Coalition to vote against fuel efficiency standard despite not seeing bill – as it happened

Australian Chamber of Commerce pushes for 2% minimum pay rise

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has put forward its submission to the Fair Work Commission on the minimum wage increase – and has landed on 2%.

The ACTU has gone with 5%. The government has said it doesn’t want workers to go backwards. Inflation is at 4%.

The ACCI says that wage costs are impacting businesses, that last year’s increase (5.75%) overestimated inflation and that another, similar increase will put business against the wall.

In terms of business against the wall – that’s pretty similar to what they said last year. And the year before. And yet, so far, businesses are not closing at the rate the ACCI warned they would. So why should anyone listen to those same warnings this year?

Chief executive Andrew McKellar told ABC radio:

I think there’s a number of factors that have to be taken into account here … last year we put forward a higher recommendation than we are this year.

The commission last year, granted a very big increase. So in terms of the minimum wage, last year, it was around 8.6%, well above the rate of inflation and … we’re seeing data we released with Westpac’s industrial trends survey for the March quarter, just yesterday, that shows that business conditions have got markedly tougher since the December quarter last year.

We’re seeing orders dropping away. We’re seeing investment moving sideways, we’re seeing a real sense of pessimism for many in business and importantly, labour demand is also starting to drop away.

So when you put those things together, when you put that together with the fact that inflation is coming off 4.1% in the last figures is expected to go lower.

When we get the March quarter figures next month. Productivity has been incredibly weak over the past 12 months, in fact, possibly negative. When you put all of that together, then we think that an increase of not more than 2% is the right outcome.

Paul Karp has covered the latest Essential poll here:

After the Coalition took the lead against Labor in February for the first time since the Albanese government’s election, the opposition appears to have retained an edge in two-party preferred terms with 50% of voters planning to vote for the Coalition versus 44% for Labor while 6% remain undecided.

Excluding undecided voters, the Coalition leads Labor 53% to 47%, up from 50-50 earlier in March, indicating the results are volatile but trending in the opposition’s direction.

Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton’s approval ratings are largely unchanged. Both have a -3% net favourability rating, with 35% of people polled giving Albanese a negative rating of between 0 and 3 on a 10 point scale, and 32% a positive rating of 7 to 10. For Dutton, 34% rated him negatively and 31% positively.

Penny Wong and Clare O’Neil have released a joint statement joining with the United Kingdom “in expressing serious concerns about malicious cyber activities by China state-backed actors targeting UK democratic institutions and parliamentarians”.

That is in response to this story:

The persistent targeting of democratic institutions and processes has implications for democratic and open societies like Australia. This behaviour is unacceptable and must stop.

Australia calls on all states to act responsibly in cyberspace.

Australia’s electoral systems were not compromised by the cyber campaigns targeting the UK. Australia remains well positioned to continue to resist and address threats to our electoral roll. This is critical to maintaining public trust in our democracy.

Australia will continue to cooperate with our international partners to promote international law and the agreed framework of responsible state behaviour in cyberspace and call out states if they act contrary to these international obligations and expectations.

The ministers say the Australian Electoral Commission has strong measures in place to protect the electoral roll information.

This includes working closely with members of the electoral integrity assurance taskforce to ensure Australia’s systems are protected from the threat of foreign interference.

Greens question if Labor will keep its election promise on discrimination

That leads to a what Adam Bandt thinks of the government’s position on religious discrimination – that it will only move forward if it has bipartisan support with the Coalition.

The Greens have offered to work with the government to pass legislation in this space, which, on the numbers, would pass the legislation in the senate without the Coalition’s support (the government would only need the support of a couple of the crossbench independent senators, and given the progressive nature of the Senate, it would be in a good position to receive that on this issue).

The government however, is putting the ball in the Coalition’s court, saying it won’t move without their support. Which so far, is not happening, as Labor and the Coalition are at cross purposes over what the bill should contain.

Bandt says:

We want to know whether Labor’s intending to keep its election promise – it went to the election very clearly saying that it would protect people from discrimination protect teachers and students from discrimination, while also taking steps to present prevent religious victimisation.

We want to know whether they are intending to keep their promises. We want to see legislation and we were promised a briefing. We’re getting a briefing, whether we’ll see the legislation or not, I don’t know.

I think legislation should be released. But the primary question is does the government intend to keep an election promise?

Or does Peter Dutton get a veto now over government election promises is there an asterisk on everything that Labor says that it’s Labor promises to do something, but only if Peter Dutton agrees?

We want to see what the legislation is we’re prepared to work with the government on this, and we want to see more protections for people in this country.

But the starting point is we’re not yet clear where the Labor wants to keep the election commitment at made to people in this country.

Bandt: Labor has to choose who they want to work with on climate

So is it linked?

Adam Bandt:

We’re saying to the government, they’ve got to choose who they want to work with on climate.

They want to work with us, we’re prepared to pass the legislation.

If they want to work with the climate deniers in Peter Dutton to lift pollution by fast-tracking gas projects in the middle of the climate crisis, then they can go and work with him for the rest of this year, including on their other legislation.

Pressed on that, Bandt says:

We’re saying to the government very, very clearly, that if Labor presses ahead with their plan to open up these massive new climate bombs in the middle of a climate crisis, then we’re going to reconsider our approach to the remainder of the legislation.

Why should the Greens help Labor with legislation to cut pollution on Monday, if Labor is going to turn around and work with Peter Dutton on Tuesday to lift pollution even more by opening new gas mines?

… I thought when we came to this parliament we’d be having a discussion with Labor about how quickly we cut pollution and get out of coal and gas.

I didn’t imagine Labor would be working with the climate deniers and Peter Dutton to fast track the opening of new gas projects by bypassing First Nations people and existing environment laws. So Labor needs to choose who they want to work with here.

Bandt confirms they will pass fuel efficiency standards if Labor drops gas deal with Coalition

So will the Greens hold up support for the fuel efficiency standards (which the Coalition do not support) if the government does a deal with the Coalition on gas?

Adam Bandt:

We’d like to say tougher vehicle emission standards so that we make electric cars cheaper and get more of them on the road quicker.

We want to say a target for example, in 2030, where you’re only buying electrical zero emissions vehicles.

We’ve made an offer to Labor that nonetheless, we would pass the legislation that they’ve announced up to date – if they weaken it, then we’re going to have to reconsider our position. But we’ve said to Labor, we’ll pass your legislation even though we’d like it to go further.

That sounds like the Greens will not link it to gas then.

Bandt:

That’s what I was about to say – we’ve offered to Labor, that we will pass your legislation even though we’d like it to go further. But you’ve got to drop this fast-track[ed] gas deal with the Coalition.

Bandt frustrated with Labor’s strategy of working with Liberals and tuning out crossbench

Greens leader Adam Bandt is speaking to ABC radio RN Breakfast about the government’s new gas bill which has created tension between the crossbench and Labor.

The Coalition appear to be supporting the government in this, which means the government doesn’t need to negotiate with the Greens or independents, a position which Labor is increasingly favouring when it comes to legislation.

Anthony Albanese has been very public about his “middle-of-the-road” strategy, which he believes will see Labor re-elected by appealing to voters put off by progressive politics (or on the other side, overly conservative politics). Labor is also fighting perceptions of a Labor-Greens alliance, meaning it is turning to the Coalition for legislative support, rather than going through the trouble of negotiating with the Greens.

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It’s frustrating Bandt, who said he thought he’d be entering a much different parliament.

Labor is now working with the Liberals to fast-track gas projects in the middle of a climate crisis.

Labor are climate con artists, they say that they want to cut emissions one day, and then they turn up to parliament the next and work with Peter Dutton and pass laws to fast track climate-destroying gas projects on emissions.

McManus welcomes ‘needed’ migration but says training in trades needs investment too

In the never ending push and pull over migration, building groups have joined the call to increase the number of tradies being brought into Australia through its migration programs to increase the housing supply.

To meet the goal of building 1.2m new homes every year, builders lobby groups say the nation will need 90,000 new workers in the next quarter (everyone is working to the new financial year here).

Peter Dutton called for an increase in skilled trades people being brought in late last year (but overall he still wants to see the numbers of migration drop).

This is not a new problem and it hasn’t happened in a vacuum overnight – it’s something which has been building over the last decade, both in terms of not enough new builds and not enough people being trained. The Coalition were in government for almost a decade and didn’t address this, so it is going to take more than just yelling from the sidelines to find a solution.

Sally McManus says:

The first has to be investing on training our people for apprentices, and so there’s been a lot of effort put there in terms of encouraging people and women, too, into the trades, to do that. So we should always be thinking about that.

Part of the reason why we’re in this trouble at the moment is because we didn’t invest for so long. And so now we don’t have enough skilled workers and where we’re going to bring in skilled migration - we’ve got to make sure that there’s proper shortage.

So the good thing is that the government set up a process to make sure that it is not a dodgy process and if they’re genuinely needed, that you do bring people in and also give them a path to permanency as well. And that stops exploitation.

ACTU boss calls for 5% pay rise for workers

Sally McManus says 5% is fair, given inflation is running at 4% and workers shouldn’t go backwards. Who would it benefit the most?

The average award or minimum-wage worker is a 35-year-old woman. So, she is likely to be in places like – she might be a childcare worker for example, or she might work in the community sector, she might work for maybe a clerical worker in a business somewhere.

So obviously, she’s got to pay her rent, she’s got to pay her groceries and she’s not been keeping up. So that means cut back and that’s cutbacks too, for businesses, if their customers don’t have money to pay for what they would normally pay for.

Union boss: claims minimum-wage workers are overcompensated are ‘appalling’

On ABC TV News Breakfast, ACTU boss Sally McManus has responded to the chamber of commerce and industry claims that minimum wage workers were over compensated for inflation last year in the fair work commission decision.

McManus says:

I think it’s pretty sad, actually. Appalling, that they’re saying that people should have a 2% increase.

They’re saying that the lowest-paid workers in the country should go backwards even further. I think that they need to consider … that those workers are actually the customers of their businesses.

Businesses are actually doing very well, if you want to put it into perspective.

The profits of the Commonwealth Bank, they in one year, would pay for the whole 5% increase for 2.9 million workers and still be one of the most profitable companies in the country for small businesses.

They’re able to adjust their prices if things go up. So like if their products go up in costs, they can adjust the prices. The only time that workers can adjust their prices to keep up with all of the wages is in the annual wage review or the bargaining with the union members.