Dutton’s JobSeeker plan a welfare bomb

COUNTING THE COST

More than 50,000 people will go on welfare if the income threshold is doubled so recipients can earn more before their welfare payments are docked, as Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has suggested. That’s according to the government anyway, which gave The Australian ($) the data (hit him where it hurts, I guess) suggesting that many people would be eligible to move back on to income support, bringing the total to 921,000 if the threshold went from $150 to $300 a fortnight. The cost of the move is estimated at $400 million over the forward estimates. Dutton remains opposed to the $40 JobSeeker rise, which is peanuts compared with what advocates say is needed.

It gets harder to stomach the government claim that we can ill-afford to raise JobSeeker more when the stage three tax cuts will cost nearly a quarter more (23%) than originally thought — an eyewatering $313 billion over a decade, according to new Parliamentary Budget Office costings. Guardian Australia reports it’s quite the blowout from its October cost of $254 billion, so why has it happened? Lower employment, higher incomes and including the years 2033-34, the paper explains. In dollar figures: if you make between $45,001 and $60,000 your cohort gets 1.2% of the benefit; if you make $60,001 to $90,000 its 8%; and if you make $180,000 a year, you’ll get just over half of the $313 billion cost of these cuts (leaving the remaining 40% for the $90,001 to $180,000, cohort, one assumes). Rich men are going to benefit the most (65% compared with women’s 35%). It comes as a new report showed Australians aged 30 to 34 have the highest cost-of- living pressures, the ABC reports.

NOT YOUR AVERAGE JOE

US President Joe Biden is set to address federal Parliament on Tuesday while he’s here for the Quad summit, the fifth time such a thing has happened in our history. But we might cop a raincheck from the White House on Biden’s trip here, the ABC adds. If he comes, he’ll bring a 1000+ entourage, The Australian ($) also notes — cripes, I’d hate to see what that’s costing the US taxpayer. However, overnight Biden’s coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council, John Kirby, said they were “taking a look” at stops that the president planned to make in Papua New Guinea and Australia before he returns to Washington. Biden is locked in negotiations over the debt ceiling in the US at the moment, meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned time was running out to swerve away from a recession. Yikes.

It comes as Biden signed a deal with Papua New Guinea giving the US access to PNG waters and airspace for US warships and aircraft — including Manus Island. Beijing is going to be pissed. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Biden were also planning to also have a sit-down about “elevating global climate ambition and accelerating the clean energy transition”, the Australian government said in a statement that Guardian Australia saw. Then the pair will get together with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for the Quad next Wednesday.

Editor’s note: at 7.26am AEDT, the ABC reported Biden’s trip has indeed been cancelled as the White House indicated earlier in the evening.

WATER TORTURE

Victorian Premier Dan Andrews is in hot water after emails appeared to show Melbourne Water, a government-owned statutory authority, asking the water minister for approval on a statement announcing the resignation of its flood inquiry chair, The Age ($) reports. It was tweaked by the minister’s office to remove the resignation being described as in the “best interests of the review and the community”. But Andrews said the minister was just being “kept in the loop” even though the subject line of the email included the words “for approval”. The parliamentary inquiry is looking into the October floods and will hand down its findings by June 30 2024.

Staying in Victoria, and the federal Liberals are reportedly mulling a takeover of the besieged Victorian Liberal Party, The Australian ($) reports, with a special administrator to take the reins so Opposition Leader Peter Dutton could have a better shot at winning the next election. Buddy, I think you’ve got bigger obstacles than the Victorian division, namely your 36% approval rating, as Guardian Australia reports, but anyway. Could a takeover really happen? The paper explains: “Under the Liberal Party’s federal rules, it is possible for the ­national organisation to intervene if it believes the performance of a state branch could impact a federal election result.” It would need the backing of state president Greg Mirabella and the state party’s administrative committee, though.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

Trees can save your life. Just ask Annabel Streets — she’s “obsessed with terpenes”. A terpene is the thing that makes a tree smell fragrant — whether it’s a pine-fresh Christmas tree or a lemon bush — and acts as a defence mechanism against insects, disease and rot. But terpenes protect people too — studies show they have powerful anti-inflammatory properties that can prevent cancer and serve as a natural antidepressant. When you walk underneath trees, Streets tells The Guardian, “You breathe that self-protection mechanism.” But there’s also something magical, otherworldly even, when one peers up at a wise old tree on a stroll and realises no two are the same. The British author just wrote this book, 52 Ways to Walk, where she repeatedly discovered scientific bases for folk wisdom — and it all starts with getting your butt out that door.

Walking didn’t always come so naturally to Streets. Like so many of us, a desk job left her “rounder, softer, achier, stiffer, stooped”, so she resolved to get some wet weather gear and a dog (or you could foster one!) to get herself back on her feet. As it turns out, there’s actually a bit of a technique to walking. Try holding your chin parallel to the ground and pushing your shoulder blades down your back as you roll your stomach under your rib cage. As you walk, roll your foot heel to toe. Streets’ book is full of interesting titbits like that, interspersed with her awe-struck musings about the healing properties of the natural world. Writing it actually made her think of her granny a lot: “All the things she would say — ‘Go for a walk and take a few deep breaths and then you’ll feel calmer’ … It turns out that she was right all along.”

Hoping you feel a spring in your step today.

SAY WHAT?

We cannot do it without you. We cannot make the advancements without you. We cannot do net zero without you … We cannot transform our economy to net zero without this industry. Those people who are misinformed outside, who attempt to belittle or criticise this industry, do not understand the contribution you make.

Tom Koutsantonis

Coochie-coochie-coo, went the South Australian energy minister to an oil and gas conference filled with fossil fuel titans such as BP, Santos, Shell and Woodside, several of whom are turning record profits right now while our bills are soaring. Koutsantonis finished: “The South Australian government is at your disposal. We are here to help.”

CRIKEY RECAP

Plibersek’s hands are tied over coalmine approval but Labor could’ve changed that years ago

EMMA ELSWORTHY

In 2005 a certain Labor environment spokesman by the name of Anthony Albanese introduced the Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change (Climate Change Trigger) Bill. It proposed a trigger would kick in if a project released more than 500,000 tonnes of CO2 a year. ‘The glaring gap in matters of national environmental significance is climate change,’ Albanese’s rousing speech reads.

” ‘This bill closes that gap. The climate change trigger will enable major new projects to be assessed for their climate change impact as part of any environmental assessment process and will ensure that new developments represent best practice. It is time to act. It is time for procrastination to end.’ The private member’s bill failed.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

The world’s bat lands are under attack, seeding risk of a new pandemic. Here’s where [Laos, India, Brazil etc] (Reuters)

Everyone is talking about Wagner. But who are Russia’s other mercenaries? (euronews)

Police coy on reports of a couch fire before fatal blaze at Wellington hostel (Stuff)

Tunisian opposition leader Rached Ghannouchi sentenced to year in prison (The Guardian)

Inflation rate unexpectedly increased in April, jumping up to 4.4% (CBC)

Russia’s most potent hypersonic weapon neutralised, says Ukraine (The Guardian)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Four ways to bring down rent and build homes faster than Labor’s $10 billion housing fund — Peter Martin (The Conversation): “Boost rent assistance. The ‘largest increase in more than 30 years’ in Commonwealth rent assistance amounts to $16 a week.It’ll help the 1.3 million concession card holders who receive it. But it is not much, and not much more in the future, because Chalmers has not acted on the recommendation of his economic inclusion advisory committee to increase it in line with rents actually paid, rather than the consumer price index. Chalmers might well have been concerned that a bigger increase in rent assistance would have pushed up rents, but there’s a way of dealing with that.

“Limit rent increases. Price control is anything but uncommon. In most states, increases in the prices we can be charged for electricity, gas and water are limited by regulation. In the Australian Capital Territory, increases in rents are limited by regulation. The maximum permitted increase is 110% of the most recent annual increase in Canberra rents reported to the Bureau of Statistics. In the year to March, Canberra rents climbed 5.54%, making the maximum permissible increase 6.1%.It works well, and Canberra landlords don’t seem to have withdrawn from the market. Among Australia’s capitals, Canberra’s rental  vacancy rate is the highest.”

Target the big-emitting regions to speed up decarbonising — Meg O’Neill (The AFR) ($): “I’d like to talk a bit more now about the role I see gas playing on the road to net zero. In 2021, coal made up more than 50% of Australia’s power generation mix, with gas coming in second at 18%. When used to generate electricity, natural gas emits around half the life-cycle emissions of coal. That’s a pretty strong argument for using more gas in my book. Gas is also an essential feedstock for Australian manufacturing. In fact, the latest Australian energy update from the Department of Climate Change says it accounts for 42% of the energy the sector uses.

“We know through the development of the national reconstruction rund that the Australian government wants to turbocharge our manufacturing capabilities. Using more gas could do this. We also know a lot of consumers are interested in buying electric vehicles. Gas can fuel the manufacturing plants that make the batteries that go into those cars. Let’s tell that story. Let’s also tell people about the role gas plays in making the things they need. Take the food we’re enjoying at the conference here this week. Australian farmers would have produced it using fertiliser, made using gas. Gas can also play a critical role in Australia’s energy security, as firming capacity for electricity generation, when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Online

• Independent Sophie Scamps will speak about her new bill designed to end the “jobs for mates” culture in federal politics, in a webinar held by the Australia Institute.

Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)

• Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor will give his budget reply speech at the National Press Club.

Yuggera and Turrbal Country (also known as Brisbane)

• Author Kris Kneen will chat about her new book, Fat Girl Dancing, at Avid Reader bookshop.

Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)

• Author Bora Chung will chat about her book of short stories, Cursed Bunny, at the Wheeler Centre.