Budget bedrock
By Karen Middleton
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has everything riding on these next few days, with the short parliamentary sitting period serving as the curtain-raiser for an imminent federal election campaign.
The sitting days left are framed entirely around the federal Budget, which is expected to be heaving with sweeteners, especially tax concessions, aimed at a disillusioned electorate.
The government has brought forward the Budget from its usual date in early May so it can present an economic blueprint before rolling straight into the election campaign, which is expected to begin at the end of the week with Morrison calling an election for either May 11 or 18.
The Senate only sits on Tuesday and Wednesday and is due to hold its next round of budget estimates hearings on Thursday and Friday and then through next week until April 12.
The likely election announcement is expected to truncate them.
Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen has described this week’s economic update as more like a campaign launch than a Budget and vowed that Labor will hold its own version, in mini-Budget form, in September this year if it wins office in May.
The houses sit from midday tomorrow with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg to present his first Budget in the House of Representatives at 7.30pm.
Climate for distraction
Ahead of that, Labor is set to unveil its climate change policy today featuring a cap-and-trade scheme targeting the biggest polluters and a 50% target for electric vehicles.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten is expected to expand the existing scheme that caps pollution to take in more than 100 extra emitting businesses.
Under the Labor plan, the cap would affect businesses emitting more than 25,000 tonnes of carbon a year, down from the current cap of 100,000 tonnes.
That cap would also reduce over time, gradually extending to capture more companies.
Farmers would be exempt and the heaviest, trade-affected industries such as cement, steel and aluminium would receive government assistance.
Shorten and his climate change spokesman Mark Butler are expected to detail how Labor plans to reach its ambitious emissions reduction target of 45% on 2005 levels by 2030 and to rule out using carryover credits – a contentious manoeuvre the coalition has employed to insist that extra emissions savings gained earlier can be used to reduce the savings required in future years.
Critics of the coalition government’s carryover move, which is legal under the Paris climate change agreement but frowned upon by other countries, say it defers taking the steps needed to reduce emissions permanently.
The Labor policy will include a 50% target for electric vehicles nationwide, starting with the government fleet by 2025.
Labor is also expected to flag a ban on single-use plastics, including plastic bags and microbeads.
The coalition still has not unveiled its climate change and energy policy but used the pre-sitting weekend to reveal it plans to offer a one-off cash payment to about four million welfare beneficiaries to help pay their power bills.
The payment of A$75 for singles and A$125 for couples would cost the government about A$285 million.
Despite pressure from the Nationals, the government is not proposing – at this stage – to proceed with its so-called “big stick” divestment legislation aimed at forcing energy companies to lower their power prices.
Both houses of parliament will set business aside initially tomorrow for condolence motions on the Christchurch shootings, a move likely to subdue the usual opening tempo of Budget week.
The Senate will follow that with the swearing-in of three new senators, Tasmanian Liberal Wendy Askew, who replaces David Bushby, Victorian Labor’s Raff Ciccone, who replaces Jacinta Collins, and Liberal Democrat Duncan Spender, who replaces David Leyonhjelm.
Ciccone and Spender will only sit in parliament this week before facing voters, filling the spots of retiring senators whose terms are due to expire on June 30.
Askew will not be up for election until 2022.
Three more retiring senators will give their valedictory speeches this week, Labor’s Claire Moore and Doug Cameron and the Country Liberal Party’s Nigel Scullion, who sits with the Nationals.
The parliament is due to deal with a raft of tax bills, including legislation to force foreign investors to pay “their fair share” of tax in Australia, legislation to enact the new foreign influence transparency scheme and a bill to lower customs duty on craft beer. Also scheduled for debate are counter-terrorism and citizenship bills, legislation to expand the cashless welfare card and bills to establish a future drought fund.
The senate’s procedures committee is due to table its report on a proposed parliamentary code of conduct.
But the Budget will form the centrepiece of the parliamentary week, with the government promising to unveil the first surplus in decades.
Opposition leader Bill Shorten is scheduled to make his Budget reply speech at 7.30pm on Thursday.