On Notice is a new series.
This week, the new parliament sits from Monday through Thursday. The Albanese government is expected to move legislation on cheaper medicines and to pass a bill on HECS loan cuts introduced last week, ABC News reports. New legislation to cap the price of Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme medicines at $25 is expected to be introduced today.
Meanwhile, the Business Council of Australia has begun lobbying for increased tax credits for research and development spending, ahead of Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ economic roundtable planned for next month. Crikey’s economics correspondent Jason Murphy wrote in June about what issues he hoped and expected would be raised.
The BCA is leaning on a joint report with firms Atlassian and Cochlear, which are big users of the tax credits. In a timely move, Atlassian co-founder and former CEO Scott Farquhar will give a National Press Club address on the subject on Wednesday at 11.30am.
At the same time as Farquhar’s address, the Australian Bureau of Statistics will release its monthly CPI indicator on the rate of inflation. Crikey’s politics editor Bernard Keane has written critically about the RBA’s decision on July 8 to hold interest rates steady rather than lower them, wondering whether governor Michele Bullock and her board will be “dragged kicking and screaming to a rate cut in August” — and if Bullock is right for the role of governor at all.
Perhaps Bullock’s deputy, Andrew Hauser, will help explain the Reserve Bank’s reasoning when he participates in a “fireside chat” at the Barrenjoey Economic Forum in Sydney on Thursday at 9.20am. As Keane noted in a story last week, minutes from the RBA’s latest monetary policy meeting revealed Hauser almost certainly voted with Bullock for keeping the rate as it was.
Also on Thursday, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forumof which Australia is a founding member, will kick off a two-day, high-level meeting on anti-corruption cooperation in Incheon, South Korea. It’s unclear who Australia will be dispatching to the meetings. South Korea will host a leaders’ meeting in October, and it’s a safe bet Anthony Albanese will be there — like previous prime ministers, Albanese is a keen attendee at the annual top-level APEC summits.
Friday marks the start of the Garma FestivalAustralia’s largest Indigenous gathering, on the Gove Peninsula in the Northern Territory. Albanese has been present each year since becoming prime minister, initially riding high on his election victory and the promise of delivering the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full at his first visit in 2022 (at the time, he was the first prime minister to attend the festival in five years).
When the following year’s festival was held, it was three months before the Voice to Parliament referendumand polls already predicted the Yes vote would fail. When he returned in 2024, Albanese came under scrutiny for appearing to walk back his vow to deliver the other two facets of the Uluru Statement: a Makarrata Commission and a treaty.
Crikey opinion contributor Celeste Liddle wrote at the time that Albanese’s post-referendum rhetoric on the Uluru Statement sounded like “echoes of assimilation”. We haven’t heard from the Prime Minister’s Office whether he’ll be attending this yearbut NITV said in a media release yesterday it would be reporting on “the most important speeches and panels”, including coverage of “national figures including the prime minister”, so it seems likely. That specific coverage is scheduled for Saturday.
Meanwhile, the Productivity Commission will on Thursday release its interim report on “creating a more dynamic and resilient economy” — another instalment in the productivity and tax debate ahead of the roundtable — and on Sunday will publish another interim report on “investing in cheaper, cleaner energy and the net zero transformation”.
And as toxic algal bloom spreads across South Australiadecimating marine life in its wake, a Senate inquiry that began last week into the crisis is now accepting submissions.
Plus, in terrible timing for this new series, politicians are now taking a month off, with parliament resuming on 25 August. See you then!