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Cyclone Gabrielle

A tropical cyclone Gabrielle update from Weatherzone meteorologist Ben Domensino:

Jim Chalmers dismisses NSW treasurer’s ‘confected outrage’ over power bill relief

Peter Hannam

Federal, state and territory treasurers are gathering (virtually) about now to discuss a range of economic matters, and the tone might not be entirely chummy.

Ahead of the meeting, NSW treasurer and energy minister Matt Kean has been on the airwaves and in print calling for the Albanese government to pony up the support it promised to the states for energy assistance as part of its move to cap electricity and gas prices at the end of 2022.

As Kean says:

We’ve just committed to delivering an additional $250 in savings for NSW households, but there is more bill relief on the way from the commonwealth as part of our energy deal.

In exchange for establishing coal caps in NSW and forgoing royalties, the commonwealth agreed to match our energy rebates to the people of NSW – it’s time to deliver.

Those rebates are worth as much as $535 per low-income households and the NSW treasurer said he expects the commonwealth to “deliver that relief now” as promised.

Such pleas, though, haven’t gone down well with Jim Chalmers, the federal treasurer, who dismissed the comments as part of political posturing ahead of the NSW state election on 25 March.

Chalmers said:

Matt’s part of a government which has been in office for 12 years and is asking for 16, desperate to distract from the mood for change in New South Wales.

I think people will see through his confected outrage, especially when his own scheme doesn’t start until July.

It’s a bit unusual of Matt to demand something from the commonwealth that even he admits he couldn’t deliver.

Guardian Australia understands the NSW government’s beef is not that the payments were meant to start earlier than July 1 but rather it’s worried the federal government is pushing back until its May budget to sort out the payments.

“They’re cutting it bloody fine,” was one insider’s view. They had hoped Canberra would have sorted out how the payments would be made a lot earlier, it seems.

It may turn out to be a storm in a teacup but the spat is a reminder that energy prices remain a politically sensitive issue.

Chalmers is planning a media conference at about 1.30pm AEDT to discuss today’s meeting.

More names in the mix for Aston byelection

Katharine Murphy

Hello again, just back to the Aston byelection for a moment. There are a few moving parts with this. In terms of candidates, I flagged earlier this morning that barrister Roshena Campbell is one potential candidate, according to Liberals. Other names in dispatches include barrister and reality TV contestant Sharn Coombs, who was a candidate in Dunkley in May, as well as the former state politician Cathrine Burnett-Wake.

There is a strong internal view that the Aston candidate should be a woman. There is also an open question about how the preselection will be conducted. The Liberal party has grassroots preselections in Victoria, but there is also capacity for the state admin committee to parachute someone in. The method will ultimately depend on timing. If the byelection will be held soon, there will be a view that having a candidate is better than a lengthy process to select one.

Home affairs ‘caught in a loop’ and faces ‘devil’s choice’ on contracts: Pezzullo

Paul Karp

In December my colleague Amy Remeikis revealed that the Department of Home Affairs extended a contract for civil maritime surveillance for six years, just months after a critical report found it had paid for flight time when no planes were in the air.

The auditor general in October 2021 found the department’s management of the contract with Surveillance Australia was “not effective” and “as a result, while surveillance services have been provided, the quantum and range of those services has fallen short of the contractual requirements”.

That included not having actual planes in the air for billed surveillance flight times, which the audit office estimated cost taxpayers up to $87m.

The contract was extended for another six years with very little variation just three months after the auditor general’s report. The contract, now worth $2.6bn to the company, has not been put to tender since it was first awarded in 2006.

Today the department’s secretary, Michael Pezzullo, fronted the audit committee to discuss the issue, conceding that he does not think it is acceptable there had been no competitive tender in 20 years for the contract.

Instead, there had been “market sweeps” to survey whether other providers could give the same capability before the contract was extended.

Pezzullo said the “best practice” would be an investment approach in which the department had guaranteed funds for capital, allowing it sufficient certainty to run a full tender process.

Pezzullo said the department is “faced with the devil’s choice” of losing operational capability or rolling over existing contracts.

He said:

When there’s no competitive process for 21 years we’re in a loop … there’s no competitive process because there’s no capital program.

Pezzullo said without more capital investment, the government would be forced to deal with a “monopoly provider” of an “outsourced capability” or it would face the “darker” possibility of not flying surveillance aircraft.

Surveillance Australia acted within the terms of its contract, and Guardian Australia is not suggesting it acted improperly.

Pezzullo said the department does not “necessarily agree” with the ANAO’s conclusion, arguing the report’s criticism related mainly to 2008 to 2017 and procurement has improved since then.

He said the report “ does not adequately consider the outcomes based nature of the contract, or the complex and dynamics, civil maritime security operating environment in which the contract itself operates”.

Australian search and rescuers en route to Turkey

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has confirmed that the team of 72 Australian search and rescuers have left for Turkey from Richmond air base.

The defence minister, Richard Marles, says the emergency service personnel will “make a real difference when they get on the ground” in the earthquake-affected region.

The ABC is reporting that they will stay in Turkey for two weeks where they will have rotating teams so they can work around the clock 24 hours a day.

Albanese and the minister for foreign affairs, Penny Wong, have expressed their thanks to the Australian emergency service personnel.

RBA to reveal more clues to rate rise plans

Peter Hannam

Some acronyms catch on, but we’re guessing SoMP won’t be one of them. That’s the statement on monetary policy that the RBA releases every quarter.

We’ll get today’s 80-plus page statement in about an hour. Economists will be parsing the language for clues as to why the central bank is so confident further rises in the cash rate are necessary.

In case you’ve been paddling down a river lately (or otherwise out of the news cycle), the RBA raised its key interest rate for a ninth consecutive month (excluding their January summer break) on Tuesday and warned of more increases to come.

Markets have adjusted their predictions of how high the RBA will go, and are now pencilling in a 4% peak rate, implying three more typical increases from the 3.35% level as of Tuesday.

The statement will provide some updated projections on various economic numbers, with its inflation views likely to be looked at most closely.

Also of interest (so to speak) will be the RBA’s views on China given that the previous statement in November could not have anticipated Beijing’s sudden U-turn on Covid policies. Going from rolling, severe lockdowns to the bulk of 1.4bn contracting the virus in a matter of weeks was no small reversal and it may take a while to understand the economic and social impacts of such a shock move.

Anthony Whealy calls on Michelle Rowland to become advocate for donations reform

The chair of the Centre for Public Integrity and former supreme court judge Anthony Whealy spoke to ABC News this morning following the revelations that communications minister, Michelle Rowland, accepted donations from a gaming company before the May election.

Nine newspapers reported that Sportsbet paid for a campaign dinner and made a donation to Rowland’s campaign in the lead-up to the federal election. Labor did not disclose the donations because they were below the reporting threshold.

Whealy says the “most important lesson” he draws from the incident is the need for urgent reform to the federal donation system.

As to Michelle Rowland herself, she was not a minister at the time these donations were made, so I find it difficult to see that she has been in breach of ministerial code of conduct.

I think that what has to happen is that we have to reform the donation system, and I would like to see her become an advocate for that reform. That, to me, would expiate this perception that has been created by acceptance of these amounts of money.

And what we need to do is we need to get transparency in relation to disclosing donations. You see, this dinner was probably not disclosed because it doesn’t fall within the definition of a donation, and the amount of $10,000 which was the actual donation, falls underneath the present threshold federally, so you don’t have to disclose it. It’s got to be over $15,000 before you have to disclose it. So that’s the first thing: We need transparency in relation to the disclosure of donations.

Secondly, we need to lower the cap federally, or even impose a cap on federal donations. All the states and territories have caps on donations. Federally we don’t, so you can give as much as you like.

Foreign ministers in South Australia

The Indonesian foreign minister, Retno Marsudi, is visiting South Australia, the home state of her Australian counterpart, Penny Wong, after wrapping up the meeting between the two nations’ foreign affairs and defence ministers in Canberra yesterday.

At that meeting they discussed Asean priorities under Indonesia’s Chairmanship, as well as maritime security, economic resilience and cooperation for the Pacific.

Wong has released her own statement at its conclusion saying:

Indonesia’s voice matters to Australia, to our region and to the world.

More work needed before alcohol ban opt-out, McCarthy says

The Northern Territory government will introduce laws next week reinstating bans in Indigenous communities in an effort to address alcohol-fuelled violence.

The federal assistant Indigenous Australians minister, Malarndirri McCarthy, said while communities would be able to opt out of the alcohol bans if more than 60% supported it, it would take time before that occurred.

She told ABC Radio on Friday:

We’ve got a tremendous amount of work to do before we even get to that point. I’m not keen on getting to that point right now. I think that right now we have to just stabilise the situation.

McCarthy was meeting with community leaders in Alice Springs on Friday, along with the minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, to discuss crime and alcohol issues.

The NT senator said residents in communities were keen on moving forward.

What I do feel from all the people that I’ve spoken to, whether it’s in person or on the phone from Canberra, is that they want to get to the other side of this.

So I do get a sense that whilst we’ve seen really horrid stuff over the past month or more, I do feel there is a sense of fatigue over them and people want hope for the future.

– AAP

Australian researchers may have found key to Covid immunity

If you and your family and friends are still puzzling over why it is some you have never become sick with Covid-19 while others have suffered serious illness, you’ll want to read our health editor Melissa Davey’s latest report.

Researchers have discovered a natural immune receptor that’s lining our lungs and blocks and controls the virus, and you can read about it here:

There were 6,440 new cases in the weekly reporting period, and 24 people are in intensive care.

As in Victoria, the summer wave continues to ebb. This week’s figures are down from 6,567 cases and 88 deaths last week.