Anthony Albanese says Labor will relax work tests for pensioners
Paul Karp
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has announced the government will provide a “new $4,000 work income bank credit” for pensioners.
He said:
They can earn more income before their pension is reduced. We will move so that instead of pensioners having their payments cancelled after 12 weeks if they exceed [the income threshold], they won’t have to reapply for payments for up to two years. And they will retain the pensioner concession card for two years.
Earlier, Albanese announced the release of $575m from the national housing infrastructure facility for social and affordable housing and to attract private capital.
Key events
Good afternoon everyone! Before we get into it – a big thank you to Natasha for taking us through the morning.
We’ve got a big afternoon – first up, I have this announcement from ANU:
Former Democrats Leader and United Nations Treaty Expert Member Natasha Stott Despoja, and former speaker of the House of Representatives Tony Smith have been appointed Professors in the Practice of Politics. Their ANU roles will be part-time.
Both will be based at the ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, where they will undertake research, teaching and a range of engagement activities for the next three years.
Professor Stott Despoja said:
I am committed to advancing women’s leadership, empowerment and equality across politics, economics and society.
In politics, business and in wider society, we have seen a powerful movement to make sure that women and girls are given the respect, equality and opportunity they deserve.
I look forward to furthering this work at ANU, as well as sharing what I have learnt with the current and next generation of Australians who are committed to these issues. I am excited to engage with some of the nation’s leading experts in this vital area.
Natasha May
That’s it from me as I pass the blog batton onto the excellent Cait Kelly. Have a good weekend!
NSW transport union and state government at Fair Work Commission
Tamsin Rose
The head of the New South Wales branch of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union believes he has not lost the support of the traveling public amid the long-running fight with the state government that has caused weeks of disruptions to the network.
Addressing the media shortly after 2pm today, just hours out from the government’s 5pm deadline, the union’s NSW secretary, Alex Claassens, said his focus was on safety, not public relations.
He said:
This has never been about public relations for us. This has been a very, very simple fight.
The messages of support that I am getting from the traveling public, the people who actually use the system, have been absolutely unbelievable the last couple of days.
I think people get the reason why we’re doing this.
Claassens would not rule out further actions into September.
We will continue to take this on a day by day basis.
The union and the government are in the Fair Work Commission today after the government said on Thursday that it would seek to terminate the enterprise agreement of thousands of rail workers and bin a deal to modify a multi-billion dollar fleet of trains at the centre of the dispute unless the union agreed to end all industrial action by the end of today.
Anthony Albanese says Labor will relax work tests for pensioners
Paul Karp
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has announced the government will provide a “new $4,000 work income bank credit” for pensioners.
He said:
They can earn more income before their pension is reduced. We will move so that instead of pensioners having their payments cancelled after 12 weeks if they exceed [the income threshold], they won’t have to reapply for payments for up to two years. And they will retain the pensioner concession card for two years.
Earlier, Albanese announced the release of $575m from the national housing infrastructure facility for social and affordable housing and to attract private capital.
Paul Karp
Albanese thanks summit participants for leaving ‘disagreements’ behind
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is praising the public service for its “frank and fearless advice” and the work of his ministers as he concludes the jobs and skills summit.
Albanese said:
So I do think this has been an extraordinary success. And all of those people are deserving of our thanks, but most importantly I want to thank all of you, the participants at this summit, for attending in good faith, for leaving old disagreements behind, for contributing and presenting with conviction and depth, for challenging our assumptions, for pushing us to think and engaging with listening with that respect.
Respect for one another, and respect for the people you represent, the people this summit was designed to serve. The everyday Australian whose courage and initiative and hard work help power our national prosperity.
Cleo Smith’s WA abductor to be sentenced in December
The man who has admitted to abducting four-year-old Cleo Smith from her family’s Western Australia campsite is set to learn his fate in December, AAP reports.
Terence Darrell Kelly, 37, pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of forcibly taking a child under 16.
The matter returned to the WA district court on Friday with lawyers confirming the case was ready to proceed to sentencing.
Registrar Jacquie Kubacz ordered that Kelly face a two-day sentencing hearing on 13 and 14 December before chief judge Julie Wager.
Kelly, who is in custody, was not required to attend Friday’s hearing.
Cleo was found alive in early-November last year, 18 days after she went missing from the remote Blowholes campsite.
Her disappearance sparked a major police investigation which eventually led detectives to a property in Carnarvon, just minutes from Cleo’s family home.
Police forced entry and found the little girl alone in a room.
The dramatic rescue was captured by an officer’s body-worn camera and subsequently made news headlines around the world.
Labor to adopt Dutton’s pensioner plan after jobs summit
Paul Karp
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, is wrapping up the jobs and skills summit, which he said had “exceeded even our most optimistic expectations”.
He said the summit had “36 concrete outcomes”, things the government thinks it can achieve this year.
Several of these were announced yesterday by workplace relations minister, Tony Burke. This morning added a 35,000 person boost to migration and $36m for visa processing.
Chalmers said the government will relax work tests for pensioners (an idea proposed by Peter Dutton), with more detail to be announced by Anthony Albanese. Chalmers also announced 1,000 digital apprentices in the public service.
Treasurer announces 36 concrete outcomes from jobs summit
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said there are 36 “concrete steps” the government intends to take as a result of the jobs and skills summit.
He was hoping to read out the outcomes but says there are so many he won’t be doing that.
Jobs summit exceeds expectations, treasurer says
Chalmers thanks the attendees and says the summit has exceeded the governments “most optimistic expectations.”
Treasurer speaking after jobs and skills summit
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has taken to the microphone wrapping up the jobs summit and will announce its outcomes shortly.
NSW transport union wants commuters to talk to their MPs about industrial action
Claassens has finished his address to the media imploring New South Wales commuters to speak to their local members of parliament urging a parliamentary debate.
I want to repeat the ask that I had yesterday – to all politicians in that house in Macquarie Street, on both sides of the political equation, I would like you to look into your hearts and actually do something about this. It can’t be allowed to continue.
You have got family that travel on the trains … they have a right to be safe as we have as workers to make sure they stay safe.
We want a debate in parliament.
We also encourage members of the community that regularly use our service, go and talk to your local MP and encourage your local MP, regardless of which political party he’s in or she’s in, ask them to go and have the debate in government.
NSW transport union seeks immediate hearing in Fair Work Commission
Alex Claassens said that at 6pm last night the transport workers union did receive another document after working on one that wasn’t up to date. He said the union subsequently sought a hearing with the Fair Work Commission to force the state government to continue bargaining.
Claassens said:
Last night at 9.00pm we put orders in to try and get an immediate hearing in the Fair Work Commission around good faith bargaining. Because it is quite clear that a politician coming out and making statements by the press is not a way of negotiating in good faith.
So despite all the threats and all the comments they threw out there and attacked railway workers … they have now been caught out. So as I’m standing here right now, we are in the Fair Work Commission, trying to seek and end to some of this nonsense that the government has been perpetrating on the people of New South Wales. I again make the statement that shame on these politicians that want to make it all about themselves.
This is – is and always has been about fixing those unsafe trains. They are now trying to blackmail the good railway workers and the people out here doing their job that they do everyday by saying that if we don’t accept a lesser condition in our EA, they will rip up that deed and they won’t go ahead and fix those trains.
NSW transport union boss says government sent them wrong enterprise agreement
The secretary for the NSW branch of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU), Alex Claassens, is in Sydney giving an update on the negotiations with the state government.
Claassens said the government “is quite clearly now in crisis, a government that’s hell-bent on holding us hostage by saying they’re in the going to fix our unsafe trains unless we agree to an enterprise agreement that up until yesterday we hadn’t even seen.”
I came out at 2.00pm yesterday, we had our press conference and at that point we still hadn’t seen any real document. We worked on a document the last couple of days.
I went upstairs and at 3.00pm while I was upstairs in that non-bargaining meeting as we’re cautioning it because we apparently weren’t bargaining, my phone goes off and I get three documents sent to me. Get a letter of demand from the transport secretary, I get a deed and I get an enterprise agreement.
Within five minutes we realise the enterprise agreement they sent us was not the one that we’d been working on the last couple of days. It was a document and it was interesting in that they gave us a Microsoft Word document so we were able to look at the metadata and we knew who creates that and it went back as far as 2014.
So you can imagine our shock. We immediately said to them, ‘This is not the right document. There’s no way in the world you can take this document out to the troops in the condition that it’s in.’
Claassens was interrupted by the loudspeaker announcement at the transport terminal where he is giving this update.
Metro post offices face closure due to pandemic and weather
Australia Post offices could close in metropolitan areas as the service deals with the fallout from the pandemic and record rain, AAP reports.
About 30 offices of the 4,000 branches could be closed but Australia Post has not made any final decisions and said staff whose branches close will be moved to nearby corporate offices. A spokesperson said:
The pandemic and the rapid growth in the use of online services has resulted in a significant decline in customer visits to most post offices.
There are a small number of primarily metropolitan post offices with very low and declining foot traffic, expiring leases or building damage that are currently under review.
The shift to working from home has led to visits at some branches dropping to as low as 100 a day.
This year’s record rainfall, which has caused widespread damage across the country, has also damaged post offices in metropolitan areas.
No regional or rural branches are understood to be facing closure.
Australia Post was committed to providing a “sustainable postal service” for decades to come, the spokesperson said.
The government-owned business reported a boost in revenue in the first half of 2021/22 on the back of growth in its parcel delivery services.
The organisation has been grappling with the switch to online shopping and the reduction in traditional services such as delivering letters.
Authorities report tip fire near Lismore
A fire is burning in a pile of old car parts and a large column of black smoke is visible at a tip near Lismore, New South Wales.
Authorities are at the scene where they said the fire is contained with no threat to properties currently.
Several #NSWRFS and @FRNSW crews are currently on scene at a tip fire near Lismore. The fire is burning in a pile of old car parts and a large column of black smoke is visible. There is currently no threat to properties and the fire is now listed as contained. pic.twitter.com/ZHimjRPUyP
— NSW RFS (@NSWRFS) September 2, 2022
Tram derailment in Melbourne
A tram has been derailed in Melbourne’s CBD after it collided with a truck.
Stephen Jolly, a councillor for the city of Yarra said that the cement truck didn’t use the hook turn and got hit by the tram which became derailed.
Jolly said ambulances took some passengers away from the scene and warned Melburnians to avoid Elizabeth Street.
Don’t use Elizabeth St in the CBD, cement truck didn’t use the hook turn and got hit by a now derailed tram. Ambulances taking some passengers away pic.twitter.com/3d22g1lQ4M
— Stephen Jolly (@stephenjolly99) September 2, 2022