Australia news live: Victoria to axe thousands of public sector jobs; Dreyfus says opposition MPs apologised over antisemitism debate tactics
Dreyfus say opposition MPs privately apologised for gag move in antisemitism debate
The federal attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, spoke with ABC RN earlier, after the opposition last week attempted to gag him in parliament while talking about antisemitism.
As Krishani Dhanji reported at the time, Liberal MP Michael Sukkar moved that Dreyfus no longer be heard in his response to a question on antisemitism.
Tony Burke, the leader of the house, had his jaw drop open in legitimate-looking shock, while next to him Richard Marles also looked dumbfounded.
Dreyfus, who is Jewish, had spoken in his answer about standing in the debris of a firebombed synagogue in Melbourne and visiting Israel.
Speaking this morning, the attorney general said an “extraordinary number” of opposition politicians had reached out to him.
They saw that what happened in parliament was a mistake, and they’ve apologised to me for it.
He didn’t name those who had apologised, but said Sukkar had not.
Key events
Minns says ‘rhetoric’ will be lowered as negotiations continue with rail unions
The New South Wales premier Chris Minns has been speaking with reporters this morning, after the Fair Work Commission ordered rail union work stoppages be suspended until 1 July.
He said this was an “important decision” that “gives us all an opportunity to land a deal”, and moving forward the state government would look at “lowering the rhetoric”.
It was very important for the NSW government and myself to explain to the traveling public why we were in the [Fair Work] Commission, why we had rejected the union’s demands and why we needed relief from the Commission.
But now the job of lowering the rhetoric, getting around the table and landing a deal is hugely important. And I’m not going to, because there’s no need at the moment to be, offering a running commentary about negotiations.
Ultimately, when the deal is done, we’ll present it to the people of NSW. But … I think the government’s earned the right to say that the public should have confidence that we will protect the taxpayer and the traveling public in any negotiations.
Paterson downplays likelihood of Australian troops being deployed to Ukraine
James Paterson was also asked about those comments from Donald Trump, who escalated his attacks on Volodymyr Zelenskyy and called the Ukrainian president “a dictator”.
Paterson said it wasn’t his place to comment on US foreign policy, but on what Australia should be doing, he said:
We have a very strong interest in Ukraine’s successful defence. The principles that Ukraine and its allies are fighting for are ones we share … I think we should continue to stand with Ukraine, and support President Zelenskyy.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott suggested on Sky News that Australia should join with the UK and other like-minded nations in developing some sort of coalition to protect the freedom of Ukraine.
Paterson said he wasn’t aware of any formal request from the government on a proposal like that, and the most direct means for Australia to support Ukraine was through “military aid and assistance”.
We’re a long way away from Ukraine and we have our own neighbourhood which is troubled. I don’t think the deployment of Australian troops is on the cards.
Shadow home affairs minister suggests ‘shortlist of obvious candidates’ behind plot to harm Australian activist
The shadow home affairs minister, James Paterson, was up on ABC News Breakfast earlier, responding to Asio boss Mike Burgess’s annual threat assessment speech last night.
He described it as a “very sobering and bleak assessment” by Burgess, noting many Australians would be “startled this morning” by news at least three countries have plotted to harm Australians abroad and on home soil.
Paterson said it wasn’t “his place” to “disclose something that the Asio has not, which is the nation states behind it”, but said “there is a shortlist of obvious candidates”.
I assure you the specific targets in these instances will be aware they were the targets, they would have been debriefed by Asio and the federal police as part of the investigation and would have been warned to take steps to protect themselves.
He said that “targeted diaspora communities have an understanding of what’s happening to them too”.
It’s a question about foreign policy, really, whether you openly disclose which nation states are involved in this … It’s a very serious disclosure, can’t be made lightly and must be done with the support of government.
Two men charged after prominent Jewish leader’s former home targeted last month
Two men have been charged after a prominent Jewish leader had his former home in Sydney vandalised, with four cars damaged and two set alight, and one graffitied with the words “Fuck Jews”.
The Dover Heights home once owned by Alex Ryvchin – the co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry – was splashed with red paint on 17 January.
Yesterday, NSW police said detectives yesterday arrested and charged a man with accessory before the fact to damaging the property.
The 37-year-old man, and a 33-year-old man, have also been charged with accessory before the fact to damaging property in company, and participating in a criminal group, after five vehicles and two houses were vandalised with offensive graffiti on 11 January in Queens Park.
Detectives yesterday arrested the men at a correctional facility, where they were taken to Riverstone police station and charged. The men have been remanded in custody to appear in Downing Centre local court on 3 April.
Andrew Messenger
Brisbane bus drivers strike for two hours
Brisbane’s bus drivers have walked off the job for two hours this morning, as a result of a dispute over pay.
The action took place from about 4am until 6am and only affected routes in the Brisbane city council bus system, not other councils in south-east Queensland. Council estimated that about 436 routes would be affected earlier this week.
The lord mayor, Adrian Schrinner, told 4BC radio that about 80% of bus journeys went ahead this morning despite the industrial action.
The vast majority [of buses] turned up, and the people of Brisbane appreciate that.
The Rail, Tram and Bus Union hopes for a pay rise of about 4.5%, compared with a council offer of 3.5%, in the first year and 3.75% and 3.25% in the second. Schrinner said:
This has to be paid for by ratepayers so we have to be responsible. We’ll keep talking, we’ll do that in good faith.
Benita Kolovos
Scope of review into Victorian public sector
Here’s the scope of Helen Silver’s review into the Victorian public sector, via the government’s media release:
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Identify overlaps, inefficiencies, functions and programs within the VPS that can be streamlined or eliminated.
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Provide recommendations to improve processes, and make sure all VPS departments and programs work efficiently provide recommendations to reduce the VPS back towards its pre-pandemic share of employment – including an examination of the appropriate levels of executives.
Benita Kolovos
Symes hopes to accept ‘all’ recommendations from review to address budget problems
Jaclyn Symes said she would receive interim recommendations in April, to be reflected in her first budget in May. A final report will be delivered to government by the end of June.
Pre-empting any of the questions, I will make that report public.
Integrity agencies will not be included in the review, nor the department that runs the parliament. But ministerial offices will be examined.
Symes said she has also prepared for some pushback from stakeholders, and “some of these decisions will be difficult.”
There will be stakeholders that are attracted to programs that have existed for some time. It is up to government to look at those recommendations and really determine whether they are in the best interests of Victorian families in a cost of living crisis.
I do not shy away [from the fact] that some of those will be difficult and some people won’t like some of the recommendations, and therefore, as I said, there’ll be hard decisions for government to make. But I’m determined that this work can’t be for nothing.
The recommendations will come to government and I want to be in a position to accept all if I can … because it’s needed to address the budget recurrent problem that we have. I haven’t shied away from that. This is what the purpose of the review is all about.
Benita Kolovos
Up to 3,000 public sector jobs will be cut, Victorian treasurer says
Jacinta Allan and Jaclyn Symes have been taking questions, with Symes confirming about 5-6% of jobs will be cut in the public sector.
What we have asked Helen [Silver] to look at is resizing the [Victorian public service] to the share of employment that existed pre-pandemic … That’s a funky way of saying on the raw figures, between 2,000 to 3,000 VPS jobs would be expected to go.
I have also had additional conversations with the [Community and Public Sector Union] in relation to any of the ramifications of those decisions. But again, this is a process of collaboration, discussion. There will be some difficult decisions to make, but they are important decisions.
Victorian government announces review into public sector
Benita Kolovos
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, and state treasurer, Jaclyn Symes, are holding a press conference to announce a review into the public sector.
Allan said the review will be led by Helen Silver and will focus on “waste, inefficiency and duplication”.
This independent review is ensuring a laser-focus on every dollar of expenditure in the Victorian government’s budget, like households are focusing on every dollar that they spend, so too is the Victorian government.
The premier repeatedly said the review will not affect frontline services. She said her government will “continue to invest in support at frontline services” – teachers, nurses, police, crime and child protection.
Symes, who became treasurer in late December, said she has formed the view the budget “really needs a refresh”.
This is about ensuring that our frontline services are protected, the critical services of government that Victorians rely on are supported and promoted, whilst identifying duplication, inefficiencies, overlap, and indeed, maybe some of those programs that have been around for say 20 years, that are just not meeting the needs of the Victorian community.
Telstra hikes dividend and announces $750m share buy-back
Telstra is raising its dividend and will spend up to $750m buying back its shares, AAP reports, after the telecommunications firm grew its first-half profit by 7.1%.
Telstra has said it made $1.1bn in net profit in the first half, after a strong performance from its mobile business with 119,000 net new customers.
Its revenue for the six months to 31 December was up 1.5% to $11.6bn, with earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation climbing 6% to $4.2bn. Chief executive, Vicki Brady, said:
These are a strong set of results, delivering a fourth consecutive year of first-half underlying growth, reflecting momentum across our business, strong cost control and disciplined capital management.
Telstra announced a 9.5 cent per share fully franked interim dividend, up 5.6% from a year ago. The company will begin buying back its shares on 12 March.
It will also spend another $800m over the next four years upgrading its mobile network in partnership with Ericsson, to optimise network management with “self-detection and self-healing properties”.
Malinauskas says SA government has spoken to BlueScope about potentially buying Whyalla
Peter Malinauskas said the state government had spoken with BlueScope steel, “among other companies”, about the possibility of buying the Whyalla steelworks.
But he said it “wouldn’t be appropriate to go into the all the discrete detail of the discussions we’ve had with steel manufacturers.”
BlueScope is a really good Australian company, it’s publicly listed, it’s well managed, it’s finances are sound. So I would love to see BlueScope participate in an exercise to examine whether or not they want to purchase the steelworks, but that’ll be a matter for them.
Malinauskas says SA government feeling ‘confident’ in yesterday’s legislation
The South Australian premier Peter Malinauskas also spoke with ABC RN earlier this morning after yesterday’s Whyalla announcement.
He was asked if the legislation that was pushed through yesterday could be legally challenged? The premier said the government received “legal advice from some of the smartest minds we have in the nation” and were feeling confident:
We live in a country where the law prevails and that affords individuals and entities rights, and they’re entitled to pursue them as they see fit.
But needless to say, the events that transpired in Parliament didn’t take place without the South Australian government getting access to the best advice in the country, including legal advice from some of the smartest minds we have in the nation in that particular field of law, and we’re rather confident.
SA premier says he ‘won’t apologise’ for making sure state government had everything lined up before acting on Whyalla
The South Australian premier was asked if his government should have moved faster on Whyalla, given so many people have lost quite a lot of money in this process?
Peter Malinauskas said that when state government’s take this sort of action, “you want to do it with caution and a degree of thoughtfulness.”
So I make no apologies about making sure we got everything lined up before we act[ed].
But more than that, although there’s been wide reporting globally particularly in the financial press about the state of GFG and its struggles, here in Whyalla, the workers have been getting paid. Creditors have had quarters and they have been paid. There have been challenges of late payments but still getting paid. All that started to change late last year, that’s what invited the government intervention and hence what we saw in mid-February.
Malinauskas on amount of debt owed to state government and creditors
The South Australian premier, Peter Malinauskas, has been making the media rounds this morning, and spoke to ABC News Breakfast earlier about the Whyalla steelworks’ administration.
He was tight-lipped on the announcement the prime minister will make today, but said the state and federal governments had been “working closely together now for some time to be able to arrive at this point”.
Asked how much GFG Alliance owes the government and creditors, Malinauskas said there was “a degree of transparency now that is going to be allowed to take place that wasn’t true this time yesterday” in terms of GFG’s financial situations.
The numbers that have been bandied around publicly is over $300m worth of creditors that aren’t being funded by GFG, and we have no reason to believe that number is in any way too small. But let’s wait and see what the administrators find out about the full picture of the size of that debt.
‘Extraordinary’ opposition gag attempt was ‘wrong’, Dreyfus says
Continuing to speak on ABC RN, Mark Dreyfus said it was “it was an extraordinary thing to gag” in the parliament.
The gag is used very rarely. To seek to gag the attorney general of the Commonwealth when I’m talking about the subject as serious as this – and a subject as personal and as close to me as this – was wrong.
Asked how difficult it is to juggle being attorney general with also being a member of the Jewish community, he responded he is proud of his role – but it is personal.
I hope that I’m managing to balance those difficulties, but it is personal. We must never forget the Holocaust and I’ll keep saying that.
I’ve really just come back from the … 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a place where my great-grandmother died, was murdered by the Nazis. And it is very personal, but so it is for every member of the Jewish community.
Dreyfus said he believes Australians “stand with the Jewish community against antisemitism and stand with the Jewish community in wanting to remember the Holocaust and wanting to say ‘never again’.”
Dreyfus say opposition MPs privately apologised for gag move in antisemitism debate
The federal attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, spoke with ABC RN earlier, after the opposition last week attempted to gag him in parliament while talking about antisemitism.
As Krishani Dhanji reported at the time, Liberal MP Michael Sukkar moved that Dreyfus no longer be heard in his response to a question on antisemitism.
Tony Burke, the leader of the house, had his jaw drop open in legitimate-looking shock, while next to him Richard Marles also looked dumbfounded.
Dreyfus, who is Jewish, had spoken in his answer about standing in the debris of a firebombed synagogue in Melbourne and visiting Israel.
Speaking this morning, the attorney general said an “extraordinary number” of opposition politicians had reached out to him.
They saw that what happened in parliament was a mistake, and they’ve apologised to me for it.
He didn’t name those who had apologised, but said Sukkar had not.
Marles rejects Trump’s accusation Zelenskyy is a ‘dictator’
Richard Marles was asked about Donald Trump’s escalated attacks on Volodymyr Zelenskyy, after the US president called the Ukrainian leader “a dictator” who had “better move fast” or he “won’t have a country left”.
Asked if he thinks Zelenskyy is a dictator, Marles said “no”, but said “I’m also not about to engage in a running commentary of President Trump’s remarks.”
We obviously, and I think the world obviously, welcomes any efforts to bring about peace. The war in Ukraine has seen a very significant loss of life over what’s coming up to three years.
Having said that, it can’t be peace on any terms – and to be clear, I don’t think America is saying that either. It is really important that we are empowering Ukraine in this process. And we’ve said from the outset, and we continue to say, that this conflict can only be resolved on Ukraine’s terms.
The aggressor here is Russia. They were the ones who illegally crossed into Ukraine, who invaded Ukraine. That is why we are supporting Ukraine. We see that what’s at stake here.
The host notes that Trump is not “saying any of that”, and Marles repeats that he won’t give “a running commentary on what President Trump is saying.”
Marles says Australians should have “confidence” in Asio after chief revealing attempts to harm Australians abroad
Circling back to Richard Marles’s interview on Sky News earlier.
The defence minister was asked about a speech from the Asio boss, Mike Burgess, last night, who revealed at least three countries have plotted to harm Australians abroad and on home soil, including a planned assassination to silence a human rights activist:
Asked if Australians were vulnerable to attacks, Marles said he wouldn’t use this word, and Australians should have a “sense of confidence about Asio and the other security agencies that we have to meet the threat that we face.”
The fundamental fact is that we live in the most challenging, and in many respects, the most threatening strategic circumstances that we’ve faced since the end of the second world war. You can look around the world to see how complex it is, and in many respects, how volatile it is – and we’re not immune from that.
Asked if he is worried about the years ahead, Marles responded “I’m not sanguine, that’s for sure”.
We live in a very complex and, in many respects, threatening environment, and we need to be making sure that we are prepared for that.
