Australia politics live: Coalition slams Keating for China meeting; RBA tipped to hold rates

The case which sparked this high court decision, NZYQ, involved a refugee convicted of a crime, who once they completed their custodial sentence, was placed in indefinite detention.

While in indefinite detention, there did not seem to be a lot of attempts to remove the stateless man from Australia by the previous government. That is part of the reason the high court case was brought.

Dan Tehan says though that the former government does not carry any blame for the situation, as it had hope it could remove NZYQ:

We were trying to complete that task and we never gave up hope

Asked about whether it it true that he rejected an offer for a briefing on the court case for 106 days, Dan Tehan says that is the government playing games, because he accepted an offer for a briefing yesterday, before question time.

Tehan:

And yesterday, I can confirm this to your listeners we once again wrote to the Attorney General to the home affairs minister and to the immigration minister saying that we look forward to a briefing as a matter of fact, we said we would like to do that briefing before question time.

We then contacted the minister’s office and of course we got no response because all this is about is trying to score low political points when they should be focusing on their number one job, which is keeping the Australian community safe. Instead, what they tried to do is just play politics and it’s not working.

But what about 106 days ago? Or any day in between?

The alternative minister says:

This is a complete and utter smokescreen to make up for the minister’s. Gross incompetence. The first time they raised this issue around this briefing, the Attorney General said that it needed to be a briefing which was held on a Monday morning ,I was in my electorate, a three and a half hour drive away. I said I’d be happy to do the briefing.

I just needed to do it in my electorate office. And they said all right, we’ll look into see whether we can do that. They never they never got back to me as to whether it could be done in my electorate office or not.

Shadow immigration minister Dan Tehan is the guest on ABC radio RN Breakfast.

He wants the government to “outlay its options to the Australian people” about what it is going to do about the high court decision which has made indefinite detention unconstitutional.

What we’re calling for is for Minister Giles, for the first time to be transparent to be very clear to the Australian people. What is the scale and size of this mess that he’s got us into? And what is his plan to get us out of it? And so far and we’ve seen this in question time now for six months. He just refuses to be upfront with the Australian people on this issue

The minister Andrew Giles did not “get us into the mess”. The high court made a decision which said indefinite detention was unconstitutional. That would impact whatever government was in place.

Tehan’s solution is to sack Giles.

He then focusses on legal briefings on the case that Giles did not attend (Giles has been briefed, obviously)

As Minister, I would take those legal briefings, and I would look at all the information. I would make sure that we’re being upfront with the Australian people as the size of the challenge that is confronting the government and then work through it with my number one priority in place, keeping the Australian community in place.

Independents move to ban huge political donations

The teal crossbenchers will continue their push to try to bring more transparency and lessen to influence of big money in politics, as Paul Karp reports:

Mega donations of more than $1.5m would be banned under a crossbench plan to get big money out of politics.

Lower house independents, including Kate Chaney, Zali Steggall, the Greens, David Pocock, Lidia Thorpe and the Jacqui Lambie Network, will present a united front by introducing the fair and transparent elections bill in both houses of parliament.

The bill contains a suite of reforms including truth-in-political advertising, a ban on donations from socially harmful industries including fossil fuels, and tightening the definition of gifts to capture major party fundraisers, including dinners and business forums.

The bill legislates Labor’s election promises to lower the donation disclosure threshold to $1,000 and real-time disclosure of donations within five business days.

Asked whether Paul Keating should meet China’s foreign minister Wang Yi, Chris Bowen says:

Certainly if he chooses to.

I mean, this is a very important visit by the Chinese foreign minister. I think it reflects the efforts of the government and of the Chinese government to be fair, to stabilise relations.

There’ll be important meetings with serving government ministers. It is entirely usual for a visiting foreign minister to seek out a former prime minister, particularly one who played the role he did in Australia finding security in Asia, not from Asia, as Paul Keating did all those years ago.

He’s deeply respected across Asia and a meeting of that nature is, I think, singularly unremarkable.

Bowen says nuclear ‘most expensive form of energy in the world’

Energy minister Chris Bowen is on a bit of a media blitz this morning.

More renewables are coming on to the grid, which is lowering the default price of energy, but this is Bowen’s main message (he is speaking to ABC radio RN here)

Nuclear is the most expensive form of energy in the world at the moment. There will be a real choice at the next election between the cheapest form of energy and the most expensive.

Welcome back to politics live for the second sitting day of the session. Thank you to Martin for kicking things off this morning. Amy Remeikis will be with you for most of the day.

It’s going to be a busy one – so let’s get into it.

(continued from previous post)

One senior executive told Guardian Australia power bills would triple if the nuclear path was pursued.

Speaking of power bills, households and businesses in Australia’s east will today find out the price that electricity providers will be able to charge as the energy regulator releases it’s draft determination for the year.

The default market offer (DMO) is a price cap on how much retailers can charge its customers on their default plans and will come into effect from July.

The Australian Energy Regulator will release its draft DMO for 2024/25, which applies to consumers in NSW, SA and parts of Queensland, this morning.

Victoria’s Essential Services Commission is also expected to release its offer on Tuesday.

In it’s last update released in January, the regulator said wholesale electricity prices had fallen in NSW, Victoria and South Australia but increased in Queensland and Tasmania.

The price drop was due to coal and gas-fired generation hitting a record low and renewable energy taking a bigger load.

Victoria had the cheapest prices, averaging $34 per megawatt hour, while Queensland was the most expensive at $79 per MWh.

Big electricity generators say nuclear not viable for at least a decade

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, is expected to soon announce a new energy policy involving nuclear reactors in Australia.

But the big private electricity generators are ambivalent. Energy Australia called nuclear a “potential option” for the “late 2030s or 2040s”, but said green hydrogen could also play the role of controllable generation on the road to net zero.

Alinta said nuclear was “not something we’re exploring” and AGL said there was “no viable schedule” for the technology – and what’s more, the cost and build time would be “prohibitive”.

For more on what the private sector thinks of Australian nuclear ambitions, read Peter Hannam’s piece here:

Sexual harassment survivors to share stories

Sarah Basford Canales

Survivors of sexual harassment in the workplace will be encouraged to share their stories and solutions as part of a new project being launched by the Australian Human Rights Commission today.

The Speaking from Experience project – another recommendation from the landmark 2020 Respect@Work report – will allow victim-survivors to voluntarily share their experiences so the commission can better understand how common workplace sexual harassment is and come up with ways to prevent it from happening.

The sex discrimination commissioner, Anna Cody, said those who had experienced sexual harassment while on the job could offer “invaluable insights into the challenges and solutions needed to create safer workplaces”.

In particular, Cody wanted to hear from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers, culturally and racially marginalised workers, young workers, workers with disability and LBGQTI+ workers.

Cody told Guardian Australia:

We know that, very sadly, sexual harassment pervades every industry and every workplace. We’ve had a national inquiry. What are the areas now that we need to really focus on to shift the experience of sexual harassment within Australian workplaces?

A number of in-person consultations will also be held, kicking off in Perth this week.

Coalition slams Keating for China meeting

Daniel Hurst

The Coalition has taken aim at former prime minister Paul Keating for accepting a meeting with the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, who is visiting Australia later this week.

The Coalition’s foreign affairs spokesperson, Simon Birmingham, said the idea of the meeting was “pointed and somewhat insulting” in light of the extent of Keating’s past commentary directed towards the Australian foreign minister, Penny Wong:

Paul Keating’s reckless and irresponsible comments since the Albanese government was elected demonstrates an underlying division within the broader Labor party

Whatever their personal views, our former prime ministers carry with them a special responsibility to be cognisant of changing security challenges and judicious in the use of their office. Paul Keating’s running commentary has been neither, and is clearly welcomed for propaganda purposes elsewhere.

Keating yesterday rejected criticism of his decision to accept Wang’s meeting invitation, saying the Australian Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet had offered “to facilitate the meeting and to make appropriate arrangements”.

Despite his outspoken criticism of the Aukus pact, Keating said he was pleased Australia had “moved substantially from the counterproductive baiting policy the Morrison government applied to China to now something much more civil and productive”.

Good morning and welcome to today’s politics live blog. My name is Martin Farrer and first I’m going to flag up the best overnight stories before Amy gets into the hot seat.

Ever since Clive Palmer spent $117m at the last election, there have been growing calls for curbs on political donations. Now an alliance of independents want to outlaw gifts of more than $1.5m. Lower house crossbenchers including Kate Chaney, Zali Steggall, the Greens, David Pocock, Lidia Thorpe and the Jacqui Lambie Network will present a united front by introducing their fair and transparent elections bill in both houses of parliament to outlaw large donations.

In addition, the Greens plan to introduce a private senator’s bill to give the ACCC powers to “smash the supermarket duopoly”. The idea of divestiture powers allowing the breakup of big businesses after a court finds a serious breach of competition law has been backed by former ACCC chair Allan Fels.

The Reserve Bank is widely tipped to leave its key interest rate on hold at this week’s board meeting, which winds up today. But economists are split on how soon borrowers can expect rate relief. The central bank will announce the results of its second board meeting for 2024 at 2.30pm and while pundits and investors alike expect the RBA will leave its cash rate unchanged at its 12-year high of 4.35%.

The Coalition has criticised former prime minister Paul Keating for accepting a meeting with the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, who is visiting Australia later this week. Simon Birmingham called Keating’s decision “reckless” and irresponsible” while the former Labor PM continued to hit back at his critics. Keating, an outspoken opponent of the Australian government’s plans to acquire nuclear-powered submarines, accused News Corp’s national broadsheet The Australian of being “trenchantly anti-Chinese”.