Australia news live: NSW moves to legalise e-scooters; inquiry hears Coalition did not ask for geological hazard check on nuclear sites
Coalition didn’t ask Geoscience Australia about its nuclear sites, inquiry hears
Graham Readfearn
The Coalition has not approached Geoscience Australia to ask about the suitability of any of the seven sites where it wants to put nuclear reactors, including for risks from earthquakes, a parliamentary hearing has just heard.
The government’s parliamentary inquiry into nuclear energy has its second hearing today and officials from Geoscience Australia are giving evidence.
The officials confirmed the Coalition had not asked for its view on the suitability of any of the sites it is proposing, and said it would likely take two years to deliver a full assessment of the risks from a range of hazards, including earthquakes, tsunamis and the condition of the earth underneath each site.
Ted O’Brien, the opposition’s energy spokesman, said this two-year timeframe was in line with the Coalition’s policy.
O’Brien revealed the Coalition had been taking advice from Prof Andrew Whittaker, a US-based expert on seismic events in relation to nuclear energy.
O’Brien said Whittaker has told him that recent earthquakes in the Hunter valley, near the Liddell power station – a site earmarked for a reactor by the Coalition – and these would be “entirely inconsequential” to the operation of a nuclear power plant.
But John Dawson, a branch head of community safety at Geoscience Australia, said any assessment of a site would require “detailed investigation” before “anyone can say definitively if these sites are suitable.”
Key events
I just wanted to return to the Chalmers press conference earlier, where he ducked and weaved questions on the prime ministers flight upgrades.
Chalmers said politicians travel declarations need to be “robust”, and said he hadn’t personally asked former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce for an upgrade:
I haven’t asked Alan Joyce, no. I’m not sure if I have received one. I don’t think so, but I’d have to have a look.
Asked if the process for the disclosure of interests should be strengthened, Chalmers said he had “not given much thought to it.”
I’m focused on inflation this week, the G20 discussions, the lessons from Saturday’s campaign. You know, I’m broadly aware, and I was asked this morning about some of these issues… It’s appropriate that the arrangements are robust.
The NSW government is moving towards legalising e-scooter use on streets, amid a new E-micromobility Action Plan.
The plan is intended to address a regulatory bling spot, where e-scooters can be purchased in NSW, but can’t be ridden on the streets.
The plan also includes actions on reviewing how shared e-bikes are operated in local communities, reviewing the road rules in relation to e-micromobility, including exploring options for the legal use of e-scooters on streets and roads, and delivering more shared e-scooter trials.
Another action, a pilot for marked, dedicated parking bays for shared e-bikes, is underway at nine train stations around Sydney: Central, Circular Quay, Wynyard, Barangaroo Metro, Newtown, Sydenham, Marrickville and Bondi Junction.
Transport minister Jo Haylen said it was a “strange” regulatory blind spot:
There are already 1.35 million e-micromobility devices in homes across NSW. Almost 460,0000 of these are e-scooters. But only 22% of people across the state know it’s illegal to ride e-scooters on our roads and streets.
It’s a strange regulatory blind spot, and it has to change.
E-bikes and e-scooters aren’t without controversy, which is exactly why we’re taking action. It’s clear we need a regulatory framework that will allow people to make the most of this transport option, without compromising on community safety.
Allowing people to ride an e-scooter to the shops or nearby train stations will take pressure off our roads and lessen competition for parking. It’s a big win for everyone, we just have a bit more work to do to get the balance right.
Barnaby Joyce on MP flight upgrades: ‘It’s a difference when you solicit it’
Returning to the issue of the prime minister’s flights, the Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce says the problem is “when you solicit” the upgrades.
While Anthony Albanese declared yesterday that all upgrades were declared, Joyce said on Sunrise this morning that reports the PM asked for them did not pass the “pub test.”
A lot of people that fly generally get offered upgrade and take them. We all do that.
It’s a difference when you solicit it. When you ring up Alan Joyce and say, ‘Alan I would like an upgrade. My name is Anthony Albanese.’ That’s the one that doesn’t pass the pub test.
If every person who gets an upgrade is in trouble we will have a lot of people in trouble. I acknowledge 100% a lot of politicians get upgrades, me included. It’s whether you solicit it, especially if you ring up Alan Joyce.
That’s the issue. That’s an issue Mr Albanese has to explain.
Asked if Labor should be concerned that it is losing “touch with people in the outer suburbs or urban fringes”, Chalmers says the party needs to be “vigilant about it”.
You always need to be vigilant about it. I’ve certainly acknowledged it on other occasions. We understand that people are doing it tough and they expressed that at the ballot box, which is their right.
What we’ve tried to do is we’ve tried to take a series of well-informed economic decisions … for the right reasons. Because I believe if you do that … the politics will take care of themselves.
This is not the kind of government that chases the fortnightly ups and downs of opinion polls. We try to do the right thing at every turn, in three budgets, all of the updates and all of the decisions we’ve taken. The right thing is recognising people are doing it tough, doing what you can to help them, but recognising that you have to do that in the most responsible way that you can.
Chalmers on Queensland election: ‘We won’t be ignoring the lessons of Saturday’
Building on that, Chalmers says there were a couple of takeaways from the result in Queensland:
First of all, the outcome on Saturday night was decisive. But it wasn’t unexpected. And there are lessons for us, but there are also differences.
Theirs was a government, as Cameron Dick said on TV yesterday, that had been there for almost a decade. Ours is a government in its first term. So there are obvious differences. But I don’t want to pretend that there aren’t lessons for us as well. Of course there are. There are always lessons in elections like this one. There are always things that we can learn. There are always things that we can do better.
And we will go through the results with that in mind. We have always believed, and we have always acted in relation to this belief – governments are always best when they go in for the whole place. The regions, the suburbs, and the cities. When they govern for the whole place. And that’s what Anthony Albanese does as prime minister.
You mentioned the outer suburbs that I represent. You were there not that long ago. One of the heartening things – despite some big swings in areas like mine, I’ve got six state seats in my federal electorate – we’re looking like holding at least five, but probably six of those.
So what that tells us – we’ve got these wonderful state members in my part of Queensland – what that tells us [is] if you make the right decisions for the right reasons and you’re a good local representative, then you can hang on even when things are turning against the government. So, good local representation, good, responsible decisions.
Queenslanders are pragmatic and practical people. And the Albanese government is a pragmatic and practical government. But we will go through the lessons from Saturday night. We won’t telegraph those lessons to our opponents by running through them in detail for you at a press conference. But we won’t be ignoring the lessons of Saturday. We understand that people are doing it tough. We understand that people often express that at the ballot box, which is their right. And so we will go through the lessons of Saturday with that in mind.
Chalmers congratulates Crisafulli on Queensland election win
Treasurer Jim Chalmers is speaking to reporters, where he congratulated David Crisafulli and the Liberal National party for their victory in the Queensland election.
He said he intended to work with Crisafulli and the new Queensland government:
I offer them my warmest congratulations and we will work with the new LNP government in Queensland in the same constructive way that we worked with the former Labor government in Queensland. I’ve been able to relay my congratulations to incoming treasurer Janetzki already. We have agreed to catch up this week, most likely on Thursday, subject to the timing of the new government’s swearing-in. But we’ve had a very warm exchange, and I look forward to talking with him later in the week and working with him on behalf of the people of Queensland as well.
Chalmers went on to say that the result wouldn’t change how Labor will prepare for the next federal election.
I want to reassure people that we will continue to put responsible economic management as the defining feature of this Albanese Labor government. This election was never going to be, from our side, a free-for-all of public spending. It wasn’t going to be before Saturday’s outcome, and it’s not going to be after Saturday’s outcome.
Coalition didn’t ask Geoscience Australia about its nuclear sites, inquiry hears
Graham Readfearn
The Coalition has not approached Geoscience Australia to ask about the suitability of any of the seven sites where it wants to put nuclear reactors, including for risks from earthquakes, a parliamentary hearing has just heard.
The government’s parliamentary inquiry into nuclear energy has its second hearing today and officials from Geoscience Australia are giving evidence.
The officials confirmed the Coalition had not asked for its view on the suitability of any of the sites it is proposing, and said it would likely take two years to deliver a full assessment of the risks from a range of hazards, including earthquakes, tsunamis and the condition of the earth underneath each site.
Ted O’Brien, the opposition’s energy spokesman, said this two-year timeframe was in line with the Coalition’s policy.
O’Brien revealed the Coalition had been taking advice from Prof Andrew Whittaker, a US-based expert on seismic events in relation to nuclear energy.
O’Brien said Whittaker has told him that recent earthquakes in the Hunter valley, near the Liddell power station – a site earmarked for a reactor by the Coalition – and these would be “entirely inconsequential” to the operation of a nuclear power plant.
But John Dawson, a branch head of community safety at Geoscience Australia, said any assessment of a site would require “detailed investigation” before “anyone can say definitively if these sites are suitable.”
Bandt on his Qantas chairman’s lounge membership: ‘We have always declared this and let people make their own judgments’
I wanted to just return to Bandt’s appearance on RN Breakfast earlier, where he was also questioned about his membership of the Qantas chairman’s lounge.
But Bandt said he had declared his membership:
We’ve been calling for at times, when Qantas has come with its cap in hand and said that they need assistance, we’ve said, well maybe we should have a look at government owning a stake in this essential service, in our transport yet again.
The Greens don’t take donations from big corporations.
Look, I’ll let people make their own decisions. We declare it since the beginning. We have always declared this and let people make their own judgments and then separately have a look at the policies that we’re advancing.
Watt asked about Australia’s decision to block Qatar from increasing flights
Watt continued discussing the prime minister’s relationship with Qantas on RN Breakfast earlier, where he said accusations of favouritism are “hypocritical”.
It all comes from a book by former Australian Financial Review columnist Joe Aston which goes into the recent tumultous years at Qantas.
Aston said the decision to block Qatar Airways from increasing flights to Australia was “impossible to justify” earlier on RN Breakfast, but Watt questioned why those same criticisms aren’t made of previous Coalition governments who made the same call.
Watt specifically pointed to former Coalition transport minister Michael McCormack, who he said made the same decision.
“McCormack has said that he made that decision to knock back Qatar based on the national interest at the time, and that was the basis for our decision as well.
“[Transport minister] Catherine King has approved, since the Qatar decision, extra flights for Turkish Airways, so it’s not as if we have some sort of blanket ban against airlines flying into Australia to protect Qantas.”
Watt said the decision was made “on its merits” like each application of its kind.
Murray Watt defends MPs’ use of Qantas chairman’s lounge
Employment minister Murray Watt has refused to comment on reports Anthony Albanese used his membership in Qantas’s chairman’s lounge to solicit flight upgrades when he was transport minister and opposition leader.
Watt was on RN Breakfast, where he refused to be drawn on what he called “unsourced claim by a journalist” that Albanese would reach out directly to former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce directly about his travel.
Watt also took the opportunity to preemptively criticise any opposition focus on the issue:
If you have a look at Peter Dutton behaviour, for example, several upgrades from the Qantas and other airlines, he’s had free flights paid for by Gina Rinehart.
I really would wonder whether it’s wise for the opposition to start calling this kind of stuff into question.
Asked about his own membership of the lounge, Watt said “pretty much everyone” is also a member:
We obviously spend an enormous amount of time at airports. I think this week, I’m going to be in about three or four different cities, flying from place to place. And it is helpful from time to time, to be able to have private meetings or private environments, to be able to have teams meetings with your office, which I do every time I fly.
The prime minister was adamant yesterday he had declared all previous free upgrades to Qantas flights he had received as “appropriate”, adding that those reported in the Nine papers over the weekend “go back a long, a long period of time”.
He said that “from time to time, members of parliament receive upgrades”.
“What’s important is that they are declared. All of mine have been declared.”
‘We are up for negotiation’: Adam Bandt to Labor
Bandt continues, saying the Greens won’t be changing their approach federally despite the Queensland poll result.
He said the Greens want to negotiate with Labor on their policies:
We want Labor to negotiate like we did in the previous housing legislation, where we not only improved and passed Labour’s housing legislation, but we got $3bn to start building public and community housing.
I think this is part of the message that we’re trying to give to the government. We are up for negotiation.
Bandt claims Labor ‘gave up on the suburbs’ in Queensland election
The Greens leader Adam Bandt has blamed Labor for his party’s poor showing in the Queensland election.
Bandt was on RN Breakfast earlier, and said Labor had adopted Greens policies like cheap public transport and free school lunches to undermine them:
We may end up with the two seats that we went in with. The postal votes are still being counted, but look, those are seats that, yes, we were hoping to win.
And I guess those are the seats that I’m talking about where Labor gave up on the suburbs, gave up on the regions, and instead focused their attentions in those seats.
This is, this is part of the reason that we that we’re pushing these policies, is that people need help, right? There’s a there’s a massive cost of living crisis. People are in dire straits.
It was the adoption of policies and people seeing them in practice that is largely responsible for Labor, I guess, sandbagging and holding on to some of those seats.
Josh Butler
Labor to launch grants to help women get into ‘male dominated’ industries
The government will soon open applications for a new grants program to help women into “traditionally male dominated” industries like construction and manufacturing, as part of a $60m training and workplace initiative.
The ‘Building Women’s Careers Program’ partnership is aimed at projects like changing workplace cultures and behaviours, more flexible rostering approaches to support men and women with caring responsibilities, and boosting existing projects which have already increased recruitment rates.
“Projects will address the barriers for women entering, remaining and advancing in the traditionally male-dominated industries of construction, clean energy, advanced manufacturing, and digital and technology,” minister for women Katy Gallagher and skills minister Andrew Giles said in a statement.
The grants will be available for industry and community projects, with applications open from 14 November.
Josh Butler
Albanese defends his government’s industrial relations reforms
Anthony Albanese has backed in his government’s Same Job Same Pay laws for labour hire loopholes, saying they are securing big pay rises for blue-collar workers nationwide.
The prime minister’s latest full-throated defence of the Labor government’s industrial relations changes comes ahead of what is expected to be a heated debate on workplace laws at the coming election, with criticism from the Coalition and big business groups wanting to roll back the reforms.
In a speech to the Mining and Energy Union’s national convention in Brisbane on Monday, Albanese will also accuse opposition leader Peter Dutton of seeking to “wreck every bit of progress” Labor had made in government.
In the speech, Albanese will say critics of the laws had made “bizarre comparisons and baseless claims”.
“We were not deterred – and Australians weren’t fooled,” he will say, in advance speech notes shared by his office.
The PM claims one worker will get a $33,000 pay rise under the changes, and that “thousands of mining workers” are in line for big pay bumps too.
“I’m proud we’ve worked together to deliver this change – now we have to stand together and defend it,” he will say.
Albanese will tell the convention that “there is a lot that Peter Dutton is not telling the Australian people about his agenda”, citing the Coalition’s nuclear power plan, and raising doubt over potential cuts to Medicare, pensions, rent assistance and energy bill relief.
“But he is crystal clear about one thing. He wants to rip up every new right workers have negotiated. He wants to wreck every bit of progress we have made. And wants to cut every pay rise your members have earned,” Albanese will say.
Plibersek takes aim at the Greens after Queensland election result
Reactions to the Queensland election result are continuing this morning, with environment minister Tanya Plibersek focusing on the Greens’ disappointing one-seat haul.
Speaking on Channel 7’s Sunrise, she said the Greens’ blocking of legislation in the Senate and MP Max Chandler-Mather’s support for the CFMEU were to blame:
People were saying they were shocked [by] Max Chandler-Mather standing up and defending the… criminal elements of the CFMEU on the back of a truck with a megaphone, instead of voting for housing, cheaper housing and more of it to be built.
They’re holding up housing reform. In my area, holding up environmental law reform, the establishment of an environment protection agency is something environmentalists have been calling on for decades and it’s the Greens that are blocking it.
People look at that and go ‘these people aren’t serious about making progress. They are only about opposition. They’re only about making a point’.
‘Stronger laws do act as a deterrent’
Finally, the incoming Queensland premier is asked about his “adult time for adult crimes” policy, and specifically if it might lead to an unsustainable boom in jail population.
But Crisafulli dismissed concerns:
At the moment, you’ve got kids in watch houses because the government hasn’t planned and delivered those things. We will. I do believe we do need corrective facilities. But we also need other alternates. I’ve spoken about circuit-breaker sentencing where we can send kids to remote areas that aren’t a jail but give the education, structure and discipline to turn their life around. I’ve spoken about early intervention skills.
We’ll deliver those early in Queensland. The question is a very relevant one, but the answer has to be in two parts. Stronger laws do act as a deterrent. Stronger laws do make sure there are consequences for bad behaviour. If you aren’t doing early intervention and rehabilitation, it means nothing. At the moment, what’s happening in Queensland is there’s a 72-hour plan when a child leaves youth detention, and half the kids aren’t even getting that … 72 hours isn’t enough. We need a 12-month plan, six months intensive, to give every person the ability to turn their life around. The 91% reoffending rate is broken. You’ve got to try and do better than that.
Crisafuli on nuclear: ‘It was no before the election, and it’s no after’
Crisafulli is next asked about nuclear power, and if he would implement a potential Dutton government’s plan after the next federal election.
And his answer was clear:
It was no before the election, and it’s no after. I think that’s what people want to see from me.
I want to reset the relationship with Canberra to one of respect but also being forceful and putting forward our point of view. I will do that whether or not Mr Albanese or Mr Dutton is there. I’ve got a good relationship with Peter. We’ve been friends for a long time. I also have a good relationship with the prime minister. I spoke with him yesterday.
I don’t support the reduction in 80/20 for funding for the Bruce Highway. I was up-front about that. That will be done respectfully. So too, if Peter was to become prime minister. I’ve seen in recent times the public lose faith particularly with what I saw in Queensland when government changed in Canberra. It was a completely different approach. I’ve got to be on the Maroon team and I’ve got to put forward our case to get our fair share of funding – and in return, I say to Canberra, we’ll do things on time and on budget, which hasn’t happened.
Crisafuli says his government’s Olympics plan coming within 100 days
The incoming Queensland premier David Crisafulli has said that his government will be pulling together a plan for the Olympics within its first 100 days.
Asked on ABC News if he was personally leaning towards a refurbishment of the Gabba, Crisafulli said people see these Olympics as “an opportunity for generational infrastructure.”:
What I’m talking about is exactly the model that’s been used successfully before. The problem is when you have things as knee-jerk reactions where politicians say this has to happen and you get the mess that we’ve seen. I don’t want that to happen. I want the best and brightest to be around the room. Within 100 days, you’ll get a plan that Queenslanders can buy into. I think, overwhelmingly, that’s what the state wants to see.
… Within days, we can fix what we haven’t seen in 1,200 days.
I think, overwhelmingly, people will see an opportunity for generational infrastructure. That’s what hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games has always been about.
Good morning
Good morning. Mostafa Rachwani with you today to take you through the day’s news.
We start with 3G as Telstra and Optus begin the process of switching off the network today. The communications minister, Michelle Rowland, has urged all Australians to check if they will be affected and to upgrade their tech if needed.
Over to Queensland, where incoming premier David Crisafulli is due to be sworn in as the Liberal National party is on track to form a majority government. Crisafulli and his deputy Jarrod Bleijie will be sworn into interim leadership roles when they meet with governor Jeannette Young later today, and they will remain interim until counting is finalised.
We’re bring you the latest developments there and across the country as they come.
