As it happened: PM activates disaster recovery allowance; Labor’s WA election win gives federal government hope

This concludes our coverage for the national blog today. Thank you for joining us.

We will be back tomorrow for some more live coverage of Australia and beyond, but until then, here’s a recap of today’s news:

• US President Donald Trump has lashed former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in a late-night social media post calling him “weak and ineffective”.
• NSW Police say a caravan laden with explosives and a list of possible Jewish targets found in Sydney’s north-west was a plot by organised crime to further their own needs.
• Queensland and NSW are continuing to deal with the devastation caused by ex-tropical cyclone Alfred, with flash flooding expected in some parts of both states.
• Insurance Council of Australia chief executive Andrew Hall says there are 3900 insurance claims over damage caused by ex-tropical cyclone Alfred, with the number climbing each day.
• In Perth, WA Opposition Leader Shane Love has called for WA Electoral Commissioner Robert Kennedy to be suspended over conduct concerns during Saturday’s state election.
• WA Liberal MP and opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie has delivered a scathing assessment of his party’s obsession with progressive inner-city seats.
• Accusations of censorship and misinformation are flying around parliament as senators duel over offshore wind farms, foreshadowing high-stakes battles in the coming federal election.
• Star Entertainment has been offered a new funding offer from a US gambling giant, in a twist in the ailing casino operator’s rescue efforts.
• Former Liberal Party staffer Bruce Lehrmann has changed solicitors months before he’s expected to stand trial accused of two counts of rape.

And back to the US, where immigration authorities have arrested a Palestinian activist who played a prominent role in Columbia University’s protests against Israel.

The arrest, which occurred on Saturday (US time), constitutes a significant escalation in the Trump administration’s pledge to detain and deport student activists.

US President Donald Trump.Credit: Bloomberg

Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia until last December, was inside his university-owned apartment when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents entered and took him into custody, his lawyer Amy Greer said.

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed Khalil’s arrest in a statement on Sunday (US time), describing it as being “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism”.

Khalil’s arrest is the first publicly known deportation effort under Trump’s promised crackdown on students who joined protests against the war in Gaza that swept college campuses last year.

The administration has claimed participants forfeited their rights to remain in the country by supporting Hamas.

AAP

US President Donald Trump’s animosity towards Malcolm Turnbull – Australia’s PM at the start of Trump’s first tenure as president – is probably unsurprising.

The relationship between the two men got off to a rocky start when they were leaders. In their first phone call, in February 2017, Trump slammed the deal Turnbull did with Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, to send 1250 refugees from Australian immigration detention to the US.

US President Donald Trump and former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.Credit: Bloomberg; Alex Ellinghausen

During the call, Trump also bragged about his election win and claimed it was the worst of the four calls with world leaders he had that day – including Vladimir Putin.

Turnbull has called Trump a “bully” in the past, mocked him at a midwinter ball, and has urged Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to stand up to him.

Last year Turnbull penned an essay titled How the world can deal with Trump, in which he mentioned he was “shaken but not surprised” at clashing with Trump during his prime ministership.

Just before Trump’s scathing post on Thursday, Turnbull had appeared on Bloomberg television in the US, speaking about the planned tariffs and arguing that Trump was playing into China’s hands.

“Where Trump is chaotic, he will be consistent. Where Trump is rude and abusive, he’ll be respectful,” Turnbull said.

“And what that will do is build trust with countries, and there will be many countries looking at China on one hand, Trump on the other, [that] will prefer China.”

After comments from both sides of politics that insurance companies are “ripping off” Australians, the industry itself has had its say this afternoon.

Andrew Hall, chief executive of the Insurance Council of Australia, told the ABC that ex-tropical cyclone Alfred had already generated 3900 insurance claims, and the number was climbing each day.

He blamed government red tape for payments being held up.

Andrew Hall, executive director and chief executive of the Insurance Council of Australia.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“As the event passes the emergency stage, insurers literally have hundreds of people stationed here in Brisbane and up and down the coast that will be going out and doing the assessments,” he said.

“Payments occur when there is a cash settlement for things like spoilage of food. That happens very fast. In fact, the only thing slowing it down now is government regulation that requires people to fill out all of these forms in order to get a payment of about four or $500.”

Hall said the industry was aware of its social licence.

“What we are more concerned about is the fact that ... there are 220,000 homes that have been built in high-risk flood zones and that less than one in four of those properties have insurance,” he said.

“That is what we want to talk to the government about, both at the federal and the state level – about taking some of the billions of dollars that they are collecting in taxes and building flood infrastructure so that we are not repeating the story every two to three years.”

The ripples continue after US President Donald Trump called ex-PM Malcolm Turnbull a “weak, ineffective” leader, with both sides of politics appearing on ABC News just now for their reactions.

The comments come at a crucial time, when Trump is about to decide whether to exempt Australia from steel and aluminium tariffs.

Opposition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Jane Hume, a shadow minister for the Coalition, which was in power when Turnbull was prime minister, was keen to draw attention to Turnbull’s success last time this was an issue.

“I can’t explain this tweet or what is going on in Donald Trump’s cosmic mind, but we would hope that the current government is able to do what Malcolm Turnbull did and secure those exemptions that come into effect potentially in the next couple of days,” she said.

“The economic implications of allowing them to go ahead are quite serious.”

Towards the end of his term, in April 2018, Turnbull presided over Australia getting an exemption from both steel and aluminium tariffs.

Queensland senator Murray Watt, meanwhile, stuck to the government line of not providing a “running commentary” on Trump.

“What we have also been clear about is we won’t be copying and pasting policies from the United States in the way we’ve seen Peter Dutton and the Coalition do,” he said.

Former Liberal Party staffer Bruce Lehrmann has changed solicitors months before he’s expected to stand trial accused of two counts of rape.

Sydney-based lawyer Zali Burrows has confirmed that she is now acting for Lehrmann in the Queensland District Court at Toowoomba.

Lehrmann is accused of raping a woman twice during the morning of October 10, 2021, after they met at a strip club the previous night in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane.

Lawyer Zali Burrows and her client Bruce Lehrmann.Credit: Edwina Pickles / Kate Geraghty

Sunshine Coast-based lawyer Rowan King has appeared for Lehrmann throughout his criminal matter in Queensland, which was first mentioned in court in January 2023.

Lehrmann was committed to stand trial at a mention hearing in Toowoomba in January this year.

King earlier told Judge Dennis Lynch that Lehrmann’s barrister would apply for a judge-alone trial.

In Queensland, the grounds for holding a trial without a jury include that the hearings would be lengthy or complex, or both, or “there has been significant pre-trial publicity that may affect jury deliberations”.

Burrows has previously represented Lehrmann at the Federal Court in Sydney over Lehrmann’s appeal after losing a defamation case he brought against Network Ten, and his attempts to avoid paying costs and sureties.

Lehrmann’s Toowoomba case is due for a pre-trial directions hearing on March 27.

AAP

A caravan laden with explosives and a list of possible Jewish targets found on a suburban street in Sydney’s north-west this summer was not a potential mass casualty terror event, but a plot by organised crime to further their own ends, police say.

Officers from NSW Police and the Australian Federal Police have given a press conference this afternoon after conducting raids and making a number of arrests today, following the discovery on a property in Dural in mid-January after reports a caravan had been dumped on the side of the road.

NSW Police Deputy Commissioner David Hudson.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

NSW Police Deputy Commissioner David Hudson said it was apparent from today’s arrests that incidents being investigated by strike forces Pearl and Kissinger, set up following a spate of antisemitic incidents, as well as the Dural caravan incident, “were orchestrated by an organised crime element and conducted to further their own causes”.

“None of the individuals we have arrested during Pearl have displayed any form of antisemitic ideology,” he said. “However, the threats [to] the community through the use of arson and the presence of explosives was very real.

“I understand the angst these incidents have had on the Jewish community, who we have been in constant contact with. We don’t believe there is any ongoing threat to the community from a terrorist act.

“However, outside of Pearl, we are continuing to see antisemitic incidents, and each of these will be fully investigated.”

Scott Marshall, his partner Tammie Farrugia and their friend Simon Nichols were named on the warrants executed by police in the days after the discovery of the caravan. None of the three have been charged with terrorism-related offences.

Progress in the investigation had been closely guarded since, but last month this masthead revealed organised crime had emerged as a major investigative theory.

And now to Victoria, where Australian businessman Lindsay Fox has broken a lifetime habit of sitting on the political fence to erect a campaign poster of local Liberal candidate Amelia Hamer on his Toorak wall.

Thanks to the Australian Electoral Commission’s decision to abolish the seat of Higgins, Fox’s Toorak home is now in the electorate of Kooyong, the seat won by independent Monique Ryan from former treasurer Josh Frydenberg at the 2022 election.

Lindsay and Paula Fox have erected a campaign poster for the Liberal Party’s candidate for Kooyong, Amelia Hamer, outside their Toorak home.Credit: Chris Hopkins

Fox’s decision to put up a royal blue billboard of Hamer promising to “get Australia back on track” has added to the intrigue about whether, just three years after the teal rebellion, the empire could strike back in Kooyong.

Fox told this masthead his support for Hamer had more to do with mateship than his personal political leanings.

Hamer’s great uncle was Sir Rupert Hamer, a long-serving Liberal premier of Victoria known to his friends as Dick. Fox counted himself as one of those friends.

Read the full story here.

NSW Police Deputy Commissioner David Hudson and Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Krissy Barrett are about to address the media about the investigations into antisemitic incidents in Sydney.

Watch the press conference live by using the player below. Please refresh your browser if you experience any issues.

And back across the Nullarbor to Perth, where state Opposition Leader Shane Love has called for West Australian Electoral Commissioner Robert Kennedy to be suspended, and a parliamentary inquiry launched over conduct concerns during Saturday’s state election.

Love, a Nationals MP, said there were increasing reports of irregularities after the WAEC outsourced the election to a private company based in Singapore.

The outcome of Saturday’s election could be delayed due to a record number of early votes.Credit: WA Electoral Commission

“It’s not sufficient to allow the electoral commission itself to review this matter, that would be like asking a fox to review the security of a henhouse,” Love said.

“We actually need to ensure that the West Australian public has confidence in their electoral process, and I think many West Australians would be surprised to know that a private company had been involved in the conduct of their election, and they would also be very concerned to know that voters had been turned away from polling booths after having been instructed that they would be ticked off as if they had voted.

“It’s not a matter of whether or not someone is ticked off the roll, it’s whether they have had a right to have a democratic expression through their vote, and not allowing that to happen is an abject failure of the commission.”

Love also claimed he had heard stories of election staff not being trained in their roles, some voters being asked for identification that is not required, and ballot boxes not being secured.