‘Australians aren’t happy with us’, says Coalition frontbencher
Facing Nationals flying ahead of the Liberals on energy and a brutal Newspoll result this morning, Liberal frontbencher Melissa McIntosh is asked on Sky News how worried she is about the declining public support.
“I don’t want to spin it,” she says, but digs in on net zero, saying many in her community don’t want it.
Australians aren’t happy with us. We lost an election, and we were annihilated at the election. We need to get our act together. We need to focus on being a strong opposition.
On whether Sussan Ley can and should stay on as leader, she says:
Sussan still has my confidence, and she should be able to stay on as leader. As I said, we’re down in the dumps. It’s not just about the leadership, it’s the whole Coalition and the people that are left – my colleagues, they’re wonderful, talented people, and we should be giving Sussan a chance.
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Updated at 15.46 EST
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Power prices driven partly by ‘dysfunction’ of former Coalition government, PM says
Anthony Albanese acknowledges power prices and the cost of living are still having an impact on households, but pins some of the blame on the former government.
Speaking to reporters in Canberra this morning, the PM says his government has capped coal and gas prices and put in energy bill rebates (which are due to finish at the end of this year).
What has occurred on power prices is a product in part of the dysfunction and chaos that’s been there of the Coalition – 24 out of 28 coal fired power stations announced their closure. They [the Coalition] had no plan to do anything other than fight each other, and that’s continuing today.
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Updated at 16.38 EST
‘The Coalition as we knew it is dead,’ Simon Holmes à Court says after net zero decision
Tom McIlroy
The National party’s decision to scrap its net zero by 2050 commitments is prompting a lot of reaction from within and without federal parliament this morning.
Climate 200 founder and co-convenor Simon Holmes à Court has lashed the minor party over the decision, settled in a party room meeting on Monday. It puts extra pressure on the opposition leader, Sussan Ley, as she struggles to hold the Coalition together.
“In the last decade the Nationals have evicted the Liberals from The Lodge, the city electorates, and now the national conversation,” Holmes à Court said.
The fault lines that have been papered over for years are now a chasm that cannot be breached.
He links the decision to previous policy moves by former leaders Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton, both of whom lost to Labor and Anthony Albanese.
Morrison and Dutton abandoned the centre, leaving space for independents to properly represent middle Australia, and now the Nats have taken the whole team out of contention.
The old broad church has been burnt to a cinder – the Coalition as we knew it is dead.
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Updated at 16.35 EST
Littleproud says net zero decision ‘not about politics but good policy’
Nationals leader David Littleproud is continuing his media round this morning, defending his decision to scrap net zero by 2050 commitments, and do it before the Liberal party has reached its own position on energy.
On ABC News Breakfast, Littleproud says the decision to announce the policy yesterday is “not about politics”.
Littleproud says he won’t be pressuring the Liberal party to drop its commitment to net zero, and that it’s all about “respect” in the Coalition.
This is not about politics but good policy.
We’re calm and methodical about this and we’ll work with our Coalition partners when they get to their position. But we made it clear, as did the Liberal party after the election, that we had processes – individual processes – that our party would run through. We got to ours on the weekend, the end of ours. And we’ll respect and wait for the Liberal party, and do that in a respectful way.
(Commentators would probably argue that there are wide-ranging political implications though.)
Nationals leader David Littleproud announces plans for his party to walk away from net zero on 2 November, 2025. Photograph: Zac de Silva/AAPShare
Updated at 16.25 EST
Jonathan Barrett
Mortgage arrears fall at Westpac after rate cuts
Mortgage holders are enjoying a reprieve from relentless cost of living pressures, as the number of home owners falling behind on their repayments falls.
Westpac’s full year results, released this morning, show that its delinquency rate for loans that are more than 90 days behind has dropped to 0.73%, from 1.12% a year ago.
On Monday, the bank reported a 2% slide in annual profit to $6.9bn for the year ended 30 September, down from $7.1bn a year ago. It will pay a full year dividend of $1.53 per share.
The Reserve Bank’s official cash rate, which informs mortgage rates, has been cut three times this year to 3.6%.
Westpac said most of its customers had welcomed the interest rate relief, while broader cost of living pressures had also eased.
Westpac’s chief executive, Anthony Miller, said:
Notwithstanding the relief from interest rates, challenges remain, with inflation and unemployment increasing in recent months.
Globally, uncertainty remains but this is an opportunity for Australia and we are in a good position to work through any impacts from events such as the ongoing geopolitical and trade tensions.
While many forecasters had been expecting further interest rate relief this year, the odds of imminent cuts have collapsed due to increasing inflation. The RBA will hand down its next interest rate decision tomorrow.
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Updated at 16.11 EST
Tehan ‘very confident’ he can reach position with Nationals on energy
The question every Coalition member is facing this morning is whether the Nationals’ decision to scrap net zero will allow the two parties to stay together.
Tehan – who has both staunch net zero backers and critics in his own party – says he’s “very confident” he can reach a position with the Nationals on energy policy.
I never started this process seeking to fail. I want to succeed, and that means we’ve all got to work together. And the way we have been constructively working together – obviously, there’s some noise here and noise there – but the way we have been working constructively together, I’m very confident that we’ll be able to reach a position which means we can all continue to work together in the best interests of the nation.
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Updated at 16.08 EST
‘We want to get it right,’ says Tehan on Liberal energy policy
Shadow energy minister Dan Tehan, who’s leading the Liberal party’s energy policy review, is facing more pressure now that the Nats have come out of the gate and staked their position by abandoning net zero.
Tehan, following Littleproud on RN Breakfast, says everything is AOK with the Nats and that he’ll take his time to “get it right” on energy policy.
We’ve got to get it right in understanding: OK, what is it that we need to do to make affordable energy our number one priority, but at the same time be doing our bit when it comes to reducing emissions? And we’re working through that methodically. We’ve been doing it not only as a Liberal party but also jointly with the National party – very constructively, I might add – and we’ll continue to do that.
So when will the Liberals announce their policy? Tehan says: “in a perfect world, it would be great to have it done by Christmas”.
Including this week, there are just two joint sitting weeks left this year, so time is certainly ticking.
Shadow minister for energy Dan Tehan. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAPShare
Updated at 16.10 EST
David Littleproud says Australia shouldn’t be ‘streaking ahead’ on emissions reduction
Nationals leader David Littleproud says Australia shouldn’t be a “laggard” on emissions reduction, but we also shouldn’t be “streaking ahead”.
Talking to ABC RN Breakfast this morning after making the announcement yesterday, Littleproud says Australia should be doing its “fair share”.
But what’s a fair share, asks host Sally Sara, when Australia’s per capita emissions are three times the global average? Littleproud says:
I think this is where the reality of getting to this per capita is a puerile argument. The reality is each country has a responsibility, and this is where they get into things like Scope 3 [emissions], saying Australia should have to pay for that because we actually export a lot of resources overseas that are then burned … It shouldn’t be just about what we actually are emitting, it’s what we can mitigate.
He points to Australia accounting for 1% of global emissions, and says it’s a “small amount of the total emissions globally”.
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Updated at 15.55 EST
‘Australians aren’t happy with us’, says Coalition frontbencher
Facing Nationals flying ahead of the Liberals on energy and a brutal Newspoll result this morning, Liberal frontbencher Melissa McIntosh is asked on Sky News how worried she is about the declining public support.
“I don’t want to spin it,” she says, but digs in on net zero, saying many in her community don’t want it.
Australians aren’t happy with us. We lost an election, and we were annihilated at the election. We need to get our act together. We need to focus on being a strong opposition.
On whether Sussan Ley can and should stay on as leader, she says:
Sussan still has my confidence, and she should be able to stay on as leader. As I said, we’re down in the dumps. It’s not just about the leadership, it’s the whole Coalition and the people that are left – my colleagues, they’re wonderful, talented people, and we should be giving Sussan a chance.
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Updated at 15.46 EST
Hanson-Young says Coalition ‘just not serious about government’
Staying on Sarah Hanson-Young on ABC News Breakfast, the Greens senator did not hold back in slamming the Nationals over their decision to scrap support for net zero, accusing the Coalition of having “delusional and dangerous” climate policy.
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP
She calls on Labor to “rule out” working with the Coalition on any environment or climate policy (ie the government should negotiate with the Greens on the EPBC bill).
The Coalition have proved themselves to be a party that’s just not serious about government.
You can’t pretend in Australia that you care about the future of our country, the safety and security of Australia. You can’t even pretend that you care about the bush and the regions if you don’t have a credible policy on climate change. The climate crisis is already here.
Reminds me of Logan Roy telling his children in Succession – “you are not serious people”.
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Updated at 15.37 EST
SingTel should appear before Optus inquiry, Greens and Coalition say
The Greens and the Coalition will grill Optus over its outage earlier this year during a parliamentary hearing.
Shadow communications minister, Melissa McIntosh, told ABC News Breakfast a bit earlier that the inquiry would “get to the bottom” of what happened.
When I met with the CEO of Optus he said it was human error and I asked ‘How can human error result in the outage where lives were lost?’ That is not good enough.
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who’s also been heavily critical of Optus, also told News Breakfast the inquiry will be looking to call in the CEO and board members of SingTel to face questions.
I’ve been worried for far too long that Optus is much more worried about its profits than it is people’s safety. And now we have a situation where people have died because Optus put profits ahead of safety, and SingTel needs to take responsibility for that.
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Updated at 15.27 EST
‘I have a lot more to ask,’ Barnaby Joyce says on Nationals’ energy policy
Barnaby Joyce isn’t completely sold on the Nationals’ energy policy despite being one of the most vocal advocates to scrap net zero (and still has a bill in the House to do that).
On Sunrise this morning, Joyce says he still has concerns over the Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS) which underwrites renewable projects. The Nats have decided that they’ll keep the scheme but will expand it to also underwrite fossil fuel projects.
Joyce says he will go through the fine print with senator Matt Canavan, who led the Nationals review with Ross Cadell.
I have a lot more to ask and I will do my job and ask.
Few in the Liberal party, who have been staunch net zero supporters, are concerned this could be the end for the Coalition. Asked whether the Coalition is “over”, Joyce says:
I don’t know, that is above my pay grade. In the past, I’ve argued against splitting the Coalition.
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Updated at 15.50 EST
A third of metropolitan and regional GPs to be fully bulk-billing
Just one third of all metropolitan GP practices will be fully bulk-billed under the government’s increased bulk-billing incentive, which came into effect on 1 November, as the government has promised that there will be no out-of-pocket payment for 90% of all GP visits by 2030.
Labor has released new data overnight showing how many clinics have indicated they will now fully bulk-bill.
In metro areas, of 4,720 practices, 1,557 will be fully bulk-billing (33%) – an increase of 622 clinics that say they will now bulk-bill due to the incentive.
In regional centres, of 620 practices, 209 will be fully bulk-billing (33%) – an increase of 108 clinics.
But in remote communities, almost half of all practices will now be fully bulk-billed – with 51 out of 110 practices indicating they won’t charge out-of-pocket costs for patients.
The top ten electorates that will see the most number of mixed billing practices become fully bulk-billed include: Labor-held Ballarat in regional Victoria; Labor-held Rankin in outer suburban Brisbane; LNP-held Hinkler and Flynn in regional QLD; Labor-held Hawke outside Melbourne; Labor-held Calwell and Hotham in metropolitan Melbourne; LNP-held Spence in South Australia, LNP-held Parkes in regional NSW, and LNP-held Cowper in regional Victoria.
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Updated at 15.31 EST
Welcome
Krishani Dhanji
Good morning, Krishani Dhanji with you here for another busy sitting week (and the second last joint sitting week for the year).
The Liberals are facing some pressure after the Nationals came out and scrapped their commitment to net zero. The Liberals are still considering their position on the policy.
The government is keeping somewhat of a lower profile early this week; they’re still spruiking their pre-election promise to increase bulk-billing incentives which came into force over the weekend.
And the Optus boss will face a parliamentary hearing today into the September outage. The Greens and Coalition have been pushing for a full inquiry into the incident.
It’s going to be another busy week, stay with us!
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