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Western Australian gas companies Mineral Resources and Woodside gave more than $20,000 to WA Labor while it was considering changes to its domestic gas policy that allowed more gas to be exported from the state.
Labor’s multicultural branch in Western Australia is in upheaval, with two officeholders quitting the party in protest at the treatment of Fatima Payman.
Guardian Australia can reveal that the branch’s treasurer and vice-president have resigned, with one claiming the party had “become a spineless jellyfish” that “throws its own under the bus at the drop of a hat”.
Australia needs more gas supply on east coast, Albanese says
Anthony Albanese is speaking to the ABC from Devonport.
We’ll work those issues through with Aemo.
We need more gas supply. We announced our future gas strategy a short while ago because we understand that we need more supply. Gas has an important role to play in manufacturing in particular. But also in providing firming capacity for the renewables rollout.
Asbestos scattered over residential streets has prompted a “hazmat emergency” response in Western Australia’s south-west, with specialist crews urgently working to contain any possible exposure aftter a devastating tornado.
More than 100 homes were damaged when the tornado ripped off roofs, collapsed walls and sucked up debris into the sky at Bunbury on Friday afternoon.
Two 17-year-old climate activists are alleging the Western Australian premier, Roger Cook, defamed them by falsely claiming during a press conference they intimidated and threatened the children of the CEO and chair of petroleum giant Woodside Energy.
The two teenagers, Emma Heyink and Tom Power, are activists involved with campaign group Disrupt Burrup Hub and were involved in a protest at the Woodside annual general meeting at Crown Casino last Wednesday.
The Western Australian government has apologised and scrapped its controversial Indigenous cultural heritage protection laws just weeks after they came into effect.
The premier, Roger Cook, and Aboriginal affairs minister, Tony Buti, made the announcement after days of speculation and months of intense pressure from the state’s farming, mining and pastoralist industries over concerns the new laws were confusing and difficult to implement.
An Indigenous group says it is devastated by reports cultural heritage laws that came into effect in Western Australia just over a month ago may be scrapped following a backlash from farmers.
The Labor government foreshadowed the about-face at a briefing with big resources companies and Indigenous groups on Friday, the West Australian reported on Saturday. An announcement is expected “within days”, it added.
Magenta Marshall claims victory in former Western Australian leader’s seat but opposition leader says plunge in ALP’s primary vote should be a ‘wake-up call’
Western Australian premier Roger Cook is playing down a swing away from Labor in the wake of his government comfortably retaining the seat of Rockingham in Perth’s south.
Labor strategist Magenta Marshall cruised to victory in the Rockingham byelection, triggered by the retirement of former premier Mark McGowan, after polling 49.41% of the primary vote.
Legalise Cannabis MPs are launching a coordinated push to make marijuana legal for personal use in three states and overhaul what the party says is outdated legislation that unnecessarily criminalises people.
The party’s drug reform bill will be introduced on Tuesday in state parliaments in Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia – the jurisdictions where it has representation in the state’s upper houses.
Health authorities in Western Australia heard allegations of abuse at the Esther Foundation in 2018 – well before the Morrison government awarded the foundation a $4m grant.
The grant to the religious rehabilitation centre, which has been accused of exorcisms and gay conversion practices, was part of the $2bn Community Health and Hospitals Program (CHHP). The national audit office this week accused the former government of deliberately breaching the CHHP guidelines, giving out grants likely to be unlawful, and falling short of “ethical requirements”.
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.
The New South Wales premier, Dominic Perrottet, says his government will not introduce a congestion charge but researchers are calling for the major road transport reform not to be ruled out so quickly.
“There is no plan for a congestion tax and and we can rule it out completely,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
Things get trickier when Speers asked Keneally whether Labor believes schools should be allowed to hire and fire teachers based on whether they are gay or transgender under the law.
Keneally started by saying that “Labor also supports the right of religious schools, faith-based schools to be able to hire staff, whether it is teachers or other staff, that support the mission and the values of the school.”
And so it’s straightforward with children, we think there are some slight complexities with teachers and staff that should be looked at by the Australian Law Reform Commission.”
David, let’s look at what Labor did in the parliament this week. We do believe that people of faith deserve protection from discrimination and extending the law to do that and we think that should not come at the expense of increasing discrimination to other groups of people.We also believe that students at school should be protected and that reflected in the amendments we moved and supported.
So we would like to see the government now accept that amendment that has been supported by the House of Representatives with those five Liberals crossing the floor, and they should just get this bill done. The prime minister promised some years ago to people of faith he would provide this legislative protection. He promised in writing that he would protect children. He is – if he is going to break that promise, he needs to explain it to the Australian people.
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There’s a press conference with the PM at 1.40pm AEST.
Gerry Harvey has now repaid $6 million in JobKeeper out of the $13 billion that went to companies with rising revenue. Gerry Harvey think it is money should be paid back. Why doesn’t the Treasurer?
Anthony Albanese to Scott Morrison:
My question as to the prime minister. Most economists expect the economic growth to slow in the June quarter and it is now going backwards in the September quarter. Why does the prime minister not take responsibility for the fact that Australia’s economic recovery was always hostage to his failures on vaccines and quarantine?
Australia is one of the few countries in the world that after the Covid-19 recession of last year saw our economy grow back to a level higher than it was before the pandemic started, and that is before Delta hit, and saw 1 million people, a million people get back into work.
That was the product of economic policies that not only provided significant, in fact unprecedented economic support, both to individuals who had lost hours and had been stood down, through jobkeeper but also through ... the many other measures that supported businesses to see their way through at a time. Particularly last year at the outset of Covid when the uncertainty was at such a level that it was like looking into an economic abyss. And so the certainty that was provided by the government that stepped in with the single largest economic intervention in Australia’s history. Gave businesses, gave families, gave individual employees the confidence to be able to get up the next day and see it through, and do it again, day after day, month after month.
New South Wales recorded 24 new cases of Covid, including an aged care worker believed to be unvaccinated and a second healthcare worker, as the state’s coronavirus outbreak rose to 195.
The premier, Gladys Berejiklian, expressed concern that “around half” of the new cases on Thursday were out in the community while infectious and urged anyone with symptoms to get tested and isolate.
Rio Tinto’s reputation is in pieces, but the laws, policies and power imbalances that allowed the blast to happen remain largely unchanged
The Western Australian government has refused to commit to a moratorium on approving the destruction of Aboriginal heritage sites, despite the recommendation of a federal inquiry which found that the laws are “unfit for purpose”.