What we learned: Thursday 1o November
Can you believe it? We’ve made it to the end of another sitting week in one piece. Here are the major developments of the day.
Labor’s industrial relations bill has passed the House of Representatives, after further government concessions paring back the expansion of multi-employer bargaining.
The Joint Select Committee have given “unanimous” support to the national anti-corruption commission bill, while independent MP Helen Haines and the Greens signalled they would move for amendments in the Senate.
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has announced a review into the program to resettle former Afghan employees who assisted Australia in Afghanistan. The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) revealed it received more than 1,300 complaints about doctors and medical professionals over Covid-related misbehaviour such as spreading conspiracy theories or flouting public health orders. After investigations, 28 had been subjected to “immediate action”.
A small number, about 2,800, of Virgin Australia’s Velocity frequent flyer customers have been caught up in the Medibank data breach, the airline has announced. Meanwhile, the ACCC says the number of scams reported to the regulator in the current financial year is up 92%, with almost $500m in losses reported in the four months since July 1.
And as the nation grapples with rising Covid cases, Queensland has moved its traffic light system to “amber”, recommending the return of masks to some settings. Independent MP Monique Ryan says Australia is “sleepwalking” into the wave.
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The minister for finance, Katy Gallagher, says the decision of hackers to release Medibank information related to abortion is “sickening and appalling”.
— Katy Gallagher (@SenKatyG) November 10, 2022
On Thursday morning, on a dark web blog linked to the REvil Russian ransomware group, the attacker posted a file labelled “abortions” alongside claims they had sought US$10m from Medibank to prevent the leak of the data.
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