Category Archives: Labor party

Gladys Berejiklian Icac report live updates: Chris Minns says findings took ‘way too long’ as Matt Kean criticises ‘ridiculous display’ – latest news

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Icac finds former premier and Daryl Maguire engaged in ‘serious corrupt conduct’, but says it does not want the DPP to consider prosecuting Berejiklian. Follow live updates

We are waiting on the publication of the Icac report. But it appears the Icac website has crashed under the load.

Stay with us. We will bring you the findings as soon as we possibly can.

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Australia news live: Tanya Plibersek announces audit of 1,000 environmental offset sites to check if they are delivering on promises

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Treasurer Jim Chalmers wants to maintain strong budget position while rolling out existing policies; federal government cancels satellite program. Follow the day’s news live

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, denies Australia’s first budget surplus in more than a decade comes at the expense of under-pressure households as the cost of living rises, AAP reports.

Chalmers has confirmed there will be a larger surplus for the 2022/23 financial year than predicted in last month’s federal budget.

By getting the budget in much better nick by finding savings ... it actually makes it possible from that much stronger foundation to provide the $15bn of cost-of-living relief that we had in the budget.

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Banks stick to rate hike predictions – as it happened

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Historical societies say banning hate symbols could impact history preservation

Historical societies are also concerned about the proposal to ban Nazi and Islamic State symbols, AAP reports. They worry it will limit education and the preservation of history, and impact memorabilia value.

Modellers need to be able to purchase these items (and) symbols, let alone the basic right of Australian citizens to partake in the legitimate hobby of collecting modelling military items.

The words inscribed on the Islamic flag are sacred words and written by Muslims on a daily basis.

These words are taken directly from our scripture, the Holy Quran, and therefore cannot be subject to a ban.

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PwC walks back report used to claim Australia’s nature repair market could be worth $137bn

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Report cited by environment minister in support of offset bill was criticised for inflated figures and lack of clarity on outcomes

PwC has walked back a report used to claim the nature repair market could be worth $137bn, accepting it measures “indirect spending towards biodiversity” but the amount spent on “threatened species conservation, with clear outcomes, is likely much less”.

The consultancy firm made that submission to a Senate inquiry examining the Albanese government’s nature repair market bill in response to a critique of the report from progressive thinktank the Australia Institute.

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PM launches byelection campaign – as it happened

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Birmingham tells RN he is ‘conflicted’ over voice to parliament

Shadow foreign minister, Simon Birmingham, avoids disclosing what he will vote in the voice referendum, dodging ABC RN’s Patricia Karvelas’ questions.

Do you support the voice?

I’ve been clear that I don’t intend to actively campaign in the referendum.

Why aren’t you taking a position? I mean, you’re making it clear that you want it to be private. If it’s private, that means you are actually sitting on the fence.

Patricia, I think you can hear from my answer there, that I am, in some ways conflicted and think this is a very difficult situation the country has been put in, that we have got a question before a proposed change.

We’re getting a situation where the government is not really directly responding to Ukraine’s requests for the Hawkei vehicles, or the Abrams tanks, nor the D mining equipment they’ve asked for.

[The Albanese government’s] contribution in terms of humanitarian assistance is simply $10m compared with the $65m that had been provided previously. So this is a concern …

Status as the leading non-Nato contributor to Ukraine has slipped away and the type of support being offered now doesn’t seem to be either meeting Ukraine’s requests, providing the modern equipment that they want or need, nor the type of scale that would seem to keep Australia commensurate support of our other parts.

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Deputy PM says Russia uprising ‘a crack in the edifice’ – as it happened

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O’Neil defends decision to keep Nauru offshore processing open

Home affairs and cyber security minister Clare O’Neil was asked about why the offshore processing site on Nauru is being kept open if the last refugee has been removed on ABC RN this morning.

It is an unmitigated good thing for the country that we’ve transitioned the last asylum seeker off Nauru. This has been a festering sore in Australian politics for more than a decade. And I’m very pleased that our government has taken that approach of making sure that we bring that to a close.

However, it is very important that we maintain our strength on the borders. Offshore processing is a part of our overall approach and that is why Nauru will remain open and on standby.

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PwC to publicly name all staff involved in tax scandal, inquiry told

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CEO Kristin Stubbins says once internal investigation is complete there will be ‘appropriate accountability’ for those found to have acted inappropriately

The consultancy firm PwC will name all staff involved in the tax scandal shortly after it completes an internal investigation.

“This is a comprehensive, detailed investigation and as you can appreciate, we need to get it right,” acting PwC chief executive, Kristin Stubbins, told a parliamentary inquiry on Monday.

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Scandal-hit PwC announces new Australian boss – as it happened

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States will ‘do their own things’ on rent caps: Collins

Speers asks for what evidence Collins is referring to. The minister points to research by Graeme Samuel, former boss of the ACCC, which she referred to in parliament this week and again reiterates the talking point:

The overwhelming evidence suggests that it doesn’t work. States and territories will do their own things in terms of this. What we are being asked to do here is have eight different jurisdictions make these decisions at the same time and we have been told very clearly from those jurisdictions that they won’t be doing this. Some states have already ruled out both freezes and caps. What we’ve been asked to do is simply not achievable and we won’t commit to something that is not achievable, David.

When you look at the evidence that has been cited by others, the evidence shows that it reduces supply significantly by up to 15%. The other thing that it shows is the quality of the stock diminishes over time, so I will look at the data and the evidence and the data and the evidence says that it doesn’t work.

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Albanese says Russia should withdraw from Ukraine; Australia sanctions three MH17 culprits – as it happened

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Australian prime minister says ‘it is Russia and its involvement that keeps this war going’. This blog is now closed

Forced property sales on the rise in outer Sydney as interest rate hikes start to bite

My colleagues, Peter Hannam and Nick Evershed have this report on the rise in forced property sales as interest rate rises begin to bite.

Sydney’s outer suburbs are showing signs of rising numbers of distressed property sales with higher interest rates the likely cause, a trend that can be expected to spread to other capitals, according to property data group Domain.

Distressed listings as a share of the national market remain low, at about 2.8% across the capital cities, compared with a record 5.1% in late 2018.

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Australia news live: NSW premier refutes cover-up allegations over police Tasering of 95-year-old woman

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PwC should not be banned from government work but should face ‘significant sanction’, Dutton says

Following the damning interim Senate report into PwC, Dutton says he does not believe the consultancy firm should be cut from all government work, but says a penalty needs to be incurred for the breach of trust:

I think where people have breached a contract, they’ve breached trust, there’s a penalty and the price that should be paid. I don’t know whether that’s the company or whether there’s a solution that the government can provide to it but there’s there’s a significant sanction that’s that’s required – no doubt the government will be looking into that right now.

All of the pollsters at the moment, and credible commentators, believe that it’s either going to fail in October or, best case scenario for the yes case, that gets up 51-49. And in that scenario, our nation is split down the middle.

I think there’s an opportunity to unite our country here instead of divide, and that is that we should proceed with constitutional recognition.

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Labor under fire from crossbench over $1.5bn stake in Middle Arm industrial precinct

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Zali Steggall and David Pocock take aim at government over support of development on Darwin habour which will benefit gas industry

The Albanese government has come under pressure from the crossbench over its $1.5bn stake in a “sustainable” development precinct on Darwin harbour after documents revealed the project would benefit the gas industry.

In question time on Thursday, the independent MP for Warringah, Zali Steggall, asked the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, why his government had “backflipped” and blocked a Senate inquiry into the Middle Arm industrial precinct.

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Labor under pressure to freeze rents as Greens and Coalition back inquiry into housing crisis

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Greens urged to back government’s fund as advocates say housing is needed now and politicians need to ‘start taking action’

The Senate has set up an inquiry into the rental crisis, a process designed by the Greens to pressure the Albanese government to agree to freeze or cap rising rents.

On Monday the Greens voted with the Coalition to delay consideration of Labor’s $10bn Housing Australia Future Fund (Haff) until 16 October, despite pressure from housing groups to pass the bill after the government pledged $2bn of direct funding for social and affordable housing.

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Greens and Coalition unite to refer bill to its own inquiry

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Albanese takes swipes at the Greens

The Midwinter Ball was held overnight. It seems to have been a fairly staid affair but I am still ferreting out info.

Consulting firm PwC engaged in a “calculated” breach of trust by using confidential information to help its clients avoid tax and engaged in a “deliberate cover-up” over many years, a Senate committee has found.

PwC should be “open and honest” by promptly publishing the names and details of its partners and staff involved, the finance and public administration committee has recommended.

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Politicians dress up for Canberra’s night of nights – as it happened

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Lambie agrees with calls to have Iraq invasion decision referred to ICC

Jacqui Lambie says she also agrees with calls to have the leaders of the “coalition of the willing” – the leaders of the UK, the US and Australia when the decision was made to invade Iraq – also referred to the international criminal court. Beyond that, she says Australia has never really examined its role in that decision.

I absolutely agree with and when you go in to Iraq, and you say you have a reason to do that … when you work out three years later that the reason that they were using was not there at all, then we have a massive problem here and you continue to stay in a war that you probably should never have been involved in the first place because you didn’t have that information correct.

Then you have a problem. And quite frankly, politicians when they send us into war, they should be accountable as well.

If Australia – and both governments we’ve seen it from the Liberal party and now from the Labor party – if they’re not prepared to go in and look at senior command … I’m going to force them to.

Because you are not going to chuck all these diggers under the bus and not [front] up.

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Australia politics live: Don Farrell warns delaying housing bill could lead to double dissolution election

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Chalmers to herald record job growth

Treasurer Jim Chalmers will no doubt take a dixer on this today – the Albanese government has “had the strongest job growth in the first year of any new government on record”.

The number of Australians with a job is now more than 14 million for the very first time.

Australia’s participation rate is 66.9% – the highest on record, primarily driven by record high participation for women (62.7%).

The share of women in work is at a record high – with the employment to population ration for women at 60.5%.

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Greens and Coalition put Labor’s housing fund in a deep freeze as bill stalls in Senate

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Labor’s Don Farrell warns the government will regard the delay until October as a ‘failure to pass’ the bill

The $10bn Housing Australia future fund will not pass parliament this week, after the Greens and Coalition teamed up in the Senate to delay the bill until October.

The impasse prompted a blunt crossbench message that the Greens were “hurting people” while Labor’s Dan Farrell called the Greens and Coalition “the axis of evil”.

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Australia needs to reduce emissions to net zero by 2038 to do ‘fair share’ to contain global heating, analysis shows

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Exclusive: Researchers say government’s climate schedule needs to be brought forward by a decade to keep heating to 1.5C

Australia’s fair share of action to give the world a chance of keeping global heating to 1.5C would mean reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2038 – more than a decade ahead of the government’s schedule, according to new scientific analysis.

To stay on track to keep global heating of 1.5C within reach – a goal the climate change and energy minister Chris Bowen has described as vital – Australia’s 2035 target would need to see a cut of 90% on 2005 levels by 2035, the analysis says.

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Greens renew push for rent freeze as housing bodies say ‘time is of the essence’ to pass Labor bill

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Nick McKim to introduce private member’s bill in Senate to promote market intervention

The Greens will continue to push for a national freeze on rents and interest rate rises, declaring there is more the Albanese government can do to address Australia’s housing cost crisis.

Their call comes as the country’s peak housing bodies call for the debate deadlock to be broken and for Labor’s Housing Australia future fund to be passed this week.

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No pets allowed: NSW pushed to act on ‘urgent’ need to make rentals more animal-friendly

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Animal Justice party will put forward an amendment to the government’s bill that further strengthens laws allowing renters to own pets

The New South Wales government is being pushed to make rentals animal-friendly sooner as pet owners find it increasingly hard to find a home and pounds see an influx of renters giving up their pets.

Labor promised in the lead-up to the election that it would make it easier for renters to own pets, with plans to give landlords 21 days to respond to a renter’s request to own a pet. If the landlord refuses within the timeframe, they must put their reason to the yet to be established rental commissioner for a final decision.

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Greens say PM’s $2bn pledge for social housing is not enough for them to back Labor’s future fund

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Max Chandler-Mather says the Greens will keep pushing for a freeze and caps on rent increases

The Greens have claimed victory in securing an additional $2bn for social housing across Australia, but say it is not yet enough to secure their support for the government’s Housing Australia Future Fund.

Instead, the Greens plan to continue to push for federal action on rent caps and freezes in a bid to deal with the country’s housing crisis.

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