I have no quarrel with you, good Sir Knight, but I must cross this bridge
The Gen X is strong in the chamber today.
It’s only a scratch … question time can descend to the depths of absurdity. Photograph: RONALD GRANT
We had Little Britain earlier, and now we have Monty Python.
Ed Husic:
When asked whether there are different views on that side, always negative, always nasty all the time but they are celebrating an anniversary today. It was 10 years ago today when the Coalition brought in knights and dames, as absurd as Monty Python’s knights …
Just waiting for someone to mention Seinfeld and we will have the Gen X trifecta, where I assume the chosen Gen Xer will be found – one Gen Xer to be forgotten by all.
Greens leader asks about resources bill that would ‘weaken voices of traditional owners’
Adam Bandt gets the next non-dixer and asks:
Labor promised to strengthen environment laws and backed the Uluru Statement, but after big gas corporations … complained about traditional owners winning court cases, Labor is waving a bill through the house that gives the resources minister the power to override federal court decisions and remove additional protections. Why is Labor working with the Liberals to approve new projects, and weaken the voices of traditional owners?
Madeleine King (after a preamble):
What we’re doing right now is making sure consultation provisions are indeed improved so they are clearer for everyone concerned, be they owners or the wider community that hosts these projects, or has concerns over them no matter where they are from.
This is the point of the consultation we are undertaking now. We have extended it and many people have submitted to it.
This Senate inquiry last week revealed that traditional owners, as well as the wider community, as well as of course proponents, are frustrated by the lack of certainty around the consultation provisions as they now stand.
I am of the view, and this government, that we would rather pursue reform to make it more certain through legislation, rather than let this endless lawyers’ picnic continue.
You may shake your head, member for Melbourne, but the truth is the Greens political party would prefer lawyers to get a lot of money pursuing this through the courts and wasting everybody’s time - wasting the courts’ time, I might add, rather than leading environmental regulators look over proposals and make sure that consultation is required to be face-to-face, has guardrails around it, introduces certainty for everybody.
Not just, you know, bits of pieces of who has interest on money, to go to court, who has access - millionaires go to courts, as you well know, and publicly funded bodies to get donations from rich international trusts - they go to process these through the courts. I want to end the lawyers picnic, and stop the - they are dodgy.
Chris Bowen says vehicle efficiency standards consultation ‘very close to conclusion’
The LNP’s Michelle Landry asks Chris Bowen a bit of a franken-question:
The minister said Labor’s new family car and ute tax is bringing Australia into line with United States status by 2028. The Biden administration has abandoned its original policy with fear that it would increase the price of new cars for families. Why are Australian families facing higher prices and fewer choices because of his government’s failed energy policies?
Bowen:
A lot in there, but I will focus on the new vehicle efficiency standards. On this side of the house, we have had enough of Australian motorists being second-class citizens. They have been the dumping ground for motoring companies sending out to Australia [what] they aren’t able to send to other countries.
What the minister for transport and I have been doing is a very similar process to that taken by the previous government when they thought about doing this, Mr Speaker.
Putting out a preferred model and consulting on it. That is what we have been doing. That consultation is very close to a conclusion. We will have more to say. We have looked at the United States as part of that.
But the difference is, when the member for Bradfield was consulting on his model he got rolled and they rolled over the policy. They were happy to have Australian motorists treated at the back of the queue for the world’s motoring companies, and we aren’t.
We believe we should have similar status to the rest of the world and we got out of the G2 of Australia and Russia, the only two countries without vehicle efficiency standards.
Victoria police assistant commissioner caught speeding says he is ‘mortified’
A Victoria police assistant commissioner responsible for road policing says he’s “truly sorry” after he was caught speeding.
In a statement issued on Monday, Victoria police confirmed Road Policing assistant commissioner Glenn Weir was detected speeding on 29 February in Parkville while driving to a meeting.
They said a mobile speed camera detected Weir’s unmarked police vehicle travelling at 58km/h in a 50km/h zone on Manningham Street at 10.55am.
According to police, Weir was of the belief he was in a 60km/h zone at the time.
He received notification of the fine on Friday and although eligible for a warning due to his good driving record, he said he will pay the $337. Weir will also receive one demerit point.
He said in a statement:
I take full responsibility for this error and am mortified it has occurred. I’ve spent my entire career advocating for road safety and this incident proves nobody is immune from making a mistake on the road. No matter how far over the limit, all speeding is unacceptable. For someone in my position this is especially true. I am truly sorry.
Jason Clare took a question on tertiary education costs from independent MP Dai Le, but the answer dissolved into a back and forth with Peter Dutton.
Clare:
Are you smiling? Are you smiling? Are you smiling?
… I have never seen you so happy. Smile a bit more.
… Now he is angry. Like a try-hard Tony Abbott, all the anger without the onion.
Paul Karp said Dutton had been heckling Clare over the first part of his answer (where he talks about growing up in Fowler) which is what led to the exchange.
You are so good. You’re unbelievably good. Tell us more about yourself. Tell us more about your first friendship.
(The answer was that is what the university accords are working on, which is the standard answer at this point of time)
Pat Conroy, the defence industry minister, takes a dixer to promote the news from last week that the German parliament had approved the acquisition of more than 100 Boxer Heavy Weapon Carrier vehicles from Australia.
Conroy says the deal - which was flagged last year when Anthony Albanese visited Berlin - is the largest defence export agreement in Australia’s history. The vehicles are to be built by Rheinmetall at its Military Vehicle Centre of Excellence in Redbank, Queensland.
Because this is a dixer, Conroy cannot resist taking aim at the Coalition. He says the shadow defence minister, Andrew Hastie, “took real glee” last year in suggesting that the export deal with Germany might be dead.
For the record, in July last year, Hastie accused the government of handling the relationship with Germany “very poorly”.
Hastie told Sky News that the decision to select a South Korean bidder for the infantry fighting vehicle project happened two weeks after the export deal with Germany was announced, “and we’re told that that deal with the Germans is now at risk – this is poor relationship management from the government”.
Then in September Hastie told Sky News saving the deal with Germany was emerging as “a test of leadership for Anthony Albanese” because “now it’s going to slip through his fingers”.
LNP MP Cameron Caldwell (just had to check that as there is a trend of similar looking middle aged men filling the Coalition backbench) asks:
Labor’s energy policy is driving prices up and reliability down, as the Energy Market Operator revealed that gas generators might need to run on diesel to keep the power grid running and the lights on … during the looming catastrophic gas supply shortfall, this will add unnecessary costs to household and the users. And it will hinder efforts to cut carbon dioxide emissions. [Are] Australians facing high prices and fewer choices because of this governments failed energy policies?
Chris Bowen:
I’m not sure if he read the case statement of opportunities because if he had he might have asked the question differently because every statement of opportunities since 2013 has warned of shortfalls, every single year has warned of a shortfall from 2013 to 2022.
The difference is last week’s gas statements of opportunities pointed to the actions of this government … in the shortfall move out to the outer years.
The outer years – because of the gas code of conduct has been put in place by this government.
There was a vote on the gas code of conduct in the other house. And the Greens moved the disallowance of the gas code of conduct as is their want, I didn’t understand why because the gas code of conduct applies to domestic not international but the Greens knew that, they had support from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and senator Babbett of the Palmer United party. A collision of some interesting persuasions there but they had the support and Senator Canavan and turn up and vote for the disallowance and the rest of the Liberal party because they didn’t want to support the code of conduct.
The fact of the matter is the gas code of conduct, like other policies that we put in place by the minister of resources and industry, the treasurer and I the prime minister, have been dealing with the situation of gas shortages that those opposite were warned about, they promised a gas led recovery and all they did was gaslight the Australian people for nine years.
Butler took a dixer on vaping legislation so he could say:
The bill introduced last week will outlaw the supply, the manufacturer and the commercial possession of vapes in this country other than the genuinely therapeutic reasons. To those who say this amounts to probation, I say it is no more prohibition than the regulation of codeine in recent years.
Our extensive consultation around this shows health experts, parent groups and school community leaders expect decisive action from this parliament and that is why so many of them would have been so troubled by the report that [New Corp journalist] James Campbell wrote on the weekend that the opposition is planning to entrench vaping and milk it to fund their election policies. Milk it to fund election policies.
Paul Fletcher is not impressed with this straying off topic and Milton Dick sort of agrees, so Butler returns to the legislation, but he has got his point across so will be taking that as a win.
Richard Marles takes a dixer to do the usual “compare and contrast”. The defence minister says his government’s Aukus announcement last week was “really positive” but the opposition “cannot avoid playing politics”.
Marles says the A$4.6bn (£2.4bn) that Australia would send to the UK over the next 10 years would enable the expansion of the Rolls-Royce nuclear reactor production line at Derby (but the government has not yet spelled out exactly what it will fund in more detail).
Marles says contrary to claims by the opposition late last week, all of this money was “fully provided for in the allocation that was part of the initial Aukus announcement last year”.
Milton Dickstops PM during answer because he says Peter Dutton is yelling at him
Dick:
The leader of the opposition continually yelling at me has never happened at all before from the position of the leader of the opposition. It has to stop. If the leader of the opposition wishes to take a point of order he shall always receive the call. That is the appropriate action rather than simply yelling at me.
Dutton:
The prime minister was asked a very tight question. There are families who just can’t work out how they can pay their bills under this government at the moment, and we get a glib response from the prime minister. I ask whether it is your ruling that the prime minister is relevant to the question he has been asked.
The question Dutton had asked Albanese was:
The prime minister promised on 100 occasions to the Australian people before the election that he would cut power prices by $275. He has never mentioned that figure since. At the moment, 500 families a week enter into energy hardship arrangements because they cannot pay their bills, a nearly 60 per cent increase on Labor’s watch. Will the prime minister apologise to struggling families?
Albanese went into the “22 different energy policies” answer, along with the Coalition voting against the energy bill relief, which is what has Dutton so annoyed.
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