Författare: Michelle Grattan Professorial Fellow University of Canberra

Women and their issues were at the centre in the 2022 election. They were an important reason why Scott Morrison was turfed out of office.

Morrison, his party and the government were seen to have a much-touted “women problem”, ranging from mishandling the Brittany Higgins affair to the under-representation of women among Liberal MPs. Issues around equality for women were to the forefront in the campaign of the “teals”, helping a cluster of professional women winning seats from Liberals.

Will gender again be important at the 2025 election? Potentially – positively and negatively. Both sides hope that it will, in different ways, work to their advantage, while also fearing its downsides.

There has been a big turnaround in how women vote, compared with decades ago, when they leaned more conservative than men. Now they tilt to the progressive side of politics.

A priority for the Albanese government has been to deliver for women, and it has done so in a big way – from appointments to pay rises.

A female governor-general succeeded a male; a woman followed a man to head the Reserve Bank; it was the same story at the Productivity Commission. This week Treasurer Jim Chalmers highlighted that women form the majority on both new boards of the Reserve Bank. (They are also a majority in the caucus.)

At a policy level, Albanese has already implemented major child care reform. This month he promised Labor would guarantee three days subsidised care a week with no activity test. There is more to come in this policy area.

The government legislated to have the Fair Work Commission promote “gender equality” in minimum wage reviews and for expert panels to assist in gender-related cases.

It pressed for better wages for child care workers and is paying for the rises in the immediate term, at a cost of $3.6 billion over the forward estimates. More generally, it says the gender pay gap has never been smaller, and pledges to do more in closing it.

Apart from reflecting the personal convictions of Anthony Albanese and Minister for Women Katy Gallagher, the strong support for lower paid women is closely linked in with Labor’s trade union base. With an ever-expanding “care” economy, the union movement (currently led by two women) is being feminised in growth areas. On the latest figures 14% of all women employees are union members, compared to 12% of male workers.

Women voters are now vital to Labor’s support base and it will be relying on its record for them to deliver for it at the election.

Albanese also has a strong political interest in the teal women MPs holding their seats. These are not electorates Labor can win – they still belong naturally on the conservative side of the ledger. For Labor, however, they form a firewall against Peter Dutton.

The polls show the partisan gender divide on voting and leadership. This week’s Essential poll, on a two-party basis, has the Coalition on 51% among men, and Labor on 44%, with 4% undecided. Among women, Labor is on 49% and the Coalition on 46%, with 5% undecided.

The Resolve poll earlier this month had, as preferred prime minister, Dutton polling 40% among men, and Albanese 34%, with the rest undecided. Among women, Albanese was on 36% and Dutton on 31%.

Rather counter intuitively, given his background as a hard man of the left, Albanese’s style gives him an advantage over Dutton with female voters.

Dutton is aware of the possible dangers of particular issues weakening his position with women. The Queensland election, despite the sweeping win by the Liberal National Party, showed the risks of a scare campaign on abortion. Dutton acted quickly to shut down the abortion issue federally, which some right-wingers had wanted to ignite.

In the recent United States presidential election, where abortion was a hot issue, the Harris campaign hoped that it, and gender identification generally, would bring a wave of support for her. That surge didn’t happen. Broader concerns across genders, notably inflation, boosted Trump’s vote.

So is it possible that when our election comes, Labor’s advantage among women fades to some degree, reduced by more general cost-of-living concerns?

Simon Welsh, of Redbridge political consultancy, says: “what we’re seeing in the [focus] groups is that [working class women] don’t like Dutton, but they are open to him. That is, he needs to provide an economic platform they can support, but there is no longer an entrenched resistance to the idea of voting for him among working class women”.

If Labor has an advantage with women, Albanese currently has a “man problem”. Labor’s position with men, especially younger men, has become difficult since 2022, partly due to Albanese being head-to-head with Dutton.

Dutton is heavily targeting outer-suburban seats. The persona of a tough, blunt, un-nuanced former Queensland policeman goes down well with men in these areas. This is reinforced by the fact that in the last few years men (especially younger men and not just here but in other countries too) have become more alienated, feeling they are not being adequately heard.

Welsh says: “the sense of disempowerment, alienation, among young men means that what they want is a ‘shock’ to a system that they no longer believe operates in their interests”.

The opposition’s nuclear policy feeds into the gender split, with pluses and minuses for the Coalition. Men are more likely to see the policy as Dutton having a go; women are more inclined to have reservations.

Mid year, Essential asked people to rank the desirability of three energy sources. Only 48% of men ranked renewables first; 69% of women did so. Nearly a third of men (32%) ranked nuclear first, but only 13% of women. There was little gender difference among the few who put fossil fuels first. (One male observer quips that men “like big techy stuff”.)

Labor is worried about Dutton’s ability to erode its vote among men, and will be making what efforts it can to counter it. This includes running hard on how a Coalition government could wind back industrial relations protections that the Albanese government has brought in, and claiming a Dutton government would de-industrialise the country.

But it’s a hard slog. Compared with 2022 when the women were grumpy, it’s now the men who are grumpy, and they are very grumpy. Labor is highly alert to the problem, but is still searching for the answers. Läs mer…

Appropriately, we finish our podcast for 2024 talking to Treasurer Jim Chalmers and his shadow, Angus Taylor because, as the saying goes, “it’s the economy, stupid!”

This week’s mid-year budget update showed Australia’s economy in poor shape and the buget’s trajectory mired in a decade of red.

Chalmers acknowledges the problems, but looks for positives:

yes there are pressures on the budget. Yes, some of those pressures are intensifying. But don’t forget, the budget is $200 billion stronger because of our efforts. That means we avoid $177 billion in the debt that we inherited, and that saves us $70 billion in interest costs. And so I understand that people are focused on the fact that the budget position remains difficult, but it is much, much stronger than it was two and a half years ago.

Looking to the next election, Chalmers outlines his ambitions for a second Labor term, if the government is re-elected:

well, the energy transformation, for me, is the most important thing. If you think about the earlier reform periods in our economy and in our politics, I think the thing that comes closest to the magnitude and the importance of those earlier waves of reform is the energy transformation. I genuinely feel that people in the future will look back on the 2020s and they’ll judge us on whether we succeeded or failed to get this energy transformation right. And obviously, that’s a big political contest now because of this nuclear insanity from the opposition.

I’m very interested in the intersection of technology and human capital and the way our industrial base is changing. So that’s a big part of the story. And then thirdly, where competition policy and productivity policy intersect, trying to make our economy more productive, more competitive and more dynamic. Those are the three things. In addition to all the things you’d expect me to say ongoing budget repair, cost-of-living relief, getting on top of inflation.

For Taylor, the economic challenge is getting the supply side right:

we needed a plan from this government to restore Australians’ prosperity, to restore their standard of living. We’ve seen a reduction of well over 8% in their standard of living since Labor came to power. And in fact, if anything, there’s a downgrade in Australians’ standard of living in this statement.

At the heart of this statement is a big spending, big taxing, high immigration Labor government. $233 billion of red ink over the forwards and deficits as far as the eye can see to the end of the decade.

What Labor is seeking to do is make government the centre of the economy. What we need is a private sector that’s mobilised, that’s investing, that’s employing, that’s taking risks and not being crowded out by the public sector. If you want to see sustainable lower inflation and lower interest rates, we know from history the answer isn’t a cash splurge. The answer is getting the supply side of the economy right and encouraging the private sector to get out there and invest.

Asked whether, as has been suggested, the Coalition had walked back its migration target, Taylor says:

the answer is there’s been no change. It’s as simple as that.

But I tell you what has changed. The baseline we’re dealing with on migration has changed quite dramatically. Labor has consistently failed to meet its targets. Its migration targets have increased by over 700,000 over the forwards since Labor came to power. Every time they put an update out, we see an increase in the numbers. The increase in MYEFO was another 80,000 over the forwards, much of which is in the short term in the next year or two. Labor has lost control of immigration.

That means that to get to our targets, which we’ve been very clear about, 160,000 in the NOM [net overseas migration] in the short term, bringing down permanent immigration by 25%, it means that the starting point is higher. Läs mer…

The federal budget is headed for a deficit of $26.9 billion this financial year – $1.3 billion better than the estimate in May – but in the following three years the budget is forecast to be deeper in the red than earlier forecast.

The budget update, released by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher on Wednesday, shows a sluggish Australian economy and a cumulative deficit of $143.9 billion across the four years of the forward estimates. This compares to $122.1 billion in the May budget.

The update predicts a return to budget balance only in 2034-2035.

The Mid-year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) shows a comparatively modest potential election war chest of up to $218.6 million this financial year and $828.1 million in 2025-26. These are labelled in the update “decisions taken but not yet announced”.

But these annual figures are deceptive in relation to what will be actually promised for next year’s election, because much of the cost of promises would also be pushed into the outer years. Over four years the figure is $5.6 billion in payments.

A portion of the unannounced decisions would be for confidential commercial payments and the like.

The government has flagged more cost-of-living relief to be announced in coming months.

Average real spending growth is estimated to be 1.5% over the six years to 2027-28, which would be under the 30-year average. But real spending growth this financial year is put at 5.7% (26.5% of GDP).

The update includes gross savings of $14.6 billion.

The update says: “In the face of significant economic headwinds, the Australian economy is on track for a soft landing”.

Despite difficult circumstances, “there has been encouraging progress on a number of fronts. The economy has continued to grow, inflation has moderated substantially, over a million jobs have been created since the middle of 2022, the participation rate is near record highs, real wage and disposable income growth has returned, the gender pay gap is at record lows and business investment is at near decades highs.”

The update shows inflation of 2.75% in 2024-25, within the Reserve Bank’s target range of 2-3%. But this will still include the effect of government cost-of living relief, which the bank discounts when considering interest rate movements.

Unemployment, at 3.9% currently, is forecast to rise to 4.5% this financial year.

Economic growth is forecast to be 1.75% this financial year, up from 1.4% in 2023-24, and 2.75% in 2025-26. The improvement in growth is “expected to be supported by a gradual recovery in household consumption”.

Wages are forecast to grow 3%, down from the outcome for the 2023-24 year of 4.1%.

“Government’s cost-of-living tax cuts, together with the anticipated easing in inflationary pressures and continuing employment and wage growth are expected to drive growth in real household disposable incomes in 2024–25,” the update says.

The upgrades in tax receipts are much more modest this year than the $80 billion upgrades on average in the last four budget updates.

Excluding GST and policy decisions, tax receipts have been revised up by $7.3 billion over the years to 2027-28. For the first time since the 2020-21 budget company receipts have been revised down, reflecting weaker commodity volumes as a result of the weakness of the Chinese economy.

Net debt in 2024-25 is $540 billion, a decrease of $12.5 billion from the budget. Läs mer…

A person with long experience in the financial services sector, Marnie Baker, and a distinguished academic economist, Renée Fry-McKibbin, have been appointed to serve on the Reserve Bank’s new monetary policy board:

Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Monday also announced four new faces for the bank’s new governance board.

Under reforms passed just before parliament rose for the year, the bank’s new structure will have two boards rather than the existing one. The change follows an extensive inquiry into the bank, and Chalmers says the new structure will represent “international best practice”.

Baker has more than three decades’ experience in the financial services sector, focusing on retail banking and funds management. She recently served as CEO of Bendigo and Adelaide Bank and deputy chair of the Australian Banking Association.

Renée Fry-McKibbin is a distinguished professor of economics at the Australian National University’s Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, and a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.

She served on the panel that reviewed the RBA’s structure. Her husband, Warwick McKibbin, also a leading economist, previously served on the Reserve Bank’s board, appointed by the Howard government.

The new members of the governance board are

Jennifer Westacott, formerly CEO of the Business Council of Australia, who presently is chancellor of Western Sydney University.
David Thodey, formerly Telstra CEO and currently the chair of Xero and the chancellor of the University of Sydney.
Danny Gilbert, co-founder and chair of the corporate law firm Gilbert+Tobin. His board experience includes at NAB, the Business Council of Australia and as chair of the National Museum of Australia. He is chair of the Cape York Partnership Group.
Swati Dave, an experienced non-executive director and senior banking executive with finance experience in domestic and international markets. She was managing director and CEO of Export Finance Australia from 2017 to 2022 and is chair of the advisory board to the Centre for Australia-India Relations.

Chalmers highlighted that he was “very proud” that women had the majority on both new boards.

All members of the existing board were able, if they wished, to move to the new monetary board.

Chalmers said following consultation with board members, Carolyn Hewson, Ian Harper, Iain Ross and Alison Watkins opted to move to the monetary policy board. Carol Schwartz and Elana Rubin agreed to serve on the governance board.

“These appointments will ensure continuity on both boards, consistent with the preference of the RBA Governor,” Chalmers said.

Terms of board members have been staggered “to ensure both boards have the right balance of experience and fresh perspectives,” he said.

Chalmers stressed his wide consultations on the appointments, including with shadow treasurer Angus Taylor as far back as July, when the names of Fry-McKibbin and Baker were mentioned to him.

The opposition refused to support the legislation for the restructure of the bank, forcing the government into a deal with the Greens.

Chalmers said the appointments had all been made on advice of a three-member panel including Treasury secretary, the Reserve Bank governor and a former secretary to the Treasury and department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Martin Parkinson.

“An open and transparent expression of interest process was run, and candidates were shortlisted by the panel. Candidates were shortlisted against a skills matrix, to ensure there was the right mix of skills and experience on both boards.

”This is the process that was set out in the RBA Review and the government has stuck to it,” Chalmers said.

The new boards start on March 1. The first time the monetary policy board will consider interest rates will be at the meeting on March 31 to April 1. Läs mer…

Wednesday’s mid-year budget update will downgrade company tax receipts  by $8.5 billion over the four years to 2027-28, and show “slippage’ in the bottom line in some years of the forward estimates, Treasurer Jim Chalmers says.

The company tax downgrade is the first since 2020 and reflects weaker  volumes in commodity sales  as the Chinese economy faces problems.
Mining exports will be downgraded by more than $100 billion  over the four years to 2027-28.

Chalmers said ”the global economy is uncertain, the global outlook is unsettling and that’s weighing heavily on our economy”.

The budget bottom line is also being hit with extra spending in a range of areas.

The update will include an extra  $1.8 billion in payments to veterans’ “as we  clear the Liberals’ claims backlog.”

Chalmers said on Sunday the update included “a number of spending pressures in areas that are very important to us, which are putting substantial pressure on the budget”.

Apart from the spending on veterans, the treasurer  said there were a handful of other “very big estimates variations”, including in disaster funding, early childhood education, Medicare and some other areas.

“A combination of these things, slowing growth, a write‑down in mining exports, a write‑down in company taxes, combined with upward pressure on spending in these important areas means that there will be some slippage in some of the bottom lines over the forward estimates – even as we work very hard to get the bottom line in the current year into slightly better nick,” he said.

Chalmers also said he would announce the members of the two new Reserve Bank boards on Monday or soon after.

The opposition has accused him of wanting to stack the monetary policy board that will set interest rates.

Chalmers has offered all members of the existing Reserve Bank board a place on the monetary board and most will transition to it, although there will be room for some new members. This left a number of vacancies on the new governance board for him to also fill. Läs mer…

The remaining five members of the Bali Nine – Matthew Norman, Scott Rush, Martin Stephens, Si Yi Chen, and Michael Czugaj – arrived back in Australia from Indonesia on Sunday.

Despite earlier suggestions, and Indonesia’s preference, the men will not serve any further prison time here, because there is no legal framework to allow that. Australia does not have a prisoner swap agreement with Indonesia. The Australian government has given no quid pro quo in the negotiations for the return of the five.

Some weeks ago Special Minister of State Don Farrell said: “The proposal isn’t, as I understand it, to release these people. They would continue to serve their sentence, except they’re serving them in Australia”.

But in the end the Indonesian government was willing to accept the men’s undertaking they would continue their rehabilitation back in their home country.

The freeing of the five follows sustained representations from the Australian government including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese most recently to Indonesia’s new president Prabowo Subianto on the sidelines of APEC.

The men were sentenced to life imprisonment for their role in a heroin smuggling plot in 2005. Two of the “Bali nine” were executed, one died, and the only woman was freed some years ago.

In a statement Albanese, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Immigration Minister Tony Burke expressed “deep appreciation” to the Indonesian government for facilitating the men’s repatriation “on humanitarian grounds”.

“This reflects the strong bilateral relationship and mutual respect between Indonesia and Australia,” they said.

The government said the men would “have the opportunity to continue their personal rehabilitation and reintegration in Australia”.

They arrived on a commercial flight and have been taken to accommodation where they will have access to medical and other services to help them begin their new lives.

Albanese said he had “conveyed my personal appreciation” to the president.

“Australia respects Indonesia’s sovereignty and legal processes and we appreciate Indonesia’s compassionate consideration of this matter.

”The five men committed serious offences.

”Australia shares Indonesia’s concern about the serious problem illicit drugs represents. The government will continue to cooperate with Indonesia to counter narcotics trafficking and transnational crime,” Albanese said.

He said these Australians had served more than 19 years and “it was time for them to come home”. Läs mer…

A Dutton government would keep coal working hard for much longer under its nuclear policy, while renewables would provide only a little over half the electricity generated in 2050.

The opposition has finally put in place the last piece of its controversial nuclear policy, with modelling claiming its alternative would come in substantially cheaper than Labor’s transition path to net zero.

The Coalition policy ensures the issues of coal and climate change will be strongly contested at next year’s election.

The key breakdown in the opposition policy is that by 2050, renewables would provide 54% of electricity generation and nuclear 38%, with 8% a combination of storage and gas.

This compares with Labor’s transition plan for renewables to provide nearly all the generation by then (and 82% by 2030).

The modelling, done at no charge by Frontier Economics, costs the Coalition plan for the transition of the National Electricity Market (which covers the east coast and South Australia but excludes Western Australia) at $263 billion (about 44%) cheaper than its estimate for Labor’s transition. It includes nuclear construction costs.

The modelling, including a range of assumptions (the same assumptions as Australian Energy Market Operator except for inclusion of nuclear), puts the cost of Labor’s transition in the National Electricity Market at $594 billion and that of the Coalition’s at $331 billion.

A central feature of the plan is to keep existing coal-fired power stations going for longer. Then the first of them would be replaced by nuclear generation, in the mid-2030s. The Coalition policy is for seven publicly-owned nuclear plants spread around the country although the modelling is on the basis of units in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

The Coalition argues coal-fired power stations do not need to be, and should not be, phased out as soon as is now planned by AEMO. Prolonging their lives as compared to AEMO assumptions would save money, it says.

Another important saving, the Coalition says, is that its plan to have its nuclear plants located at or near existing power plant sites does away with the need for a huge new transmission grid.

Peter Dutton says: “Nuclear energy is at the heart of our plan, providing the ‘always-on’ power needed to back up renewables, stabilise the grid, and keep energy affordable”.

“The Coalition’s approach integrates zero-emissions nuclear energy alongside renewables and gas, delivering a total system cost significantly lower than Labor’s. This means reduced power bills for households, lower operating costs for small businesses, and a stronger, more resilient economy,” Dutton says.

The release of the costings unleashes a tsunami of claims and counterclaims about numbers. That debate will be eye-glazing for many voters.

Not to worry. We are talking the span of a generation. Numbers that stretch out to 2050 don’t mean a great deal. Hundreds of things – in technology and politics, for starters – can and will change as the years pass.

Moreover, numbers from modelling have an extra layer of complexity and uncertainty. They depend heavily on their assumptions that are, in many cases, necessarily arbitrary.

Anyone inclined to take modelling at face value should reflect on the Labor experience. Before the 2022 election it released modelling that gave it the basis to promise a $275 reduction in household power bills by next year. We all know what happened to that.

Regardless of the problems in attempting to be precise, the broad debate about nuclear’s cost will be intense.

The opposition’s plan is up against, for example, the recently released GenCost report, prepared by the CSIRO. This gave a thumbs down to the nuclear option in cost terms. The opposition attempted to cast doubt on the CSIRO’s expertise, but that is unlikely to fly.

The Coalition policy will go down differently according to which constituency is judging it.

Shadow Minister for Climate Change Ted O’Brien listens to Minister for Climate Change Chris Bowen making the first annual climate change statement.
Mick Tsikas/AAP

Most obviously, given its reliance on extending the life of coal, it will be unpopular with those for whom climate change is a top-line issue. Teal MPs and candidates will hope to get mileage out of that. Under the Coalition plan emissions would remain higher for longer than under Labor’s transition.

On the other hand, in some regional communities where there has been a bad reaction to the planned new power grid and to wind farms, the policy is likely to be well received.

The question is how it will play in the outer suburban electorates that Dutton hopes will help him cut deeply into Labor’s majority.

For these voters, stressed by the cost of living, climate change is probably less of a priority than it once might have been. And nuclear is less scary than in bygone years.

But whether they will see the Coalition policy as more practical than Labor’s, or as a pie-in-the-sky nuclear dream – that’s too early to say.

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen was dismissive when the Coalition first promoted nuclear. But Labor would be unwise to be complacent, especially in what’s shaping as a difficult election for the Albanese government.

Labor’s strongest arguments will be on climate change – the evils of the extension of the use of coal – and cost (relying on GenCost findings and the like).

But it is vulnerable in its rejection of calls to lift the ban on nuclear. Bowen argues to do this would be a “distraction”, potentially harming investment in renewables.

That’s a weak argument. To suggest those looking to invest very large sums are likely to be distracted if there wasn’t a ban on the nuclear option is simplistic.

Firstly, this underestimates the financial nous of such investors.
On Labor’s own argument, they wouldn’t want to invest in nuclear because it wouldn’t be profitable to do so. Secondly, investors currently
know if there were a change of government, the Coalition would lift the ban (notwithstanding  the present opposition of various states).

The strongest reason Labor won’t contemplate lifting the ban is politics. Any such move would outrage the left of the party, and also risk driving voters to the Greens. It would also require a change in the Labor’s party platform, which says Labor will “prohibit the establishment of nuclear power plants and all other stages of the nuclear fuel cycle in Australia”.

With households highly focused on their immediate power bills, the government has been tipped to extend more relief as it burnishes its cost-of-living credentials for the election. The Coalition would have to decide whether to match this. It would be hard not to do so.

The Coalition’s plan for nuclear power is a big idea, of which we don’t see that many in our current politics. It will test Dutton’s ability to cope with detail under the pressure of a campaign. There will be another test. If the Coalition remains in opposition, will it throw its grand plan into the policy dust bin, so the nuclear debate will be gone for another decade or two? Läs mer…

The attack on the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne and another car torching in Sydney have dramatically heightened political tensions over antisemitism.

Amid criticism the government has been too slow to act in the past year, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese this week announced an Australian Federal Police taskforce to combat antisemitism, visited the Melbourne synagogue (though his critics said this was belated), and on Wednesday was at Sydney’s Jewish Museum.

For Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, a member of Melbourne’s Jewish community, antisemitism is personal. Dreyfus joins the podcast to talk about his family’s story of fleeing Nazi Germany, his own and his community’s experience with antisemitism, and his reaction to criticism of the government’s performance.

My grandmother, like many. Holocaust survivors, didn’t like to talk about what had happened. She didn’t like to talk about the loss of her parents, who were murdered in Auschwitz and Theresienstadt. But I have talked to my father, who we are blessed is still with us at the age of 96 and living alone, still in good form. He was sent by his parents, my grandparents, with his older brother, alone to Australia, while my grandparents remained in Germany until four months after the Second World War had started, to try to persuade their parents, my great grandparents, to leave.

Asked his father’s reactions to recent events, Dreyfus says,

It reminded him of Kristallnacht [the 1938 attack on Jews]. He said Kristallnacht was the prompt for his assimilated German parents […] to make preparations to leave and try to persuade their parents to leave and make preparations to send their children away.

Of the antisemitism recently directed at him personally,

Directed at me, I’ve seen directly antisemitic abuse in a form and with a frequency that I have certainly not experienced since I was elected to the Federal Parliament in 2007.

Asked if further federal laws are required to combat antisemitism Dreyfus sugggests the states could do more,

Street conduct, street behaviour is very much a state matter. I’ve seen that some state governments, particularly in New South Wales and in Victoria, have started to talk about the possibility of creating some regulation of demonstration-type behaviour [outside places of worship] similar to what’s been done to protect reproductive health clinics, where there’s a distance that’s been created by law within which people wishing to demonstrate against abortion are not permitted to do so.

I’d be encouraging state governments if they think that it’s appropriate to put that sort of control on demonstrations […] to do so.

On the accusations by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others that the government’s stance on Israel in the United Nations has led indirectly to the local attacks, Dreyfus says,

With the greatest of respect to Mr Netanyahu, he is wrong on two counts there. He’s wrong to say that our government is anything other than a close friend of Israel. And he’s wrong just to connect votes on resolutions at the United Nations with the occurrence of violent antisemitic attacks here in Australia.

Dreyfus criticises the politicisation of the antisemitism issue,

I am very sad to have seen the way in which Peter Dutton and senior Liberals have chosen to politicise and seek party political advantage from the atrocious event of the burning of a synagogue. But sadly, that is what they have done.

We heard [Liberal] senator Jane Hume offering up just this morning on radio that, somehow, our government had enabled terrorist acts. Now, that’s not acceptable. It’s not acceptable that Peter Dutton should seek to politicise the appalling event of the burning of the synagogue. And it’s not acceptable that any of his colleagues should seek to do the same thing. Läs mer…

Anthony Albanese will promise a re-elected Labor government would guarantee three days of subsidised child care without people having to undertake an activity test.

In an address on Wednesday to an early education event in Brisbane, Albanese will say every family earning up to $530,000 would have access to this guarantee. The plan would cost $427 million over five years and begin in January 2026.

The present activity test determines the maximum number of hours of subsidised care per fortnight. Activities include paid work, studying, volunteering and looking for work. The more hours of activity, the more hours of subsidised care people can receive. There are exemptions for low income earners and some other families.

Under the prime minister’s promise, those accessing subsidised care of more than three days would still have to meet an activity test.

The recent Productivity Commission inquiry into early childhood education and care recommended the activity test be entirely scrapped.

In his speech, released in part ahead of delivery, Albanese says the activity test puts “extra weight on the shoulders of parents who are already doing the hard yards of looking for work while locking their children out of early education.

”Denying them those learning skills and social skills that get you ready for school.”

He says too often those children who miss out on early education are those for whom it would make the most difference.

“Our Three Day Guarantee will ensure every family can afford three days of high-quality early education.”

Labor wants to “build a universal child care system. Simple, affordable and accessible, for every family.”

But Albanese stresses the plan does not mean mandatory attendance. “The choice will be up to parents, as always, as it should be. But we want families to have a real choice. We want to make sure that your decision isn’t dictated by where you live, or what you do for a living.”

Albanese says this term the government has been putting the foundations for a universal system into place. The single biggest commitment it took to the last election was its cheaper child care policy, he points out.

This investment has cut the cost of child care for more than one million families, with the average family saving more than $4.400, he says.

He says next week’s budget update will show Commonwealth funding for child care subsidies w
increasing by $3.1 billion over the next four years, supporting an extra 200,000 children.

The Productivity Commission in its report said the activity test was brought in to boost workforce participation. But it had “cemented a view” among some disadvantaged families that early childhood education was “only for people who have jobs”.

“The test was tightened in 2018 to reduce the number of subsidised hours families could access without meeting the activity test. The Child Care Package Evaluation, undertaken after this tightening, showed that it is not clear that labour force participation goals have been achieved,” the report said. “Changes in employment and other activities were small and not necessarily attributable to the activity test.” Läs mer…

A second member of the shadow cabinet has announced he is quitting parliament, further depleting the moderates’ presence in the parliamentary Liberal party and boosting the chance of the teal candidate in the Sydney seat of Bradfield.

Paul Fletcher, 59, manager of opposition business in the House of Representatives, on Tuesday said he would not recontest at the coming election. After the redistribution Bradfield is on 2.5% on a two-candidate basis. Once Liberal heartland, teal candidate Nicolette Boele achieved a big swing against Fletcher in 2022.

At the end of the parliamentary session, the opposition leader in the Senate, Simon Birmingham, announced he was leaving parliament. He is taking up a job with the ANZ bank and will resign from the Senate early in the new year to start his new role in February. Fletcher will see out his term.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton is set to reshuffle his frontbench before Christmas. Filling Birmingham’s position of foreign affairs spokesperson is particularly challenging given the volatile international situation.

A former minister in the Coalition government, Fletcher is currently spokesman for government services and the digital economy, as well as spokesman on science and the arts.

The Liberals now have minimal moderate voices in the parliamentary party.

Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley leans moderate but is not a factional leader or a forthright factional advocate. The remaining sparse moderate ranks include Andrew Bragg, Dave Sharma and Bridget Archer. Bragg is an assistant shadow minister, while the others are on the backbench. Archer is very outspoken and has often crossed the floor but is not seen as a factional leader.

Essentially the moderate faction has increasingly lost its voice in recent years, with the right dominant within the parliamentary party under Dutton. The teal wins in 2022 cut a swathe through the moderates.

The moderates are hoping the new candidate for Bradfield might be Gisele Kapterian. They say she ticks all the right boxes, as a moderate, and a professional woman. She was picked as the candidate for the adjacent seat of North Sydney, before that seat was scrapped in the redistribution.

A moderate woman would seem the best sort of candidate to maximise the Liberals’ chances of holding Bradfield against Boele, who has been actively campaigning throughout this parliamentary term.

Last week Fletcher launched a major attack on the teals, claiming they had duped Liberal voters. He said they were a “giant green left con job” and “are very much in the tradition of front groups established by left-wing political operatives, which are designed to lure votes away from the Liberal Party by tricking voters about their bona fides”.

He said in Tuesday’s statement that he had been in parliament for 15 years. “Renewal is healthy, for people and institutions, and now is the right time to hand over the baton.”

Fletcher said he expected some “outstanding people” to put themselves forward to be Liberal candidates.

Boele said in a statement: “For 75 years, one political party has held Bradfield. Now is the opportunity for an independent to make a difference.

”I’ve had thousands of conversations with members of our community this year who feel let down by the political parties.

”As I continue to meet people across Bradfield, they tell me they want a representative who is loyal to locals, not to Peter Dutton,” she said.

Albanese visits synagogue, as minister Ed Husic points to Islamophobia

Anthony Albanese leaves after visiting the Adass Israel Synagogue after a firebombing in Melbourne.
Joel Carrett/AAP

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday visited the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne as the government steps up its efforts to combat antisemitism.

Albanese said Friday’s attack had been “stoked by hatred”. He gave a commitment to “doing what we need to do to restore this synagogue”.

At the same time cabinet minister Ed Husic, a Muslim, asked whether the Coalition was suggesting a “blind eye” should be turned to Islamophobia.

“The Coalition has frontbenchers who have said Islamophobia is not a problem […] which is just ridiculous,” Husic said on Sky.

He pointed to an incident in New South Wales “where a bomb was placed on the car of a person who had displayed, outside their home, a Palestinian flag. […] Now that is equally bad, I would say,” he told Sky.

Amid partisan spats, Jewish Labor MP Josh Burns, whose electorate of Macnamara includes the synagogue, on Tuesday accused Peter Dutton of stopping Liberal frontbencher James Paterson reading out a statement on Burns’ behalf last Friday, when Burns and Paterson appeared at a news conference after the attack.

Burns told the ABC he’d lost his voice and Paterson had agreed to read out his statement. But “Peter Dutton intervened and told James that he wasn’t allowed to,” he said.

On Monday Dutton took a swipe at Burns saying, “Josh is a nice guy, but Josh lost his voice long before the weekend”.

In another exchange, minister Murray Watt on Monday accused former Liberal treasurer Josh Frydenberg of being partly motivated by politics in his criticism of the government’s performance on antisemitism. Frydenberg hit back at Watt, saying this was a “low blow”. Läs mer…