Former ABC news director Justin Stevens’s pay out revealed in estimates
The ABC’s former news director Justin Stevens received a termination payout of $353,230 after his shock removal by ABC MD Hugh Marks in May, according to the ABC’s 2026 annual report.
Stevens, whose total remuneration for the financial year was $864,394, was replaced by Reuters executive Simon Robinson last month after a 19-year career at the public broadcaster. Stevens’s base salary was $529,202.
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Ability to text triple-zero tested in pilot program
A test is under way to explore whether Australians could safely and effectively text triple-zero.
The function could allow Australians to access help in situations when a voice call may not be possible or practical, according to a statement from the federal government.
Testing will be conducted in a simulated environment that is designed to reflect real-world needs but will not involve public access to triple-zero and will not affect the live service.
The communications minister, Anika Wells, said:
Being able to text Triple Zero would provide another safe and effective way to contact Triple Zero if people are unable to make a call.
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Westminster system stops political violence, Angus Taylor says
The opposition leader, Angus Taylor, says Australia has historically avoided political violence by having a robust parliamentary system, as politicians consider their personal safety after last week’s alleged attack on Helen Haines.
In a joint party room meeting this morning, Taylor acknowledged the ongoing conversation about personal security and the importance of getting it right but did not offer any specific proposals.
The opposition leader told colleagues that the foundation of the Westminster system was to stop violence and wars before he moved on to other issues.
The sentiment was echoed by the Nationals leader, Matt Canavan, shortly afterwards but he maintained that the opposition has a serious job to hold the government to account.
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US reveals first Aukus nuclear submarine to be deployed to Australia
Washington has revealed the first nuclear submarine that will deploy to Australia under the Aukus agreement, five years after the $386bn defence pact was signed.
The USS Colorado, a 10-year-old Virginia-class submarine, will make its new home at Western Australia’s HMAS Stirling from late 2027, the defence minister, Richard Marles, revealed in a joint statement with his US and British counterparts on Tuesday.
It’s the first of up to four US submarines, and one from the UK, set to rotate through the base while Australian defence force personnel get to grips with owning and operating nuclear-powered submarines.
But the Colorado’s arrival in Australia will be controversial because of outrage sparked in May over revelations the US would deliver lesser equipment than first promised.
Original Aukus plans had Canberra receiving two used vessels and a brand new Virginia-class submarine before building one of its own in Adelaide.
The fact Washington would now be sending secondhand vessels only was described as “trash” by the Tasmanian independent senator and army veteran Jacqui Lambie, but ministers and top military brass at the time insisted used subs were the best option.
– Australian Associated Press
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UN experts ‘disappointed’ after major parties block bill to ban shackling during childbirth
UN experts are disappointed that bills to ban shackling during childbirth and strip-searching children were blocked by the major parties.
The independent senator Lidia Thorpe introduced the bills to the Senate, where Labor and the Coalition blocked their progress.
The UN human rights council special procedures experts said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children were disproportionately affected by the measures:
It is disappointing that parliament was not given the opportunity to formally decide on reforms aimed at protecting the dignity, bodily integrity and rights of women and children deprived of liberty.
The failure of these bills to proceed should not mark the end of efforts to address these longstanding human rights concerns.
We encourage Australian authorities and parliamentarians to continue pursuing reforms.
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Shoebridge calls for ‘ethical Australian AI’ after cyber threat warning
The Greens leader, David Shoebridge, has said a report from the Australian Signals Directorate about AI threats to online infrastructure highlights the need for investment in another option.
He told reporters:
We need investment in an Australian ethical AI, which we can have some kind of comfort in, and not just simply relying upon these same US tech bros who are producing the threats to our very system … the idea that you invite the robbers in to protect the family silver is pretty bloody extraordinary.
The ASD report warned that businesses and critical infrastructure must use cutting-edge AI models to defend against digital threats, raising alarms that artificial intelligence is enabling more dangerous threats than ever.
Read more here:
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Chris Minns says federal government must be ‘serious’ about meeting migration targets amid One Nation surge
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, says the federal government must be “serious” about meeting net migration targets as polling in the Hunter suggests Labor and One Nation are neck-and-neck in the key region.
A poll commissioned by Advent Energy, who are responsible for an offshore gas proposal off the Hunter coast, suggests support for Labor and One Nation at the upcoming state election is tied at 32%. The Coalition was at 14%.
Minns was asked on 2GB this morning what he had done to lobby the federal government to bring down migration. Minns, a frequent critic of net migration under the Albanese government, said:
The best thing I can do is say what I’ve said privately, publicly, and I’ve said it on this program, and that is, we have to be serious about the target rate for migration and meet it. There’s no use saying, well, we’re going to have on average 200,000, a little bit more than that per year, and then it comes in at 300,000, because then people lose faith in the system. Now, in fairness to [the federal government], they’ve worked hard over the last three months to say these are the new limits.
The Albanese government has promised to achieve net overseas migration (Nom) of 245,000 in 2026-27 and 225,000 in 2027-28, while the Coalition says if elected it would more than halve Labor’s Nom target in the first two years from 2028-29.
One Nation has said it would have net-negative migration levels for three years, followed by a Nom “ceiling” of 130,000.
Related: How do major parties’ migration policies compare - and are any actually achievable for Australia?
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‘Selective editing’ of estimates videos ‘humiliate public servants unfairly’, senators told
Female public servants are subject to “vile and misogynistic” comments underneath social media videos shared by parliamentarians, Senate estimates hears.
Jim Betts, secretary of the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts, was asked about a submission sent by the Australian Secretaries Board to a joint committee on parliamentary standards. It expressed concern that public officials were increasingly subject to “ridicule, hostility or abuse” when excerpts of proceedings from parliamentary inquiries were uploaded on social media “without context”.
The Liberal senator Sarah Henderson pressed that “being able to highlight on social media and using the vision which is made available through the parliament is a fundamental function of this committee”.
Betts replied that there was already 14 hours of footage from Senate estimates yesterday that was now in the public domain, and the submission contained “stark” examples of selectively edited videos.
The concern that was expressed by the secretaries board was about the very selective editing of those videos, the overlay of commentary and other captions which were entirely designed to humiliate public servants unfairly …
What we also find is … that the comment section on websites hosted by senators and other parliamentarians contain often vile and misogynistic comments about female public servants.
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Payman asks if PM is ‘waiting for what happened to Helen Haines’ to occur again
At a late-night Senate estimates hearing, the independent senator Fatima Payman accused the prime minister of being “petty” by not granting her additional staff members after she defected from Labor in 2024.
Payman has long argued that her office is understaffed as part of a personal gripe Anthony Albanese has with her, but she drove the point home amid escalating threats of political violence. The senator told Guardian Australia last week her staff had also had to deal with human faeces being sent to her office, prompting the intervention of a biohazard team.
Payman said she had requested an additional adviser, in line with other independent political offices, two years ago but the prime minister had yet to process the request.
Payman said the extra adviser would help her office dealing with the “psychosocial hazards” imposed on her staff since leaving Labor. A document tabled showed she had no advisers, which can be paid more, while most other independents have one or two advisers.
Payman continued, butting heads with the trade minister, Don Farrell:
Please raise this with the prime minister. Because if he cares so much about the welfare and wellbeing of people who work in this building, then I implore you and the prime minister to please look into the fact that my staff are burning out. They can’t take this any longer.
Is the prime minister waiting for something like what happened to Dr Helen Haines to occur to my office, to me, for him to take our request seriously?
Farrell responded: “Look, I personally think that’s an outrageous suggestion, Senator Payman.”
Payman said: “I can’t believe that I’m saying that or making that suggestion, because it’s been two years.”
Farrell asked Payman to withdraw the comments but Payman said she wouldn’t until Albanese processed or responded to her staffing request.
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Victorian Labor pledges to expand workplace protection orders to hospital workers
People who are violent or abusive to health workers could effectively be banned from hospitals in Victoria if Labor is re-elected.
The Victorian premier, Ben Carroll, is holding a press conference to announce that if Labor is re-elected next month, it will expand the workplace protection order scheme – that allows retail stores to ban aggressive customers – to hospital settings.
Under the plan, people who are violent or abusive to health workers can be hit with a workplace protection order (WPO), which effectively bans them from hospitals for up to 12 months. Anyone who breaches a WPO faces up to two years in prison or a $50,000 fine.
Labor will also create a $30m fund hospitals can apply for to improve lighting, CCTV and other safety measures.
Carroll says:
Our nurses and midwives and health professionals go to work every day to make sure we have a healthy community … They are the heroes of our community, and I’m very pleased to say, under my leadership, we’ll do everything we can to protect them through workplace protection orders.
He says people subject to a WPO will “still be able to access healthcare” in an emergency but there would be “guardrails” in place when they receive that care.
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Aged care algorithm ‘fundamentally flawed’, Ruston says
The opposition’s aged care spokesperson, Anne Ruston, has urged the government to listen after a damning investigation by the commonwealth ombudsman.
She told ABC Radio National:
We’re really hopeful that now the government has this independent report, it will actually listen and say that their algorithm process is fundamentally flawed.
The ombudsman’s report followed reporting by Guardian Australia that older people were being left distressed and without adequate care after their home support needs were assessed by an “inhumane” algorithm as part of the government’s mandatory integrated assessment tool.
Read more here:
Related: Unreasonable and unfair: damning investigation criticises Labor’s algorithm-based tool for aged care
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Security reviews ramp up for MP offices over attack fears
Some politicians will receive security updates in their electorate offices after raising concerns about threats in the wake of the alleged attack on Helen Haines.
At least nine MPs will have security crackdowns accelerated for their electorate offices, the finance minister, Katy Gallagher, confirmed, after they raised concerns last week.
Security in Parliament House’s public places will also be stepped up.
Gallagher did not specify which MPs were affected.
– Australian Associated Press
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Jacinda Ardern joins University of Sydney as lecturer and mentor
In news adjacent to federal politics, the former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has revealed she will lecture and mentor at the University of Sydney after moving to Australia this year.
Based in the school of public health, she will host guest lectures and masterclasses and engage in mentoring.
Read more here:
Related: Jacinda Ardern joins University of Sydney as lecturer and mentor
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Teal and regional independent backers were Farrer independent’s top donors
Continued from the previous post:
The top donor, Regional Voices Fund, backs independent candidates in regional seats while the second-highest donor, Keldoulis Investments, owned by Robert Keldoulis, is a major backer of Climate 200 – the funding vehicle that supports teal independents in getting elected.
Overall, Milthorpe spent $1,708,845 on her campaign, receiving $1,680,439 in donations and gifts.
Candidates endorsed by political parties, including Farley, are able to defer the campaign spending reports until February the following year when political party annual returns are published.
As a result, Farley’s electoral returns show he spent only $5,119 on his campaign and received no donations. This figure will probably be updated in February.
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Farrer independent spent $1.7m on byelection campaign, electoral returns show
The independent candidate Michelle Milthorpe received almost $1.7m in donations from more than 5,000 donors in her campaign against One Nation in the seat of Farrer this year, electoral returns show.
Milthorpe, backed by regional independents, including Helen Haines, ultimately lost the battle to One Nation’s David Farley in Sussan Ley’s former seat, 42.45% to Farley’s 57.55% on a two-party preferred basis.
The returns data, released by the Australian Electoral Commission yesterday, shows $670,653 of the total amount – or about 40% – donated was over the declaration threshold of $17,300.
The top donors for Milthorpe include:
Regional Voices Fund Pty Ltd: $215,000
Keldoulis Investments Pty Limited: $117,000
Keep Them Honest Pty Ltd: $75,000
Climate 200 Pty Limited: $61,653
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More respectful discourse is ‘what Helen Haines would want’, Richard Marles says
The defence minister, Richard Marles, hopes politicians continue to show respect and civility for more than a day, after the outpouring of support for independent Helen Haines:
I really hope that all of us can do better … we need to really try and collectively engage in bringing the temperature down, and have a much more respectful and civil discourse.
And I know that’s what Helen Haines would want.
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Political debate should be ‘robust but respectful’, Anne Ruston says
A day after MPs addressed the House of Representatives paying tribute to the independent Helen Haines, who was injured after an alleged attack in her electorate, the Liberal senator Anne Ruston maintains that respect is necessary in political debate.
She told ABC Radio National:
What we do here sets the tone for what the rest of the nation thinks is acceptable.
There is a huge responsibility on politicians, not to shy away from robust debate. I don’t want anyone to think that we shouldn’t be having strong debate.
Governments need to be held to account for their decisions and that’s our job and we should keep doing it.
You can be robust and strong but still be respectful.
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Katy Gallagher calls for social media platforms to be held accountable for online abuse
The minister for women, Katy Gallagher, says the volume, scale and forcefulness of threats and abusive language has increased during her time in politics.
This follows reporting from the ABC that found almost 5,000 threats and violent comments were flagged on the social media accounts of 22 Labor politicians in three months by an AI tool.
Gallagher told ABC Radio National:
It’s simply out of control in an online world and we’ve got to make the platforms accountable.
Facebook is the worst in terms of the platforms, Instagram and TikTok less so, but still bad.
The platforms have to help us here because, the way it’s going now, our accounts are just a place for people to come and abuse pretty vigorously.
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Greens to announce plan for Victorian lobbyist register
The Victorian Greens will today announce an election commitment to establish a lobbyist register and ban political donations from “big corporate money”.
The party said there would be a legislated register for lobbyists and a ban on political donations from the gambling industry, fossil fuel companies and property developers.
Victoria has a $7,500 cap on donations but only foreign donations are banned. The state has a lobbyist register – but the only sanction available is the removal of a lobbyist from that register. Guardian Australia last year reported that no lobbyist had been sanctioned in Victoria since the latest code of conduct was introduced by the Napthine government in 2013.
The Victorian Greens leader, Ellen Sandell, says the state’s laws have allowed corporations to influence politics in the state:
These corporations don’t hand over thousands of dollars out of the goodness of their hearts. They expect something in return, and it’s everyday Victorians who end up paying the price.
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Former Rio Tinto boss to lead defence procurement watchdog
Former mining boss Kellie Parker will lead the new defence agency overseeing the delivery of projects worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
The Albanese government will announce that Parker, who used to run Rio Tinto’s Australian business, has been appointed to the role of national armaments director for five years.
She begins next month at the new independent Defence Delivery Agency which was set up in response to cost blowouts and lacklustre project management.
The defence industry minister, Pat Conroy, pointed to Parker’s experience in bringing cultural change to the mining company after the destruction of the ancient Juukan Gorge rock shelters in 2020.
He said other senior female appointments including the first woman to lead the army, Lt Gen Susan Coyle, were merit-based:
They’ve both dealt with male-dominated industries with cultures that are pretty rough and challenging for women, and so they’re perfect people to lead that cultural journey.
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Malicious actors using AI to find vulnerabilities, defence minister warns
The defence minister, Richard Marles, is doing the rounds this morning to address the Australian Signals Directorate’s (ASD) annual cyber threat report.
It warns Australians to prepare for more basic and important online services to go offline unexpectedly and urges businesses and critical infrastructure to use cutting-edge AI models to defend against digital threats.
Marles told News24 this morning:
If you’ve got an old system which is attached to the internet, it is effectively a gateway to a malicious actor. You’ve really got to prioritise hardening your system, even if that’s at the expense of access to it.
Malicious actors, are now able to use AI to find vulnerabilities in the systems of organisations and companies, and they’re doing that to exploit them.
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Female and First Nations public servants facing ‘more egregious’ abuse online, parliament hears
A departmental boss has warned that female public servants receive more “more egregious forms of abuse” on social media after complaints from bureaucrats about what they claim is selective clipping of evidence being posted online.
Last month the Secretaries Board, which includes heads of departments, asked the government to introduce rules restricting testimony from being uploaded to X and Instagram.
They argued the clips were exposing public servants to ridicule and abuse but their bid has been dismissed as an attempt to limit public accountability.
Steven Kennedy, secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, told a parliamentary hearing yesterday:
I would note that secretaries have observed that it is often female public servants and those from First Nations … backgrounds who experience the more egregious forms of abuse on social media.
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Thanks, Martin Farrer! This is Kat Wong, I’ll steer us through politics for the rest of the morning.
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Liberal candidate’s husband allegedly assaulted in Melbourne confrontation
The husband of a Victorian Liberal party candidate has allegedly been assaulted during a confrontation about election signs.
A Liberal party spokesperson on Monday evening confirmed that the husband of the party’s candidate for Yan Yean, Amanda Dow, had been involved in an alleged incident in Mernda yesterday afternoon:
We understand Ms Dow’s husband approached a member of the public who was removing Liberal party campaign signage and was allegedly assaulted.
He suffered facial injuries and was taken to hospital and was discharged today.
Police confirmed that a 59-year-old Mernda man had been charged with recklessly causing injury, criminal damage and unlawful assault over the incident, which they alleged occurred near Abundant Avenue and Bridge Inn Road about 2pm:
Police have been told the victim attended an address to retrieve political campaign signage when he was [allegedly] assaulted.
They said the man has been bailed to appear before Heidelberg magistrates court on 1 February 2027.
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Lambie says Hanson hasn’t personally apologised over cartoon
Independent senator Jacqui Lambie says the One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, has yet to personally apologise to her over her party’s “Please Explain” cartoon that poked fun at her medical condition, as the candidate behind the cartoon refuses to apologise.
Hanson publicly apologised for the cartoon that depicted Lambie saying “I can’t laugh because of my prolapsed vagina” and the video was subsequently removed from online platforms.
However, Lambie told ABC’s 7.30 last night that Hanson “hasn’t emailed, messaged, even sent me a nice little card and said, ‘I’m really sorry for doing that.’”
Mark Nicholson – who is running in the Victorian state election for One Nation and is cofounder of Stepmates Studio which makes the cartoons – told 7.30 it was his job to “pick on people in the public realm” and he would not apologise:
Not right now. If I do anything that is apology-worthy, I’ll apologise.
Nicholson claimed he had “drawn quite a lot of attention” to the medical issue rather than trivialising it.
Lambie said Nicholson should drop out of the election.
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Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it will be Kat Wong with the main action.
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