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Marles announces government to sell off $3bn in defence owned property
The defence minister, Richard Marles, is announcing that the government will sell off $3bn in defence owned properties, which he calls the most “significant reform to Australia’s defence estate in our nation’s history”.
Marles says the issues around the defence estate have been known within defence circles for “a very long time”.
The sell-off comes after the government commissioned an audit of the estates. Marles says:
For any organisation, its home, its land, its infrastructure, its bricks and mortar, is fundamental to what it can do, and that is most certainly the case when it comes to defence.
What became clear was that defence as one of the largest owners of property in the country had a very significant estate, much of which was not being used.
Marles quotes from the audit:
Attempts to consolidate and rationalise property holdings in the past have been stymied by a lack of political and organisational will to overcome challenges … it is clear that maintaining the status quo is not an option.
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Andrew Messenger
Qld government to introduce third tranche of “adult time adult crime” laws
Queensland premier David Crisafulli has announced that the government will introduce a third round of “adult crime adult time” laws early this year.
The first two rounds mean a child convicted of any of 33 laws will be sentenced as an adult. Children as young as 10 convicted of murder are given a mandatory life sentence for some offences. They also cover offences like breaking and entering, serious assault and arson.
Crisafulli said:
In the first quarter of this year, we’ll be taking the next tranche of changes to adult crime, adult time (to parliament),”
It’s unclear which offences the new tranche will add.
The government also revealed the site of its first youth justice school, which will accommodate children on youth justice orders. A disused youth justice service centre will be converted for use by Ohana for youth, Minister for youth justice Laura Gerber said. It will open for term 3.
Palmer accuses Bannon of lying on political ad
Jumping back to that Clive Palmer press conference, Palmer directly denied claims by rightwing political strategist Steve Bannon that he was behind Palmer’s controversial $60m advertising strategy at the 2019 federal election.
A text conversation purporting to be between Bannon and an unidentified person – who appears to be convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein – was among a tranche of documents released by the US Department of Justice in connection with Epstein.
Bannon, a Donald Trump loyalist and promoter of misinformation who ran the US president’s 2016 election campaign, said in the messages sent two days after the 2019 Australian election: “I had Clive Palmer do the $60 million anti china and climate change ads.”
Palmer confirmed Bannon had called him, but that the anti-China and anti-climate change ads were already running at the time. He denied Bannon had any involvement in the ads. He also said he never met Epstein.
Palmer said:
I was deep in sleep, dreaming. I picked up the phone and this fellow said, ‘It’s Steve Bannon here.’ I said, ‘Hello, Steve, are you a member of our party?’ ‘No, I’m calling from the United States.’ I said, ‘Well, we can’t talk to people in the States. We can’t take donations from overseas.’ He said, ‘I don’t want to give a donation.’ He said, ‘I’m just ringing. I’m just ringing to say you’re running a great campaign against the Chinese, keep it up.’ I said, ‘Thanks, Steve.’ … Apparently, if you go on the press reports, he wrote some sort of a text to Mr Epstein. I’ve never met Mr Epstein.
Asked why Bannon had said he was behind the ad, Palmer replied:
Well, he just lied.
s respond to Liberal offer, but ‘there’s no rush’, says McCormack
The s have responded to the Liberals’ offer to re-form the Coalition, says Michael McCormack, promising a “diplomatic” response.
Speaking to Sky News, McCormack says there’s “no rush” to reunite. He won’t divulge any details on whether any of the conditions set by the Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, have been accepted.
It’s [The letter has] gone back … it’s careful, it’s considered, it’s appropriate and it’s diplomatic … There’s a bit of time. There’s no rush for these sorts of things. We don’t want to do what Labor did and rush legislation through the parliament. We want to make sure that we do it in a careful, considered fashion, and that’s what our response is.
I think everyone needs to be sensible about this. We do need cool and wise heads to prevail. We can’t just keep on going like we are at the moment.
Clive Palmer to launch high court challenge against Labor’s political donations changes
Clive Palmer, who’s not often seen around parliament any more, has announced he will launch a high court challenge against Labor’s political donations legislation, which will come into effect on 1 July.
The mining billionaire, according to Australian Electoral Commission data released on Monday, was the country’s biggest political donor of the last financial year (putting a whopping $53m into his Trumpet of Patriots party).
Under the changes, individuals will be able to donate up to $50,000 per year to a political candidate, and third-party groups will also be limited to donating $50,000 a year to an individual candidate but could spend up to $11.2m annually on promotions.
To journalists at Parliament House, Palmer says:
The Australian parliament, in my view, does not have the power to stop members of federal parliament raising funds to carry out their oath of office.
Elections must be fair, and the next election, the Liberals and Labor have given themselves $41m of taxpayers’ funds.
We topped the [AEC] list of $53m or something. But I want to assure everyone here today that was our money. It wasn’t taxpayers’ money. It wasn’t your money, and taxpayers’ money shouldn’t be spent at all in advantaging one side.
Where does that $41m figure come from? Under the new legislation, there will be a substantial jump in public funding from $3.50 to $5 per vote.
Victorian government offers single day of travel – worth $11.40 – for commuters trapped on trains
Benita Kolovos
The Victorian transport minister, Gabrielle Williams, has offered a single free day of travel – worth $11.40 – for commuters who were trapped on trains for up to two hours yesterday.
Williams held a doorstop at parliament a short time ago where she also apologised for the inconvenience caused, particularly for the two trains that were halted near the overhead power fault at Armadale. For one train, this was a 90-minute wait and for the other, a two-hour wait before they were helped off and had to walk to nearby Malvern station.
She said:
The government will be offering compensation to those passengers and inviting those passengers to call the Transport Victoria call centre to get a ticket, which will effectively issue them with a day’s free travel.
So for anybody who was on those services, we again apologise. We appreciate the level of inconvenience and potentially even distress that was caused.
Williams said while investigations were ongoing, there was “no indication” it was related to the ramping up of the Metro Tunnel to full capacity, which occurred a day earlier:
Early indications are, it’s not related to the Metro Tunnel or the timetable at all. It seems to be at this stage, from what we understand, a cable fault near Hawksburn.
We will get an understanding in time of exactly what’s the cause. Some of our best and brightest are working on that as we speak, so that we can make sure that we are continuing to build a rail network that is reliable and gets people to where they need to go.
Labor’s beer excise freeze passes parliament
The government’s freeze on a beer excise has passed the House, but not without a touch of drama. The freeze, which will be in place for two years once it passes the Senate, will probably save consumers about one cent on a mid-strength pint.
The s tried to move two amendments to the bill, which found support from none other than Andrew Hastie and a couple of conservative Liberal allies, including Tony Pasin, Terry Young and Ben Small. The amendment also had support from a few crossbenchers including Nicolette Boele and Andrew Wilkie.
None of the other Liberals were in the chamber to vote with the Nats.
Joe Hinchliffe
Rangers hunt last dingo in pack after death of Canadian backpacker
One dingo doomed to die remains at large on K’gari after wildlife rangers killed eight of its pack for their role in the death of Canadian backpacker Piper James on the world-heritage listed sand island off the Queensland coast.
A coroner’s preliminary assessment, released four days after the 19-year-old died in the early hours of 19 January after going for a dawn swim on her own, found “physical evidence consistent with drowning” as well as “injuries consistent with dingo bites” – noting these were unlikely to have been fatal bites.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the coroner was still “awaiting pathology results to further assist in determining the cause of death of Piper James” – a process expected to take several weeks.
Regardless, nine days ago the Queensland environment minister, Andrew Powell, said an entire pack of 10 animals would be euthanised – leading dingo experts to warn of an “extinction vortex” for Australia’s only native canid.
But a spokesperson for Queensland’s environment department said on Tuesday afternoon that eight dingoes had been “humanely euthanised”:
The operation is ongoing, with one dingo outstanding.
Jordyn Beazley
NSW Labor MLC criticises court delay over challenge to ‘draconian’ protest restrictions
A NSW Labor MLC has criticised the courts delay to hear a legal challenge on whether controversial protest restrictions are constitutional, saying the fact it couldn’t be heard until almost two months after it was filed was “a serious issue”.
Stephen Lawrence, who is also a barrister, pointed out to ABC radio on Tuesday afternoon that the state had agreed the case could be heard on 16 January but “after the judge on duty spoke to the chief justice, it was then not listed until the end of February”. He said:
The concern I’ve got is that very serious and draconian restrictions on the right to protest and assembly have been introduced. The people who seek to protest have not had the opportunity to have the court rule on it.
I’m a little bit surprised in the modern state of New South Wales that the supreme court, the court of appeal, can’t see a case, essentially in a sort of two-month period – that’s a serious issue.
It comes as the protest restriction was extended for a fourth time on Tuesday ahead of a protest against a visit by the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog. Lawrence said:
I’m just not sure that continually extending this thing to apply it to the visit of the Israeli president is actually going to make us more safe. I think it could be creating a flashpoint, and it concerns me.
Police were given the controversial power to restrict protests in 14-day increments for up to 90 days after a terror attack, after the Minns government rushed laws through parliament last year in the wake of the Bondi beach terror attack.
Groups the Blak Caucus, the Palestine Action Group (PAG) and Jews Against the Occupation ’48 filed the legal challenge against New South Wales laws restricting protests after terrorist incidents in early January, arguing the laws were invalid because they impinge on the implied constitutional right to freedom of political communication.
Prof Ben Saul has applied to join the case as an amicus curiae, which would see him provide expertise on the matter as a “friend of the court”. Saul is the United Nations special rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism.
If Saul’s application to join the case is accepted, Saul told Guardian Australia he would argue that the protest restriction is at odds with Australia’s obligations to protect the freedom of peaceful assembly under international law.
Housing ‘part of the opportunity’ from defence estate sell-off
Jumping back to the press conference in Parliament House:
Richard Marles was asked whether housing will be built on any of the sold off land.
The defence minister says while that could be the case, it was not necessarily the priority of the audit.
I expect that housing will be part of the opportunity that is created here. But I want to be really clear, that’s not why we’re doing this. [This is] around making sure we have a defence estate which is properly attuned to the capabilities of the Australian defence force.
The finance minister, Katy Gallagher, is with Marles – the finance department will be in charge of the sell-off. Gallagher says no decisions around what the land could be used for have been made yet.
The short answer is none of those decisions have been taken.
The divestment the land is coming to [the finance department], then there will be a piece of work done about what is the most appropriate use on those sites, and it will be varied. I mean, there are some prime locations. I imagine there will be a lot of interest and a lot of views about what it can be used for … It may be that some sites are suitable for housing, obviously, other sites will have contamination, heritage restrictions, other issues that need to be worked through.
You can read more on the announcement from my colleague, Tom McIlroy, here:
Nino Bucci
Former NSW Labor ministers fail in high court bid to overturn corruption convictions
Former NSW Labor ministers Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald, along with Obeid’s son Moses, have failed in a high court bid to have their 2021 corruption convictions overturned.
The high court ruled on Wednesday that the trio’s appeal against their convictions should be dismissed.
The men were found guilty of a conspiracy to wilfully have Macdonald, the former NSW minerals minister, commit misconduct in public office. The conspiracy involved Macdonald granting a lucrative coal exploration licence to land owned by an Obeid family company.
The court granted the men leave to appeal on a single ground - that the prosecution case at their NSW supreme court trial was “incapable at law” of amounting to a conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office, given the prosecution did not allege there was an agreement for Macdonald to do a particular act of misconduct. In its judgment, the high court said:
For the reasons that follow, each appeal must be dismissed. The agreement alleged by the Crown in its indictment, as particularised during the trial, was a complete offence of conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office.
The alleged agreement contemplated acts to be undertaken by Mr Macdonald that necessarily satisfied the elements of the predicate offence, albeit that it was not known and could not be known at the time the agreement was made what “particular acts” Mr Macdonald would undertake to bring about the objects of the agreement.
