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Employers would gain powers to change employees’ hours, duties and location of work and to offer part-time workers extra hours without overtime rates under the Coalition’s industrial relations omnibus bill.

Under changes to be announced next week, the attorney general, Christian Porter, will propose flexibility provisions that mirror powers gained by employers accessing jobkeeper, extending them to all businesses with employees covered by 12 modern awards in industries hit hardest by Covid-19.

In a bid to allay union concern that Covid-19 will be used as cover for permanent changes, the industrial relations omnibus bill proposes a two-year limit on the powers to change hours, duty and location of work.

Porter’s draft bill also proposes that industries hardest hit by Covid-19, including retail, should gain “part-time flexibility”, allowing part-time workers working at least 16 hours per week to be offered extra hours at ordinary time rates without penalties or loadings.

On Friday an ACTU spokesperson said if part-time flexibility and powers to cut hours are included in the bill “it means that the government has sided with some of the more extreme suggestions from the employer lobby and embraced changes which would leave working people – the heroes of the pandemic – worse off”.

Sabina Husic, the former deputy chief of staff to Anthony Albanese and sister of Labor frontbencher Ed Husic, has a new role as director of media for the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews. Husic worked for Andrews as deputy head of media during his first term.

Husic quit Albanese’s office in mid-November citing mental health concerns after a complaint was posted online that aired a series of uncorroborated claims against personnel in the federal opposition leader’s office. In her resignation letter, Husic said she had been the subject of “a malicious, false, fake and defamatory attack on my character”.

In a post to her Facebook on Friday, Husic said:

[I am] beyond thrilled. [Daniel Andrews] is one of the most thoroughly decent people I know, the folks who serve in his government are so incredibly talented, and it’s a team full of women who rise by lifting others. I can’t wait to be back there.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Andrews’ chief of staff, Lissie Ratcliff, welcomed Husic back in an email to staff on Friday:

Many of you will have worked with Sabina when she was part of our team early in the first term and know that she is a talented and strategic thinker who brings a deep understanding of the media landscape – and how it’s changing.

In Senate Estimates, Labor has asked home affairs officials about the alleged cash-for-visa scheme run by the former New South Wales Liberal MP Daryl Maguire.

The deputy secretary of immigration and settlement services, Andrew Kefford, reveals that of the 14 people Maguire helped, nine are still in Australia and three now have Australian citizenship.

Labor’s Kristina Keneally is not happy.

She says:

Wow! That’s extraordinary. How did this get to the point where three people became citizens when it appears, from Mr Maguire, that he fraudulently got them into Australia? A Liberal member of parliament selling visas – and three become citizens? What sort of border control is this?

The chair, Amanda Stoker, reminds everyone that the alleged fraud hasn’t been proven in court. Kefford adds that if fraud is proven, there is an administrative process to revoke visas.

The home affairs secretary, Michael Pezzullo, says there is an ongoing criminal investigation but if visas are granted due to false credentials or fraudulent information “as a general principle they will be cancelled”. The law also allows people to be stripped of their Australian citizenship, and Pezzullo promises to “come down in a tough-minded way after we’ve done our processes”.

Another official defends the fact three became citizens, noting they did so before the investigation was opened on 8 October.

The relationship Australia previously had with China is “dead and buried,” according to the former Dfat secretary and former Asio chief Dennis Richardson.

In an interview with ABC TV this afternoon, Richardson said a Chinese foreign ministry official’s now-notorious tweet was “appalling” and it was “a bit of a joke” for the deputy head of mission of the Chinese embassy to imply that Scott Morrison had overreacted.

“I would not take that remark seriously. It is simply self-serving.”

Richardson said the relationship between China and Australia was “going to bounce along the bottom for quite a while yet”.

“This will take 12 or 18 months to get back into a steady-state but the relationship we have had in the past, I think, is dead and buried.”

While Richardson’s language was blunt, his comments do reflect a view in official circles in Canberra that when Australia and China steer their way out of the current turbulence and find a landing point, the relationship will not be the same as it was in years gone by, when it was mainly focused on the growing economic ties.

Richardson – who is also a former defence department secretary and a former Australian envoy to Washington – said steadying the relationship would take work from both sides and required consistency of messaging.

It would also require China to accept that Australia would have a different view on certain issues, and was not going to change course on the Huawei 5G ban or the South China Sea issue.

“It will take an acceptance by China that we do have differences and it is important in any relationship to respect those differences.”