Key posts
- Dutton defends jobs summit snub
- Opposition open to backing ‘workable’ wage deal reforms
- Albanese under pressure over Rabbitohs COVID isolation tip-off
- This morning’s headlines at a glance
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Opposition leader urges Labor to hold firm on stage three tax cuts
Staying with the federal opposition leader’s appearance on ABC TV for a moment, and Peter Dutton says he doesn’t agree with veteran Liberal MP Russell Broadbent when it comes to the issues surrounding the stage three tax cuts.
As Shane Wright wrote over the weekend, Broadbent has broken ranks with his party and argued that the $243 billion cuts – which will flow to the nation’s highest-paid workers – should be scrapped and the money put back into government services as Australia recovers from the coronavirus pandemic.
It’s a view shared by the Greens and other crossbenchers like David Pocock (the independent senator for the ACT).
Here’s Dutton’s take:
The government made a commitment and a promise and they should honour that commitment. [But they also] went with a promise to reduce electricity prices by $275. They spend the campaign talking about that. On 97 occasions they repeated it. They’ve never mentioned it since the election. I think that is a significant [breach] of trust.
Labor has so far said it will honour the tax cuts.
Dutton defends jobs summit snub
To the first major political interview of the day, and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has conducted a sit-down interview with ABC News Breakfast.
The first question was about tomorrow’s jobs and skills summit. ABC presenters Michael Rowland and Lisa Millar wanted to know: is the Liberal leadership preventing MPs from influencing major industrial relations reform due to the party’s boycott of the two-day summit?
Peter Dutton won’t be attending tomorrow’s jobs and skills summit. Credit:James Brickwood
As regular readers of this blog will know, Nationals leader David Littleproud will be in attendance alongside business leaders and the union movement. But Liberals such as Dutton and his deputy Sussan Ley have branded the jobs summit a “talkfest”.
Here’s what Dutton had to say:
If I were a union leader, I would be well received and probably listened to in a way that business leaders aren’t going to be. Union coverage in the private sector is less than 10 per cent [on average]. At this summit we have [about] 33 [union] leaders out of [100 or so] attendees. They’re the elected government. That’s fine. But I don’t think, for small business people, the hopes are very high as to what can be achieved.
And as for the additional legal inquiry into Scott Morrison’s secret portfolios:
If it turns into a show trial, then I think it’s a politically motivated stunt. It will be treated as such. The solicitor-general found there was no illegality [in relation to the industry portfolio].
I’ve had conversations with Scott over a period of time [about his future in parliament]. This is not something I’m going into, in terms of private conversations. [But], yes, I am [happy for him to remain a backbencher].
Opposition open to backing ‘workable’ wage deal reforms
Landmark proposals to simplify workplace deals could win bipartisan support in parliament after opposition industrial relations spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said the Coalition would consider any proposal to make the complex better off overall test (BOOT) more workable.
But Greens leader Adam Bandt has warned his party won’t back anything that leaves young or lower-paid workers worse off.
Coalition industrial relations spokeswoman Michaelia Cash says the opposition will consider changes that make the better off overall test more workable.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Asked if she would support proposals to overhaul the test, which guarantees employees do not go backwards in enterprise bargaining negotiations, Cash said: “We’ll consider any proposal to make the BOOT more workable in facilitating enterprise agreements for both employers and employees.”
The test will be high on the agenda at tomorrow’s jobs summit, which will bring together political, business and union leaders across two days to examine Australia’s industrial relations system, the national skills shortage, participation and skilled migration.
Read the full story here.
Albanese under pressure over Rabbitohs COVID isolation tip-off
The federal opposition is demanding Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirm if he tipped off the South Sydney Rabbitohs that the COVID-19 self-isolation requirements could be cut from seven days to five.
On Sunday, this masthead revealed the Rabbitohs had been given a heads-up by their number one fan, Albanese, that star player Damien Cook, who tested positive to COVID last Saturday, could play in Friday night’s grudge match against the Sydney Roosters because today’s meeting of national cabinet could wind back the isolation period to five days.
Anthony Albanese wearing his South Sydney Rabbitohs mask when he was opposition leader in 2020.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Albanese ducked questions at Monday’s National Press Club about the change to isolation rules.
Asked directly if Cook would be able to play, Albanese said: “That essentially is a decision for Premier [Dominic] Perrottet.”
More on today’s national cabinet meeting here.
This morning’s headlines at a glance
Good morning and thanks for your company.
It’s Wednesday, August 31. I’m Broede Carmody and I’ll be anchoring our live coverage for the first half of the day.
- National cabinet is meeting today to debate whether states and territories should cut mandatory COVID isolation from seven days to five. It comes as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese faces calls to confirm whether he prematurely tipped off his rugby league team regarding the possible policy shift.
- The federal opposition has flagged that it’s open to backing a “workable” reform to a key pillar in Australia’s industrial relations system (the better off overall test). The federal government’s jobs and skills summit kicks-off tomorrow.
- Former Sydney schoolteacher Chris Dawson has spent his first night in prison after yesterday being convicted of the murder of his first wife, Lynette, 40 years after the mother-of-two vanished from Sydney’s northern beaches.
- And in international news, Russian news outlets are reporting that Mikhail Gorbachev – the former president of the Soviet Union – has died. He was 91 years old.
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