Monique Ryan introducing bill to enforce code of conduct around lobbying
Staying on lobbying, Monique Ryan is introducing her bill to the House this morning. The bill would help to strengthen and enforce a code of conduct around lobbying, publish ministerial diaries to show who ministers are meeting with, and stop ministers from being able to move to the private sector in an industry where they’ve held a portfolio.
She says Australia’s laws and enforcement on lobbying are lagging behind other OECD nations such as the UK and Canada.
She argues the major parties complain about lobbyists when they’re in opposition, but then won’t crack down on reforms when they’re in government.
They’re [major parties] conflicted because they accept the personal and political gains served up by the lobbying [industry] …
In November 2023, the voluntary register included 703 third-party lobbyists, 40% of those were former politicians, ministerial advisers or public servants. They were profiting from their knowledge and the networks gained from their time spent here in their service to the public and funded by taxpayers.
Seconding her bill is fellow independent Kate Chaney:
Part of integrity and accountability in politics is understanding who is influencing our top decision-makers. We should know which lobbyists have access to ministers and cabinet.
Key events
Monique Ryan calls for three-year ban on MPs working for lobbyists after quitting
Independent MP Monique Ryan has introduced a private member’s bill aimed at enforcing a code of conduct around lobbying. The bill includes a crackdown on ministers and public servants going to work for lobbyists in their portfolio areas.
Watch here:
Albanese meets Chinese premier Li Qiang at Asean
While all the drama takes place around Parliament House, the prime minister is in Kuala Lumpur and has just held a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, on the sidelines of the Asean summit.
It follows a recent incident in the South China Sea last week, where the government said a Chinese fighter jet released flares “very close” to an RAAF surveillance aircraft.
Anthony Albanese made some remarks before the meeting got under way, emphasising the “shared interests” between the two nations.
We have much shared interests – trade, climate change, people to people links, tourism – and I welcome the continued tempo which continues to rise of our high level engagements.
Whenever there are differences we navigate those wisely, including on regional strategic issues, in forums such as Asean and of course Apec.
The meeting today also follows a critical minerals deal signed between the US and Australia last week.
Yesterday the PM met with his new Japanese counterpart, Sanae Takaichi.
Caitlin Cassidy
ACCC to seek compensation for around 2.7m Australian Microsoft subscribers
Gottlieb said the investigation had been “very quick” and the ACCC had moved quickly after being notified of the alleged breaches.
She said the ACCC would seek a range of court orders, penalties and redress for consumers for any loss they had suffered due to being unable to make an informed choice on their subscription options.
What I can say is we see this as very serious conduct, in terms of key elements that determine the level of penalty, we see this as affecting a very significant number of Australian consumers, as being the action by a very major corporation … in respect of services that are vital for the operation of families in Australian homes.
We will be looking for a penalty that identifies non-compliance with the Australian consumer law … we will seek a penalty that achieves both specific deterrence of such conduct happening again by Microsoft, and also general deterrence for all companies, whether companies operating in the tech sector or more broadly.
Microsoft ‘deprived’ Australian consumers of informed choice, ACCC alleges
Caitlin Cassidy
Chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Gina Cass-Gottlieb, has addressed the media in Sydney after the body declared it would take federal action against Microsoft over allegedly misleading around 2.7m Australians with Microsoft 365 subscriptions.
Gottlieb alleged that since 31 October last year, Microsoft told auto-renewing subscribers to the Microsoft 365 Personal and Family plans that they had only two options.
The first: in order to maintain their existing services, they must accept the Copilot integration and pay higher prices. The second: can cancel their subscription. We allege that this was misleading because, in fact, there was a third, hidden option, which allowed subscribers to continue their existing plan without Copilot and without any price increase.
Following a detailed investigation, the ACCC allege that Microsoft deliberately hid this third option to retain the old plan at the old price in order to increase the uptake of Copilot and the increased revenue from that Copilot-integrated plans.
She said the price increase for a Personal plan was an annual increase from $109 to $159 annually, or 45%, and $139 to $179 for a Family plan, or 29%.
We have taken these proceedings today because we allege millions of Australian consumers were deprived of the opportunity to make an informed choice about the subscription options available to them.
More than 100 Australian consumers made complaints to the ACCC in late 2024 and early 2025, Gottlieb said, contributing to the investigation.
Andrew Messenger
Queensland public school teachers to vote on pay offer
Queensland public school teachers will vote this week on whether to end a long-running industrial dispute with the state government.
Thousands of members of the Queensland Teachers Union (QTU) struck in August, disrupting class for tens of thousands of students. It was the first strike in 16 years.
After months of bargaining, the union has agreed to put a state government pay offer to members. It will represent an 8% pay rise, the same as offered to all public servants.
The union has not endorsed the offer but says it agreed to do so “to determine whether the union can reach in-principle agreement with the government”. A spokesperson said:
The government has advised that if the offer is rejected, it will seek the QTU’s consent to refer the matter to arbitration.
Queensland education minister John-Paul Langbroek said it was a “historic offer that backs our teachers with higher wages, better conditions, and a reduced workload”.
The Crisafulli government has delivered an offer with the highest teacher salaries in Queensland’s history.
Israeli government names Iranian commander allegedly behind antisemitic attacks in Australia
The Israeli government has named a senior Iranian commander it alleges was responsible for at least two attacks on Jewish Australians, which led to the Iranian ambassador being expelled from the country and a move to list Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation.
In a Sunday statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office, Mossad claimed that a senior commander of the IRGC, Sardar Ammar, was behind attacks in Australia, Greece and Germany.
Mossad said Ammar commands 11,000 operatives in carrying out covert operations.
The statement alleged:
Under Amar’s command, a significant mechanism was established to promote attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets both in Israel and abroad. This mechanism is directly responsible for the attempted attacks exposed in Greece, Australia, and Germany in the past year alone, and its numerous failures led to the wave of arrests and its exposure.
Australia’s spy agency, Asio, has alleged the IRGC was behind at least two attacks, on the Lewis Continental Kitchen in Sydney on 20 October 2024, and Melbourne’s Adass Israel Synagogue on 6 December 2024.
The department of foreign affairs and trade has been contacted.
Barnaby Joyce won’t say whether he’ll rejoin Nationals if they scrap net zero
Speaking to Sky News, Barnaby Joyce says he doesn’t want sit in the party room while they discuss their policy position on net zero. He also remains very vague on his future in the party.
My position is adamantly against net zero. I don’t want to be part of the discussion of an amelioration of net zero.
Asked “what are you?” and whether he’s still a National, Joyce says:
I’m Barnaby Joyce, and I’m very proud of it. I look at my name tag and, Laura, I’m a parliamentarian that’s had the incredible blessing of representing the people of New England, and I’ll continue to do what is best for the people of New England …
Note the lack of mention of the Nationals in the answer. Pushed on whether he’ll be an independent instead, he says:
Because I just think that you’ve got to go with a bloc of votes in the end … I’m not going to cut and dice into where I’m going. You can have an interview with me down the track.
Sarah Basford Canales
Andrew Wilkie says reported offer to brief Coalition on FoI changes ‘cynical politics’
Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie says he’s sceptical about a reported intelligence briefing offered to the Coalition to bring them into the tent on the proposed changes to freedom of information (FoI) legislation.
The long-serving crossbencher said this morning it’s “really cynical politics”:
… One of the oldest tricks in the political book is to bring your political adversaries into the tent, share with them something that is, supposedly, highly sensitive and secret, and it’s intoxicating. This is just an old political trick to suggest that there is a security dimension and it is so sensitive it can’t be shared with the broader community. This is really cynical politics. This is not about national security.
Labor’s bill would place a fee on FoI requests and tighten rules around access to information. It would create time limits for each request, preventing FoI officers from spending more time to search for documents within scope.
But the proposal has so far failed to win the hearts and minds of the Coalition or the Greens – one of which the government will need to pass the bill in the upper house. For now at least, it looks to be stalled.
Josh Butler
Business Council ‘very much committed to net zero’ and ‘looking for certainty’
Business Council boss Bran Black also says his members are committed to net zero – as the Liberals and Nationals once again twist themselves in knots, for the umpteenth time, over whether they will back or scrap the climate target.
“We’re very much committed to net zero. We have been for some time,” Black told a Parliament House doorstop.
We have recently assisted, we hope, government in the context of putting forward its own position on what our new target for 2035 should be, at 62 to 70%, and from our perspective, there is a pathway to deliver that. And we consider that that pathway will be a difficult pathway to tread, but there is a pathway.
Nonetheless our message fundamentally, in terms of the transition to net zero, is very clear. We’re looking for certainty. Certainty gives business the confidence that it needs to invest knowing what the settings are, knowing what the supports will be, knowing where government will pull levers for where it won.
BCA chief rejects Sussan Ley’s push to split environment bill
Josh Butler
The Business Council of Australia has rejected Sussan Ley’s call to split the EPBC bill into separate pieces, saying the legislation should be passed as one “holistic” package dealing with both pro-environmental and pro-business sections.
The BCA chief, Bran Black, said they want to see the bill passed as one package, even though they have some reservations about some of its components. He said splitting it up would actually harm business certainty.
“What we’ve always favoured, and what we continue to strongly favour, is a single, holistic approach to looking at these reforms,” Black told a Parliament House doorstop just now, saying he was keen to look at “supporting the interests of business, but also supporting the interests of the environment”.
At the end of the day, our view is that we need to deliver an outcome that has longevity, and that means getting the balance right. To get that balance right, everything needs to be on the table.
Asked why he wants the bill passed in one big bill, rather than split into smaller components, as Ley’s Coalition is seeking, Black said it would actually be better for business certainty to have one large package.
“That goes directly to the point about longevity. I think if you get a bill that is unbalanced, if it is too much in favour of business interests or too much in favour of environmental interests, then that just leads to more scope for changes to be made in the future,” he said.
That undermines what business, frankly, is most looking for, and that is certainty. We want certainty and confidence in the settings now.
But I do stress, from a business perspective, we have concerns with respect to some aspects of the draft this point, and we want to see those concerns addressed.
Debate on Barnaby Joyce’s bill to repeal net zero
As foreshadowed earlier, the House has seen a quick debate on Barnaby Joyce’s repeal net zero bill.
He’s running out of people who will argue for the bill, it’s just conservative South Australian Liberal MP Tony Pasin today flying the flag for him.
In practice net zero is a costly illusion, a political slogan masquerading as science, imposed without honesty and absent realism.
On the opposite side, Labor MPs Fiona Phillips and Kara Cook speak, as well as independent Kate Chaney, who gets heckled by Joyce – Marion Scrymgour, who’s in the Speaker’s chair, tells Joyce to pipe down.
While the debate goes on, the Nationals are being briefed by Matt Canavan and Ross Cadell on setting their energy and net zero policy. As Josh Butler mentioned below, there won’t be a decision today, more of a progress update.
Littleproud says Nationals can’t scrap net zero without alternative climate plan
Josh Butler
David Littleproud says the Nationals won’t come to a final position on net zero today, and says his party must come up with an alternative climate plan if they are to drop the 2050 target.
He also said he’s open to Barnaby Joyce coming back to the fold, and rejoining the party room properly.
The Nationals leader has laid down his most explicit markers on what he wants his party to do on net zero, saying they can’t just scrap net zero without outlining what they’d do instead. Following his appearance on Sky news earlier, Littleproud spoke to reporters in a parliament corridor.
We won’t be making a decision today. This is a complex piece of policy that we, as a party room, determined together after the election that we would work through a structured process. Not just simply say no, which would be the easy thing to do, but we have to say, if we’re going to say no, what are we going to what are we going to do?
I get that takes time, but I’d rather do it right and be able to look the Australian people in the eye. And we encourage Barnaby to be part of that solution.
The Nats are meeting today, but Littleproud says they won’t make a final decision today. He says he wants to come to a final decision by the end of the year – and telling Matt Canavan and Ross Cadell, who are leading the Nationals policy review, that he wants to see some ideas and data.
It would be easy just to say no and walk away and think that we’re heroes, but we’re not going to be able to convince the Australian people of an alternative policy unless we have one. [Saying] just “no” is not an alternative policy.
Josh Taylor
Tech Council responds to AI copyright exception being ruled out
The Tech Council of Australia , whose chair Scott Farquhar was the most high-profile advocate for giving tech companies free access to people’s copyrighted works for training AI, has issued a one-line response to the Albanese government ruling out such an exemption in copyright law.
The attorney general, Michelle Rowland, explicitly ruled out a text and data mining exemption being included in amendments to copyright law to allow AI to mine copyrighted works without paying creators for the privilege in an announcement of a copyright and AI reference group that will explore how to pay creators for AI using their work.
Farquhar told the National Press Club that “fixing” the existing restrictions preventing AI being trained in Australia could “unlock billions of dollars of foreign investment” into Australia.
While the move to rule out an AI exception has been broadly welcomed by the media and arts sectors, the tech lobby group was more muted in its response to the announcement on Monday. A spokesperson said:
The TCA looks forward to participating in the reference group in coming days to help develop a framework which we hope will deliver certainty for AI training as well as for artists and creators.
Monique Ryan introducing bill to enforce code of conduct around lobbying
Staying on lobbying, Monique Ryan is introducing her bill to the House this morning. The bill would help to strengthen and enforce a code of conduct around lobbying, publish ministerial diaries to show who ministers are meeting with, and stop ministers from being able to move to the private sector in an industry where they’ve held a portfolio.
She says Australia’s laws and enforcement on lobbying are lagging behind other OECD nations such as the UK and Canada.
She argues the major parties complain about lobbyists when they’re in opposition, but then won’t crack down on reforms when they’re in government.
They’re [major parties] conflicted because they accept the personal and political gains served up by the lobbying [industry] …
In November 2023, the voluntary register included 703 third-party lobbyists, 40% of those were former politicians, ministerial advisers or public servants. They were profiting from their knowledge and the networks gained from their time spent here in their service to the public and funded by taxpayers.
Seconding her bill is fellow independent Kate Chaney:
Part of integrity and accountability in politics is understanding who is influencing our top decision-makers. We should know which lobbyists have access to ministers and cabinet.
Sarah Basford Canales
Independents urge more transparency around which lobbyists enter Parliament House
As we mentioned earlier this morning, the crossbench is proactively disclosing which lobbyist passes they sponsor to enter Parliament House as part of an initiative by ACT senator David Pocock.
The independents rallied at Parliament House earlier this morning to urge major party politicians to be transparent about their interactions and make public who they let into Canberra’s halls of power.
Pocock said he had been advocating for changes to lobbying pass disclosure rules for years but decided to take the issue into his own hands and create his own register. The senator said:
Lobbyists play an important part in our democracy, but the base level expectation should be that there is transparency around that.
So far, around 13 crossbenchers, including a One Nation senator, have disclosed how many passes they sponsor, and to who. The register has the names of 78 passholders.
No MPs from Labor, the Liberals, the Nationals or the Greens have yet to add their details to Pocock’s register.
Sarah Basford Canales
Coalition calls for inquiry into CFMEU administration
The Coalition are calling for an inquiry into the CFMEU administration after the Nine newspapers reported its efforts have been hampered by a lack of investigative capability.
This morning shadow industrial relations minister, Tim Wilson, was joined by Maria Kovacic, shadow assistant minister to the opposition leader, in publicly demanding the independent administrator and relevant officials to come before the parliament to answer a number of questions.
Kovacic said she would move for an inquiry in the Senate on Tuesday to examine the administration’s efforts so far.
In front of a handful of journalists at a press conference this morning, Wilson was asked about another elephant in the room – the opposition’s timeline on finalising its energy and emissions reduction policy.
Wilson answered:
My focus is on having net zero tolerance for corruption, on Australian corruption in construction sites, and that is the key difference between us and the Labor party right now.
