Nine Entertainment Co has refuted claims that its chairman Peter Costello secretly worked as a lobbyist for casino giant Crown Resorts when it was controlled by billionaire James Packer.
In series of leaked emails revealed by Australian newspaper and sent to a number of Nine employees including Costello and Nine Publishing managing director James Chessell, Packer alleged Costello worked as a “secret Crown lobbyist” in 2011 and “should resign” from all public positions.
Ninechairman Peter Costello.Credit:James Brickwood
A Nine spokesperson said Costello was never employed as a Crown lobbyist and said, “Peter Costello was an adviser to Consolidated Press Holdings in 2011, for a year.” Consolidated Press Holdings is one of Packer’s private investment vehicles, which housed its shares in Crown alongside other assets.
Packer ended his 20-year involvement with Crown Resorts as its largest shareholder earlier this year, when his sold his stake in the company to private equity firm Blackstone. The sale came after a 2019 investigation by this masthead led to a NSW inquiry that found the company was unfit to open its new Sydney casino.
Costello joined the board of Nine in 2013. He was appointed chairman of the media company in 2016. Nine Entertainment is the owner of The Sydney Morning Herald and TheAge.
The Packer family owned the Nine Network between 1956 and 2007. James sold the then television company to private equity firm CVC for about $5 billion.
In a note sent to staff on Monday, Nine Publishing’s managing director James Chessell said he was reluctant to comment publicly on Australian report due to “mental health sensitivities.”
“I’ve received a blizzard of correspondence from Packer since he took exception to something we published in late June. After trying to engage with him at first – which clearly didn’t work – I’ve ignored almost all of it,” Chessell said.
“I never heard a word from Peter Costello about Crown Unmasked before, during or after publication/broadcast.
A 38-year-old man, who has not been identified, was arrested around 8.30pm last night in Proserpine.
Queensland Police say he was taken into custody in Mackay “without incident”, and is assisting with inquiries following the discovery of a 44-year-old woman’s body in Bluewater, near Townsville.
A mother-of-four has been killed, her body found in bushland in north Queensland. (Nine)
Police also allege the man was involved in a shooting incident with a passing motorist on the Bruce Highway near Yarlboroo yesterday morning.
“He allegedly pointed a shotgun at a passing motorist, allegedly firing one shot into the side of her vehicle,” he said.
“The victim, who was not known to the man, was not physically harmed during the incident.”
A group of teenagers found the 44-year-old woman’s body yesterday, close to a popular fishing spot in the seaside suburb of Bluewater.
A group of teens found the 44-year-old woman’s body. It’s believed she died in the same location she was found. (Nine)Police confirmed a weapon was used in the attack but would not confirm what it was. (Nine)
Queensland Police say it’s believed the woman died at the spot.
“It appears that she would have known who her attacker was,” Queensland Police Service Detective Inspector Jason Shepherd said.
“They probably went to that location together.
“We believe she died at that location.”
A weapon was used in the crime but the police did not confirm what it was.
At this stage, police don’t believe the woman’s death is domestic violence related.
The woman’s four children, aged between 14 and 24, don’t live in the area.
Detectives attached to Operation Uniform Umbara from Townsville will travel to Mackay today to continue investigations.
Anyone who was in the area at this time who may have information, CCTV or dash cam footage is urged to contact police or Crime Stoppers.
The internet didn’t exist and the 747 aircraft was still a year off taking its first flight when Beth Franz started volunteering in 1968.
The 87-year-old from Denmark, on WA’s south coast, has notched up 54 years of community service, helping ensure the survival of the local Scouts.
But she knows without more volunteers, the group’s days are numbered.
A life of volunteering
The value of volunteering was ingrained into Ms Franz from birth, with her mother playing an active role in the local Parents and Citizens (P&C) and progress association.
“I’ve grown up with it,” she said.
Ms Franz has been attending the Denmark Scout Hall for decades.(Supplied: Beth Franz)
“It helped others and it gave to other people.”
She remembers introducing her son to Scouts when he was 8.
“I said to the leaders there if you need any help just ask,” she said.
“Two weeks later, I was in uniform.”
Volunteer decline
Widowed at just 46, and with adult kids, Ms Franz has dedicated most of her life to the Denmark Scouts — but the group’s inability to attract new leaders means its future hangs in the balance.
Ms Franz is one of only two leaders in Denmark with a group of about 15 kids.
“I can’t put my finger on why but there is a reason why we’re not getting the volunteers like we used to,” she said.
Ms Franz at a Great Southern Scout Fellowship gathering in 2020.(Supplied: Beth Franz)
It’s a challenge many volunteer groups are facing.
Volunteering WA figures show about 25 per cent of people in the state currently volunteer — a rate which has dropped by 10 per cent since 2020.
Volunteering WA chief executive Tina Williams said extra life pressures were a contributing factor.
“A lot of it comes down to more single-parent households … people not having as much time,” she said.
“I think [there are] more financial pressures … people are actually retiring later or even supporting families.”
She said there were about 150,000 fewer volunteers in WA compared to 2019.
Group’s future uncertain
Ms Franz knows what the trend could mean for Denmark Scouts if the group closes.
“Headquarters come down and they take all the assets,” she said.
Ms Franz has gathered many accolades during her time with Scouts.(ABC Great Southern: Tim Wong-See)
“Scouting is very hard to get going again in those small places.”
She said the lack of leaders meant the group had scaled back recruiting new Scouts.
“You need the leaders to have the children,” she said.
fond memories
Through her service Ms Franz has made life-long friends.
“I’ve just written a letter and sent a crochet blanket to a young lass called Phoebe in Derby who would now be in her 30s,” she said.
“She never comes to Denmark without seeing us.”
Ms Franz says she was raised to appreciate the value of volunteering.(Supplied: Beth Franz)
Ms Franz tears up recalling a recent moment at the local pool when she didn’t have money to pay an entry fee.
“I got a tap on the shoulder, a six-foot-tall young man said to me ‘I’ll pay for her. She was my scout leader for years’,” she said.
“That paid back for everything.”
While Ms Franz acknowledges some people are too busy to volunteer, she remembers encountering similar challenges.
“Unfortunately, we were all very busy as well when we were young,” she said.
And while she doesn’t think younger people need to “toughen up”, Ms Franz did urge them to look at life from a broader perspective and made a compassionate plea for new volunteers to get involved.
“There’s a lot of information and lines of inquiry that are happening as we speak,” he said.
loading
“We are taking this seriously. We’ll continue to work on this and hopefully get some answers for the families of both the women who have been shot down.”
Police fear the response from other gangland members could be extreme given the “rule book” of organized criminal violence has now been defied.
“It’s been long held in the past that you don’t target children and women or the family if there’s a conflict between two criminal networks,” he said.
“In this case, we’ve just seen the rule book completely ignored and thrown out the window. It is unprecedented. This one is now a new low.”
The two women were at the Panania residence with friends before a night out, and Hazouri, a hairdresser, was there to style Fadlallah’s hair, Nine News reported.
The Bankstown workplace of hairdresser Amneh al-Hazouri, known as Amy, who died after being shot on Saturday night.Credit:Nick Moir
The 39-year-old – who police believe to have been collateral damage in the targeted act – was remembered in a social media tribute from her workplace on Sunday.
“We are shattered, our heart is broken, you left us too soon, may your memory be eternal GOD bless your soul. Till we meet again,” the post read.
A friend of Fadlallah’s, Gloria Poljak, also took to social media to pay tribute to her family.
“God bless you Lametta, praying for your son and your family,” she wrote.
“Thankful we shared a season in your life. You and your family are in my prayers.”
The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.
Before being forced to flee Kabul as the Taliban returned to power, Maryam Nabavi was a print and radio journalist.
Her courageous reporting focused on democracy and women’s rights—particularly education for girls—in what was still a firmly patriarchal society.
Now a year on since the fall of the Afghan capital, Ms Nabavi is gradually getting used to a new, freer and more secure way of living with her son and husband in their adopted country: Australia.
However, the restrictions on the rights and freedoms imposed on women and girls in her native land continue to haunt her from thousands of kilometers away.
At the moment, she’s busy caring for her young son and learning English but she’s keen to restart her career.
She said she missed the purposefulness and excitement of her life as a reporter in Afghanistan.
“Since I came to Australia, I am not the same person anymore,” she said.
“The first days when I came here were very difficult for me. I spent days and nights crying and a deep sense of emptiness took over my whole being.”
Ms Nabavi is one of thousands of Afghans who have embarked on new lives in Australia, while grappling with the emotions of fleeing their country on the heels of the abrupt US withdrawal and the Taliban’s return to power on August 15 last year.
According to the Department of Home Affairs, 5,929 permanent humanitarian visas were granted to Afghan nationals between August 15, 2021, and the end of July this year.
However, almost 50,000 applications on behalf of more than 200,000 people have been lodged in that time and only another 31,500 places are available over the next four years.
After the crumbling of the Western-backed democracy in Afghanistan, the landlocked country witnessed a brain drain on a massive scale.
It shattered the aspirations of many young professionals like Ms Nabavi, who have been dreaming big for their country.
“All the years of studying and working hard got ruined,” she said.
“I didn’t know how to deal with these problems until I managed to see the positive side of my story with the help of a psychologist in Melbourne.”
A risky journey for the future of Victoria
Lina Safi’s first child, Victoria, was born in Melbourne while she was studying there.(Supplied)
When Lina Safi arrived in Australia from Afghanistan last year, it was a homecoming of sorts.
In 2011, she won an Australian Development Scholarship award to get a master’s degree in education.
She named her first child — who was born when she was studying in Australia — Victoria.
Back in Afghanistan, she put the qualification to use working in the Ministry of Education.
Ms Safi and her family’s journey out of Afghanistan last year was harrowing.
“Something that made us determined to survive during this risky journey was the future of Victoria,” she said.
“I am not going to describe in detail those two nights that we spent at the border [between Afghanistan and Pakistan].
“[It was] probably the worst experience of our life [and one] that we will never forget.
“Finally, we crossed the border on the morning of the third day, where a representative of the Australian embassy in Pakistan was waiting for us.”
Ever since, Ms Safi has been flourishing on personal and professional fronts, having secured a job in with a Victorian government department.
“There are many Afghans like me, with limited resources available, but skills and experience to offer, along with a determination to repay Australia for the haven that we have been provided,” she said.
Australians and visa holders were flown out of Kabul airport on an RAAF Globemaster,.(Supplied: Department of Defense)
Afghans highly educated, experienced
John Gelagin is the chief executive of Career Seekers, a non-profit organization that supports Australia’s humanitarian arrivals into professional careers.
He said recently arrived Afghans would make a major contribution to Australian society, if given the opportunity.
“The Afghan refugees that we are seeing at the moment are highly educated, with experience working in senior roles in the public sector and with international aid agencies,” Mr Gelagin told the ABC.
He added that one of the challenges for this group was the relatively small size of the Australian public sector, meaning that — in most cases — they will need to leverage their skills gained in the public sector into private sector roles.
“Although many of these people are still on their journey towards restarting their professional careers, we are seeing considerable goodwill on the part of employers in Australia towards Afghan refugees, recognizing both the circumstances they have endured and also the contribution they can make,” Mr Gelatin added.
He said that, among the recently arrived Afghans, were medical doctors, engineers, academics, IT professionals, accountants, senior team leaders and project managers.
“The caliber of their skills, knowledge and experiences has been impressive, and would be a welcome asset to Australia’s economy,” Deakin University research fellow Luke Macaulay told the ABC.
‘Australia is a land of opportunity’
Mir Ehsanullah Adeeb now works for a leading engineering firm in Australia.(Supplied)
Mir Ehsanullah Adeeb — who had an important role with Afghanistan’s Environment Protection Agency before coming to Australia — is already making a contribution to his new home.
Within months of his escape from Afghanistan, Mr Adeeb secured a post with a leading engineering firm.
“I am happy and proud to mention that I restarted my career in Australia in the sustainability team of one of the biggest infrastructure projects in the history of Victoria, which is conforming [to] my vision for my career life and giving me peace of mind while performing my job,” he said.
“Australia is a land of opportunity for everyone eager to chase their dreams and find their interest to build a bright future for the community and their own self.”
However, a year on since their departure from their home country, the dreams for a peaceful life remain paramount for this young lot of refugees now resettled in Australia.
As Ms Nabavi explained: “I always miss my country, the memories never leave my mind … my biggest wish is that the darkness will turn into light, and one day my country will be free, and there will be smiles on the lips of my compatriots again.”
The construction of a new northbound bridge at the notorious Centenary Bottleneck Motorway over the Brisbane River at Jindalee has been delayed until 2023.
Key points:
The $244 million Centenary Bridge upgrade, in Brisbane’s west, has been delayed to 2023
Work to improve the major bottleneck was due to start this year
Transport Minister Mark Bailey says an alternate bid for the project has to be investigated
The $244 million project involves duplicating the Centenary Bridge and converting the existing bridge to a three-lane southbound route, with a new three-lane bridge traveling northbound.
Transport Minister Mark Bailey said contract issues had complicated the upgrade’s timeline, with delays due to an alternate bid being submitted for the project that required “thorough due diligence” before work could proceed.
“[The delay is] unfortunate but not a huge delay, so we’re getting it built as soon as we possibly can,” Mr Bailey said.
“We’ll certainly see construction start next year.”
He said the bridge upgrade was a critical part of the Centenary Motorway upgrades throughout the west of Brisbane.
“Without the bridge [upgrade] whatever other work you do is still going to grind to a halt with limited lanes across the river,” he said.
loading
crash zone
The Centenary Motorway currently carries 85,000 vehicles daily, with use expected to balloon out to 152,000 vehicles daily by 2036, as the population of Ipswich, Springfield and western Brisbane booms.
Between 2010 and 2016, the motorway recorded nearly 200 crashes.
The RACQ’s monthly travel speed data reported that in May 2022, Brisbane’s slowest inbound morning traffic was just 25 kilometers per hour on the Centenary Motorway from the Ipswich Motorway to Dandenong Road, adding nearly nine minutes to the morning commute.
The bridge upgrade, jointly funded by the federal and state governments, is one of several road upgrades along the Ipswich corridor, including a recently completed $80 million upgrade to the Sumners Road interchange at Jamboree Heights.
Another $10 million in federal funding has been set aside to investigate more upgrades along the Centenary Motorway through to Ipswich.
Mr Bailey said, to date, the bridge upgrade’s budget remained at $244 million, but department planners were closely monitoring the global inflation of construction materials.
A 39-year-old stroke victim is unable to leave hospital because she and her partner have been living in an industrial shed in southern Tasmania.
Key points:
Venita Brown and James Paul moved into the shed a month before she had a stroke
They could not find a rental they could afford on a combined disability pension and carers allowance
Doctors are warning the housing crisis is contributing to a shortage of hospital beds across the country
Venita Brown has been told she may end up in an aged care facility or a women’s shelter if she and her partner, James Paul, cannot find a suitable place to live.
“She’s constantly depressed,” Mr Paul said. “She pretty much thinks she is stuck in hospital because she’s got nowhere to go. They’re saying I am not allowed to bring her back here.
“It’s actually put her mental health at risk, very badly.”
Ms Brown suffered a stroke about two months ago. A month prior to that, she and 42-year-old Mr Paul moved into the shed.
Ms Brown and Mr Paul struggled to find somewhere to live.(Supplied)
They could not find a rental they could afford on a combined disability pension and carers allowance of around $1,300 a fortnight.
“Most two bedrooms are $300 to $400 a week and you’ve got to be able to feed yourself and pay the power bill and everything else,” he said.
The couple moved into the shed as a temporary measure. They have put together a makeshift kitchen and there is an outdoor toilet and shower.
“I had no options, so what do you do?” said Mr Paul.
Mr Paul said they would move anywhere to secure a place to live.(ABC News: Luke Bowden)
But the shed has no windows, the roof leaks and, with very high ceilings, it is hard to heat. The entrance is a small door that cannot be accessed without crouching down.
“They can’t stay here,” said Alex Carter, the partner of Ms Brown’s daughter, Kaitlyn.
He said the shed was a stop-gap and was never meant to be lived in permanently.
Mr Carter said government safety nets were failing.(ABC News: Luke Bowden)
“There’s no bales right next to the bed. There is stacked-up wood everywhere,” he said.
“Item [is]some would say, a health hazard, but more through summer they’ll be at risk of if we have a fire, there’s [only] one way in [and] one way out.
“If you want to go to the toilet, or you want to have a shower, you pretty much risk getting hypothermia.”
The shower arrangement inside the shed.(ABC News: Luke Bowden)
Mr Paul said Ms Brown had been on the waiting list for public housing for two years before suffering a stroke.
The couple said they would move anywhere in the state in order to secure a suitable home.
“They don’t care where, they just need a house,” Mr Carter said.
Mr Carter said the RHH was “jam-packed”.(ABC News: Luke Bowden)
Mr Carter believes government safety nets are failing.
“There’s hundreds of other people that are in the same situation and it’s just ongoing and it’s getting worse,” he said.
The situation is becoming increasingly desperate, with Ms Brown due to be discharged from the Royal Hobart Hospital (RHH) in a matter of weeks.
“Hobart Royal is already jam-packed, they’re already screaming, saying, ‘We don’t have room’ … yet, what are we doing?” Mr Carter said.
“Keeping people in beds because they’ve got nowhere else to go … is that the reason why the hospital is so full and services are being stretched to the limit?
“The housing crisis has gotten to a point where people are actually homeless… the hospitals aren’t able to release them due to a duty of care.”
Dr John Saul from the AMA said the situation was “incredibly frustrating” from a doctor’s point of view.(ABC News: Luke Bowden)
Doctors said the housing crisis was contributing to a shortage of hospital beds across the country.
“We have to practice good patient care and we cannot release someone from hospital unless they go to a safe environment,” the Australian Medical Association’s John Saul said
Dr Saul said a shortage of aged care placements and securing NDIS support for patients was making it increasingly harder to discharge patients.
“It’s contributing to back pressure down into the hospitals and, ultimately, that goes to the ED departments, that then goes to the ambulances,” he said.
“It’s a domino effect that’s traveling all through our systems. How does this feel from a doctor’s point of view? Incredibly frustrating.
“Some of these things are absolutely soul-destroying for our hard-working staff. We’re seeing it in homelessness with mental health issues as well.
“If a mental health patient, for example, goes back on the streets, it is unsafe, they will only present back to ED earlier if they haven’t got safe and appropriate housing.”
Mr Rockliff said the federal government could fund sub-acute beds in private hospitals.(ABC News: Jordan Young)
The Tasmanian government is calling on the federal government to fund transitional beds for long-term NDIS and aged care patients.
Premier Jeremy Rockliff said the number of patients unable to leave hospital because they were waiting for aged care accommodation or an NDIS package equaled to two wards at the Royal Hobart Hospital.
“These numbers have a large impact for a small state that is doing its best to manage significant COVID workloads,” Mr Rockliff said.
He said the Commonwealth could fund sub-acute beds in private hospitals “while we work together to look at longer-term solutions around accommodation to speed up the safe transfer of the medically-ready to aged care and NDIS supported living arrangements”.
Kathrine Morgan-Wicks said as of August 6, there were 46 patients ready for discharge who could not leave.(ABCNews)
In a statement, Department of Health Secretary Kathrine Morgan-Wicks said that, as of August 6, there were 29 aged care patients and 17 disability care patients medically ready for discharge from their acute bed but unable to leave due to waiting for aged care accommodation or an NDIS package.
There are around 4,400 people on the waitlist for public housing in Tasmania.
Tasmanian Housing Minister Guy Barnett said a tight housing market was impacting the most vulnerable.
“Communities Tasmania regularly works with the Department of Health in situations where people are leaving medical care to find the most-appropriate accommodation options to best suit people with a range of unique requirements,” he said.
“For example, our rapid rehousing program is specifically designed as transitional accommodation for eligible people to support them into long-term housing.”
The shed leaks and is hard to heat.(ABC News: Luke Bowden)
The Tasmanian government is working on a plan to lift housing stock by 10,000 new homes over the next decade.
“One thousand, five hundred new homes [are] to be delivered this financial year alone,” Mr Barnett said.
After the ABC visited Mr Paul at the shed, wild weather and nearby flooding forced him to shelter at a family member’s home.
Llast week an acquaintance who owns a secondhand Japanese electric car, brought to Australia as part of a bulk purchase by the Good Car Company, posted a quiet boast. His wife of him had put their Nissan Leaf in for its annual service of her. No major problems were found – just an underinflated tire. The total bill? $120.
Reading that sent me to the mess of my glovebox to work out how much I had paid mechanics to keep my Subaru Outback running over the past year. It added up to more than $700.
I don’t have the time or the inclination to estimate what I’ve spent on petrol over the same period, but I know I coughed up $115 – nearly as much as for the annual service on the Leaf – just to fill the tank last Monday.
If this sounds like a prelude to making a case that the time for an EV expansion is well overdue – and that there is a unique political opportunity in the months ahead – it is.
Last year, about 2% of new cars sold in Australia were electric. It was a jump from 0.8% in 2020 but still thousands behind many other countries. Across the globe, the average in the final quarter last year was 13%, with Europe and China leading the pack.
This isn’t surprising when you consider there are about 450 EV models available on the global market, but fewer than 10 can be bought in Australia for less than $60,000 and buyers may have to wait months for their car to be delivered.
Data from 2018 shows the average greenhouse gas released per kilometer by a new passenger car in Australia was about 30% higher than in the US, 40% higher than in the EU and nearly 50% higher than in Japan.
Not coincidentally, greenhouse gas emissions from transport in Australia surged by more than 20% between 2005 and when Covid-19 hit in 2020. They fell a bit during the lockdown years but are expected to jump back to pre-pandemic heights this year.
Official projections last year showed little change was expected in Australia’s transport emissions before 2030. Again, this isn’t surprising. There is no national policy to reduce them.
The lack of policy is not due to a lack of policy ideas. Among the most popular is the introduction of mandatory vehicle fuel efficiency standards. They would set an emissions target for manufacturers, measured in grams of COtwo released per kilometer and averaged across all the new cars they sell. The target would be gradually reduced to zero, when it would effectively become a ban on new fossil fuel cars.
While Australia has resisted, fuel efficiency standards are common elsewhere – they cover about 80% of the global light vehicle market.
why? There are arguments relating to climate impact, energy security and supporting manufacturing industries. Car companies themselves want fuel efficiency standards, arguing there won’t be an adequate supply of EVs into the country until a decent policy is in place.
And the evidence says efficiency standards make economic sense – they reduce fuel costs.
According to a recent report by the Australia Institute’s Audrey Quicke, if Australia had introduced fuel efficiency standards six years ago, the country’s drivers would have saved $5.9bn. A ministerial forum on vehicle emissions standards in 2016 found the net benefit across the country by 2040 could be nearly $14bn.
MPs from what was then the Coalition government were persuaded. Josh Frydenberg, then the minister for energy and the environment, famously compared the rise of EVs to the iPhone and predicted people who mocked the technology would one day be using it.
weekend app
Despite this, the Coalition shelved its plan for mandatory standards in the face of resistance internally and from the auto industry. It abandoned it completely during the 2019 election campaign, when Scott Morrison claimed a Labor policy based on the forum’s recommendation would “end the weekend”.
Unreleased polling suggests the attack set back community support for EVs. And, of course, the Coalition won that election.
Labor responded by winding back its commitments. Its pledge on EVs before this year’s election was that it would reduce tariffs and taxes, require 75% of commonwealth fleet purchases and leases to be low-emissions vehicles – a step that should help create a second-hand market – and increase spending on charging infrastructure. It would then develop a broader national strategy if it won power.
That brings us to this week.
An invitation-only national EV summit will be held in Canberra on Friday bringing together car company executives, infrastructure bosses and senior MPs from across the country to discuss the best path ahead.
Its main subject will be how to design fuel efficiency standards. There is a growing expectation that it is now a matter of when, not if, they are introduced. The evidence in favor is overwhelming and the biggest roadblock – the federal Coalition government – has been removed.
The summit has been instigated in part by Boundless, a new not-for-profit created by the tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes and his wife, Annie. Led by Eytan Lenko, the former chair of the thinktank Beyond Zero Emissions, Boundless aims to accelerate climate solutions needed for Australia to become a renewable energy superpower by 2030, with an initial focus on EVs.
No one should underestimate the scale of transformation needed to get the country’s vehicle fleet to zero emissions in just 28 years. Given the average life of a car on Australian roads is about 10 years, the sale of new fossil fuel cars would have to end by about 2035. Any policy that doesn’t set the country on that path is not a policy for net zero.
But the Albanese government has a freedom on EV policy that it has not granted itself in other climate-related areas. By ruling nothing out before the election, it starts with a clean slate – and the resistance from the auto industry, while not nonexistent, is less powerful than in other parts of the economy.
The climate change and energy minister, Chris Bowen, has so far responded to questions about fuel efficiency standards by acknowledging that “everything is on the table”. A final policy is still some way off, but he is expected to use his keynote address to the summit to start to flesh out just what the road ahead will look like.
A police taskforce to hunt down organized crime groups exploiting the National Disability Insurance Scheme will be established by the government in coming weeks, the NDIS Minister says.
Key points:
Australia’s criminal intelligence agency believes billions are being defrauded from the NDIS
Organized crime groups have allegedly infiltrated the disability scheme
A police taskforce will be established to expose the fraudsters
An investigation by Nine newspapers has alleged members of the Hamzy and Alameddine crime groups in Sydney and other organized criminal gangs have been rorting billions of dollars from the NDIS scheme.
The head of the Criminal Intelligence Commission, Michael Phelan, told Nine newspapers that criminals were systemically “ripping off our most vulnerable people.”
Mr Phelan said there was evidence of criminals creating fake clients, skimming money, exploiting and intimidating clients and using pharmacy employees as “spotters” to find new NDIS clients to target.
Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission boss Michael Phelan says organized crime groups have infiltrated the NDIS.(AAP: Mick Tsikas)
NDIS Minister Bill Shorten gave a scathing assessment, as he announced a multi-agency taskforce would be established to track down fraudsters.
“I think they’re literally gutless cowards,” Mr Shorten told Nine this morning.
“They may think they’re tough, some of these organized crime people. They may boast themselves amongst how clever they are.
“The rest of Australia despises this. And what we’re going to do is make sure that the NDIS is only for the people who need it.”
Mr Shorten said he had warned the former government of massive fraud in the scheme.
He said he suspected there was exploitation and coercion by criminal gangs, but also that there may be people unconnected to organized crime who were padding bills and “robbing the scheme”.
NDIS Minister Bill Shorten is deriding the ‘cowards’ exploiting the most-vulnerable members of the community.(ABC News: Nicholas Haggarty)
The minister said there must be more due diligence on the invoices of people claiming to have provided services.
“It’s a mystery to me why different parts of government don’t talk to each other better … I’m not satisfied there is sufficient communication between the National Disability Insurance Agency, the tax office, policing. It shouldn’t be this way, but it is,” Mr Shorten told ABC Radio.
“And I don’t understand why more hasn’t been done earlier.”
NDIS anti-fraud teams have recovered a small portion of the alleged billions that have been defrauded from the scheme, charging 18 people since 2020 with a total of about $14 million in alleged fraud.
NSW Labor frontbencher Walt Secord is stepping down from the shadow ministry after being accused of bullying by past and current colleagues.
Key points:
Walt Secord says he asked to stand aside following a “long reflection”
Several past and present colleagues have accused Mr Secord of bullying
It follows the release of the Broderick review into NSW parliament
Mr Secord, who held several shadow portfolios, said he had asked Opposition Leader Chris Minns to “let me stand aside” after a “long reflection.”
It follows the release of the Broderick review into the culture of the NSW parliament, which exposed a “toxic” environment of bullying and sexual harassment.
Mr Secord has spent more than 30 years in the Labor Party and was serving as the opposition spokesman for police, counter terrorism, arts and heritage and the north coast.
He issued an apology last week after an ABC investigation uncovered allegations against him by several unnamed people.
“Chris [Minns]myself, and the NSW Labor Party have committed to adopting the recommendations of the Broderick review and working across party lines to make the NSW Parliament and NSW politics a workplace we can all be proud of,” he said in a statement.
“I fully support the Broderick review and the change it will hopefully lead to. But my remaining in the shadow ministry at this time has become a distraction from these major revelations and the important work that needs to be done.
“I will be making no further comment.”
Mr Secord is the first NSW politician to step down following the review conducted by former sex discrimination commissioner Elizabeth Broderick.
Last week, Premier Dominic Perrottet said the findings were “sobering, confronting and unacceptable”.
“If parliamentarians cannot lead and provide an environment where the workplace is safe, what hope do we have for other workplaces across our great state?”
On Friday, Mr Secord apologized for his conduct in office, acknowledging he could be “too blunt and too direct” in the high-pressure environment.
“If any parliamentary staff members feel that my conduct in the workplace was unprofessional and caused offense or distress and was unacceptable, I unreservedly apologize,” he said.
The senior Labor figure said he wanted to be part of “repairing the culture in state parliament, and addressing my behavior as part of that”.
Mr Minns has called a press conference for later this morning.
