Jean Nassif tells Icac ‘I’m going to speak my heart’
Penry Buckley
Leaving question time for a moment, and the propery developer Jean Nassif is now appearing on screen at the NSW Icac, wearing a white, open-collared shirt.
Although the video connection with Nassif, who has said he is appearing from his bedroom in Beirut, has occasionally been interrupted, presiding commissioner Fabian Gleeson SC has been able to explain to Nassif that he has not been compelled to give evidence, and has the right to silence.
Gleeson: “And as I understand it, you have nevertheless indicated that you would like to give evidence before the commission. Is that correct? Is that correct, Mr Nassif?”
Nassif: “Yes, your honour.”
Gleeson asks Nassif, who does not have legal representation, if he would like to take legal advice. Nassif says:
I don’t wish to have legal advice. I’m going to speak my heart, and I’m going to say exactly what happened with me in my whole entire career for 25 years in Australia. I’m willing to answer any question … I have no issues.
Key events
Tl;dr here’s what happened in question time (already feels like an eternity ago)
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The PM was pressed on the $6m grant awarded to a golf club in his electorate that he is an honorary member of.
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Asked if the grant was making his property down the road more valuable, he said it wasn’t so much a “question as a smear”.
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Andrew Wallace brought a fat stack of papers to the chamber with 10,000 signatures on it calling for a reduction in private health rebates for over 65s to be reversed.
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Independent Dai Le asked if the government would cut the fuel excise to give people more cost of living relief.
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And shadow treasurer Tim Wilson was the sole MP to face Milton Dick’s wrath today – kicked out around the two thirds mark for making too much noise.
Hundreds of jobs cut at Whyalla steelworks in SA
Jonathan Barrett
About 500 Whyalla steelworks employees will lose their jobs after officials abandoned efforts to restart the plant’s troubled blast furnace.
The decision is expected to put about 500 out of work, according to the plant’s administrators KordaMentha, taking the workforce from the steelworks, the port and the associated mine down from about 1,700 to about 1,200.
The decision to abandon further revival efforts shuts down Australia’s sole local manufacturer of rail steel and idles one of only two integrated steel facilities in the country.
The Whyalla steelworks were part of British industrialist Sanjeev Gupta’s metals empire until early last year, when the South Australian government tipped the operations into administration after years of underinvestment.
The South Australian premier, Peter Malinauskas, said today that the blast furnace’s “days were numbered”.
There was always the intention that it would close. We would have liked it to last a little bit longer, but, alas, it hasn’t been able to.
Last year, the federal and state governments unveiled a $2.4bn support package to keep the plant running, pay employees and creditors, upgrade infrastructure, and ultimately entice a new buyer to reinvigorate the plant.
The coal-fired blast furnace has been offline since April. Administrators are seeking a buyer to restore operations.
Luca Ittimani
Top spy warns Australia’s old tech vulnerable to AI hacking
One of Australia’s top intelligence agencies has warned Australian business and government’s old technology is leaving them vulnerable to AI attacks.
Abigail Bradshaw, director general of the Australian Signals Directorate, has told the Sydney Dialogue to take note of Anthropic’s recent warning of AI agents and hacking risks. She said ASD did not know how many agents were on the internet:
I think that prospect of getting some sort of definition or calculation of how these agents are out there is really remote, and I would just say a lot.
She said Australian systems faced “enormous” hidden costs of maintaining outdated technology but said they needed to be addressed. She said:
If we don’t move fast enough, almost certainly it would be legacy technology which is first compromised in a major AI-enabled attack.
Government and businesses had the same issue and neither had the funding to replace all of its old systems, she said. But she said partial replacement had to start immediately and that would mean taking down systems that Australians expect to be available all the time.
What AI calls for, because of the ease and speed in which vulnerabilities are detected, and the need now to patch not every Tuesday, not every two weeks, but potentially within 48 hours, means that we are asking people to make a different decision. We are asking private owners of infrastructure to actually optimise security over system availability. And that means we’re all going to have to be a little bit patient and do it.
Sussan Ley appointed to Snowy Hydro board
Tom McIlroy
The Albanese government has named the former Liberal leader Sussan Ley to the board of Snowy Hydro Limited.
Ley, who quit politics after being rolled as opposition leader by Angus Taylor in February, was appointed by the energy minister, Chris Bowen, and the finance minister, Katy Gallagher.
Snowy Hydro, the massive hydroelectricity project in regional New South Wales, is a government owned corporation.
The government also appointed Merryn York, the former chief executive of Queensland’s Powerlink and a former executive with the Australian Energy Market Operator.
After a final dixer to Chris Bowen on cheaper home batteries, the PM calls time on QT.
People are choosing between ‘filling the tank and filling the fridge’, independent says as she urges fuel excise cut
The independent MP Dai Le asks the prime minister if the government will halve the fuel excise again to relief cost of living pressure.
She says that while door knocking in Liverpool in Sydney’s south-west, people are telling her that they’re having to choose between “filling the tank and filling the fridge.”
Anthony Albanese doesn’t say the word “excise” once in his answer and just avoids the question entirely.
He says that people in Le’s electorate are benefiting from policies like tax cuts and urgent care clinics.
1,483 people have been helped to buy their first home with the 5% deposit scheme in Fowler alone, and Red Assistance has been given to 18,330 people. Cheaper home batteries has been delivered to more than 3,000 households in Fowler, 5,600 families have benefitted from cheaper childcare, and 24,000 students benefitted from to cut to student debt.
Le stands up to point Albanese back into the direction of her question, but he sits down and indicates that he’s finished his answer.
Wallace brings 10,000 signatures urging reversal of health insurance changes for over 65s
The Liberal MP Andrew Wallace changes tack now, and asks the government if it will reverse a decision to reduce private health rebates for over 65s.
Wallace is holding a huge stack of papers, that he reveals has more than 10,000 signatures from Australians opposed to the rebate changes.
The health minister, Mark Butler, basically says the government is holding firm despite the backlash, because the $3bn in savings will help fund aged care services.
The government has argued its unfair for an individual under 65 paying more for the same private health insurance compared to someone over 65.
He says hard decisions have to be made:
I don’t pretend this is an easy decision. It’s not one we have taken lightly. We’ve looked at the modelling very carefully. We’re convinced it will have a very marginal impact on private health insurance membership, which continues to climb … these are one of the hard decisions we have to make, if we’re going to deliver older Australians, the dignity and care that they deserve.
Wallace tries to table the petition but he’s shut down. Tony Burke says it should be presented to the petitions committee instead.
‘I’m not even the decision maker’: Albanese denies involvement in golf club grant
Did the prime minister recuse himself from a decision to hand a golf club in his electorate a $6m grant under an “invite-only” scheme that favoured Labor seats, asks Nationals MP Alison Penfold.
Anthony Albanese’s leaving minutes on the clock with these short responses (MPs get three minutes to answer during QT).
He says:
The question goes to Cabinet processes. The decision–maker is the minister for infrastructure. I’m not even the decision–maker.
That’s the whole answer.
As he says it, infrastructure minister Catherine King points to herself and says “that’s me”.
Albanese pressed on golf club grant
The opposition is continuing its line of attack on the $6m grant to a golf club, in the prime minister’s electorate, that Anthony Albanese is an honorary member of.
Liberal frontbencher Tony Pasin asks why the PM failed to declare the membership.
The PM says that he didn’t know until last week that he had the membership, and says that a two-year social membership of the club is $5.
I make no apologies for the fact that I stand up for every organisation in my electorate. That’s what good local members do.
Albanese does not mention that a full membership of the club is $1,100 a year.
Last week during QT the opposition brought their own receipts, including a Daily Telegraph article from 2019 that reported that Albanese was an honorary member.
Tim Wilson booted from the chamber
As Labor MP Alicia Payne stands up to ask the next dixer, Milton Dick kicks out shadow treasurer Tim Wilson from the frontbench for interjecting too much.
Albanese says Coalition’s golf club grant question ‘wasn’t so much a question as a smear’
The Coalition is sniffing around and trying to find something that stinks.
The Liberal frontbencher Angie Bell asks if a decision to give the Marrickville golf club in the prime minister’s electorate $6m to fix a sewage problem as part of an “invite-only” grants program has helped to “increase the value of his investment property down the road?” Anthony Albanese holds an honorary membership at the club which he says he didn’t know about.
The leader of the House, Tony Burke, is up from his seat at lightning speed and then there’s a bunch of back and forth over whether the question is in line with parliamentary standards.
It takes more than five minutes of argy bargy before the PM answers, and criticises the question himself.
That wasn’t so much a question as a smear, and its imputations are completely false.
And the opposition, of course, made election commitments worth $1.6bn – over 1,000 of them. We’re happy to go through them.
He’s about to say that none of those commitments were for Sydney’s inner west, but as Bell gets up to protest the line of attack, Albanese sits down and indicates he’s finished his answer.
Labor ‘failing at aged care’, says independent Rebekha Sharkie
Why won’t the government concede that they’re “failing at aged care”, asks independent MP Rebekha Sharkie. She says in her state of SA, in October 2022 state hospitals reported 60 older patients waiting for residential aged care – a figure that has now ballooned to 487.
Sharkie also says 5,000 people have died waiting for support at home packages.
The aged care minister, Sam Rae, says things are improving, and more money has been provided to states for hospitals and to increase the number of aged care beds.
We’ve got 830,000 Australians receiving care under the commonwealth home support program and roughly 400,000 Australians receiving care under support at home. That support at home system has nearly tripled since 2020 under our government, and the investments that we’ve made. Wait times are coming down under support at home.
Jean Nassif tells Icac ‘I’m going to speak my heart’
Penry Buckley
Leaving question time for a moment, and the propery developer Jean Nassif is now appearing on screen at the NSW Icac, wearing a white, open-collared shirt.
Although the video connection with Nassif, who has said he is appearing from his bedroom in Beirut, has occasionally been interrupted, presiding commissioner Fabian Gleeson SC has been able to explain to Nassif that he has not been compelled to give evidence, and has the right to silence.
Gleeson: “And as I understand it, you have nevertheless indicated that you would like to give evidence before the commission. Is that correct? Is that correct, Mr Nassif?”
Nassif: “Yes, your honour.”
Gleeson asks Nassif, who does not have legal representation, if he would like to take legal advice. Nassif says:
I don’t wish to have legal advice. I’m going to speak my heart, and I’m going to say exactly what happened with me in my whole entire career for 25 years in Australia. I’m willing to answer any question … I have no issues.
‘I know what he thinks of you’, Coalition challenges Albanese on criticism from Labor luminary
There’s nothing worse than being criticised by your own, which is why the shadow treasurer, Tim Wilson, has now pounced on comments from former union leader and Labor luminary Bill Kelty that Labor is presiding over falling housing affordability and a drop in real wages.
Anthony Albanese tries to brush off the burn, and says to the opposition:
We all know Bill Kelty. I’ll make that point. I know Bill Kelty. And I know what he thinks of you.
Maybe he would have a quote for you, but it would be unprintable. We know that Australians are under cost–of–living pressure. We know that.
He then takes a more personal shot at Wilson’s book (“not a book I have read, I must say. But I’ve heard enough quotes from it,” he says) that said capital gains tax discounts were making the system unfair.
Question time begins
It’s question time!
Angus Taylor begins and says that new modelling from Aussie Home Loans shows 20% of Australians who have purchased a home in the past three years are “now trapped in mortgage prison” and asks the prime minister to admit that it was Labor’s plan to smash the housing market.
Anthony Albanese brings some receipts, and says according to the latest Reserve Bank data, less than 1% of all mortgage holders are in negative equity (meaning they owe more than what their home is currently worth).
He suggests that the housing market is still moving, and people are still buying up properties.
ABS data shows an unprecedented 8,468 investors signed up to build a new home in the June quarter. This was 454 more than the previous record set in the previous three months … More than 660,000 new homes were built under this Labor government, and a further 244,000 are now under construction.
It’s a slow start to QT.