What we learned: Wednesday, 4 December
With that, we will wrap the blog for the day. Enjoy your evenings, whether it be spent watching the Matildas take on Taiwan or anxiously reading our blog on the South Korea crisis.
Here were today’s major developments:
Australia’s economy put in a disappointing performance in the September quarter. Excluding the Covid disruptions, the annual growth pace of 0.8% was the weakest since the early 1990s recession, according to Westpac. The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said “the growth in the Australian economy continues to be positive but it is weak”.
Commonwealth Bank has conceded it did a “poor job” communicating changes to affected customers, after announcing a partial backdown over its plans to start charging users of one of its popular accounts a $3 fee for accessing money from a branch.
The Greens plan to call Murdoch media executives before a Senate inquiry into greenwashing, after paid advertising from the gas lobby appeared as straight news coverage across Murdoch tabloids.
They have also announced a new election policy to provide women with free access to contraceptives.
The high court has ruled that aggregate sentences do count towards automatic visa cancellation on character grounds, reversing a full federal court decision that resulted in the release of more than 100 people from immigration detention in December 2022.
And Australia has voted with 156 other countries at the United Nations to demand the end of Israel’s “unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible”, marking a return to the position for the first time in more than two decades.
Albanese government declines to review three coal proposals for potential climate impact
Three proposed coalmine projects will remain under assessment for potential approval after the federal government declined to review them for their potential climate impacts.
The three projects are Idemitsu’s Boggabri coal project in NSW, BHP Mitsubishi’s Caval Ridge coal project in central Queensland and Jellinbah Group’s Lake Vermont coal project in Queensland.
The legal firm Environmental Justice Australia said the mines would result in about 850 million tonnes in greenhouse emissions.
The three mines were part of a larger bid - known as the Living Wonders case - by the Environment Council of Central Queensland (ECoCeQ) to have the government reconsider 19 projects because of the climate damage they would cause.
The group also ran a series of landmark court cases in which it argued, unsuccessfully, that the minister for the environment was required to consider the lasting climate damage that two different coalmine expansions would cause.
Environmental Council of Central Queensland spokesperson Ellie Smith said:
This is another blow from the Albanese government, which came to power promising to protect the environment but keeps approving carbon bombs that will supercharge climate change.
Environmental Justice Australia senior specialist lawyer Retta Berryman, said:
In refusing to change the risk assessment for these massive coalmine expansions, the Albanese government has failed to recognise their climate harms to thousands of animals, plants and places.
Updated
The peak body for the university sector has blamed a “handbrake on international education” sluggish economy growth figures released today.
According to the national accounts, the economy grew 0.3% in the September quarter and 0.8% annually – the weakest non-pandemic reading since the 1990s recession.
The ABS reported that education exports fell 9% in the September quarter compared with last year, dropping from $13.6bn to $12.4bn.
Universities Australia Ceo, Luke Sheehy:
Our economy is stuck in low gear and the handbrake on international education is a big reason for that.
International students drove half of Australia’s economic growth last year. It makes no sense to put a handbrake on a $50bn industry that fuels our economy, especially when other sectors are struggling.
The government has been using Ministerial Direction 107 to reduce international student numbers since last December and now we are seeing the damaging effects in the data – our outer suburban and regional unis are being hit the hardest.
At a time of growing budget pressures, we should be investing in our most successful sectors, not curtailing them.
Thunderstorm warning for parts of Queensland and NSW
Storms are continuing to hit parts of Queensland and New South Wales, with the Bureau of Meteorology warning heavy rainfall that may lead to flash flooding is possible in some areas.
Showers and #thunderstorms are forecast to impact parts of #Qld & #NSW from today until Friday. Severe thunderstorms are also possible in some areas, with heavy rainfall that may lead to flash flooding and damaging winds.
— Bureau of Meteorology, Australia (@BOM_au) December 4, 2024
Latest forecasts and warnings: https://t.co/4W35o8iFmh pic.twitter.com/83R2F4b5iN
The BoM holds particular concern for parts of New South Wales, where “very dangerous thunderstorms” are projected to hit Armidale, Glen Innes, Tamworth, Gunnedah, Narrabri and Coonabarabran over the next several hours.
46mm of rain was recorded at Ogunbil (Amaroo) in the half hour to 4.49pm, while Meldrum recorded 44mm in the half hour to 2:44pm.
⚠️Issued at 5:03pm⚠️
— Bureau of Meteorology, New South Wales (@BOM_NSW) December 4, 2024
⛈️VERY DANGEROUS THUNDERSTORMS are likely to produce intense rainfall that may lead to dangerous and life-threatening flash flooding over the next several hours.
Warning: https://t.co/sekUxasZpQ#Nowendoc pic.twitter.com/fYCpi8NKbg
Updated
Queensland energy companies’ price changes did not breach competition law, court finds
Queensland’s two state owned energy companies “hoped” to cause power price spikes during the summer by making late changes to power prices, but their strategies did not breach competition law, the federal court has found.
Justice Sarah Derrington published a judgement on Wednesday in a class action alleging the power companies – CS Energy and Stanwell – took advantage of their market power to prevent other power generators from competing with them.
The case scrutinised a practice known as “short notice rebidding”. It involved generators allegedly repricing electricity - at very high prices - that was previously offered to the market at much lower rates. The late timing of the pricing changes allegedly left other generators with little or no time to respond.
Justice Derrington found that traders at CS Energy and Stanwell had “hoped that they would be able to cause price spikes over the summer period in accordance with their respective strategies”.
In doing so they engaged in “profit-maximising behaviour” but did not unlawfully drive up prices.
Updated
The Greens have accused Labor of capitulating to big corporations after it neglected requests to consider the climate impacts of three proposed coal mining projects.
The ‘reconsideration requests’ were made by the Environment Council of Central Queensland, represented by lawyers from Environmental Justice Australia.
On Wednesday, it was revealed government had rejected the requests for Boggabri, Caval Ridge and Lake Vermont Meadowbrook. They now await a final decision by Labor without a prior assessment of their climate harm.
Leader of the Greens, Adam Bandt, said Labor was “doing the bidding” of coal and gas corporations.
Emissions are higher under Anthony Albanese than Scott Morrison, Labor has approved 28 new coal and gas projects since coming to power, and the government has pushed setting 2035 climate targets back until after the next election.
Scientists say new coal and gas must be stopped to protect Australia from dangerous climate change. Pacific leaders are demanding Australia stop approving new coal and gas to give their islands a fighting chance.
Albanese and Tanya Plibersek must immediately reject these three new coal projects.
Man, 20, dies in WA after alleged break-in with machete
In Western Australia, a 20-year-old man has died after allegedly breaking into a Kalgoorlie-Boulder home armed with a machete, police have confirmed.
About 10.15am, police allege the man broke into a home on Kenneally Place armed with the weapon.
A man who was at home with his wife and child confronted the man and an altercation ensued, police allege.
The 20-year-old received serious injuries and was flown to Royal Perth hospital, where he later died.
The male occupant received serious injuries and was sent to Kalgoorlie Regional hospital.
This matter is currently still under investigation and a file is being prepared for the coroner. Guardian Australia understands the man was not in custody and was assisting police.
No charges have been laid.
Updated
Chalmers welcomes Commonwealth Bank’s change of heart on withdrawal fees
Finally, Chalmers was asked about changes announced by the Commonwealth Bank to impose $3 fees for many customers seeking cash withdrawals. The changes have since been wound back.
Jennett:
Are you open to having smart ATMs in the regions and a heavier reliance on Australia Post as an alternative to some of those levy proposals that you are working on?
Chalmers said he welcomed the Commonwealth Bank’s change of heart and had a conversation with CEO Matt Comyn about the issues.
To his credit and to the bank’s credit, they recognise that the changes which were flagged yesterday were neither acceptable nor appropriate … people were doing it tough enough as it is, particularly vulnerable people.
We welcome that change of heart. And again, we engage with the major financial institutions in a very respectable, productive and constructive way and that applies to our efforts as well to make sure Australians in regional communities get the kind of services that they need and deserve.
That’s an ongoing conversation with the banking sector to see what might be possible here … we have more work to do.
Updated
Chalmers says aim is to ‘get wages moving again’
Chalmers reiterated Labor’s aim was to “get wages moving again” – both the minimum wage and pay rises in industries dominated by the minimum.
Pointed to a $28m deficit for the current financial year, he said the deficit was “much smaller” than anticipated when Labor came to office.
How sustainable was continued wage growth?
Chalmers:
We’ve made progress in this year. We have delivered two surpluses in the first two years. We got the third deficit smaller and the direction of travel compared to what we inherited at the election has been a good one.
What we have been able to show from reprioritising in the budget is we can get wages moving again in the care economy and in industries dominated by women. That’s one of the reasons why the gender pay gap is the narrowest it’s ever been … we don’t think people on low incomes or in an industry dominated by women should carry the can for the fight against inflation.
Asked whether existing supports like energy bill relief would be extended, he said “I’m not making that argument today” and “it’s not something we’re proposing”.
Updated
Jim Chalmers: ‘the economy is very soft’
Chalmers was asked whether Labor’s economic settings could be both supportive and inflationary.
He replied the Reserve Bank governor had indicated the past two surpluses were helping to fight inflation.
We know from the Bureau of Statistics our cost-of-living relief is putting downward pressure on inflation, not upward pressure on inflation.
Those are important elements of our economic strategy, to roll out the cost of living relief in the most responsible way we can, to be part of the solution when it comes to inflation … while at the same time we protect jobs in our economy and make sure that we’re not ignoring these risks to growth.
When you have economic growth come in lower than what most economists were expecting and forecasting, it makes it more important than ever that, as we maintain the primary focus on inflation, we don’t ignore what’s happening in the economy more broadly and the economy is very soft.
Updated
Jim Chalmers is asked about ‘insipidly weak’ growth figures
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, is appearing on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing now following those less-than-thrilling growth figures released today.
Presenter Greg Jennett did not mince his words:
By any measure, these growth figures today are insipidly weak … back at budget time, you had growth heading for 2% and still do on the books as we speak. How do you reconcile that?
Chalmers replied Labor had taken a “very balanced approach” with a primary focus on reducing inflation.
We got a lot of free advice at budget time [that] we should be slashing and burning in the budget and it would have sent the economy backwards at different points of this year.
So what we’ve done instead is taken a very balanced approach, and a primary focus on fighting inflation, but without ignoring these very substantial risks to growth.
In the last 18 months or so, three quarters of OECD economies have gone backwards. Our economy has continued to grow. It is ticking over but it’s ticking over very slowly.
Updated
Continued from previous post
Shortly after the health minister spoke, Emma Maiden - the general manager of Uniting NSW - criticised the government for inviting Ted Wheeler, the mayor of Portland in the US state of Oregon - to be the international speaker.
Earlier this year, Oregon reintroduced criminal sanctions for drug possession again after decriminalising it in 2020, and Wheeler told the audience the major failure was decriminalising drugs before enough treatment services were in place.
Maiden said comparing NSW to Portland was like comparing apples to oranges given the different health systems, and the financial crisis and economic downturn that resulted from the pandemic.
She said a European country that has tried decriminalisation, such as Portugal, would have been a better choice.
John Brogden, a co-chair of the summit and former leader of the NSW Liberal party, was asked why Wheeler was selected to speak and not a representative closer to NSW such as from the ACT, where possessing small quantities of drugs was decriminalised a year ago.
Brogden said:
I think [Wheeler] was very honest about what went wrong , without throwing out the idea of decriminalisation.
I think we understand the ACT’s experience.
Updated
NSW minister rules out decriminalising drugs
The NSW government has ruled out the possibility of decriminalising drugs before its drug summit has finished and despite an overwhelming number of participants at its drug summit calling for it.
NSW minister for health, Ryan Park, told reporters with a day and a half of the summit still left to go that it doesn’t have a mandate to decriminalise people possessing small quantities of drugs for personal use.
Asked by a reporter if the purpose of the summit was not to determine if there was a mandate, Park said:
Where we can find commonalities and agreements, we should focus on that and chart a course to achieving those things.
Earlier in the summit there were calls for decriminalisation from Annie Madden, executive director of Harm Reduction Australia, who said for the past 30 years the “best advice” on reducing drug harm had been shunned in favour of the “best compromise”.
Park said whilst decriminalisation had come up at the summit, he said many other issues had too. He said this included a need for more treatment services, particularly in the regions, and also “the way we handle people with drugs through the criminal justice system”.
Updated
Credit rating downgrade ‘highly likely’, Queensland treasurer says
Still at the Australian British Chamber of Commerce event in Brisbane, Queensland’s new treasurer, David Janetzki, has warned it is “highly likely” the state government bonds will receive an outlook downgrade.
Speaking at the Brisbane event today, the new LNP treasurer blamed the previous Labor government for billion-dollar blowouts in a range of engineering projects.
He revealed a major pumped hydro project at Borumba had blown out from $14bn to $18bn.
“The former government knew the risk, and they lied to Queenslanders about it,” he said, conceding the state would likely get a downgrade from its double A plus credit rating.
What is clear is, it is highly likely that we have inherited an outlook downgrade and ultimately a rating downgrade here in Queensland. It is because of the former government’s economic irresponsibility that we are facing this challenge right now.
Before the election, Janetzki vowed to stabilise the state’s books, telling the Australian newspaper:
I don’t want to be a treasurer that has a ratings downgrade on my watch. It’s that simple.
Updated
Queensland energy minister hints at ‘technologically agnostic’ approach to policy
Queensland’s energy minister has hinted at a “technologically agnostic” approach to energy – but again ruled out backing his federal LNP counterpart’s nuclear plan.
David Janetzki told an Australian British Chamber of Commerce event in Brisbane:
In Queensland, we are developing a roadmap for an energy system that is affordable, reliable and sustainable.
We will set our own path to achieve this that is pragmatic and technologically agnostic.
In a later press conference he denied he was hinting the government would abandon a pre-election pledge to maintain the state’s ban on nuclear energy – but didn’t identify any other alternatives to replace the state’s coal fleet.
Updated
Update on Commonwealth Bank changes
The Commonwealth Bank has provided a further update on changes to legacy account holders, after conceding its announcements had been “poorly communicated”.
Group executive of retail banking services, Angus Sullivan, said the changes would not affect around 9 million customers who weren’t on the Complete Access product.
The changes taking place are such that the approximately 90% of customers we intend to move, and who we expect will be better off or the same, will be moved to the lower monthly fee account. If those customers don’t want to move, they can contact us to discuss their options.
For the remaining customers we are changing our approach and we are pausing the migration. Instead, we will contact these customers over the next six months to discuss the most appropriate product for them given their needs.
Commonwealth Bank maintains the largest branch network. Each of our branches has fee free ATMs and we have a moratorium on regional branch closures until at least the end of 2026.
Updated
Review to be conducted of memoir Gender Queer
In October, the federal court ordered the Australian classifications review board to review its assessment of the memoir Gender Queer, following a case launched by activist Bernard Gaynor seeking to have the book refused publication in Australia.
He had sought a review of the classification of the graphic novel-style memoir about gender identity by non-binary writer Maia Kobabe on the basis of cartoon images of sex scenes in the book, one of which has been described by critics seeking a ban as “pornographic” and “paedophilic”.
Guardian Australia has confirmed the ruling was not appealed and a spokesperson for the communications department said a review will be conducted:
The federal court’s decision regarding Gender Queer: A Memoir has not been appealed. The Classification Review Board will conduct a review of the classification of Gender Queer: A Memoir as ordered by the Federal Court of Australia. Timing for the review is being determined.
The federal court found that the board review of the submissions on the classification of the book had treated many of them as being anti-LGBTQ, despite the court finding that a majority of those submissions could not be deemed anti-LGBTQ.
Updated
Tasmania police officer in stable condition after ‘traumatic incident’ in Launceston
A male officer injured during a “traumatic incident” in the Launceston CBD yesterday is in a stable condition, Tasmania police have confirmed.
Police tried to negotiate with a knife-wielding man in the major Tasmanian city after a member of the public raised the alarm around 10am on Tuesday.
Tasmania police’s assistant commissioner, Adrian Bodnar, said the man kept advancing towards officers, who fired several shots which hit him in the chest twice.
The man was given first aid at the scene and taken in a critical condition to the Launceston general hospital where he died.
The injured officer is currently in a stable condition at the Launceston general hospital after undergoing surgery yesterday, police said.
The officer and his family are being supported by the Wellbeing Support team and colleagues, and he is in good spirits.
Our thoughts continue to be with all those involved in yesterday’s tragic incident.
As is our usual process for any major incident, yesterday’s incident will be subject to a full Professional Standards investigation and also independent review by the Coroner and Integrity Commission.
Updated
Prahan byelection to be held on 8 February
The Victorian parliament’s Speaker, Maree Edwards, has set a date for the Prahran byelection, which was sparked by the resignation of former Greens MP Sam Hibbins.
Edwards on Wednesday released a statement confirming it will be held on 8 February. Candidates will have until 17 January to nominate and the electoral roll for voters will close on 27 December.
So far, Labor has ruled out running a candidate, while the Greens will run environmental engineer Angelica Di Camillo. Di Camillo was picked by the party to run in Higgins at the next federal election but the Australian Electoral Commission abolished the electorate in a redistribution.
The electorate, which covers Prahran, South Yarra and Windsor, has previously been held by both major parties before Hibbins won it in 2014 in a three-way contest that took the Victorian Electoral Commission more than a week to declare.
Since then, Hibbins had increased his margin to 12% against the Liberals.
He resigned from parliament on 23 November, just three after he quit the Greens due to a “consensual relationship” with a staff member on his team, which was a breach of the party’s rules.
Updated
Australian dollar extends slide after weak GDP figures
As we saw earlier, Australia’s economy put in a disappointing performance in the September quarter.
Excluding the Covid disruptions, the annual growth pace of 0.8% was the weakest since the early 1990s recession, according to Westpac.
Investors initially reacted by lopping about 0.2 US cents off the value of the Aussie dollar vs the US dollar. The fall, though, has since continued, with the $A down to 64.2 US cents (or about 1% for the day overall), according to Bloomberg data.
The dollar’s drop against Japan’s yen isn’t much better, at 0.9% for the day, so it’s not just a greenback thing.
It’s only one day, of course, but a weaker currency doesn’t help the inflation fight (since imports get more expensive) but it will help foster local demand.
The GDP figures aren’t the only things moving today. South Korea’s martial law flip-flop isn’t a good sign about the stability of Australia’s third-biggest export market (not to mention yet another democracy facing challenges, from the US to France and Germany, among others).
We wondered, too, if Nab’s morning read on the overnight global developments might have been a little insensitive. “K-pop” was how they headlined their wrap.
Updated
Hello everyone. Caitlin Cassidy here, delighted to be with you.
That is all from me on the blog today – handing over now to Caitlin Cassidy who will keep you updated with the afternoon’s news.
‘Clear end goal’ is to fully decriminalise and regulate all drugs, Dr Annie Madden says
Dr Annie Madden, the executive director of Harm Reduction Australia, called for decriminalisation of small quantities of drugs for personal use at the NSW government’s drug summit.
“It is only reasonable that we give decriminalisation a proper chance to do what decades of prohibition has failed to do,” she says.
Madden was the only speaker at the state’s first drug summit 25 years ago who was an active drug user.
Updated
Portland mayor says he would ‘never encourage’ drug decriminalisation without adequate treatment system
The mayor of a city in a US state that decriminalised drugs four years ago has told the NSW government’s drug summit that the greatest failure was not having adequate treatment resources in place.
Oregon decriminalised drugs in favour of focusing on treatment over punishment after a public vote in 2020. But earlier this year, the city of Portland rolled the laws back and again introduced criminal penalties for drug possession after a spike in drug overdoses.
The mayor of Portland, Ted Wheeler, told the summit via video call to the audience in Sydney:
I would never encourage anybody to go forward with this if they do not have that treatment system in place first.
Earlier in the summit there were calls for decriminalisation from Annie Madden, the executive director of Harm Reduction Australia, who said for the past thirty years the “best advice” on reducing drug harm had been shunned in favour of the “best compromise”.
Wheeler said the decriminalisation of small quantities of drugs for personal use gave police the power to still issue a maximum $100 fine for those caught. But that fine was waived if the person called a number that connected them with drug treatment resources.
He said this “carrot and stick” approach did not work and that the city was overwhelmed by rapid and sharp spikes in overdose calls after drugs were decriminalised.
He said that the decriminalisation occurred in the context of a number of inflaming factors. This included the pandemic, the murder of George Floyd which he said had bred a distrust in law enforcement, and also the fentanyl crisis. However, he said “I still think we would have had these problems even if that hadn’t happened.” He added:
Even if none of those things had happened, we took way too long to build the treatment infrastructure.
Updated
‘Parliament of landlords’ won’t solve housing crisis, says Jordan van den Lamb
Van den Lamb said the aim of the campaign is to put up “empty home crime scene” stickers on as many empty homes as possible, so that the extent of the problem is made more visible.
The wealthiest people in Australia have enjoyed a massive windfall from the growth in property prices over the past few decades. The system is so rigged for the rich that they often lose very little from keeping properties empty. This needs to change.
Labor and the Coalition have together built a housing system in which private profits come before basic human needs. The situation is now reaching a crisis point. Homelessness is growing rapidly as are the number of people on waiting lists for public housing. The initiatives announced by Labor to address this will be a drop in the ocean.
We want to build a movement – of the homeless, of renters, of everyone who is suffering from the housing crisis. We can’t expect our parliament of landlords to solve this for us. The majority of them benefit from the current system. People need to take matters into their own hands.
Updated
‘Empty home crime scene’: rental activist Jordan van den Lamb launches sticker campaign for vacant properties
Rental activist and Victorian Socialists candidate Jordan van den Lamb, AKA Purplepingers, last weekend launched a new campaign leaving large bright stickers on empty rental homes.
On Saturday the campaign started visiting homes that have been left empty for an extended period and putting up A3-sized stickers identifying them as an “empty home crime scene”.
A recent Prosper Australia report which analysed properties’ water use estimated that there were close to 100,000 vacant homes in Melbourne in 2023 – enough to house more than 250,000 people. That’s many more than are currently homeless or languishing on the public housing waiting list.
According to the report, the suburb with the highest concentration of empty homes was Brunswick East, where 1,214 or 12.7% of all properties were left vacant.
Updated
Gold Coast council votes to progress world heritage cableway proposal
The Gold Coast city council has voted to progress plans for a cableway through the world-heritage listed Springbrook national park.
Councillors voted 10-5 on Tuesday to spend $500,000 seeking an agreement with the new state government for a route for the long-mooted scheme. The LNP has repeatedly signalled their interest in eco-tourism projects.
Opponents argue the project would threaten the national park’s world-heritage status and lacks First Nations consent, among other problems.
The Queensland Conservation Council, National Parks Association of Queensland and Gold Coast-based Gecko Environment Council are calling for the scheme to be scrapped.
Updated
Greens to call Murdoch execs before Senate inquiry into greenwashing
The Greens plan to call Murdoch media executives before a Senate inquiry into greenwashing, after paid advertising from the gas lobby appeared as straight news coverage across Murdoch tabloids.
News Corp tabloids the Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, Courier Mail and Adelaide Advertiser on Monday began an identical week-long series promoting the fossil fuel, with page one headlines warning Australia must “step on the gas” as the “only way to avoid higher bills, blackouts”. In some cases the stories were marked as “exclusive” and a “special report”.
Inside the papers ran a double spread that said the series was an advertorial “proudly sponsored” by the gas infrastructure business APA Group and the gas companies Tamboran, Santos and Jemena.
“This isn’t journalism – it’s fossil fuel propaganda,” Sarah Hanson-Young, Greens spokesperson for communications and chair of the senate inquiry into greenwashing, said in a statement.
She continued:
We know that the social licence for coal and gas is rapidly melting as climate change gets worse and the public learn more about who is responsible.
We will look to call Murdoch media executives before our Greenwashing inquiry in the new year to explain their disregard for basic journalistic ethics and their longstanding campaign against climate science.
Updated
The shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor, reacted to today’s growth numbers (which were weaker than expected) a short while ago. He said to press:
We have been very clear that you have to get productivity back on track. You have to re-establish the physical guard rails that were in place until the government came into place. You have to make sure that direction, getting redtape out of the way for businesses in Australia to invest and grow and employ, most of all to make sure that we don’t have continued pressure on interest rates and inflation.
Updated
Dutton accuses PM of selling ‘Jewish community out for green votes’ after Australia votes at UN to end Israeli occupation
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, said the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has “sold the Jewish community out for green votes” in response to Australia voting today with 156 other countries at the United Nations to demand the end of Israel’s “unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible” for the first time in more than two decades.
Dutton was asked at a presser if “that shift [is] something that you support?” earlier today.
He said “we should be standing with allies like the United States instead”:
It’s not something I support, and we’ve been very critical of the position that the government’s adopted, which has been at odds to the commitments that they gave to the Jewish community before the election … He looked people of Jewish faith in the eye before the election and gave them a guarantee that there would be no difference between the two parties, that there would be bipartisan positions in relation to votes at the UN and our position with regard to Israel.
They’ve completely abandoned the Jewish community, the state of Israel. There is a lot of anger, understandably, in the community … and I think the prime minister stands condemned.
He sold the Jewish community out for green votes in Western Sydney and places like Marrickville. That is what the prime minister has done and I think we should be standing with allies like the United States instead. The Albanese government is chasing green votes and have been prepared to sacrifice the wellbeing of the Jewish community in Australia to do so.
Updated
CBA announces partial backdown of $3 withdrawal fee
Commonwealth Bank has conceded it did a “poor job” communicating changes to affected customers, after announcing a partial backdown over its plans to start charging users of one of its popular accounts a $3 fee for accessing money from a branch.
The changes follow a sharp rebuke from the government, with the assistant treasurer, Stephen Jones, describing CBA’s plans as a “kick in the guts” and the “worst Christmas present imaginable”.
CBA’s group executive of retail banking, Angus Sullivan, said today the bank would pause the planned migration of some customers to the new product that includes “assisted withdrawal fees” for those accessing their cash at a branch, post office or via phone.
“Clearly, we’ve done a poor job of communicating aspects of this change for our customers,” Sullivan said.
We know that account changes are difficult, and especially at this time of year, and with so many Australians challenged with cost-of-living pressures, we’ve decided to announce a change in our approach.
We’re going to pause the changes that we announced, and we’re going to spend the next six months individually engaging with each of those customers to make sure that we have a solution tailored for each one of them.
CBA has divided the roughly 1 million customers that have a legacy “complete access” account into two groups – those it believes will be in an equal or better position after the planned migration to the “smart access” product, and those who won’t.
This works out to about 900,000 people in the former category, and 100,000 in the latter.
The “smart access” account has slightly lower monthly account-keeping fees than the legacy product, but it contains the controversial $3 in-branch withdrawal fees.
Sullivan said:
The last thing we want to do is disengage or confuse our customers from banking with us, so we’ve taken a different approach.
Updated
Consumers’ cautious behaviour might be rewarded by the RBA
The tale of the September quarter national accounts looks to be one of more tepid growth in the wider economy than had been tipped, with falling commodity prices (pointing to China’s own weak growth) one factor.
More reassuring, though, for the Reserve Bank, was that those hefty stage-three tax cuts look to have largely been pocketed by consumers.
Disposable income was up 1.5% for the quarter but nominal household spending was up just 0.6%, the ABS said. That helped lift the savings rate from 2.4% to 3.2%.
That spending is probably why economists missed on their growth forecasts. It’s a bit of a shell game because households didn’t spend a lot on energy thanks to those state and federal rebates (temporarily culling the veracity of “electricity bills are soaring” stories).
Anyway, perhaps the CBA holding out for an RBA rate cut by February might not seem such a lonely prediction after today’s GDP figures (notwithstanding some rosier economic numbers since 30 September).
You can follow along at home here too:
Updated
Disability advocate Hannah Diviney urges media to ‘believe in disabled stories and not just pick one or two’
Diviney concluded her speech by placing an onus on the media to prioritise representation in storytelling.
Stories are the building blocks we use to teach children about the world. They’re how we learn to identify the bad guy, or find the hero, without representation in them – what are we supposed to do? That leaves holes in you, not having any representation … to media I say – these holes can be entirely preventable if people with power are brave enough. But it means we need investment from the media. It means we need investment from people behind the scenes, from in front of the camera.
We need you to believe in disabled stories and not just pick one or two – whether it is me or Dylan Alcott or Chloe Hayden. There’s a whole diverse range of people out there, and all of us deserve to be heard. But if they’re not filled in, if people aren’t brave enough to prevent those holes, they have no choice but to be filled with the very worst of what a person, in this case, a child, can think about themselves.
Updated
‘To us, it’s our quality of life’: Hannah Diviney says NDIS cuts are not just arbitrary figures
Diviney, who lives with cerebral palsy, used her speech to rally behind the NDIS and adequate financial care for people with disabilities.
She told the room she would not be nearly as successfully functional without the support of crucial early intervention services – an “army” of physios, occupational therapists, speech pathologists and social workers.
An army every child and person with a disability should have access to no matter their postcode, financial circumstance, support network, skin colour or immigration status. The size of which, by the way, should not be determined by the arbitrary box-ticking criteria of an inflexible system overseen and executed by people without one iota of lived experience of disabled life among them.
Earlier this year, the government cut $14.4bn from the NDIS. To them, that might have just been numbers, arbitrary figures on a piece of paper. To us, it’s our quality of life. It’s whether we get to achieve, it’s whether we get to live, it’s whether we get to be human.
With Bill Shorten’s retirement, she said it was her “fervent hope” the incoming NDIS minister would be someone with lived experience with disability.
We need better. What [the NDIS] represents now is not how it was meant to be built … you don’t get to make my life or its possibilities smaller to balance a budget. I’m a person, not a surplus tool.
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Disability advocate Hannah Diviney speaks at National Press Club
Meanwhile, author, actor and disability advocate Hannah Diviney has been appearing at the National Press Club to mark the International Day of Persons with Disabilities.
Among her many accolades has been encouraging Lizzo and Beyoncé to remove ableist slurs from their lyrics.
She noted very few members of the disabled and neurodivergent community had graced the stage in the press club’s history, “which says a lot about the pathways to and construction opportunities for power in this country”.
Hi, everyone. I’m Hannah, and when I was born, doctors warned my first-time parents … that in the worst-case scenario, I would never walk, feed myself or talk …
If this forum is reflective of the powerful and influential here in Australia, the ones given the capacity to make decisions, shape laws and policy as well as the stories we tell as a nation, the lack of disabled voices included here makes a sad sort of sense.
While you were building this, we, as a community, were collectively silenced. Hidden from view. Institutionalised and erased – in fact, in some ways, we still are.
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Social services minister urges organisations to join abuse redress scheme
The social services minister, Amanda Rishworth, has urged six sporting and religious organisations to reverse their decision to not join the redress scheme “as a priority”.
As we reported earlier, the government has named six institutions that have declined to join the national redress scheme, which provides capped compensation and other forms of redress to survivors of abuse.
Those organisations are the Darwin Cycling Club, New Norfolk District Football Club, Townsville Indoor Sports, Crown Coaches, Christian Youth Camps, and Knox Basketball Incorporated.
Rishworth said:
I call on each of these institutions to do the right thing by survivors of institutional child sexual abuse, reverse their decision and join the Scheme as a priority.
Joining the Scheme demonstrates an institution’s commitment to survivors at a time when the community is calling for action to end the widespread and unchecked exploitation to children and ongoing trauma for survivors. Survivors have waited too long.
I hope each institution reconsiders their decision. If this does occur, their name will be removed from the Scheme’s website.
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Government names six sporting and religious organisations that refused to join abuse redress scheme
Six sporting and religious organisations that have refused to join the National Redress Scheme have been publicly named by the federal government.
Earlier this morning, the redress scheme’s website named Christian Youth Camps in Western Australia, Darwin Cycling Club, the New Norfolk District Football Club, Townsville Indoor Sports, Knox Basketball Incorporated and Crown Coaches as the latest organisations to decline to join the redress scheme.
The redress scheme was set up after the royal commission to provide capped compensation to abuse survivors. It also facilitates apologies and other forms of redress. The scheme relies heavily on institutions agreeing to sign up, punishing bodies that refuse to do so, including by naming them and barring them from government funding.
But a wide range of sporting organisations are yet to sign on to the redress scheme, including the Australian Rugby League Commission.
The social services minister, Amanda Rishworth, is meeting with her state and territory counterparts on the redress ministers board later today. The board will discuss the refusal of sporting organisations to join the redress scheme and the need for states and territories to step in as “funders of last resort” for such bodies.
Without a funder of last resort for the sporting organisations, survivors are unable to have their claims for redress progressed.
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Treasurer says CBA had ‘change of heart’ on plans to charge customers $3 withdrawal fees
Jim Chalmers has confirmed the Commonwealth Bank has accepted that their plans to charge customers a $3 fee to withdraw money at bank branches “are not acceptable or appropriate,” he said at a presser.
Late this morning I spoke to the CEO of the Commonwealth Bank, Matt Comyn, about the decision announced yesterday by the Commonwealth Bank. As you know, we consider the changes flagged yesterday to be unacceptable, we made our views very clear in the course of the day yesterday. The changes that were flagged and that were announced are not acceptable or appropriate.
The Commonwealth Bank has released a statement in the last few minutes which make it very clear that they accept that those changes were not acceptable or appropriate. They will have another look at those changes to make sure that people are not worse off, we are talking and lots of instances about some of the most vulnerable people in the banking system. I welcome the change of heart.
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Chalmers concedes ‘weak’ economy but welcomes real income growth
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, says “the growth in the Australian economy continues to be positive but it is weak”. He is addressing press:
Our economy is still growing but very slowly. It is weighed down by interest rates and cost-of-living pressures and global economic uncertainty as well. Growth at just 0.3% in the quarter and 0.8% through the year is below historical averages and it is below market expectations as well.
He says the growth in real incomes is “the most encouraging aspect of the data”:
The most encouraging aspect and the most important aspect of today’s national accounts is what it says about real incomes growth …
Growth in real incomes reflects the progress we are making when it comes to moderating inflation but also solid wages growth and very importantly the government’s cost of living tax cuts. At the intersection of those three things, a moderating inflation, tax cuts and wages growth, that is why we are seeing a real income per capita growing in today’s national accounts, but is very welcome and it is very important as well.
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The government has updated their Smartraveller advice for South Korea today, urging Australians to “avoid protests and demonstrations”.
The website says:
The situation in South Korea is evolving due to developments in domestic politics. Avoid protests and demonstrations.
Sites like Gwanghwamun Square and Yeouido in Seoul may have larger crowds and more protest activity than usual. Transport and other essential services may be disrupted. Monitor the media for updates and follow the advice of local authorities. The Australian Embassy in Seoul remains open but is not offering in-person services.
This comes after South Korea’s rightwing president was forced to back down after he unexpectedly declared martial law only to face unanimous opposition from the national assembly, in the most serious challenge to the country’s democracy since the 1980s.
Apple offers US$1m bounty to researchers who find privacy or security vulnerabilities in AI system
One of the big concerns about embedding AI into everything is the potential privacy concerns over what it learns from what people ask AI to do.
Apple, which has long set itself as a differentiator based on increased privacy on devices, has tried to put these concerns to rest over its Apple Intelligence in a number of ways. Firstly, it does a fair amount of its processing on-device, meaning it stays on your device and never goes anywhere else.
The second part is where it does need to process a request off the device, they’ve introduced Private Cloud Compute, which the company says never stores the data being processed, never trains their AI model from that data, and that data is deleted once no longer required.
You can read more about that from the June announcement.
The company is now putting its money where its mouth is, and has offered bounties of up to US$1m for researchers – who will have access to components of the source code for the scheme – if they find any privacy or security vulnerabilities in the system. The lowest bounty is set at US$50,000 if a researcher finds accidental or unexpected data disclosure due to a configuration issue.
Apple has indicated it is confident that if any such vulnerability was found, it would be publicised quite quickly by researchers who would then get the bounty.
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High court rules aggregate sentences count for visa cancellation
The high court has ruled that aggregate sentences do count towards automatic visa cancellation on character grounds, reversing a full federal court decision that resulted in the release of more than 100 people from immigration detention in December 2022.
In the Pearson case, the full federal court ruled that aggregate sentences do not trigger automatic visa cancellation, prompting the release of people who had previously served aggregate sentences of 12 months or more in prison. An aggregate sentence refers to when a person is given one sentence for multiple offences.
In February 2023 Labor and the Coalition passed an extraordinary law stating that aggregate sentences do qualify for automatic visa cancellation, and that previous cancellations were all taken to be valid.
In October 2023, the full federal court upheld the legality of the new law in two cases: JZQQ, a man who was sentenced to 15 months in prison for offences of intentionally causing injury and threats to kill; and Kingston Tapiki, a New Zealander sentenced to an aggregate term of 12 months’ imprisonment for offences of affray and assault.
In October the high court heard a challenge by those two and the original plaintiff, Kate Pearson, a New Zealander whose visa was automatically cancelled because she was sentenced to a maximum term of imprisonment of four years and three months in respect of 10 offences.
On Wednesday the high court held unanimously that the full federal court got the original decision wrong. As a result, it did not need to judge the validity of the retrospective law.
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RBA rate cut may be more likely as growth below expectations
The quarter-on-quarter figures are more closely watched by economists and the “miss” of 0.3% growth, versus the half percentage point expansion they expected, sent the Australian dollar down against the US counterpart.
Investors would now see the RBA as more inclined to cut its cash rate soon (and hence, making it less attractive to hold $A on the margin) after these numbers.
The 0.3% pace was the most, though, since the September quarter a year ago, when it grew 0.5%.
The year-on-year numbers, too, weren’t flash. At 0.8%, it’s the slowest since the rebound from Covid began, and likely to be the nadir in this part of the cycle (barring some nasty surprise).
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Australia's economy quickened in September quarter, though growth weaker than expected
Australia’s economy quickened in the September quarter, thanks largely to additional government spending, stoking labour demand. Growth, though, was a bit weaker than expected, which may make an early RBA rate cut more likely.
Gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 0.3% in the July-September months, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported on Wednesday. That pace compared with the 0.5% rate expected by economists and the 0.2% growth previously reported for the June quarter by the ABS.
GDP was 0.8% larger than for the September quarter a year earlier. Economists had expected annual GDP growth to come in at 1.1% or similar to the 1% rate the ABS had stated for the June quarter.
With the swelling population, though, GDP as measured on a per capita basis continued to retreat, easing 0.3%, for a record seventh consecutive quarter.
As we noted in the blog yesterday, public demand alone contributed 0.7 percentage points to quarterly GDP growth.
Still, those outlays have helped kept the unemployment rate to about 4% for all of 2024, a figure not far above the lowest in half a century. Employment in seasonally adjusted terms rose by 156,600 in the September quarter alone.
More soon.
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Drug summit told decriminalisation ‘can be done poorly’ as Portland mayor to speak about recriminalisation
More from today’s NSW drug summit.
The mayor of the US city of Portland, Ted Wheeler, is due to speak at the summit today after the state of Oregon embarked on a three-year plan to recriminalise drugs after an increase in overdose deaths after they were decriminalised.
Madden foreshadowed this by saying there is no “one way to do decriminalisation” and that it can be done well and “it can be done poorly”.
Madden also called for a “strong recommendation” on pill testing from the summit, and an end to “harmful policing practices”.
She said:
We simply cannot go through another summer festival season without access to pill testing, and while we’re at it, without ending the harmful and ineffective policing practices, including strip-searching and the use of drug detection dogs.
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‘Clear end goal’ is to fully decriminalise and regulate all drugs, Harm Reduction Australia director says
An advocate at the NSW government’s drug summit has called for decriminalisation of small quantities of drugs for personal use with a “clear end goal” of legal regulation of all drugs.
Dr Annie Madden, the executive director of Harm Reduction Australia, was the only speaker at the state’s first drug summit 25 years ago that was an active drug user.
This morning, at the state’s second drug summit, she told the audience that in over three decades, the main outcome in drug harm reduction has been that the “best advice” becomes the “best compromise”.
“We wonder why we can’t get the results we need,” she said.
Madden later added:
It is only reasonable that we give decriminalisation a proper chance to do what decades of prohibition has failed to do.
But beware, because doing decriminalisation in incremental steps can quickly lead to unintended and unforeseen outcomes as a result of too many compromises.
I began with the term full decriminalisation, and for me that includes a clear end goal of full legal regulation of all drugs.
More to come in the next blog post.
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Jacinta Allan says new vaccine facility makes Victoria world-leading centre of medical research
The Victorian government has also hailed the opening as marking the state as a leader in medical research.
With Moderna and also BioNTech establishing major hubs in the state, the government says it is the only place in the world where both mRNA leaders host research and development, as well as manufacturing operations.
The premier, Jacinta Allan, said:
There are now three world-leading centres of medical research – Boston, London and Victoria.
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Moderna mRNA vaccine facility opens in Victoria
Australia has become the only country in the southern hemisphere with an mRNA vaccines manufacturing capability after a new facility opened in Victoria, which the health minister hailed as protecting against future pandemics.
Early on in the Covid-19 pandemic, experts urged the government to develop domestic mRNA manufacturing capabilities warning Australia would be vulnerable to supply limitations without the ability to produce mRNA vaccines.
After those predictions came to pass, the federal and Victorian governments and pharmaceutical giant Moderna struck an agreement in December 2021 to manufacture mRNA vaccines in Australia.
The health minister, Mark Butler, and Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, this morning opened Moderna’s facility at Monash University’s Clayton campus which will allow for the growth of Australia’s sovereign mRNA manufacturing industry.
The facility will have the capacity to produce up to 100m vaccine doses each year for respiratory diseases including influenza, Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) and Covid-19. Butler:
This is a major step forward in helping protect Australians against future pandemics, while creating highly skilled jobs, supporting local industry and promoting research collaboration.
The state’s acting minister for economic growth, Danny Pearson, said:
We’ll never have to fight to get our fair share of vaccines again because the southern hemisphere’s first end-to-end mRNA vaccine facility has opened in Victoria – setting a new benchmark in innovation and economic growth.
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Minns says no ‘magic solution’ to drugs but ‘more needs to be done’
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, has opened the Sydney leg of the state’s drug summit by acknowledging there is no “magic solution” to drug use, but that the goal of the summit is to reduce “the number of Australians whose lives have been “destroyed or diminished.
He added the government’s “goal is a recognition that society has not got there yet, and more needs to be done.”
The summit is the second in the state after one was held in 1999 by then premier Bob Carr. Minns said the summit helped the state recognise drug abuse as a health issue and redirect people away from the justice system towards rehabilitation.
This summit, which is on its third day after the first two were held in Griffith and Lismore, has brought together experts from across various fields that intersect with the issue, including medical experts, police, people with lived and living experience, drug user organisations, families, service providers and other stakeholders.
The government has said the goal is to hear a range of perspectives and “build consensus on the way NSW deals with drug use and harms”.
Minns said:
Drugs are a health issue. They’re also a justice issue. They’re a police issue. They can be a child protection and social services issue. They are an education issue. They’re an issue for people that want a safe and sociable neighbourhood.
The best hope of lasting change on any question that particularly affects the question like drug policy, is finding points where we agree, and that we can share a common ground.
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Australia votes for end of Israel's 'unlawful presence in Occupied Palestinian territory' at UN for first time in two decades
Australia has voted with 156 other countries at the United Nations to demand the end of Israel’s “unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible”, marking a return to the position for the first time in more than two decades.
A total of 157 members, including Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, voted to support the resolution, while eight, including Argentina, Israel and the US, voted against it. Seven others abstained.
Australia’s ambassador to the UN, James Larsen, explained Australia would be supporting the resolution, titled the ‘Peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine’, to reflect a desire for the international community “to build momentum towards” achieving a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.
Larsen said:
A two-state solution remains the only hope of breaking the endless cycle of violence, the only hope to see a secure and prosperous future for both peoples.
The resolution demands Israel “comply strictly with its obligations under international law”, referring to the ICJ ruling in July this year. It also rejects any attempt at “demographic or territorial change” in the Gaza strip.
It also supports a 2025 high-level international conference aimed at devising and implementing a two-state solution.
A spokesperson for the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said while Australia was a “constructive middle power”, it looked to achieve the best outcomes possible at the UN.
Wong’s spokesperson said:
We don’t always get everything we want. But if, on balance, we believe the resolution will contribute to peace and a two-state solution, we will vote for it.
On our own, Australia has few ways to move the dial in the Middle East. Our only hope is working within the international community to push for an end to the cycle of violence and work toward a two-state solution.
See more:
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Two-thirds of over-25s say they feel better about saying no to alcohol than a decade ago
Almost two-thirds of Australians over the age of 25 feel more empowered to say no to alcohol than they did 10 years ago, according to new data.
Research by Drinkwise points to a shift in attitudes around drinking – the same number, 62%, said they would not feel self-conscious if they chose not to drink when others were drinking.
But the data also showed drinkers tend to drink more when they’re not footing the bill – a nod to the Christmas party season that Simon Strahan, CEO at DrinkWise, says highlights the need for workplaces to be mindful of a changing drinking culture, especially given 53% of Australians want to cut back on alcohol.
He said the research demonstrates that workers increasingly expect alternatives to alcohol at work functions.
We continue to see positive shifts in attitudes and behaviours towards alcohol, with parties and celebrations the main occasion where people alternate between full and lower or zero strength alcohol (71%). This demonstrates a growing awareness of the benefits of more responsible drinking habits.
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Man charged with alleged assault at Sydney airport
A man charged with allegedly assaulting a security officer at Sydney airport is expected to appear in Downing Centre local court today, according to an AFP media release.
The man, 27, allegedly forced open an aerobridge door at the international terminal and boarded an aircraft on 28 October 2024.
Flight crew members spoke to the man, who then exited the aircraft and allegedly assaulted a security officer, causing him to become unconscious, according to the AFP.
The man was arrested and issued with a court attendance notice for assault occasioning actual bodily harm. The offence carries a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment.
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GDP data likely to show growth rise even as per-capita output extends decline
National accounts for the September quarter are out this morning from the ABS, which should signal the economy’s heartbeat is strengthening.
Economists have seen most components already – we are two-thirds into the December quarter, after all – so they can pencil in what gross domestic product (GDP) trends roughly look like.
They expect GDP growth to have quickened from 0.2% in the June quarter to 0.5% in the July-September period. On an annual basis, growth should come in about 1.1%, marginally better than the June quarter’s 1% pace. (There may be some revisions.)
A lot of attention has focused on extra government spending, which the ABS reported yesterday added a chunky 0.7 percentage points to quarterly growth. In other words, without that increase, the economy would have shrunk.
Some of that spending looked a bit splurgy. There were federal rebates for energy and even larger ones and other outlays in Queensland and Western Australia as governments in those two states headed for the polls. It didn’t save the Miles Labor government in the sunshine state; WA’s elections are next March.
There will be some focus, too, on the likelihood per-capita GDP retreated for a record seventh consecutive quarter.
Still, an accelerating overall economy means job openings should remain relatively plentiful for a while. Just don’t expect an interest rate cut from the Reserve Bank next week – and perhaps not until May.
Look out for the data dump at 11.30am Aedt.
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Gender divide on nuclear reactors as inquiry heats up
Women are strongly opposed to nuclear energy and are most concerned any consideration of the controversial power source will delay the switch to renewables, polling shows.
A national survey released today to coincide with a federal inquiry found a stark gender divide, with a mere 26% of women saying nuclear would be good for Australia, compared with 51% of men.
But only one in three men surveyed were willing to live near a nuclear plant.
Almost two-thirds (63%) of women said they do not want to live near a nuclear plant and more than half (57%) do not think transporting radioactive waste is worth the risk.
The DemosAU poll of 6709 adults between 2 July and 24 November also found a higher percentage of men (42%) said they were concerned about the safety of the technology than those who were not concerned.
The findings come as a federal inquiry into nuclear power generation is scheduled to hold a public hearing in Melbourne with industry, health and climate witnesses listed to speak. Community leaders, unions and grassroots organisations plan to gather outside to declare “our shared energy future is renewable, not radioactive”.
- Australian Associated Press
Read more from our own Lisa Cox here:
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Renewable hydrogen tech could give green light to jobs: CSIRO
Making equipment to produce renewable hydrogen could help Australia lead the world in the clean energy resource sector and unlock up to 4,000 jobs and $1.7bn by 2050, a study says.
The research, released by CSIRO Futures today, also warned the nation had a small “window of opportunity” to take advantage of its head start before other countries recognised the market’s potential.
The findings come weeks after the release of the national hydrogen strategy 2024, which outlined a target to produce 15m tonnes of green hydrogen in Australia annually by 2050.
Electrolysers are specialised equipment that use renewable electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, creating hydrogen without producing carbon emissions. Demand for renewable hydrogen was rising worldwide, the study found, as nations sought to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.
Australia could create $1.7bn in revenue and 3,974 jobs by 2050 if it manufactured hydrogen electrolysers, CSIRO’s hydrogen industry mission leader, Dr Patrick Hartley, said.
Installing the equipment could also create another 1,000 jobs, the analysis found, and an additional $1.2bn.
- Australian Associated Press
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More than half of all Australia National University poll respondents lack confidence in Labor
As mentioned at the top, a new poll out today has some concerning findings for the Labor government.
The study by the Australian National University found that 17.4% of respondents said they had no confidence at all in the federal government; 44.8% had “not very much confidence”; 32.8% “quite a lot” and just 5% “a great deal of confidence”.
However, there were some more encouraging pointers for Labor, with more favouring Anthony Albanese as prime minister over Peter Dutton.
Here’s the full report:
Labor MP says Australians travelling to South Korea should check travel advice
MP Stephen Jones has urged Australians to check travel advice to South Korea “given things are moving so rapidly” after the country’s president declared, and then rescinded, martial law overnight.
He said on ABC Radio National this morning:
[It’s a] very fluid situation over there at the moment.
We’re urging Australians to just check in with the travel advice.
Clearly, we’ve got concerns about what’s going on over there. Our number one concern is for the safety of Australians who are contemplating a trip over there. Just watch the travel advice is the best advice I can give at this moment, given things are moving so rapidly.
There have been no updates to the government’s Smartraveller advice for South Korea since 9 July 2024, which advises to “exercise normal safety precautions in South Korea”.
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Transport costs still taking 16% of household income over last quarter
More on transport costs:
The falling price of fuel had a significant impact, the Transport Affordability Index found, reducing transport costs by an average of $338 across all households.
But cuts to public transport fares made the biggest impact, forcing down transport prices in Queensland, the ACT and the Northern Territory.
Only Queensland’s public transport price cuts were designed to be permanent, however, with fares in other states free on a temporary basis.
Despite 50-cent fares up north, Hobart claimed the title of lowest annual transport costs, followed by Darwin, while Sydney, Melbourne and Perth registered the highest costs.
Transport costs also fell across seven regional areas surveyed for the index, with transport in Alice Springs, Bunbury and Geelong costing the most at over $23,000 a year, while Townsville and Wagga Wagga registered the cheapest bills at just over $20,000 a year.
Even though costs fell in most cities and towns, the Australian Automobile Association’s managing director, Michael Bradley, said transport consumed 16.1% of household income during the quarter and remained a major drain on family budgets.
“Transport costs are significantly higher than they were before the (Covid) pandemic,” he said.
“The typical Australian household’s transport costs have risen from 13.9% of its income in September 2019 to 16.1% in September 2024.”
- Australian Associated Press
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Deals on the bus go down and down: transport costs plunge
The cost of getting around has fallen for the first time in two years, a study has shown, but households in some states are faring better than others thanks to public transport discounts.
The Australian Automobile Association detailed the extent of the savings in its Transport Affordability Index today, revealing travel costs fell by an average of $921 a year for those living in capital cities.
But Brisbanites were significantly better off than people in other states, saving $3316 a year on average, thanks to the introduction of 50-cent fares for public transport.
On the other side of the ledger, Sydneysiders fared the worst, with transport costs rising in the city by $107 a year due to high toll prices, (as Elias Visontay reported earlier in the blog).
The report, prepared quarterly by the motoring body, analysed household transport costs including registration, servicing, insurance, car loans, fuel and public transport to determine spending.
- Australian Associated Press
More to come in the next post.
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Full Story on Labor’s end-of-year legislation rush
Parliament has wrapped for 2024 and politicians are now back in their electorates for the summer. Labor ended the year on a high, striking deals to pass more than 30 pieces of legislation through the Senate in just one day.
And while the sitting year is over, speculation is still running hot over when the prime minister will call the federal election.
In today’s Full Story podcast, Nour Haydar speaks to chief political correspondent Paul Karp about what the government achieved – and compromised – in the final frenetic sitting day, and what Anthony Albanese could now be weighing up as he decides when voters will head to the polls.
Greens announce free contraceptives policy for women
The Greens have announced a new election policy to provide women with free access to contraceptives.
The policy would mean women would not have to pay out of pocket for oral contraceptives, including more modern pills with fewer side effects, as well as long-acting reversible contraceptives including intrauterine devices (IUDs).
Under the policy, the Greens would allocate an ongoing and indexed $250m a year to make medicines regulator approved non-PBS contraceptives free, as well as removing the PBS co-payment to make PBS listed contraceptive methods free.
It would also create a contraceptive counselling medicare benefits item.
The party’s spokesperson on women, Larissa Waters, says the policy would help “empower women to make decisions about bodily autonomy despite a difficult financial climate”:
Our policy would make sure people can access the contraception that works for them, regardless of their bank balance and whether they live in the city, the country, or are studying on a visa.
With abortion rights in Queensland potentially under threat it has never been more important to ensure women are able to avoid unwanted pregnancies.
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More on the new Malaysia-based maritime institute:
The government is contributing $1.78m over four years to support the institute, which will train regional government officials on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, broader maritime law and ocean governance, awareness of maritime domains and environmental protection.
Wong’s Malaysia visit is part of a short regional tour that also took in Singapore, where she joins the defence minister, Richard Marles, and trade minister, Don Farrell, for annual talks with their Singaporean counterparts.
Speaking from Singapore yesterday, Marles acknowledged tensions elsewhere in the region around the Taiwan straits and downplayed the decision of Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-Te, to tour US Pacific territories in a move some criticised as needlessly provocative towards China. He told ABC TV:
We don’t want to see any unilateral changes to the status quo across the Taiwan straits, and our focus is on doing everything we can in terms of exercising our international voice around promoting stability and peace in and around the Taiwan straits, in and around Taiwan.
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Australia launches new maritime security educational institute in Malaysia
Australia is funding a new Malaysia-based maritime institute to teach officials from around the Indo-Pacific about the international laws of the sea and encourage stability, especially in the South China Sea, where competing territorial claims have seen clashes between China and its neighbours.
The foreign minister, Penny Wong, will today launch the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (Ancors) South-east Asia Maritime Institute, to be based on the University of Wollongong’s remote campus in Kuala Lumpur.
Rules and norms are vital for our shared maritime region and the countries of our region make an ongoing contribution to maintaining and promoting them.
The institute will deliver training to officials from across the region on complex maritime legal and policy topics. It will nurture leaders and help further our collective contribution to a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific region.
More to come in the next post.
Anglicare’s executive director, Kasy Chambers, said Australia’s employment system needs to be overhauled to put support ahead of punishment:
Australians have heard a lot of rhetoric over the years about full employment and a fair go. But our snapshot shows that the employment system has given up on people who need the most help to find work.
These can be people with disabilities, people who didn’t finish year 12, or older workers who lost their jobs later in life.
They need entry-level jobs to get a start, but there aren’t enough of these to meet demand in any part of the country. For each entry-level role, there are 33 people looking for work.
With such tight numbers, people with barriers to work barely stand a chance. It’s no wonder that many are long-term unemployed. Each year, we find that the same people are being left behind by the job market
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Same people locked out of job market every year: Anglicare Australia
Anglicare Australia is today releasing its annual jobs availability snapshot, which shows that the job market has been locking the same people out of work every year.
The snapshot measures how many jobs are available for people who don’t have qualifications or work experience. It found:
For every entry-level job, there are 33 people out of work.
The situation is worst in the NT, where there are 65 people for every job, followed by Tasmania where there are 50.
Around two-thirds (62%) of people out of work are long-term unemployed.
These Australians spend almost four years looking for work.
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Thank you to Martin Farrer for kicking off the blog this morning. I’ll be taking it for the day – if there is anything you don’t want the blog to miss, send it my way on X @At_Raf_
More on that Cbus report from AAP:
Paddy Crumlin, the former CFMEU ACT president Jason O’Mara, and the CFMEU’s legal director, Lucy Weber, were reassessed against both the fund’s former “fit and proper person” test and a more stringent one recommended by the review authors, Deloitte. All passed, as did sitting board members.
“Cbus will now work with Deloitte, as required by the licence conditions, to develop an action plan to address each of the recommendations in the review to be approved by APRA,” Cbus said in a statement, referring to the financial regulator.
The fund in recent years has swallowed smaller industry funds for media, energy and electrical workers, increasing its membership by 10% to 900,000 members.
It is the seventh-largest industry super fund by total funds under management and the 10th-largest overall.
The CFMEU’s construction arm was placed into administration in August after allegations of criminal conduct and organised crime links on job sites.
The Fair Work Ombudsman is conducting more than 40 investigations into the building and construction industry involving most CFMEU branches across Australia, as well as its officials and employers.
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Review questions Cbus partnerships with CFMEU
A super fund heavyweight’s partnerships with the embattled construction union CFMEU may not have been in the best interests of its 900,000 members, a review has concluded, according to the Australian Associated Press.
Cbus, which is chaired by former treasurer Wayne Swan, released an independent review of its governance and board members yesterday, instigated amid heavy scrutiny of the CFMEU’s construction arm.
The fund accepted all 26 recommendations, including overhauling how it decides and documents extensive payments to the union.
Nearly $1m in payments were made to the union’s various branches in the past financial year, including for rental of premises in Geelong and Perth and cross promotions. But the review found evaluation of the partnership was dominated by informal processes, including spoken feedback. It says:
This is not to question intent or whether ultimately decisions are in the best financial interests of members or not. It’s just that the documentation, systems and processes do not allow for that decision to be concluded clearly.
But it cleared the appointments of union-linked board members, including the CFMEU national president, Paddy Crumlin.
Sydney the only city paying higher transport costs over last quarter
Transport costs have eased for all Australians – except for Sydneysiders – as falling fuel prices and cheaper public transport fares combined with rising wages.
Typical Australian household spending on transport declined by 2.6% in the September quarter, the largest decrease in transport inflation since 2017, despite the broader measure of inflation across society (the consumer price index) climbing by 0.2% in the quarter.
Analysis of transport affordability, produced by the Australian Automobile Association (AAA), found that the consumer relief was driven by an average $338 reduction in a typical household’s fuel bill, coupled with cuts to public transport ticket costs.
This includes temporary free transport offers in Canberra and Darwin, as well as Queensland blanket 50c fares which were introduced in August but have since become permanent.
However Sydney bucked the trend as the only location in the country where household spending on transport rose. This was because higher toll road charges, which have annual increases baked in, offset the benefits of cheaper fuel.
Brisbane’s annualised typical household transport costs dropped by $3,316, or 12.5%; Canberra’s by $1,799, or 7.2%; and Darwin’s by $1,416, or 6%. Across the five other state capitals, the average change in transport costs was only 0.7%.
AAA’s managing director, Michael Bradley, said transport costs were still significantly higher than before the pandemic, with a typical household’s costs rising from 13.9% of its income in September 2019 to 16.1% in September 2024. Bradley said:
Transport is a significant and unavoidable expense, and rising transport expenditure is also one of the key drivers of inflation. Governments at all levels must consider these cost pressures when formulating policy.
Easey Street suspect returns
Almost five decades on from the “gruesome” and “brutal” alleged murder of two women in their home, a suspect in the investigation into the frenzied stabbings has touched down in Australia, Australian Associated Press reports.
Perry Kouroumblis landed in Melbourne late on Tuesday night after being extradited from Italy, marking the first time in about eight years he has stepped foot on Australian soil.
Police were set to interview Kouroumblis on Wednesday and he was expected to face Melbourne magistrates court later in the day.
Victoria police said in a statement that he will formally be charged with two counts of murder and one count of rape during this court appearance.
He maintains his innocence.
He was arrested at Rome’s Leonardo Da Vinci airport in September in connection to the alleged killing of Suzanne Armstrong, 28, and Susan Bartlett, 27, in January 1977.
Dubbed the “Easey Street murders”, the friends were found dead with more than two dozen stab wounds in their home on Easey Street in Collingwood in Melbourne’s inner north.
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Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories after which Rafqa Touma will be your host.
Cbus, the super fund heavyweight chaired by former treasurer Wayne Swan, has released an independent review of its governance and board members which concludes that partnerships with the CFMEU’s construction arm may not have been in the best interests of its members. More details coming up.
A day after our Essential poll revealed voters thought the government had done poorly on the key issues of housing affordability and wages, a new survey shows support for federal Labor is at Scott Morrison-type low levels, with no more than six months before the next election. We have the details, plus today’s Full Story podcast looking at the state of play in Canberra.
The man wanted for questioning by police over the Easey Street murders in 1977 has landed in Melbourne overnight. Perry Kouroumblis, 65, a Greek Australian, has been extradited from Italy to face questioning by police today over the alleged killings of Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett in Melbourne. He maintains his innocence. More coming up.
And there’s good news for commuters – transport costs have seen their biggest fall in years. Everywhere except for one city, that is. More on that soon.
