Australia news live: Australia Post hikes delivery companies’ fuel surcharge; more service stations affected by fuel shortages

From AAP:

An AI detection system is hoped to make a splash by dramatically improving safety at swimming spots and boat ramps across Australia’s crocodile-infested northern waterways.

But its creators warn it can only identify crocodiles above the waterline and not those that could be lurking beneath.

The smart camera system continuously monitors the surface of a waterway and when a crocodile is detected by the AI technology, automatically alerts authorities to take action.

The technology could act as a crucial early warning system, James Cook University senior lecturer and project lead, Tao Huang, told AAP on Tuesday.

“Crocodiles are a part of the environment in far north Queensland but many residents and visitors may not be aware of the risks,” he said.

Telstra announces price increases in ‘slap in the face’ for mobile customers

Telstra have announced price increases across a variety of mobile services, including its Belong brand, today.

CEO of Australian Communications Consumer Action Network, Carol Bennett, said:

Today’s announcement is a slap in the face for millions of customers, with prices on a Telstra Basic plan, as best we can tell, now up nearly 14% over the last year.

Only weeks ago Telstra announced record profits and increased returns to shareholders. Regular customers are now left paying higher prices for services which they increasingly say no longer represents value for money. Before this announcement – 28% of people reported they were unhappy with the cost of their mobile plan.

As cost of living bites, Telstra mobile customers should not be asked to shoulder price increases that outpace both inflation and community expectations.

We encourage consumers to shop around and look for cost-effective mobile phone plans that don’t come with a premium price tag.

The Australian sharemarket enjoyed a brief bounce this morning but then fizzled out in the afternoon after Iran dismissed Donald Trump’s claims of talks to end his war.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 picked up $30bn in value then lost it all again. From yesterday’s 8,365 point close, it surpassed 8,500 points then eased back to 8,379. It’s down nearly 9% from its 9,200 close at the war’s start.

Trump overnight said the US and Iran were having “very strong talks”, stepping back from his threat to destroy Iran’s energy infrastructure. But Iran said the talks were “fake news”.

Oil prices fell and the US Nasdaq rebounded. Japan’s Nikkei and the ASX followed at first, but pared their gains as missile strikes continued on Tuesday.

Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and NAB slipped, while ANZ and Macquarie picked up, as did the major miners. Qantas’ share price rose 2.3% but the airline is still worth $2bn less than it was before the war broke out.

Coal and gas companies, meanwhile, have slipped as expectations of surging energy prices ease, while financial and tech stocks struggled as the prospects for economic growth and investment grow bleaker the longer war stretches on.

Victorian energy minister calls for ‘national approach’ to managing fuel supply

The Victorian energy minister, Lily D’Ambrosio, held a press conference this afternoon to provide an update on fuel availability. She said that as of midday, about 83 petrol stations in Victoria were without petrol, while 97 were without diesel.

D’Ambrosio continued:

We need to understand that these numbers can jump around because these outages are very localised outages, but they are also temporary, short term. We see that even during the course of the day, refuelling can occur, so that those stations that were reported as being without liquid fuel in the morning can very well be back in operation, and new ones could actually come in and be out of fuel. So that’s the nature of this cycle … and the circumstances that we’re in.

She said demand in some parts of the state had increased “anywhere between 300% and 400%”:

There’s plenty of fuel coming into the country. What has happened is that there has been this massive spike in demand in some parts of the state, and indeed across the country, as people worry about fuel supplies over the coming weeks. And that’s also led to a massive increase in the price of those liquid fuels.

D’Ambrosio wouldn’t say whether the government would heed the state opposition leader’s call to urge the federal government to cut the fuel excise, but said there needed to be a “national conversation” on managing supply:

All of the views that I’ve heard from all of the states have been very much that we do need a national approach to this.

Gambling ad reform delay ‘a shocking indictment’ on PM, shadow communications minister says

The new shadow communications minister, Sarah Henderson, has taken a swipe at the government for not moving faster on gambling ads.

Today marks 1,000 days since late Labor MP Peta Murphy’s report calling for online gambling ads to be banned entirely. While the government remains in consultation on further gambling restrictions – with sporting groups, wagering companies, media, harm reduction advocates and more – there still has been no formal government response to the report.

“The Albanese government’s refusal to take any action on gambling advertising reform is untenable. Australian families’ lives are being torn apart by gambling addiction,” Henderson said.

She noted that the Coalition, under Peter Dutton in the previous parliament, had a push to ban gambling ads one hour before and after sporting broadcasts, which the government didn’t support.

Henderson claimed the delay was “a shocking indictment” on prime minister Anthony Albanese and the communications minister, Anika Wells.

The Victorian opposition leader, Jess Wilson, has written to the premier, Jacinta Allan, urging her to ask the federal government to temporarily cut the fuel excise.

Speaking at a press conference in Malvern earlier today, Wilson said some Victorians were being forced to choose between buying groceries or filling their tanks with petrol.

She said:

We have a premier who is failing to take the action Victorians deserve. I say to the premier, like I did when I wrote to her this morning, pick up the phone to the prime minister and ask the prime minister to provide that immediate cost of living relief by putting a temporary pause on the excise on every litre of petrol in Australia.

Wilson said 50 petrol stations in Victoria lacked adequate diesel supplies on Monday.

That is affecting, in particular, our regional communities and our farmers, so I say to the premier, you need to take leadership. You need to take action. You are a Labor premier. You need to pick up the phone to a Labor prime minister and do all that you can to secure supplies for Victorians.

Australia Post has hiked its fuel surcharge early, to nearly triple its previous rate, adding to costs for big delivery companies.

The national postal service sets its fuel surcharges for a given month six weeks in advance. Two weeks before the US went to war with Iran, it set the fuel surcharge for April at 4.8%, the lowest level since May 2022.

Australia Post has now set a 12% surcharge for May, which will unusually kick in a week early, on 23 April. The surcharge hit a similar level amid the oil and petrol price spike of 2022. The StarTrack express and premium charges will rise from 15.5% to 22.7%.

A spokesperson said the increase would “help recover the recent significant rise in fuel costs”, adding:

We carefully consider any pricing changes and the impact on our customers, however, like for many other Australian businesses, this is a necessary change to help manage cost in a challenging environment.

The domestic parcel charge affects Australia Post’s 30,000 contract customers, typically bigger businesses and delivery companies, which could now pass on the higher costs to online shoppers and businesses.

The surcharge will not directly affect parcel costs for households or MyPost Business customers (of which there are about 250,000), the spokesperson said.

That’s all from me today, thanks so much for following along on the blog.

I’ll leave you with the brilliant Cait Kelly and see you here bright and early again tomorrow.

Over in Senate question time David Pocock says that the department of prime minister and cabinet has a response ready to go to Peta Murphy’s gambling review but that “it’s being held back” by Anthony Albanese – why? He asks.

Penny Wong accuses Pocock of being “unnecessarily personal” for saying that Murphy “did something rare in this place – she brought together members of that committee to make a unanimous recommendation.”

Like every other minister, Wong lists a bunch of things the government has done, and like every frustrated crossbencher, Pocock counters and says those actions were not actually in response to the Murphy report, and were based on work undertaken by the previous Coalition government.

Wong says:

I don’t know that your assertions are correct, to suggest that the government has not done anything. I don’t think that is correct at all.

It gets a bit messy as Pocock and members of the Coalition (who are also criticising the government for not doing anything on gambling ads) try to interject.

Tl;dr here’s what happened in question time

• The Coalition started on the free trade agreement (which it’s not a fan of) before quickly pivoting to fuel shortages.

• Chris Bowen announced that diesel standards will be dropped to allow more of the fuel to be imported into the country.

• Bowen gave a state by state breakdown of service stations that are closed or have run out of fuel across the country.

• Independent MPs Rebekha Sharkie and Dai Le called on the government to cut the fuel excise – but Jim Chalmers said it wasn’t on the government’s agenda.

• Kate Chaney asked the government when it will finally respond to Peta Murphy’s gambling report (today marks 1,000 days since it was handed down)

• Liberal frontbencher Tony Pasin got kicked out of the chamber under 94a for three whole hours.

AFP promises to ‘act quicker’ to disrupt and frustrate criminals

Krissy Barrett warns Australia’s security environment will remain “volatile and unpredictable for some time”, but assures the public that her agency and Asio are “up to this challenge”.

She also says that though arrest and charging have traditionally been one of the AFP’s most powerful levers, the modern security environment means its approach to tackling crime will look different.

In our complex and complicated operating environment, one of the fastest, safest and most efficient ways to protect Australia against some crimes will be to disrupt and frustrate criminals.

That means acting quicker even if it means we can’t arrest, intervening on lower-level crimes before they become more serious and using civil action such as our legislation to target unlawful, criminal profits.

The Australian federal police commissioner, Krissy Barrett, says we are seeing a “collision and collusion” between state actors and organised crime gangs, who are now at times working together.

Speaking to the Australian National University’s “Securing our future” summit, Barrett says law enforcement agencies around the world are uncovering examples where “state actors have turned traditional organised crime networks to grey zone offending.

Like many other industries, Barrett says the criminal business model has been “disrupted by the gig economy” which she says has created criminal amoebas that change shape, split and merge with other criminal networks.

Increasingly in Europe and Five Eyes countries including Australia, persons of interest in organised crime matters are being linked to state actors or their proxies.

In effect, state actors are increasingly capitalising on existing criminal underworld connections, especially with those who share ethnicity or ideology, to carry out offences such as foreign interference, sabotage or terrorism.

Bowen makes a correction to the chamber

Following question time, Chris Bowen makes a quick correction to the chamber, off Melissa McIntosh’s earlier question.

He says that like federal parliament, NSW parliament has Hansard (which transcribes everything that happens in the chamber).

According to Bowen, the Hansard says Minns actually said: “IF demand measures are required that might be rationing, that might be work from home.”

He accuses the opposition again of “seeking political point-scoring”.

With a final dixer to Anne Aly, the PM calls time on question time for another day!

Dai Le asks if Labor will halve the fuel excise

Will the government halve the fuel excise, asks the independent MP Dai Le, and says the government failed to listen to her previous calls to take the cost-of-living action.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers refers Le to his previous answer – when Rebekha Sharkie asked if the excise would be paused for 60 days.

The earlier answer was that it wasn’t being considered by the government.

Chalmers says there are other cost-of-living measures like tax cuts that come into effect in July that the government is focused on.

‘You are not serious people’, says Bowen

Liberal frontbencher Melissa McIntosh is up next and says that the NSW premier, Chris Minns, has said “demand management procedures are required. That might be rationing, it should be a nationally consistent approach.” She asks whether Chris Bowen agrees that there should be a nationally consistent approach.

Bowen says the ministers – at their Friday meeting – agreed “to work together on coordination measures over coming weeks and months”.

Bowen accuses the opposition of “fear mongering and disinformation”.

The opposition makes a point of order, and Milton Dick tells Bowen to stop talking about the opposition.

Bowen continues:

This government will continue to work constructively with state governments … because that is what sensible adult governments do. That is what serious people do. Non-serious people play politics amid international crisis.

“You are not serious people,” Bowen shouts as he sits down (Dick gives him a warning).

Kate Chaney asks when Labor will actually respond to the Murphy report

Why won’t you respond to Peta Murphy’s report, asks Kate Chaney, saying the government has not addressed any of the recommendations after the report was handed down 1,000 days ago.

Chaney says:

You claim to done more than any other government but none of your actions were in response to the inquiry’s recommendations and Australians still lose more through gambling than any other country.

Anthony Albanese defends the government’s response and lists some of the measures that the government has undertaken (again, none of these are based on the recommendations of the late Labor MP’s report).

Albanese says:

We certainly recognise this is a real issue but it is extraordinary [to] argue that the measures the government put in place have not been in response to the Murphy report. That is just not true. That is factually wrong.

He fails to provide an answer on when the government will actually respond to the report and its recommendations.

He says he and his ministers will “continue to engage across the community” on the issue.