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Chris Bowen throws back to Coalition on energy price rises
The energy minister is borrowing a turn of phrase out of Julia Gillard’s misogyny speech when asked about the Coalition’s suggestion that capping coal and gas prices will, in the longer run, increase prices.
Chris Bowen:
I invite the Coalition to have a look in the mirror. I mean, he had the independent energy regulator this morning pointing out that without the intervention, the price rises would have been closer to 50%.
An intervention that Mr Dutton opposed, like he opposes everything. You can’t complain about higher energy prices and then vote for higher energy prices.
We’ve carefully calibrated the interventions and worked through them carefully. Mr Dutton and his bunch of irrelevancies put themselves out of the process and opposed the package and did not enter into discussions with the government.
Key events
Here is what Marles has to say about those announcements Dan mentioned which will enable South Australia to develop the capacity to build those submarines:
There are three important practical initial steps in terms of that cooperation:
The first is a commitment to an increase of 800 university places here in South Australia over the coming four years in areas which are critical to the building of nuclear-powered submarines, particularly in areas of engineering and mathematics.
The second is the establishment of a training academy right here at Osborne, which will provide for apprentices and the trade-level training which is so particular to the building of nuclear-powered submarines and my colleague, Minister O’Connor, is going to speak more to that in a moment.
The third is a land exchange which is going to provide South Australia with really important land at Keswick in urban Adelaide, land at Cultana which is important but from the defence point of view is going to provide in exchange the land right here at Osborne necessary to put in place the construction yard which will ultimately build these submarines. I want to emphasise that our intent is to build this capacity as soon as possible which will see the construction of the yard happen immediately and this land exchange today forms the beginning of that. This is happening right now.
Marles talks up cooperation agreement
Richard Marles:
You’ve just witnessed the premier and I sign a cooperation agreement between the commonwealth of Australia and the state of South Australia.
The most important aspect of that is a headline commitment between our two governments to work cooperatively together to deliver this project and that’s really important because that’s going to need to happen not just during the life of our governments but a cross commonwealth and South Australian governments over the coming decades.
It is a profoundly important statement of intent because unless that is in place, and unless that cooperation is enduring, we will not be able to deliver this capability for our nation.
Federal and South Australian government sign cooperation deal on Aukus
Daniel Hurst
The Labor premier of South Australia, Peter Malinauskas, has joined senior Australian ministers at the Osborne naval shipyard in Adelaide.
Malinauskas is excited after the signing of a cooperation agreement between the state and the federal governments. He said there was no longer a question about where the work was going to come from in South Australia. It was, instead, a question of how build up the required workforce:
The fact that the commonwealth sees in South Australia the ability to build the most complex machines that have ever been produced in the history of humanity says a lot about where South Australia is going.
The acting prime minister, Richard Marles, said the agreement included a headline commitment to work cooperatively together to deliver this project. They were also planning an increase of 800 university places in South Australia over four years, the establishment of a training academy “right here at Osborne”, and a land exchange to allow for a larger construction yard.
Marles:
Yesterday’s announcement commits Australia to developing the capacity as quickly as possible to build nuclear-powered submarines here in South Australia right here at Osborne. This is demanded of us by our international partners. It is a massive endeavour.
‘This is going to be building the most complex machinery known to humanity’
Acting prime minister and defence minister Richard Marles is speaking at the Osborne shipyards in Adelaide about – you guessed it – Aukus:
Marles says building submarines in Australia “right here at Osborne, this is demanded of us by our international partners”:
This is a massive endeavour. It is of the same order of magnitude of the Snowy River scheme in the 60s. It’s going to transform our national economy but it is going to transform the South Australian economy. Thousands of jobs, a lifting-up of the technological capability of the broader economy.
What this will see across the three countries of the United States, the UK and Australia is the fourth production line to build nuclear-powered submarines, adding to Huntington’s in the United States and BAE in the United Kingdom.
This is going to be building the most complex machinery known to humanity, which means this site will become one of the centres of highest technology industry in the world. And it is absolutely a vote of confidence in Australian industry but a vote of confidence in South Australian history.
As La Niña ends, El Niño watch begins …
Straight off the back of three consecutive La Niña periods, the Bureau of Meteorology is predicting an El Niño weather event could be in store during Australia’s winter and spring.
Sarah Scully, a senior meteorologist at the bureau, is speaking to ABC News about when the big wet of the past three years is predicated to end:
La Niña predominantly affects eastern and northern Australia. It officially ended yesterday and it is driven by sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean.
So as we became very familiar with over the last three years, we had above-average sea surface temperatures off north-eastern and northern parts of the country and that provided a whole lot more moisture available for increased rainfall, increased cloud cover that resulted in lower temperatures as well.
As you mentioned, La Niña has ended and we’ve moved into the El Niño watch with a 50% chance of going into an El Niño later this year.
Naplan kicks off for students across Australia
Caitlin Cassidy
Loathed amongst children, loved amongst statisticians, the annual Naplan assessment is kicking off today for 1.3m students.
This is the first year the test is being held in March instead of May following reforms by the federal government to provide earlier access to results. It’s also taking place fully online, excluding the year 3 writing test which will be on paper.
Ceo of the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority David de Carvalho said the decision to push the test forward required an “enormous effort” amongst teachers and schools.
Ministers agreed to moving Naplan into Term 1 so the results would be available earlier in the year to inform teaching and learning programs. It will give teachers earlier insights to support their professional judgment about how their students are progressing against the new proficiency standards and consider what support they might need in the coming year.”
The national assessment is the only major scale of progress in critical literacy and numeracy skills among students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9 – testing reading, writing, numeracy, grammar, punctuation and spelling.
De Carvalho:
It doesn’t measure overall school quality. It’s not meant to tell us everything about a student or their achievement. Naplan tests literacy and numeracy skills that are being developed in the classroom everyday with questions based mostly on what students have been taught from previous years of schooling.
The results will also be streamlined into four levels of achievement, replacing the previous 10-band structure. Parents will be able to track their children under the categories “exceeding”, “strong”, “developing” and “needs additional support”.
Assessors will be crossing their fingers this year is more successful than the last Naplan, when secondary student participation experienced the steepest declines on record. Remote, educationally disadvantaged and low-performing children were least likely to complete the tests.
Paul Karp
Pocock highlights ‘enormous’ $368bn Aukus price tag
Senator David Pocock was also asked about the $368bn price tag of the 30-year Aukus nuclear submarine acquisition plan, and whether this makes a mockery of government claims about a tight budget.
Pocock:
We’ve heard so much about how tight the budget is, and it is. We have some huge challenges we’re facing. And we’ve heard that we can’t spend money on things that are really important to our communities and to our country.
And this [Aukus] is a massive spending commitment for decades to come. Clearly, that money has to come from somewhere. So I’m certainly pushing and would welcome a conversation about where that comes from.
We’ve got stage three-tax cuts, $250bn, slated to come in to effect and we’ve got the major parties who won’t touch things like revisiting negative gearing, capital gains tax discounts on investment properties. All of these things that I think a lot of Australians are starting to question and particularly when it comes to this enormous commitment of spending for decades to come. That money’s going to have to come from somewhere. If we are going to be responsible with the budget, then there’s some very tough conversations ahead for the for the major parties.
On Tuesday the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said despite the need to pay for Aukus there was no change to Labor’s policy on stage-three tax cuts.
Victorian power prices to jump almost a third, government agency says
Peter Hannam
As we saw in an earlier post, default power prices are likely to lift by more than 20% from 1 July for customers in New South Wales, South Australia and south-east Queensland, according to a draft decision by the Australian Energy Regulator.
Victoria sets its own default market offer and that is going to increase even more, according to draft decision for consultation. The state’s Essential Services Commission is proposing average annual bill for domestic customers will rise 31.1%, with small business customers facing increases of 33.2%.
The commission says:
The draft decision proposes an increase of around $426 for residential customers, with typical bills increasing from $1,403 to around $1,829 per year.
For small business customers, typical bills would increase by around $1,738, from $5,620 to around $7,358 per year.
As with the AER, the commission blames “significant increases in wholesale electricity costs” for the higher prices.
The offer affects about 400,000 households and 55,000 small businesses that are on standing offers. That’s about 15% of households and 19% of small firms.
Victoria has tended to have lower wholesale prices than other states so it’s curious the state’s default prices have risen more – at least according to the draft decision. A final decision on the increase will be made on 24 May.
David Pocock and CFMEU want ‘more ambition’ in Labor housing bill
Paul Karp
The incoming national secretary of the construction union, Zach Smith, and senator David Pocock have held a press conference in Canberra to discuss building company insolvencies at which both called on Labor to up their ambition on the housing Australia future fund bill.
The pair were responding to the collapse of PBS Building, with creditors owed an estimated $250m. They called for the government to do more to ensure “security of payments”, ie ensuring workers and other creditors are not out of pocket.
Pocock said more “political will” was needed to enact solutions such as the proposed developers register in the ACT. Smith cited solutions including statutory trusts (requiring companies to pay progressively into a pot of money reserved for their creditors), and greater action from regulators such as the Fair Work Ombudsman and Tax Office.
Asked if these demands were forming part of negotiations with the government, Pocock said Labor had committed to reforms recommended by the Murray review so he “shouldn’t have to use” his vote on bills like the future fund as a “negotiating tactic”.
On that bill, Pocock said he wanted “more ambition” because the plan (to invest $10bn in a future fund that will pay out up to $500m a year) “is not going to touch the sides when it comes to dealing with the scale of the housing crisis that we’ve seen in the ACT”.
Pocock said there were 3,100 people on the social housing waiting list but it looked as though the government bill “at best will provide 540 additional homes in the ACT”:
That’s not enough.
Smith echoed these comments and said the CFMEU was not just concerned about lack of new builds but lack of maintenance of existing housing stock.
Nurses to sue NSW government over staff numbers
Nurses and midwives are launching legal action against the NSW government over staffing ratios they say are leaving patients without adequate care, AAP reports.
The NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association revealed plans today to file a case in the supreme court which accuses the government of repeatedly breaching award conditions.
It says widespread non-compliance with staffing levels has resulted in patients not receiving more than 100,000 hours of nursing care at multiple public hospitals.
Nurses and midwives have held repeated industrial action over the past year calling for mandated “safe” staffing ratios, along with better pay and conditions.
NSW has fallen behind other states in implementing legally mandated ratios, with Victoria, Queensland and the ACT already introducing them, while South Australia and Western Australia are both progressing measures, according to the association.
The union says it will provide evidence of inadequate staffing at major public hospitals including Royal Prince Alfred, Gosford, Wollongong, Westmead, Liverpool and Nepean.
General secretary Shaye Candish says the government’s nursing hours per patient day staffing system is not delivering safe care to patients at their most vulnerable.
Renewables push
Asked about whether it could be time to reopen the discussion about nuclear power in Australia, Chris Bowen says the opposition’s plan is a “fantasy” because nuclear is the most expensive form of energy available and Australia would be starting from scratch without the infrastructure and resources necessary:
Well, it would be a particularly bizarre discussion. It would be particularly bizarre conversation to say that the answer to high power prices is to introduce the most expensive form of energy available – nuclear. That’s the Liberal plan.
Mr O’Brien, my shadow minister, takes himself off doing little videos in in Japan, “Nuclear: what we can learn from Hiroshima” and “Nuclear: what we can learn from Fukushima”. Particularly bizarre little intervention but bizarre in policy substance. The cheapest energy is renewable energy.
(You can read about that from Josh Butler🙂
We’re working to get our energy grid to 82% renewables by 2030. We will. Right around the world, experts recognise that nuclear is very expensive. Particularly expensive in Australia, because we don’t have a nuclear industry to start with.
We’d be starting from scratch without the infrastructure and the resources necessary to underpin a nuclear industry. Nuclear power plants are very expensive. They run over budget. They run over time.
Mr Dutton can go off on the fantasy frolic if he wants. We’ll remain focused on the job of introducing more of the cheapest form of energy, the cheapest form of energy, which is renewables.
‘I’m not about to give up for working for lower power prices’
Chris Bowen is asked about the election promise to lower power bills by $275 by 2025, which the opposition keeps bringing up (without mentioning the fact that the Coalition delayed news that electricity prices were set to rise until after federal election).
But the energy minister is indicating he’s not giving up on lowering power prices.
Reporter:
Given the ongoing price rises, will you be able to achieve the $270 price cut?
Bowen:
Of course, we indicated that that would be there. I’m not about to give up for working for lower power prices.
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