What we learned, Wednesday 26 February
That’s where we’ll wrap up for today. The blog will be back early tomorrow morning. Have a lovely evening.
Here were today’s major developments:
Labor has approved private health premium hikes after making insurers resubmit three times. Health insurance premiums will go up by 3.37% on average from 1 April.
Bruce Lehrmann was granted an extension of time to file his outline of submissions and the chronology of the relevant events for his appeal against his defamation loss to Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson.
Labor is continuing to probe Peter Dutton’s stock market dealings around the time of the GFC. The finance minister, Katy Gallagher, told reporters today that the opposition leader still has “questions to answer” about his share holdings in 2009.
Dutton’s bank shares were also the topic of much discussion in Senate estimates today. Dutton has strongly denied any wrongdoing, saying he has always acted with integrity and that he had no access to sensitive information before buying shares in the big banks shortly before the then Rudd government proposed a major bank bailout during the financial crisis. At a press conference this morning, he said he had “declared all the detail that’s required to be declared”.
Billionaire tech entrepreneur Richard White has taken control of WiseTech Global, the logistics company he founded three decades ago, after the resignation of two-thirds of its board earlier this week.
Universities Australia CEO Luke Sheehy confirmed while speaking at the National Press Club that the organisation will release its latest survey into sexual assault and harassment on campuses some time this year.
Anthony Albanese promised an extra $2bn for Melbourne’s airport train – taking federal Labor’s total commitment to the project to $7bn – in an effort to kickstart work on the long-awaited rail line and stave off the Coalition in traditional Labor seats.
Australia’s 39 universities will unilaterally enforce a new definition of antisemitism on campuses after a parliamentary inquiry recommended higher education providers “closely align” with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition.
Updated
Bruce Lehrmann granted extension of time in appeal against defamation loss
Bruce Lehrmann has been granted an extension of time to file his outline of submissions and the chronology of the relevant events for his appeal against his defamation loss to Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson.
Justice Michael Lee found last year that Lehrmann was not defamed by Ten and Wilkinson when The Project broadcast an interview with Brittany Higgins on 15 February 2021 in which she alleged she was raped by a staffer.
Federal court justice Wendy Abraham has granted him until Monday 3 March to file the necessary paperwork and has also extended the time for the respondents to file any submissions in reply to 12 May.
Lehrmann has always denied the rape allegation and pleaded not guilty at his criminal trial in the Australian Capital Territory supreme court which was aborted.
Prosecutors did not seek a retrial due to concerns about Higgins’s mental health.
Updated
