Albanese defends social media crackdown against White House criticism
Prime minister Anthony Albanese has denied Australia’s proposed digital duty of care laws are about government control.
Ahead of a meeting with Donald Trump at the UN general assembly in New York on Tuesday, the US administration warned Australia that its digital duty of care laws risked becoming “viewpoint-based censorship”, calling for American platforms to be exempt.
Speaking to reporters after the assembly, Albanese said he would “stand up for Australia’s national interest”:
The digital duty of care is something that we have foreshadowed for some period of time. It is not about giving government control, it’s about giving people back control over what they received on their devices. Which is why it is framed in that way …
We listened and we participate respectfully and I look forward to immediately after this in a few minutes going to the reception held by president Trump, I look forward to engaging with him there.
The US intervention will embolden the Coalition, which opposes the duty of care laws on the grounds they would hand too much power to the government to regulate online content.
Asked if he was disappointed that Trump had “forcefully rejected the need for international safeguards on AI”, Albanese responded:
We will wait and see what comes out of the meeting between president Trump and the Chinese president, it is good they are meeting and it is on the agenda.
Key events
Benita Kolovos
(Continued from previous post)
Chris Young KC went on to say that the royal commission would also work to uncover the “wastage, misdirected funds, and inflated costs” on the Big Build – a pipeline of more than 100 projects with a combined value of about $150bn.
Every wasted, misdirected, or inflated dollar is $1 that could have been used to fund a hospital bed, a classroom, or another vital state service.
Young said everyone named in the commission will have a “fair opportunity to respond to the evidence” and no adverse finding would be made “unless they’ve first been told of it and given a proper opportunity to answer.”
He said where the evidence warrants it, they will refer matters to the special prosecutor, Victoria police, IBAC, and the relevant regulatory and licensing authorities, and “any decision about charges is for them”.
It is too soon to say what the commission will recommend. We must first examine what happened and why.
Benita Kolovos
Corruption not a crime without victim, counsel assisting says
Counsel assisting the royal commission, Chris Young KC, said while corrpution has often. been described as a “crime without victims,” but that is “not what we have been told”.
He cited several examples, including the directors of a small Indigenous-owned labor hire business who wrote to the minister responsible for these projects and to the premier in April 2022, saying they had been “threatened with violence and banned” from a state government project. Young said:
“They said they had recordings. They asked for help … They got a reply a year later, which referred them elsewhere. By then, their business was all but finished, and it was closed a few months after.
He said a woman working in traffic management on a public hospital was “locked in a storeroom by a man recently released from prison for stalking and threatening to kill a woman” who “smoked ice and blew the smoke in her face”.
She reported it. She says that what happened next was that she lost her job … There are others. Workers were reportedly told they no longer had jobs on a state tunnel project because they belonged to the wrong union. Some some subcontractors say they lost work because they would not pay.. Some people were seriously injured. Others had their property destroyed.
Benita Kolovos
Big Build royal commission to pursue ‘every person’ involved in corruption
Commissioner Chris Kourakis says the royal commission’s job is to bring those responsible for delivering the Big Build – the Victorian government’s pipeline of more than 180 major road and rail projects – “to account publicly”.
He went on:
It’s also the job of this commission to pursue every person who is reasonably suspected of being complicit in the abuse of entrusted power for private gain and to expose and to refer for prosecution whoever is implicated by the evidence the commission receives. The commission will do so from those who carried the highest level of responsibility down and without exception
Kourakis also provided a warning to “all those who have done wrong” that the commission will leave “no stone unturned in search for whatever is hid or whomever lurks underneath it”:
Anyone who has an ambition to remain in the industry will be better served by early voluntary disclosures to the commission than by waiting to be found out.
Benita Kolovos
Big Build royal commissioner says closed hearings already held, detective appointed
Commissioner Chris Kourakis said that while this is the first public hearing of the inquiry, work began immediately after it was stood up in August. He says this work has included appointing Victoria police detective supt Daniel Ryan to lead the commission’s investigation team.
He said prior to joining the commission, Ryan worked in professional standards in Victoria police and had earlier worked in the homicide squad, the joint organised crime taskforce, and the criminal proceed squad.
Kourakis also confirmed the commission had already held a number of closed hearings:
They were closed because their purpose was to obtain sensitive information to guide the commission’s investigations. Early disclosure of that information would have compromised the commission’s ongoing investigations.
He said it would continue to hold closed hearings when necessary, but it would also “deliver on the just expectation of the Victorian public that there will be full disclosure of all matters touching on the integrity of the infrastructure projects the commission is charged to investigate.”
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Victoria’s Big Build royal commission begins
Benita Kolovos
The royal commission into allegations of corruption on Victorian government construction sites has begun, with commissioner Chris Kourakis kicking off proceedings by asking his associate, Peter Tantalos, to read out the letters patent, which formally established the inquiry in August.
Kourakis joked that reading it out would take Tantalos some time – about 26 minutes – which he said would “seem a lot longer to him than it will to the rest of us”. But he said it was not a “tedious formality”.
The commissioner said:
It is the document which constitutes this commission. By having it read, all who hear it will appreciate, and I and the staff of the commission will be reminded of the breadth and depth and importance of the inquiry we have been charged to conduct. It may also prompt members of the public who may have helpful information for the commission to come forward and provide that to us.
Benita Kolovos
Big Build royal commission about to begin opening hearing
The royal commission into allegations of corruption on Victorian government construction sites is about to hold its first hearing.
Officially called the Royal Commission into the Integrity of Major Public and Civil Infrastructure Construction Projects in Victoria, it will investigate allegations of corruption, criminal conduct and serious misconduct by the CFMEU, construction companies, subcontractors, labour hire firms and others on the Big Build – the Victorian government’s pipeline of more than 180 major road and rail projects.
Today’s hearing, which will be live streamed, will be largely procedural. Commissioner Chris Kourakis is expected to outline his plans for the inquiry, alongside Chris Young KC and Christopher Carr SC, his counsel assisting.
Here’s how we got here:
Joyce calls Wilson a ‘clown’ after Liberal MP denies power-sharing talks
One Nation’s Barnaby Joyce has branded Liberal Tim Wilson a “clown” after the latter said discussions about a power-sharing agreement between the two parties were a “figment of Barnaby’s imagination”.
Speaking to News24, Joyce sarcastically said:
I just made it up, I get bored, mate … clown. Of course we’re having conversations.
Joyce said there was “no prospect” either the Coalition or One Nation could form government judging off polling, but ruled out any official coalition between the two parties.
We do not want to be in a coalition with Tim [Wilson] to be quite frank.
He’s supposed to be the [shadow] treasurer it’s a shame he can’t count … how are you supposed to get supply and confidence Tim, if you don’t have the numbers?
Joyce said he wouldn’t confirm which senior Liberals he said he had spoken to.
Albanese defends social media crackdown against White House criticism
Prime minister Anthony Albanese has denied Australia’s proposed digital duty of care laws are about government control.
Ahead of a meeting with Donald Trump at the UN general assembly in New York on Tuesday, the US administration warned Australia that its digital duty of care laws risked becoming “viewpoint-based censorship”, calling for American platforms to be exempt.
Speaking to reporters after the assembly, Albanese said he would “stand up for Australia’s national interest”:
The digital duty of care is something that we have foreshadowed for some period of time. It is not about giving government control, it’s about giving people back control over what they received on their devices. Which is why it is framed in that way …
We listened and we participate respectfully and I look forward to immediately after this in a few minutes going to the reception held by president Trump, I look forward to engaging with him there.
The US intervention will embolden the Coalition, which opposes the duty of care laws on the grounds they would hand too much power to the government to regulate online content.
Asked if he was disappointed that Trump had “forcefully rejected the need for international safeguards on AI”, Albanese responded:
We will wait and see what comes out of the meeting between president Trump and the Chinese president, it is good they are meeting and it is on the agenda.
Qantas confirms 2028 launch of Sydney-New York direct flights
Luca Ittimani
Qantas says its 18-hour direct Sydney-New York flights will start in mid-2028, predicting it will cut travel time between the two cities by three hours.
The ultra long-haul flights, part of the airline’s Project Sunrise, will follow the launch of Sydney-London direct flights in October 2027.
The company has ordered 12 specially designed Airbus A350-1000ULRs with extra fuel tanks. The first is expected to arrive in Australia in April 2027.
The planes were designed to fly up to 22 hours nonstop for Qantas, to complete some of the longest commercial flights in the world. Qantas said a test model had completed a 24 hour, 24 minute flight from Melbourne to Airbus’ manufacturing facility in Toulouse, France, believed to be the longest-ever commercial flight.
Tickets are set to go on sale in August 2027, Qantas said.
Its chief executive, Vanessa Hudson, said:
Conquering the tyranny of distance has been part of who Qantas is from the very beginning. Reaching New York non-stop completes a vision we set out many years ago, and it’s a moment of enormous pride for the thousands of our people who have been working hard to make Project Sunrise a reality.
Wilson says One Nation power-sharing talks are ‘figment of Barnaby’s imagination’
Wilson also told News24 any chatter from Barnaby Joyce about a power-sharing deal between One Nation and the Liberals was a “figment of Barnaby’s imagination”.
He went on:
This is a man who has previously gone to his electorate and said that he’s going to be a Nationals MP throughout the life of this term. He broke that promise to his electorate. He said he’d support his leader. He broke that promise. He said he’d support his party. He broke that promise.
I understand Barnaby has regrets about jumping over to a new political party where he doesn’t pull the strings and is now just operated by others. I think it’s a figment of his imagination.
Nick Visser
Ima Caldwell is going to step in to blog for now! Thanks!
Wilson says Bragg ‘more than entitled’ to put forward novel housing ideas
Tim Wilson, the shadow treasurer, says his colleague Andrew Bragg is “more than entitled to raise important issues” around housing.
Wilson spoke to News24 this morning, saying he always believed “it should be home first, super second, in terms of the structure of priority”:
The problem at the moment is the Labor party wants a nation of people who are retired renters. They don’t want homeowners with a superannuation balance. The intergenerational report outlined there’s been a 10% increase in the number of Australians going to retirement renting. That’s a huge jump, and frankly, the Labor party’s answer to that is to say keep renting, we want your money.
When pressed if he supported Bragg’s idea to use superannuation as collateral for a house purchase, Wilson said he wasn’t there yet:
The key point that we’ve always believed is that home ownership is central to a dignified retirement, as is a superannuation balance as an income stream, and the fall back of a pension, and we need to get the hierarchy properly in order.
Joyce speaking with ‘very, very senior Liberals’ about power-sharing deal
Sarah Basford Canales
Barnaby Joyce says he’s been in talks with “very, very senior Liberals” over a power-sharing arrangement should One Nation win enough seats at the next federal election.
Speaking to News24 yesterday afternoon, the Nationals-turned-One Nation MP said there would be an expectation that the Coalition and the minor party would work together if they had the numbers to beat the Albanese government at the polls.
I think we’ve been pretty clear on this. We’ve said our job is to get rid of the socialists. So either we would offer supply and confidence to the Coalition … on the premise of solid policy outcomes that we would want for that to happen, and we would want there to be clear acknowledgment that they are our policy outcomes, and we’d have a regime then of looking at legislation that came forward … we’d expect the same deal if we had greater numbers than the Coalition.
Joyce said he’d had discussions with “very, very senior Liberals” as recently as Tuesday morning on a possible deal.
He added “we’re now cutting dice, and we’ll find out where we end up”.
Many flights delayed or cancelled at Sydney airport this morning amid fog
Sydney Airport says some flights will be delayed or cancelled this morning amid a blanket of fog that settled over the harbour city.
The airport’s website already shows a slate of domestic flights that have been delayed by an hour or more, with many others cancelled.
An international Qantas flight from Los Angeles to Sydney was also diverted to Brisbane instead.
“We advise passengers to check the status of their flight with their airline,” a Sydney Airport spokesperson.
Bragg says it’s ‘fine’ for US to weigh in on Australian tech proposals
Andrew Bragg says he agrees with the Trump administration claiming there is a risk of censorship in Labor’s social media crackdown.
He told RN:
There is a risk of bestowing too much power on to unelected bureaucrats. And I think there is a risk of too much regulation, which may not actually have any great impact on our economy or our society.
So I have to say, I share some of the concerns, but obviously Australia will make its own judgments on these things.
Bragg said it was “fine” that the US embassy was weighing in on the proposed laws.
I mean, we live in a free society, or at least we used to, and people are allowed to express a view.
Maybe they’ll be censored by the new laws, but look, I think it’s OK for us to hear from our colleagues in other countries.
That’s often the case when law reform is being undertaken.
