real terms.
Some of that spending was related to end of financial year discounting starting earlier than usual (a trend we see at the other end of the year as pre-Christmas sales increasingly start from early November).
Perhaps the obscure fact of the day: Western Australia’s retail turnover rose 1.3%, aided by the restoration of the Trans-Australian Railway and Eyre Highway freight routes after major flooding in March. (Guess we don’t have much coastal shipping these days.)
For the other major stats, the ABS said dwelling approvals rose 5.5% in May, quickening from April’s 1.9% pace. Economists had been tipping a 1.6% rise.
WA led the way with a 19.6% jump (probably more to do with the soaring property prices there than a post-flood approvals binge), with Victoria’s up 8.9%.
The value of total building approved rose 0.6% to $13bn, the ABS said, reversing a 0.7% fall in April.
Neither set of numbers is likely to shift the Reserve Bank’s interest rate dial. The biggest influence on that won’t come until 31 July, when we get June quarter inflation figures.
‘Carbon capture and gas should have no access to Future Made in Australia funds,’ ACF says
Australian Conservation Foundation’s lead exports campaigner, Elizabeth Sullivan, said the Future Made in Australia legislation was a good move – as long as gas is left out of it.
In a rapidly changing global energy landscape, the Future Made in Australia legislation is shaping up to provide the strong foundation needed to establish world-leading renewable manufacturing and export industries.
These are the industries that will propel our future – not polluting coal and gas, or non-solutions like nuclear energy or carbon capture and storage, which come with huge new risks and keep our economy burning coal and gas for longer.
Carbon capture and gas should have no access to Future Made in Australia funds.
Governor general Sam Mostyn meets Lismore mayor to discuss flood recovery
AAP reports Sam Mostyn has hosted locals from Lismore who went through the floods in 2022 as one of her first acts as governor general.
Ms Mostyn was warmly received as she addressed the Australian Local Government Association’s (ALGA) national general assembly on Wednesday, her first public engagement since being sworn in two days ago.
Describing her first day in her new office, Ms Mostyn said she met with Lismore mayor Steve Krieg and deputy mayor Jeri Hall to discuss the regional city’s continued recovery after the catastrophic 2022 floods.
‘Our meeting and discussion was a great example of how trust is built and reflects what I have heard across the country in recent months – communities crave kindness and care,’ Ms Mostyn told the gathering of the nation’s councillors in Canberra.
‘They seek empathy from those with power over the decisions that affect them and they deserve respect and engagement.
‘I also heard repeatedly that Australians desire unity and optimism.
