July 21, 2025 • 15 mins
79 days after Labor’s federal election win, politicians are back in Canberra for the official opening of the 48th Parliament. Once the pomp and ceremony clears away, it’ll be back to business: as the Government plans to legislate 20% off HECS debts, childcare funding crackdowns, and penalty rate protections in the first sitting week. The Coalition and Greens have new faces leading their parties, vowing to approach politics differently over the next three years. Today’s deep dive will look at how the new Parliament will differ from the old.
Listen: TDA interviews the leader of the Liberal Party
Listen: TDA interviews the Governor-General
Hosts: Harry Sekulich and Sam Koslowski
Producer: Orla Maher
Want to support The Daily Aus? That's so kind! The best way to do that is to click ‘follow’ on Spotify or Apple and to leave us a five-star review. We would be so grateful.
The Daily Aus is a media company focused on delivering accessible and digestible news to young people. We are completely independent.
Want more from TDA?
Subscribe to The Daily Aus newsletter
Subscribe to The Daily Aus’ YouTube Channel
Have feedback for us?
We’re always looking for new ways to improve what we do. If you’ve got feedback, we’re all ears. Tell us here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Already and this is the daily This is the Daily os.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Oh, now it makes sense.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Good morning and welcome to the Daily Ours. It's Tuesday,
the twenty second of July. I'm Harry Seculch.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'm Sam Kazlowski.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
School's back for our political leaders. Today, Parliament will resume
two and a half months after Labour won a convincing
victory at the polls. While the government will have more
members in its ranks, opposition parties mostly have new faces
as their figureheads. In today's deep dive, we'll take a
look at what we can expect from the government of
(00:41):
Prime Minister Anthony Albanesi in the next term of parliament.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Harry, you super excited to get into this first. He's
message from our sponsor, So, Harry. Parliament resumes today for
the first time since the federal election. How long ago
was that? I feel like seventy nine days, right, so
it's quite a while. I'm counting. It's been quite sometime,
(01:07):
and that's a pretty long winter break compared to how
they normally roll out.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Right, Well, these parliaments actually earned the nickname of part
time parliament because they just have so few sitting days.
Obviously not casting any aspersions here, But it does seem
like the election did come at a very convenient time
because they have the winter break around this time anyway
in the parliamentary calendar, so it's really just extended out
quite a lot. But I'm sure many MPs and senators
(01:34):
would be listening to this saying, we still work hard
even when we're not in parliament itself, when parliament's not sitting,
so you know, we're just back to the formalities now.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
We'd never want to doubt that our parliamentarians work as
hard as possible. But why don't we go back eighty
days and get a quick refresher on what happened in
that election to give us a sense of this new
state of playing camera.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Yeah, so on the third of May we had the
Fed election where Labour won in quite a convincing landslide,
so they won ninety four out of one hundred and
fifty seats. And remember his seat is an electorate, so
a certain area of the country that's represented the Coalition
had a pretty poor showing on the night, so much
so that the leader of the Coalition at the time,
(02:19):
Peter Dunton, actually lost his seat. I'm sure you remember,
Sam It was quite a big news story on a
night of many many headlines, but that was certainly one
of the biggest. And Susan Lee has since become the
leader of the opposition, has been interviewed by The Daily
Os was sitting in this chair and the Greens leader
Adam Bandt also lost his seat at the election and
(02:41):
he's since been replaced by Senator Larissa Waters. So in
that time there's been a few political dramas, a few developments.
We even saw the coalition split up for eight days,
so the Liberal and National parties took a bit of
a break. They're back together again and patch they've patched
things up ahead of the parliament so they keen to
put forward a united front in opposition to the government
(03:03):
now and the Prime Minister has also announced a reshuffle
of the cabinet and the ministry, so we saw a
few people, some notable figures actually be removed from the cabinets,
so that included the Attorney General Mark Drevis and the
former Industry Minister Ed Husick as well. So if you
look at the house like skittles, there's a lot of
(03:26):
red and a smaller clutch of green and blue. For
the opposition in this next parliament and it's going to
be really really stuck when they all sit in the chamber.
There's going to be a lot of labor. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I kind of imagine that horseshoe shape of those skittle
maps and you're going to see the government the Labor
Party really stretch over that bend and almost towards the
other side of the chamber now physically. And it's important
to remember though that we do have a formed coalition
as we enter this first day of parliament. How will
today actually work though, Harry? I mean, what does afir
(04:00):
stay of school look like in Canberra?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Yeah, so school's back in session. The bells will be ringing,
the new MPs and senators will be sworn in, and
there'll be a bit of formality just on the first day,
just to mark the opening of the forty eighth Parliament
and the three year term to follow. So there's going
to be ceremonies like a welcome to country which will
be led by First Nations elders. We'll also see a
(04:23):
bit of pageantry. So I don't know if you've ever
seen those parliamentary officers. For anyone that hasn't, they're usually
donned in long black roades with a white what would you.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Call it, captain feathersword's style.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Neck piece, yeah, ker chief of some sort and Matt Preston,
he'd be proud. And then we have this position called
the usher of the black rod. The rods just like
a scepter summoning the members. We'll see the Governor General
Sam Moston, who's also sat in that chair since the election.
(05:00):
She's going to deliver a speech in the Senate to
welcome the new MPs and Senators. Notably, she won't be
in the House because that dates back to a very
very old Westminster tradition from the UK, so she can't
actually step foot in the House, but she will address
all the new members in the Senate. And look, it's
all very formal. There will be a new Speaker elected
(05:21):
in the House, a new President elected in the Senate.
It's likely to be the same person from the last
term of Parliament. But it's just getting all the formalities
out of the way for day one.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
And then once all of those formalities are over, then
we'll get to the substantive business of actually running the country.
Have the government laid out their priorities for this new term,
especially now that we're actually having sitting days. I mean,
it's one thing to talk to the electorate about what
you're promising in the campaign. It's another thing to say,
this is what we're talking about on day one.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
So the very first day, which will be tomorrow in
the sitting calendar, they being the government will introduce a
bill to wipe twenty percent off HEX debts.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
So that's kind of the headline change that they want
to lead with, is that hex debt thing we promised,
we're going to deliver a first thing.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
That's right, And someone I was speaking to from the
government a little earlier today was very confident that that's
going to pass through the Senate as well tomorrow. So
that's going to be a quick turnaround according to them,
and that was one of their key election pitches. We
heard a lot about reducing the HEX debts, student loans
(06:26):
and all part of this cost of living relief platform
that they took to the election. So no surprises there.
We knew that was going to be early on in
the term. The second piece of legislation actually relates to
childcare centers meeting national standards.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Is that directly linked to the news that we've seen
over the past couple of weeks to do with the
safety of those childcare centers exactly.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
So in those seventy nine days, we saw the stories
emerge of the alleged child sex offender Joshua Brown, who
worked in multiple centers in Melbourne. He's been charged with
more than seventy offenses now and more than two thousand
children have been recommended to undergo testing for infectious diseases.
(07:08):
So you might be thinking, what does this have to
do with the government. Yeah, the government props up this
sector a lot financially. In fact, in the twenty twenty
three to twenty four financial year, the government spent eighteen
billion dollars on subsidies in the childcare sector, and the
legislation that they want to introduce would basically see funding
cut off from some centers if they're not meeting these
(07:31):
national standards. So the government, that's their response to these
allegations that we've seen surface in Melbourne.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
So I guess you could kind of say that the
states and territories are taking a look at this from
a registering who's working in these childcare centers. Some of
the CCTV measures that we've been hearing about the government's
kind of federally coming over the top and saying, well,
our power is with the funding, so we're going to
kind of approach it from that angle.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
That's right, And you touched on something important there, which
is that the states and territories are usually the service providers.
They are the ones that run the childcare centers themselves,
but the government is the funding machine behind that, if
you like.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Okay, so we've got the hex reductions, we've got the
changes to the way that childcare centers could get their funding.
And then third, we're also expecting some legislation on penalty rates. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
So this one is also a headline and a story
that we've seen bobbing away since the start of this year,
and that relates to workers entitlements to penalty rates, which
are things like holiday rate weekends, public holidays over time.
And this is hooked off a case that we've seen
play out in the Fair Work Commission. Basically, some retail,
(08:43):
clerical and hospitality industry groups and some big companies supporting
them are pushing to bring it a change where essentially
a worker could get a higher rate of minimum pay
in exchange for waiving some of those penalty rate entitlements,
so things like rest breaks in their award, so an
award just as a quick refresher the paying conditions that
(09:07):
you receive as a worker in a specific industry. So
there are awards specific to the fast food industry to
hospitality bar staff, that kind of thing. And since this
case emerged in the Fairwork Commission, the government's actually put
forward its opposition to this basically tip for tat. They
say that it shouldn't be a requirement that any worker
(09:28):
give up their penalty rates in exchange for even just
a baseline higher salary. So what they're doing is they're
legislating against any changes to penalty rates. They're saying, it's
a fierce protection of that holiday pay that we can
pay that extra money you might get for having to
show up on a Sunday. And that's just basically their
(09:48):
way of saying, we oppose what's going on in the
Fairwork Commission right now. We want to protect these entitlements
down the track, all.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Right, So we're basically gosh, university students, childcare centers and
workers in those specific fields as kind of the ones
to be most impacted by the conversations that could play
out in Canberra this week. We're going to keep an
eye on all three of those legislative agendas, Harry. Before
we go, let's talk about the opposition from a minute, because,
(10:14):
as you said, we had Susan Lee join us on
the podcast a couple of weeks ago, and Billy spoke
to her a lot about what we can expect from
this iteration of the opposition, a depleted opposition. What are
you looking out for when you're looking at the opposition
over the next couple of weeks in Canberra.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
I think it's just really interesting to note from the
outset that it's going to be the first time that
the Prime Minister faces a female opposition leader a chair
in the Lower House.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Because Julia Gillard was the leader of the Labor Party,
but never actually the opposition leader.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
That's right, she was a Prime minister, never the opposition leader.
So it's going to be the first time that that
chair is occupied by a woman. So what I'm going
to be looking at for with Susan Lee and the
opposition more broadly is just the tone that they strike,
because so far there has been an acknowledgment that they
got in Susan Lee's words, smashed at the election and
that a rebuild needs to happen. Her line is that
(11:08):
our policies are up for review, but our values are not.
So we're still true to our conservative routes. But we're
going to have to have a look at the different
items and measures that we take as an opposition to
the Australian people. And you know, we're going to see
the coalition critique the government, that's their formal role. In particular,
they've already come out hard against a measure to double
(11:31):
the tax rate for superannuation balances above three million dollars
that the government plans to introduce. We don't exactly know when,
but that's just one of the higher taxing let's just
say earworms that the opposition wants to put out there,
and we know that they are very much opposed to
that idea.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Have we heard anything from them on this hex reduction
that is tabled to be the first thing to be
talked about.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
So it's so fascinating because before the election and during
the campaign itself, they said that they were opposed to
the twenty percent reduction and now it appears as though
things have shifted within the party over the weekend, the
Shadow Education Minister John o'dunnean was asked about whether he
was going to support the twenty percent reduction, and here's
a bit of what he had to say.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
We're not really in the business of standing in the
way of cost of living relief, but I think it
is one of those things that Australians wanted they voted for.
We'll go through our process, but I expect this will
pass the Parliament.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
So this definitely comes across as a little bit more
collaborative in tone. And Susan Lee has said that she's
trying to carve out a constructive path during this term,
but equally said and I quote, our goodwill is not
a blank check, and that'll be especially true in the Senate,
which is also known as the upper House, where the
government doesn't have a majority.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Well, just before I let you go, talk to me
briefly about the Senate. I know that it's sometimes the
forgotten chamber and we spend a lot of time thinking
about the House of Reps. Picture for me of the
state of play in the red Chamber.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Yeah, the Senate the overlooked child, the middle child, we
might say, of the Australian Parliament. So based on the
new makeup, Labor has a slightly simple path to passing
legislation in the upper House. They'll need to negotiate with
either the Coalition or the Greens. In the last term
of parliament it was a calculus of the Greens plus
(13:24):
a few crossbenches. Because Labour picked up a few seats,
they won't have to negotiate with those cross benches necessarily.
And the new Greens leader, Larissa Waters, who's in the Senate,
she has said she's going to do things differently.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
I am a different person and I bring a different style.
I really want to get outcomes. I really want to
work with the current government to try to improve people's
lives and protect the planet.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
It's going to look like a very different parliament to
what we had last time, not least because some of
the leaders that we got used to are just no
longer there. At Avan lost his seat from the Greens
and Peter Dutton lost from the Coalition. There's going to
be more Labour members. Those red skittles will be, you know,
just rounding that bend. And then it's important to note
(14:07):
that we are going to have the largest proportion of
female MPs in Australian political history. It's actually nearly evenly
split fifty to fifty. There are going to be one
hundred and twelve MP's and senators who are female and
one hundred and fourteen that are male, so very very close,
very close to gender parody.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Really interesting. It's a new era for the Australian Parliament
and Prime Minister Anthony Abernezi has a very strong mandates
to lead given to him by the Australian public. But
no doubt the opposition will be holding the government accountable
as they should. Harry, thank you and look forward to
bringing us some more updates from Canberra throughout the year.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Absolute pleasure.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Thanks Sam, and thank you for joining us on the
Daily Hours this morning. We're going to be back in
your ears this afternoon with some headlines. If you got
the SEC I'd love you to click follow on Spotify
or Apple really just helps make our week. We'll be
back with those headlines later. Until then, have a great day.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Bunjelung Calkatin woman from Gadighl Country.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on
the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to
all Aboriginal and torrest rate island and nations.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries,
both past and present.
Already and this is the daily This is the Daily os.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Oh, now it makes sense.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Good morning and welcome to the Daily Ours. It's Tuesday,
the twenty second of July. I'm Harry Seculch.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'm Sam Kazlowski.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
School's back for our political leaders. Today, Parliament will resume
two and a half months after Labour won a convincing
victory at the polls. While the government will have more
members in its ranks, opposition parties mostly have new faces
as their figureheads. In today's deep dive, we'll take a
look at what we can expect from the government of
(00:41):
Prime Minister Anthony Albanesi in the next term of parliament.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Harry, you super excited to get into this first. He's
message from our sponsor, So, Harry. Parliament resumes today for
the first time since the federal election. How long ago
was that? I feel like seventy nine days, right, so
it's quite a while. I'm counting. It's been quite sometime,
(01:07):
and that's a pretty long winter break compared to how
they normally roll out.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Right, Well, these parliaments actually earned the nickname of part
time parliament because they just have so few sitting days.
Obviously not casting any aspersions here, But it does seem
like the election did come at a very convenient time
because they have the winter break around this time anyway
in the parliamentary calendar, so it's really just extended out
quite a lot. But I'm sure many MPs and senators
(01:34):
would be listening to this saying, we still work hard
even when we're not in parliament itself, when parliament's not sitting,
so you know, we're just back to the formalities now.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
We'd never want to doubt that our parliamentarians work as
hard as possible. But why don't we go back eighty
days and get a quick refresher on what happened in
that election to give us a sense of this new
state of playing camera.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Yeah, so on the third of May we had the
Fed election where Labour won in quite a convincing landslide,
so they won ninety four out of one hundred and
fifty seats. And remember his seat is an electorate, so
a certain area of the country that's represented the Coalition
had a pretty poor showing on the night, so much
so that the leader of the Coalition at the time,
(02:19):
Peter Dunton, actually lost his seat. I'm sure you remember,
Sam It was quite a big news story on a
night of many many headlines, but that was certainly one
of the biggest. And Susan Lee has since become the
leader of the opposition, has been interviewed by The Daily
Os was sitting in this chair and the Greens leader
Adam Bandt also lost his seat at the election and
(02:41):
he's since been replaced by Senator Larissa Waters. So in
that time there's been a few political dramas, a few developments.
We even saw the coalition split up for eight days,
so the Liberal and National parties took a bit of
a break. They're back together again and patch they've patched
things up ahead of the parliament so they keen to
put forward a united front in opposition to the government
(03:03):
now and the Prime Minister has also announced a reshuffle
of the cabinet and the ministry, so we saw a
few people, some notable figures actually be removed from the cabinets,
so that included the Attorney General Mark Drevis and the
former Industry Minister Ed Husick as well. So if you
look at the house like skittles, there's a lot of
(03:26):
red and a smaller clutch of green and blue. For
the opposition in this next parliament and it's going to
be really really stuck when they all sit in the chamber.
There's going to be a lot of labor. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I kind of imagine that horseshoe shape of those skittle
maps and you're going to see the government the Labor
Party really stretch over that bend and almost towards the
other side of the chamber now physically. And it's important
to remember though that we do have a formed coalition
as we enter this first day of parliament. How will
today actually work though, Harry? I mean, what does afir
(04:00):
stay of school look like in Canberra?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Yeah, so school's back in session. The bells will be ringing,
the new MPs and senators will be sworn in, and
there'll be a bit of formality just on the first day,
just to mark the opening of the forty eighth Parliament
and the three year term to follow. So there's going
to be ceremonies like a welcome to country which will
be led by First Nations elders. We'll also see a
(04:23):
bit of pageantry. So I don't know if you've ever
seen those parliamentary officers. For anyone that hasn't, they're usually
donned in long black roades with a white what would you.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Call it, captain feathersword's style.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Neck piece, yeah, ker chief of some sort and Matt Preston,
he'd be proud. And then we have this position called
the usher of the black rod. The rods just like
a scepter summoning the members. We'll see the Governor General
Sam Moston, who's also sat in that chair since the election.
(05:00):
She's going to deliver a speech in the Senate to
welcome the new MPs and Senators. Notably, she won't be
in the House because that dates back to a very
very old Westminster tradition from the UK, so she can't
actually step foot in the House, but she will address
all the new members in the Senate. And look, it's
all very formal. There will be a new Speaker elected
(05:21):
in the House, a new President elected in the Senate.
It's likely to be the same person from the last
term of Parliament. But it's just getting all the formalities
out of the way for day one.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
And then once all of those formalities are over, then
we'll get to the substantive business of actually running the country.
Have the government laid out their priorities for this new term,
especially now that we're actually having sitting days. I mean,
it's one thing to talk to the electorate about what
you're promising in the campaign. It's another thing to say,
this is what we're talking about on day one.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
So the very first day, which will be tomorrow in
the sitting calendar, they being the government will introduce a
bill to wipe twenty percent off HEX debts.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
So that's kind of the headline change that they want
to lead with, is that hex debt thing we promised,
we're going to deliver a first thing.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
That's right, And someone I was speaking to from the
government a little earlier today was very confident that that's
going to pass through the Senate as well tomorrow. So
that's going to be a quick turnaround according to them,
and that was one of their key election pitches. We
heard a lot about reducing the HEX debts, student loans
(06:26):
and all part of this cost of living relief platform
that they took to the election. So no surprises there.
We knew that was going to be early on in
the term. The second piece of legislation actually relates to
childcare centers meeting national standards.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Is that directly linked to the news that we've seen
over the past couple of weeks to do with the
safety of those childcare centers exactly.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
So in those seventy nine days, we saw the stories
emerge of the alleged child sex offender Joshua Brown, who
worked in multiple centers in Melbourne. He's been charged with
more than seventy offenses now and more than two thousand
children have been recommended to undergo testing for infectious diseases.
(07:08):
So you might be thinking, what does this have to
do with the government. Yeah, the government props up this
sector a lot financially. In fact, in the twenty twenty
three to twenty four financial year, the government spent eighteen
billion dollars on subsidies in the childcare sector, and the
legislation that they want to introduce would basically see funding
cut off from some centers if they're not meeting these
(07:31):
national standards. So the government, that's their response to these
allegations that we've seen surface in Melbourne.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
So I guess you could kind of say that the
states and territories are taking a look at this from
a registering who's working in these childcare centers. Some of
the CCTV measures that we've been hearing about the government's
kind of federally coming over the top and saying, well,
our power is with the funding, so we're going to
kind of approach it from that angle.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
That's right, And you touched on something important there, which
is that the states and territories are usually the service providers.
They are the ones that run the childcare centers themselves,
but the government is the funding machine behind that, if
you like.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Okay, so we've got the hex reductions, we've got the
changes to the way that childcare centers could get their funding.
And then third, we're also expecting some legislation on penalty rates. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
So this one is also a headline and a story
that we've seen bobbing away since the start of this year,
and that relates to workers entitlements to penalty rates, which
are things like holiday rate weekends, public holidays over time.
And this is hooked off a case that we've seen
play out in the Fair Work Commission. Basically, some retail,
(08:43):
clerical and hospitality industry groups and some big companies supporting
them are pushing to bring it a change where essentially
a worker could get a higher rate of minimum pay
in exchange for waiving some of those penalty rate entitlements,
so things like rest breaks in their award, so an
award just as a quick refresher the paying conditions that
(09:07):
you receive as a worker in a specific industry. So
there are awards specific to the fast food industry to
hospitality bar staff, that kind of thing. And since this
case emerged in the Fairwork Commission, the government's actually put
forward its opposition to this basically tip for tat. They
say that it shouldn't be a requirement that any worker
(09:28):
give up their penalty rates in exchange for even just
a baseline higher salary. So what they're doing is they're
legislating against any changes to penalty rates. They're saying, it's
a fierce protection of that holiday pay that we can
pay that extra money you might get for having to
show up on a Sunday. And that's just basically their
(09:48):
way of saying, we oppose what's going on in the
Fairwork Commission right now. We want to protect these entitlements
down the track, all.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Right, So we're basically gosh, university students, childcare centers and
workers in those specific fields as kind of the ones
to be most impacted by the conversations that could play
out in Canberra this week. We're going to keep an
eye on all three of those legislative agendas, Harry. Before
we go, let's talk about the opposition from a minute, because,
(10:14):
as you said, we had Susan Lee join us on
the podcast a couple of weeks ago, and Billy spoke
to her a lot about what we can expect from
this iteration of the opposition, a depleted opposition. What are
you looking out for when you're looking at the opposition
over the next couple of weeks in Canberra.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
I think it's just really interesting to note from the
outset that it's going to be the first time that
the Prime Minister faces a female opposition leader a chair
in the Lower House.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Because Julia Gillard was the leader of the Labor Party,
but never actually the opposition leader.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
That's right, she was a Prime minister, never the opposition leader.
So it's going to be the first time that that
chair is occupied by a woman. So what I'm going
to be looking at for with Susan Lee and the
opposition more broadly is just the tone that they strike,
because so far there has been an acknowledgment that they
got in Susan Lee's words, smashed at the election and
that a rebuild needs to happen. Her line is that
(11:08):
our policies are up for review, but our values are not.
So we're still true to our conservative routes. But we're
going to have to have a look at the different
items and measures that we take as an opposition to
the Australian people. And you know, we're going to see
the coalition critique the government, that's their formal role. In particular,
they've already come out hard against a measure to double
(11:31):
the tax rate for superannuation balances above three million dollars
that the government plans to introduce. We don't exactly know when,
but that's just one of the higher taxing let's just
say earworms that the opposition wants to put out there,
and we know that they are very much opposed to
that idea.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Have we heard anything from them on this hex reduction
that is tabled to be the first thing to be
talked about.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
So it's so fascinating because before the election and during
the campaign itself, they said that they were opposed to
the twenty percent reduction and now it appears as though
things have shifted within the party over the weekend, the
Shadow Education Minister John o'dunnean was asked about whether he
was going to support the twenty percent reduction, and here's
a bit of what he had to say.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
We're not really in the business of standing in the
way of cost of living relief, but I think it
is one of those things that Australians wanted they voted for.
We'll go through our process, but I expect this will
pass the Parliament.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
So this definitely comes across as a little bit more
collaborative in tone. And Susan Lee has said that she's
trying to carve out a constructive path during this term,
but equally said and I quote, our goodwill is not
a blank check, and that'll be especially true in the Senate,
which is also known as the upper House, where the
government doesn't have a majority.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Well, just before I let you go, talk to me
briefly about the Senate. I know that it's sometimes the
forgotten chamber and we spend a lot of time thinking
about the House of Reps. Picture for me of the
state of play in the red Chamber.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Yeah, the Senate the overlooked child, the middle child, we
might say, of the Australian Parliament. So based on the
new makeup, Labor has a slightly simple path to passing
legislation in the upper House. They'll need to negotiate with
either the Coalition or the Greens. In the last term
of parliament it was a calculus of the Greens plus
(13:24):
a few crossbenches. Because Labour picked up a few seats,
they won't have to negotiate with those cross benches necessarily.
And the new Greens leader, Larissa Waters, who's in the Senate,
she has said she's going to do things differently.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
I am a different person and I bring a different style.
I really want to get outcomes. I really want to
work with the current government to try to improve people's
lives and protect the planet.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
It's going to look like a very different parliament to
what we had last time, not least because some of
the leaders that we got used to are just no
longer there. At Avan lost his seat from the Greens
and Peter Dutton lost from the Coalition. There's going to
be more Labour members. Those red skittles will be, you know,
just rounding that bend. And then it's important to note
(14:07):
that we are going to have the largest proportion of
female MPs in Australian political history. It's actually nearly evenly
split fifty to fifty. There are going to be one
hundred and twelve MP's and senators who are female and
one hundred and fourteen that are male, so very very close,
very close to gender parody.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Really interesting. It's a new era for the Australian Parliament
and Prime Minister Anthony Abernezi has a very strong mandates
to lead given to him by the Australian public. But
no doubt the opposition will be holding the government accountable
as they should. Harry, thank you and look forward to
bringing us some more updates from Canberra throughout the year.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Absolute pleasure.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Thanks Sam, and thank you for joining us on the
Daily Hours this morning. We're going to be back in
your ears this afternoon with some headlines. If you got
the SEC I'd love you to click follow on Spotify
or Apple really just helps make our week. We'll be
back with those headlines later. Until then, have a great day.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Bunjelung Calkatin woman from Gadighl Country.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on
the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to
all Aboriginal and torrest rate island and nations.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries,
both past and present.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com