Category Archives: New South Wales politics

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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Byron Bay faces housing crisis as short-term rentals such as Airbnb surge, residents say

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The thriving tourism industry is ‘undermining the fabric of our society’, one local tells public hearing into proposed cap

Byron Bay residents have voiced their outrage at the impact short-term rentals have had on the region, with some claiming the area has been invaded.

The New South Wales Independent Planning Commission held its first day of a public hearing into a proposal by the local council to drop the number of days available for short-term rentals from 180 to 90 a year.

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NSW Labor pledges $1bn state-owned investment company for renewable projects if elected

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‘Privatisation does not work. It has been a disaster for New South Wales and under Labor it stops,’ leader Chris Minns says

A New South Wales Labor government would create a $1bn state-owned energy security company to drive investment in renewable energy projects and lower prices in the state, the party’s leader, Chris Minns, has said.

On Sunday, Labor will pledge to establish a NSW “energy security corporation”, an investment vehicle for renewable energy projects in the state, should the party win the 24 March state election.

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NSW Liberals disendorse Peter Poulos ahead of election over explicit photo sharing scandal

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The premier, Dominic Perrottet, had said he was appalled and disgusted by the situation

The New South Wales Liberals have cut the upper house government MP Peter Poulos from their election ticket, five weeks out from the election, after the premier called on his party to act over an explicit photo scandal.

Poulos had resigned on Friday from his parliamentary secretary role after apologising for emailing explicit images of a female rival five years ago.

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Labor candidate Terry Campese quits NSW election race amid media reports about his behaviour

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Former NRL star pulls out on the same day that NSW Greens unveiled policy to lower voting age to 16

The former Canberra Raiders captain Terry Campese has pulled out as Labor’s candidate for the New South Wales seat of Monaro after a series of reports into his behaviour.

The charity founder and former rugby league player was an outside chance of taking the seat at the March state election – Monaro was formerly held by former Nationals leader John Barilaro from 2011 until his retirement in 2021.

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‘I really was broken’: survivor welcomes Dominic Perrottet agreeing to ban gay conversion practices

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NSW premier gives bill ‘in-principle’ support as independent Alex Greenwich hails a ‘good day for our state’

Growing up as a teenager in the suburbs of Sydney, Chris Csabs was led to believe he needed to be “fixed”.

“I was gay and had grown up steeped in an ideology that told me that God had not made me that way. That there was a negative cause to my homosexuality,” he said.

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Matt Kean backs push to outlaw gay conversion practices in NSW

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Leading Coalition moderate says he supports the concept but is waiting to see Alex Greenwich’s bill

The New South Wales treasurer, Matt Kean, says he “wholeheartedly” supports a push to outlaw gay conversion practices in the state, despite the premier, Dominic Perrottet, refusing to say whether he would support a ban.

As Sydney prepares to play host to the WorldPride festival beginning this week, the powerful crossbench MP Alex Greenwich has made a ban on the practice a condition of his support in the event of a hung parliament after the March state election.

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Dominic Perrottet’s brother sought $50,000 donation to unseat federal Liberal MP Alex Hawke, inquiry told

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Businessman tells NSW inquiry he was approached by Jean-Claude Perrottet because of his previous support for Malcolm Turnbull

A Sydney engineer with links to a former prime minister says the New South Wales premier’s brother approached him for a $50,000 donation in a bid to unseat a federal MP.

Businessman Frits Mare told a NSW parliamentary inquiry on Wednesday that Jean-Claude Perrottet, along with the Hills shire councillor Christian Ellis, asked for a $50,000 contribution from him in 2019 to unseat Alex Hawke.

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‘Rorting’ claims over bushfire grants rejected by NSW premier

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Federal emergency management minister Murray Watt criticises state cabinet over relief program

Dominic Perrottet has defended his role in the New South Wales government’s allocation of Black Summer recovery grants after the federal emergency management minister, Murray Watt, accused him of being part of a “rorting” process that saw money funnelled away from Labor electorates.

The allegations were made after a national emergency management agency official told Senate estimates this week that they understood the grants went to the NSW cabinet’s expenditure review committee (ECR) before being finalised.

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NSW parliamentary inquiry to use firm to track down key witnesses, including two of Dominic Perrottet’s brothers

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Committee examining allegations of ‘impropriety’ against a Sydney council and developers will take the unusual step of using a private contractor to serve summons

A New South Wales parliamentary inquiry examining allegations of “impropriety” against a suburban Sydney council and property developers says it will hire private contractors to track down key witnesses who are “failing to cooperate” with the inquiry, including two of Dominic Perrottet’s brothers, in an extraordinary bid to force them to answer questions at a public hearing.

On Tuesday an upper house committee examining the “role and influence of developers and their interactions with councillors and members of parliament” at the Hills Shire council took the unusual step of saying it would contract a private firm to issue Charles and Jean-Claude Perrottet with formal summons to appear.

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‘Silent epidemic’: almost two-thirds of Sydney’s gambling losses occur in city’s west

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Cost-of-living pressures, disadvantage and ‘oversaturation’ of machines in the region leading to higher levels of gambling-related harm, researchers say

Almost two-thirds of Sydney’s gambling losses come from western Sydney, with advocates concerned the cost-of-living crisis is exacerbating problem gambling in the region.

A research paper from Western Sydney University, which has called gambling-related harm a “silent epidemic”, also says three LGAs in western Sydney account for a third of Sydney’s total gambling losses.

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Dominic Perrottet defends appointment of Liberal donor brother of Angus Taylor to NSW body

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Exclusive: Party treasurer Charlie Taylor has attended fundraisers hosted by the minister who appointed him

Dominic Perrottet has defended his government’s appointment of a senior Liberal official – who made thousands of dollars in political donations to the party – as the chair of a New South Wales productivity council set up to provide independent advice on innovation.

In January the state’s innovation minister, Alistair Henskens, appointed Charlie Taylor to chair the state’s Innovation and Productivity Council (IPC).

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Labor must meet ‘fundamental test’ of character on poker machine reform, Andrew Wilkie says

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Party is under pressure on gambling measures after NSW Coalition announced cashless gaming scheme

The federal independent MP Andrew Wilkie has declared gambling reform as a “fundamental test” of character for Labor as pressure mounts on the party at the state and federal level to follow the New South Wales Coalition in committing to action on poker machines.

This came after the Perrottet government unveiled a $344m plan to switch the state to cashless poker machines over the next five years – a move that has been resisted by the state’s Labor leader, Chris Minns, who has only committed to a limited trial.

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Greens vow action as huge rent hikes see adults forced to move back in with parents

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Exclusive: Party seeking rent freezes, new body to set controls on prices and end to no-grounds evictions

Jeremy Bryant wasn’t expecting to be moving back in with his parents just a few weeks after turning 30.

But that’s where the successful musician and university student now finds himself, along with his little brother, after the rent on their Redfern home was raised by $110 a week.

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