Australia politics live: Townsville mayor faces no-confidence vote after military service claims; bill to make sharing deepfakes illegal | Australian politics

Estimated $2bn of NDIS funding being rorted, integrity chief says

The NDIS continues to be under the spotlight, with more revelations from budget estimates, as AAP reports.

An estimated 5% of the National Disability Insurance Scheme spending – about $2bn – is not being used for genuine needs, the National Disability Insurance Agency’s integrity chief, John Dardo, told a budget estimates hearing on Monday.

Some NDIS providers have allegedly forced participants to give cash to criminals for drugs and encouraged participants to engage in fraud, with revelations tens of thousands was spent on holidays and $73,000 on a new car.

The health minister, Mark Butler, said there were too many dodgy NDIS providers. “It’s incredibly alarming,” he told the Today Show on Wednesday.

This is a terrific scheme that’s providing support to people with disability. But we know there’s simply too much waste, there are too many rorts, there’s certainly too many dodgy providers.

News Corp chair to front press club

Today’s press club address will be given by the executive chair of News Corp, Michael Miller.

Miller will be talking about “Australia and Global Tech: time for a reset”, which will outline what News Corp sees as the big challenges with social media companies.

Not sure if that is what the questions will focus on though.

Josh Taylor

Medibank facing fines after cyber attacks

Medibank could face fines of up to $2.2m over alleged failures to protect the privacy of customers who had their personal information stolen in the 2022 cyber attack on the health insurer.

The Australian information commissioner this week launched proceedings in the federal court this week seeking civil penalties against Medibank. The commissioner alleges that between March 2021, and October 2022, Medibank seriously interfered with the privacy of 9.7 million Australians by failing to take reasonable steps to protect their personal information from misuse and unauthorised access or disclosure in breach of the Privacy Act in the information ending up on the dark web.

The acting Australian information commissioner, Elizabeth Tydd, said:

We allege Medibank failed to take reasonable steps to protect personal information it held given its size, resources, the nature and volume of the sensitive and personal information it handled, and the risk of serious harm for an individual in the case of a breach

We consider Medibank’s conduct resulted in a serious interference with the privacy of a very large number of individuals.

It comes after the Australian Communications and Media Authority (Acma) last month launched court action against Optus over its 2022 data breach.

Both companies are also facing class actions and have been fighting against the class action litigants from obtaining Deloitte and cyber security reports on the nature of the attacks. The full federal court last week refused Optus’s appeal against handing over the report.

Liberal Hollie Hughes criticises party after losing preselection battle

NSW Liberal senator Hollie Hughes – who proudly defended the Liberal party through almost everything – now has some thoughts on the NSW branch, after she lost the preselection battle for a winnable spot on the NSW Senate ticket to Dr Jessica Collins.

Hughes, who once said:

I don’t think there’s a woman in the Liberal party who wants to be considered a number, to be making up the numbers, to be a quota girl. We certainly see plenty of them in the Labor party. I don’t think it is something that we should go down the path towards.

… now has some thoughts about how the Liberal party treats women, telling Sky News:

It does look like being good at your job as a woman in the New South Wales division is not a good thing.

Hughes said Peter Dutton having to step in to save Melissa McIntosh from a preselection fight was another example of that.

There does seem to be a bit of a pattern.

Hughes said she was “devastated”:

This has been my life for twenty-plus years that I’ve given to the Liberal party so you know, it’d be a lie to say I’m not disappointed, devastated.

Hughes said what has been “most telling” is “the fact people have been so shocked and horrified by this” (This being losing preselection).

Sussan Ley calls one-day ADF recruitment confusion a ‘national embarrassment’

The deputy Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, is yet to come across a political issue she won’t ramp up to a hyperbolic 11.

This time, it’s the ADF opening up recruitment to foreign nationals mess Matt Keogh created yesterday. Richard Marles and Matt Keogh’s names were on top of a media release yesterday which announced a policy change for recruitment for the ADF.

From 1 July 2024, New Zealand born permanent residents of Australia will be able to apply for the ADF. And from 1 January 2025, Canada, United Kingdom and United States born permanent residents of Australia will be able to apply for the ADF.

There are a couple of other requirements – you can’t have served in a foreign military for at least two years before applying and you have to have lived in Australia as a permanent resident for at least one year and be ready to apply for citizenship (as well as the usual ADF entry requirements and security checks).

All was pretty simple, until Keogh came along and muddied the waters by saying that from 1 January, any permanent resident could apply, not just those from the Five Eye partner nations which were mentioned.

By the end of the day, Keogh and Marles had both “clarified” the position – which was the original position stated in the media release.

Was it messy? Yes, absolutely. But speaking to Sky News, Ley gave it the Sussan Ley treatment:

Australians think deeply about issues to do with defence and Anzac Day.

And it is a national embarrassment, that the Government is now saying permanent residents maybe from some countries, maybe from the Pacific, maybe only from the Five Eyes and actually not explaining this properly.

It’s just one more national embarrassment among many.

Buy now pay later laws to be introduced today

Also being introduced into the house today – legislation to regulate buy now, pay later providers like Afterpay.

The minister for financial services, Stephen Jones, will introduce “consumer protection” legislation which will see BNPL operators regulated as consumer credit.

Currently, people applying for a buy now, pay later product do not have to undergo a credit check (like when you apply for a credit card or loan). This legislation will change how people apply for one of the products and will:

• amend the Credit Act to require BNPL providers to hold an Australian credit licence;

• mean operators will need to comply with existing credit laws, regulated by Asic;

• establish a new category of “low-cost credit” under the Credit Act to reflect the lower risk and cost of BNPL compared with other regulated forms of credit

A lot of people on welfare and low incomes use buy now, pay later products to pay for essentials such as groceries, so expect to hear more on this legislative change as the day rolls on.

Dreyfus clarifies targeting for those who share non-consensual deepfake pornography

Mark Dreyfus said the government was only interested in non-consensual pornography images, which includes the use of celebrities – the most prominent example of recent times being deepfake images of Taylor Swift which were shared millions of times. Dreyfus said not everyone involved in the sharing would be targeted in a case like that, but those involved with the images becoming viral would be:

Prosecuting millions of individuals who would probably be not what the Australian federal police would engage in, but we would look for the originator of the images. Someone who has been directly involved in starting off the viral phenomenon that you mentioned that occurred in the case of Taylor Swift.

The new legislation also applies specifically to people over the age of 18, with the criminal code already including detailed provisions when it comes to the sharing of child abuse material – which includes deepfake images. But teenagers sharing a deepfake image could still be caught up in any prosecutions, Dreyfus said:

Potentially, they are able to be prosecuted. It’s just that they will be treated as a child and we have different processes in the criminal law to deal with children when they are prosecuted.

Labor to introduce anti-deepfake porn laws today

The attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, will introduce legislation in the House of Representatives today which will make it illegal to share deepfake pornography (that’s pornographic images which have been created with digital enhancement or AI, using someone’s image to create pornography).

The legislation is focussed on sharing the images, not creating them. Dreyfus told the Briefing podcast the distinction came down to the commonwealth’s powers:

There’s a limit on the commonwealth’s reach here. We can pass legislation that deals with use of telecommunications providers, which is why we are criminalising the sharing.

We are also taking the opportunity to create an aggravated offence which will increase the penalty for someone who is also the creator of the deepfake sexually explicit material.

And these are very serious penalties that we are going to provide. It’s a maximum of six years for sharing and for the aggravated offence it will be seven years. That’s if you have both created the material and shared it.

But because the commonwealth’s jurisdiction is limited to the activity of sharing, we’ll have to wait perhaps for states to catch up and criminalise the creation activity.

Daniel Hurst

Australia’s existing submarines won’t get Tomohawk missile upgrades

Australia’s existing Collins-class submarines will not be fitted with Tomahawk cruise missiles as part of work to extend their life before the Aukus submarines come into service.

Before the election, Anthony Albanese pledged to consider ways to boost defence capability in the decades before these submarines are ready, saying Labor would need to “deliver a frank assessment of our capabilities and pipeline on arrival in government”. He told the Lowy Institute in early 2022:

For instance, we will consider whether tomahawk missiles can be fitted to the Collins-class submarines.”

But a statement issued today by the defence industry minister, Pat Conroy, said:

The government has also received advice from Defence, in consultation with the United States, that adding Tomahawk cruise missile capability to the Collins class submarines is not viable and does not represent value for money.

The Virginia class nuclear-powered submarines Australia will receive in the early 2030s will come with the Tomahawk as standard equipment. Tomahawk cruise missiles will also be used by Navy’s Hobart class destroyers and the government has agreed in-principle to fit the Hunter class frigates with Tomahawks, subject to a feasibility study. [end quote]

The government revealed the advice as it announced that HMAS Farncomb would be the first of Australia’s six Collins class submarines to undergo sustainment and capability enhancement under a life-of-type extension program.

Disability report finds workforce issues ‘entrenched’

A new workforce report released by the peak body for disability, National Disability Services, has found the workforce issues in the sector are now “entrenched” with providers struggling to find and retain staff. Workers are moving from disability care into aged care following the increase in wage in that sector (early child education has recently also been promised an increase for the same reason) with NDS saying the sector is facing a workplace crisis.

NDS’s CEO, Laurie Leigh, said:

NDS agrees with the government that managing the sustainability of the NDIS is critical — the community expects no less. We need fundamental and systemic reform, and that must be accompanied by proper resourcing for sector transformation.

The system is broken. Training, supervision and retaining highly skilled practitioners to provide quality care is essential, but not adequately covered in the current funding model.”

Other findings included:

• A continuation of previous workforce trends showing that workforce issues in the disability sector have become entrenched.

• The disability sector continues to rely heavily on casual disability support workers, who have a very high turnover.

• The biggest variation this year was a in proportion of permanent employees who work full time – with the number of full-time employees growing by 10%, the highest in close to a decade.

• Conversely, part-time employment dropped to 70% this year. The increase may be related to the current cost-of-living crisis.

• Turnover continued the upward trend growing to 24% this year, while permanent staff turnover jumped to 16%, the highest it has been since this survey began. These figures represent a churn of almost 16,500 individual employees leaving their jobs and over 19,000 new appointments over a one-year period.

Townsville mayor faces no-confidence vote

Eden Gillespie

Townsville councillors are expected to bring a no-confidence motion against the city’s embattled mayor on Wednesday morning after he made false claims about his military service.

In an interview with A Current Affair last week, the city’s mayor, Troy Thompson, conceded he had not spent five years in the military (as he claimed during his campaign) and blamed “100-plus” concussions and epilepsy on his poor recollection.

He also apologised to veterans and the defence force for embellishing his military service – including claims he spent time with the SAS in Swanbourne and had served at 105 signals and 152 signals.

Thompson’s military service history is now being investigated by the state’s Crime and Corruption Commission and the Office of Independent Assessor.

All 10 councillors signed an open letter last week calling on Thompson to stand aside over issues of transparency. In response, Thompson threatened to dissolve the council and claimed he is the victim of a political witch hunt.

Thompson also addressed the local government minister, Meaghan Scanlon, and said “due process should always take precedence over media play, and not political interference.”

I call on all correspondence from all local, state and ministerial staff to be investigated, and if conflict is found, TCC council is dissolved in its entirety, and all positions compromised should be put up for re-election, the witch hunt should stop until there is a real outcome by the CCC.

Bluey dollarbucks set for pressing

There is a battle being waged by crossbenchers Andrew Gee and Bob Katter to keep cash alive in Australia. Use of cash has decreased since before the pandemic, but the shutdown moved more people into card and digital transactions only, prompting Gee and Katter to create legislation that will ensure cash remains a legal tender at all Australian businesses.

That legislation hasn’t moved beyond being introduced as yet but they may have received a boost in their mission, with the Royal Australian Mint announcing a limited run of Bluey-themed Australian coins.

From tomorrow (and you’ll only be able to buy one, unless someone spends one and it ends up in the currency) the mint will be releasing the “Dollarbucks” collection featuring the world’s favourite Queenslanders. Three Bluey-themed $1 coins have been produced – you can purchase them from tomorrow through:

• EQL ballot

• Temporary Mint Coin Shop (Canberra Museum and Gallery location) from 8.30am Thu 6 June 2024

• Mint Contact Centre on 1300 652 020 from 8.30am Thu 6 June 2024

• From participating authorised distributors

Good morning

Amy Remeikis

Happy hump day to those who celebrate.

Thank you to Martin for getting us up to date and starting us off this morning – you have Amy Remeikis with you for most of the day now.

It’s a three-coffee morning with maybe a cupcake for breakfast kinda day. Hard to say for sure yet, but the coffee is a must.

Ready? Let’s get into it.

Sarah Basford Canales

Labor grants non-NDIS disability schemes a one-year funding lifeline

The federal government has given disability advocacy and support groups a $50m funding lifeline for 12 months to continue offering critical information and support for the wider disability community.

On Wednesday, the NDIS minister, Bill Shorten, and the social services minister, Amanda Rishworth, announced a total of $140.3m would be guaranteed for the Information, Linkages and Capacity Building (ILC) program – a program considered a precursor to a planned wider system of disability services (or “foundational supports”) for those outside of the National Disability Insurance Scheme in the coming years.

It comes as the federal government prepares its response to the NDIS review in the coming months, which recommended the fast-growing $44bn scheme be overhauled to refocus on supporting functional impairment, rather than diagnoses.

Shorten has already expressed his support for the review’s proposal for a five-year plan to build up mainstream disability services outside the NDIS for those who cannot access the scheme.

Of the figure guaranteed for disability organisations in Wednesday’s announcment, $50.3m will offer 130 organisations a one-year extension to continue their work supporting people with disability, and the broader community, to access information and services. The remaining $90m has recently been finalised for the program as part of the ILC’s competitive grant round.

Shorten said:

We’ve awarded funding to these organisations so they can help people with disability and their supporters learn about and confidently advocate for their rights.”

The announcement follows concerns raised by disability community groups about the looming funding drop-off at the end of June.

It’s expected the foundational supports infrastructure will begin from the middle of next year, offering services to those with “less severe” disabilities in an effort to curb the NDIS’s exponential growth. Around 650,000 Australians are currently accessing the scheme but Shorten has warned it cannot continue to grow at a rate of 20% per year.

Last year, national cabinet agreed to an annual growth rate target for the scheme of 8% from 2026.

Some estimates have placed the cost of foundational supports for federal, state and territory governments at around $2bn per year.

Marles notes foreign nationals joining ADF would eventually need to take citizenship

Richard Marles also said any foreign nationals who joined the ADF would undergo the “same vetting” that Australian citizens. They would need to become Australian citizens within 90 days:

You are not accepted into the Australian Defence Force unless you are able to complete a thorough security check and the same threshold will apply to any of these non-citizens.

Marles said the government believed the offer of ADF membership would be an “attractive offer” to New Zealanders, and also to those from the Pacific, “but there is more work that needs to be engaged in to get to that point”.

Marles added that opening up the military to foreign nationals was “something other countries do”, and it was necessary due to retention and recruitment challenges:

We do need to open up the field of who can serve in the Australian Defence Force … This is a Rubicon that has been crossed by other countries – Britain recruit out of Fiji and out of Nepal, the Gurkhas [of Indian], the US recruit[s] out of Micronesia, the French have the French foreign legion.

Marles clarifies which non-Australians will be able to join ADF

The defence minister, Richard Marles, has said only foreign nationals from New Zealand and the Five Eyes alliance will initially be eligible to join Australia’s defence force, though the government will consider opening the program to the Pacific in future.

The government revealed yesterday that eligible permanent residents from New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the US and Canada could soon sign up to Australia’s defence force, but the defence personnel minister, Matt Keogh, had added said those from “other countries” would also be able to join.

Speaking on ABC 7.30 on Tuesday night, Marles said the government did have “an eye beyond that to the Pacific”, but said the current “slow and considered” pathway was for just New Zealand and the Five Eyes countries.

Asked if the government was also opening the program to other permanent residents, Marles said:

That not on the agenda and is not happening.

There are all sorts of scare campaigns going but other than that. This is New Zealand, Five Eyes [countries] and we have a more medium term, a view to the Pacific.

Keogh’s comments prompted criticism from the Coalition that the policy was “half-baked”, with questions about whether people from China or Russia may be eligible.

Pressed if Keogh had misspoken on Tuesday, Marles said only that the government’s position was “crystal-clear … I’ve just articulated it and Minister Keogh did this afternoon as well”.

The Coalition’s spokesperson, Andrew Hastie, lambasted the plan on Tuesday, but Marles noted he supported opening up the ADF to foreign nationals in the past.

Caitlin Cassidy

‘Short-sighted’ international student crackdown risks jobs, uni spokesperson says

The tertiary sector could lose 4,500 jobs as a result of an ongoing crackdown on international education, the CEO for Universities Australia will warn.

Speaking at the ITEC24 Higher Education Symposium on Wednesday, Luke Sheehy is expected to slam the federal government’s approach to international education as “policy chaos”, starting with last year’s rollout of stricter visa processing arrangements, according to notes released in advance.

Framed as measures to shore up the sector’s integrity, we now have every reason to believe these changes were a cap by stealth on international students. And it has only gotten worse … seldom has another major export industry been treated as a political plaything in the way international education is right now. This bipartisan attack on international students is short-sighted and politically expedient.

Sheehy will forecast a collective shortfall of more than $500m in 2024 due to slower visa processing times and high cancellations, lamenting the sector’s dependence on international students as “the cards we’ve been dealt with through more than a decade of successive and consistent changes to policy and funding settings”.

Inevitably, this will lead to cuts. Cuts to infrastructure … cuts to research and development funding … a funding shortfall of $500m could claim as many as 4,500 jobs across the sector.

Welcome

Martin Farrer

Good morning and welcome to our rolling news coverage. I’m Martin Farrer and here are some of the best overnight stories to keep you going until my colleague Amy Remeikis gets into the main action.

The prime minister is hoping to use the offer of a seat on a powerful new defence committee as leverage with independents in future crossbench negotiations. Our top story explains how Anthony Albanese has left room to appoint an independent to a new defence committee which will scrutinise defence strategy, funding, procurement and operations.

Two top Australian universities have risen up the global rankings with the University of Melbourne reaching a historic high of 13th in the world, up from 14th last year. The University of Sydney rose one place to 18th and the University of New South Wales remained at 19th in the QS world university rankings, run by the global higher education specialist Quacquarelli Symonds.

Meanwhile, a senior university leader says the government’s international student cap is driven by polling numbers rather than economic benefits. Universities Australia’s chief executive, Luke Sheehy, will deliver a damning speech outlining why the Albanese government’s plan to reduce international student numbers will hinder rather than strengthen the nation. More coming up.

The federal government is fighting for the right to destroy documents when it loses office after a judge warned the practice of shredding paperwork to keep it from incoming opponents is possibly criminal and must stop. The attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, is appealing a federal court ruling in a freedom of information case that a minister must preserve a predecessor’s documents if an FOI access application remains unresolved when the minister leaves office. It found this applies whether the job changes hands through an internal ministerial reshuffle or an election.

And the defence minister, Richard Marles, has clarified which foreign nationals will be eligible to join Australia’s defence forces, after another minister, Matt Keogh, seemed to imply it was broader than had been announced. More on that soon.