Live on Sky News. This is Shari. Good on you Andrew, thank you for that good evening. Yes, t Price with you filling in for Shari. Shari will be back with you tomorrow night and I'll see you at six on Friday night. Now coming up on Shari tonight. Are we staring at the electoral nightmare of a minority labor government depended on the Greens and the Teals to govern? And if we are, wait for Green's leader Adam Vance's wish list that he put out today. I have more on
that shortly. Also, how in the middle of an economic downturn and a housing crisis and a lack of jobs in the regions, could the federal government go and turn its back on a billion dollar gold mine in New South Wales Central West. We'll catch up with the Minerals Council on what that means for our sovereign risk in this country. Plus what did today's inflation numbers mean for interest rates and the wider economy? Lethan Onsalen unpicked that
for us shortly, but first I can't help it. Green's leader and federal member for the Inner Suburbs of Melbourne today stood up and delivered a speech to the National Press Club that was highly delusional and an insult to every Australian. Adam Bant, in his self described egotistical guys of somehow being Australia's version of Robin Hood, has laid out an attack on profitable, multi national Australian companies that
he claims are ripping off ordinary Australians. He includes the big four banks, the Commonwealth Bank, our biggest company, aine Zed, the NAB and Westpac. He includes West Farmers, which of course runs the very popular Bunnings. He threw in Telstra, Woolworth's, Cole's, JB Hi Fi and even Ampol. Now Adam Bant wants to hit these companies and others. He calls it a
plan to his words, hit the rich. He also promises to bring in a coal and mining tack, demonizes gas today and says this will raise five hundred and forty one billion dollars, a figure plucked out of nowhere, and that will be his price for supporting labor. In the event of a hung parliament, enough is enough.
It's time to make the big corporations and billionaires pay their fair share of tax. This election, the Greens will propose a package of robin Hood reforms. The first component is targeted at big corporations who are making excessive profits beyond a normal return to shareholders. It will apply to companies with an annual turnover of over one hundred million dollars take taxing the excess profits that these companies make. This new big corporations tax would apply to both Australian
corporations and multinational corporations operating in Australia. Over the next decade, this component of the tax is expected to raise to hundred ninety six billion dollars.
What a joke this bloke is. Now, Let's state the bleeding obvious and then turn our attention to what the Greens under Adam Bant actually stand for robin Hood. Adam is about as likely to have anyone agree to any of this as he has living out his warp dream of being the Australian version of robin Hood. None of
any of this, by the way, is new. I wrote a column back in July about this when he first outlined this craziness aimed at peeling off labor voters that lean heavily left in inner suburbs of the capital cities of Australia. Now, Bant's grasp of economics is about as sharp as someone wandering around Sherwood forest back in the
fourteenth century. When you look at the corporations whose profits he describes as excessive, and who would attract this new forty percent tax that he calls a big corporations tax. Great imagination with the name by the Way, one thing stands out. Every Australian with a superannuation fund, earns dividends from all of those companies, especially the banks, So Adam Bant would be taking from the rich and also taking
from the middle class, the working class and the working class. Paul, I'm not sure Ban with his taxpayer funded super actually understands superannuation and how it works.
While people went backwards, the biggest five hundred corporations made ninety eight billion dollars in crisis profits off the back of the pandemic. Willworths, Handcock Prospecting and nab Alone Release reaped billions of dollars in crisis profits. Coles and Woolworths have both increased their profits too.
Now incredibly, incredibly to me, the ABC representative at the Press Club lunch today, interestingly sponsored by the Way with a sign at the back of ban by Westpac, one of the bank's bant wants to hit. The ABC reporter made the point that if all these corporations, especially the mining companies, are to be hit with massive new profits taxes, they will simply up and move offshore.
The Parliamentary Budget Office, who you engage to do your costings on the corporate tax issue, warns that the numbers you think you'll raise was basically a happy guess at best, because there's a lot of uncertainty around the assumptions. One of the reasons would be that global capital is incredibly mobile. Copper is available from Peru, lng is available from Russia
and Qatar, and iron ore from Africa and Brazil. What makes you so certain you'll have a resource as industry to support the welfare spending you envisage.
Well, our tax is designed to still encourage investment. We're talking about excessive profits that can still come here and make a return. We're talking about these obscene profits that they're making. Like what we're saying with the gas industry, for example, is that when there was a Russian increasion of invasion of Ukraine and it sent the price sky high, they made billions in windfall profits.
Even the ABC doesn't buy it now. As I said at the start tonight, I'm a minority Labour government dealing with this bloke and having anything to do with the Greens having to implement this fantasy world where evil rich corporations need to be flogged because they're profitable, and moneys can flow to fix everyone's teeth and build houses. It's madness. At the same time, Robin Hood refuses to accept immigration's
got anything to do with the housing crisis. The Middle East war started by a terrorist attack on Israel can be sold by everyone being nice to each other and that the corrupt c FMEU is somehow going to fix itself. Band presents to me like some UNI student living in a sharehouse, riding a bike to lectures with a rainbow view of the world where money comes off a tree and if we all get together in some Kumbai world, everybody wins, no poverty, no internation, conflicts, sun and win
power of the wide brown land. He is so naive now, just finally on Band, he refused today to slam the Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler Mather. He attended one of those CFMA, you rallies yesterday acting like some sort of warm up man. Why are the right signder attack where we go?
Labor has used these untested allegations as an excuse to attack an entire union. And let's be clear that union is everyone here today, not any individual. It is all of you here today, and they have attacked all of.
You, not the black T shirt. He's not a union member, he's a Grittins MP. Now on that stage there were signs calling our Prime Minister a Hitler like figure disgraceful and band defended him being there. But apparently I should point out Chandler Mayor asked for those signs to be taken down prior to his speech, and of course the CFMA you didn't do it. But have a look at the agro coming from the construction arm of this union, infiltrated by vikings and claims of standover tactics.
When I say you did you say that?
Put the air dochlod dot frightening stuff. Now, this mob are not going away anytime soon. And watch carefully the pressure they put on the Victorian government, in particular over giant infrastructure projects that that union dominates. It's their workforce on those projects and don't expect to send to Allen
to stand up to them. Get into tonight with Sharhi's regular Wednesday night panel form of Victorian Liberal Party President Michael Kroger is with us and former Labor Minister Graham Richardson. Welcome to you both. Rich are going I start with you so Bant and this super profits tax his speech today claiming this would be his am but claim to deal with a minority labor government. Surely they're not going to deal with Band, are they?
Well?
I certainly hope not.
You know, the more you look at this like he is completely crazy, and I just hope we don't go down a Looney Tunes path. I hope we're more mature than that.
If you were in that room and you had to I mean, if the Teals couldn't get you across the line and you had to deal with Band, would you have any other option? Though? Well, I'd certainly be searching for one.
You know, he'd be the last card in the pack, because I think he's getting more radical as the time goes by, not less, and I think that's making him a harder sell. You know, the Greens just get that hard line ten percent left vote in Australia. They have never been able to lift it. It just sticks at ten or eleven and stays there. And that's because the policies that they've got will never appeal to the ordinary Australian.
Ever, Michael, how bad, how damaging for Australia with a minority labor government doing a deal with the Greensburg, Well, it would be disastrous.
I mean, this guy banned is a wrecker. He's a wrecker around, an extremist and you know he's pie in the sky policy today. I mean, you know, Ri rich O's right. You know, even if Albanezi was forced to do a deal with Band after the election, had to be a one term labor government. So no one they told, They told them the Tasmanian Labor leader at that state election, you're not going to do a deal with the Greens
to win government down there in Tasmania. And if Albo had to, he'd be there for if he won the election, he'd be there for five minutes because they would wreck the Labor Party and wreck Australia. And you know, thank goodness, people are starting to see, you know, the more publicity Band gets this anti Israel stuff, this weird tax policy,
this guy speaking of this CMF you rally yesterday. The more exposure they get, the more extreme they get, the less likely they are to win seats, and that's a good thing for Australia.
Steve. Those disgraceful signs there are portraying Anthony Albanezi as a hitler like figure Graham. That just shows that the CFMU are not going to just sit back, take this administrator and say, okay, we have to do things differently. Now. How much of a problem is that for the PM.
Well, it's a problem, but provided you stick to your guns, you know, it's a problem will eventually go away. The one thing that Labour's got to be certain about is that once you start the move, when the CFMAU, you've got to finish it. You can't leave it half aasked. You've got to finish it. And I hope that Albert gets on with that job very quickly.
Michael. We learned today via a media release from an outfit in Melbourne that the Muslim Votes Matters is about to launch its national campaign. It's going to happen in Melbourne this coming Sunday. They asked all sorts of media people who want to go along, they need to register. The release says Muslims in Australia had been grossly overlooked and undermined for decades thanks to They blame the mainstream media perpetrating Islamophobia. Michael, we saw this launched in New
South Wales. We're not sure where that's going to go. Will it take hold in Victoria and how much should the major parties be worried about this Muslim vote.
Well, it'll take hold to a certain degree because I think that it will be quite disciplined, but I don't think it'll it'll affect any seats in Australia as it did in Britain Vaders who are pretty educated, and I don't think it's going to I don't think it's going to swing a seat. It could, but I don't think so. I think I think Peter Khalil will probably still hold Wills, and I think Labor will hold the seats in New South Wales. But it's another distraction and to to this government,
and it's not it's not helping them. By the way, see if you can just go back to the c FMU for for one minute to add to something. Graham said, What the press haven't you worked out is that Albanese is Albanese is motivated by long running faction fight he's been having the New South Wales division. He's Albow is the leader of the hard left in the New South Wales division. There's there's the soft left, which is the old Ferguson family of which the CFMU were part of
that faction. So Albo's had this long war with the Ferguson faction. So in bashing the c FU, he's finishing off his long term factional opponent in the News of Wales Labor Party. That's why he is so keen to finish them off. There are enemies of him within the Labor Party in New South Wales and have been for decades.
And so when he.
Says, oh, it's all because of you know, these corruption allegations, et cetera, the subtext to all of this is great, I can I can stick a knife into my factional opponent in New South Wales and stick another knife into the into the Ferguson faction who's opposed for generations. So that's the subtext what's going on here. And the CFM knew they're obviously a wake up to this. Mate.
Well, we got the godfather of factions with us tonight, Richard As Michael picked that correctly.
I think, Michael, there's a grain of truth in what Michael says.
I'll just say that a grade of truth, only a grain of truth.
He's still very polite, gret He's still very polite.
A couple of grains. He's very polite. Whichjoe, you know those seats of Southwest Sydney as well as anybody. Is this Muslim vote going to catch on? And is it a problem for labor?
Look, I don't think it'll catch on in any big way. No, it'll be a small irritation and annoyance, but it'll be no big deal.
Michael, I need to go back to this. Max Chandler made the bloke. He's the guy that loves, or seems to love a microphone. He's got a very healthy ego. He's been blasted for addressing that rally that featured those pictures. He wanted them taken down apparently, But what the hell is a Greens MP from Queensland doing standing up there addressing a CFMU rally. What's that about?
Well, he's starring up trouble against the Labor Party. That's what he's trying to do here. Any opportunity for the Greens to get an add to their innicity vote and stick it into Labor, that's what he's doing. And by the way, if this is true that you know these signs were any request that these signs be taken down.
He should have refused to appear.
He should have said, I'm not going to stand here at a rally where the prime Minister this country is depicted as Adolf Hitler. Nor am I going to appear at a rally where there's a coffin of the effectively of Albanize eye. He's dead body politically in front of him. He should have said, take those down and then I'll appear, But I'm not going to appear with that behind me. So he appeared anyway, So irresponsible of him, disgraceful of him.
But this is the Greens.
They are just wreckers and any if they can wreck the Labor Party, boy, they're very happy to do that. They're very happy to wreck the Labor Party and that's why he steamed up with the CFMU. But what Adam Band needs to do is given undertaking that he will not accept any donations from the CFMU. It's going to be harder now because they're an administration or any of their allies who are backing the CFMU for the next election.
You just watch if there are donations from these radical left unions to the Greens at the next election, because any cf supporter he should say, We're not accepting donations from you.
Labor Minister Murray, what weighed into this this morning. Here's what he had to say.
I think it's also very very disturbing that we saw a Greens MP, Max Chandler Nather decide to share a stage with the Construction Union yesterday in Brisbane, despite those placards invoking Nazi references, despite the coffins with the Prime minister's face. I mean, what does it say to people that a Greens MP puts grand standing in front of a crowd above making a statement about what's respectful or not.
When you share a stage with a group, you make a choice and you're endorsing the culture and behavior of that organization.
Richo, how much is this about the Greens sending a signal to the CFMAU that look, you know, if you've got any spare money to toss around you in an election campaign, we'd be more than happy to take it.
I think there's an element of that in this, that's for sure. Sadly, you know, the CFMU occasionally looks to the Greens, or some people in it do, and I find that very sad. I mean, the CFMU has been a bit of a let's say, a two edged sword for years. You know, there are a lot of good people in the CFMU, but my god, there are some horrible bases in it as well.
Nicely put Graham. Now, Michael, let's get onto one of our favorite topics, the dysfunctional Victorian labor government, taxing the hell out of anyone they can find they now, have you believed this? You know this is somehow able to be fixed, but I'm not sure how they're going to do it other than tax everyone to death, including now a seven a half percent tax on Airbnb, so no tourist will come here. You had a hospital emergency department
this morning. You two won't believe this. They had a hospital emergency department had to call an ambulance to rush to the hospital empty to treat a cardiac patient because of a lack of resources inside the hospital, Michael, what the hell was happening?
Well, when Joan Kernel left office through the good growth of the Victorian public back in nineteen ninety two, she left a debt behind her of thirty three billion. We're now approaching one hundred and eighty billion under this mob right, same dollar terms. There's no money here in Victoria, Steve.
The place is broke.
Andrews and Cindra Allison have bankrupted Victoria effectively, so there isn't any more money for the hospital services. They've taxed the hell out of the place. Land tax in Victoria is at absurd level, so people have selling investment properties. They've massively increased payroll tax in Victoria, every other tax they could think of property taxes to make up this shocking budget.
Shawful.
Tim Pallace has been the treasurer here for ten years. Tim, you order hang your head in Showmte. You've left this place a burning wreck. But there's no money, Steve. They've run out of money. And he bought the two elections in eighteen and twenty two. He spent fifty billion at each election. Daniel Andrews, he promised everything. Well, of course people are going to vote for fifty billion each time.
But of course at the next election there's nothing to spend, and people are going to say, well, you know, you've ruined Victoria as they have, and hopefully they' altern to John Pursuito and the Liberal Party because this mob have left a ruin here in Victoria.
Steve rich Omichael's very optimistic about that. I mean, if you had an election today, incredibly, to Michael and me and to everyone who mainly lives in Victoria, Labor would get re elected. I mean, this is the problem that the alternative opposition, particularly with John Pursudo as leader, who I don't think can lead them to any sort of win that still get back Ingram.
You know, I don't see that as a problem. I'm delighted to hear it, but of course it's true. I think sometimes you know that it doesn't matter how good or vad you are, it's how you perceived. I don't think Bashudo is ever going to be Premier of Victoria. And the problem that lies beneath that is that how do you replace him when you've got a caucus of nobody's It's pretty hard to do. So I think the Liberals in Victoria have got a lot of soul searching
to do. So Michael, get on the job. I think he might already be on the job.
Graham. I don't think you need to tell him to do that. I've long thank you. Oh, I don't know about that. Michael and Graham, thank you as always. We'll catch up with you shortly coming up after the break. Premier Chris Men's in New South Wales. Look, he's not holding back his disappointment at Tannya Plipa Sex decision to
block this billion dollar gold mine. Mining Council CEO Stephen Galilee will join me to discuss what that might mean for projects right around the country, plus the stunning snub by former Queensland Premier Anastasia Palache. Hang around. Welcome back Steve Price in for Shari.
Now.
This route between the New South Wales and the Federal Labor government around this gold mine has escalated. Today. You had the Premier of New South Wales, Chris Mins, ramping up his retric against the Commonwealth's last minute order to kill off this gold mine. Min's didn't hold back in budget estimates earlier today I ever listened to him. I'm disappointed by the decision from the Commonwealth Government. You disagree
with the reversion. I'm slut said that many times and so in your view ten you're cleversick using that power.
Was she was in error?
Yes, that's Chris Mins Today. Now the Prime Ministers insisting that the project can still go ahead though regiu's resources does not sound as confident. Let's bring in New South Wales Minerals Council Chief Executive Stephen Galilee. Stephen, good to see you again defending this decision, Minister Pleversecond, even the Prime Minister say, look, this can go ahead, just move the tailings dam But surely the company, Stephen, looked at all those alternative sites, didn't they.
This is political damage control from the Prime Minister and the minister involved. This decision is a dagger at the heart of the project. The Minister knew exactly what she was doing when she made her decision. She knew that the tailing stand was integral to the mind design the viability of the project. She was told that by the company formally and as was her department on many occasions. She knew exactly what the implications were of her decision.
And this is the kind of political damage control and rhetoric you get from people that have never had a real job outside of Parliament. They've been in Parliament too long. They think that if you put it in a press release, it happens. Mind design is not some kind of cut and paced exercise to move that tailing stan means an entire redesign of the mind itself. It means geotechnical, geological engineering, biodiversity ek, environmental, cultural, heritage and other studies need to
be done. It means a new application needs to be prepared and assessed. And at the end of all that, after several years, you know, four or five years or so, potentially you've got another spurious veto decision from the Minister again. So these comments from the Prime Minister and from Minister Pleitasek are a breath taking misunderstanding of how the planning system works in New South Wales and just how out of touch they are in relation to how things happen in the real world.
So explain, if you ken Stephen, this section ten legislation for us, what sort of power does that bestow on the minister and what sort of sovereign risk might that pose to Australian mining projects Right around the country.
Well, it effectively bestows a right of vetail on the Minister in relation to a claimed cultural heritage status of particular sites in relation to these sorts of projects. And it's not just mining projects. We've seen these sorts of claims made in relation to gas projects in relation to other mining projects, and I'm sure that that'd be applicable to renewable energy and other projects in regional New South
Wales as well. They give the Minister a discretion to block projects on the basis in this case of information she says it's culturally sensitive that she can't repeat it. So how's how's the proponents supposed to know that it creates massive sovereign risks issues for any major investment in regional Australia. This is a New South Wales example, but this is a risk for regional projects right across the country.
And it's a it's a it's a weaponized piece of legislation that we've seen used by the Environmental Environmental Defenders Office and others to try and block resources projects. And this is what happens when a weaponized project is given some kind of way by the minister. So she she's
swung a wrecking ball at this project. The project is now back to the drawing board, and for her and the Prime Minister to suggest they can simply tweak the application and everything is going to be okay, is, as I said, a breathtaking misunderstanding of how these major projects are assessed through state planning systems.
And we're not talking here. Are we about a threat to native animals or some major environmental impact on the region that's going to destroy a river or create damage. We're actually talking about an indigenous complaint from an individual that was not agreed by the actual indigenous landholders of that area, and we don't even know exactly what the complaint is.
These cultural heritage claims were rigorously assessed through the New South Wales government's own processes. The local Aboriginal Land Council said there were no sites or artifacts of cultural significance that would prevent this project from seeding. That should be the end of the matter. But Minister Plebsek has entertained whispers in her ear from a dissident local indigenous group of dubious credentials which she says are so sensitive she
can't repeat, to block this project. She knew exactly what she was doing. She swung a wrecking ball at this project. It's a billion dollars of investment, it's eight hundred local jobs in regional New South Wales. And this is a threat not just to this project but for any future mining project here in New South Wales and across the central west of our state, where critical minerals and metals projects are so important to our economy for the future.
And good on Premier mins for recognizing that and for saying that. And I feel for the local average and a land Council who must be thinking, well, what are our views worth in these assessments if Minister plebasec can ignore our views and listen to whispers in her ear from a different group and block the project on that basis.
The Premier has been strong, but he says he's not going to pick up the phone for some reason and try and intervene. Should he?
Well, I know that the New South Wales government, they've done their assessment. They did the right thing. They've conducted an assessment over more than three years on this project. They send it to the Independent Planning Commission in our state, which conducts an independent assessment. It was given the tick for approval. The issues that have been raised at the commonwealth level were raised at the state level and they
were taken into account when the approval was granted. So if any state government should be very concerned that the federal government now has this effective right of VUTA over any project they wish to develop within their own jurisdictions, and in this case it's New South Wales and the New South Wales government has reacted accordingly, but any state government around the country should be very wary of what
this leads to. This means that the Commonwealth can block any project that they don't see to be politically consistent with their values, or if they decide that they want to block it for other reasons. So good on the Premier and good on the New South Wales government for standing up for New South Wales. But it's not just a case that you can just tweak this application and put it back into the system and move the tailings dam on the mind plan in some kind of cut
and paced exercise. These things happen in the real world in a lot more complicated fashion than that, and the Prime Minister and the Minister should know that.
You make an interesting point there. I mean, what chance. Do you think this project would have been canceled if it were, say a renewable energy project like a wind farm or some solar panels.
Well, if this was a dam rather than a tailings dam, if it was a dam for a punped hydro project, perhaps the outcome and the minister's discretionary decision would have been different. If this was the minister from regional a regional electorate rather from an inner city electorate under threat from the maybe the decision would have been different. But look,
in the end, we are where we are. It's a terrible decision and what makes it worse is the minister's refusal to actually go to the region and front up to the people involved in the communities that have lost these jobs in this investment and explain her decision.
What do you reckon this might have cost the company Regions, Well.
They've already written down hundreds of millions of dollars in their annual reporting so far. They've spent hundreds of millions of dollars and well over five years trying to develop this resource.
So they did the right thing.
They decided they would invest in New South Wales, create those jobs and generate that investment, and I'm sure they are reeling and others are also thinking, well why would we bother, not just in New South Wales but around the country when this sort of decision can be imposed at the very last minute after our more than four or five year extensive assessment process by the state government and others.
This project had.
All its Commonwealth approvals as well, apart from Minister Clevers's Cultural Heritage approval too, So you know, it's a terrible signal for investment in region on East South Wales and these projects are so important for regional economies and regional communities and that's why you've seen such a reaction from the locals in that region, and it's a warning sign for any other regional community across the country.
Well, it's just disgraceful. Stephen Galilee, appreciate it. Thank you very much for coming on the program tonight. Well that was a very blunt assessment, wasn't it. Now still to come Jim Chalmers, the Treasurer, he's today doubled down on those comments where he said Peter Dutton is a divisive figure. Is Labor playing the right game? Here? Will ask the panel up next. Plus I'll be joined by economist Leith Vannsel, and we'll talk about He'll join us live to break
down the latest inflation figures and what they mean. Welcome back on this Wednesday night, Steve Price in for Charie Markson. Shari will be back with you tomorrow night. Paul Murray coming up at the top of the hour. Now, treasure of Jim Chalmers. He made a very long, hour long speech at the weekend, and he doubled down today on some of the comments he made in that speech about Opposition leader Peter Dutton. Now, he used the word divisive on the weekend, but he also used the word dangerous.
Now he said today that he was standing by his comments that the opposition leader is divisive. But I note that the word dangerous went missing. Here was what Jim Chalmers had to say today.
Most people look around the world and see the divisiveness in politics overseas. They want to reject it, and he seems to want to embrace it. And so the point that I made then and the point that I'm making again today is that our focus is on the cost of living and the fight against inflation. His focus is on dividing people. And that's because that's all he knows, and it's all that he does.
Pure politics. That's it's all about. Let's bring in tonight's political panel talking in politics, Liberal Senator Holly Hugheser was great to see her and Julia Gallat's former press secretary Darren Barnette. Welcome to you both. Can I start with you, Senator? I feel like I'm in a bit of a time warp here I can take us and you were there, you can go all the way back. This is how the Labor Opposition used to describe Tony Abbott, wasn't.
It Absolutely And that went so well for them. But it's just extraordinary that these personal attacks on Peter Dutton is basically all they've got left in their armory. They've completely failed when it comes to addressing cost of living pressures in this country. Everyday Australians are doing an increasingly tough whether it's a supermarket at the petrol bowser, trying to put a roof over the head and food on
the table. It's becoming increasingly difficult for Australian families. Yet all this Labor government has is continual personal attacks and is and Jim Chalmers to spend his time making these outrageous statements when Australians are doing so Doing it so tough is just ridiculous and insulting to all of those.
Australians, Darren. In your time in government, obviously you sit down and discuss tactics with a leader, when you discuss how to portray the person you want to beat in an electoral contest, how much discussion around the table is how much of it should be personal?
I think that Look, Labor Party does it and other parties do it too. Is they go to focus groups, they see which words, which phrases, which descriptions resonate with people at a certain point in time. Obviously that term divisive or divisive has come up at some point. But honestly, it's not a surprise that an opposition leader would try
to be divisive. That's their job. They oppose, They open up fault lines in government arguments and they try to exploit those and convince people to come over to their side when they next vote. But that second word that you mentioned, being dangerous, that's a much more risky word to use, and I think that's probably why it's been
left in the locker for today's speech. But divisive. I think that's going to be a term that everyone in opposition is going to be described by everyone in government, and when there's inevitably a change of government, they'll just swap talking points and the same descriptions will run in the other direction.
Holly, I mean Tony Abbott had the Gold Medal for how to be an opposition leader, put your arguments and get elected. Is Peter Dutton taking a leaf out of Abbot's book and modeling the way he's going to fight this election on the way Abbott did it? Well?
I think Peter is being Peter. I've known him for over twenty years and I think he's doing a great job as opposition leader. And I think Margaret's use to say I love it when they go personal because it means they've got no arguments left. And I think that's
the case with this government. And it's interesting though, using the word divisive or the creating division, when we know it was this Prime Minister through the Voice campaign that probably injected the moist division this country has ever seen within the communities. So I think they have to be careful here in the ALP because it's very easy to turn around that this is a government that's brought more
division to this country. Whether it's been how they've dealt with the situation in Gaza and anti Semitic attacks and their inability to get off the fence and defend our Australian Jewish community and what's been happening, whether it was the Voice referendum, but the continual divisiveness that this alp government has tried to stoke. I can't see it working well for them as we get closer to the election.
Darren, the choice of the word divisive, what do you think exactly that Treasurer Charmers is pointing to. Is he talking about the attitude of Peter Dutton to not allow visa holders from Palestine into Australia when they're not being checked properly. Is it division about how we're going to generate power or is it a general term that he divides the community because of his tough politics.
Well, I think it's a term that resonates in different parts of the country. You'll find the inner suburban seats of the major capitals, probably the two that you just described, they are issues that resonate. I think the nuclear power debate divisive is one way of describing it's certainly bold and we will wait to see how the Australian people take that when they put their vote at the next election. But as I said before, it's the job of the opposition to put up alternatives and it's their job to
open up fault lines in government arguments. And when you're a government minister and you're trying to sell the message of the day or the story of the day and someone comes along and just completely derails that, you probably get a bit frustrated. But that's part of the rough and tumble of politics and you just got to deal with it and move on.
We all love a political snub. Queensland Premier Stephen Miles, now you've got to say not the most popular bloke in Queensland. Even his predecessor and his one time all Anastagia Palischoe, the former Premier, wouldn't endorse him. Have a look at this awkward encounter over the weekend.
Sere a Miles endorsement though, well, thanks for coming along today, I got.
To keep going. Can we expect to see it? Not exactly a ringindorsement An hour later, Holly, obviously, after the video began being sent out on social media. The premier reached out to the Career Mail to say that of course she endorses the embattled Stephen Miles. Mister Miles would not have been happy boy behind the scene.
I wouldn't have thought, Oh, nothing more bitter than a former Labor premier who was tapped on the shoulder for this bloke. I mean, I think the writing's on the wall for the ALP and Queensland. They've absolutely destroyed the state of Queensland and continue to drive its economy into the ground. It's probably the most sensible thing Anastasia Palichet's
ever done by not endorsing Steven Miles. Maybe she's thinking of coming back and doesn't want to tire her own reputation, but I can't imagine anyone's out there too heavily endorsing Steven Miles except for Steven Miles. At this point in time.
Darren Norton territory election, we saw obviously the Country Liberal Party not Labour sideways so much so that Labour's only going to end up. I think with about five seats you've got Queensland. Talking of Miles, there they are facing, if the polls are right, something of an electra wipeout in a couple of months time. That's too Domino's down. How worried would the head office of the Labor Party be about those two elections going that way?
Well, it's obviously not a good trend. But equally there's not a lot of upside for Labor in Queensland or Northern Territory when it comes to the next election. Frankly, the federal result in Queensland for Labor last time around was disappointing that the seats that were there to be won ended up being picked up by the Greens. And as we all know, whether it's Greens or Teals or Independence, once your seats go to those independent style candidates, it's
very hard to get them back. So I think, look, it's not great, I'm not happy. I'm not going to try and sugarcoat that. But equally, the next election, they're probably not the two parts of Australia where it will be either won or lost.
Holly. Speaking of the Greens, Adam Bant likes to portray himself these days as Robin Hood he was the National Press Press Club. Today is a little bit of what he promised.
It's time to make the big corporations and billionaires pay their fair share of tax. Today I can announce the first of these robin Hood reforms. We're calling it a big Corporations tax. It will apply to companies with an annual turnover of over one hundred million dollars, taxing the excess profits that these companies make.
Holly robin Hood dressed in green rights with a bull and arrow.
I was just going to say, the only thing missing was the tights. There's certainly not an economics textbook the Greens have ever read in their life. It just their complete ignorance when it comes to basic economics is always quite a thing of beauty in its complete the extent of it is unbelievable. They have no idea. Who do they think employees Australians. You know, it's not government that
creates jobs, it is business. And what they're trying to do will either destroy business here will send it off shore. We know that they would have us all living in treehouses eating mung beans and witchity grubs, and we might not be allowed to the witchity grubs anymore. But you know, I mean, these guys are just so out of touch with reality. But as Darren just made in the previous point. You know, in Queensland Labor didn't pick up seats off
the coalition. Those seats that we lost in Queensland went to the Greens, and people in Australia need to really the electorate needs to have a really, really good think about what it would look like with the Greens in a minority government. Putting the Greens near the treasury benches, it's not good news for anyone in Australia.
Now.
Obviously I'd like to vote for the Liberal Party, and I'm sure Darren would like them to vote Labor. But this trend of not voting for a major party of government, I think runs the risk of really putting our parliament in a very precarious situation.
Darren, I was quite pleased with myself tonight. I've described Adam Banders reminding me of a student living in a sharehouse, riding his bike to university and eating, as Holly just said, among being sandwiches for lunch. The Labor Party are not going to deal with the Greens, are they? Surely I think they can.
Amusingly, I knew Adam Bant when he was a student at Melbourne University about thirty years ago and he was exactly as you describe, not surprisingly, but that said, look, Labor in combination with the Greens, we saw what happened. I worked in the Gillard government. We saw how popular that was with the electorate. Labor does not want to form minority government with the Greens, full stop, not now, not in the current political life.
They will though if they can.
Who's to say what the future holds that they do not want to And look, I'm to say it, I'm not employed by the Labor Party these days. If Labour's in minority government with the Greens, it's their last. It's really that simple. So these policies that Adam Bant is putting out, they are actually popular with younger voters in a city, people who can't afford a home, who are struggling with various parts of cost of living, and they see the big bad multinational corporations. It's like an episode
of Team America. But you've got to take it on board that those people still vote and their vote is worth as much as anybody else's. At the moment, you'd have to think with their vote the Greens holding up at twelve to fourteen percent, they may not lose their lower House representation, and they will probably hold their Senate representation,
so they're not going anywhere. The difficulty for the major parties is who do you deal with if you're facing minority and on what terms do you deal with them?
Well said Darren, I can just imagine you and Adam sharing a bunk bed at the university in the good old days. Holly Huestarebinette, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Still to come. The inflation numbers were out today. We'll catch up with the economist Leaf and onsol and to see what it means for the crucial upcoming rates decision. Charry Marxon back with you tomorrow night. Paul Murray coming
up next. CPI Index released today showed that inflation needs to three point five percent in annual terms in July, down three point eight from June. Now overall, the Treasure seem pretty pleased with those results.
We'd like inflation to fall further and faster, and we expect it to.
What we've seen in.
This data today is really quite welcoming, are quite welcome and quite encouraging.
Let's bringing Macro Business Chief economist Leith van Onsel and Leith Let's start with the market predictions. It didn't quite fall as economist's forecast. What kept it a bit more sticky, do we think?
Look, there was a lot of uncertainty amongst economists about today's result, really because we didn't know what the impact of the federal government's energy.
Subsidies would be, so we had market.
Economists predicted anything from two point seven percent to three point nine percent, So it'd ended up coming to a three point five percent, which was slightly higher than the median forecast of three point four percent. As it turned out, electricity prices in the CPI fell by six point four percent over the month, and that pretty.
Much drove the result.
There was some good news though, We are seeing broadening disinflationary pressures beyond energy, so Steve. The number of items in the CPI basket which had annual inflation rates below two percent actually out numbers the number of ibeans where inflation has grown above the Reserve banks target of three percent. So we are seeing some broadening disinflationary pressures, which I think is good news.
It's hard thing to get your head around. I mean, petrol prices in Victoria at the moment are really low, but three weeks ago, you were paying two twenty two thirty cents a leader. Now you're paying somewhere around somewhere between dollars sixty dollars eighty. But petrol's in there.
Right, Yeah, that's right mate. Petrol rents pretty much. You know,
there's a whole bunch of stuff that that we paid for. Look, the Reserve Bank tends to look beyond those really volatile measures, so it looks more at things which is something called underlying inflation, and that also eased as well, So that fell to three point seven percent in July from four percent in June, and in fact, the monthly result for the underlying inflation was actually the lowest since July twenty twenty one, so we are getting some progress there in inflation.
The big problem I got, Steve, though, is that the thing that's driven the fallen inflation over the last year has actually been tradable good so that's basically things that we pull off off a shipping container. Inflation there's only been at one and a half percent. The sticky part is that services inflation, or non tradable inflation, that's that domestically driven inflation, is still running at five percent and That's the thing that I think will worry the RBA
because that's quite sticky. It looks like we've run our ray with tradeables. They're not going to fall below what they're at. So if we are going to bring inflation down, we need this sticky services inflation to fall. Still, no rate cut till next year, Yeah, no, absolutely not. I think we could rule out rate cuts this year. To see rate cuts, we're going to have to see one or two things. One of them is, obviously we're going to have to see inflation fall much further than it has. Otherwise,
we're going to have to see unemployment rise significantly. And I don't think we'll get either of those things before the end of the year.
Wow. Yeah, No one wants to see that, Leith. I agree with you completely. Thank you very much for that, my friend Leith and Nonseloin there on the issue of whether we'll get a rate cut up next Paul Murray