Question time begins
The eleventh hour deal has not saved aged care minister Sam Rae from more questions from the opposition today.
Sussan Ley stands up and asks if Rae is aware that the prime minister negotiated with the opposition without him, and if he can’t be in the room for the big calls, why should elderly Australians trust him?
Rae starts and says the government is “proud” to be delivering these reforms.
That gets a huge groan and some shouts from the opposition. Rae continues:
This is a fantastic outcome for older Australians and their families who have the certainty that more care is on the way…
The new support at home program will help more older Australians to stay at home for longer and with a higher level of care so people can stay close to family and close to community.
He’s trying hard to spin this one as a win for the government.
Key events
Back to QT, and the opposition tries that question on again, asking if the government is aware of any information on the “ISIS brides” returning and if they’re prepared to receive them.
Albanese is not happy with this line questioning.
He gives an even shorter answer:
I refer to my previous answer.
Penry Buckley
Leaving QT for a quick moment.
Returning to NSW police minister Yasmin Catley‘s admission she may have overstated the number of antisemitic incidents in NSW, the minister’s office have shared a further breakdown of the incidents reported under Operation Shelter, which began on 11 October 2023.
Police have advised that as of 26 March 2025, 815 incidents had been reported, of which 367 were classified as antisemitic. This is about half of the figure of 700 incidents to which Catley and NSW premier Chris Minns have previously referred.
The Operation Shelter figure provided in estimates today – 663 – appears to refer to alleged criminal offences. NSW acting police commissioner Peter Thurtell suggested 41% of these offences had been reported as antisemitic.
It is not known what proportion of the 254 alleged offences that have resulted in charges relate to antisemitic events. Under Operation Shelter’s definition, “incident” also encompasses events that do not amount to an offence, or fall outside the operation’s scope.
Seems like we’ve moved on from aged care, Sussan Ley asks the government about reports Labor are helping bring so-called “ISIS brides” to Australia.
We get a very short (both in length and in sentiment) from the prime minister.
Those reports are not accurate.
You can read a bit more of the background here.
The government is under pressure on several pieces of legislation today, and independent MP Allegra Spender asks the PM a question on FoI requests.
Her question is about when the government will commit to publishing ministerial diaries and disclosing sponsored parliamentary orange pass holders – as the crossbench has called for.
Anthony Albanese says there was a meeting with MPs including crossbenchers on the FoI changes yesterday, and then talks about some of the justifications for the reforms.
Last year public servants spent more than one million hours processing FOIs. Not doing policy, not helping people out there with their issues…
He gets interrupted, and then Milton Dick boots out Liberal MP Jason Wood who continues to interject while Dick is speaking (an absolute no-no). Albanese continues:
There are real issues with the current system. One is the anonymous nature of requests, FOI applications.
He doesn’t mention releasing ministerial diaries or the disclosure of sponsored lobbyist passes.
Sussan Ley is back and puts a second question to Sam Rae, pressing him on the latest figures of Australians on the priority waitlist for an aged care package.
She asks how long the government has known this figure – when it was just revealed in the Senate today. That number was increased from 87,000 to 109,000.
Rae says there’s a verification process and that 87,000 figure was to the end of March this year.
There is a process of verification because the government doesn’t want to release incorrect information when it comes to the national priority system.
It’s a short answer, and he sits down as manager of opposition business, Alex Hawke, gets up and tries to get Rae to “correct his answer” if he’s aware he made an incorrect statement.
Speaker Milton Dick basically bats him away and says that wasn’t a point of order.
Question time begins
The eleventh hour deal has not saved aged care minister Sam Rae from more questions from the opposition today.
Sussan Ley stands up and asks if Rae is aware that the prime minister negotiated with the opposition without him, and if he can’t be in the room for the big calls, why should elderly Australians trust him?
Rae starts and says the government is “proud” to be delivering these reforms.
That gets a huge groan and some shouts from the opposition. Rae continues:
This is a fantastic outcome for older Australians and their families who have the certainty that more care is on the way…
The new support at home program will help more older Australians to stay at home for longer and with a higher level of care so people can stay close to family and close to community.
He’s trying hard to spin this one as a win for the government.
Not a deal but a defeat on aged care says opposition leader
The opposition has also called the government’s concession on its aged care bill a “small victory”.
Speaking to reporters following Pocock and Allman-Payne, opposition leader Sussan Ley says the government was dragged to this outcome.
This is not a deal, Prime Minister, this is a defeat because labor has been dragged kicking and screaming to implement what we have spent this week demanding that they do.
Anne Ruston says the win is in conjunction with the Greens and crossbench who pushed the government in the senate this morning, but adds that there’s so much work still to be done.
We’ve stood up for older Australians. We’ve pushed back against the government, and we had forced [them] to go into back flipping and agreeing to our amendments to release these packages.
Pocock and Allman-Payne claim credit for immediate release of 20,000 home care packages
David Pocock and the Greens senator Penny Allman-Payne are taking the win for pressuring the government into agreeing to immediately release 20,000 home care packages.
But they say those extra packages “don’t even touch the sides” of the issue with 200,000 elderly Australians currently on the waitlist.
Allman-Payne told reporters:
It took them [Labor] losing a vote on the floor of the Senate this morning, on Senator Pocock’s motion, to force them to act.
The government essentially cut the crossbench out, by making a deal with the opposition to pass the amendments to their aged care bill, which should go through later this afternoon. Pocock says:
I think over this term we’re going to see more and more of a government that is constantly trying to cut the crossbench out.
Allman-Payne also accused the government of obfuscating the real number of Australians on the priority waitlists, which she says is 20,000 higher than the government had been saying
I think the extent to which Minister Rae and the government have gone to hide the true extent of the aged care wait list has been astounding. We asked a direct question in the Senate this morning of the minister to give us that number, and she wouldn’t give it, and she didn’t give it until, essentially, it was put in front of her and she had to confirm it.
They says it’s just a “small victory” because there’s such a huge problem within the sector.
Benita Kolovos
Victorian minister refuses to comment on Daniel Andrews’ attendance at Beijing event
Victorian government minister Vicki Ward says former premier Daniel Andrews’ decision to attend a military parade in China is a choice he’s made “in his private capacity”. She told reporters this morning:
He’s going as a private individual and these are choices that he’s made in his private capacity. … It’s a matter for Daniel Andrews and I’m really not going to comment on choices that he’s made.
Asked by a reporter whether it was appropriate for a former Labor premier of Victoria to attend a “giant military parade of a communist country who’s made threats against Australia and the Pacific”, Ward replied:
It’s important that we always maintain good, healthy relationships with those countries that are in our region, that we as a government look after the interests of this state, whether it is economic or whether it is social, when we are in a moment where social cohesion has never been more important. It is very, very important that we have very careful, considered conversations around our relationships, both within this state but also external to this state.
Henry Belot
The Centre for Public Integrity has criticised the Albanese government’s proposed changes to freedom of information laws as “retrograde” and raised concerns they will further reduce transparency of decision making.
The attorney general, Michelle Rowland, has announced the biggest changes to transparency rules in more than a decade, including new charges for freedom of information requests to government departments and ministers, as well as tougher rules related to cabinet confidentiality.
Anonymous applications will be banned, and new rules designed to deter vexatious and frivolous requests introduced. Rowland has also flagged introducing tougher standards for access to documents containing advice to government and deliberative matters of ministers.
The Centre for Public Integrity said the change “spells trouble for public integrity and our democracy” and compared them to the satirical BBC comedy about the public service, Yes Minister.
The government’s concerns about encouraging frank, fearless and timely advice from public servants are not best addressed by more secrecy. It is a classic Yes Minister move, and it has no place in a modern democracy.
The Albanese Labor Government, returned by the Australian people this year with a thumping majority, has indicated in its first four months that it has little concern or incentive to promote the transparency it talked up in opposition.
Sarah Basford Canales
High court rules on NZYQ man
The high court has ruled to uphold the Albanese government’s decision to cancel a protection visa for a man within the NZYQ cohort it plans to deport to Nauru.
On Wednesday morning, the court ruled against reinstating the protection visa for an Iraqi man in his 60s, who was of the original three granted a 30-year resettlement visa in Nauru earlier this year.
The Human Rights Law Centre, which represents the man, said further legal challenges were afoot meaning his deportation to the tiny Pacific island could not happen until they were resolved.
One of those challenges sits with the United Nations Human Rights Committee, which issued an urgent interim request to the Australian government last month not to deport him to Nauru until it had resolved the case.
Laura John, an associate legal director at the HRLC, said the elderly man had lived through wars in Iraq and faced homelessness, destitution, and indefinite separation from his wife and children in Australia. John said he also had health complications. She continued:
Like every person, our client has a right to live in safety and dignity. The government has refused at every stage of this process to consider the lifelong consequences of permanently exiling an elderly man to Nauru.
This evening, a Senate committee will examine a home affairs bill proposing to strip natural justice from noncitizens with valid visas in an effort to expedite their deportation to third countries, like Nauru. The bill was introduced shortly before the Albanese government announced a $400m deal with Nauru to resettle about 280 members of the NZYQ cohort that were released from indefinite detention after a high court ruling in November 2023.
Amanda Meade
The court should take into account the significant pressure placed by former ABC chair Ita Buttrose on ABC management to sack Antoinette Lattouf and fine the broadcaster up to $350,000, the federal court has heard.
“The imperatives of deterrence call for [an] aggregate deterrent penalty in the range of $300,000-350,000,” Lattouf’s legal team has submitted in documents released by the court.
The ABC’s financial position and resources, as well as those of some of its competitors, indicates that higher penalties are required to achieve specific and general deterrence.
The ABC is asking the court to find it is liable for the much smaller penalty of up to $56,000.
The hearing has adjourned for lunch.
Amanda Meade
The ABC’s chief people officer Deena Amorelli has been cross-examined about Antoinette Lattouf’s unlawful termination at a federal court hearing into pecuniary penalties.
Justice Darryl Rangiah is hearing submissions from Lattouf and the ABC before he determines the scale of the fine for breaching the Fair Work Act.
Amorelli has told the court she was hired in early 2024 and she was not working at the ABC when Lattouf was sacked, but she did attend the nine-day federal court hearing in February and she has been nominated to represent the ABC.
Rangiah told Lattouf’s barrister Oshie Fagir his cross examination of Amorelli “has so far been a waste of time”.
I am wondering what the relevance of all of this is. I handed down a detailed judgment where I thought I indicated my view as to why the relevant processes under the enterprise agreement had not been followed.
Why does it matter if there was some separate, independent inquiry by the ABC about that issue when it’s largely dealt with?
Amorelli said she was unaware ABC managing director Hugh Marks had recently made comments to journalists about what he believed had gone wrong in the Lattouf case. Marks had not been appointed when Lattouf was terminated.
Last month Marks said the case was not easily resolved because the applicant was by that stage “funded”.
After the judgment was handed down in favour of Lattouf, the ABC released a statement saying: “We extend our sincere apologies to Ms Lattouf and wish her well in her future endeavours”.
Amorelli agreed no-one from the ABC has contacted Lattouf to apologise personally despite acknowledging the “distress occasioned her” in the statement.
The concession will mean there will be an additional cost to the budget, in bring the packages forward from 1 November, Butler says.
They’re asked a few times about the cost component of the deal and Rae initially says that the financial implications will be made clear in the MYEFO (midyear economic and fiscal outlook).
But pressed again, Butler says:
There will be an additional cost to that … I’m trying to be as honest as I can be with people that that this demand trajectory is steep and governments, for years, not the next few years, but for years ahead, are going to have to manage what is going to be for some time a big increase in demand.
Butler’s been put into quite an awkward position here – the government was basically filibustering in the Senate this morning trying to prolong debate to put pressure on the opposition to cave on their position.
Butler says it’s a “moving feast” – Labor voted against those amendments earlier, before 180-ing now and saying that the amendments will pass with Labor support this afternoon.
The health minister is also trying to cut David Pocock out of the deal, and says that while 20,000 packages that will be immediately released, that’s separate to the amendment that Pocock made, and it’s Anne Ruston’s amendment that was “more comprehensive”.
We’ve been negotiating with the coalition, we’ve been considering our position, and you know, at the end of the day, we have said the bill needs to pass before the end of this week, the bill did not need to pass yesterday. The bill needs to pass before the end of this week. We have been taking a sensible, measured approach to this, negotiating with the coalition
The concession means the government avoids a somewhat embarrassing vote against it in the Senate.
They already lost a vote on David Pocock’s amendment to release the 20,000 home care packages immediately.
Sam Rae has been fielding questions all week on the delays in question time, but now says he’s “very happy that we now have a bipartisan pathway to passing these bills.”
The government has said the delays followed wide consultations to ensure the sector was prepared. Butler is asked what he’d say to that now, and whether the sector’s preparedness has changed.
Butler says staffing is an issue but they have heard the sector has said they can provide those packages (the opposition has said this all week that the sector has told them they are ready for those extra packages).
Providers have said over the last little while, including in the Senate inquiry, very recently, that they are able to provide these packages if we put them into the market. Now, I guess now they have got that opportunity.
Government to support the Coalition’s amendments on the aged care bill
Chalmers hands over the baton in the blue room to Mark Butler and Sam Rae, who are waiting on the sides. (Some of the economics journos walk out and Butler jokingly calls them out as they leave).
As we’ve brought you, the government is under pressure and on a deadline to get its aged care legislation through the Senate. The main hold-up? The Coalition, Greens and crossbench pushing for home care packages to be immediately released, before the legislation is due to take effect on 1 November.
Butler says there’s been a “good” debate and discussion around those home care packages – and has made an agreement with the Coalition to pass their amendments.
We have to get this legislation through the parliament this week. If we don’t, there is simply no way we can introduce the new aged care system on the first of November.
This means 20,000 additional home care packages will be released between now and 1 November, between November and 31 December there will be another 20,000 packages released, and the remaining 43,000 packages will be released until 30 June 2026.
I think that that reflects an agreed position between the two major parties … I hope now that means we can get this legislation through the Senate.
Jim Chalmers says economy in an ‘enviable position’ after latest GDP figures
Jim Chalmers says the latest GDP figures are very welcome and shows the Australian economy is gaining momentum.
To recap, the latest national accounts figures showed the economy expanded by a stronger than expected 0.6% in the three months to June, thanks almost entirely to a big jump in consumption. But Australia did recorded its weakest year-on-year growth since the early 1990s, excluding the pandemic, with real GDP in 2024-25 climbing by just 1.3%.
Speaking to reporters in Parliament House, Chalmers says the growth has come from the private sector, as well as an increase in household spending – which he attributes to higher wages and tax cuts.
Our economy is in an enviable position despite all our challenges that we acknowledge and are upfront about, the comparisons with our peers show that we are in an enviable position.
Consumption is growing because real incomes are growing.
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