Put the party ‘introspection’ on a deadline, says Leeser
The Liberals are somewhat battling to keep the attention on the government, over their internal infighting.
It was revealed on Tuesday that one Liberal MP, Mary Aldred, who only just joined the parliament in May, was not too happy about the public sniping taking place.
On RN, Julian Leeser is asked if the party risks looking like a “clown show” if the resignations and disunity continue – as said by Liberal backbencher Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (who herself was booted off the frontbench by Ley).
Leeser’s not really keen to delve in.
After two election losses, it’s reasonable that the political parties have a period of introspection, but that period can’t be particularly long. And I think that Australians want us to focus on the issues that are at hand.
Pressed on what he thinks about those within the party who are leaking, Leeser says people need to focus on their actual job. And as to who will replace Andrew Hastie on the frontbench? That’s “a matter entirely for Sussan”.
Key events
Tom McIlroy
Coalition ‘cautiously optimistic’ on first phase of Gaza plan
The shadow attorney-general, Julian Leeser, says he is cautiously optimistic at news that the first phase of the Donald Trump-led ceasefire plan for the Middle East is advancing.
Israel and Hamas have agreed to release hostages and prisoners as part of the deal.
“It’s obviously good news,” he said at Parliament House.
But today is a day, obviously, where I’m thinking about those people who’ve lost lives and families who’ve lost loved ones in the conflict.
There will be people, if the plan proceeds, who will be reunited with their loved ones, but there will also be people who will mourn because those loved ones have been killed in the Middle East conflict.
Liberal senator and former ambassador to Israel, Dave Sharma, tells ABC News he’s “very pleased” at the news and believes it’s an important first step.
I don’t think we can be 100% confident until we actually see the hostage exchange undertaken, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, but I think the parties that are involved in this and especially and I credit here Qatar, Egypt and Turkiye, and the United States, for all the work they’ve been doing – they have a big interest in this succeeding and I think it would be very difficult for either party, but especially Hamas to renege on this agreement now.
Natasha May
Health regulator received 188 complaints against professionals since Gaza war
Back in health estimates, Senator Andrew Bragg is asking officials from the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) how many complaints they have had in relation to medical professionals engaging in antisemitism.
Justin Untersteiner, the CEO of Ahpra, responded:
We have no tolerance for discrimination in the health system, whether that be against any form of discrimination in relation to the conflict in Gaza that we’re seeing at the moment, we’ve received 188 notifications since October 2023 that relate to 95 different practitioners.
Of those 95 practitioners, Untersteiner said “about half of those relate to some form of complaint about antisemitism, and about half of those relate to complaints about Islamophobia”.
When we look at the makeup of those matters, many of the complaints, or the notifications as we refer to them, relate to some kind of social media activity. And of those, many of those do relate to a complaint that someone has reposted some kind of news article, for instance, so it could be an ABC article or something like that …. in many of those cases, we wouldn’t see those as a case where we need to take particular action.
Two cases are awaiting a tribunal, which Jamie Orchard, an Aphra general counsel, said relate to social media posts: “They might relate to antisemitism, they might relate to Islamophobia … type posts.”
Australia currently has 54 defence export permits for Israel, defence officials have revealed at Senate estimates this morning.
Deputy secretary of strategy, Hugh Jeffrey said 22 permits with Israel have been granted since 7 October 2023, of which five have expired. The remaining existing permits were issued before the conflict.
The defence minister or their delegate can grant the export permit. Jeffrey clarifies that the granting of a permit “does not equate to an export:
It simply provides an Australian company the ability to make an export should it have a commercial buyer overseas… having a permit… does not equate to the export of a weapon.
Jeffrey says the defence department keeps permits under review, and will reassess “open” permits under contemporaneous criteria.
Defence minister Richard Marles (who has said repeatedly that Australia does not export weapons to Israel) directed defence official to scrutinise the 66 permits that were issued prior to 7 October.
Jeffrey says 37 of those reviewed were deemed needing no further action, while six permits are still being scrutinised by officials. Others have lapsed or amended.
Officials say that means there are 54 permits that are in effect.
Nino Bucci
Judge should not have found Patterson would spend ‘years’ in solitary confinement, DPP argues
The Victorian DPP is appealing Erin Patterson’s sentence because the judge who handed it down erred in finding she was likely to spend “years to come” in solitary confinement.
According to the notice of appeal released by the supreme court on Thursday, the DPP is appealing Patterson’s sentence of life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 33 years, saying it is ‘manifestly inadequate’.
Patterson was sentenced on 8 September over the murders of Don and Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson, and the attempted murder of the latter’s husband, Ian Wilkinson. According to the notice:
The sentencing judge erred in finding that there was a ‘substantial chance’ the respondent would be held in ‘solitary confinement for years to come’ when such a finding was not open on the evidence, and that finding infected his assessment of the respondent’s likely future conditions in custody and his decision to fix a non-parole period.
The DPP argue that the sentence imposed on Patterson is manifestly inadequate, in that:
It was inappropriate for the sentencing judge to fix a non-parole period; or the non-parole period of 33 years is manifestly inadequate.
Patterson has indicated she will appeal her conviction, but her appeal is yet to be filed.
Amanda Meade
Racial discrimination claim against SBS broadcaster from Zionist federation will go to trial
Mary Kostakidis has had a partial win in her bid to challenge a racial discrimination claim against her, but the case brought by the Zionist Federation of Australia will still go to trial.
The former SBS broadcaster asked the federal court to strike out the “embarrassing” racial discrimination claim on the grounds it fails to identify which race, ethnicity or nationality was offended by her social media posts about Israel.
In the South Australian federal court today Justice Stephen McDonald ruled on her interlocutory application and said some of her submissions have force and some raise issues that can appropriately be addressed at trial.
The chief executive of the ZFA, Alon Cassuto, has been ordered to file an amended statement of claim after parts of it were struck out by the court.
Kostakidis has been accused by the ZFA of breaching the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) by sharing two X posts about a speech by the late Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah in January 2024.
Benita Kolovos
Allan says union walkout will have no impact on west gate tunnel project
Jacinta Allan’s press conference at the west gate tunnel (see earlier post here) comes just a day after construction union workers walked off the job. Sources said the workers halted work citing safety concerns, but also walked off other sites due to dispute with its developer John Holland in South Australia.
Allan says the issue was resolved and has no impact on the tunnel opening in December:
The matter was resolved between the contractors and the unions, and it’s had no impact on the delivery of the project.
Asked whether she was concerned about the CFMEU’s influence on whether project the project is opening in December, Allan she isn’t.
This project is going to open before the end of the year, as it’s been committed to by the contractors and Transurban, in line with the agreement that was struck back in 2021 and I know from talking to so many of the workers, regardless of the union that represents [them], that those workers are so goddamn proud of what they’ve built here, and they should be. They should be because they’ve worked through all conditions. They’ve worked day and night to deliver something that is investing in the future of our great city and state.
Natasha May
Shadow health minister accuses Medicare campaign of ‘mirror-imaging’ Labor’s election campaign
Over in health estimates, the shadow health minister, Anne Ruston, is asking questions about what she says “looks awfully like the department was replicating the government’s election campaign” on its website.
Ruston said as the government was going into caretaker mode, the department of health’s website featured a “strengthening Medicare” campaign “which quite coincidentally also happened to be the government’s campaign slogan in relation to their health policy promotion.”
Rachel Balmanno, a deputy secretary, said it was “part of the regular website update process. It would probably be to do with the timing of the [Medicare] 40th anniversary and where we were at in terms of any live campaign activity.” Ruston continued:
This looks to me, very, very like the department was mirror-imaging what the government was doing during an election campaign. Your promotional activity looks exactly the same as the government’s election campaign material, and you changed it at the same time that the government went into election campaign mode.
This looks to me very much like the department has actually been either actively or coerced or asked to make your departmental communications reflect what the government that was doing. Now I’m not saying you did. I’m just saying that that’s what it looks like here.
Balmanno said, “the department ran a campaign that went through all the usual clearance processes … that’s the campaign that was run when the election started, as with all of our campaigns, the campaign material was removed from all channels.”
Ruston has requested that the department provide documentations around the development approval for the campaign.
Coalition fails to introduce child sexual abuse bill … for now
The shadow attorney general, Julian Leeser, tried to move a motion to suspend standing orders to introduce its bill for mandatory minimum sentences for child sexual abuse crimes.
The government argues that the bill is already scheduled to be introduced at a separate time. Private members’ bills (of which this is one) are introduced and debated on Mondays in the parliamentary sitting calendar.
A few crossbenchers, including Allegra Spender and Andrew Wilkie, voted with the Coalition to bring on the introduction of the bill.
The next sitting Monday is 27 October.
Court prohibits pro-Palestine march to Sydney Opera House
Jordyn Beazley
The Palestine Action Group has lost its bid in the NSW court of appeal to march to the Sydney Opera House.
Last week, the group, alongside Jews Against Occupation, announced a plan to diverge from the normal route of its near-weekly rallies over the past two years and march from Hyde Park to the Sydney Opera House on 12 October to mark two years since 7 October and call for “an end to genocide in Gaza”.
But on Friday the NSW police announced it would knock back the group’s application to march to the Opera House, citing safety concerns such as crowd crush over limited exit points from the forecourt.
The group fought the police’s decision in the court of appeal on Wednesday before chief justice of NSW Andrew Bell, Justice Ian Harrison, and Justice Stephen Free.
You can read the full story here:
Benita Kolovos
Vic premier announces west gate tunnel will open in December
We’re on day five of what I’ve decided to call infrastructure week in Victoria, with the premier, Jacinta Allan, holding a press conference on the new elevated Footscray Road, on which she says major construction is now complete.
The 1.5km stretch of road forms part of works of the West Gate Tunnel, which she has announced will open in December. Allan says:
The importance of this elevated structure is it provides motorists with a direct connection into the new tunnels that are being built as part of the west gate tunnel project and a direct connection also into the city …
It’s [also] a way of separating out even further that local truck traffic that wants to access that big and important container port that is the Port of Melbourne, from the commuter traffic that wants to move through and around the city, and that’s why we’ve built the west gate tunnel.
After announcing yesterday there would be free public transport over the summer weekends to mark the opening of the metro tunnel, she says she has written to road tolling companies “encouraging them to follow the government’s lead, to provide some summer support for motorists”.
The minister for transport infrastructure, Gabrielle Williams, says:
I’ve in recent days been talking a lot about the city loop and how she served us well over a very long period of time. Well, the west gate bridge has served us very well over a very long period of time too. But it’s time that she had a bit of help, and that’s what this project has been all about.
Super payment and parental leave bills introduced to the house
There are a few bills being introduced to the house this morning.
Jim Chalmers has just introduced two bills to guarantee superannuation payments, that would force employers to pay super at the same time as their salary and wages. It would also update penalties and charges for late or missed payments.
The changes will take place from 1 July next year. Chalmers says:
In a typical unpaid super case, for a 35-year-old, recovering their super leaves their retirement balance more than $30,000 better off in today’s dollars.
While most employers do the right thing, some disreputable ones are exploiting their employees.
Following the treasurer, the workplace minister, Amanda Rishworth, is introducing a bill that would ensure access to employer-funded parental leave if their baby is stillborn or dies in pregnancy.
The bill introduces a new principle into the Fair Work act. Unless employers and employees have expressly agreed otherwise, employer funded paid parental leave must not be cancelled because a child is stillborn or dies.
It’s been called baby Priya’s bill. When baby Priya died at just 42 days old in 2024, her mother’s pre-approved three months of leave was cancelled by her employer.
Put the party ‘introspection’ on a deadline, says Leeser
The Liberals are somewhat battling to keep the attention on the government, over their internal infighting.
It was revealed on Tuesday that one Liberal MP, Mary Aldred, who only just joined the parliament in May, was not too happy about the public sniping taking place.
On RN, Julian Leeser is asked if the party risks looking like a “clown show” if the resignations and disunity continue – as said by Liberal backbencher Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (who herself was booted off the frontbench by Ley).
Leeser’s not really keen to delve in.
After two election losses, it’s reasonable that the political parties have a period of introspection, but that period can’t be particularly long. And I think that Australians want us to focus on the issues that are at hand.
Pressed on what he thinks about those within the party who are leaking, Leeser says people need to focus on their actual job. And as to who will replace Andrew Hastie on the frontbench? That’s “a matter entirely for Sussan”.
‘There’s an epidemic of child sexual abuse’: shadow attorney general
The Coalition is pushing for mandatory minimum sentencing for child sexual abuse offences. They’ve cited the case of a Victorian parent who was given a two and a half year sentence – after sexually abusing their five year old daughter on at least 19 occasions.
The shadow attorney general, Julian Leeser, told RN Breakfast this morning Australians are “very concerned” about the level of child abuse in the country.
The report of the Australian Centre for Countering Child Exploitation came down recently and it evidenced that there were over 82,000 reports of online child sexual abuse that have been reported to it. That’s an average of 266 reports a day. That’s an epidemic of child sexual abuse.
Asked whether the government is considering the bill, Leeser said:
I understand that she’s [attorney general Michelle Rowland] open to this legislation. She’s acknowledged that when we passed laws under the Morrison government to put in place mandatory minimums for child sexual offences, they worked.
And that’s correct because they saw increases in guilty pleas, they saw increases in people undergoing rehabilitation, but most importantly, they saw increases in sentences.
Government prepares for return of more Australian citizens from former IS caliphates
Australian authorities are preparing for the return of more women and children from former Islamic State caliphates in the Middle East, AAP reports.
Two women and four children who are Australian citizens have returned to Australia after smuggling themselves out of Syria to Lebanon, where they were issued Australian passports after passing security checks.
The women, who had travelled or were taken to Syria to become partners of ISIS members, and their children, had been living in refugee camps in Syria after the collapse of the terrorist group.
It has stirred up a political storm for the Albanese government as the opposition criticises their return, saying it had been kept secret from the public amid community safety concerns.
The federal government says they arrived on their own volition and were not assisted or repatriated by Australian authorities.
Stephen Nutt, an assistant commissioner at the Australian federal police, said authorities were preparing for the arrival of more people under similar circumstances, but would not confirm how many due to possible fluctuations.
Nutt also refused to confirm the location of the six people, saying there were ongoing investigations after their return which were part of the federal police’s management of “Australians of counter-terrorism interest offshore,” he told Senate estimates:
I can assure you that we have appropriate investigations, criminal investigations under way in relation to those who require criminal investigation as part of an Australian cohort offshore and their return.
Ley denies leaking Dutton comments on Liberal election review
Sussan Ley says she did not leak reported comments by Peter Dutton to the Liberal election review to the media.
On Monday Nine papers reported leaked comments by the former Liberal leader criticising Andrew Hastie. One of the reviewers, Nick Minchin, later told the paper Dutton did not directly criticise his shadow ministers.
It was later reported Ley told a partyroom meeting on Tuesday that the leak did not come from her.
On the Today show this morning, host Karl Stefanovic asked why she felt the need to defend herself when she wasn’t accused of the leak. Ley said:
I’ve obviously explained to my party room processes that relate to the review, Karl, and they’ve been takeouts by the media and commentators. As you would expect. I don’t go into those internal conversations or what is discussed, except to say we do have a vigorous debate about the contest of ideas.
Vigorous debate indeed.
Opposition claim Glencore copper bailout is ‘massive failure in economic policy’
The opposition has been critical of the government’s bailout of the Glencore copper smelter, calling it a “massive failure in economic policy”.
On News Breakfast, Sussan Ley said the $600m lifeline appears to be a “Band-Aid”.
Her shadow finance spokesperson, James Paterson, told Sky News a bit earlier the government should be creating an environment where bailouts aren’t necessary.
What would make great financial sense is providing the basic public policy settings that meant that it wasn’t necessary to bail out so many heavy industries and smelters, as this government has now been forced to do.
But when your taxes are higher, when your red tape is greater, and when your energy prices in particular, are going through the roof unfortunately, good businesses like this … are becoming unviable.
Opposition continues attacks over triple-zero outage
Opposition leader Sussan Ley has again attacked communications minister Anika Wells over the government’s handling of the Optus outage in September.
Continuing her media rounds, she joined ABC News Breakfast, and called for Wells to take more responsibility.
We are asking the government what on earth is going on … when lives are on the line, you don’t side with the telcos. You don’t jet off to New York. You don’t cover up your failures. These are three things the communications minister has actually done.
The minister has pointed the finger at everyone but the processes that she, as minister, is responsible for. So we are asking the questions of this government because ultimately it’s their responsibility.
Yesterday the Coalition unsuccessfully tried to move a motion to set up a parliamentary inquiry into the triple zero system (which was supported by the crossbench) and tried to move amendments to the government’s bill which enshrined a triple zero custodian into law.
Some experts believe rents could fall under 5% mortage deposit scheme, but others predict increased demand
Lower rents will be a bonus consequence of rules allowing first home buyers to get a mortgage with just a 5% deposit, analysts say, even though the policy is likely to push up property prices, AAP reports.
The key election promise from Labor was aimed at making it easier for young Australians to get on the property ladder. Allowing more people to buy their own house or unit could also reduce demand for rentals and pressure on rents, Domain’s chief of research and economics, Nicola Powell, said:
What that will do is fast-track a lot of tenants transitioning to being homeowners, which should also help ease the demand.
But experts warn the decision to remove a barrier to getting a mortgage – saving for a deposit – could increase demand among homebuyers.
Treasury modelling suggests cheaper deposits will push up house prices by half a percent over six years, but the insurance council has warned the impact could be as large as 10% in the first year alone.
A report from Domain, released on Thursday, also shows the string of rapid rent increases over the past three years has likely come to an end, with rent growth across Australia’s combined capital cities remaining flat for two consecutive quarters.
House and apartment rents are at record highs, but they’ve remained mostly steady over the past quarter.
