What we learned today, Monday 1 September
And that’s a wrap of our live news coverage this Monday. The day’s been dominated by reaction to Sunday’s anti-immigration rallies.
The Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi moved a motion on social cohesion, saying the rally over the weekend should be a “wake-up call”, and accusing other politicians of having downplayed or fuelled racism. Faruqi also called One Nation “merchants of hate”.
The minister for multiculturalism, Anne Aly, said she was glad the anti-migration rallies didn’t draw big crowds but neo-Nazis used the rallies to “prey on some legitimate concerns around housing and around cost of living”.
Anthony Albanese said the anti-migration rallies were about “sowing division”, and were “unfortunate” at best.
Australia’s social fabric is being “steadily eroded by extremism”, Sussan Ley said in a statement after yesterday’s rallies.
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, joined the ranks of politicians condemning the rallies. Minns told reporters he was “probably as confused as most people” about the protests’ origins.
On the other hand, Bob Katter, who attended one of the rallies, asked the prime minister about the increase in migration in Australia, and its impact on the budget. The independent MP said it was the “urgent demand” of 80% of Australians to stop migration.
In other news, the aged care minister, Sam Rae, was on the receiving end of a concerted effort by the Coalition to press the government on the delay of the Aged Care Act, and the rollout of home care packages. The effort spread across both houses of parliament.
Finally, speaking about the government’s Nauru deal, Zali Steggall, the independent member for Warringah, said Australia was on a “slippery slope” towards the US’s Ice-style approaches to immigration.
We’ll be back with more breaking political news first thing tomorrow. As ever, thank you for joining us.
Updated
Vegetable vendor denies cartel allegations
An update on our post earlier: A vegetable supplier has denied allegations of price fixing when selling to Aldi stores, after being taken to court along with three other producers by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
Velisha Farms denied the ACCC’s accusation of breaches of cartel law. A spokesperson said the allegations against the company, its managing director, Catherine Velisha, and its senior sales manager, Kaushik Vora, were “very serious and we do not accept them”, adding:
We have retained lawyers and intend on defending these proceedings … Velisha Farms remains focused on supplying high-quality fresh produce to all our customers including Aldi and supporting our growers, partners and employees as it has done for many years.
Another of the producers facing allegations is Perfection Fresh, the second largest fresh vegetable supplier in Australia. A spokesperson for the company said it had engaged with the ACCC over the allegations, which it said related to “a small number of fresh produce that was supplied to one customer”. The company was committed to acting with integrity, transparency and in compliance with laws and regulation, they added.
Updated
Barnaby Joyce calls anti-migration rallies ‘pushback’ to pro-Palestine protests
Barnaby Joyce says Sunday’s anti-immigration rallies were “pushback” to what he called the Isis and Taliban support shown at recent pro-Palestinian protests, including the march over Sydney Harbour Bridge last month.
The member for New England told the ABC a short time ago that he was “certainly concerned about elements” of yesterday’s rallies, but that it was “ridiculous” to say the entire crowd was “evil”.
“We’re getting more polarised in this,” he said. “I’m not a supporter of [anti-Indian sentiment]. It’s ridiculous. The colour of your skin does not determine your character, as other people vastly more clever than me have said in the past.”
What I say is that people have a right to ventilate those issues, if … you have a whole heap of people walking across the bridge waving Isis flags and Taliban flags, you’re getting a pushback.
Updated
Larissa Waters says anti-immigration protesters ‘have serious questions to answer’
Larissa Waters says Sunday’s anti-immigration protests were “frightening” and that they were in part the responsibility of a government that is “prioritising the needs of big business and billionaires over ordinary people”.
The Greens senator told the ABC a short time ago:
It was quite frightening. The footage of black-clad men stomping around on Camp Sovereignty in Melbourne was really, really scary. So I think many of those folk attending have serious questions to answer. Our concern is that the government is not addressing the housing or cost-of-living crises, which is leading to people blaming migrants for their legitimate financial issues.
Now for the actual neo-Nazis, I’m not sure we can reason with them, but for any other ordinary person who’s feeling like the system’s not working for them … that’s not the fault of migrants. That’s the fault of a system and a government that keeps prioritising the needs of big business and billionaires over ordinary people.
What they should do is take an anti-racist framework across the board and keep a weather eye on this increasing far-right extremism.
Updated
‘This culture has to change,’ says Victorian opposition leader
The Victorian opposition leader, Brad Battin, held a press conference earlier this afternoon, in which he blamed the government for the March for Australia rally.
He said it would not have happened if there was a protest permit system and move on laws. Battin told reporters:
We cannot have it, ever again, in this state where someone who is a declared neo-Nazi has the opportunity to stand on the stairs of parliament and address a crowd. Many in that crowd booed, many in that crowd don’t agree with those views, and there’s many people in Victoria who came out to have their say with the freedoms that they deserve.
But we can’t have it where we have a community coming out, particularly in a violent manner, where they’re retaliating against Victoria police, who are here to protect us. This culture has to change, and the only way to change that is to give the Victoria police the powers to have a registration system in the state and to ensure the move on laws are in place to protect business and to keep Victoria safe.
It is worth noting the Victorian police chief commissioner, Mike Bush, does not support a permit system and officers do have the power to move people on during a protest if they are believed to be committing an offence.
Updated
Australia on a ‘slippery slope’ to US-style immigration approaches, independent warns
Zali Steggall, the independent member for Warringah, says Australia is on a “slippery slope” towards the US’s Ice-style approaches to immigration.
A short time ago, speaking about the government’s Nauru deal, she told the ABC:
It’s legitimate to want to keep our communities safe from a cohort that are criminals who have committed dangerous crimes. Now what we have before the parliament is a bill where the government is seeking to retrospectively set aside requirements for procedural fairness that are key elements of natural justice and of our justice system. That’s really concerning.
She said she seconded a motion to have the legislation referred to the human rights committee – “and the government opposed it, which I think is really concerning”.
She said many groups were concerned the legislation “could apply to a broader cohort than just the ones who have committed crimes, and it could apply to other visa holders”.
To me it brings to mind images of what’s happening in the US with Ice departments that just grab people, deport them, take away and the whole, ‘Oops, I’m sorry we made a mistake.’ That is why procedural fairness and natural justice are so important to make sure administrative errors don’t occur. And we are on a slippery slope.
Updated
PM refuses to give more details about Nauru asylum seeker deal
Anthony Albanese has refused to provide more detail about his government’s arrangement with Nauruan counterparts regarding the detention of a cohort of asylum seekers.
Speaking on the ABC a short time ago, the prime minister said the deal was “about protecting Australia’s interests” and that the government makes “no apologies for the fact that we have been very clear about trying to deal with a decision of the high court” that found those people “have no reason to be here, no legitimacy in staying here”.
Patricia Karvelas repeatedly asked the PM for detail about the deal and its timeframe, eventually asking: “So are you going to make those details clear, or will they be shrouded in secret?”
Albanese replied:
They’re made clear between our government and the Nauruan government in a respectful way, as you would expect, rather than just on a program in an interview.
Read more here:
Updated
PM says neo-Nazi giving speech from Victoria’s parliament steps ‘isn’t the Australian way’
Anthony Albanese says Sunday’s anti-migration rallies were about “sowing division”, and were “unfortunate” at best.
The prime minister told Patricia Karvelas on the ABC just now:
The tone … of much of the rallies was unfortunate – [that’s the] the best way that you could put it – but hateful in some of the extreme examples. And the idea that an open neo-Nazi was able to give a speech from the steps of the Victorian parliament is something that isn’t the Australian way.
He continued that while Australia is a “modern nation that has benefited from our multiculturalism … there will always be people who seek to say, ‘Look, your lot in life could be better, and it’s because of people who don’t look like you.’”
He said there had always been “elements” of resentment towards migration, but that social media had made it easier for those views to be reinforced.
“The motivation that they have, which isn’t actually about housing or our economy or anything else, it’s about sowing division,” he said.
Updated
Queensland acting premier says anti-migration demonstrators were ‘peacefully protesting’
Queensland’s acting premier has drawn an equivalence between yesterday’s anti-migration rally and the pro-Palestinian rally the weekend before.
“I think what we saw at the rally yesterday, just as we saw with the Palestinian rally, that a minority called into question the majority,” the acting premier, Jarrod Bleijie, said today.
He continued:
There was incidents, a couple of incidents in Brisbane that I’ve seen in the media this morning, just as there was with the Hamas terrorist flag being flown from Palestinian rally … By all accounts, I heard that people were peacefully protesting. The majority of people were peacefully protesting.
The opposition leader, Steven Miles, said “it’s a real shame that the LNP government didn’t have the guts to stand up and condemn those organising the march”.
“You saw one protest motivated primarily by a message of peace and then another protest motivated primarily with a message of hate,” he said.
Two men were arrested on Sunday, one for assaulting police, and another for breaching the peace, a spokesperson for Queensland police said. Several journalists were also assaulted. There were no arrests at the pro-Palestine rally.
Updated
Queensland pine plantations edge out windfarm
For the second time in a year, Queensland’s state government will retroactively cancel an approved wind project.
The decision will require repealing enabling legislation, wiping out a project with enough energy to power about a quarter of the state’s homes to protect part of a pine plantation.
The $2bn Forest Wind project would have boasted 226 wind turbines within a state forest north-east of Gympie. It would have been among the largest similar projects in the southern hemisphere, producing about 1,200MW of energy, enough to power about 500,000 homes.
But, for the second time in a year, the deputy premier, Jarrod Bleijie, has stepped in. In June he used his powers as planning minister to retroactively reverse approval of the Moonlight Range wind project, near Rockhampton.
“These forests are important for the Gympie region both for the economic and employment benefits but also for the character of the Gympie electorate,” the primary industries minister and member for Gympie, Tony Perrett, said.
The Queensland Conservation Council director, Dave Copeman, said pine plantations were more appropriate for renewable energy development, because local biodiversity has already been severely impacted.
Read more here:
Updated
Thank you, as ever, Krishani Dhanji.
After a busy start to the week, let’s get on with the remainder of the afternoon’s live news coverage.
Thanks for joining me on the blog today – it felt like a busy one!
I’ll leave you in the very capable hands of Daisy Dumas, and will see you here bright and early tomorrow morning.
Tl;dr here’s what happened in question time
Every single question from the Coalition was directed at the aged care minister, Sam Rae, today, on why the government has delayed the start date of the new aged care act and the release of 83,000 promised home care packages.
Rae said he’d been asked by the sector to delay the legislation from 1 July to 1 November, but that was disputed by the opposition, which said many providers in the sector had told a Senate inquiry they were ready to roll out more packages.
The independent MPs Helen Haines and Rebekha Sharkie also pressed Rae on the home care rollout – both have been pushing the government for more packages to be rolled out sooner.
The multicultural affairs minister, Anne Aly, said the wave of anti-Indian sentiment seen at rallies yesterday was “racist”, during a dixer.
Updated
Question time ends
The social services minster, Tanya Plibersek, gets a final dixer on the government supporting victim survivors of family and domestic violence.
And with that, question time is over.
Updated
Rae concedes care package wait times ‘longer than we would like’
Sam Rae is feeling the heat from the crossbench too – earlier Helen Haines put a question to the aged care minister, and now independent Rebekha Sharkie is on his case too.
Sharkie says 120,000 Australians are waiting for home care packages, some as long as 12 months. She asks if the government is deliberately slowing the process.
Is the government deliberately slowing the aged care process so the reality of approximately 200,000 older Australians waiting up to two years for care isn’t revealed?
Rae concedes wait times are “longer than we would like” but says the system is complex, and the new system will implement a single assessment process, as called for by the royal commission, rather than needing separate assessments.
This is an incredibly complex system and the waitlist contains those seeking lower level care along with … duplication of numbers on the NPS [national priority system]… 99% of [those] waiting for a home care package at their approved level are receiving care … or are approved for service … and may already be receiving a level of care.
Updated
Labor faces coordinated question time attack on aged care in Senate
The coordinated attack on the aged care minister isn’t just happening in the House.
The opposition has coordinated their question time tactics across both chambers today, with Labor also facing a grilling on aged care in the upper house.
The shadow aged care minister, Anne Ruston, kicks things off seeking an update on the number of older Australians assessed as needing but still awaiting a home-care package.
Official figures from March put that number at almost 88,000 but Ruston said some experts projected it has now surpassed 100,000.
Jenny McAllister, responding on Labor’s behalf, sidestepped the question by attacking the former Coalition government’s record on aged care.
There is a lot of work to do because the record of the previous government was very, very bad. It was a record that was characterised as ‘neglect’.
Eventually, McAllister notes the 88,000 figure as of 31 March, which health department officials referenced during a Senate inquiry on Friday into the rollout of the aged care reforms.
Ruston interjects, pointing out that she is seeking the updated figure. McAllister is not forthcoming.
Updated
Rae says again he consulted widely and was told to defer the aged care legislation
Nationals MP Anne Webster asks Sam Rae whether he can identify a single provider or single elderly Australian who had asked him or the government to delay the aged care act.
This time Rae comes to the podium without any of his notes.
Rae says that when he became the aged care minister, he spoke to elderly people, providers, aged care workers and their representatives, and says they asked for a delay.
Webster gets up on a point of relevance, and says she asked Rae to name just one provider or person who asked for that delay.
Milton Dick says Rae is being relevant. Rae says again that he consulted widely and was told to defer the act.
Sussan Ley tries to table a document which, she says, is the “uniform position of the aged care sector at a recent Senate references committee [that] indicate they are all in unison ready to deliver the aged care package to elderly Australians.”
The government won’t allow it to be tabled.
Updated
PM asked about Metro rail link to new Western Sydney airport
Back to the crossbench, Dai Lei asks the prime minister whether there will be a metro line that connects western Sydney with the Western Sydney airport. Le says:
Western Sydney airport was promised [as] a gateway for our community. Delivering jobs and opportunities. Instead it looks more like a freight hub dressed up as an airport. Without a Metro rail link [we will] face more trucks on the roads, gridlocked motorways or freeways and a missed chance to build more affordable housing near where people live and work.
I’m sure the government is happy to get a question that’s not for aged care minister Sam Rae.
Albanese spends most of his answer talking about the job opportunities and local contractors who have been building the infrastructure.
He doesn’t mention the word “metro” once, he just says there will be “public transport links” in his last 10 seconds.
This is about, for the first time, instead of Sydney always turning towards the harbour, always turning towards the CBD, this is about Sydney looking towards where most people live in western Sydney. And [it] will provide significant benefit in addition to that; the public transport links to Western Sydney airport as well as the road upgrades are creating jobs in the short term but creating economic activity and efficiency in the medium term as well.
Updated
Sam Rae pressed again on care packages delay
It’s question number seven for Sam Rae, and manager of opposition business, Alex Hawke, asks if the government knew that its own legislation didn’t allow for a 1 July start date, then why did they promise that timeline?
The aged care minister still has just the one piece of paper with his notes to answer these questions.
He says the delay of the legislation from 1 July to 1 November was based on feedback.
On the basis of feedback from older people across our country and the sector themselves we made the decision to briefly defer the implementation of the new act to 1 November.
Updated
Katter says ‘urgent demand’ of 80% of Australians is to stop migration
Bob Katter, who attended an anti-immigration rally, asks the prime minister about the increase in migration in Australia, and its impact on the budget.
The independent MP says it is the “urgent demand” of 80% of Australians to stop migration. He then asks a second question on whether the government will establish an east coast gas reserve policy (while Labor MPs call out “time” – Katter’s gone over his allocated time limit.)
Albanese takes the first question and says “regarding the will of the people, that’s called elections”.
They voted for a government that would understand that our diversity is a strength in modern Australia, and provides us as well with incredible economic opportunity due to the diaspora here and their connections with every country on the planet.
Resources minister, Madeleine King, takes the second question:
At the moment the government has a review into gas market regulations … One of the concepts we put forward as a government was around a framework to ensure that domestic supply is secured for the east coast.
King also mentions the government’s policy to support a critical minerals strategic reserve.
Updated
Aged care reforms must be delivered ‘in a way that minimises disruption’, minister says
The questions keep piling on for Sam Rae, who is asked by Coalition frontbencher Melissa McIntosh:
As part of an aged care Senate inquiry, every provider that appeared at that hearing, including Uniting Care’s representative, said: ‘We have capacity to take on people now.’ Why is Labor blaming the hard working sector for its own incompetence and failures?
Rae has been reading from one page of notes in answering all of these questions.
He says it’s “encouraging” to hear there are providers enthusiastic to deliver additional packages, but that the system-wide reforms need to be “delivered in a way that minimises disruption”.
He reminds the opposition that they voted with the government for these reforms.
Updated
Targeting specific ethnic groups is ‘racism full stop’, Anne Aly says
Multicultural affairs minister, Anne Aly says multiculturalism is about respect and inclusion, following yesterday’s anti-immigration protests.
During a dixer, Aly again condemns those protests, and says there is no excuse for racism.
This government stands with all Australians, no matter where [they were] born, against those who seek to divide us and who seek to intimidate migrant communities. I want to be clear and unequivocal. Targeting specific ethnic groups, like the wave of anti-Indian sentiment that we saw over the weekend, that is racism full stop. No excuses, no nuance, no justification. No one in Australia should have to justify their belonging in this country.
Updated
Minister asked about 5,000 people who have died on waiting list for care
The pressure is building on aged care minister, Sam Rae. This is a concerted effort by the Coalition to press the government on the delay of the Aged Care Act, and the rollout of these packages.
Nationals MP Llew O’Brien asks Rae the fifth question in this question time, and says almost 5,000 elderly Australians have died in the past year while on the waiting list for a home care package.
Rae says it’s always “distressing” to hear these stories, and gives his condolences to the families of those 5,000 elderly Australians who died.
Again, he says the extra 83,000 can only come online when the new act comes into effect – which is 1 November.
Updated
The aged care interrogation continues
Liberal MP Tom Venning puts another question to Sam Rae (his fourth), and talks about a 90-year-old constituent who has Parkinson’s disease and has been told he has to wait 12 months for a home care package.
Venning asks if Rae will expedite his constituent’s package.
Rae asks Venning to provide him with the constituent’s details and promises to follow his case up as a “matter of urgency”.
Rae doesn’t have much new information to add, he repeats the lines that more packages are being allocated every week.
This short delay to commencing the new Aged Care Act is about ensuring the programs like support at home are fully ready for older Australians and their families.
At the end of Rae’s answer, Nationals MP Sam Birrell is ejected from the chamber for being too noisy.
Updated
Crossbench’s Helen Haines also has questions about home care package delay
All the questions are for Sam Rae today – from the crossbench, Helen Haines says more than 120,000 people are waiting for a home care assessment and another 87,000 people are waiting for a package. She asks:
The department also confirmed that no additional plans have been released beyond the attrition rate. Will the government release 20,000 new home care places now to stop the waitlist growing longer?
Rae says 2000 new packages are being allocated every week, and those assessed as high priority are being allocated a package within a month.
This is the same information he gave Sussan Ley – and there’s no indication the government will unlock the 20,000 places Haines has asked for.
Last year alone, over 521,000 home support and comprehensive assessments were completed and we currently are more than 300,000 older Australians receiving home care packages.
99% of people waiting for a home care package at their approved level are already receiving home care through a lower level home care package or approved for commonwealth home package support services and so are already receiving some level of care. Median wait time for an aged care needs assessment from when a referral is issued to when the support plan is completed a currently 25 days.
Rae acknowledges the system is “not fit for purpose” but says that’s why the government is reforming the sector.
Updated
Minister says new home care packages will come on line when legislation starts – 1 November
Sussan Ley is back at the mic, and says she’ll “help” the aged care minister, telling him that “zero” of those new home care packages have been delivered.
Ley says more than 200,000 Australians are still waiting for a package or an assessment for a home package – she asks if the minister will apologise to those Australians waiting.
Sam Rae says the new home care packages can only come online when the aged care legislation – which was passed with Coalition support – comes into effect, which is 1 November.
We continue to deliver packages each and every single week, the average being above 2,000 packages per week to ensure that in the meantime Australians continue to receive the care that they need. We will ensure that every single Australian who is assessed as high priority will continue to receive their package within a month.
Updated
Question time begins: Coalition asks about home care
Sussan Ley starts QT today and asks the minister for aged care about home care packages. She says the government promised 83,000 new packages – so how many have been delivered?
The government has delayed the rollout of new home care packages, from 1 July to 1 November, which has caused concern among the community.
Aged care minister, Sam Rae, says that the size of the home care program has grown from 155,000 to 300,000 since 2020.
Ley makes a point of order – Rae isn’t saying how many of those 83,000 promised have so far been delivered (the Senate crossbench, who have also been pushing the government on these packages, have said none have been delivered).
Support at home [program] will come into effect from 1 November alongside the new Aged Care Act which provides the legislative framework for the new home care approach we are taking. We will deliver an 83,000 packages from 1 November over 12 months. That’s on top of the more than 300,000 Australians that are currently receiving home care packages.
Updated
Workplace injury claimants are being surveilled online, says state insurer
Returning to NSW budget estimates, Tony Wessling, an executive at state insurer icare, has been asked about the use of surveillance for those making workplace compensation claims.
Wessling says surveillance, including “optical” or in-person investigations, is “necessary and required” where workers’ accounts of an injury differ with their employers, and must be approved by icare.
Greens upper house MP Abigail Boyd says she has heard from workers who say they have been subjected to social media surveillance, including family members having their profiles looked at to work out if a family member is misrepresenting an injury.
Wessling says icare does not itself approve “desktop investigations” on public social media sites.
But you’re correct, though, that does occur as part of investigations. They’re governed by a broader standard of practice set by [state insurance regulator] SIRA around how and when they need to be conducted, and we are, at the moment, looking at our processes and procedures around … social media.
Michaelia Cash says rallies were ‘hijacked’ by neo-Nazis
Shadow foreign minister, Michaelia Cash, also moves a motion by the Coalition, which she says goes to the principle that free speech must be protected but a hard line should be drawn against extremism of any kind.
Cash says the Coalition is concerned that rallies yesterday were “hijacked” by neo-Nazis.
The Coalition won’t support the Greens’ or Labor’s motion, and Cash says Faruqi’s motion suggests “all attendees at the rally over the weekend were racists and white supremacists. That was clearly not the case”.
Cash accuses the Greens of being solely focused on neo-Nazis, rather than all forms of hate and extremism.
The Senate cannot be selective in it condemnation, hate is hate, extremism is extremism.
Greens senator David Shoebridge speaks next and puts blame on Labor, and accuses the government of having the most “hateful” policies towards refugees and asylum seekers.
Labor, Labor, Labor, attack, attack, attack, dog whistle, dog whistle, dog whistle, and they wonder why neo-Nazis are getting up on the weekend and attacking migration.
Updated
Faruqi calls One Nation the ‘merchants of hate’
Faruqi implores the parliament to do something, and not to “spew hate and racism” or scapegoat and blame migrants and refugees.
Faruqi says Labor’s amendment to her motion “waters it down” but she says the Greens are willing to support that – so the Senate agrees that what happened over the weekend is “rejected”.
It is on every single one of the senators and MPs … they do not scapegoat and blame migrants and refugees for their own policy failures, otherwise this country will never be safe.
She calls One Nation the “merchants of hate” – Pauline Hanson stands up and immediately asks for that to be withdrawn. (The deputy Speaker says it doesn’t have to be withdrawn – her criticism was of the party, rather than an individual senator, which isn’t allowed – but he tells her to tread carefully.)
Labor minister Jenny McAllister stands to move the government’s amendment to Faruqi’s motion, and says the anti-Indian sentiment seen over the weekend at the protests was racist.
Our government has zero tolerance for hate and discrimination in all its forms. We are building a safer and more inclusive Australia for everyone.
McAllister says Labor doesn’t believe that all politicians and all media have been “fanning the flames” of hate.
Updated
Mehreen Faruqi says politicians have ‘normalised’ racism
Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi is speaking on her motion on social cohesion.
She says the rally over the weekend should be a “wakeup call”, and accuses other politicians of having downplayed or fuelled racism.
She says racism is the foundation of colonialism, and that discrimination and racism that started with colonisation has “never really stopped”.
Racism has been “normalised”, including by by politicians and the media, Faruqi says, and claims that normalisation has emboldened the rightwing extremists.
On the weekend neo-Nazis and far right extremists spoke and led marches across our cities, publicising their hate.
Migrants like me have been told repeatedly to put up, shut up or go back to where I come from.
Faruqi talks about abusive and violent letters that she receives weekly, and says she’s not alone.
It is the people in here [parliament] that normalise and legitimise this hate.
Updated
Vegetable growers taken to court for alleged cartel price-fixing
Vegetable growers have been taken to court by the consumer watchdog after allegedly fixing produce prices when selling to Aldi, which, if proven, would breach Australia’s cartel laws.
The Australian competition and consumer commission has alleged four fresh produce suppliers fixed the prices of broccoli, cauliflower, iceberg lettuce, cucumber, Brussels sprouts and zucchini.
Producers are alleged to have collaborated on prices, rather than competing in the open market, while supplying Aldi stores in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria from 2018 to 2024. The ACCC chair, Gina Cass-Gottlieb, said:
Businesses acting together instead of competing can drive up prices and harm consumers, while disadvantaging other businesses that are seeking to compete fairly.
The ACCC has pointed to 28 instances where it alleges two or more of the suppliers made arrangements, or attempted to, which they expected would set the price of the lettuce, gourds and cruciferous vegetables.
Suppliers then asked Aldi to pay prices matching those agreements on 48 instances, most of which were related to Aldi’s weekly price quoting, the ACCC alleged. Guardian Australia has contacted the four businesses for comment.
Three senior executives are also named in the federal court proceedings and face maximum penalties of up to $2.5m for each alleged breach after November 2022, and $50m for businesses, or $500,000 and $10m respectively for each breach before then.
Updated
Senate to debate social cohesion after anti-immigration rallies
Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi will move a motion at 1pm this afternoon for debate on social cohesion, following yesterday’s anti-immigration rallies.
The Greens had initially intended to suspend standing orders this morning to bring on the motion, but the government then allocated time for it later in the day.
Faruqi’s motion condemns “the racist, white supremacist and anti-immigrant rallies held over the weekend and condemns the support of and attendance at the rallies by MPs”.
The government and opposition will both move amendments to Faruqi’s motion – all this will be debated.
The government’s amendment states that Australia “welcomes different races, religions and views”, while the opposition’s amendment “reaffirms Australia’s commitment to free speech and lawful assembly, and condemns all forms of extremism, intimidation, and violence.”
Updated
Coalition and Greens raise concerns about age assurance technology after report release
Both the federal opposition and the Greens have raised questions about whether technology aimed to keep under 16s from accessing social media from December will be workable, following the release on Sunday of the report on the trial of the technology.
As Guardian Australia reported, the report found that for facial age estimation technology, errors were “inevitable”, particularly for users aged two years either side of 16.
The shadow communications minister, Melissa McIntosh, said it showed “those who are 13 could sneak through the cracks and have social media accounts.”
The Greens digital rights spokesperson, Senator David Shoebridge, said the risks of age assurance technology include mass surveillance, biometric data collection, big tech control, and systematic bias against girls and people of colour.
The government’s report on age assurance tech admits ‘implementation depends on the willingness of a small number of dominant tech companies’ meaning we’d be handing even more power to Big Tech to decide who gets online access. Labor surely understands this is bad!
The age assurance trial findings accidentally prove the social media age ban is unworkable and it is time to rethink this flawed approach.
Updated
NSW premier: “If you go to a rally and the Nazis turn up, it’s not one you should be at”
NSW premier Chris Minns has joined the ranks of politicians condemning yesterday’s rallies. Minns told reporters he was “probably as confused as most people” about the protests’ origins.
I just want to say, if you go to a rally and the Nazis turn up, it’s not one you should be at, and no one can deny that they were there. No one can deny that racist language was used. I mean, we can have civil debates about policy issues that affect the country, but this tipped into far more than that...
[Hate speech] laws apply to everybody, and they apply equally, and if you stand up and indulge in racism, then you’re subject to the full force of the law. The point I’m making is that police ... will make the decision, not governments. That’s the way our system operates.
Minns was also asked about the arrest of a man this morning after a car allegedly crashed into Sydney’s Russian consulate building. He said he was aware of the incident but is yet to briefed by police.
Australian social fabric being ‘steadily eroded by extremism’, Sussan Ley says
Australia’s social fabric is being “steadily eroded by extremism” says Sussan Ley, in a statement following yesterday’s anti-immigration rallies.
The opposition leader says since the 7 October 2023 attacks in Israel and the outbreak of war in Gaza, new pressures have been placed on Australia’s social cohesion and there have been “multiple failures” by the government to keep the community safe.
Ley says Anthony Albanese must show leadership to repair social cohesion in Australia.
We have seen cherished landmarks like the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House turned into backdrops for division, with people supporting terrorist organisations and holding up images of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Iranian regime ... People of goodwill have been present at recent demonstrations, but their voices were hijacked by those seeking to glorify terrorism. That can never be accepted.
This is a moment that demands leadership. Our society is resilient, but its fabric is being steadily eroded by extremism. Australians expect their leaders to rise to the challenge, to call out hate in all its forms, and to bring the country together.
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Price urges Australia to ‘start being a lifter and stop being a leaner’ in US alliance
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price says Australia needs to “start being a lifter and stop being a leaner” when it comes to its alliance with the US.
The shadow defence industry minister used most of her keynote speech at the bush summit in Darwin today to criticise the Albanese government and defence was no exception.
Officials within Donald Trump’s administration have been openly scathing of Australia’s defence spending amid tensions over the Aukus pact and trade tariffs.
Price said she was “confounded” by a recent Newspoll survey that found more Australians were worried about Trump’s tariffs than the Chinese Communist party’s military aggression. She said:
In other words, they’re more worried about the sanctions of a long-standing democratic ally than an authoritarian regime.
The NT Liberal senator said Australia must lift its defence spending to 3% of its GDP – up from its trajectory to about 2.4% of GDP by 2033-34 – and should “quickly realise” its future is with the US, not China.
The government needs to start being a lifter and stop being a leaner when it comes to our alliance with the US. If this government truly believes in a free, open and stable Indo-Pacific, then it must quickly come to realise which major power stands for those goals, and which major power stands against those goals.
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Being concerned about immigration ‘does not mean you are racist’, Jacinta Price says
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price “congratulates” protesters at anti-immigration rallies yesterday, and says the community should be allowed to express concerns over a “lack of infrastructure to accommodate the millions of people” moving to Australia.
Speaking to Sky News after her appearance at the bush summit, Nampijinpa Price said she condemned the neo-Nazis who turned up to the protests, but said most of the people at the protests weren’t.
She says just because people are concerned about migration into Australia “does not mean that you are racist”.
Those marches that were being held yesterday were for reigniting the spirit of Australia, teaching our children to be proud, to call themselves Australian once more, but that yes, we should be allowed to address concerns about the fact there is lack of infrastructure to accommodate the millions of people now that we’re seeing the prime minister bring into our country, effectively vote-stacking the country for the benefit of Labor.
That last point is one the Coalition has previously made – trying it on ahead of the last election and claiming that Labor were fast-tracking citizenship ceremonies to gain votes. Home affairs minister, Tony Burke, said at the time that the additional ceremonies were due to long backlogs in the system.
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Jacinta Price says Labor is moving Australia towards a ‘state-directed, controlled economy’
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has delivered a speech at News Corp’s bush summit in Darwin this morning, proposing Australia “unleash the magic of the marketplace” like former US president, Ronald Reagan, to lift productivity.
The Nationals-turned-Liberal senator flirted with McCarthyism in her keynote speech, accusing the Labor government of moving Australia towards a “state directed, controlled economy”. She said:
Labor has embraced the same statist ideas that have devastated economies and people, wherever and whenever they have been implemented ... Labor’s big government, big spending, big taxation and big interference agenda is a handbrake on productivity. We need real solutions to re-energise the economy, we need to do what Ronald Reagan did, and unleash the magic of the marketplace.
Price said one area she wanted to reform to lift productivity was land rights, which she said needed to be reviewed and modernised to lift “economic development”.
The land councils are not functioning as they were intended. There’s administrative bottlenecks and excessively long processing times for leases, and that inhibits private property ownership and the commercialisation of land. They also can be very paternalistic as well, which is a mindset where the preservation of culture and tradition on those lands holds back economic development ... it’s about protection of land as a right, the preservation of culture, locking the gate, defending Aboriginal people and their land from the intrusion of outsiders, whether miners, pastoralists, tourists, anyone without a permit, even their own future government. As I’ve said before, there’s a racism of low expectations when it comes to Indigenous Australians and Indigenous Territorians.
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Victorian Greens condemn far-right extremists
The Victorian Greens have condemned the “deeply disturbing” action of far-right extremists over the weekend, calling for “urgent action” to stop hate from spreading.
In a statement this morning, the party said there was “absolutely no place for this disgusting racism and hate in our community, or anywhere”.
The leader of the Victorian Greens, Ellen Sandell, said:
The storming of Camp Sovereignty by far-right extremists assaulting people and committing awful acts of violence are deeply disturbing.
First Nations people are leading a movement for truth and justice that makes our whole community stronger, and this racist attack is an attack on all of us.
Far-right extremism has been growing for years, preying on and radicalising young men online. The Greens’ inquiry set out a clear roadmap to stop this hate from spreading, but it wasn’t taken seriously enough. Now is the time for real, long-term investment to tackle extremism at its roots.
The Victorian Greens spokesperson for multiculturalism, Anasina Gray-Barberio, added the attacks were “a stark reminder why we must stand together against hate”.
She said:
We deserve better, to live proudly in who we are, in a community free from hate and fear.
Read more here:
War of words over workplace compensation at NSW estimates
The NSW industrial relations minister, Sophie Cotsis, is appearing before budget estimates today, where she has had a heated exchange with Liberal MP Damien Tudehope over the government’s controversial workplace compensation reforms.
The bill, which has been sent to a parliamentary inquiry, would lift the threshold at which people with a psychological injury can receive ongoing financial support or claim damages, and limit their compensation payments to 2.5 years.
Tudehope has asked the minister whether the government consulted with injured workers before making the decision to lift the threshold for whole person impairment (WPI) to 31%
“You’ve told us today [that] this is all about saving dollars … so did you actually talk to injured workers?” he said.
Cotsis said she has met with workers who have expressed concerns, but said the changes are needed to alleviate the burden on struggling state insurer icare, which was inherited from the previous government. She said:
When we came into government, we saw a massive spike in the number of psychological injuries … the reality is that [the former Coalition] government left people to languish in a system.
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Cold winter for home sales keeps prices rising
Homebuyer demand has surged well ahead of supply after an unusually slow winter for auction listings, as interest rate cuts inflate Australians’ borrowing capacity.
Advertised listings are typically lower in winter but even fewer owners than usual put their homes on the market in August, dragging the number of listings one-fifth below its average, data from property analysis firm Cotality shows.
Short supply has seen a greater share of listings sold, with the rate of successful sales – or the nation’s clearance rate – hitting 70% in late August, the highest in 18 months.
Buyers in August bid house prices up by about $10,000 in Brisbane, Sydney and Perth and about $7,500 in Adelaide, with the national median home prices rising to nearly $850,000.
The three-month pace of price increase has steadied at 1.8%, after rising in early 2025 on the back of lower interest rates and booming borrowing capacity. Tim Lawless, Cotality Australia’s research director, says further increase is unlikely:
What is more likely is that home values will rise at a more sustainable pace, with demand dampened by affordability constraints, more normal rates of population growth and cautious lending policy.
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Senate to debate social cohesion at 1pm today
The Greens didn’t have to move to suspend standing orders. After a vote on McKenzie’s motion on cross-portfolio estimates failed (see earlier in the blog), Katy Gallagher moved a motion to debate Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi’s motion on social cohesion later today.
The Greens and Coalition stood up at the same time this morning to suspend standing orders (but for quite different reasons), but Michaelia Cash got the first call.
It means there’ll be a discussion on social cohesion and the protests on Sunday at 1pm today. We’ll be staying tuned for that.
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Queensland cancels fourth stage of Gold Coast light rail link
The Queensland government has cancelled the fourth stage of Gold Coast Light Rail, after years of Nimby opposition to the project.
The single-line service, also known as the G:Link, has been progressively built in stages since 2009. It currently operates between the heavy rail line at Helensvale and Broadbeach South.
A third stage currently under construction will extend it to Burleigh Heads.
Stage four would have taken it through the wealthy suburbs of the southern Gold Coast, added stops at the airport, and terminated at Coolangatta.
Many residents of the area oppose the project on the basis that it would allow poorer residents from the north into the south, bringing crime, and also permit new development in the exclusive area.
The deputy premier, Jarrod Bleijie, announced the decision on Monday morning. He said residents wanted infrastructure that would not disrupt “the unique character of their community,” and wanted to”protect what they value most in their community and their lifestyle.” The government instead plans to provide a bus service.
The light rail was designed to reduce the Gold Coast’s long-standing car dependency; public transport user share has dramatically increased since the first stage opened in 2014.
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Hanson accuses Indigenous activists of resurrecting the voice to parliament
Pauline Hanson has accused Indigenous activists of trying to resurrect the failed voice to parliament proposal, hitting out at racial division and claims of an “Aboriginal industry” in federal politics.
The Senate is this morning debating scheduling for estimates hearings on Indigenous affairs, after the Albanese government axed a traditional standalone day of questioning on the topic.
Labor last week won support for a condensed schedule for October’s rounds of estimates, which involves folding Indigenous affairs into the other packed days of hearings. Labor has agreed to three extra days of estimates hearings later in the year as part of the changes.
The One Nation leader has used the debate to issue a broadside against Indigenous affairs spending this morning, saying there is corruption and a lack of accountability.
Closing the gap has been a huge big issue… What have they done now? Closed the gap on only four out of 19 issues.
We constantly hear about the incarceration. We hear about people who do not attend schooling. We hear about the domestic violence. We hear about the sexual abuse of children … I’ve been speaking about it for the last 30 years, but nothing’s changed.
Hanson has accused Labor of not listening to Indigenous people around the country, but instead taking advice only from “the elites”:
Those people wanna claim that they are Indigenous. Really? Are they truly Indigenous? Are they truly representing the true Indigenous people out there.
The government’s Senate leader, Penny Wong, told the chamber she wanted to disassociate Labor with Hanson’s comments.
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Opposition motion to suspend standing orders in Senate fails
Michaelia Cash’s motion in the Senate to suspend standing orders to move a motion on the government dropping cross-portfolio estimates has failed. The cross-portfolio estimates include hearings on Indigenous affairs matters, as well as the Murray-Darling Basin plan.
Senator Bridget McKenzie now has another go to suspend standing orders with an almost identical motion – this time about the Murray-Darling Basin plan.
Katy Gallagher moves quickly to get a vote on McKenzie’s motion. Like Cash’s, it’s unlikely to pass.
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More info on the Northern Beaches hospital transition back into public operation
Here’s some more information following on from that earlier post on the NSW Health team who will be on the ground at Northern Beaches hospital from today.
It will include up to 15 senior leaders from IT, patient safety and culture, clinical operations, workforce, finance and corporate services, according to a joint statement from the NSW treasurer and health minister.
Priority areas will include the IT systems and clinical applications used by Healthscope but not in use by NSW Health. The team will also identify other key areas where policy, procedure or practice gaps exist between how the hospital currently operates and how it will operate as part of the NSW Health system.
The state treasurer, Daniel Mookhey, said of this new team: “This is a critical next step as we progress towards ending the Liberals’ failed privatisation experiment at the Northern Beaches hospital.”
In their joint statement, the ministers said that:
It remains the preference of the NSW government that a negotiated agreement on the future control and operation of the Northern Beaches hospital can be achieved, but in the absence of agreement, the government has passed legislation to give it the authority to intervene and avoid a prolonged dispute for members of the community, hospital staff and NSW taxpayers.
McGrathNicol partner and appointed receiver Jason Ireland and Healthscope’s CEO. Tino La Spina, said:
McGrathNicol and Healthscope continue to engage constructively with the NSW government in negotiations for the future ownership and operation of the Northern Beaches hospital. We welcome this important step in the process.
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McCormack claims wind towers ‘taller than’ Barangaroo are ‘coming to a valley near you’
Labor is trying to milk this anti-net zero bill debate for all it’s worth. Backbencher Alison Byrnes stands up to say her piece in response to Boyce:
I’m very pleased to speak on this today, to help show the farce that we all know it is.
Byrnes, who represents a coastal seat in the Illawarra area – which has been declared an offshore wind zone – says the clean energy transition means new jobs across the country.
Michael McCormack stands up next from the opposition benches – he’s with Barnaby Joyce, Llew O’Brien and Boyce who spoke earlier.
These wind towers, taller than, or as tall as Barangaroo, are coming to a valley near you.
McCormack accuses renewable energy companies of pitting farming families against each other, and coming to rural areas with “bags of cash” to buy agricultural land
These companies… they send out these shysters and they are buying one farmer off and not the farmer’s neighbour – they are making people who are generational friends [into] friends no longer.
This is not the regional Australia I know and love, these companies can quite frankly go to hell.
Updated
Barnaby Joyce’s repeal net zero bill being debated in House
The drama continues in Parliament House … and we now move to the House of Representatives, where Barnaby Joyce’s repeal net zero bill is being debated.
Nationals MP Colin Boyce starts, saying he wants to “put to bed” the link between wanting to repeal net zero and wanting to drop the net zero target:
This debate is not whether you believe in climate change.
The fact that we’re still talking about whether or not you believe in climate change in 2025 is … something.
Boyce says he’s trying to frame it in an economic sense, and says his electorate of Flynn – with its coal, heavy machinery and agricultural sectors - will be heavily impacted by the transition.
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The success of Victoria is the ‘secret sauce’ of migration, deputy premier says
Victoria’s deputy premier, Ben Carroll, was also asked about yesterday’s rally at a press conference this morning in Flemington. He said immigration is Victoria’s “secret sauce”:
Our migrants should be celebrated. They shouldn’t be, in any way, frowned upon.
The success of Victoria is indeed the secret sauce of migration. We know our migrants are ambitious, that our migrants create jobs, that they’re innovators. We’ll always celebrate them. We know that our diversity is our greatest strength, and we’ll stand up and make sure we speak [out] loud and proud of anyone that tries to destroy Victoria’s diversity.
Carroll said he was “appalled” by the attack on Camp Sovereignty and to see the Aboriginal flag burned. He went on:
It just goes to show the level of ignorance that we’re dealing with that people that attend a march against immigration would then go and attack a camp and destroy a flag of the first inhabitants of our country.
These people are our Indigenous people... Our Aboriginal people have been here for 65,000 years. We are all immigrants. This was their land, and we need to respect that ... It was appalling to see what occurred yesterday on the streets of Melbourne, an appalling attack on the First Nations people of our state.
Asked about concerns from police on the ground that there weren’t enough resources to tackle the rally and counter protests, Carroll says officers did an “excellent job”:
There were six arrests. Anyone watching that footage would have thought that was a small amount of arrests. However, having said that, there’s a lot of footage. I witnessed a lady being thrown to the ground. I witnessed other people with blood all over their faces. I witnessed someone just trying to calm the situation then set upon. So there is lots of footage, and I hope those perpetrators are brought to account.
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Millions of Australians are continuing to abandon the Coalition: report
Millions of Australians are abandoning the Coalition as the Liberals continue to review their election drubbing and rebuild a fractured party, AAP reports.
More than half of voters who previously voted for the Coalition, approximately five million people, wouldn’t consider voting for them if a federal election were held now, according to the Blueprint Institute, an independent thinktank.
More than two-thirds of people said they wouldn’t consider giving their first preference to the Coalition, which included 44% of former Coalition voters, according to the commissioned YouGov poll of 5,000 people in July.
The Blueprint Institute’s report, Winning Back the Coalition’s Missing Middle, found:
If the Coalition is to regain government through an improvement in the primary vote, it will need to do more than appeal to its base or convince undecided voters. It must expand the number of people who are willing to consider its candidates as an option.
Half of those who had voted for the Coalition – but not at the 2025 election – were critical of climate change, renewable energy and housing affordability policy offerings.
Only 16% of former supporters believed the conservative alliance was serious about addressing climate change.
Updated
Opposition move to suspend standing orders in the Senate
It’s just past 10am and there’s already a little bit of drama bubbling away in the Senate.
Senator Michaelia Cash is trying to reinstate cross-portfolio Indigenous matters.
The opposition last week accused the Albanese government of avoiding scrutiny of its Indigenous affairs agenda after axing a traditional standalone estimates hearing on the topic.
Cash has moved to suspend standing orders, and says that when it comes to “real accountability” the government won’t front up to scrutiny:
When it comes to facing hard questions about the failures of indigenous service delivery, about the outcomes on the ground for children, for communities, suddenly Senator [Penny] Wong and her counterparts fall silent … they actually vote to remove the ability of the Australian Senate and the opposition to ask questions to this portfolio.
While Cash is attacking the government, I’ve been told the Greens are trying to also suspend standing orders – but to talk about the anti-immigration rallies over the weekend.
The finance minister, Katy Gallagher, says the government has put an extra three days on the Senate estimates calendar for December and says the Coalition should pursue progress on Closing the Gap through all Senate estimates hearings over those three days.
Turn up and ask the questions over the entire allocation of estimates.
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NSW Health team begins work to transition Northern Beaches hospital to public facility
From today a specialist NSW Health team will be on site at the Northern Beaches hospital to prepare for the hospital’s eventual transition out of a public private partnership.
Northern Beaches is the only hospital in the state where public services are provided by a private company, Healthscope, under a complex contract.
After years of mounting debt and a string of complaints about care standards – including the death of two-year-old Joe Massa, a woman whose baby died in childbirth because an emergency caesarean was offered too late and a woman whose baby was born at 25 weeks via emergency caesarean after she says the hospital failed to diagnose her appendicitis – the hospital went into receivership in May. The NSW government is trying to buy it.
A transition assessment and planning team from the Northern Sydney Local Health District (NSLHD) will be working alongside staff at Northern Beaches hospital as the negotiations between the government and private operator Healthscope continue.
The health minister, Ryan Park, made the announcement on 2GB this morning:
One of the things we need to do is send in a transition team of around 15 staff that will get to know the hospital better, how its IT systems run, how its staffing runs. What’s the clinical safety around what happens out of that hospital? What are the issues in relation to equipment? Things like that that are very clinically focused, that are very operationally focused.
They won’t be nurses and doctors performing actual procedures, but they will be behind the scenes getting to know how that hospital runs as it starts to prepare for the transition out of that PPP arrangement.
Park confirmed negotiations continue, led by the treasurer, and “we hope to get a negotiated outcome.”
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Age-assurance tests will offer ‘appeal rights’ if automated options gets it wrong, Wells says
Older Australians will have “appeal rights” online if they are inadvertently locked out of social media under the Albanese government’s under-16s social media ban, with concern that some of the age assurance technology can get it wrong.
A major report into the government-run age assurance trial has found that while there are effective options, errors are inevitable with the tools on offer and recommended that companies provide multiple “fallback options” – such as ID checks.
There has been a lot of focus on the potential for under-16s to evade the ban and get online, but less public and media focus on the potential for people above 16 to be wrongly assessed as being under 16.
The report found accuracy issues for older adults, non-Caucasian users and female-presenting people near the age levels tested, as well as underrepresentation of Indigenous people in the training data.
Anika Wells, the communications minister, said this morning the government was mindful of that issue. She said platforms would likely use a “pick and mix” combination of various technologies - including biometric scanning, and “age inference” from the content that someone interacts with. At a doorstop press conference, she said:
It means that kids who are in that 13 to 16 bracket might need a more layered approach from platforms, but it also means that for older Australians, there needs to be appeal rights.
We have put in the rules that there needs to be a way, if there’s a social media decision that you disagree with, you can appeal it. And the onus would be that that happens quickly …
It is in these social media platforms’ interest to keep as many people online as possible, and they’ll be doing their best to keep granny online.
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Victorian police minister says Dezi Freeman signs shows ‘abhorrent nature’ of some protesters at anti-immigration rallies
Continuing from our last post …
Carbines was also asked by co-host Sharnelle Vella about protesters displaying signs with images of Dezi Freeman on them. Have they broken any laws? He replied:
I did see that in reports over in South Australia, and if there were such signage there [in Melbourne] yesterday, if there’s any action police can take and be assured that they will.
But I think it just goes to the abhorrent nature of the sorts of people who want to associate together at rallies when police, at this time, are hunting down an alleged double murderer who’s still at large in regional Victoria, and they’ve had to babysit some people in the community who want to cause violence and intimidate people [through] a range of racist gripes that are not shared by the majority of Victorians.
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Victorian police minister condemns March for Australia rally
The Victorian minister for police, Anthony Carbines, was on ABC Radio Melbourne’s breakfast program earlier. He was asked what he made of the March for Australia protests and he responded that they were “disgraceful”.
Carbines went on:
People who choose to attend such rallies – addressed by convicted criminals and members of neo Nazi groups, as we saw yesterday – need to be called out and condemned for their associations at those rallies. Victorians need to continue to call it out, Victorians need to continue to have a positive attitude, to celebrate our diversity and wrap their arms around people in the community who feel that they’re being blamed for the sort of petty whingers and gripes and the discrimination and racism of a fringe element.
Carbines said most rallies in Melbourne’s CBD, including pro-Palestine rallies that have been held every Sunday for almost two years, were “largely peaceful”. But yesterday “brought violence to the streets of Melbourne”, including Camp Sovereignty at King’s Domain. He said:
Police will be investigating those matters, they’ll also be in contact with members of Camp Sovereignty and a lot of our First Nations, people who are deeply distressed and upset with that activity yesterday, and this is what happens, isn’t it, when you have bullies in the community who roam in packs to intimidate others, it’s gutless, and it needs to be called out, and we will hold those people to account.
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Car crashes into Russian consulate building's gates in Sydney
A man is in custody after a car crashed into Sydney’s Russian consulate building this morning.
In a statement, NSW police said about 8am on Monday, officers were called to the building on Fullerton Street in Woollahra following reports of an unauthorised car parked in the driveway.
They said when police arrived and attempted to speak to a man, 39, who was behind the wheel, he allegedly drove into the consulate’s front gate.
The man was arrested and taken to Surry Hills police station where he was assisting police with inquiries.
A 24-year-old constable injured his hand in the incident and was treated by paramedics at the scene. There were no other reports of injuries, police said.
“Inquiries are continuing,” police said.
A spokesperson for NSW Ambulance confirmed they received a call to attend the address just after 8am. The man was treated on the scene for a cut to his hand and did not require hospitalisation, they said.
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Lambie criticises 'thugs' at anti-immigration protests but takes aim at 'double standards' on migrant values
Jacqui Lambie says people who turned up to protest the anti-immigration rallies should have “stay[ed] home with their loved ones”, and alleviated some of the pressure on police.
She told Sky News a little earlier that police were used as “meat in the middle of the sandwich”, and that we should have let the “thugs go out there and make idiots for themselves”.
You have to ask what sort of people are standing up with those Neo Nazis and the thuggery that is going on? Because you’re embarrassing the country and you’re embarrassing yourselves. And quite frankly, I think most Australians have had a gut full of it.
Like other politicians, Lambie said there needs to be more debate on immigration. But she also criticised face coverings, and said some migrants were coming to Australia without Australian values.
When you have your full face covering, if it is not for artistic and safety purposes, we have to ask why you’re allowed to do that. You can’t go into a bank with a motorcycle helmet on. So it is the double standards that are really starting to grind the gears of normal Australians out there.
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Hume calls for Coalition to ‘get behind’ the Cop31 climate summit
Jane Hume has called on the Coalition to back Labor’s bid to host the Cop31 climate summit in 2026.
The Liberal senator, who was demoted to the backbench post-election, says it’s “low-hanging fruit” and calls it a “giant trade fair”.
Australia has been locked in a standoff with Turkiye for the bid.
Hume told ABC News Breakfast a little earlier that the summit would be “important economically” for Australia:
I think this is low-hanging fruit. Let’s face it – Cop, while it does bringing in world leaders to make some pretty serious decisions about a low-emissions future – most importantly, it’s a giant trade fair. It’s a trade fair that attracts financiers, tech companies, energy companies from right around the world.
This is a great opportunity for Australia. It’s something that we should be wholeheartedly embracing. Because, let’s face it - the world has moved on. They want a low-emissions future. It’s time that the Liberal party gets behind Cop so that we can talk about it in a sensible way.
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Pocock joins condemnation of anti-immigration rallys but says Australia must have ‘sensible debate’ on migration
The anti-immigration rallies have dominated the morning interviews, with all politicians from across the divide (minus the few that attended the rallies) on a unity ticket to condemn them.
The independent senator David Pocock told ABC News Breakfast earlier this morning that some of the behaviour at the rallies was “totally unacceptable”.
But he also said Australia needs to have a sensible debate about migration:
I think this is really damaging when it comes to the message it’s sending to migrants across the country. And some of the slogans and behaviour we saw are totally unacceptable…
On the broader point, one of my frustrations has been that there is a real lack of appetite from the parliament to actually have a debate about this in a sensible way and then come up with a plan when it comes to migration and population that actually wards off some of the … feelings of ‘Well, there is no plan’.
It’s a point that the shadow immigration minister, Paul Scarr, made a bit earlier too – when there isn’t a sensible discussion, the fringe extremists gain control of the debate.
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Shadow immigration minister says Coalition support ‘sustainable’ migration
Asked about the Coalition’s own migration policy, Scarr says he supports a “sustainable” level of migration.
The Coalition had promised to drastically cut migration numbers ahead of the May election, but Scarr has promised, since taking the shadow immigration portfolio, that the party will move away from anti-immigration rhetoric.
Sally Sara asks what “sustainable” migration looks like. Scarr says:
That looks like considering things like skill shortages, considering things like our humanitarian intake. Australia has always had a generous humanitarian intake for decades and decades.
Net overseas migration obviously was in negative territory during Covid, and then we had these huge increases during the first two years of the Albanese government, and that has distorted, in many respects, the debate.
Not everyone in the Coalition has gotten the memo to lay off the anti-immigration sentiment. Liberal backbencher Garth Hamilton last month suggested Australia should pay migrants go home.
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Scarr says rallies show need to be careful to prevent ‘extremes’ from getting a foothold in immigration debate
Following Aly on RN Breakfast is the shadow immigration minister, Paul Scarr, who put out a statement last week in solidarity with the Indian community ahead of Sunday’s protest.
Scarr tells the ABC it’s important to have discussions and debates on migration in Australia, but it needs to be controlled to prevent fringe extremists taking over.
We just need to be terribly careful when we’re discussing issues such as immigration, that the fringes, the extremes don’t get a foothold in the debate.
I think when we see neo-Nazis address a crowd of people in some of our major cities that raises material concerns with respect to social cohesion in our country.
Scarr says the tone of the protests differed across the country – some of the scenes in Melbourne he describes as “particularly disturbing” – but believes there were many people with “goodwill” that marched over the weekend.
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Aly defends move to send former immigration detainees to Nauru
The government will this week debate legislation to send hundreds of former immigration detainees in the NZYQ cohort to Nauru.
Nauru will be paid $400m to take up to 280 people, who the government has said have “exhausted all options” to remain in Australia.
RN Breakfast host, Sally Sara, asks how confident the government is that a small Pacific nation like Nauru will have the resources to deal with this cohort. Aly says there have been negotiations between the two nations over resources.
This is a cohort of people who have exhausted every single avenue available to them to stay and remain in Australia, and they have no legal right to remain in Australia.
There’s some back and forth between the two – Aly says people who have exhausted all options should “be able to leave” but Sara pushes back, asserting that the group aren’t able to leave, they’re “being sent”.
Aly then again says the group are being given the “option” to leave, before conceding – after Sara pushes back again – that they’re being “sent” by the government.
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‘Nobody ever changed their mind because of a factsheet’: Aly
Aly says the government needs to clearly and succinctly talk about migration, but having worked as a former counter-terrorism expert, says there are some sections of the community who won’t change their mind.
She says there are certain “nefarious” groups who will continue putting out misinformation and disinformation and exploit the “emotional response” people have to issues like housing:
People are driven by emotion, not by facts. And so regardless of how many facts you put out there, there is a there is a section of the community who will still propagate misinformation and disinformation, and who will still use people’s emotional response to things like housing … in order to propagate their agenda.
As somebody who has worked … as a professor in radicalisation and … countering violent extremism, nobody ever changed their mind because they were handed a fact sheet.
Aly warns that the issues of migration and housing shouldn’t be conflated and says that when they are, they feed into the agenda of the far-right extremist groups.
I think that when we conflate immigration with all of these other issues, then we feed into the very agenda of the far-right organisations that were part of these marches.
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Minister for multiculturalism says rallies weren’t protesting migrants from ‘white, western countries’
Anne Aly says she’s glad the anti-immigration rallies didn’t draw big crowds but neo-Nazis used the rallies to “prey on some legitimate concerns around housing and around cost of living”.
Talking to ABC RN Breakfast, Aly, the minister for multiculturalism, says while it’s fair to say the majority of those that showed up weren’t neo-Nazis, the rallies were “clearly racist”.
She says the anti-immigration rallies weren’t protesting migrants from “white, western countries”.
I would say to those who marched and who argued that they have those, those legitimate concerns, that they were, they were organised by Nazis, the very purpose of them was anti-immigration… one of the very clear calls to action that was listed there was anti-Indian immigration, against people coming from India.
Now that, to me, is clearly racist when you target a specific ethnicity. That is clearly racism.
Australia has a long history of scapegoating migrants for concerns around housing and infrastructure, Aly says.
It is not the migrants who, for want of a better word, blend in to the rest of the community. It is those who are visibly different, who become the brunt of and wear the brunt of these anti-immigration sentiments, and who were the brunt of being blamed for and scapegoated for a whole range of concerns.
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Well says if you are talking about KPop Demon Hunters social media sites might infer that you are 13
Jumping back to Anika Wells on the Today show a bit earlier, she says a trial has found age assurance can be “private, efficient and effective” and means that social media platforms won’t have an excuse not to have age verification in place when the social media ban for under 16-year-olds comes into effect on 10 December this year.
There are three different methods around age verification that exist, says Wells, from showing your drivers licence when you look under 25 at the bottle shop, using face ID to log on to a phone, or where social media companies can see your data and infer your age:
If they’re [social media companies] seeing you talk to 65-year-olds about caravanning, they might infer that you are 65. If they see that you’re talking to 13-year[-olds] about KPop Demon Hunters, they might infer that you are 13 … There are many effective ways that platforms can use to assure themselves of age come December.
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Pocock applauds AFL player coming out as bisexual but says code still has ‘long way to go’
AFL player Mitch Brown coming out as bisexual is an opportunity for the sport to have a important conversations, says independent senator and former Wallabies player David Pocock.
Pocock tells ABC News Breakfast that Brown was “really brave” coming out. He says sport has a proud history of challenging society, but football has a “long way to go” when it comes to homophobia:
When I was playing rugby union, the catalyst for some really important conversations at a club level was when a former teammate came out, and us sitting down saying, ‘OK, how do we create a more inclusive environment where people feel like they can be themselves while they’re playing rugby union or AFL … ?’
I think sport has a proud history of challenging society to be more inclusive. But I think when it comes to homophobia, clearly the contact football codes in Australia have a long way to go, and that is about leadership at the top to actually match the changes in society we’ve seen.
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Wells says housing affordability an issue but should not be conflated with anti-immigration marches
The communications minister, Anika Wells, says there were “awful scenes” across the country at the anti-immigration marches on Sunday. Joining the Today show, she says there is no place for hatred and believes most Australians would be “horrified” at the protests that took place:
There were known racists who were trying spread division and hatred. And I think it is particularly appalling the people that were aggressive and violent towards our police officers. Australia police are having a very hard week at the moment. They’re just trying to keep our community safe. I think that was particularly egregious.
Asked whether the concerns for some protesters around the cost-of-living and affordability of housing are legitimate, Wells says she wouldn’t “give any credence to the grievances of these people as legitimate”.
But she says she understands how serious an issue housing affordability is.
It’s absolutely a problem. Housing affordability is absolutely something that comes up across the board. Let’s not conflate that with this very separate, serious issue.
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Labor says more than 5,000 houses have been built since May 2022
The government says more than 5000 social and affordable homes have now been completed since May 2022, with another 25,000 in the construction and planning stages, through the Housing Australia future fund (Haff) and other programs.
Most of these homes have been built start to finish, with a small portion acquired from existing developments, according to Labor, with more than $3.4bn already spent.
In February 2022 just 340 homes had been completed, with 55,000 social and affordable homes promised by before the end of this decade.
The latest figures include 190 new homes for crisis accommodation and 685 homes in remote areas.
The housing minister, Clare O’Neil, says the programs are “changing the lives of Australians doing it tough”:
Labor’s housing agenda is delivering... the Coalition only built 373 [social and affordable homes] when they were in office.
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Good morning
Krishani Dhanji here with you for the second sitting week of the fortnight.
It follows anti-immigration protests across Australia over the weekend, and we’ll see some reaction to that from Parliament House this morning.
The communications minister, Anika Wells, is doing the media rounds, to discuss the release of the age assurance trial – which you can read the details on here.
The government has also released new numbers of how many social and affordable homes have been completed under their housing programs: the tally has just tipped over 5,000.
And Barnaby Joyce’s net zero bill will be debated again today, Labor is using the opportunity to pile pressure on the Coalition as it still figures out its energy policy.
I’ve got my coffee, I hope you’ve got yours too – let’s get stuck in!
