As it happened: PM announces $1.5 billion energy bill relief; police union calls for Lehrmann case inquiry

That’s it for today! Thanks for joining me for this afternoon’s blog. We’ll be back tomorrow with more news as it happens.

Here’s a wrap of today’s headlines in case you missed them:

• The prime minister has announced energy bill relief measures including $1.5 billion for households and small businesses.
• The opposition has slammed the government’s energy bill relief measures, saying it will reduce supply and push up power prices.
• Japanese ambassador to Australia Shingo Yamagami says his country will consider co-operating with the AUKUS alliance on specific projects as it seeks to push back on China.
• Federal Cyber Security Minister Clare O’Neil says Australia is not as prepared as it should be to prevent and protect itself from cyberattacks.
• Community groups are demanding the Reserve Bank’s 2-3 per cent inflation target be lifted to avoid price pressures that might lead to massive job losses and hurt Australia’s lowest paid.
• The Perrottet government has announced it will fast-track a controversial gas project in northern NSW to boost gas supplies in the state.

• In Victoria, the Environmental Protection Authority has uncovered 3000 tonnes of hidden plastic bags linked to the collapse of Australia’s largest soft plastic recycling program.

Have a wonderful evening, we’ll be back with our live news coverage next week.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton and shadow minister for climate change and energy, Ted O’Brien, have slammed the government’s energy bill relief measures, saying they will push up prices, in a press conference in Brisbane today.

Referring to the price caps announced by the prime minister this afternoon, Dutton said that, “nowhere in the world has there been any experience of success in capping prices.”

“What the government needs to do is to drive more supply of gas into the market instead of reducing supply,” he said. “This government is an economic train wreck.”

O’Brien said a consequence of the price caps would be a reduction in energy supplied to the market.

“Everybody who has studied even the basics of economics knows that price is a function of supply and demand,” he said. “Once you place a price cap down, you are pushing supply down. As a result, prices will go up, the liability will get worse, jobs will be compromised, and Australia’s energy security will continue to be jeopardised into the future.”

The competition watchdog has lost its case in the federal court against Google after alleging Google misled Australian consumers in the way it gained their consent to use their personal information for targeted advertising.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission alleged Google misled consumers when it failed to properly inform them, and did not gain their explicit informed consent, about its move in 2016 to start combining personal information in consumers’ Google accounts with information about those individuals’ activities on non-Google sites that used Google technology, formerly DoubleClick technology, to display ads.

This meant this data about users’ non-Google online activity became linked to their names and other identifying information held by Google. Previously, this information had been kept separately from users’ Google accounts, meaning the data was not linked to an individual user.

Google then used this newly combined information to improve the commercial performance of its advertising businesses.

The Federal Court of Australia on Friday rejected the ACCC’s submission and ordered it to pay Google’s costs. Judge David Yates said he was not satisfied that the Commission had established that Google contravened the Australian Consumer Law as alleged.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spoke about reaching a deal on capping power prices, following this afternoon’s National Cabinet.

Three thousand tonnes of plastic bags have been discovered in six Melbourne warehouses after the collapse of Australia’s largest soft plastics recycling program.

Victoria’s Environment Protection Authority uncovered the waste in sites in Melbourne’s west and north as part of an ongoing investigation into the REDcycle program, which was suspended last month after secretly stockpiling soft plastics for years.

“Although the operators of REDcycle did tell us about some of the sites, intelligence from logistics companies and others is assisting EPA’s investigations. If you have any of these soft plastic wastes at your warehouse, we need to know,” the authority said.

The REDcycle program collapsed in November amid revelations hundreds of millions of bags and other soft plastic items dropped off by customers at Coles and Woolworths are being secretly stockpiled in warehouses and not recycled.

Instead of being taken to companies that use the plastic to make other items, REDcycle was transporting the plastic to warehouses for long-term storage in what some experts considered a potential environmental and fire safety risk.

Read the full story here.