Australia news LIVE: ACCC accuses Microsoft of misleading 2.7 million Australians; Coalition push to bring CFMEU administrators before parliament amid corruption allegations

Nationals leader David Littleproud has said Barnaby Joyce is welcome back to the party room, after his confirmation this morning that he would not be attending today’s meeting where net zero is set to be high on the agenda.

“He’s still a member of the National Party, and I made it very clear he’s welcomed back into our party room … what we’ve got to do is continue to create an environment where Barnaby feels welcome and wants to come back and can contribute.

“That’s a simple principle, and we’ll make sure that it’s been it’s been portrayed to him, and I’ve made very clear to him that he’s welcome back at any time to make a constructive contribution with the rest of the party,” Littleproud told Sky News this morning.

Pressed on whether he thinks Joyce simply does not like him, following the MP’s comments in recent weeks citing a personality clash with Littleproud as one of the reasons he would not be re-contesting his New England seat at the next election, Littleproud said the risk of not being liked was “an occupational hazard.”

“When you become the leader, there’s people that don’t like you as he would have experienced … you’ve got to make hard decisions. Sometimes, as leader, it doesn’t make you popular sometimes, but you’ve got to think about what’s to the long-term benefit of the party, and that’s the burden of being the leader of a political party.

“I encourage him to come back to the party room. It’d be great to see him in these key discussions, but it’s a decision he has to make,” the National Party leader said.

The Coalition will call for a Senate inquiry into the CFMEU administration to bring its leaders before the parliament after an investigation by this masthead and 60 Minutes exposed failures to clean up the scandal-ridden union.

Coalition industrial relations spokesperson Tim Wilson said whistleblowers were increasingly compromising themselves to speak out against the administrator and Australians needed answers over the ongoing alleged corruption despite the union being forced into administration 15 months ago.

“Today we saw allegations where the administrator has planned to not be taking courses of action because it would embarrass the government, and in addition to that, might risk the recreation of the Australian Building and Construction Commission,” Wilson told reporters in Canberra.

“The government [Industrial Relations] Minister Rishworth won’t turn up and answer basic questions … It’s time that we have proper oversight, proper scrutiny and proper action.”

The consumer watchdog has taken legal action against Microsoft alleging it misled 2.7 million Australians over subscription costs for its AI products and other software.

Today, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said it has commenced proceedings in the federal court against Microsoft Australia and its parent company Microsoft Corporation over how it communicated price increases to customers of its Copilot AI assistant and Microsoft 365 plans including software such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

The ACCC alleges that since October 31 2024, “Microsoft has told subscribers of Microsoft 365 Personal and Family plans with auto-renewal enabled that to maintain their subscription, they must accept the integration of Copilot and pay higher prices for their plan, or, alternatively, cancel their subscription”.

The ACCC alleges this information was false or misleading because there was “an undisclosed third option” – the Microsoft 365 Personal or Family Classic plans – which allowed subscribers to retain the features of their existing plan, without Copilot, at the previous lower price.

“Microsoft’s communication with subscribers did not refer to the existence of the ‘Classic’ plans, and the only way subscribers could access them was to begin the process of cancelling their subscription,” the ACCC said.

ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said: “We believe many Microsoft 365 customers would have opted for the Classic plan had they been aware of all the available options.”

Liberal senator Maria Kovacic has criticised Environment Minister Murray Watt’s environmental law reforms this morning, accusing him of pandering to green groups and ignoring concerns of Australian businesses.

Speaking to Sky News today, Kovacic said, “He’s choosing to actually concede to extreme fringe green groups, instead of considering what’s best for Australia and Australians and Australian business.

“We’ve very clearly said that we will be constructive where we can, and will be critical where we must. Our leader Sussan Ley, our shadow minister, Angie Bell, have been very clear that we’re happy to fast track any reforms that enable Australian businesses and Australian jobs and the construction of Australian housing.

“What we have a problem with is where we are looking at pecuniary penalties, some of the harshest in the world, that do nothing to actually help the environment. They just punish Australian business. We want to look at that, and we want to civilise that.”

Business groups have claimed the reforms would hand the government broad powers to veto investment and are worried the new laws make the proponents of big-emitting projects prove their climate change mitigation plans before approval.

The government has rejected these claims, insisting there would be no climate trigger in the proposed reforms.

Two players in Australia’s World Cup squad were allegedly stalked and touched inappropriately while in India for the women’s ODI cricket tournament, Cricket Australia confirmed over the weekend.

CA said the incident had been raised with police after the pair were followed by a man on a motorbike while walking to a cafe in Indore on Thursday. The man was later reportedly identified as Akil Khan by The Times of India, The Economic Times and ANI newswire on Sunday morning.

“CA can confirm two members of the Australian women’s team were approached and touched inappropriately by a motorcyclist while walking to a cafe in Indore,” a Cricket Australia spokesman said on Saturday night.

“The matter was reported by team security to police, who are handling the matter.”

Indore’s Deputy Commissioner of Police Rajesh Dandotiya said the accused had been charged under sections 74 and 78 of the criminal code, which deal with assault or using criminal force against a woman with the intent to outrage her modesty, and stalking.

Police said they arrested a convicted sex offender and asylum-seeker who was mistakenly released from prison in a blunder that has embarrassed the UK government.

Ethiopian national Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu was arrested in the Finsbury Park area in north London. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would be deported as soon as possible.

Before he was released in error, Kebatu had already been in the national news because his arrest this year over the sexual assault of a teenage girl triggered a wave of angry anti-migrant protests in London and other cities.

Authorities said they were alerted on Friday afternoon that Kebatu was released by mistake at a prison in Chelmsford, Essex, and was seen catching a London-bound train there. British media reported that he was wrongly categorised as a prisoner due to be released, instead of being sent to an immigration detention centre.

The migrant was sentenced in September to 12 months in prison for five offences, including the sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl in July in Epping, on the outskirts of London, just over a week after he had arrived in England by boat.

Thousands of people had protested outside the Bell Hotel in Epping, where he was staying along with other newly arrived migrants.

Multiple protests targeting other hotels housing migrants followed in British cities and towns, with some demonstrations attended by far-right activists and spilling into disorder.

AP

Environment Minister Murray Watt said his environmental law reforms could get support from both the Coalition and the Greens, despite the parties vocally opposing the bill since details began emerging last week.

“We’re certainly hoping and expecting that we will get support from either the Coalition or the Greens, or potentially even both,” Watt told ABC News Breakfast, before pointing out the parties’ steadfast positions.

“I don’t think anyone’s really surprised … that at this stage of negotiations, that the Coalition are taking a position that business has got to get everything they want, and that the Greens are taking a position saying that the environment’s got to get everything it wants,” he said.

Watt said the environmental reforms balanced the issues, “delivering real gains for both the environment and for business … and that’s why we think it deserves support in this parliament.”

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young has hit out at the government’s proposed reforms to environmental laws, labelling them as “business approval laws” that will “fast-track coal and gas projects”.

Speaking to ABC’s News Breakfast program this morning, Hanson-Young said: “We want laws that actually protect the environment and don’t just make life easier for big business and the mining and the logging companies … these are meant to be environment protection laws, not business approval laws.

“We want to make sure these laws protect our forests and protect our climate, and a lot of people would be surprised that our existing environment laws don’t even cover native forests … We want to fix that. We want to make sure that can’t happen. And we also want to make sure we take action on the climate crisis. What the proposed changes that the government has put forward and is talking of tabling this week, will fast track coal and gas projects. We think that’s the last thing we should be doing in an environmental crisis and climate crisis that we’re in today.”

The government has said that there will not be a climate trigger in the proposed reforms, an exclusion that has drawn much criticism from environmental stakeholders, climate scientists and activists as well as the Greens.

“The current laws as they stand allow all these loopholes. They allow logging in native forest. They allow rampant land clearing even where there’s threatened species, even that when there’s wildlife that desperately need that bushland and forest as homes,” Hanson-Young said.

“The government’s decision to take the climate trigger off the table, while at the same time allowing coal and gas companies to have their projects fast-tracked. We think that is the wrong way … Emissions are going up. Pollution is getting worse, and the climate crisis is here and making a huge impact on people’s lives.”