THE SQUIZ

Parliament returns for another sitting week today, with PM Anthony Albanese and a handful of pollies returning to the nation’s capital after a weekend at the Garma Festival in the Northern Territory. Yesterday, Albanese said the Voice referendum vote will be a “once in a generation opportunity” to deliver “the form of recognition that Indigenous people have asked for”. He also made it clear the referendum was the only shot at constitutional recognition for Indigenous Australians, saying “we will not abandon substance for symbolism.” 

AND FROM THE ‘NO’ CAMPAIGN?

Coalition leader Peter Dutton says he would support constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians, but a Voice-like advisory body should be legislated rather than enshrined in the constitution. And even as the PM was making his latest pitch, new poll numbers published in the Daily Telegraph were not good for the ‘Yes’ camp, showing them losing out to the ‘No’ vote nationally, with 44% of the vote to 56% (paywall). The Australian also had a Newspoll (paywall) showing support for the Voice had fallen below 50% in every state. Also coming out of the weekend were questions about the ‘No’ campaign’s tactics, with a former Nationals/current Independent MP Andrew Gee accusing the Coalition of using their ‘No’-support to fundraise for the Liberal/Nationals parties. And former NAIDOC chair John Paul Janke said the ‘No’ team were using an AI Indigenous character “to try to look like it is an Indigenous person supporting the No campaign.” ‘No’ campaigner Warren Mundine denied the claim, saying: “If someone is doing it, it’s definitely not us”. 

ANYTHING ELSE GOING ON?

You’ll remember that adviser/consulting firm PwC’s use of confidential government tax info to benefit itself and its customers has been a thing… Yesterday, the government said consulting firms caught in future tax exploitation schemes could be fined up to $780 million. Treasury will also review how firms like PwC are regulated and beef up the powers of the Tax Office to gather tax data from companies. “The PwC scandal exposed severe shortcomings in our regulatory frameworks,” Treasurer Jim Chalmers said. Hours after his announcement, those shortcomings seemed to crop up again, with new claims from the ABC’s Four Corners that the consultants KPMG had repeatedly overcharged the Defence Department (although KPMG and Defence deny the claims)…