Budget 2024 live updates: Coalition targets Labor on migration and housing in first question time after budget – latest news | Australian politics

LNP MP Luke Howarth, who I always forget is still in the parliament, asks Anthony Albanese:

My question is to the Prime Minister, respected economic journalist Alan Kohler has said it’s a big picture [budget]. Numbers that confirm this government to be an amazingly and unexpectedly big spending one. Why are Australians paying the price for the Prime Minister’s weak economic leadership?

Albanese:

I thank the member for Petrie for his question. The best response to that question is to respond with some facts in the LNP last budget in 2022, prior to the election, spell. Adding spending was provision for a 27.2% of spending as a percentage of GDP during Covid. After…after….

There are so many interjections I can’t hear Albanese or what any of the objectors are saying. Paul Karp who is in the chamber says the opposition is yelling “during covid” which leads to arguments about Labor supporting the spending.

Milton Dick tells them all to can it.

Albanese:

It’s anger overload over there today.

…In that budget, they predicted – bear in mind in the March 2022, budget they projected in 2023/24 spending of 27.1% of GDP and going forward in 2024, 25, 26.6% on all three years.

Our spending in the 2023/24 budget compares 24.5, compared with 27.2 25.4 under labor, compared with their projections of 27.1 and 26.4, compared with 26.6 under the Coalition.

The biggest, the biggest ever tax take by a Federal Government in a single year was 2005-2006, at 24.2% of GDP.

And guess who the Minister for revenue was? This bloke here, this bloke here, he was in their last budget (Peter Dutton)

They had not a single saving, not one. Nothing whatsoever, nothing whatsoever. Our budgets have delivered $77 billion in total savings, $77 billion in total savings, including $27.9 billion in the budget.

That was handed down last night and last night. In terms of revenue. We banked almost all the revenue upgrade in 2023-24.

The former government averaged just 40% of revenue upgrades. Those opposite promised to deliver a surplus in their first year and every year, and delivered a big duck egg.

Nothing, nothing zero out of nine. We’ve been in government for two years, and last night the treasurer announced a projected surplus of $9.3 billion.

Independent MP Zoe Daniel asks Jim Chalmers:

Since the Budget all I’ve heard from domestic violence services is outrage. Women can’t access help yet the government chose not to allocate new funding to services like Safe Steps that see more than 200 women put in motels across Victoria every night. Lack of front-line services has led to several suicides this year. I’m launching a petition seeking both government and opposition support to properly fund programs to end violence against women.

Treasurer, how many signatures do I need for Government to fund these programs?

Chalmers:

Thank you to the member for Goldstein, not just for her question, but for her genuine interest and passion and compassion for women who are experiencing or at risk of experiencing domestic and family violence. I think we all understand in this House that violence against women is a national shame and it requires national action and leadership and we are prepared to provide that leadership.

In the Budget last night, we invested almost $3.5 billion in addressing violence against women, since coming to office, including that $925 million the Prime Minister and some of the colleagues announced for the permanent leaving violence program.

I do want to say and I do want to acknowledge that even with that substantial investment, we all have much more work to do. We all have much more work that we need to do together because women still aren’t safe in our communities and we acknowledge that.

I think the Prime Minister and others have acknowledged that on multiple occasions as well.

Chalmers goes through the budget measures as well as the previously announced plan, which included previously announced measures.

Fletcher makes dig at Parramatta MP Andrew Charlton in question on energy rebate

Paul Fletcher then gets the fun question. Poor Angus Taylor. He would have loved this.

Fletcher asks Anthony Albanese:

If we take a typical Australian, let’s call them Andrew, who recently had to relocate to Parramatta … and happens to own five houses and a newly acquired $12m beach house, will he be eligible to receive the rebate on all five houses?

Will he be eligible to receive the rebate on all five houses?

(This is a dig at Labor’s Parramatta MP, Andrew Charlton, who has one of the most diverse (and expensive) property portfolios in the parliament.

Albanese says he was “asked about energy prices” and Peter Dutton begins heckling him from across the table. Albanese says:

He’s full of hubris and anger today [Dutton]. A very bad combination, Mr Speaker. A very bad combination. Because when we had the previous energy price relief plan, they opposed it. They voted against it. When it went just to people who were on payments, when it went to low income earners. Now that we have an energy price relief plan, that goes to all Australians, they’re going to vote against that as well. They’re going to vote against that.

Last night I watched … the shadow treasurer on 7.30 … I wanted to see the treasurer on 7.30 and he was on afterwards. They gave him 30 seconds afterwards on the 7.30. And he made it very clear that he was opposed to the Future Made in Australia plan, opposed to manufacturing. But he did actually say, I thought, that he supported some of the measures.

… It was in there. But now today they are finding a way to crab walk away from giving any support to Australians. Just like when we announced our tax cuts for every Australian, first of all they said they hadn’t seen it but they were against it. Then they said they’d roll it back. Then they said we should go to an election on it. And then they voted for it. And then they voted for it. But they’re still bagging it.

Chalmers brings up Coalition record after shadow treasurer attacks ‘tax credits for billionaires’

Angus Taylor is back with another question What a day!

My question is to the prime minister. Under Labor’s budgets to date, the typical Australian household with a mortgage is more than $35,000 worse off. Why is the prime minister spending $13. 7bn on tax credits for billionaires at a time when ordinary Australian battlers are struggling to make ends meet?

There honestly has to be someone within the LNP tactics team who lives to troll Angus Taylor.

Jim Chalmers:

Spare us the questions about billionaires when those opposite, those opposite called for an election because we wanted to give Gina Rinehart a $4,500 tax cut instead of a $9,000 tax cut.

And the leader of the opposition was so furious on behalf of his mate, he called for an election over the changes we made to the tax cuts in January of this year. Spare us the pretend outrage.

They had a lot to say about class warfare in the past. This goes to the shambolic response we have seen to the budget last night, Mr Speaker. They’re casting around for all kinds of excuses, to oppose energy bill relief like they voted against it last time, Mr Speaker.

They’re looking around for all kinds of excuses, to prevent the renewable energy superpower ambitions of this country being realised in the years and the decades ahead. Now this is now two questions that the member for Hume has asked the prime minister. And it’s hard to work out, Mr Speaker, which one was worse. The first one, the first one which quoted hundreds of billions of dollars in spending, inadvertently contained that spending contains indexation of the aged pension. The member for Hume thinks this is overspending.

Taylor has a point of order that is not a point of order.

PM dodges question from Monique Ryan on ‘$5,000-per-head post-budget dinner’

Independent MP Dr Monique Ryan has the first crossbench question and she gets a bit spicy with it:

My question is for the prime minister. Prime minister, I understand that last night you attended a $5,000-per-head post-budget dinner which was hosted by the Federal Labor Business Forum. For the benefit of the house, were any fossil fuel industry lobbyists or other fossil fuel industry representatives in attendance?

Milton Dick says it is not in the standing orders and asks her to rephrase the question. Ryan does, taking out “fundraiser”.

OK. My question is for the prime minister. I understand that you attended a $5,000-a-head post-budget dinner last night. Can you tell the house, were there any fossil fuel industry lobbyists or other fossil fuel industry representatives were in attendance?

It is still barely within the standing orders, Dick says, but he will allow the prime minster to answer the parts of the question that are allowable:

Anthony Albanese:

I’ve stood and had the great honour of being the Australian Labor party candidate in 10 elections. During those 10 elections as the candidate for Grayndler, I have spent less money, less money on those 10 campaigns than the member for Kooyong did in her one.

The Labor benches (and some of the Coalition) find this hilarious.

Dick calls for order as Ryan has a point of order:

My issue, Mr Speaker, is that the prime minister has not in any way addressed the substance of my question.

Dick says that is not a point of order.

Chalmers: ‘We won’t be lectured about debt’ by opposition

Angus Taylor gets a question! What a lucky day.

After three Labor budgets, this government has added $315bn of spending, throwing more fuel on the inflationary fire. Standard & Poor’s has confirmed as a result of this budget there is almost no chance of an interest rate cut for struggling families this year. Why are Australians paying the price for this prime minister’s weak economic leadership?

Jim Chalmers is thrilled:

He’s got a lot of nerve asking about responsible economic management after the mess they left us to clean up in the budget. We won’t be lectured about debt or spending or responsible economic management from the party that left us more than a trillion dollars in Liberal party debt that we have spent our two years in office trying to clean-up, Mr Speaker.

They would not know the first thing about responsible economic management. The least familiar words in the budget last night to those opposite were the words surplus. They had nine cracks at it, Mr Speaker. They promised the surpluses in their first year and every year there after. And they came up with doughnuts, Mr Speaker. None from nine.

We have been here for two years and we’re delivering two surpluses at the same time as we provide cost-of-living relief for people and invest in the future of our economy, Mr Speaker.

If they had their way, inflation would be higher, debt and deficits would be big, wages growth would be lower and tax cuts for middle Australia would be smaller, Mr Speaker.

He then goes to the same things we have heard many times before today.

People accusing pro-Palestine protesters of stirring up disharmony are ‘gaslighting’, Faruqi tells Nakba rally

The deputy leader of the Greens, Mehreen Faruqi, also addressed the Nakba rally out the front of Parliament House in Canberra a short time ago. The Nakba, meaning “the catastrophe” in Arabic, refers to the displacement and dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians around the time of the establishment of Israel in 1948.

Faruqi told the rally – attended by about 200 people – that Australia’s major political parties should focus on stopping the violence against Palestinians in Gaza rather than attempting to discredit the Greens and student protesters:

They want to say to those who stand up for justice for Palestine that we are stirring up community disharmony. That is shameless, it is shameful. It is blatant hypocrisy, and it is gaslighting of the worst kind. That is what they’re doing in there [referring to Parliament House].

The prime minister feels that a phone call, a few words of concern, some mild-mannered criticism, and a press release is enough. Well, I think that is just pathetic – that isn’t leadership.

Faruqi also spoke out against “the media complicity that dehumanises Palestinians”. She said:

We see young people setting up Gaza solidarity encampments in campuses across Australia, in campuses across the world – they are demanding that we build peace, not war. Communities are organising across the world … and this must be the longest running weekly protest movement in Australia’s history and you should all be very proud of being part of that history.

The first dixer is a version of “Just how amazing is this budget, treasurer?” to which Jim Chalmers is giving a version of his “It is very amazing, thanks for asking” answer.

We’ll hear this a few times, so I’ll mostly save you from the ins and outs.

Question time begins

Anthony Albanese addressed that travel advice ahead of question time:

Australia values our relationship with both New Caledonia and the French State. We respect and support the process and the discussions under way between all parties.

Peter Dutton agrees and urges people to heed the advice given how quickly the situation on the ground could change.

The travel advisory for Australians headed to New Caledonia has been upgraded to ‘exercise a high degree of caution’.

That is because of the protests and demonstrations taking part in the capital. From Smart Traveller:

Political demonstrations and protests are occurring and may turn violent at short notice. A curfew has been issued for the Noumea metropolitan area from 6pm on 14 May to 6am 15 May.

There’s potential for demonstrations in other locations. Essential services are impacted and flights have been cancelled.

The La Tontouta International Airport has closed. Avoid demonstrations, public gatherings and roadblocks. Minimise movement, monitor the media and follow the advice of local authorities (see ‘Safety’).

Australians needing emergency consular assistance should contact the Australian Government’s 24-hour Consular Emergency Centre on 1300 555 135 (within Australia) or +61 2 6261 3305 (from overseas).

We are just under 15 minutes away from the budget wash up question time.

Look – let’s be honest, it is not going to be exactly edifying. We’ll cover it so you don’t have to watch –but grab what you need to get through the next hour and a bit.

The never ending war on woke means National MPs continue to forget that the people who grow soy for tofu and milk are also farmers and supposedly part of their constituency.

And also that it is farmers (backed by Nationals MPs like Bridget McKenzie) who want non-animal products labelled something other than “milk” or “meat”.

And that some of us can not process dairy and dietary requirements are just that?

Turns out one of Australia’s billionaires isn’t too happy with the $300 energy rebate