Australia information dwell: police pepper spray neo-Nazi rally in Melbourne; Bruce Lehrmann to study destiny of attraction

Round 300 Qantas engineers are set to stroll off the job for twenty-four hours from this morning.

Engine elements upkeep engineers in Melbourne will strike from 9am Aedt, with a big rally anticipated on the metropolis’s Tullamarine Airport Worldwide Terminal from 10am.

Brisbane heavy upkeep engineers can even strike from 1:30am Aest for twenty-four hours, with a big rally deliberate on the Brisbane Worldwide Terminal from 9am.

The Qantas Engineers’ Alliance – a union alliance together with the AMWU, the AWU, and the ETU – mentioned additional motion was crucial after “Qantas management refused to return to the bargaining table and increase its previous offer”.

The present enterprise settlement expired on the finish of June, and the union has put ahead a wage declare of 5% per 12 months, with a 15% first-year enhance to compensate for 3.5 years of wage freezes and as an business catch-up fee.

AMWU nationwide secretary Steve Murphy mentioned union members have been “voting overwhelmingly to escalate our industrial activities.” Michael Wright, nationwide secretary with the ETU, mentioned that “Qantas needs to stop stalling, start showing their respect to these workers and pay them what they’re worth.”

Daniel raises infrastructure issues amid Victorian authorities rezoning plans

Zoe Daniel was additionally requested a few proposal inside her Victorian voters for high-rise housing, having already raised issues.

The state premier, Jacinta Allan, has introduced an overhaul of planning guidelines in 50 inner-Melbourne areas positioned close to public transport, to permit for better density:

Daniel mentioned she “absolutely” helps extra housing inside her voters, however accused the federal government of saying its housing insurance policies “on the front pages of these Sunday newspapers with no warning to local councils or communities, which causes residents concern and uncertainty about what the plan is”:

And I feel that’s actually unhealthy apply. In low-rise suburbs, to placed on the entrance web page of the paper that you just’re contemplating towers of as much as 20-storeys adjoining to coach stations – the place there’s nothing something like that top, even barely half that top in your complete voters – requires conversations with folks, to deliver them alongside and to say, ‘well, this is actually what we plan to do’.

She additionally expressed concern over infrastructure calls for, stating: “Where’s the childcare? Where are the schools? Where’s the healthcare? What are the transport impacts of that?”

None of these conversations … have been had, they usually must be had.

Extra on information media bargaining code and funding of media publishers

One of many committee’s key suggestions was a digital platform levy on firms like Meta and Google, which some have described as a tech tax to fund public curiosity journalism.

Does Zoe Daniel help this? She responded “maybe”, and mentioned whether or not it may be within the subsequent finances is “really a question around the technicalities of how you design it.”

So in elements of Europe, for instance, there’s a 2% digital companies tax. You can take a look at a public curiosity journalism levy.

The difficulty that we’ve essentially right here is the … offshoring of the digital platform’s earnings, the place at the moment they pay little or no tax as a result of they argue that they don’t function in Australia, despite the fact that they’re getting this huge revenue yield of the promoting on their platforms. In order that’s one other factor that must be resolved inside laws to be able to impose a tax.

Daniel mentioned that “a tax won’t solve anything” and as a former journalist herself she is “supportive of finding mechanisms to support media diversity”:

However merely imposing a tax and feeding [it] into media organisations … received’t repair the difficulty if Meta continues to deprecate information content material – that’s, scale back the publicity of reports content material to its customers.

Zoe Daniel on reignited information media bargaining code combat

As Josh Butler and Amanda Meade have reported, social media firm Meta has accused a federal parliamentary committee of ignoring “the realities of how our platforms work” and the worth Fb and Instagram deliver to information retailers.

This comes as a combat reignites over the information media bargaining code and funding of media publishers:

Zoe Daniel, the Impartial MP for Goldstein, was on ABC radio earlier this morning to debate this and mentioned there was “some irony” in platforms arguing the committee was not acknowledging how they work, as a result of “we have so little transparency around how their platform operates”.

In truth, that’s in all probability the principle factor that we heard through the in depth committee hearings that we’ve completed thus far. However we merely don’t know what’s occurring beneath the hood with these digital platforms, and till we permit digital researchers entry to truly perceive the algorithms, we received’t be capable to resolve points round both social media hurt and the varied social points that that’s inflicting, and likewise what impression that’s having on the best way that information content material is distributed to Australians.

Footage emerges of Queensland LNP chief promising ‘conscience vote’ on abortion, regardless of assertions

Confusion across the abortion coverage of Queensland opposition chief David Crisafulli stays at the moment after footage of an interview from final 12 months reveals him suggesting there would a “conscience vote” on the difficulty if he received energy.

That seems to contradict his repeated assertion on the marketing campaign path that there can be no modifications to abortion legal guidelines regardless of stress to take action from rightwing minority events.

Our full story explains the importance of the footage:

Full Story: the ‘doomsday’ cult

The Shincheonji church is a global Christian sect which began in South Korea. The group is being accused of weird recruitment methods at quite a lot of Australian universities and former members have made allegations of “coercive control” techniques that embody love bombing and sleep deprivation.

Medical editor Melissa Davey speaks to Reged Ahmad concerning the experiences of households of present members, in addition to former members, about life on the within of this alleged “doomsday cult”.

Grocery store giants Coles and Woolworths are headed to their first court docket look since being accused of tricking clients with faux reductions, AAP stories.

Each supermarkets will face the federal court docket at the moment accused of violating client regulation by the Australian Competitors and Client Fee, which says they misled consumers on a whole bunch of widespread grocery store gadgets with their “Down Down” and “Prices Dropped” campaigns.

The alleged faux reductions included on dairy, pet meals, private care, espresso, drugs, lollies, cereal and family cleansing merchandise. The ACCC started separate proceedings in opposition to Woolworths Group Ltd and Coles Supermarkets Australia Pty Ltd in September.

On the time, the ACCC’s chair, Gina Cass-Gottlieb, alleged each supermarkets used related ploys to extend costs of a whole bunch of merchandise earlier than dropping them as a part of their respective campaigns. The merchandise bought for lower than the inflated costs, however nonetheless greater than the common value that utilized earlier than the value spike.

The ACCC mentioned, if profitable, it could search a major penalty for the alleged breaches of client regulation.

Coles mentioned it could defend the court docket proceedings, whereas Woolworths mentioned its Costs Dropped program was launched to present consumers “great everyday value” on merchandise.

Good morning

Emily Wind

Emily Wind right here, signing on for running a blog duties. Because of Martin Farrer for getting issues began this morning. I’ll be with you for a lot of the day as we deliver you our rolling protection.

You’ll be able to attain out through X (@emilywindwrites) or e-mail (emily.wind@theguardian.com) with any ideas, ideas or suggestions.

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Bruce Lehrmann’s attraction verdict due at the moment

An impoverished Bruce Lehrmann is about to seek out out if an attraction of his defamation loss is over or he can proceed combating in court docket, AAP stories.

Community Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson have requested for federal court docket orders that he pay $200,000 in safety within the occasion he loses his attraction. The previous Liberal staffer opposed this transfer.

He has additionally requested Justice Wendy Abraham to remain orders he pay $2m in authorized prices to Ten, in addition to an as-yet unknown invoice for Wilkinson’s defence prices.

The choose is scheduled at hand down her choice at the moment.

She heard on 14 October Lehrmann was dwelling on Centrelink advantages and his lawyer described him in court docket as “pretty much unemployable”.

Ten has already served a chapter discover on Lehrmann however agreed to not take any additional steps till the attraction is resolved.

Suspected neo-Nazis have been pepper-sprayed by police in Melbourne final evening after they tried to disrupt the ultimate evening of a 100-day protest in help of refugees.

Protesters supporting a marketing campaign for refugees to be given everlasting visas had gathered in Docklands for a peaceable protest.

However just a few dozen black-clad counterprotesters turned up on the scene and chanted “white power” and “hail victory”, David Glanz, a spokesperson for the Refugee Motion Collective, instructed the Age.

Police shaped a line and pushed the counterprotesters again, pepper-spraying them and forcing them to retreat.

The Albanese authorities has introduced it would put aside $26m to fund roads, sewerage, water and energy for brand new houses in Sydney’s south-west as a part of its broader $32bn housing commitments.

The transfer comes after the opposition introduced, if elected, it could ship $5bn to construct crucial infrastructure required for brand new houses in undeveloped land, generally known as greenfield websites.

The house affairs minister, Clare O’Neil, mentioned the funding would assist progress the Bonnyrigg renewal venture which is able to present 65 new social houses and 210 non-public residential heaps.

The Albanese authorities’s housing help program will ship $500m in funding for state, territory and native governments to construct enabling infrastructure till mid-2025 with an additional $1bn put aside for social housing.

Below the Coalition’s plan, $5bn in funding within the type of grants and concessional loans would go to business, native councils and state utilities to construct enabling infrastructure like water, energy and sewerage.

As much as 500,000 houses might be constructed on principally undeveloped outer suburb or regional lands, the opposition claimed, and if a growth didn’t progress inside 12 months of receiving the funding its grant or mortgage can be terminated.

It additionally proposed to freeze any modifications to nationwide constructing codes for 10 years, claiming the updates – similar to these requiring new houses to fulfill larger vitality effectivity requirements – have added hundreds of {dollars} to housing costs.

O’Neil mentioned:

We’ve an bold plan to construct 1.2m houses over the following 5 years, unlocked by billions of {dollars} of funding in roads, sewerage, water and energy proper throughout Australia … Peter Dutton’s infrastructure announcement is a highway to nowhere, pushing Australians to dwell hours away from their households and from their work.

Learn extra:

Good morning and welcome to our dwell information weblog. I’m Martin Farrer with the highest in a single day tales after which it’ll be Emily Wind with the principle motion.

“We’re going down the same path as Amazon. We’re not robots, we’re humans,” says one Woolworths warehouse employee about new working preparations to remove “time-wasting” seen by workers as a “bullying” tactic. We’ve spoken to a number of staff who’re pushing again on the new framework launched by the grocery store large within the title of effectivity however which staff describe as unsafe.

It comes as Woolworths joins Coles in dealing with the federal court docket at the moment, accused of violating client regulation by the Australian Competitors and Client Fee, which says they misled consumers about reductions. Extra on that quickly.

Suspected neo-Nazis have been pepper-sprayed by police in Melbourne final evening after they tried to disrupt the ultimate evening of a 100-day protest in help of refugees. Extra particulars developing.

And the right way to eliminate used photo voltaic panels has grow to be a serious headache for Australia’s renewable business. For a variety of causes, panels that might function for 20 to 30 years are being pulled off rooftops and photo voltaic farms after 10 or 12 years, inflicting a “staggering” quantity to finish up in landfill. However there’s some hope as Petra Inventory visits an organization in Brisbane that’s discovering methods to earn a living from undesirable panels.