Category Archives: New South Wales politics

Dominic Perrottet announces ‘future fund’ for NSW children at Liberal election campaign launch

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Premier pledges up to $400 annually for children to be used on education or housing once turning 18

Every child under 10 in New South Wales will be set up with an account containing $400 as part of an election promise the premier, Dominic Perrottet, said was the “most significant financial security investment” in the state’s history.

Perrottet announced the government’s $850m “signature election policy” at the Liberal campaign launch in Sydney’s west on Sunday, flanked by dozens of children on stage.

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Attacks on Hindu temples have ‘no place in Australia’, PM says; Sydney trains hit by delays – as it happened

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Burketown flood at ‘record levels’ with helicopter evacuations to continue throughout the day. This blog is now closed

Pandemic marriage laws protected LGBTQI people, advocate says

Marriage laws intended to give couples more flexibility through the Covid-19 pandemic offer LGBTQI people critical protection from discrimination and persecution, an advocate says.

This move to enable a celebrant to witness remotely the signing of a notice of intended marriage needs to be made permanent.

It’s not just for the convenience of anyone. There’s still a lot of queer people in Australia who are not out.

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What will it take to win the 2023 NSW election – and what happens if neither side wins a majority?

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Labor needs to pick up nine seats, but if neither major party can get to 47 seats the crossbench will determine the next premier

After three terms in power, the Liberal-National coalition government in New South Wales appears to be on shaky ground, falling behind in the polls and currently operating without a parliamentary majority.

With two weeks to go until the election, there’s still a chance of the Coalition or Labor forming majority or minority government – although a Coalition majority appears least likely.

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‘We are so far behind’: Lynda Edwards says Indigenous voice could spur action on NSW treaty

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Comments from NSW premier’s woman of the year come as government minister rules out progress on treaty if re-elected

The New South Wales premier’s woman of the year says the state is “so far behind everyone else” on a treaty with First Nations people, suggesting a federal voice could lead to action despite a declaration by a Coalition minister that it is not on the agenda.

Lynda Edwards received the title on Thursday, when she was also named the NSW Aboriginal woman of the year by Dominic Perrottet for her work advocating for the financial rights of First Nations people and working to reform the financial sector to better serve them.

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Liberal candidate in Kiama refuses to rule out preference deal with Gareth Ward

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Melanie Gibbons faces awkward exchange with journalists a day after stunning Liberal insiders with preselection

The newly preselected Liberal candidate in Kiama, Melanie Gibbons, has refused to rule out striking a preference deal with the sitting MP Gareth Ward in the forthcoming New South Wales election, saying it is “up to the party”.

Gibbons, who is the outgoing MP in the southern Sydney seat of Holsworthy, endured an awkward exchange with journalists on Thursday after stunning Liberal insiders by lodging an 11th-hour nomination to run in Kiama.

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NSW to grant coalmines licences for water from Sydney and Illawarra drinking catchments

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Perrottet government quietly gazetted rules day before caretaker period commenced for election campaign

The Perrottet government has introduced new rules that will grant coalmines licences for water from the drinking catchment for Sydney and the Illawarra region.

The government quietly gazetted the rules a day before the caretaker period commenced for the New South Wales election campaign.

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‘Not good enough’: Perrottet vows to increase number of women preselected for Liberals in lower house

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Just a third of candidates are women and NSW premier says he is open to all ideas, including quotas

Women account for just a third of the lower house candidates preselected by the Liberal party ahead of the 25 March state election – putting them behind Labor’s 45%, the Greens’ even split and their own target of 40%.

The premier, Dominic Perrottet, conceded his party was falling short and it was not good enough, saying he wanted half of all candidates pursued at the next election to be women, and insisting he was open to all ideas, including quotas.

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Sydney train commuters to get free transport day after rail network outage causes chaos

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Cybersecurity attack ruled out as rail shutdown puts pressure on NSW government before state election

The New South Wales premier, Dominic Perrottet, has apologised for a peak-hour meltdown of the Sydney rail network less than three weeks out from the state election.

The shutdown on Wednesday afternoon left tens of thousands of passengers stranded, with Uber fares spiking to hundreds of dollars in surge-price fees.

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NSW Coalition accused of racism and paternalism after pledge to stop controversial development

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Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council proposed to build 450 homes at Sydney’s Lizard Rock

The New South Wales Coalition has been accused of racist, paternalistic and politically expedient decision-making after it vowed to spike a proposal to build 450 homes in bushland on Sydney’s northern beaches by its Indigenous proponents.

The Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council’s chief executive, Nathan Moran, said the decision by the government to block its plan for the 71 hectare Lizard Rock site was an attempt to save three seats at risk from teal independents at the 25 March election.

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NSW Labor vows to fix ‘broken’ environmental offsets system if elected

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Spokesperson Penny Sharpe says current system has ‘no red lines’ and party will deliver changes within first 18 months of government

New South Wales Labor has promised to fix the state’s “broken” environmental offsets system if it wins government in March, saying current policies are causing decline of endangered ecosystems instead of avoiding more damage.

“I think there’s a role for offsetting but the current system is skewed the wrong way,” the party’s environment spokesperson, Penny Sharpe, said.

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‘Plagued by scandal’: Albanese blasts Perrottet’s government as NSW Labor launches election campaign

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Prime minister received hero’s welcome as state opposition pledged $93m to hire 1,000 apprentices and trainees in the public sector

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has launched a scathing attack on the New South Wales premier Dominic Perrottet’s government, saying it is “plagued by scandal” and slamming its “deficit of character”.

Despite a series of public appearances with Perrottet in recent months in which he has been complimentary of the Coalition premier, Albanese used the official launch of the NSW Labor campaign on Sunday to issue a searing broadside on the government three weeks out from the state election.

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NSW government called out on net zero goal as own data projects coal and gas emissions until 2050

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Data also shows land sector will absorb more carbon than it emits from 2015 despite passage of laws that make land clearing easier

Labor, the Greens and independent politicians have called on the New South Wales government to explain how emissions projections square with its 2050 net zero goal, after its own data showed pollution from coal and gas extending out to mid-century.

The figures, which are contained within the government’s emissions dashboard, also show the land sector growing as a sink for carbon emissions even after the government loosened land clearing laws allowing farmers to remove more vegetation.

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NSW government slams brakes on high-speed rail plans after spending $100m on studies

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Exclusive: Perrottet government backs away from building Sydney-Newcastle fast rail link by itself

The Perrottet government has quietly abandoned its vision to build its own dedicated fast rail line between Sydney and Newcastle despite four years and roughly $100m spent on feasibility studies, abruptly halting work on a final business case just as geotechnical drilling was being planned.

Confidential documents seen by Guardian Australia reveal that the New South Wales transport department now considers further planning and construction of a dedicated fast rail line to Newcastle to be a task for the commonwealth and its yet-to-be-operational High Speed Rail Authority (HSRA) – which will itself re-start feasibility studies when it is formed.

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Australia news live: mediation fails in Sally Rugg’s legal dispute with Monique Ryan; Sticky Fingers axed from Bluesfest

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Ley and Dutton express support for Bridget Archer after rumours Liberal party could dump her

Yesterday our political editor Katharine Murphy brought you the story that a veteran party insider suggested that the Liberal party could dump outspoken moderate Bridget Archer ahead of the next federal election.

Bridget is a friend, a colleague and a terrific member for the seat of Bass. I visited her not that long ago, and she’s doing great work and she’s an amazing woman, amazing woman. And you know, Patricia how much I respond well to amazing women.

Do you think 80,000 people who’ve got more than $3m are really doing it tough?

Well, that $3 million is not indexed. That will change over time. And the principle is the thing that Australians will note.

But are they doing it tough?

I’m not here to say who’s doing it tough and who’s not doing it tough.

Australians are doing it tough, though, aren’t they? And some are obviously not doing it tough.

Well, people are doing it tough for the government that hasn’t got the fiscal policy settings right. And doesn’t understand how to manage money and doesn’t have spending constraints anywhere within its programs. In all of this conversation, we have not heard anyone say that we’re going to save money. I mean, that seems to be just a passing comment from the government. Yes, of course. People are doing tough. They’re doing it tough because they can’t pay their electricity bills. They’re doing it tough because their mortgages are going up.

But they’re not the people with more than $3 million in their super accounts.

I’m not going to comment on what individual people might be experiencing in their family budgets. The direction this government is going is one that breaks faith with the Australian people and misunderstands the sound fundamental basis, which is: it’s your money, you deserve to keep more of it.

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NSW ‘effectively abandoned’ strategy to have less Indigenous children in care, ombudsman finds

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Report says Aboriginal kids now account for 43.8% of children in out-of home care, up from 38.4%

The New South Wales government has been lashed for effectively abandoning its own strategy to reduce the representation of Aboriginal children in out-of-home care and failing its own targets.

The state ombudsman, Paul Miller, handed down a scathing report into the five-year Aboriginal Outcomes Strategy (AOS), noting that since its 2017 launch the Department of Communities and Justice appears to have abandoned it without explanation.

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Rezone more land to get more housing, NSW government says – but that can be a recipe for disaster

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Fast-tracking development in the Macarthur region will give Sydney a massive new infrastructure challenge

It’s a simple and seductive solution: rezone more land on the fringes of Sydney for housing and real estate prices will fall, thanks to greater supply.

But the reality is more complex.

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NSW Labor promises disaster warning systems as Coalition pledges more stamp duty changes

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Chris Minns says, if elected, Labor will spend $3.3m upgrading early warning systems for floods and fires

New South Wales Labor has pledged to invest in world-leading natural disaster detection technology if it can win the state election as the government announces a major plan to expand its overhaul of stamp duty.

“Sadly, natural disasters are becoming more frequent and severe in our state,” the NSW Labor leader, Chris Minns, said on Sunday.

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Corruption watchdog warned NSW government of risks around plan to fast-track rezoning of land for housing

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Independent Commission Against Corruption warned ‘a favourable rezoning’ of large swathes on Sydney’s fringes could deliver windfall to developers

The New South Wales corruption watchdog advised the state’s department of planning that its decision to fast-track large areas of land for rezoning for new housing carried with it a number of risks, Guardian Australia can reveal.

The Independent Commission Against Corruption warned that “a favourable rezoning” under the plan to rezone large swathes of land on Sydney’s fringes “could deliver a significant windfall to an applicant” and that this could prompt applicants to attempt “various lobbying techniques”, including “direct approaches to the minister”, and “using or cultivating personal contacts” within the department.

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Medibank records profit rise despite data breach – as it happened

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Husic refuses to comment on crossbench negotiations over coal and gas

Moving on from science and industry, Ed Husic is asked if the approval for Santos to expand its Queensland gas field has killed off the government’s negotiations with the Greens over the national reconstruction fund (which Husic has carriage of) and safeguards (where there is a little crossover with Husic, because of manufacturing).

I’m very grateful for their engagement, all the engagement from the crossbenchers, and I’ve sought to make myself as available as I possibly can to work through issues some stuff we agree on some stuff we don’t I would love to go into the ins and outs of it, but I’d rather private negotiations sort themselves out because they will obviously be made public very soon and people that rightly expect that to happen.

But, you know, I am grateful that some of those points that are raised because from our point of view, and I think you heard in the PM’s speech yesterday – we take a view as a government that we’re not the holders of all knowledge, that we do accept, accept and expect people to provide their input so that we can build a better outcome.

I think what we’ve tried to do as a government is say we’re going to make decisions in the way that they’re supposed to.

We don’t want decisions to be politicised. We want them to be done a national interest and there’ll be pathways to making decisions that will be quite separate. So the big thing coming to your question, the answer I would, I would give you is they’re separate things.

I want them [the public] to answer that question.

I want them to guide us in the way in which we shape research priorities into the future. The last time that we actually updated these national science and research priorities was in 2015, back when Malcolm Turnbull took over as prime minister, a lot has happened since then.

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Australia news live: defence pursuing joint patrols with Philippines in South China Sea, Marles says

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It comes as Anthony Albanese grilled on balance of power under Aukus after press club address. Follow the day’s news live

Chalmers highlights importance of sustainability of superannuation

Treasurer Jim Chalmers isn’t ruling in or out whether there will be any changes on superannuation tax concessions in the May budget.

I’ll tell you what I think. I gave a longish speech about this on Monday, where I said the priority [of] super is and should be nailing down the objective. For too long, the lack of an agreed objective has meant that our predecessors could mess with superannuation when it came to all kinds of ideological pursuits. We want to take that out of the system.

Ideally, we’d want to get some kind of broad agreement amongst the industry in the community … about what super is for, so that we can build from that. And as part of that speech, I pointed out the fact … that the cost of superannuation tax concessions will overtake the cost of the pension. That’s a fact.

Not necessarily.

I just think as part of a broader assessment of where our superannuation system is at and how we locked down the objective of super so that we can provide more certainty and security around its purpose, as part of that I acknowledged earlier in the week, that these concessions in the superannuation system, they’re not cheap. I don’t think it’s especially controversial to acknowledge that.

Well, as I keep saying, we haven’t changed their view. We haven’t taken any decisions.

We haven’t determined that.

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