As it happened: Frontline DV services to receive funding boost; RBA governor stands by interest rate settings

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has batted away questions about whether Australian workers will be harmed after a key blue-collar union split from the ACTU yesterday to protest the treatment of the scandal-plagued CFMEU.

After helming a national cabinet meeting in Canberra earlier today, Albanese flew down to Melbourne and toured a childcare centre in Mount Waverley this afternoon, spruiking wage increases for educators in the sector.

While he was there, a journalist asked about the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union voting on Thursday to break from Australia’s peak union body. This masthead has since reported the Electrical Trades Union plans to donate to the Greens to protest Labor’s takeover of the CFMEU.

Here’s Albanese exchange with a journalist this afternoon about the issue, courtesy of a transcript from the prime minister’s office:

Journalist: Speaking of important workers, are you concerned what a split from the ACTU could mean for workers?

Prime minister: I think that we know that overwhelmingly, trade unions do an incredible job, and we have every respect for workers, including, of course, in the construction industry – they keep us going. But John Setka doesn’t represent the interests of workers, and we will continue to oppose any corruption or inappropriate activity that undermines the trade union movement.

Journalist: Have you had any reassurances from union heads about this possible split?

Prime minister: Overwhelmingly, what trade unions are doing is getting on with their job of representing working people each and every day.

Journalist: Have [you got] any concerns about the thought they’d vote Green, back in Green?

Prime Minister: What we’ll do is represent the interests of working people. Working people have an interest in having unions that operate properly. That’s overwhelmingly what the trade union movement does. Making a difference. The trade union movement have fought hard for workers like the women, overwhelmingly women, in the childcare sector. Making a difference for them each and every day. Thank you.

The federal government’s signature multibillion-dollar green manufacturing push faces an uncertain future after the Greens demanded changes in a parliamentary report released this afternoon.

The Future Made in Australia plan would invest $22.7 billion over the next decade to boost sovereign capability in emerging renewable industries and safeguard national critical mineral resources.

While a government-led inquiry on Friday recommended laws setting up the scheme be passed by parliament, the Coalition and Greens released dissenting reports.

Greens senator Nick McKim laid out nine recommendations for the proposal, which included guarantees the laws would not be used for coal and gas projects, as well as prioritising the electrification of homes and businesses.

“It is non-negotiable: a future made in Australia cannot be a future for coal, oil and gas,” Senator McKim said.

“The government’s dangerous future gas strategy can be delivered through this future made in Australia and hasten the expansion of fossil fuels which in turn will accelerate the collapse of our climate system.”

Labor needs the Greens’ support to pass the legislation in the Senate after the Coalition previously came out against the proposal, branding it as “billions for billionaires”.

Liberal senators Andrew Bragg and Dean Smith added to that critique in their dissenting report released today, writing: [The laws are] highly flawed, incoherent and ineffective policy proposal, which risks entrenching union involvement in government-funded projects and businesses.”

Greens leader Adam Bandt has previously said he would wait for the inquiry report before he finalised his position on the fund, but he declared that to win his support, the government must not fund projects that use fossil fuels.

The minor party had been locked in negotiations with the government on the issue.

With AAP

A landlord’s market has helped property investor lending swell in value by more than a third in the past 12 months.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures, released today, showed investor lending was up 5.4 per cent in July to $11.7 billion, closing in on a record high of $11.8 billion reached in January 2022.

Lending by those planning to live in the home rose by a smaller 2.9 per cent to $18.9 billion.

The bureau’s head of finance statistics Mish Tan said higher investor activity was mostly driven by more loan approvals, not rising house prices.

“Investors have continued to see the largest growth in new loans over the past year, increasing more than a third in value since July 2023 from $8.6 billion to $11.7 billion,” she said.

The tight rental market and higher gross unit rental yields were helping to stoke investor demand, Oxford Economics Australia senior economist Maree Kilroy said.

Yet in welcome news for renters, the stretch of fast-rising rents could be coming to an end.

Rents tracked by property data firm CoreLogic were steady in the past two months after surging 39 per cent between August 2020 and June 2024.

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The federal government will pay up to $202 million compensation to thousands of Indigenous workers whose wages were stolen while working in the Northern Territory last century.

The payout is part of the settlement of a class action on behalf of workers and their families who were subject to Commonwealth wage control legislation between 1933 to 1971.

The Western Australian government settled a similar case last year for stolen wages in that state, agreeing to pay out $165 million while an action against the Queensland government resulted in compensation totalling $190 million in 2019.

Lead applicant in the NT case, Minnie McDonald, remembers working on stations from a young age and said the class action was about all the people who never got paid.

“I was working with my family – my father, my mother and my brothers were on the station. I later met my husband when working on stations,” McDonald said.

“We had nothing and had to live on bush tucker and a bit of bread. A lot of those people we worked with are gone now.”

Indigenous Australians Minister Malarndirri McCarthy said she hoped the settlement would bring closure to First Nations people who were impacted.

“This is a significant step towards fixing the wrongs of the past and I acknowledge Minnie McDonald and every First Nations person involved in bringing this class action forward to seek redress and healing,” she said.

“The NT historical wages class action concerns a deeply regrettable and shameful chapter in Australian history.”

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Larissa Waters, the Greens’ spokesperson for women, has welcomed the $4.7 billion unveiled at national cabinet today to combat family violence, but argues Labor can do more.

The Queensland senator posted on social media that today’s announcement “still leaves frontline services underfunded, with one in four women who seek help at risk of being turned away.”

“Money on paper is no guarantee that services will actually receive the money – previous federal funding under the plan has disappeared into state government administration with no transparency on where it ends up – and services say they aren’t getting it,” Waters said.

“It’s disappointing that national cabinet kicked the can down the road on alcohol sales, [and] that there is still prevarication from Labor on regulating gambling ads.

“But we welcome funding to establish national standards for men’s behaviour change, something we’ve long called for.

“At the end of the day, this is about priorities. If Labor funded just one less nuclear submarine they would have more than the amount required to fully fund frontline family, domestic and sexual violence services.”

Today’s funding agreement means the federal government will invest $3.9 billion over five years to support frontline legal assistance services, including better pay for those working within community legal centres.

The prime minister’s office also struck a deal with state and territory government’s on Wednesday to jointly fund a $702 million package to help women and children fleeing domestic violence from July 1 next year.

You can read more about the details of the package here.

Deputy Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has criticised the federal government’s new $4.7 billion funding package to tackle domestic violence, arguing it will take too long to be rolled out.

Ley said the Coalition always tried to work with Labor to tackle family violence, but told reporters in Albury this afternoon that “it’s also the opposition’s job to make sure that the government is accountable” and listed concerns about the timeframe, transparency and delivery of the plan that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese unveiled after national cabinet earlier today following an agreement with state and territory leaders.

“Not one dollar of this funding will start to flow until the middle of 2025 – that is 10 months away,” Ley said at press conference broadcast on ABC News 24 this hour.

“Sadly, on the current trajectory of women losing their lives – being killed by a man – we would see 40 more women lose their lives before a dollar of this money is spent.

“If the prime minister thought it was important to have a rapid review, he should also have a rapid response.”

Disaster recovery funding has been made available to people in Victoria and Tasmania after wild weather damaged properties and cut electricity to tens of thousands.

Some people in remote areas of the island state are not likely to be reconnected to the grid until Thursday following strong winds that first hit at the weekend.

More than 660 homes were damaged in Victoria on Monday, including two houses in the Dandenong Ranges and Corio that were destroyed.

The joint state and federal funding is available for individuals and councils.

“[This] will help councils clean up communities as quickly as possible, ensure public safety and reinstate critical assets,” federal Emergency Management Minister Jenny McAllister said.

More than 3000 properties in Victoria and roughly 3800 in Tasmania remained without power at midday on Friday.

The disaster funding is available for seven Victorian councils, but the number is expected to grow as more assessments are completed.

AAP