What happened Monday 5 February 2023
That’s a wrap for today’s live blog. Here’s a summary of today’s news:
Australian academic Yang Hengjun has been given a suspended death sentence by a Chinese court, after five years in detention on espionage charges.
Queensland police have arrested five teenage boys and charged one of them after the stabbing death of a 70-year-old woman at an Ipswich shopping centre, in front of her granddaughter.
Suppliers of electric vehicles are the big winners from the Albanese government’s fuel efficiency standards with one industry group saying half of all new cars will be electric by 2029 and 100% by 2035 on the proposed trajectory.
The Australian federal police have confirmed there are multiple reviews being conducted into an undercover counter-terror operation which targeted a 13-year-old autistic boy with a fixation on Islamic State, as calls grow for a public inquiry into the case.
Have a pleasant evening
Updated
Government launches review into national security-related funding for thinktanks and universities
National security-related funding to thinktanks and universities will be put under the microscope as the federal government launches a review.
The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) announced today that it had commissioned “an independent review of commonwealth funding for national security strategic policy work”.
PM&C said in a statement:
The scope of the review will include all Commonwealth funding to non-government organisations to conduct national security-related research, education and engagement activities.”
No particular thinktanks or institutions are singled out in the terms of reference, but it appears that the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney are among a range of bodies that would fall within the scope.
The University of Queensland chancellor, Peter Varghese, who is also a former secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, will lead the review.
The terms of reference call for recommendations “to assist agencies conducting relevant activities while achieving value-for-money, administrative efficiency, and appropriate levels of governance, accountability, probity and transparency”.
The same document says while the review should “focus its assessment of current performance to no more than a five-year historical time frame”, it may also “take into account, as required, the original decision-making on key funding arrangements”.
Updated
