As it happened: Donald Trump ally taunts Kevin Rudd; WiseTech shareholders launch class action

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:

• A key Donald Trump ally has taunted Kevin Rudd on social media, suggesting the former prime minister’s days as Australia’s ambassador to the United States are numbered because of his past criticisms of the incoming president.
• Australians have enjoyed their biggest after-inflation wage increase since the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is unlikely to last, which keeps an interest rate cut early next year firmly on the cards.
• Embattled logistics software company WiseTech Global says it will “vigorously defend” a class action lawsuit in Victoria’s Supreme Court, only weeks after former chief executive Richard White resigned from the role following allegations of inappropriate behaviour.
• A Catholic diocese in regional Victoria has been found not liable on appeal for the sexual abuse of a young boy by one of its priests.
• A protracted pay dispute between the NSW government and the state’s 50,000 nurses and midwives is set to head to arbitration after a statewide strike led to hundreds of planned surgery cancellations and brought the public health system to a standstill.
• In Western Australia, the state government will dangle a $10,000 incentive payment in front of east coast tradies to “get them off their arses” and across the Nullarbor to work in its struggling residential construction industry.
• In business news, the chief executive of embattled construction super fund Cbus, Kristian Fok, will appear before a Senate committee after being assured he could avoid answering questions about an independent review it had been ordered to undertake about its CFMEU-linked directors.
• In world news, President-elect Trump has tapped SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to head a newly formed government efficiency department as he rounds out his new cabinet with loyal allies.
• Eight international aid groups have said Israel failed to meet US demands for greater humanitarian access to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, but the Biden administration flagged it would not limit weapons transfers to Israel because its key ally had made good but limited progress in increasing the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

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

Australians have enjoyed their biggest after-inflation wage increase since the depths of the pandemic, but it is unlikely to last, which keeps an interest rate cut early next year firmly on the cards.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday reported that wages grew 3.5 per cent in the year to September – 0.7 percentage points more than inflation – taking annual real wage growth to its highest level since the same period in 2020, when the federal government made childcare free, which artificially lowered inflation during the pandemic.

Real wages have climbed at the fastest pace since September 2020.Credit: Louie Douvis

A year ago, real wages had fallen by 1.4 per cent. This year, in the September quarter alone, real wages were up 0.6 per cent.

Despite the strong growth in real wages through the quarter, most Australians are still under financial strain. Since real wage growth turned negative in mid-2021, inflation has climbed by 17.1 per cent. Over the same period, wages have risen by just 11.6 per cent.

Read the full story from Shane Wright and Millie Muroi here.

The Western Australian government will dangle a $10,000 incentive payment in front of east coast tradies to “get them off their arses” and across the Nullarbor to work in the state’s struggling residential construction industry.

“If you’re a tradie in the construction industry, sitting on your arse on the east coast, wondering where the next job is going to come from, get off your butt, come to WA, build a better life and really be part of our great building and construction industry,” Premier Roger Cook said.

Western Australia Premier Roger Cook.Credit: Hamish Hastie

The Build a Better Life incentive program will be on offer to tradies outside Western Australia from January.

The payment will be split to ensure trades don’t leave the state too quickly, but Training Minister Simone McGurk said those details as well as the ultimate target number were still being ironed out.

Western Australia’s housing crisis has been a thorn in the side of the state government for at least two years as the state’s population surged past three million people.

It has been exacerbated by a lack of skilled labour able to finish the enormous spike in home builds resulting from pandemic stimulus packages.

Asked where the new tradies would live, Cook said there were green shoots appearing in rental and home sale listings, but the government could not do nothing.

“Let’s pretend we thought this was all too hard and did nothing, our economy will continue to trickle on, our housing industry and our construction industry will continue to struggle to meet the demand,” he said.

“We wouldn’t get the increase in supply, and the housing situation would just get worse. We’re bringing solutions to the table, and we are producing outcomes.”

Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles is maintaining confidence in Kevin Rudd’s future as Australia’s ambassador to the US despite an online taunt from a key Donald Trump ally.

Speaking on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing, Marles was resolute in backing Rudd’s continued posting, saying the ambassador has done a “fantastic” job representing Australia in the US across the political spectrum.

“Kevin was there at the Republican National Convention earlier this year, and Kevin has been really important in terms of introducing us to a number of figures who may play a part in the Trump administration going forwards,” Marles said.

“I really have no doubt that once President Trump is sworn in again, that Kevin will be able to play a really important role representing Australia ably to that administration.

“That’s his focus right now and obviously that’s the focus of our country.”

Marles said he did not know whether Rudd specifically had relationships with Trump’s new appointments, but reiterated the ambassador had a “real impact” advancing Australia’s national interests with Republicans.

“I really have no doubts about Kevin’s ability to do that with the Trump Administration going forward,” Marles said.

Liberal Senator Dean Smith broke ranks with his colleagues on Wednesday to call for the government to recall Rudd from the US capital because he would struggle to advance Australia’s interests under a Trump administration.

Continuing with Donald Trump’s appointments to his administration, and his decision to nominate a Fox News host as his secretary of defence has sent the public scrambling to learn more.

Pete Hegseth, 44, is a co-host of Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends Weekend and has been a contributor with the network since 2014. He developed a friendship with Trump, who made regular appearances on the show.

Hegseth was an infantry captain in the Army National Guard and served overseas in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He was the former head of Concerned Veterans for America, a group backed by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch, and unsuccessfully ran for the Senate in Minnesota in 2012.

He also championed the case of four former Blackwater contractors convicted in a 2007 Baghdad shooting rampage that killed more than a dozen Iraqi civilians. They were pardoned by Trump – one of his final acts in office.

You can learn more about Hegseth here.

Reuters, AP

Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles has congratulated Fox News host Pete Hegseth on his appointment as Donald Trump’s new secretary of defence.

Speaking on ABC Afternoon Briefing, Marles sidestepped a question about whether he saw the appointment coming, but said he was keen to build a relationship with Hegseth as soon as possible given its fundamental importance to the US and Australia.

Here’s what Marles had to say:

I have not met Pete Hegseth but I do extend my congratulations to him on this very significant appointment.

Representing the United States government as the secretary of defence is a huge responsibility, and this will be an amazing opportunity for Pete Hegseth.

Certainly from my point of view, I worked more closely with my American counterpart, Lloyd Austin, than I would have with any other defence minister around the world. I’m sure that will be the case when Pete Hegseth becomes the secretary of defence.

It is a critically important part of the way in which our bilateral relationship exists, so much of what happens between our two countries happens through the prism of defence.

I very much look forward to meeting him and building a relationship which will help us take the alliance into the future.”

If Beijing officials were harbouring hope that a Trump 2.0 presidency – and its promise of an unpredictable dealmaker back in the Oval Office – could swing the turbulent fortunes of US-China relations in their favour, they have been shaken back to reality.

In amassing the team that he will take to the White House, President-elect Donald Trump has tapped two of Washington’s most trenchant China hawks for critical positions in his incoming administration.

Donald Trump at a rally in November with Marco Rubio, who is expected to be appointed secretary of state.Credit: AP

Republican congressman Mike Waltz is set to become his national security adviser, while Senator Marco Rubio is expected to become secretary of state, although his appointment is yet to be confirmed.

In tapping Waltz and Rubio, Trump has sent an early message to Beijing that Washington is unlikely to abandon Taiwan any time soon – or at the very least, he would have to go to war with his top foreign policy advisers first. Something that is also not out of the realm of possibility, Lisa Visentin writes.

Click here to read Visentin’s full story.

The Australian sharemarket continued its declines into Wednesday afternoon, weighed down by mining stocks and banks.

The slide follows a pullback in US stocks amid waning momentum for the “Trump trade,” which boosted Wall Street for days following Donald Trump’s presidential victory.

Wall Street retreated on Tuesday as the Trump trade lost steam.Credit: Reuters

The S&P/ASX 200 Index dropped by 92.10 points, or 1.1 per cent, to 8163.50 points as of 1pm AEDT, with all 11 sectors bar utilities declining. The Australian dollar gained modest ground, trading at 65.37 US cents. The losses came after the ASX slipped 0.1 per cent on Tuesday.

The stock market stayed in the red after data released by Australian Bureau of Statistics showed wages rose by 0.8 per cent in the year to September, matching analyst expectations. Wages increased by 3.5 per cent over the quarter, marking the fastest real wage growth since September 2020.

Read our full recap of the trading day here.

The corporate regulator has put super funds on notice over how they handle life insurance claims, after alleging industry fund giant Cbus took too long to process thousands of death and disability claims.

Late on Tuesday, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) launched Federal Court action saying Cbus had failed to identify and prevent delays that had affected 10,000 members since August 2022.

ASIC has taken Cbus Super, whose chairman is former federal treasurer Wayne Swan, to the Federal Court.Credit: Michael Quelch

The deputy chair of ASIC, Sarah Court, signalled on Wednesday that the corporate cop believed that the alleged failings at Cbus were a “broader industry issue” for super funds.

“So we are at the moment doing a deep-dive surveillance of superannuation trustees’ handling of death benefits claims more broadly. We are going to be writing to the CEOs and superannuation trustees shortly to really put them on notice as to what we are seeing and our concerns about that,” Court told a Sydney press conference.

She said ASIC would release a detailed report on the subject in early 2025, and “we may well have further enforcement action to follow”.

The corporate cop has previously said that a key focus was on “systemic” failure by funds to deliver essential services to members in a timely manner.

A Catholic diocese in regional Victoria has been found not liable for the sexual abuse of a young boy by one of its priests.

The High Court on Wednesday overturned on appeal a previous ruling by Victoria’s Supreme Court that Ballarat’s diocese was liable.

The High Court found the relevant legislation did not provide a basis for imposing vicarious liability because the priest was not an employee of the church.

The diocese and its current bishop, Paul Bird, were sued by a man who said he was sexually assaulted by Father Bryan Coffey at his parents’ home in Port Fairy in 1971 when he was five years old.

Click here to read the full story.

AAP