Anthony Albanese has appointed former ADF chief Mark Binskin to investigate the circumstances around aid worker Zomi Frankcom’s death in Gaza. Photograph: Con Chrosnis/AAP
Anthony Albanese has appointed former ADF chief Mark Binskin to investigate the circumstances around aid worker Zomi Frankcom’s death in Gaza. Photograph: Con Chrosnis/AAP
Some thunderstorms are forecast for far north Queensland today, particularly around the Wide Bay coast later this afternoon:
⚠️Thunderstorm Forecast 8th April: As a trough moves offshore, thunderstorm activity is now confined to far northern parts of the state, with a slight risk of a storm also about the Wide Bay coast in the afternoon. Severe thunderstorms are not expected. pic.twitter.com/Q4dCnt9Rsu
— Bureau of Meteorology, Queensland (@BOM_Qld) April 8, 2024
Two charged in Nigeria over alleged sextortion that led to Australian teenager’s death
Two men in Nigeria have been charged over an alleged sextortion case that led to a teenage Australian boy taking his own life, AAP reports.
The boy had been engaging online with an unknown person who threatened to share personal photos of him with his family and friends if he did not pay $500, NSW police said in a statement on Monday.
He was believed to have taken his own life in 2023 as a result of the threats.
As a result of the investigation, led by the Australian federal police working alongside South African and Nigerian authorities, two Nigerian men were arrested and charged with sextortion offences in March.
The men were found in a slum in Nigeria, NSW police said. They will be dealt with locally, where authorities can prosecute for Australia-based offences.
Search continues for woman who fell from waterfall in NSW Southern Highlands
The search resumed on Monday for a woman who slipped and fell from a waterfall on Sunday, with a NSW police spokesperson conceding rescue crews were now most likely searching for a body, AAP reports.
The 21-year-old woman was hiking near Belmore Falls in Robertson when she fell about 100 metres into the water below.
Emergency services responded to reports she had fallen into the water just after 1pm, a NSW police spokesperson said.
Police and NSW State Emergency Service crews were forced to call off the search on Sunday afternoon because of poor weather conditions and fading light.
The waterfall, which plunges about 77 to 130 metres across three drops, is a popular attraction for tourists.
NSW National Parks and Wildlife has closed the falls until Wednesday to assist emergency services.
Jeisson Leon, a 28-year-old Colombian man, died in September last year after falling from a cliff while abseiling at Belmore Falls.
Authorities have urged travellers not to attempt hiking to the base of the Belmore and Gerringong waterfalls and have closed tracks to the base of both waterfalls.
Further detail from treasurer Jim Chalmers’ earlier press conference in Canberra
Chalmers told reporters the government is “interested in progressing” all eight of Emerson’s recommendations – including the mandatory code of conduct – “subject to a few weeks of genuine consultation”.
Labor has come under pressure from the Nationals since mid-2023 as well as from the Greens more recently to introduce forced divestiture powers, to allow the competition watchdog to break up big supermarket chains if they breach the code or engage in anti-competitive conduct.
Although the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has also warned of “market domination” by the grocery duopoly, the Liberals and the Coalition are yet to finalise their policy on forced divestiture.
The shadow home affairs minister, James Paterson, said today the Coalition had been “very clear” that it wants to have a “targeted divestment power” that will have “strong safeguards, but will also deal with this issue of consumers being abused by the market power of the supermarkets”.
Andrew Leigh and Jim Chalmers at their earlier press conference. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP
Chalmers contrasted the government’s “considered, methodical approach” to the Coalition’s uncertain position, citing comments from shadow finance minister, Jane Hume, earlier today that there is “always concern with divestiture powers whether they will actually decrease prices”.
Chalmers said there are “much higher priorities” and forced divestiture is “not something that we have been exploring”. The treasurer also confirmed “substantial changes to the mergers regime” will be announced this week.
The assistant minister for competition, Andrew Leigh, said the Harper, Hilmer and Dawson reviews didn’t recommend divestiture powers, which are also opposed by the National Farmers Federation and the Australian Council of Trade Unions.
Leigh accused the Nationals of being “tigers in opposition, but kittens in the cabinet”, because they settled for a voluntary code of conduct in the Coalition’s decade in office.
Earlier, the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, labelled forced divestiture “a populist response”, suggesting that forcing Woolworths or Coles to sell a regional store to its competitor could lead to “increased concentration”.
Federation University faces backlash over plans to cut one in 10 staff members
Federation University is facing growing backlash after announcing plans to cut 200 ongoing positions – the equivalent of just over one in 10 staff members.
A spokesperson for the Ballarat university said the announcement came in response to an ongoing decline in student numbers which had been exacerbated by “unexpected but necessary changes to international student visa arrangements”.
The number of international students attending Federation University fell by 49% between 2019 and 2023, causing a drop of around $80m to university revenue.
This is not sustainable … the aim is to return the university to surplus by 2026 which will allow for strengthened investment in the student experience, technology, high-quality teaching and research.
This transformation requires difficult decisions and we acknowledge the impact of these on our people and communities and we will be doing everything we can to support them through the process.
National Tertiary Education Union members at Federation University have called for the resignation of vice-chancellor Duncan Bentley after the proposed cuts, vowing to use “all available means” to push back including rallies and possible legal measures.
Dr Mathew Abbott, president of Federation University’s NTEU branch, said the university “simply cannot sustain cuts of this scale”.
Victorian environment watchdog addresses media after asbestos found in mulch
Adeshola Ore
Victoria’s environment watchdog is holding a press conference after asbestos was discovered in mulch at several parks in Melbourne earlier this month.
The Victorian Environment Protection Authority on Sunday said it had ordered Hobsons Bay city council, in Melbourne’s west, to hand over records and conduct wider testing for asbestos after the material was found in several reserves in the council area.
The EPA’s director of regulatory services, Duncan Pendrigh, says the watchdog’s inspections uncovered contaminated material at six parks, including five in the Hobsons Bay council region.
We’ve found the contamination in those parks is very low. We’ve only found a handful of asbestos piece through combing through a number of parks in the council area. We can provide assurance to the public that the risk of harm from the contamination is very low.
Pendrigh says council has fenced off the sites as a precaution. He says it’s unlikely that mulch producers are the source of the asbestos given past widespread testing by the regulator.
Pendrigh says the EPA is still investigating the possibility of illegal dumping, noting there has been an uptick in this in recent months.
Littleproud: government acted too slowly to address supermarket duopoly
The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, has accused the government of acting too slowly to address Australia’s supermarket duopoly following the release of an interim review of the grocery code.
Speaking to reporters from his south-west Queensland electorate of Maranoa, Littleproud welcomed the report’s recommendations but said they had come too late and should have included powers to break up major supermarkets.
“It’s an absolute disgrace that we’ve now taken 15 months for this government to get a report and we’ll still wait another two months before they get a final report from Dr Emerson to implement anything,” he told reporters in Warwick, a town two hours west of Brisbane.
[Major supermarkets control] 74% of the grocery market in this country. In the UK and the US, the big three supermarkets in those respective countries control between 30 to 40% of the grocery market.
So this market concentration needs competition … we need to increase the opportunity to bring new players in.
Nationals leader David Littleproud speaking to reporters in Warwick. Photograph: Aston Brown/The Guardian
Jim Chalmers is now taking questions from reporters, and is asked whether he is “deadset against divestiture” if that idea comes before the parliament?
He responded:
I think the prime minister has made clear the government’s view when it comes to that and I think others – whether it is Craig Emerson today, whether it is the chair of the ACCC – it’s clear to us that there are much higher priorities when it comes to competition policy.
That’s not something we’ve been exploring because we have found better, more effective ways to deal with some of the issues in our competition policy landscape.
Andrew Leigh also weighed in and said the Harper review, Hilmer review, Dawson review and now the Emerson review each did not recommend divestiture powers.
The National Farmers Federation have opposed divestiture powers, the ACTU has also been quite clear that they have concerns about it because of the potential impact on workers.
Consumer group Choice’s first quarterly price monitoring report to come end of June, Andrew Leigh says
The assistant minister for competition, Andrew Leigh, was next to address the media.
Speaking on the interim supermarket report, he said the government has “frequently” heard concerns from suppliers about making complaints under the existing voluntary code because of “fear of retribution” – which is why Emerson has recommended a mandatory code.
Leigh said this sits alongside work he and Chalmers have been doing to make the economy more competitive overall.
The treasurer and I announced the competition taskforce last year which has been working on the issue of mergers … the issue of non- competes … and improving competition in data and digital.
We’re revitalising national competition policy, inspired by the work done in the early 1990s under Fred Hilmer and Paul Keating which put $5,000 a year into the pockets of a typical Australian household. We understand many of these challenges involve working with states and territories and we are actively engaged in that.
In the supermarket space, the treasurer has tasked the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to do a deep dive inquiry into grocery store competition and making sure consumers are getting the best deal possible. Choice are now out collecting the data for the quarterly price monitoring report, the first of which will be coming the end of June.
Chalmers said he would announce “very substantial changes to the mergers regime” later this week.
The changes I announce this week will be all about strengthening and streamlining the mergers regime so we can modernise it and make our economy genuinely more competitive, productive and dynamic in the interests of all the Australian people, employers, employees alike.
Speaking on the interim report on supermarkets, he said would help “strengthen the food and grocery code for the better”, ensuring a “fair go” for farmers and consumers.
It recognises by replacing a voluntary code with a mandatory code that it is easier to enforce and we can impose penalties on people who do the wrong thing, and it is also harder for people to walk away from.
Responding to criticism from the Nationals that something should have been done sooner, Chalmers said: “If David Littleproud thinks more should have been done in this area sooner, where were they for the almost decade that they were in office?”
