Nationals senator accuses TikTok of intimidating and bullying his office
The Nationals senator Ross Cadell said a TikTok staff member called his office while he was in a previous hearing for the age assurance inquiry and intimidated his staff over questions he was asking.
At the parliamentary inquiry he said the TikTok staffer said: “We get on very well with the leader’s office, we get on very well with the shadow minister’s office. You shouldn’t be asking these questions.”
He said it was intimidating and bullying.
TikTok’s director of policy in Australia, Ella Woods-Joyce, said she wasn’t aware of the incident:
I’m not aware of the details that you’re talking about, and what I can say is that the team needs to operate professionally and appropriately at all times, and I have confidence that that’s that’s what we do.
Cadell replied:
Do we think TikTok is too big to fail? … Because I note there was an apology late last week or earlier this week by the person involved to my staff member, but it came only after the confirmation that you would attend [today]. There was nothing, no address, no recognition of this factor until you had to face some consequence and show up.
Cadell questioned whether TikTok was a “bullying behemoth that wants to get its own way at any cost”.
Woods-Joyce said “absolutely not”.
Key events
NSW police to address media on Cobar mine explosion as tributes flow from politicians
Circling back to the press conference held by Tim Ayres earlier, and the science minister also paid tribute to two mine workers killed in Cobar in the far north-west of New South Wales earlier this morning.
Ayres said it would be “very distressing news for their families, their co-workers, and what is a tight-knit, small community there in Cobar”.
Everybody, all of us, including Jamie Chaffey, the new member for Parkes, [is] thinking about those families, and what is an unfolding situation in that very old-mining facility there in Cobar.
Supt Gerard Lawson of the Central North police district in NSW will address the media from Cobar at midday as inquiries begin into the circumstances surrounding the explosion.
While yet to be formally identified, police believe a man aged in his 60s and a woman aged in her 20s died, while a second woman, also aged in her 20s, is being treated in Cobar hospital for relatively minor injuries and shock.
Police say all three live in Cobar.
Party room meetings taking place
Tuesdays during a sitting week mean party room meetings (which is also why the House and Senate haven’t started sitting as yet).
The meetings are both where upcoming legislation and a party’s positions on them are discussed, and usually also include a bit of a gee up from the leader.
We’ll get the DL on what was discussed in those meetings shortly!
Jordyn Beazley
NSW to release response to summit on drug-related harm
The New South Wales government will today release its response to a landmark summit held last year on how to reduce drug-related harms.
The Minns government has announced that it supports or supports in principle over 50 of the recommendations.
However, Guardian Australia understands that the government will defy recommendations to abolish the use of sniffer dogs and strip-searches at music festivals.
It has also only committed to investigating a medical defence for people who use medically prescribed cannabis, despite the report recommending the government commit to legislating it.
It has also only noted a recommendation on strengthening diversion programs for youth caught with drugs.
And has also only noted a recommendation to expand supervised injecting clinics.
We will have more information on the government’s response shortly.
Industry minister will ‘exhaust every opportunity’ to secure Tomago’s future
A little earlier we brought you news that Rio Tinto is considering ceasing operations at the NSW-based Tomago aluminium smelter as it struggles with high energy prices.
Standing up a little earlier, the federal industry and science minister, Tim Ayres, said he’s “determined to exhaust every opportunity” to find a solution and protect the smelter’s workers.
Ayres says he has been working with the New South Wales government, and has come to the table with an offer to Rio Tinto but the parties “didn’t reach an agreed outcome”. (He wouldn’t give us any details of what was in that offer, and what Rio Tinto were asking for.)
He also nudged NSW and its premier Chris Minns to stay engaged in the talks.
Our process from now on will be on two tracks, working with the NSW government, Rio Tinto and the other owners of this facility … I am very focused, despite this being challenging news today, on exhausting every opportunity to secure new power purchasing agreements for that facility …
There have been offers made between the two governments, we are working very closely with the NSW government, there are, of course, challenges in all these kinds of negotiations.
The government most recently made a deal with the Queensland state government to keep the Mt Isa copper smelter running at the cost of $600m for three years.
Andrew Messenger
Queensland’s supreme court to hand down judgment on the state’s puberty blocker ban
The health minister, Tim Nicholls, announced the ban, which applies only to new transgender patients, in January. The court heard that health director general, David Rosengren, was holding legally mandated consultation with health executives at the same time, lasting 22 minutes.
The parent of a transgender child challenged the process behind the decision on three grounds: that the consultation was insufficient, that Rosengren had been unduly influenced by political interference, or that he had taken into account irrelevant factors.
But at a hearing last week, Jonathan Horton KC, acting for Queensland Health, told the court it was appropriate for cabinet to be involved and that the directive had changed as a result of the consultation.
Supreme court judge Peter Callaghan will hand down the judgment after 11.30am Queensland time today.
Benita Kolovos
Malmsbury youth justice facility to reopen a year after it closed
The Malmsbury youth justice facility will reopen just a year after the Victorian government closed its doors, due to an increase in the number of young people on remand.
The Victorian corrections minister, Enver Erdogan, told reporters outside parliament this morning that the facility will reopen in a staged approach from early next year under a new model.
He says the initial 30 beds will be for a lower-risk cohort aged 17 years and older – freeing up more custodial beds at Cherry Creek and Parkville youth justice centres for serious high-risk offenders.
The new model at Malmsbury will deliver more education, vocational training and job opportunities for this lower-risk cohort, Erdogan says.
The cost of reopening the facility – which only closed at the end of 2024 – will be $140m over five years. An additional $4.8m will be spent on upgrading security at the centre.
Erdogan told reporters it wasn’t a mistake to close it:
There was no need for a third premises at the time for youth justice but of course times have changed, we’ve seen a 46% increase in the remand population. We are doing what we said we’d do, and that’s taking repeat dangerous offenders off our streets.
Jordyn Beazley
City of Sydney passes Greens motion condemning NSW weapons expo
The City of Sydney last night passed a motion condemning a weapons expo that will be held in Sydney next week with the NSW government as the principal sponsor.
The Indo Pacific International Maritime Exposition is taking place next week at Sydney’s International Convention Centre, and is being advertised as “the region’s premier commercial maritime and naval defence exposition connecting defence, industry, government and academia”.
The motion, which was moved by Greens councillor Matthew Thompson without amendments and had near unanimous support, noted that:
Many of the major stakeholders and sponsors of this event have direct connections to current, and historical, conflicts – enjoying staggering profits from the misery and suffering from conflict and war.
The motion included a request for Lord Mayor Clover Moore to write to the NSW premier, Chris Minns. It noted the letter should condemn the event, and express that it’s the responsibility of the government to promote de-escalation.
It also noted the letter should request that:
Events promoting and profiteering from the sale of tools and weapons of war, such as, but not limited to, the Indo Pacific Weapons Expo, not be hosted by the NSW Government in the City of Sydney Local Government Area in the future.
Farrell says trade with south-east Asia helps avoid conflict and increase prosperity
As Anthony Albanese continues meeting with south-east Asian leaders at the Asean summit today, one senior minister says free trade is the key to maintaining peace in the region.
Yesterday, Albanese said the region is growing quickly and will become the fourth largest economy by the end of the decade – making it ripe for stronger relations and investment from Australia.
Jumping back to Don Farrell’s appearance on ABC News Breakfast, the trade minister said Australian businesses should invest more in the region and export more products such as food and wine.
We’ve got lots of advantages. Obviously, proximity is one of them, a very reliable route for supply chains, and also large numbers of south-east Asian migrants who’ve come to Australia: Filipinos, Indonesians, Vietnamese, Thais.
We don’t want conflict in our region, and one way to avoid conflict is to increase the prosperity of our region. How do we do that? Well, free and fair trade does that precisely … The more we can engage economically with the region, then the more peaceful our region is going to be, and that’s the way the Albanese government would like to see it.
Rio Tinto mulling closing Tomago aluminium smelter
Rio Tinto said on Tuesday it is contemplating ceasing operations at its New South Wales-based Tomago aluminium smelter at the end of its current electricity supply contract, Reuters reports.
The Tomago aluminium smelter, which has been struggling with high power prices, has started a consultation process with employees on the potential future of its operations, but is yet to reach a decision.
The smelter’s existing electricity supply contract with AGL Energy expires in December 2028, with Tomago yet to identify a pathway that supports commercially sustainable operations beyond the period “despite extensive engagement and market approaches”, according to the miner’s statement.
Tomago Aluminium CEO, Jérôme Dozol, said:
Unfortunately, all market proposals received so far show future energy prices are not commercially viable, and there is significant uncertainty about when renewable projects will be available at the scale we need.
‘A planning system that says yes’: Victoria announces major overhaul to get homes built faster
Benita Kolovos
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, is holding a press conference to announces what she says is the “biggest overhaul” of the state’s planning laws in decades.
Under changes to the Planning and Environment Act 1987, three new planning streams will be created to slash permit approval times to as little as 10 days for standalone houses and duplexes, 30 days for townhouses and low-rise developments and 60 days for larger developments.
Third party appeal rights – which allow anyone to object to a planning permit – will be scraped for homes, duplexes, townhouses and low rise apartment streams.
For higher density apartments, only those who are directly impacted – such as neighbours in the area – will be able to appeal.
Allan says a planning permit currently takes 140 days to get approved – and if there is an objection, it blows out to more than 300 days.
Victoria’s planning laws were written decades and decades ago. It was a very different time, a very different time. We need to not only bring our planning laws into the 21st century, we also need to overhaul them, to take them from being old fashioned nimby-type laws into a planning system that says yes and gets homes and projects built more quickly.
Nationals senator accuses TikTok of intimidating and bullying his office
The Nationals senator Ross Cadell said a TikTok staff member called his office while he was in a previous hearing for the age assurance inquiry and intimidated his staff over questions he was asking.
At the parliamentary inquiry he said the TikTok staffer said: “We get on very well with the leader’s office, we get on very well with the shadow minister’s office. You shouldn’t be asking these questions.”
He said it was intimidating and bullying.
TikTok’s director of policy in Australia, Ella Woods-Joyce, said she wasn’t aware of the incident:
I’m not aware of the details that you’re talking about, and what I can say is that the team needs to operate professionally and appropriately at all times, and I have confidence that that’s that’s what we do.
Cadell replied:
Do we think TikTok is too big to fail? … Because I note there was an apology late last week or earlier this week by the person involved to my staff member, but it came only after the confirmation that you would attend [today]. There was nothing, no address, no recognition of this factor until you had to face some consequence and show up.
Cadell questioned whether TikTok was a “bullying behemoth that wants to get its own way at any cost”.
Woods-Joyce said “absolutely not”.
Josh Butler
MPs run riot in press v politicians touch football match
Barnaby Joyce and Matt Canavan got one back on the journalists this morning, claiming victory in the annual press v pollies touch football match.
Liberal MP Simon Kennedy bamboozled the press gallery defence, notching up the match highlight in scoring a try after a twinkletoes performance reminiscent of Brisbane star Reece Walsh. Nationals MPs Joyce and Canavan combined regularly through the middle, with strong defence and reliable carries for yardage, as a few fleet-footed staffers finished off the movements to score in the corners.
Even without Wallabies legend David Pocock taking the field, the politicians ran riot as the game went on. Not even the addition of minister Pat Conroy – referred to by some as the minister for rugby league – to the journos’ team could turn the tide.
Despite the press taking an early lead, with Sky News reporter Cam Reddin sidestepping through the defence with the ease of a seasoned politician dodging questions, the MPs piled on a number of unanswered tries to take a clear victory.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing for the pollies though. As Joyce took a carry but fumbled the ball, Canavan yelled in mock outrage “that’s why we’re getting rid of him”.
The final score? Unimportant. The numerical gap didn’t tell the whole story, the game on the paddock being much closer than it looked on the scoreboard. The real winner on the day, as it always is, was football itself.
Minister defends Albanese government’s transparency record
Trade minister and special minister of state Don Farrell says he doesn’t agree that the government has dropped the ball on integrity and transparency.
The latest report from the Centre for Public Integrity, first released to Nine Newspapers, has given the government a failing grade following Anthony Albanese’s decision to cut opposition staff and attempts to tighten freedom of information laws.
Farrell tells ABC News Breakfast the government is doing more to increase transparency, including through its laws passed last term on electoral donations.
The amount [disclosure threshold] was $17,000. So, we have significantly dropped that money. More importantly, those donations have to be disclosed before the election. So, every … donation above $5,000 has to be disclosed before the next election. Now, I’d say that was very significant transparency issue.
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