Good morning. We lead today with fresh revelations about how the government was left with tens of millions of unusable face masks during the Covid pandemic after paying an obscure company $100m to provide them. Documents obtained by the Guardian show exchanges between the health department and the company – and reveal the latter was aware of Australian Business Mobiles’ lack of experience in importing PPE before the deal was signed.
Meanwhile, in the wake of the asbestos crisis the NSW government is going to double penalties for serious environmental crimes and give new powers to the Environment Protection Authority.
