Morrison government’s $4m grant to group accused of ‘extreme religious practices’ was likely unlawful

There is no evidence politicians knew of the allegations against the foundation when the grant to WA group the Esther Foundation was announced

The Morrison government gave $4m to an organisation accused of “extreme religious practices” – including exorcisms and gay conversion – on the same day the Australian government solicitor (AGS) advised the grant would “likely be without lawful authority”.

The former prime minister Scott Morrison announced the grant for Western Australia’s Esther Foundation in the lead-up to the 2019 election, declaring the organisation had “completely, completely captured” his heart.

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Central bank going ‘rogue’, senator claims – as it happened

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Burke says the loophole only applies to where the business has agreed on a minimum rate of pay:

The loopholes are really simple … which is, if an employer agrees with their workforce and registers, this should be the rate of pay.

You shouldn’t then be able to go to a labour hire company and completely undercut what you’ve just agreed to.

Yesterday was one of the one of the strangest debates I’ve ever found myself in – because business was running a passionate campaign against a policy that the government is not proposing, that the government’s not going to do. And to me, it would sound like a bad idea anyway.

Effectively the way business were arguing yesterday – there was someone on PM yesterday afternoon, claiming that somehow this would prevent hairdressers from being able to pay different rates of pay for the people in their employment. Just not true.

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Bridget McKenzie and Mark Coulton reject suggestion they ‘trespassed’ at inland rail project

Nationals pair say they were at a level crossing on a public road when they visited the rail corridor without ministerial permission

Nationals MP Mark Coulton and senator Bridget McKenzie have angrily rejected suggestions they may have trespassed by visiting the inland rail project near Narromine after permission to do so was denied.

Coulton told Guardian Australia that the issue, pursued by Labor in Senate estimates, was “absolute complete bullshit”, backing McKenzie’s account the pair were at a level crossing on a public road when they visited the rail without the minister’s permission.

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Rex and Bonza call for immediate overhaul of Sydney airport laws to increase competition

Exclusive: aviation leaders make plea to federal government, saying higher airfares and poorer service will persist without change

Rex Airlines, Bonza and Australia’s airports body are calling on the federal government to immediately make it easier for airlines to introduce flights at Sydney airport and challenge Qantas and Virgin, warning that higher air fares and poorer service will persist if nothing changes.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission this week savaged policy shortcomings that are shutting out meaningful competition and have allowed for a duopoly to develop in Australia’s aviation market.

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Australia news live: economists push interest rate forecasts higher; teens arrested over violent carjacking

Eight teenagers in police custody after allegedly dragging woman from car on the Gold Coast. Follow the day’s news live

Business groups argue ‘same job, same pay’ laws would disadvantage workers

I mentioned a little earlier that business groups have glommed together to launch a campaign against the federal government’s proposed “same job, same pay” industrial relations laws.

The so-called ‘Same Job, Same Pay’ proposals does not mean equal pay for men and women. It does not speak of fairness and justice, as its name falsely represents.

It means by law, employers will have to pay workers with little knowledge or experience exactly the same as workers with decades of knowledge and experience.

Without a real threat of losing passengers to other airlines, the Qantas and Virgin Australia airline groups have had less incentive to offer attractive airfares, develop more direct routes, operate more reliable services, and invest in systems to provide high levels of customer service.

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Bruce Lehrmann says ABC acted maliciously by showing Brittany Higgins speech, court documents show

Former political staffer suing national broadcaster over a February 2022 joint address by Higgins and Grace Tame at the National Press Club

Bruce Lehrmann has accused the Australian Broadcasting Corporation of acting maliciously by broadcasting Brittany Higgins’ National Press Club address, saying in court documents it was “wilfully blind” to the risk of her defaming him or making prejudicial comments close to his trial.

Lehrmann is suing the ABC over a joint address by Higgins and Grace Tame to the National Press Club in February 2022, which was broadcast live and later uploaded in full to the ABC’s YouTube channel.

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Jail terms for exploiting migrant workers to be introduced in Australian government crackdown

New laws to include making it a criminal offence to coerce someone into breaching their visa condition and bans on hiring other visa holders

Australian employers who exploit migrant workers will be banned from hiring other visa holders and will face new criminal penalties, as part of a government crackdown.

On Monday the federal government will announce legal changes to tackle what it calls “a crisis of exploitation with up to one in six recent migrants paid less than the minimum wage”.

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‘Last resort’: government faces legal action to force repatriation of Australians from Syrian refugee camps

Seventeen women and nine children will take the government to court, arguing that Australia has ‘effective control’ of their detention and the power to set them free

Australian mothers and children held in a Syrian detention camp will take the Australian government to court in an attempt to compel the government to bring them home.

Seventeen Australian women and nine children – the wives, widows, and children of slain or jailed Islamic State fighters – held in the Roj camp in north-east Syria, will file a writ of habeas corpus in the federal court on Monday morning, arguing that Australia has “effective control” of their detention and the power to set them free.

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Australian government considers compensation for Afghanistan war crime victims

Human rights and legal groups have stepped up their calls for a compensation plan in the wake of the Ben Roberts-Smith defamation ruling

The Australian government is looking for “a way forward” to compensate families of victims of alleged war crimes in Afghanistan, the defence minister has told legal advocates.

But officials continue to warn about the complexity of the compensation issue, one of the key outstanding recommendations from the landmark Brereton inquiry into alleged war crimes by Australian special forces soldiers.

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Richard Marles meets Gen Li Shangfu, as Chinese defence minister refuses formal meeting with US counterpart

Defence minister is also believed to have raised concerns about the ongoing detention of Australian citizens and human rights issues

Australian defence minister Richard Marles has met his Chinese counterpart and called for “safe and professional interactions” between military planes and ships in the Indo-Pacific region.

Marles is also believed to have raised concerns about the ongoing detention of Australian citizens and human rights issues during talks with China’s defence minister, Gen Li Shangfu, at a regional security summit in Singapore.

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Australia news live: China in focus for PM’s Vietnam meeting; plastics treaty draft under way

Anthony Albanese will meet with Vietnamese prime minister Pham Minh Chinh, as well as the Communist Party general secretary, the president and the chairman of the national assembly. Follow the day’s news, live

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, will meet Vietnam’s top leaders in Hanoi today as part of an official state visit.

He’ll begin his day visiting the Mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam’s communist revolutionary leader and first president, before meeting with Vietnamese prime minister Pham Minh Chinh, as well as the Communist Party general secretary, the president and the chairman of the national assembly.

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Greens offer compromise on Labor’s stalled housing bill, scaling back demands

Party says they are willing to negotiate to pass housing bill through Senate ‘but Labor has to shift’ on rent freezes and direct action

The Greens have scaled back their demands on housing, offering to pass Labor’s future fund bill in return for $2.5bn a year of direct spending and action on soaring rents.

The Greens and Albanese government are still locked in negotiations over the $10bn housing Australia future fund, with the latest offer from the minor party designed to allow the Senate to pass the bill in the June sitting.

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Crossbench welcomes Labor review of student loan ‘quirk’ that added hundreds to debts

Education minister stands by three-decade high indexation rate of 7.1% but acknowledges need for minor reforms amid backlash

Critics of soaring indexation on student debts have welcomed the education minister’s commitment to look into an accounting quirk in the way loans are indexed which could save graduates hundreds of dollars in repayments.

Hecs debts rise annually with inflation on 1 June, but loan repayments aren’t processed until tax returns are lodged, which can be months later. This means indexation is applied to portions of debts already paid – often by thousands of dollars.

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Labor criticised for apparent ‘backtrack’ on stronger LGBTQ+ legal protections

Draft changes to party’s platform replace commitment to strengthen laws with ‘almost meaningless’ clause to ‘develop policy’, advocates say

Labor has been criticised for proposing to ditch a commitment to strengthening legal protections for the LGBTQ+ community, with queer advocates saying the party appeared to have “backtracked”.

A consultation draft of changes to Labor’s national platform, released this week, proposes to remove a commitment from the 2021 platform to “strengthen laws and expand initiatives against discrimination, vilification and harassment on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or sex characteristics”.

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Australia politics live: ‘absolutely shocking’ for education department to give PwC contracts after tax leak scandal, Faruqi says; Ben Roberts-Smith verdict due today

Department taken to task for its nine contracts with PwC, two of which were entered into in the past two months. Follow latest updates

Sally McManus responds to RBA governor’s commentary on housing market

Sally McManus spoke to ABC News Breakfast this morning and gave her thoughts on some of RBA governor Phil Lowe’s commentary around the housing market and what he thinks needs to happen.

I think we’re living in two worlds. We’ve got people living in very big houses that have multiple dwellings and they’re landlords. And what they’re doing is when the Reserve Bank governor puts up interest rates, they’re passing on that cost to renters and that’s part of the reason why we’re seeing rents increase.

And I think that that is just basically saying to everyone, look, ordinary people, move in with your parents and grandparents whilst we’re going to say nothing about those CEOs I talked about at companies that actually are the ones that could ease cost of living tomorrow on people but they’re choosing not to because in the end they want to see their bonuses.

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Australian government loses bid to cancel lease for new Russian embassy site

Canberra’s National Capital Authority terminated lease on block of land in Yarralumla but federal court rules the move was ‘invalid and of no effect’

The Australian government has made an embarrassing backdown in its attempts to turf the Russian government off the site of its new embassy in Canberra.

The National Capital Authority (NCA) last year announced a decision to terminate the Russian government’s lease on a block of land in the wealthy suburb of Yarralumla, where it was building its new embassy.

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Victorian opposition leader John Pesutto served with fresh defamation threat by ousted MP Moira Deeming

Sixteen-page notice contains list of claims against Liberal leader as he faces another by-election after the resignation of veteran Ryan Smith

Victorian opposition leader John Pesutto has been served with a fresh defamation threat by ousted MP Moira Deeming, as the party faces a by-election headache.

Lawyers for Deeming, who was expelled from the parliamentary Liberal party this month for allegedly bringing discredit on the party, has issued a second defamation concerns notice to Pesutto.

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Victorian Liberals gear up for byelection following the resignation of Warrandyte MP Ryan Smith

Potential candidates include opposition party’s federal vice-president and upper house MP Matt Bach as Labor considers whether to contest electorate

The Victorian opposition will face voters for the first time since John Pesutto took on the leadership, with a byelection to be held following the resignation of the long-serving Liberal MP Ryan Smith.

Several potential candidates have been floated since Smith announced on Wednesday he would step down from parliament on 7 July, triggering the byelection in his electorate of Warrandyte in Melbourne’s north-east.

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Queensland LNP criticised for ‘failure of leadership’ on voice – as it happened

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Why didn’t the Coalition government know about these issues?

Shouldn’t it have?

And that’s exactly I would imagine the issues that will be fleshed out by this inquiry it, because this has been a loophole if you like, but that said privacy provisions, particularly when you’re dealing with government agencies, are really important to engender trust.

Now, as I said, there are a number of processes under way. We’ve seen what happens in recent times, when there is ongoing media commentary or into matters that relate to criminal proceedings. So we should be very careful about being part of that commentary that might impact other proper processes.

Secrecy provisions are there and privacy provisions are there for very good reasons. Now, whether those privacy provisions manifested in the best outcome here is for others to say, but I don’t think we should throw the baby out of the bathwater. We want to make sure that people have trust in the ATO trust when they give information to agencies that it will be kept private.

But look, this will all be flushed out it will all be flushed out in two inquiries. One by the AFP – there’s been a reference made to them already. And the other by a Senate references inquiry and I don’t want to pre-empt exactly what that particular that references inquiry will find. My colleagues right across the chamber will be investigating this issue, I would imagine, very thoroughly along with others to do with the PwC scandal.

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Rental units only $39 cheaper than houses per week as demand soars for affordable options

CoreLogic says units are now the only option for many tenants but supply is limited, forcing up rents

Renting a house in Australia costs just $39 more a week than renting a unit, compared to a difference of $64 a year ago, new research shows.

Kaytlin Ezzy, an economist at property data firm CoreLogic, said Australians have been increasingly turning to units amid sky-rocketing rents. This has caused the rental price gap between houses and units to shrink as demand for units outstrips supply.

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