Source : the age
Hello and welcome to our national news live blog for Tuesday, August 18. Here’s what is making news today.
- Labor introduced a new bill yesterday that would allow the government to impose a levy on gambling companies to fund a new “opt-out” regime for ads on all online platforms. The money would be used to fund fresh costs the Australian Communications and Media Authority would incur while administering and enforcing the government’s new advertising rules.
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One Nation has been forced to clarify that its migration policy would allow tens of thousands more migrants than it first suggested, raising questions about the rigour of its policy manifesto. Meanwhile Pauline Hanson pledged to slash the tobacco excise. The party will today push a plan to lower the tobacco excise by 75 per cent.
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Key Sydney Swans players are at the centre of a Victoria Police sexual assault investigation as scrutiny over their futures at the club grows. The investigation relates to an allegation of sexual assault at an East Melbourne hotel hours after the team’s victory over Essendon at the MCG on Sunday night. Sanctions for the players are expected to be handed down by the club as early as today.
- And US President Donald Trump threatened to bomb US ally Oman if it “gets in the way” of reopening the Strait of Hormuz, while casting doubt on the possibility of reaching a new deal with Iran after their 60-day interim agreement expired.
Labor has crunched the parliamentary timetable to push through proposed laws on gambling advertising, reducing spending on the NDIS, and forcing tech giants to pay for news.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor appears to have struck a deal with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to support Labor’s NDIS cuts, which would save more than $35 billion over four years and have angered the disability sector.
In exchange, Labor will act more quickly on its pledge to clean up an unintended consequence of its property tax changes causing divorcees or spouses of deceased people to lose grandfathered negative gearing and capital gains concessions – the so-called “widow tax”. Labor previously argued the change would take months, until Taylor demanded a quicker resolution yesterday.
Labor and the Coalition agreed to condense debate on a gambling crackdown and push the bill to the Senate by tomorrow morning, allowing it to pass the parliament this week.
Labor’s caucus signed off on changes that would create an opt-out register for gambling advertising. Gambling firms will pay for the new register themselves. Inducements to bet will also be cut back. Labor has also shifted from 6am to 5am the advertising start time or a cap of three ads per hour.
Some Coalition MPs want the clampdown on ads to go further. Backbenchers Andrew Wallace, Paul Scarr and Nationals frontbencher Pat Conaghan have all reserved their right to vote against the bill, which Taylor has been negotiating with Albanese for a week.
Victorian Premier Ben Carroll has expressed his support for any alleged victims involved in the Sydney Swans sexual assault investigation.
“This is horrible, what has been reported,” Carroll said when asked about the investigation at a press conference this morning.
“It is under police investigation. But every young woman, young girl, every female deserves to be treated with respect and to be given the safety that they deserve.”
The Australian sharemarket is expected to fall at the open after US stocks edged further from their record heights overnight as elevated oil prices stoked inflation concerns and hopes faded for a deal to end the Iran war. Investor focus will be on market giants like BHP and CSL, which reported earnings this morning.
ASX futures pointed to a fall of 36 points, or 0.4 per cent, at the open. The ASX lost 0.5 per cent yesterday. The Australian dollar was stronger at US71.03¢.
On Wall Street overnight, the S&P 500 fell 0.5 per cent but remained near its all-time high set Thursday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.5 per cent, and the Nasdaq composite slipped 0.3 per cent. Wall Street’s losses solidified in the afternoon when oil prices accelerated upward. The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, rose 2.7 per cent to $US90.87.
It’s been careening back and forth because of uncertainty about what the war with Iran will do to the global flow of crude. Last month alone, Brent zigzagged between $US72 and US102 as hopes rose and fell that the US and Iran could reach a deal that would allow oil tankers to freely exit the Persian Gulf again.
A copper bonanza is fuelling a jump in revenue and profit at global miner BHP as the red metal’s price hits record highs and shortages of concentrates and other feedstocks in China crimp output from its smelters.
The resources giant reported a 9 per cent lift in full-year profit to $US9.8 billion ($13.8 billion) as revenues jumped 15 per cent to $US58.8 billion.
“Copper is the engine that is driving BHP’s growth,” the company’s newly appointed chief executive Brandon Craig said. “For the first time, copper contributed more than half our underlying EBITDA and generated significant free cash flow, which means our copper growth is self-funding.”
Craig said BHP had managed to decrease unit costs across its operation by 6.1 per cent despite headwinds from inflation, higher diesel prices and global supply chain disruptions.
BHP said it has a well-defined project pipeline of copper assets across Chile, Australia and Argentina that can potentially lift copper production by around 40 per cent by 2035.
The company said Chinese demand for iron ore remained resilient. Its mines and seaborn exports produced a record 265 million tonnes, generating about $US14 billion in underlying earnings for the company.
“The global economy and commodity markets demonstrated considerable resilience despite a backdrop of heightened geopolitical tension, trade policy uncertainty and shifting monetary and fiscal settings,” the miner said.
Hundreds of people have attended a vigil in London’s Trafalgar Square for former Cambridge professor Jason Arday who was found dead in his home on Friday.
Arday was the youngest black professor in the university’s history when he stepped into the role at 37. He died at 41.
The leaking of a Japanese diplomatic cable about Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s melon comments made in a crude podcast interview is being reviewed by the Australian Federal Police’s Special Investigations Command.
Liberal frontbenchers James Paterson and Ted O’Brien referred the matter to police after media published official correspondence from Japan downplaying the incident.
“The Australian Federal Police (AFP) takes allegations of unauthorised disclosures of Commonwealth information seriously and assesses all reports in accordance with its legislative responsibilities and established investigative processes,” the acting deputy commissioner wrote in a letter seen by this masthead.
“Your correspondence has been referred to Special Investigations Command, where the material will be reviewed and an update provided at an appropriate time.”
The government yesterday refused to hand over documents relating to the gaffe to the Senate, citing the police investigation.
Assistant Treasurer Dan Mulino says Labor will announce its migration policy “soon”, following a last-minute cancellation of a scheduled immigration address by Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke earlier this month.
On Tuesday, August 4, Burke abruptly announced that an address to the National Press Club, in which he was slated to outline Labor’s immigration policy, was postponed following a cabinet meeting.
Immigration has been a contentious and divisive issue within the Labor Party for some time, and the party is yet to formally outline its new policy.
Mulino would not be drawn this morning on whether there was still internal party division over the subject.
“There’s some good work going on around that policy, and you can expect an announcement soon,” he told News24.
Burke’s address has not been rescheduled.
One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce has accused Labor of lying to Australians, and claimed the government would put higher taxes on superannuation.
Asked what evidence he had for his claim, he told Radio National: “My evidence is you can’t trust the government. They lie, okay. And when people are liars, it’s very hard to become unliars, and it’s really hard to get to a point where you say, ‘Oh, I’ll believe you this time’.”
“They gave us evidence before the election. They weren’t going to change capital gains tax… They said that the understanding of the issue with the prime minister of Japan was not an issue and it didn’t happen. When quite obviously it did. They said that the prime minister never fell off the stage, when he did. Whether it’s the big things or the little things, they’re all the same thing. They’re lies, and therefore you have to be cautious of liars because if they lie once, they’ll lie again.”
Chalmers is continuing on the breakfast news circuit, and has been asked about the changes the government would consider making to betting inducements in its package of gambling reforms.
Speaking to ABC’s News Breakfast this morning, the treasurer said:
“I understand people’s concern about inducements, and the minister, and the government does as well. I think primarily there’s an important role for the regulator to crack down on and enforce these inducements, but beyond that … There’ll be negotiations and discussions between the government and other parties in the Senate, in the interests of passing these really important reforms, and action on inducements is part of it.”
He would not say whether the government had considered an opt-in model instead of an opt-out model for gambling advertising, after Labor introduced a new bill yesterday that would allow the government to impose a levy on gambling companies to fund a new “opt-out” regime for ads on all online platforms.
“These changes that we’re proposing are very substantial changes, and they will make it much easier for people to opt out of this advertising,” Chalmers said.
A proposal slated by Pauline Hanson to allow Australians to withdraw more from their superannuation would “decimate” the retirement income of millions of Australians, Treasurer Jim Chalmers warned this morning.
“[Superannuation] is a really important part of our economic security and retirement incomes for Australian workers,” Chalmers told Seven’s Sunrise.
“That’s at risk now.”
The treasurer characterised Hanson’s suggestion yesterday – that the rules for superannuation withdrawals should be loosened – as an attack on the working class.
“One of the most important features of our superannuation system is this idea of preservation. This idea that with compounding investments over time, Australian workers can access the decent retirement incomes that they need and deserve after a lifetime of work … This is another attack on workers, on their incomes.”
