Key events
All restrictions on poultry and egg producers have been lifted as authorities declare a regional avian influenza outbreak eradicated, Australian Associated Press reports.
The Hawkesbury outbreak was one the most significant in NSW with more than 320,000 animals destroyed since June 2024 to curb the spread of the potentially devastating disease.
The strain was found at two commercial poultry farms and four other premises but no new cases have been found since July 2024.
From Friday, restrictions on the movement of birds, objects and other equipment will end and designated emergency zones will be scrapped.
It was not connected to an earlier outbreak in Victoria, which led to some one million birds being destroyed.
Cases detected in Australia are different to the H5N1 strain that has devastated animal populations overseas.
Labor senator to seek inquiry into university governance
Caitlin Cassidy
Labor senator Tony Sheldon will seek the support of a Senate committee to establish an inquiry into university governance today. He said it should “urgently examine” issues in the embattled sector including wage theft, widespread casualisation and the hefty pay packets of vice chancellors.
Sheldon, who chairs the Senate education and employment committee, said the move came in light of “continued governance scandals in the higher education sector”.
An independent inquiry has been consistently lobbied for by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), and complements the establishment of an independent expert council to advise education ministers on governance matters.
Sheldon said the inquiry would tackle a wage theft figure approaching $400m, noncompliance with workplace laws, expenditure on external consultants and concern around vice chancellor renumeration and conflicts of interest.
He will seek to establish the inquiry prior to the upcoming parliamentary sitting fortnight, with a view to holding public hearings with vice-chancellors and other key stakeholders shortly after the parliament rises.
University vice chancellors have questions to answer about the extraordinary range of governance issues that have arisen on their watch.
There’s no other job in Australia where you can be paid so exorbitantly while performing so badly, with seemingly no consequences or accountability for the impact on university staff and students. It’s clear the Liberals’ and Nationals’ governance framework is failing, which is why the Albanese government is taking swift action to rein in [the] sector.
Welcome
Martin Farrer
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it’ll be Emily Wind to guide you through to the long weekend.
Anthony Albanese will be hoping to get on the front foot policy-wise again today when he announces a new initiative to bolster the construction industry at the National Press Club in Canberra. The prime minister’s plan is to give apprentice tradies an extra $10,000 from a re-elected Labor government in order to encourage more young people to go into the building industry and therefore help meet his home-building targets of 1.2m homes by 2030. We’ll have more of his speech when he makes it at 12.30pm.
New South Wales health officials are braced for more psychiatrists to resign today as the doctors’ pay dispute continues. The health minister, Rose Jackson, said yesterday that 43 psychiatrists had quit so far and more were expected in the “coming days”, while 99 doctors had delayed their resignations. More than 60 mental health beds in public hospitals are temporarily closing in New South Wales as some hospitals are being given directives to limit psychiatric assessments because of the mass resignations. More coming up.
University executives have been put on notice over wage theft, spending and conflict-of-interest concerns as the federal government attempts to launch a probe. Labor senator Tony Sheldon is seeking the support of a Senate committee to establish an inquiry into university governance after a spate of scandals within the sector. More details coming up.
