Australia politics live: budget funds to speed up environmental approvals; government repatriates passengers from hantavirus ship

Tuesday’s federal budget to include $500m to fund faster approvals for housing, energy and mining projects. Follow today’s news live Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Albanese defends breaking promise to not touch negative gearing and CGT Good government makes “the right decisions for the right reasons for the times that your are in”, says Albanese, when asked why the government will reform negative gearing and capital gains tax in tomorrow’s budget. We know people are under pressure. And the easy path is to say, oh, well, we’ll just sit back and watch that occur. The difficult decision, but the right decision is to do the right thing with the right policies to deliver. And clearly, people are frustrated. Issues like intergenerational equity. People are worried that younger Australians are never going to get a crack at home ownership. If we do change our position on any policy, we will explain why it is that that is occurring. I think the Liberal Party and National Party made a big mistake legitimising One Nation and saying, in adopting many of their policies, but a lighter version of them, and then following that up by giving them preferences, they were saying effectively that it was okay to vote for One Nation rather than the traditional conservative party. [One Nation] are a political party led by someone who’s promoted grievance rather than solutions. And I understand, though, a protest vote will be cast. In this case, it was a devastating result, I think, for Angus Taylor and the Liberal Party. Continue reading...