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Patricia Karvelas then asks Jim Chalmers if he has spoken to Wayne Swan (president of the Labor party and Chalmers’ former boss) after Swan said the Qatar airways decision should be reviewed.

Chalmers says he has, but they talk about other things. Karvelas wants to know what other things. Chalmers is taken aback but answers;

Well, we’d sometimes talk about superannuation. We talk about the economy more broadly, we talk about the Chinese economy and prospects there we talk about monetary policy we talk about the prospects for the domestic economy and the national accounts, all kinds of things as you’d expect. I speak to more than one of my predecessors.

Like Paul Keating, Karvelas asks?

Chalmers says yes. Karvelas asks when is the last time he spoke to Keating.

I have spoken to Paul in the last week or so I think or two weeks. I was with him in Sydney a couple of weeks ago. I’ve spoken him on the phone a couple of times since then.

Karvelas asks what they spoke about.

Chalmers:

This is becoming a very strange.

Karvelas says she thinks it is interesting who ministers receive their advice from and that she doesn’t believe it to be a silly question.

Chalmers:

I don’t think it is either. I speak to those two. I speak to a range of people in business, in the union movement. I speak to a couple of my predecessors I value those relationships. I don’t think anybody’s got all of the answers on their own. And the key is to have people you trust who you can consult, who give you give you advice and give it to you straight and I think it in Paul’s case and in Wayne’s case, they are very valuable to me as their advice

Chalmers asked about PM’s discussions with Virgin Australia over airline slots

You can’t see Jim Chalmers’ haircut on ABC radio, but that is where he has headed after his TV interviews, as he lays down the “modify expectations” groundwork ahead of the GDP figures being released later today.

The focus is on Qatar Airways though, at least for the beginning of this interview.

At 3.45pm, Anthony Albanese walked back into the chamber to deliver an ‘additional answer’ from question time:

I rise to add to an answer I gave earlier today. I spoke to the Virgin CEO on 13 July 2023 by phone from Perth while in transit to Canberra from the Nato summit and bilateral visit to Germany, from 9 July to 13 July. In that call the CEO made representations relating to air services arrangements with Qatar.

During that discussion I did not know that the transport minister had made a decision on 10 July 2023, a detail that was only advised to me after question time today. I once again confirm I did not speak to the former Qantas CEO before a decision was made.

Chalmers is asked how the prime minister could not know (the decision had been made).

I’m not sure how I can answer a question about the prime minister in this instance. I mean, he has in question time and in media interviews, he has explained what’s what’s happened here, consistent with the way that transport ministers have taken these decisions in the past.

SA ‘canary in the coalmine’ for health of Murray-Darling Basin

Sarah Hanson-Young says the issue is not just, as we say in state of origin, state against state, mate against mate – that there are bigger issues at play:

South Australia has been dudded over and over again. And this isn’t just a parochial argument.

I’m a senator for South Australia and I’m going to stand up for my state and that’s what I’m doing.

But it is not just a parchochial argument.

We are the canary in the coalmine when it comes to the river system. If the river is sick down south in South Australia, it’s sick everywhere. So getting good flows through the Murray mouth, getting that water promised to South Australia delivered, will be important for the health of the entire river system.

And we know – climate change is going to make this harder. The greed of big corporate irrigators has been out of control for too long, and we need to start putting the environmental needs front and centre.

Murray-Darling plan legislation ‘just does not deliver’: Sarah Hanson-Young

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who has been arguing for more water for environmental reasons in the Murray-Darling plan is telling the ABC why the Greens can’t vote for Tanya Plibersek’s Murray-Darling legislation as it stands;

The conversations will continue. But I’m concerned that the bill, as it currently stands being introduced today, just does not deliver that guarantee. It does a couple of good things.

It removes that [cap] for buy backs, so the minister has the power to ensure that the Government can go and buy back water.

But there’s no compulsion that this will happen. There’s no requirement that that 450 gigalitres that was previously promised to South Australia for the health of the river will actually be delivered and the deadline for that has been blown out in these changes proposed by the government until 2027.

That could be after even the election after next. That is so long away. We need to make sure that the health of the river is restored now.

We are going into a drying period. We know the climate challenges. We know that irrigation, throughout particularly the southern basin, has exploded. It’s actually grown more than less over the last decade, so even more water is coming out of the river, and the environment is suffering. I don’t want to see more fish kills. I don’t want to see, in my home state in South Australia, our Coorong suffer again. I want to make sure that we get this right. And as the plan is, it’s not right.

Qantas board should ‘seriously consider’ decisions made: Bridget McKenzie

So now that Alan Joyce has brought forward his retirement from Qantas, what does Bridget McKenzie think of the Qantas board chair, Richard Goyder?

I think the Qantas board has to seriously consider some of the decisions that they have been making. I mean, not for nothing, you’re in front of the competition watchdog for what is alleged to be quite egregious behaviour.

You have also sought to, as I said, keep on your balance sheet half a billion dollars of your customers’ money rather than giving it back in the middle of a cost of living crisis. (The flight credits)

The last thing on people that are struggling to pay their mortgages and their weekly bills is an international holiday, they prefer that money back in their pocket.

Then you got the decision of the board to allow their CEO in the bad years – when they’re not making a profit – to kick his bonus schedule forward until it’s a good year and then he can collect, you know, years in return and then walk out with quite a, you know, generous payout. So I think all of those play into the fact that the Australian public has quite a negative view of Qantas when your flights are getting cancelled and delayed everyday and you can’t guarantee your baggage is going to rock up on time.

Bridget McKenzie calls for answers on Qantas and Qatar Airways

Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie has been one of the strongest voices calling for an inquiry into the Qatar airways decision and late yesterday, she helped convince the senate to make it happen (32 to 31).

McKenzie told ABC News Breakfast the government had questions to answer:

Anthony Albanese has not just a close personal relationship with the former CEO of Qantas, but a very strong political relationship with Qantas.

That’s not going to change just because, you know, Alan Joyce is out of the departure lounge with his, you know, in excess of $10 million carry-on luggage. It is not just the decision on Qatar Airways. It is the decision that this government chose to rule aviation out of its competition review until the backflip late last week.

And it also has chosen Qantas to be the flagship for their ‘yes’ campaign. So the government is very tightly linked at a personal and a political level with this company which is also one of the most reviled across our nation if you look at the ACCC complaints over the last couple of years.

So it’s becoming a political problem for the government and they need to front up and answer the questions. Like, what is it the national interest, they couldn’t answer that yesterday in question time. We keep getting different responses, conflicting answers from ministers, and it’s time we got to the bottom of it.

Tanya Plibersek says Murray-Darling Basin legislation has to pass

The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, is speaking to Sabra Lane on ABC radio AM about the Murray-Darling Basin plan legislation – which at the moment does not have the support in the senate to pass.

These new laws have to pass parliament by the end of the year because there are some critical dates in the Murray-Darling Basin plan and they you know – if we don’t see this legislation by the end of the year, for example, we can’t extend the timeframes on some very significant water efficiency and water saving infrastructure projects that the states already have underway.

But can Plibersek just demand it pass and expect it to happen? Plibersek says there is not the time to play politics.

We know we’re going into another hot dry period. Unless we get this water for the environment we will see the sort of catastrophic consequences that we’ve seen in years past with mass fish kills and drying banks of the river with trees that are hundreds of years old not [guaranteed to] survive.

The view from Murph

Katharine Murphy

Treasurer speaks on possibilities of recession

It’s national accounts day – which means we are all going to pretend we understand the ins and outs of GDP.

What we will all learn is how much the economy has slowed down, now that the interest rate rises are taking a chunk out of confidence and spending (for at least the mortgage holders and renters) with China’s slowing economy also having an impact.

Jim Chalmers was on the ABC where he was asked whether he was still confident Australia would avoid a recession and said:

Well, that’s certainly our expectation that we will avoid a recession. Obviously, there’s a lot of uncertainty, globally and domestically. The two things that matter most to that will be China and the impact of these interest rate rises which are biting on family budgets and on the economy more broadly.

But our expectation, our forecasts in the budget, are that the Australian economy will continue to grow, but quite slowly.

Good morning from Canberra

Economic growth for June quarter expected to be underwhelming

Higher interest rates, price pressures and dicey global conditions are expected to keep growth on the subdued side in the June quarter, AAP reports.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics will release the national accounts on Wednesday.

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, warned the results may be underwhelming.

“What we’ve seen in recent data is the impact of higher interest rates, high but moderating inflation, and also this continuing global uncertainty on our economy,” Chalmers said on Tuesday.

In the three months to March, the economy grew a modest 0.2% , and 2.3% on an annual basis.

Ahead of the June result, forecasters were feeling more upbeat following the release of some of the last remaining data points that slot into GDP, with the strong results enough to stamp out fears of a negative quarter of economic activity.

Commonwealth Bank is pencilling 0.5% quarterly growth and a 1.9% lift over the year and ANZ expects 0.4% and a 1.9% respectively.

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