What happened Wednesday 9 August, 2023
With that, we’ll wrap up our live coverage of the day’s news.
Here’s a summary of the key developments:
The Coalition has asked the Senate to tear up changes allowing patients to buy two months of medicine for the price of one unless Labor pauses the policy and blunts the impact on pharmacies.
The ABC is shutting down almost all of its official accounts on Twitter – now known as X under Elon Musk’s ownership – citing “toxic interactions”, cost and better interaction with ABC content on other social media platforms.
An Indigenous man has died in custody after advice was ignored to transfer him to a secure mental health facility.
Brittany Higgins has accused police of “absolutely awful” treatment of her while investigating her allegations of rape, saying she felt belittled and violated.
The man who was behind the wheel of a bus that crashed, killing 10 people in the Hunter Valley in June, has been hit with more than 50 fresh charges.
Police are investigating after a partially clothed and decomposed body was found in a pond at an exclusive golf course in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.
A realist portrait of the television personality and actor Noni Hazlehurst has won the $5,000 people’s choice award for the 2023 Archibald prize.
A piece of paper was the only notice given to a train driver that he should slow down before his train derailed north of Melbourne, killing himself and another man, the final report of an investigation has found.
Thanks for reading. Have a pleasant evening. We’ll be back tomorrow to do it all over again.
Updated
Senate order to show documents on PwC shared between tax office and police rejected as doing so could impede criminal investigation
An order from the Senate for documents shared between the tax office and the federal police relating to the PricewaterhouseCoopers tax breach has been rebuffed.
The Labor government has upheld its public interest immunity claim stopping the release of what was shared between the Australian Taxation Office and the Australian federal police in 2018.
The motion by the Greens senator Barbara Pocock was agreed to by the Senate on 2 August.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said in a letter on Wednesday the information was the subject to an investigation, and releasing the documents could potentially impede a criminal investigation. Chalmers wrote:
It is a matter of public record that the AFP and ATO commenced engaging on this matter in 2018. I am advised that all engagement between the ATO and AFP relating to the allegations is being considered as part of the current investigation.
The Labor senator Deborah O’Neill spoke in the Senate on Wednesday evening, saying she shared Pocock’s frustration over the lack of information but urged unanimity among senators.
I’ve not met a senator who said ‘you should stop this inquiry, you should cease the inquiry’. People here really want us to continue the drive to uncover the fullness of transgressions that have occurred within this sector.
I urge continued unanimity on this matter ... we must do our work with integrity, with rigour and with vigour here in the Senate but we must do that without compromising the inquiry. I urge all senators to stick to that path.
Updated
