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What we learned today, Thursday 30 November

That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Here are the main stories of the day:

Updated at 02.02 EST

System in decay: inquiry seeks action on dental care

A challenge to chart a path to universal access to dental and oral health care has been laid at the feet of the federal government.

A Senate inquiry into dental services which reported on Thursday described the sector as a “system in decay”.

The report called on the government to work with the states and territories to achieve universal access to dental and oral health care through Medicare or a similar scheme.

The committee implored the government to consider a seniors dental benefit scheme and a plan to expand access to the child dental benefits schedule to all children.

Committee chair and Greens senator Jordon Steele-John said:

The community has shared clearly that dental care is too expensive, people are waiting too long to access public dental care, if they’re eligible at all, and we must do more to support our oral healthcare workforce.

Minister for infrastructure claims public interest immunity over Senate order to release full infrastructure review

The minister for infrastructure, Catherine King, has claimed public interest immunity over a Senate order to release the full infrastructure review, which resulted in 50 projects being defunded earlier this month.

An executive summary of the full review was published but the full review, including which projects it recommended axing, will remain a secret protected by cabinet confidentiality.

King’s letter on Thursday said:

I provided assurance to state and territory infrastructure ministers that any information provided for the review would only be accessible to the members of the departmental review secretariat, and would be protected by cabinet confidentiality. As such, to release the report in full would adversely affect commonwealth-state relations and I claim public interest immunity over documents subject to the order.

The independent review, announced in May and delivered to the federal government in August, recommended 100 yet to be constructed projects proceed, while 82 projects should be axed. A further 56 projects identified as risky were expected to proceed, but should be assessed prior to delivery, the review said.

The infrastructure minister, however, only slashed 50 projects after negotiations with the states.

Updated at 01.39 EST

Tammy Tyrrell welcomes employment services reforms pilot in Tasmania but says ‘devil is always in the details’

Jacqui Lambie Network senator for Tasmania, Tammy Tyrrell, has also responded to the inquiry into Workforce Australia, saying she had experienced it as a worker, and a jobseeker:

I’ve spent years working in employment services – I might be the only person in parliament who has. I’ve even been on the other side of the fence and been a client too.

And I can tell you that for far too long, the system has been about money and shoving people into jobs to get them off the books. It’s not actually about getting people into suitable jobs or courses. It’s about the profit-makers KPI’s.

The idea of going back to a Commonwealth Employment Services system is an interesting one, and a step in the right direction. But the devil is always in the detail. I’m open to discussing this further and how it can be done.

She said she was pleased to see Tasmania has been recommended for a pilot program, which will look at building on an existing program that connects regional jobseekers with employers near them in areas of high disadvantage.

I think Tassie is the right place for a program like this. We have the second-highest number of people on jobseeker in the country.

The report says this pilot should be done as soon as possible. I’ll certainly be talking to the minister and making sure there’s a commitment to get this happening.

Updated at 01.31 EST

Labor backbenchers conclude ‘very productive’ meeting with Treasurer over cost-of-living concerns

Labor MP Jerome Laxale says fellow backbenchers had a “very productive” meeting with the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, over more cost of living relief for households – and that one idea put forward to the meeting was “widening the eligibility” of existing programs.

Earlier in the week it was announced that backbenchers had asked the treasurer for a meeting to push for more cost-of-living help. There has since been talk of Labor MPs concerned at backlash in their communities as inflation and rising prices keep biting, with Laxale himself saying that the government’s existing programs must be “responsive to the needs of the time.”

The meeting happened today, with Chalmers, the finance minister, Katy Gallagher, and their assistant ministers. In a statement posted to Instagram, Laxale said he’d asked Chalmers “to consider widening the eligibility of some of these effective programs through the budget process”.

“As the impacts of interest rates linger, I believe more Australians will require access to targeted, measured and effective cost of living relief,” the post continued.

Laxale said constituents “have been telling me that you’re struggling. Today’s meeting shows that ministers and backbenchers are taking this issue very seriously”.

Updated at 01.24 EST

Agencies warn against impersionation scams as Scam Awareness Week draws to a close

While we are on scams, it is almost the end of Scam Awareness Week – which the National Anti-Scam Centre has used to talk about impersonation scams. Between 1 January and 30 September, this year, impersonation scams accounted for more than 70% of the 234,672 reports to Scamwatch.

The most reported impersonation scams were road toll scams (19,141 reports), Australian government impersonation scams (17,770 reports) and “Hi Mum” family impersonation scams (9,307 reports).

This morning, ACCC’s deputy chair, Catriona Lowe, said:

Scammers are criminals, who use sophisticated tactics to convince their victims they are from their bank, a government agency or even a high-profile recruitment firm offering what may seem like an amazing job opportunity.

That’s why we are urging consumers to take a minute and ask themselves if the person they are communicating with – whether it be online or by text, phone or email – is really who they say they are. Could it be a scammer?

Scammers deliberately put their victims under pressure and make them feel like they need to act quickly, such as making claims there has been suspicious activity on their bank account. Don’t rush to act. Take a moment to consider if it could be a scam.

Updated at 01.16 EST

NAB says more ‘friction’ required between payments to combat scams

Earlier this morning NAB’s group executive for personal banking, Rachel Slade, was speaking about scams at the Trans-Tasman Business Circle. She said more “friction” was needed between payments – so they were slowed down to combat scams:

Banks have introduced measures to protect customers from scammers but more needs to be done. This may mean slowing down in a world where everything is speeding up.

NAB is now processing more than 1bn online payments annually. And 99.99% of these are legitimate transactions. Last bank year, of those, we saw around 1,500 scam events each month. What we’re grappling with is this: how do we balance the needs and demands of customers who want to transact quickly and simply with the growing plague of scams?

Helpful friction needs to be targeted and appropriate, it needs to protect customers while allowing them to transact how they want, and it needs to identify the right transactions that need extra scrutiny – giving customers a prompt to pause.

We’ve invested more than $260m directly to help tackle scams and fraud over the last 3 years and we’ve already completed 33 bank-wide initiatives this year to help address the global scam epidemic. Many of these have involved bringing some friction back into the process in a helpful way using NAB’s sophisticated fraud prevention technologies.

Updated at 01.11 EST

If you’re just catching up on what has happened in the news today, my colleague Antoun Issa has collated the top stories in our Afternoon Update:

Updated at 01.02 EST

Youth block of adult prison to shut after teen’s death

The death of an Indigenous teenager from a self-inflicted injury has prompted Western Australia’s government to close a youth detention facility.

The premier, Roger Cook, says a new facility to replace Unit 18 at Casuarina Prison will be built alongside Perth’s Banksia Hill juvenile detention centre.

He told reporters on Thursday:

Unit 18 will eventually close in a safe and sensible manner, which is what I’ve long been saying I want to see happen.

The new facility will be specifically designed to meet high security and therapeutic needs of detainees who are complex, challenging and often dangerous.

A plan and business case is yet to be developed for the new facility and there is no scheduled opening date.

The Justice Reform Initiative said the youth justice system needed an overhaul and urged the government to review its intervention strategies for children and young people before building the new facility.

“A new building is not the same as a new approach,” the executive director, Mindy Sotiri, said.

The problems at Banksia Hill have been clear for decades, she said, and the pledge for a new maximum security facility next door “does not address the over-use of harmful incarceration” of children there.

– AAP

Updated at 01.02 EST

Thank you to Amy Remeikis for guiding us through another busy day in parliament. I’ll now be with you until this evening.

Updated at 01.02 EST

The house is getting ready to adjourn – but it is not the last time it will sit, with a clean-up day scheduled for next week. And so far, it looks like there will be a bit of mess around the preventive detention bill the government wants passed before Christmas.

We will cover all of that – and the in-betweens, so make sure you check back in to find out what you need to know. A very big thank you to the best team in the business – Katharine Murphy, Paul Karp, Josh Butler, Sarah Basford Canales, Daniel Hurst and of course, Mike Bowers. And to everyone who stopped by to join Politics Live – thank you so much. It is a lot, all of the time, but you do make it better.

Jordyn Beazley will guide you through the evening. I’ll see you again very soon – but until then – take care of you.

Updated at 01.00 EST

Queensland police service falling behind on recruitment targets

AAP has reported on the Queensland police service recruitment targets:

The Queensland Police Service is not on track to meet recruitment targets and lacks a strategic approach to workforce planning, the state’s auditor-general has found.

Brendan Worrall’s audit, handed down on Thursday, said a model used to assess the demand on police resources collected information mainly about on-call operations.

The auditor-general said it did not capture time spent by officers on proactive policing, administrative tasks, and non-frontline work, limiting the service’s ability to forecast and plan.

Despite a large recruitment campaign in September aimed at both domestic and international applicants, the auditor-general said the force was not on track to meet its 2025 targets.

Higher-than-expected attrition rates, a change in society’s perceptions of policing as a career, and recent shortages of labour resources have all contributed.

The report said while police responded to nearly 90% of all calls requiring action in 2021/22, they did not respond to 86,594 of which 369 were very urgent or urgent.

Updated at 00.46 EST

Shorten: ‘Dutton has got words but his action is not tough’

So does Bill Shorten think that his parliamentary colleagues overreacted?

Shorten:

I think that the opposition has been opportunistic and unprincipled, I think they have scared a lot of people unnecessarily.

I understand my fellow minister was making the point that rather than cooperate with the legislation we have put in to fix up the poor laws that they administered, struck down by the court, instead they were very opportunistic, voting against measures which frankly would have been stronger can measures against convicted paedophile.

Let’s go to the heart of the matter – the government is fixing the problem which the High Court exposed based on the poor laws and as all of my colleagues have been saying, Mr Dutton has got tough words but his action is not tough and the real point here is that I just wish that when Mr Dutton was to settle immigration he had not reviewed this person is in a slow, we would not be in this mess we are now.

Updated at 00.45 EST

Coalition stance on released detainees ‘unprincipled’ given Dutton renewed visa of ‘convicted paedophile’: Bill Shorten

Over on the ABC, Bill Shorten is asked whether he will repeat what Clare O’Neil said in question time about Peter Dutton (scroll down and you’ll find the post).

Shorten:

They are not my words. The issue that has been going on is that Mr Dutton and the opposition have launched a very opportunistic and unprincipled attack on the government in the wake of the high court case.

What has happened is that a detainee who was a convicted paedophile ran a case all the way to the high court and it has struck down, the high court has struck down detention of this person and people in similar circumstances.

Back in the day, when Mr Dutton was immigration minister, he apparently renewed this convicted paedophile’s visa to stay in Australia and as a result we have now had this train of event which has led to the government having to fix up the mess after the high court decision.

I do wonder if Mr Dutton – these are my words – if Mr Dutton had his time again, would he now have done the same thing he did then now knowing what challenge that has now given to our system?

Updated at 01.48 EST