Read the national news blog for live coverage of today’s top stories.
Read the national news blog for live coverage of today’s top stories.
A regional disability provider is facing criminal charges, accused of gross negligence over the death of a young Aboriginal woman who suffered burns in a bathtub.
Kyah Lucas was severely burnt when she was bathed at her home in Orange, in central western NSW, by two workers from NDIS provider LiveBetter on February 2, 2022.
Lucas was removed from the bath with her skin peeling, as a temperature control panel showed the water was 60 degrees rather than its usual maximum setting of 42 degrees.
The 28-year-old, who had conditions that left her non-verbal and with thin skin, died in a Sydney hospital five days later.
LiveBetter was fined $1.8 million in the Federal Court in April 2024 after the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission took action over failures to comply with its standards of care.
The organisation, which provides disability support services in regional NSW and Queensland, is now facing workplace health and safety charges.
SafeWork NSW has charged LiveBetter with the most serious category of offence, related to breaching its duty of health and safety to Lucas.
LiveBetter is also accused of failing to immediately notify the workplace regulator of her serious injuries.
The organisation allegedly exposed Lucas to risk of injury or death through conduct with “gross negligence” or through recklessness, according to documents before the NSW District Court.
Read more about the original Federal Court case here.
AAP
The youngest member of the Bali Nine, who spent half his life in an Indonesian jail for drug trafficking, has had a decades-old charge of being a passenger in a stolen car dismissed by a Sydney magistrate.
Matthew Norman spent 19 years in Bali’s Kerobokan Prison after being arrested alongside eight others attempting to smuggle more than eight kilograms of heroin out of the country.
The 38-year-old arrived back in Australia in December with four syndicate members after the federal government secured a deal for their release.
In January, Norman presented to Waverley police station over a charge of being a passenger in a stolen car in March 2005, knowing it was stolen. An arrest warrant was issued that year after Norman failed to show at Gosford Local Court, having been arrested in Bali in April.
“The Australian public know why he failed to appear,” Magistrate Michael Barko said on Tuesday.
Fellow Bali Nine member Renae Lawrence had been behind the wheel of the white Ford Laser hatchback which she stole from a home in Enfield, in Sydney’s inner west, before a pursuit that ended on the Central Coast when road spikes were deployed for a third time, according to the facts. Lawrence and Norman ran from the vehicle but were found in scrubland.
Norman pleaded guilty as he faced Waverley Local Court, sitting in the back of the courtroom in a white, short-sleeved collared shirt, blue jeans and sneakers. He made no comment to the waiting media as he arrived and left.
The magistrate said it had been 20 years since the “joyride” offence was committed, and Norman had been 18 years old with no criminal record. He said the time Norman served in Indonesia must be ignored.
“There’s no utilitarian value, in my view, of imposing any penalty,” Barko said. He dismissed the charge under section 10 of sentencing legislation, meaning there is no record or penalty.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has backed the Australian Defence Force after senate estimates revealed a Virgin Australia pilot notified authorities of the Chinese ships.
Airservices Australia chief executive Rob Sharp told estimates they were first made aware of the Chinese warship when the pilot informed them.
Asked if this concerns Albanese, the prime minister backed authorities.
“Australian Defence was certainly aware and I’ve spoken with the chief of the defence force about what has occurred,” Albanese said.
“Australia has had frigates both monitoring by sea and by air … of these Chinese vessels.”
Read the full report on the Chinese warship’s live fire exercises here.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s pledge to match will “fade away, just like a fake tan does”.
Speaking from the ultra-marginal Sydney seat of Bennelong, Albanese attacked Dutton and argued there should not be an Americanisation of Medicare.
“We don’t need an Americanisation of the health system. What we need is for Australians to be able to rely upon the fact that when they need it, they’ll get the care that they need,” Albanese said.
“This next election campaign will be about two different views of Australia, our health system, with Medicare at its heart, or Peter Dutton, who has never, very clearly on his own record, supported free health care.”
Albanese used the metaphor of a fake tan to suggest the Opposition had no health policy, and that their commitment to matching Labor’s Medicare funding was superficial.
“They just said on Saturday, in something that was as sincere as a fake tan, that he’d match [our policy]. Well, it’ll fade away, just like a fake tan does and when they come into office, the cuts will be back.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese held a press conference in Sydney, where he spoke from a health care centre in Chatswood alongside local MP Jerome Laxale.
They continued Labor’s promotion of its $8.5 billion Medicare package that will expand the bulk-billing incentive to all Australians. Announced by the prime minister on Sunday, the funding commitment has been matched by the Coalition.
Watch the press conference back here:
Nine Entertainment confirmed that growth has returned to its largest business with ad spend growing at the Nine Network, but the highlight was its subscriptions business with Stan and its metro mastheads reporting strong growth for the December half.
For the half year ending December 31, Nine reported that revenue edged higher to $1.39 billion, but net profit dropped 25 per cent to $112.2 million after the loss of Meta revenue and declines in broadcast revenue. The group lowered its half-year dividend to 3.5c per share from 4c for the prior December half.
“Operationally, we were generally pleased with the performance of our portfolio in the half,” acting chief executive Matt Stanton, said.
In particular, at Stan, subscriber numbers exceeded our expectations, underpinning 16 per cent growth in EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) whilst at Publishing, digital subscription revenues at our mastheads grew by 15 per cent (ex the impact of Meta and Google), with the team also doing a great job with cost efficiencies offsetting much of the impact of the Meta withdrawal.”
Nine is the publisher of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age and also owns the Nine Network, commercial radio stations 2GB and 3AW, as well as streaming service Stan, Domain and The Australian Financial Review.
Nine, owner of this masthead, did not clarify its long-term leadership with Stanton remaining in an acting role more than five months after replacing Mike Sneesby who departed abruptly last September following a year plagued by controversy.
The earnings announcement came just days after Nine’s property listings business, Domain, received a $2.7 billion takeover offer from US property giant CoStar.
Nine reiterated its statement last week that Domain is of strategic importance to Nine’s media ecosystem and its long-term growth strategy.
Australian authorities found out that Chinese warships were running live fire exercises in the Tasman Sea 30 minutes after it started when a Virgin Australia pilot notified them, instead of officials.
Airservices Australia officials told Senate estimates on Monday night that 49 flights were diverted from flight plans because of China’s exercises.
The incident marked the latest challenge to the government’s efforts to stabilise relations with China, as the Albanese government called for answers from Beijing after commercial pilots were forced to divert their routes last week.
Chief executive of Airservices Australia, Rob Sharp told estimates last night they only found out the Chinese task group was planning a live firing exercise at 9.58am on Friday.
“It was, in fact, Virgin Australia, advising that a foreign warship was broadcasting that they were conducting live firing 300 nautical miles east of our coast,” Sharp said.
“That was how we first found out about the issue.”
The Reserve Bank’s cut to official interest rates has delivered a huge boost of confidence to homebuyers and renters while managing to ease worries about inflation.
The ANZ-Roy Morgan weekly measure of consumer sentiment, released this morning, revealed a 4.7 point jump in confidence over the past seven weeks.
Confidence is now at its highest point since May 2022, before the Reserve Bank started lifting interest rates and just ahead of the election of the Albanese government.
ANZ economist Sophia Angala said confidence among mortgage holders jumped 10.7 points while there was a four point lift in confidence among renters.
“We expect a gradual uptrend in ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence (index) this year, as tax cuts, easing inflation and the RBA’s easing cycle support household disposable incomes,” she said.
While confidence lifted, expectations around inflation eased. Weekly inflation expectations fell by 0.7 percentage points to 4.2 per cent. A month ago, it was around 5.5 per cent.
Measures of current financial conditions increased by 7.5 points while expectations for future financial conditions jumped by 10 points.
Workplace Minister Murray Watt has questioned Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s share purchases in the depths of the global financial crisis when he bought bank stocks at low prices.
Declarations to parliament reveal Dutton bought shares involving the big banks the day before Labor announced a bailout in 2009, News.com.au reports.
Speaking this morning in Canberra, Watt said the article raises significant questions about Dutton’s conduct during the GFC when he was shadow minister for finance, competition policy and deregulation.
“This is a guy who had no real history of trading in bank shares, but he entered into an absolute frenzy of buying and selling bank shares over a very small period of time that just happened to coincide with the time that the Rudd government was planning and delivering multi-billion dollar bank bailouts,” Watt said.
“I think it is highly unusual that we see a senior member of the opposition at the time who has no history of buying and selling bank shares, all of a sudden take a great interest on the day of a record low share value and the day before a large bailout is announced by the government that only a small number of people know about.”
Watt said it was up to Peter Dutton to explain what happened to the Australian people.
“Is this some really incredible coincidence, or is there something more to it?”
After a decision was made to cut funding to a popular charity, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese personally intervened to re-instate it after a direct appeal from 2GB’s Ben Fordham.
Fordham announced on air this morning that Red Nose, charity that supports parents who lose a child, had failed to renew its federal funding.
But it didn’t take long for the PM to personally intervene, calling up Fordham to announce that the funding would be reinstated.
Albanese said it wasn’t a decision that had crossed his desk.
“This is some bureaucratic decision. My understanding is [there was] a competitive process with new funding for a range of charities there, including perinatal services. But Red Nose is a unique charity,” Albanese said.
“On my watch, the funding will absolutely continue – $2 million a year for three years is the ask, and it’ll be delivered.”
The PM said that the funding had faltered under a bureaucratic system set up to “ensure integrity in the system”, but claimed that “occasionally, frankly, they just get it completely wrong”.