Former Liberal MP says climate debate driven by ‘emotions and virtue signalling’
Sarah Basford Canales
The former Liberal MP Keith Wolahan says debate on climate change and emissions reduction is “mostly driven by emotion and virtue signalling” from all sides of the political spectrum.
In an interview with Sky News on Friday, the former member for Menzies, who lost his seat in May, said he was back working as a barrister, which he claimed was sometimes considered “90% logic and 10% emotion”. On the other hand, politics was more like 10% logic and 90% emotion, he said.
Wolahan continued:
You can’t ride it on emotion alone and there’s temptation for those on the left or the right to run the energy debate on emotion … we should be driven by logic, by facts and by what’s in our national interest. And I think if we get the debate to there – I think it needs to move there, because I think it’s mostly driven by emotion and virtue signalling from the left and the right. The debate needs to move away from that – then I think we can have a proper conversation about this.
Asked whether Wolahan would have another crack at the seat of Menzies in Melbourne’s north-eastern suburbs at the next federal election, he said he was “more likely than not to put my hand up to run again”, but warned:
Unless the Liberal party in the Coalition wins more metro seats, it will always be a voice in opposition only, and I don’t think that’s in the country’s interest.
Key events
Rafqa Touma
‘Opportunity to recommit’: shadow immigration minister on 1 million refugees
The shadow immigration minister, Paul Scarr, says the milestone of 1 million refugees being settled in Australia since 1947 is an “opportunity to recommit to our humanitarian and refugee program”.
He was speaking at the Refugee Council of Australia’s annual general meeting in Parramatta, Sydney, last night.
This year 1 million people will have been settled in Australia through refugee and humanitarian programs since 1947, the Refugee Council said. The meeting celebrated the milestone by launching its documentary series One Million Untold Stories.
Scarr said:
I believe it’s an opportunity to recommit, to recommit to our humanitarian and refugee program, to celebrate the success that it’s been, to look at different barriers, ways in which it can be improved for the future, to communicate to the Australian people what a great benefit it has been to our country and to everyone in our country.
Paul Power, the Refugee Council CEO, urged Scarr to “appeal to your colleagues in the Liberal and National party rooms to review the policy and certainly not to advocate for a cut to the current program”.
I think it would be remiss of us not to ask the Liberal National Coalition to review the policy for the last election in terms of the size of the refugee and humanitarian program. Over the past 10 years, the refugee and humanitarian program has only made up about 6% or 7% of net overseas migration.
Carlos, who lived Chile until 1974, spoke on a panel at the event. Asked what he would do if he were in parliament, he said:
I would say that we need more refugees everywhere. Coming from different countries, no matter what colour, skin, no matter religion. We need more people to come because the world is in crisis now. So Australia has to be open for any refugee from any country in the world.
Northern Territory makes croc pet permit process more snappy
Keeping a snappy predator as a back yard pet is being made easy with new guidelines on crocodile ownership restoring a right seen as part of a “unique territory lifestyle”, AAP reports.
As Victoria moves to ban pet crocs, the Northern Territory government has scaled up plans to allow ownership of the reptiles, with 63 people already licensed to keep 123 of them.
“It’s proof our unique territory lifestyle is alive and thriving,” the NT parks and wildlife minister, Marie-Clare Boothby, said.
The NT government is inviting Territorians to have their say on new safety and welfare guidelines to make owning a pet croc simpler and safer.
The proposed regulations would strengthen guidelines already in place to own a pet crocodile.
The crocs will receive a unique identification marking, owners will be charged a $299 fee for a five-year permit and there will be a $100 an hour recovery fee if departmental staff need to capture an escaped reptile. Updated enclosure standards include a lockable door and an isolating section to reduce human-crocodile interaction during cleaning or vet checks.
Nick Visser
That’s all from me. Josh Taylor will guide you through the rest of the afternoon. Take care!
Attorney general touts $37m to strengthen criminal history monitoring in early childhood and care
The attorney general, Michelle Rowland, just spoke about the federal government’s commitment of $37m to strengthen criminal history monitoring in early childhood and care.
She told reporters at a news briefing in Brisbane the reforms were part of the government’s focus on ensuring a “safer community in the long term”, adding of a national tracker:
This will ensure that the states and territories can plug into this system to have that real-time monitoring and ensure that we know who should be excluded, what their criminal histories are and this will make for a much safer system …
The significant progress we have made … particularly when it comes to working with children checks, demonstrates the focus of the Albanese government on keeping our most vulnerable safe.
Adeshola Ore
Victorian ombudsman sounds warning on youth crime crackdown
The Victorian ombudsman has sounded the alarm on the Allan government’s youth crime crackdown, warning it will lead to less humane treatment of children in detention and no long-term improvement in community safety.
In an unusual intervention, the ombudsman wrote to a number of MPs on Thursday, in response to the Allan government’s proposed “adult time for violent crime” policy. The changes could see children as young as 14 sentenced to life in prison.
In the letter, viewed by Guardian Australia, the ombudsman, Marlo Baragwanath, said since May there had been a 20% increase complaints from prisons and youth justice facilities, including allegations of misuse of force, compared with the previous year.
Baragwanath said she anticipated a 157% increase in youth justice complaints before the proposed reforms came into effect:
Put simply, our work shows that rapid increases in the number of people in custody leads to less humane treatment and less effective rehabilitation, which does not improve community safety in the long run.
Former Liberal MP says climate debate driven by ‘emotions and virtue signalling’
Sarah Basford Canales
The former Liberal MP Keith Wolahan says debate on climate change and emissions reduction is “mostly driven by emotion and virtue signalling” from all sides of the political spectrum.
In an interview with Sky News on Friday, the former member for Menzies, who lost his seat in May, said he was back working as a barrister, which he claimed was sometimes considered “90% logic and 10% emotion”. On the other hand, politics was more like 10% logic and 90% emotion, he said.
Wolahan continued:
You can’t ride it on emotion alone and there’s temptation for those on the left or the right to run the energy debate on emotion … we should be driven by logic, by facts and by what’s in our national interest. And I think if we get the debate to there – I think it needs to move there, because I think it’s mostly driven by emotion and virtue signalling from the left and the right. The debate needs to move away from that – then I think we can have a proper conversation about this.
Asked whether Wolahan would have another crack at the seat of Menzies in Melbourne’s north-eastern suburbs at the next federal election, he said he was “more likely than not to put my hand up to run again”, but warned:
Unless the Liberal party in the Coalition wins more metro seats, it will always be a voice in opposition only, and I don’t think that’s in the country’s interest.
Penry Buckley
Minns says workers’ compensation deadlock ‘a real shame for NSW’
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, says businesses will be forced to close and charities to reduce services over Christmas, after upper house MPs rejected the government’s proposed changes to the workers’ compensation scheme last night.
Minns says the decision by Coalition and Greens MPs to vote against raising the impairment threshold for psychological injury to 31%, which could exclude hundreds of workers from the scheme, is “a real shame for NSW”.
Asked if the government will seek to negotiate further on the threshold before the end of the parliamentary year, Minns says: “It’s over.”
Premium increases will go to both charities and businesses in the state. I’m sorry about that. I genuinely am. It’s the last thing that they need. But I can’t make people vote a certain way. That’s their decision. If they do vote that way, they can live with the consequences.
The premier’s comments echo those of the independent MP for Sydney, Alex Greenwich, who worked on a compromise deal with upper house independent MP Taylor Martin, which the government said it would support.
Earlier today, Greenwich said he was disappointed it had fallen apart at the last minute, saying it was Martin’s prerogative for walking away from the deal.
“If we don’t do our job, people across NSW will start losing their jobs,” he said.
Jessica O’Bryan
Seismic impact levels reveal ‘interesting’ crowd dynamics of AC/DC fans
While AC/DC fans spent Wednesday rocking out at Melbourne’s MCG, they made only one-fifth of the seismic impact of Taylor Swift’s fans.
The Seismology Research Centre in Melbourne measured the seismic level of the rock concert through frequencies of crowd motion and music, finding levels were “about 5 times smaller” than from Swift’s concerts last year.
The centre’s chief scientist, Adam Pascale, says it is “quite interesting” to see how crowd dynamics affect what they record.
If everyone’s sort of jumping in unison, that tends to amplify the signal so we can pick that up better. We saw that with Taylor Swift’s concert. I think everyone [there] was probably dancing more in unison than the guys that rock out at the AC/DC concert.
Following an “international movement of seismologists” recording Swift concerts last year, Pascale says the centre now has a seismograph essentially “dedicated to recording concerts”.
Although seismographs can pick up vibrations from concerts, Pascale says the centre is unable to assign a magnitude to the levels because they are far less than the seismic levels of an earthquake.
Victorian fire authority issues warning after series of haystack fires
Victoria’s Country Fire Authority (CFA) has issued a warning to farmers to take extra care to help prevent haystack fires after a spate of blazes where thousands of bales were lost.
The CFA said hay season was in “full swing” across the state. The agency pointed to a large fire on 9 November when a hay shed caught fire, resulting in the loss of about 1,000 bales. The bales can burn for days and cause major smoke in the area.
Between 30 June 2024 and 1 July 2025 the CFA responded to 73 haystack and shed fires in regional areas, which can be caused by spontaneous combustion when hay is baled with too much moisture.
Jason Heffernan, the chief officer with the CFA, said:
Farmers who have decided to carry on with hay production need to be extra vigilant this year to make sure conditions are right for making hay and for the future storage and transport of the product as well.
Hay fires are a real threat to properties and stock in farmland areas. Whether you’re a seasoned hay grower or switching to hay this year, it’s important to take care of your hay and crops this fire season.
Adeshola Ore
Victoria to crack down on violence against retail workers with jail terms of up to five years
Customers who assault or threaten retail and hospitality workers in Victoria will face prison sentences of up to five years, under proposed tougher penalties to be introduced by the Allan government on Friday.
The crackdown will also apply to workers in fast food or transport, according to reports on Friday. The proposed legislation is the latest in a suite of crime crackdowns announced this week, in a bid to reduce community concern ahead of next year’s state election.
Speaking to the ABC, Allan said abuse and threats against retail workers was happening “far too often”:
Everyone knows the difference between a customer from hell and a customer who harms.
We will stand with retail workers but also other workers in those customer-facing roles to strengthen the protections for them with stronger jail terms and consequences for people who threaten, abuse retail workers.
Read more here:
Luca Ittimani
Commonwealth Bank CEO has security guard accept Shonky award on his behalf
Commonwealth Bank’s chief executive declined a tongue-in-cheek awards ceremony invitation from consumer group Choice this morning, with a security guard accepting the award on his behalf.
The bank last week became Australia’s most awarded business in Choice’s annual Shonky prizes, notching up another win after charging low-income customers a collective $270m in unfair fees.
CBA has declined to repay all the fees, with a spokesperson last week saying it had paused fees or made goodwill adjustments for some eligible customers.
Choice last week invited the CEO, Matt Comyn, to accept a trophy and a petition signed by more than 27,141 Australians who wanted the bank to refund the fees.
Comyn was a no-show when Choice’s head of policy, Morgan Campbell, turned up this morning with colleagues to present the trophy and petition. Campbell told Guardian Australia: “When I went into the building to deliver it, a very friendly security guard intercepted me and said he had been asked to collect the trophy on behalf of Matt Comyn.”
Perhaps the CEO was distracted by the $28bn drop in the bank’s market value this week, now sitting under $264bn, after disappointing shareholders with a $2.6bn profit for the three months to September. Handing down the result on Monday, Comyn said:
Many Australians have found the past four years challenging, particularly dealing with cost-of-living pressures … We remain focused on our strategy to build a brighter future for all.
Read more about CBA’s prize-winning performance here:
Caitlin Cassidy
At least 30,000 graduates lose qualifications in Australia’s vocational education crackdown
At least 30,000 people have lost their qualifications in the past year as the regulator cracks down on Australia’s shonky vocational education and training providers.
Since late 2024, the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) has cancelled the registrations of 11 training organisations and voided diplomas, certificates and statements of attainment that providers had issued.
Affected graduates had completed courses including early childhood, aged care to community services, disability, first aid and building and construction, with courses costing as much as $20,000.
ASQA also deregistered an additional four providers, however graduates have not yet been notified that their qualifications were cancelled, the regulator said on Thursday.
More than 144 providers remained under investigation by ASQA’s enforcement team over “serious matters”, the regulator said.
Read more here:
Australian economy an ‘island of security’, treasurer says
The nation’s economy is an “island of security”, says the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, despite less certainty about interest rate cuts among economists after stronger-than-expected jobs data, AAP reports.
Chalmers hailed low unemployment in a speech to investors in Sydney, saying 1.2 million jobs had been created since Labor won office in May 2022.
Rattling off a list of economic achievements, he said about 80% of employment growth since then had been in the private sector.
Participation above two-thirds of the available workforce.
Real wages growing at their strongest rate in five years. Inflation around a third of its peak.
Australia is an island of security, stability and reliability in a sea of uncertainty and risk.
But the strong jobs data has more forecasters convinced the Reserve Bank’s easing cycle is over.
NAB on Thursday became the latest big bank to abandon its call for a rate cut in 2026, after the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported employment jumping in October by a larger-than-expected 42,000 jobs.
The unemployment rate fell from 4.5% to 4.3%, also wrong-footing economists who had predicted the rate to edge down to 4.4%.
On top of a still-tight jobs market, underlying inflation is on track to print above the Reserve Bank’s 2-3% target band for the next six months, activity is accelerating and the economy is showing signs of being at full capacity, NAB economists say.
Caitlin Cassidy
Public schools in Victoria and NSW remain open after asbestos risk
No public schools in New South Wales or Victoria have been closed as a result of a product recall of coloured sand products by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for potentially containing asbestos.
Fifteen schools and seven preschools in Canberra fully shut their doors on Friday after discovering the product on campuses, while a further five were partially closed while remediation and investigations took place. About 10am this morning, Mancel College, a special school in Brisbane, also confirmed it would be closed for the day.
A spokesperson for the NSW education department said no public schools had been closed after the recall but, as a precaution, a safety alert had been sent to all NSW public schools to “immediately and safely remove these sand products if they have them”.
The health, safety and wellbeing of students, staff and the school community is the department’s highest priority.
A spokesperson for Victoria’s education department said advice from the department of health and the ACCC was that “the health risk from use of these products is low”.
As such, there is no indication of a need to close schools or early childhood services at this time. We are working swiftly to identify any schools and early childhood services that may be using the recalled products and will then support them to follow the remediation advice from relevant authorities.
Josh Butler
What gifts has Albanese received lately?
Anthony Albanese declared receiving a desk set and stationery as a gift from Donald Trump, alongside a number of other items from world leaders, as well as free tickets to Oasis.
The prime minister’s latest update to his register of parliamentary interests included a painting from the prime minister of Singapore; from the president of the United Arab Emirates, a number of gifts including “boxes of honey and dried dates”, an “Artisanal Emirati Spherical Box”, and a jewellery box; and from Trump, a “Desk Set with Stationery”.
The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet told Guardian Australia last month that Trump gifted the prime minister, via protocol, a White House desk set with stationery – but provided no more details. During his trip to Washington in October, Albanese indicated in a press conference that he didn’t know what Trump had given him yet, claiming: “I’ll probably get whatever has come to us in about three years and six months after it goes through all the security things and PM&C, all of that”.
His disclosure of the gift came three weeks after the Trump visit.
The disclosed gifts were all surrendered to government departments and not personally taken by Albanese himself, according to the register. Trump’s desk has been “displayed in Commonwealth/Parliamentary Office”, the disclosure states, while the ornamental boxes from the UAE have been donated and displayed in Australia’s embassy in Abu Dhabi.
Albanese also declared receiving a “friendship bracelet from Florence”, a student who visited his office recently to talk about the under 16s social media ban. The PM additionally declared receiving tickets to Oasis’ Sydney concert from Venues NSW, after he was spotted in a corporate box at the stadium show alongside other VIPs.
Bus driver behind deadly Hunter Valley crash loses appeal to reduce jail term
The driver responsible for one of Australia’s deadliest bus crashes lost his bid to reduce his jail sentence over a horrific mass fatality crash, AAP reports.
Brett Andrew Button, 60, was handed a decades-long sentence for causing a crash that killed 10 mostly young wedding guests and injured another 25 in June 2023.
He was driving too fast and under the influence of the opioid painkiller Tramadol before his bus tipped at a roundabout in Greta in the NSW Hunter Valley.
Button appealed the length of his 32-year sentence, with his lawyer arguing some of the 35 criminal charges he pleaded guilty to had been double-counted.
The NSW court of criminal appeal dismissed his appeal on Friday, leaving in place the full term and 24-year non-parole period.
Button’s lawyer had argued the sentence was disproportionate to the crime.
ASX falls sharply after Wall Street sell-off
Jonathan Barrett
Australian shares opened sharply lower this morning, after Wall Street sold off technology stocks overnight.
The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 fell more than 1.5% in early trading to 8,620 points, and is now down about 4% from its record highs hit last month, representing about $140bn in market losses.
There was no obvious trigger for the steep sell off in the US overnight aside from lingering concerns the hot run by stocks tied to the AI boom may have gone too far.
The tech-heavy US Nasdaq closed down 2.3%.
US traders are also no longer confident the Federal Reserve will deliver an anticipated cut in December amid rising inflation concerns; the same dynamic that has dimmed hopes for further rate cuts in Australia.
Some of Australia’s tech stocks have been heavily sold off in recent days, with shares in location-sharing app Life360 down by almost 30% over the past month.
Australia’s biggest listed company, Commonwealth Bank, is down more than 10% over the past five trading sessions.
Brisbane special school closes over potential asbestos contamination
Caitlin Cassidy
A special school in Brisbane has shut with “immediate effect” after a product recalled by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for potentially containing asbestos was discovered on campus.
In a post to Facebook about 10am on Friday, the head of Mancel College, Craig Duncan, said the campus would be closed for the day after reviewing the ACCC’s guidance of the coloured sand, used in sensory play activities.
Fifteen schools and three preschools in Canberra fully shut their doors on Friday after discovering the product, while a further five were partially closed while remediation and investigations took place.
Duncan said Mancel College had some of the product on-site at its junior and senior school:
While the advice is low risk and there are only minor traces, we are acting with an abundance of caution. We are therefore advising parents that with immediate effect we are closing the entire college today. You are requested to make arrangements to collect your child this morning.
In the interim, we have followed the published guidelines and quarantined the products. Students currently on site will be kept away from any impacted area until collected by parents. We apologise for this inconvenience, but we will always act in the best interests of the students.
Lisa Cox
Graeme Samuel says native forest logging exemption in environment laws should end
Former competition watchdog chair Graeme Samuel, who has appeared before a Senate committee examining proposed environmental law reforms, has criticised the loophole that effectively exempts native forest logging covered by a regional forest agreement from national environment laws. The loophole has been retained in the bills currently before the parliament.
Samuel said:
I hate the RFA exemption. It shouldn’t be there.
Samuel told the committee the exemption should be removed but if the government was to retain it then the agreements “should be governed by a very tough national environmental standard”.
Samuel also emphasised the importance of the laws being underpinned by “clear and granular” national environmental standards. The government has so far released two draft standards with more “under development”.
Asked about concerns about “vague” elements of the bill or language that appeared to allow too much ministerial discretion in decisions about whether or not developments go ahead, Samuel said that was intended to be “overcome” by national environmental standards.
