Australia news live: fourth immigration detainee charged after release due to high court ruling

06/12/2023

And that’s where we’ll leave you this evening. Here’s our Wednesday wrap:

Anthony Albanese has struck a £10.5bn deal with the states and territories [1] to split the cost of disability services outside the NDIS in return for granting them a further three years of GST funding.
A fourth immigration detainee has been charged [2] after being released following the high court ruling. The Australian federal police have said the 45-year-old man was charged with one count of theft and one count of failure to comply with a curfew condition.
The house sat today to pay tribute to Labor MP Peta Murphy, who died on Monday from breast cancer.
Australian banks have warned that consumers and businesses risk having access to cash curtailed [3] unless there is an urgent change to the way coins and notes are distributed around the country.
The Australian government has been praised for joining a global partnership [4] committed to stopping billions of dollars in foreign aid and loans being spent on fossil fuel expansion, but the decision has also prompted renewed calls for it to reconsider polluting subsidies at home.
Half of Australia will be blanketed in a widespread heatwave [5] by the end of this week, enduring days of high temperatures with little reprieve.
The FBI has arrested a man in Arizona [6] in connection with last year’s religiously motivated terrorist attack on a remote Queensland property in Wieambilla.

Woolworths CEO to appear at Senate inquiry

Woolworths’s chief executive, Brad Banducci, has confirmed he will appear at a Senate inquiry into supermarket pricing as pressure builds on Australia’s big grocery chains to explain how they generated bumper profits amid fast-rising living costs.

Banducci said in a statement on Wednesday that the company would “openly and constructively assist the parliament” with its work.

“We are very aware of the pressures facing many Australian families,” Banducci said.

“We welcome the opportunity to explain to the Senate how we are working to balance the needs of our customers, our team and our suppliers in the context of economy-wide inflationary pressure.”

The inquiry has been set up to examine [7] the effect of market concentration on food prices and the pattern of pricing strategies employed by the major chains, Coles and Woolworths.

Hearings are expected to commence early next year.

Profit margins at Woolworths for its Australian food division spiked from 5.3% to 6%[8] during the last financial year, far exceeding pre-pandemic levels.

Banks to collaborate on looming cash shortage response

The competition regulator will allow Australian banks to collaborate on ways to maintain the delivery of physical cash throughout the country amid a sharp decline in the use of notes and coins.

The regulatory authorisation comes after cash transit company Armaguard warned that its distribution operations were unsustainable due to lower cash demand in the community.

Australia’s major banks, the Reserve Bank and Armaguard are due to meet on 14 December to discuss an industry response to the looming threat to distribution. Given the banks have separate commercial arrangements with Armaguard, they would not normally be allowed to collectively discuss arrangements without approval from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

The ACCC’s acting chair, Catriona Lowe, said the banking sector must report back on the discussions as part of the authorisation. Lowe said:

The ACCC will closely assess any proposed response, and in particular the extent to which it secures ongoing access to cash in remote and regional areas where bank branches are limited and members of the public often access cash through non-bank sources including Australia Post and retailers.

The volume of banknotes in circulation remains high in Australia, as they are widely used as a store of wealth.

But regular cash usage has dropped to just 13% of transactions, according to Accenture, down from 27% before the pandemic.

Fifty-five students involved in Queensland bus crash

Ten students have been taken to hospital after a bus collided with a truck on a Queensland motorway, AAP reports.

Authorities were called to the M1 motorway around 9.35am on Wednesday after a bus that had stopped on the side of the road was hit by a truck with a trailer.

Queensland Ambulance Service said 60 people were aboard the bus, including 55 students aged 14-15, four teachers and the driver. The driver of the truck was a single occupant.

The QAS said 11 people were taken to hospitals in Brisbane, Logan and the Gold Coast for treatment, 10 of which were students. QAS senior operations supervisor Scott Harris said:

Most of the injuries were fairly moderate.

The people that went to the Gold Coast, there were some fractures and abrasions.

Two of the patients had facial injuries, one had a chest [injury] and two had lower leg injuries.

Australia Post CEO says changes to letter deliveries ‘good initial step’ to drive down costs

Paul Graham, the chief executive of Australia Post, has commented on the decision to deliver ordinary letters every other business day [9]. Australia Post lost £200m last financial year.

Graham told Guardian Australia:

It’s a good initial step in terms of reform. This in itself won’t be enough to get us where we need to go to.

We’re confident we’ll continue to work with the government and as mail declines, we’ll continue to see flexibility from the government in terms of future reform. There’s also a lot of work we need to do ourselves in terms of our cost base and driving efficiency. It’s a very good first start [and] helps us build a strong platform to return to profitability in the mid-term.”

Graham referred to other reforms including:

The application to the competition watchdog to raise stamp prices from £1.20 to £1.50.
Buyback of licences of post offices that are “struggling financially”, particularly those in close proximity to other post offices; and
Increasing the price of priority mail to be closer to “what the customer is willing to pay”.

Australia Post is also continuing to lobby the government to decouple the cost of business mail from ordinary letters, so that businesses and government can be charged more than households.

He said it “doesn’t make sense” that households have to pay more when price increases could be targeted at business and government.

Chemist Warehouse prepares for public listing

Discount pharmacy chain Chemist Warehouse could soon become a publicly-traded company, delivering owners Jack Gance and Mario Verrochi a significant payday.

The SMH reported on Wednesday that the pharmacy chain was set to join the stock exchange through a reverse listing via Sigma Healthcare.

A reverse listing is a strategy used to list a private company, Chemist Warehouse, by taking over a smaller public company, the pharmacy operator Sigma. Shares in Sigma were put in a trading halt on Wednesday, pending an announcement.

Gance and Verrochi founded Chemist Warehouse in 2000 with a Melbourne store. It is now Australia’s largest pharmacy retailer.

A public listing would enable the owners to sell down their stake in a company that has been valued at around £5bn.

Simon Birmingham continues criticism of government over response to high court detainee ruling

The opposition Senate leader, Simon Birmingham, appeared on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing earlier where he was asked about the AFP announcing the arrest of the fourth freed immigration detainee and whether he was encouraged by the transparency.

Birmingham said:

Being upfront is important and it would have been far [more] preferable for the government to be upfront about these matters. It would have been even more preferable for them to be prepared to actually respond to the high court case, which they weren’t prepared for in the first place.

It would be better for them to be capable of having a consistent response throughout this. When instead it’s been absolutely all over the place.

More details on the fourth released immigration detainee that has been charged.

The Australian Federal Police have said the 45-year-old man was charged with one count of theft and one count of failure to comply with a curfew condition.

The man is expected to appear in Melbourne magistates court today where it will be alleged he breached the conditions of his visa on 1 December by failing to comply with his curfew obligations.

It will also be alleged that the man stole luggage from a traveller who was asleep at a Melbourne airport terminal.

A fourth released immigration detainee has been charged, police have confirmed.

The AFP have said a 45-year-old man is expected to appear before Melbourne magistrate court today.

Chalmers says inflationary impact of stage-three tax cuts are already ‘baked into the system’

After pointing out the “fight against inflation” is not over, Chalmers is asked what the inflationary effect of the stage-three tax cuts will be when they come into effect next July.

Chalmers said the inflationary impact has already been forecast into consideration and “are already baked into the system”.

We have not changed our position on the stage-three tax cuts and when it comes to inflation, I think it is important to recognise that’s because these [were] legislated sometime ago, the inflationary or otherwise of these tax cuts are already baked the system.

We will not then be revising our forecast to take them into consideration, they are already considered.

Treasurer says health reform contribution increases will be accounted for in mid-year budget update

Jim Chalmers is speaking on ABC Afternoon Briefing about the national cabinet endorsing the commonwealth increasing national health reform agreement contributions to 45% over a maximum of a 10-year glide path.

Chalmers said the cost would be around £15b over the decade, starting in 2025.

He said:

This will be accounted for in the mid-year budget update. All the different constituent parts of this. In some instances, it requires more work to work out the profile in the trajectory of that funding.

NSW man’s attempt to sue over ‘stalking’ Facebook post dismissed as bid to stay in contact with ex

A man described as a stalker in a Facebook post by his former partner has failed in a bid to sue for defamation, after a judge found his motivation for legal action was to continue contact with his ex.

The New South Wales court of appeal ruled on Tuesday that the man did not have leave to appeal against a district court decision [10] that he could not sue his former partner, as the action was found to be an abuse of court process due to that motivation.

The man had unsuccessfully sought leave to appeal against the decision on five grounds, including that the ulterior purpose finding was erroneous.