Australian news and politics live: PM slammed over ‘shambolic’ China response, Qatar-Virgin deal greenlit

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Donald Trump’s administration has ordered federal agencies to undertake more large-scale layoffs of workers.

Reuters reports a new memo instructs agencies to submit plans by March 13 for a “significant reduction” in staffing to a federal workforce already reeling from waves of layoffs and program cuts by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

It did not specify the number of new layoffs.

The memo represents a major escalation in Trump and Musk’s campaign to slash the size of the US government.

Thus far, the layoffs have focused on probationary workers, who have less tenure in their current roles and enjoy fewer job protections. The next round would target the vastly bigger pool of veteran civil servants.

At the cabinet meeting, Trump said Lee Zeldin, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, plans to cut up to 65 per cent of his more than 15,000 employees.

He’s not a cabinet-level official, has faced no approval by the US Senate, and the White House claims he’s not actually in charge of its Department of Government Efficiency, but that didn’t stop Elon Musk from addressing Donald Trump’s first Cabinet meeting.

Reuters reports Trump offered Musk an extraordinary sign of support by inviting the billionaire to tout his work to the presidential cabinet, some of whom had pushed back on his recent demand that all of their employees justify their work or face termination.

Reserve Bank deputy governor Andrew Hauser has told Senate estimates, Australian inflation would have come down sooner if the RBA keep the cash rate on hold.

Mr Hauser said the RBA assessed that a hold at 4.35 per cent would have led them to “undershoot the forecast” driving underlying inflation below the mid-point of its 2 to 3 per cent target band.

“The conclusion was holding rates where they were would cause inflation, in an underlying sense, to undershoot the forecast and therefore there was a case that was a big and important contributory factor to the board concluding there was a case to cut interest rates,” he said.

Using a driving analogy, he explained the decision to drop Australia’s inflation slower was a “deliberate” strategy.

“Part of what we’re doing is putting on a break and part of what we’re doing is pushing on the accelerator,” he said.

“We have removed a small amount of the braking that we are still applying to the economy.

“We have not yet chosen to depress the accelerator because inflation still has work to do to get back sustainably to the midpoint.”

The move by Qatar Airways to take a 25 per cent stake in Virgin Australia was only approved after it agreed to strict conditions, Treasurer Jim Chalmers says.

He said today’s confirmation that the deal could go ahead came after cross-government consultation by Treasury, engaging the aviation industry, unions and other relevant stakeholders to ensure the deal was in Australia’s national interest.

The proposal’s approval was subject to legally enforceable conditions to ensure Australian representation on Virgin’s board and protection of its customer data, Dr Chalmers said.

“Qatar gets to appoint two board members out of 12 on the Virgin board. We have imposed a condition which means that at least one of those has to be an Australian citizen, normally resident in Australia,” he said.

“The other condition that I’ve imposed is to protect the data, to make sure that the data is not unnecessarily shared.

“I’ve also sought and received from both companies assurances about Australian jobs. This will mean more Australian jobs, not fewer Australian jobs.

“It will mean more options and more flights for Australians, more competition in the sector and more customers for tourism businesses right around Australia.”

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Jim Chalmers has returned from his trip to the US to talk trade and tariffs, calling his meetings with Donald Trump’s administration “very productive”.

But he hasn’t yet secured an exemption to threatened tariffs on Australian steel and aluminium, which are due to kick off on March 12.

“My job wasn’t to conclude those discussions, it was to inform (them) that Australia has a very strong case to make about why we are different to some of the other countries that are of greater concern to our American friends,” he said.

“Our steel and our aluminium sectors are not big competitors with theirs. In fact, our businesses, Rio, BlueScope and others, are making a positive contribution and investing in local communities in the US.”

RBA deputy governor Andrew Hauser said its decision not to raise interest rates as far as other comparable central banks has resulted in Australia’s inflation dropping slower under a “deliberate” and “conscious” strategy.

Mr Hauser – who was a senior official at the Bank of England before taking the RBA job – told Senate Estimates on Thursday the move had made Australia better off on employment than other jurisdictions.

RBA Governor Michelle Bullock last week announced the cash rate would drop 0.25 per cent to 4.1 per cent — in the first of what would become an unprecedented run of 13 rate hikes.

Many banks have since announced reductions to both their lending rates and rates paid to savers.

“Australia, and this obviously predated my arrival, adopted a somewhat different strategy in response to the spike in inflation that was experienced across the world,” Mr Hauser said.

“Interest rates were raised substantially and obviously that had significant implications for households and firms, but we chose - the RBA chose - not to raise interest rates as far as other central banks.

“(It) did so quite deliberately, recognising that it would mean that inflation would come down back to target somewhat slower but conscious that we also wanted to protect the gains in employment, which were part of, are part of our objectives.”

Mr Hauser said the strategy had, so far, “laid out broadly as we had expected” with inflation dipping from its height and employment growth remaining “extraordinarily strong”.

He said Australia’s employment rate was “a clear outlier” to other comparable nations “in a positive way”.

“The growth in employment since COVID in Australia has far outstretched that, proportionally speaking, to any other country, including the US, which is often cited as one of the standouts,” he said.

“So, 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.”

WA senator Dean Smith used the final minutes of RBA deputy governor Andrew Hauser’s time ar Senate estimates to ask about the room where the board met last week.

The RBA extended a rare invitation to TV cameras to capture part of the meeting, since it was the final one before the board is split in two under new governance arrangements.

Senator Smith voiced the observations of many watchers in saying the boardroom looked underwhelming.

“I don’t want to be unkind, but it looked like a staff training room. I was expecting this grand boardroom and portraits of governors on the walls,” he said.

Mr Hauser – who was a senior official at the Bank of England before taking the RBA job – said in his experience, “I think we were lucky to have tables, actually”.

“In the UK it was always a specific thing that you should have the rattiest looking (offices),” he said, before undertaking to pass the “underwhelming” feedback to governor Michele Bullock.

Senator Smith observed the RBA’s usual headquarters in Martin Place was a historic building suitably fitting for a central bank.

“As you know we are temporarily out of that, so we are in rented accommodation, we have the facilities available and I apologise it didn’t have the necessary grandeur,” Mr Hauser replied.

Lawyers have begun giving their closing submissions in the ABC’s high profile unfair dismisal case.

It has been revealed the ABC plans to argue a casual radio host benefited from her dismissal after sharing a social media post critical of Israeli acts in Gaza.

Antoinette Lattouf was let go after three days of a week-long fill-in stint on ABC Radio Sydney’s Mornings program when she shared a Human Rights Watch post that said Israel used starvation as a “weapon of war” in Gaza.

She went after the ABC in the Fair Work Commission and escalated the case to the Federal Court, where she sued for penalties and damages.

But the broadcaster’s barrister Ian Neil SC said that Lattouf had actually furthered her freelance career following the controversy surrounding her truncated December 2023 radio stint.

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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.