Australia news live: Forbes prepares for worst-ever flooding; CBA posts $2.5bn profit; Cannon-Brookes wins AGL board battle

Ben Smee

The Queensland police commissioner, Katarina Carroll, says she is “hoping” to maintain her job after the discharge of an inquiry report that’s understood to be vital of her management.

Carroll and the police commissioner Mark Ryan held an hour-long press convention on Tuesday morning.

Most questions have been about Guardian Australia’s reporting on the Brisbane metropolis watch home tapes, which recorded officers utilizing racist and violent language.

The stuff that we heard within the watch home is actually abhorrent,” Ms Carroll stated

It’s robust to face right here and take heed to that being stated and I do know that I’ve apologised and I apologise once more”.

A report within the Australian on Tuesday stated the ultimate report of the inquiry into QPS responses to home violence was vital of Carroll. Guardian Australia understands the report consists of a complete part on management and that Carroll’s future is being mentioned by the state authorities, forward of the discharge of the report subsequent week.

Ryan stated Carroll had his confidence. She would wish the arrogance of the Cupboard to proceed.

Requested if she thought she would survive, Carroll stated:

I hope to outlive. I really consider that I’m the individual to take this organisation ahead.

Peter Hannam

AGL shareholders unimpressed with remuneration plan for executives

AGL Vitality’s AGM continues with the chair, Patricia McKenzie, retaining assist from shareholders for now.

Shareholders, have been much less enamoured with the corporate’s remuneration plan (which additionally consists of 4 extra administrators after in the present day) – delivering what seems to be to be the primary “strike” about government pay.

Response to the brand new administrators – a win for Mike Cannon-Brookes – was initially optimistic on the inventory market itself. Shares have been up about 1% on the information, however have given up their beneficial properties to be roughly unchanged by noon.

Among the many reactions, director of unbiased thinktank Climate Energy Finance and vitality finance analyst, Tim Buckley, who says in the present day was a “turning level for the corporate”.

AGL has been by far the largest carbon emitter in Australia, and a world laggard in accepting and appearing on the local weather science.

This board renewal is vital for AGL buyers given the chance to begin to reverse the $10bn of shareholder wealth destruction within the final six years, but in addition for the broader context given AGL is a key Australian vitality sector incumbent, with monetary sources and staffing that may be leveraged constructively, with the proper management.

Tamsin Rose

NSW parliament acknowledges bullying and harassment

Harms brought on by poor behaviour within the New South Wales parliament have been acknowledged in a press release delivered by the home speaker, Jonathan O’Dea.

The assertion comes following the Broderick overview that discovered systemic bullying and widespread sexual harassment in parliament.

O’Dea stated:

At present, as we close to the top of the parliamentary time period, we ship this assertion of acknowledgment on behalf of the NSW parliament. We sincerely apologise to all those that have skilled bullying, sexual harassment or sexual misconduct in any of the parliament’s workplaces. We acknowledge the harms precipitated and deeply remorse the trauma skilled by some right here on this parliament and in our workplaces that serve the communities of NSW.

We acknowledge your ache and the psychological stress and anguish brought on by such behaviour. We perceive the lasting impression of your experiences. We thank those that got here ahead to share their lived experiences and observations as a part of the overview. We acknowledge how laborious it’s to talk up about these points. Your braveness will assist to create the protected, inclusive and respectful workplaces all of us deserve.

He stated the implementation plan to cope with the suggestions made by Broderick could be launched shortly.

The Commonwealth Financial institution has reported a $2.5bn revenue within the September quarter – 13% greater than it made in the identical interval final 12 months.

AAP stories the unaudited figures present the financial institution’s working efficiency was additionally up 12% from the final two quarters.

The CBA chief government, Matt Comyn, stated:

In a aggressive surroundings we remained disciplined and achieved good quantity progress in our core markets.

The financial system has proven resilience within the face of rising value of residing and rate of interest pressures and regardless of these near-term challenges we stay optimistic on the medium to long run outlook.

Additionally reported – family deposits have grown by 8.6% 12 months on 12 months, dwelling lending elevated by 6.3% and enterprise lending rose by 12.6%.

The variety of loans and belongings the financial institution thought of to be “troublesome and impaired” fell barely from 0.48% to 0.45% because the final quarterly report.

All in all, that noticed share costs improve 1.4% to $106.53.

Victoria’s electoral fee rejects independents’ how-to-vote playing cards

Benita Kolovos

The Victorian electoral fee has rejected the how-to-vote playing cards of a minimum of 4 unbiased candidates who positioned a “1” beside their names solely.

Nomi Kaltmann in Caulfield, Kate Lardner in Mornington, Melissa Lowe in Hawthorn and Sophie Torney in Kew have all informed Guardian Australia the VEC rejected their how-to vote playing cards, which had the primary beside their names and clean choice packing containers subsequent to different candidates.

The identical sort of playing cards have been distributed on the federal election in Could by independents Monique Ryan and Zoe Daniel.

Beneath Victoria’s Electoral Act, how-to-vote playing cards for election day should be registered with the fee and point out the voting choice for all candidates listed on the cardboard, or comprise a press release {that a} quantity should be positioned in opposition to the title of every candidate.

In 2018, the unbiased MP for Shepparton, Suzanna Sheed, unsuccessfully attempted to overturn the rejection of her how-to-vote card as a result of clean packing containers on the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

Kaltmann, Larder, Lowe and Torney, who’re all being backed by Simon Holmes à Court docket’s Local weather 200 outfit, are contemplating taking authorized motion.

The ACT chief coroner, Lorraine Walker, has examined optimistic for Covid, ensuing within the hearings for the inquest into Canberra’s 2020 summer time bushfires being postponed till 2023, AAP stories.

The inquest was introduced in July 2021, however the await data on the way it took 45 minutes for a military helicopter’s crew to alert the ACT Emergency Service Company that they had began a fireplace will proceed.

On Monday, the courtroom heard the crew on board the MRH-90 Taipan helicopter have been touchdown for a bathroom break after they inadvertently ignited the monster blaze.

They have been scouting distant helipads in preparation for bushfire season, after they landed with their searchlight nonetheless on and began the hearth within the Orroral Valley.

An onboard recording heard one of many helicopter’s passengers yell “Come up, come up, we’ve began a fireplace, flip the searchlight off”.

The helicopter solely stopped for about one minute earlier than returning to Canberra airport, however neither the pilots nor their passengers contacted emergency companies to allow them to know that they had began a fireplace, which one pilot estimated was already “200m by 200m” after they evacuated.

The pilot stated he was “involved we have been going to fall out of the sky” due to plane harm.

The hearth, which burned for 5 weeks, was declared uncontrolled after 6pm when greater than 1000ha have been alight and would finally develop to burn 87,923ha all through the ACT.

Walker opened proceedings by saying the inquest wasn’t about “crucifying any particular person or resolution made within the warmth of the second”.

“We’re right here to discover how we will study from it with a view to enhancing everybody’s security sooner or later,” she stated.

Josh Taylor

Appearing eSafety commissioner in touch with native Twitter representatives

Australia’s eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant wrote to Twitter’s new boss Elon Musk earlier this month expressing concern concerning the mass sackings on the firm and what it’d imply for the corporate’s means to adjust to Australian legislation in the case of little one safety and coping with on-line harassment and abuse.

The appearing commissioner Toby Dagg informed a parliamentary committee on Tuesday that Twitter had since been in touch with the commissioner’s workplace because the letter to verify that folks within the firm are nonetheless contactable:

I’m happy to say we’ve re-established these connections.

Dagg didn’t say who he was in touch with, however stated it was native and regional representatives for Twitter.

Dagg stated there had not been a marked improve within the variety of stories made about Twitter because the takeover. In response to questions from Greens senator David Shoebridge about why eSafety had not taken a proactive method in investigating issues on the service, Dagg stated eSafety couldn’t “police the web” and Twitter was an enormous web site, so the organisation is reliant on complaints being made.

For cricket followers, Pat Cummins has some information, as AAP stories:

Cummins’ resolution to forego a $1.3m Indian Premier League (IPL) pay cheque has uncovered cricket’s overloaded calendar, with Australia’s greatest gamers set for greater than 100 days of worldwide video games within the subsequent 12 months.

Cummins made the decision on Tuesday morning to skip subsequent 12 months’s IPL event for the Kolkata Knight Riders, pointing to a heavy worldwide workload.

Australia have a four-Check tour of India subsequent February and March earlier than the event, adopted by an Ashes sequence in England and one-day World Cup in India.

Cummins’ resolution comes simply weeks after he was elevated to the captaincy of Australia’s one-day crew, that means he’ll most likely function in additional white-ball sequence earlier than subsequent 12 months’s world occasion.

He tweeted:

I’ve made the troublesome resolution to overlook subsequent years IPL.

The worldwide schedule is full of Exams and ODI’s for the subsequent 12 months, so will take some relaxation forward of an Ashes sequence and World Cup.”

When factoring in all Exams this summer time in addition to one-day and T20 sequence on the highway in 2023, Australia’s gamers have as much as 106 days of worldwide cricket within the subsequent 12 months.

That determine features a attainable World Check Championship ultimate in London with Australia at present prime of the desk, in addition to the semi-finals and ultimate of subsequent 12 months’s ODI World Cup.

The issue is most vital for quick bowlers Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood, and allrounder Cameron Inexperienced who will every play in opposition to England in ODIs this week.

David Warner, Alex Carey, Steve Smith, Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne additionally play throughout each purple and white-ball codecs, that means 9 of Australia’s prime XI at the moment are regulars within the Check and one-day groups.

AGL’s local weather plan will get shareholder tick at AGM

Peter Hannam

Guardian Australia understands that AGL vitality’s local weather plan has been permitted by shareholders.

The quantity voting in favour isn’t but recognized, however the proposal has the numbers.

Mike Cannon-Brookes, through his Grok Ventures household firm, had been urgent AGL to do greater than was proposed. Briefly, he argued the decarbonisation method taken by the corporate implied a path in step with a world heating 1.8C v pre-industrial period ranges

He needed a plan in step with a 1.5C path, however that meant exiting coal sooner than AGL needed.

In September, AGL announced it would bring forward the closure date of its Loy Yang A brown coal-fired energy station in Victoria by a decade to 2035 whereas leaving its black-coal burning Bayswater energy station in NSW working till between 2030 and 2033. AGL’s Liddell plant, additionally in NSW, shuts subsequent April.

So, AGL thinks shareholders are glad with this plan. One query is whether or not Cannon-Brookes, along with his 11.3% or so holding in AGL, will keep put – particularly if he thinks he has a extra supportive board.

Adeshola Ore

Victorian Labor pledges $71m for girls’s well being

The Andrews authorities has vowed to ship a $71m girls’s well being funding bundle if it wins this months’ state election.

Healthcare is a key battleground within the state election. Beneath the funding, $58m could be delivered for 20 new girls’s well being clinics throughout the state. The state authorities has additionally pledged to virtually double sexual and reproductive hubs throughout the state as a part of a $6.4m bundle.

The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, stated the funding was about “fairness” and “funding.”

Victoria’s well being minister, Mary-Anne Thomas, stated girls’s well being points had been routinely ignored by the sector.

Thomas stated the sexual well being hubs could be a “one-stop store” for girls in metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria.

Katharine Murphy

An replace from Katharine Murphy at G20

Good morning from the G20 assembly in Bali. Occasions yesterday moved at a clip so readers would possibly respect a brief inventory take of the place issues are as much as.

After days of hypothesis about whether or not or not Australia’s prime minister would meet the Chinese language president when each delegates arrived in Bali, Anthony Albanese confirmed the assembly was on minutes after disembarking his plane on Monday.

Should you’ve been hanging on the every day information of the summit season, you’ll know Joe Biden met Xi Jinping face-to-face for the primary time within the Biden presidency final evening on the sidelines of the G20 in an effort to reset nice energy relations. So Albanese’s assembly with the president would be the point of interest of the day however will probably be this night Australia time (round 7pm).

In the meantime, the G20 has opened in Bali. I’m watching arrivals now. Australia’s former finance minister Mathias Cormann, now head of the OECD, has simply made a jaunty entrance alongside the purple carpet.

Other than tonight’s assembly, Albanese will take part in in the present day’s summit occasions contemplating vitality, meals safety and world well being.

Mike Cannon-Brookes wins bid to put in new AGL board administrators

Peter Hannam

AGL Vitality’s board will increase with all 4 of the candidates put up by tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes successful assist from shareholders forward of in the present day’s annual basic assembly in Melbourne this morning.

AGL’s chair, Paticia McKenzie, has opening the assembly by stating:

Based mostly on the proxies lodged forward of the assembly, the election of Mark Twidell, Dr Kerry Schott, Christine Holman and John Pollaers as administrators has been supported by our shareholders. The board welcomes these new administrators to the board and can work constructively with them in the perfect of pursuits of shareholders.

MCB, because the Atlassian founder and local weather activist is understood, backed these four in September, claiming they might be unbiased. (Schott, a former head of the Vitality Safety Board, was reported within the AFR as saying she had by no means spoken to Cannon-Brookes.)

AGL’s board had solely supported Twidell, a photo voltaic vitality veteran, forward of the vote.

Anyway, assuming Miles George, a wind vitality specialist, can also be of a like thoughts to MCB, it’s attainable to depend 5 of the 9 board members as being significantly pro-renewables.

Extra to return, because the AGM rolls on.

‘Planning for the worst’: Forbes’ small companies lament misplaced turnover

Mostafa Rachwani

Small companies in Forbes are making ready for his or her second main flood in two weeks, with many having to as soon as once more elevate or take away their inventory and shut up, hoping the harm is minimal.

The Forbes CBD has fully shut down as flood waters rise, with many small enterprise house owners lamenting the misplaced enterprise throughout what ought to be a busy interval.

Enterprise proprietor and head of the Forbes Enterprise Chamber, Margaret Duggan, stated some companies might lose as much as 50% of inventory and commerce.

This ought to be a optimistic and glad time, its a time of harvest, and its near Christmas, however its deja-vu as soon as once more after the floods final week.

Individuals are very anxious about what’s going to occur, we’re planning for the worst and hoping it doesn’t occur.

Duggan stated that whereas residents had been preserving a optimistic mindset, and have been resilient, there are issues for the psychological well being of enterprise house owners within the city.

We had companies lose 25% to 30% of turnover when the principle freeway into the city was closed as a result of flood waters. We’re mentally making an attempt to organize, however the repeat floods take their toll.

Plenty of locations are broken already, water has gotten into locations its by no means been earlier than. We’ve by no means had this sort of ran earlier than, and we’re on flat floor so its all water logged.

It’s only a ready recreation now.

CSIRO chief Larry Marshall to go away science company

Peter Hannam

The pinnacle of CSIRO for the previous eight years, Larry Marshall, will exit the submit when his third time period ends in June 2023, Australia’s nationwide science company said this morning.

The chair of the CSIRO board, Kathryn Fagg, stated:

Dr Marshall has led CSIRO to ship important scientific breakthroughs, translate its analysis into actual world options and ship a staggering profit for our nation – eight occasions the funding.

Marshall thanked the 5,672 folks from CSIRO “who carry their greatest day by day for the nation”:

It’s a uncommon privilege to work with folks so pushed to realize for the advantage of a nation and its folks. Over the previous eight years, collectively we have now reignited Australia’s ambition to unravel our biggest challenges with science.

Marshall’s time period, the longest in half a century, was not with out its controversies, none greater maybe than his aborted effort to cull most of local weather science on the company. (As was reported here at the time.)

Currently, a number of the wariness about CSIRO’s dedication to local weather science surfaced when the company scrapped its fully funded decadal climate research (and forgot to inform the World Meteorological Group about it).

Hints that the Albanese authorities wasn’t fully pleased with CSIRO confirmed up with the science minister, Ed Husic, warning the company about “renting out its brand”.

Equally, the company’s plan to accelerate the commercialisation of science at CSIRO – doubtlessly on the expense of science which may have broader public profit – raised contemporary questions concerning the route of the company.

One thing for Marshall’s successor to think about.