‘I welcome the contest of ideas’: Ley
While the opposition is trying to turn up the heat on the government, it’s still facing plenty of volcanic action internally with public and private frustrations aired, and of course the very public quitting of Andrew Hastie from the frontbench.
Ley isn’t keen to get into the nitty gritty, after it was revealed yesterday MP Mary Aldred spoke up against the infighting during a Liberal partyroom meeting.
Asked about the comments, she says she “will not reflect conversations within our partyroom”.
I welcome the contest of ideas.
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We did suffer a significant defeat at the last election and people are having their say and I welcome that.
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Updated at 22.39 CEST
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Opposition questions government’s support for Australians who return from Syrian detention camp
Sussan Ley is on the media rounds this morning, and also pressing the government over its involvement in the return of the six Australians.
There’s a couple of key areas the opposition is pushing this week, this is one and the other big one has been Optus.
Ley tells Sunrise “something appears to have been done” by the government to support the repatriation of these women and children, as Labor has repeated lines that no help was provided.
In June we were told by the prime minister and his ministers that they did not know anything about this and they had no knowledge. Passports and citizenship papers they don’t create themselves. Something appears to have been done to support the repatriation of these individuals who willingly left our shores to join a death cult… They [Anthony Albanese and Tony Burke] are not confessing to what they knew and what assistance they have provided.
When host Nat Barr points out that the government also repatriated women and children from the Syrian detention camps, Ley says “we repatriated orphans, this is very different”.
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Labor under pressure over Australian repatriates from Syrian detention camp
The government is still facing heat over the return of six Australians from a Syrian detention camp.
The opposition went hard on it at estimates last night, with security agencies revealing home affairs minister Tony Burke’s office was briefed about their intention to return in June.
This morning, the cabinet minister Tim Ayres – who’s also doing the media rounds after announcing a joint state and federal bail out of the Glencore copper smelter in Mt Isa – is facing plenty of questions on it.
On the Today show, he was at pains to say the government did not provide them any support to return.
We have taken the approach as a government not to provide assistance and the job of our security agencies in relation to these people, but also other people who they make an assessment about themselves, is to make sure that we keep Australians safe.
Ayres was on a panel with Independent MP Dai Le, who yesterday asked for assurances during question time that the six wouldn’t be resettled in her seat of Fowler in western Sydney, where she represents a large multicultural population.
I don’t buy the line that there’s no assistance.
I [have] the most multicultural electorate in the country that has large population of Assyrian communities … these communities fled the ISIS regime.
And so therefore, if there’s no transparency about where being resettled and I asked [for] guarantees yesterday that they’re not going to be resettled in my area of Fowler …
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Updated at 22.22 CEST
Krishani Dhanji
Good morning,
Krishani Dhanji here with you, for another day of parliamentary shenanigans, and we’ve got plenty to look forward to. Thanks to Martin Farrer for getting us started.
Estimates (which went a bit wild yesterday with new revelations around the Optus outage) continues so we’ll have eyes on that, but before then Sussan Ley is doing the media rounds this morning trying to push a bill for mandatory minimum sentencing for child sexual offences.
The attorney general, Michelle Rowland, when asked about it yesterday said the government was “open” to ideas to combat child abuse. But mandatory minimum sentencing goes against Labor’s platform (despite them voting for mandatory minimum sentencing for terror offences earlier this year).
Stick with us, it’s going to be a busy one!
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Man killed in shooting in Sydney’s north-west
In some non-politics news: a man has been shot dead in Sydney’s north-west in the latest shooting to hit the city, Australian Associated Press reports.
Emergency services were called to Riverstone at 6pm last night following reports of a shooting.
A man was found with gunshot wounds and died at the scene despite the efforts of paramedics. He is yet to be identified.
A car was found on fire just a few hundred metres away, raising suspicions that the shooting was a gang-related hit.
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Cait Kelly
Almost half of total capital gains tax discount went to those earning over $1m in 2022-23
Nearly 50% of the capital gains tax discount went to just 24,000 people who earned over $1m in 2022–23, according to an Oxfam Australia report.
On average, each of these individuals gained a staggering $271,000 from the capital gains tax discount on profits from the sale of assets and investments – almost 1,500 times the benefit received by an average worker.
If the government scrapped the capital gains discount, it could restore around $22.7bn to the budget per year, the analysis found.
Oxfam Australia’s acting chief executive, Chrisanta Muli, said:
Our tax system is deepening inequality because it fails to tax wealth. For decades, Australia has been becoming a nation for the wealthy, not workers.
Today, billions of dollars in budget revenue is given away to the wealthiest in the form of tax discounts and because our tax system does not effectively tax the super-rich.
Instead, it allows them to amass wealth and fund lavish lifestyles through untaxed growth in assets and investments. It’s time we tax income from wealth like wages, and that starts by scrapping the 50% capital gains discount on profits from sales of investments.
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Updated at 22.00 CEST
Judges to rule on Sydney Palestine protest
Thousands of protesters will discover whether they can rally at Sydney Opera House as a trio of judges rule on the legality of a pro-Palestine demonstration, Australian Associated Press reports.
Police challenged the Palestine Action Group’s proposed protest in the NSW court of appeal.
Organisers believe Sunday’s march, if approved, will see about 40,000 people wind through Sydney’s city centre to the forecourt of the Sydney Opera House. But police believe the number could be greater and would cause a safety risk.
The judges, who are due to deliver a decision today, also raised concerns over crowd safety during earlier hearings.
Comparing the protest to a massive August rally at the Sydney Harbour Bridge, where between 90,000 and 300,000 marched in the rain, the chief justice, Andrew Bell, said even more could attend Sunday’s event.
He also noted Macquarie Street could become a “narrow funnel” that pushes protesters into a tight space.
But the organiser’s barrister, Felicity Graham, said previous unticketed events at the Opera House, like the popular light show Vivid, were managed capably. Read more here:
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Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live politics blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then Krishani Dhanji will be your guide.
A ruling is expected at the NSW appeal court this morning over whether or not a pro-Palestine march can take place in Sydney this weekend. Police have asked for the rally to be banned on public safety grounds. More shortly.
And a new study by Oxfam has shown that the benefits of the capital gains tax discount are overwhelmingly enjoyed by the country’s best-off.
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