Dutton stays silent in question time – as it happened

‘No customer should bear the cost of a data breach’: government on cybersecurity

The cyber security minister, Clare O’Neil, has released a statement on the Latitude hack (this is the fourth or fifth data hack my details have been caught up with. FUN)

Here is part of it:

On 16 March the Federal Government convened the National Coordination Mechanism (NCM) to bring together agencies across the Commonwealth, states and territories to ensure that all possible support is being provided to Latitude Financial and all those customers whose personal information has been stolen.

The NCM has met five times in relation to the Latitude incident, and we have established two NCM working groups to address specific issues relating to the Financial Sector, and Identity Security and Services.

Latitude Financial is cooperating with government in responding to this incident, and we expect the company to continue to swiftly provide the government with all information it needs.

It remains our position that no customer should bear the cost of a data breach and we are working with Latitude Financial to ensure that the customers affected by this attack are protected from immediate and future risks.

More on budget ‘legacy issues’

'Tony Burke is next on the “legacy issues” train when it comes to dixers.

(Paul Karp tells me Peter Dutton is waving to kids in the gallery while this goes on.)

Burke:

Additional funding – additional funding – runs out for the Maritime Museum on 30 June, for the Portrait Gallery on 30 June, for the National Museum on 30 June ... funding for the National Film and Sound Archive on 30 June, for the National Gallery of Australia on 30 June, and for Old Parliament House the additional money runs out on 30 June.

Now, those opposite have already started interjecting about what a wonderful job they did with respect to the arts and cultural institutions ... So wonderful there’s actually a motion on the notice paper at the moment from the member for Lyons saying that their arts funding reached 55 million Australians.

So with those sorts of numbers they’ve got quite a story to tell!

Part of telling the Australian story isn’t just the institutions themselves but it’s about digitising that story and keeping it through the process of trove and many members on this side and across the crossbench have contacted me for some time about Trove.

Trove is one of the Australian government’s most visited online services.

More than 50,000 visits a day.

Over 1,500 digitised newspaper titles, 900 partner organisations. But under their proposal, it would be funded until, guess what date? 30 June.

And at 30 June, the money for the National Library to be able to continue funding Trove was all going to finish.

It is across all the collecting institutions. I don’t know if they thought maybe at the National Gallery you hold the roof up with blue poles or maybe it would be like Night At The Museum and all of the exhibits would start running around and fixing the building themselves every night.

But under their funding the workers don’t have a future who work there and under their funding the buildings are allowed to leak and collapse. This is the legacy, this is the legacy.

And they laugh about – the leader of the National Party laughing about the concept of a building leak. Think of the value of what’s held in the National Gallery. Think of the concept of being custodians of the national story and think about a budget where everything finished on 30 June.

PM on Aukus and defence

Anthony Albanese answers that question with:

Anthony Albanese:

The first question on Aukus I got from anyone on the other side. This is a very significant announcement and we put up over a period of decades the fact that the cost would be between $268bn and $368bn.

Under that arrangement Australia would be responsible at the end of life, when the nuclear fuel cell is completed we will be responsible for the storage of that and we have said it will be on defence land.

We also, I can confirm that there is no responsibility to store anyone else’s waste.

It’s a responsibility to store what effectively will be our own, because what the plan is here is for us to build these submarines in Adelaide and for once the Australian flag is on a submarine, like once the Australian flag is on a plane or any other piece of equipment, it is our responsibility and we are in control.

That is a part of our national sovereignty member opposite would agree is important. But the issue on the economy is also important, to say this.

Unless – unless – our national security is looked after, then the impact on our economy, on our society, on everything else, falls away, and that is why expenditure and investment in our national sovereignty is so important, is so absolutely vital. I don’t apologise for making a commitment that will see our defence expenditure rise over future years.

The truth is, we live in an era of strategic competition in our region. The truth is, we live in very uncertain times and it is important that we invest in our capability. It’s also important that we invest in our relationships and my government is doing both. We are investing in our capability, whether it be nuclear-powered submarines, or whether it be other military equipment that will improve our capability.

Next month, we’ll be releasing the defence strategic review that will outline the work of Sir Angus Houston and Stephen Smith, but that is an important priority for us going forward. We make no apologies for that. But at the same time we’re also building positive and constructive relationships to advance peace, security and stability in our region.

Question on Aukus costs and nuclear waste

Dai Le, the independent MP for Fowler, wants to know:

The government committed to spending $368bn on acquiring nuclear-powered submarines when people are struggling to pay the grocery bills. We still don’t know the full cost to taxpayers and where and how the nuclear waste will be stored. What will it cost our taxpayers to manage this nuclear waste and will Australia be accepting any nuclear waste from other Aukus [members] under the agreement?

Question on regional funding

Kevin Hogan, the Nationals MP for Page, asks Catherine King:

I refer the minister to the government’s failure last week in parliament to address the regional programs to for local councils and given it has been 10 months since the federal election and five months since the budget, how many grants to local councils and community groups have been formally assessed and approved from Labor’s regional and community programs announced in the budget?

The infrastructure minister says:

We inherited an absolute mess when it came to regional grants. And if you remember, we got elected on a promise to clean up the rorts and pork-barrelling that categorise the regional grants program. When we came into government we had the building better regions fund, which was because the to substantial Australian national office report which found there were significant flaws in the way in which the previous government made decisions. When we came to office, we found that not a single one of around six building better regions fund had been assessed at all.

So concerned were all of you about all of those programs and so concerned you are asked specifically about it …

Paul Fletcher has a point of order on relevance and Milton Dick asks King to get to the question:

Again because we are talking about the reason that when we came to government, we have had to clean up the appalling job that those opposite particularly the National party did when it came to regional grants programs.

I don’t make any apologies about us taking some time to actually build integrity into the regional grants program.

Because we had under the community development grants program billions and billions of dollars frankly pork-barrel into National party and Liberal party seats across this country.

We are taking our time with the growing regions program, the guidelines are currently before all of the stakeholders to look at ensuring that they are being used with the best possible processes we can and the announcement about the of those applications will be done shortly.

Again I remind the house, the reason we have had to do this to take our time is because of the terrible job, the terrible job those opposite did when it came to regional grants programs. Frankly, when it comes to things like the community development grants, like the building better regions fund, you have no integrity when it came to the distribution of those grants and I’m looking forward to having a program that puts in place an important program to fund our regions, to fund our regions properly, fairly and transparently, something does opposite were incapable of doing and it means absolutely it shows why not a single one of them should ever occupy these benches ever again when it comes to integrity and grants.

Chalmers on holes in Coalition’s budget

As part of this dixer, Jim Chalmers is going through the measures which had not been funded by the Coalition for this budget, despite having made announcements:

For example, the former government jumped up and said they were going to fund [inaudible] of the Olympics in south-east Queensland, they budgeted precisely $0 for that task.

Those opposite had the My Health Record system that is used by millions of Australians to store personal health information, not funded beyond the middle of this year.

There is a safety commissioner that is responsible for keeping our kids safe online, not funded, the Australian radioactive waste agency in charge of disposing radioactive materials – not funded.

MyGov is not funded in an ongoing way. This is the way those opposite went about vandalising the budget.

They were notorious for making the big announcements but not funding them in the budget.

The leader of the Opposition cannot distance themselves from the behaviour, he was a member of the committee that made these decisions. He sits over there hoping if he doesn’t ask any questions the voters of Aston won’t notice and won’t remember who the member of the Liberal Party is in Canberra.

“Pressures on the budget and pressures on the economy” – the subtitle of Jim Chalmers’ new book “$1 trillion of inherited Liberal party debt”.

Chalmers is running through the chapter “booby traps in the budget” in this dixer.

(In case I need to make it clear, there is no book, but given the amount of words Chalmers has spoken on this topic since coming to government, there could be several volumes).

Same cost of living question, different answer?

Sussan Ley just pointed out in a point of order that the Coalition has asked the question about the cost of living “hundreds of times” and never gets an answer.

To be fair, it gets different versions of the same answer every time.

Adding in this tag-line- “Will this out-of-touch prime minister finally admit that families always pay more under Labor?” allows Anthony Albanese to talk about whatever he likes.

Meanwhile, we are the ones who suffer.

Crossbench question on infrastructure investment

Allegra Spender has one of the crossbench questions and the independent Wentworth MP wants to know from Anthony Albanese:

In 2014 you told this house that independent cost benefit analysis of infrastructure proposals was necessary to ‘Ensure there is proper value for taxpayers from infrastructure investment and that we get the right infrastructure investment to boost productivity’. Does the prime minister still hold this view and if not why not?

Albanese:

Indeed I am very proud that we established Infrastructure Australia was one of the first pieces of legislation, the first week of the new Labor government when parliament first sat in 2008 after 2007 election.

But that it is bring together a board, serious board made up of private sector representatives as well as representatives from state and local government. To make sure there was productivity at analysis so the funding and investment from the Commonwealth went to the right projects.

That was a board that contained the former Kennett government minister in Victoria, who was the deputy chair. We had people like Kerry Schott and serious people doing proper analysis through the process. What that led to was projects being funded – every single one of the priority projects being funded. Upon coming to office, we now have legislation before this parliament to amend Infrastructure Australia to make sure it goes back to where it should be. Indeed ... I mean, with respect, having a former, you know, deputy mayor of a council where the minister happened to come from was ... somewhat compared with Sir Rod Eddington, was just an undermining of that process and it was not taken seriously. The legislation that is before the parliament moved by the infrastructure minister will make sure that there’s transparency, will make sure that there’s proper analysis, because there is a finite level of resources, and that is why we should make sure that productivity drives that agenda going forward. That is what my government has committed to and that is what we will get on with the business of doing and I look forward to the parliament supporting the legislation moved by the minister.

The former Greens leader, Bob Brown, has some thoughts on the deal on the safeguard mechanism:

The Greens have fought for no new coal and gas and Albanese rejected that outright. It is a colossal mistake. Instead, the Greens will get a hard cap on emissions which stops half the proposed 100+ future coal and gas projects going ahead. Their strong stand for no new coal or gas will be vindicated as the impact of rising temperatures, worse storms, coral bleaching, drought and sea-level rises wreak havoc on every Australian’s wellbeing.

Minister Bowen flagging today that he may ‘amend the rules to amend the cap’ is flagging Labor treachery. If he does that he will bring the house down. Australians, not least Labor voters, will want him to have the integrity to stand by the hard cap agreement and if he reneges he will be selling out to profit the coal and gas billionaires at the planet’s expense.