ALP national conference day one as it happened | Labor party

What we learned at the ALP national conference today

The main takeaways from today’s conference:

• Anthony Albanese has given a start date to the shared equity homebuyer scheme which was included in the election platform – it will start in the first half of next year, after the states and territories pass the necessary legislation to get it moving.

• The prime minister has also laid out some markers for the “long-term project” of a “long-term Labor government” – he wants to see childcare made universal (like health), the gender pay gap addressed and the transition to renewables pretty much completed.

• A “statement in detail” on the Aukus pact has been proposed to be added to the national platform to try to quell grassroots unrest. That won’t go to the floor for a vote until tomorrow morning, but it is being telegraphed now to try to stop a vote to remove support for Aukus from the platform getting up tomorrow.

• Labor’s environmental arm, Lean didn’t get a ban on native forest logging across the line, and instead the party will support a “transition” in the logging industry.

We will be back to cover tomorrow’s conference happenings – we hope you will join us as Labor works out its future direction.

Conference will kick off at 10am, but we will be on deck from about 9.30am. We hope to see you – until then, please, take care of you.

Conference is adjourned for the day

And just like that … the first day of the ALP conference is adjourned.

It will be back at 10am tomorrow to continue working through the platform – tomorrow morning will be the Aukus debate, so get ready for that.

Push to support victim-survivors of childhood abuse

We just had a resolution moved by the Victorian socialist left delegate Julijana Todorovic to support victim-survivors of childhood abuse.

The resolution proposed:

The FPLP will work with the Department of Government Service to amend relevant legislation to abolish the retraumatising bureaucratic recovery requirements and assist victim-survivors to access compensation in a trauma-informed way.

But we’re on the home stretch now so the government services minister, Bill Shorten, who has seconded the motion, waived his right to speak.

Speaking of Shorten, we’re now hearing the minister discuss those involved in the robodebt scheme:

A senior cabal of very high, very senior public servants and Coalition ministers made a decision to go to war against the poor. They decided to divide this country into those on welfare and those not on welfare. They decided to paint a picture that people using our public service, Centrelink, Medicare, the pension system, was somehow lesser Australians than other people and we now know how much that unlawful behaviour has now been exposed and there is accountability making its way through the system.

Conference prepares to adjourn for the day

Seems like the delegates want to get this day over and done with – many are now waiving their right to speak and the leftover economic motions won’t be debated today (at a later, to be decided time over the next two days), so there is not too much longer in this conference day to go.

Albanese to appear on 7.30 with Laura Tingle

Anthony Albanese will be interviewed by Laura Tingle for the ABC’s 7.30 tonight, and you can bet the housing announcement will be getting a pretty big spiel.

Parliament doesn’t sit until 4 September, so there are a couple more weeks before we get back to the parliamentary back and forth between Labor and the Greens, but Labor sees an opportunity to start pushing back a little more.

Still no agreement on renters rights though.

Regulation of online gambling should have harm reduction as primary goal, MP says

The national conference is supposed to finish at 4pm for the day but we’ve still got to get through the third chapter and then circle back to the leftover economic motions from the morning.

Right now, the Dunkley MP, Peta Murphy, is up and is moving a motion on gambling addiction.

The online gambling business model, which encourages harm, must be better regulated. The Albanese Labor government knows this and has introduced significant reforms already, but more needs to be done.

The motion proposes the “policy framework and regulation of online gambling in Australia” have harm reduction as its primary goal.

There’s also a motion attached about recognising drug and alcohol addiction as a health issue, not a criminal one.

It’s carried.

Chalmers confident conference will back Aukus after debate

Jim Chalmers is now speaking to the ABC about the ALP conference and he has been asked whether or not the bid to remove the supportive Aukus mention from the party platform has been defeated with the government’s proposed statement in detail (the proposal is to lay out 32 paragraphs as part of the national platform, saying we are doing Aukus, we are in support of Aukus, but we are going to do it the Labor way, and here is how, so calm your farm anti-Aukus Labor people).

Asked if the move to remove “including Aukus” from the defence platform will be beaten tomorrow morning, Chalmers says:

I think that has always been the case. It has been rumblings over the past few months, the left may have the numbers to do remarkable things at the conference but there has been factional agreements in place for some time … great efforts have been made to avoid embarrassing the Albanese government in any way.

There is enormous goodwill amongst all Labor ranks that this is a first-term Labor government, they that want to be a long-term Labor government so now is not the time to be rocking the vote and generating huge controversy at a Labor national conference.

There will be debate around Aukus, but we do know that support is going to remain, Aukus will be introduced to Labor’s national platform as it is currently in the draft, so it will carry on as such. But that conversation will be heard because we heard from Wayne Swan this morning as he opened the conference, this is a party that values debate, he says, and they are happy to have it in the open and happy for the public to watch as well.

The first day of Labor conference is about to draw to a close – at least when it comes to what is happening on the floor. Once conference adjourns, the factions go off and have little meetings and then there are the meetings within the meetings and of course the dinners, which are meetings dressed up, with food.

It is going to be a long three days for those involved.

Peter Dutton has a little more stronger ground when it comes to the Aukus fight at the conference:

… We strongly support the government’s initiative in relation to signing the deal on Aukus. We negotiated with the United States, the United Kingdom, when we were in power, and, as defence minister, I understand very acutely that we live in an uncertain time and we need to make sure that our nation’s defences are as strong as they can be because that provides the greatest deterrence against any action of aggression against our country, it supports our neighbours and our allies, and it’s why it’s important for us to be a valuable partner to our key allies, in particular the United States and the United Kingdom, but also Japan and India, and others in the region at the moment.

So we are hand-in-glove with the government when it comes to the Aukus arrangement, but as we’ve seen, you’ve got hard left Labor members – who for decades have been led by the prime minister as a leader of the left in the Labor party – they are vehemently opposed to the Aukus deal. There are now 40 branches of the Labor party across the country who have signed up to the cause to see Aukus defeated.

He moves from that to nuclear, so we might leave it there (just like the Morrison government left the idea of nuclear power while in government because it was not cost-effective and would take too long to establish).

Dutton answers question on super profits tax with attack on Labor

The Liberal leader, Peter Dutton, was in Brisbane yesterday for the Ekka’s Peoples’ Day (the public holiday to go to the greatest show on earth), but he is now in western Sydney, where he has held a doorstop (quick press conference).

He was, of course, asked about Labor’s conference:

Question:

What about the idea, I know some of the unions are going to use this conference to push for new super profit taxes on big businesses. Surely you could see that sort of policy appealing to voters who are seeing, you know, big banks post large profits while they’re struggling, as you say, with cost of living pressures?

Peter Dutton:

Well, again, socialist governments always want to tax more because they can never spend fast enough*. The fact is that if you look at a state level where tens of thousands of bureaucrats have been employed in Victoria, or in Canberra, or in Brisbane, they’re adding to layers of bureaucracy, which is why you end up seeing hospital ramping and dysfunction within the health system, because the money’s not being spent on additional doctors and nurses, it’s being spent on back-office jobs that add layers of bureaucracy to decision-making and just grind the whole system to a halt.

(*The Albanese government delivered the first budget surplus in 15 years)

So, governments of a Labor persuasion will always spend more money**, but we know from our nine years in government and from the Howard years – Howard-Costello years, that we know how to manage the economy***, we know how to make decisions in budgets which promote economic activity, which ultimately delivers a dividend to the Australian people****, and at the moment people get that the Labor experiment with the economy is not working.

(**The Albanese government delivered the first budget surplus in 15 years)

(***The Howard-Costello government was the highest taxing government as a percentage of GDP in Australia’s history, with the most recent Coalition coming in second)

(****Real wage growth went backwards for the decade under the Coalition, before inflation was an issue, the housing market is at crisis point, the health system is at breaking point…)

Now, I’m old enough to remember the 1990s during the Keating years, in particular. I come from a small business family and our family struggled big time to put food on the table and to pay the bills each month because of a Labor government – and, sadly, we’re seeing a repeat of that again, because they make decisions and they move to these ideas around super profit taxes***** and the rest of it.

(*****A super profits tax would not apply to small businesses, but multinationals and big business which make super profits. It is in the name)

The fact is that some businesses in good times put money away for bad times and that’s how you survive cycles******.

(******The Albanese government delivered the first budget surplus in 15 years by banking dividends)

Labor don’t get that because they’ve never employed anyone, they don’t understand how to manage money, and you’re seeing the dividend of that at the moment through policies which are keeping inflation higher for longer, and inflation kills an economy, and it’s exactly why people who are working two jobs now are turning up at food kitchens like this to get their meal and to provide support to their family just to keep going. That is not something that our country should be proud of in 2023.

(sigh)

Labor will consider world heritage listing application for Exmouth Gulf

One more thing from the environment chapter – conference passed an amendment that a re-elected Labor government will consider making an application to Unesco for Exmouth Gulf to be granted a world heritage listing.

The amendment, moved by the Western Australian MP Josh Wilson, would consider applying to the UN scientific body for Exmouth Gulf’s inclusion as part of the Ningaloo Coast world heritage listing on the basis of properly protecting its unique and critical biodiversity and heritage value.

Any application would be subject to consultation with First Nations communities.

Wilson said:

In 2011, the Unesco assessment committee noted that the environmental and cultural heritage values of Exmouth Gulf warranted its consideration for world heritage protection.

Since that time, the emergence of further detailed scientific and First Nations knowledge has only intensified our understanding of the Gulf’s biodiversity significance, its fragility, and therefore the unacceptable risk if it’s not properly protected.

It’s been welcomed by Paul Gamblin, the protect Ningaloo director at the Australian Marine Conservation Society:

This very welcome commitment reflects the world heritage values of Exmouth Gulf, Ningaloo and sends a clear signal that industrial development, like a giant saltworks and port, is the wrong direction for this global icon.

Shorten urges more representation from people with disabilities

Back to the Labor conference and Bill Shorten said he wants to see more representation from people with disabilities in the party, councils and state and federal governments.

He said:

I just want to draw attention to one point. Ali France and Tony Clark. They’ve spoken to you ... there’s only two delegates out of 403 at this conference with a disability.

Labor Enabled needs to be supported by everyone.

We need to have more people with disability, not just doing things for them but people of disability need to be in this forum.

They need to be elected to council, they need to be elected to state parliament and they need to be elected to the federal parliament.

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