From Jack the Insider: Alternative leaders who could seamlessly move into the Lodge while keeping the baying within the party down to a dull roar are as scarce as rocking horse excreta. Julie Bishop? Malcolm Turnbull in stilettoes. No solution there. Tony Abbott does not have the support base within his own party and there
By Leith van Onselen Pressure within the Turnbull to cut Australia’s mass immigration intake continues to build, with former Prime Minister Tony Abbott this morning repeating his call to slash immigration to alleviate pressures on housing affordability and infrastructure. From The SMH: Former prime minister Tony Abbott says there is nothing “sacrosanct” about Australia’s immigration
Crossbench senator Derryn Hinch says: “The problem here is that people, and it’s unpopular to say this, but owning your own home is not an Australian right,” Senator Hinch told ABC radio. “It’s a dream and everybody wants to do it. My parents, they were in their 40s before they could afford to buy their
From The ABC a few days ago: Federal Cabinet formally examined the impact of tax breaks on Australia’s booming housing market in early 2016 but decided not to act, an ABC investigation has revealed. …instead of making changes last year, the Coalition embarked on a blistering campaign against Labor’s plans to curb property tax concessions. That
From The Australian: The Australian understands that after the Coalition’s decision to rule out an emissions intensity scheme, which puts a price on carbon in the electricity market to encourage investment in renewables, the government is warming to an alternative market signal that would put in place a 50-year rule for Australia’s fleet of coal-fired
Vale John Clarke, via the ABC: Celebrated satirist and comedian John Clarke has died suddenly, aged 68. Clarke was born in New Zealand but made his name as a comedian and political satirist in Australia after arriving in the 1970s. For 27 years, he has appeared on Australian television conducting mock interviews and skewering politicians
It governs exclusively for them, yet Do-nothing Malcolm has lost the Boomers, via The Australian: Older Australians are deserting Malcolm Turnbull’s government in a powerful swing that is fuelling the rise of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, with the federal Coalition suffering a 10 per cent fall in support among voters older than 50 since the last
This is what chaos in government looks like. From Thursday: Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has refused to back regime change in Syria even if it turns out that President Bashar Assad is to blame for a chemical weapons attack that killed scores of children. Instead Ms Bishop said it was up to Russia and Iran to
From the real estate Treasurer today: Treasurer Scott Morrison has today announced the appointment of David Irvine AO as Chair of the Foreign Investment Review Board, replacing outgoing Chair Brian Wilson. Mr Irvine will begin his five year term on 16 April 2017. The Board is a non-statutory body established in 1976 to provide advice
Recall this from yeserday’s AFR: The push inside the Turnbull government to curb the capital gains tax concession for housing investors is “hanging by a thread”, amid growing external pressure to target tax incentives to help combat the nation’s housing affordability crisis. As the government grapples over the content of the housing affordability package it
By Leith van Onselen More details have emerged on how the Turnbull Government performed a back-flip on reforms to negative gearing and the capital gains tax (CGT) discount in the lead-up to last year’s Federal Budget. From The ABC: Federal Cabinet formally examined the impact of tax breaks on Australia’s booming housing market in early
UBS has a go at it today: Executive Summary – Electricity & Gas Prices Surging We believe energy prices (both electricity and gas) are highly likely to undergo sustained upward pressure across the eastern states (SA, VIC, NSW and QLD) over the next few years. Both the business and household sectors look set to endure
From raging troglodyte Peter Dutton today with Ray Hadley: Mr Dutton also said the Coalition needed to “expose” Labor’s scare campaigns and turn the polls around in the lead up to the next election. “One of the things we didn’t do at the last election was neutralise the GetUp!! and the Labor Party’s scare campaigns
From Credit Suisse today: ■ ‘Clean coal’ and CCS take the stage: Lately a key strain in our national policy conversation has involved the promotion of ‘clean coal’ – the idea that some coal-fired technologies might allow coal-fired power to be part of a low-emissions generation portfolio. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is occasionally thrown
Shell is out today celebrating its ongoing gas gouge: Shell today said it will supply around 8 petajoules of gas to Engie’s Pelican Point power plant in South Australia for five months over the peak winter period to help secure electricity contracts to major industrial users. It also said it had struck an 18-month agreement
Via Crikey: One of the more important public sector appointments is just days from expiry, yet there’s a seeming indifference to who is going to be appointed, or reappointed, to fill it. The appointment of the chair of the Foreign Investment Review Board, Brian Wilson, ends on Easter Saturday. So far, however, there hasn’t even
Via Micheal West: Oil and gas leviathan Exxon Mobil has managed to pay zero tax in Australia for two years, despite making $18 billion in sales. Exxon is BHP’s partner in the Bass Strait offshore oil and gas fields and a big beneficiary of rising gas prices. While East Coast commercial and industrial gas customers
Will somebody please tell Eric Abetz to put a sock in it: Tasmanian Senator Eric Abetz has said he believes there is evidence people who are homosexual can become heterosexual. Senator Abetz, who campaigned fiercely against the Safe Schools bullying program, said he believed the media needed to be more balanced on reporting of sexuality
Via The Australian: The US is “rapidly and dangerously” edging closer to taking military action against North Korea’s nuclear missile program, a former general close to President Trump says. Jack Keane, a four-star general who declined a role in the cabinet, said: “A pre-emptive strike against launch facilities, underground nuclear sites, artillery and rocket response
Don’t be mistaken, no politician anywhere has done anything yet to end the gas crisis. Today from The Australian: East coast commercial and industrial gas customers are being charged an astounding $12-$15 a gigajoule for long-term contracts as the closure of the Hazelwood brown coal power station in Victoria, combined with Queensland LNG project gas
Weeo, weeoo, weeoo. The Pascometer, Australia’s most reliable contrarian signal generator, is screaming the end is nigh for immigration: It says plenty about the state of Australian politics that so much policy is viewed through the lens of Sydney and Melbourne housing affordability. With that in mind, the odds of an immigration cut next month
From Domainfax: Companies including Qantas, ANZ, Google and eBay on Monday launched a new campaign on marriage equality, in stark defiance of Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s advice to “stick to their knitting”. The initiative invites customers to order one of 250,000 specially-commissioned rings bearing the phrase “until we all belong” – which will also appear on Qantas boarding
There is a very important piece today at The Australian on gas: As Santos worked toward approving its company-transforming Gladstone LNG project at the start of this decade, managing director David Knox made the sensible statement that he would approve one LNG train, capable of exporting the equivalent of half the east coast’s gas demand, rather
Newspoll sinks again for Do-nothing Malcolm to 47-53 two party preferred: The latest Newspoll, conducted exclusively for The Australian, reveals a dip in the Coalition’s primary vote from 37 per cent to 36 per cent over the past two weeks to give Labor a clear election-winning lead. Malcolm Turnbull has lost ground to Bill Shorten
Close to the very top of the list of people that you should not ask about how to fix the Australian energy crisis is a person who was pivotal in creating it. Via the AFR comes Catherine Tanna, MD of AGL and formerly same at BGGroup, one of the LNG bubble blowers on Curtis Island:
