Topics: Labor’s Budget blowout, Labor silent on their toxic taxes, Chris Bowen’s COP presidency
Stephen Cenatiempo: One person who doesn’t post this kind of rubbish on her social media is the Shadow Communications Minister, Senator Sarah Henderson. Sarah, you’ve just got to shake your head at some of this stuff, don’t you?
Senator Henderson: You do. Good morning, Stephen. That zebra-giraffe parody was just a joke. It just shows that Labor does not know what to do or say in the wake of their Budget, which is imploding, of course. This is a Budget that is going to hurt so many Australians, particularly young Australians. This is a Budget which delivers toxic taxes, intergenerational fraud based on a lying Prime Minister who promised to do one thing before the election, and has now hit us with the most horrendous taxes. And as you know, we are fighting this tooth and nail, standing up for the Australian people. We will not allow these toxic taxes to stay in this country if we are elected, of course.
Stephen Cenatiempo: The thing that strikes me, though, is there seems to be a split within the government now. Apparently, the Prime Minister is going to go out and engage in consultation on these tax changes, where that should have been done before the policy was announced, I would have thought. But then you’ve got the Minister for TikTok, Claire O’Neil, out there saying, look, it’s only a very small sector of the right-wing fringe that’s complaining about this. Everyone else thinks it’s a great idea. I haven’t spoken to a single person yet that thinks it’s a good idea.
Senator Henderson: Well that’s right and Australians do not want carve outs to Labor’s toxic taxes, they want them axed. And that’s what the Liberals and the Nationals will do and we’re, of course, fighting very hard to stop these taxes being passed by the parliament. It’s time the Greens stepped up and joined with us and stopped these taxes being passed because they are going to hurt so many Australians. If you just think about what the damage that’s being done, we’ve got record spending driving up inflation, driving up interest rates, we’ve got deficits forecast for a decade, we’re about to hit $1 trillion in debt. This is an assault on aspiration but particularly on young Australians. This is locking out young Australians, Stephen, from the same opportunities that older Australians have received by whacking toxic taxes on housing, on savings, on investment, on small businesses, and boy, oh boy, is this a lesson. When Labor runs out of its own money, it comes after yours.
Stephen Cenatiempo: But there is a level of arrogance here. I mean, the TikTok rubbish or Instagram rubbish from Claire O’Neil, I’ve come to expect now because that’s part of her MO, but because they’ve got 94 seats in the lower house, there seems to be this view that they don’t have to answer to any. I just want to play a bit of an exchange between yourself and Murray Watt in estimates yesterday.
Excerpt of Environment and Communications, Budget Estimates, 25 May 2026:
Senator Henderson: So there’s a promise made before the election not to increase capital gains tax, tax on trusts, winding back negative gearing. When did you first become aware that your government was going to break those promises?
Senator Watt: In what way is that possibly related to the budget of this department?
Senator Henderson: Because there are many businesses across this country which operate in this sector, Minister. You’re not aware of small business operating in the energy and environment sector? You’re here to answer questions.
Senator Watt: Yeah, I’m here to answer questions about the Budget and activities of this department.
Senator Henderson: They were core announcements made in the Budget. Could you please advise this committee when you became aware that the government was going to break its promise.
Senator Watt: You’ll have ample opportunity to ask questions about the various tax measures introduced in this Budget when the Treasury estimates appears, which I think is next week.
Stephen Cenatiempo: Just the level of arrogance there, Sarah. And you know, well, how dare you question me?
Senator Henderson: Well, this is a cabinet Minister, Murray Watt, who looked like a deer in the headlights yesterday, tried to suggest that these core questions are not relevant. He was, in fact, overruled by the chair of the committee, a Labor chair, so he looked just pathetic not being able to address these basic questions, refusing to answer questions. Well Australians have had enough, frankly, and this is just another example that we are not going to cop this gross arrogance from this government.
Stephen Cenatiempo: You mentioned the trillion dollars of debt and I just want to play another small exchange from estimates yesterday, and this is about the cost of Chris Bowen’s COP-out side hustle. He’s now the president of something to do with these COP-out conferences. Extraordinary amounts of money, I mean, this just blew my mind when I saw this.
Excerpt of Environment and Communications, Budget Estimates, 25 May 2026:
Senator Henderson: Mr Higgins, you were there, you asked those questions about cost. I’d really appreciate if you could give the committee some general indication as to what those costs were, what it will cost to hold the pre-COP conference at the resort on Denarau Island.
Mr Higgins: Yes, I’ll come back to you on notice on that.
Senator Henderson: But you were there at the meeting. So what do you recall in relation to the costs?
Mr Higgins: My recollection isn’t the best way to answer this question from my perspective, Senator. I will come back to you on notice.
Mr Kaiser: The upper limit for our entire effort in relation to this is as has been explained in terms of the budget allocations.
Senator Henderson: And what’s that budget allocation?Ms Box: It’s $147.8 million in the budget, which includes administered funding and departmental funding.
Mr Kaiser: It certainly won’t be more than that, Senator.
Senator Henderson: Oh, thank you. Well that is a great relief. So Australian taxpayers know that there’s not going to be more than $147 million spent on this conference.
Stephen Cenatiempo: Sarah, that whole exchange took a minute and three seconds. Now there was more to it than that but it would have taken 10 seconds to say $147 million?
Senator Henderson: Well, I was actually asking an official who travelled to Fiji to help organise the pre-COP conference, which is in Fiji in October. Australia’s picking up the bill for that conference and I was asking him, well, tell us what this is going to cost? This is going to be at Denarau Island, a resort island in Fiji, and the best I could get was well, it won’t be any more than $147 million. And you know, Australians are sick of this. Families and small businesses are on their knees, they need to make sure that they can put food on the table, pay the power bills, which is skyrocketing. And here is Australia’s part-time energy minister, the so-called president of negotiations of COP, sending his officials around the world. 105 people are attached to his climate empire. Almost $500,000 was spent on overseas travel in just four months, nearly $150 million for this COP work. And Australians are not going to cop it. This is a joke. It’s Chris Bowen’s vanity project. He should go. The Prime Minister should have the guts to stand him down to get rid of him because he’s not doing the job as Energy Minister and Australians are paying the price.
Stephen Cenatiempo: Sarah, I first encountered Chris Bowen when he was a councillor on Fairfield City Council, must be 30 years ago now, when he worked for Janice Crozier, who was a very good Labor Member of Parliament, and I identified then that he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but these bureaucrats, we pay big money to these people to know the answers to these questions, and more often than not, they’re taking the questions on notice when clearly they did know the answer you were looking for?
Senator Henderson: Well they ducked and weaved. And look, ultimately the responsibility is the minister and the government. We’ve demanded more answers and I hope and trust that they will be given to our committee this morning because this is just not good enough. In fact, I even said, look I might ring the Sheraton Hotel in Fiji myself. If I can’t get the answer in estimates, I’ll ring them myself and find it out. But this is really insulting and it comes at a time when Australians are being hit so hard by Labor’s gross economic mismanagement. I mean, this country is being driven off a cliff by the Labor government. They could not care less. Chris Bowen is one of the worst offenders running around the world, spending money hand over fist. This government is spending money hand over fist. It does not care that inflation is being driven up, interest rates are going up. We are all paying the price and all I can say is we are working day and night to get rid of this truly terrible government, the worst in living memory in my view.
Stephen Cenatiempo: I’d rather they appoint a giraffe and zebra as minister. Sarah, good to talk to you. We’ll catch up in a couple of weeks.
Senator Henderson: I like that idea. Okay, thanks Stephen.
Stephen Cenatiempo: Thanks, Sarah.