This Sitting Week: Feb 18
Karen Middleton on what's coming up in federal parliament
As one of our early followers, I’m pleased to bring you the first of what will become a regular feature for Australian Banking Daily subscribers.
When federal parliament is sitting, political journalist Karen Middleton will be bringing her decades of experience to deliver a succinct summary of what’s coming up in the week ahead.
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Lending squeeze
By Karen Middleton
Technically, federal Parliament should be only half as crazy this week with the House of Representatives holding four days of sittings and the Senate in recess and holding its regular Budget estimates hearings instead.
But the political and legislative pressures on the government will continue as it navigates its way to the five-week break now inserted before what has become Budget day on April 2.
Today the House of Representatives will vote on a non-binding motion the Senate passed on Thursday calling on the government to establish a royal commission into the abuse of people with disabilities.
The coalition opposed the motion in the Senate and what became the longest Question Time on record on Thursday was then extended until Parliament was due to adjourn in what the opposition alleged was a government move to avoid the motion coming to a vote in the House which it was set to lose.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison denies that was why he let Question Time run on. He also says he has never been opposed to such a royal commission and that the motion will come forward for a vote in the House today and the coalition will support it. Morrison will then face pressure from the opposition parties and disability sector to follow up and establish the inquiry.
After disappearing from the parliamentary program last week, the so-called “big stick” legislation, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Preventing Energy Market Misconduct) Bill 2018 remains on the notice paper at item number 15 of almost 90 bills set down for debate in the House of Representatives this week. Opposition to it is uniting some natural political enemies.
Energy companies are lobbying strongly against the bill, which would force them to divest if they are unable to bring prices down, and the Greens are threatening to amend it to ensure government funding cannot be spent on coal projects.
Also high on the legislative list is the Treasury Laws Amendment (Design and Distribution Obligations and Product Intervention Powers) Bill 2018, a spin-off from the financial services royal commission that has been before Parliament since September last year. The government bill is designed to protect consumers from unscrupulous tactics in marketing and selling financial products and to give the ASIC extra intervention powers to stop their distribution.
Another piece of government legislation listed for debate in the House updates the operation of the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax.
The Treasury Laws Amendment (2019 Petroleum Resource Rent Tax Reforms No. 1) Bill 2019 follows government consultations arising from the 2017 Callaghan review which examined the effectiveness of the PRRT. It recommended changes to uplift rates, gas transfer pricing rules and the outcomes of transferred exploration expenditure.
Some private members’ legislation listed for this week will pose a challenge for the minority government, especially following its loss of a legislative vote on the medical evacuation of asylum seekers last week.
But the coalition may be less concerned about losing another vote after a new opinion poll revealed last week’s loss has not hurt its public support thus far.
An Ipsos poll conducted over the weekend and published by the Nine Network today shows the coalition clawing back support and dramatically narrowing the gap, now on 49% to Labor’s 51%.
Protecting borrowers
Among the private members’ bills this week, West Australian Labor MP Madeleine King has a bill listed for debate today aimed at overhauling laws governing payday lending and hire purchase, or rent-to-buy, schemes.
South Australian Centre Alliance MP Rebekha Sharkie’s private members’ bill seeks to amend existing legislation and is aimed at protecting small farm businesses from draconian lending practices.
With some Nationals MPs considering supporting it, the government may now opt to move its own amendments to affect the change to avoid giving Sharkie a win.
Also today, the Labor Opposition is expected to make public a report it commissioned from scientists at the Australian Academy of Scientists into the fish kills over summer in the Murray-Darling river system.
The Department of Environment and Energy is first up in the Environment and Communications Senate estimates hearings this morning and will likely face questions about the operations of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, following both the fish deaths and the recent scathing report of the South Australian royal commission into the river’s management.
Senators are also expected to seek an update on the lump-sum half-billion-dollar grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation issued when Malcolm Turnbull was prime minister.
In Legal and Constitutional Affairs, the Department of Home Affairs will face questions over the tender process that led to a A$420 million contract for security services at the immigration regional processing centre on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island.
The contract was awarded in a limited tender process to the Paladin Group, a company registered to a beach shack on Kangaroo Island in South Australia and a post office box in Singapore.
Watchdogs in the spotlight
The Treasury and financial watchdogs ASIC and APRA will be before estimates on Wednesday and Thursday. And in the wake of the banking royal commission, the latter pair will be expecting a question or two as well.
Jobs and Small Business Minister Michaelia Cash will appear before Estimates on Wednesday, and may be grilled on some of the evidence that has been given in a civil case in the Federal Court being brought by the Australian Workers’ Union’s relating to raids on its headquarters in 2017.
Cash will also appear earlier in the week as the minister representing Home Affairs and the Attorney-General’s Department in the Senate.