Latest news with #then-Labor
The Age
22-07-2025
- The Age
Teen pleads guilty to murder of grandmother Vyleen White
The teenager accused of killing grandmother Vyleen White has pleaded guilty to murder. Vyleen Joan White was stabbed in a car park of a shopping centre in Redbank Plains, west of Brisbane, in February 2024. Her death sparked community outrage, and prompted the then-Labor state government to change bail laws for juveniles. The teenager, who cannot be named under youth justice laws, pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
Sydney Morning Herald
22-07-2025
- Sydney Morning Herald
Teen pleads guilty to murder of grandmother Vyleen White
The teenager accused of killing grandmother Vyleen White has pleaded guilty to murder. Vyleen Joan White was stabbed in a car park of a shopping centre in Redbank Plains, west of Brisbane, in February 2024. Her death sparked community outrage, and prompted the then-Labor state government to change bail laws for juveniles. The teenager, who cannot be named under youth justice laws, pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
Perth Now
16-07-2025
- Politics
- Perth Now
Leaked texts part of campaign 'to damage me': Latham
A former prime ministerial candidate turned state MP says a former partner's application for a court order has evolved into a campaign to damage him, with a potential parliamentary inquiry looming. Mark Latham has rejected allegations reportedly contained in a private application for an apprehended domestic violence order, which is yet to be heard in court. A report by The Australian outlined claims made by former partner Nathalie Matthews alleging a "sustained pattern" of abuse and manipulation, which Mr Latham has described as "comically false and ridiculous". The one-time prime ministerial hopeful turned NSW independent MP told Sydney radio 2SM on Wednesday that "basically none of it" is true. Messages between the pair reported in the Daily Telegraph lacked their full context and only revealed Mr Latham "had a private life", he said. "There's certainly a steady leak of material. "Some of the stuff we've got now ... it's got nothing to do with the AVO application, nothing to do with the court case." "This now goes to some personal or political campaign to try and damage me," Mr Latham said. The local court has refused to release the documents as they contain untested allegations. Ms Matthews referred AAP to her lawyer when contacted. Her private application for an apprehended violence order is scheduled to be heard on July 30. Premier Chris Minns said it was inappropriate for members of parliament to be "sexting" in the chamber, as the Daily Telegraph reported. "Your average voter would expect people to be focusing on whatever's being debated or voted on at the time and that's a pretty basic expectation," he told reporters. The government plans to call for an inquiry into Mr Latham over unrelated alleged abuses of parliamentary privilege. "This kind of behaviour that he's been up to for a long period of time is completely unacceptable," Mr Minns said. As then-Labor leader, Mr Latham ran against incumbent prime minister John Howard in 2004, who went on to win one final term. Mr Latham resigned from federal parliament in early 2005 and subsequently left Labor before being elected to the NSW upper house in 2019 as a One Nation member. He quit that party in 2023, becoming an independent. In a separate court dispute, Mr Latham was ordered to pay $140,000 to independent MP Alex Greenwich in September 2024. Mr Greenwich sued over a sexually explicit and homophobic social media post ahead of the 2023 state election. The Federal Court found Mr Latham's tweet exposed Mr Greenwich, who is gay and a prominent LGBTQI community advocate, to a torrent of hateful abuse including death threats. 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) Lifeline 13 11 14 Men's Referral Service 1300 766 491
Daily Mail
07-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
What Peter Dutton will receive after leaving office
Peter Dutton may have been resoundingly booted from federal politics on Saturday night, but after nearly 24 years in Canberra, he won't be leaving empty handed. Thanks to a now-repealed parliamentary pension scheme, the former member for Dickson will receive an estimated annual pension of $258,000 for the rest of his life. Put differently, the ousted MP will earn the incomes of roughly two-and-a-half Australian salary earners without even lifting a finger. Alternatively, Mr Dutton may choose to halve his pension in exchange for a $2.58million lump sum payout which, together with his sizeable real estate dealings, would set the Queenslander up nicely for a comfortable retirement. Of course, he may choose instead to leverage his public profile for an even softer landing in the private sector a la Christopher Pyne or Scott Morrison. Former prime minister John Howard did away with the pension scheme in 2004 following the lead of then-Labor leader Mark Latham. The decision was hotly contested within the party room walls, not least because MPs feared the optics suggested Mr Howard had caved to pressure from Labor. The merits of the decision has been the subject of fierce debate, with critics claiming outgoing MPs have the advantage of the 'revolving door' after leaving public service. With Dutton ousted, only six sitting MPs and senators will have access to the more generous pension entitlements, having been elected pre-2004. Among them are Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, incumbent Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Senator Bob Katter and Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek. Mr Albanese will expect the most generous post-parliamentary pay package worth somewhere north of $250,000 per year. According to the Department of Finance, taxpayers continue to support over 400 retired politicians and spouses under the now-defunct pension scheme at an annual cost of roughly $50million. While the pool of recipients continues to shrink year-on-year, the last of the pension payouts is not expected to come until 2063.
Sky News AU
02-05-2025
- Business
- Sky News AU
'Timidity is not a strategy': If the Liberals lose, it will be because they let Labor get away with an all-out attack on the aspirational Australians who usually vote conservative
Last weekend's Newspoll and the data that has emerged since seems to indicate that the answer to that question is 'Yes', given that, while voters don't believe the Albanese Government should be returned, they also don't believe the Coalition is ready for government. This column, and so many others, have outlined how the Albanese government has presided over a litany of failures, yet the Liberals, if the polling is to be believed, have failed to take advantage. The Liberals in their parliamentary position had nothing to lose, yet it appears their campaign strategists have approached this election like a team that is 1-0 up in a World Cup final with 20 minutes to go: they play safe. In other words, timidity has been their strategy. And, when that is your strategy, the inevitable happens. Bob Hawke, Paul Keating, John Howard and Tony Abbott knew that election campaigns are no place for cowardice, no place for coasting. They were unrelenting and much hungrier for victory than this Opposition has been. They were prepared to brawl. History shows us that voters will re-elect poor governments in the absence of a credible opposition. It happened in 1993, when Paul Keating was able to raise enough doubts about John Hewson and the Coalition's policies to take voters' minds sufficiently away from the dire state of the economy. The Albanese government has so many weak points in its plans – attacks on aspirational Australians, the cohort that the Coalition claims to represent – yet the Liberals have failed to take any advantage. Several commentators have laid out just how insidious Labor's tax on unrealised capital gains in superannuation accounts will be for the roughly 2.5 million hard-working Australians affected, most of whom run small businesses, family farms and the like. Its $3 million threshold will not be indexed with inflation (and Greens leader Adam Bandt wants it reduced to $2 million) which means it is deliberately designed to eventually apply to people on far more modest means. The result will be to force many to liquidate assets or even borrow money to meet their liabilities. An all-out attack on this tax grab should have been front and centre by the Coalition, but hardly anything has been heard about it until now, when it is probably too late. Again, Australian electoral history gives us a precedent. In the 1998 election, the then-Labor opposition, led by Kim Beazley, in contrast to John Howard's GST reforms, proposed increasing capital gains tax retrospectively and taxing four-wheel drives. The Liberals campaigned on this ruthlessly, successfully demonstrating it as a tax grab by Labor, which seemed to be punishing people who wanted to do better. Those 'Howard-battlers' gave him a victory against the odds – and the polls – at the time. The Voice referendum should have been the springboard for some serious consideration of Coalition policy platforms in order to fight a values-based campaign, one that says the Liberals are the party for all Australians, not just special interest groups. For quite some time now, poll after poll has shown the overwhelming majority of Australians have had it to the back teeth with the omnipresent and tokenistic welcomes and acknowledgements of country. As the son of migrants, it tells me I'm not welcome here and separates us by an attribute beyond our control, our ancestry, which Australians rejected 60 per cent to 40 per cent during the Voice referendum. However, only this week has this divisive ritual become an issue, and one could be forgiven for thinking that Jacinta Price has been deliberately given a low profile during the election campaign by some Coalition campaign invertebrates. Moreover, it should never have been so hard to make political hay out of an Albanese government that has seen living standards drop nearly eight per cent on its watch – the worst statistic in the developed world – and electricity prices skyrocket. But if you can't be bothered taking a principled stand on something like net zero, which is the main driver of Australia's fall into the economic abyss, then don't expect to win any votes. You can't win an argument you don't make. It is not as if there hasn't been any lack of ammunition on this, and, at the time of writing, it was becoming clear that massive blackouts in Spain and Portugal this week were due to both countries' increasing reliance on wind and solar had left them vulnerable to the same. By saying 'we will get to net zero, but not as quickly as Labor', all voters see is a poor imitation. When faced with a choice between the original and a poor imitation, voters will pick the original every time. Do voters deserve the governments they elect? Probably. But voters also deserve to be presented with a credible choice. The Liberals have never won an election trying to be a Labor-lite poor imitation. If the Coalition loses this election, it will be because its campaign tried to steer through the middle of its 'moderate/wet' and 'conservative/dry' factions and in trying to please everyone, ended up pleasing no-one. Dr Rocco Loiacono is a legal academic, writer and translator. Earlier in his career, he spent a decade practicing as a lawyer with Clayton Utz, one of Australia's top law firms. As well as he regularly contributes opinion pieces, specialising in politics, freedom and the rule of law, to The Daily Telegraph, The Herald Sun and The Australian
