Australian news and politics recap May 21: Albanese on shock Coalition split and Abbott’s stark warning
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Key Events
Chaos as Sydney grinds to a halt following train incident
Commuters attempting to use Sydney’s train network are in the middle of another nightmare day following a major incident during Tuesday’s peak hour.
A 1,500-volt overhead cable fell onto train carriages near Strathfield station in Sydney’s west, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of passengers from the affected train as well as three others impacted by the resulting outage.
Crews worked overnight in challenging wet and dark conditions to assess and repair the damage.
Despite bringing the “catastrophic event” under control by Tuesday night, the disruption has flowed into Wednesday morning, with knock-on effects impacting the morning commute.
Authorities have urged passengers to consider alternative travel options where possible.
“Most lines will be impacted this morning due to power supply issues at Strathfield. Trains will operate, but services will be reduced and will not run to a normal timetable. Please delay non-essential travel,” a Sydney Trains spokesperson said.
Nationals will take pay cuts after split with Liberals
Nationals MPs have put their money where their mouth is as they abandon a coalition arrangement.
Half a dozen members have taken a haircut worth tens of thousands of dollars to their pay packet after walking away from leadership positions.
Party leader David Littleproud has pulled the Nationals out of a partnership with the Liberals after they failed to agree on the retention of policies following an election defeat.
With the Liberals now holding all the cards in opposition, the shadow cabinet - made up of just over 20 of the opposition’s top generals with portfolios shadowing government ministers - will not contain any Nationals.
The two parties carve up spots in government and opposition on a proportional basis dependent on seats won.
Seven Nationals will step back from shadow cabinet, including Mr Littleproud, meaning they lose their 20 to 25 per cent loading on their base salary rates of about $230,000.
Albanese’s campaign manager to spill the beans on big election win
The mastermind behind Labor’s decisive election victory will lay out how the party secured one of biggest wins in history.
In an address to the National Press Club on Wednesday, Labor’s national secretary and campaign director Paul Erickson will say the government’s economic narrative and ability to adapt was crucial to its expanded majority.
Labor boosted its ranks to have at least 93 seats in the next parliament, one of its largest majorities in history, with Mr Erickson credited as the architect behind the result.
“The conventional wisdom undervalued Labor’s capacity to use our record as the foundation for our second term policy offer,” he will say in the speech.
“Over three years, Labor’s record and Peter Dutton’s opposition built up an advantage for Labor as the best party to provide cost-of-living relief.”
The speech as comes as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese arrived back in Canberra on Wednesday after a successful overseas trip to Indonesia, the Vatican and Singapore, where he met with the Pope and other world leaders including Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky.
