The opposition is out for vengeance over what it sees as ‘collusion’ and ‘weaponisation’ but Labor will no doubt push back
What an edifying spectacle parliament is going to be this week.
The Coalition’s two-year old wound caused by accusations it mishandled Brittany Higgins’ rape allegation has been reopened, and they’re out for vengeance.
Continue reading...Anika Wells says taskforce will include consideration of levies but government ‘still not advocating any particular proposal’
The aged care minister, Anika Wells, says Australians want more “choice” on aged care and would be prepared to pay for it, as the government mulls the introduction of a user-pays system.
Wells told ABC’s Insiders the Albanese government’s position on aged care was consistent, playing down calls for a levy before the election because it was “still not advocating any particular proposal”, merely establishing a taskforce which will consider how to make aged care sustainable.
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Continue reading...Finance minister says she was in contact with David Sharaz but did not know the full allegations or decide ‘to weaponise’ them
The finance minister, Katy Gallagher, has insisted she did not mislead parliament over her knowledge of Brittany Higgins’ rape allegation.
On Saturday she said that while she had been in contact with Higgins’ partner, David Sharaz, and was aware of some details of the story before it broke, she had not known the full allegations nor had she “made a decision to weaponise it”.
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Continue reading...Coalition presses finance minister over her comment to Senate estimates that ‘no one had any knowledge’ before rape allegation was made public
Anthony Albanese has denied that the finance minister, Katy Gallagher, misled the Senate by insisting “no one had any knowledge” before Brittany Higgins made her rape allegation in February 2021.
The opposition is continuing to press Gallagher for an explanation of her evidence to Senate estimates, which has come under question due to the release of text messages between Higgins and her partner, David Sharaz, suggesting contact with Gallagher four days before the story broke.
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Continue reading...Guild says it adheres to all relevant privacy laws as medical association says patient’s personal information is ‘sacrosanct, not a plaything’
The health department has expressed concern the Pharmacy Guild appears to be using patient contact details from its “Find a Pharmacy” website to campaign against 60-day medicine dispensing.
Meanwhile, the Australian Medical Association has labelled the Pharmacy Guild’s opposition to the new rules a “sick joke”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Former PM directly warned cabinet ministers over China, the Pacific and US hegemony prior to his pointed speech at the National Press Club
At 10.45am on Wednesday 15 March, an explosive email landed in the inboxes of all of Anthony Albanese’s cabinet ministers.
“Dear cabinet colleagues,” wrote Paul Keating, Labor luminary turned chief Aukus critic.
Continue reading...Treasurer points finger at inflation, adding ‘people are under pressure and the global economic conditions are not helping either’. Follow live
Parts of Victoria and South Australia are being warned to expect heavy rainfall today.
The heavy rain that’s already hit Western Australia is sweeping across the country, with South Australia’s Riverland and Murraylands warned to brace for heavy rainfall to last until Friday.
We want to see productivity get going. We have had the worst decade, I think, in productivity growth in the last 60 years in the previous decade so there’s a lot of work to do. We can’t turn that around in one year.
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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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Premier suffered lowest approval rating on record in recent poll but message at Queensland Labor state conference was about unity
The first day of the Queensland Labor state conference was as rehearsed as the government probably hoped, with little infighting or division on display.
In the sugar town of Mackay, where Labor has held the state seat for more than a century, MPs were keen to portray the government as a united front ahead of next October’s election and to keep the focus on three key pressure points: cost of living, health and youth crime.
Continue reading...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”.
Continue reading...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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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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Adam Bandt rails against Woodside’s exclusion from petroleum resource rent tax
Greens leader Adam Bandt is speaking to ABC radio RN Breakfast about the petroleum resource rent tax (PRRT) changes and in particular the fact that Woodside’s Western Australian North-West Shelf project isn’t included in it.
The tax is still broken, and they’re meant to be subjected to it. They should pay their fair share of tax. As I say, even after these changes, Australia only brings in a few $100 million extra from these big gas corporations that are making billions of dollars of profits. It’s about a 10th of what comparable countries bring in. If we made these guess corporations pay their fair share of tax. They’d be an extra $94 billion over the decade to go to things like delivering cost-of-living relief, funding a rent freeze, getting dental into Medicare.
Continue reading...After being lauded for his tough Covid response and winning the most one-sided election in Australian history, Labor premier goes out at the top
It is telling that, at the age of 55, Western Australia’s premier, Mark McGowan, cited exhaustion, rather than the fulfilment of political ambition, as the main reason for his sudden resignation.
McGowan strode into the state’s highest office in 2017, but it was his Covid response that propelled him into unprecedented power in 2021, with his party wining the most one-sided election result in Australia’s history – taking 53 of 59 seats in the lower house.
Continue reading...Thousands of people contacted Geoscience Australia to report they felt shaking, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or serious damage. Follow the latest updates
Paterson says the Indigenous voice to parliament’s differentiation on the basis of characteristics people have no control over is “offensive to liberal principles.”
Asked about whether he agrees with his leader Peter Dutton, when he talks about the voice re-racialising Australia, Patterson says:
What proponents of the yes campaign are trying to do is to treat Australians differently. …what we are doing is putting into our constitutional something which treats people differently because of a characteristic over which they have control. And I think that is offensive to liberal principles. And we are all human beings and we’re all Australian, and we should be all treated equally before the law before the Constitution as well.
It is in Australia’s national interest that Ukraine prevail. We have to do everything in our power to ensure they do.
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Minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, is speaking from the Northern Territory on the Indigenous voice to parliament as today marks 56 years since the 1967 referendum.
Today marks 56 years since the 1967 referendum. One of the most successful federal referendums in Australia’s history. A day when Australians came together to vote to change the constitution so Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people would be counted as part of the population.
As a nation, we look back at the 1967 referendum, at Charlie Perkins and his freedom rights, at more than a 90% vote “yes” which was done with great pride.
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