As it happened: Budget to include pre-election cash splash; All public schools to be fully funded

A dozen staff were investigated for sexual misconduct at one of Australia’s leading universities and six dismissed last year, according to a new report.

There were 21 complaints made against University of Melbourne staff in 2024, a substantial increase from seven in 2023, according to the institution’s sexual misconduct report.

Some complaints were brought by more than one complainant and one matter involved more than two respondents.

Six staff were dismissed at Melbourne University for sexual misconduct. Credit: Simon Schluter

Of the six staff let go, four related to misconduct investigated in 2023, two related to complaints substantiated in 2024.

There were also 23 complaints made against students, five of those remain under investigation and seven substantiated.

They included sexual comments, inappropriate online comments, unwelcome sexual advances, stalking, inappropriate touching and unwelcome general sexualised behaviour. One student was expelled, three were suspended with conditions put on re-enrolment and three students faced combined penalties.

University of Melbourne Provost, Professor Nicola Phillips, said significant progress had been made since the first report was published four years ago, but there was more work to be done.

“Everyone in our university is entitled to expect an environment that is safe, positive and enriching,” Phillips said.

“No individual in our community should be subjected to sexual harassment or sexual assault as they go about their studies or work, and everyone should expect – and insist on – an environment which is characterised by professionalism and respect.”

Thanks for joining us today and reading the national news blog.

Here are some of the major headlines today:

• Teal MP Monique Ryan and her husband Peter Jordan apologised after he was filmed removing a Liberal corflute, prompting calls for her to apologise on camera.
• With the federal budget set to be handed down on Tuesday night, the Coalition claimed it would “restore fiscal guardrails” and return the national books to surplus if it wins power.
• Independent senator David Pocock said that the $150 energy rebates promised by the federal government were a “Band-Aid” solution, arguing that electrification of households would lead to much bigger savings.
• Every public school student will have a fully-funded education after the federal government bowed to demands from the final holdout state, Queensland.
• Victorian Opposition Leader Brad Battin called for the controversial $35 billion Suburban Rail Loop to be cancelled over concerns about its cost.
• Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has defended the South Sydney Rabbitohs NRL mascot Charlie Gallico, known as Reggie The Rabbit, after he was accused of punching a nine-year-old in the face.

Underworld figure Mick Gatto has denied all allegations published in this masthead and on 60 Minutes.

Gatto has also expressed his unhappiness with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and Liberal senator James Paterson, who he says repeated some of the claims after they were aired.

Gatto’s concerns stem from reporting by Nine journalist Nick McKenzie in The Age and on 60 Minutes which among other things revealed how gangland and bikie-linked figures are receiving large payments from companies that are contracted on publicly funded projects such as Victoria’s Big Build.

Geoffrey Watson, QC, previously confirmed with this masthead that subcontractors on the Big Build had been paying Gatto to sort out union-related issues as recently as a few weeks ago, claiming he had “seen evidence of it”, and that bikies who once ruled sections of the Big Build were still extorting state government subcontractors

At a press conference in Melbourne last Monday, Dutton called Gatto an “organised crime figure”, while Paterson also referred to Gatto.

In a statement on Monday, Gatto said he denied all accusations made against him, calling them “baseless, sensationalised, and damaging to my reputation and personal life”.

“I have always conducted my business and personal affairs with integrity,” he said.

Gatto has demanded Dutton and Paterson retract their comments, and said he would explore “all legal avenues” in responding to the claims.

A big “For Sale” sign has gone up outside dozens of Australia’s private hospitals, but the real concern is why. Healthscope, operator of the hospitals, is on the verge of collapse, unable to pay landlords and lenders what they are owed.

For those scratching their heads over what is at stake, here’s a refresher.

Healthscope has 38 private hospitals – including Sydney’s Northern Beaches Hospital, Holmesglen Private Hospital and the Melbourne Clinic – which house 5000 beds and employ 17,000 staff across the country.

Healthscope nurses and midwives walked off the job in November to demand a 15 per cent pay rise.

State and federal health ministers will be among those watching closely to ensure that Healthscope’s precarious financial position does not translate into health failures – especially given a tragedy at Northern Beaches recently.

We are a long way from the days when Healthscope owner Brookfield Asset Management confidently predicted Healthscope might never change ownership if a $4.4 billion cash takeover succeeded.

“We’ve been owner-operators for over 100 years,” Brookfield’s head of private equity, Len Chersky, said in February 2019, when its takeover bid was in the ascendancy.

“We’re a long-term, patient investor and when you look at it on a 10-year basis, the tailwinds are undeniable,” Chersky said at the time about the long-term opportunity Australia’s ageing population provided to a business such as Healthscope.

As a global financial giant with more than $1 trillion in assets under management, Brookfield had, and still has, the financial heft to back Chersky’s confident prediction.

So what has hurt Healthscope so badly that even a trillion-dollar financial giant is threatening to walk away from a group that operates such an essential part of Australia’s health infrastructure?

Read the full story here.

A Victorian teacher who was sacked after starting a romantic relationship with a student soon after the student graduated from high school faces a years-long ban from teaching.

Eleanor Louise Yorke faced a disciplinary hearing at the Victorian Institute of Teaching on Monday over allegations of serious misconduct while she was a teacher at a private school in Melbourne’s south-east in 2020.

Former teacher Eleanor Yorke has been suspended from teaching and her registration is now at risk after admitting to an inappropriate relationship with a student.

Yorke was 26 and the former student was 18 when they began dating soon after the student graduated at the end of 2020. The relationship continued for a year.

Yorke, 31, started her career at Carey Baptist Grammar School in 2017 after completing a teaching master’s degree at the University of Melbourne. She quickly rose through the ranks at the school, and by 2020, she was teaching chemistry and biology to year 12 students and was promoted to head of digital learning.

It was during COVID-19 that she and the year 12 student, who cannot be named for legal reasons, began to bond by chatting online using Microsoft Teams. The then 17-year-old student struggled to cope with lockdowns and sought additional help for schoolwork through Yorke and the pair started to speak daily.

Yorke said she tried to “reset” the boundaries between herself and the student, but things continued in a “friendly” vein, the hearing was told.

The teacher had “frequent and familiar communication” with the teenager throughout 2020, and contacted them about 35,000 times via Microsoft Teams, the regulator said.

Read the full story here.

Dentists want federal government action to ensure private health insurers can’t hide behind hidden policy conditions.

The Australian Dental Association is urging tougher laws to provide more transparency, saying there is confusion and uncertainty around private health insurance extras.

“They sign up for policies believing these will make medical and dental care more affordable but say they don’t know what’s covered,” association president Chris Sanzaro said of its members and patients.

Dentists want more transparency for private health policies. Credit: Stocksy

“The policy small print doesn’t even cover what’s included and what isn’t – hidden ‘business rules’ from insurers deny claims at the time they’re needed.

“Consumers have no visibility of this unless they take a quote in – which is not always achievable with urgent situations – or when they get denied at the time of claiming.”

The association has spoken out after Private Healthcare Australia welcomed a move for specialist doctors to be obligated to disclose fees on the government’s Medical Costs Finder website.

“Whilst PHA calls for more transparency in medical fees, the ADA calls for more transparency in health insurance products,” Sanzaro said.

Private health insurance premiums were rising at a higher rate than dental fees, he said.

A 3.73 per cent increase in private health insurance premiums was announced by Treasurer Jim Chalmers from April 1, compared with 3.03 per cent the previous year.

Sanzaro said the rise was coming at a time when dentists have tried to assist patients by keeping fees below inflation.

“It may well be a step too far for many households holding health insurance,” he said.

“This could be the cost-of-living blowout that sees people ditching their [private health insurance] and avoiding essential medical care including dentistry.

Private Healthcare Australia said there was no evidence health insurance premiums were increasing at a higher rate than dental fees.

AAP

Australian small business owners squeezed between rising costs and cautious consumer spending desperately need federal budget measures that roll back red tape in a meaningful way instead of tinkering around the edges, advocates have said.

Gavan Ord, a business policy adviser at accounting industry body CPA Australia, said the major parties on both sides of politics were equally to blame over the amount of regulation, which businesses have long complained is too complex and onerous.

Tuesday’s federal budget needs meaningful measures to cut red tape, say the small business lobby.Credit: Marija Ercegovac

“It’s more than cutting existing red tape. They need to put a cultural shift towards reducing the growth of new regulation,” Ord said.

“That’s not necessarily something they can put in the budget, but they can signal it to say, ‘We’re not only going to tackle existing regulation, but we’re going to proactively manage the growth of new regulation.’”

Small businesses are “drowning in regulatory complexity”, according to the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia, which is urging the government to launch targeted policies to help alleviate energy, rent and insurance costs.

“The cost of compliance is a hidden tax on small businesses,” CEO Luke Achterstraat said.

“Every hour spent navigating complex regulations is an hour not spent growing the business, creating jobs, or serving customers. Cutting red tape is an economic necessity.”

About one in two small businesses are failing to break even. Australian small businesses rank 10th out of 11 countries in the Asia-Pacific region when it comes to growth, which is in part due to the higher average age of small business owners (50 years old).

More needed to be done to encourage people under 40 to be entrepreneurial, Ord said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has defended the South Sydney Rabbitohs NRL mascot Charlie Gallico, known as Reggie The Rabbit, after he was accused of punching a nine-year-old in the face.

The investigation was launched after the mother of the child posted on social media claiming Gallico, 80, had assaulted her son, who she said was in shock after the incident.

Charlie Gallico, aka Reggie The Rabbit.Credit: Getty Images

Asked about the incident, Albanese said Gallico was someone he had known since he started in the 1990s.

“Charlie is a very gentle person ... he is a very small man and he goes in the Bunnies mascot outfit every week. He is a lovely fella,” Albanese said.

“If anything wrong has been done, I’m sure he would be the first to apologise. He would not want to hurt anybody and I have seen nine-year-olds who are bigger than Charlie.”

Victoria’s Suburban Rail Loop should be cancelled, state opposition leader Brad Battin says, in a strengthening of the Coalition’s stance on the project.

Following the release of an Infrastructure Australia report that had low confidence in the project’s cost and funding methods, Battin said on Monday that Premier Jacinta Allan should cancel the loop.

The Coalition has previously suggested the project, the first stage of which is slated to cost $34.5 billion, should be paused, with three major contracts already signed and more under negotiation.

Victorian opposition leader Brad Battin.Credit: Christopher Hopkins

Battin stopped short of saying the rail loop would be scrapped if he were elected premier in 2026, but said he was calling on Allan to immediately cancel its contracts for the first leg of the project, which he said was not needed.

“Cancel the contracts as soon as possible and save Victorians from going broke from your pet project,” Battin said.

“Why don’t they take responsibility for what they’ve put out there, for the mistakes they’ve made and how much it’s going to cost Victorians. And the only way to do that is to ensure that this project is cancelled.”

The Infrastructure Australia report released on Friday said no further federal funding should be committed to SRL East, beyond $2.2 billion pledged in the 2022 election, until it was re-costed, more details were provided about the charges that would be used to fund a third of its price tag, and it was clear whether the project stacked up financially on its own.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says the government is stepping up its advertising campaign for Australians overseas following the death of teenagers Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles.

The government launched a new safety campaign to raise awareness of the risks of drinking alcohol overseas after Jones and Bowles died in Laos last year from methanol poisoning.

Speaking from the outer-Melbourne suburb of Donnybrook, Albanese paid tribute to Bowles and Jones.

Bianca Jones (left) and Holly Bowles died after a suspected mass drink poisoning.

“This was a tragedy that shouldn’t have happened, and one of the things that we are doing is ramping up our advertising campaign to increase awareness of the alcohol-related risks of overseas travel for some time,” Albanese said.

“[Having a drink at a bar in Laos] was a reasonably harmless thing to do ... we’re one of the great travelling populations of the world, but need to be made safe, and this advertising campaign funded by the federal government, is about doing that.”