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New national disaster agency comes online

A new national disaster management agency will be created to help Australians get through their “darkest hours” with severe flooding likely to be on the way as the nation approaches a “high risk” weather season, AAP reports.

Emergency management minister Murray Watt announced the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) will come into effect from Thursday, and lead the country’s response to natural disasters. He told reporters in Canberra:

The new NEMA will transform the way the federal government supports the Australian people in their darkest hours and help communities respond and rebuild.

It’s about preparing, building resilience, responding and recovering.

Our view is … that is going to work in a much more co-ordinated manner, if all of those functions sit under one roof with one set of leadership.

Bureau of Meteorology senior climatologist Greg Browning said the forecast for the next three months showed the country moving into a “high risk weather season” with flooding as the major risk, over bushfires or heatwaves.

Browning said severe storms, intense rainfall, and giant hail were likely to batter the eastern states, with bushfires to hit the northern part of Australia.

An early tropical cyclone could also develop in northern Australia.

The body will be created following a merger of Emergency Management Australia and the National Recovery and Resilience Agency.

Lightning expected offshore of the Northern Rivers in NSW

There were 1,380 new cases in the last reporting period, and six people are in intensive care.

Universities could help end skills shortage, University of Sydney vice-chancellor says

A stronger government focus on higher education could help solve the skills shortage crisis, the University of Sydney’s vice-chancellor, Prof Mark Scott, is saying in an address to the National Press Club today.

Ahead of the government’s jobs and skills summit, which begins tomorrow, the vice-chancellor said it was critical for there to be an increase in national investment in research to drive future jobs, AAP reports.

Scott said:

I’d like those at tomorrow’s jobs and skills summit to consider not just the immediate challenges, for which migration will surely be one answer, but those challenges Australia will contend with a decade from now.

The speech also highlighted the university’s vision and goals for the next decade, including to enable more than 1,000 more students from low socio-economic backgrounds and disadvantaged schools to study at the university, along with a greater emphasis on student-focused education.

Scott said while the universities sector has been under funding pressure in recent years, student outcomes were still key.

The federal government provided as much as 90% of funding to universities during the 1980s, but commonwealth funding now makes up less than 30% of the sector’s income. The majority of income comes from domestic and international student fees, along with grant schemes and philanthropic donors.

Scott said current funding arrangements for higher education was a “complicated ecosystem”. He said:

International students in particular have played a vital role in providing not just key researchers at a graduate level, but also together providing the funding income that underpins much of the national research effort.

Funding pressure is no excuse for not fulfilling the promise that a university education should present to today’s students.

The federal government has promised to review university funding as part of a new accord with the sector.

It is expected nine in every 10 new jobs created in the next five years will require a form of post-school qualification.

No 2 golfer Cameron Smith defects from PGA to Saudi-backed LIV tour, citing financial rewards

Cameron Smith, the world No 2 male golfer and reigning British Open champion, has left the PGA tour to join the breakaway Saudi-backed LIV golf tour.

Speculation over the possibility of Smith joining LIV began in a press conference after the Australian’s success at St Andrews last month. Smith bristled at the journalist’s question at the time, but refused to rule out a switch to the Saudi Arabian-backed scheme.

Now Smith has become the first current top-10 player to sign with the rebel circuit, telling Golf Digest:

The biggest thing for me joining is (LIV’s) schedule is really appealing.

I’ll be able to spend more time at home in Australia and maybe have an event down there, as well. I haven’t been able to do that, and to get that part of my life back was really appealing.

Greg Norman, the Australian LIV chief executive, revealed earlier this month the circuit was looking to hold an event down under in 2023.

Smith admitted the financial rewards were also tempting at a reported $US100m ($A145m) signing-on fee. He said:

[That] was definitely a factor in making that decision, I won’t ignore that or say that wasn’t a reason.

– with AAP

PM pays tribute to Gorbachev as ‘one of the true giants of the 20th century’

Josh Butler

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said the former Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev “changed the world for the better” in a tribute message posted this afternoon following the death of the last leader of the Soviet Union.

He freed the nations of Eastern Europe from the prison of Soviet rule, and helped bring an end to the Cold War … [Mikhail Gorbachev was] a man of warmth, hope, resolve and enormous courage.

With his death we have lost one of the true giants of the 20th century.

There were 639 new cases in the last reporting period, and six people are in intensive care.

Nadal wins against young Australian Rinky Hijikata

We brought you the news this morning that Australian tennis player Rinky Hijikata had taken the first set off Rafael Nadal in their US Open first round encounter.

The twenty-one-year-old Hijikata put up a good fight, but Nadal clinched the match in four sets.

Hijikata, currently ranked 198th, fought to the end, saving multiple match points in a final game that went back and fourth to deuce several times.

Chris Dawson has arrived at Silverwater Prison in Sydney this morning following his conviction for the murder of his wife Lynette Dawson more than 40 years ago.

After Dawson was found guilty in a judge-only trial by justice Ian Harrison yesterday, Dawson was held at Surry Hills police station last night.

You can read more about why Harrison made that decision from my colleague Nino Bucci, who has been covering the trial:

Paul Karp

Adam Bandt on jobs summit outcomes

The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, has called for the government to “lift wages” directly rather than just changing the bargaining system.

After the jobs and skills summit, the Greens plan to move amendments to set the minimum wage to 60% of the median wage and “re-regulate the wages of the lowest-paid in women-dominated industries” by requiring that rises in those sectors are 0.5% above inflation.

At a Kingston Reid employment conference, Bandt argued that the “floor has rotted” as award minimum wages have not kept up with the cost of living.

Bandt also warned about the “scourge of insecure employment”, with as many as 50% of workers at universities employed as casuals or on fixed term contracts, meaning “working people can’t plan their lives properly”.

The Greens want sick and holiday leave for casuals and gig workers, arguing if this is an incentive to hire people through more secure work “that’s good” because people should only be casuals where “absolutely necessary”.

The Greens will also move an amendment to create a “legal presumption that all jobs are ongoing and permanent” except in limited circumstances.

The government should also use its “purse strings” to make secure employment a condition of funding, Bandt said, including in the university and Tafe sector.

Bandt reiterated calls to cut the stage three income tax cuts to fund improvements to healthcare and other government services, noting that tax was on the table at Bob Hawke’s 1983 economic summit.

He said the government is only doing “half a Hawke by seeking to block the discussion of tax … tackling inequality with one hand tied behind its back”.

Peter Hannam

More backed-up renewable energy ‘urgently needed’ to avoid blackouts, new report says

The Australian Electricity Market Operator has issued its annual electricity statement of opportunities report today.

Sounds a bit alphabet-soupy (Aemo’s Esoo), but it’s actually the latest milestone report highlighting the rising urgency to get more renewable sources, backed up by storage, into the grid.

Here’s our take on it:

Now, there’s no immediate reliability risk to the national electricity market (that serves about 80% of the Australian market across eastern and southern regions). But a lot has to go right to avoid power gaps (ie blackouts) in coming years.

Coal-fired power plants are becoming less reliable as they age – and as their closure dates near, their owners have diminishing incentive to spend big bucks to maintain them. Lots of renewable plants are lining up for approval, but will the transmission lines be adequate, or ready to take their output?

Aemo is also banking on the 750MW gas-fired power plant at Kurri Kurri in the Hunter Valley of NSW to be online by December 2023. A bit ambitious?

And as for the giant (2040MW) Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro projects? Well Aemo is still relying on Snowy Hydro’s end-2026 commissioning date. The report, though, notes “media reports” that it will be delayed a couple of years.

So, as a backup, Aemo modelled what a two-year delay – just in case, mind – would mean for reliability. Well, for now, there’s no material impact. (Some analysts wonder how the project can be both vital but also that its delay might not be such a big deal.)

Aemo, meanwhile, isn’t predicting any reliability issues for this coming summer – unless, of course, there is some extreme weather (which is hard to forecast). Given the past year’s floods, and what’s been going on in the northern hemisphere’s summer, you wouldn’t want to rule it out.

Dutton accuses Albanese of being ‘distracted’ by international celebrities

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, just spoke in Melbourne ahead of the government’s jobs summit tomorrow, to which he has rejected his invitation.

Dutton says the government has been too focused on wages when workforce shortages are hampering small business.

Dutton doesn’t think Australia should lower the minimum working age to 13, as the peak retail body suggested this morning in a submission to the summit. That’s a somewhat different position to the former Coalition leader Scott Morrison’s position on allowing under-eighteen-year-olds to operate forklifts.

Dutton says he believes the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has been “distracted” from the pressing issues facing Australians by international celebrities – perhaps referencing the recent meeting held with NBA star Shaquille O’Neal. The meeting with O’Neal was held to discuss the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum, after which O’Neal agreed to do some videos to garner support.

There were 236 new cases in the last reporting period, and two people are in intensive care.

Perrottet issues ultimatum to rail unions

Michael McGowan

The New South Wales premier, Dominic Perrottet, has issued a stunning ultimatum to the state’s rail unions following another day of industrial chaos, saying he will tear up an industrial agreement covering tens of thousands of transport workers unless members agree to the government’s final offer.

Calling the latest strike action on Wednesday “absolutely disgraceful”, Perrottet said he had instructed his transport minister, David Elliott, to finalise negotiations with the rail unions on Wednesday.

Perrottet said he would not be accepting the union’s demands for an extra 0.5% wage rise above the government’s wages cap, and – in a significant escalation of the hostility between the government and the rail unions – vowed to tear up the agreement if union members voted down the government’s offer.

He said:

We will seek to terminate the current agreement immediately. And we’ll have the new agreement arbitrator by the Fair Work Commission and that will be resolved in that manner.

Elliott, who said he had been “shat on from a great height” by the Rail, Tram and Bus Union during the negotiations, had been due to meet with the unions for further negotiations today, and as recently as last week said he did not want to terminate the agreement.

While he conceded had been “overruled” by the premier, Elliott also said he was fed up with the union.

There were 2,294 new cases in the last reporting period, and 10 people are in intensive care.

Eric Abetz to head anti-republic campaign

The Australian Monarchist League has called on the services of the former Liberal senator Eric Abetz as it plans to fight Labor government plans for a republic, AAP reports.

The staunch monarchist lost his seat at the May federal election after being demoted to third spot on the party’s ticket, ending a 28-year senate career.

The Australian Monarchist League on Wednesday announced Abetz had been appointed chairman of the group. The group’s national chair, Philip Benwell, said in a statement:

Mr Abetz has enjoyed a sterling career spanning 28 years in the Australian senate.

[He] will bring to the monarchist cause the same fighting spirit that has characterised his entire political career for nearly three decades.

The Albanese government says it will work towards establishing an Australian republic and has appointed an assistant minister for the republic.

Labor intends to hold a referendum on having an Australian head of state to replace the Queen if it is elected for a second term.

Abetz has previously described the monarch as a “stable, enduring, unifying part of our democratic arrangements”.

Paul Karp

ACTU predicts Covid isolation period will likely not be cut

The Australian Council of Trade Unions’ assistant secretary, Scott Connolly, has suggested it is “unlikely” the Covid isolation period will be cut.

Connolly told a Kingston Reid employment conference on Wednesday:

The Covid crisis remains a big big challenge for us all. Despite how far we’ve come – and it pains me at a personal level to say this … the reality is the pandemic is still here, it shows no real signs of going away in any significant way, no matter how much we would like. The most tangible outcome to that is from national cabinet this afternoon, where we’re unlikely to see change to isolation rules.

I’m not sure how accurate the prediction will be, but it certainly suggests unions are leaning against that outcome.