Australia news live: Ita Buttrose said ABC owed Antoinette Lattouf ‘nothing’, court hears; NAB becomes first of big four banks to cut fixed-interest mortgage rates
ABC editorial chief said Lattouf hadn’t breached ABC guidelines, court told
Amanda Meade
The ABC’s editorial director told the broadcaster’s executives that Antoinette Lattouf had not breached the ABC’s editorial guidelines early in the week when the journalist was a stand-in host in December 2023, the federal court has heard.
The advice from the editorial director was sought after the ABC received a large number of complaints about the ABC’s decision to appoint her as a casual host.
Oshie Fagir, for Lattouf, said the ABC’s managing director David Anderson had done his own research of her social media and told his executive that he found evidence that her “socials are full of anti semitic hatred”.
“Now there is no explanation in Mr Anderson’s evidence of what precisely he regarded to be antisemitic hatred, but that is what he said in a text message to Mr [Chris] Oliver Taylor,” Fagir said in his opening statements.
He [Anderson] then went on to say ‘not sure we can have someone on air that suggests that Hamas should return to their ethnic cleansing in Gaza and move on to the West Bank’. Now it’s very difficult to understand what on earth Mr Anderson was talking about, but the hostility is patent, and the reason for the hostility is patent.
Fagir said former ABC chair Ita Buttrose said Lattouf should not have been hired and should be removed, saying “we owe her nothing”.
“We’re copping criticism because she [Lattouf] wasn’t honest when she was appointed,” Buttrose said, according to Fagir.
Key events
In Queensland, a 50-year-old man has been charged by detectives in relation to the alleged supply of dangerous drugs and alleged sexual assault of a child.
On 15 January, a search warrant was executed at a Mackay Harbour address, where the man was taken into custody. It is alleged that a number of drugs, drug utensils and electronics were seized.
Queensland police allege the man supplied dangerous drugs to a girl under 16 and sexually assaulted her.
They allege he also groomed a second teenage girl under 16 with the intent to engage in a sexual act, and supplied dangerous drugs to two other children.
He has been charged with 22 offences including six counts of supplying dangerous drugs to a minor, three counts of rape and two counts of grooming a child under 16.
Dan Jervis-Bardy
A major Climate 200 backer has again topped the latest list of political donors, new figures reveal, as the Albanese government attempts to pass sweeping laws to curb big money in politics.
Share trader Robert Keldoulis and his investment firm Keldoulis Investments Pty Limited donated a combined $1.1m to the fundraising vehicle in 2023-24, according to figures published by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) on Monday.
Read a full breakdown here:
BoM predicts Queensland flood waters to remain for days
Senior meteorologist at the BoM, Dean Narramore, says major flood levels are likely to remain for several days in northern Queensland as the state continues to grapple with wild weather.
Speaking on ABC News earlier, he said rainfall over the past three days had been “massive”, with 800-900mm hitting Townsville alonel.
It is a huge amount of rainfall to fall in three days and we are talking … nine months worth of rainfall in just a short space of time.
He said emergency services continued to keep their eyes on Ingham and Townsville, with threats of rainfall moving onshore into the afternoon and evening bringing an additional 50 to 100mm in some areas.
It will take a few days all of the river water to flow down so we will maintain these long duration major flood levels at certain locations in the lower catchments … the problem is additional thunderstorms, not to the levels we have seen but still 50-100mm over a 24-hour period can lead to holding that level or even rising it slowly in the coming days.
Elias Visontay
Continued from previous post:
Minns said he would now tighten the rules around ministerial drivers to prevent them from being booked for purely personal travel, but shot down calls to sack Haylen or Jackson from their portfolios, citing the need for experienced ministers in those roles.
We have to be clear about the fact that despite this being part of the rules, it was clearly unacceptable and I’m not going to defend the indefensible in these circumstances. We want to make it clear to the people of NSW that the rules need to be changed specifically to stop this kind of use of taxpayer money to drivers in NSW.
And I think that the real error here, in addition to NSW taxpayers being concerned about how their money is being used, it’s also the treatment of a public servant, a hard working public servant, someone who turns up every single day, works hard on behalf of the people of NSW shouldn’t be treated in this manner.
Elias Visontay
NSW ministers made ‘massive error of judgment’, says Minns
New South Wales premier Chris Minns has conceded two of his senior ministers made a “massive error of judgment” in calling on a taxpayer-funded driver to transport them to a private lunch, but has shot down calls to sack them.
Criticism has been mounting on the actions of transport minister Jo Haylen, after the Daily Telegraph reported that she had summoned a taxpayer-funded ministerial driver from Sydney to near Newcastle on the Australia Day long weekend, to chauffeur her and friends – including housing minister Rose Jackson – to and from a long lunch at a Hunter Valley winery.
Using a ministerial driver for private travel is permitted as a benefit ministers are entitled to, but while Haylen did not break any rules in summoning the driver for what turned out to be a 446km round trip, Minns said it was a bad look for his government.
Minns said:
I want to make it clear that that trip should not have taken place, the NSW ministerial driver should not have been used for that purely private function.
This was a massive error of judgment on behalf of those two ministers, I’ve made it very clear to them personally that I regard it as a major error. It gives the government a bad reputation and I think that many people in the community would be very, very unhappy with the actions of my government.
Bushfires still burning in Victoria’s Little Desert and Grampians national parks
Here’s what you need to know:
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84,000 hectares has burned in the Little Desert fire, and two properties are believed to have been lost near Hattah in the Mallee, while 46,000 hectares have burned in the Grampians fire.
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Thousands of lightning strikes which hit the ground across the state overnight have prompted several new fires which are burning out of control in the Great Otway national park. Great Ocean Road communities including Apollo Bay are under a watch and act warning.
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The storms cut power to at least 38,000 homes and businesses, however that had dropped to fewer than 8,000 as of midday today.
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There were 770 requests for assistance in the 24 hours to 7am today, including 197 calls for building damage, 448 for fallen trees and 93 for impacts of flash flooding.
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Temperatures are forecast to remain in the high 30s and low 40s on Monday for much of the state for a second straight day, including 39C in Melbourne.
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More severe storms are possible in eastern South Australia and western and central Victoria into the evening before a cool change is projected to arrive on Tuesday afternoon.
–with AAP.
National Australia Bank cuts fixed-interest mortgage rates
NAB has become the first big bank to cut fixed-interest mortgage rates, after challenger Macquarie, as expectations of an impending Reserve Bank rate cut grow, AAP reports.
Rate tracking by comparison site Canstar shows NAB dropped fixed rates by up to 0.25 percentage points for owner-occupiers and up to 0.3 percentage points for investors on Monday.
The move is likely to spur competition from other banks to start cutting rates as lenders try to entice customers to fixed mortgages, given the latest data shows more than 97% of new loans were variable, Canstar data insights director, Sally Tindall, told AAP.
We’d hope to see competition really ramp up in that space as we get towards a cash rate cut, and then potentially on to the next one.
Wholesale funding is already starting to ease slightly and traders are pricing in an almost 95% chance the central bank will slash the cash rate by 25 basis points on 18 February, after its next two-day policy meeting.
Macquarie was the first lender to cut fixed-rate mortgages in 2025, reducing its one- to three-year fixed-rate mortgages by up to 0.16 percentage points in January.
NAB’s cuts bring it into line with Westpac, offering the lowest one-year fixed rate among the big four banks at 6.09%. ANZ is still offering the lowest two- and three-year fixed rates, both at 5.74%.
Jonathan Barrett
Australian dollar plummets as tariffs spook market
The Australian dollar has slumped to its lowest level in more than four years as fears grip currency and share markets in response to the US’ new tariff regime.
The local currency dropped to below 61.2 US cents on Monday, a level last seen during the pandemic-induced selloff in March 2020.
The US president has set in train 25% import taxes for Canada and Mexico across all products other than Canadian energy which will face a 10% tariff.
China will also have 10% tariffs, with the new impositions scheduled to start on Tuesday.
The Australian dollar is viewed as a risk currency and highly exposed to the Chinese economy.
Stock markets in the Asia Pacific region, from Wellington and Sydney to Tokyo and Hong Kong, all opened sharply lower today.
Advocacy organisation supports axing of Childcare Activity Test
The Parenthood has backed the federal government’s planned removal of the Childcare Activity Test.
CEO Georgie Dent said if removed, 126,000 children from low-income families would be able to attend early childhood education and care, which would be of particular benefit to single-mother-families.
Removing the Activity Test is the most significant step towards creating truly universal early education and care. Five-year-olds around the country are currently heading off to school for the first time, and unfortunately one in five is already developmentally vulnerable. In regional and rural areas it’s closer to 2 in five students. A lack of access to early childhood education has a lot to do with that.
The Activity Test requires parents to be working, studying or volunteering in order to receive the Child Care Subsidy, with higher subsidies for higher “activity” hours.
Dent said this created a catch-22 for many parents, especially single mothers or those in insecure and unpredictable employment.
It can take months to get a childcare place, so you can’t get a job until you have secured childcare, but you can’t afford to secure childcare until you have a job.
This is entrenching inequity. The families who are being locked out of early childhood education by the Activity Test are overwhelmingly low-income families, single-mother families, and First Nations and culturally diverse families.
Ben Smee
Key northern Queensland highway cut by destruction of bridge
The Bruce Highway is cut off between Townsville and Ingham after a bridge was washed away in flood waters at Ollera Creek.
Natural disasters can be particularly difficult in north Queensland, where the highway is often the only way in and out of communities. The state of the road has been a heated political issue.
The premier, David Crisafulli, said:
It is not every day you see a bridge torn in two. That is what has happened at Ollera Creek and it is not something that can take an extended period to be repaired.
It has to be repaired to enable the connectivity to occur for goods and services and for the ability for the communities to be connected. Long term it needs to be replaced to a higher standard and I have already begun those conversations, I can assure you.
The major supermarkets say there is about six weeks of supplies already in north Queensland, in the event of major logistical issues.
Amanda Meade
Concept of ‘Middle Eastern race’ raised in Lattouf court case
The ABC says that Antoinette Lattouf’s claim must fail because she “has not proven there is a Lebanese, Arab or Middle Eastern race”, her barrister has told the federal court.
Oshie Fagir for Lattouf said the ABC has argued “there is no basis on which it is defined as a fact that there is a Lebanese Arab or Middle Eastern race”.
Now this is a model litigant, an organisation that publicly suggests that it is confronting and treating seriously the concerns of its diverse workforce, and it comes to this court, and says that Ms Lattouf should fail because it has not been proven that there is such thing as a Lebanese race.
Counsel for the respondent, the ABC, objected to the applicant raising the issue of race, saying it is not a discrimination case but a case about the reason for her termination.
Brad Battin an ‘extreme right-wing leader’, Victorian premier claims
Benita Kolovos
Circling back to the press conference in Victoria, Allan has also sharpened her attack on Brad Battin, the new Liberal leader, who she described as an “extreme right-wing leader”.
She says she’s yet to hear from Battin on the government’s proposed anti-vilification laws, which will be debated in parliament when it returns tomorrow.
Allan says:
What needs to be made clear today, tomorrow, at any point this week, from the Victorian Liberal party and its extreme right-wing leader is, will they stand with the government and make hate a crime? The sort of hateful behaviour, the hateful, evil antisemitic behaviour that we are seeing – let’s make that a crime.
Let’s make it very clear that you can be who you want to be, love who you want to love, and should not be vilified for that. Let’s see what the Liberal party has to say on that.
