Labor strikes deal with Coalition on political donations and campaign spending – as it happened​on February 12, 2025 at 6:13 am

Thanks for joining us on the blog today. Here’s a wrap of what’s been keeping us busy:

• The major parties have struck a deal to cap political donations and campaign spending, sidelining crossbenchers in a major overhaul of federal electoral laws.

• Jim Chalmers has announced the government is changing rules so banks won’t consider student debt when granting home loans.

• The mining magnate Clive Palmer has lost a high court bid to reregister his United Australia party ahead of this year’s federal election.

• The NSW government will hold an inquiry into antisemitism after a motion put forward by the opposition passed the Legislative Council today.

• The prime minister has labelled a video circulating online – showing two hospital workers claiming they would refuse to treat Israeli patients and one saying they would “kill them” – as “antisemitic” and “disgusting”.

• The Coalition MP Andrew Wallace has today relaunched the Australia-Israel allies caucus, hosting a small event in Parliament House with the Israeli ambassador, Amir Maimon.

• Pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Melbourne will move from weekly to monthly.

• Donald Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro has said Australia is “killing” the US aluminium market, while the president considers an exemption on tariffs for Australia.

• Commonwealth Bank has delivered a bumper $5.13bn half-year cash profit, in a result that has beaten market expectations and threatens to attract political attention amid widespread cost-of-living pressures.

Labor and Coalition reach deal on overhaul of federal electoral laws

The major parties have struck a deal to cap political donations and campaign spending, sidelining crossbenchers in a major overhaul of federal electoral laws.

The legislation is poised to pass on Wednesday night after the special minister of state, Don Farrell, agreed to several amendments to secure the Coalition’s support for his plan to strip big money out of politics.

Guardian Australia understands that under the changes, the cap on individual donations will rise from the proposed $20,000 to $50,000 and the disclosure threshold will increase from $1,000 to $5,000.

The campaign spending limits will remain at $800,000 per electorate, and $90m nationally.

There are currently no limits on donations or expenditure, allowing mining magnate Clive Palmer to spend tens of millions of dollars campaigning at previous elections.

Under the amendment, peak bodies such as the Australian Council of Trade Unions and Business Council of Australia would be able to set aside up to $200,000, or four times the new donations cap, from affiliated unions or members to fund national campaigns.

The agreement will infuriate the crossbench, who have been warning about a Labor-Coalition “stitch-up” that disadvantages minor parties and independents.

The Greens’ democracy spokesperson, Larissa Waters, said the deal would allow the major parties to “keep power and privilege”:

Today, we’re seeing Labor and the Liberals vote together to help themselves, not help the community or democracy.

• This post has been updated to clarify the rules around peak bodies.

Police seize more than 17,000 vapes in NSW traffic stop

Police have seized more than 17,000 vapes with an estimated street value of $873,000 during a car stop on the Hume Highway.

The driver, a 35-year-old man, was charged with goods in personal custody suspected of being stolen.

Police said the highway patrol stopped the car on the Hume Highway about 15km south-west of Holbrook on Tuesday.

NSW to hold antisemitism inquiry

The NSW government will hold an inquiry into antisemitism after a motion put forward by the opposition passed the Legislative Council a short time ago.

The inquiry will examine the causes of antisemitism and its threat to social cohesion. It will also explore ways to improve community safety and security around synagogues, and privacy arrangements for information such as people’s addresses.

The inquiry, which will be undertaken by the Justice and Communities committee, is due to report back on 1 September this year.

‘We don’t want young people to have to choose’: housing minister on changes to Hecs-Help consideration in home loans

The minister for housing, Clare O’Neil, has spoken about the government’s announcement this morning that it is changing rules so banks won’t consider student debt when granting home loans.

Speaking on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing a little earlier, she said:

We don’t want young people in our country to have to choose between bettering their education and getting access to secure housing.

One of the barriers to them doing that was the fact that banks were taking effectively Hecs-Help loans and treating them as a normal type of debt. The treasurer has been working closely with our financial regulators to set some new boundaries around that and make sure the banks understand Hecs and Help should be treated in that way.

Allowing banks to disregard homebuyers’ student debts a ‘desperate attempt’ to win young voters, Greens deputy says

The treasurer’s announcement that Labor will change rules to allow banks to disregard student debt in their consideration of home loans is a “desperate attempt to win young voters,” the Greens say.

The move was a recommendation of the government’s Universities Accord, handed down last February, acknowledging Hecs/Help debts were locking young people out of home ownership.

Greens deputy leader and higher education spokesperson, Senator Mehreen Faruqi,said the announcement was “yet another demonstration of the Albanese government’s pathological inability to pursue anything other than ‘too little, too late’ solutions”.

We have heard for years now that massive student debts are locking people out of the housing market, and finally, in the dying days of the Albanese government’s first term, they’ve decided to do the bare minimum in a desperate attempt to win young voters. The problem here is the fact that student debts exist and grow every year. Banks won’t solve the student debt crisis, only governments can.

Hello, I’ll now be with you until later this afternoon.

Thank you all for joining me on the blog today! I’ll leave you in the very capable hands of Jordyn Beazley to take you through rest of the news this afternoon.

I’ll see you here again bright and early tomorrow.

Democracy ‘dead’, says Palmer after high court ruling on UAP

The mining magnate Clive Palmer has responded to the high court’s ruling that he can’t reregister the United Australia party before the next election.

Palmer’s released a statement saying that in his opinion, “democracy was dead in Australia” after the ruling.

This is a disappointing outcome, but it will not deter us from ensuring Australians have a real alternative at the ballot box.

This is a very dangerous precedent, standing in the way of real democracy where people can vote for the party of their choice.

The UAP was voluntarily deregistered after the last federal election. He was challenging the law that said he could not reregister it within the same electoral cycle, and the court ruled that law is valid.

Palmer says he’ll continue to fight on.

Tl;dr: what did we learn in question time today?

• It was largely cost-of-living focused from the opposition today, namely why people are worse off now than they were under the previous government. It’s a big issue, and one both the government and opposition will keep the spotlight on through the election campaign.

• Speaker Milton Dick does not like long preambles – he told MPs to keep it tight (both in length and content of the question) and to stick to 30 seconds.

• The government’s dixers were mostly tied to the cost of living again today, and there were a fair few (more than one might hope) references to the Coalition’s tax-deductible lunch policy (which they still haven’t publicly released the costings for).

• From the crossbench, the Greens asked whether the government would introduce a billionaire tax (the answer was basically no).