Liberal MP Phil Thompson booted from chamber
Before Liberal frontbencher Melissa McIntosh can ask the next question, her colleague Phil Thompson is kicked out of the chamber for interjecting too much during a dixer to Richard Marles (that brings our ejection count to two).
McIntosh says the PM declared last year that changes to negative gearing would increase rents, which was also confirmed in Tuesday’s budget papers. (Treasury estimated the changes would make the average household rent increase about $2 per week).
Anthony Albanese is really milking Tim Wilson’s book today, which he’s been quoting from since yesterday – and it gets another plug in this answer. The shadow treasurer wrote that capital gains tax discounts have been unjust for younger Australians.
The change that we brought in will allow negative gearing to still exist, and of course people will invest, if they are looking to use negative gearing, in new builds rather than old properties … What it will do is to also boost supply.
Key events
Targeting migrants not politically risky, Wilson says
Tim Wilson has denied that targeting migrants by stripping social welfare supports and tying migrant intake to housing build is politically risky for the Coalition.
The Liberal party was warned in the last election review to not target migrants, who had left the party in droves – both in 2022 and 2025.
Also joining the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing, the shadow treasurer backed the announcements that Taylor will make in his speech tonight.
I don’t think [the policy is politically risky] at all. As a principle, it is whether the access of these programs are there for Australian citizens …
Many European countries are heading in a similar trajectory because it is under in part of the social licence of the migration program, increasingly a lot of countries are saying that if they want to continue to support people to come in, to be building the future of the country, it has to be on the basis of they come, commit and contribute.
Wilson says that money will be saved by the policy – but won’t yet reveal the figure.
Tyrrell jumping on the ‘nearest life raft’ with Labor move, says Duniam
Jonathon Duniam has accused fellow Tasmanian senator Tammy Tyrrell of trying to “save her job” by joining the Labor party this morning.
The opposition education spokesperson says Tyrrell has misled voters, after initially being voted into parliament in 2022 on Jacqui Lambie’s ticket, before leaving and becoming an independent.
Duniam, the shadow home affairs minister, said that without Labor, Tyrrell was unlikely to get re-elected in the next election, and could be replacing Labor veteran Helen Polley on the ticket.
She went to the election where she was elected as a Jacqui Lambie candidate and is now, on the sniff that she may not be re-elected, has jumped on the nearest life raft which happened to be a Labor Senate seat. Tammy Tyrrell, who, of course, has railed against [Hobart AFL] stadium funding, she’s railed against cuts to the NDIS, she’s railed against cuts to any funding that would go to Tasmania, is going to be forced to vote for bills that will reduce NDIS funding. She will have to support stadium funding.
Tendency to demonise immigration ‘deeply distressing’
Independent MP Monique Ryan has also accused the opposition of trying to “demonise” immigration in response to the policy that Angus Taylor will announce tonight, to stop non-citizens getting access to welfare and social supports such as the NDIS.
We’re in countdown mode to Taylor’s address, which he will make in the House of Representatives at 7:30pm.
Speaking to Afternoon Briefing, Ryan says migration is an issue that needs to be dealt with sensitively – not just by the Coalition, but also by the government.
The tendency of the conservative side of politics to demonise immigration is deeply distressing.
Taylor is also expected to announce a plan to index income tax brackets – to stop bracket creep. Ryan supports that plan.
She says it is a longstanding issue that should be addressed by government.
It is expensive for a government to do. (And also makes it harder for them to go to the election offering voters tax cut sweeteners).
Ryan added:
Indexation is a good idea. We know bracket creep across Australians, they pay more tax because of it and the political parties haven’t done it before because it is politically inconvenient for them.
Coalition policy has gone from ‘dog-whistling’ to ‘demonising’: Labor MP
Labor is digging into Angus Taylor’s budget reply speech, ahead of his address later tonight, calling it “divisive” and “poor politics”.
Frontbencher Daniel Mulino, tells the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing that Taylor is chasing down One Nation (who have also said that the Coalition is copying their homework).
He adds that there are already substantial waiting periods before people can get access to benefits – including 10 years for people to get the aged pension.
It has gone beyond dog-whistling. It is now just straight out demonising a significant group in our community that contribute … This is nothing more than really divisive and poor politics.
It’s about Angus Taylor chasing Pauline Hanson to the right. I think it’s really, really concerning.
Mulino says that he hasn’t seen the speech (and neither have we), but believes that it will undermine the “broad-based support for multiculturalism”.
On the announcement to tie migration numbers to new housing builds, Mulino says that the approach is “simplistic” and that the government is dealing with the issue in a more holistic way.
Caitlin Cassidy
Universities Australia says it will ‘consider’ Craven’s assessment of antisemitism on campuses
Craven said “antisemitic intimidation” was continuing on campuses, including the use of chants like “globalise the intifada” and “from the river to the sea”.
He said “confronting flags” were also routinely flown on campus and “antisemitic statements” were being made in classrooms.
Craven conceded that with few exceptions, universities had “recited” a definition of antisemitism orally, in writing, or both. But he said they had not “embedded” an antisemitism definition “as a fundamental conceptual and binding principle of a university’s character”.
Many universities deal with antisemitism either by curt reference in their racism policies, or even by an assumed anonymous inclusion within racial discrimination as expressed within those policies.
He singled out the University of Canberra, Swinburne University, Southern Cross University, the University of Southern Queensland and Charles Darwin University as displaying “evidence of progress” towards embedding an antisemitism definition in their policies.
A spokesperson for Universities Australia said it would continue to work closely with Segal to combat antisemitism and “carefully consider” Thursday’s report.
Universities across the country have strengthened policies, complaint pathways, support services, education programs and codes of conduct in response to instances of antisemitism on campuses.
In 2025, Universities Australia worked with the sector to adopt a definition of antisemitism to help guide universities’ responses and support safer and more inclusive campus environments.
Caitlin Cassidy
Australian universities accused of ‘sectoral failure’ in not adequately adopting an antisemitism definition
Universities have failed to meaningfully adopt a definition of antisemitism, constitutional lawyer Greg Craven has found.
Craven was hand-picked by the antisemitism envoy, Jillian Segal, to lead the initiative as part of a wide-ranging plan handed down to the federal government last July to combat antisemitism.
Craven wrote in his assessment that without universities failing to “adequately address” an antisemitism definition, he could not issue individual report cards for universities assessing their policies and procedures. He wrote:
This in and of itself represents a grave inability of Australian universities in addressing the substantial emergence of antisemitism on their campuses, amounting to sectoral failure. Antisemitism is a continuing and very serious problem within Australian universities.
The failure of Australian universities to adopt a definition of antisemitism is indeed sectoral … The result for the Report Card process as a whole is that it has in a sense “short circuited”.
Segal said Craven’s assessment made for “sobering reading” and that she remained “convinced that the adoption of a definition of antisemitism is absolutely essential for combating antisemitism”.
She said she had written to all vice-chancellors asking them to “continue to engage and take the necessary steps to properly adopt and operationalise a definition of antisemitism”, with a view to individual report cards being issued next year.
Craven said if universities continued to display “further sectoral definitional failure”, the minister should intervene and funding and registrations could be withdrawn.
TLDR: here’s what happened in question time
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The Coalition went down the integrity path over Labor’s broken promise not to touch negative gearing and CGT, but were forced to rejig their questions, after speaker Milton Dick ruled they couldn’t accuse Labor of lying in their questions. Instead Angus Taylor and Tim Wilson said Labor mislead, deceived, bent the truth and accused them of “untruths”.
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The government fired back, justifying the moves, and attacking Taylor’s integrity.
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Independent MP Nicolette Boele asked when the government would introduce a gas export tax – she didn’t get much of an answer, while the prime minister said that taxing exports could come back to “bite”.
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Liberal MP Tony Pasin was ejected from the chamber after a dramatic exchange where he screamed at the PM. Soon after, Liberal MP Phil Thompson was also booted from the house.
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And Anika Wells got a non-budget question, grilled on her use of taxpayer funded travel where she held a “sideline meeting” at a friend’s 40th birthday.
In pictures: the final question time for the week
New One Nation MP says banning ABC from press conference either a mistake or a ‘lesson’
Penry Buckley
Newly elected One Nation MP David Farley says ejecting ABC journalists from attending a press conference during the campaign for Farrer was either a “mistake” or a “lesson”.
At a surreal press conference given not in Canberra, but at state parliament in Sydney, Farley joined with the independent state MP for Murray, Helen Dalton, to criticise the Minns government’s water management legislation, which passed parliament this morning, as we reported earlier.
Amid speculation about state MPs defecting to One Nation, Dalton quickly dispelled the notion that she was joining the party, saying she had turned down a request by Pauline Hanson to run in the past.
Farley says he and Dalton are “very much aligned, both on policy, both on intent, and more importantly, we’re aligned on the aspiration of the future for both Murray and Farrer”. He would not be drawn on which western Sydney seats the party might target, as signalled by Barnaby Joyce.
Asked if the party’s decision to eject local ABC journalists from a Farrer press conference with Hanson was a mistake, Farley says:
It may have been, you know, you could consider it a mistake, but I suppose it could be a lesson as well. But, you know, I was engaged with the ABC during the campaign and immediately after the campaign. So the regional ABC has been very equitable in Farrer and across Murray.
Asked by the ABC’s state political reporter if the same was true at state level, Farley says: “That’s a question for Helen”.
Question time ends
After a final dixer to the prime minister, question time (extended edition) ends for the week.
Anika Wells asked about ‘sideline meeting’ at friend’s birthday party
We’re moving away from the budget for a moment, as Liberal MP Mary Aldred asks the communications minister, Anika Wells, about where she was when she held a “sideline meeting” at a 40th birthday party that she used to claim travel expenses for.
Was the meeting “at the bar, the garden kiosk or the room with the pinball machine?”, asks Aldred.
Wells looks as if she’d rather be anywhere else and rushes through her answer.
She says that she provided a full account to the travel watchdog (and repaid $10,000 of incorrect travel expenses earlier this month).
Wells says:
I have a full account of that a full report available published online, and you can refer there to the full account of the trip, which was considered completely within the rules.
