Australia news live: Fortescue to cut 700 jobs as mining and energy divisions merged | Australia news

Here are the main stories on Wednesday 17 July:

• Workplace relations minister Tony Burke appoints the Fair Work Commission general manager Murray Furlong as an independent administrator of the CFMEU;

• The ACTU also announce that it has suspended the construction and general division of the union after a raft of corruption allegations;

• Fortescue announce about 700 redundancies, to be finalised within days;

• Kevin Rudd, the Australian Ambassador to the US, says Australia should “chill” if Donald Trump wins the 2024 election;

• Victorian MP for Mulgrave Eden Foster has been diagnosed with cancer. Foster, 43, replaced former premier Daniel Andrews after a byelection in October last year;

• The head of the Australian Energy Regulator doubts nuclear energy is possible in the country by 2050; and

• A memorial service is held in Canberra for the 10th anniversary of the downing of MH17.

We will see you here again for more news tomorrow.

About 700 people from Fortescue’s global operations will be made redundant, the Australian company has confirmed in a statement.

Fortescue says the redundancy process will be finalised by the end of the month. Its statement read:

Fortescue remains resolute in its commitment to be the world’s leading green technology, energy and metals company with a laser focus on achieving Real Zero by 2030.

The Company has undergone a period of rapid growth and transition,and as part of bringing together Metals and Energy into One Fortescue, initiatives are being implemented to simplify its structure, remove duplication and deliver cost efficiencies.

The Company must continually evolve to ensure it remains lean, is best positioned to deliver on its strategy and generate the maximum value for shareholders.

As part of this, approximately 700 people from across Fortescue’s global operations will be offered redundancies, with that process to be finalised by the end of July2024. Fortescue is grateful for the contribution of all those impacted by these changes.

Luca Ittimani

NSW dog track future unclear

Greyhound racing in New South Wales has been under the pump, after the release of a damning report prompted a government inquiry and forced the peak body’s CEO to resign.

But will the embattled industry get to keep its lease on prime Sydney real estate?

There’s a greyhound racetrack in Wentworth Park in Pyrmont, right in the city’s CBD. The racers previously agreed to leave the site when their lease expires in 2027 but they’ve since changed their minds.

The NSW government won’t rule anything out. It says the greyhound racers still need to provide a business case and would have to make room for “a multi-purpose community space that everyone can enjoy” if they stuck around.

But some locals who have long wanted the industry out of their neighbourhood were even more unhappy after reading our coverage last week. Lord mayor Clover Moore said:

This parkland should be for the benefit of the community, not an industry that has admitted to killing up to 17,000 healthy dogs each year [nationwide in 2015].

Moore was particularly concerned because the NSW government has told the City of Sydney to build 18,900 new homes by July 2029. Those new inner-city residents will need somewhere to go on their weekends, and they may not be too keen on the races.

GRNSW declined to comment.

Here’s more on the push to close Wentworth Park:

Confronting Queensland watch house footage exposes anguish of children locked in isolation cells

A girl punches herself in the face, strips naked and urinates on the floor of an isolation cell; a boy wakes in the night and tells officers: “I can’t breathe.”

Children scream in distress at being placed in a “freezing” isolation cell, known as “the box”.

These are some of the scenes revealed in a cache of video footage seen by Guardian Australia and SBS The Feed that shows the confronting reality for children imprisoned in Queensland’s adult police watch houses.

More here on our In the box investigation:

Daniel Hurst

Rudd speculates first call between Albanese and Trump would ‘go better than Malcom’s’

Australian ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, also told Sky News:

For us in Australia though, I just say this: it doesn’t matter whether you vote Labor, vote Liberal or vote National back home. The really good thing about the United States is ‘brand Australia’ is in good working order. And therefore we are in a good position to work with whichever party is elected. If the American people vote for Donald Trump and for [vice-presidential running mate] JD Vance, the Australian government, led by Anthony Albanese, will be in there working hard, positively, constructively, with incoming Republican administration on day one – that’s as it should be, as it has been in the past.

Rudd speculated that a first phone call between Albanese and Trump would go better than the infamous call between Malcolm Turnbull and Trump, by saying: “It will go better than Malcolm’s.”

Rudd promptly acknowledged that was “a low benchmark”.

The Sky News interview was conducted by former Australian ambassador turned lobbyist Joe Hockey. Hockey offered “a suggestion” for how Albanese should approach the first call, advising that the Australian government could advance Aukus-related funding to the US. Hockey said:

I think Anthony Albanese should give Donald Trump something, particularly on subs, the second round of checks or something, give him a win in that early phone conversation, to show that … it’s a symbolic way of saying this is how we work together.

Rudd says Australia should ‘chill’ if Trump wins

Daniel Hurst

Kevin Rudd says Australia and other US allies are “not going over some chasm” if Donald Trump wins November’s election.

The Australian ambassador to the US said he had advised many fellow diplomats in Washington DC, particularly from European countries, “to chill, just chill”.

Rudd, who prior to his diplomatic appointment called Trump “the most destructive president in history”, gave an interview to Sky News Australia from the Republican national convention today. He was interviewed by Joe Hockey, a former Australian ambassador to the US who was once Rudd’s political sparring partner in a regular segment on Seven’s Sunrise program. Rudd said:

If president Trump is elected on 5 November, we’re not going over some chasm. For us in Australia, and for allies of the United States, this is a perfectly navigable and manageable set of relationships for the next four years. And everyone needs to have that just as a discipline in their minds.

If instead you think, ‘Oh my god, this is beyond the pale,’ and reach for your smelling salts, well you know something: it’s going to cruel you from day one. That’s actually the wrong conclusion. I say a lot to the Euros along these lines, which is: chill, Bill.

Peter Hannam

Energy regulator singles out AGL, EnergyAustralia for nudging power prices higher

Volatile energy prices are nothing new but occasionally they fluctuate more wildly than usual.

That was the case in early May when a spate of unplanned outages at coal-fired power plants (the “reliable baseload” ones) triggered a series of high-priced events in the wholesale power market in NSW, as the Australian Energy Market notes in a special report.

In short, a couple of coal plants had unscheduled outages (at Eraring and Vales Point), which happens from time to time as these clunkers become clunkier. Anyway, what happened next was not helpful.

Two rival producers, AGL Energy and EnergyAustralia opted to “profit maximise” by offering their capacity at higher prices and also by rebidding from low to high prices from the Bayswater (AGL) and Mt Piper (EA) plants.

“While this is permissible under the National Electricity Rules, the behaviour may not have been in the best interests of energy consumers,” the AER said.

The particular market price threshold was exceeded for only the second time in the national electricity market’s history, resulting in a price cap being imposed at $600/megawatt-hour for seven days.

The behaviour by AGL and EA was “quite a contrast with offer behaviour of the previous week”, the AER said.

One effect of this episode was to nudge future prices significantly higher for NSW.

Now wholesale prices only make up about a third of your retail power bill but it’s not the downward direction we would all want to see.

We’ve asked AGL and EA what they think of the regulator’s findings.

Andrew Messenger

Queensland premier backs federal stance on CFMEU

Steven Miles has thrown his support behind the federal move, saying the state would also legislate to put the state CFMEU into administration, if necessary.

“If they choose though, to fight it through the process, then the Australian Government have indicated they are willing to legislate to ensure that this administration can be appointed,” Miles said.

And what you should read between the lines in what we’ve said is that we would also be willing to legislate to ensure that this process can be successful.

We want Australian workers to have strong, honest, democratic unions. We are proud supporters of trade unions. But there is no place in those unions for illegal activity for underworld links for thuggery. And that’s what we want to see stamped out.

Andrew Messenger

The Queensland CFMEU secretary Michael Ravbar has launched an extraordinary spray at prime minister Anthony Albanese.

The PM announced moves to put the state CFMEU into administration in a Brisbane press conference today. He urged union leaders to enter administration voluntarily, rather than making him do it through legislation.

Ravbar said the union will cooperate with any criminal investigation.

“Albanese has panicked and soiled himself over some unproven allegations in the media,” Ravbar said.

Workers can see that Albo has lost control and the country is being run by buffoon breakfast show hosts and talkback radio shock jocks.

These gutless Labor politicians talk tough about affiliation fees and donations because that’s the only language they understand – money. The CFMEU is an industrial union, not a political outfit. Our strength has always come from our members on the shop floor, not from ladder-climbing politicians in the halls of power.

Dutton asked what portion of Coalition’s energy plan would include renewables

Circling back to opposition leader Peter Dutton’s earlier press conference: he was asked about energy minister Chris Bowen’s stance that voters must chose between renewables or nuclear reactors.

Dutton argued the Coalition was planning for a “mix of technologies” including renewables, gas and nuclear.

It’s not a choice between renewables and nuclear. Our policy has renewables, it has gas and it has the underpinning of a baseload power.

This comes as Clare Savage, head of the Australian Energy Regulator, told a summit today that she doubts nuclear will be possible in Australia by 2050.

Dutton was asked what portion of the Coalition’s energy plan would include renewables, and said “we’ll have more to say in relation to that detail.”

Asked for a ball figure, he again replied: “We’ll talk about it in due course.”

Elias Visontay

Housing completions in NSW reach historic lows

The Property Council of Australia has lamented new quarterly data from the Bureau of Statistics showing the speed of housing construction is slowing down in New South Wales.

The latest data show dwelling completions fell from 11,525 to 10,776 over the March quarter, while commencements fell from 11,361 to 8,961 – the worst performance since June 2012.

Property Council of Australia NSW executive director Katie Stevenson said that for NSW to reach its National Housing Accord target of 377,000 new homes by 2029, “we need to be completing an average of 18,850 new dwellings each quarter for the five years from 1 July”.

Stevenson said:

The data reflect the cold economic headwinds blowing through the construction sector, with skill shortages, materials costs, access to capital, and interest rates all impacting project feasibility.

To get more housing delivered more quickly, the industry needs feasible projects. Currently, project risks are too high, and the sector’s ability to secure finance is proving difficult.

Suspending taxes and charges and compressing approval timeframes could enable the delivery of up to 209,000 new homes over the next five years in four of Sydney’s six cities – 100,000 more homes delivered than if no action is taken.

Staying with the news from the ACTU regarding its move to suspend the construction and general divisions of the CFMEU, secretary Sally McManus said the resolution was adopted almost unanimously.

She said of 52 votes in the ACTU executive, she “could count – if I was being really generous – on one hand, the people against”.

Sally McManus, secretary of the ACTU, said that the union has zero tolerance for any criminal elements and corruption within.

“They do not represent us. That behaviour does not represent us, does not represent the trade union movement,” she said.

Building workers deserve a strong and a clean union, she said.

She also urged CFMEU leadership to cooperate with the independent external administrator.