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‘Not running a flower shop’: Star still not suitable to run a casino, inquiry told
By Colin Kruger
The Star Entertainment Group will not be suitable to hold a casino licence until it has decisively rectified its dysfunctional internal culture and risk management failures, according to lawyers assisting a government an inquiry into the company.
On the final day of NSW hearings into casino giant, counsel assisting the inquiry Naomi Sharp, SC, accused the casino operator of belated, and limited admission of wrongdoing. But she said the more significant issue is the lack of insight provided into why and how it all went wrong.
Counsel assisting Naomi Sharp, SC, made final submissions on Monday.
“To date, very little has been said about why these problems have happened, and why the misconduct occurred. Very little has been said about why the culture was dysfunctional to the extent that it was and why the second line of defence under the risk management framework failed so fundamentally,” she told the inquiry.
“We submit, there is still the need for a further period of reflection and investigation to understand how this could have gone so wrong.”
Read more here.
‘Size and power’ shouldn’t settle disputes, Wong says in first stop of Asian tour
By Chris Barrett
Singapore: Foreign Minister Penny Wong has signalled a strengthening of security ties with Vietnam just days after Hanoi condemned a Chinese military exercise in the South China Sea as a serious breach of its sovereignty.
In the first stop of a four-day trip in south-east Asia that will also take her to Malaysia, the country of her birth, Wong on Monday met in the Vietnamese capital with President Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son.
Penny Wong shakes hands with Vietnamese Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son in Hanoi on Monday.Credit:VNA
Addressing an audience at the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics, she said it was the new Australian government’s ambition to expand strategic, defence and security cooperation with Vietnam, as well to further economic engagement and innovation links.
“Our two countries share an interest in a region that is peaceful, prosperous, that is stable, in which sovereignty is respected,” Wong said.
“A region where disputes are settled peacefully in accordance with international law and norms, not by size and power.”
Read more here.
Man shot by police in Coburg North
By Marta Pascual Juanola
A man is in hospital after being shot by police in Melbourne’s inner north on Monday afternoon.
Emergency services were called to Newlands Road in Coburg North at about 4.40pm following reports of the shooting. Listeners of radio station 3AW reported hearing shots fired near Coburg Lake Reserve.
Newlands Road was cordoned off by police following the shooting.Credit:Lana Murphy/Nine News Melbourne
3AW caller Jilda told the station she was driving towards Reservoir when she saw seven police cars speeding down Newlands Road towards the reserve.
“I’ve literally just counted seven police cars,” she said. “They were stopping for nothing, flying down Newlands Road.”
Coburg North resident Travis also told 3AW he heard two loud bangs in rapid succession while he was cooking dinner at 4.44pm.
Read more here.
‘It’s looking really ugly over time’: Home buyers to pay price as rates rise to stem inflation
By Shane Wright
Home buyers will be collateral damage as the Reserve Bank drives up interest rates to slow inflation and the federal government faces pressure to adopt long-term economic reforms to safeguard the budget and economy.
Macroeconomics Advisory chief economist Stephen Anthony said those who used recent record-low interest rates to get into the property market were likely to be “burned” as the RBA was forced to take official interest rates as high as 5 per cent.
Households are spending almost $75 more a month on petrol than at the start of the year due to soaring prices.Credit:James Davies
Inflation has surged across the world over recent months, driven up by loose monetary policy, huge budget deficits, supply chain blockages, strong domestic demand for goods and the war in Ukraine.
The Australian Institute of Petroleum on Monday reported the national average unleaded petrol price lifted by 6.4¢ a litre last week to 211.9¢ a litre.
It is the second-highest level on record. Capital city records were set in Brisbane (219.3¢), Canberra (220.1¢) and Sydney (216.4¢) while the regional Australia average soared by 10.4¢ to a record high of 211.3¢.
Read more here.
WA’s credit rating upgraded to AAA
By Hamish Hastie
Western Australia’s credit rating has returned to AAA status, nine years after it was downgraded.
Ratings agency S&P announced the upgrade on Monday afternoon, pumping up the tyres of the McGowan government and explaining the strong financial position was due to the high iron ore price and “favourable” distribution of the GST.
“The upgrade reflects Western Australia’s continued budgetary outperformance compared with its domestic and global peers,” the agency said.
WA Premier Mark McGowanCredit:Bohdan Warchomij
“The state is benefiting from elevated royalty revenues – without the previous downside of lower federal grants, thanks to the 2018 reforms to Australia’s horizontal fiscal equalisation system – and growth in tax receipts.”
In a gushing press release, the agency said even with WA’s $33.9 billion infrastructure program it expected the level of debt-to-revenue to drop well below that of other Australian states.
“Our ratings are supported by Western Australia’s track record of robust financial management, a very high-income economy, and exceptional liquidity,” it said.
“These strengths help counterbalance risks associated with dependence on the resources sector.”
Read more here.
Auditor blasts $163 million in government contracts for business advisers
By Katina Curtis
A $163 million government scheme providing advice to businesses has come under fire from the Auditor-General in a damning report that found the Industry Department’s approach to awarding contracts “fell short of ethical requirements”.
The Entrepreneurs Programme, which started in 2014, offers businesses practical advice and mentorship from experts on how to achieve their goals. It was reshaped in 2019, and the department asked five of the 10 providers to help with that redesign.
Federal Auditor-General Grant Hehir.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
The Auditor-General cited a breach where providers involved in the redesign of the program were given information about the new tender a month before it opened, and noted a failure to be open and competitive when taking on a probity adviser to oversee the process.
The program awarded seven new contracts to start from July 2020, worth a total of $144 million, which then grew to $163 million. Five of those went to providers who had already been part of the scheme, including three involved in the redesign.
The current contractors are Ai Group, Deloitte, Business Australia, Business SA, Darwin Innovation Hub, CSIRO and i4Connect.
Read more here.
Opinion: The radical reign of Clarence Thomas
By Maureen Dowd
“What is happening here?” a distraught Nancy Pelosi said on Friday.
It’s a good question and I can answer it because I was there at the start of the corrosive chain of events that led to women losing control of their own bodies. I saw how America went from a beacon of modernity to a benighted outlier.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi reacts to the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, during a news conference at the Capitol in Washington.Credit:AP
Over the past three decades, I have witnessed a dismal saga of opportunism, fanaticism, mendacity, concupiscence, hypocrisy and cowardice. This is a story about men gaining power by trading away something that meant little to them compared with their own stature: the rights of women.
It started innocently enough on a beautiful summer day in Kennebunkport, Maine, with the ocean sparkling and a lunch of crab meat salad and English muffins.
I was covering the first President George H.W. Bush’s nomination of a 43-year-old US appeals court judge for the DC Circuit to take the seat of retiring Justice Thurgood Marshall. Clarence Thomas, standing in front of a weather-beaten shingled cottage, looked uneasy as Bush defended his conservative choice.
The warnings were clear even then. Democratic Senator Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio threatened to investigate Thomas’ record on abortion, saying, “I will not support yet another Reagan-Bush Supreme Court nominee who remains silent on a woman’s right to choose and then ascends to the court to weaken that right.”
Read more here.
Victoria’s first openly gay ministers sworn in
By Sumeyya Ilanbey
Victoria’s first openly gay ministers have been sworn into cabinet, marking a historic step for state parliament.
Steve Dimopoulos and Harriet Shing officially joined the Andrews government’s frontbench on Monday during a swearing-in ceremony at Government House.
Government members pose for a group photo at Government House during the swearing-in ceremony on Monday.Credit:AAP
They are among five new ministers who are joining cabinet following the resignations of senior ministers including deputy premier James Merlino.
Dimopoulos said he felt nostalgic thinking about standing on the shoulders of gay men and women in the past who were forced to hide their sexuality.
“I feel extraordinarily privileged and honoured,” the member for Oakleigh said.
Read more here.
Independent MP: Albanese’s crossbench staffing cuts about politics, not fairness
By Sophie Scamps
Independent MP for the seat of Mackellar, based around Sydney’s northern beaches, Sophie Scamps, wrote an op-ed for the Herald today describing a decision to reduce staffing numbers for politicians as the start of a “war”. That article is below.
Sophie Scamps is the member for Mackellar.Credit:Kate Geraghty
It’s a curious tactical move for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, while he is in Europe mending bridges, to begin a war over staffing with the crossbench in the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Last week, the prime minister sent a letter outlining his intention to reduce our adviser allocation from four to one. This is not about budgetary cutbacks or a notion of so-called fairness between staffing of backbench MPs and crossbenchers.
This is a political move to consolidate power in the two-party system and is designed to ultimately fend off potential independent challengers to the Labor Party at the next election by making current independents less effective. The casualties will be good government, collaboration and better policy.
Labor can see the two-party system ailing. A record number of people voted for minor parties and independents at the recent federal election. This has clearly sent a shock through senior leadership of both major parties.
Read more here.
Russia’s financial lifeline faces a new threat
By Stephen Bartholomeusz
Russia continues to find ways to sell its oil and fund the war in Ukraine despite the West’s best efforts to throttle the Kremlin’s most important source of revenue while the West continues to come up with new and unconventional efforts to try to cut that flow of oil and revenue off.
At the three-day G7 summit that began in the Bavarian Alps at the weekend, leaders discussed mechanisms for capping the price of Russian oil exports as part of a new push to tighten the ever-expanding range of financial sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin has managed to keep Russia’s revenues ticking over but a new plan is being developed to turn the tap off.Credit:AP
The summit is also considering proposals to ban imports of Russian gold, Russia’s second-largest source of revenue.
The West’s previous efforts to squeeze Russia’s oil revenues have been circumvented by the Russians, who have found more-than-willing buyers – at heavily discounted prices – in China and India. Attracted by discounts of up to $US35 a barrel from international market prices, they have been buying up to half Russia’s exports. Brazil and South Africa are other markets Vladimir Putin has identified as having increased their purchases.
Read more here.
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2022-06-27 08:41:09Z
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