Australia news live: Linda Burney urges Peter Dutton to ‘stay engaged’ after Indigenous voice meeting | Australia news

Sarah Collard

I‘ve been keeping across senate estimates for the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee in Canberra this morning, looking at Indigenous affairs across portfolios, so far there’s been mostly Indigenous senators from Labor, CLP and Independents asking the questions on Aboriginal Land Councils across the vast Northern Territory, this morning.

Things have gotten a bit heated at times, with some senators feeling like they haven’t been listened to and that they keep getting interrupted.

This is also a Victorian senator and former Greens turned Independent Lidia Thorpe’s first time asking questions, she’s appearing via Zoom, along with her former colleague WA Greens senator Dorinda Cox, who has taken over the First Nations spokesperson role for the Greens, SA Liberals senator Kerrynne Liddle,, NT senator and Country Liberal Party member,Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who sits with the National party and Labor Victorian Senator, Jana Stewart.

The Central Land Council, Northern Land Council, Tiwi Land Council and Anindilyakwa Land Council are appearing this morning,

Throughout the morning there have been a few calls to order, over the proceedings, questions running too long or people being interrupted with Thorpe saying things are “off to a fiery start on Blak Friday ‘‘.

Much of the questions are concerning free and independent consent and how that is worked out with Traditional Owners, with mining, fracking and gas works on their land, government funding and allocations of that funding, employment and economic opportunities and support for the Voice and Constitutional recognition.

Stewart asks the Tiwi Land Council what advice they’d give Opposition leader Peter Dutton on the referendum going forward.

Joe Martin-Jard, the CEO of the Northern Land Council in the NT, suggests that Dutton should “quietly listen” and come at the process with an “open heart”.

“He should come to this with an open mind and an open heart and be prepared to listen to Aboriginal people, engaging them on Country meetings and talking in quiet spaces in a quiet way and listening. That might help progress the debate,” Martin-Jard told estimates.

Thorpe interjects here asking if Stewart’s questioning is “free advertising for the Voice” and Labor Senator Louise Pratt, Chair of today’s committee fires back that it’s not a point of order and senators can ask what questions they want of witnesses.

Tiwi Land Council’s Robert Graham said there was lot’s more “talking and understanding” to be done on the Voice but said that constitutional recognition and the upcoming referendum are being “positively” viewed by many there.

Burney urges Dutton to ‘stay engaged’ after Indigenous voice meeting

Daniel Hurst

The minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, has revealed that the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, asked her to leave the room during part of a referendum working group meeting yesterday. She issued a plea to Dutton today to “please stay engaged with the working group”.

Burney was addressing reporters at Parliament House in Canberra today. When asked for her reaction to reports that Dutton told the working group yesterday that he believed this referendum was on a path to failure at this point, Burney said:

I’m not going to comment publicly on discussions within the working group. But I will say that we are on track to introduce the constitution alteration bill in parliament in March. And then there’ll be a Senate inquiry, a committee process around which the bill will be examined, which is very normal, as you know. People will be able to make submissions.

And I say to Mr Dutton: please stay engaged with the working group. That is certainly the desire of the working group. Unfortunately, I was asked to leave the room by Mr Dutton, so I wasn’t actually there to hear what he had to say. I just believe that it’s important that all parliamentarians engage with this process, come to understand it, and also recognise it’s about two things: It’s about improving the life outcomes for First Nations people. And it’s about recognising 65,000 years, something that we as Australians should be all proud of in our founding document.

Burney was also asked whether the voice should have the ability to advise both the parliament and the executive government, or whether the government should remove the executive component to gainer more support from conservatives. She replied:

I’m taking my direction from the working group. And the working group will come to its final position around these issues at our next meeting. The importance of the working group, and the engagement group, ensures that First Nations people are at the decision-making table when we make decisions around questions and amendments and so forth. It is a process and I will not get ahead of the working group. And I am very sure that the momentum that’s gathering behind the voice and the decency of the Australian public will see a successful referendum.

The Sydney Morning Herald and the Age had reported earlier that prior to the meeting, Dutton “requested that no government MPs attend the briefing, which would otherwise be chaired by Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney and senator Pat Dodson” but a government staff member was in the room to take notes.

‘Eyes of the world are on Australia’ ahead of referendum, Burney says after US meeting

Daniel Hurst

The minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, has declared “the eyes of the world are on Australia” in the lead up to the referendum on a voice to parliament, after she met with the visiting US secretary of the interior, Deb Haaland.

Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary, visited Canberra at the end of a weeklong visit to Australia.

Burney told reporters at a joint press conference with Haaland at Parliament House:

The eyes of the world are on Australia as we approach a referendum on constitutional recognition through a voice later this year.

Haaland diplomatically avoided giving an explicit position on the voice to parliament proposal, but spoke in general terms about the importance of listening to Indigenous people:

What I can say is that with respect to the United States, having this position of first Native American to serve at a cabinet level position ever in the history of our country, it was very important to me to make sure that we were doing everything we could to uphold the trust and treaty obligations of the United States. President Biden is working so hard to make sure that his government, his administration, looks like America, and wants native people to have a seat at the table. And so I think that for our part we will continue just to work hard and do what we can to make sure that we’re upholding those responsibilities.

Later, when asked whether the west – including the US and Australia – was at a moment of reckoning, Haaland said:

Indigenous people have been speaking for a long time. Some people haven’t stopped to listen to them. So I don’t think the Indigenous people have changed, they’re still speaking out. It’s the people who are in leadership positions that are finally opening their ears to hear what they have to say and what they have to say is incredibly important.

Burney also spoke about the latest domestic political situation with the voice proposal. More details on that front soon.

Peter Hannam

Lowe: competition among banks is helping borrowers, savers not so much

RBA governor Philip Lowe is well into the second half of the House of Reps “grilling”.

To be honest, there’s not a lot of sizzle. Tania Lawrence, a WA Labor MP, even cited a “Rosemary from Stoneville” who had written to say the RBA was doing “a very fine job”. Lowe says, with a wry smile, “If you are writing back to Rosemary, could you pass on my thanks?”

Less cheery though are comments from Lowe that banks were very quick to pass on higher loan rates but “most of them very slow to pass on [those higher rates] to deposit rates and they need to do better there”.

Lowe advises:

So if you are unhappy with the interest rate your bank is paying, go to another one because there are some very good deals out there.

You can easily get 4% or above on a full functionality deposit account which you can use with all the modern payment methods.

So my advice here is switch and if Australians switch, then the banks have to respond.

(The ACCC has also been tasked by treasurer Jim Chalmers to examine the deposit matter more closely.)

Competition, though, appears to be working a bit better when it comes to mortgage rates. Of the 300 basis-point increases prior to this month’s extra 25bp, mortgage holders had only seen rises of 260bp.

There is competition for new borrowers and there is this discounting and again, people switching. I encourage people to do it.

Bert van Manen, a Queensland LNP MP, makes the reasonable point about the challenges facing those wanting to refinance if they are facing repayment stress (such as having “negative equity”, if the value of their asset has dropped below the outstanding loan size).

Lowe notes that issue “is not starting to occur at the moment” with the rate of refinancing at a record high. Banks “are competing very aggressively for existing customers including some of the customers on fixed rate loans”, he says.

So no problem there – yet.

Cyclone Gabrielle’s death toll in New Zealand has climbed to seven, as civil defence officials declare a major crisis in Gisborne.

Tairawhiti Civil Defence has asked tens of thousands of residents of Gisborne to stop using mains water as its water treatment facility has failed. A statement reads:

This is a major crisis. Our city has no water. Don’t turn your taps on.

Two new deaths have been confirmed in the past 24 hours.

This morning, police said a person died in floodwaters near Waiohiki, south-west of Napier.

News outlet Stuff reported the body was of a man in his 70s.

Waiohiki is wedged between two rivers – the Tutaekuri and the Ngaruroro – which burst their banks under huge rainfall on Tuesday.

On Thursday night, a sixth death was confirmed in Murawai, on Auckland’s hard-hit west coast.

The man, Craig Stevens, was a volunteer firefighter who was admitted to hospital on Monday after attending a house which then collapsed on him.

The same house collapse also killed fellow firefighter Dave van Zwanenberg, whose body was found on Wednesday.

Fire and Emergency NZ (FENZ) chief executive Kerry Gregory said his crew were “still coming to terms” with the fact they’d lost two comrades. He said:

All of Fire and Emergency will feel his loss, and my heart goes out to his family.

– AAP

Peter Hannam

Managing expectations a central task for RBA’s Lowe

An interesting line of questions from Labor MP (and economist) Andrew Charlton led to some insights into how the RBA seeks to manage expectations regarding interest rate changes.

Charlton was asking about why the RBA shifted from its 50 basis point track back to interest rate rises of half that amount. Recall that after an initial 25bp rise last May (memo, shadow treasurer Angus Taylor, it was not 10bps), the RBA unleashed four half-point cash rate rises in a row. Then, last October, it reverted to 25bp rises, and we’ve had three more since.

Anyway, Lowe’s first response about the shift to the slower pace (at the time Australia was the first advanced nation to slow the rate of rate rises) was to explain the RBA’s intent is to be consistent. That’s another way of saying he’s not inclined to pause and need to restart rate rises if inflation perks up.

Lowe said:

If you are doing it consistently over a number of meetings that keeps public attention on monetary policy, and the seriousness of the task that we have.

With a mild dig at the media, he noted that we focus on the change of interest rates, not the level [guilty].

So when we are changing them each month, that gets a lot of coverage … people focus on it incredibly strongly … The world is uncertain, and when it is uncertain, it is better to move consistently and predictably rather than in steps.

And so, if the bank had kept up with those 50bp increases “we could more quickly get to the peak rate and then people would say ‘Oh well, they are done’, and the effectiveness and the focus on monetary policy and our task would be diminished,” Lowe said.

On that score, perhaps it’s time to resume meetings in January rather than take that month off and let complacency – from the media and the populace – take over.

The last one was in January 1992, when the RBA slashed its cash rate a full percentage point to 7.5%.

Perhaps thinking about the consequences of his comments, Lowe later adds in a session about his public comments: “In January, people don’t want to hear about interest rates.”

A team of Australian disaster experts will be deployed to New Zealand within the next 24 hours to assist with the recovery in the wake of ex-Tropical Cyclone Gabrielle.

An impact assessment team, made up of 25 expert officers from Queensland Fire and Emergency Services and contributions from other jurisdictions, will be sent to regional areas of New Zealand to assist Fire and Emergency New Zealand with the response.

It comes a week after more than 70 emergency responders were despatched to Turkey, where they are currently assisting the recovery in the aftermath of the deadly earthquake.

The foreign minister, Penny Wong, said of the latest deployment:

Our close relationship with New Zealand has meant we have been able to mobilise assistance quickly in response to this disaster. Whether it be as far away as Turkiye or as close as New Zealand, we stand ready to do our part to help our international counterparts in times of distress.

The minister for emergency management, Murray Watt, said

Unfortunately, over the past few years we have become experts in flood response and recovery, and these teams will be of great help to the New Zealand authorities.

In the wake of our Black Summer bushfires, the New Zealand government moved quickly to provide assistance here on the ground. Their crews also supported our State Emergency Services during the recent floods.

Our neighbours have been there for us, and we are more than willing to return the favour in their hour of need.