Source : the age
An eight-year investigation into negotiations between the Andrews government and the firefighters union has found “serious and concerning conduct” by ministers, MPs and public servants but stopped short of finding corruption conduct.
The findings were contained in Operation Richmond, an investigation by the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission that started in 2018.
Tabled Wednesday after years of delays, IBAC said had identified serious issues in the way pay deals with the Country Fire Authority and Metropolitan Fire Brigade were negotiated alongside the establishment of Fire Rescue Victoria.
“IBAC found that senior members of government acted contrary to established policies, procedures, codes of conduct and conventions in negotiating a deal with the secretary of the United Firefighters Union, Mr Peter Marshall, for the CFA Enterprise Bargaining Agreement without the knowledge and involvement of the responsible minister, agencies and department,” Commissioner Victoria Elliot said at the start of the report.
“By doing so, the government placed itself in a position where Mr Marshall was able to exert extraordinary influence over the negotiations for both the CFA EBA and the MFB EBA.”
Regional publishers have backed the direction of the government’s changes to the News Bargaining Incentive, hours after Nine warned the redesign undervalued its investment in journalism.
Country Press Australia, which represents about 240 regional, rural and local mastheads, welcomed the stronger offset for deals with small publishers and the increase in the minimum number of agreements from four to six.
But president Damian Morgan said the number of deals alone would not guarantee diversity, and a platform could strike six agreements without reaching a representative cross-section of the industry. He wants the final rules to require deals with genuinely separate corporate groups, and limits on how much support can be concentrated in one group.
Morgan also urged caution on the grants program for publishers below the $150,000 revenue threshold, saying public money should go to newsrooms that employ journalists rather than organisations relying on unpaid labour.
News Corp and Nine have strongly criticised the changes. Nine chief executive Matt Stanton yesterday said the company felt “deeply misled” by the federal government’s adjustments to its proposed laws to force big tech to pay for the use of Australian journalism, and he called on the prime minister to intervene.
Former Queensland premier Anna Bligh has been appointed to the board of National Australia Bank, after previously running the banking industry’s peak body.
NAB chair Phil Chronican announced Bligh’s appointment today, noting she served as chief executive of the Australian Banking Association for eight years. Bligh is also chair of UNICEF Australia and she was a non-executive director of Medibank Private for nine years.
“Anna has run Australia’s third-largest economy as premier and is respected across the business and political spectrum for her thoughtful and collaborative approach. She has provided independent oversight, strategic guidance and risk governance for organisations undergoing growth and transformation,” Chronican said.
“She has been deeply involved in the banking sector for almost a decade which has given her a strong understanding of the sector’s issues and opportunities, including the financial services Royal Commission. These have included international trends and challenges facing the industry across technology and regulatory considerations.”
Bligh will join the NAB next month.
Liberal MP Simon Kennedy has vowed that the Coalition will pressure Labor to strengthen its gambling reforms.
“The leadership of the Coalition will toughen these gambling laws. I’ve spoken with them, and there’s no doubt about that,” Kennedy told Radio National.
“We will be strengthening these laws. It’s a question of how, not if, and we’ll do it in a considered way.”
Liberal senator Sarah Henderson said on Tuesday that further action was required to regulate gambling conduct, in an indication the Coalition will demand amendments on betting inducements.
A huge rescue operation was launched after a massive boat with a record 173 migrants on board caught fire in the English Channel, the London Telegraph reports.
A lifeboat from Eastbourne on the English south coast was called out on Tuesday to rescue those on board when the dinghy’s engine burst into flames. British and French coast guards also took part in the operation, the paper said.
There were no reported fatalities, the British government said, while French authorities said 11 people had minor injuries and three were taken to hospital. The migrants were returned to France.
Senator David Pocock said this morning that Labor’s gambling bill will do nothing to change the normalisation of gambling in Australia as he singled out leaders of the NRL and the AFL for failing to front up to the inquiry into the government’s reforms.
“You have a predatory industry that is doing everything to one, normalise gambling amongst Australians, and then two, to absolutely milk people for their money,” Pocock said during an appearance on ABC’s News Breakfast program.
Pocock also said gambling had become “totally embedded” in some Australian sports.
“Worryingly, it’s gone beyond just a sponsorship model to a revenue model, where we now know that the NRL, the AFL are actually getting a kickback back on bets placed on their sport.
“As a senator, it’s pretty tragic that the leaders of these sports refuse to turn up to a Senate inquiry to actually explain themselves, to explain why they think it is okay that young, impressionable Australians are seeing gambling ads, watching their favourite sport.”
Shadow treasurer Tim Wilson said the “widow’s tax” loophole in Labor’s budget changes slipped through because the consultation process was rushed.
Widows and divorcees who faced losing access to capital gains and negative gearing concessions under the budget overhaul of property taxes will be protected, Treasurer Jim Chalmers confirmed yesterday after a campaign from independent Senator David Pocock to close the loophole.
“We know the government, in the lead up to passing the budget, only gave two days consultation. They basically sidelined and ignored small business. Now they’ve released this updated legislation because they’ve laid landmines all across the economy that keep exploding,” Wilson told News 24.
“There are widows who are being hit by Jim Charmer’s higher taxes. But what he’s done is given an edict, basically, to the banks not to implement the law. So of course it should be done. It should have been done properly the first time.”
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has postponed a speech about immigration policy at the National Press Club this week.
Sources told the ABC that the speech, scheduled for Thursday, would have unveiled a package of measures that included capping backpacker numbers, restriction on asylum seeker working rights, and restricting family visas.
Immigration levels have been a divisive topic within the party, and the delay comes after a cabinet meeting on Monday. The speech remains unfinalised, the ABC reports.
Former prime minister Kevin Rudd has said One Nation leader Pauline Hanson is unprepared to do the “hard grinding business of government”, and has no practical responses to the challenges facing Australians.
Speaking on ABC’s 7.30 program last night, Rudd said Hanson’s approach had not changed since she entered politics more than 30 years ago.
“The easy business of politics is simply to act as a protest vector and then lace it and spice it with the politics of race,” he said. “That’s what … Hanson’s been doing ever since she emerged in my fair state of Queensland, a quarter of a century ago. Her script hasn’t changed.”
Rudd, who is now president of the US-based think tank the Asia Society, said Hanson would have no idea how to govern Australia.
“It’s very hard to do the grinding business of government, which looks after practical problems of national security … of the economy and growing it, environmental sustainability … and delivering basic services for the Australian people, including housing affordability, which has been eating away so badly at people’s standard of living over a long period of time.
“Ask this question of yourselves. What single answer does she have to any of the list of problems and challenges which I went through before?”
The US stock market rallied to records as companies kept piling up profits and oil prices eased.
The S&P 500 shot up 1.8 per cent, and the main measure of Wall Street’s health topped its prior all-time high, set in June. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 1.7 per cent to its own record set the day before, and the Nasdaq composite jumped 2.6 per cent. Palantir Technologies and Caterpillar helped lead the way after becoming the latest companies to deliver stronger profits for the spring than expected.
The Australian sharemarket is set to rise, with futures at 6.01am AEST pointing to a gain of 35 points, or 0.4 per cent, at the open. The ASX jumped 1.4 per cent to a record high yesterday. The Australian dollar is stronger at US70.47¢.
SpaceX reported a 92 per cent rise in revenue for the April-June quarter, in its first earnings since going public, buoyed by strong growth in its Starlink satellite-internet and AI businesses. Its shares are 3.3 per cent lower in after hours trade, after gaining more than 9 per cent during the Tuesday session.
Despite worries about high inflation, the war in Iran and a possible bubble in stock prices because of euphoria around the boom in artificial-intelligence technology, Wall Street is nearing its latest apex in large part because profits are soaring for companies. Stock prices tend to follow the path of corporate earnings over the long term.
Read the full markets wrap here.
