As it happened: Coalition calls for social media ban by year’s end; Remembrance Day commemorated

Thanks for reading the national news blog. This is where we’ll end today’s coverage.

To conclude, here’s a look back at the day’s major stories:

• World leaders and experts convened in Azerbaijan for the first day of the COP29 summit.
• Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy said the Australian government was “very confident” in the future of the AUKUS agreement after the re-election of Donald Trump.
• Australian gold miner Resolute confirmed the company’s boss, along with two other executives, are being held by authorities in the military-ruled African state of Mali.
• The Coalition has called for the national social media ban for children under 16 to be legislated by the end of the year.
• Billionaire Anthony Pratt announced he would be moving to the United States after being granted permanent residency there.
• The Greens want to wipe all HECS debts for university students under a multibillion-dollar proposal.
• A Corruption and Crime Commission report found the WA Labor government “routinely” used taxpayer-funded electorate officers to carry out political campaigning duties.
• Governor-General Samantha Mostyn reflected on more than a century of Remembrance Day commemorations in her speech at the Australian War Memorial Service.

Thanks again for joining us. This is Brittany Busch signing off.

CFMEU members will rally in Sydney tomorrow against the federal government’s administration of the union.

A Fair Work Ombudsman spokesperson said it was aware of the plan to stop work, and warned demonstrators to not engage in unprotected industrial action.

“Please be aware that if an employee fails to attend the workplace or stops work without authorisation from their employer, this conduct may be unprotected industrial action in contravention of the Act,” they said in a statement.

The strike is one of a series of actions to be taken in NSW this week, including by nurses and the Rail, Tram and Bus Union, while the police union has recommended members accept one of the biggest pay rises in the NSW public sector.

Meanwhile in Victoria, police are threatening to walk off the job for the first time in 25 years as a pay dispute with the state government heats up.

A worksite tragedy in Victoria today, where a man died after being crushed beneath a wind turbine blade, has drawn condemnation from the national workers union which says it met with the site’s management to sound the alarm on serious safety concerns just two weeks ago.

The man’s death on the Vestas site – the Danish renewable energy company building the wind farm – comes less than two months after it was reported serrated edges had detached and fallen from turbines at the same site and landed on nearby properties.

The Australian Workers Union Victorian secretary, Ronnie Hayden, described it as devastating loss, which he claimed could have been prevented.

“Just two weeks ago, union delegates from three different unions met with Vestas management to raise serious safety concerns, telling them it was only dumb luck that nobody had been killed on site yet,” Hayden said.

He alleged the incident occurred against a backdrop of mounting safety concerns at the project.

Read the full report here.

The coalition is consolidating its popularity with voters, but political pundits believe Labor is still in a prime position to form government at the next federal election.

The latest Newspoll showed the coalition leading 51 per cent to 49 per cent, on a two-party preferred basis, the same result as the previous poll.

The survey found the coalition also increased its primary vote by two points to 40 per cent, while Labor boosted its vote from 31 to 33 per cent.

Monash University politics lecturer Zareh Ghazarian said while the coalition was ahead in the polls, it would not be enough for the opposition to form government.

“At the moment, it’s looking as though the coalition has consolidated its position as the force most likely to get a majority of the two-party preferred vote,” he told AAP.

“It’s probably not enough (for) where the coalition need to be to be within a majority.

“The major parties are attracting support, but none ... are in a strong position to win a majority of seats.”

The next election is due to be held by May, with predictions of a hung parliament.

AAP

A former Australian Federal Police officer has avoided prison despite being found with a quantity of drugs 50 times higher than the threshold for trafficking, in a case a magistrate said was “shrouded in mystery”.

William Noel Wheatley, 46, faced Melbourne Magistrates’ Court charged over the seizure of 200 grams of methamphetamine while he was a serving police officer.

Wheatley, from Kensington in Melbourne’s inner north-west, was ordered in February to stand trial in the County Court on multiple charges, including drug trafficking and possession, before the matter was sent back to the lower court, where he pleaded guilty to lesser charges.

Read the full report here.

Former prime minister Paul Keating has accused the Albanese government of being out of touch with the Australian public on foreign policy, leaping upon survey results showing most Australians say the nation should avoid picking sides in a conflict between the United States and China.

The latest Resolve Political Monitor poll, published today in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, found that 57 per cent said Australia should sit out a conflict between the competing superpowers with 16 per cent in favour.

“These polling numbers, taken by a reputable pollster on a large sample, make completely clear that the public does not endorse any military engagement by Australia as party to a military dispute arising between the United States and China,” Keating said in a statement.

“In other words, the public in its common sense, is peering through the haze of exaggerated strategic risks and the notional ‘China threat’ to dramatically affirm that Australia and Australians should have no part of a major military dust-up in East Asia between the major powers,” said Keating, who has long argued towards a more conciliatory approach towards China and distance from Washington.

Read the full report here.

One person is dead and a child has been injured after a truck crashed into a kindergarten in a small town north of Melbourne.

Emergency services are at the kindergarten on Main Road in Riddells Creek. It is understood paramedics are treating multiple people at the scene.

Emergency Services at the school in Riddells Creek where a truck has killed one person and seriously injured a child.Credit: Nine News

“It’s believed at this early stage a truck collided with a kindergarten on Main Road around 2.20pm,” a police statement said. “One adult, who is yet to be formally identified, has died at the scene.

We are at the scene now, and readers can find the latest updates here.

Aldi wants more customers, but not necessarily more stores, to bolster its position in a market heavily dominated by Woolworths and Coles, the German discount supermarket’s representatives have told the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

Aldi is the Australian duopoly’s closest but distant competitor, attracting about 10 per cent of the market with fewer than 600 stores, while Coles and Woolworths together control about two-thirds of supermarket sales nationwide.

Aldi representatives faced a public hearing for the ACCC’s inquiry into supermarkets today, and the consumer watchdog has previously suggested issues with competition because it took two decades for the overseas chain to establish its fractional market share in Australia.

Planning and zoning laws posed development challenges for new stores, while its foreign origins meant Aldi faced stricter development deadlines in its first few years of operation.

Shopping centre owners also sometimes rejected the newcomer due to existing tenancy agreements with other supermarkets, the inquiry was told.

The chain is still growing, with some help from government changes to foreign-investor requirements and restrictive lease covenants, but the rate of new stores opening was slow, Aldi managers said.

“We’re not focused on the same levels of growth ... it is our desire to increase sales from existing stores with new customers,” national buying managing director Jordan Lack said.

National real estate director Andrew Starr said Aldi was looking at new opportunities in Sydney and Melbourne for smaller-scale “corner store” format stores, mirroring Woolworths Metro and Coles Local shops, but there were no plans to expand into other locations such as Darwin or Tasmania.

With AAP

To Western Australia now where Premier Roger Cook has revealed his government has sought “legal advice” to prepare contingencies if the federal election clashes with his state’s own election pencilled in for March 8.

Speaking at a business breakfast in Perth this morning Cook said he wanted to be ready for any contingency so state lawyers and the WA Electoral Commission were looking at what complexities there would be in the event the federal election is held close to March 8.

“We have limited ability to switch our election date if the federal election comes in on top of that,” he said.
Cook said he had spoken to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese about the election, and he understood WA’s election timetable.

“We have to just continue to make sure that we’re aware of any contingency in relation to that,” he said.

Cook said he didn’t care which election came first.

Anthony Pratt, the chairman of Visy Australia and one of Australia’s richest men, has announced via LinkedIn he will be moving to the United States after being granted permanent residency there.

In the post, Pratt said:

Honoured to be granted my Green Card for permanent USA residency last month.

We decided it was time to live in America because:

(1) My family are all U.S. citizens.

(2) Over the past 30 years we have invested to build 70 factories in America, creating 12,000 well-paying American manufacturing jobs.

(3) I will remain Chairman of Visy Australia, and will be returning to Australia on a regular basis.