As it happened: One Nation leader plans to appeal racial vilification ruling; Labor HECS plan could slash tens of thousands from student debt

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:

• One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has indicated she will appeal a Federal Court ruling she racially vilified Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi in a tweet telling her to “piss off back to Pakistan”.
• Student HECS debts could be slashed by tens of thousands of dollars under a radical Albanese government plan to make financially strained young Australians feel better off before next year’s election.
• Foreign Minister Penny Wong has purchased a $3.4 million Adelaide home, just two weeks after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese faced intense scrutiny for buying a $4.3 million property on the NSW Central Coast.
• In Victoria, medicinal cannabis users will no longer automatically lose their licence if caught driving with traces of the drug in their system, under what the government says is an “interim measure”.
• In NSW, a major energy crisis is finally over and Broken Hill and surrounding communities are back on the power grid after two weeks of using generators.
• The Liberal National Party has unveiled its first Queensland cabinet in almost a decade, featuring major changes and ministers in charge of newly minted departments.
• In business news, documents uncovered by a joint parliamentary committee have revealed how PwC International took control of its scandal-ridden local operation after giving PwC Australia just four days to accept its control, or risk expulsion from the global consulting group.
• In world news, Puerto Rican-American pop star Jennifer Lopez has branded Donald Trump the biggest domestic adversary the US has ever faced in a fiery speech endorsing Kamala Harris targeted at women, Latinos and their allies in the final days of the election.

Thanks again for joining us. This is Cassandra Morgan signing off.

Shipping operations at the world’s largest coal port could be disrupted by a planned “protestival” even if a planned two-day blockade does not go ahead.

An event scheduled for later in November is due to involve live music and workshops as well as a 50-hour blockade of the Port of Newcastle.

Conveyors and stacker-reclaimers stand next to stockpiles of coal at the Port of Newcastle.Credit: David Gray

But NSW Police have asked a court to deem it an unlawful assembly, rendering anyone who stops port traffic liable to be arrested.

Organisers Rising Tide said the event from November 22 to 24 would be one of the world’s most significant climate protests, with demonstrators in canoes and kayaks blocking the port.

Ahead of a hearing on Friday, protesters gathered outside the NSW Supreme Court, criticising the need to be there.

“We’re calling on NSW Police to stop wasting public resources by fighting peaceful protesters and protest movements and taking them to court,” NSW Council of Civil Liberties vice president Lydia Shelly said.

Lachlan Gyles, SC, acting for NSW Police, told the court the dispute was over methods rather than messages.

“The police are not trying to stop people expressing views about this issue, it’s an important part of democracy to be able to do that, the question is how it’s done,” he said.

Justice Desmond Fagan said there appeared to be clear safety risks from the planned protest in the water, where small vessels could end up in the passage of difficult-to-manoeuvre bulk carriers.

But planned actions on land appeared less dangerous.

“Listening to the music probably won’t hurt them either,” Justice Fagan said.

Rising Tide’s barrister Neal Funnell said it was unlikely small and large vessels would be on the water together.

Fagan said protesters were effectively asking the court to authorise shutting the port for two days, a move he described as a “very ambitious resistance” to the police bid.

Gyles said prohibiting the blockade but allowing nearby land-based events to go ahead would still encourage civil disobedience.

“People would be very likely to enter the water and attempt to block the harbour anyway,” he said.

Port of Newcastle harbourmaster Vikas Bangia said the possibility of a shutdown would be enough to leave ships stranded in the harbour or drifting offshore, creating backlogs in supply chains.

“If there is any doubt, then the suspension of shipping will take place,” he said.

The case will return to court on Tuesday.

AAP

The Australian sharemarket has closed in the red, with banks weighing down the bourse, which closed at a seven-week low. The S&P/ASX 200 finished down by 41.2 points, or 0.5 per cent, to 8118.8 points at close, with all but two of the 11 industry sectors in the red.

The big four banks all closed lower, with NAB taking the biggest hit to close 1.5 per cent weaker.

Wall Street was underwhelmed by the results of Meta and Microsoft.Credit: AP

Meanwhile, energy stocks were a bright spot on the index, as oil prices edged up on talks of Iran potentially considering a retaliatory strike on Israel. Woodside rose 1.1 per cent and Santos ended the day 0.7 per cent stronger.

Mining companies recovered through the trading day after a poor start, with Champion Iron finishing as the index’s best performer (up 4.8 per cent), followed by Mineral Resources and gold miner Capricorn Metals, up 3.1 and 3 per cent respectively.

Read our full five-minute recap of the trading day here.

Sticking with National Farmers’ Federation chief executive Tony Mahar, he has warned the damage caused by red fire ants will continue to spread across Australia without bolstered efforts to combat them.

Earlier this week, biosecurity advocates flamed the Albanese government for failing to take seriously the super pest that threatens to devastate Australia’s native wildlife.

The Invasive Species Council said the government’s response to a parliamentary inquiry into imported fire ants missed the point of the committee’s findings.

Speaking on ABC Afternoon Briefing, Mahar suggested Australia had an opportunity to get on top of fire ants with bolstered funding and manpower.

“Once we miss that opportunity we will probably never get the chance to control it,” he said.

“It really will require comprehensive leadership from the federal government.

“We would really like them to get behind and say we recognise the importance of this, and we’re going to do everything in our power to control it. That’s what we want.

“The funding has been good but we just can’t miss this opportunity to control these red imported fire ants.”

The federal and Queensland government are putting about $1.2 billion towards containing an outbreak in the state’s south-east.

Nationals senator Matt Canavan chaired the inquiry and said earlier this week that the government supported the majority of the report’s recommendations, showing a commitment from all sides of politics to get fire ants under control.

With AAP

Australia must continue to improve and maintain its biosecurity standards if it is to stave off a devastating bird flu, the National Farmers’ Federation boss says.

With the threat of the particularly virulent H5N1 strain looming with spring migration, Tony Mahar said the main thing poultry farmers had to do was to consolidate their biosecurity plans.

“Collectively, state governments and the community has done quite well to keep Australia relatively pest and disease free, and we need to maintain that awareness,” the federation’s chief told ABC Afternoon Briefing.

“Right now, chicken producers are consolidating, improving and refining their biosecurity plans to make sure that they have got the appropriate measures in place because if this virus does come in like it has around the world, it will devastate the chicken industry and the community.”

The average Australian consumed up to 50 kilograms of chicken a year, Mahar said.

“So it will have a huge effect if we don’t continue to ramp up and improve and maintain our biosecurity standards,” he said.

“We have just got to be on our toes and on our game, and make sure we dust off all of our biosecurity plans and control measures we’ve got in place to prevent these diseases from coming to Australia.”

A police dog handler has had to break the devastating news to his family that two of the animals died in an official vehicle as the force vows to ensure the same thing does not happen again.

Police dog Xtra and development dog Soldier had been kept inside an air-conditioned pod at the back of a specially designed vehicle as their handler attended a development day in southern Sydney on Thursday.

NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb addressing the media on Friday.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone

The officer left the dogs in the vehicle at 10.30am to attend a lecture 300 metres away, but when he returned to check on them two hours later the German shepherds were dead.

The handler was devastated by the incident, NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb said on Friday.

“He had the very difficult task of going home yesterday afternoon to inform his wife and his two children about the passing of the two dogs because the two dogs ... reside with the family,” she said.

“They are part of that family [and are] with the officer 24/7.”

The police vehicle was being examined for any mechanical, technical or engineering problem that led to the tragic circumstances, Webb said.

“There’s no suggestion that this is human error,” she said.

The vehicles were heavily modified to include cooling pods in the back for the dogs, with the “state of the art” features introduced in 2023, Assistant Commissioner Stephen Hegarty said.

But at some point the air conditioning stopped working, triggering an alarm near the end of the lecture.

Police have made immediate changes while the investigation proceeds, including kennelling their dogs and increasing the intervals of inspections.

A memorial will be held for the dogs at a suitable time, and they will join the police Wall of Remembrance.

AAP

Documents uncovered by a joint parliamentary committee have revealed how PwC International took control of its scandal-ridden local operation in May last year after giving PwC Australia just four days to accept its control, or risk expulsion from the global consulting group.

The global group sent the letter to PwC Australia just weeks after a Senate inquiry revealed the scale of the local operation’s attempts to profit from confidential government plans through its local and overseas operations.

The documents released by the consulting inquiry on Friday revealed scathing letters to PwC Australia’s leaders from the global group citing actions causing a “breakdown of trust and confidence in the firm and damage to PwC’s reputation”.

The letter shows that PwC demanded approval for everything including PwC Australia’s responses to the political inquiries and regulators.

“These documents demonstrate, in crystal clear detail, the lengths to which PwC International went in its attempt to inhibit transparency and accountability in the wake of the tax leaks scandal and the revelation of Mr Peter John Collins’ misuse of confidential Australian government information,” committee chair Deborah O’Neill said.

“The documents show how PwC International threatened its Australian arm with expulsion from the global franchise if it dared to freely cooperate with the legitimate inquiries of this parliament. This is a blatant and deeply inappropriate form of intimidation.”

Senator Barbara Pocock said the documents revealed the low level of trust in the Australian operation by its own global leadership, but she was critical of both parties.

“PwC operatives – whether local or global – are sadly all too consistent in a pattern of withholding critical information about the scandal within their walls. They resist requests for information, push for confidentiality and manipulate legal professional privilege where they can. Australians deserve better.”

A final report on the consulting inquiry is expected next week.

Back to world news, Russia has demanded Google pay a fine worth more than the world’s GDP for blocking pro-Kremlin media outlets.

Judges in Moscow are seeking around $US20 decillion ($30.4 decillion) from the technology giant, many times the estimated $US100-trillion size of the global economy. If written out in full, the fine would be 20 followed by 33 zeros.

Google was fined a daily penalty of 100,000 roubles four years ago and warned that amount would double every 24 hours if it went unpaid.Credit: Bloomberg

The penalty, which far eclipses Google’s own $US2 trillion market value, comes after the US technology business barred pro-Moscow propaganda channel Tsargrad TV, which is owned by oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, from YouTube four years ago.

Google was fined a daily penalty of 100,000 roubles and warned that amount would double every 24 hours if it went unpaid. The technology giant now owes more than 2 undecillion roubles, a 36-digit figure, lawyer Ivan Morozov told the state-owned TASS news agency.

The original fine has been compounded by further penalties after Google blocked a total of 17 Russian TV channels as a result of international sanctions.

Read the full story here.

Telegraph, London

A crackdown on the tax arrangements of oil and gas companies has delivered the federal budget a $4.3 billion windfall amid warnings that cash flowing from the resources sector is set to dry up as commodity prices fall.

Data from the Australian Taxation Office, published on Friday, shows tax paid by the oil and gas sector jumped from $1.5 billion in 2021-22 to a record $11.6 billion in 2022-23. The sector accounted for more than 10 per cent of the almost $100 billion in tax collected from 4000 public and private companies.

A crackdown on oil and gas companies has dramatically lifted the amount of corporate tax paid.Credit: Getty Images

Chevron Australia, which in 2020-21 paid $30 million in tax on $9.2 billion of revenue, is now one of the nation’s single largest taxpayers. In 2022-23, it paid $4.3 billion in tax on $24.2 billion of revenue.

ExxonMobil, which didn’t pay income tax in 2020-21 on $15.5 billion in revenue, paid $844.5 million in income tax in 2022-23 on $25.7 billion in revenues. Woodside, which in 2020-21 did not pay tax on $6.7 billion of income, paid $2.7 billion in tax on $24 billion of income in 2022-23 plus $936 million in petroleum resource rent tax.

Read the full story from Shane Wright here.

The Liberal National Party has unveiled its first Queensland cabinet in almost a decade, featuring major changes and ministers in charge of newly minted departments.

The Liberal National Party’s cabinet was officially sworn in on Friday, with new ministries including victim support, home ownership, customer services, open data and integrity.

The first Crisafulli ministry poses for a photo after being sworn in at Government House on Friday.Credit: Matt Dennie

Premier David Crisafulli has rewarded senior leadership in his 19-strong team with some of the biggest ministries after the LNP ended Labor’s nine-year reign.

He promised before the election that his shadow ministry would form his cabinet if the LNP was elected. But there have been some major portfolio changes.

David Janetzki will be treasurer and will also take on the energy and home ownership portfolio.

Ros Bates has lost the health portfolio to instead be in charge of finance, trade, employment and training.

Tim Nicholls will take the health and ambulance services portfolio after serving as the shadow attorney-general.

Deb Frecklington was in charge of energy and will now serve as attorney-general as well as minister for justice and integrity.

The agriculture department has been scrapped in favour of primary industries, with Tony Perrett taking the helm.

Rising star Sam O’Connor held the environment portfolio but has been promoted to housing, public works and youth portfolios.

His predecessor, Tim Mander, will take charge of sport, racing and the new Olympics and Paralympic Games portfolio.

Andrew Powell has been promoted from the backbench to take on environment, tourism, science and innovation, which he held during the Newman government in 2012.

Transport and main roads will be led by Brent Mickelberg, while Steve Minnikin will lead customer services, open data for the first time and small and family business.

Christian Rowan will be the leader of the house after previously holding education, now taken by John-Paul Langbroek.

One of the longest serving MPs in parliament, Fiona Simpson, has been given the women, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander partnerships and multiculturalism portfolios.

AAP