dailynewsnblog
PM says Coalition’s refusal to set emissions targets ‘extraordinary’
Albanese also had harsh words for opposition leader Sussan Ley and her refusal to set the Coalition’s own targets.
Albanese said:
Today we’ve had the extraordinary comment by the leader of the Liberal party who said ‘we don’t believe in setting targets at all’ … The modern Liberal party is focused on their own jobs and fighting each other …
The Liberal party is too busy fighting each other, too busy looking over their shoulders, too busy arguing with each other over the interests of Australians.
Key events
Australian universities acting within culture of ‘consequence free rotten failure’, Labor senator says
Caitlin Cassidy
Labor senator Tony Sheldon says today’s interim report into university governance exposes the “widespread failures in transparency, accountability, and integrity across Australia’s public universities”.
Sheldon took particular aim at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), who yesterday revealed a plan to slash around 30% of subjects and more than 130 staff as part of a restructure proposal.
Sheldon, who has been a strong critique of the sector during his time as chair of the education and employment committee and as the inquiry’s inaugural chair, said UTS had become “the embodiment of everything wrong with university governance”.
They spent exorbitant sums on outside accountants to justify job cuts and course closures, splashed out on lavish international trips in the middle of a cost-cutting crisis, and pushed through restructures so extreme that a safety regulator had to intervene.
If our universities are to regain the trust of their communities, they must embrace transparency and accountability.
The vice-chancellor of UTS, Prof Andrew Parfitt, said UTS was focused on achieving a “sustainable future” and its commitment to public education and focus on the student experience was “paramount.”
Sheldon said the Senate inquiry “exposed a culture of consequence-free rotten failure at the top of our universities”.
There’s no other sector in the country where failure is rewarded so handsomely and with so little scrutiny. We need universities run with integrity, not secrecy and this report is a warning shot to those who think the rules don’t apply to them. The recommendations send a clear message: public money comes with public accountability.
SA cabinet has more women than men for first time in state history
Two political veterans have been handed key roles on the South Australian government’s frontbench, after the state’s deputy premier and treasurer announced they were stepping down, AAP reports.
Tom Koutsantonis has been appointed treasurer, and the state’s Attorney-General, Kyam Maher, is the deputy premier after the party’s caucus elected him as deputy Labor leader.
They were sworn in at a ceremony at the state’s Government House on Friday, along with two other ministers who have been elevated to cabinet roles.
They replace Susan Close and Stephen Mullighan as deputy premier and treasurer, respectively, after the premier, Peter Malinauskas, announced on Thursday that the pair had indicated they would retire at the March 2026 state election.
The Adelaide MP, Lucy Hood, replaces Dr Close as the environment minister, while the King MP, Rhiannon Pearce, has taken over the emergency services, correctional services, and recreation, sport and racing portfolios.
Malinauskas posted on X:
For the first time in history, we have more women than men in Cabinet.
My team reflects the rich diversity in our society.
And I’m proud to lead a disciplined and united team.
A team that’s determined to get things done for South Australians.
Greens to introduce cat containment laws in NSW parliament
The Greens will introduce cat containment laws in NSW parliament that would give councils the discretion to regulate and enforce measures in priority areas and hold people responsible for keeping their cats safely at home.
The party announced that the proposed law would be introduced after Western Australia said it would make a similar move this week, amending the state’s Cat Act to allow local councils to make and enforce laws around containment.
Sue Higginson, the Greens’ spokesperson for the environment, said in a statement the primary driver for the new laws was about “protecting our precious and threatened native species”, but also about owners “taking care of the animals that they have a responsibility to care for”.
The failure of the NSW Government to act on cat containment is a tragedy for the environment, and is now a national embarrassment. We are now the only state that hasn’t addressed the extinction of native animals as a result of wandering pet cats …
This approach recognises that native animals and the cats that prey on them should be kept safe from one another, as well as giving enforcement powers to Councils that can be scaled up and down as necessary to prevent cats from wandering into neighbours’ yards, nature reserves or anywhere else where there is a problem.
David Pocock on the 2035 climate target and political will – Australian Politics podcast
In a defining week for climate action, the Albanese government has unveiled a commitment to cut emissions between 62% and 70% of 2005 levels by 2035. But vocal climate advocate Senator David Pocock says a minimum of 75% is needed to “do our bit”.
Political editor Tom McIlroy speaks to the ACT independent about his pessimism over political leadership on climate ambition – despite the government’s own warnings against a lack of action.
Humpback whale and calf caught in shark net off Noosa – video
A humpback whale and calf were filmed caught in a shark net at the entrance to Noosa national park.
The pair were freed on Wednesday evening. Five whales have been caught in shark nets this week.
Nick Visser
That’s all from me. Nino Bucci will be your blog guide for the rest of Friday. Enjoy your afternoon!
Caitlin Cassidy
Overhauling university governance ‘absolutely urgent’, Greens say
The Greens deputy leader and higher education spokesperson, Mehreen Faruqi, said the interim report “makes the need for an overhaul of hefty VC and executive salaries and cleaning up university governance bodies crystal clear”.
The senator was a member of the inquiry into university governance and made further recommendations, including immediately repealing the former Coalition government’s job-ready graduates scheme.
Faruqi said it was “imperative” the government listened to the inquiry’s “damning evidence” and took staff and student recommendations seriously:
The depth and breadth of anxiety, stress, trauma and fear that staff are subjected to, and the lack of accountability and transparency that VCs and executives get away with without any repercussions or recourse cannot be tolerated any longer.
Overhauling university governance is absolutely urgent. Staff and students deserve to be key decision-makers at their universities, not overpaid executives, corporate appointees or private consultants that walk away with millions of dollars.
Caitlin Cassidy
‘Out of step with community expectations’: senate committee targets vice-chancellors’ pay averaged at double the PM’s
Amid increased scrutiny on the high salaries of vice-chancellors, the senate committee recommended the federal government work with the Remuneration Tribunal and states and territories to devise a framework of classification structures and remuneration ranges to determine senior executives’ pay.
University councils would retain responsibility for setting the vice-chancellors’ and senior executives’ pay within the range.
The average vice-chancellor pay is almost twice that of the prime minister, while a number of vice-chancellors with salaries of more than $1m a year also hold external paid positions.
The committee said it accepted the importance of universities remaining “competitive” for global talent, but continued:
The overwhelming volume of evidence received was strongly of the view that universities paying over 300 executives across the country more than the premier or chief ministers of their state was excessive, and out of step with community expectations of public institutions and international comparisons.
The report was released ahead of an education ministers’ meeting in October, where higher education reform will be on the agenda. The final report is due to be handed down in December.
Caitlin Cassidy
Senate inquiry recommends reining in pay packets for university vice-chancellors among other efforts to boost trust
Vice-chancellors’ million-dollar pay packets would be reigned in and universities forced to declare potential conflicts of interest under a series of sweeping recommendations by a Senate inquiry into university governance.
The committee’s interim report, released on Friday afternoon, found there was a “lack of trust” in universities that was undermining their reputation and mission to serve the public good.
It made a dozen recommendations to improve transparency and accountability in the beleaguered sector, including publishing the minutes of council meetings on university websites, publicly disclosing all spending on consultants and releasing a conflict-of-interest register for senior executives and council members.
The report also called for greater transparency of the composition of governing bodies, including a minimum proportion of members with higher education expertise and from staff and student backgrounds, and for strengthening the powers of the sector’s regulator.
The committee said it was “concerned that if these governance failures were not addressed, universities risked undermining their public missions, diminishing the international standing of Australian higher education and failing in their obligations as publicly funded institutions”.
Scientists to research bird flu on Antarctic islands
Australian scientists will set sail on a wet, wild and windy expedition to research whether bird flu has reached world heritage-listed islands in Antarctica, AAP reports.
A group of experts will voyage to Heard and McDonald islands, 4,000 kms southwest of Western Australia, as part of the nation’s biggest campaign to the area in two decades.
The environment minister, Murray Watt, who joined the scientists in Hobart on Friday, said Australia was the only continent remaining free of the h5 strain of bird flu, despite it having spread globally.
H5 avian influenza is a highly contagious strain that mainly affects birds, but can also infect other animals. It rarely affects humans.
The Australian Antarctic Program head of division, Emma Campbell, said one of the main objectives of the voyage was to also assess the size and distribution of seabird and seal populations on the islands.
Car owner and family expected to testify in Bruce Lehrmann theft trial
Former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann’s alleged car theft victim, her husband, son and five police officers are expected to give evidence at a court hearing into the saga, AAP reports.
Lehrmann has denied stealing a Toyota Prado at remote Mountain River in southern Tasmania on 20 November 2024.
The 30-year-old and lawyer Zali Burrows appeared via phone before Hobart magistrates court on Friday.
Burrows said she would subpoena a media interview conducted by complainant Gail Oates that allegedly contained a different version of the incident than the one she told police.
The defence said they had received previously redacted statements, which included the name of someone else Oates believed might have taken the four-wheel drive.
“We may require more information in light of that,” Burrows told the court.
The yet-to-be-scheduled hearing would take four days, prosecutor Bunewat Keo said.
Oates, her husband and son would all give evidence, as would a friend of Lehrmann and a service station worker able to give context about what happened that night, Keo said.
Five police officers involved in the investigation would be called, and CCTV and police body-worn camera footage would be tendered.
Most of the evidence had been disclosed, bar a bank statement and maps to assist the court, Keo said.
Lehrmann’s bail was continued, and the matter was listed to return to court on October 31.
Jonathan Barrett
Queensland coalminer to cut jobs as prices fall
Queensland coalminer QCoal Group will close one of its two underground sites at its Cook Colliery project in the Bowen Basin, blaming production costs, taxes, royalties and low coal prices.
It is the third coalminer operating in Queensland to announce job cuts this week, with the BHP Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) and Anglo American also revealing workforce changes.
QCoal’s Cook Colliery project employs about 170 people, but it’s unclear on the exact number of expected job losses.
A QCoal spokesperson said consultation with workers was expected to take two weeks. The spokesperson said:
Unfortunately Cook Colliery has been affected by high production costs, high taxes and royalties and low coal prices and its ongoing operation at its current levels is unsustainable.
QCoal mines coking coal, used in steel, and thermal coal for energy production.
Coalminers recently emerged from a windfall period, marked by huge price rises after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Prices have now retreated to more normal levels.
Some of the miners have linked their decision to cut jobs to the Queensland government’s tiered royalty scheme, which was updated in 2022 to help the government retrieve higher rates during commodity price booms.
Petra Stock
Queensland government backs shark nets after five whale entanglements
When asked about the five whales caught in shark nets this week, Queensland Minister for Primary Industries, Tony Perrett, backed the continued use of shark nets and drumlines. He said in a statement:
The Crisafulli government will always put the safety of people first which is why it has delivered the largest investment into shark management in the program’s history.
This plan also funds the marine animal rescue team, 25 highly trained specialists who provide rapid response to any whale entanglement.
Perrett said the state government was funding whale-deterrent research and innovation.
Penry Buckley
NSW police commissioner may be announced next week
Earlier today, the NSW premier, Chris Minns, was again asked when the government will reveal the replacement for outgoing police commissioner Karen Webb, who announced her resignation in May.
Webb, who stepped down almost two years before her contract was due to end, has her final day on 30 September, although deputy commissioner Peter Thurtell is currently acting in her role.
Since Webb’s resignation, media reports have focused on the frontrunner and acting chief executive of the NSW Reconstruction Authority, Mal Lanyon – including a 2021 incident in which he was found collapsed near Goulburn’s “Big Merino” sculpture.
This month, Lanyon admitted taking his wife and another couple aboard an operational police boat for New Year’s Eve in 2023, after a complaint to the police watchdog.
Asked whether the government has ruled out Lanyon over the incidents, Minns says “people do make decisions, sometimes they’re bad decisions, me included”, but says the final appointment will consider the “totality of someone’s career”.
My experience is that senior police, like our senior public servants in the big portfolios, are eminently professional and just focused on public service … You’ve got every right to highlight and scrutinize public servants. But from my position, if we’re only picking people who have got completely lilywhite records, then we’ll be missing out on a lot of people that can contribute to public life in NSW.
Asked if the announcement could happen next week, Minns says: “Maybe.”
Josh Butler
Ley says party doesn’t ‘believe in setting targets at all from opposition’ but says things would be different in government
Returning to Sussan Ley’s press conference on climate earlier, the Liberal leader now says her party “don’t believe in setting targets at all from opposition”.
While the Labor government yesterday set its target of a 62-70% reduction in emissions by 2035, it seems the Liberal Party or Coalition may not set one of their own in return at this stage.
Ley had initially told the press conference “we don’t believe setting targets at all from opposition or from government”. However her team says she misspoke initially, in adding “government” to that answer.
We understand Ley came back to the press conference immediately after it ended and clarified that the Coalition don’t support setting targets from opposition but that “we do, of course, recognise the importance of targets in government when we have the full information in front of us, which we don’t have”.
Ley, under pressure from right-wingers in her ranks who have been increasingly lobbying to dump the Coalition’s still-current net zero by 2050 pledge, yesterday was quick out of the blocks to oppose the 62% to 70% target.
The obvious question was, what target would Ley’s Liberals and the National party support?
In another presser today, Ley shot down the concept entirely. Asked what she thought the target should be, the Liberal leader responded:
“We don’t believe in setting targets at all from opposition or from government, because the reality is that energy policy is not about a target that is never going to be reached and the 43% target is a perfect example of that,” she said in her initial answer, pointing to the government’s 2030 target.
“Energy policy is about visiting businesses like this one,” Ley continued, referencing the manufacturing business she was speaking from.
And talking to people who work in the energy sector, who deliver the energy grid, who understand the actual realities of the energy economy, not setting a notional target and then expecting that everyone will agree with it even though you can’t demonstrate how you will get there or what it will cost.
PM says Coalition’s refusal to set emissions targets ‘extraordinary’
Albanese also had harsh words for opposition leader Sussan Ley and her refusal to set the Coalition’s own targets.
Albanese said:
Today we’ve had the extraordinary comment by the leader of the Liberal party who said ‘we don’t believe in setting targets at all’ … The modern Liberal party is focused on their own jobs and fighting each other …
The Liberal party is too busy fighting each other, too busy looking over their shoulders, too busy arguing with each other over the interests of Australians.
Albanese touts emissions reduction targets as ‘ambitious’ but ‘achievable’
Prime minister Anthony Albanese is speaking in Melbourne to speak about the installation of at-home batteries to bolster clean energy from solar power.
Albanese spoke about yesterday’s emissions reduction targets, which would limit carbon emissions from between 62% and 70% over 2005 levels by 2035.
He said:
That was advice based upon science, based upon the best technology. An ambitious target, but one that is achievable.
Rape accused ‘threatened to distribute intimate images’
A Sydney man hit with dozens of rape charges for alleged assaults on three women is also accused of threatening to distribute graphic images, AAP reports.
The 31-year-old is due to face court on Friday over the alleged assaults between April 2023 and April 2025.
One woman was aged 29 and the other two were 21.
The man was arrested on Thursday at a block of units in the western Sydney suburb of North Parramatta.
The man was charged with 32 counts of sexual intercourse without consent dating back to 2023.
The man was refused bail to appear before a local court on Friday.
