Australia news live: police pepper spray neo-Nazi rally in Melbourne; Bruce Lehrmann to learn fate of appeal | Australia news

McKenzie argues Thorpe beached her oath of allegiance with protest to king

Bridget McKenzie was also asked about Lidia Thorpe’s protest at King Charles’ parliamentary reception on Monday, which she said raised some “quite tricky constitutional questions” for her.

McKenzie said she wasn’t suggesting “we shut down protest or silence debate”, and noted Thorpe was not the only republican in the room or the “only person that believes in treaty and truth telling”. But she argued Thorpe should have taken the same approach as Greens leader Adam Bandt:

He made a legitimate and potent protest by snubbing the event entirely … whereas Senator Thorpe, I think, is the only parliamentarian that I’ve ever known to disavow their oath of allegiance to our sovereign and their heirs and successes according to law.

What she did on Monday essentially breached – this is a question I think we actually need to investigate, because it’s the first instance I’ve ever actually experienced where a parliamentarian who’s sworn that oath of allegiance has breached that oath of allegiance. And so what then is the consequence of that for our constitution?

McKenzie says detached housing in outer suburbs most affordable for young people

Do Teal MPs need to rethink the Victorian government’s rezoning proposal and embrace it, given we have a housing crisis?

Bridget McKenzie responded that we need to “throw the kitchen sink” at addressing the housing crisis, arguing that “detached housing is the most affordable”.

If we’re interested in those young families in particular who want to get a foot in the door, then the most affordable houses that we can build are actually detached housing in those outer suburbs.

But what about exploring high-rise density? McKenzie said we need to “absolutely be looking at all solutions”.

Bridget McKenzie, the shadow infrastructure minister, was just on ABC RN where she was asked if the opposition would match Labor’s housing commitments?

She argued that their plan would “get more houses built than Labor’s plan” and said:

It’s not about who’s got more money … because it will be the private sector that’s actually delivering the house and land packages around capital cities and regional capitals across the country.

Asked again, how much less would the opposition spend on housing, she didn’t state a figure but said: “why should the taxpayer be building the houses?”

She was asked about Victoria’s rezoning plan for 50 affluent suburbs, and argued that Teal MPs are the “biggest Nimby’s in town at the moment” – meaning “not in my backyard”.

They don’t want transmission lines, wind towers, solar farms in their backyards, or do they want to see their leafy suburbs – very affluent suburbs – make a contribution to the housing crisis.

I think we need to take the politics out of it, and the Teals like to make a big play that they want to not play politics. Well, I don’t see any greater political move from the Teals then saying, ‘Look, can someone else help us … solve the housing crisis? Can we do that down the road in those peri-urban suburbs out in western Melbourne and Western Sydney?’

New research from the NSW Council of Social Services shows the percentage of people who can’t afford a GP visit has more than tripled across the state over four years.

The report was commissioned by Ncoss and conducted by the University of Canberra, finding that patient experiences with health services – including GPs, specialists and dentists – in NSW had gone backwards since its 2020 report.

NCoss’s chief executive, Cara Varian, said the report “illustrates that the health system is broken”:

When people can’t afford the most fundamental medical care it leads to bad health outcomes and puts pressure on hospitals. The NSW and commonwealth governments must take urgent action to address these matters.

The key statistics from the report include:

• A 246% surge in patients who delayed or didn’t see a doctor due to cost.

• A 116% increase in patients who delayed or did not see a specialist due to cost across NSW. In regional areas, there was a 202% increase.

• A 47% increase in patients who felt GPs did not spend enough time with them. In regional areas there was a 63% increase.

• A 25% increase in the number of NSW patients delaying or not seeing a dentist due to cost.

Ncoss is calling on the government to improve affordability and reduce out-of-pocket costs, particularly for vulnerable populations, and enhance healthcare access in regional areas.

Around 300 Qantas engineers will walk off the job for 24 hours from this morning.

Engine components maintenance engineers in Melbourne will strike from 9am Aedt, with a large rally expected at the city’s Tullamarine airport international terminal from 10am.

Brisbane heavy maintenance engineers will also strike from 1:30am Aest for 24 hours, with a large rally planned at the Brisbane international terminal from 9am.

The Qantas Engineers’ Alliance – a union alliance including the AMWU, the AWU, and the ETU – said further action was necessary after “Qantas management refused to return to the bargaining table and increase its previous offer”.

The current enterprise agreement expired at the end of June, and the union has put forward a wage claim of 5% a year, with a 15% first-year increase to compensate for 3.5 years of wage freezes and as an industry catch-up payment.

The AMWU’s national secretary, Steve Murphy, said union members were “voting overwhelmingly to escalate our industrial activities.” Michael Wright, national secretary with the ETU, said that “Qantas needs to stop stalling, start showing their respect to these workers and pay them what they’re worth”.

Daniel raises infrastructure concerns amid Victorian government rezoning plans

Zoe Daniel was also asked about a proposal within her Victorian electorate for high-rise housing, having already raised concerns.

The state premier, Jacinta Allan, has announced an overhaul of planning rules in 50 inner-Melbourne areas located near public transport, to allow for greater density:

Daniel said she “absolutely” supports more housing within her electorate, but accused the government of announcing its housing policies “on the front pages of these Sunday newspapers with no warning to local councils or communities, which causes residents concern and uncertainty about what the plan is”:

And I think that’s really bad practice. In low-rise suburbs, to put on the front page of the paper that you’re considering towers of up to 20-storeys adjacent to train stations – where there is nothing anything like that height, even barely half that height in the entire electorate – requires conversations with people, to bring them along and to say, ‘well, this is actually what we plan to do’.

She also expressed concern over infrastructure demands, stating: “Where’s the childcare? Where are the schools? Where’s the healthcare? What are the transport impacts of that?”

None of those conversations … have been had, and they need to be had.

More on news media bargaining code and funding of media publishers

One of the committee’s key recommendations was a digital platform levy on companies like Meta and Google, which some have described as a tech tax to fund public interest journalism.

Does Zoe Daniel support this? She responded “maybe”, and said whether it can be in the next budget is “really a question around the technicalities of how you design it.”

So in parts of Europe, for example, there’s a 2% digital services tax. You could look at a public interest journalism levy.

The issue that we have fundamentally here is the … offshoring of the digital platform’s profits, where currently they pay very little tax because they argue that they don’t operate in Australia, even though they’re getting this enormous profit yield of the advertising on their platforms. So that’s another thing that has to be resolved within legislation in order to impose a tax.

Daniel said that “a tax won’t solve anything” and as a former journalist herself she is “supportive of finding mechanisms to support media diversity”:

But simply imposing a tax and feeding [it] into media organisations … won’t fix the issue if Meta continues to deprecate news content – that is, reduce the exposure of news content to its consumers.

Zoe Daniel on reignited news media bargaining code fight

As Josh Butler and Amanda Meade have reported, social media company Meta has accused a federal parliamentary committee of ignoring “the realities of how our platforms work” and the value Facebook and Instagram bring to news outlets.

This comes as a fight reignites over the news media bargaining code and funding of media publishers:

Zoe Daniel, the Independent MP for Goldstein, was on ABC radio earlier this morning to discuss this and said there was “some irony” in platforms arguing the committee was not acknowledging how they work, because “we have so little transparency around how their platform operates”.

In fact, that’s probably the main thing that we heard during the extensive committee hearings that we’ve done so far. But we simply don’t know what’s going on under the hood with these digital platforms, and until we allow digital researchers access to actually understand the algorithms, we won’t be able to resolve issues around either social media harm and the various social issues that that’s causing, and also what impact that’s having on the way that news content is distributed to Australians.

Footage emerges of Queensland LNP leader promising ‘conscience vote’ on abortion, despite assertions

Confusion around the abortion policy of Queensland opposition leader David Crisafulli remains today after footage of an interview from last year shows him suggesting there would a “conscience vote” on the issue if he won power.

That appears to contradict his repeated assertion on the campaign trail that there would be no changes to abortion laws despite pressure to do so from rightwing minority parties.

Our full story explains the significance of the footage:

Full Story: the ‘doomsday’ cult

The Shincheonji church is an international Christian sect which started in South Korea. The group is being accused of bizarre recruitment strategies at a number of Australian universities and former members have made allegations of “coercive control” tactics that include love bombing and sleep deprivation.

Medical editor Melissa Davey speaks to Reged Ahmad about the experiences of families of current members, as well as former members, about life on the inside of this alleged “doomsday cult”.

Supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths are headed to their first court appearance since being accused of tricking customers with fake discounts, AAP reports.

Both supermarkets will face the federal court today accused of violating consumer law by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which says they misled shoppers on hundreds of popular supermarket items with their “Down Down” and “Prices Dropped” campaigns.

The alleged fake discounts included on dairy, pet food, personal care, coffee, medicine, lollies, cereal and household cleaning products. The ACCC began separate proceedings against Woolworths Group Ltd and Coles Supermarkets Australia Pty Ltd in September.

At the time, the ACCC’s chair, Gina Cass-Gottlieb, alleged both supermarkets used similar ploys to increase prices of hundreds of products before dropping them as part of their respective campaigns. The products sold for less than the inflated prices, but still more than the regular price that applied before the price spike.

The ACCC said, if successful, it would seek a significant penalty for the alleged breaches of consumer law.

Coles said it would defend the court proceedings, while Woolworths said its Prices Dropped program was introduced to give shoppers “great everyday value” on products.

Good morning

Emily Wind

Emily Wind here, signing on for blogging duties. Thanks to Martin Farrer for getting things started this morning. I’ll be with you for most of the day as we bring you our rolling coverage.

You can reach out via X (@emilywindwrites) or email (emily.wind@theguardian.com) with any thoughts, tips or feedback.

Let’s go.

Bruce Lehrmann’s appeal verdict due today

An impoverished Bruce Lehrmann is about to find out if an appeal of his defamation loss is over or he can continue fighting in court, AAP reports.

Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson have asked for federal court orders that he pay $200,000 in security in the event he loses his appeal. The former Liberal staffer opposed this move.

He has also asked Justice Wendy Abraham to stay orders he pay $2m in legal costs to Ten, as well as an as-yet unknown bill for Wilkinson’s defence costs.

The judge is scheduled to hand down her decision today.

She heard on 14 October Lehrmann was living on Centrelink benefits and his lawyer described him in court as “pretty much unemployable”.

Ten has already served a bankruptcy notice on Lehrmann but agreed not to take any further steps until the appeal is resolved.

Suspected neo-Nazis were pepper-sprayed by police in Melbourne last night after they tried to disrupt the final night of a 100-day protest in support of refugees.

Protesters supporting a campaign for refugees to be given permanent visas had gathered in Docklands for a peaceful protest.

But a few dozen black-clad counterprotesters turned up at the scene and chanted “white power” and “hail victory”, David Glanz, a spokesperson for the Refugee Action Collective, told the Age.

Police formed a line and pushed the counterprotesters back, pepper-spraying them and forcing them to retreat.

The Albanese government has announced it will set aside $26m to fund roads, sewerage, water and power for new homes in Sydney’s south-west as part of its broader $32bn housing commitments.

The move comes after the opposition announced, if elected, it would deliver $5bn to build critical infrastructure required for new homes in undeveloped land, known as greenfield sites.

The home affairs minister, Clare O’Neil, said the funding would help progress the Bonnyrigg renewal project which will provide 65 new social homes and 210 private residential lots.

The Albanese government’s housing support program will deliver $500m in funding for state, territory and local governments to build enabling infrastructure until mid-2025 with a further $1bn set aside for social housing.

Under the Coalition’s plan, $5bn in funding in the form of grants and concessional loans would go to industry, local councils and state utilities to build enabling infrastructure like water, power and sewerage.

Up to 500,000 homes could be built on mostly undeveloped outer suburb or regional lands, the opposition claimed, and if a development did not progress within 12 months of receiving the funding its grant or loan would be terminated.

It also proposed to freeze any changes to national building codes for 10 years, claiming the updates – such as those requiring new homes to meet higher energy efficiency standards – have added thousands of dollars to housing prices.

O’Neil said:

We have an ambitious plan to build 1.2m homes over the next 5 years, unlocked by billions of dollars of investment in roads, sewerage, water and power right across Australia … Peter Dutton’s infrastructure announcement is a road to nowhere, pushing Australians to live hours away from their families and from their work.

Read more:

Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it’ll be Emily Wind with the main action.

“We’re going down the same path as Amazon. We’re not robots, we’re humans,” says one Woolworths warehouse worker about new working arrangements to eliminate “time-wasting” seen by staff as a “bullying” tactic. We have spoken to several workers who are pushing back at the new framework introduced by the supermarket giant in the name of efficiency but which workers describe as unsafe.

It comes as Woolworths joins Coles in facing the federal court today, accused of violating consumer law by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which says they misled shoppers about discounts. More on that soon.

Suspected neo-Nazis were pepper-sprayed by police in Melbourne last night after they tried to disrupt the final night of a 100-day protest in support of refugees. More details coming up.

And how to dispose of used solar panels has become a major headache for Australia’s renewable industry. For a range of reasons, panels that could operate for 20 to 30 years are being pulled off rooftops and solar farms after 10 or 12 years, causing a “staggering” number to end up in landfill. But there is some hope as Petra Stock visits a company in Brisbane that is finding ways to make money from unwanted panels.