Australia politics live: Labor unveils discount loans for new EVs; Liberals and Nationals to sit separately as parliament returns

Reserve Bank due to announce decision on interest rates this afternoon. Follow today’s news liveThere’s “will on both sides” for the Liberals and the Nationals to end their impasse, according to deputy Nationals leader, Kevin Hogan.Speaking on ABC’s 7.30 program last night, the Hogan described the evening’s meeting between Sussan Ley and David Littleproud as “a really good, civil, cooperative, and friendly chat”, but that the possibility of the reinstatement of a trio of Nationals frontbenchers had not been agreed upon.We want to resolve this. We think a good government is a good coalition government.No-one went to Canberra two weeks ago believing the Coalition was going to blow up that week ... but we went down paths and I think there were misunderstandings on both sides and we’ve had that frank conversation tonight too, which I think was really healthy.The tick up that we saw in the most recent data was was not about government spending. It was about holiday spending, the withdrawal the energy rebates. It was about some persistent pressures in housing. Some of that pressure was temporary. Some of it more persistent than anyone would like.Now, when it comes to government spending, really, the main story of the economy last year was public demand took a big step back. It was around, I think, less than a third of what it was the year before, and private demand really gathered pace. Continue reading...