Australia politics live: Greens set up gas fight in Senate; Dave Sharma to return to parliament | Australian politics

The parliament sitting won’t begin until 10am, so the morning will be taken up with politicians trying to get their agenda a little clear air.

Independent MP Zoe Daniel has announced she will be working to shine a light on gender based violence (with a press conference ahead of question time at 1pm) as part of the 16 days of activism planned to raise awareness.

Six women were killed in just one week in Australia. On average, one man a week will kill his partner or former partner.

Late last week the government announced a data tracker as part of its response to address the wider issues:

Daniel says more needs to be done.

AAP has reported on Dave Sharma’s earlier interview with ABC radio, where he accused the Greens of having a ‘blind spot on anti-Semitism’.

AAP reports Sharma said:

If you are calling for the destruction of a member state of the United Nations, and denying the Jewish people a right to their homeland and a state that is accepted by the United Nations, yes, I consider that to be anti-Semitism,” Mr Sharma told ABC’s RN on Monday.

…People can and should be allowed to advocate for Palestinian self-determination and Palestinian national rights”, Mr Sharma said.

But it should not be a zero-sum proposition.”

Too often we see these protests think that to be pro-Palestinian, you need to be anti-Israel, or more critically anti-Jewish people in Australia, and I think that’s where we’ve seen lines crossed many times.”

Labor to give presser on monitoring of people released from detention

Clare O’Neil and Andrew Giles have announced a press conference for 9am to discuss this announcement:

They’ll be joined by the commissioner of the Australian Border Force, Michael Outram APM.

It is in the blue room, so you know it is serious, serious.

Labor’s answer to climate risks is ‘more gas and more coal’: Bandt

Where would Adam Bandt get more energy from to combat the shortage the energy market operator has flagged?

Bandt repeats that the government should be helping businesses move off gas and stop sending Australia’s gas offshore.

Asked about the gas already being contracted for export, Bandt says:

What’s more important? Profits of these massive big gas corporations or keeping Australia safe from climate change?

… We’re just getting into December, and people in Perth have already lost their homes. Large parts of Queensland have been on fire. There’s people in New South Wales who still haven’t been able to get back into their homes after the floods and what is Labor’s answer? More gas and more coal. Now? What’s more important? The profits of these big gas corporations or people in Australia’s safety?

Labor ‘not doing enough’ to transition businesses off gas amid climate crisis, says Bandt

The interview moves on to the gas code disallowance motion the Greens plan on moving in the Senate. Chris Bowen says if it is passed (it would need the Coalition’s support to do that) it would put the east coast’s gas security at risk. Asked why the Greens are attempting to block the code, Adam Bandt says:

We’re in the middle of a climate crisis. Labor is backing new coal and gas fields and an energy policy in the middle of a climate crisis should be based on helping businesses get off gas.

And instead Labor is not doing that, but is in fact backing the opening of more gas fields. You get an exemption from provisions of this code if you open up new gas fields – that is not the way to tackle the energy and the climate problems that the country is facing.

Now, there’s plenty of gas in Australia, Labor’s sending a lot of it offshore, including much of it that goes off tax free and the profits go offshore as well.

… We’re not certainly not doing enough to get businesses off gas after a year in power. We still see many businesses reliant on gas instead of being given the help to get across to cheap and clean renewables where they can, and the answer cannot be [for the] gas code to be able to say open up new gas fields.

‘One atrocity does not justify another,’ says Bandt in response to question on Hamas

Adam Bandt is then asked about the Greens statement which was released on 7 November – one month after the Hamas attack on Israel, which left 1,200 people dead.

Q: Your party issued a statement on the first month anniversary after the 7 October attacks. You did call out the attacks themselves. But you also call out what you describe as war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed by the State of Israel in Gaza right now. You make no mention, though, of what Hamas is alleged to be doing in terms of using civilian infrastructure to hide weaponry and military infrastructure. Why do you ignore that?

Bandt responds:

I just don’t think that’s a fair characterisation.

Asked why he doesn’t think it is fair, he says:

From day one, we’ve condemned the taking of the hostages. That’s a war crime. Attacks on civilians is a war crime. And we’ve called for the unconditional release of the hostages because at the end of the day, our position is based in international law, and that is that there should not be attacks on civilians. And that one atrocity does not justify another …

At the same time we can condemn, and do condemn and mourn the loss of the 1,200 Israelis and others who died, we also mourn the losses of the over 12,000 Palestinians, many of them children, who’ve been killed in the bombing of Gaza.

‘We have been very clear from day one that we oppose antisemitism’: Bandt

Adam Bandt is asked about a photo the Greens senator and deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi put on her social media, and then took down. In the photo, Faruqi is posing with pro-Palestinian protesters, one of whom is holding a poster which showed an image of Israel being put in a rubbish bin. Faruqi took down the image and issued an apology over the poster appearing on her social media.

Bandt says that Faruqi did not see the poster’s image when she posed with the protesters, or when the photo was posted.

He says the Greens also stand against antisemitism.

I just need to clarify – we have been very clear from day one that we oppose antisemitism.

We’ve been concerned about the rise of antisemitism in Australia for some time. It’s been ongoing for a number of years now. We’ve thrown our weight behind … pushes to tackle antisemitism as well as Islamophobia in this country.

And I think taking the position to steadfastly call for peace and security for both Israelis and Palestinians on an equal footing and calling for an end to the invasion is something that not only [we are] calling for, the United Nations is calling for [it]and a large number of international observers are calling for [it] and the majority of countries around the world are saying we need to have a permanent ceasefire and a just and lasting peace that’s based on an end to the occupation.

People of Gaza should not be ‘collectively punished’: Adam Bandt

The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, is speaking to ABC Radio RN. He’s there to speak about the gas code disallowance motion which the Greens have flagged they will move in the Senate a little bit later – which Chris Bowen says could put in doubt the east coast gas supply.

The interview starts with the Greens position on Gaza and Israel, after incoming Liberal senator Dave Sharma said in an earlier interview (which I didn’t hear) that the Greens had “a blind spot on antisemitism”.

Asked about that comment, Bandt says:

From the beginning, since the attacks on October 7 … we condemned or spoke very, very clearly in parliament, condemning – not only condemning antisemitism, as well as Islamophobia.

But we’ve taken a principled position to this invasion, and we do not believe that the people of Gaza should be collectively punished and we’re seeing a humanitarian catastrophe unfold in front of our eyes. And the there has to be not only a temporary ceasefire, but there needs to [be] a permanent ceasefire and we have called for that.

Paul Karp has written on the possibility of an inquiry into Australia’s immigration detention system, with the Coalition and Greens interests aligning (although for different reasons, as he points out):

Murray-Darling presser

Things are looking good for Tanya Plibersek and the Murray-Darling basin legislation – Plibersek is holding a joint press conference with Sarah Hanson-Young of the Greens who has been, until recently, quite critical of the legislation.

So it looks as though there will be peace in our times – at least when it comes to the Murray-Darling basin plan between Labor and the Greens. In this moment.

RBA bill outlined

With one week of house sittings left in 2023, Jim Chalmers will introduce the legislation to “strengthen and modernise” the RBA for the future.

The Treasury amendment bill Chalmers will introduce this week is in response to the RBA review and Chalmers says it will “reinforce the RBA’s independence, clarify its role and modernise its structure”.

The legislation, once passed, will:

• Mandate that the RBA’s overarching objective is to “promote the economic prosperity and welfare of the people of Australia, both now and into the future,”

• Confirm that monetary policy should have dual objectives of price stability and contributing to full employment,

• Reinforce the RBA’s independence, including by repealing the power of the Treasurer to overrule its monetary policy decisions,

• Establish a Governance Board to oversee the management of the RBA, and

• Clarify the RBA’s responsibility to contribute to financial system stability.

The legislation also establishes robust governance arrangements for the RBA.

From next year you can also expect to see more communication from the RBA governor Michele Bullock. To that end, Malcolm Turnbull’s former right-hand woman Sally Cray has been hired to head up RBA communications.

Labor trumpets cheaper medicines and rise in bulk billing

With one week of house sittings left, the government is keen to try to refocus some attention on what it has done in the cost-of-living space, as well as the election commitments it has met.

That includes health, with minister Mark Butler’s office releasing figures on how much Australians have saved with the “cheaper medicine” changes. Butler’s office said lowering the maximum cost of a prescription on the PBS from $42.50 to $30 in January has “delivered around $20m each month back to the hip pocket of Australians”. The total savings from that measure is about $200m across 18m prescriptions. Combined with lowering the PBS safety net threshold by 25% and the first phase of 60-day prescription medications, Butler said the cost of medicines for Australians has dropped by almost $250m this year.

Butler is also celebrating the increase in bulk billing after the government tripled the incentive for GPs to offer the service. The minister says doctors in GP clinics in every state and territory have increased the availability of bulk billing since the $3.5bn investment started flowing through in early November:

The tripling of the bulk billing incentive benefits patients that account for 3 out of 5 visits to the GP.

Doctors have been telling me and now the data shows the reality, even in these early days, only three weeks into the new incentives, clinics everywhere are making the shift back to bulk billing.

You can expect to hear this in a dixer during question time.

‘Reckless and pointless peacocking risks domestic gas supply’

Labor and energy minister Chris Bowen are warning the Greens against attempts to sink its gas industry code in the Senate, claiming it could lead to future gas shortfalls for the east coast.

The Greens have signalled they will be moving to disallow the Albanese government’s mandatory code for the gas industry because it supports new gasfield projects.

While the Greens voted for Labor’s intervention in the energy market, which included price limits, it has balked at supporting elements of the wider code, given the government’s support for new fossil fuel projects.

You can read more about the Greens’ reservations here.

The Coalition voted against the market intervention and its support in any Labor energy policy is not guaranteed. That has left Bowen taking aim at the Greens.

Bowen said two new enforceable commitments, totally up to 300PJ of gas to 2030 (or 140PJ of gas by the end of 2027) have been secured by the code, with companies APLNG and Senex both having to supply additional has to the east coast market. Bowen said 300PJ of gas was the equivalent to about two years of east coast industrial usage of gas and, without the extra supply, the east coast faced a shortfall.

He says if the Greens disallowance motion went ahead, the additional supply commitments would no longer apply “threatening this supply into the east coast market and creating untenable shortfall risk”.

The Greens would need the Coalition’s support to disallow the regulation change. The parties have come together previously to delay the government’s legislative agenda.

Bowen said joining together in this instance “will threaten energy security for millions of households and thousands of manufacturing jobs across the country”:

That kind of reckless and pointless peacocking risks domestic gas supply, higher prices, as well as manufacturing jobs and the energy transition.

The result will play out in the Senate.

Good morning