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Sally Rugg fails in interim bid to keep job with Monique Ryan
Paul Karp
Sally Rugg has failed in her bid to keep her job as a staffer for independent MP Monique Ryan pending the full trial of her fair work case alleging she was sacked for refusing “unreasonable” additional hours.
On Tuesday the federal court’s Justice Debra Mortimer ruled that the application for interlocutory relief be dismissed. Mortimer ruled that the case be listed for case management before 20 March.
To succeed in getting an injunction Rugg would have to have proved both that there was a serious question to be tried and that the balance of convenience favoured her keeping her job until the full trial.
We’ll bring you more when we have the judge’s full reasons.
Key events
The prime minister has done a question and answer session at the AFR business summit which began like this:
Host: Thanks, Prime Minister. My name is Phil Coorey, I’m the political editor of the AFR. And we’ve got time for a quick Q and A with the PM before he has to get back to Parliament. So, again, appreciate your time. This is the first time the summit has overlapped with a sitting day.
Anthony Albanese: I can give you a lift back.
Host: I’ve got to stay for Peter Dutton.
Albanese: The offer stands.
It is party room meeting day – we will bring you what was decided with the Greens, the Coalition and Labor very soon.
Paul Karp
Federal court finds it ‘not rational’ that Monique Ryan could resume constructive working relationship with Sally Rugg
We have a bit more detail from the judgment about why Justice Debra Mortimer found it would not be convenient for Sally Rugg to return to work for Monique Ryan.
The judge said there was a “live debate” about whether Ryan had lost trust and confidence in Rugg, about her working hours, and whether community engagement is part of her role.
She said:
It is not rational to contend that Dr Ryan can, or should be able to, put all this to one side and resume a constructive working relationship with Ms Rugg in what is on the evidence a pressured, extremely busy and demanding working atmosphere, at the best of times.”
Justice Mortimer also cited Rugg’s Instagram post to a private account that she was “devastated” to have missed out on the protections of the new code of conduct in parliament.
The judge accepted Ryan’s characterisation that this suggested Rugg was “subject to poor treatment” in her office.
“I do not see how this is the conduct of a person who wishes to return to work closely and professionally with Dr Ryan.”
The judge also cited two tweets that were “antithetical to the position on Covid-19 held by Dr Ryan” and one criticising the teal independents’ position on super tax concessions.
The judge also found that, given Rugg took stress leave in early December, it is likely her health would deteriorate further if she returned to work. Given the “untenable” relationship between Rugg and Ryan, a return to work would also be “likely to have adverse effects” on others in the office, she said.
Oxfam urges government to scrap stage-three tax cuts as cost of living continues to bite
Oxfam Australia is worried about the impact of another rate rise, given the number of people already in financial distress. The interest rate increases mean someone with a $500,000 mortgage is paying close to $1,000 more a month in interest than they were in April last year.
There are not too many average budgets that can stretch much beyond that.
Oxfam Australia’s chief executive, Lyn Morgain, said the organisation is bracing for further distress – and it wants the government to scrap the stage-three tax cuts and start taxing corporations posting large profits:
Oxfam is calling on the Australian government to scrap the inflationary Stage 3 tax cuts and instead to prioritise the funding of public services, such as affordable housing and a strong social safety net, that will lift people out of poverty and tackle the cost-of-living crisis.
We urge the government to overhaul tax laws that allow so many large corporations and high-income earners to avoid paying their fair share of tax, increase taxation of big earners and to introduce a windfall profits tax to stop corporations profiting off crises.
This new revenue would create a significant opportunity to address poverty, support First Nations communities, build our climate leadership, and grow our humanitarian and development assistance to ensure everyone has a chance at a better future without poverty.
Peter Hannam
How many more rate rises are on the horizon?
Economists and pretty much everyone will be surprised if the Reserve Bank does anything other than lift its cash rate by 25 basis point to 3.6%.
Rather, attention is likely to land on whether this sentence from last month’s rate rise commentary is repeated or modified:
“The Board expects that further increases in interest rates will be needed over the months ahead…”
Will there still be multiple rises to come? Or perhaps there will be a return from previous months of wording along the lines of, “the RBA is not on a preset course”, which would be taken to mean a pause is not far off in rate rises if we continue to see weakening economic data.
As it stands, investors reckon there would be two more quarter-point rises to come after today’s, with the RBA’s job done at about 4.1%.
Another rate rise will of course stir debate about whether there are alternatives to the “blunt tool” of interest rates. We looked at some of the alternatives here:
Anyway, we know you’ll be bolted to the blog for the next four hours or so, but pay close attention at 2.30pm (AEDT) when the RBA decision is scheduled to land.
Josh Butler
Is the No campaign calling for public funding?
The Coalition said yesterday they would vote against the Referendum Machinery Act unless the government gives public funding to the official Yes and No organisations – but the leader of the anti-voice campaign has just said he isn’t really calling for public funding.
Warren Mundine, leader of the Recognise A Better Way group, told Radio National this morning that he didn’t necessarily want taxpayer funds for his campaign – but said that if any money was going to one side, then equal cash should go to the other as well.
Jacinta Price, the Nationals senator and another leading voice in the No campaign, said on the ABC yesterday that “the line” for Coalition support for the machinery bill was the government setting up and funding official campaign bodies. The shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor, said the Coalition would oppose the bill if those conditions weren’t met.
The Labor government has repeatedly ruled out giving any funding to either side, with the PM Anthony Albanese noting this still washed out to equal funding for the campaigns – of zero dollars for both.
Mundine told RN that the No campaign wasn’t pushing for funding. The shadow special minister of state, Jane Hume, appearing shortly before Mundine on the same radio show, said the Coalition believed the campaigns needed public funding to meet technical and financial requirements of the referendum, such as around disclosing donors.
The machinery bill is likely to pass the House of Representatives today before heading to the Senate, where the government will propose some amendments. It’s understood these amendments will be relatively minor, and are unlikely to include mechanisms for independent fact-checking of the official information pamphlets, as the crossbench has asked for.
Guardian Australia has previously reported the independent ACT sentaor David Pocock wanted some fact-checking element of the pamphlets and real-time disclosure of donations. It’s understood he and the Greens may propose amendments to this effect in the Senate.
‘Balance of convenience’ insufficient for Rugg to keep her job in interim judgement, federal court rules
Paul Karp
Justice Debra Mortimer’s reasons for refusing to keep Sally Rugg in her job have been published.
Mortimer explained that she decided that the balance of convenience did not lie in keeping Rugg in the role until the full trial of her fair work claim.
The judge said the case could not commence until at least June, meaning “an interlocutory injunction would require Ms Rugg and Dr Ryan to be working closely together over a number of parliamentary sitting periods, and for a number of months” – even longer than they worked together before “initial differences of opinion” emerged.
The judge said:
Even on the most favourable view of Ms Rugg’s submissions about how responsibly they might each try to behave, I do not consider the situation is likely to be tolerable, let alone productive and workable, for either of them. The applicant’s submissions to the contrary had a significant degree of unreality about them.
They appeared to depend in part on a scenario in which Ms Rugg would set her own boundaries about what work she would do and how much work she considered reasonable, and Dr Ryan would – apparently because of Ms Rugg’s affidavit evidence in this proceeding – elect to modify her expectations accordingly so as to fit in with Ms Rugg’s perspective on these matters.
Aside from not reflecting at all that Dr Ryan is the office holder under the MOPS Act from whom Ms Rugg would be required to take directions (and not the other way round), this scenario also assumed that all of Ms Rugg’s claims were correct and that the workplace should be run accordingly until trial.
The judge clearly stated she is “not determining Ms Rugg’s overall claim”.
The RBA’s governor, Dr Phil Lowe, spoke about future rate rises (plural), and that has had an impact on what the market expects:
Hume: ‘appropriate funding’ not just promotional, involves cybersecurity, regulation and disclosure compliance as well
So what does appropriate funding mean?
Jane Hume:
Funding campaigns is not about giving them money for promotional materials or advertising or to actually campaign – it’s to ensure that both sides of the debate can establish themselves and ensure they comply with, for instance, the disclosure regimes, the regulatory regimes that are imposed upon elections so that they can have appropriate cyber security measures in place and this is really important. Cybersecurity measures should not be underestimated. The director general of Asio told us only two weeks ago that we’re seeing the highest level of foreign interference in Australia’s history.
So these are very simple and practical set of steps that put a structure around a referendum process that help our regulators, that help our security agencies to manage this referendum.
We know that there’s been foreign influence in other countries, for instance, you know, in Canada, their intelligence agencies said that they have uncovered plots to interfere in their 2021 election in order to create a minority government, they want that level of disruption and division.
Now a referendum shouldn’t cause disruption and division. We want to make sure that the process is robust as possible.
Yesterday, the Country Liberal senator Jacinta Price said the funding was a “line” the Coalition would vote the machinery legislation down over. Hume does not go as far.
On these grounds alone, I think that it’s a good enough reason to have a very formal structure around your campaigns and at least a nominated official yes and a no campaign as conduits for that cybersecurity, for our agencies to make sure that they can do the regulatory and compliance job that they need to do.
This is the best way to have a robust … referendum and, let’s face it, all Australians deserve a successful referendum. No matter what the question is.
Coalition looking not just at voice referendum but at ‘referenda into the future’
What does the Coalition want in the referendum machinery bill? (That’s the legislation updating how referendums are held.)
Senator Jane Hume told RN Breakfast:
Well, this is a really important to understand because we want people to understand that this is not simply a bill about a voice referendum on a voice to parliament. It’s a bill about referenda into the future.
So when the Coalition looked at it, we said well, if this were a referendum about making Australia a republic, or putting more parliamentarians in parliament house, what would Australia expect from their referendum?
They would expect a pamphlet with a yes and a no case that’s been the case since 1912. They would also expect an official yes campaign, an official no campaign and they would expect those to be appropriately funded.
Now, why is that important? Because the other things that this bill will do is make this referendum look and feel like an election.
And the elections now have things like donation laws, they have foreign donation laws and have foreign interference laws as well. And in an age of disinformation and the highest level of foreign interference in our history, we believe it is fundamentally important that the government takes the lead and provides clear information to Australians and a strong referendum process that Australians can rely upon and trust.
Sally Rugg fails in interim bid to keep job with Monique Ryan
Paul Karp
Sally Rugg has failed in her bid to keep her job as a staffer for independent MP Monique Ryan pending the full trial of her fair work case alleging she was sacked for refusing “unreasonable” additional hours.
On Tuesday the federal court’s Justice Debra Mortimer ruled that the application for interlocutory relief be dismissed. Mortimer ruled that the case be listed for case management before 20 March.
To succeed in getting an injunction Rugg would have to have proved both that there was a serious question to be tried and that the balance of convenience favoured her keeping her job until the full trial.
We’ll bring you more when we have the judge’s full reasons.
This was the expected outcome on the interim injunction – and this stage, there is still a federal court case on the claims to come.
Coalition accuses Labor’s super changes of ‘relying on retirees’ to fix budget hole
A little earlier this morning, the shadow finance minister, Jane Hume, was asked on ABC Radio RN Breakfast why the Coalition won’t support the super changes, given her concerns about budget management.
Hume says the government is “relying on retirees” to fix its budget mess from what she says was “some of that enormous election wish list that the Labor government came to government with”.
Which is a stretch, given we are not talking a lot of savings with this measure, and it only impacts 88,000 people. So it is not exactly your average “retiree”.
Hume says that because super is compulsory, the contract is that you get a concessional tax rate. But you do still get a concessional rate. 30% on earnings over $3m is still a concessional tax rate. It is not 45%, which is what you’d be paying if it was income.
Albanese heading to India today
Anthony Albanese will be on his way to India a little bit later today. He told the AFR Business Summit:
I’ll be joined on that trip by 25 CEOs and business leaders – in transport, resources, finance, higher education, architecture and energy – one of the biggest and most significant Australian business delegations to ever visit any of our trading partners.
Australia and India are Indo-Pacific partners through the Quad – and I’m looking forward to hosting the Quad leaders’ summit in the middle of the year.
Our two nations share a rich history – bound by our democratic values and enlivened by genuine friendship and fierce sporting rivalry. By any measure, Australia is a better place because of our large, diverse and aspirational Indian-Australian community.
Yet for all of this, in 2021-22, India was only Australia’s sixth-largest goods and services trading partner. We can elevate that – and not just by volume.
Our government is seeking to deepen and diversify Australia’s trade links.
Greater diversity in who we trade with – and greater variety in what we trade, meaning our economy is more resilient and more secure.
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