Pensioners to pay for half of Labor’s $3bn private health savings
Modelling by the parliamentary budget office shows half the expected $3bn in savings to reduce the private health insurance rebate to over 65s will be paid for by pensioners.
The figures, commissioned by independent MP and doctor Monique Ryan, found that $1.6bn of the total budget savings would be met by the nearly 1.5 million age pensioners who hold private health insurance.
Private Healthcare Australia some retirees will face health insurance cost increases of more than $1,600 per year, but Labor says it only expects private health insurance for over 65s to increase by up to $250 a year and see 44,000 abandon their cover.
Ryan says:
The PBO has confirmed what older Australians and the private health sector have feared: these cuts will disproportionately affect those least able to afford them.
After paying taxes throughout their working lives and maintaining private health insurance to meet their health needs as they age, age pension recipients will bear the brunt of the government’s changes.
Key events
Luca Ittimani
Hastie says Australia will be supplicant state without US AI deal
Andrew Hastie has claimed Australia will become a “supplicant state” if it doesn’t make a deal with the US to get its frontier AI, suggesting the AUKUS military agreement could be a suitable path.
The shadow industry minister told the Sydney Dialogue the US government’s shutdown of access to Claude Mythos in June showed Australia could be held hostage if it didn’t get local AI capacity. He said:
Without a sovereign AI frontier model here in Australia, we are going to be a supplicant state, not a sovereign state. … People think it’s making memes on ChatGPT. We’re talking about the global order being changed and Australia falling behind.
Hastie said Australia was far behind in the race for development so should look to make a deal with the US as it makes its AI “arms race” against China.
We need to work on a way to get a hyperscaler down under, or multiple hyperscalers to invest in sovereign capability, the same way Ford and General Motors did 100 years ago … I think working with the United States, through AUKUS if we want to use that frame, is the pathway.
He said such an outcome would be a “balancing act” as Australia would not have “complete control” but said the country could bring its policy settings to bear on the businesses that agreed to set up here. He cited a former Labor prime minister’s argumeny.
I think Dr Kevin Rudd was exactly right last week when he said … industry policy is now the norm not the exception … Ditch the orthodoxies of the last 40 years and wake up to the reality that is now shaping our world.
Greens call for debate on frontier AI models that ‘may make us extinct’
The Greens have gone from zero to a hundred in the Senate this morning, immediately moving to suspend standing orders to push the government to debate and legislate safety testing and transparency on frontier AI systems that could make us go extinct.
Senator David Shoebridge is moving the motion which also calls for the government to push for a global treaty on AI regulation with middle powers, including Canada, Singapore and France.
He tells the Senate the government could legislate an “ethical AI industry” that constrains the frontier model.
This morning Sam Altman and Elon Musk called for the sector to pump the breaks on “reckless” AI development
Shoebridge says:
I’ll tell you what the Greens think we should be talking about, not the Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill, but the fact that major players from the AI industry across the world are saying we need to slow down development of frontier models because it may make us extinct …
I can’t believe anyone would vote against this motion, and I can’t believe Labor would say ‘no we don’t want to deal with an extinction risk’.
‘Fierce intellect, integrity, compassion’: first female high court justice, Mary Gaudron remembered
Mary Gaudron, Australia’s first female justice of the high court of Australia, has been remembered as a woman who broke down barriers for women across Australia, for her intellect and courage.
In a social media post, the governor general, Sam Mostyn, wrote Gaudron’s distinguished career “transformed Australia’s legal landscape”.
From her upbringing in Moree NSW to her advocacy for equal pay and her distinguished service on the nation’s highest court, Justice Gaudron brought her fierce intellect, integrity, compassion and a deep commitment to justice to every role she held.
The social services minister, Tanya Plibersek, also paid tribute to Gaudron on social media this morning:
Mary Gaudron changed Australia’s legal landscape. She fought for equal pay, broke down barriers for women in law and public service, and went on to become the first woman appointed to the High Court of Australia. Her intellect, integrity and courage made our country fairer and opened doors for generations of women who followed.
Benita Kolovos
Victorians right to question ‘bang for our buck’ on road maintenance: Carroll
Following from our last post …
In the 50km zone around where the motorcyclist’s crash occurred, the road condition deteriorated from 1% poor or very poor in 2022 to 44% in poor or very poor condition in 2024.
Ben Carroll was pressed on how the Victorian government had let this occur. He said:
We have had a range of climatic events. We have bigger, heavier trucks travelling on our road network more than ever before. Having said that, business as usual on our roads and road resurfacing has not worked … That is why you look at the example in Western Australia, they brought road maintenance back inside of government after it was outsourced, and that has seen a vastly bigger improvement …
Carroll said the state government had invested $1bn into road maintenance and road resurfacing every year and that Victorians were right to question whether they were getting the “best bang for our buck”.
Read more:
Victorian premier vows ‘no more buck passing’ after motorcyclist’s pothole death
Benita Kolovos
The Victorian premier, Ben Carroll, was on ABC Radio Melbourne, following the death of a motorcyclist after hitting a pothole.
The 71-year-old Ballarat man was killed after striking the pothole and losing control of his bike on the Western Highway at Trawalla, near Ballarat, on Sunday.
Potholes had already emerged as a key political issue ahead of the November election, but this death has only heaped further pressure on Carroll. He told host Mary Gearin the death was a “tragedy”.
The buck does stop with us. I’ve made it very clear there cannot be any more buck passing on road maintenance. That’s why I have said, under my government, it was outsourced in the mid-1990s, I’m going to bring road maintenance back inside of government.
Penry Buckley
Property developer Jean Nassif to appear before NSW Icac
Property developer Jean Nassif is expected to appear before the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac) via video link from Lebanon this afternoon.
Nassif, who withdrew from a scheduled appearance on 4 September after providing a medical certificate, left Australia for Lebanon in 2022 after an investigation found dozens of defects in three separate residential developments constructed by his company Toplace.
As part of its investigation into allegations against people associated with the NSW Liberals, Icac is examining the allegation that Liberal figures anticipated receiving $2m in prohibited donations from Nassif in exchange for political outcomes, including damage to the career of NSW Liberal minister, David Elliott, and the removal of the building commissioner, David Chandler.
In June 2023, NSW police issued an arrest warrant for Nassif in relation to allegations of financial wrongdoing and “large-scale fraud” at Toplace, but he has never been charged.
Earlier this month, his daughter, Ashlyn Nassif, avoided jail time after pleading guilty in June to providing false or misleading information, the court heard she was under pressure from her father, to obtain a $150m construction loan.
He has previously denied any wrongdoing.
Hanson’s comments on Albanese’s mum ‘completely inappropriate’: Taylor
Angus Taylor says Pauline Hanson should apologise to Anthony Albanese over her comments criticising his mother for living in public housing for several decades.
The comments were from a podcast episode that aired in February.
Taylor tells reporters that the comments were “completely inappropriate”:
Taylor: Oh, they were inappropriate. Family should be off limits when it comes to politics.
Reporter: Should she apologise?
Taylor: It’s very simple and she should. She should, absolutely. I mean, family should be off limits. And they were completely inappropriate comments.
Taylor asks for a please-explain on One Nation’s migration policy
Angus Taylor says Pauline Hanson, Barnaby Joyce and David Farley need to explain their own migration policy, because he, for one, doesn’t understand it.
But he seems to want to avoid criticising it as hard as some of his colleagues.
At a press conference just outside Canberra, Taylor is asked multiple times what he thinks about the policy and says there are plenty of questions that remain unanswered.
But his deputy, Jane Hume, who’s standing next to him, this morning said that the policy would sent the country into recession.
Taylor says:
Well, I don’t know what the need of overseas migration numbers are [that] they proposing. Well, they’re not, the numbers are not there year by year. What is it going to do to the overseas migration? And what does that mean for a publican in Tamworth, a farmer in Narrandera or Griffith? And what does that mean for a builder in Ipswich?
One Nation says its policy will lead to “net-negative” overseas migration for the first three years, after which the Nom will stay at 130,000.
What’s in One Nation’s migration policy?
The headline is that there will be net-negative migration for three years, with 750,000 temporary visas cut – primarily international students and the families of skilled visa holders.
Pauline Hanson says universities will get a share of up to 100,000 international students each year, while graduate visas, which allow international students to temporarily remain and work in Australia will be cut down to 20,000 and be valid for only 18 months.
To provide a little context, more than 370,000 international student visas were issued by the government in the financial year 2024-25.
Hanson is also proposing a new “high-value” study visa for PhD and select postgrad research students, which would allow them to bring dependents or family.
For temporary skilled workers, family members will now be banned from getting visas with a skilled worker, while existing family members will be allowed to remain until their visa expires, which won’t be renewed. The party says this will drop the number of temporary skilled visas – including their family members – from more than 260,000 to 160,000 over three years.
Hanson says the regions won’t be affected because existing backpacker and Palm scheme visas won’t change.
Luca Ittimani
Labor MP says Anthropic and OpenAI calls should be met with scepticism
Australia’s assistant technology minister has urged scepticism of AI companies’ calls for a pause on development.
Anthropic’s chief has warned AI bots could swarm the internet within a year and his calls to “slow the pace” of AI development gained support from the head of OpenAI and Elon Musk, in a rare show of unity.
Andrew Charlton, assistant technology minister, has told the Sydney Dialogue summit not to focus on companies’ public commentary given their “extremely strong financial incentives” to maintain the trajectory of development. He said:
I am not in favour of leaving it to the companies and I’m not in favour of leaving it to the superpowers … I take that at face value but I don’t think we should care very much about what individual chief executives say or what individual executives claim they want to happen. I think we should care about what is actually happening.
Charlton recently went to a G20 meeting on AI and said safety and responsible use was a “big topic of conversation” among Australia’s economic partners.
He said Australia was not setting AI safety measures in response to one forecast of AI ability but to address a range of possible outcomes, including some “extremely dangerous” scenarios.
Read more about Anthropic’s calls here:
Pensioners to pay for half of Labor’s $3bn private health savings
Modelling by the parliamentary budget office shows half the expected $3bn in savings to reduce the private health insurance rebate to over 65s will be paid for by pensioners.
The figures, commissioned by independent MP and doctor Monique Ryan, found that $1.6bn of the total budget savings would be met by the nearly 1.5 million age pensioners who hold private health insurance.
Private Healthcare Australia some retirees will face health insurance cost increases of more than $1,600 per year, but Labor says it only expects private health insurance for over 65s to increase by up to $250 a year and see 44,000 abandon their cover.
Ryan says:
The PBO has confirmed what older Australians and the private health sector have feared: these cuts will disproportionately affect those least able to afford them.
After paying taxes throughout their working lives and maintaining private health insurance to meet their health needs as they age, age pension recipients will bear the brunt of the government’s changes.
One Nation migration policy’s ‘terrible impact’ on farmers
One Nation’s migration plan could drive up food costs and stop farmers from planting crops, or leave some unharvested, warns the National Farmers Federation.
Its president, Hamish McIntyre told the Today show that one in seven farm workers is a working holiday maker – mostly backpackers.
It’s a terrible impact [on] us … It’s going to prohibit us from planting some of these crops. We rely on these people.
We won’t be able to take the risks to spend all the money, farmers, we spend up front to produce these crops, so we’re not going to take a risk if we can’t harvest them.
Pauline Hanson has claimed backpackers and the Pacific Australia Labor Mobility (PALM) scheme won’t be impacted by the net-negative migration numbers.
Hanson running out of groups of pick on, says Murray Watt
Murray Watt says Pauline Hanson’s comments to a podcast criticising Anthony Albanese’s mother for staying in social housing over several decades are “despicable” and she should apologise.
Joining ABC RN Breakfast, the environment minister says Hanson is punching down on people who deserve support, also pointing to her attacks on Andrew Hastie.
Watt says Hanson is starting to “quickly run out of groups in the community that she doesn’t pick on”:
I think an apology is absolutely needed from Pauline Hanson for yet another remark that she makes, punching down on people in our community who deserve our support … the idea that you would pick on someone’s late mother who died more than 20 years ago is cruel and despicable.
I mean, I’m starting to lose count of the number of groups within our community who Pauline Hanson is picking on. She thinks workers are lazy, she doesn’t like migrants. She says parents who use childcare aren’t doing the right thing. Women experiencing domestic violence, she says that’s a two-way street.
Joyce stands by Hanson’s comments disparaging Albanese’s mother
Barnaby Joyce has defended Pauline Hanson’s comments that a person shouldn’t be allowed to live in public housing for multiple decades because there isn’t enough housing.
Hanson, in a podcast in February, criticised the length of time Anthony Albanese’s mother had lived in housing commission, and then said it was “pathetic” that the PM kept bringing up the story.
Joyce told Sunrise this morning that Albanese’s log cabin story doesn’t wash any more:
[Hanson] didn’t say that she [Albanese’s mother] was a bad woman, or that she had done some form of theft or anything like that. The question was put to her about public housing, and I stand by what she said … The premise of that question was, should people live in public housing for ever? Which the answer is no, because we just don’t have enough …
I don’t know the prime minister’s mother. I’m sure she’s a very, very good woman … But the whole, you know, log cabin story of living in a housing commission home that the prime minister rolls out over and over again for a person who owns multiple houses – and good luck to him, and God bless him, and he’s about to go live in a $4.5m house on the Central Coast – it just doesn’t wash.
Hanson’s ‘nasty, grubby’ politics shows she’s not fit to lead, says Hastie
Andrew Hastie says attacks against him have been really hard on him personally, and says he’s standing up against the “nasty, grubby politics” that Pauline Hanson represents.
Hanson has refused to apologise for a One Nation video that labels Hastie a “traitor” after he gave evidence against Ben Roberts-Smith in his failed defamation trial. Hanson has denied calling Hastie a traitor.
Hastie told the Today show the whole saga shows Hanson is not fit to be a leader:
I’ve experienced this for five or six months now. It’s been really hard. It’s been hard on me personally. It’s been hard on my staff, but it’s been really hard on my wife as well, who I left behind to go overseas knowing I might not return. So yeah, it is a slur. That’s why I’ve defended myself. But I’m also standing up for other veterans because it’s not just about me.
And I think this sort of nasty, grubby politics underscores Pauline Hanson’s true character. And with Australia facing a once in a generation cost of living crisis, with artificial intelligence coming at us very hard and fast, I think she’s revealed that she doesn’t have what it takes to be prime minister of this country.