Australia news LIVE: RBA raises rates to 11-year-high; PM to cement AUKUS submarines deal in US

“The excessive hours are having a profound impact on the lives of our members, affecting their health, their relationships, the time available to spend with their families and their overall quality of life.”

The FSU is asking for court-ordered compensation payable to the four managers plus penalties paid directly to the union.

If the union wins, it will ask NAB to repay up to 10,000 staff who also worked for similarly excessive hours, Ms Angrisano says.

“This case is just the start. We know the culture of the big banks exploits workers, and we will be going after them as well.”

AAP

“It’s absolutely fundamental that academic freedom is preserved at all costs. It protects the rights of academics to engage in free, robust speech. As we know, it is incumbent on all educational institutions to teachAustralians how to think, not what to think, and academics who don’t believe in free speech have no place.”

In his announcement, Maskell said the university would continue to facilitate debate about the referendum

“All members of our community are entitled to engage in robust, evidence-based and respectful expression of their views and the University provides a safe place for expressing differing opinions,” he wrote. “Not everyone will vote ‘yes’ and we fully respect that.”

“Our focus is about getting trains running again. That’s now occurring so as of around 4pm this afternoon, we’ve safely been able to keep trains moving,” Longland said.

“But an incident like this means that trains and train crew and the operations will be interrupted throughout the remainder of today’s service. So the advice for customers is that if you haven’t yet travelled, and you need to travel on the rail network, think about delaying your trip until the service is fully restored.

“If you are travelling at the moment, and you need to be somewhere, think about an alternative mode of transport, particularly where trams or buses might get you to a similar destination.”

Sydney’s rail network was brought to a standstill on Wednesday for about an hour, with a communications issue affecting all train lines ahead of the afternoon peak hour.

Sydney trains and intercity services to Wollongong, Newcastle were affected by the delays.

Longland said there had been a breakdown in the “normally very reliable” communications system between the rail operations centre and train crews.

While the rail network was fully operational, trains could not operate safely because of the communications failure.

“We have re-established that connection. We’ve got trains running again, and we will fully investigate the root cause of this particular incident,” Longland said.

Officials said no commuters were trapped in trains and air conditioning continued to operate.

“It’s a phenomenal effort from the police,” Emergency Management Minister Kieran McAnulty said.

A 100-strong team worked remotely to gauge the whereabouts of missing Kiwis, with on-the-ground search and rescue crews and police assisting those enquiries and whittling down the list.

New Zealand is now in a hybrid response and recovery phase to its biggest storm in generations, with some regions still cleaning up, and others progressing with rebuilding. Including the Auckland flooding from a fortnight prior to Gabrielle, 846 properties have been rendered uninhabitable, or “red-stickered”.

There are still 200 displaced people staying at community centres, such as marae, and 1226 households remain without power.

AAP