What we learned today, Saturday 4 February
That’s our work here done for today. I hope you’re having a stellar Saturday, and please join us again tomorrow. Here are today’s highlights:
Changes are coming to Medicare – what can you expect?
Treasurer Jim Chalmers wrote a thoughtful and nuanced essay, and it was met by furious belching from the opinion pages, Katharine Murphy wrote.
Luke Henriques-Gomes has been doing a bang-up job following the revelations from the robodebt royal commission – here’s the latest.
As the defence minister, Richard Marles, visits his counterpart in Washington, the US president, Joe Biden, has been urged to fast-track research into using non-weapons grade uranium to power submarines.
Mostafa Rachwani has taken a look at the horrors of Sydney’s rental market.
And here’s how you can see the snazzy green comet streaking across our skies.
All that, and a second Chinese spy balloon has been spotted! This one’s over Latin America. Spy balloons. Imagine popping one of those and watching it whirl around before coming to rest, wrinkled, in a corner somewhere. What a time.
Until tomorrow!
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Anthony Albanese calls Scott Morrison’s Pep-11 actions ‘dishonest’ and ‘incompetent’
AAP is reporting on the ongoing fallout from that time Scott Morrison got himself sworn into a swag of portfolios:
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has described his predecessor’s decision to halt a gas drilling project off the NSW coast, triggering a legal fight, as “dishonest” and “incompetent”.
The federal government and energy company Asset Energy have agreed to end their legal battle over Morrison’s decision, by proposing consent orders to the court.
Asset Energy launched a legal challenge to the Pep-11 decision last year, saying Morrison breached the requirements of procedural fairness and that he was not validly appointed as the responsible minister of the joint authority.
Albanese said:
What I won’t do is do what the former government did, and essentially create a situation whereby legally, it wasn’t tenable.
This situation has arisen because of the incompetence and the dishonesty of the Morrison government.
Morrison used additional powers he had gained by swearing himself in as resources minister to intervene in the Pep-11 decision and veto it in 2021.
“No one was told that Scott Morrison was sworn in as the resources minister, in order to override Keith Pitt as resources minister. That’s how we got into this debacle where the company has made legal action against the federal government,” Albanese said.
Petroleum Exploration Permit 11, known as Pep-11, is a petroleum well off the NSW coast between Wollongong and Newcastle, covering about 8,200 sq km.
If the court accepts the orders, Morrison’s decision would be overturned and put back to the Commonwealth-NSW Offshore Petroleum Joint Authority for consideration, the federal government said on Friday.
The federal and NSW state governments are both members of the decision-making authority.
-AAP
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OK, enough with the colourful pics (for now, anyway). Katharine Murphy got Anthony Albanese on the podcast this week, and it’s a ripper. There’s policy heft in there, but also some great nuggets about what it’s like to be the prime minister. Hint: he buys in bulk.
Wait! There’s more colour and movement from prime minister Anthony Albanese’s lunar new year celebrations …
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These are all fascinating – check out the annual photographer of the year winners:
This is a nice change from the nodding shoulder pads (the local luminaries who usually feature in the background at press conferences) … although the kid does not look chuffed to be there.
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New York man heads off on dream holiday to Sydney, Australia only to end up in Sidney, Montana
A New York man heading off on a dream holiday to Sydney, Australia to take a cruise got the shock of his life when he looked out of the plane window to see snow-capped mountains rather than the golden sands of Bondi beach.
“I saw a mountaintop covered in white snow. At that point, I knew I was in trouble,” Kingsley Burnett, 62, told local TV channel KTVQ after he realised he had booked and caught a flight to the tiny Montana city of Sidney rather than the Australian city.
“It’s a matter of acronyms. The S-Y-D as opposed to S-D-Y. Somebody has to fix that,” Burnett said, explaining how a mix-up over airport codes had led to his unfortunate mistake that had landed him in Billings, Montana, as a tiny jet waited to make his connection to the wrong Sydney.
Burnett also admitted to the TV station that he had been trying to be frugal for his trip and been pleasantly surprised at the cheapness of the flight he had found for his planned trip halfway across the globe.
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Police looking for truck driver who allegedly backed into police car
South Australian police are hunting for a truck driver who allegedly backed into a police car, ramming its front at a traffic control stop before speeding away.
Police stopped the small tipper truck off Lawrence Hargrave Way in Adelaide as it was allegedly not displaying a rear number plate on Thursday afternoon.
As the officer was getting out of his car, the driver of the truck quickly reversed and collided with the front of the police vehicle, causing minor damage, police allege. The driver then sped off, they say.
Police have released images of the vehicle, believed to be a 2007 Mitsubishi Canter tipper truck.
-AAP
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Here is Guardian Australia’s weekend wrap of essential reads from the past seven days, selected by Imogen Dewey.
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WA Liberals have all-women leadership team after election of state president
The Western Australian Liberal party has elected Caroline Di Russo as its state president, making for an all-women leadership team including the state leader, Libby Mettam, and WA federal leader, Michaelia Cash.
The party was hammered at the 2021 state election, with Mettam and the former state leader David Honey being the only Liberal MPs left in the lower house.
Mettam challenged for the leadership and took on the job on 30 January after Honey declined to contest the position.
Di Russo, after her election at the party’s state council meeting on Saturday, said she looked forward to working closely with Mettam and Cash in preparation for the 2025 state and federal elections.
“Our timeless Liberal values remain fit for purpose. They’re the answer to many of the challenges we must face as a country, and the key to unlocking the enormous potential of our great state and the people within it,” she said in a statement.
“But only by electing more Liberal voices to parliament can our values have that positive impact.”
Cash said Di Russo’s election as state president was well deserved.
-AAP
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ABC apologises for ‘incomplete picture’ of Alice Springs meeting
The ABC has apologised for broadcasting an “incomplete” picture of a community meeting in Alice Springs at which attenders were quoted claiming there was a “disgusting display of white supremacy”.
After complaints the report unfairly characterised the sentiment at the 30 January meeting, ABC News reviewed its reporting and published an apology on Friday.
“The views of those interviewed who had attended the meeting were accurately reported and were clearly newsworthy,” the statement said.
“However, we acknowledge that one report on AM was incomplete, and did not adequately cover the full context of the meeting or the range of perspectives expressed at it. ABC News apologises to audiences for providing an incomplete picture of the event in this instance.”
The AM report remains online with an editor’s note.
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NSW Greens announce plan to deal with plastic recycling crisis
The New South Wales Greens have proposed a solution to the soft plastics crisis, after supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths were ordered to dump more than 5,200 tonnes of soft plastic – currently being stored at warehouses across NSW – into landfill.
Greens MP and the party’s waste spokesperson, Cate Faehrmann, unveiled the plan on Saturday, which includes immediately redirecting the entirety of the more than $800m a year waste levy “towards dealing with the waste crisis”.
The Greens’ plan also includes dedicating $100m from the waste levy towards establishing soft plastics recycling schemes; establishing a “plastics reduction taskforce” to develop a soft plastics recycling strategy; mandating procurement targets for recycled plastic content in single use plastics as well as products like roads and pathways, railway bollards and street furniture, and expanding the trial of kerbside soft plastics recycling to Sydney.
Faehrmann said the environment minister “needs to rule out this waste going to landfill”. She added:
The minister needs to find a safe storage solution and invest in those businesses that already have soft plastic recycling schemes to be able to scale them up.
The collapse of RedCycle and the discovery of millions of tonnes of stockpiled soft plastics that are now on their way to landfill has revealed a deeply broken plastics recycling system. The Greens’ plan will create a sustainable soft plastics recycling scheme that won’t disappear overnight.
The community is crying out for options to recycle their waste, this should be a no brainer.
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A highly anticipated comet, currently in its closest approach to Earth in 50,000 years, will finally be visible from Australian skies in the coming days.
Here is a guide to spotting the rare celestial spectacle:
Decision to allow MDMA and psilocybin to be prescribed is exciting, scientists says
The CSIRO scientist Peter Duggan has been talking to the ABC about the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s decision to allow MDMA and psilocybin to be prescribed – it was big news that dropped late yesterday, but you can catch up here.
Duggan said:
It is very intriguing and exciting, but the exact way that these drugs work is still yet to be fully determined. They act on a particular serotonin receptor … serotonin is the feel happy drug, but if you are suffering from one of these serious depressive illnesses, anything that can improve your mood can be quite beneficial.
These drugs work to improve your mood, and they do seem to have quite a long-lasting effect from one single dose, apparently.
Only a limited number of psychiatrists would be prescribing them at first, he said, but that number would increase as more were trained up.
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Richard Marles meets with US defence secretary at Pentagon
Here’s the defence minister, Richard Marles, on his Pentagon meeting with the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin:
An excellent meeting with my good friend @SecDef in Washington today.
— Richard Marles (@RichardMarlesMP) February 3, 2023
Plenty to discuss ahead of a big year of Australia-US cooperation including AUKUS. pic.twitter.com/CR5RfOeCeP
And here’s Austin – he kicked off that #UnbreakableAlliance hashtag when he met Marles last year:
My friend @RichardMarlesMP, Australia’s Deputy PM, visited the Pentagon today to discuss the #UnbreakableAlliance between our two countries — a mateship designed to uphold a free and open Indo-Pacific. pic.twitter.com/zd5KXhlIXn
— Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III (@SecDef) February 3, 2023
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Teals and other NSW independents seek to kill controversial Pep-11 gas permit
The “kingmaker” Sydney MP, Alex Greenwich, and a coalition of independent political hopefuls will attempt to kill the controversial Pep-11 gas exploration licence by banning development of the area through a change in New South Wales law.
The six independents, who could hold the balance of power in under two months, will on Saturday unveil a bill that would amend the state planning act to ban certain types of development on land and at sea, negating possible future federal approval.
“It’s remarkable that the federal Labor government would seek to overturn the only good environmental policy of the former Coalition government,” Greenwich said.
Exclusive by Tamsin Rose:
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Psychiatrists to be allowed to prescribe MDMA and psilocybin
After decades of “demonisation”, psychiatrists will be able to prescribe MDMA and psilocybin in Australia from July this year.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration made the surprise announcement on Friday afternoon.
The drugs will only be allowed to be used in a very limited way, and remain otherwise prohibited, but the move was described as a “very welcome step away from what has been decades of demonisation” by Dr David Caldicott, a clinical senior lecturer in emergency medicine at the Australian National University.
Read more:
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Sydneysiders happy with quality of life but concerned about cost of living, poll finds
Sydneysiders are happy with their quality of life and think it has improved as the city has bounced back from the worst of the pandemic, but many are concerned about the cost of living, a new poll has found.
The poll, conducted by Ipsos for urban thinktank the Committee for Sydney, surveyed 1,000 people from across greater Sydney between 5 and 17 January, and found that 81% of Sydney residents are satisfied with their quality of life, which is up from 74% in 2022. That figure is 75% in New York City and 76% in London.
Many believe life is improving in the city too – 37% said quality of life was better than 12 months ago, up from 19% in 2022 and 20% in 2021.
However, 85% of the city is concerned about cost of living, a figure that has remained stubborn in recent years. The poll found a correlation between concern with cost of living and a poorer sense of quality of life.
Sydneysiders are also returning to the office, with 33% of workers now commuting five days a week, up from 28% in 2022. There’s been a significant drop in the numbers working from home every day, with just 12% not going into the office at all, down from 30% in 2022.
Of the more concerning findings, the poll found that 64% of residents in the north of Sydney agreed nightlife was safe, 61% in the eastern and city suburbs, but this figure dropped to 42% in the western suburbs.
Ehssan Veiszadeh, the interim CEO of the Committee for Sydney, said “there’s a tremendous sense of confidence in the community heading into 2023” but that “the one outlier is access to affordable, decent housing, and cost of living”.
When you break down the results, it’s clear people who are concerned about cost of living are more likely to be pessimistic about the future.
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Port Macquarie cleans up after ‘mini-cyclone’
A “mini-cyclone” has left significant damage across the coastal NSW city of Port Macquarie, with trees and powerlines downed and roofs ripped from buildings, AAP’s Phoebe Loomes reports.
Multiple emergency crews responded after the sudden sudden storm hit the coastal city just after 3pm on Friday. Some 60 calls for help were made to the State Emergency Service in the 30 minutes to 4pm, with reports of roofs blown from buildings, fallen trees and requests for flood rescues.
The number of calls had grown to 150 by 5.30pm, said Michael Ward from the Port Macquarie unit of the SES. “There are definitely roofs off buildings, there’s definitely significant damage to buildings in and around the Port Macquarie area,” Ward said.
Yikes, Clarence Street has seen better days. This from my dad after a violent storm swept through Port Macquarie this afternoon. pic.twitter.com/jX7U0rNwSX
— Brooke Wylie (@brookewylie) February 3, 2023
The SES was prioritising re-establishing safe access around the town, before focusing on clearing access to homes and businesses, he said. There have been no reports of significant injuries.
People were being urged to stay well away from downed power lines and to stay at home unless travel was necessary.
Winds ripped the roof from an apartment block at Hastings River Drive in the city, leaving frightened residents fleeing downstairs for cover, Fire and Rescue NSW said.
A fallen tree also hit a house causing a roof to tear off a home in Hay Street. Firefighters were called to one of the city’s private hospitals after it was damaged in the storm.
Vehicles were also hit by falling trees, including a truck and car which were both struck by downed gum trees on Murray Street, in separate incidents. Powerlines were also been downed in Hayward Street, where firefighters assisted.
Local residents described the event as a “mini-tornado” and “mini-cyclone”, sharing images showing intense gusts and heavy rainfall.
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China has questions to answer over balloon in US airspace, deputy PM says
China has questions to answer over the “weather balloon”* (ahem, spy balloon) that has been zipping around US airspace, the deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, says.
Marles, who is also defence minister, is in Washington discussing defence cooperation, Aukus and regional security with the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin.
According to the Australian Financial Review, Marles said he didn’t know more about the balloon than what was already public, and he was unaware of anything similar over Australia.
He said:
There are a lot of questions associated with it, which I think everyone has. We all want the answers to those questions from China.
* (China’s claim it was just a weather balloon have been described as a “laughable alibi”).
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Restrictions have had success but an Aboriginal health group warns the ‘underlying drivers of destructive drinking’ must be dealt with.
Read more on another tense and challenging week for Alice Springs:
What we’ve learned from the robodebt royal commission
This week, the robodebt royal commissioner, Catherine Holmes, summed up the tenor of the evidence so far: “Everybody says it was really somebody else’s doing, and it’s a bit hard to get to the bottom of whose doing it was.”
The hearings this fortnight focused primarily on the key period in late 2016 and early 2017 when the robodebt scheme exploded into public controversy.
Here are some of the key things we learned over the past two weeks:
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For a couple of days this week, Dominic Perrottet was riding high.
The ClubsNSW boss, Josh Landis, whose campaign against the premier’s proposed cashless gaming scheme was fuelling division within the coalition, was sacked, creating some clear air for Perrottet amid a volatile state election campaign.
That relative peace for the coalition didn’t last long. By Thursday Perrottet was facing questions about the actions of the office of the former deputy premier John Barilaro.
Despite being out of politics for more than a year, Barilaro is suddenly a focal point in the election campaign.
Read more:
Government consultation for early childhood strategy
The Albanese government is encouraging Australians to be part of a public consultation on early childhood development to help it form strategy in the policy area.
Ahead of its Early Years Summit to be held on 17 February, the government is seeking input as it hopes to “break down silos and create an integrated, whole-of-Commonwealth approach” to ensure children aged five and below have the “tools and supports to thrive no matter where they are born or raised”.
Minister for social services Amanda Rishworth said:
“We want to hear from a diverse range of voices in the community, including parents, families, carers and caregivers, educators, child and maternal healthcare providers, social workers, early years experts and anyone who wants to contribute to improving the lives of Australian children.
Getting it right in the early years’ means not only that children and their families are supported to thrive in these critical years of development but also that any investments we make now can have broader, sustained benefits for our society and economy across current and future generations.”
Minister for early childhood education Dr Anne Aly said “our children are our most precious resource, investing in them now is an investment in our future”. She added:
“We know that 90 per cent of brain development happens in the first five years, which is why it’s so important we have a holistic approach to the early years.”
Visit the department of social services website to access the discussion paper to make a submission and for other opportunities to contribute to the strategy. Submissions are open until 30 April.
Sydney renter hit by 35% hike as housing crisis sparks calls to cap increases
Millie Bannister was already anxious about how much the rental market had skyrocketed in Sydney when she received a letter from her landlord saying they wanted to increase her rent by 35%.
“Last time, it only increased by $60, but now it’s going to increase by $270 a week, which is a 35% increase, and around $12,000 per year. For me and my roommate, two people in their mid-20s, it is not [easy] to wrangle with.”
The 26-year-old heads up the mental health charity Allknd, and says the rent increase will change her life and her aspirations, amid calls for the state government to consider regulating rent caps.
More on the surging rental crisis in Sydney, where renters have faced an 11% increase in the past year:
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Bushfire emergency warning in southwest WA
A bushfire emergency warning has been issued for communities in the shire of Nannup in Western Australia’s southwest, with residents told “to act immediately to survive”.
The Parks and Wildlife Service warning is in place for people in areas bounded by Cundinup-Kirup Road and Cundinup-Dudinyillup Road in the Maidment locality and Dudinyillup.
“If the way is clear, leave now for a safer place. Do not wait and see, leaving at the last minute is deadly,” the warning said.
“You are in danger and need to act immediately to survive. There is a threat to lives and homes.”
People have been advised to shelter in their homes if they cannot leave the area safely.
The fire was fast moving and uncontained and there had been multiple ignitions.
Watch and act alerts are also in place for surrounding districts in the Nannup shire.
Around 50 firefighters are battling the blaze and strengthening containment lines.
The emergency warning has been issued as extreme or high fire danger ratings are in place for multiple weather districts across WA.
-AAP
Court ruling paves way for shakeup of decentralised finance
Self-proclaimed bitcoin creator Craig Wright’s lawsuit against bitcoin network developers to try to recover billions of dollars can continue to trial, a London court says.
The ruling paves the way for a trial on whether developers owe duties to the owners of digital assets - which a lawyer representing some developers said could pose a fundamental challenge to decentralised finance if Wright won.
Australian computer scientist Wright is suing 15 developers in an effort to retrieve about 111,000 bitcoin - currently worth about $US2.5 billion ($A3.6 billion) - after he lost the encrypted keys to access them when his home computer network was allegedly hacked.
Wright’s Seychelles-based company Tulip Trading is taking legal action against the developers of three networks, arguing they are obliged to write software patches to help Tulip recover the bitcoin.
Tulip’s case was thrown out last year but the court of appeal ruled on Friday that developers arguably do owe duties to owners, which should be determined at a full trial.
Judge Colin Birss said Tulip had a realistic argument that cryptocurrency is “entrusted” to network developers, who could therefore have a duty to, for example, “introduce code so that an owner’s bitcoin can be transferred to safety”.
Wright says he wrote the bitcoin white paper which first outlined the technology behind the digital assets under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008, however the claim is hotly disputed. He said in a statement that he was delighted with the ruling.
James Ramsden, a lawyer who represented 13 of the 14 developers involved in the appeal, told Reuters that code writers are “incredibly nervous” about the case, which could leave them liable for massive sums of money if Wright wins.
-AAP
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Good morning!
The medical community is reacting to a major government report into Medicare funding, which has put forward suggestions to update the system for Australia’s healthcare needs in 2023.
The proposals include different specialists working better together, allowing pharmacists and nurses to do more tasks and take pressure off GPs, and changes to how the government pays for doctor’s visits.
The head of the Australian Medical Association, the peak body representing doctors, said the report had nothing in it to help Australians immediately access more affordable and timely health care.
While opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston said while the report pointed out the flaws with the system, it failed to provide specific actions or timelines for improvement.
“The government needs to stop talking about the challenges facing Australians and start doing something about them,” she said.
“Actions speak louder than words and what we have here is just more words and still no actions.”
We’ll be bringing you more updates and reactions to that news throughout the day.
Making news elsewhere:
The Biden administration is being urged to fast-track research into submarines that do not use weapons-grade uranium, as four Democratic politicians warn the Aukus deal with Australia makes the task “even more pressing”.
Supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths have been ordered to dump more than 5,200 tonnes of soft plastic – currently being stored at warehouses across New South Wales – into landfill.
After decades of “demonisation”, psychiatrists will be able to prescribe MDMA and psilocybin in Australia from July this year.
A US appeals court on Thursday declared unconstitutional a federal law making it a crime for people under domestic violence restraining orders to own firearms.
We’ll have plenty more news throughout the day. Stay tuned.
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