As it happened: Woolworths launches bid to end $50 million union blockade; Hundreds of responses to The Age/SMH medical misogyny survey in one day

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 afternoon’s major stories:

• The Age and Sydney Morning Herald’s investigation into medical misogyny has launched with a survey that has already attracted hundreds of submissions. If you have experienced gender-based discrimination in healthcare, please take a minute to read about our series and fill in the survey here.
• The Western Australia premier downplayed his role in thwarted Nature Positive laws, after revelations Prime Minister Anthony Albanese bent to pressure over mining interests.
• Booze shortages at BWS and Dan Murphy’s are the latest hit to consumers as the Woolworths workers strike enters its thirteenth day.

Commuters are facing peak-hour chaos as major delays wreak havoc on multiple train lines in Melbourne CBD due to an “equipment fault” in the Flinders Street area.

“There are literally hundreds of confused people at Southern Cross not having any clue what to do,” one commuter reported. “I just sat on a train on the Kings Way bridge for 55 minutes.

“Sirens sounding at the station too.”

Commuters at Southern Cross Station during delays on all lines due to a signal fault at Flinders Street Station.Credit: Melissa Singer

Below are the impacted train lines:

• Alamein: Minor Delays
• Belgrave: Minor Delays
• Craigieburn: Minor Delays
• Cranbourne: Major Delays
• Frankston: Major Delays
• Glen Waverley: Minor Delays
• Hurstbridge: Minor Delays
• Lilydale: Minor Delays
• Mernda: Minor Delays
• Pakenham: Major Delays
• Sandringham: Suspended
• Sunbury: Minor Delays
• Upfield: Minor Delays

Follow updates on Metro Trains social media below:

Builders have vented their frustration with Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke and Skills Minister Andrew Giles after a briefing on government policy on migration, which left some key jobs off the official list of skills that are in the greatest shortage.

The new policy on “core” skills will add more building jobs to the official list, a crucial factor for employers when they bring in a skilled foreign worker, and could make it easier to bring in plumbers, bricklayers and carpenter joiners.

Master Builders Australia chief executive Denita Wawn wants the priority jobs list expanded.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The peak industry group, Master Builders Australia, welcomed the additions to the list but said the changes should have gone further. The industry thinks the government should have added other jobs in national shortage – such as bulldozer operators, crane operators, drillers, excavator operators, grader operators, scaffolders, steel fixers and structural steel erectors.

“We remain dismayed that in the middle of a housing crisis and chronic labour shortages, key roles in the industry have been left off the list,” said Master Builders chief executive Denita Wawn. “You can’t build a house, schools, hospitals or roads without crane, bulldozer and excavator operators, who have not made the cut.”

The key concern is that the cost of construction has risen 40 per cent over the last five years and skill shortages are a key factor. But this does not mean builders are blocked from bringing in a foreign crane or bulldozer operator.

The Core Skills Occupation List allows employers to gain faster entry for workers, often at a lower cost, but does not block other pathways. A builder could bring in a bulldozer operator on a “skilled independent” subclass 189 visa, for instance, by paying a fee of $4765 and doing labour market testing to prove local workers could not be found.

Migration expert Abul Rizvi, a former deputy secretary in the immigration department, said some claims about the list were overblown – such as the Coalition’s claim earlier this year that government wanted more yoga teachers than construction workers. The government allowed 11,349 skilled building workers into the country last year.

Rizvi said bulldozer operators were semi-skilled workers who could be trained in Australia over less time and at lower cost than carpenters and plumbers, so federal authorities were always reluctant to add them to shortage lists. He said adding them to the list should not be necessary when builders could encourage local workers to gain the TAFE skills to do the jobs.

“There’s no shortage of Australians who would probably take those jobs if you paid them enough,” he said. “Train people from the humanitarian intake, for instance: we bring in 20,000 every year in that program.”

He acknowledged that only some refugees would be of working age and suitable for construction work.

The key problem, Rizvi said, was the increase in visa fees and the slowdown in processing times for skilled foreign workers when the previous government scrapped the subclass 457 visa six years ago. He said the minister responsible was Peter Dutton, then in charge of home affairs and immigration.

The sale of this city car park in Melbourne’s CBD has sparked fury and speculation about whether a certain billionaire and hospitality mogul may be coming to town ... again.

Melbourne City Council is selling the car park at 36-40 Little Collins Street.Credit: Joe Armao

Leading the rumour mill is that Justin Hemmes, who owns hospitality giant Merivale, is one of the potential buyers with plans to build a mega nightclub like the Ivy in Sydney.

Hemmes, who agreed to pay $19.25 million to former staff this week, who allege they were underpaid, has already bought the adjacent building, which houses the Argentinian steak restaurant San Telmo and the pizzeria Pizza Pizza Pizza.

An “under exclusive offer” sticker has gone up on the car park’s for sale sign.Credit: Joe Armao

Read the story by The Age’s city editor Cara Waters here.

SKM Services and its director, Robert Italiano, have been convicted of a series of criminal charges over a fire at a recycling centre in 2017 that blanketed two Melbourne suburbs with thick acrid smoke.

Following a criminal trial in the County Court last week, SKM was found guilty by a jury of aggravated pollution by negligently causing or permitting an environmental hazard which resulted in a substantial risk of a serious threat to public health.

The jury also found the company guilty of three charges of polluting the atmosphere. Italiano, SKM’s sole director, pleaded guilty to a charge of polluting the atmosphere ahead of the trial – a fact that was suppressed from publication during the trial into SKM last week.

The sprawling SKM facility – where kerbside rubbish from several Melbourne councils was recycled – was so large that after the fire, 1111 truckloads of waste were deemed no longer suitable for recycling and had to be taken to rubbish tips.

The blaze at SKM’s plant in Coolaroo was so fierce that local residents told the court the fire fallout had left their lungs burning, eyes stinging and – days later – the ground covered in still-smouldering ash. It led to mass evacuations of properties in Dallas and Coolaroo as well as business premises and a local hotel.

One witness at the trial, Dallas resident Colleen Kirwan, told the court she only spent a small time outside her home packing the car and checking on an elderly neighbour before becoming overwhelmed by the smoke from the fire.

“It was awful,” she told the court during the trial.

“I’d never seen anything like it before. I hated it. It was like Armageddon – it was horrible.

“There was just orange glow in the distance towards the north of our house, and it was full of smoke, and it was really acrid and very choking.”

SKM and Italiano now face penalties in excess of $1.5 million. The case will return to court for sentencing later this week.

The powerful pubs and clubs lobby has refused to back the key recommendations in a long-awaited report into NSW’s gambling system released on Tuesday, insisting there was no credible evidence it would work.

The executive committee of the Independent Panel on Gaming Reform, which was set up by the NSW government to conduct a trial of cashless gaming technology, has proposed a central database for poker machine players that would mitigate money laundering by requiring them to be identified.

It would be mandatory to hold an account, which would be set up with default time and spend limits, but these would be non-binding and players could elect to opt out of them, and cash would be allowable up to a certain threshold.

The committee said in its final communique that the recommendations offered the government a balanced way forward that prioritised harm minimisation while also giving industry time to transition in a manner that protected its viability.

But the report has already been politicised, with the Australian Hotels Association and ClubsNSW – both represented on the advisory panel – scathing of evidence used to underpin the recommendations. The AHA described the final report as “embarrassing and not credible”.

Full story here.

Greens leader Adam Bandt has called on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to “stare down Gina Rinehart” after the Nature Positive bill was killed off last week following an intervention from West Australia Premier Roger Cook.

Greens leader Adam Bandt has criticised the government for bending to miners on the proposed nature laws. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Bandt told ABC’s Afternoon Briefing:

I think the takeaway message is that the prime minister needs to stare down Gina Rinehart, but nature can’t wait. We have an environment and an extinction crisis. Koalas in many parts of the country are in crisis because of habitat being cleared. We need strong laws to protect it. Where we ended up, was it as far as the Greens would have liked? No. We would have liked to have seen an end to all native forest logging, but it would have been a good step forward. But sadly, Labor did what the miners and loggers told them.”

The story was broken by our national energy reporter Mike Foley last week, and Albanese’s decision has since been celebrated by Australia’s biggest miners.

Journalist Emily Kaine explains what medical misogyny is and why The Age and Sydney Morning Herald want to hear from you in this short video:

And if you have an experience of medical misogyny, don’t forget to fill in the survey below and share with your friends and family:

Watch Tim Kennedy from the United Workers Union address the media in the Melbourne suburb of Dandenong on the 13th day of the strike by Woolworths workers:

Heavyweight industry super fund Cbus has failed to sufficiently demonstrate that its controversial relationship with the disgraced construction union, CFMEU, improved member outcomes, according to an independent review.

The $94 billion superannuation giant on Tuesday released the review it was ordered to undertake by the financial regulator APRA, amid corporate governance concerns.

Cbus, chaired by Wayne Swan, has become the poster child for industry super’s woes.Credit: Michael Quelch

“A review of the expenditure decisions and related benefits revealed an absence of clearly articulated member outcomes resulting from the documented benefits,” the report by Deloitte found.

“While there is a shared understanding of the benefits of partnership agreements, the benefits outlined in the Partnership Agreements and accompanying benefits schedule are not sufficiently detailed to effectively demonstrate the benefits that partnership agreements deliver to improve member outcomes.”

Follow developments here.