What we learned today, Tuesday 17 March
Thanks for joining us today. We’ll be back with more live news tomorrow morning. Here’s a reminder of today’s top stories:
The Reserve Bank of Australia has increased interest rates amid a global energy shock that threatens to push Australian inflation towards 5%.
The RBA governor, Michele Bullock, says higher petrol prices were “not the reason” for the cash rate hike.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, says pressures are real on Australians and more savings will be delivered in the May budget.
The defence minister, Richard Marles, and his New Zealand counterpart, Judith Collins, signed a statement of intent, “operationalising the Australia and New Zealand alliance, with a focus to vision of Anzac 2035”.
The energy minister, Chris Bowen, has issued an urgent call for Australians to stop panic buying fuel amid the Middle East conflict.
The consumer watchdog has summoned major fuel suppliers and retailers to an emergency meeting to demand explanations for the recent surge in petrol prices.
The federal government is widening its crackdown on dodgy immigration agents.
The NSW government has introduced measures it says will toughen penalties and lead to more prosecutions for hate crimes against the LGBTQ+ community.
The South Australia opposition leader, Ashton Hurn, says the Liberals will preference One Nation over Labor in her seat of Schubert in the upcoming state election.
Updated
Jacinta Allan responds to allegations she was warned about wrongdoing on construction sites in 2023
The fallout from the CFMEU saga that continues to threaten the Victorian premier Jacinta Allan’s leadership has continued at state parliament this morning, with allegations a top infrastructure executive warned her of serious wrongdoing on Labor’s $100bn Big Build well before the scandal emerged in 2024.
A report in the Age this morning alleges that Kevin Devlin, director general of the Victorian Infrastructure Delivery Authority, which oversees much of the Big Build, repeatedly raised concerns about the construction union with Allan when she was transport infrastructure minister in 2023.
Speaking this morning, Allan confirmed Devlin had raised allegations of criminal activity on work sites at a meeting in June 2023. She said she then referred the allegations to the Department of Transport:
When Kevin Devlin, raised with me in a meeting in June 2023 that ... the authority at the time was aware of anecdotal claims of alleged criminal behaviour, I ordered for those claims to be investigated by the agency with the Department of Transport at the time. They came back and provided advice that there was no evidence that there was systematic behaviour.
She said she was “still concerned”, so referred the matter to police:
I was concerned that this needed to be investigated further, which is why, in addition to the authority referring this matter to Victoria police, I also, too in June of 2023 wrote to the chief commissioner of Victoria police.
Allan was asked multiple times how many allegations of CFMEU misconduct were raised with her but she refused to provide a figure.
It wasn’t until mid 2024 that the Age’s Building Bad investigation was released, triggering state secretary John Setka’s resignation and the union being placed in administration.
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