Australia news LIVE: Energy chief says crisis boosts case for renewables; Russia sanctions 121 Australians; National cabinet meets

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says his plan to upgrade the energy transmission system and invest in battery storage is the certainty businesses need to invest in clean energy.

Albanese told Sunrise a short while ago that almost a decade of “delay and denial” under the previous government had thwarted investment in the renewable energy sector.

He acknowledged Australia had a problem with energy supply, and it was “no good gilding the lily and pretending that hasn’t happened”.

“People want an end to the nonsense that’s gone on for the last decade,” he said.

“You can’t fix 10 years of inaction in just 10 days, but we are taking immediate action through AEMO [the Australian Energy Market Operator] to make sure that the lights stay on. At the same time, we’re making sure that we create the investment environment to make sure we get it right.”

As we have previously reported, the Albanese government plans to upgrade Australia’s energy transmission grid and invest in community batteries as a means to encourage private investment. It estimates the plan will bring $52 million in private sector investment into cleaner energy in the coming years, creating further business certainty.

Albanese said the plan was no different from people putting solar panels on their roofs.

“Once you make that outlay, then energy becomes cheaper in the future, and then you become so competitive,” he said. “So if we get this right, this can be an opportunity to drive new jobs, new industries.”

He said about 25 per cent of the eastern seaboard energy market was out of order due to facilities reaching the end of their life.

“We need new investment in the system, and the cheapest form of new investment is clean energy,” he said.

Buoyed by Canberra’s diminished authority during the pandemic, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet have formed an unlikely alliance to push for transformational reforms to health funding, tax and childcare.

On paper, it would seem unworkable. Andrews is a progressive premier from Labor’s Socialist Left faction and Perrottet, a conservative Catholic from the Liberal Party’s right.

But Andrews and Dominic have key things in common. They run powerful states that together are home to more than half of the Australian population and whose service economies drive the country. They are thirsty for reform and willing to take on elements of their own party to make it happen.

Both also face elections within nine months.

“If you’ve got Liberal governments and Labor governments working together it does take a lot of the politics out of it,” Perrottet told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. “Centre Right, Centre Left ... if you’re focused on service delivery and outcomes, then there’s a lot you have in common.

The “interstate bromance” – as described by an ally of Perrottet – has flourished ahead of Friday’s national cabinet. The meeting of state, territory and federal leaders will be the first one attended by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese since the election.

The split of healthcare funding will be up for discussion, with both Perrottet and Andrews calling for a 50-50 cost sharing arrangement between the Commonwealth and states.

Washington: Donald Trump put his own vice president’s life at risk by embracing an elaborate plot to overturn the 2020 election, despite knowing the plan was unlawful, a Congressional hearing into the US Capitol attack has been told.

On the third public hearing into last year’s riots, the January 6 committee focused on the pressure put on then vice president Mike Pence to stop Joe Biden’s election victory from being certified. It zeroed in on just how close Pence came to being attacked by angry Trump supporters.

Chilling video played during the hearing showed the rioters – some of whom had erected makeshift gallows – chanting “Hang Mike Pence” as they stormed the Capitol.

It was Pence’s role, as vice president, to oversee the certification of the electoral college votes.

He has not appeared before the committee personally, but several of his top advisers testified either in person or via video during the hearing, including senior aide Greg Jacob, chief of staff Marc Short and retired federal judge Michael Luttig.

Each testified about how Trump embraced a plan, developed by conservative lawyer John Eastman, to pressure Pence to reject Biden’s victory by delaying the certification and sending the votes back to the states for recount.

The committee heard that, while Eastman had insisted publicly that there was historical precedent to overthrow the result, he had told Trump privately, according to Jacob, that doing so could, in fact, violate the law.

Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles says the dialogue between the Albanese government and China will be “much more professional” than it was under former prime minister Scott Morrison.

Speaking to Sunrise on Friday morning, Marles said the “tone will be different” between the new federal government and China, with discussions continuing about access to the South China Sea.

“We want to engage in a professional way. We believe in diplomacy,” he said.

“It is important that around defence issues you do have a dialogue so there is no issue of miscalculation. We will do that in a much more professional way than what we saw with the Morrison government.”

Though the tenor of the conversation may have changed, Marles waved off suggestions he could visit China any time soon.

“I think a visit to China is a little way off,” Marles said.

“The substantive issues are the same as they were under the Morrison government.

“We are very focused on making sure we get the relationships with our region - in terms of the Pacific - right.”

A gambling “whale” with underworld links has revealed how The Star gave him benefits worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to lure him to gamble in Queensland after he was banned from Sydney and Melbourne casinos.

Melbourne identity John Khoury said that over the past 14 years and in return for his frequent travel to its Gold Coast casino, Star had given him a $50,000 gold Rolex watch, the use of a private jet, opulent dinners and accommodation, and gambling chips.

“I haven’t put my hand in my pocket once. They would fly me to Queensland in private jets; they would buy me gifts for my birthday that even my family wouldn’t buy me. Every [complimentary benefit] possible, I got,” Khoury said.

The benefits started flowing after his 2007 banning from Star’s Sydney casino on the orders of the NSW police commissioner, who was concerned about Khoury’s organised crime links.

The revelations come amid claims Queensland has become a magnet for gamblers blacklisted by other states, raising further questions for Star and concerns the Sunshine State has become a financial haven for suspect high-rollers from Melbourne and Sydney.

Read the full article here.

London: Russia’s Foreign Ministry has sanctioned a broad list of 121 Australian media executives, mining bosses, academics, defence officials and journalists, including the editors of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

The move, announced in Moscow on Wednesday evening, cited the “Russophobic agenda” from the individuals named.

The Kremlin’s “stop list”, which bans those named from entry to Russia “indefinitely”, was compiled in response to the growing sanctions of the Australian government, the ministry said.

It includes Herald editor Bevan Shields, The Age editor Gay Alcorn as well as Peter Costello, who is also chairman of Nine Entertainment Group that owns The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, and chief executive Mike Sneesby.

Mining magnates Gina Rinehart and Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest had sanctions imposed, along with ABC chairwoman Ita Buttrose, co-chairman of News Corp Lachlan Murdoch and chairman of Seven Group, Kerry Stokes.

Atlassian co-founders Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar, property tycoon Harry Triguboff and Rio Tinto iron ore chief executive Simon Trott will also be banned from entering Russia.

Read the full article here.

Two in three Australians aged over 15 are working and the number of people looking for a job or underemployed has dropped to its lowest level in 40 years, adding to pressure on the Reserve Bank to accelerate interest rate rises to rein in inflation.

The jobless rate was steady at 3.9 per cent last month, Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show, with an extra 60,600 people gaining work while 7800 became unemployed. It was the seventh consecutive increase in employment since coronavirus pandemic lockdown restrictions started lifting late last year.

Unemployment in Victoria dropped to 3.7 per cent, breaking the state’s previous record low of less than 4.1 per cent reached in January, while in NSW it rose half a percentage point to 4 per cent.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers welcomed the labour force figures but warned via Twitter there were economic challenges ahead.

Some economists warned the strong jobs figures, combined with the independent pay umpire’s decision on Wednesday to give Australia’s lowest-paid workers a $40-a-week pay rise, would add to inflationary pressures and could force the RBA to raise rates higher and faster.

Read the full article here.

The crisis in the energy market has strengthened the case for Australia to reduce its reliance on gas and coal in favour of renewables, the nation’s peak energy regulator has declared in a warning about the exposure to soaring global prices for fossil fuels.

Energy Security Board chairwoman Anna Collyer said the pressure on the electricity grid highlighted the need for reform to move “beyond the crisis” by continuing the long-term shift to solar, wind, hydro and other renewable power.

With households being urged to turn off non-essential items to ease pressure on the grid, the immediate challenge for the energy market is to shore up supplies from generators using gas and coal to ward off the risk of widespread blackouts and targeted shutdowns.

In a sign of confidence that more power is coming online, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) said its suspension of the national electricity market on Wednesday – the first move of its kind in 20 years – had delivered “significant improvements” to the grid.

Speaking to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age about the reform plan out of the winter crisis, Collyer said the federal government’s plan to invest heavily in the transmission grid to support renewable power generators was crucial to reduce the impact of high global prices for fossil fuels.

“[The reform] actually helps us to address at least one of the causes of the current situation, which is a reliance on a commodity that’s subject to global pricing, which is both gas and coal,” she said.

Read the full article here.