Australia news live: Icac hears of friendship breakdown between Reformers members, third Victorian teachers’ strike announced

Key events

Victorian teachers vote to strike for third time this year in pay dispute

Victorian teachers will walk off the job for a third time in five months after negotiations stalled in their bitter pay and conditions dispute with the state government, AAP reports.

Earlier today, the Australian Education Union announced a 24-hour stop work action in Victorian state schools on 19 August after an internal meeting.

Unless the parties can come to an agreement, it will be the state’s third major teachers’ strike this year.

The most recent strike took place on 23 July, with school gates locked across Victoria as 20,000 educators descended on Melbourne’s CBD to demand better pay and working conditions.

The statewide strike took place a week after Victorian union members narrowly rejected a revised government pay offer.

The deal, which was opposed by 51.8%, would have increased pay for teachers and support staff by at least 28.3% over four years, with an increase of 12.75% by October this year.

The newly minted Victorian premier, Ben Carroll, who served as education minister under former leader Jacinta Allan, argued the latest rejected pitch was a “watershed moment for education” that would have made Victorian teachers the best paid in Australia.

The president of the Victorian branch of the teachers’ union, Justin Mullaly, said negotiations with the government had not progressed since the last pay offer was put on the table on 17 July.

Mullaly acknowledged the latest pay offer was “significant”, but said it was not enough to meet the needs of overworked, underpaid educators.

He said:

Only three-in-10 teachers are saying they’ll stick around until retirement.

That’s no good for our public education, that’s no good for our children and young people that we teach.

Sloane has previously declined to provide running commentary on Icac’s hearings after other current shadow ministers were named during hearings, but Rath’s admission relates to conduct prior to the current inquiry.

In a statement today, she said:

I have spoken with Chris directly. I have expressed my disappointment about what occurred and made it clear to him the standards I expect of every member of my team. Those standards are high, and I expect them to be upheld at all times.

I respect the Parliament’s processes. It is not appropriate for me to simply substitute my own judgment years later for the findings and sanctions imposed by the Parliament after it had considered all the facts.

NSW opposition leader backs minister linked to Reformers

The NSW Liberal leader, Kellie Sloane, has backed in a minister who has been linked to the conservative rightwing factional group called the Reformers, which is being investigated under Icac’s Operation Rosny.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported today that NSW Liberal shadow planning minister, Chris Rath, had been captured by wire tap helping members of the Reformers evade summons to appear before a 2023 parliamentary inquiry which preceded the Icac’s Operation Rosny inquiry.

In a statement, Rath, who later recused himself from the committee, said he was “apologetic” for the incident, which had been dealt with by the NSW Privileges Committee, which had issued him a caution.

Rath said in the statement:

This Inquiry commenced in the highly politically charged context of an election campaign, and at the time I didn’t comprehend the gravity of the allegations.

Hi, I hope you’re having a nice Friday. I’ll take it from here.

That’s it for me. Catie McLeod will pick up the blog from here. Take care!

Safety failings compounded deadly wedding bus crash

Fatalities in one of Australia’s worst bus crashes could have been reduced with better protections for ejected passengers, a three-year investigation has found.

AAP reports 10 mostly young wedding guests were killed in a bus tip-over at a roundabout in Greta in the NSW Hunter Valley in 2023, with a further 25 injured.

Driver Brett Andrew Button, 60, received a decades-long prison sentence for his role in the crash, as he was under the influence of an opioid painkiller and driving too fast at the time.

The Office of Transport Safety Investigations on Friday handed down an investigation report into the crash. Chief investigator Jim Modrouvanos said Button should not have been behind the wheel on the night of the crash, but added passenger protection systems had not worked effectively.

He said not all passengers wore seatbelts fitted in the coach and they were not issued with a pre-trip safety warning as was company policy.

Modrouvanos delivered 41 recommendations in total, and government regulators, operators and organisations have accepted wholly or in principle the 34 recommendations relevant to them.

They included strengthening medication management, developing a centralised driver performance system, increasing seatbelt management and a review of minimum rollover-protection requirements.

Trial for mother and daughter over alleged Islamic State ties

Two accused women with links to Islamic State have been committed to stand trial as their cases are fast-tracked to the supreme court, AAP reports.

Kawsar Ahmad, 54, and her daughter Zeinab Ahmad, 31, appeared in Melbourne magistrates court via video link on Friday as they entered their “not guilty” pleas.

The two women were charged with slavery offences in May after returning to Australia with other family members of former Islamic State fighters.

It’s alleged Kawsar migrated to the Middle Eastern country to join IS with her husband, Mohammed, Zeinab and their other children about January 2015. It’s alleged while in Syria in 2017, Mohammed bought a teenage girl as a slave for $US10,000.

The two women each made a bid for bail in June but only Kawsar was successful, with a magistrate finding she posed a very low risk to the community. Kawsar’s bail was extended to her supreme court date, with conditions including a prohibition from attending any mosques to continue.

Zeinab was refused bail because there was no compelling evidence she had renounced the terrorist group. She was remanded in custody after not making any further bail applications.

Icac witness describes being ‘hangry’ before lunchtime break

The NSW Icac’s hearings have resumed after a break for lunch. Just before lunch, the Icac presiding commissioner, Fabian Gleeson, who has frequently intervened during Reformer Robert Assaf’s evidence today, told Assaf he had become “a bit argumentative in your response”.

“I believe they call that hangry commissioner,” Assaf said.

Gleeson said:

I’m not aware of what young people’s speak is these days, Mr Assaf. What I’d like you to do is to sit there, concentrate and answer a further question which council assisting has, and then we’ll adjourn. Understand?

The commission heard how Assaf, 30, came to be employed in communications at Catholic Schools NSW, the governing body for 600 schools in the state, in 2019, alongside Reformers associate Dylan Whitelaw, who gave evidence earlier in the week.

The Catholic Schools NSW chief executive, Dallas McInerney, is alleged to have arranged and approved payments to the Reformers to support branch stacking efforts through registered lobbyist Beckington, where Whitelaw later came to be employed.

Under intense questioning before lunch from counsel assisting, Peggy Dwyer SC, Assaf admitted that he knew that money being paid to Beckington was to fund work that Whitelaw was doing for the Reformers. “I knew that, yes,” Assaf said.

Australia’s golden sprinters speak out on cycling defector: ‘Good riddance’

Leigh Hoffman has bade Matt Richardson good riddance after Australia’s gold medal in the team sprint on day one of the Commonwealth Games track cycling program, AAP reports.

Teammate Ryan Elliott also joked they had cleared Hoffman as their leader, checking his passport to make sure he will stay in the Australian program. While expressing sympathy for Richardson after a recent nasty race crash in Japan, his former teammates finally spoke freely about the shock defection.

Their big win over England was one of Australia’s three cycling gold medals at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome, along with the women’s team pursuit and para-cyclist Tara Neyland.

But England gained some revenge for the Paris Olympics, beating Australia in the men’s team pursuit final. Two years ago, Australia narrowly downed Great Britain in a pulsating ride-off for gold. Soon after Paris, Richardson stunned the sport by switching allegiances to Great Britain.

Read more here:

Toyota becomes airborne and then wedges in side of Brisbane bus

A Queensland driver has been fined after being involved in a stunning crash that saw a car become airborne and then stuck in the side of a bus.

The drama unfolded at Rocklea in Brisbane’s south on Wednesday evening. A blue Toyota Yaris hit a traffic island and was catapulted into the air before smashing into the side of the council bus. The back of the car was left protruding from the bus.

Watch below:

Footage shows car lodged into side of bus after airborne crash in Brisbane