Keep up to date on today’s top stories with our national news blog.
Keep up to date on today’s top stories with our national news blog.
Antoinette Lattouf has described her unlawful termination suit against the ABC as the most difficult period of her life as the national broadcaster defended its decision to remove her from Sydney radio.
Lattouf was abruptly axed as fill-in host of the Sydney Mornings radio program in December 2023, three days into a five-day casual contract. She is suing the ABC, alleging it terminated her employment unlawfully and that her political opinion and Middle Eastern race played a role in its decision.
Barrister Ian Neil, SC, acting for the ABC, said in closing submissions to the Federal Court in Sydney on Friday that Lattouf was “taken off-air because she did something she was told not to do”. The decision was designed to “protect the ABC, not to punish” Lattouf, Neil said.
Speaking outside court on Friday, Lattouf said “I will always stand up for civil liberties, I will always stand up for human rights. I will always stand up for justice. I will always stand up for journalism without fear or favour.”
Read Michaela Whitbourn’s coverage of the case here.
Victoria’s police minister has expressed a desire to move ahead and address broader issues within the force after finally reaching a pay deal with officers.
“Our focus is hearing the message from police members that their health and wellbeing must be prioritised,” Anthony Carbines said on Friday afternoon.
“The capacity to find and recruit more police members to support them in their work is a priority,” he said.
“It doesn’t stop today, but this is, I think, a significant momentum shift, an opportunity to realign.”
Asked whether he was embarrassed that it had taken two years to reach an agreement with police members, Carbines said it was important to respect that “the original agreement put to members… was reached between the Police Association of Victoria and Victoria Police”.
“We respect the fact that members are allowed to say no, they are allowed to say ‘go back and work harder for us’. Everyone’s worked really hard to deliver for Victoria Police members.”
A quirky one for you. Midnight tonight marks the 50-year anniversary that many Australians who were there will never forget.
On March 1, 1975, colour television officially came to Australia, a day that colloquially became known as “C Day”.
Channel Nine’s first show in colour in Melbourne was the 1946 movie California.
Australia’s colour revolution happened a full two decades after the US, which was selling colour TV sets as early as 1954.
Television arrived in Australia in 1956, just in time for the Melbourne Olympic Games which aired on all three stations.
Victoria’s Police Minister Anthony Carbines is about to speak after frontline officers secured a 5 per cent a year pay rise over four years.
Defence Minister Richard Marles has clashed with one of his top officials over whether the government will delay a critical decision on a new fleet of warships, as the presence of a Chinese flotilla off the coast of Australia focuses attention on the navy’s vulnerabilities.
Military experts urged Marles to override any bureaucratic resistance and stick to the plan to decide this year whether German company TKMS or Japanese firm Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will win a $10 billion contract to build 11 frigates to replace the navy’s ageing fleet of Anzac-class vessels.
With Beijing signalling its intention to operate far from the Chinese mainland, the Australian navy’s fleet of warships is set to shrink to nine next year – down from 11 a year ago – with a significant chunk of those vessels unavailable for operations because of maintenance and upgrades.
Asked when a decision would be made on the general purpose frigates, Defence Department deputy secretary Jim McDowell told a Senate estimates hearing this week: “We expect a government decision in the first quarter of next year.”
McDowell, the top Defence official for naval shipbuilding and sustainment, said this was an “aggressive” timeframe given such decisions can take between seven and 10 years. The first ship is due to be delivered in 2029.
Marles refuted McDowell’s comments at a subsequent press conference. “We want to see a decision made this year, so let me be clear about that,” he said.
Read Matthew Knott’s full report here.
Members of Victoria’s police association have overwhelmingly voted in favour of a new EBA after a years-long industrial dispute.
In a statement on Friday afternoon, the association confirmed 76 per cent of its members – or about 12,000 officers – had voted in favour of the new agreement, which guarantees frontline officers a pay increase of 5 per cent a year for four years.
The pay dispute claimed the careers of former commissioner Shane Patton and deputy commissioner Neil Paterson, who were both cut from their posts by the state government earlier this month following a no-confidence vote in Patton.
“The finalisation of this industrial dispute is just the first step in a raft of improvements that desperately need to occur quickly to support our frontline,” a police association spokesperson said.
“Our attention must immediately shift to filling the gaping holes that exist in the frontline, by refocusing on recruitment and retention of police officers and PSOs and embarking on reforms to the criminal justice system to support the work they do.”
Victoria’s Police Minister Anthony Carbines is due to speak later this afternoon.
Controversial pro-Palestinian Macquarie University academic Randa Abdel-Fattah has had her $870,000 research grant suspended by the Australian Research Council.
Abdel-Fattah was awarded $870,269 by the ARC in 2022 for a study titled “Arab/Muslim Australian Social Movements since the 1970s: a hidden history”.
Earlier this month, the research council flagged “significant concerns” over comments Abdel-Fattah reportedly made about bending research rules in a speech at the National Symposium on Unifying Anti-Racist Research and Action, hosted by the Queensland University of Technology.
Federal Education Minister Jason Clare asked the research council to look into her research grant and whether it was being used appropriately.
ARC chairman Peter Shergold confirmed at Senate estimates on Thursday evening that Macquarie University would investigate whether the grant was being “used for the purposes that were intended”.
“This is not an issue about freedom of speech,” Shergold said. “It’s about the acquittal of public funds. It’s about someone who gets a grant, and with that grant there are conditions attached.”
Abdel-Fattah has also made numerous public anti-Israel comments on social media, including “if you are a Zionist you have no claim or right to cultural safety”.
In a statement released on Wednesday night, Macquarie University confirmed it had complied with a notice of suspension received from the research council to “immediately cease all activity in respect of a research project” being undertaken by Abdel-Fattah.
Police have launched an investigation into the death of two-year-old Joe Massa at Northern Beaches Hospital, setting the stage for a full coronial inquest into the September tragedy.
NSW Health Minister Ryan Park told budget estimates yesterday he had written to Attorney-General Michael Daley requesting the coroner investigate the circumstances of Joe’s death – just two months shy of his second birthday.
NSW Police revealed this afternoon they had been directed by the coroner to investigate the death at Sydney Children’s Hospital at Randwick, after his initial treatment at Northern Beaches Hospital.
The death was not reported to police at the time. NSW Police will prepare a brief for the coroner.
The hospital’s own internal investigation into Joe’s death found serious individual and systemic failures in the hospital’s management of Joe in the lead up to his cardiac arrest.
Australia emitted just under 435 million tonnes of greenhouse gas in the year to September 2024, according to the latest update released by the government today.
While that’s a half a per cent decrease from the previous 12-month period, the Greens have sounded the alarm over the fact that emissions from electricity generation have increased (by 1.5 per cent), chastising the government for approving new coal and gas projects.
“With emissions this high, Labor is blowing any chance of a safer climate, and even their own weak climate goals are out-of-reach,” Greens leader Adam Bandt said in a statement. “Nothing changes unless your vote does.”
While electricity generated from renewables increased by 6 per cent, gas was up 11 per cent and coal up by 2.4 per cent.
Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen said that, among other milestones, a record number of solar, wind and other renewable projects came online in 2024. While on November 6, over three quarters of the nation’s electricity needs were met by renewables.
The federal government is preparing to release an economic update within days that could be used as a springboard for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to announce an early April election and kill off the need for a March budget.
As new figures show the budget bottom line improving, this masthead can reveal public servants and election planning staff within Labor are preparing for Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher to release an update that is likely to predict an easing in inflation and a stronger jobs market.
It would mean abandoning a planned March 25 budget, which would have been the earliest during a calendar year in Australian history, that the government has maintained for weeks it is poised to deliver as it completes a full three-year term.
Sources speaking to this masthead on condition of anonymity said preparations were well underway to convert the planned budget into an economic update that would contain key forecasts for the economy and budget while accounting for some policy announcements.
It would be released just before, or just after, Albanese confirms the date for the coming federal election.
Many analysts expect the prime minister to begin the federal election campaign just after the West Australian state contest is decided on March 8. That would make election day April 12.
The economic update would also be used to talk up the improvement in the overall economy, which has been in a per capita recession since late 2022, even as government gross debt hits a record $947.1 billion.