End of an era for Shorten and Dutton’s Friday morning Today show appearances

Regular viewers of the Today Show (or regular readers of this blog) may know that NDIS minister Bill Shorten and opposition leader Peter Dutton make a regular, Friday morning appearance on the show – discussing the week that was, and trading jibes.

They usually appear on two separate screens, but today, they stood side-by-side in one of Parliament’s many courtyards – discussing what went down in the Senate yesterday.

Dutton likened the guillotine motion to a “going out of business sale” and said:

It was like everything discounted and whatever it takes to clear the shelves … The Albanese government is sort of running on three flat tires at the moment, and they are limping to Christmas. They’re just getting out of this Parliament. They they spent a monster of taxpayers money to get the Greens across the line in a pretty unholy alliance, and I think people see through it.

After a bit of back-and-forth on the economy and energy, the pair hugged it out – as Shorten is retiring from politics next year, and this marks their last cross together. Dutton joked:

It’s been a rough night when you’re embracing Bill in the morning, that’s all I’ll say.

As Simon Birmingham announced his retirement in the Senate yesterday, he expressed concern “the world is headed into an era where populism trumps the policy”.

Speaking earlier this morning, he pointed to the US as an example of where this is happening and said:

I think those who have sought to play politics, and it’s happened on both the far left and the far right with issues like abortion, that is not the Australian way. I was very pleased to see Peter Dutton slap it down and be very clear about his view that they are state matters, and I think also show that he understands the respect that Australian women expect for their reproductive rights – and it’s just not a debate that we want to have infiltrate our politics like it plays out in the US.

Watts says Greens and Coalition ‘came to their senses and realised they needed to get this done’ by supporting legislation

Murray Watt defended the “guillotine” motion in the Senate yesterday to pass a slew of legislation, and said it is “no surprise that you do end up with a bit of a log jam at the end of the term”.

This is a larger number than usual, but I’m really pleased that yesterday the Senate did work together, with the government, to pass a bunch of legislation …

He was also asked about comments from Greens leader Adam Bandt that “pressure works”, after it negotiated a number of measures in exchange for supporting the government’s guillotine. But Watt again labelled them as ‘blockers’ of legislation:

They have clearly heard the message that the Australian people are sick of them blocking progressive reform, rather than working with the government to get it done.

I think the Greens – and for that matter the opposition – who supported us on some other legislation recognised it wasn’t going to be in their interests to go through the summer break, trying to explain to people why they stopped more housing being built, cost of living relief being provided, why they stopped online safety measures being taken.

That’s what this legislation was about and I think they came to their senses and realised they needed to get this done.

Press conference in Canberra concludes

Anthony Albanese said his thoughts were with the deputy prime minister Richard Marles, who will farewell his mother in Melbourne today.

Richard Marles is someone who is very well liked across the parliament and loved by his colleagues. He is such a great person, and his mother was clearly an extraordinary Australian as well – trailblazer in education – and our thoughts will be with him today.

With that, the prime minister wrapped up the press conference.

Jim Chalmers on changes to the Reserve Bank

Overnight, the government agreed to support Greens amendments to retain the power to override Reserve Bank decisions on interest rates and for the RBA to direct the lending activities of banks.

Speaking on this just now, treasurer, Jim Chalmers said:

The passage of this legislation means that we can get on with strengthening and modernising the Reserve Bank … We will consult with the opposition in good faith, as we’re obligated to do, to make sure that the people that we appoint to the new governance board and the new monetary policy board are first class and first rate …

The timing of the passage of the Reserve Bank reforms was not in our hands. If it were up to us, we would have passed it a long time ago, and we would have already had the new arrangements in place.

Chalmers said the government accommodated “every single one” of the oppositions concerns and made changes to the legislation to accomodate this, but “they still said no, and that meant that we had to negotiate with the crossbench”.

That wasn’t our first preference, but it was made necessary by the irresponsible behaviour of the Coalition. And so the mistake that we made for too long was to take Angus Taylor seriously on these matters when his colleagues don’t.

Albanese looks to crossbench to advance electoral reforms

On the would-be electoral reforms, which were not successful, the prime minister said the government would “look for other paths and roads to success”.

Anthony Albanese said he had indicated to the crossbench that “it is not sustainable in a democracy to have individuals contributing tens of millions of dollars”.

That damages our democracy, because it takes away the principle that everyone gets an equal say in our democracy … People know that over the last couple of elections, there’s been a couple of $100m dollars contributed by one individual, and that is not healthy for our democracy. So we’ll engage constructively, and I’ve already had some discussions this week with the crossbench, and we’ll engage with the crossbench to see if we can progress reforms.

The legislation faced criticism from the crossbench of attempting to “rig” electoral rules in a “major party stitch-up”.

PM says government ‘inherited immigration system not fit for purpose’

On migration, the prime minister said the government “wants an inclusive Australia that stands up for that” – but “we understand as well that our migration system needs to be robust and needs to not be manipulated”.

Anthony Albanese said the government “inherited an immigration system that wasn’t fit for purpose”.

On Peter Dutton’s watch, there was a huge spike in the number of applications onshore, we had three reviews into the migration system, from the former head of prime minister and cabinet, from senior respected authorities in this area – all of them said that the immigration system that we inherited was a mess, so we have to clean up a whole range of issues.

Asked about the third-country arrangement – and which countries would be paid to take non-citizens from Australia – the PM did not answer directly:

We’ll implement our legislation.

Albanese says last remaining bills ‘carried overwhelmingly’ through lower house today

Speaking on the sheer volume of legislation that was passed through the Senate last night, Anthony Albanese said some had “2023” attached to them – “that’s the hint for how long it has been around”.

There was legislation last night that has remained in the Senate for a long period of time to literally change the references to Queen Elizabeth … I would have thought that should have passed the Senate in a minute after it was introduced, but no …

It’s beyond my comprehension why that was still around and not just flowed through. [But] we got our legislation through.

It was all good legislation that was supported by the Senate and in the house today. Most of the bills, I think there are about four or five divisions, but they carried overwhelmingly.

PM on the under-16 social media ban

Taking questions from reporters, Anthony Albanese is clearly framing the under-16 social media ban as an election pitch to parents. The prime minister said:

This is something that tomorrow, on the sidelines of sporting events – whether it be netball or cricket season at the moment, or tennis or little athletics – mums and dads will be talking about this. And they’ll be talking about it when they pick up their young ones from school this afternoon, and hopefully this morning, dropping them off as well.

This has been an issue that has raised with me more, or at least as much, as any other issue by people when I’m out and about, and what we’ve done is world-leading…

We don’t argue that its implementation will be perfect, just like the alcohol ban for under 18 doesn’t mean that someone under 18 never has access, but we know that it’s the right thing to do.

Chalmers says Coalition has ‘vacated the field on economy’

Also addressing the media is treasurer Jim Chalmers, who said there was still a lot to do, but:

What we saw in the Senate last night was really the triumph of outcomes over politics, the triumph of outcomes and delivery and progress over the kind of petty, nasty, negative politics being played by our opponents.

He argued that the Coalition had “completely vacated the field on the economy”, and took aim at them for not having “any costed, credible or coherent economic policies” at the end of the parliamentary term.

The treasurer recognised the crossbench, saying:

The best kind of economic reform is bipartisan, but when the Coalition has vacated the field, we have no choice but to make progress with the crossbench. I acknowledge them…

Gallagher says number of bills passed not record but ‘right up there’

The finance minister, Katy Gallagher, also addressed the media in Canberra about the number of bills passed through the Senate.

The PM made it clear that he wanted to see legislation get through the Senate, and we were able to do that – so I took those instructions seriously. We worked hard across the chamber, and got an extraordinary result.

Gallagher said the Senate coud be a “frustrating chamber” where it was “difficult to progress legislation, particularly when you’ve got an opposition that doesn’t want to see any reform passed”.

So working across the chamber, with the PM’s leadership, we were able to convince the majority of the Senate that those 45 bills were important bills to get through … It was a big, big night. You don’t often get a 37-page guillotine and about six hours of voting …

At the end of the day, we passed 31 bills yesterday and 45 bills through the week, which I don’t think it’s quite the record, but it’s certainly right up there.

Murray Watt on the Nature Positive legislation – what happened?

As we’ve reported, Anthony Albanese killed off a potential deal with the Greens to pass the government’s “nature positive” legislation after an intervention by the Western Australia premier, Roger Cook.

Watt said “we would certainly like to see this legislation passed … before the election” – but host Patricia Karvelas asked if there was a deal with the Greens, why not pass it?

The Greens, just as they did with the housing issue … have been attaching conditions to their support, which were unacceptable to us …

Karvelas pointed out that there was an agreement in writing with the Greens – but Watt said he wasn’t aware of this.

My understanding is that there have been extensive negotiations with the Greens that have gone on for some time, and they simply weren’t prepared to back in the legislation as it stood. And that’s disappointing.

Karvelas said there was also a deal in writing with David Pocock. Watt said he hadn’t heard about this.

This is the first time that’s been brought to me, and I haven’t seen the document that you’re quoting from. We have made very clear that we would like to pass that piece of legislation, but that the Greens in particular, had conditions we were unwilling to agree to.

Watt says he would discuss under-16 social media ban with Trump administration if it’s a concern

The minister for employment and workplace relations, Murray Watt, also spoke with ABC RN earlier about the under-16 social media ban.

Would figures like Elon Musk – the owner of X, outspoken against the legislation – cause problems when it comes to working with the incoming Donald Trump administration? Watt responded:

I think Elon Musk has already made clear what he thinks of our world-leading legislation, and I don’t think any of us should be surprised that he has a different view to the Australian government on these matters, given he runs and owns a platform. But our focus has always been protecting Australian kids.

Brought back to the point about Trump, Watt said: “We’ll obviously talk to Donald Trump’s administration if that’s an issue that they want to talk to us about.

We expect that there will be a whole range of issues to talk about with Donald Trump and his administration once he’s inaugurated in January. Of course, there are concerns around trade issues and tariff issues as well. It’s not unusual for us to have different issues with different partners around the world. And if this is something that the Trump administration’s got a concern about, then we’d be happy to talk with them about it. But as I say, we’re not backing off from the work that we’ve done to protect Australian kids and protect Australian families.

Tink criticises would-be electoral reform that would have ‘killed off community independent movement’

Kylea Tink was also asked about the government’s electoral reforms – which were not passed after a deal between the government and opposition hit a roadblock.

The independent agreed she was breathing a sigh of relief, but argued this “should be very loud alarm for Australians in terms of the arrogance of the two party system and their attitudes around our democracy”.

The longer I sort of sat with it, it was pretty clear the intent of that legislation was to kill off the community independent movement.

Now, at a time when one in three people at the last election voted for a major party … I think it sends a message, as I said about the arrogance of the two party system and its desire to protect itself.

Here are the details on the would-be bill, which was fiercely criticised by the crossbench:

Adam Bandt on Nature Positive – what happened?

On the Nature Positive legislation – and Anthony Albanese’s decision to kill off a potential deal with the Greens to pass it after intervention by the WA premier – Adam Bandt said it was “bitterly disappointing.”

[Roger Cook] made it clear that the loggers and the miners didn’t want Labor to protect environment and the forests, and Labor did what they were told, and it’s bitterly disappointing.

So the Greens had an agreement with environment minister Tanya Plibersek, and then with the PM – what happened, and did she know about the meeting? Bandt said:

I think I’ll let what those public statements – including from the Labor government over in Western Australia – speak for themselves.

He went on to say that Sarah Hanson-Young “worked very hard on this” and the Greens made a number of compromises.

I think the reasons the that we didn’t get the protections passed aren’t the fault of the Greens or the environment minister … It was like a mining tax campaign sped up. You had in the middle of the week, you had the big resource corporations saying on the front page of the paper, ‘these laws can’t go ahead’. And then you had the West Australian Labor premiers delivering for those big resource corporations, and we’ve managed to kill it.

Bandt says Greens ‘did push hard’ on housing legislation, but ‘for a reason’

Adam Bandt also weighed in on whether that had been an impasse between the Greens and Labor over legislation in recent months, with the government routinely labelling them as “blockers”.

The Greens leader said when it came to housing, “we’ve been saying to the government, you’ve got to take this seriously, and there’s an opportunity in this Parliament to actually do something about it.”

We pushed the government hard on stage three tax cuts early in the [year], and they changed their mind on that … We were hoping that we might get the government over the line on things like rent caps and reforming some of those unfair tax concessions [to level] the playing field [for] first home buyers. And so yes, we did push hard … but we did it for a reason …

We were going to the point where they were costing the [negative] gearing changes and actually looking at this and examining it, so we got pretty close.

Bandt argued that as a result of this, “the debate has changed” in the lead up to the next election and there is “an understanding that we’re going to have to dig deep” on housing.

Canavan says under-16 social media ban has caused new generation to become passionate about democracy

Nationals senator Matt Canavan was loudly outspoken against the under-16 social media ban bill and voted against it – but as we know, the bill ultimately passed.

In a late-night post to X after the legislation passed, he said there would be a “silver lining” from the “shameful stitch-up in the Senate” – that a “whole new generation of young Australians are now activated and passionate about their democracy.”

It has been great seeing people learn how the parliament works. And with that in mind, note that the social media bill is not yet law. Tomorrow morning it heads back to the House of Representatives because there were amendments passed in the Senate tonight. It then has to go to the governor general. But both these steps are almost certain to happen.

Thanks again for all of your help and support. We got some amendments on digital ID so it was not for nothing and the fight continues.

But not all bills welcomed

Continuing from our last post: not all of the bills have been warmly welcomed. The Digital Industry Group said “significant questions” remained about the impacts of the under-16 social media ban on young people.

Managing director Sunita Bose said it would work with the government “as its implementation questions are explored”.

This law has passed despite advice from Australia’s human rights commissioner, the children’s commissioner, the privacy commissioner, 100 youth experts in an open letter to the prime minister and a coalition of mental health organisations. The consultation process must be robust in addressing their concerns…

While there are technical and privacy questions, the most important questions are those relating to the safety of young people. The social media ban could push young people into darker, less safe corners of the knternet that do not have the safety guardrails that exist on mainstream platforms.

The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre labelled the migration bills which passed the Senate as “deplorable, political game-playing that causes devastating harm”. CEO Kon Karapanagiotidis said:

The Albanese government and the Coalition blatantly colluded in the ultimate betrayal of Australia’s multicultural communities … our two major political parties sent a clear message that they are prepared to punish refugees, people seeking asylum and migrant communities by tearing families apart, jailing people unjustly, detaining them indefinitely and deporting them back to the very persecution and harm they fled…

Our clear message to those political leaders today is: you are wrong and the fight is not over.

Oxfam welcomes ‘step forward for tax transparency’

Organisations and groups have woken up to a slew of bills having passed the Senate, and welcomed different pieces of legislation they have advocated for.

Oxfam Australia has welcomed the passing of legislation outlining country-by-country reporting rules of multi-national corporate tax and profit information as “a significant step forward for tax transparency.” Chief executive officer Lyn Morgain said:

It’s not just Australia that will benefit. Many multinational corporations that operate in Australia also operate in many other countries across the world. Australia’s transparency will have ripple effects that benefit low-income countries who desperately need the tax revenue for basic services.

Meanwhile, the Digital Industry Group (Digi) welcomed the privacy amendment bill as helping “level up children and young people’s privacy on a wide range of services”. Managing director Sunita Bose said:

Digi fully supports the need to reform the Privacy Act to give Australians more choice, control and transparency over their personal information and to drive greater corporate accountability economy-wide. We’re glad there’s been progress towards the wider privacy reform efforts through the passage of this first privacy bill, and look forward to engaging in the next stages of the process.

Under-16 social media ban, explained

The federal government’s social media ban for under-16s has been passed in the Senate.

It is unclear how the new rules will be applied or enforced, and if the legislation will require all Australians to hand over more of their personal data.

Read Josh Butler’s explainer about where we are:

Explainer: Six things we learned about the Australian government’s climate policies

The political classes may have been more focused on the passage or otherwise of legislation yesterday, but the huge dump of information about how the government is managing the climate crisis is arguably just as important.

Our environment editor, Adam Morton, has been sifting through the data and comes up with six things you need to know about what is happening – from emissions on a downward trend (but not enough) to why the government needs to set even more ambitious targets.

Political analysis from Paul Karp

Despite the trade-offs, the marathon effort in the upper house has done a lot to cement Labor’s first-term agenda, writes our chief political correspondent, Paul Karp.

It came after a year of fighting between Labor and its progressive rivals, the Greens. But when push came to shove there was enough agreement on getting things done. He writes:

This week Albanese and Labor have shown that they can deal for their legislative agenda. They are hoping that the 2025 election won’t see them dealing for the continued life of their government.

List of 32 bills that passed Senate overnight

We should probably start with the real business of last night and the slew of bills passed by the Senate. You can read Sarah Basford Canales’ account of how they got over the line here:

And here’s the list of 32 bills:

• Anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing amendment bill 2024

• Sydney airport demand management amendment bill 2024

• Aged care (consequential and transitional provisions) bill 2024

• Commonwealth entities (payment surcharges) bill 2024

• Commonwealth entities (payment surcharges) tax (imposition) bill 2024

• Commonwealth entities (payment surcharges) (consequential provisions and other matters) bill 2024

• Treasury laws amendment (responsible buy now pay later and other measures) bill 2024

• Capital works (build to rent misuse tax) bill 2024

• Crimes amendment (strengthening the criminal justice response to sexual violence) ill 2024

• Family law amendment bill 2024

• Future Made in Australia (guarantee of origin) bill 2024

• Future Made in Australia (guarantee of origin consequential amendments and transitional provisions) bill 2024

• Future Made in Australia (guarantee of origin charges) bill 2024

• Future Made in Australia bill 2024

• Future Made in Australia (omnibus amendments No. 1) bill 2024

• Universities accord (national student ombudsman) bill 2024

• Treasury laws amendment (fairer for families and farmers and other measures) Bill 2024

• Superannuation (objective) bill 2023

• Treasury laws amendment (Reserve Bank reforms) bill 2023

• Customs tariff amendment (incorporation of proposals and other measures) bill 2024

• Communications legislation amendment (regional broadcasting continuity) bill 2024

• Crown references amendment bill 2023

• Customs amendment (ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand free trade area second protocol implementation and other measures) bill 2024

• Midwife professional indemnity (Commonwealth contribution) scheme amendment bill 2024

• Treasury laws amendment (2024 tax and other measures No. 1) bill 2024

• Privacy and other legislation amendment bill 2024

• Surveillance legislation (confirmation of application) bill 2024

• Treasury laws amendment (mergers and acquisitions reform) bill 2024

• Migration amendment bill 2024

• Migration amendment (removal and other measures) bill 2024

• Migration amendment (prohibiting items in immigration detention facilities) bill 2024

• Online safety amendment (social media minimum age) bill 2024