Federal politics: Coalition hasn't commissioned modelling to help form energy policy: Bell — as it happened

This is where I'll have to leave you for today. Thank you for joining our live blog. It's been a pleasure having you here as always!

We'll be back again next Monday for another week of federal politics news.

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Have a great weekend!

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has been asked whether the Quad is under threat, given India's prime minister visited China this week.

Wong says India remains an important partner for Australia, and a critical partner for stability in the Indo-Pacific.

"India remains a very important part of the Quad and I'm looking forward to engaging with external affairs minister Jaishankar again soon," Wong says.

The pair has been asked about former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews' appearance at the parade.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong says Australia made a decision to be represented at the parade at the embassy staff level.

She says individuals should be mindful of the message their actions send.

"We all should be mindful of the message that our presence and engagement sends," Wong says.

Richard Marles says China's latest military parade shows Beijing is deepening cooperation with Russia and North Korea.

The deputy prime minister says Wednesday's parade was a "significant display of Chinese military capability".

He says Australia needs to make sure it asserts the international rules-based order and make a contribution to peace and stability of the region.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has joined mourners in Melbourne for the funeral of Senior Constable Vadim de Waart-Hottart.

The 34-year-old police officer was killed in a shooting in Victoria's north-east last week.

Former Labor foreign minister Bob Carr says Australia shouldn't be worried about the future of the Quad given China and India's improving relations.

The Quad is a partnership between Australia, United States, Japan and India, and is widely seen as a counter to China's assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in China this week where he and Chinese President Xi Jinping signed a communique.

In an interview with Politics Now, Carr says India is asserting its right to have a relationship with multiple entities and associations of nations.

Carr says that is evident with India's bilateral relationship with Vladimir Putin's Russia — despite the war in Ukraine.

He says India is providing a model for countries such as Indonesia.

"India has now said we are going to have a bilateral relationship with China without reference to the cares or sensibilities of the United States," Carr says.

"In this more complex world, I just think Australia should be looking for opportunities rather than expressing any despair or anxiety," he says.

You can listen to the full interview on Politics Now from 7am tomorrow in the link below. 

Australia and Japan have agreed to elevate their Special Strategic Partnership and increase cooperation between the two countries.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles says it will result in more joint exercises, operations and cooperation on cyber.

He says the purchase of the Mogami class frigates from Japan for the Royal Australian Navy will deepen cooperation between the two governments.

"This is a moment where our bilateral relationship is really at a peak. We have never been doing more together than we are right now," Marles says.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong says Australia and Japan want to elevate the partnership to include "greater ambition" in new areas of collaboration, including in defence.

Japan and Australia will sign a Memorandum of Cooperation to help each other's nationals evacuate during a crisis.

"We know Australia and Japan face similar challenges, we know Australia and Japan share common interests and we know now more than ever that we look to each other," she says.

The Coalition has welcomed reports the treasurer has hit pause on plans to increase the tax on super balances above $3 million.

The Australian Financial Review reports the government has put the policy, which it brought to the last election, on pause.

Shadow Productivity Minister Andrew Bragg says it's a "disastrous tax" because it targets money that doesn't exist.

"There's never been a tax in Australian history, which has been as ugly as the unrealised gains proposal. So we very much welcome the idea that the treasurer now is walking away from this in some form," Bragg says.

He says the government now must come clean on their plans to drop or change taxes on unrealised capital gains.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong are in Japan for the 12th Australia-Japan Foreign and Defence Ministers' meeting.

The 2+2 meeting is being hosted by Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya and Defence Minister Gen Nakatani .

In his opening remarks, Marles says the government's purchase of Mogami class frigates from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will bring Australia and Japan closer together.

Marles says he wants the focus of today's meeting to be on how to further the Australia-Japan special strategic partnership.

"In the world we're in today, which is increasingly complex, where the strategic landscape is increasingly difficult, what we are also experiencing between ourselves is the highest level of strategic trust that we have ever had," Marles says.

Wong says the ministers are meeting at a time when the geostrategic context is "highly challenging".

She says both countries are encountering circumstances that are more difficult and challenging than in previous years.

"We're not just partners, we're friends and we are more strategically aligned than we have ever been and our strategic trust is deeper than it has ever been," Wong says.

"Our partnership is strong, but we can make it stronger," she says.

The international peak body for Indigenous issues says it stands in solidarity with the Australian First Nations community, after an attack by Neo-Nazis on Camp Sovereignty over the weekend.

Around 40 men dressed in black and carrying bars and poles stormed the sacred site on Sunday, attacking members of the community and damaging property around the site.

Charges have been laid against four men in relation to the incident.

First Nations communities from across the globe have responded to the attack, including the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA).

Board member Peter Dawson told the ABC the organisation was closely watching the response to the attack.

"IWGIA strongly condemns the deplorable attack on First Nations people in Melbourne and stands in solidarity with the individuals and communities who have been affected," Dawson says.

"We call on the Australian authorities to take immediate action to prevent, prohibit, and prosecute all hate crimes against First Nations people, in line with their international obligations.

"Indigenous Peoples must be able to exercise their freedom of expression and assembly without fear of discrimination or violence," he says.

A national day of action led by First Nations groups across Australia is being organised in response to the attack on Camp Sovereignty and the March for Australia demonstrations, with rallies to be held in capital cities on September 13.

The Australian Financial Review reports Labor is looking to hit pause on its plans to add 15 per cent more tax on super balances over $3 million.

Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie says if the news is true, it's a "humiliating defeat" for Treasurer Jim Chalmers.

She says it appears the prime minister is more interested on holding onto power than delivering structural reform.

"The prime minister has once again sat on the treasurer's ambition to be a reformer. And I think we've all seen this story before, when prime ministers sit on treasurers, it doesn't end well," McKenzie says.

"We think it's great if this report is true that they are going to shelve the taxing of unrealised gains and the taxing of future balances for young Australians. But it doesn't bode well for the relationship, I think, between the treasurer and the prime minister going forward," she says.

The AFR also reports former prime minister Paul Keating has been lobbying Albanese behind the scenes against the policy.

McKenzie says she agrees with Keating's reported assessment of the reforms and says the policy is a "dog's breakfast".

Albanese, like some of his prime ministerial predecessors, tends to find sitting weeks trying. As one Labor man puts it, "Parliament is the home ground for the opposition." Albanese would prefer to be out and about, dashing around the country — although that does come with a level of exhaustion.

Those around the prime minister would dispute the assessment of his mood as peevish. The alternative interpretation is that he's showing some second-term arrogance. There was a whiff of this at the end of Thursday's question time when he advised the opposition, "that they go touch grass during the break and get in touch, and get in touch with what Australians are concerned about".

Read the full analysis from Michelle Grattan in the link below.

Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie has welcomed the prime minister's phone conversation with US President Donald Trump overnight.

Speaking to Sky News, McKenzie says she won't bag the PM for getting the president on the phone to discuss the nation's strategic interests.

"I think that is a good thing. We've been encouraging this relationship as an opposition because we believe it's in the best interests of our country and our region that our two countries are united and on the same page," McKenzie says.

"If he wants to characterise it as warm, well done. But that does sort of, I think, suggest a closeness and an intimacy that hasn't been there previously," she says.

She's speculated that the phone call came off the back of Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles's visit to Washington last week.

Labor Party president Wayne Swan says it wasn't a smart decision for former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews to attend a major military parade in Beijing.

The former premier appeared in an official photo alongside Russia's Vladimir Putin and North Korea's Kim Jong Un.

Andrews says he went because a constructive relationship with China is in Australia's national interest.

But Swan says public diplomacy isn't the job of former politicians.

"He took a decision to go to that, the Australian government took a decision not to go," he said on Channel Nine.

"When the Australian government took that decision, I think Dan should have taken the decision not to as well, but he's a private individual and that's up to him.

"He doesn't represent the Australian government… in Beijing or anywhere else."

Allegra Spender says the government's planned changes to Freedom of Information (FOI) laws may reduce transparency.

The federal government announced changes to transparency rules this week, including on FOI laws and whistleblower protections.

The government also wants to establish a new Whistleblower Ombudsman within the Office of Commonwealth Ombudsman.

Spender says she understands the government's argument about the need to reduce "vexatious" claims in FOI, but has questioned the more stringent rules around cabinet deliberations.

She says while she's encouraged by the government's moves on whistleblower protections, she doesn't think it goes far enough.

The Wentworth MP says she would like to see the government introduce lobbying registers and release ministerial diaries.

"This is an area where people really do want to see who's in the room, who's walking the corridors, and who's having real influence with the ministers of the day," Spender says.

"And I think this is an area where the government could show willing that they are really investing in transparency," she says.

Independent MP Allegra Spender says she's disappointed the Coalition hasn't commissioned its own modelling on emissions targets.

Spender has told ABC Radio National Breakfast she doesn't understand how the Coalition is considering an energy policy without performing its own modelling.

"I'm not sure what are the metrics they're considering then, if they're not even considering modelling on different aspects," Spender says.

"I mean, I really don't understand how they are thinking about this energy policy," she says.

She says the Coalition has provided mixed messages on energy policy for more than a decade, which she says has impacted business certainty.

"I would just really urge them to sort it out, get on board, make a strong commitment to net zero and get behind some serious targets, both for 2035 and beyond," Spender says.

"Business needs a certainty to invest. It actually hurts all Australian businesses if there is ambiguity on whether we're committed to this or not," she says.

The federal government promised to legislate a national Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) at the last election.

But there has been debate about whether the environment minister or agency chief executive should retain the final decision-making power.

The Coalition and some stakeholder groups want the environment minister to have the final say.

Asked if the opposition would be willing to compromise, Bell has suggested the Coalition wouldn't be too keen on budging.

But she says the opposition wants to see the bill before it makes any commitments.

"Well, certainly this is about an EPA and what that EPA looks like. We already have seven EPAs around the country, and to have a federal EPA may risk doubling up on that red tape and green tape and actually blowing out approval time. So, we want to see what the model of EPA is that the minister is putting on the table," Bell says.

"Stakeholders are telling us certainly they want to see the minister retaining the power when it comes to decision-making and not a CEO that is removed from the Westminster system making all the decisions," she says.

The Coalition has signalled a willingness to work with the government on reforming the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.

Shadow Environment Minister Angie Bell says she's met with the environment minister and that her door is open to Labor.

"My door is open to Labor to make sure that the reforms that we undertake in the EPBC Act are delivering certainty that I talked about for industry and jobs and the future, but also to protect our environment," Bell says.

She's told ABC Radio National Breakfast that Labor has had three years to reform the act and has so far failed on that.

Bell says it would be in the national interest for both major parties to come together and make sure the reforms are "sensible".

The shadow minister says she'd like to see some of the recommendations of a review into the EPBC Act "brought to the fore" and the minister retain decision-making powers.

Shadow Environment Minister Angie Bell says the Coalition is working methodically through the process of reviewing its emissions energy policy.

The Business Council of Australia says inaction on climate change is no longer an option, and says meeting Australia's emissions reduction targets are doable.

Asked what she thinks the 2035 emissions reduction target should be, Bell has told ABC Radio National Breakfast the Coalition will respond to that question when the government has outlined their target.

"Climate change is real. We don't deny the science. I believe in climate change like everybody else does," Bell says.

"We do know that the government will be releasing various reports over the next week or so that will outline their emissions reduction policy based on climate projections."

Bell says the Coalition is engaging with various organisations for its review into energy policy, and has been examining gas over the last few weeks.

She says the Coalition hasn't commissioned it's own modelling to help make a decision about its energy policy.

"We're looking at what the details are and what the costs are. And I think that's what we owe to the Australian people as a good opposition."

Anthony Albanese joined a meeting of the Coalition of the Willing overnight.

For a quick refresher, the coalition is a group of mostly Western nations aimed at supporting Ukraine's fight against Russia.

The meeting of 35 countries was convened by French President Emmanuel Macron, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Leaders from Europe, New Zealand and Canada also attended the meeting.

According to an Australian readout, the leaders discussed their support for Ukraine and the coalition's willingness to stand with Ukraine "for as long as it takes".

"Australia stands with Ukraine in its fight against Russia's illegal and immoral invasion. With our partners we will keep working towards just and lasting peace for Ukraine on its own terms," the readout said.

Twenty-six Western countries formally committed to deploying troops by land, sea and air to Ukraine after a ceasefire is agreed to with Russia, according to Macron.

It's understood Australia is not part of that group of 26 countries, but the federal government will consider any request to help.