As it happened: Alan Jones charged with 24 offences against eight alleged victims; Lidia Thorpe censured for King Charles protest

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:

• Alan Jones has been charged with 24 offences against eight alleged victims spanning two decades after a lengthy police investigation into allegations of indecent assault and sexual touching.

• Education Minister Jason Clare has accused Opposition Leader Peter Dutton of being a fraud on immigration after Coalition frontbenchers vowed to block new laws allowing the government to cap the number of international students arriving in Australia.

• Senator Ralph Babet has pulled down a social media post spouting a string of racist and homophobic slurs after the Senate voted overwhelmingly to condemn his behaviour. A separate reprimand was also given to independent senator Lidia Thorpe for her Indigenous rights protest against King Charles III last month.

• In NSW, the state government is demanding the main rail union remove a work ban that requires 24-hour train services and another that reduces staff availability, raising the risk of severe disruptions or a shutdown of Sydney’s passenger rail network if workers refuse to budge.

• In Victoria, a federal push to withdraw funding from Melbourne’s Suburban Rail Loop has sparked infighting within the Liberals as state MPs are frustrated by the intervention from their Canberra colleagues.

• In Queensland, a much-hyped partial start to Brisbane City Council’s $1.4 billion Metro bus project has come to a quiet end just one month after it began.

• In Western Australia, a community in Perth’s south has raised the alarm over a proposal to build a fifth McDonald’s chain in their suburb – and the second to sit directly opposite a primary school.

• In business news, the corporate regulator has vowed to take more lenders to court for failing customers in financial distress after revealing it was suing National Australia Bank over allegations it ignored more than 300 vulnerable customers during their time of need.

• In international news, US President Joe Biden’s administration has lifted restrictions that had blocked Ukraine from using US-supplied weapons to strike deep into Russian territory.

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Perth woman Donna Nelson entered a Tokyo court on the first morning of her drugs trial in tears and handcuffs as prosecutors alleged she was caught in a Japanese airport with 1.9 kilograms of methamphetamine in her luggage.

Nelson sat just metres away from family members who she has not been able to speak to for almost two years, and appeared much thinner than when she left Perth in January last year.

A sketch of Donna Nelson in court in Japan on the first day of her drug trial.Credit: Yoshitaka Enomoto

She was in tears at times, but also smiled brightly when she saw her three-year-old grandson.

Nelson was arrested at Japan’s Narita International Airport just outside Tokyo when customs officials allegedly found the drugs hidden in a double-bottom suitcase she was carrying.

Read the full story here.

The Australian sharemarket has closed in the green, bouncing back modestly in what was a flat session as mining and energy stocks helped lift the local index in afternoon trading.

The S&P/ASX 200 index finished higher by 15 points or 0.2 per cent to close at 8300.2 points. Six of 11 industry sectors closed in the green.

The Australian sharemarket closed in the green on Monday.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Shares in mining and metals company South32 jumped by more than 6 per cent, giving it the title of the best-performing large cap stock on the index today.

Commonwealth Bank shares shed 1.4 per cent, while NAB shares dipped by 0.2 per cent after the Australian Securities and Investments Commission took NAB to court alleging breaches of financial hardship obligations.

Read the full market wrap here.

Holding back tears after her seat was abolished in a boundary redistribution, first-term Labor MP Michelle Ananda-Rajah says she never took her short time in Australia’s parliament for granted.

Ananda-Rajah made her valedictory speech on Monday afternoon after her Melbourne seat of Higgins was scrapped in a redistribution by the Australian Electoral Commission.

Michelle Ananda-Rajah during their valedictory speech in the House of Representatives.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

In a heartfelt farewell, Ananda-Rajah described her time in federal parliament as a “character building chapter”.

“I can confidently say that I never took my time here for granted,” she told parliament on Monday. “When elected in 2022, I knew that politics had a shelf life. But I didn’t expect mine to be this short, well before my best-by date.”

She said it had been an “honour to serve this community and to serve in this Labor government”.

Pointing to fraying social cohesion in Australia due to conflicts overseas, Ananda-Rajah urged the community to remain united.

“Our allegiance is first to each other,” she said. “Sectarian grievances should not be imported nor amplified here. Leave them at the door. That stuff is combustible.”

Other retiring MPs, including Coalition backbenchers Nola Marino, Mark Coulton and Rowan Ramsey, were also set to give farewell speeches to parliament on Monday.

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Fringe senator Ralph Babet has removed a social media post spouting a string of racist and homophobic slurs after the Senate voted overwhelmingly to condemn his behaviour.

In a post on X this month, Babet, who represents mining magnate Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party, declared he would say “phaggot [sic], retard and n----r”.

“We are sick of you woke ass clowns,” Babet posted. “Cry more. Write an article. Tweet about me. No one cares what you think.”

On Monday, Babet issued a statement saying his Mauritian family had been the victims of racism and the words had been used in his home as a reflection of that abuse.

“As anyone who has been subjected to these names would know, they become imbedded [sic] in your mind,” Babet said.

“I have reflected on the tweet, and the fact that it may have been taken out of context. I have now removed the tweet in hindsight. As the saying goes, a mistake is only an error, it becomes a mistake when you fail to correct it.”

Meanwhile, the Senate issued a separate censure, which is a formal reprimand with no tangible consequences, to independent senator Lidia Thorpe for her Indigenous rights protest against King Charles III.

Read the full story here.

Nationals senator Matthew Canavan and Greens senator Barbara Pocock were on a rare joint-ticket earlier on Monday when they voted against Lidia Thorpe’s censure for disrupting the visit of King Charles III – but each had different reasons.

Appearing on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing this hour, Canavan said some sort of censure “probably was appropriate” but voted against the motion because he thought Thorpe was denied “natural justice” as she wasn’t present for the vote due to a delayed fight.

“I believe she was told an hour before the chamber met to discuss this that it would happen,” Canavan said.

“She deserved more warning of it. She deserved an opportunity to hear the arguments against her and to defend herself. And for those reasons, I voted against.”

Canavan said he “most likely” would have voted for a censure if Thorpe was present and afforded due process to have her say.

Nationals senator Matt Canavan.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Meanwhile, Pocock said she voted against censuring her former Greens colleague because she believed the Senate was being inconsistent.

“We need to be consistent in what we do in the Senate. There was no censure motion against Pauline Hanson for her racial vilification of senator Mehreen Faruqi,” she said.

Senator Barbara Pocock.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“I believe the issues that senator Lidia Thorpe is talking about are important.

“People may disagree with her tone and the way she does it, but talking about the legacy of colonialism and intergenerational cost that First Nations people are suffering still … those issues deserve to be talked about.”

Early Childhood Education Minister Anne Aly says she is “pretty confident” the government’s pay boost for childcare workers would pass the Senate this week.

Appearing on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing program earlier this hour, Aly was asked why the government’s childcare bill – expected to be debated in the upper house on Monday night or early on Tuesday – used a unique account to store grants for childcare providers to boost the pay of their workers by 15 per cent over two years.

Early Childhood Education Minister Anne Aly.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

In response, Aly said:

We know from all reports that we’ve had, but also through engagement with the sector, that this is an essential service, and that workers in early childhood education and care are not getting a fair wage. It was not a wage that met their needs nor reflected their professionalism or level of skill.

But there was a workforce crisis in early childhood education and care. And since coming into government, we worked diligently to address that workforce crisis … [ensuring] that there are workers who can come into the system through our fee-free TAFE, workers who stay in the system through this worker retention payment, and through our $72 million professional development packages well.

The reason that we needed to do it as a grant is because we realised how urgent it was. We gave powers to the Fair Work Commission to have a look at the wages of early childhood educators. But considering where the workforce was – and the absolute essential need to address the wages issue for the workforce – we put it in as an interim grant for two years, granting them that 15 per cent.”

Aly said the grants included conditions that childcare centres don’t increase their fees above 4.4 per cent and the extra money goes directly into workers’ pockets.

South Australia will attempt to bolster its bid to host a future United Nations climate summit when Premier Peter Malinauskas heads to COP29 to promote Adelaide as a potential site.

Malinauskas will travel to Azerbaijan this week to attend the conference, where he will press the case for Adelaide to be the host city for the 2026 summit if the Albanese government’s bid to host COP31 is successful.

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas in Adelaide on Friday.Credit: Ben Searcy

“This conference will attract tens of thousands of people and hundreds of millions of dollars into our state,” he said on Monday.

“It will provide an incredible opportunity to market our state to investors across the world, enhance global visibility and deliver long-lasting benefits for our tourism and events industry.”

AAP

Back to federal parliament now, where the climate wars have fired up once again in question time.

The opposition has used a report by analysts Frontier Economics to criticise the cost of the government’s renewable energy policies and step up its attacks on the government’s promise to cut energy bills.

Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles leads the government in question time today.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Analysis by the Australian Energy Market Operator projects it will cost $122 billion by 2050 to switch from fossil fuels to clean energy. This figure is generated by using the net present value, in today’s dollars, of what future projects would cost, which is a common measure for infrastructure assessments.

However, Frontier’s analysis shows that by factoring in inflation, costs would rise to $642 billion by 2050.

Opposition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien asked: “Why is this weak and incompetent Labor government hiding the true cost from Australian families, [which] will have to foot the bill for its renewable energies-only plan?”

Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles, who is filling in for Anthony Albanese while he’s on overseas duties said: “What is clear in the world today, whether those opposite understand it or not, is that the cheapest form of electricity is renewable electricity.

“That’s why we have got the renewable sector going again. Something which those opposite did their absolute best to crush.”

NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Michael Fitzgerald has praised the bravery of alleged victims of Alan Jones, who has been charged with 24 offences in connection with alleged indecent assaults and sexual touching incidents across two decades.

Speaking at a press conference in Parramatta moments ago, Fitzgerald said police allege the offending occurred between 2001 and 2019. The youngest of the alleged victims was 17 years old at the time.

“They fully are aware, as are the investigators, that the hard work is just beginning, and they have given their statements fully aware that they will go before the court,” Fitzgerald said.

He also highlighted Strike Force Bonnefin investigators’ “tenacity and hard work in bringing this matter before the courts”.

“Historical matters such as this are incredibly hard to investigate and bring before the courts, and I again congratulate them on their ongoing investigation that will continue,” he said.

Strike Force Bonnefin was formed following a lengthy investigation by this masthead, which revealed in December that Jones had used his position of power, first as a teacher and later as the country’s top-rating radio broadcaster, to allegedly prey on a number of young men.

“The reports in the Herald and The Age did result in victims coming forward and the creation of Strike Force Bonnefin but … a number of witnesses have been assisting police over the years,” Fitzgerald said.