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What we covered today
By Lachlan Abbott
Thanks for reading the national news blog. This is where we’ll end today’s coverage.
To conclude, here’s a look back at the day’s major stories:
The Albanese government has asked the Fair Work Commission to apply to the Federal Court to place the CFMEU into external administration after this masthead uncovered explosive allegations of criminal infiltration, kickback offers and corruption.
ACTU secretary Sally McManus announced the CFMEU’s construction and general division has been indefinitely suspended from the union movement’s peak body.
Energy Minister Chris Bowen revealed in a speech that nervous investors are seeking reassurances from the Albanese government over the fate of the renewables rollout amid deepening uncertainty over the opposition’s vision for the future power mix.
In NSW, Premier Chris Minns suspended the embattled CFMEU’s affiliation with the state Labor Party and the government will attempt to oust state secretary Darren Greenfield through the courts after images emerged showing him allegedly receiving a $5000 cash bribe.
In Victoria, an elderly woman whose battered body was found in the Maribyrnong River on Sunday has been remembered as “the kindest lady you could meet” after a woman appeared in court today charged with her murder.
In Queensland, Premier Steven Miles has urged CFMEU state divisional secretary Michael Ravbar not to fight a bid to appoint independent administrators to the union. Ravbar lashed out at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese today, saying he “panicked and soiled himself over some unproven allegations in the media”.
In Western Australia, a court was told Brittany Higgins has less than $10,000 to her name before Liberal Senator Linda Reynolds succeeded in a bid to access her former political staffer’s trust deed.
In business news, mining billionaire Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue today announced it will slash 700 jobs and merge its mining and energy divisions.
In sport news, Queensland and NSW will clash in a highly anticipated State of Origin decider in Brisbane tonight. Follow our live coverage here.
In world news, Donald Trump’s former opponents for the Republican nomination for US president, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, endorsed him during the second day of the party’s national convention in Milwaukee today (Australian time).
Thanks again for your company. Have a lovely night.
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Market wrap: ASX hits new high
By Sumeyya Ilanbey
Technology and property stocks pushed the Australian sharemarket into record territory on Wednesday, as investors bet on the US Federal Reserve cutting interest rates sooner rather than later.
The S&P/ASX 200 rallied 58.6 points, or 0.73 per cent, to 8057.9 at the close.
It slightly retreated from its intraday record high of 8081.6 points, which it hit around midday.
Real estate investment trusts (REITs) lifted 1.49 per cent to record the largest gains on the local bourse, as mega-caps Goodman Group (up 1.16 per cent), Scentre Group (up 1.83 per cent) and Stockland Corporation (up 2.42 per cent) all rallied.
While all 11 sectors rose, energy (up 0.17 per cent) and mining (up 0.08 per cent) stocks recorded the smallest gains.
Foreign minister to meet with Pacific leaders in Japan
By Dominic Giannini
Foreign Minister Penny Wong has left Australia to meet Pacific leaders at a global forum in Japan as the jostle for regional influence continues between US-allied powers and China.
The Japan-Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting, known as PALM, will be held in Tokyo.
Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong.Credit: AAP
“Australia and Japan are working together to deliver on Pacific priorities such as climate resilience, infrastructure, health and digital connectivity,” Wong said in a statement on Wednesday as she departed Canberra.
“Australia and Japan share the Pacific’s vision for a region that is peaceful, stable and prosperous and where sovereignty is respected.”
The meeting comes after China courted the new Solomon Islands prime minister and Vanuatu’s leader earlier in July.
AAP
Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue slashes 700 jobs
By Peter Milne
In breaking news, mining billionaire Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue has announced it will slash 700 jobs and merge its mining and energy divisions, as the company tempers its ambition to be a major producer of clean hydrogen.
The $70 billion company revealed the decision late on Wednesday shortly after founder Forrest addressed its almost 16,000 staff. The job cuts will mainly hit white-collar roles.
Since 2020, Forrest has toured the world promoting the virtues of green hydrogen as an emissions-free fuel and seeking to partner with governments that have areas suitable for producing the vast amounts of wind, solar or hydropower required. These efforts appear to have found that producing the huge amount of energy required to separate hydrogen from water is extraordinarily costly.
Fortescue now plans to switch its focus to producing cheap renewable energy at scale, hoping success there will reinvigorate its hydrogen ambitions.
Coalition may demand ban on convicts as union delegates if Labor needs CFMEU law
By Lachlan Abbott
Simon Birmingham, the shadow foreign minister and a senior Liberal MP, has flagged the Coalition could demand a ban on people with a criminal record acting as union delegates if Labor needs their support to legislate for a CFMEU administrator.
Earlier today, Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke said the government would seek to intervene in support of any Federal Court application made by the Fair Work Commission to appoint a CFMEU administrator. If legal problems thwarted that regulator action, Burke said he would legislate “to remove any barriers to appointing administrators to whatever sections of the construction division of the CFMEU”.
Liberal senator Simon Birmingham.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
On the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing program, Birmingham was asked whether the Coalition would support such legislation if required.
“We’d always reserve the right to see such legislation, but we support strong action against the CFMEU,” he responded. “Our concern is, at present, this is the weakest possible action by the Albanese government.”
Burke has said any bill would be narrow and focus on the powers needed for CFMEU administration, but ABC host Greg Jennett asked Birmingham if the opposition would support adding a ban on someone with a criminal conviction from being a union delegate, if Labor was forced to negotiate a bill with the Coalition.
In response, Birmingham said:
We actually sought to include something like that in the most recent piece of industrial legislation to go through the parliament. One that, again, Labor was dragged kicking and screaming to, in allowing the textile division of the CFMEU to leave.
Earlier this year they voted against that. And then finally they agreed to do it in the last sitting of parliament.
We put forward proposals that somebody who had 10 criminal offences or more should be barred from holding office. That is a pretty generous threshold, and the government still voted against that.”
ACTU president demands ‘a transformed construction union’
By Lachlan Abbott
ACTU president Michele O’Neil wants “a transformed construction union” before the CFMEU is allowed to return to Australia’s peak union body.
Speaking on ABC radio in Melbourne moments ago, O’Neil reiterated ACTU secretary Sally McManus’ earlier statement that she could “count on one hand” the number of the ACTU’s 52 executive members who voted against the resolution to suspend the CFMEU’s construction and general division from the council.
“And that’s being generous,” O’Neil said.
ACTU president Michelle O’Neil.Credit: James Brickwood
The ACTU president said the CFMEU was indefinitely suspended from Australia’s peak union body and would only be readmitted once the ACTU executive determined it was “a clean union” free of criminal activity.
“In the meantime, it means that they no longer pay things like affiliation leads to the ACTU and do not participate in our decision-making,” O’Neil said.
“These are allegations, but there are allegations where there has been a substantial amount of detail provided now on the public record, which led us to that decision we made today.”
‘Easy way or hard way’: Miles calls on Qld CFMEU to accept change
By Sean Parnell
Queensland Premier Steven Miles has called on the state’s CFMEU bosses to consent to the federal government’s bid to put their branch and two others under administration.
His comments came after the union’s Queensland and NT divisional secretary, Michael Ravbar, lashed out at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and declared the CFMEU would not buckle under pressure.
Queensland Premier Steven Miles.Credit: Jamila Toderas Filippone
Miles asked the federal government to include the Queensland branch in its response to recent allegations published by this masthead. He said he wanted independent administrators to help address any concerns construction companies had with the CFMEU, as well as “cultural matters”.
He said the nature of the response would partly depend on how union leaders reacted to the move.
“There is an easy way where consent is provided, or there is a hard way where it could be contested,” Miles said on Wednesday afternoon.
Ravbar had earlier accused Albanese of putting workers at risk by targeting the CFMEU and not construction companies.
ACTU secretary reacts to Qld CFMEU resistance and claim PM ‘soiled himself’
By Angus Thompson
ACTU secretary Sally McManus called on CFMEU officials to co-operate with external administrators after Queensland secretary Michael Ravbar accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of having “soiled himself”, and declared the state branch wouldn’t fall into line.
“We would ask the union, the whole of the union, including the Queensland branch, to co-operate with external independent administrators,” McManus said in Melbourne.
“This is the best path forward in terms of satisfying their members.”
Asked whether she believed the union was co-operating at this point, she replied: “I think that’s a matter to be seen. We’d urge them to do so.”
McManus said she could count on one hand the number of people in the meeting who disagreed with the motion to suspend the CFMEU.
“There are good people in the CFMEU, there are good people, and it will need good people,” she said, adding the Health Services Union came out a stronger organisation after it was placed into administration in 2012 following an expenses scandal.
‘Good people’ in CFMEU need to weed out corruption: McManus
By Lachlan Abbott and Angus Thompson
ACTU secretary Sally McManus says there are “good people in the CFMEU” and called on them to weed out corruption in the union after its construction and general division was suspended from Australia’s peak union body.
“It will be very important that the good people … draw on those deep principles that union has in its history to weed out all corruption and all connections with any organised crime, and to reassert the strong union values that I know,” she said.
ACTU secretary Sally McManus and president Michele O’Neil at the triennial ACTU Congress in Adelaide earlier this year.Credit: Ben Searcy
McManus spoke alongside ACTU president Michelle O’Neill at a press conference in Melbourne at 3pm.
She said CFMEU workers would still be represented by a union while their embattled organisation was under administration.
“There will still be support for building workers on the job,” McManus said.
The smaller maritime division of the CFMEU will remain affiliated with the ACTU, she confirmed.
ACTU secretary reveals CFMEU resolution
By Angus Thompson
ACTU secretary Sally McManus, speaking at a press conference in Melbourne moments ago, says the union movement has taken two courses of action to deal with allegations of CFMEU misconduct.
Firstly, it has resolved to suspend the construction and general division of the CFMEU from the ACTU “until they are in a position to demonstrate to us they are a well-functioning union, free of criminal elements”.
ACTU secretary Sally McManus (centre) - seen with ACTU president Michele O’Neil (right) - says the CFMEU has been indefinitely suspended from the peak body.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
Secondly, it is urging the CFMEU to co-operate with the process of external administration started by the government.
“We absolutely reiterate our zero tolerance for corruption, criminal activities, all violence, all of it,” she said.
“We’ll root it out.”
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