Australia news live updates: more than 7,000 serious incidents in disability homes; Wallabies coach Dave Rennie sacked | Australian politics

Peter Hannam

AGL says it’s not signing up new commercial and industrial customers

Gas supplies remain tight, with AGL holding off deals with commercial customers.

One month on from the Albanese government’s intervention to place a price on gas and coal to curb excessive energy costs, we’re getting a few glimpses of how the market is working – or not.

AGL Energy, one of Australia’s biggest energy retailers, says that while it’s taking on new residential gas customers, it’s not signing up new commercial and industrial ones.

The company says it’s been unable to secure “incremental” supplies for this calendar year, hence the restricted business.

A spokesperson says:

AGL understands the importance of securing long-term affordable gas supplies for its commercial and industrial customers

AGL’s C&I customers who are not contracted for the period from 1 January 2023 have been placed on to default tariffs (or remain on default tariffs).

The bigger issue, one industry person tells us this morning, will probably come when companies seek contracts for 2024 or beyond. Most big energy users weren’t waiting for the government’s price caps to ensure they had supplies for this year.

That’s when we’ll get a better sense of the effects of the government’s price caps – and its controversial “reasonable” test for prices of gas from new projects – of supplies and what it will cost consumers.

AGL’s share price is up marginally this morning (0.1% or so), shy of the overall market’s 0.5% advance – so no panic from investors.

Perrottet blames Bob Carr for putting ‘pokies on every street corner’ in NSW

Michael McGowan

Dominic Perrottet has launched a stinging attack against the former New South Wales premier Bob Carr, blaming the former Labor leader for putting “pokies on every street corner” in the state.

After Carr labelled Perrottet “unelectable” in the wake of the revelation he wore a Nazi uniform to his 21st birthday, the NSW premier hit back on Monday, saying he “won’t be taking lectures” from the former Labor premier. He said:

He opened it up. We have more pokie machines in NSW than anywhere outside of Nevada and who was responsible for that? The Bob Carr Labor government and we are still cleaning up that mess.

Perrottet has staked his reputation on taking on the powerful clubs lobby in the lead-up to the March state election in NSW, while also facing opposition from Labor and in his own cabinet room, to be able to introduce a cashless gaming card in the state.

Despite having yet to outline details of the policy, on Monday he reiterated that the “destination” was cashless gambling. He said:

I’m working through finalising the policy [but] the policy, I’ve made it very clear, is cashless gaming in New South Wales.

Perrottet will hope his criticism of Carr (he also said the former Labor premier’s gambling reforms had “created significant problems across our state”) will push attention back on to Labor and its lukewarm approach to gambling reform.

As premier in 1997, Carr relaxed poker machine gambling rules to allow their use in hotels. The decision led to a rise in the number of machines in the state, as well as gambling losses. In 2018 he described the move as a “bargain with the devil”.

Elias Visontay

Sydney commuters say they were stuck on train carriages without air conditioning

More on Sydney’s train delays.

Commuters claim they were stuck in dark carriages without air conditioning for more than an hour and a half this morning.

Passengers vented their frustrations on social media after their service came to a stop just past the Norwest stations in the city’s north-west suburbs. They said the train appeared to be lose power several times.

Those onboard have complained about a lack of information provided to them during the outage.

Shortly after 9am, passengers reported being let out of the carriages to board replacement buses. The current state of the Metro line remains unclear.

Guardian Australia contacted Sydney Metro for comment. The operator is yet to explain the issue.

Earlier this morning, Sydney Metro tweeted that the line “is currently experiencing increased wait times this morning”.

“Please listen to station announcements and message display boards for the latest information,” it said.

Frustrated passengers replied to the tweet demanding more information.

Ukraine is calling for more Australian military aid after a Russian missile strike killed 30 people in a residential block in Dnipro on Saturday, AAP reports.

More than 70 people including 13 children were rescued from the high-rise residential building.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged allies to send his nation supplies so Ukraine can go on the counter-attack. The United Kingdom will send 14 tanks and other weapons.

“At the time Australia is having a summer vacation, Ukrainians are getting killed in large numbers,” Ukraine’s ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko told ABC Radio this morning.

We have been very thankful to Australia … for the armoured personnel vehicles … however in order for us to advance and to be able to kick Russians out of Ukraine, we need a different armour and tanks provide that additional armour as well as fighting capabilities.

Russians are destroying Ukraine civil infrastructure, their recent attacks on Saturday have targeted six different cities where they have further destroyed power generation.

To win this war we need to have the right weapons and to be able to drive Russians out of Ukraine.

Cabinet minister Bill Shorten said the Defence department would continue to do what it could.

“Australia’s been contributing a great deal – outside of Nato countries we’re the largest contributor to support freedom in Ukraine,” he told ABC Radio.

Australia has already sent 90 Bushmaster vehicles to Ukraine and 70 Australian defence force personnel to the UK to help train Ukraine soldiers, with total support exceeding $650m.

That’ll be a matter for the Ukrainian government and discussions with the Australian government and our Defence officials to see what we can do.

Daniel Hurst

More on talks between Australia and China.

When asked about the meeting and whether it could signal an imminent policy change, the shadow health minister, Anne Ruston, said the Labor government “must not continue their track record on making rushed and panicked decisions, which are not based on Australian medical advice”. She said:

The opposition has been very clear that we strongly support any measures necessary to protect Australian lives and livelihoods.

The minister for health disingenuously stated that the new restrictions were necessary to ‘gather more information’ on the situation in China, but we know that the pre-flight testing undertaken by travellers in China does not achieve that, as the tests will not provide Australian health officials with any genomic sequencing.

Australia’s chief medical officer, Prof Paul Kelly, did not recommend the test requirement but the health minister, Mark Butler, has said the government was acting cautiously and wanted more transparency from China about its Covid situation. He hopes the requirement is temporary.

It is understood the Australian government views the negative test rule as reciprocal because the Chinese government also requires it of travellers to China. On Saturday Chinese authorities disclosed 59,938 Covid-related deaths between 8 December and 12 January.

Daniel Hurst

Australia and China vow to continue discussions about Covid response

Australia and China have vowed to remain in talks about the Covid response after an initial meeting between officials last week discussed the need for “ongoing communication and information sharing”.

Despite initial fears that the Albanese government’s introduction of a negative test result requirement for travellers from China could trigger “countermeasures” like the ones imposed on Japan and South Korea, officials from China and Australia appear to be sticking with dialogue.

The Australian health department has issued the following statement about the meeting, which was held virtually on Wednesday last week:

Officials from the Departments of Health and Aged Care and Foreign Affairs and Trade, along with Australian clinical experts, met virtually with China’s National Health Commission and China CDC on 11 January 2022.

The discussion provided an opportunity to exchange information on our respective COVID-19 situations and discuss clinical management approaches. Both countries agreed on the importance of ongoing communication and information sharing.

We look forward to further opportunities to discuss the Covid situation and our respective responses with China.

Dave Rennie has reportedly been fired as Wallabies coach. Eddie Jones is to coach the team for the 2023 World Cup and has signed a five-year deal that will take him through to the 2027 World Cup, according to a Sydney Morning Herald report.

Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan says “Eddie’s deep understanding of our rugby system and knowledge of our player group and pathways will lift the team to the next level,” in a statement to the Herald.

Eddie instinctively understands the Australian way of playing Rugby – this represents an opportunity to secure a coach of immense expertise and experience at the biggest competitions, and we did not want to miss it.

Here are some numbers from the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission report, which finds Australians living in disability group homes have been involved in more than 7,000 reportable incidents in the past four years.

More than 1,700 of those incidents involved a serious injury to a participant, more than 1,200 involved neglect, while there were 960 cases of unlawful physical contact and 112 of unlawful sexual contact, AAP reports.

The figures are startling given fewer than 20,000 Australians live in disability group homes.

NDIS minister Bill Shorten said the government was supporting changes to regulation and monitoring of supported accommodation on ABC RN this morning. The Albanese government’s first budget included $167bn in NDIS funding across four years.