Former Liberal senator quits party – as it happened
Key eventsShow key events onlyPlease turn on JavaScript to use this featureWhat we learned, Wednesday 19 NovemberAnd with that, we are going to put the blog to bed. Before we go, let’s recap the big headlines:
Optus paid a fine of $826,320 after its subsidiary, Coles Mobile, fell victim to scammers who were able to exploit a vulnerability in third-party ID checks used by Optus to bypass the required verification and gain control of at least four mobile accounts.
The Minns Labor government introduced new laws to put guardrails around the use of digital programs designed to optimise workers’ workloads.
The NSW government also introduced a fresh bill to restrict protests outside places of worship, with the state’s attorney general telling parliament last night that the new legislation clarifies the scope of police powers after an earlier version was found constitutionally invalid.
New legislation will also be introduced by the NSW government on Wednesday after 60 black-clad neo-Nazis yelled Hitler youth chants at state parliament on 8 November.
The eSafety commissioner said she was concerned gaming platform Roblox was “becoming a playground for pedophiles” before the company announced new age assurance measures to prevent kids and teens from chatting to random adults on the service.
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said Hollie Hughes is “clearly bitter” after the former senator quit the party. Hollie Hughes, who lost her Senate seat at the last federal election, resigned from the Liberals on Tuesday, accusing some of her former colleagues of undermining the opposition leader, Sussan Ley.
ANZ’s CEO, Nuno Matos, said the bank’s move to slash 3,500 jobs is “not something I am proud” of, but says it is in the “best interests of our customers”.
Hugh Marks, the managing director of the ABC, was speaking before the National Press Club in Canberra this afternoon. He spoke about the importance of the national broadcaster to “own mistakes” and move on in a fast-paced world.
Workers’ wages barely outpaced inflation in the year to September, with growth in real pay rates dropping to their lowest level in two years. New figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed wages lifted by 3.4% annually, unchanged from the previous quarter.
Cyclone Fina could intensify to category three, authorities warn. The chief officer for the Northern Territory emergency services, Wayne Snell, said if your house was up to cyclone code it was safest for people to stay there.
Labor MP Ed Husic said investing in the CSIRO and science and research is an investment in the future.
Thank you for spending part of your day with us. We will be back tomorrow to do it all again.ShareUpdated at 07.32 CETAndrew MessengerGreens MP Michael Berkman has asked the Queensland health minister whether he will ensure the state’s Catholic hospitals will offer reproductive health services, after reports women requiring an abortion or miscarriage treatment are refused care at publicly funded Mater hospitals.The state’s Mater hospitals are publicly funded but run by a Catholic organisation as a charity. It operates maternity and other health services in Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton and at a large hospital in South Brisbane.The Guardian has previously reported their policy of refusing to provide reproductive care, such as abortions has left some patients struggling to get access to services.“We expect all facilities to honour the agreements that they have with the department,” Queensland health minister Tim Nicholls said, in parliamentary question time.“And the Mater hospital continues to honour its agreement, the agreement that it has with the department. There is no reason to doubt that they are not honouring that agreement … the short answer to it is, the contracts are being honoured. We continue to monitor those contracts to ensure compliance.”ShareUpdated at 07.18 CETLisa CoxIndependent senator Lidia Thorpe, the committee’s chair, made additional recommendations, including a ban on all Pfas chemicals by default under the Industrial Chemicals Environmental Management Standard (IChEMS), “with only strictly justified ‘essential uses’ allowed through an independent, scientifically rigorous assessment”.Thorpe also called for the establishment of enforceable water quality standards and regular testing requirements.In additional comments in the report, the Greens said Australia “lags behind other countries in banning these harmful substances, risking our nation becoming a dumping ground for dangerous chemicals” and called for “urgent national action” to protect people, food systems, and the environment from Pfas.While agreeing with some of the committee’s recommendations, government senators wrote a dissenting report that noted the complexities of the Pfas problem. They made seven recommendations, including an increase in investment in Pfas research.The dissenting report states:“Labor Senators are cautious about recommending prescriptive policy interventions that may not be supported by evidence when properly considered or may have unintended and undesirable consequences.”ShareUpdated at 07.17 CETLisa CoxReport into Pfas recommends full ban in fire-fighting foam and subsidised health screeningsA federal senate committee examining the regulation and management of so-called “forever chemicals” has handed down its recommendations, including a full ban on the Pfas in fire-fighting foam and development of a mandatory product labelling regime.Pfas (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), a group of several thousand synthetic compounds, are found in a wide variety of products including waterproof fabrics, food packaging, hygiene products and firefighting foam. They are sometimes referred to as “forever chemicals” because they are slow to break down and persist in the environment for extended periods.The final 400-page report delivers 47 recommendations, with committee chair Lidia Thorpe saying “for too long, PFAS chemicals have poisoned our land, water, and communities, while governments looked the other way”.View image in fullscreenIndependent senator and committee chair, Lidia Thorpe. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAPThe report includes recommendations for the government to consider subsidised blood tests and health screenings for communities that have been most exposed to Pfas, including Wreck Bay on the NSW south coast, fast-tracking of regulatory reforms to remove Pfas from all food contact packaging imported into or used in Australia, and for the commonwealth to work with states, territories and local councils on a plan to deal with legacy contamination.The report recommends the federal environment and health departments and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission develop a mandatory product labelling regime “aimed at retailers, wholesalers, distributors, importers and manufacturers who import consumer products containing PFAS chemicals”.It also recommends the government works to enforce a Pfas ban in cosmetics and personal care products.ShareUpdated at 07.25 CETJosh TayloreSafety commissioner asked to appear before US house committee over free speech concernsAustralia’s online safety regulator has been asked by US Republican chair of the House judiciary committee, Jim Jordan, to speak before the committee as part of an inquiry into foreign laws and the impact on freedom of speech on Americans and US companies.The committee produced a report in June arguing that the now shut down Global Alliance for Responsible Media (Garm) had colluded with advertisers and foreign regulators to comply with demands that what was then known as Twitter should moderate on its platform.The committee had turned its attention to the Australian eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, after emails from Inman Grant to the organisation showed the commissioner saying Garm was “helping to hold the platforms to account”.In a letter from Jordan to Inman Grant published on Tuesday he requested Inman Grant be interviewed by the committee stating “your expansive interpretation and enforcement of Australia’s [online safety act]... directly threatens American speech”. Jordan referenced eSafety’s failed attempt to have X remove tweets of footage of the 2024 church stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel.Jordan referred to Inman Grant as a “noted zealot for global takedowns”.A spokesperson for the eSafety commissioner said Inman Grant was considering whether to agree to the requests “in the context of eSafety’s current priorities”.It is a voluntary request. The spokesperson said tech companies that supply services to Australians must comply with Australian laws, and eSafety has accepted that geoblocking content to stop Australians seeing it – rather than a global removal – is a reasonable step.The spokesperson also said it was most recently demonstrated through geoblocking in the Charlie Kirk, Zarutska, and Nagamallaiah murders where content is illegal to display to Australians, but not to others.ShareUpdated at 07.10 CETNAB CEO: 'Australia should be an energy superpower'Patrick ComminsNAB’s chief executive, Andrew Irvine, is the latest big bank boss to back more investment in renewables, telling a parliamentary committee that Australia didn’t need nuclear in the mix given our abundance of solar, wind and gas.Irvine opened his appearance by saying that “high energy costs are holding back manufacturing growth and hurting households”, before going on to say it was “sad” that a country so blessed with natural resources was struggling to deliver enough energy.“Australia should be an energy superpower. We are blessed with incredible amounts of sunshine, with an incredible amount of wind resources, with some hydro capacity, and one of the world’s largest reservoirs of natural gas.”“So the fact that we are in a situation where we have a possible issue with supply and demand imbalance on energy is sad and shouldn’t have happened.”Irvine said he was surprised with the vilification of gas in some quarters, saying there was no clean energy transition without the fossil fuel.“We are not getting enough renewable projects approved, we are not getting enough gas projects approved for domestic uses”.“I do think it’s important for us, wherever possible and as fast as possible, to try and decarbonise the grid and get thermal coal out of the energy mix.”Irvine, who has lived most of his life in the UK and Canada, which both rely on nuclear energy, said he could understand why Australia had not gone down this path.“I don’t think we need nuclear in our mix of energy (in order) to be one of the lowest cost providers of energy. We have sufficient resources with all the other sources of energy to do that.”ShareUpdated at 07.39 CETJordyn BeazleyNSW government releases 2025-2028 Closing the Gap planThe NSW government has released its next three-year plan for implementing Closing the Gap targets, which includes three new initiatives.The plan, which was created in partnership with NSW Coalition of Aboriginal Peak Organisations (Capo) and sets out the road map Closing the Gap until 2028, will now include, among existing initiatives:
Aboriginal languages program of Works to strengthen Aboriginal languages across NSW;
An end-to-end land activation pilot to support Aboriginal communities with more housing and economic development opportunities from land returned to their ownership; and
An Aboriginal employment program to create long-term roles for Aboriginal people in cultural land and biodiversity management, delivered in partnership with local Aboriginal land councils.
The Minns government committed $206m in the 2025-2026 budget towards delivering the plan, which has also streamlined 144 initiatives into 14 new and 31 ongoing initiatives.The minister for Aboriginal affairs and treaty, David Harris, said:
The focus of this plan is to scale up the most effective approaches and implement strategic reforms across government to best achieve positive outcomes for people.
NSW Capo co-chair, Councillor Charles Lynch, said the strategy was both a “product of strong partnership and a plan to deepen it, driving structural reform, embedding shared decision-making and creating the conditions for lasting improvements in the lives of Aboriginal people and communities”.ShareUpdated at 06.52 CETHusic says cuts made while he was science minister were not in researchAsked about the job cuts at the CSIRO made when he was the minister in charge, Husic said:
There were job cuts at the CSIRO while I was minister for science but they were not in the research space. They were changes that were made in terms of back office and HR, administrative and HR functions.
… If there are those job cuts in research, you have to question what it does in terms of the capability of the CSIRO and I think a lot of Australians would want to see an investment in the national science agency.
ShareUpdated at 06.49 CETEd Husic on CSIRO cuts: 'we need to start valuing and having faith in Australian ideas'Labor MP Ed Husic is on Afternoon Briefing talking about the loss of hundreds of CSIRO jobs. He said investing in the CSIRO and science and research is an investment in the future.
We need to start valuing and having faith in Australian ideas. I’m personally sick of seeing an idea that began in an Australian mind [ending up as] a product made in another country. We need to address that.
Some of the driest, driest minds in the sphere of government, notably treasury and finance, do view these things as a cost. You know, in some cases their view is, if another country wants to spend money and they turn an idea into a product that we just buy off the shelf, that’s great.
I actually think that’s the worst example of short-term thinking you can have when [we] need a long-term commitment to back in science and research.
ShareUpdated at 06.46 CETChalmers suggests ‘major governing parties’ should do nature laws deal to ensure reforms are enduringChlamers was also asked about landing a deal on the proposed reforms to update the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act. He said he would prefer to do a deal with a party of government – ie the Liberals over the Greens.There have been growing calls for the Liberals to help pass the reforms, to bolster their environmental credentials after ditching net zero.Chalmers said:
I think it would be good if the major governing parties were able to get to an outcome here, but to be frank with you, Patricia, we will do what is necessary to see these changes bedded down.
It’s time for the Coalition to be responsible about it. It’s time for the Greens to get behind it as well. We’ve put a of work into this.
ShareUpdated at 06.37 CETTreasurer says ‘we are big believers and supporters of the CSIRO’ amid job cut crisisAsked about the job cuts at the CSIRO, Chalmers said:
What’s happened in the CSIRO budget is we have continued to provide substantial funding, stable source of funding for the CSIRO, but their operating costs have been outstripping their revenue for some time now, and so, they’ve indicated - as I understand it, they will have another look at their priorities and another look at their facilities.
We are big believers and supporters of the CSIRO.
ShareUpdated at 06.12 CETChalmers says ASX drop reflects global volailityAsked about the drop in the market, Chalmers said:
We’ve seen an extraordinary amount of volatility and unpredictability in global markets, including global share markets.
We have seen pretty substantial fluctuations over the course of this year and we are seeing them again. I think it reflects the jumpiness we are seeing in the global economy.
The economic plan [is] to make our economy more productive and help people with the cost of living, to repair the budget over time, all of these things are even more important when you see the global economic uncertainty playing out not just on share markets.
ShareUpdated at 06.12 CETChalmers says public sector wages outpacing private sector is ‘encouraging news’On Afternoon Briefing, the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has been asked if he’s worried that public sector wages are outpacing rises in the private sector:
I would say it’s incredibly encouraging news and we have now had two consecutive years of annual real wages growth. Eight quarters in a row of real wages growth, remembering that real wages were falling substantially when we came to office, that is overwhelmingly a good thing.
It comes to the public versus private breakup, since we’ve been elected, the private sector wages growth has outstripped public sector wages growth.
ShareUpdated at 06.08 CET
