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Coalition says Albanese ‘sneaky’ with statements on its relationship with China
The shadow minister for trade and tourism, Kevin Hogan, has laid into prime minister Anthony Albanese, calling him “sneaky Albanese” for some of his recent statements.
Hogan alleges that the PM “rushed through extreme industrial relations” that the PM was being “sneaky” on the imposition of price caps on gas and coal, which included rebates to ensure continued supply.
The PM yesterday denied reports that figure would reach up to $450m, although the Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, later appeared to confirm the figure was possible.
Here is what Hogan had to say in a statement:
At the Woodford Folk festival, ‘Sneaky Albanese’ claimed that the Coalition ‘chose’ not to have a single conversation with China in our last term of government. This is simply untrue. We always wanted dialogue and this is well documented.
The Albanese government has also rushed through extreme industrial relations laws through the parliament. This policy was never mentioned during the last election campaign only months before. This was underhanded and sneaky.
And this week it was exposed that Labor will pay many hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to coal and gas companies for its price cap intervention.
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Tributes are pouring in for the football legend Pele, who died this morning aged 82. The Brazilian great, who won three World Cups, has made the front pages of newspapers around the world:
Australian Open is staying put in Victoria, minister says, amid reports of outside interest
The Victorian government is adamant the Australian Open is staying put, despite the tournament director Craig Tiley’s concerns about outside interest in the grand slam event, AAP has reported.
The state’s police minister, Anthony Carbines, says the state government will continue to do whatever is necessary to keep supporting the event.
He was responding to Tiley’s comments that Melbourne risked losing the showpiece tennis tournament interstate or overseas unless there was continued investment in the Melbourne Park precinct, including a new grandstand.
While Melbourne is contracted to host the Open until at least 2039, Tiley said Tennis Australia’s finances had been stretched as the tournament was held under Covid restrictions.
But Carbines says Victoria will keep giving the Open solid financial support:
The Australian Open is not going anywhere and the best thing Victorians can do is get out there and show their support.
We’re not surprised that there will always be those seeking (the Open) from other countries and other states.
With over a billion dollars invested by our government in the Australian Open, both in infrastructure and supporting that event, we’ll continue to support the Australian Open and the team there in whatever they need.
And with that I leave the blog with the always brilliant Cait Kelly. Thanks for reading.
Top of the pups: the most popular dog names for 2022
Daisy and Harley are the real top dogs according to The Lost Dogs’ Home list of the most popular pet names for 2022, AAP reports.
The Lost Dogs’ Home announced its top pet names for the year on Friday based on its adoption records, with Daisy taking out the top spot for female dogs and Harley snatching the title for males.
The next most popular names for female dogs were Honey, Lucy, Gracie and Lily, while the top five for male dogs was rounded out by Frankie, Archie, Charlie and Teddy.
Luna came in at No 1 for female cats and Charlie took first place for male cats.
Bella, Daisy, Coco and Cookie rounded out the list for female felines, while the top five most popular male cat names were Leo, Milo, Oreo and George.
Traditional names like Charlie and Leo have held their ground in the list, continuing what the shelter saw in 2021, The Lost Dogs’ Home’s spokesperson Suzana Talevski said.
The shelter tends to see older people opting for more traditional names, while younger age groups more often go for names that are trending.
‘‘We have definitely seen a trend towards sweeter sounding names and being in the foodie capital of Australia, the trend towards food names is also growing,’’ Ms Talevski said.
‘‘Choosing what to name your dog is personal and people tend to take it very seriously.
“It’s always a good idea to remember it should be a name you are comfortable using in public.”
Tony Burke announces Australian content quotas for streaming services
Paul Karp
The arts minister, Tony Burke, has spoken at the Woodford folk festival about the national cultural policy the government will release in January, confirming that Australian content quotas on streaming services will be introduced.
Burke said:
Unless the automatic structural disadvantage we have [is addressed], that we are a relatively small population and a predominantly English-speaking country, so the competition from overseas will always be cheaper per minute to produce for the available audience – that puts us on a disadvantage. And the only way you fix that disadvantage is with Australian content quotas. It’s the only way …
There is some great Australian content coming through on Stan and Netflix … Foxtel, similarly, is producing great Australian drama, they [Foxtel] have a content quota but Stan don’t, Netflix don’t, none of the streamers … Over the next couple of times we meet during this term [of government], they will have Australian content quotas.
Burke also promised arms-length decision-making on arts funding, to be judged by artists’ peers, not by the minister, promising he would not “inflict” his strong views about his favourite art on audiences. He cited Guns N’ Roses being funded twice through Rise grants as an example of ministerial decision-making.
Burke said one pillar of the policy will be to treat artists as workers, promising to update laws to ensure fair remuneration. For example, he noted that borrowing library books results in a royalty being paid to the author but not borrowing of ebooks.
Burke also promised to “re-gear” the Australia Council so that it doesn’t only deal with the “funded” parts of the art sector, suggesting this would open it up to music and writers who have been “consistently underfunded”.
He concluded:
The arts, our artists, our creators allow us to imagine better. Woodford allows us to imagine better. Allows us through true representation to see ourselves, to know each other, and to invite the rest of the world to get to know us. We’ve had 10 years where from government a culture war was waged. Leave Woodford on the first or second of the new year knowing that in 2023: the culture war is over, and cultural policy is ready to begin.
SA records 7,671 new Covid cases and 18 deaths; NT records 369 new cases
South Australia has recorded 7,671 new Covid cases and 18 deaths in the past week, another significant drop compared to the week before.
There are 255 people in hospital, with 14 in ICU.
The Northern Territory has recorded 369 new cases this week, with no deaths to report. There are currently 47 people in hospital with the virus.
Body of missing angler found in Tasmania lake
The body of a missing angler has been found in a lake in central Tasmania, AAP reports.
Police divers found the man’s body about 11.40am on Friday after a boating accident at the Great Lake on Thursday afternoon.
While the body is yet to be identified, police believe it’s the missing 50-year-old Sheffield man.
He was taking a break ashore while on a solo fishing expedition at Boundary Bay when his boat floated away.
It appears he swum out to the vessel in an attempt to retrieve it.
A bystander raised the alarm with authorities about 12.40pm on Thursday.
The boat was located some hours later but the man was not found until Friday morning.
A report will be prepared for the coroner.
“Police would like to thank the local community for the support and assistance that was provided during the search effort,” Tasmanian police said in a statement.
“Our thoughts are with the man’s family and loved ones at this difficult time.”
Tasmania’s Great Lake is the largest freshwater lake in Australia with an area of 158 square kilometres.
ING Bank apologises over Christmas payment glitch
ING Bank has released a statement apologising to customers after a glitch resulted in many failing to receive their salaries over Christmas.
The bank posted the statement to its social media accounts, where it says a glitch in the “payment chain” meant some did not receive their salaries as usual:
We are aware some customers are waiting on payments to enter their ING accounts.
All incoming payments sent to us have been processed at our end.
However, it appears there is a glitch in the payment chain which means some payments have not been sent from other institutions.
The bank issued another statement, saying the payments have been delivered, and that “another institution” had a glitch “at their end” which resulted in the issue:
We can now confirm that payments that were not sent to ING have now been delivered and processed. We ask impacted customers to please check their account. We have had confirmation from another institution that there was a technical issue at their end which resulted in us and other institutions not receiving the payments.
Queensland police investigating death of two-year-old girl
The sudden death of a two-year-old girl in suspicious circumstances in north Queensland is being probed by police, reports AAP.
Child protection detectives say the girl was already dead when she was brought to Mackay Base hospital about 8.30pm on Thursday.
They said an autopsy would be conducted on Friday to determine the cause of her death.
“Investigations are ongoing and there is no further information available at this time,” police said in a statement on Friday.
Coalition says Albanese ‘sneaky’ with statements on its relationship with China
The shadow minister for trade and tourism, Kevin Hogan, has laid into prime minister Anthony Albanese, calling him “sneaky Albanese” for some of his recent statements.
Hogan alleges that the PM “rushed through extreme industrial relations” that the PM was being “sneaky” on the imposition of price caps on gas and coal, which included rebates to ensure continued supply.
The PM yesterday denied reports that figure would reach up to $450m, although the Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, later appeared to confirm the figure was possible.
Here is what Hogan had to say in a statement:
At the Woodford Folk festival, ‘Sneaky Albanese’ claimed that the Coalition ‘chose’ not to have a single conversation with China in our last term of government. This is simply untrue. We always wanted dialogue and this is well documented.
The Albanese government has also rushed through extreme industrial relations laws through the parliament. This policy was never mentioned during the last election campaign only months before. This was underhanded and sneaky.
And this week it was exposed that Labor will pay many hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to coal and gas companies for its price cap intervention.
Australian Red Cross has busiest year on record in NSW
AAP is reporting that the Australian Red Cross has had its busiest year on record in New South Wales after multiple flood disasters.
The humanitarian aid and community services charity said its emergency services teams were activated for 262 days in 2022.
It supported 171 NSW evacuation centres and recovery hubs and provided mental health first aid to 29,000 people.
The Red Cross NSW director, Kate Miranda, said staff and volunteers across the state had been supporting people impacted by floods since February.
“Since the start of the Northern Rivers floods on 27th February to when the Moulamein Recovery Assistance Point closed on 20th December, we had just 36 days we were not responding to a disaster,” Miranda said on Friday.
Red Cross emergency services staff and volunteers have supported people in the Northern Rivers, Murray Riverina, Central West, Far West, Central Coast, Hunter, Hawkesbury and Sydney.
In 2022, 25 emergency services staff coordinated with 373 volunteers in the evacuation centres and recovery hubs, providing more than 8,000 voluntary hours of service.
“Our volunteers are continuing to provide outreach support services in Eugowra and the Northern Rivers,” Miranda said in a statement.
The flood events of 2022 came on top of two years of Covid-19 and the 2019/20 summer bushfires.
“Thousands of people have experienced three years of compounding disasters. It’s taking a toll on people’s mental health,” Miranda said.
The NSW emergency services team has 36 paid staff and more than 1,200 volunteers trained in emergency response and psychological first aid.
Acoss CEO says welfare payment increase inadequate
The head of the Australian Council of Social Services has said the proposed 6% increase to welfare payments is “not enough” amid an ongoing cost of living crisis.
The chief executive of Acoss, Cassandra Goldie, told Sky News this morning that while the increase was in line with indexation, it still isn’t enough to keep up with household expenses.
Remember rent has gone up by 18%, food has gone up by 20% and then we have energy bills which have gone up by 20%.
At the moment, the indexation yes is welcomed, but it doesn’t fix the big problem which is the need to increase those base rate payments.
So we’re really facing crushing increases in the essentials for people on very low incomes.
So those income support payments are not enough in our view.
Australian Retailers Association hails biggest festive season on record
AAP is reporting Australians have spent a record $75bn in the lead-up to Christmas but the spending frenzy didn’t stop there.
The Australian Retailers Association also recorded unprecedented growth on Boxing Day with the $1.2bn spend equating to 15% more than last year.
CEO Paul Zahra said 2022 was the biggest festive season on record.
“It is unprecedented,” Zahra said.
He said the spend was propped up by Australians wanting to reward themselves after a tough year as well as price drops attracting customers struggling with rising costs.
“It is remarkable that in this period of economic turbulence, traders have well and truly smashed it out of the ballpark as consumers revelled in ‘freedom’ spending,” he said. “Australians are seeing shopping as an experience and a reward after such a challenging period.”
Growth was spurred by department stores raking in $150m on Boxing Day, with sales up almost 25% from last year.
The data compiled by Westpac DataX found household goods made up the largest proportion of spending, with $315m dished out on Boxing Day.
Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services were up 23% and clothing and apparel 20%.
DataX head Jade Clarke said the de-identified analysis of card spend gave important insights into Australians’ habits.
“The data shows that despite a year of increasing living costs, Australian retail sales have remained strong over the holiday period, improving on last year,” she said.
Paul Karp
Dan Tehan also criticised the way Labor is handling the voice to parliament.
He said:
It is incredibly disappointing the way Anthony Albanese is going about this. He’s not consulting, he’s not trying to make it bipartisan, he’s using it to try and divide – and that is the most disappointing thing about the debate …
We don’t know what we’re having a conscience vote on. We’ve seen some details coming out yesterday, it might have 20 people, it might have 24 people … Will the Australian people be given a choice of Indigenous recognition in our constitution without a voice … given the voice has been so divisive.
Tehan accused Albanese of “treating the opposition with contempt”, warning that if “he thinks this is the way to get a referendum through in this country, he’s going about it completely the wrong way”.
Fact check: the Coalition were involved in a joint parliamentary committee on constitutional recognition in 2018, in fact it was co-chaired by their now shadow attorney general, Julian Leeser. Until recently, recognition through a voice to parliament was bipartisan, as the Coalition under Scott Morrison promised to do the same.
All that Labor has done is decide to push on with a referendum on the principle of whether to establish the body, and then leave legislation for its precise design until after the referendum. Is that failing to be bipartisan? Or just not giving the opposition a veto on whether to push on? Tehan says the former; many would argue it’s the latter.
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