Speaker 1: Already and this is the daily This is the Daily os.
Speaker 2: Oh, now it makes sense.
Speaker 3: Good morning and welcome to the Daily Ours. It's Tuesday,
Speaker 3: the twenty second of July. I'm Harry Seculch.
Speaker 2: I'm Sam Kazlowski.
Speaker 3: School's back for our political leaders. Today, Parliament will resume
Speaker 3: two and a half months after Labour won a convincing
Speaker 3: victory at the polls. While the government will have more
Speaker 3: members in its ranks, opposition parties mostly have new faces
Speaker 3: as their figureheads. In today's deep dive, we'll take a
Speaker 3: look at what we can expect from the government of
Speaker 3: Prime Minister Anthony Albanesi in the next term of parliament.
Speaker 2: Harry, you super excited to get into this first. He's
Speaker 2: message from our sponsor, So, Harry. Parliament resumes today for
Speaker 2: the first time since the federal election. How long ago
Speaker 2: was that? I feel like seventy nine days, right, so
Speaker 2: it's quite a while. I'm counting. It's been quite sometime,
Speaker 2: and that's a pretty long winter break compared to how
Speaker 2: they normally roll out.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, these parliaments actually earned the nickname of part
Speaker 3: time parliament because they just have so few sitting days.
Speaker 3: Obviously not casting any aspersions here, But it does seem
Speaker 3: like the election did come at a very convenient time
Speaker 3: because they have the winter break around this time anyway
Speaker 3: in the parliamentary calendar, so it's really just extended out
Speaker 3: quite a lot. But I'm sure many MPs and senators
Speaker 3: would be listening to this saying, we still work hard
Speaker 3: even when we're not in parliament itself, when parliament's not sitting,
Speaker 3: so you know, we're just back to the formalities now.
Speaker 2: We'd never want to doubt that our parliamentarians work as
Speaker 2: hard as possible. But why don't we go back eighty
Speaker 2: days and get a quick refresher on what happened in
Speaker 2: that election to give us a sense of this new
Speaker 2: state of playing camera.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so on the third of May we had the
Speaker 3: Fed election where Labour won in quite a convincing landslide,
Speaker 3: so they won ninety four out of one hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty seats. And remember his seat is an electorate, so
Speaker 3: a certain area of the country that's represented the Coalition
Speaker 3: had a pretty poor showing on the night, so much
Speaker 3: so that the leader of the Coalition at the time,
Speaker 3: Peter Dunton, actually lost his seat. I'm sure you remember,
Speaker 3: Sam It was quite a big news story on a
Speaker 3: night of many many headlines, but that was certainly one
Speaker 3: of the biggest. And Susan Lee has since become the
Speaker 3: leader of the opposition, has been interviewed by The Daily
Speaker 3: Os was sitting in this chair and the Greens leader
Speaker 3: Adam Bandt also lost his seat at the election and
Speaker 3: he's since been replaced by Senator Larissa Waters. So in
Speaker 3: that time there's been a few political dramas, a few developments.
Speaker 3: We even saw the coalition split up for eight days,
Speaker 3: so the Liberal and National parties took a bit of
Speaker 3: a break. They're back together again and patch they've patched
Speaker 3: things up ahead of the parliament so they keen to
Speaker 3: put forward a united front in opposition to the government
Speaker 3: now and the Prime Minister has also announced a reshuffle
Speaker 3: of the cabinet and the ministry, so we saw a
Speaker 3: few people, some notable figures actually be removed from the cabinets,
Speaker 3: so that included the Attorney General Mark Drevis and the
Speaker 3: former Industry Minister Ed Husick as well. So if you
Speaker 3: look at the house like skittles, there's a lot of
Speaker 3: red and a smaller clutch of green and blue. For
Speaker 3: the opposition in this next parliament and it's going to
Speaker 3: be really really stuck when they all sit in the chamber.
Speaker 3: There's going to be a lot of labor. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I kind of imagine that horseshoe shape of those skittle
Speaker 2: maps and you're going to see the government the Labor
Speaker 2: Party really stretch over that bend and almost towards the
Speaker 2: other side of the chamber now physically. And it's important
Speaker 2: to remember though that we do have a formed coalition
Speaker 2: as we enter this first day of parliament. How will
Speaker 2: today actually work though, Harry? I mean, what does afir
Speaker 2: stay of school look like in Canberra?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so school's back in session. The bells will be ringing,
Speaker 3: the new MPs and senators will be sworn in, and
Speaker 3: there'll be a bit of formality just on the first day,
Speaker 3: just to mark the opening of the forty eighth Parliament
Speaker 3: and the three year term to follow. So there's going
Speaker 3: to be ceremonies like a welcome to country which will
Speaker 3: be led by First Nations elders. We'll also see a
Speaker 3: bit of pageantry. So I don't know if you've ever
Speaker 3: seen those parliamentary officers. For anyone that hasn't, they're usually
Speaker 3: donned in long black roades with a white what would you.
Speaker 2: Call it, captain feathersword's style.
Speaker 3: Neck piece, yeah, ker chief of some sort and Matt Preston,
Speaker 3: he'd be proud. And then we have this position called
Speaker 3: the usher of the black rod. The rods just like
Speaker 3: a scepter summoning the members. We'll see the Governor General
Speaker 3: Sam Moston, who's also sat in that chair since the election.
Speaker 3: She's going to deliver a speech in the Senate to
Speaker 3: welcome the new MPs and Senators. Notably, she won't be
Speaker 3: in the House because that dates back to a very
Speaker 3: very old Westminster tradition from the UK, so she can't
Speaker 3: actually step foot in the House, but she will address
Speaker 3: all the new members in the Senate. And look, it's
Speaker 3: all very formal. There will be a new Speaker elected
Speaker 3: in the House, a new President elected in the Senate.
Speaker 3: It's likely to be the same person from the last
Speaker 3: term of Parliament. But it's just getting all the formalities
Speaker 3: out of the way for day one.
Speaker 2: And then once all of those formalities are over, then
Speaker 2: we'll get to the substantive business of actually running the country.
Speaker 2: Have the government laid out their priorities for this new term,
Speaker 2: especially now that we're actually having sitting days. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's one thing to talk to the electorate about what
Speaker 2: you're promising in the campaign. It's another thing to say,
Speaker 2: this is what we're talking about on day one.
Speaker 3: So the very first day, which will be tomorrow in
Speaker 3: the sitting calendar, they being the government will introduce a
Speaker 3: bill to wipe twenty percent off HEX debts.
Speaker 2: So that's kind of the headline change that they want
Speaker 2: to lead with, is that hex debt thing we promised,
Speaker 2: we're going to deliver a first thing.
Speaker 3: That's right, And someone I was speaking to from the
Speaker 3: government a little earlier today was very confident that that's
Speaker 3: going to pass through the Senate as well tomorrow. So
Speaker 3: that's going to be a quick turnaround according to them,
Speaker 3: and that was one of their key election pitches. We
Speaker 3: heard a lot about reducing the HEX debts, student loans
Speaker 3: and all part of this cost of living relief platform
Speaker 3: that they took to the election. So no surprises there.
Speaker 3: We knew that was going to be early on in
Speaker 3: the term. The second piece of legislation actually relates to
Speaker 3: childcare centers meeting national standards.
Speaker 2: Is that directly linked to the news that we've seen
Speaker 2: over the past couple of weeks to do with the
Speaker 2: safety of those childcare centers exactly.
Speaker 3: So in those seventy nine days, we saw the stories
Speaker 3: emerge of the alleged child sex offender Joshua Brown, who
Speaker 3: worked in multiple centers in Melbourne. He's been charged with
Speaker 3: more than seventy offenses now and more than two thousand
Speaker 3: children have been recommended to undergo testing for infectious diseases.
Speaker 3: So you might be thinking, what does this have to
Speaker 3: do with the government. Yeah, the government props up this
Speaker 3: sector a lot financially. In fact, in the twenty twenty
Speaker 3: three to twenty four financial year, the government spent eighteen
Speaker 3: billion dollars on subsidies in the childcare sector, and the
Speaker 3: legislation that they want to introduce would basically see funding
Speaker 3: cut off from some centers if they're not meeting these
Speaker 3: national standards. So the government, that's their response to these
Speaker 3: allegations that we've seen surface in Melbourne.
Speaker 2: So I guess you could kind of say that the
Speaker 2: states and territories are taking a look at this from
Speaker 2: a registering who's working in these childcare centers. Some of
Speaker 2: the CCTV measures that we've been hearing about the government's
Speaker 2: kind of federally coming over the top and saying, well,
Speaker 2: our power is with the funding, so we're going to
Speaker 2: kind of approach it from that angle.
Speaker 3: That's right, And you touched on something important there, which
Speaker 3: is that the states and territories are usually the service providers.
Speaker 3: They are the ones that run the childcare centers themselves,
Speaker 3: but the government is the funding machine behind that, if
Speaker 3: you like.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we've got the hex reductions, we've got the
Speaker 2: changes to the way that childcare centers could get their funding.
Speaker 2: And then third, we're also expecting some legislation on penalty rates. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So this one is also a headline and a story
Speaker 3: that we've seen bobbing away since the start of this year,
Speaker 3: and that relates to workers entitlements to penalty rates, which
Speaker 3: are things like holiday rate weekends, public holidays over time.
Speaker 3: And this is hooked off a case that we've seen
Speaker 3: play out in the Fair Work Commission. Basically, some retail,
Speaker 3: clerical and hospitality industry groups and some big companies supporting
Speaker 3: them are pushing to bring it a change where essentially
Speaker 3: a worker could get a higher rate of minimum pay
Speaker 3: in exchange for waiving some of those penalty rate entitlements,
Speaker 3: so things like rest breaks in their award, so an
Speaker 3: award just as a quick refresher the paying conditions that
Speaker 3: you receive as a worker in a specific industry. So
Speaker 3: there are awards specific to the fast food industry to
Speaker 3: hospitality bar staff, that kind of thing. And since this
Speaker 3: case emerged in the Fairwork Commission, the government's actually put
Speaker 3: forward its opposition to this basically tip for tat. They
Speaker 3: say that it shouldn't be a requirement that any worker
Speaker 3: give up their penalty rates in exchange for even just
Speaker 3: a baseline higher salary. So what they're doing is they're
Speaker 3: legislating against any changes to penalty rates. They're saying, it's
Speaker 3: a fierce protection of that holiday pay that we can
Speaker 3: pay that extra money you might get for having to
Speaker 3: show up on a Sunday. And that's just basically their
Speaker 3: way of saying, we oppose what's going on in the
Speaker 3: Fairwork Commission right now. We want to protect these entitlements
Speaker 3: down the track, all.
Speaker 2: Right, So we're basically gosh, university students, childcare centers and
Speaker 2: workers in those specific fields as kind of the ones
Speaker 2: to be most impacted by the conversations that could play
Speaker 2: out in Canberra this week. We're going to keep an
Speaker 2: eye on all three of those legislative agendas, Harry. Before
Speaker 2: we go, let's talk about the opposition from a minute, because,
Speaker 2: as you said, we had Susan Lee join us on
Speaker 2: the podcast a couple of weeks ago, and Billy spoke
Speaker 2: to her a lot about what we can expect from
Speaker 2: this iteration of the opposition, a depleted opposition. What are
Speaker 2: you looking out for when you're looking at the opposition
Speaker 2: over the next couple of weeks in Canberra.
Speaker 3: I think it's just really interesting to note from the
Speaker 3: outset that it's going to be the first time that
Speaker 3: the Prime Minister faces a female opposition leader a chair
Speaker 3: in the Lower House.
Speaker 2: Because Julia Gillard was the leader of the Labor Party,
Speaker 2: but never actually the opposition leader.
Speaker 3: That's right, she was a Prime minister, never the opposition leader.
Speaker 3: So it's going to be the first time that that
Speaker 3: chair is occupied by a woman. So what I'm going
Speaker 3: to be looking at for with Susan Lee and the
Speaker 3: opposition more broadly is just the tone that they strike,
Speaker 3: because so far there has been an acknowledgment that they
Speaker 3: got in Susan Lee's words, smashed at the election and
Speaker 3: that a rebuild needs to happen. Her line is that
Speaker 3: our policies are up for review, but our values are not.
Speaker 3: So we're still true to our conservative routes. But we're
Speaker 3: going to have to have a look at the different
Speaker 3: items and measures that we take as an opposition to
Speaker 3: the Australian people. And you know, we're going to see
Speaker 3: the coalition critique the government, that's their formal role. In particular,
Speaker 3: they've already come out hard against a measure to double
Speaker 3: the tax rate for superannuation balances above three million dollars
Speaker 3: that the government plans to introduce. We don't exactly know when,
Speaker 3: but that's just one of the higher taxing let's just
Speaker 3: say earworms that the opposition wants to put out there,
Speaker 3: and we know that they are very much opposed to
Speaker 3: that idea.
Speaker 2: Have we heard anything from them on this hex reduction
Speaker 2: that is tabled to be the first thing to be
Speaker 2: talked about.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So it's so fascinating because before the election and during
Speaker 3: the campaign itself, they said that they were opposed to
Speaker 3: the twenty percent reduction and now it appears as though
Speaker 3: things have shifted within the party over the weekend, the
Speaker 3: Shadow Education Minister John o'dunnean was asked about whether he
Speaker 3: was going to support the twenty percent reduction, and here's
Speaker 3: a bit of what he had to say.
Speaker 1: We're not really in the business of standing in the
Speaker 1: way of cost of living relief, but I think it
Speaker 1: is one of those things that Australians wanted they voted for.
Speaker 1: We'll go through our process, but I expect this will
Speaker 1: pass the Parliament.
Speaker 3: So this definitely comes across as a little bit more
Speaker 3: collaborative in tone. And Susan Lee has said that she's
Speaker 3: trying to carve out a constructive path during this term,
Speaker 3: but equally said and I quote, our goodwill is not
Speaker 3: a blank check, and that'll be especially true in the Senate,
Speaker 3: which is also known as the upper House, where the
Speaker 3: government doesn't have a majority.
Speaker 2: Well, just before I let you go, talk to me
Speaker 2: briefly about the Senate. I know that it's sometimes the
Speaker 2: forgotten chamber and we spend a lot of time thinking
Speaker 2: about the House of Reps. Picture for me of the
Speaker 2: state of play in the red Chamber.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Senate the overlooked child, the middle child, we
Speaker 3: might say, of the Australian Parliament. So based on the
Speaker 3: new makeup, Labor has a slightly simple path to passing
Speaker 3: legislation in the upper House. They'll need to negotiate with
Speaker 3: either the Coalition or the Greens. In the last term
Speaker 3: of parliament it was a calculus of the Greens plus
Speaker 3: a few crossbenches. Because Labour picked up a few seats,
Speaker 3: they won't have to negotiate with those cross benches necessarily.
Speaker 3: And the new Greens leader, Larissa Waters, who's in the Senate,
Speaker 3: she has said she's going to do things differently.
Speaker 4: I am a different person and I bring a different style.
Speaker 4: I really want to get outcomes. I really want to
Speaker 4: work with the current government to try to improve people's
Speaker 4: lives and protect the planet.
Speaker 3: It's going to look like a very different parliament to
Speaker 3: what we had last time, not least because some of
Speaker 3: the leaders that we got used to are just no
Speaker 3: longer there. At Avan lost his seat from the Greens
Speaker 3: and Peter Dutton lost from the Coalition. There's going to
Speaker 3: be more Labour members. Those red skittles will be, you know,
Speaker 3: just rounding that bend. And then it's important to note
Speaker 3: that we are going to have the largest proportion of
Speaker 3: female MPs in Australian political history. It's actually nearly evenly
Speaker 3: split fifty to fifty. There are going to be one
Speaker 3: hundred and twelve MP's and senators who are female and
Speaker 3: one hundred and fourteen that are male, so very very close,
Speaker 3: very close to gender parody.
Speaker 2: Really interesting. It's a new era for the Australian Parliament
Speaker 2: and Prime Minister Anthony Abernezi has a very strong mandates
Speaker 2: to lead given to him by the Australian public. But
Speaker 2: no doubt the opposition will be holding the government accountable
Speaker 2: as they should. Harry, thank you and look forward to
Speaker 2: bringing us some more updates from Canberra throughout the year.
Speaker 3: Absolute pleasure.
Speaker 2: Thanks Sam, and thank you for joining us on the
Speaker 2: Daily Hours this morning. We're going to be back in
Speaker 2: your ears this afternoon with some headlines. If you got
Speaker 2: the SEC I'd love you to click follow on Spotify
Speaker 2: or Apple really just helps make our week. We'll be
Speaker 2: back with those headlines later. Until then, have a great day.
Speaker 3: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 3: Bunjelung Calkatin woman from Gadighl Country.
Speaker 1: The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on
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Speaker 3: We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries,
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