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Treasurer says fuel efficiency standard will reduce costs, not increase them
Earlier, Treasurer Jim Chalmers was asked about the government’s long-awaited fuel efficiency standard.
It applies only to new car sales and limits the average emissions of a carmaker’s overall fleet of vehicles sold each year, measured in grams of CO₂ per kilometre.
The standard is designed to encourage car manufacturer’s to sell more efficient petrol cars or electric vehicles.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
However, the opposition has revived memories of the Morrison government’s 2022 election campaign claim that federal Labor’s policies to promote electric vehicle sales would “end the weekend”.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers also hit back at claims the standard would push up the price of utes and cars.
“The Americans have had this for something like 50 years, and they love their pickup trucks as you know. This is about getting more options on the market, more fuel-efficient cars and utes so that they use less petrol and they cost less to run,” he told Nine’s Today program.
’This is a cost-of-living measure which is all about getting costs down, not up, and giving people more choice. It doesn’t tell anyone what kind of car to buy or what kind of ute to buy, it just means there are more options for people who want to get a more fuel-efficient vehicle to get their costs down.”
He said it would help people save $1000 per year on petrol if they had a fuel-efficient vehicle.
“This is not about mandating what kind of car you buy, it’s about giving you more choices, so if you want to get your running costs down, you can.”
Burney pays tribute to Lowitja O’Donoghue
Warning to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers: This story contains images and references to a deceased person.
The Indigenous Australians minister has paid tribute to trailblazing Indigenous woman Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue, who died at 91 yesterday.
She died peacefully yesterday on Kaurna land in Adelaide, with her family by her side, niece Deb Edwards said in a statement.
Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue.Credit: Leanne King
She was a nurse, administrator, founding chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission and patron of the institute that bears her name and is dedicated to improving the health of First Australians.
Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney was among the politicians to pay tribute to her work on Monday.
Here’s what she told ABC TV:
I think it’s very difficult to sum up the legacy of Lowitja O’Donoghue. She was admired and respected by both sides of the House.
She was admired and respected across this country, and loved by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Her legacy will be felt for generations to come. Maybe forever.”
Burney said she was a role model for many young Aboriginal women.
“She was the next generation on from me and many of us young Aboriginal women at the time in the ’90s, the ’80s, looked at Lowitja and saw possibility,” she said.
“You felt her graciousness, you felt her kindness, but you also felt very much the fact that she could be very stern. And that sternness was always about teaching a lesson.”
Gallagher probed about negative gearing changes
Returning to Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, who was asked about potential changes to negative gearing.
She was asked on ABC’s RN Breakfast program whether she’d like to see changes to negative gearing, after the Labor government decided to overhaul stage 3 tax cuts.
Here’s what Gallagher said:
We have made a decision on tax on this matter [stage 3 tax cuts] that we’re talking about based on cost-of-living grounds. That is why we have changed our position ... the only tax measure that we have brought forward on housing is actually to generate more supply and to build to rent tax.
We’ve got a full book including a lot of bills stuck in the Senate, on PRRT [petroleum resource rent tax], on high-balance super accounts, on multinational tax reform, we’ve now got this tax bill. That’s a pretty full tax book … to get through the Senate.”
She was pushed on whether that meant the government had “maxed out” more changes to taxes.
“We have a lot of tax changes, we’ve got a lot of bills and a couple of them are stuck in the Senate, and we want to get those bills through and this one, obviously and that is a pretty significant tax agenda … that’s our focus and it will be our focus,” the minister said.
Allies ‘have to compete aggressively’ with China for Pacific security
By Peter Hartcher
The United States has urged Papua New Guinea to turn down China’s offer of a security pact, increasing pressure on the prime minister of Australia’s nearest neighbour as he prepares to address parliament in Canberra this week.
The Chinese government last year tried to encompass 10 Pacific Island nations in a single, region-wide security treaty but was rebuffed and now seeks one-on-one deals with individual capitals.
US official Richard Verma was in Sydney last week.Credit: Janie Barrett
A senior US official, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Verma, during a visit to Australia urged PNG to turn down the offer from Beijing. “That sort of security guarantee comes with consequences. It comes with costs. And we’ve seen that the Chinese commitment in defence or investment comes with a high cost. That’s what we’d say to PNG,” he told this masthead in an interview.
He stated openly that “it is a competition” for influence in the region between the People’s Republic of China on one hand and the US and its allies including Australia on the other, and that “we have to compete aggressively”.
PNG’s Foreign Minister, Justin Tkachenko, revealed last week that his government was in early negotiations over a policing deal with Beijing. “We deal with China at this stage only at the economic and trade level,” said Tkachenko.
“They are one of our biggest trading partners, but they have offered to assist our policing and security on the internal security side. They have offered it to us, but we have not accepted it at this point in time.”
Koalas, echidnas at risk if fire ants aren’t eradicated
By Mike Foley
Koalas, platypuses, echidnas, turtles, birds and other native species face a deadly threat if an outbreak of venomous fire ants is not eradicated.
The federal Environment Department has told a parliamentary inquiry that fire ants, whose bite can cause severe and, in rare cases, fatal allergic reactions in humans, can injure and kill Australian wildlife, particularly defenceless hatchlings.
Fire ants can sting native wildlife to death.Credit: Monique Westerman.
Fire ants invaded south-east Queensland in 2001 and are threatening to gain a foothold in other states. Incursions have been detected in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania in the past year.
The department said the venomous pest, which is native to South America, could deliver painful bites to animals’ eyes, nose and mouth.
Arboreal animals such as koalas risked being stung and killed by ants as they travelled across the ground, while turtles, including threatened loggerheads, were also in danger.
Hume says PM lied on tax changes, but Coalition will always support lower taxes
Opposition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume says the Coalition will “always support lower and simpler taxes”.
Hume was asked about whether Coalition would support the Labor’s overhauled income tax cuts on ABC radio this morning.
“The Coalition … will always support lower and simpler taxes,” she said.
Opposition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume and shadow treasurer Angus Taylor.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“This change to the statutory tax cuts, has actually done away with any reform that could have gone through in the future, this is not genuine tax reform. This is simply a political response to what the government has seen as their tanking popularity, and with a byelection on the horizon.”
She said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese lied to the Australian public when he said there were no changes to the stage 3 tax cuts.
“He has lied to the Australian public, and quite frankly sold his integrity, for the largest tax cut will be $15 a week. I don’t think you can buy integrity for $15 a week.”
She said the Liberal Party would go through the legislation, and wouldn’t pre-empt the process.
“There’s an awful lot of opinions within our party room on all sorts of issues and this will be no different.”
Finance minister wants Coalition to support tax changes
Finance Minister Katy Gallagher is speaking about the government’s overhauled income tax cuts, as Labor prepares to push the changes through parliament.
“We’ve made a decision based on listening to people about [cost-of-living] pressures, and we’ve responded with this change,” she told ABC’s RN Breakfast this morning.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“I think people are up for a rational I think people are up for a rational and reasonable discussion, but we made this decision based on putting people before politics.”
The minister said she wanted the opposition to support the changes, but noted they opposed everything the Labor government brought to parliament.
She said that was the opposition’s choice, but if they stood in the way the government would talk to other people in the Senate.
“But my preference is that the Senate unanimously moved, that’s obviously the best outcome but in the event that the opposition cut themselves out of the story, we will look at other senators to support our passage of our legislation,” she said.
Gallagher said the government’s focus was on easing cost-of-living pressures.
“I’m sure there’ll be others that will write things about [this] in future, but that hasn’t been something that we’ve been conscious of, it really has been about what we can do to help people, particularly those that have been feeling the crunch from the interest rate increases,” she said.
Treasurer doesn’t expect compromises on tax changes
By Olivia Ireland
The changes to stage 3 tax cuts will be what goes through the parliament this week, as Treasurer Jim Chalmers expects the proposal to pass without compromises for the crossbench.
Speaking on Nine’s Today program, Chalmers said the new stage 3 tax package is an important opportunity to be passed this week for all Australian taxpayers to receive the cut from July.
“If the Greens try and knock off our change to the stage 3 changes, if they vote against us, they’ll be voting for Scott Morrison’s stage 3 changes from five years ago,” Chalmers said.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers doesn’t expect compromises on tax legislation.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“What we want to see here is not a Greens party or coalition party more interested in bagging the Labor Party than delivering for low and middle income earners in our economy and in our country.”
The Greens have been calling for the tax cuts to go further, including an increase to the low-income tax offset, a lift to Jobseeker, including dental into Medicare and rent freezes.
Chalmers said the government always engaged with crossbenchers, but said they had already invoked various policies to help Australians with cost of living, indicating they will not concede to the Greens.
“When it comes to social security payments, we lifted Jobseeker in the last budget. In a permanent way we increased rent assistance, we provided help with electricity bills and cheaper medicines,” he said.
“We’ll always try and do the right thing by people, but these tax cuts should stand on their own as a good effort to get people a little bit more help with their cost-of-living pressures.”
Ben Roberts-Smith’s million-dollar gamble in defamation appeal
By Michaela Whitbourn
A high-powered legal team led by prominent Sydney silk Bret Walker will fight to overturn damning findings made against former Special Air Service soldier Ben Roberts-Smith in a million-dollar defamation appeal before a trio of Federal Court judges.
Roberts-Smith’s 10-day appeal against a decision dismissing his defamation case over reports in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald starts today. His lawyers will argue Federal Court Justice Anthony Besanko fell into legal error by finding the former corporal was complicit in the murder of four unarmed Afghan prisoners.
Ben Roberts-Smith.Credit: Rhett Wyman
The Victoria Cross recipient is asking the full court of the Federal Court to set aside Besanko’s decision in June last year and to enter judgment in his favour.
He has also asked the court to award damages itself, or to send the matter to a different Federal Court judge to calculate damages.
‘Get on with it,’ Lambie says about passing tax cuts
By Caroline Schelle
Crossbench senator Jacqui Lambie supports the federal government’s tax changes, and thinks the Liberal Party should support the plan.
“I think it is the right move,” the senator told Nine’s Today program.
Senator Jacqui Lambie.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Here’s what else she told the program:
Otherwise you’re going to let the Greens start negotiating.
And I think they’re fair tax cuts. And we should get those tax cuts through as quickly as possible ... get on with it.
That’s what I believe. So I think it’s common sense by the Liberal Party to support them and knock the Greens clean out of the game.”
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2024-02-04 21:24:17Z
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