Reformers member may have allegedly tried to ‘hit up’ MPs for public money, inquiry hears
Penry Buckley
Returning to the NSW Icac’s Operation Rosny: Reformers member Robert Assaf has been giving evidence about the breakdown of his friendship with fellow Reformer Christian Ellis.
Assaf had described beginning to distrust Ellis over the payment of a 10% finder’s fee to Assaf for signing up new clients to lobbying company Beckington.
He today described becoming concerned about Ellis’s links to the fugitive property developer Jean Nassif. Last week, he gave evidence that the Reformers became concerned that Ellis was “getting rich” from payments to the group.
Icac is investigating the allegation that between 2020 and 2023, Liberal figures, including Ellis, solicited or accepted donations “in exchange for the pursuit of outcomes sought by Mr Nassif”.
Under questioning from counsel assisting, Peggy Dwyer SC this morning, Assaf also discussed being concerned after being told that Ellis “may have been trying to … hit up some members of parliament” for public money, including their communications budgets.
Assaf says he spoke to one of the MPs, former NSW upper house Liberal Lou Amato, and advised him against giving money to Ellis.
Dwyer: So you were saying: ‘Don’t give him your comms budget, your public money comms budget to fund effectively the work of the Reformers’.
Assaf: No, I don’t think it was for the Reformers.
Dwyer: OK, so it was for him personally?
Assaf: I don’t know what he was going to do with it. I just didn’t, and I didn’t want to know. I just wanted to get out of there.
Two blockbuster David Hockney exhibitions opening in Australia
Two blockbuster exhibitions dedicated to the late David Hockney are opening in Australia later this year, months after the British artist’s death at the age of 88.
The National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, home to the largest collection of Hockney’s work in Australia, will stage David Hockney: Portraits in Print from September to February. The exhibition will span more than 60 works made over 30 years and offers “an intimate view of his personal life, creative practice and deep engagement with portraiture”, the NGA said.
And from October to January, Carriageworks in Sydney is staging David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away), an immersive exhibition created by Lightroom London with Hockney himself, who recorded narration that guides visitors through his processes and philosophy.
Australian shares dip despite oil prices easing after Trump walked back Iran threat
Australia’s share market is edging lower, despite oil prices easing after US president Donald Trump opted not to follow through with a major attack on Iran over the weekend, AAP reports.
The S&P/ASX200 fell 17.1 points by midday, down 0.19%, to 8,959.7, as the broader All Ordinaries dipped 13.9 points, or 0.15%, to 9,123.1.
Markets appeared to take the news with wary optimism, as Brent crude eased to US$83.81 a barrel, while the local share market shrugged off Friday’s tech-led rally on Wall Street to begin the week lower.
The Australian dollar is buying 70.34 US cents, roughly on par with its price on Friday at 5pm.
CSIRO confirms first mass mortality event from H5 bird flu
Lisa Cox
Tests by the CSIRO have confirmed Australia’s first mass mortality event from the deadly H5 bird flu and the environment minister, Murray Watt, has warned more mass wildlife deaths will occur as the disease continues to spread.
Watt told a media conference in Canberra:
I want to level with people: this is the beginning of what is likely to be a long, difficult journey in terms of the impacts on wildlife.
The mass deaths of greater crested terns were announced in South Australia over the weekend, with 49 dead terns and 35 unwell terns detected by aerial surveillance.
Samples from some of those animals were sent to the CSIRO for verification and have come back positive.
Watt said:
The reality is, you can’t stop native and wild birds flying around, and you can’t stop wild animals moving around, and that will mean more mass mortality events like the one we have now seen.
What we can do, and what we have been doing, is build up the resilience of the populations of our native birds and mammals.
Agriculture minister, Julie Collins, said Australia now had 74 confirmed H5N1 cases – 54 in SA, 10 in Western Australia, seven in Victoria, two in New South Wales and one in Queensland.
Two people taken to hospital after building collapse in Sydney
Achol Arok
Two people have been hospitalised and remain in serious condition after a building collapsed in Sydney’s inner-city.
Emergency services responded to reports of the incident just before 11am on Wattle Street in Ultimo, where paramedics assessed a total of seven people.
The two hospitalised men, reported to be in their 30s and 60s, were taken to Royal Prince Alfred hospital and St Vincent’s hospital.
Icac witness claims staffer in Perrottet’s office discouraged him from appearing at parliamentary inquiry
The NSW Icac’s Operation Rosny has moved to a parliamentary inquiry which took place in 2023 into allegations of branch stacking in the Hills shire, which preceded Icac’s inquiry.
The inquiry has previously heard that Liberal figures named in Icac’s allegations, Christian Ellis, Jean-Claude and Charles Perrottet, avoided being served summons to appear at the parliamentary inquiry.
Reformer Robert Assaf said that after he voiced support for appearing at the inquiry, believing the group had “nothing to hide”, it became a joke among the group to call him a “rat”, including sending him rat emojis.
He has also described a staffer in the office of then Liberal premier Dominic Perrottet, Angus McCaffrey, discouraging him from appearing at the inquiry, saying McCaffrey was acting as an intermediary “between other people” including Charles Perrottet.
Assaf says:
Angus [McCaffrey] wasn’t part of it. He was just passing on, you know, what he heard to me … Basically, it was when I told him about my view of: ‘Why don’t I just go down and say this, tell them what I know’. He wasn’t a fan of it primarily because others had said this can’t happen … basically your career will be over if this happens.
Asked if he felt intimidated by this, Assaf says he did but “it was more like, I just took it as they’re stressed, they have a view, they disagree with me, and they’re applying max pressure on me to not do what I thought was right”.
Dominic Perrottet is not accused of any wrongdoing, while Charles Perrottet has previously denied any wrongdoing.
Hanson bars ABC, the Age and Guardian from press conference
Benita Kolovos
Pauline Hanson has held a press conference in Melbourne to unveil eight upper house candidates running for the party in the Victorian state election.
Reporters from the ABC, the Age and the Guardian were not provided with the time or location of the press conference. Asked whether all media should have access to a press conference in a democracy, particularly given her ambition to form government at the November state election, Hanson responded:
She claimed it was not the first time she had denied ABC access to her events, having done so in 1996 “for eight months” and added, “the same will go with The Guardian”. Hanson went on:
I’m not putting up with the spin, gotcha moments. wanting to have a go at me … [and] treat us totally different to what you do, the other major political parties. Enough is enough.
In a later follow up question, another reporter asked:
Aren’t you cutting off your nose to spite your face here? Don’t you need your message to get out to regional Victoria in particular, and you need the ABC, the national broadcaster to be able to carry it?
To which Hanson responded: “We’ve got Rebel News here, I am happy with them.”
Rebel News Australia is run by Avi Yemini, a former Israeli soldier and self-styled investigative journalist.
Icac witness describes Perrottet’s ‘vendetta’ against federal Liberal MP
Reformers member Robert Assaf has described his concerns about alleged branch stacking efforts in the Hills shire in north Sydney.
Assaf says the belief that centre-right faction member and federal MP for Mitchell, Alex Hawke, had “backstabbed” the former premier Dominic Perrottet, “took branches, split the right, and now Hawke is this kingmaker because he has enough of a percentage to pick who wins each time” was “standard brainwashing” to those who joined the right Liberal faction. Mitchell includes parts of the Hills shire.
He told the inquiry Dominic and his brothers Charles and Jean-Claude “were known to have this big vendetta against Hawke ever since”.
Asked if he was concerned the Reformers work was being used to pursue this, he says:
It was a concern at the time, which is part of the reason why I didn’t want to have too much to do with the Hills [shire]. I just kept doing my own thing, you know, under the banner of the Reformers.
Branch stacking itself is not illegal, and neither Hawke nor Dominic Perrottet are accused of any wrongdoing. Charles and Jean-Claude Perrottet have previously denied any wrongdoing.
NSW’s new toll deal to cost taxpayers now, but not the toll company
Luca Ittimani
New South Wales taxpayers will foot a $143m bill for one-off cuts to tollways while the multinational operator faces no net cost.
The operator, Transurban, said the reforms were neutral for its prospects and its share price held steady in early trading. Transurban expects the state to pay $600m in equalisation payments and cover the cost of the M7-M2 widening, while it and its co-investors in the M2 and the eastern distributor will repay the state $600m earlier than previously agreed.
The NSW transport minister, John Graham, said the reforms will cost the state a net $143m over the next five year, even as the companies say they face no net cost. When asked what that included, Graham told reporters:
The accounting is complex here, but that’s the budgeting.
He also acknowledged the one-off 10% reduction to tolls on a few motorways “will eventually” be offset by the operators’ regular increases to tolls.
Chris Minns, the premier, denied this implied taxpayers were footing the bill for the deal. He told reporters:
We need toll relief now and it’s better to have it at a lower base given the multiple increases that they have through the year.
The government already spends over $100m a year to foot the bill when a motorist spends more than $60 each week on tolls.
Reformers member may have allegedly tried to ‘hit up’ MPs for public money, inquiry hears
Penry Buckley
Returning to the NSW Icac’s Operation Rosny: Reformers member Robert Assaf has been giving evidence about the breakdown of his friendship with fellow Reformer Christian Ellis.
Assaf had described beginning to distrust Ellis over the payment of a 10% finder’s fee to Assaf for signing up new clients to lobbying company Beckington.
He today described becoming concerned about Ellis’s links to the fugitive property developer Jean Nassif. Last week, he gave evidence that the Reformers became concerned that Ellis was “getting rich” from payments to the group.
Icac is investigating the allegation that between 2020 and 2023, Liberal figures, including Ellis, solicited or accepted donations “in exchange for the pursuit of outcomes sought by Mr Nassif”.
Under questioning from counsel assisting, Peggy Dwyer SC this morning, Assaf also discussed being concerned after being told that Ellis “may have been trying to … hit up some members of parliament” for public money, including their communications budgets.
Assaf says he spoke to one of the MPs, former NSW upper house Liberal Lou Amato, and advised him against giving money to Ellis.
Dwyer: So you were saying: ‘Don’t give him your comms budget, your public money comms budget to fund effectively the work of the Reformers’.
Assaf: No, I don’t think it was for the Reformers.
Dwyer: OK, so it was for him personally?
Assaf: I don’t know what he was going to do with it. I just didn’t, and I didn’t want to know. I just wanted to get out of there.
Danielle Walt, from Financial Counselling Australia, has told today’s parliamentary inquiry that the Albanese government’s gambling bill is insufficient to address harm being caused by addiction in Australia.
Walt, joining critics giving evidence to a Senate committee, says the bill is built around a misconception that gambling harm is principally a problem of consumer responsibility.
That premise leads naturally to opt outs and self exclusion, and individual risk management, rather than the stronger system-level protections that are characteristic of modern public health regulation.
Small changes and incremental movements made on that basis don’t edge us closer to the right answer, they revalidate the wrong one.
A rotten assumption will not get less rotten because you build on top of it slowly. The Murphy inquiry showed what is required, a comprehensive advertising ban.
Refugee advocates call for reforms as Bikram Lama’s body returned to Nepal
Refugee advocates are calling for reforms to protect non-residents trapped in homelessness as the body of Bikram Lama returns to his family in Nepal.
Lama, a young Nepalese student, died in Hyde Park in December while sleeping rough, prompting a widespread outpouring of support and calls for change to systemic barriers preventing non-residents from accessing key housing services.
The Refugee Council of Australia says temporary visa holders, including those seeking asylum, were making up a growing proportion of those sleeping rough. The council is calling for practical solutions such as expanding access to rent assistance, bond loans and other housing support.
Senior policy officer Dr Shaheen Whyte said Lama’s death highlighted the devastating consequences of leaving people without an adequate safety net.
Whyte said:
Like anyone else, non-residents and people seeking refugee protection can experience job loss, illness, family violence and housing stress. A fair homelessness system responds to those in need in times of crisis, regardless of where they are from or what visa they are on.
For too long community organisations have been leading the fight on this. It’s time for state and federal governments to step up and take action. Community organisations are doing everything they can by providing food, clothing, blankets and referrals to healthcare,but they cannot provide long-term accommodation, or the financial support people need to get back on their feet.
Lama’s body has been stuck in Australia for almost eight months after his death. But his family were expecting it to arrive back in Kathmandu over the weekend, allowing them to perform last rites.
How long it takes the more expensive fuel to flow through to service stations depends on how quickly they restock, and the ACCC is keeping an eye out for dramatic price moves that can’t be explained.
Jim Chalmers, the treasurer, this morning sent this warning:
Servos and suppliers are on notice. The regulator will be watching them like a hawk, and they can’t use the return to normal settings with the excise as cover for treating motorists as mugs.
With the global oil shock far from over and even worsening in recent weeks, Chalmers told ABC radio that “it’s not our intention” to bring the excise back but that “obviously we keep all of our policies under review”.
He then went on to note that “prices are substantially lower than they were when we first introduced it at the end of March” – when petrol was over $2.50 a litre, and diesel more than $3.20.
Ben Carroll only filling one of three cabinet vacancies in Victoria
The new Victorian premier, Ben Carroll, will fill just one of the three vacancies left in cabinet when the state Labor caucus meets this morning.
Three positions were left vacant after the resignations of Jacinta Allan and ministers Lily D’Ambrosio and Harriet Shing – her close supporters – last week. The three women were all from Labor’s Socialist Left and their vacancies were expected to be filled by three MPs from that faction.
Ben Carroll. Photograph: Jay Kogler/AAP
However, several Labor sources confirmed that only the member for Mordialloc, Tim Richardson, will be elevated at this morning’s meeting.
The number of ministries is up to the premier of the day.
One source said the move will save on wage costs and send a good message to voters amid the current cost-of-living crisis and state budget concerns. But another said it shifts the balance of the cabinet in favour of Carroll – who is from Labor’s right faction – and his supporters, preventing those loyal to Allan from blocking decisions leading up to November’s state election.
Here’s a story from last week on how Carroll is Victorian Labor’s first leader from the right in almost two decades and what it means for the state:
Toll road operator says new deal won’t cost company money
The tollway operator, Transurban, says the NSW reforms won’t hurt its bottom line.
The changes are part of negotiations between the state Labor government and the private operator. Chris Minns, the premier, campaigned on a promise of ending Sydney’s “tollmania”.
The government’s central solution to date has been the weekly toll cap, with motorists paying no more than $60 a week (temporarily reduced to $50 for 2026-27). Transurban today announced it would also pay $75m to fund that cap.
Even accounting for that payout, the company says they won’t be suffering. They told investors the reforms would have no net cost to their near term distributions or their net five year funds flow, because they expect road use (and therefore total toll payments) to pick up.
Sydney road tolls to fall under state government deal
Luca Ittimani
Tolls are set to fall on some Sydney motorways after the operator, Transurban, reached a long-awaited deal with the New South Wales government.
Motorbike tolls will be halved on all motorways gradually, starting from July 2027.
Tolls will fall 10% on 1 July 2027 for the Lane Cove Tunnel and “longer journeys” on the M2. The cross city tunnel’s toll will fall 20% when the new western harbour tunnel opens, scheduled for 2028.
M7 trip fees at present stop rising after 20km. That cap will fall to 18km from 1 January 2028, pending a deal to widen the motorway.
The eastern distributor motorway is set to bring in tolls in both directions from when the western harbour tunnel opens, but with north and south tolls at just over half of the current northbound level.
The government has previously promised to bring in two-way tolling on to the harbour bridge as well. The promised 4% toll hike from 1 July 2027 for the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the harbour tunnel has been trimmed to 3.25%.
Users of the Westconnex motorway will not get any discounts. The government said ti could not reach an agreement with Transurban that would have been “good value” for motorists and taxpayers.
Robert Assaf, the first witness from the conservative right Liberal factional group the Reformers to give evidence so far, is appearing before the commission again today. Reformers Jean-Claude Perrottet and Jeremy Greenwood will give evidence later this week.
The inquiry is investigating allegations that Reformers including Assaf, Perrottet and Greenwood solicited or accepted illegal donations to recruit or renew members to the party, a practice known as “branch stacking”, which is not of itself illegal. The group wanted more conservative policies on same-sex marriage, transgender rights, abortion and euthanasia.
Damien Tudehope, the NSW shadow attorney general and Liberal leader in the upper house, is expected to appear before the inquiry later today. Tudehope, who has stood aside from his shadow cabinet roles during the inquiry, is not named in any allegations and is not accused of any wrongdoing.
His name was mentioned frequently during the first week of hearings. Reformers Jean-Claude Perrottet and Christian Ellis worked as staffers in Tudehope’s office, and Tudehope gave frequent talks at Reformers recruitment events. His former business partner Michael O’Hara, who is alleged to have made illegal donations, was the inquiry’s first witness. O’Hara disputed whether his payments to the Reformers counted as political donations.
Jean-Claude Perrottet has previously denied any wrongdoing.
Parliamentary inquiry told gambling companies provided drugs to big spending punters
Tom McIlroy
A Senate inquiry into the Albanese government’s gambling laws has heard allegations that betting companies and casinos are providing big spending punters with drugs, free accommodation and escorts.
Anti-gambling campaigner Tim Costello told Monday’s hearing he was preparing to give a character reference to a man being detained in Sydney’s Silverwater prison, who was allegedly targeted by promoters.
The man is preparing to plead guilty to charges over theft of more than $12m, Costello said.
Costello alleged to the hearing that gambling companies including TAB and Sportsbet offered the man drugs, escorts, and free accommodation.
He was given free accommodation at Star Casino. He had to leave each week so they could technically say he wasn’t living there and come back the next morning.
He was the TAB’s biggest customer in that time. They were giving him $50,000 bonus bets. He was also Sportsbet’s biggest customer.
They were flying him to grand finals. They were offering him escorts, drugs, whatever he wanted. He was doing turnover of more than $20m a month.
He is very distressed, having been brought up in a church family, about the disgrace to his family and to himself, and that’s why he’ll be pleading guilty.