16 News

The Albanese Labor Government is working with the Victorian Government to bust Melbourne’s congestion and ensure Victoria’s roads are safer and get people where they need to be faster.

In next week’s Budget we will invest a further $3.25 billion to North East Link in the 2024-25 Budget, taking the total Australian Government funding to $5 billion.

Once completed, the North East Link will get 15,000 trucks off local roads each day and reduce travel times by up to 35 minutes.

These new investments are towards the non-tolled components of the project, including the M80 Ring Road Upgrades and North East Link Connections and Eastern Freeway Upgrades packages of work.

They will create new lanes, implement smart technology and provide a seamless connection to the North East Link tunnels.

This announcement builds on what we are already delivering in Victoria, including over $1.2 billion for the Western Highway and the Princes Highway corridors, and more than $2.2 billion for the Regional Rail Revival program to upgrade every regional passenger line in Victoria.

Where the previous Morrison Liberal Government had a deluge of press releases with a drought of delivery, the Albanese Labor Government is ensuring that projects can be completed and benefits flow to communities.

We are getting on with building a better future for all Australians.

We will have more to say about transport infrastructure spending in Victoria at Budget time.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese

“Being stuck in traffic doesn’t just waste precious time you could be spending with the kids, friends or just getting on with life. It’s bad for productivity too.

“We’re investing $3.25 billion making sure Melbourne’s fast growing north east has the infrastructure they need and fixing the missing link in Melbourne’s freeway network.

“It’ll save commuters more than half an hour on the roads, and get 15,000 trucks off suburban roads each day – which means safer roads, getting you where you want to be faster and easier.”

Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government Catherine King

“We are working for all Australians to deliver significant infrastructure that connects communities, stimulates jobs and builds the future of our nation.

“The hard work we undertook to clean up the mess in the infrastructure pipeline means there is room to deal with ongoing cost pressures and plan for future projects.

“I thank the Victorian Government for working closely with us to ensure the delivery of this project.”

Premier of Victoria Jacinta Allan

“Following ten years of neglect under the Liberals and Nationals, it is great to have a partner in Canberra that can help deliver the projects important to Victorians.

“This project has been talked about for 60 years – we’re getting on and building the much-needed missing link because families in our growing state need it and jobs depend on it.”

Victorian Minister for Transport Infrastructure Danny Pearson

“We’re getting on and delivering this important project that will slash travel times and help to keep Victorians moving.”

Australia has imposed a targeted financial sanction and travel ban on Russian citizen Dmitry Yuryevich Khoroshev for his senior leadership role in the LockBit ransomware group.

This is the second use of Australia’s autonomous cyber sanctions framework and part of ongoing coordinated international law enforcement action.

Australia continues to experience an increase in persistent and pervasive ransomware activity by cyber criminals across Australian critical infrastructure, government, industry and community sectors.

Under Operation Cronos, the Australian Signals Directorate and Australian Federal Police worked with international partners, including the United Kingdom (UK) and United States (US), to identify Dmitry Yuryevich Khoroshev as part of LockBit’s senior leadership.

Lockbit is a prolific criminal ransomware group and works to destabilise and disrupt key sectors for financial gain.

LockBit ransomware has been used against Australian, UK and US businesses, comprising 18% of total reported Australian ransomware incidents in 2022-23 and 119 reported victims in Australia.

The new sanction under the cyber sanctions framework makes it a criminal offence to provide assets to Dmitry Yuryevich Khoroshev, or to use or deal with his assets.

The framework is intended to disrupt and deter the perpetrators of malicious cyber activity, such as ransomware.

The Australian Government continues to discourage businesses and individuals from paying ransoms or extortion claims to cyber criminals and can provide help and advice.

If you are asked to pay a ransom you should:

• Call the Australian Cyber Security Hotline on 1300 CYBER1 (1300 292 371) for cyber security assistance; and
• Report the cybercrime, incident or vulnerability to the Australian Signals Directorate

Australian businesses can help protect themselves from ransomware by backing up their files and work, and ensuring staff remain vigilant to possible threats.  

More information and tips can be found at Ransomware | Cyber.gov.au

Further detail about Operation Cronos can be found on the AFP website.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence, Richard Marles:

“We continue to see governments, critical infrastructure, businesses and households in Australia targeted by malicious cyber actors.

The Australian Signals Directorate and the Australian Federal Police have worked with international counterparts to link Dmitry Yuryevich Khoroshev to LockBit’s senior leadership.

“Cyber sanctions are a key component of the Australian Government’s work to deter cybercrime and help protect Australians by exposing the activities and identity of cyber criminals operating across jurisdictions.”

Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator the Hon Penny Wong:

“Australia remains committed to promoting a rules-based cyberspace, grounded in international law and norms of responsible behaviour, and holding accountable those who flout the rules.”

“Sanctions impose costs and consequences on individuals for their actions – we will continue to use them where and when appropriate.”

Minister for Cyber Security, the Hon Clare O’Neil MP:

“Today’s announcement demonstrates the Australian Government’s ongoing commitment under the 2023-2030 Australian Cyber Security Strategy to continue to deter and respond to malicious cyber activity.

“This sanction is an important step in breaking the ransomware business model, preventing cybercriminals from profiting from attacks on Australian citizens and businesses.

“The damage done by LockBit in Australia is significant. For too long, criminals like those behind LockBit have hidden in the shadows. Our government is changing that. Hunting down cyber criminals by working with our international partners to hack the hackers and punishing them where we can.”

Today we will travel to Funafuti for the second bipartisan Pacific visit of this term, to demonstrate Australia’s deep and enduring connection with Tuvalu.

We will meet Tuvalu Prime Minister, the Hon Feleti Teo OBE, and his Cabinet to take forward our shared vision for the Falepili Union.

The Falepili Union embodies Australia’s approach to partnership in the region, by responding to Pacific needs, respecting sovereignty, addressing climate change and delivering Pacific-led solutions to our shared challenges.

We will visit the Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project that has reclaimed and stabilised land to safeguard the future of Tuvaluans in the face of climate change.

As a member of the Pacific family, Australia knows that by listening to each other and by acting together, we can shape our region and our world for the better.

Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator the Hon Penny Wong:

“Australia and Tuvalu are working together to navigate our shared challenges, particularly climate change, and to protect the future of Tuvalu’s people, identity and culture.

“Australia’s partnerships with our Pacific neighbours are critical to Australia’s security, and to the security, safety and prosperity of our region as a whole.

“The government and opposition visiting together is a clear statement to the region, that Australia is a steadfast partner in ensuring a region that is peaceful, stable and prosperous.”

Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator the Hon Simon Birmingham:

“In a spirit of bipartisanship I look forward to listening, engaging and working with the government and people of Tuvalu. Australia’s commitment to our Pacific neighbours is enduring, based on mutual respect and deep friendship.

“The close ties between our nations embody cooperation in fields such as health, education, finance, climate change and security. They strengthen the ability of Australia and Tuvalu to overcome shared challenges together, and contribute to regional peace, prosperity and stability.

“Australia is stronger when we speak with one voice, which we emphatically do through these displays of bipartisan commitment to our Pacific Island neighbours. I welcome the Australian Government’s continuance of these missions.”

The Greens-led Senate Select Committee on Supermarket Prices has recommended making price gouging illegal, as well as introducing divestiture laws to create powers to break up Australia’s supermarket duopoly.

“This is a landmark report with serious proposals to tackle the price of food, and the profiteering that has done so much harm to the people of Australia,“ Greens Economic Justice spokesperson and Committee Chair Senator Nick McKim said.

“The committee has produced concrete steps that would tackle these problems head on.”

“Chief amongst these is the recommendation that price gouging be made illegal.”

“This would mean that corporations couldn’t just arbitrarily increase prices without facing consequences from the courts.”

“This would be a significant new power to stop unreasonable pricing that has been rampant for years because of a lack of competition.”

“The committee has also recommended divestiture powers for the supermarket sector, which would give the Federal Court the power to break up corporations when they abuse their market power or act unconscionably.”

The committee’s other recommendations include:

• The establishment of a Prices and Competition Commission to examine and monitor prices and price setting across the economy and require supermarkets to publish historical pricing data. 
• That the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct be made mandatory with significant penalties for breaches, and be expanded to greenlife industries and any retailer that stocks food and grocery products
• That the ACCC be given powers to investigate land banking and unfair trading practices. 
• Supermarkets be made to adopt mandatory standards for unit pricing, and notify customers of changes in sizes or prices of products, to help prevent shrinkflation
• For the Government to standardise discount and promotional terms, to prevent supermarkets promoting fake discounts.
• For the Government to back stronger health and safety standards for supermarket employees
• Further investigation of the role of multinational food manufacturers in price increases in Australia
• That the National Food Waste Strategy is updated to require supermarkets to publish data on food waste and consider whether unrealistic cosmetic standards are adding to waste.    

“The committee has heard the devastating evidence on the effects of price gouging and how hard it is hitting people.”

“The Greens established this inquiry to bring food prices down and that is exactly what our recommendations will do.”

“We’ve heard from farmers and suppliers about how the massive market power of Coles and Woolworths is allowing them to act unconscionably.”

“Without the ability to break up the duopoly, our market will remain skewed towards the interests of a few powerful players and nothing will change.”

“There is a Bill before Parliament right now to create divestiture powers. The only thing standing in its way is the Labor Party.”

The report can be found here.

In a historic failure, the Albanese government has been unable to get a single stakeholder to support their shambolic Migration Amendment (Removals and Other Measures) Bill 2024.

The committee report on the Bill released today demonstrates just how isolated Labor is in this attack on Australia’s diaspora communities.

The Greens dissenting report summarises the unanimous calls from the stakeholders and the broader public to scrap this anti-refugee and travel ban push.

With over 120 public submissions to the Senate inquiry into the Bill, only one supported it, and that was from the Department of Home Affairs itself.

Throughout the inquiry, this Bill was shown to be racist, in breach of international law, a threat to social cohesion, cruel, ineffective and unworkable. Despite this the Labor majority Senate Standing Committees on Legal and Constitutional Affairs’s report supports the Bill. That is a recommendation with no friends.

The Bill is not only cruel but also unnecessary, with the proposed powers unlikely to achieve anything more than whipping up fear and racism. There is also a deep lack of substance to this Bill, with the government providing conflicting information on who will be affected and blatantly refusing to tell the public key facts about its impact.

The debate now moves to the Senate where the government has no certain path for this Bill to proceed, with the Greens and progressive crossbenchers opposed, and the Coalition far from a certain partner.

Senator Shoebridge’s dissenting report can be found here on page 97 [link]

Greens Immigration Spokesperson Senator David Shoebridge said: “Every single witness and submission to this inquiry, apart from those paid by the Commonwealth, demanded this Bill be rejected.

“I cannot recall another occasion when the government of the day has been so monumentally out of touch with the public. This is an unprecedented level of rejection.

”Given how many fundamental issues have been demonstrated with this Bill it is extraordinary that the Albanese government tried to ram it through Parliament’s last session in less than two days. We now know that had Parliament agreed to that reckless proposal from the Albanese government it certainly would have made a terrible mistake.

“Instead of taking the opposition on board the Albanese Government has instead doubled down and are refusing to tell either this committee or the public who they want to target with this Bill or the countries they intend to blacklist.

“Not since the White Australia policy has a proposal by the Federal Government been so fundamentally against the spirit of multiculturalism in Australia or been such a direct threat to diaspora communities in the country.

“The Albanese Government has chosen to try to outflank Dutton to the right on immigration. This is a contest they can never win.

“This Bill can’t be fixed by amendment, it is so fundamentally flawed it must not be allowed to become law.

“The Greens have heard the message loud and clear during this inquiry and we will vote accordingly to reject the Bill in full,” Senator Shoebridge said.

This morning Labor has announced a $100 million Active Transport Fund with a commencement date of 1 July 2025. 

This falls far short of the 20% of federal transport funding for active transport called for by the Climate Council in its 2023 Shifting Gear Report in order to achieve Australia’s obligations under the Paris Agreement, and to combat traffic congestion in our cities.

The Greens have long called for a dedicated Active Transport Fund, and at the last federal election announced a Fund of $500 million per year – twenty times Labor’s recent announcement.

Attributale to Elizabeth Watson-Brown MP, Greens spokesperson for Transport, Infrastructure and Sustainable Cities:

While our cities groan with traffic and transport emissions grow, Labor is offering only one twentieth of what would be needed in terms of active transport investment to give people the freedom to leave their car at home. 

Labor’s new fund will not see a meaningful decrease in cars on the road. This is evident from the fact that, while they budget $25 million a year for active transport, they’re still tipping over $10 billion a year into road projects that will see more people drive.

As with so many announcements from this Labor government, the wording sounds nice, but the reality is a penny pinching mentality, while big corporations make record profits and dodge tax.

If Labor’s new active transport commitment were spread between Australia’s 86 cities and regional centres, it would equate to just over $290,000 a year each for active transport infrastructure. That’s hardly much more than a few painted lines. We need an Active Transport Fund that can deliver the infrastructure our growing cities need.