What we learned: Wednesday 28 February
And with that, I am going to put the blog to bed. Before we go, let’s recap the big headlines:
The prime minister made the breakfast TV rounds this morning, saying tax cut changes were “not an easy decision” but “the right decision”.
The NSW police commissioner, Karen Webb, put out a statement saying that the Mardi Gras board had reached an agreement with NSW police “that will allow NSW Police to march in this year’s parade”.
Australia’s consumer prices rose 3.4% in January from a year ago, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported.
The private health insurance lobby group Private Healthcare Australia have said The Australian’s story about a “war of words” between the health minister and private health insurance industry was “false”.
Lidia Thorpe accused the Senate chair of being “asleep” amid Senate chaos. She eventually delivered her speech on her cousin’s death in custody.
Independent MPs Bob Katter and Andrew Wilkie dressed as bright pink pigs to bring attention to the supermarket bill.
The federal government will wait months before announcing any reforms recommended in the Universities Accord, the education minister has flagged, with a staged approach to legislation.
Independent MP Allegra Spender called out Labor over “irrelevant and tedious repetition” in question time
The health minister, Mark Butler, announced an anti-vaping social media campaign, and said he aims to outlaw the sale of vapes from 1 July.
Victorians under threat from bushfires were facing their last chance to leave as catastrophic conditions descend on the state’s west, Australian Associated Press reports.
Updated
Key event
Former NSW government accused of pork barrelling after scathing WestInvest audit
Labor has accused the former New South Wales Coalition government of “pork barrelling at the public’s expense” after the auditor general found the design of a $5bn scheme to funnel money into areas worst hit by Covid lockdowns “lacked integrity”.
In a report released on Wednesday, Margaret Crawford found that more than $1bn was allocated to “low or moderate merit” infrastructure projects in western Sydney as part of the massive post-pandemic spending program WestInvest.
She found the program was “not informed by robust research or analysis” to justify the massive spend.
The fund was announced in September 2021 under the previous government to pay for “transformational” infrastructure projects across 15 local government areas in western Sydney, funded through the sale of the WestConnex motorway.
At the time, Gladys Berejiklian was the premier and Dominic Perrottet was the treasurer. Shortly thereafter, Pettottet took the top job and Matt Kean was promoted to treasurer.
The current state treasurer, Daniel Mookey, said on Wednesday the report was a “devastating indictment” on the previous government and the scheme was “a classic in the genre of pork barrelling at the public’s expense”.
Read more:
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