Fyles behind in NT election recount – as it happened | Australian politics

Here are the main stories on Wednesday, 4 September:

• Australia’s gross domestic product grew 1% in the June quarter – a slightly better-than-expected rate from a year earlier, according to ABS data. The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said the data backed the government’s response to a cost of living crisis, while the opposition said the data represented an “absolute disaster” for the country.

• Three states and the NT have an increased bushfire risk for spring, following record heatwave temperatures in August.

• A federal government review into private hospitals will not be published in full due to commercial in confidence information shared, but the health minister says a version of the report will be made available for the public.

• The Queensland opposition leader has declared the state’s renewable target is not “possible”, despite the state being currently ahead of schedule.

• The former NT chief minister, Natasha Fyles, is behind to the Greens on a recount in her seat of Nightcliff.

• The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, says the government takes “collective responsibility” for disappointment over LGBTQ+ census question exclusions.

• The Reynolds-Higgins defamation trial is expected to conclude in the WA supreme court.

We will see you back here again tomorrow.

Severe weather warning issued for Victoria

It’s still blowin’ a gale in Victoria.

Sarah Basford Canales

Substantial damages needed to ‘restrain’ Higgins

A “substantial” award should be given to Linda Reynolds and a permanent injunction should be placed on Brittany Higgins from making any further disparaging remarks, a court has heard.

Reynolds’ lawyer, Martin Bennett, is offering his concluding remarks in the Western Australian supreme court, wrapping up a five-week trial triggered by social media posts by Higgins that Reynolds alleges defamed her.

Bennett said Higgins needed to be “restrained” from telling “her truth” and that a significant ruling would discourage her continued commentary.

Bennett said Higgins and Sharaz had felt “untouchable”, saying Higgins believed “no one would sue a rape victim” so she could “say whatever [she] like[s]”.

Higgins’ lawyer, Rachael Young SC, steps up to offer final replies to Bennett’s closing arguments.

Sarah Basford Canales

Judge should consider $500k damages payouts in Reynolds case, court hears

Martin Bennett, Linda Reynolds’ lawyer, has asked a Western Australia supreme court judge to consider recent defamation payouts resulting in damages of more than half a million.

Brittany Higgins’ lawyer, Rachael Young SC, said on Monday any damages ultimately awarded to Reynolds – should the judge rule in her favour – should be assessed by “how far her reputation has fallen” since mid-2023, not when the allegations publicly aired in February 2021.

Young quoted a British politician who said: “For a politician to complain about the press is like a ship’s captain complaining about the sea.” Young said damages for politicians, whose reputation is often not changed as a result of defamation trials, have historically been quite small as a result.

Young referenced a series of small payouts, including when Peter Dutton sued a refugee advocate for calling him a “rape apologist” and was awarded $35,000, before it was overturned on appeal.

On Wednesday, Bennett said Young had omitted a number of recent cases where payouts had been much higher. Bennett referenced examples, including between John Barilaro and Google with the former being awarded more than half a million dollars.

Another example referenced was the more than $500,000 awarded to a Papua New Guinea minister by Nine newspapers in 2023.

Bennett said it was “significant” the defence omitted the cases in arguing politicians should be awarded lower damages.

NT election recount shows possible shock result

The former chief minister, Natasha Fyles, is behind on a recount in her seat of Nightcliff, lagging behind the Greens candidate for the seat, Kat McNamara.

The latest NT electoral commission figures released on Wednesday afternoon put McNamara 42 votes ahead on a two-candidate preferred count.

Josh Taylor

Stephen Jones met with Meta representative over news bargaining code

Meta’s regional director of policy, Mia Garlick, confirmed that assistant treasurer, Stephen Jones, has met with Meta’s VP of APAC policy, Simon Milner about the news media bargaining code.

That is the end of the hearing.

Meta confirms no one from Albanese government has met Mark Zuckerberg or Nick Clegg on news media bargaining code

Josh Taylor

Further to our previous post on Meta not having heard from the government about the plans for the news media bargaining code for the past few months, the company’s director of policy in Australia, Mia Garlick confirmed that no one from the Albanese government has met with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the matter.

It came following reports from Capital Brief on Tuesday that the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, declined to meet with Meta’s president of global affairs and former UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg after Meta announced in March it would not enter into new deals to pay news companies for news. Guardian Australia has not confirmed that report, but it was mentioned by Liberal MP Andrew Wallace in the hearing on Wednesday.

Paul Karp

Coalition and Greens gang up on build-to-rent bill

The Senate inquiry into Labor’s build-to-rent tax incentives bill has reported back and, as expected, shows the government bill in trouble due to opposition from the Coalition and stiff demands from the Greens.

The majority report, written by Labor chair Jess Walsh, recommended the bill be passed, noting that a 15% withholding tax rate – a 50% concession on the existing rate – “is an attractive and suitable measure to increase investment in [build to rent] developments in Australia”.

The Coalition senators – the shadow assistant housing affordability minister, Andrew Bragg, and Dean Smith – dissented, warning the bill “[entrenches] tax advantage for institutional investors, in a thinly veiled attempt to corporatise the Australian housing market” which would contribute to a “forever rent” agenda.

The Greens’ dissenting report says the bill should not be passed “unless” their demands are met, including:

• Changes towards phasing out negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount for property investors.

• Coordinating a national freeze and cap on increases.

• Increasing investment in public housing.

• Ensuring that 100% of the apartments are genuinely affordable.

Josh Taylor

Meta spends more on stopping scam ads than it makes from hosting them, inquiry told

Meta’s Australian director of policy, Mia Garlick, has faced questions on what Meta does with the money it earns from scam ads on its platform from Labor MP Susan Templeman:

So, just to be clear, you don’t actually know how much money Meta is profiting from criminals who are essentially stealing money from hardworking Australians who are using your social media platforms, and you can’t actually say whether you’re profiting from illegal scam activity on the platforms?

Garlick said the amount Meta was investing to stop scams and take them down meant it cost more than they took from scam ads:

Well, I think I can quite confidently [say we are] not profiting, given the amount of work that is involved in trying to stay a step ahead of this adversarial space and continu[ing] to both identify networks that we can take down, roll out on platform tools, engage in deeper escalations and engage in broader investigations, collaborate with law enforcement and bring off platform actions as well.

That’s a very sizable investment that we’re doing to try to combat that, given there are dedicated malicious actors that are operating across a range of different industries and a range of different platforms and a range of different countries to perpetrate these scams.

Garlick indicated there was no process to return money stolen from people from the scams except in circumstances where the scam was completed on Facebook or Instagram or WhatsApp. She said scams generally are completed off-platform on other services or websites.

Natasha May

Health minister says illicit tobacco coming into Australia and ‘we’ve got to do it better’

Butler also said he is “really concerned” about how much illicit tobacco is flooding through Australia’s border and into the country:

The tax office, which has responsibility for this area and Border Force have a lot of resources to try and crack down on that import market.

But it’s harder to pick up, frankly, than vapes. I mean, vapes have a lot of metal in them. They’re easier to detect at the border which is why we’re having such success in seizing them.

Illicit tobacco does flood through the border at the moment, and we’ve got to do better, which is why last year we put a lot of additional resources into [the] Border Force.

Natasha May

More penalties to be enforced for stores illegally selling vapes

The health minister, Mark Butler, says an “education period” for convenience stores still selling vapes is coming to an end, with more penalties due to be enforced.

Appearing on 3AW Mornings earlier today, Butler was asked why vapes still seem to be available in convenience stores:

We’re working with state governments on getting out to retail premises, making sure that they understand now that selling vapes is illegal and after a period of education, we’re determined to start to put in place the penalties that are contained in our new laws and they’re very serious penalties.

… I know that around the country, vape stores are closing down and convenience stores are starting to surrender their vapes. But there are still stores that are doing the wrong thing and over a period of time, we’re going to make sure that they understand that these serious penalties that are now contained in these new laws, fines of more than $2m, jail terms of up to seven years. We are deadly serious about making sure that they take effect, because I am absolutely determined to protect young Australians from this public health menace.

Sarah Basford Canales

Reynolds’ lawyer claims Higgins deleted texts to ‘curate’ narrative

Martin Bennett, Linda Reynolds’ lawyer, claimed Brittany Higgins deleted relevant messages in 2021 with her now-husband David Sharaz to “curate” a narrative.

To demonstrate his argument, Bennett showed the court a thread of messages between the two – one from Higgins’ phone, and the others from Sharaz’s side.

The exhibits were shown side by side and Bennett pointsed out a few examples where messages were missing from the thread provided by Higgins, when compared with Sharaz’s messages.

Bennett said Higgins’ lawyer’s claim that a “messaged deleted” sign would show on each occasion was “palpably wrong”, as shown in the evidence.

Earlier in the week, Higgins’ lawyer, Rachael Young SC, said there was “nothing sinister” about removing text messages, referencing Reynolds’ earlier concession that she often deleted message threads as part of “cyber hygiene” routine.

Sarah Basford Canales

The defamation trial against Brittany Higgins brought by Linda Reynolds in Perth has resumed after the lunch break.

We’ll update you shortly.