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Speaker 1: Welcome to Ask Fair and Greed, where we answer questions

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Speaker 1: about business, investing, economics, politics and more. A're Michael Thompson

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Speaker 1: and hello Sean Ail.

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Speaker 2: Hello Michael Sean.

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Speaker 1: Today's question very much falls into the politics space because

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Speaker 1: the new parliament, Parliament kicks off the new term today

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Speaker 1: and the question is what does it mean for policy?

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Speaker 1: Obviously we have Anthony Alpineasy and the Labor Party being

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Speaker 1: returned with a very very significant majority in the lower

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Speaker 1: house and with that comes a mandate to do something.

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Speaker 1: What does it mean for policy?

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Speaker 2: It means that policy should be passed more easily, but

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Speaker 2: that doesn't mean it's going to be good policy. So

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Speaker 2: if you look at the House of Reps, of the

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Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty members YEP, ninety four of them

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Speaker 2: are from the Labor Party. So if they can be

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Speaker 2: a united disciplined party, they can get anything they want

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Speaker 2: through the House of Reps.

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Speaker 1: They don't even need to be that disciplined to get that.

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Speaker 1: You could just push off figure yeah, thirty of them

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Speaker 1: off to one side and still get stuff through.

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Speaker 2: Now, in the Senate, ALP has twenty nine seats with

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Speaker 2: the Greens. That so seventy six members of the Senate

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Speaker 2: with the Greens ten that twenty nine plus ten thirty nine,

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Speaker 2: that's more than half of seventy six. Therefore, with the

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Speaker 2: Greens support, Labour should be able to push through policy.

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Speaker 2: So it should. It's fortunate in a sense that Labor

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Speaker 2: can do what they want to do, but that doesn't

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Speaker 2: make for good policies. In the argument that the only

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Speaker 2: minority government Australia really ever had is Julia Gillard and

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Speaker 2: had some of the great policy The NDIS for example,

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Speaker 2: came out of that. What it means for most of

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Speaker 2: us in a sense, it's hard for labor. I'm sorry

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Speaker 2: for the coalition. They will have to pick the targets

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Speaker 2: that they want to fight on, and so yesterday Susan Lee,

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Speaker 2: the coalition leader, the Liberal leader, that they'll battle really

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Speaker 2: hard on taxes. Then when it comes to things like

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Speaker 2: the twenty percent reduction in hex debt, which means that

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Speaker 2: someone with twenty seven thousand dollar hex debt you're going

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Speaker 2: to lose five and a half thousand of that right,

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Speaker 2: susonly said, we're just going to agree with that. So

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Speaker 2: there'll be a bunch of policies which actually won't get

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Speaker 2: much debate. Now, I think the hext reducing hex set

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Speaker 2: is good, but many people say hextet's bad. So we're

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Speaker 2: just not going to have that kind of policy debate

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Speaker 2: when it comes to superannuation. So the three million balances,

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Speaker 2: the taxation of earnings over three on the balances at

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Speaker 2: three million dollars or more. The Greens want that to

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Speaker 2: be two million. They'll come to some sort of deal

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Speaker 2: there that'll probably get passed through. But when you think chine, childcare,

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Speaker 2: gender equality, disability care, truth and political advertising, some of

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Speaker 2: those other big issues that are going to come up,

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Speaker 2: you know within weeks. If you've just got one party

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Speaker 2: doing what it was, I'm not sure that you end

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Speaker 2: up with better policy.

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Speaker 1: No, I don't think you do. And there's a few

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Speaker 1: things there that I want to touch on. Wonders of

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Speaker 1: the superannuation policy that you mentioned, and that three million

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Speaker 1: dollar figure and the fact that the Greens want that

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Speaker 1: to be two million. It would be it would be

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Speaker 1: very unlikely that the government is going to move on that,

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Speaker 1: though considering how much flak they are already coppying over that,

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Speaker 1: it's one of the few things that they've really been

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Speaker 1: heavily attacked on. It's more likely that the that the

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Speaker 1: government labor would make a concession elsewhere to the Greens

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Speaker 1: in order to get there across the across the line

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Speaker 1: on this one.

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Speaker 2: I think that's right. And for the Greens it's none

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Speaker 2: to die in the wool thing. No, so they will

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Speaker 2: agree with the three million. If you had a really

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Speaker 2: strong opposition, no, you may end up having a fight

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Speaker 2: that The big issue with the three million. I mean

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Speaker 2: most of us probably think it's quite sensible to tax

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Speaker 2: people at that rate, I mean higher when they've got

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Speaker 2: that much money. It's the unrealized game, the unrealized gains, right,

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Speaker 2: and so if someone's got the super fund, they've got

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Speaker 2: a house in this three million dollars, suddenly they've got

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Speaker 2: this big tax bill. It's an unrealized gain, but they're

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Speaker 2: still getting taxed on it. Now, if you had a

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Speaker 2: strong opposition that could say, okay, listen, negotiate this through.

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Speaker 2: Maybe you end up putting it through high taxt rate,

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Speaker 2: but the unrealized gains comes out. Now I'm not sure

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Speaker 2: that would have happened, But that's the sort of debate

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Speaker 2: you can have when you have a strong opposition, okay.

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Speaker 1: On that question. Then of developing a strong opposition, or

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Speaker 1: in the case for Susan Lee, how does she build

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Speaker 1: support for her party and the coalition to take it

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Speaker 1: from where it is now, which is basically just a

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Speaker 1: rump in parliament, to actually being in with a chance

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Speaker 1: at the next election. Do you think we want to

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Speaker 1: see the public wants to see bipartisanship and actually something

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Speaker 1: creative and collaborative come out of this parliament or is

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Speaker 1: it going to be wants to see some strong opposition

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Speaker 1: and some real rebuttals of policy. What's going to be

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Speaker 1: the winner here?

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Speaker 2: In short, the coalition unless the ap blow that blows itself.

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Speaker 1: Up, which is always a possibility, which.

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Speaker 2: Is always a possibility, the coalition has very very limited

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Speaker 2: chance of winning the next election. If they agree and

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Speaker 2: say let's be bipartisan on a bunch of issues except

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Speaker 2: for A, B and C, but everything else will agree

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Speaker 2: on the government, the population the voters won't think, oh,

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Speaker 2: we need to change government, don't we because you know,

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Speaker 2: there's not an alternate So the opposition is the alternate government.

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Speaker 2: So they have to fight on a lot of stuff.

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Speaker 2: Her problem is what do they fight on? They can't.

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Speaker 2: They just don't have the troops to fight on all

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Speaker 2: fronts Oh, I'm like in this military analogy, it's just however,

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Speaker 2: on the Eastern front, in the Western front. But you know,

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Speaker 2: so on taxation they said, that's a big one. We

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Speaker 2: think we can win votes on that hextet. No one's

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Speaker 2: going to argue about that too much, so let's not

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Speaker 2: fight there. So I think it is really difficult for

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Speaker 2: Susan Lee. The Independence people like David Paycock something, they've

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Speaker 2: been very much sidelined because if the government can get

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Speaker 2: the Greens on side, then they don't really have much power. Now.

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Speaker 2: Having said that, if the Greens decide to not vote

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Speaker 2: with Labor in the Senate, then is really going to struggle.

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Speaker 2: There's sort of three independents, but otherwise outside the Greens

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Speaker 2: it is sort of a conservative bunch. So Liberal Party

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Speaker 2: in the Senate's got twenty one, Nation's got four, the

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Speaker 2: Nationals and the Liberal Party of Queensland they've got another

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Speaker 2: five there, so you're kind of up to thirty. The

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Speaker 2: Greens really are all powerful in the Senate in many ways.

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Speaker 1: And just quickly the Teals in the lower House. Can

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Speaker 1: they do anything or is the Labor majority just so

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Speaker 1: great that the lower House is largely irrelevant.

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Speaker 2: They can win have a public support. Remember last Parliament,

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Speaker 2: the Teals didn't have the balance of power, but we

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Speaker 2: spoke a lot about them. There's ten of them now well,

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Speaker 2: subject to the Bradfield High Court challenge, so there'll be

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Speaker 2: nine or ten. They don't actually have much power beyond noise,

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Speaker 2: beyond the fact that they have a voice now which

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Speaker 2: they didn't have. But now Pie's got ninety four one

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Speaker 2: hundred and fifty seats. It's not like their vote can

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Speaker 2: really sway much.

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Speaker 1: Okay, I think we've canvassed this fairly comprehensively. I did

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Speaker 1: enjoy your military analogy. That was very nice.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, Michael superb.

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Speaker 1: All right, if you have your own question that you

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Speaker 1: would like us to examine, then please get in touch.

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Speaker 1: Send it on through via the website Fear and Greed

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Speaker 1: dot com today you or get in touch via any

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Speaker 1: of the social media platforms.

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Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Sean, Thank you, Michael.

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Speaker 1: I'm Michael Thompson and this is ask Fear and Great