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Thanks for your company over this big week in politics and Australian life.
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Westpac is cutting 116 permanent jobs, on top of 300 positions axed by the bank last week, the Finance Sector Union says.
The FSU today said Westpac would cut 116 jobs from its premium banking area, and the union expected more cuts ahead in mortgage operations and commercial banking.
Westpac said the cuts were part of a long-running plan to make the bank more efficient, but FSU national secretary Julia Angrisano said the cuts were “hard, unconscionable and unwarranted” given the bank reported higher profits last month.
“Westpac pleads it is cutting costs in order to manage expenses, but these lost jobs aren’t numbers on a balance sheet, they are loyal bankers who have given years of service to their employer and helped make Westpac a large, successful and highly profitable operation,” Angrisano said.
A Westpac spokesman said the cuts were part of a cost-cutting program it announced last year, and the bank would support affected employees.
“In February 2022, we announced plans to simplify the bank, improve accountability and reduce costs. This ongoing re-organisation is part of our simplification and cost reset program,” the spokesman said.
Westpac had 38,503 full-time equivalent staff at the end of March.
Stoker said she believed women like her should raise problems promptly when they arise and pull inappropriate behaviour into line.
“But if there’s a pattern – and I say it with some care here – then that cannot be allowed to continue,” she said.
“Let’s teach our kids by our example, that when this stuff happens, we raise it directly with the right person and we draw some boundaries. Report it with proportionality, so that problem patterns can be identified and dealt with.
“If you’re the … person receiving the report, treat it seriously and consider it objectively. Respect confidentiality, where it’s sought.”
Stoker said the more serious the conduct, “the more important it is that reporting is swift and quality evidence is collected, while it’s fresh”.
Stoker said she “got on with the job” and had even interviewed Van on Sky News, “including relatively recently”.
“He didn’t repeat the behaviour toward me,” Stoker said. “I’m a professional and I don’t hold a grudge, I never sought out attention over this matter.”
However, she said that yesterday, many journalists approached her.
“And though I would have preferred for the matter to remain private and in the past, I felt it important to ensure that if it was going to be reported, it was done so accurately,” she said.
Former Liberal senator Amanda Stoker says senator David Van’s denial of inappropriate behaviour towards her affirmed that “speaking up was the right thing to do”.
In a statement made on Sky News just after 6pm, Stoker said she “buried the hatchet” following the alleged incident with Van in 2020 after he assured her he wouldn’t behave inappropriately towards her in the future.
“I pulled him up on it immediately. I laid down the law, and I made it very clear that a repeat [incident] would not be tolerated by me or anyone else. I didn’t run to the media, and I didn’t try to destroy a colleague,” said Stoker, who is filling in for host Peta Credlin on the network.
“I immediately registered the issue with a senior colleague to ensure record of the event, and to ensure that any conduct that wasn’t in my line of sight could be detected and dealt with should patterns emerge.”
Van has denied any wrongdoing.
Stoker said that Van’s denial of inappropriate behaviour towards her “tells me something”.
“It tells me that speaking up was the right thing to do. After all, the standard we walk past is the standard we accept,” she said.
The single largest federal government stimulus program used to support the economy through the COVID pandemic, the $90 billion JobKeeper program, will be subject to an independent review to determine if it delivered value for money to the nation’s taxpayers.
The Federal Treasury tonight revealed it had set up the review that would also examine whether the program should be used to deal with future economic downturns and if it could be designed better.
JobKeeper was a wage subsidy program announced by the Morrison government in March 2020 just as the economy was effectively shut down to stop the spread of COVID-19.
Initially forecast to cost $130 billion, JobKeeper was aimed at supporting employees who worked for businesses that expected to suffer a decline of at least 30 per cent in their revenue for at least six months.
Businesses received $1500 a fortnight for each eligible worker. This was reduced to $1200 for full-time workers from September 2020 and to $1000 between January and March in 2021.
The local share market’s winning streak has continued for a fifth straight day and this time, its gains were the most in over two months.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index closed near the high of the day today, up 75.9 points, or 1.06 per cent, to a 3½ week high of 7251.2.
The broader All Ordinaries gained 81.2 points, or 1.1 per cent, to 7451.2.
The market rose 1.8 per cent over the holiday-shortened week, snapping its three-week losing streak.
In currency, the Australian dollar was at its highest level against the greenback since late February.
The Aussie was buying 68.96 US cents, from 68.15 US cents yesterday.
AAP
The Albanese government says it is unable to send Hawkei protected mobility vehicles to Ukraine in the near future despite increasingly desperate pleas from Kyiv, citing braking issues and a lack of spare parts.
Ukraine has been requesting a fleet of Australian-made Hawkeis since September and the country’s Ministry of Defence has taken to social media in recent months to declare the vehicle its new “military crush”.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is set to announce a new package of support for Ukraine during or just before his visit to the NATO summit in Lithuania in July, but Ukraine’s top request for assistance looks unlikely to feature in the announcement.
The Victorian Liberal Party has released a short statement about senator David Van, a day after party leader Peter Dutton sent him to the crossbench.
A spokesman said the Liberal Party “has taken action to suspend all organisational resources and support from Senator Van”.
“There will be an urgent meeting this weekend of the party’s Victorian administrative committee to further consider the allegations raised.”
Dutton has already called for Van to “resign from the parliament sooner [rather] than later and seek the help that he needs”.
But it is the Victorian division, rather than the federal leader, that has the power to decide whether Van should be forced to quit the Liberal Party.
Victorian party president Greg Mirabella met with federal MPs from the state earlier today, ahead of a federal Liberal council meeting in Canberra, which was already scheduled for this weekend.
Good afternoon, Anthony Segaert with you for the rest of the day. It’s been slightly quieter than yesterday’s chaotic few hours in Canberra, but the fallout today is continuing.
But as debate continues on another big topic – the Voice – reporter Paul Sakkal writes that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is under pressure to take greater control of the push for a Voice as the No camp gains traction:
The analysis of Yes23’s strategists is that a messy, defensive phase was inevitable in the middle of this year. After a simple value proposition – to do the right thing for Indigenous Australians and heed their call – was put forward at the start of the campaign, Yes campaigners expected a period of needling would cause some drop-off in support.
In the period leading up to polling day (the likeliest date for the referendum is October 14), proponents are banking on voters – many of whom are disengaged and will still be forming their opinions – returning to a simple value judgment on whether they think voting Yes is the right thing to do. In the same way as voters at the last election backed Albanese ahead of the disliked Scott Morrison despite an at-times poor Labor campaign, Yes figures believe they are putting a question that has the majority support of a younger, more progressive nation.”
Read his full inside story on the Yes campaign’s divisions here.