That's it for today, thanks for reading
Here are the main stories on Thursday, 28 July:
- Australia’s inflation rate to peak at 7.75% in December quarter, economic update predicts;
- The Australian National Audit Office releases a blistering report on the Coalition’s handling of the Building Better Regions Fund;
- The Albanese government drops a controversial high court case that sought to restore the commonwealth’s power to deport Aboriginal non-citizens;
- The attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, requests a review of the laws that led to the prosecutions of Bernard Collaery and Witness J after a scathing report;
- Monkeypox is declared disease of ‘national significance’ in Australia
- The minister for the NDIS, Bill Shorten, says a royal commission into robodebt is set to start this year;
- Australia records at least 125 Covid deaths; and
- The government introduces paid family and domestic violence leave legislation.
Enjoy the rest of your evening, we’ll see you back here tomorrow morning.
The shadow attorney general, Julian Leeser, has responded to the government’s decision to drop an appeal seeking to restore power to deport Aboriginal non-citizens.
Leeser said:
Attorney general Mark Dreyfus has withdrawn the federal government’s high court appeal in minister for immigration v Montgomery. Mr Dreyfus must explain to the Australian people why he felt the need to intervene when the case had been heard and the high court had reserved its judgement in Montgomery. Does he not trust the high court to interpret the constitution?
After his unprecedented intervention to discontinue the prosecution of Bernard Collaery who was charged with serious national security offences, Mr Dreyfus must explain why he is intervening in yet another case before the courts which could have helped to clarify the operation of Australia’s migration law. Mr Dreyfus has not even been attorney general for 100 days and yet he has interfered in two cases before the courts. How can the first law officer have so little faith in our justice system?
Updated
New infrastructure minister condemns Coalition running of Building Better Regions Fund
Further to the audit office’s blistering report on the Coalition’s handling of the Building Better Regions Fund, new infrastructure minister Catherine King has promised change in how Labor would manage such grants programs.
In a statement, King called the auditor general’s assessment “scathing”, adding:
It confirms what we already suspected: that the former government actively ignored grant guidelines and, in the process, dudded hard working regional Australians.
Over five rounds of the program, 65% of infrastructure grants went to projects that were not assessed as having the most merit. Former Coalition ministers made decisions on the basis of ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ criteria that weren’t fully explained to those applying for grants. They did not keep proper records of decisions.
King claimed the former government had made “decisions to ignore the merit list” of the infrastructure department, which gave major benefits to Nationals-held seats. She said:
Those seats got $104m more – 29% – than if the proper processes had been followed.
King said she was already working on a new strategic regional investment framework, promising decisions which are “evidence-based, coordinated, and transparent” and saying that the government would have “more to say on this in the months ahead”.
Updated
