As it happened: Finance minister warns businesses to do better on equality or lose government work; Ten years since flight MH370 disappeared

That’s where we’ll leave today’s live blog. Thanks for reading along. We’ll be back with you on Monday. Here’s what you need to know tonight – have a great weekend.

• Job vacancies have fallen to their lowest level since September 2021, while the number of people with multiple jobs has risen to a new high.
• Education Minister Jason Clare says he was uniquely qualified to answer questions about Matildas captain Sam Kerr allegedly harassing a police officer because he’s “often called a stupid white bastard”.
• A magistrate has lifted an interim suppression order preventing the publication of the name of 22-year-old Patrick Stephenson, the alleged killer of Ballarat mother Samantha Murphy.
• An unprecedented fifth mass coral bleaching event in just eight years is rolling across the Great Barrier Reef, the result of yet another marine heatwave.
• Optus boss Lambo Kanagaratnam has quit the telco four months after a 16-hour outage that affected 10 million customers.
• Sweden has joined NATO as the 32nd member of the transatlantic military alliance after decades of neutrality.
• US President Joe Biden has spoken about the invasion of Ukraine, the conflict in Gaza and reproductive rights while delivering his final State of the Union address before the November election.
• A heatwave is sweeping across the southern states this weekend, amping up fire danger in Victoria.

US President Joe Biden had three things he had to achieve in his final State of the Union address before this year’s presidential election.

First, he had to assuage concerns that he is too old and unfit for another term.

US President Joe Biden delivered a fiery State of the Union address.Credit: Bloomberg

Second, he had to convince a sceptical nation of what he’s achieved over the past three years and lay out a vision for another four.

And third, he had to draw a contrast with Donald Trump and make their looming rematch a referendum on the former president, when elections are often referendums on the incumbent.

To that end, the 81-year-old president did a convincing enough job, delivering a loud and fiery address warning that basic freedoms are under attack, both domestically and overseas.

“I know I may not look like it, but I’ve been around a while,” he joked at one point, drawing laughs from the audience in the joint sitting of Congress.

Read the full analysis.

The head of the Australian Federal Police union has contrasted the danger his officers face with that of desk-bound boffins from other Commonwealth agencies in slamming the size of the latest pay offer from the government.

In an email to members, Alex Caruana said the public service commission’s offer of an 11.2 per cent wage increase over three years “treats you the same as a traditional ‘8am to 4pm’ public servant and doesn’t acknowledge the risks you take as an employee of the AFP”.

The head of the AFP union has slammed the latest pay offer from the government.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“When was the last time a public servant from Geoscience Australia got assaulted while on duty, or was shot at? When was the last time a public servant from the Australian Bureau of Statistics received a needle stick injury from a known drug user while on duty, and when was the last time a public servant from IP Australia required a Positive Vetting security clearance to fulfil their duties?” he said.

“Our point is that you are not a traditional public servant, and the Government and APSC should not use a ‘cookie-cutter’ mindset to determine appropriate remuneration for AFP appointees.

“The AFP is a unique organisation with a wide operational scope, often changing tack at the whim of the government of the day. What might work and be appropriate for the Australian Tax Office might not work or be appropriate for a paramilitary law enforcement organisation like the AFP.”

Many Commonwealth agencies have voted to approve pay offers from the federal government, but some negotiations are ongoing.

A severe heatwave warning has been issued for much of Victoria for the weekend and into the Labour Day public holiday on Monday.

The severe rating is one step below the highest rating of extreme, with temperatures forecast to push into the 40s in some parts of the state.

The Country Fire Authority has declared total fire bans across the Wimmera, south-west, north-central, Melbourne, Geelong, west and south Gippsland regions for Saturday.

The Dereel bushfire burning last month.Credit: Carwoola Rural Fire Brigade

CFA chief officer Jason Heffernan said the fire season was not yet over. He said the Grampians fire, which razed more than 30 houses in the town of Pomonal, was now under control.

But firefighters were still closely monitoring the Bayindeen fire that had threatened communities around Ballarat.

Heffernan warned even smouldering logs could reignite in temperatures that rose above 40 degrees.

He said hot northerly winds increased the risk of fire, while below-average rainfall in February meant forested areas could now burn.

Read the full story.

Heatwave warnings are in place this weekend across much of South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania and southern NSW.

The Bureau of Meteorology expects temperatures to soar 16 degrees above average.

“Severe heatwave conditions expected to peak across the weekend and early in the new week then ease during the middle of next week with the passage of a trough,” the bureau said.

The bureau expects temperatures to surge 16 degrees above average in parts of southern Australia this weekend.Credit: Bureau of Meteorology

Here’s the bureau’s safety advice:

• Severe heatwaves can be dangerous for many people, especially older people, babies, children, pregnant and breastfeeding women, people with medical conditions and people who are unwell.
• Seek a place to keep cool, such as your home, a library, community centre or shopping centre.
• Close your windows and draw blinds, curtains or awnings early in the day to keep the heat out of your home.
• If available, use fans or air-conditioners to keep cool.

A measles alert has been issued for Melbourne Airport, a Melbourne university, several flights and shops in Victoria.

Five people have been diagnosed with the highly infectious disease, including two people travelling on planes.

Melbourne Airport’s international terminal was an exposure site on the morning of February 19, while the domestic terminal was an exposure site on both the morning and evening of February 27.

Flights under the alert are Singapore Airlines flight SQ217 from Singapore to Melbourne on February 14, Virgin Australia flight VA815 from Melbourne to Sydney on February 27, and Qantas flight QF483 from Sydney to Melbourne on February 27.

The alert also applies to the Craigieburn Post Office, several sites at Monash University’s Clayton campus, Clayton Woolworths and the Better Choice Werribee petrol station from February 28 to March 1.

Victoria’s Health Department has urged anyone who may have come into contact with a case to look out for symptoms up to 18 days after they were exposed.

Symptoms include a rash that starts on the face then spreads, feeling unwell, a fever, cough and sore throat.

AAP

Warning to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers: This story contains images and references to a deceased person.

Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue, daughter of a liaison between a white stockman and an Aboriginal woman in the Australian outback, seemed at birth to have no prospects.

She was one of thousands of children coming from such relationships, many destined to live out their lives on the fringes of Australian society. But O’Donoghue had the intelligence and vision to make the most of the few opportunities presented to her.

Lowitja O’Donoghue working at the Department of Aboriginal Affairs during the 1970s.Credit: Lowitja O’Donoghue Collection

She grew up to become one of the most powerful advocates for her people, to hold senior bureaucratic positions, to become a professorial fellow, to address the United Nations and to be seriously considered for appointment as governor-general of Australia.

Read the full obituary for O’Donoghue as federal and state leaders farewell the celebrated Indigenous leader at a state funeral in Adelaide.

Warning to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers: This story contains images and references to a deceased person.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has paid tribute to Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue at a state funeral held in Adelaide for the activist, academic and celebrated Indigenous leader, who died last month.

The crowd gathered at St Peter’s Cathedral in North Adelaide included federal Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney, Governor-General David Hurley and South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas.

Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue.Credit: Leanne King

Albanese remembered O’Donoghue as “one of the great rocks around which the river of our history has gently bent, persuaded to flow along a better course”.

He also noted she was the first chairperson of the National Aboriginal Conference, the first Aboriginal woman to be made a member of the Order of Australia, and the inaugural chairperson of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission.

The prime minister continued:

As the world watched on, she stood at the forefront of a new relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia an opportunity extended to all of us to accept and celebrate the world’s oldest continuous living culture as a fundamental part of who we are as a nation.

It is a journey we are still on, building on every moment of hard-won progress. It isn’t a journey we travel in a straight line, but with every step forward we remember it was so often Dr O’Donoghue who led the way.

She was proud of being first.

She was determined to not to be last.

When Dr O’Donoghue opened a door, she held it open for all who followed.

She made history but her focus was on giving people a future.

Thank you for joining our live coverage today, I’ll be handing over to Angus Dalton who’ll anchor the blog for the rest of the day.

If you’re just joining us, here’s what you need to know:

• Job vacancies have fallen to their lowest level since September 2021, while the number of people with multiple jobs has risen to a new high.
• Education Minister Jason Clare says he was uniquely qualified to answer questions about Matildas captain Sam Kerr allegedly harassing a police officer because he’s “often called a ‘stupid white bastard’ “.
• An unprecedented fifth mass coral bleaching event in just eight years is rolling across the Great Barrier Reef, the result of yet another marine heatwave.
• Optus boss Lambo Kanagaratnam has quit the telco four months after a 16-hour outage that affected 10 million customers.
• Electric vehicle maker Polestar has joined Tesla in quitting Australia’s biggest automotive industry body in protest at what it says is a deliberate campaign to slow the shift to electric cars.
• Sweden has joined NATO as the 32nd member of the transatlantic military alliance after decades of neutrality.
• US President Joe Biden has spoken about the invasion of Ukraine, the conflict in Gaza and reproductive rights while delivering his final State of the Union address before the November election. Follow it live here.

Optus boss Lambo Kanagaratnam has quit the telco, four months after a 16-hour outage that affected about 10 million customers and crippled the nation’s small businesses, rail networks and hospital communications systems.

Kanagaratnam served at Optus for nine years and served as its managing director of networks.

His departure was announced by interim chief executive Michael Venter today in an internal memo to staff obtained by this masthead.

Lambo Kanagaratnam, Optus, Managing Director, Networks, during a Senate hearing in November.Credit: Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

“After nearly nine years of service, Lambo Kanagaratnam has made the decision that the time is right for him to leave Optus. Lambo joined Optus in 2015 after an international career bringing a wealth of experience from working internationally in a number of countries around the world,” the memo reads.

“Lambo has helped our teams navigate through some uniquely challenging major natural disasters ranging from cyclones, floods and fires as well as responding to the complexities that COVID and the recent outage presented for our customers and Network teams.”

Optus declined to comment further on Kanagaratnam’s departure.

The executive appeared alongside then-chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin at a Senate inquiry on November 17, admitting that the telco’s leadership was surprised at the size and scale of its outage.

The November network meltdown also left thousands of customers unable to get through to triple zero emergency services.

Read more here.