The Albanese government has also welcomed Donald Trump’s announcement that the first stage of a ‘peace’ plan has been agreed to by Israel (which has previously not agreed to previous plans/broken ceasefire agreements) and Hamas:

Australia welcomes President Trump’s announcement that Israel and Hamas have signed off the first phase of the plan to bring peace to Gaza.

After more than two years of conflict, hostages held and a devastating loss of civilian life, this is a much needed step towards peace.

Australia has consistently been part of international calls for a ceasefire, return of the hostages, and the unimpeded flow of aid to Gaza.

We urge all parties to respect the terms of the plan.

We thank President Trump for his diplomatic efforts and acknowledge the important role of Egypt, Qatar and Türkiye in delivering this agreement.

Australia strongly supports the plan’s commitment to denying Hamas any role in the future governance of Gaza.

There is a very long road to recovery in Gaza, securing long term peace and building the Palestinian state.

Together with our partners, Australia will continue to do what we can to contribute to a just and enduring two-state solution.

Thee has been a lot of reporting on the Deloitte report which was found to have used AI and most of the reporting has focused on that, rather than what the report was actually about.

Which was the Targeted Compliance Framework. You probably know that as mutual obligations. The report was about the issues with the automated system being used to cancel people’s welfare payments. You may remember from episodes such as ROBODEBT and EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO HAS CONTACT WITH THIS SYSTEM TELLING YOU, that this is illegal and this has the potential to cause some pretty major problems for the government. And right now, it is causing major problems for people who are being made to fulfil demands from an illegal and immoral system just to have their below-poverty-line payments reinstated/continue.

That’s a pretty major problem, Australia. And not a new one. The only people benefiting from Australia’s mutual obligation program are the owners of job provider agencies who are paid billions of dollars to set menial and often degrading ‘duties’ for jobseekers to meet so they can maybe continue to pay their rent that week.

So not only is the consulting firm which was paid to do a report into the issues with an automated system which is causing immense harm to jobseekers and returned a report riddled with errors because it used automation to complete that report still getting paid, the government is yet to address the substance of the report.

Greens senator Penny Allman-Payne said

Hundreds of thousands of welfare recipients lose access to payments every year, and Labor have said they can’t even say if it’s lawful.”

These payments can be the difference between food on the table or going hungry. If Labor can’t defend the system they should end the TCF and stop suspending payments immediately.”

Under questioning in senate estimates from Greens senators, Murray Watt has agreed that Deloitte should apologise.

Great.

Let’s see whether the government apologises for keeping mutual obligations and welfare suspensions in place at the later session of estimates which will deal with social services.

Independent, Jacqui Lambie Network and Greens crossbenchers have today presented a united front against the Albanese Government’s proposed changes to Freedom of Information, calling on the Government to “abandon” the flawed bill.

Australia Institute research shows the problems with the FOI system are due to government inefficiency and secrecy, not the applicants who would be punished under the Government’s proposed changes.

Earlier this week, academic Maria O’Sullivan joined the Australia Institute to warn:

“The over-use of the cabinet document exemption and other problems with the FOI system are critical reasons why Robodebt was allowed to continue with impunity for so long. The proposed changes to the FOI Act will actually expand the cabinet exemption even further.”

The Liberal-National Coalition has also “vowed to oppose” the bill, calling the changes a “truth tax”.

In the midst of all of that, the government’s FOI over-reach can not find a friend in the non-government benches. Which means – no senate passage:

If Australia just collected the OECD average in tax, the government would have an extra $130 billion a year to spend on essential services like health and education.

On this episode of Follow the Money, Matt Grudnoff and Ebony Bennett discuss the latest data from the Australian Taxation Office showing that 30% of large corporations paid no company tax in FY23-24 – with the gas, coal, salmon and tech industries among the worst offenders.

The Department of Finance has:

“concluded that PwC is an organisation now that we are comfortable with the Government being able to consider engaging with”.

They say PwC is now an organisation that “is very different from the organisation that led to the position that we have been in.”

Notice the careful language to avoid saying it is that PwC actually did – which is to misuse government information to help multinational corporations avoid paying taxes in Australia.

An amnesty for PwC is out of step with public opinion – the Australia Institute’s polling research found four-in-five Australians (79%) wanted consulting firm PwC banned from receiving new government work, including nearly half who backed a permanent ban. Over 60% wanted a ban of five years or more, versus just 17% who thought a ban of five years or less was appropriate.

One of the reasons why government departments pay over the odds for consultants is that they can shift blame. But by giving PwC the seal of approval, the Department of Finance is tying its reputation to the dodgy consulting firm. 

Let’s see if PwC repays the trust that has been placed in it. 

Last night at Senate Estimates, Senator James Paterson probed the Australian Public Service Commission on the Albanese Government’s Freedom of Information (FOI) Amendment Bill.

The Commissioner, Dr Gordon de Brouwer, has briefed the Opposition, Greens and crossbench on public servants’ experience of the FOI reforms that the former Labor Government introduced in 2009.

He says that after the FOI reforms, “less advice [was] being put in writing” because public servants were concerned that it would come to light through FOI,  and therefore “people were not putting things in writing that they should be”.

That’s pretty damning for the Australian Public Service Commission, which is supposed to be uphold Australian Public Service values and the code of conduct.

And as Dr de Brouwer says, the problems around scandals like Robodebt were mostly unrelated to FOI.

“Much more than problems around people being afraid or concerned about putting their frank advice in writing to government, they really came down to lack of character, lack of leadership, very poor decision making”.

His briefings have involved the question: “Has the narrowing of FOI … made it harder for public servants to do their duty?”

But by the Commissioner’s own evidence, that’s not what’s happening.

The democratically elected Parliament gave public servants additional duties around freedom of information.

The Commissioner confirms that public servants are evading those duties.

The Government’s proposed solution?

Change the law so public servants can keep even more things secret.

Please spare a thought for Grogs who is still trapped in Treasury estimates:

Senator James Patterson is trying to ask Treasury why they did not model the cost of the 2035 target. Treasury point out they take the base case of getting to net zero by 2050 and then model how we get there.  

He is essentially trying to say they should model the cost of doing nothing without saying that he thinks they should do nothing. He wants to be able to put out a media release saying the Government told Treasury not to model the cost of the 2035 target, but the underlying theory of that line is that acting on climate change is a bigger cost than doing nothing, which is complete bollocks.

Amanda Rishworth is introducing a bill to the parliament that will stop employers from being able to cancel maternity/paternity leave in the event of a stillbirth or an early infant death.

It has been sparked by the case of Baby Priya, who was born three months early and lived for 42 days before passing. Priya’s mother (she has been asked not to be identified) rang her employer of 11 years to tell her of the loss, and then soon after received a text message telling her her three months maternity leave had been cancelled and she was only allowed four weeks paid personal leave.

You can read more about Baby Priya and her family’s shock, here.

Every workplace law has been put in place after workers suffered. When people speak of wanting to ‘cut redtape’ or ‘regulations’ they are talking about things like this, where humanity is NOT automatically applied and people are reduced to their productivity ability, no matter their circumstances.

Priya’s parents met with Anthony Albanese and Rishworth ahead of the bill’s introduction. They have had to fight for all workers, while grieving the loss of their daughter. That they have needed to should be a national shame.