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Today’s headlines
By Angus Thomson
That’s where we’ll leave our live coverage for the day. Thanks for following along.
Here’s what you need to know tonight:
- Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says the Coalition will support preventative detention-style laws to lock up some of the most violent offenders released after last week’s High Court ruling. David Manne, the executive director of Melbourne’s Refugee Legal service, said some of the non-citizens had already been living in the community for some time, and to reimpose strict conditions would likely “raise serious legal issues”.
- Australia’s National Anti-Corruption Commission has declared government consultants firmly in its sights, with head Paul Brereton telling a public sector forum today that consultants view governments as “an easy means to make money”.
- Billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest told Fortescue’s annual general meeting today that Australia’s climate change response was “dismally behind schedule”, labelling oil giants Woodside and Exxon Mobil as the “world’s greatest deceivers”. The meeting also saw shareholders give the company its first strike after millions of dollars in bonuses were paid to retiring executives.
- Earlier, Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullocks said that inflation remains a challenge for Australia, and higher wage growth without better productivity could feed that problem.
- And overseas, Chinese officials have denied that one of the country’s warships harmed Australian divers in an incident Prime Minister Anthony Albanese labelled dangerous and unprofessional.
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Locking up freed foreigners a ‘severe deprivation of liberty’, lawyer says
By Angus Thomson
A lawyer representing refugees in Australia says re-detaining non-citizens who had served jail time for offences such as rape and murder would be a “severe deprivation of liberty”.
This masthead revealed this morning that the federal government had sought legal advice on the prospect of using preventative detention-style laws to lock up some of the most violent offenders released from immigration detention, according to two sources speaking anonymously to detail confidential information.
Speaking to the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing program earlier, David Manne, the executive director of Melbourne’s Refugee Legal service, said such powers were a “copy and paste” of control orders used in extreme circumstances when a person has been convicted of terror offences.
He said some of the non-citizens had already been living in the community for some time, and to reimpose strict conditions would likely “raise serious legal issues”.
“I think that we can’t rule out the prospect of these kinds of conditions and measures being challenged,” he said. “Australians every day of the week, that have committed offences, and once they have served their sentences, are free to live in the community.”
Secret recording lays out union boss John Setka’s wife’s gun plot
By David Estcourt
In case you missed it earlier, Emma Walters told a private investigator that she wanted a gun so she could lure her former husband, construction union boss John Setka, to her home to use it on him before claiming self-defence, a court has heard.
Walters appeared in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court today facing allegations she made threats to kill Setka and tried to get a firearm in March this year.
Emma Walters outside court today.Credit: Simon Schluter
The court heard Walters was secretly recorded by private investigator Adrian Peeters, claiming she needed the gun because she feared being assaulted and raped by the union boss.
In the recording, played to the court, Peeters and Walters are walking through her West Footscray home when she says she wants to obtain a “piece”, slang for a gun, to use on the union heavyweight.
You can listen to the audio below, and read the full court report by David Estcourt here.
Consultants to face anti-corruption commission grill
Heading now to Canberra, where Australia’s corruption watchdog has declared government consultants firmly in its sights after the PwC scandal.
National Anti-Corruption Commission head Paul Brereton told today’s National Public Sector Governance Forum contractors look at governments as “an easy means to make money”.
National Anti-Corruption Commissioner Paul Brereton.Credit: Edwina Pickles
PwC is a leading candidate to be getting the commission’s attention, after a former partner was caught earlier this year sharing confidential information on a proposed multinational tax avoidance scheme with companies who’d like to lower their obligations.
With governments heavily relying on external consultants recently, Mr Brereton said some time under the microscope was needed.
“Given the extent to which government has in recent decades engaged consultants in place of public servants, and has outsourced the provision of government services to contracted service providers, they are now very, very large areas,” he said. “They are areas that are going to be of great interest, or are of great interest to my commission.”
The commissioner also questioned whether public servants were liable for the robo-rdebt scandal after the royal commission earlier this year referred the matter to the commission for further investigation.
“Difficult questions arise where the duty of the public service to implement the will of the elected government of the day may conflict with imperatives of integrity,” he said.
“We need to be cautious in stigmatising as corrupt the conduct of an official who makes an error of judgment … there is a grey area between what integrity requires and what amounts to corruption.”
AAP
Fortescue shareholders strike against executive pay plans
By Simon Johanson
Staying in Perth, where shareholders at Fortescue Metals Group have given the company its first strike after millions of dollars in bonuses were paid to retiring executives.
More than 52 per cent of shareholders in the green energy and metals company voted against its remuneration report at today’s annual general meeting after influential proxy advisors described special recognition payments given to former CEO Elizabeth Gaines, who received $1.98 million, and executive Ian Wells, $1 million, as “ad hoc” and “discretionary,” and not giving shareholders value.
Fortescue chief executive Mark Hutchinson at the AGM in Perth today.Credit: Trevor Collens
Fortescue board director Penny Bingham-Hall told shareholders the company would receive its first strike for the 2023 financial year remuneration report after receiving “strong feedback” from investors on its remuneration report.
“We acknowledge this feedback, particularly in relation to the special one off payments made in the last financial year, and we will work together with the shareholders, proxy advisors and also with our people to address those concerns in the year ahead,” she said.
Fossil fuel giants are the ‘world’s greatest deceivers’, Forrest tells AGM
By Simon Johanson
Mining giant turned green energy aspirant Fortescue has wrapped up its annual generally meeting in Perth today, where founder and former chief executive Andrew Forrest lashed out at the oil and gas industry and the West Australian government’s response to climate change, which he said was “dismally behind schedule.”
Forrest singled out major Australian oil and gas producer Woodside, labelling it and other fossil fuel producers like global giant Exxon Mobil as the “world’s greatest deceivers” about the deadly threat rising heat and humidity from climate change poses to humanity’s survival.
Andrew Forrest at Fortescue’s AGM in Perth today.Credit: Trevor Collens
The iron ore miner turned new energy aspirant told investors that it will push ahead with three out of five green hydrogen projects it said in January it intended to approve by the end of this year.
Fortescue Energy’s chief Mark Hutchinson said the company’s board has approved plans to push ahead with an 80 megawatt electrolyser and liquefaction facility in Arizona and two other Australian projects. The company will also fund a 50 megawatt green hydrogen technology project in Gladstone, Queensland, and build a trial commercial plant to make green iron in West Australia.
It claims all three projects are the first green hydrogen deals ever progressed to final investment decision status in the US and Australia.
Read the full report by Simon Johanson here.
‘Bulldozers on site’: NSW roads minister questions infrastructure cuts
By Angus Thomson
Returning to the infrastructure funding cuts announced by the federal government last week, NSW Roads Minister John Graham says people in regional communities and Sydney’s west will be most affected by the $1.4 billion blow to the state’s infrastructure pipeline.
Speaking to the ABC just now, Graham said the state government was now forced to find the funds to continue major projects such as that linking the M7 with the new toll-free M12 motorway, where he said there were already “bulldozers on site”.
NSW Roads Minister John Graham.Credit: Peter Rae
“This road is absolutely crucial,” he said. “Without that connection being delivered very soon … [we would not be] reaching the potential for what the Western Sydney Airport should become. It will have real traffic impact on people as they move around Sydney.”
Graham said the state government was concerned about a proposal to shift the Commonwealth’s funding split for regional projects from 80:20 to 50:50.
“Like other states with large bush communities, with towns spread out over large geographic areas in a similar way to ... WA or Queensland, that change would certainly have an impact in New South Wales,” he said.
Families’ grief a life sentence after deaths of five teens in crash
By Georgina Mitchell
The families of five teenagers killed in a car crash south-west of Sydney sobbed as they told a court they will never be the same after the tragedy, which doomed them to a lifetime of devastation and grief, as the man responsible apologised for the first time.
Tyrell Edwards, 20, was behind the wheel of his mother’s Nissan Navara on the evening of September 6, 2022, when he lost control and crashed into a tree at Buxton while driving at about 117km/h in a 60km/h zone.
Gabby McLennan’s mother holds a photo of her daughter as she walks into court.Credit: Nick Moir
His five passengers – Tyrese Bechard, 15, Antonio Desisto, 16, Lily Van de Putte, 14, Gabriella McLennan, 15, and 14-year-old Summer Williams – were killed when the ute hit a second tree and was ripped in half.
Today, their families held photos of the Picton High School students and wore memorial shirts as they walked into Campbelltown District Court to read victim impact statements detailing their grief.
Some fought back tears, wiping their eyes with a tissue, while others shook and sobbed as they told the court about receiving early morning phone calls from relatives, rushing to the crash scene, or having police knock on their door.
Read the full story by NSW court reporter Georgina Mitchell here.
National forensic standard on the table after Queensland lab bungle
Queensland’s attorney-general says she would be open to speaking with other states and territories about a nationalised standard for forensic testing after two inquiries found years of bungles by a state-run laboratory.
More than 100,000 samples may need to be re-tested after retired Federal Court judge Annabelle Bennett’s second inquiry into Queensland’s forensic lab found it had used a “fundamentally flawed” automated DNA extraction method between 2007 and 2016.
Queensland attorney-general Yvette D’Ath in 2021, when she was health minister. Credit: Matt Dennien
Although Bennett said there was no evidence to undermine public confidence in the lab’s current work, D’Ath said there “needs to be a conversation” about a nationalised approach to DNA testing.
“I know other jurisdictions, when I was health minister, they were all looking at what was happening in Queensland and ... going ‘ok, where do we sit in that and what are we doing?’” She said. “No doubt, there is a conversation to be had there, and it’s a conversation I welcome.”
A lengthy first inquiry, led by Walter Sofronoff KC last year, found many DNA samples went untested and others were incorrectly ruled insufficient by the lab.
The Queensland government is outsourcing overseas and nationally to deal with the huge testing backlog.
Legislation amendments will also be introduced in state parliament to extend the amount of time DNA samples can be held.
AAP
‘I think we went backwards’: Locals criticise Victoria’s flood response
In state news, leaders from Victoria’s Gippsland region have told a parliamentary hearing into last year’s devastating floods that the community has lost faith in the state’s ability to handle natural disasters.
“I don’t think the community has any comfort, we have lots of recommendations come out of reports but at the end of the day when the flood happens we don’t see the results of that,” Traralgon Community Recovery Committee representative Ken Skinner told the hearing this morning.
Traralgon in Gippsland was hit by flooding in June last year. Credit: Blake Bourne
Former Latrobe City Council emergency management manager Lance King added: “I think we went backwards”.
Mr Skinner was concerned there were too many alerts from the Vic Emergency app after flood peaks and said people disregard alerts when they frequently appear on their phones.
“You don’t need to tell them every hour because they will just switch (their phones) back off again,” he said.
Earlier in the day, the committee heard the total cost of the 2022 flood disaster to Victoria’s agriculture sector was estimated to be $1 billion.
AAP
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2023-11-21 07:45:15Z
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