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Pandemic leave payments crackdown on repeated claims
By Angus Thompson and Dana Daniel
Casual workers will only be able to claim a maximum of three pandemic payments every six months under new restrictions introduced to cut down on rorting, but will not have to prove a COVID infection unless symptoms persist beyond the compulsory five-day isolation period.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed following a national cabinet meeting that the scheme’s payments would be extended beyond their slated end-date of September 30.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said new limitations would be applied to the number of times people can access paid pandemic leave.Credit:Dominic Lorrimer
“The principle essentially agreed to by all first ministers is that, while the government requires mandated isolation, the government has a responsibility to provide support during that period for the appropriate period,” Albanese said in Sydney.
“We remain obviously of the view that if people are sick, whether from COVID or from other health issues, they should not be at work and that is important.”
The scheme, which has cost more than $2.2 billion since it was introduced in August 2020, is open to workers who must isolate but do not have access to sick pay entitlements, such as casuals. The payments were recently reduced from $750 to $540 after mandatory isolation was shortened from seven to five days.
The government tried to cut off the payments in July but relented after state and territory leaders demanded it be retained.
The three-claim maximum was introduced after Services Australia identified that some Australians had claimed the payments every six weeks over a six-month period.
Overall, the federal government has detected 57,000 suspicious pandemic leave claims worth $12 million as part of a fraud crackdown.
Read more here.
Big WA gas buyers seek federal action as shortage fear spreads west
By Peter Milne
Big gas users including Alcoa and Wesfarmers have called for the federal government to intervene in the West Australian gas market ahead of concerns about a looming shortage.
The DomGas Alliance wants the federal government to apply to WA its Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism designed for the east coast market, where gas prices have surged due to demand from export plants in Queensland.
Woodside’s Pluto LNG project has to date sold little of its gas reserved for the WA market.Credit:Woodside
The WA market has escaped disruption from LNG exports due to a much-lauded policy for liquefied natural gas projects to reserve 15 per cent of their gas for domestic use.
Industry consultancy EnergyQuest recently labelled gas in WA as the cheapest in major industrialised countries, however a shortage between 2025 and 2027 predicted by the Australian Energy Market Operator in 2021 could cause prices to jump.
On Wednesday, the DomGas Alliance – which includes South West alumina producer Alcoa, Pilbara fertiliser and explosives manufacturer Yara, Wesfarmers’ chemical and fertiliser operations and Coogee Chemicals – called for the reserved gas to be offered to market instead of staying in the ground.
It is understood that gas supply from Woodside’s Pluto LNG project is a particular concern of the gas buyers. While former WA Labor Premier Alan Carpenter’s 2006 deal with Woodside has been held up as what should have been done on the east coast, it has delivered little gas.
Woodside had no obligation for the first five years of gas exports and there is doubt the deal was legally enforceable.
Read more here.
Joyce rejects Albanese’s pork-barrelling accusation
By Mike Foley, Shane Wright and Katina Curtis
The Nationals fear Labor will slash regional funding after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese accused their party of being obsessed with pork-barrelling and looking after their mates.
Nationals leader David Littleproud accused the government of hiding behind a cheap political line instead of being constructive as it targeted funding for roads, rail and dams in the hunt for budget savings.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has accused the Nationals of being “obsessed” with pork-barrelling.Credit:Dominic Lorrimer
The Sydney Morning Herald revealed this week that tens of billions of dollars worth of infrastructure promised by the former government could be under threat in the next two budgets.
Also on the chopping block are regional-focused programs from the deal to secure the Nationals’ support for the net-zero by 2050 target.
The government’s expenditure review committee met in Canberra on Wednesday as senior cabinet ministers seek cuts ahead of the October 25 budget.
Albanese said the National Party were “committed to pork-barrelling”.
“We will fund projects, including in regional Australia, that stack up, that represent good investment for taxpayers,” he said at a press conference in Sydney on Wednesday morning.
“The Nats were obsessed with looking after their mates, sometimes looking after private interests, and it’s not a model for any government to follow.”
Littleproud said whenever Labor formed government, the “pendulum” on funding allocation swung away from regional communities.
Read more here.
Australia could revive its car industry with EV, says Tesla chair
By David Crowe
Tesla chair Robyn Denholm says Australia should revive its auto industry by making batteries and electric vehicles to meet soaring global demand and help speed up the transition from petrol and diesel cars.
Denholm said Tesla and others needed more batteries as soon as possible to support the shift to electric vehicles and renewable power projects. The demand gives Australia a chance to build a new industry on its supply of raw materials, she added.
Robyn Denholm: “We have the know-how, we have the skills, and an abundance of mineral resources.”Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
The Australian tech executive, whose net worth is estimated to be $688 million from her position on the board of the world’s biggest electric vehicle company, said the shift to the new industry could be achieved without government incentives to subsidise manufacturing.
“Australia is in a unique position because we have the minerals here that other countries don’t have,” she told the National Press Club on Wednesday.
“The supply chains for the electric vehicle and the lithium-ion storage batteries that are key for renewable energy are being formed now. That’s why I think it’s a unique opportunity.
“I do think the private sector and government need to work together. I don’t think that incentives are required because most business people will see the exponential growth that’s going to happen over the next period of time in those minerals.
“And moving up the value chain is important for job creation but it’s also important in terms of the economics that can be yielded with that. And that’s why, from my perspective, the time to act on that is now.”
Read more here.
The Queen’s favourite ‘classy cocktail’ sells out
By Jessica Yun
Dan Murphy’s and BWS are scrambling to restock a key ingredient used to make Queen Elizabeth II’s favourite cocktail as people raise a glass in memory of the British monarch.
Sales of Dubonnet Rouge, a French apéritif, jumped 465 per cent at Australia’s largest drinks retailer in the three days between Friday and Sunday compared with a typical seven-day trading week. The late Queen’s favourite cocktail is said to be two parts Dubonnet, one part gin, poured over ice with a lemon twist.
Dan Murphy’s is scrambling to restock Dubonnet, a French liqueur and crucial ingredient in the Queen’s favourite cocktail.Credit:Flavio Branceleone/SMH
“It’s certainly an acquired taste. It’s predominantly a fortified liqueur with spices, so it’s quite niche, quite popular in Europe – obviously very popular with the Queen,” Endeavour Group director of buying and merchandise Tim Carroll said.
The $13 billion beverages group is stocking up on the liqueur after several Dan Murphy’s and BWS stores ran out over the weekend.
Read more here.
‘A plaza for our people’: Sydney to get a new public square honouring Queen Elizabeth II
A new public square near Macquarie Street will be named after Queen Elizabeth II and feature a monument in her honour, as the NSW government pushes ahead with plans to reinvent the precinct.
The modern block adjoining the historic Registrar General’s Building in the centre of Sydney will be bulldozed later this year to make space for the outdoor plaza beside Hyde Park Barracks.
The NSW government wants to transform the Macquarie Street precinct east of Sydney’s CBD into a thriving arts and cultural hub.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet announced the royal tribute on Wednesday, and said the commemorative square would be named Queen Elizabeth II Place.
Perrottet said the square and monument would “remember the service and dedication of Queen Elizabeth to the great people of NSW”.
The outdoor plaza will connect The Domain’s sprawling park lands to the heritage-listed Macquarie Street east precinct, which the government intends to transform into an arts and cultural district.
Perrottet said the space would not just be a place for reflection, but a space for recreation.
“It will be a plaza for our people, and it’ll be open space [with] cafés, and the like. This is a place to gather and also connect with each other, both through the urban side and the garden side,” Perrottet said.
Read more here.
ASX posts worst decline in 3 months as inflation shock hits home
By Colin Kruger and Carla Jaeger
Welcome to your five-minute recap of the trading day and how the experts saw it.
The numbers: Almost $63 billion was wiped off the value of the Australian sharemarket this morning, with the S&P/ASX 200 plunging as much as 2.9 per cent at the open, after shock inflation figures in the US tanked sentiment on Wall Street.
The benchmark index recovered slightly to close 2.58 per cent lower at 6828.60 points -its worst decline in almost three months.
The ASX has tumbled by 2.8 per cent in early trade.Credit:Louie Douvis
The lifters: There were very few stocks to come out of today’s bloodbath unscathed: Stock transfer company Computershare added 1.02 per cent; Whitehaven Coal gained 0.71 per cent; and investment company Infratil gained a modest 0.36 per cent.
The laggards: Lynas Rare Earth lost around 5 per cent; Bathroom supplies company Reece dropped 4.98 per cent; accounting software Xero slipped 4.88 per cent; and PC software company Altium shed 4.71 per cent.
Elsewhere, Lithium company Lake Resources’ shares sunk 16.54 per cent amid news of a dispute with its collaborator for its Kachi Pilot plant.
The lowdown: Sharemarkets tumbled across the globe on Wednesday amid a realisation that inflation in the world’s largest economy isn’t slowing as much as hoped. US inflation data for August came in higher than the market expected overnight, which triggered investor fears of more drastic interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, triggering the biggest drop on Wall Street since June 2020.
All 11 sectors on the local bourse closed in the red on Wednesday, with real estate providing the main drag, down around 4.16 per cent. Financial stocks also fell 2.86 per cent, with all four big banks declining for the first time in five days.
“Everyone’s a bit worried,” said Elio D’Amato, founder of investor advice service Spotee Connect.
“It’s just the shoot first, ask questions later ... The biggest fall in three months is always going to be unnerving on market open.”
Read more here.
Victorian health minister: ‘miscommunication’ made mother go to Adelaide for urgent scan
By Lachlan Abbott
Circling back to the Victorian health minister’s press conference, Mary-Anne Thomas also said a hospital miscommunication caused a mother to travel to South Australia for an urgent medical scan.
Mother of two Kylie Hennessy, who needed the scan ahead of surgery on a brain tumour, was forced to travel to Adelaide last week after being told she faced a months-long wait for a “functional MRI” scan in Melbourne.
However, Thomas told reporters two of Victoria’s four specialist FMRI machines were fully functional and arrangements were previously being made to provide Hennessy with access to another machine at the Florey Institute in Melbourne.
“Unfortunately due to miscommunication from the hospital to Ms Hennessy, the work that was being done to ensure that Ms Hennessy could receive the FMRI at the Florey Institute was not communicated to her in a timely way,” she said.
Thomas also said she had spoken with Victorian Education Minister Natalie Hutchins, who has apologised after she responded to a question about Hennessy’s experience earlier today and said that sometimes equipment is not available and that, from her own personal experience in the healthcare system, patients sometimes had to “roll with the punches”.
Thomas said Hutchins’s comment was based on her own personal experience in caring for her late husband through cancer and treatment.
“I don’t want anyone leaving this press conference thinking that we have anything but great sympathy for the experience Ms Hennessy has had during what is already an incredibly stressful time,” Thomas said.
Albanese’s bid to host UN climate conference ‘hypocritical’: Pacific statesmen
By Mike Foley
The Albanese government would look hypocritical leading a Pacific nations bid to host a United Nations climate conference, according to regional statesmen, as Australia’s own emissions’ reduction target falls short of what is needed to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees.
Former Kiribati president Anote Tong and former Palau president Thomas Remengesau, who represent the Pacific Elders Voice group, said the Australian government’s target to cut greenhouse gases 43 per cent by 2030 didn’t meet the standard required of a signatory of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Former Kiribati president Anote Tong and former Palau president Thomas Remengesau at parliament in Canberra on Wednesday.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen.
Australia has pledged emissions reduction levels consistent with limiting global warming as close as possible to 1.5 degrees. Labor’s 43 per cent target, passed into law on September 8, is consistent with 2 degrees warming or more.
The Albanese government has said it would support new coal and gas projects if the economic and environmental cases stack up.
Warnings from Pacific leaders follow a report from the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organisation on Wednesday that said the current emissions reduction commitments from nations around the world must be seven times higher to get global warming on track to be limited to 1.5 degrees.
Pacific nations will need to endorse the Albanese government’s bid to the UN to host the next climate conference, known as the Conference of the Parties (COP), which will set the next benchmark for global emissions targets. But Tong said it would be hypocritical for Australia to lead a bid to host the conference while it was supporting new fossil fuel projects.
“It would appear to be a contradiction, wouldn’t it? I mean, it doesn’t make sense,” he said.
“We support Australia hosting because it would be in our part of the world, we would be part of it. But to be part of something that’s not doing the right thing is wrong.”
Read more here.
Pay jump for WA’s public servants as government caves to unions
By Hamish Hastie
The West Australian government has caved to pressure with an improved pay deal that could avoid further industrial action by the public sector union but has been described as “envy politics” by the opposition.
Rather than percentage increases across the board, the new pay offer will mean lower-paid government workers receive bigger salary jumps than their colleagues on more money.
WA public sector workers at a demonstration last month.Credit:Peter de Kruijff
Public sector workers earning less than $104,000 will be offered a $3120 increase in their salary each year over the next two years, as well as a $3000 one-off bonus.
Workers earning more than $104,000 will receive the bonus as well as a 3 per cent yearly increase over the next two years.
The new pay deal, the third since December, will see much bigger paychecks for lower-paid workers compared to the previous offer, which was 3 per cent for all workers and a $2500 bonus.
Read more here.
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2022-09-14 06:30:30Z
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