Australia news live: Dutton says he ‘respects’ Crisafulli’s rejection of nuclear power but will push for a ‘mature conversation’

Earlier this morning, David Crisafulli said it was still a ‘no’ to any nuclear proposal, and Dutton said he ‘respected’ that. Follow the day’s news live

Employment minister Murray Watt has refused to comment on reports Anthony Albanese used his membership in Qantas’s chairman’s lounge to solicit flight upgrades when he was transport minister and opposition leader.

Watt was on RN Breakfast, where he refused to be drawn on what he called “unsourced claim by a journalist” that Albanese would reach out directly to former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce directly about his travel.

If you have a look at Peter Dutton behaviour, for example, several upgrades from the Qantas and other airlines, he’s had free flights paid for by Gina Rinehart.

I really would wonder whether it’s wise for the opposition to start calling this kind of stuff into question.

We obviously spend an enormous amount of time at airports. I think this week, I’m going to be in about three or four different cities, flying from place to place. And it is helpful from time to time, to be able to have private meetings or private environments, to be able to have teams meetings with your office, which I do every time I fly.

We want Labor to negotiate like we did in the previous housing legislation, where we not only improved and passed Labour’s housing legislation, but we got $3bn to start building public and community housing.

I think this is part of the message that we’re trying to give to the government. We are up for negotiation.

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Shutdown of 3G networks a ‘health and safety issue’ for some regional Australians

Telcos promised no loss of coverage but farmers outside official coverage areas fear their lifeline will turn off

Stacey Storrier was told she was “lucky” that she received mobile phone service at her home in the New South Wales Riverina region.

But when Telstra’s 3G network is switched off on 30 June, that luck will run out.

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Telstra apologises to family of Victorian who died during triple zero outage

Government says regulator is looking into the disruption which prevented more than 100 calls being transferred to emergency services

Telstra has apologised for a technical issue that meant Australians were not able to speak to trained triple zero call takers for more than an hour.

The telecommunications giant issued the apology to people who were unable to make phone calls to triple zero for more than an hour on Friday morning.

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Optus best mobile network for overall availability and Vodafone leads for 5G, report finds

In test of Australia’s three networks, Open Signal finds Telstra has most consistent user experience overall

Telstra may be Australia’s largest 5G network but Optus fares better for overall network availability and Vodafone leads for 5G availability, according to Open Signal’s latest review of the country’s three mobile networks.

Analyst firm Open Signal tested the three networks across the country in city and regional locations for three months from January to March this year.

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ACTU will not push for spot on RBA board as review released – as it happened

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Bandt: if budget can afford stage-three tax cuts it can afford to lift Australians out of poverty.

Bandt is also highly critical of the government as it appears set to reject a call from its very own expert advisory panel to raise the jobseeker rate. He says if the budget can afford to keep stage-three tax cuts, it can afford to lift Australians out of poverty:

Everyday people are not causing inflation. They are the victims of inflation. Now, Labor has found over a quarter of a trillion dollars for tax cuts for billionaires and politicians that can’t lift people out of poverty.

Labor’s not making hard choices in this budget, they’re making everyone else make hard choices, like whether to pay for the rent or whether to put food on the table.

We’ll have a look at all of the recommendations of the review, and the government’s response when it’s released fully but a major party stitch up isn’t going to fix the inflation problem.

We need more than just outsourcing the issue of tackling inflation to the RBA, which is what Liberal and Labor want to do. We know that it is excessive profiteering that is driving higher prices and inflation in this country. It’s not the everyday people.

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Banks raise interest rates in response to RBA – as it happened

Australian dollar drops and shares bounce higher on reserve bank’s dovish move. This blog is now closed

Sexual violence rife on dating apps

Dating apps need to better protect their users after a study revealed high rates of sexual violence, stalking, assault and unwanted sharing of explicit images, AAP reports.

This is highly concerning given the significant and potentially long-term impacts associated with these victimisation experiences.

These impacts include poorer health and wellbeing, including overall life satisfaction, social isolation and lower self-esteem, as well as increased risk of re-victimisation.

Considering the long- and short-term implications for victim-survivors after experiencing these harmful behaviours, there is an obvious need to develop mechanisms for protecting users.

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Telstra buyout of Digicel’s Pacific mobile networks threatened by ‘discriminatory’ new PNG tax

The $100m tax on companies controlling more than 40% of market is ‘arbitrary’ and ‘perplexing’, says telco Digicel

Digicel Group says it is considering legal options after Papua New Guinea imposed a $100m tax that the telecoms firm said had potential “implications” for the planned AU$2.1bn ($1.57bn) sale of the Pacific’s biggest mobile network to Australia’s Telstra.

Telstra Corp Ltd said last October that it would buy the Pacific operations of Digicel in a deal largely funded by the Australian government, seen by observers as a way to block China’s rising influence in the region. The operations include 2.5m mobile phone subscribers across PNG, Fiji, Vanuatu, Tonga, Samoa and Nauru.

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Telstra denies Victoria police requested Graham Ashton’s phone records for hotel quarantine inquiry

Phone records of former police chief considered crucial in investigation to determine who made the decision to use private security guards

Victoria police never formally requested Telstra provide ex-police chief Graham Ashton’s phone records to help the hotel quarantine inquiry uncover who made the decision to use private security guards in the botched program, Guardian Australia can reveal.

On Wednesday, a spokesperson for Victoria police told Guardian Australia that police “did contact Telstra and request incoming call data for the former chief commissioner’s phone”.

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Power cuts that left Aboriginal people on NT islands with no food were widespread

Population received no emergency support and scant information during three-day outage in Northern Territory, says resident of one of the areas hit


Telecommunications outages that left Aboriginal people living on islands off the Northern Territory coast without food, fuel and essential supplies for almost three days last week were more widespread than originally reported, fuelling concerns about the network’s ability to support contact with remote communities as fears over coronavirus spread.

Telstra has confirmed the NT mainland communities of Borroloola and Numbulwar were affected by the same outage, while the Cape York community of Kowanyama was also without telecommunications for three days.

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