Australian news and politics live: Opposition slams Albanese’s ‘shambolic’ China response, demands apology

Enforement action by Australia’s corporate watchdog rose 20 per cent in the past year - driven by cases relating to greenwashing, cyro-predatory lending, high cost credit and insider trading.

ASIC boss Joe Longo has told Senate estimates that both investigation numbers and civil litigation filings had increased.

“This year, we’ve already seen a number of strong enforcement outcomes,” he said.

“Last Friday, the AustralianSuper was fined $27 million.

“The Federal Court agreeing (to) the findings of our investigation, which identified failure to merge multiple superannuation accounts.”

Mr Longo said the enforcement of Australia’s biggest superannuation company posed a “strong signal” to directors and executives on the importance of their obligations.

James Paterson says Anthony Albanese should publicly apologise for what he believes is a misleading account of how Australia responded to China’s live firing exercises.

“The Prime Minister must be honest with the Australian people,” he said.

“The least he can do to them is be honest about the activities of the Chinese Navy in our region — he should not mislead them.”

James Paterson has made a rather blunt assessment of the Government’s handling of the Chinese taskforce issue, describing it as “shambolic”.

Senate estimates is heated this morning, with Senator Paterson and Penny Wong trading barbs in a war of words.

There’s also been some drilling down into semantics, as questions swirl about when exactly China gave Australia notice of its intention to conduct live fire exercises in the Tasman Sea last Friday.

Senator Wong says China gave notice, but it wasn’t in accordance with best practice. As we’ve learned this week, it was a Virgin Australia pilot who first raised the alarm after intercepting a Chinese alert - 28 minutes into the task group’s live firing window.

By the time word trickled through from the New Zealand military - who were shadowing the flotilla at the time - it was another hour later.

Peter Dutton has again rebuffed claims he profited from inside information.

The Opposition leader has come under fire from Labor after it emerged he bought shares in the big four banks a day before then prime minister Kevin Rudd announced a $4 billion stimulus package to help the banks and property sector get through the Gloabl Financical Crisis.

“The fact is that I wasn’t privy to, particularly from opposition, to insider information or anything other than what was publicly available,” he said on 2GB.

“I have never, I’ve never made an investment decision based on insider information or insider knowledge.

“Knowing that the shares are are all disclosable, I saw an opportunity to invest, as I’m sure many other Australians did at the time, with banks that had strong balance sheets, and because of global instability, particularly in the US, that the bank share price was suppressed and or depressed at the time, and my judgment was that it was a good investment to make.

“I disclosed it all. I didn’t do it with any insider information.”

“(I) took a punt, like...many other Australians would have looked at Blue Chips. You know, they’re down a lot at the moment. There’s nothing wrong with them. It’s the problem is emanating out of the US. And, you know, I made it, made a decision to to invest in and disclose it all.”

The UK has announced former NATO ambassador Dame Sarah MacIntosh as its new High Commissioner to Australia.

Outgoing High Commissioner Vicki Treadell, now in the final days of her five-year posting, said she was “delighted” about her successor who will be “brilliant and will bring rich experience to the role”.

Ms MacIntosh, who most recently served as the Prime Minister’s adviser on International Affairs and Deputy National Security Adviser, brings a strong security and defence portfolio to the job.

Her previous postings include Ambassador to NATO in Brussels and five years in two separate postings as director general of defence, intelligence and international security at the UK’s Foreign Office.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has had another go at the Coalition in Senate estimates, this time over its record in handling ties with Pacific Island partners.

She’s accused the Opposition of “vacating the space”, aid cuts and “frankly disrespectful language,” that is still being raised during her trips to the Pacific.

“The Coalition having lectured the Pacific, mocked their priorities and joked about the threat of climate change,” Senator Wong says, adding it led to trust in Australia hitting an “all time low.”

“Australia lost the opportunity through those years to be the only partner of choice and Australian security continues to pay the price of the coalition’s neglect and that vacuum.”

Peter Dutton says Anthony Albanese must explain why his version of the Chinese live fire incident differs from the chief of the Defence Force.

Mr Dutton said the PM was “either making up” his version of events, or “shooting from the hip, or completely out of his depth, or maybe all three”

“Is he misleading, or is he mixed up?”

Mr Albanese on Friday said that a Chinese naval task group gave “notice” of the live fire drill. And, on Wednesday suggested a warning from a New Zealand ship was received at the same time as one from a Virign Australia pilot - but it was actually an hour later.

ADF boss David Johnston had a different story yesterday, though, confirming that the Virgin pilot had alerted Air Services Australia at 9.58am last Friday after they picked up a radio broadcast from the Chinese naval task group of their plans to conduct a live firing exercise between 9.30am and 3pm.

The agency alerted Defence’s Joint Operations Command around 10 minutes later, about 10.10am.

“I’ve never seen a prime minister floundering like this...on the issue of national security, the first charge of the Prime Minister is to keep our country safe and to make sure that we have in place the settings which protect us against any acts of aggression,” Mr Dutton said on 2GB.

“What we do know is that he is at odds with the chief of the Defence Force, and he needs to explain why, on such a totemic issue, he either wasn’t briefed, that he’s made up the facts, that he’s got it wrong.”

Back to the economic estimates and the RBA’s grilling.

Katina Curits reports questioning of RBA deputy governor Andrew Hauser has now turned to last week’s decision to cut interest rates.

He says that compared with other similar countries, Australia “is a clear outlier in a positive way” by having maintained such strong employment numbers while inflation came down from its heights.

“That strategy of protecting employment gains while bringing inflation down in a measured way, central banks never declare mission accomplished, but so far appears on track,” he said.

He said that keeping inflation sustainably within the target 2-3 per cent band remained the bank’s test for confidence about moving rates.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean that inflation on an underlying basis needs to be in the band, it simply needs to be expected to come into the band sustainably to be around the midpoint over the forecast horizon,” he said.

“We were not confident that that was necessarily the case throughout last year. But when we met in February, reviewing the data – the significant fall in inflation and, in fact, the faster-than-expected fall in inflation, the fall in wage growth, and we were very conscious of the persistent subdued pace of activity growth – that we had developed somewhat more confidence that inflation would sustainably be back to target.”

The timeline of when Defence and the Government was alerted to the Chinese navy’s live firing exercises was well canvased in Defence estimates yesterday.

But the Coalition isn’t done - Senator Paterson is pressing Senator Wong this morning.

The Foreign Minister was fast asleep in South Africa when her office was first alerted to the incident last Friday, about 11.50am AEDT.

That’s 30 minutes after Transport Minister Catherine King was made aware.

But Senator Paterson has queried whether it’s a “problem that domestic non-security ministers are finding out about serious security incidents in the region before senior national security ministers?”

Senator Wong says she briefed when she woke up, spoke to Prime Minsiter Anthony Albanese and agreed to raise the issue directly with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi later that day.

Shadow home affairs minister James Paterson is the first to ask questions of Senator Wong, opening his bloc by asking why she felt the need to make such a partisan statement.

“I don’t recall an opening statement as partisan as that one, nor do I recall any of your predecessors in this forum making such a partisan opening statement. Is there a reason why you felt the need to make such a strong statement this morning?” he asked.

Senator Wong rejected the premise of his question.

After a bit of back and forth about whether Senator Paterson’s line of questioning to defence officials yesterday was a political stunt, Senator Wong took aim at the Coalition for their partisan approach to China.