What we learned today, Tuesday 28 October
With that, we will wrap the blog for the evening. Have a lovely night. Krishani Dhanji will be back tomorrow morning to cover all things in the world of Australian politics.
Until then, here were today’s biggest developments:
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, confirmed Australia has deported the first member of the NZYQ cohort to Nauru, triggering the start of its $2.5bn deal.
Police and the corporate regulator have raided offices of the software company WiseTech.
Queensland’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender patients has been overturned by the state’s supreme court.
Both TikTok and Meta have told the parliamentary inquiry on age assurance they will comply with the under-16s social media ban when it comes into effect, while Snapchat will apply it “unevenly”.
Optus will soon have to front a Senate inquiry to explain how it responded to its triple-zero outage in September, which was linked to the deaths of at least three people.
Rio Tinto says it is contemplating ceasing operations at its New South Wales-based Tomago aluminium smelter at the end of its current electricity supply contract.
And Sussan Ley, who said the very spelling of her own name was due to her “punk phase”, has criticised Anthony Albanese for wearing a T-shirt of celebrated post-punk band Joy Division.
Updated
Tasmanian teachers stop work to school government on stalled deal
Frustrated teachers, firefighters, health and other public workers are walking off the job over three days in Tasmania to protest a “contemptuous” government wages offer, AAP reports.
Stop-work action forced schools to open several hours late in north-west Tasmania on Tuesday, with further disruptive rallies planned in Launceston on Wednesday and Hobart on Thursday.
Unions rejected the state government’s offer of a one-off 3% pay rise while longer-term deals are negotiated.
Hundreds of workers rallied at Burnie and Devonport in what the Health and Community Services Union secretary, Robbie Moore, said was evidence of unprecedented anger.
Ramped-up industrial action that could impact government income was also on the cards, he said.
The business, industry and resources minister, Felix Ellis, said the 3% offer was fair and included additional conditions around leave and entitlements.
The government plans to cut 2,500 public sector jobs to help balance the budget, with state debt forecast to reach $13bn by 2027/28.
Updated
