Health News at Your Fingertips

Opposition communications spokeswoman Michelle Rowland has responded to the resignation of Christine Holgate as Australia Post chief executive today, saying the circumstances which led to her departure are “regrettable”.

Scott Morrison mustered up all the confected outrage in the world about $20,000 on watches, yet when his own ministers rort taxpayers he turns a blind eye.

The Australia Post board is stacked with Liberal party hacks and mates of Scott Morrison. Even on their best day, you wouldn’t call these Liberal directors the C-team.

The decision to use Covid-19 as opportunistic cover to cut services, attack one in 4 postie jobs and increase delivery timeframes was wholly ratified by the Australia Post board.

Anyone who thinks these issues will be resolved through a change of CEO is kidding themselves. This board must be cleaned out.

Earlier today a deal was struck between Labor and the Greens in the ACT.

The deal, outlined in the below report from AAP, will see the minority government phase out gas by 2045, deliver more renewable energy and undertake gambling reform.

The 17 October election left the ACT with a hung parliament, comprising six Greens, 10 Labor and nine Liberal members out of 25 seats.

Chief minister Andrew Barr and Greens leader Shane Rattenbury on Monday reached an agreement comprising 100 items.

Three Greens will be ministers in the new government, with portfolios chosen by the chief minister.

Part of the agreement is a plan to achieve net-zero emissions in the ACT through the rollout of renewable energy and batteries, making transport and energy use more efficient and the phasing out of household gas by 2045.

As well, the second phase of light rail will be built, extending the network to Woden, in southern Canberra.

On the social front, there will be more affordable housing and the number of pokies will be reduced by 3,500 by mid-2025, with incentives provided to clubs that move to zero machines.

A staged rollout of $5 bet limits and $100 load-up limits by the end of 2022 will follow a thorough review and transitional plan.

Electoral reform will include a ban on foreign donations and real-time public disclosure of donations.

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie has also responded to the government’s proposed commonwealth integrity commission, lashing the plans unveiled today as “a woefully inadequate integrity agency” that “will deeply disappoint and alarm many members of the community”.

The country is crying out for an effective integrity body, even more so in recent times on account of the avalanche of dodgy goings on in Canberra.

But what’s been confirmed by the government today is dreadful and worse than useless because it will leave some people thinking the job is done. Frankly we would have been better off with nothing than the appallingly designed integrity agency the government is pursuing.

What’s needed instead is a powerful independent body that can hold public hearings, make findings of guilt, lean on a broad definition of corruption and accept referrals from any member of the community.

What the government is working on is the opposite of that and begs the question again: what have they got to hide?

Finance minister Simon Birmingham and communications minister Paul Fletcher have issued a joint statement paying tribute to former Australia Post chief executive Christine Holgate.

Holgate announced her resignation today, following controversy over a decision to spend $20,000 on Cartier watches as gifts for Australia Post senior executives following a deal for the organisation.

As shareholder ministers, we thank Ms Holgate for her service over the past three years.

Under Ms Holgate’s leadership, Australia Post has risen to the challenge of the enormous increase in parcel volumes that accompanied the Covid-19 crisis. Ms Holgate has also driven important reforms at Australia Post that have resulted in more sustainable arrangements for licensed post offices and their franchisees.

Ms Holgate has confirmed that she remains available to assist the investigation into Australia Post’s governance arrangements and corporate culture concerning the proper use and management of public resources being undertaken by the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications and the Department of Finance.

The government will consider the findings of the investigation in due course.

The union representing postal workers has warned that Christine Holgate’s resignation as Australia Post chief executive won’t fix “serious, systemic issues with management” at the organisation.

In a statement, Communication Workers Union national secretary Greg Rayner said Australia Post’s workforce has been “dismayed” at recent management moves that have included underemployment and reducing daily deliveries.

There’s something seriously wrong when management thinks nothing of splashing out on Cartier luxury watches but delivers only cut backs and service cuts for the rest of us.

The resignation of Christine Holgate won’t stop the rot at Post.

The rest of the so-called leadership team must be held accountable for this mess.

Western Australia has recorded one new case of Covid-19 today, in a returned traveller.

According to a WA Health statement, the confirmed case is a male traveller in his 20s who is in hotel quarantine in Perth.

There are now 39 active cases of Covid-19 in Western Australia.

Jim Chalmers, opposition treasury spokesman, was just interviewed by ABC News.

Asked about Labor’s widespread appeal evident from its victory at the weekend’s Queensland election, compared to federal Labor’s difficulty in swaying voters in the state’s regions at the May 2019 election, Chalmers said Annastacia Palaszczuk had “a laser-like focus on jobs”.

“Also to recognise that Queensland is not one big economy. It is a series of regional local communities and economies. And to make sure that you have a policy offering which is relevant to every part of the community,” Chalmers said, explaining why he thought Labor was victorious.

On the government’s proposed Commonwealth Integrity Commission unveiled today, Chalmers echoed his legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus’s comments that it appears “weak”, “secretive” and “compromised”:

Unfortunately when you join the dots between what the government is attempting to do here and what it has been doing with the auditor general as well. We need a strong and independent national integrity commission and a strong and independent auditor general and all of the government’s actions in recent times have sought to diminish those two important things.

Chalmers also linked the resignation of Australia Post chief executive Christine Holgate with the proposed CIC.

If Christine Holgate is hounded out for $20,000 in luxury watches by the prime minister, what does that now mean for Scott Morrison’s own ministers who have been sprung paying $30million to a Liberal donor for a $3 million parcel of land? What does it mean for sports rorts and regional rorts and doctored documents? All of these sorts of things that Morrison government ministers have been caught red handed doing but remain in their jobs while Christine Holgate is hounded out of hers.

What we ask from the prime minister is that he apply the same standards to his own ministers that he has applied to Christine Holgate on this occasion.

Greens leader Adam Bandt has labelled the government’s proposed commonwealth integrity commission “toothless”.

Bandt said:

The Liberals’ model is limited only to serious criminal conduct, meaning many of the misconduct scandals involving current and former government MPs would not be caught.

It won’t hold public hearings, so politicians could escape scrutiny for years. The public sector branch won’t be able to start investigations under its own steam, so whistleblowers will need to jump through hoops to warn about political corruption.

This consultation draft could push back action for another 12 months. This sends a green light to any corrupt minister that they’ve got another year to milk every last cent out of our democracy.

People are fed up with politics. Every day they see it work for big corporations and developers, but not for the public. This sham Icac will do nothing to change that.

Mark Dreyfus, the opposition legal affairs spokesman, has criticised the government’s proposed commonwealth integrity commission unveiled by attorney general Christian Porter earlier today, saying it is based on a “weak, secretive and compromised model”.

Dreyfus’s main concerns are the lack of significant provisions for the commission to instigate its own inquiries in most circumstances, as well as its inability to hold public hearings for corruption investigations related to politicians or public servants.

Speaking to media in Melbourne this afternoon, Dreyfus said on the issue of public hearings:

It has got some good aspects to it but it does not have, as the attorney general has just said at his press conference this afternoon, more powers than a royal commission. That is simply not right. A royal commission is not prohibited from holding public hearings.

I find it shocking to suggest that you would establish a national integrity commission and deprive it of the possibility of holding hearings in public.

Public hearings build confidence in the integrity of our public administration, which is, of course, why we establish integrity commissions in the first place.

He added:

The commission must be able to respond to tipoffs, to information that it obtains, sometimes anonymously, sometimes from whistleblowers who are prepared to be named but need protection

An integrity commission that is worth its name must be able to act on its own motion, it must be able to start its own investigations. The model that Mr Porter is putting forward here would prevent this integrity commission, if it is established in the form he proposes, from starting its own investigations and that simply is wrong.

I am going to hand over the blog now to my colleague Elias Visontay to see you through the afternoon and evening.

Enjoy the rest of your day.

And some more from the Victorian press conference earlier, via AAP (which wasn’t covered live, so I couldn’t bring it to you earlier):

The Victorian transport infrastructure minister, Jacinta Allan, said the state government won’t further ease restrictions before Sunday, despite the positive figures.

So much hard work has gone into getting these numbers at these low levels.

These are very much precious gains we want to hold onto and part of holding onto that is continuing to follow health advice about how we should carefully and safely step out of restrictions.

More restrictions are due to ease in Melbourne from 11:59pm on 8 November, including the scrapping of the so-called “ring of steel” dividing the city from the regions and the 25km travel limit.

Gyms and fitness studios will be able to reopen, with a maximum of 20 people per space and one person per 8 sq metres.

Pubs and restaurants will increase up to 40 people inside and 70 outside.

Allan said case numbers remained steady in Melbourne even as restrictions were eased last week because people have practised social distancing and worn masks.

We are going to need to continue to do that for the months ahead.

Allan said she does not expect restrictions to be eased around face masks as they proved to be an “important and effective” tool in slowing the spread of the virus.

Some information on the Victoria Covid-19 situation from the daily press release:

• There are now just 49 active cases of Covid-19 in Victoria, all in metro Melbourne.
• Two active cases are among healthcare workers, and three in aged care settings.
• Looks like testing is down, with just 2,387 tests processed on Sunday.
• In the Deer Park area, the department is continuing to investigate a case reported on Friday and is being managed as a new infection pending further tests, with 21 close contacts identified and in quarantine.

Here’s the governing agreement between the ACT Labor party and the ACT Greens. Very interesting document, and it seems like there’s an actual coalition between the two parties (something you would imagine hard to replicate elsewhere, given the brawl over the Greens winning the South Brisbane seat over the weekend in Queensland).

There will be three Greens ministers in the new ACT government. There will also be quarterly joint partyroom meetings between Labor and the Greens.