Key occasions
Girl accused of assaulting Muslim girls in Melbourne launched on bail
Cait Kelly
A lady accused of the Islamophobic assault of two Muslim girls at a purchasing centre has been launched on bail, AAP has reported.
Suzan Gonulalan, 31, is charged with deliberately and recklessly inflicting harm, illegal assault and aggravated assault in relation to her alleged assault on two girls carrying hijabs inside Epping purchasing complicated in Melbourne’s north on Thursday.
Police allege she focused the victims due to their head coverings.
The accused appeared in Melbourne magistrates court docket on Thursday, the place Justice of the Peace Justin Foster granted her bail.
Foster described the offending as critical given the “alleged racial overtones” of the assaults the place two girls had been carrying hijabs and an earlier assault on one other lady in a hijab.
He mentioned:
However I feel that the danger may be correctly ameliorated to an appropriate degree.
Former treasury secretary Ken Henry has been talking on radio this morning after a speech at Per Capita’s group tax summit yesterday the place he mentioned current governments have carried out “wilful acts of bastardry” and created intergenerational inequality and environmental destruction that may depart youthful voters worse off.
As a part of his speech he advisable indexing tax thresholds to inflation. Freezing tax thresholds will increase folks’s taxable earnings as wages go up with inflation. This ends in extra income to the federal government, in a phenomenon referred to as “fiscal drag”.
Henry advised ABC RN this morning that:
I actually by no means thought I might make such a advice, and for a few years, didn’t must.
I bear in mind again within the Nineteen Eighties, the second half of the Nineteen Eighties, each time a brand new CPI quantity got here out, then-treasurer Paul Keating needed to persuade a skeptical media that taxpayers had been nonetheless paying much less tax than had the tax scales being listed for inflation. That’s, that he was not relying upon fiscal drag to repair the price range so that each CPI launch this needed to be demonstrated. You recognize, the media was retaining treasurer Keating trustworthy.
The media doesn’t behave in that method at the moment. And in reality, in the event that they had been to take action, they might uncover that each Australian authorities since has relied upon fiscal drag to do a lot of the heavy lifting.
That is punishing younger staff, and so I feel it’s obtained to the purpose the place now we have to drive governments to behave responsibly. And one strategy to drive governments to behave responsibly is to index the tax scales, to take away fiscal drag, in order that that is not a lazy type of income elevating for lazy authorities.
My colleague Cait Kelly has extra on Henry’s speech yesterday right here:
‘There’s a precept right here, which is weekends matter’
Employment minister Murray Watt has been doing the media rounds this morning on the again of his intervention within the penalty charges case, as my colleague Dan Jervis-Bardy famous beneath.
Talking to ABC Information Breakfast just a little earlier, Watt mentioned the federal government felt compelled to intervene as “some of the biggest retailers in the country like Coles and Woolies, try to slash the penalty rates of some of the lowest-paid workers in the country”:
I’ve seen that the retailers have tried to painting this as being about managers of their shops. We have to keep in mind that we’re speaking about people who find themselves incomes as little as $54,000 a 12 months. Past that, there’s a precept right here, which is weekends matter.
Watt mentioned whereas it wasn’t uncommon for employers and staff to generally negotiate trade-offs of situations in alternate for larger pay by means of the enterprise bargaining course of, this attraction from the retailers was an try to undercut the minimal requirements for all staff:
What we’re speaking about right here is an try by huge enterprise to vary the minimal security web, the award provisions, the protection ground that’s supposed to offer minimal charges and situations for staff.
And what we’re saying is that if employers need to have these kind of adjustments, they need to negotiate with their staff as a complete moderately than attempt to take them away from minimal situations.
Reserve Financial institution to face parliamentary questioning at the moment
The Reserve Financial institution governor will shed new gentle on her board’s resolution to chop rates of interest for the primary time in additional than 4 years when she faces a parliamentary grilling at the moment.
Michele Bullock mentioned inflation had slowed greater than anticipated, convincing the board it was applicable to barely ease financial coverage after its assembly on Tuesday.
However her warning to the market to decrease its expectations for extra cuts could elevate the eyebrows of parliamentarians, a few of whom have been calling on the financial institution to slash charges for months.
Conversely, some economists argued the board was too untimely in slicing charges, reminiscent of College of NSW professor Richard Holden, who argued underlying inflation was nonetheless too excessive.
RBA deputy governor Andrew Hauser – who will seem earlier than the committee alongside Bullock, the financial institution’s chief economist Sarah Hunter and assistant governor Brad Jones – mentioned the choice to chop was not a “slam dunk”, because the market had anticipated.
Labor MP Jerome Laxale will proceed to press the RBA on its progress in eradicating pointless surcharging from card funds.
ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb advised a parliamentary listening to final week the patron watchdog had no energy to cease service suppliers from overcharging on debit card transactions by mixing charges with bank cards.
Whereas a small enterprise could pay about 0.3% or 0.4% to offer debit card providers, they had been being slugged as much as 2.9% by some suppliers.
Laxale advised AAP:
It’s a scorching matter and I feel persons are hungry for reform. Debit is the brand new money and needs to be handled the identical.
He may even query the central financial institution over its stance on cryptocurrency after Bullock mentioned final 12 months she didn’t perceive what function it may play in Australia’s financial system.
– AAP
Andrew Messenger
Queensland nurses protest towards pay supply
Queensland’s nurses will march on the headquarters of the state authorities at the moment in protest at what they name an insufficient pay supply by the state authorities.
The Queensland Nurses and Midwives’ Union is the primary to barter a pay settlement with the brand new Liberal Nationwide celebration authorities, the primary conservative authorities in a decade. Their enterprise bargaining settlement expires in March.
Union members will march on 1 William Road, the chief constructing for the state authorities. They plan handy ship a letter to the premier, David Crisafulli, and the well being minister, Tim Nicholls.
Underneath the earlier LNP authorities led by Campbell Newman, 1,800 nurses’ jobs had been amongst 14,000 public service jobs slashed, sparking widespread protest by Queensland unions.
Nurses union secretary Sarah Beaman mentioned the Crisafulli authorities’s wages coverage, which has not been obtained in writing, caps pay will increase at a most 2.5% in 2026 and 2027.
She mentioned it consists of the “possibility” of a most annual wage rise of three.5% if inflation rises to that degree or above:
The federal government’s state wages coverage falls considerably brief of what’s essential to uphold the LNP authorities’s dedication to keep up nation-leading wages and situations for Queensland Well being nurses and midwives.
We’re in search of pressing clarification from the federal government on how they’ll ship on their dedication to the QNMU.
Queensland Council of Unions basic secretary Jacqueline King mentioned the general public service unions had been offered with the federal government’s “wage policy” in a gathering on Wednesday.
She mentioned if the supply had been last it will be insufficient:
We’d contemplate that that’s an early supply from the federal government, which we’ll contemplate as unions, however there’s nonetheless a strategy to go.
Townsville loss of life from flood-related illness
An aged individual had died of melioidosis in Townsville whereas three new instances of dengue virus have been found locally, Queensland Well being has confirmed.
Melioidosis has claimed 4 lives additional north in Cairns, with the area recording a complete variety of 41 instances since 1 January. The illness is related to the moist season and is unfold by means of contact with contaminated water, soil and air, inflicting loss of life in as much as 20% of handled instances.
An investigation can be underneath method after three new dengue virus instances from two adjoining homes in South Townsville had been found.
North Queensland is reeling from file rainfall that triggered flooding, claiming two lives and forcing a whole lot to evacuate their houses, and extra rain could also be on the best way with a cyclone probably heading towards the north Queensland coast mid-next week.
Melioidosis instances in Cairns are believed to have doubled in contrast with 2024. The Townsville group is being reminded of the moist season’s well being dangers.
Townsville public well being unit director Dr Steven Donohue mentioned:
Melioidosis instances have elevated all through the moist season, in some instances resulting in hospitalisations. Melioidosis is a really critical infectious illness which is brought on by soil micro organism in northern Australia.
The illness can happen when cuts or wounds are available contact with contaminated mud or water and when folks breath in muddy droplets. Signs embrace fever, cough and issue respiration, whereas pores and skin infections or abscesses may be one other signal.
February 2025 is formally the wettest month in historical past for some north Queensland cities, with Paluma close to Townsville recording greater than two metres of rain – double what Sydney receives in a 12 months.
To fight melioidosis an infection, locals have been urged to put on gloves, footwear and protecting clothes when cleansing up.
– AAP
Employment minister to struggle retailers on penalty charges
Dan Jervis-Bardy
The federal authorities is intervening to struggle a push from main retailers to wind again situations for staff.
The employment minister, Murray Watt, will file a submission to the Honest Work Fee on Friday arguing towards the Australian Retailers Affiliation’s bid to rewrite the business award.
Amongst 17 proposed amendments backed by grocery store giants Coles and Woolworths, the ARA needs to permit employers to exempt senior workers from penalty charges, extra time, allowances and depart loading in the event that they pay them greater than 25% of the minimal base price of pay.
The affiliation has mentioned the adjustments had been designed to create a “more flexible, modern system” that balanced the wants of staff and executives.
The Australian Council of Commerce Unions has blasted the proposal as “corporate greed”, warning it will be used as a precedent to chop wages in different industries.
The federal authorities agrees, utilizing the FWC submission to launch one other assault on huge enterprise within the lead-up to the federal election.
Watt mentioned:
In case you hand over your nights and weekends to maintain Australia fed and clothed, you deserve your penalty charges.
We’re targeted on serving to Australians earn extra, whereas the massive supermarkets and retailers try to chop their penalty charges.
If employers need to agree with staff to trade-off award entitlements, then they’ll do that by means of enterprise bargaining, not by means of variations to awards.
Awards are presupposed to be a security web to guard all staff. They shouldn’t be diverse to take away essential entitlements like penalty charges for low-paid staff.
Welcome
Good morning. My identify is Stephanie Convery and I’m going to be taking you thru all of the reside information this high quality Friday morning.
First up: one individual in Townsville has died from melioidosis, a illness that has been linked with heavy rain, after the illness claimed 4 lives in Cairns this 12 months, as north Queensland grapples with heavy rain and flooding. Three instances of dengue virus have additionally been present in Townsville, and areas close to there have recorded greater than 2 metres of rainfall this February. We’ll have extra for you on that story shortly.
We’re additionally anticipating Michele Bullock, the governor of the Reserve Financial institution, and different RBA big-wigs to face one thing of a grilling at the moment as they’re questioned within the Home of Representatives. It comes after the RBA determined this week to chop rates of interest for the primary time in additional than 4 years, after inflation slowed greater than anticipated.
We’ve loads extra coming your method this morning, so seize your self a espresso and keep tuned.
