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Thanks so much for joining me on the national news blog today. Millie Muroi will be anchoring our live coverage for the rest of the afternoon.
For now, let’s take a quick look at the major headlines of the day:
In Victoria, the Environmental Protection Authority has uncovered 3000 tonnes of hidden plastic bags linked to the collapse of Australia’s largest soft plastic recycling program.
A major new gas project in northern NSW will be fast-tracked as part of a state government plan to boost gas supply.
It comes alongside a likely deal in national cabinet this afternoon to cut costs for power suppliers in the hope of bringing down household energy bills.
The decision will accelerate the controversial pipeline from the Narrabri gas field, so it can supply gas to the south of the state and possibly Victoria despite strong objections from environmental groups that want the gas to stay in the ground and the pipeline scrapped.
A rally in solidarity with the Gomeroi people’s opposition to the Narrabri gas project.Credit:Rhett Wyman
“A proposal to build a new pipeline between the approved Narrabri Gas Project and the Hunter Gas Pipeline has been declared Critical State Significant Infrastructure (CSSI), as it is deemed essential to NSW for economic reasons,” NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet said in a statement.
The pipeline is likely to run for about 50 kilometres and would connect the Narrabri Gas Project to the east coast gas network, which runs from Bass Strait and South Australia through NSW and on to Curtis Island in Queensland, where three facilities freeze gas for export by tanker.
“The Narrabri project will be vital to securing affordable and reliable gas for more than one million NSW households and thousands of small businesses, who rely on natural gas for heating, cooking and power generation,” Perrottet said.
“Once up and running Narrabri will be the backbone of our State’s gas needs, supporting our transition to renewable power sources.”
NSW Minister for Planning and Homes Anthony Roberts said the project would involve about $1.5 billion in spending and would create 1,750 jobs during construction, with 225 operational jobs.
Santos has been seeking to develop the gas field for more than a decade but faces fierce objections from environmental groups. The company has promised to deliver all the gas to the local market, a significant concern for NSW, and estimates it would supply about 70 petajoules of gas a year.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has backed the project even though the Labor Environment Action Network, a group within the party, opposes the development of the gas field because it believes local communities do not want it and Australia should move away from gas toward electricity generated by renewables.
The government said Santos could request assessment requirements to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) . This would have to be subject to community consultation.
Queensland’s official coronavirus numbers are now also in.
The state has reported 13,632 new cases of COVID-19 for the week ending Wednesday, December 7.
Fifteen deaths were also recorded.
This compares to the 11,217 cases and 15 deaths reported in last week’s update.
There were an average 320 people in Queensland hospitals with COVID-19 during the most recent reporting period. Of those, 8 were in ICU.
Star Entertainment may face ongoing conditions on its new Brisbane site if authorities are still unhappy with how it has dealt with allegations of criminal activity when its doors open.
Queensland Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman said the company would have to “do everything they can to become suitable by the time Queen’s Wharf wants to open”.
Construction on the Queen’s Wharf casino development in Brisbane’s CBD.Credit:Matt Dennien
A consortium, including Star, is building the $3.6 billion casino and resort development on prime riverfront land in the state capital, to which its current Brisbane licence will transfer on completion in the second half of 2023.
“But if Star are not suitable by the time they want to open their doors, then there will be significant conditions placed on their license,” Fentiman told reporters while announcing the disciplinary action flowing from an independent inquiry earlier today.
The group’s new chief executive, Robbie Cooke, has said he is committed to rebuilding the company’s reputation, but shareholders savaged the leadership at its annual meeting late last month after penalties flowed from a similar probe in NSW.
Star shares were placed on a trading halt this morning ahead of the Queensland announcement.
The Queensland government has handed casino operator Star a $100 million fine and will appoint a special manager to oversee its operations following an inquiry into the embattled group.
The government has, however, held off from the outright suspension of Star’s Brisbane and Gold Coast licences and given the group one year to “get their house in order”.
The embattled group has been found unfit to hold its three casino licences across NSW and Queensland after two independent inquiries sparked by a 2021 investigation by this masthead reported it had allegedly enabled extensive criminal activity.
Queensland Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman.Credit:Dan Peled/AAP
Queensland’s Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman told reporters this morning the government was “sending a clear message that unlawful and criminal behaviour will not be tolerated”.
Alongside the fine, which mirrors the amount handed to the company by NSW regulators, Fentiman said the government had decided on a 90-day licence suspension — but deferred this for 12 months.
“Essentially, this means that Star has 12 months to get their house in order if they do not want to see a 90-day suspension of their license,” she said.
In NSW, the 90-day suspension was immediately enforced.
Nicholas Weeks, who was appointed as an independent manager of the flagship Sydney casino, will now take up a similar role across the Queensland sites.
The Albanese government has announced veteran public servant Kerri Hartland as the new head of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), the nation’s overseas spy agency.
Hartland will be the first female director-general of ASIS in the organisation’s history.
ASIS is Australia’s equivalent of America’s CIA and Great Britain’s MI6, sitting inside the Department of Foreign Affairs.
New Australian Secret Intelligence Service chief Kerri Hartland. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
The agency’s very existence remained secret for its first 20 years, only being revealed in 1972.
Hartland previously served as deputy director-general of the domestic spy agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), and most recently as secretary of the Department of Employment, Small and Family Business.
“With an increasingly complex geostrategic landscape, intelligence will continue to be critical to securing Australia’s safety, prosperity, and sovereignty,” Hartland said.
“To lead an organisation that so significantly contributes to Australia’s national security is a true privilege.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong thanked outgoing executive director Paul Symon for his service.
The Reserve Bank’s pre-Christmas rate rise could dampen Australia’s passion for fashion, with consumer data suggesting shoppers are planning to spend less on categories like apparel and accessories in the coming months.
While retailers remain upbeat about the outlook, data from management consulting giant McKinsey & Company suggests that even wealthier consumers are starting to feel the pinch, with its survey showing a dip in optimism about Australia’s post-pandemic economic recovery among those earning more than $125,000 a year.
Shoppers have snapped up plenty of bargains during the Black Friday to Cyber Monday sales period.Credit:Scott McNaughton
The McKinsey survey of more than 1,000 consumers, which tracks how many people are planning to increase and decrease spending on different categories, shows shoppers are looking to cut back in all areas except groceries and their daily commute. Meanwhile, categories like jewellery and luxury clothing brands are being put on the backburner.
“There is an intent to decrease spending on apparel, accessories are even lower and jewellery is even lower than that,” said Partner and lead of McKinsey & Company’s consumer and retail practice in Australia, Abe Levavi.
“If you put those things on a spectrum of necessity, even with [other] non-essentials, you would see jewellery be the lowest, because it’s the least essential.”
Read the full story here.
Community groups have demanded the Reserve Bank’s 2-3 per cent inflation target be lifted, warning the fight against price pressures will ultimately lead to massive job losses that will hurt the nation’s lowest paid.
As the nation’s peak business lobby group said the Reserve’s long-term commitment to maximising the “economic welfare and prosperity” of all people should be dropped, the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) said the bank should set an employment target alongside its inflation objective.
Community organisations say the RBA’s inflation target should be increased, warning the fight against price pressures will lead to a lift in unemployment.Credit:Louie Douvis
Submissions to the Reserve Bank review, the first independent examination of the RBA since the early 1980s, were released yesterday and show a wide range of opinions about the bank stretching from the structure of its board to how it manages inflation.
Read the full story here.
And circling back to the impact of COVID-19 in Australia.
An analysis of the impact of the virus on fatality rates has found there were 15,400 “excess deaths” across the country in the first eight months of 2022, or 13 per cent more than predicted.
The Actuaries Institute’s COVID-19 Mortality Working Group estimates 8200 of the fatalities were directly due to the virus, with another 2100 having it as a contributory cause and the remaining 5100 featuring no link. The deaths peaked in the last week of July and fell across August.
People wearing face masks near Southern Cross station in Melbourne.Credit:Darrian Traynor
Group spokeswoman for the group Karen Cutter said all jurisdictions except the Northern Territory had “significant levels of excess mortality in 2022”.
“Generally, about half of this was due to deaths from COVID-19, with the exception of Tasmania that had relatively fewer deaths from COVID-19 and more deaths from other causes,” she said.
Cutler said WA had recorded a lower excess mortality rate, which reflected the later introduction of the virus in the community compared to the eastern states.
With its relatively young and affluent population, the ACT also experienced fewer excess fatalities than the larger states while the NT, also with a very young population, showed a low net impact.
A reduction in elective surgery admissions was also felt Australia-wide, with the exception of Tasmania.
According to data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare the number of patients treated over the past financial year on non-emergency waiting lists fell to the lowest since 2010-11.
Institute spokesman Dr Adrian Webster said public hospitals performed 623,000 elective surgeries in 2021-22, or 17 per cent fewer compared to the previous year.
AAP
Supermarket giant Coles is calling for enforceable, uniform housing standards for seasonal farm workers and rules against unfairly docking their pay to prevent overseas labourers from living in poverty and squalor and to shore up supply chains in an industry wracked by reputational damage.
Coles and major unions released a report this morning taking aim at the horticulture sector’s heavy reliance on outsourcing workers and attributing labour-hire firms with a decline in transparency and certainty in the industry which has led to poor pay and lodging.
Seasonal workers are subject to poor pay and living conditions.Credit:Justin McManus
The report said the industry was vulnerable to inflationary and interest-rate pressures, and “when margins are squeezed, this can lead to cost-cutting”.
“There is a risk that the more challenging economic conditions may have negative impacts for those with the least bargaining power and highest vulnerability – the horticulture workers,” it read.
Compiled by consultancy Deloitte, the report acknowledged the difficulty of attracting workers to seasonal work and the reliance on migrant labour through working holidaymaker visas and the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme.
According to recent federal government figures, as of the end of October, 31,500 Pacific Islanders were working in Australia under the PALM scheme, while more than 100,000 working holidaymakers have arrived since borders reopened.
Read the full story here.
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As it happened: PM announces $1.5 billion energy bill relief; police union calls for Lehrmann case inquiry – Brisbane Times
