Australia news live: Dutton’s office asked Rinehart’s company for lift on her private jet; NSW Health issue public health alert over potential virus risk at Sydney cosmetic clinic

Rafqa Touma

Thanks for joining me on the blog today! Handing over to Cait Kelly, who will keep you updated with the afternoon’s news.

Amanda Meade

ABC journalist Matt Peacock dies aged 72

Matt Peacock, the ABC journalist who uncovered the corruption and spin of the asbestos industry over three decades, has died aged 72 after a short battle with pancreatic cancer.

Peacock was the author of Killer Company: James Hardie Exposed, which detailed his role in uncovering the asbestos scandal. In 2012 his dogged ABC journalism was portrayed by actor Ewan Leslie in the ABC miniseries Devil’s Dust.

Towards the end of his 40-year career at the ABC he was a senior reporter on 7.30 and the staff elected director on the ABC board.

ABC chair Kim Williams said Peacock was dedicated to pursuing the health impacts of asbestos in different communities, defending the marginalised and giving a voice to people who needed their story to be told.

“Our audiences trusted him and knew him as a courageous and principled journalist who pursued those who hid from their responsibilities,” Williams said.

He loved the ABC and believed in its integrity and standards, and he urged his colleagues to uphold these values without compromise. Matt further represented these values as staff elected ABC Board member from 2013 where he tirelessly advocated for the role of the ABC and the importance of the journalism it delivered. After retiring from the ABC, he was just as vocal as a member of the ABC alumni.

NSW Health has issued a public health alert for blood-borne virus risk, advising clients of Fresh Cosmetic Clinic to get tested “due to infection control breaches in the clinic,” as put in a media release.

Dr Vicky Sheppeard, director of South Eastern Sydney Local Health District Public Health Unit (SESLHD PHU), said clients who had injections or underwent any invasive procedure – such as breast implants, facial or nasal line carving – should “see their GP as soon as possible and ask to be tested for blood-borne viruses”.

Fresh Cosmetic Clinic is no longer operating at 630 George Street, according to the statement.

Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) notified SESLHD PHU of concerns relating to “potential risks to public health arising from practices at the Fresh Cosmetic Clinic”.

SESLHD PHU inspected the clinic on 22 October and reviewed evidence provided by the HCCC. They identified some procedures conducted the clinic “may have posed a risk to clients of exposure to blood borne viruses such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C or HIV”.

Sheppeard said:

Blood borne viruses can be spread between clients where injections or invasive procedures are carried out without stringent infection control.

People infected with blood borne viruses may not show symptoms for many years, so it is important to be tested to see if there is silent infection. There are effective treatments for hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV.

NSW Health and the HCCC are working to consider whether any other action needs to be taken.

Benita Kolovos

Dump day at Victorian parliament

For those who celebrate, today is dump day at Victoria’s parliament.

As I wrote last year, dump day is when the government releases a bewildering number of annual reports at once, presumably so that journalists and other interested parties are rendered physically incapable of taking them all in.

Today though, 131 annual reports, including dozens of reports from Victoria’s health services and emergency service agencies, have been delayed until next sitting week.

The opposition finance spokesperson, Jess Wilson, says it’s “simply unacceptable”.

She said:

With so many government agencies sinking further into debt and services continuing to deteriorate under Labor, Victorians deserve to know the exact financial position of their frontline health, emergency service, justice and environment authorities.

We’ll let you know what we find as we trawl through the other 173 documents that have been tabled in parliament.

Peter Dutton’s office asked Gina Rinehart’s company for lift on private jet

Josh Butler

Peter Dutton has admitted his office asked mining billionaire Gina Rinehart for a lift on her private jet to a Bali bombing memorial, after claiming the government wouldn’t help him get a flight on a government plane.

Just days ago, Dutton said “no” when asked by a journalist if he’d personally asked Rinehart for help with flights. But on Thursday he conceded his office had in fact made such a request to Australia’s richest person.

Dutton declared the flight on his register of interests in November 2022, disclosing flights between Rockhampton, Sydney and Mackay “to attend Bali bombing memorial … courtesy of Hancock Prospecting”, Rinehart’s mining company.

He said on Thursday that his office was unable to secure commercial flights for that route, and that a charter jet would have cost about $40,000. Dutton claimed his office had requested a special-purpose flight, or a VIP jet available to politicians under some circumstances, but alleged the government “played games, and they didn’t offer that flight”.

“The cheaper option for the taxpayer was for my office to speak to Mrs Rinehart’s office as to whether the plane might be available. That was at zero cost to the taxpayer,” he said.

Just two days ago, Dutton had shrugged off questions about that flight. According to a transcript distributed by his office on Tuesday, at a press conference Dutton was asked by a journalist: “Have you ever personally asked Gina Rinehart to fly around Australia?”

His answer, according to the transcript, was a flat “no”.

Dutton’s answer on Thursday was that his office had spoken to Rinehart’s office about flights, a distinction to the question on Tuesday about whether he’d “personally” asked Rinehart herself.

A woman who was snorkelling in the middle of the ocean off the coast of Queensland has been bitten by a shark.

Paramedics were called to assist a woman in her 50s who was bitten by a shark about 10 hours offshore – or 200 km – from Mackay on Wednesday afternoon.

It’s understood she was on a boat in the middle of the ocean and snorkelling when the attack occurred.

She suffered lacerations to her lower leg.

Navy vessel HMAS Warramunga was in the area and caught up with the woman’s boat to provide medical assistance before sailing to Mackay Harbour.

Paramedics took over when she arrived at 12.45am on Thursday and transported the woman to Mackay Base hospital in a stable condition.

– Australian Associated Press

Peter Hannam

Australia’s export prices extend their retreat and why your cuppa is getting more costly

We usually focus a lot on demand in Australia but, as a trading nation, what’s happening globally has a big influence on our growth prospects.

As a commodity exporter, in particular, we can mostly thank China for pushing up the value of energy and mineral exports for the past couple of decades. And since China’s economy is now struggling – particularly the real estate bit that uses a lot of resources – commodity prices are generally sinking, as the ABS’s September quarter data shows:

Lower prices mean smaller mining profits (to the extent they remain in Australia) and smaller royalty payments (harder to avoid) flowing into government coffers. (Translation: there’s little chance of a third federal budget surplus in a row)

Weak Chinese demand extends to oil, which is why import prices of petroleum products are on the skids (despite Middle East tensions). The fact that electric vehicles account for half of all auto sales in China (easily the biggest car market nowadays), suggests oil demand there has peaked too.

And if you’re about to grab a coffee or tea, it’s worth noting how much prices of those commodities are rising.

Hope the charts don’t put you off your lunch.

Peter Hannam

Weak retail sales suggest people are holding on to their tax cuts

Whether the Reserve Bank will cut interest rates soon hinges mostly on how it sees demand aligning with supply in the economy.

RBA staff have repeatedly said there remains “excessive” demand so, until that ends, it won’t be confident that inflation will remain “sustainably” within its 2%-3% target.

As we saw with yesterday’s September quarter inflation figures, the annual headline consumer price rate had dropped back to 2.8% (a tick), but core inflation was still at 3.5% (better than 4% in the June quarter, but not a tick).

Today, we’ve had a couple more ABS data points to consider, including retail spending. It was basically flat for September, or less than the 0.3% growth economists had tipped.

From a year ago, spending was up 2.3%, and hence a shrinkage of about a 0.5 percentage point if we deduct inflation. That’s telling us, it would seem, that households are saving most of their stage three tax cuts that started from 1 July (which will please the RBA).

A separate ABS release on building approvals saw an uptick in September of 4.4%, reversing the revised drop of 3.9% in August.

The more approvals the better, but as the above chart shows, the numbers fluctuate a lot.

Victoria, by the way, easily led the number of approvals last month, countering perhaps some of the financial commentary lately about its poor economic prospects and performance.

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission has commenced proceedings in the federal court against Optus, alleging the telecommunications company engaged in unconscionable conduct “when selling telecommunications goods and services to hundreds of consumers, that they often did not want or need, and in some cases then pursuing consumers for debts resulting from these sales,” as put in an ACCC statement.

The ACCC said many of these customers were experiencing vulnerability or disadvantage:

… such as living with a mental disability, diminished cognitive capacity or learning difficulties, being financially dependent or unemployed, or having limited financial and legal literacy.

ACCC also said many impacted customers were First Nations Australian from regional and remote areas, or were people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said:

This case concerns allegations of very serious conduct, as our case is that Optus sold goods to consumers experiencing vulnerability which they did not need, did not want and could not afford.”

We also allege that Optus’ unconscionable conduct continued after management became aware of deficiencies in its systems that were being exploited by sales staff, and despite this, failed to implement fixes.

An Optus spokesperson said:

Optus acknowledges the ACCC’s media release.

We are currently reviewing the claims made by the ACCC and will respond in more detail in due course.

Woolworths chair asked about price of Tim Tams and why they’ve shrunk

Jonathan Barrett

Woolworths chair Scott Perkins has been asked a question about Tim Tams at the company’s annual meeting, after it was recently disclosed that shoppers in the UK pay less for the Australian-made chocolate biscuit than those shopping at Coles and Woolworths.

The shareholder also asked Perkins why Tim Tam pack sizes are sometimes smaller than they used to be, an issue known as “shrinkflation”.

Perkins responded: “We work with our suppliers on all sorts of packaging formulations the whole time, but we don’t control the price of Tim Tams overseas.”

Provided we are transparent, customers can make their own minds up and actually adjust their budget spend on unit price and units themselves.

The ability of Australian supermarkets to charge more for locally produced products than overseas retailers has been linked to the limited competition in the local sector, dominated by Coles and Woolworths.

Jonathan Barrett

Woolworths chair says company ‘disappointed’ with ACCC court action

The Woolworths chair, Scott Perkins, told shareholders today that the supermarket chain disagrees with the consumer regulator’s assessment of its promotional activity that has resulted in court action.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is suing Woolworths and rival Coles in the federal court over allegations they misled shoppers by offering “illusory” discounts on hundreds of common supermarket products.

Perkins said in his opening address at the annual general meeting that:

Woolworths Group is not perfect, and I’m sure we will learn things from some of these inquiries, but we remain firmly supportive of our teams and their conduct and the customer-first culture that so strongly underpins Woolworths Group today.

Specifically, we were disappointed with the ACCC’s announcement to commence proceedings, and while we disagree with their assessment that the price dropped program was misleading, we are committed to working constructively with them. I want to stress that we take our responsibility on pricing very seriously.

The major retailers are accused of inflating the prices of groceries for a short period, before placing them in their “Prices Dropped” or “Down Down” promotions.

The regulator has said it would seek “a significant penalty” after the major retailers allegedly profited from the sale of tens of millions of products sold through promotions the regulator claimed breached consumer law.

Catie McLeod

Coles announces plans for third automated distribution centre, to be built in Melbourne

Coles has announced it will spend $880m to expand its use of automated distribution into Victoria, with its third centre to be built in Melbourne’s west.

The supermarket giant announced plans for the Truganina site this morning as it released quarterly results that showed sales revenue grew 2.9% across the Coles group to $10.5bn.

In a statement to shareholders this morning, Coles said it was ramping up the use of its automated distribution centres (ADC) in Queensland – which opened in 2023 – and NSW – which opened earlier this year.

The company said it expected construction on the Victorian ADC to begin in 2025, which would increase its overall capital expenditure by $100m to $1.3bn this financial year.

In a conference call with journalists this morning, the Coles chief executive, Leah Weckert, said:

We’re excited for this further investment in technology to enhance product availability and improve efficiency across our supply chain.

Jonathan Barrett

Wesfarmers to reshape e-commerce Catch business

Perth-based conglomerate Wesfarmers has issued an upbeat assessment of its performance, with Bunnings, Kmart and Officeworks proving to be popular destinations for households and businesses grappling with rising costs.

But not all of its business units are doing so well. In 2019, Wesfarmers paid $230m for e-commerce company Catch Group, which is known for its daily deals.

After some initial success, Catch’s annual revenue has fallen sharply in recent years, prompting Wesfarmers to reshape the business.

Wesfarmers said today that Catch’s transaction value “continues to be impacted by weaker discretionary demand and increasing competitive intensity”.

Plans are under way to increase the utilisation of Catch’s e-commerce distribution centres to support growth and improve the efficiency of Kmart and Target home deliveries.

Peter Hannam

Rising electricity use pushes up emissions even as renewable records fall

Australia has a target of reducing 2005-level greenhouse gas emissions by 43% by 2030, and much of that reduction is supposed to come from the electricity sector.

Unfortunately, the trend so far this year hasn’t been heading in the right direction, with emissions rising in each of the first three quarters of this year (although the March quarter was only marginally higher), as we note here this morning:

That we are flush with clean energy resources is obvious if you cast a glance out your window right now (renewables are providing two-thirds of the National Electricity Market, according to the OpenNEM website).

As the Australian Energy Market Operator notes, the pace of construction of new solar and wind farms is picking up. Part of the problem, though, is we’re not that great at harnessing the extra generation, with curtailments of output from solar farms on the rise in the September quarter.

The power sector accounts for about a third of our emissions and happens to have the most competitive non-fossil fuel alternatives (compared with, say, industry and farming). We need to do a better job if we’re to cut emissions at the pace implied by our targets.

Protesters are gathered outside the Woolworths Group Limited annual general meeting, at the Woolworths Group support office in Sydney – here are some pics: