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Key events
Choosing electricity energy plan to be made ‘as easy as buying a pint of milk’
Petra Stock
Australia’s energy market rule maker wants to simplify electricity pricing, so that it’s more like buying milk at the supermarket – with one simple shelf price, rather than itemised bills for the cow, the carton and the cost of transport.
In the final recommendations of its two-year review into electricity pricing, the Australian Energy Market Commission advocated for straightforward energy plans that are easier for customers to understand and compare.
AEMC chair Anna Collyer said:
Electricity pricing has become too complex, too hard to compare, and too often unfair. You shouldn’t need to be an energy expert to get a fair deal, and long-standing customers should not pay more than someone who just walked in the door.
Victorian opposition plans to hit premier with no-confidence motion
Benita Kolovos
The Victorian opposition leader, Jess Wilson, will give notice to parliament today that she plans to move a motion of no confidence in the premier, Jacinta Allan, when parliament resumes after the winter break.
Under the state constitution, the opposition can move a single motion of no confidence in the premier each four-year term. The last time this occurred was in October 2020, against then-premier, Daniel Andrews, during the grips of the pandemic.
If the motion is successful, it could lead to the dissolution of the parliament. But given Labor’s commanding majority, this will not occur. Instead, with just months remaining until the November state election, it will give Wilson and her team the floor of the chamber for an entire sitting day, allowing them to outline their case for change.
Wilson’s statement indicates the likely themes of her speech, which she will likely deliver on 28 July. She said:
Victoria needs a fresh start and that begins with changing the government and changing the premier. It’s time for a new government with the right priorities and a clear plan to deliver for Victorians. My Liberal and Nationals team has a plan to ease cost-of-living pressures, grow our economy, end the crime crisis and restore hope and prosperity to Victoria.
Petra Stock
Datacentres in Australia consuming more than four times Melbourne’s drinking water annually
Datacentres in Australia currently consume about 5.5 gigalitres of water annually, according to an industry-commissioned report – that’s more than four times Melbourne’s drinking water. In the case of AWS, the company used 207m litres in Sydney and 158m litres in Melbourne last year.
Rourke said Melbourne datacentres owned by AWS did not require water for cooling for 96% of the year, mainly relying on outside air to cool its servers. However, during the hotter summer months, water was used in evaporative cooling systems to remove heat from servers.
Cameron Fitzgerald, the managing director of Greater Western Water, said recycled water was a growing opportunity. “As Melton grows, we have more water available, because we treat more sewage.”
Cameron Steele, a spokesperson for the Concerned Waterways Alliance, a network of Victorian community and environment groups, said more transparency from the industry was needed. “Datacentres are going into already highly stressed systems”, with the condition of waterways across Victoria in decline.
Amazon datacentre first in Victoria to use recycled water for cooling
Petra Stock
Amazon Web Services said one of its datacentres in western Melbourne will be the first in Victoria to use recycled water for cooling.
Treated water from the Melton sewage plant would be supplied directly to the AWS datacentre via a pipeline, with construction commencing next year.
Matt O’Rourke, the head of infrastructure and energy at AWS Australia and New Zealand, said this would help preserve millions of litres of drinking water annually for local communities.
Connecting a datacentre to recycled water from day one of operations is a significant first for Victoria, and AWS in Australia.
Globally the company has 26 datacentres connected to recycled water, he said.
The announcement follows the federal government’s national expectations for the industry, requiring that datacentres use non-potable water “where possible”, and report transparently on water use and efficiency.
Coalition says it’s good Hanson and One Nation getting the scrutiny of a party on the rise
Kevin Hogan, the shadow assistant treasurer, says he thinks it’s good Hanson was able to speak at the press club yesterday as One Nation “needs to be put under much more scrutiny” amid surging support.
Hogan spoke to RN Breakfast, saying Hanson deserved the respect and scrutiny to appear before reporters in Canberra. But he blasted the stunt by GetUp, saying it made the One Nation leader look like a “victim” being picked on.
The GetUp stunt completely backfired, it makes them look like [bullies] and makes her look like, you know, a victim in the sense that she’s being picked on. And that never works.
One Nation have tapped into, I think, to some fear and anxieties in the Australian public, and I think we have to acknowledge that. I certainly don’t agree with all the solutions that she puts out there, but look, I think it was healthy that she front up and that she was invited yesterday.
New One Nation MP details Hanson’s ‘monocultural Australia’ plans
David Farley, the recently elected One Nation MP for Farrer, is praising Hanson’s speech yesterday and detailing what he believes a “monocultural Australia” looks like.
He told RN:
If you’re coming to Australia to have a better life, you become an Australian. That’s what we’re referring to as a monocultured Australia. You’re an Australian first, and your ethnicity or your creed comes second …
The reality is, we’re a Christian Judeo society with a law structure around us, and they’ve come with one clear objective: to have a better life. And that one clear objective should be, if they want to have a better life here, is to live within our culture and live within our laws and rules.
He went on to say Hanson’s address was something Australians “have been looking for for some time”, going on:
It was direct shooting. It hit the targets. It was clear. It was successful. And it addressed a number of the elephants in the room … So the speech hit the target for where Australians are today.
Environment minister says Hanson stunt not ‘healthy’, but comments ‘entirely appropriate’
Murray Watt, the federal environment minister, said the stunt targeting Pauline Hanson’s National Press Club address yesterday wasn’t the first, but wasn’t “healthy” in that environment. Watt said this morning many politicians had been subject to disruption, including his own address that featured people wearing T-shirts and carrying signs.
Watt, however, said the message on the sign towards the One Nation leader – that Hanson had voted against “a pay rise for workers while I took at $100,000 pay rise for myself” – was “entirely appropriate”. He told RN Breakfast this morning:
I do think that the message on the sign was entirely appropriate to raise the point that Pauline Hansen and One Nation have always voted against laws to lift wages, while of course she’s been happy to take a $100,000 pay rise herself as a party leader. But I do think that there are more appropriate ways to get that message out there than what happened yesterday.
Watt said he was troubled by Hanson’s speech, adding he “lost count” of the number of different groups that she “has in her sights: workers, women, childcare workers, families who use childcare, migrants, the ABC, SBS”.
It’s all very well to get out there and make a speech about who you hate. That’s not going to take the country forward. We need to come together to face the challenges that the country faces and take those opportunities that we have.
Good morning, it’s Nick Visser here again to take you through the day’s news. A lot on deck, let’s get to it.
Kelly Burke
Joyce stops short of confirming outright ban on certain migrants
When Joyce was pressed on whether One Nation’s evolving immigration policy included a total ban on migration from all Muslim-majority nations, Joyce stopped short of confirming an outright ban, instead saying Australia should not accept migrants living in “febrile parts of the world”.
On the economy, Joyce backed Hanson’s criticisms of recent childcare wage increases and worker-friendly industrial relations reforms, refocusing the party’s priority towards small business owners.
The greatest driver of our economy is small business. If you arbitrarily say, well, we’re just going to put up wages and somehow magically the small business that’s already struggling … is going to be able to somehow charge $10 for a cup of coffee and everybody will buy it, it won’t.
He said One Nation’s policies would be rolled out closer to the polling date as the party continued its grassroots push to transition from a minor protest group into a party of government.
Kelly Burke
Barnaby Joyce defends hardline immigration policy after Pauline Hanson’s address
One Nation’s Treasury spokesperson, Barnaby Joyce, has defended the party’s hardline position on immigration following Pauline Hanson’s wide-ranging National Press Club address yesterday.
In a combative interview with the ABC’s Sarah Ferguson last night, Joyce backed Hanson’s call for a monocultural Australia, arguing that immigration must be tightly restricted to preserve “Australian culture”.
When Ferguson pointed out that 51% of Australian residents were either overseas-born or had an overseas-born parent, Joyce denied the party was alienating more than half the country.
What we’re saying is Australia has to have the capacity to bring in an Australian culture, a culture with guardrails, a culture that is able to absorb people so that we have harmony, we have peace, and we have a unity of purpose.
If you get a Balkanisation in Australia where there are so many people in so many different corners that they basically live their culture not an Australian culture, then inherently that just does not work out.
Tory Shepherd
Continuing on from last post …
All major medical organisations, including the Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (Ranzcog), the Australian Medical Association, and the College of Midwives, opposed the bill.
The vast majority (more than 90%) of abortions are done in the first trimester.
SA Health data show that in 2023, fewer than 1% (47) occurred after 23 weeks’ gestation.
“Of these 47 terminations, 37 were conducted for the physical or mental health of the mother, and 10 were for fetal anomalies,” SA Health has said.
“In the first 18 months after the legislation was implemented, there were less than five terminations performed after 27 weeks and no terminations after 29 weeks.”
“Any abortion conducted at this stage is due to the life-limiting condition of the fetus and, or, serious threats to the pregnant woman’s health and life. It also requires the approval of two doctors,” Ranzcog said in a statement.
Anti-abortion bill blocked in South Australia
Tory Shepherd
The first bill to recriminalise abortion in the nation’s history passed South Australia’s upper house last night – but failed in the lower house despite the support of the premier and opposition leader.
Abortion was decriminalised in all states and territories by 2024, but there have been multiple recent attempts to put it back in the Criminal Act.
The latest bill to criminalise late-term abortions passed South Australia’s upper house by one vote last night, with the help of the votes of the three newly elected One Nation MLCs.
MLC Sarah Game introduced the legislation, which was created with anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe, who has been banned from the SA parliament for alleged bullying during debate on previous, similar bills.
Game was elected as a One Nation MP but quit the party to form her own party, Fair Go. On Tuesday night – before introducing the bill yesterday – she announced she was leaving her own party to join Family First.
Initially, the bill banned all abortions from 25 weeks, no matter the threat to maternal health (the only exemption was in the likelihood of maternal death) or the level of foetal abnormalities. An amendment included exemptions for severe foetal abnormalities.
But the bill still failed to pass the lower house last night despite the support of the premier, Peter Malinauskas, and the opposition leader, Ashton Hurn.
Nonstop Sydney-London flights delayed again
Qantas has set a new date for the launch of its nonstop service between Sydney and London: October 2027.
The first Project Sunrise Sydney to London services, on a specially manufactured A350 plane built by Airbus in France, will cut four hours off the travel time, Qantas said in a media release.
At the same time, it released new photos of the first of the 12 planes it has ordered that have the expanded fuel capacity to make the flight without stopping.
Delivery of the planes has been repeatedly delayed. The project was put into hiatus in 2020 when Covid hit. In 2021, then-CEO Alan Joyce anticipated a 2024 start to commercial flights. In November last year Qantas said the first commercial services would begin in the “first half of 2027”.
The first Project Sunrise Sydney to London tickets will go on sale in February 2027, the airline now says.
Qantas says Project Sunrise will eventually connect Australia’s east coast with other international destinations, with Sydney-New York confirmed as the next service to follow Sydney-London. Launch timing for these services will be announced next year, the airline said.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it will be Nick Visser with the main action.
The first bill to re-criminalise abortion in the nation’s history passed South Australia’s upper house last night – but failed in the lower house despite the support of the premier and opposition leader. More details soon.
Barnaby Joyce has defended One Nation’s hardline position on immigration after Pauline Hanson’s wide-ranging National Press Club address yesterday, with the party’s treasury spokesperson saying that the country “has to have the capacity to bring in an Australian culture”. More coming up.
