Australia news live: Wong warns Israel against Rafah assault; some companies using market power to ‘price gouge’ customers, RBA governor says | Australia news

Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock is before senate estimates this morning, saying, among other things, that she doesn’t think the RBA’s rate rise in November was a mistake. (It would be big news if she did.)

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Another issue being probed, by NSW Liberal senator, Andrew Bragg, is the central bank’s “forward guidance”, or projections made during the Covid period and since dropped. Of course, the most notorious guidance was given by Bullock’s predecessor Philip Lowe, in late 2021 that interest rates were unlikely to rise until 2024.

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Bullock has come to Lowe’s defence, reminding people that the RBA at the time had qualified the guidance by saying the bank wouldn’t move until inflation was “sustainably” within its target band of 2%-3%.

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It was always conditional, it was always caveated,” she said, adding the message was “very, very clear in my view”.

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Bullock said if “the media, whoever” did not include Lowe’s (and the RBA’s) caveats, that was “unhelpful”.

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Many people who took out big mortgages at the time, and then were hit by the biggest rise in interest rates in about 30 years might query the emphasis put on the caveats at the time.

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The RBA being big consumers of the media and monitoring market behaviour had opportunities to intervene to make sure the conditions that might trigger a rate rise were better understood. Perhaps having a revamped media team to help communications might avoid a repeat of messages not cutting through.

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Speaking of the economy, Bullock said the bank thinks Australia is relatively well-placed. “We think we’re in a good position to get inflation down in a reasonable amount of time while still keeping employment growing,” she said.

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We’ll get ABS figures on the labour market in January at 11.30am aedt, so we’ll get an update on how employment is going. The market expects the economy added a net 25,000 jobs last month, a figure that won’t be enough to stop the jobless rate ticking up to 4%.

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We’ll find out soon enough.

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Coalition senator Simon Birmingham asks for clarity on what limits the Australian government is seeking, or caveats it has in mind, when it tells Israel regarding Rafah: “do not go down this path”.

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The foreign minister, Penny Wong, says Australia is reflecting the concerns of many in the international community. Wong reads out stark and similar quotes from Australia’s closest allies and partners including the US, the UK and Germany.

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Birmingham wants to know whether Australia is calling for no military activities in Rafah, or adopting the Joe Biden formulation of urging Israel to not proceed unless credible plans are presented to protect civilians.

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Wong says her comments are “consistent with the principles of international law and international humanitarian law”. She says she intends to be “careful” in her language, given her position as foreign minister. Wong says she does not believe the international community has yet seen a credible and executable plan to protect more than one million civilians in Rafah.

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Birmingham refers to the recent rescue of two hostages by Israel in Rafah and asks:

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How does your statement sit or do you wish to have it viewed in relation to operations or activities to secure the release of hostages who are still held by Hamas?

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Wong replies:

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We have been calling for the release of hostages since the commencement of this conflict.

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The government reiterates that it does not believe there is any place for Hamas in the governance of Gaza after the conflict.

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The foreign minister, Penny Wong, has strengthened the Australian government’s objections to a potential Israeli ground offensive in Rafah. She has told Senate estimates:

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I wish to restate the Australian government’s grave concerns about an impending major Israeli ground offensive in Rafah.

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This would bring further devastation to more than a million civilians seeking shelter.

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Large scale military operations in densely populated areas risk extensive civilian casualties.

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Australia believes this would be unjustifiable.

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Our message to Israel is: listen to the world; do not go down this path

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Anthony Albanese has announced his engagement to partner Jodie Haydon.

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She said yes ❤️ pic.twitter.com/aU1Mk2WInH

— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) February 14, 2024

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Industry minister Ed Husic has spoken to ABC radio RN Breakfast where he was once again asked about what is happening in Gaza.

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Husic spoke very plainly about Israel’s planned ground invasion of Rafah, which is now being referred to as the world’s largest refugee camp, with more than 1.5 million Gazans crammed into a small area against the Egyptian border. Rafah was designated a ‘safe’ zone by Israel, which had told Gazans to move there as it continued its war against Hamas.

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wait for relief food supplies in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah.”,”caption”:”As Palestinians wait for food relief in Rafah, the World Health Organisation has warned of an ‘unfathomable catastrophe’ from any potential expansion of the Israeli ground assault.”,”credit”:”Photograph: Xinhua/REX/Shutterstock”}},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

Husic:

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When you think about what is happening right now, I mean, more broadly, over the last few months, this has been a humanitarian catastrophe, but it’s a particular crisis given you’ve got about 1.5 million people crammed into an area that’s about the size of Heathrow Airport. These are people who have left homes that have been just completely destroyed …

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This was set up as a safe zone to create refuge for people and it’s now being potentially targeted for military action.

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And there are a lot of women and children that are in that area right now. And the international community has been speaking up and Australia has been a voice saying that you cannot conceivably go in there and conduct military action in that last area where everyone has been told ‘move here, it’ll be safe here’ and now undertake military action … it is heartbreaking to see the humanitarian crisis that’s unfolded there.

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No sanitation, no housing, no food, no water, no functioning medical system in there, and the whole notion that you would conduct military action in there with vulnerable people, particularly women and children is unfathomable.

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Australian officials say two defence export permits have been granted to Israel since 7 October, but won’t reveal what items they cover.

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In an answer to a Senate estimates question on notice, the Department of Defence said:

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Permit approvals should not be confused with weapons sales. Export permits are required for a wide range of goods and technology, many of which are used for legitimate civilian and commercial purposes. This includes where items must return to their original international manufacturer for return and repairs before returning to Australia.

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Defence continues to assess export applications to Israel. Every export of controlled goods or technology is considered on its own merits in accordance with Australian export control law.

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At an estimates committee hearing yesterday, the Greens’ defence spokesperson, David Shoebridge, asked what those export permits were for.

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Hugh Jeffrey, the deputy secretary of the department’s strategy, policy and industry group, said:

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Senator, you won’t be surprised [that] I won’t go into the content of individual permit decisions.

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Jeffrey said the two permits in question “would have been agreed on the basis that they did not prejudice Australian national interests under the criteria under the legislation”.

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Welcome to the last sitting day for a week! A very big thank you to Martin for starting us off this morning. We’ll switch to politics now, but will still update you if anything major happens.

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You’ve got Amy Remeikis with you for the final house sitting day and, of course, we have estimates (which will continue tomorrow).

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Tony Burke will introduce a bit of a tidy up for the right to disconnect legislation after it included criminal penalties for employees the first time round, which is not the government’s intention.

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And of course, there will be more on tax and the continuing targeting of immigration minister Andrew Giles as the opposition desperately tries to reclaim some lost ground over the stage-three tax cut changes.

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Ready? It’s a three-coffee day. At least.

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Let’s get into it.

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About 127,000 homes and businesses in Victoria remained disconnected from electricity networks as of last night, down from a peak of 530,000 following damage from storms, strong winds and lightning, reports Australian Associated Press.

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Crews have been working through the night to clear debris and repair damaged powerlines to try to reconnect the properties in the state’s east.

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But given the extent of the damage, it could take days or more than a week to restore electricity to those impacted, the Australian Energy Market Operator said.

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The disaster is one of the largest power outages in Victorian history and could take weeks to fully fix.

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Victoria’s State Emergency Service received more than 4000 calls for assistance as of 4pm on Wednesday, with that number expected to climb.

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A dairy farmer was killed after being struck by debris while herding cows on a quad bike in Darlimurla in South Gippsland on Tuesday evening.

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Five regional hospitals could remain on generator power for at least three days as authorities rush to prioritise fuel and restore energy to those sites.

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Families of young children remain in the dark on whether they can send them to school on Thursday after 80 schools and early learning centres were impacted by outages, with the decision coming on Thursday morning.

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Almost 500 phone towers and 450 NBN sites were down on Wednesday, leaving a quarter of a million customers without internet access.

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Storm damage that collapsed transmission lines caused the Loy Yang A coal-fired power station in the Latrobe Valley to shut down along with several wind farms, which led to the outages.

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Greens call for overhaul of NSW requirements for landscaping mulch

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While the scandal over mulch contaminated with asbestos turning up in parks around Sydney continues to grow, our reporters have been looking at what the rules are for suppliers and whether NSW compliance measures are strict enough.

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person walks past an asbestos sign that is displayed at Victoria Park, where bonded asbestos was found in mulch, in Sydney, Australia.”,”caption”:”Some Sydney parks and gardens have been closed after garden mulch was found to contain asbestos. “,”credit”:”Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/EPA”}},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

It reveals there are no specific requirements to test mulch for contaminants and the Greens want a root and branch overhaul of the regulations to prevent a repeat.

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Here’s the full read:

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Five SMS service providers have been slapped on the wrist for allowing scammers to impersonate brands and send millions of texts, and putting public safety at risk, Australian Associated Press reports.

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SMS Broadcast, DirectSMS, Esendex Australia, MessageBird and Message4U – better known as Sinch MessageMedia – cumulatively sent 50m texts that were in breach of anti-scam laws.

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The Australian Communications and Media Authority found the companies did not undertake appropriate checks necessary to ensure the outgoing texts were not scams.

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Two of the telco failures allowed scammers to pose as well-known brands and government services and send more than 1.2m impersonation texts, while Esendex sent at least 99,000 scam texts.

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Authority member Samantha Yorke said the telco’s behaviour was unacceptable, especially when Australians lost more than $25m to SMS scammers in 2023. She said:

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\n

Scammers will always look for cracks in systems and if even one telco fails to have its compliance in order, it can open the door for scammers to target Australians. The impact on individuals and families can be truly devastating.

\n

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Good morning and welcome to Guardian Australia’s politics blog. I’m Martin Farrer and I’ve got the best overnight stories for you before Amy Remeikis takes you through the main action of the day.

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The US$1.89bn HyperVerse crypto scandal takes another twist today with our top story revealing that Australia’s corporate watchdog referred the company to Victoria police over concerns about “possible fraud offences” at a related company in 2020. However, nearly two years later, the police passed it back and said the watchdog was “best placed” to investigate. By that time the company was imploding with many Australians out of pocket by thousands of dollars.

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Hundreds of thousands of Victorians have spent a second night without power after destructive storms wreaked havoc on the energy grid. The state’s energy minister, Lily D’Ambrosio, will push for a national approach to weatherproof the electricity grid after the deadly storm caused “one of the largest outage events in the state’s history”. About 127,000 were still without power late yesterday afternoon. She stressed the need to make the country’s electricity grid more resilient given climate change was leading to more extreme weather events and is understood to have met the Australian Energy Regulator, which oversees the transmission network service, yesterday afternoon.

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The New South Wales environment watchdog raised concerns about mulch manufactured last year that it could not inspect when they visited the supplier of landscaping products that were since found to contain asbestos. The opposition has called for a central register of all sites being investigated for possible asbestos contamination by the state’s environmental watchdog, including parks and schools. More coming up on this still-growing crisis.

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And has your mobile pinged with a suspicious text recently? It might have come via five SMS service providers who have been warned over not checking the bona fides of users before sending 50 million texts that were in breach of anti-scam laws. More on that in a minute.

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Key events

Caitlin Cassidy

If you feel like hearing the same thing over and over again, tune in to education estimates. The Greens are continuing to question Labor on government school funding – which languishes below 100% for the vast majority of public schools and above it for the majority of privates.

Asked whether it seemed fair public funding was being distributed to Australia’s wealthiest schools, assistant minister for education, Senator Anthony Chisholm repeated the government was in the process of negotiating the new funding agreement this year.

According to Save our Schools, hundreds of private schools where the median family income is in excess of $209,00, are expected to receive $1.3bn above the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) to 2029 – the level agreed to by governments to provide a baseline education.

Chisholm has now said an iteration of “we’re going through negotiations with the states and territories” about a dozen times.

It is important all schools are funded appropriately – that’s why the next agreement is so important … some people are making enormous sacrifices [to send their children to private schools] and those schools deserve support as well.”

Peter Hannam

The jobs figures need a bit of nuance because recent surveys, including NAB’s this week, point to the labour market remaining tight and job adverts have also been ticking higher.

And as the ABS notes, more people are tending to work less in January than during pre-Covid times, sending the seasonal adjustments a bit awry.

Hours worked in January fell by 49m, for instance, continuing a trend downwards since mid last year.

Since October 2023, the annual growth rate in hours worked has slowed considerably, down to 0.7% in January 2024, and well below the annual employment growth of 2.6%,” Jarvis said.

The jobs story looks like more people working but hours worked falling. pic.twitter.com/xcZvfqAtL5

— @phannam@mastodon.green (@p_hannam) February 15, 2024

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The RBA has also said they expect employers to hold on to their employees if they can, trimming their hours if demand sags. That’s why they’re not expecting the jobless rate to climb above 4.5% even with the economy barely growing (and declining in per capita terms).

The markets viewed today’s figures as being on the weak side, reducing on the margins the chances of another interest rate rise (and making a rate soon a bit more likely).

The Australian dollar was down about 0.1 US cents to 64.9 US cents and the ASX 200 share index extended its gains for the day by about 0.1 percentage points to 0.9%. (Lower interest rates make it less attractive to hold the Aussie dollar while also making it cheaper for firms to borrow, hence those reactions.)

Andrew Messenger

The Queensland government has commissioned former chief justice Catherine Holmes to conduct a “short, sharp” review into the powers of Queensland’s anti-corruption body.

The High Court last year blocked the Crime and Corruption Commission from releasing reports into former deputy premier Jackie Trad and public trustee Peter Carne. The inquiries made no criminal findings.

In September, CCC chairperson Bruce Barbour urged the government to introduce “urgent” legislation to reverse the decision. The body had long released reports through Queensland parliament, and he said the ban “reduces transparency and is clearly not in the public interest”.

Attorney-general Yvette D’Ath told parliament the government planned to legislate to overturn the High Court decision.

In doing so we also recognise that publishing reports related to individual corruption matters by just complex legal, ethical and human rights issues,” she said.

D’Ath told parliament the former jurist’s inquiry will “ensure that any legislative amendments strike the proper balance between the rights of the individual” and the public interest.

The recommendations are due by May, will be considered by cabinet and then “released in full”.

Holmes served as chief justice of the Queensland Supreme Court between 2015 and 2022, the first woman appointed to the position of senior jurist in any Australian state. She later led the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme.

Daniel Hurst

At Senate estimates, Penny Wong says her recent visit to the Middle East had reinforced her long-held view that a two-state solution is necessary, for both Israelis and Palestinians:

We will not see Israel have the security that it is entitled to, nor the Palestinian people fulfil their aspirations for peace and security, unless there is a two-state solution.

The foreign minister said the US and the UK were both talking about the role recognition of Palestinian statehood might play in a peace process. She said:

Obviously there are 130-odd countries that already recognise Palestine. Those of us that don’t I think were generally seeing recognition as the end of the process. I think what particularly [UK] foreign secretary [David] Cameron is raising is considering what role recognition might play in bringing forward or locking in progress towards a two-state solution ...

I think the comments by [US] secretary [of state Antony] Blinken reference the first point I was making which is the importance of an independent state of Palestine for the overall security of the region, particularly Israel. Israel’s goal, legitimate goal, of normalising relations with countries of the region won’t be fully realised without a Palestinian state. We’ve seen that in comments from the Saudis, for example, so that’s the context of the discussion which is really about parties trying to [discern] how it is we can collectively give impetus towards that pathway to peace.

Asked by Labor senator Nita Green what that means for Australia’s position, Wong said:

I’ve always said that when considering the issue of recognition, we would be guided by the principle of advancing the cause of peace and progress towards a two-state solution and that was what I said before this conflict and it is only reaffirmed in my view.

I think the status quo is failing everyone. And as I said, I don’t think there is a lasting peace unless this issue is resolved. This is a discussion about what is the pathway to peace that is viable and … the question is: how can recognition contribute to achieving real progress. I think it is a discussion we are engaged in in line with the issues that Secretary Blinken and Foreign Secretary Cameron have outlined.

Wong reiterated that Hamas could have “no future role in the governance of Gaza”.

Asked how Australia’s position “sit with recent comments by the Israeli prime minister opposing a two-state solution”, Wong repeated her belief “that ultimately a two-state solution is the way in which we can see security for Israel, security for the Palestinian people and peace in the region”.

Peter Hannam

First time in two years Australian unemployment rate above 4%

Economists had expected the economy to have added 25,000 jobs last month and for the jobless rate to edge higher to 4%. Some of the January increase, though, was due to rounding, with the increase about 0.1 percentage points from December, the ABS said.

“This was the first time in two years, since January 2022, that the unemployment rate had been above 4%,” Bjorn Jarvis, ABS head of labour statistics, said.

Part of the increase in the jobless rate was because more people started to look for work at the start of the year, although the participation rate remained unchanged from December at 66.8%.

Peter Hannam

Australian unemployment rises to 4.1% in January

The unemployment rate jumped to 4.1% in January with the economy barely adding any jobs for the month.

Employers added 11,100 full-time positions and shed 10,600 part-time roles, well short of the 30,000 or more new entrants to the labour market each month.

Peter Hannam

Some companies are ‘probably’ price gouging, RBA’s Bullock says

The RBA governor Michele Bullock has conceded some companies were likely to be using the cover of inflation to “price gouge” customers.

Bullock tells senate estimates that from an aggregate level, “there’s not evidence of wholesale increasing margins across the board”, particularly once mining companies are excluded from the surveys.

However, she agrees with Greens senator Nick McKim that “yes, absolutely, within that [aggregate] there’s going to be different experiences and I think there are probably examples” where firms have used their market power to push up prices.

I think that’s what people are using to define price gouging,” she says.

Bullock, though, has declined to be drawn on particular sectors where that market power is being flexed. The dominance of the supermarket industry by two big players – Woolworths and Coles – is something for the ACCC to examine, she says.

I wouldn’t like to express a view on that,” Bullock says.

Daniel Hurst

Government grappling with how to resolve Unrwa funding issue

The government appears to be in a holding pattern when it comes to precisely when it can reinstate funding to Unrwa, but Penny Wong says she wants to resolve it “as quickly as possible”.

The foreign minister told the Senate estimates hearing that her “first duty as a minister of the crown is to make a judgment about whether I can continue to fund an organisation when such serious allegations have been not only raised but also countenanced and action taken by the organisation itself”.

Wong says:

I’m a supporter of development assistance, I have argued long and hard for additional aid in the budget, and the government has provided additional development assistance in our budgets. If I am going to continue to do that, including to seek to provide further funding to Unrwa and others in the region, then I have to be able to say to this committee, to the parliament, to the Australian people that I have confidence in the organisations and their processes that we are funding. That is my duty.

Wong tells the Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi, who asked about the risk of Unrwa’s operations collapsing by the end of February:

Now, like you, I am worried. I would make the point to you we have already provided our core funding for this financial year. I know other partners are considering their core funding for this financial year. The $6m from Australia is not the critical amount. And many other partners suspended their funding for the same reason.

Wong says she had spoken to UNRWA and partners and “there is a lot of action being taken to try and resolve this matter as quickly as possible”.

Daniel Hurst

Wong continues to defend government’s position on UNRWA funding

(Continued from last post):

Penny Wong is at pains to say that the $6m in funds to UNRWA that Australia has paused are top-up funds announced in mid-January, and that the $20m in annual core funding had already been distributed for the 2023-24 financial year.

Wong tells the Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi:

It would be nice, at some point, senator, if you could acknowledge that this Labor government has doubled funding to UNRWA. As yet, I have never heard you say that.

Faruqi:

The $20m that you say you have funded UNRAW – if you need my approval to do that or my appreciation to you for doing that, sure, great, but $20m was the funding that the government gave UNRAW in 2014. So [that was what it was] 10 years ago and you brought it back, so in real terms the funding is still less than what it used to be 10 years ago. And basically when people are starving, when there is this genocide that Israel is committing against Palestinians, we need to give more funding, not suspend it, not bring it back to what it was 10 years ago.

Wong:

I would like us, Australia, to be in the position to have the confidence to provide additional funding including through UNRAW, because I have no doubt that the humanitarian need is dire. You have heard me in the Senate, in answer to questions from the Coalition, say that 400,000 people are starving, a million people on the brink of starvation … so this is why we have increased the core funding, this is why I announced the additional funding …

Senator, I hope you would see that we are trying to help. But you ask the question about irresponsibility. I don’t think the person in this position can reasonably say to the Australian people: ‘I have been confronted with or informed of allegations of participation in a heinous terrorist attack including by employees of an organisation and simply continue to fund without gaining insurance’. I don’t think that is responsible. I wish that we were in a different position and I hope that the international community can, through these processes, be given the confidence to continue to support UNRAW. That is my position. I know it is not the Coalition’s position.*

* The Coalition has suggested that funding should be channelled through different agencies.