All things liable to change without notice. Scott Morrison has confirmed that two Australians have been killed in the Sri Lankan attacks.
My heart is full of grief for them and their families as I am sure all Austalians are.
On that sad note, good night.
Updated
Night time wrap
Ok people, that is your lot for today.
On this Easter Monday in an election campaign:
- There is growing pressure for a royal commission into water buybacks though Labor is stopping short from a direct call as yet.
- Scott Morrison defended the $80m sale in 2017 and questioned previous buybacks by Labor, though the $300m Twynam sale under Labor, prior to the Murray-Darling Basin plan, was ticked off by the Australian National Audit Office.
- Bill Shorten said a Labor government would make the national wage case to “independent umpire” the Fair Work Commission while promising to legislate to overturn the commission’s penalty rate decision.
- Chris Bowen called on the Coalition to disavow a “fake news” campaign suggesting Labor would introduce an inheritance tax.
- All sides of politics expressed their horror at the attacks on Christian churches and tourist hotels in Sri Lanka which have so far killed 290 people.
- Barnaby Joyce is back in range and coming up on RN Drive. He is also appearing with agriculture and water minister David Littleproud in Tamworth tomorrow at midday.
I will be back tomorrow on the live blog as Amy Remeikis and Mike Bowers continue to wend their way through Herbert in Queensland.
I have no line of sight on where Morrison will be as yet but Shorten will stay in Queensland. Everyone on the Coalition bus have been told to pack their bags but no one knows where they are going. Glad we are not on the bus TBH.
Thanks to the brains trust, Sarah Martin, Paul Karp and Ben Smee. Thanks for your company.
Goodnight.
Updated
Another perspective from the regions.
This water issue is not really about Taylor or Joyce. The real abject failure is the water market and the Basin management.
— chris kelly (@KellyAlspals) April 21, 2019
An important Indigenous perspective on water:
#CulturalWaterRights have to be a part of any future #WaterPlan
— Paul Dutton (@pauldutton1968) April 22, 2019
Water should not be a profit commodity for corporations but available for communities, agricultural direct use but not high water consumable crops like cotton.
Water must be #ClimateChange analysed for future
#GreenNewDeal must be a long term water infrastructure plan for the nation. Especially scientific knowledge on expected levels of water for remote & arid land which #MurrayDarling catchment is a part of.
— Paul Dutton (@pauldutton1968) April 22, 2019
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Barnaby Joyce will be speaking about the water deal tonight on RN Drive with Patricia Karvelas.
We have a radio interview with @Barnaby_Joyce at 6:05pm live tonight on @RadioNational on this water buybacks story. Thank you to my producer @Tim_Skelton who is a great producer #AUSVote2019 @barriecassidy
— PatriciaKarvelas (@PatsKarvelas) April 22, 2019
The veteran conservationist Bob Brown has unleashed a mighty spray at News Corp newspapers as his Stop Adani convoy hosted a rally in Brisbane this afternoon.
The protesters arrived in Queensland to front-page headlines in the Courier-Mail about offensive comments made by an activist on social media. It followed a story last week about businesses in mining communities refusing to serve members of the group.
Brown said the comments “had no place in civil debate” but that they were being used to tar activists and create hostility.
Sure, you can argue one way or the other and I respect those who think Adani should go ahead. I ask for respect in the other direction. Some of the headlines in the Murdoch media are simply disgraceful. They’re a disgrace to journalism and they’re a disgrace to the fourth estate’s responsibility for fair and balanced journalism in this biggest debate facing humanity.
We come in peace, we come abiding by the laws.
I absolutely reject [the offensive comments], and as I said to the Courier-Mail last night, I’m sure you take down those comments made on your website and you separate yourselves from them.
What [the Courier-Mail] has done today is to use those despicable comments and try to tar everyone else with them. That’s the lowest form of journalism.
Those comments have no place in civil debate, and they have no place being used to stir up, no doubt, malevolence down the line. And I hold the Murdoch media responsible for that, if it happens.
Updated
The 2017 EAA water buyback included a legal tax structure in which a company was domiciled in the Cayman Islands.
Labor’s Andrew Leigh has taken the opportunity today to run through the party’s policies about tax havens. The nuts and bolts include:
- A publicly accessible registry of the beneficial ownership of Australian companies and legal entities, including trusts to allow a clear line of sign on ownership of firms.
- Government tenderers on contracts worth more than $200,000 would have to disclose the country where they’re legally based and no firm headquartered in a tax haven would be able to get a significant government contract without revealing their true status.
- Close down a tax deduction for flights and travel expenses to blacklisted tax havens and close a loophole that allows employees to receive allowances of up to $2000 tax-free - $400 per day, up to five days - for trips to tax havens like Bermuda.
- Fund an OECD/United Nations Development Program joint project, Tax Inspectors Without Borders, that helps developing nations audit multinationals.
- Labor will expose large companies that use tax havens by publicly releasing details from country-by-country reports.
- Protect and reward whistleblowers. If someone reports on entities evading tax, they will be protected and allowed to collect a share of the penalty.
- Mandatory shareholder reporting of tax haven exposure as a material tax risk and develop guidelines for tax haven investment by superannuation funds, require public reporting of Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre data, and require the Australian Taxation Office to disclose settlements and report on aggressive tax minimisation.
@theautomatt’s take on water.
Hi @gabriellechan. 👍 State & Federal MP's of all persuasions attempt to keep their cuffs dry during the Murray Darling Basin fiasco. #AusVotes2019 pic.twitter.com/uRESIeb60A
— The Auto-Matt (@theautomatt) April 22, 2019
Indeed the idea of a national integrity commission is a policy of a number of independent and minor party candidates, including the indie running in Mallee, Ray Kingston. Mallee is the very safe National seat (19.8% margin after redistribution) formerly held by Andrew Broad who retired after the sugar baby scandal. It has a number of indies running there, including Jason Modica and Celia Moar.
If there's been fraudulent behaviour? Let's try to restore integrity by dealing with it legally rather than politically. MDB too important to be used as a political football. #watergate #ICAC #auspol #malleevotes pic.twitter.com/eoGm85ncow
— Ray Kingston: The Independent Voice for Mallee (@MalleeRay) April 22, 2019
Independents and minor parties are jumping on the water bandwagon. Twelve have called for immediate action and a tough national integrity commission.
One of the overriding issues that has caused us all to stand in this federal election is the need for integrity and good governance; something we feel has been lacking in recent years
The new parliament elected on 18 May must have at the top of its agenda the creation of a national integrity commission to restore public confidence that questionable transactions that may involve corruption or conflict of interests of members of parliament should be investigated.
However, this investigation into water buy-backs cannot wait until after the election. The Australian people deserve an immediate and detailed explanation about this transaction.
They include:
Adam Blakester, independent candidate for New England, Father Rod Bower, independent candidate for the Senate in NSW, Huw Kingston, independent candidate for Hume, Dr Andy Lewis, independent candidate for the Senate in Queensland, Jeremy Miller, independent candidate for Lyne, Rob Oakeshott, independent candidate for Cowper, Anthony Pesec, independent candidate for the Senate in the ACT, Dr Kerryn Phelps, independent for Wentworth, Zali Steggall, independent candidate for Warringah, Alice Thompson, independent for Mackellar, Paul Wittwer, independent for the Senate in Victoria, Oliver Yates, independent for Kooyong.
Updated
Scott Morrison referenced one of Labor’s water buybacks before the plan was done. Morrison said:
This arrangement was dwarfed by the size of the amount that was committed to when Penny Wong, I think as water minister, and that was more than $300m, which the reports at the time said that they paid $40m over the odds on that one as well.
That sale was covered by the 2011 report done by Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) called Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin. This is what that report said:
The audit examined key aspects of the first four tenders for the RtB program. These tenders provided coverage across the Basin and resulted in expenditure in excess of $1 billion. The 2008–09 tenders included the largest single purchase under the program – $303m to Twynam Agricultural Group. The audit also examined the commonwealth’s contribution to the purchase of Toorale station, the only purchase outside a tender process.
And then concluded:
The $303m purchase of Twynam’s entitlements provided a significant opportunity for the department to reduce the over‐allocation of entitlements, and benefit from future water allocations. In the event that large offers are received in the future, more explicit consideration should be given to quantifying administrative savings and demonstrating claimed ‘immediate’ environmental benefits to justify paying a price premium above established price benchmarks.
And more generally:
The department has established, and generally followed, standard processes to assess applications and transfer legal ownership to the commonwealth. The tenders were conducted in accordance with the applicable purchasing strategy, guidelines and evaluation criteria endorsed by an internal project board and approved by the then minister. Documentation has progressively improved across the tenders, and, overall, the tenders have been conducted in accordance with procurement principles. Although avoidable delays occurred during the 2008–09 tenders in finalising acceptable offers, the department has since taken a number of steps to better manage internal processing times. However, external factors can still affect the overall time it takes to transfer entitlements to the commonwealth.
Updated
Shorten is asked about the Martin Parkinson letter: will there be a night of the long knives under a Shorten government to hack off the heads of these department secretaries?
Colourful analogy, but no.
Shorten says he’ll ‘adhere to law’ on Adani groundwater approval
I’m running to keep up with the campaign on this PUBLIC HOLIDAY, people.
Re Adani and the government’s decision to approve the groundwater management plan at 5 minutes to midnight and the campaign bell, Shorten is asked whether Labor will review the decision. He dodges the question.
The process is not concluded with the Queensland government. That’s the first point to make. So the ball is really in the Queensland government’s court. The second point I’d make – we’ll back the science, we’ll adhere to the law ... and not going to engage in sovereign risk. What I also need to briefly make the point here – what’s the government doing?
Pressed further on to review or not to review, Shorten says:
If I’m prime minister, I’ll adhere to the best science and the best law. In terms of the review, I’ll just adhere to the law.
And
I’m not going to engage in sovereign risk.
Updated
While we are on water, a view from Ricegrowers Association of Australia’s Jeremy Morton:
Political agendas are taking the focus of the real issues. What Australia & the communities of the #MurrayDarling need is a parliament that empowers those communities to develop their own management plan. Consecutive Government’s consistently stuff it up.
— Jeremy Morton (@Jeremy_Morton_) April 22, 2019
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Tony Burke is asked about previous water buybacks under Labor.
Q to Burke: What about Labor’s record, though? The prime minister has just said that EAA was a company that the previous Labor government has dealt with and this arrangement was dwarfed by the amounts committed under the previous government.
The water I purchased was through public tenders. All the water that was purchased, from the time the plan was put in place, was through public tenders. This was not through a public tender. And that’s why so many questions are being asked. Previously, when water – and some water was purchased right at the start, not plus public tenders, but that was before we had a plan in place.
Once you have the plan, you have capped the total of amount of water that’s going to be required by the environment. Barnaby Joyce has gone off and got the lowest-quality water he could that will only be around once every 10 years ... There may be an explanation for this. So far the government haven’t offered it, the department haven’t offered it, and we need those answers.
Updated
Shorten is asked about the water buybacks, specifically over whether Labor will back a royal commission. While he makes general points about the buybacks, he flicks the question to Tony Burke, who says:
Right at this moment, there are questions that we are asking the prime minister to answer, and questions that we are asking the department to answer. The reason there are so many questions floating around at the moment is the chaos that has occurred here. We will wait till we see what those answers come back as before we’re able to give a definitive answer on what you have referred to there.
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Environment and water shadow, Tony Burke, wants to see all the documents related to the water buybacks. He says:
On the face of it, it looks like for floodwaters that only exist in very rare circumstances [and] that effectively they have paid top dollar for … You don’t pay Versace prices for water that you get from the reject shop and that looks like what Barnaby Joyce has done.
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Shorten also promises a Labor government will make the case for a wage increase to the Fair Work Commission.
If Labor is elected, we’ll use the full force of the commonwealth advocacy to make a submission to the national wage case to get wages moving in a modest and meaningful way.
I’ll gather the cabinet straight away, if we are elected. We’ll work through the issues. We’re going to use the full force of commonwealth advocacy to support a wage improvement, a wage increase, for 2.2m Australians. We will make the case to the independent umpire.
Updated
Shorten also talks about the benefits for regional Australia as a result of their $250m regional tourism package.
He promised to take back the $443m reef grant given under Malcolm Turnbull to a small not for profit without a competitive tender process.
[We will be] taking back most of the money which was given in half an hour to a private trust, and we’re going to make that $440 million back and we’re going to spend it on government experts, the CSIRO, working with local communities.
Updated
Bill Shorten has started speaking in Queensland. He begins with his sympathy with the people of Sri Lanka.
It is unthinkable that people at prayer should be the subject of this cowardly terror attack. And we stand with Sri Lankan Australians. They’re a mighty community, and we stand with Sri Lanka.
Shorten says he and Chloe have spoken to a Sri Lankan family this morning.
A family with a daughter. They know they live in a great country, but they expressed their sadness for the family in Colombo. They thought that after 20 years of war, this violence and terror was behind them in Sri Lanka …Clearly, there are always evil people amongst us who seek to drag people back in shocking violence, and our solidarity and sympathy is with the people of Sri Lanka.
Updated
The Liberal party has lost two lower house candidates in safe Labor seats.
I have confirmed that Sam Kayal, the candidate for Werriwa, and Courtney Nguyen, the candidate for Fowler, are no longer endorsed, due to section 44 dual citizenship issues.
They took steps to renounce foreign citizenships but have not had confirmation in time for nomination day, which is tomorrow.
That’s not very much time to find new candidates but we’ll let you know who the Liberal party picks.
Updated
Morrison says water buybacks were 'at arm's length' from ministers
Scott Morrison is asked about water and the price paid for water in the 2017 water buybacks.
Morrison makes these points.
- This arrangement was first proposed by the Queensland government.
- This was a company that previously a Labor government had dealt with and engaged in a transaction with on an earlier occasion when they were in authority.
- There is a Senate inquiry on this.
- The auditor general does a regular analysis and review of the arrangements.
- It was a program that was started under the Labor government.
- The Murray-Darling Basin issue is bipartisan and one arrived at after a great deal of work.
The price that was negotiated is done at arm’s length from ministers. It was done by the department and working through the normal process, which includes the assessments of the environmental and economic impacts and arriving at the ultimate price, which they did, which as you say was $2,700.
Now this arrangement was dwarfed by the size of the amount that was committed to when Penny Wong, I think, [was] water minister, and that was more than $300m, which the reports at the time said that they paid $40m over the odds on that one as well.
And then:
No agreement is perfect, but it is one that enjoys bipartisan support and transactions have been undertaken by both sides of government when they’ve been in government when achieving that plan.
Updated
Question to Morrison: On Sri Lanka, there’s reports that the bombings may have been in retaliation for the attacks in Christchurch. There’s also been an American intelligence firm warned that in Australia, there’s been increased chatter from jihadist groups, and also from alt-right groups in the wake of the Christchurch attack. Can you just give us an update on what our security agencies are looking at?
Morrison:
Our security agencies are not drawing any conclusions on this matter at this point in time, and I’d encourage others not to do the same. This is a very complex situation in Sri Lanka and I don’t think that you can leap to any conclusions here. When there’s these sort of terrorist attacks anywhere in the world, particularly when targeting Christians, then it is often the case that you’ll see chatter in those types of groups.
But at this point, there is no clear or conclusive evidence about what the source of this is, and when you have that level of carnage with an Easter massacre such as this, you will get conflicting reports in the early phases. It’s important just to wait and to allow the authorities, with whom we’re cooperating and assisting, to allow them to undertake those inquiries, conduct their interviews before we form a clear picture about what has occurred. What I do know is that people’s innocence was targeted.
Updated
Scott Morrison is speaking now, about the Sri Lankan attacks. Afterwards, he goes to two Coalition announcements today:
The first one is $10m to support culturally diverse and linguistically diverse communities on navigating our aged-care system. That’s a navigator program … everything to be able to source residential care options, home care options, negotiate and deal with all the paperwork that is required in accessing aged-care …
The second area is one thing we absolutely know about our immigrant communities to this country – and that is they are entrepreneurial. They start businesses and work hard. And today we’re announcing a $5m self-starter accelerator program for migrant communities who have great ideas for how to get businesses up and away. And to continue to foster the spirit of entrepreneurialism that exists in our migrant communities. Our migrant communities have a much higher share of those communities who work for themselves. And that goes to what makes our country so strong.
Updated
Mal Peters was the Northern Basin Review chairman for the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) and is a former NSW Farmers Association chair. He has long been exercised by the administration of water and here is his prescription:
Pause plan 2 years establish independent external expert panel farmers, community, science environment, indigenous. Allow commission external science on 7 key problems. Identify corruption & affectivness of actions but importantly design solutions and regain community confidence.
— Mal Peters (@peters_malcolm) April 22, 2019
Updated
Chris Bowen tells Coalition 'stop making things up' about death tax
Labor shadow treasurer Chris Bowen is speaking about claims, referenced by some in the government, that Labor will introduce an inheritance tax. Labor has ruled this out but Bowen says the deliberate rumours persist.
There is a subterranean campaign going on to have people believe Labor has a plan to introduce an inheritance tax. It is a lie. As I understand, it is not even a Greens policy. The prime minister was asked about it on the weekend but denied knowledge of the text message, but then said, ‘how do we know there isn’t such a plan?’. Stop making things up.
There is a Josh Frydenberg press release that makes a claim about that. We have seen a photoshopped fake tweet by Sally McManus and shared by a former Liberal minister. I am happy to have a robust debate and defend Labor’s policies but if the prime minister and the treasurer are reduced to inventing policies it says a lot about them and it says more about them than the Labor party. If they think they can treat Australia’s communities with such disregard to run a fraudulent campaign, it says a lot about Scott Morrison’s character.
Updated
Having spent a couple of days down in Liberal MP Sussan Ley’s electorate of Farrer on the Murray last week, I can tell you communities are on fire about water management in the middle of this drought. Basically they fall into two camps – some key irrigators and community types are backing an independent challenge by Albury mayor Kevin Mack against Ley, while some are keen that the electorate should stay in Coalition hands in order to stop more water buybacks. That is mainly as a result of Labor’s Tony Burke promising to lift the current cap on buybacks. That is causing angst in river communities, separate to the current issue around a specific buyback. Given Ley holds the seat on a margin of 20%, it would be an absolute rout for her if Mack won. But there was a lot of anger on the ground so I am not prepared to make a judgement over whether Ley is safe.
Updated
Scott Morrison was in Victoria this morning, participating in a Buddhist ceremony, and he has also committed that the Coalition would invest $15m to “back multicultural communities to start new businesses and support elderly migrants access aged care services and choose the best options for their retirement”.
He spoke about the attacks in Sri Lanka overnight.
Our hearts go out to the brothers and sisters there in Sri Lanka, who on the most holiest days of Christians to be attacked in their place of worship, to be targeted in that way. It is unthinkable at any other time, but these days, too often it is occurring. So, I want to thank you all very much for the ability to come here today and celebrate the positivity and the optimism and the hope that we all share. Faith, belief, culture, all of this is at the heart of community which we see on display, which I find quite overwhelming here this morning.
Updated
Ok, Bill Shorten and Penny Wong are standing up separately during the morning.
Shorten is in Queensland while Wong is in Adelaide and she will be talking about the attack in Sri Lanka.
I suspect there will be quite a bit on water management during both of these press conferences. Labor is not quite coming to the point of calling a royal commission so we shall see what we shall see.
Updated
Labor’s environment and water shadow, Tony Burke, has written to the secretary of the department of agriculture and water, Daryl Quinlivan, to seek information relating to water buybacks.
Dear Secretary,
On Friday 19 April 2019, the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources took the unusual step of issuing a media release concerning water purchases.
The political debate and allegations which had been discussed in the public realm had focused on the role of the then minister not the department which made it particularly unusual for the department to intervene in this way.
The department’s media statement referred to several actions taken which led to the eventual decision.
The actions include that the department:
• undertook due diligence activities in investigating the proposal
• checked the validity of the licences on offer
• obtained commercial water valuation advice
• sought independent advice on the possible socio-economic impacts
• sought advice from the State Government
• sought advice from the MDBA
• sought advice from the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder
• confirmed the sale was consistent with Commonwealth Procurement Rules
• paid at a fair market rate, as informed by independent market valuation.
The prime minster said that documents relating to these issues had been sought and had been made publicly available. Given that the only form of those documents that has been made publicly available were documents provided to the Senate and heavily redacted, and given that the department has chosen to insert itself in to the public debate in this way, it is not consistent [with] the operation of the public service to provide reference to these documents to make a case in order to defend the minister without then also making those documents public.
With that in mind I seek the cooperation of the department in publishing the following documents or advice relating to the department:
• undertaking due diligence activities in investigating the proposal
• checking the validity of the licences on offer
• obtaining commercial water valuation advice
• seeking independent advice on the possible socioeconomic impacts
• seeking advice from the state government
• seeking advice from the MDBA
• seeking advice from the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder
• confirming the sale was consistent with commonwealth procurement rules
• paying at a fair market rate, as informed by independent market valuation.
It would be inappropriate for the documents to be redacted given the circumstance in which the department has now placed itself.
I would be grateful if you could respond by close of business tomorrow.
Yours sincerely,
Tony Burke
Burke is a former water minister and one of the architects of the Murray-Darling Basin plan in 2012.
Updated
Richard Di Natale speaking on RN this morning on why Australia needs a royal commission into water.
It’s more than wasteful ... and that’s why we do need to see a full throated investigation, we should have an immediate audit but we do need a royal commission here.
When you’ve got governments handing out taxpayer money to companies that reside in places like the Caymans – notorious tax dodgers – what we have is a national scandal.
He makes point if there was a national integrity commission, this is the sort of thing it could investigate.
Asked who benefited from the water buyback, Di Natale said, “well we don’t know”.
Di Natale says water management highlights a failure of the government, which is more interested in “looking after its mates”.
Updated
Number three on the Queensland LNP Senate ticket, candidate Gerard Rennick, has floated the idea of slashing Australia’s company tax rate to 12% — more than half its current rate.
The ABC has video of Rennick, who says he has a masters of tax law, raising this proposal.
He reckons that increasing withholding tax and cutting company tax would combat tax avoidance. Withholding tax is levied on money flowing offshore, such as interest payments, royalties and dividends.
Do you know how you fix it? You do what Ireland and Singapore do.
They have a company tax rate of 12% and a withholding tax rate of 15%.
So you can attract the investment in, but if they want to take the profits … offshore they’ll pay a higher rate of tax.
Labor’s campaign spokesman Jim Chalmers has seized on this in his doorstop this morning.
Well, it says it all about these characters that they think the way to deal with multinational tax avoidance is to dramatically cut the taxes paid by multinationals and the four big banks. These guys are from another planet. They are so spectacularly out of touch that their two highest priorities of their Senate candidate is to cut tax for the top end of town and to pay for that by further cutting early education, which they have described as a conspiracy against the parents and kids of this country.
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PMC secretary Martin Parkinson assures Labor on climate modelling
David Crowe at the SMH reports an interesting intervention from the head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Martin Parkinson. It relates to a letter sent by Parkinson to calm the ongoing war over climate costing that we have seen ramping up over the past week of campaigning. Crowe reports:
The head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Dr Martin Parkinson, has responded to the climate dispute by warning against the “misleading” use of economic modelling and assuring Mr Shorten the public service has not costed the Labor policy.
Shorten wrote to Parkinson after reports that the Coalition was preparing modelling to claim a major impact on the economy from the Labor target of reducing emissions by 45% by 2030, compared with the government’s 26%.
Shorten wanted to know who had asked for the modelling
On Wednesday, Dr Parkinson wrote to Shorten to underline the public service had not costed Labor’s policy but that the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science had been asked to seek “external modelling” of a potential emissions policy in January.
The limitations of modelling are well known, Parkinson wrote.
As such, I would regard it as misleading to release the results of this modelling exercise without also acknowledging both the underlying assumptions and the manifest limitations.
Updated
Scott Morrison released this statement overnight relating to the Sri Lanka attacks:
The Australian Government condemns these further terrorist attacks that we’ve seen, bombings in Sri Lanka of Christians as they went to worship on Easter Sunday and bombings in hotels, all coordinated as part of a deadly terrorist attack.
Sri Lanka hasn’t seen this form of violence since 2009 when the hostilities ceased in that country and there are many Australians who are regularly travelling in Sri Lanka. Our mission in Colombo will be following through on the safety of those Australians. I would encourage any Australians who have any information about their family or their friends who may be travelling in that area or who are seeking further information, to call the 1300 555 135 number and pass that information on to them.
We’ve been in contact with our mission staff in Sri Lanka and been able to confirm their safety. But as I said, there are many Australians who do travel in this area and the information that is coming out of Sri Lanka is very confused at this point, as you’d expect it to be after such an horrific incident. But there are reports of 138 deceased and over 400 injured.
As the day passes and the night passes, as we move into the next few days I’m sure the information will become even more sickeningly real. The devastating nature of this horrific attack on innocent lives simply going about their day, going to worship on the holiest of days on the Christian calendar, is just absolutely devastating.
So I reach out particularly to our Sri Lankan community here in Australia and I know they will be feeling it very deeply. To the beautiful people of Sri Lanka, Australia sends its heartfelt sympathies and our prayers and our support – and our offer to do whatever we can to support you in this terrible time of need. The information at this stage is just too inconclusive to provide further details. But as further details are received, obviously we’ll be looking at them carefully. I’m being kept up to date regularly on events, particularly as they may apply to Australians who may be in the area. I’ve ensured that the Leader of the Opposition has been fully briefed also this evening, we’ll be keeping them advised of developments as they proceed.
But at this time, at this time as Easter Sunday draws to a conclusion here in Australia, our heart goes out to those Christians and all of those other innocents who have been slaughtered today in this horrific terrorist attack. We still don’t know what or who was responsible for this or what their motivation was, but we do know that innocent lives have been stolen once again. Our heartfelt sympathies go out to all of those who are bereaved tonight, us included as we just share their sorrow.
Updated
Good morning blergers and happy Easter Monday to you all,
I dragged myself away from the beach this morning to bring you all the news of the campaign that is #AusVotes2019. Amy Remeikis is on assignment with Mike Bowers in the north Queensland seat of Herbert, where the sitting MP, Cathy O’Toole, won the seat at the last election by 37 votes.
We have seen the terrible attack on churches and hotels in Sri Lanka overnight, which has targeted Christians. Scott Morrison has put out a statement overnight, which I will bring you shortly.
Morrison is campaigning in Victoria today while Bill Shorten is in Queensland – these being the two key states where the majors will win or lose the election.
But the main story that continues to dominate Australian politics in the middle of the drought in the eastern states is the water buybacks. Richard Di Natale has been speaking with Ali Carabine on the water story, covered by Anne Davies, relating to an $80m buyback of water from a company with previous links to the energy minister, Angus Taylor, while Barnaby Joyce was water minister.
Taylor’s spokesman says the minister has never had a direct or indirect financial interest in EAA or any associated company, and “concluded all association with EAA and related companies prior to entering the parliament”.
Joyce has said, via text:
You have to go to the market and purchase what people are willing to sell. It wasn’t compulsory buybacks. It was voluntary. I insist that I was not involved in the negotiations.
By way of background, here is the story by Katharine Murphy and Anne this morning:
Pressure continues to mount on the Morrison government over controversial water buybacks in 2017, with calls for both a royal commission and an immediate explanation about why officials dealt with a company domiciled in a tax haven.
Labor has given Scott Morrison a deadline of Monday to address questions about the 2017 water buybacks, and has not ruled out establishing a royal commission probing the various transactions in the event Bill Shorten wins the 18 May contest.
There is a review of the Murray-Darling Basin plan next year but Di Natale wants to see a royal commission into water immediately because it has been a “long-running sore”.
He says the history of the plan is one of “corruption and mismanagement” and pointed to the “damning” findings of the SA royal commission, established by the former Labor state government prior to leaving office. He points out the federal government intervened and refused to let federal bureaucrats participate.
Every single hard-working farmer whose livelihood depends on a healthy river system should be appalled at what has gone on here.
Stay with us, as we cover the day. You can speak to me on Twitter @gabriellechan or below in the thread.
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