Australia news live: Bluesfest axes Sticky Fingers from bill after backlash; Western Sydney airport allocated three-letter code

Sticky Fingers cancelled from Bluesfest lineup

Sticky Fingers has been taken off the 2023 Bluesfest lineup, after weeks of backlash over their place on the bill.

In a statement festival organisers said:

We are sad to announce that Bluesfest has decided that Sticky Fingers is to step off the Bluesfest 2023 line-up.

Bluesfest cannot, sadly, continue to support Sticky Fingers by having them play our 2023 edition and we apologise to those artists, sponsors and any others we involved in this matter through our mistaken belief that forgiveness and redemption are the rock on which our society is built.

We thank everyone who has contacted us and advised their support in this matter, especially those suffering from a mental illness who feel that they cannot have their illness supported in a manner whereby they feel included in society.

Sticky Fingers has done so many good deeds that have never been reported including building and funding recording studios and music education programs in disadvantaged regional communities. We will now move on, put this behind us and continue to plan and present our best-ever edition of Bluesfest… proudly.

Updated at 00.07 EST

Key events

Mediation has failed to resolve the legal dispute between Sally Rugg and Monique Ryan, Rugg’s lawyers have announced.

In a statement Maurice Blackburn Lawyers Principal Josh Bornstein said:

Ms Rugg will seek to add claims of “serious contraventions” of the Fair Work Act against the Commonwealth. A serious contravention occurs where the breach of labour standards is knowing and systematic. The penalty for serious contraventions is a maximum of $660,000.00.”

Ms Rugg’s claim is expected to include comments made by Dr Ryan. Mr Bornstein said “ Dr Ryan publicly acknowledged that her staff were working 70-hour weeks and that it was not safe. In addition, the Commonwealth has been on notice of unlawful excessive hours being worked for Parliamentary staffers for many years, including by reason of inquiries and reports to Parliament. Most recently, Kate Jenkins’ 2001 Set the Standard report documents that staffers working excessive hours was an important factor in an unsafe workplace.

Ms Rugg’s case will be a test case for what constitutes “reasonable” overtime or additional hours for parliamentary staffers and may impact other white -collar employees in the labour market.

“If Ms Rugg’s case succeeds, it will open the door for further litigation including class actions,” Mr Bornstein said, adding the case would have implications for other Australian workers who claim to have been exploited by working undefined “reasonable additional hours”.

Tomorrow morning, the Federal Court will hear Ms Rugg’s application for an injunction to restrain the termination of her employment. After that issue is determined, Ms Rugg will then pursue her claims for compensation and other orders against the Commonwealth and Dr Monique Ryan.

Jonathan Barrett

Resilient DJs customers send sales higher

David Jones has recorded surging sales at its high-end department stores, defying expectations that inflation pressures would curb spending.

Sales lifted by 13.6% in the first eight weeks of 2023, according to accounts lodged by its South African owner Woolworths Holding, which is not related to the supermarket chain.

In the six months to December, turnover increased by nearly 32% compared to the corresponding period, underpinned by strong shopper demand at its inner-city Australian stores.

The robust sales figures contrast with a spending pullback recorded at retailers Harvey Norman and JB Hi-Fi, which suggests demand for luxury goods is proving resilient.

Woolworths chief executive, Roy Bagattini, said there were no signs that consumers were switching to cheaper products.

“You would expect these impacts to play through into a much more softening of demand or consumer demand, but we haven’t seen that, frankly, in the first period of our second half and obviously we are buoyed by that,” he said.

Woolworths paid just over $2bn for the department store chain in 2014, and has agreed to sell it to private equity firm Anchorage Capital Partners for a fraction of the price after it proved to be a difficult investment.

The sale is expected to be completed by the end of March.

As part of the deal, Woolworths will retain ownership of the department store’s prominent Bourke Street building in Melbourne.

The David Jones building in Melbourne’s Bourke Street Mall. Photograph: Alexander Bogatyrev/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock

Updated at 00.21 EST

Sticky Fingers cancelled from Bluesfest lineup

Sticky Fingers has been taken off the 2023 Bluesfest lineup, after weeks of backlash over their place on the bill.

In a statement festival organisers said:

We are sad to announce that Bluesfest has decided that Sticky Fingers is to step off the Bluesfest 2023 line-up.

Bluesfest cannot, sadly, continue to support Sticky Fingers by having them play our 2023 edition and we apologise to those artists, sponsors and any others we involved in this matter through our mistaken belief that forgiveness and redemption are the rock on which our society is built.

We thank everyone who has contacted us and advised their support in this matter, especially those suffering from a mental illness who feel that they cannot have their illness supported in a manner whereby they feel included in society.

Sticky Fingers has done so many good deeds that have never been reported including building and funding recording studios and music education programs in disadvantaged regional communities. We will now move on, put this behind us and continue to plan and present our best-ever edition of Bluesfest… proudly.

Updated at 00.07 EST

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Under questioning from senior counsel assisting, Justin Greggery KC, on Thursday, McGuirk was asked why she had not produced her emails to the commission showing she had backed income averaging when the scheme was being finalised.

She told the royal commission she had been unable to locate them on her email archive. She said the commonwealth’s lawyers must have been able to find them through the email accounts of other witnesses.

The commissioner, Catherine Holmes AC SC, pressed McGuirk about evidence she gave last year saying the first she’d learned of income averaging was in early 2017.

Holmes said the most charitable explanation was “a false memory” of “having those sensations”.

McGuirk said she based her evidence on the documents she had reviewed, adding she didn’t have an independent recollection of the time.

Holmes replied: “So you invented a memory?”

McGuirk said she’d given evidence to the best of her ability, but added: “Having seen these [documents] I accept there had been times where I had interacted [with robodebt] before.”

Greggery said one view was she had “deliberately withheld” the email from the commission and given “false evidence”.

“What do you say to that?” Greggery said. McGuirk said: “I disagree completely.”

McGuirk denied she had sought the new legal advice from Pulford with a “predetermined outcome” to back her own 2015 approval of the robodebt plan.

That internal advice remained the only formal legal opinion in support of the scheme while it operated.

McGuirk remains a public servant at DSS.

The inquiry continues.

Updated at 00.18 EST

Public servant grilled over claims she gave ‘false evidence’ at robodebt inquiry

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A public servant faced intense questioning at the robodebt royal commission over claims she gave “false evidence” and “invented a memory” to hide her role in the scandal.

Emma-Kate McGuirk held roles at the departments of human services (DHS) and later social services (DSS), including playing a key role in the government response to a Commonwealth ombudsman’s investigation in early 2017.

McGuirk told the commission last year she was among social services officials surprised to learn the robodebt scheme included the use of income averaging, given DSS had warned against this in 2015.

But the commission was shown emails on Thursday that showed McGuirk, while at DHS, had given “program advice” approval for income averaging in May 2015, shortly before it was launched.

The commission was also again shown a 2016 presentation from a DHS official that outlined the use of income averaging in the robodebt scheme. McGuirk, by this stage at DSS, accepted she was present at the presentation.

The inquiry has been told that when the scheme faced the ombudsman’s investigation in early 2017, it was McGuirk who requested legal advice from a senior DSS lawyer, Anne Pulford. Pulford’s new advice contradicted her 2014 opinion saying averaging was unlawful.

Updated at 00.03 EST

Activists pressuring federal government on Burrup peninsula development

WA campaigners, Save Our Songlines are stepping up their protest against industrial activity on the Burrup peninsula in the Pilbara region, travelling to Sydney to pressure the federal government.

They fear the massive Burrup hub expansion proposed by fossil fuel company Woodside could devastate ancient Indigenous rock art and sacred sites in the area, thought to be more than 60,000 years old.

The federal government is currently deciding whether to grant the area cultural heritage protected status under federal legislation, with federal environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, recently having visited the state to announce the nomination of the Murujuga petroglyphs for Unesco World Heritage Protection.

The campaigners, including traditional owner Raelene Cooper, were at Plibersek’s office in Sydney earlier today and were pushing for her to step in, saying that important local history is at risk if the project goes ahead.

Cooper said:

Any more industry on the Burrup means another Juukan Gorge on this minister’s watch, and Tanya Plibersek needs to act now to make permanent protections for Murujuga under existing legislation while we wait for World Heritage to be confirmed by the UN.

We know that people in Tanya Plibersek’s electorate, and around the country, care about our culture and demand that this government protect it. We need to hold this government to account on its promises.

The event began with a statement from Gadigal elder Aunty Rhonda Dixon-Grovenor who said she stood in solidarity with their struggle:

I give my whole-hearted support to our guests that have travelled from the Pilbara to bring a message about the importance of protecting their sacred areas at Murujuga on the Burrup peninsula.

The campaigners will also be meeting at the climate strike in Sydney’s Town Hall on Friday.

Updated at 23.57 EST

Western Sydney airport takes step forward

Sydney’s future second airport in the city’s western outskirts has marked another step forward on its road to opening at the end of 2026, with the International Air Transport Association allocating the facility its three letter airport code.

WSI will appear on routes and flight tickets for those travelling to Western Sydney International, which will be named Nancy Bird-Walton airport. Sydney’s main passenger airport, Kingsford-Smith airport in Mascot, uses SYD, as part of the same IATA code system that lists New York’s John F Kennedy International airport as JFK and Los Angeles International airport as LAX.

In announcing the code allocation, the federal government said the western Sydney airport project has reached 40% completion, with the bulk earthworks finished and the airside, landslide and terminal construction expected to peak later this year.

The airport is scheduled to commence operations in late 2026 and will be capable of catering for up to 10 million passengers a year. It will form the centre of the western Sydney aerotropolis, a new growth region of Sydney that will also feature a new central business district named Bradfield City.

Infrastructure and transport minister Catherine King said the allocation of the WSI code “is an exciting step forward”, and that the airport project “is proving once again to be the catalyst for the socioeconomic transformation of this entire region”.

Finance minister Katy Gallagher said the Western Sydney airport project had already created more than 3,800 direct jobs.

Construction work at the Western Sydney International (Nancy-Bird Walton) airport in September 2020. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Updated at 23.34 EST

That’s it from me for today, handing over to the lovely Cait Kelly!

Union gravely concerned by suspension of students over protest

The president of the National Tertiary Education Union at the University of Sydney has written to vice-chancellor Mark Scott expressing his “grave concern” about disciplinary measures taken against student activists who protested at an appearance of former prime minister Malcom Turnbull at the law society last September.

Maddie Clark and Deaglan Godwin were suspended for a semester after a months-long investigation which they claimed they were gagged from talking about to media or friends. The students claimed the institution was attempting to “crack down on activism” by suspending them both for half the year, with their punishments only confirmed after classes returned this week.

In an email sent to Scott, Nick Riemer said the protest was part of a “wider political context” that should have been taken into account by the institution:

For a number of years now, we have been witnessing a dangerous escalation of political authoritarianism in this country … protest is a cornerstone of any society which values democracy. There is no democratic requirement that it be decorous, measured or polite … the university must not reinforce the dangerous anti-democratic norms that increasingly prevail in this country …

The much reported accusation that the protestors who dared to challenge [Turnbull] were ‘fascists’ is outrageous. Through its decision to suspend Deaglan and Maddie, the university can now be seen as validating this disgraceful slur … the suspension dangerously cheapens our commitment to education, democracy and leadership, and I urge you to reverse it.

A University of Sydney spokesperson wouldn’t confirm the punishments, saying they couldn’t comment on individual processes “due to our privacy responsibilities”. But they defended the institution’s decision, saying “we don’t take any disciplinary action lightly”.

They said in a statement:

We consider attempts to shut down speakers who have been invited to our campuses to participate in an exchange of views and ideas as contrary to our Charter of Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom which defines the core values of our University in these matters.

We have a rich history of activism and protest on our campuses, and all students and staff have the right to express themselves freely, as long as it’s done safely and in accordance with our policies and the law. Protests may be rowdy and spirited, but they cannot interfere with the rights and freedoms of others. The safety and wellbeing of our community is our number one priority.

Updated at 22.57 EST

Coalition claims Labor leaders divided on tax policy

The opposition leader Peter Dutton has accused the treasurer Jim Chalmers of “going to ground” after yesterday morning refusing to rule out changes to a capital gains tax on the family home.

Speaking in the Melbourne suburb of Bayswater this afternoon, alongside the Liberal candidate for Aston, Roshena Campbell, Dutton brought out the same line which Sussan Ley used this morning that the PM and the treasurer were “at war” with each other.

(While Albanese ruled out changes to a capital gains tax on the family home on ABC Radio yesterday morning, Chalmers did not on Sunrise before clarifying at a press conference later that day he should have, but adding he did not want to encourage the media playing the “rule-in, rule-out game”)

Dutton went on to say today:

[The Australian people] got a glimpse into the real Jim Chalmers yesterday. Jim Chalmers was rushed back out a couple of hours later to try and tidy up the mess. Obviously the prime minister’s urging and it seems today that the treasurer has gone to ground.

Dutton’s sense of Chalmers having been rushed out yesterday at the PM’s insistence doesn’t quite square with the fact the treasurer had stepped up to speak on the release of the latest GDP figures as he does each quarter.

Meanwhile, the treasurer’s low profile today could have more to do with him celebrating his 45th birthday. However, perhaps Dutton could be forgiven for not knowing, because only the PM received a celebratory tweet from Australian Labor.

Updated at 22.50 EST

More electric car charging stations rolling out across South Australia

The push to decarbonise transport is gathering pace, AAP reports.

The Royal Automobile Association will develop a network of 140 stations across Adelaide and regional locations.

It will include 86 AC fast-charging stations and 54 DC rapid and ultra-rapid locations, with construction to be complete by the end of next year.

All will be powered by renewable energy, with the work supported by a $12.5m state government grant.

The premier, Peter Malinauskas, said backing the faster uptake of electric vehicles made sense from an economic and environmental standpoint.

At a time when petrol prices are stubbornly high, South Australia has abundant renewable energy, particularly in the middle of the day.

Electric vehicles will play a crucial role in storing that energy and using it productively.

Updated at 22.35 EST