National security committee to meet after stabbings: PM

Plastics maker Qenos has collapsed and appointed McGrathNicol as voluntary administrators.

McGrathNicol said Qenos’ new owners Logos would be funding their work which includes shutting down Qenos’ Botany plant in Sydney and mulling the future of its Altona operations in Melbourne.

McGrathNicol chairman Jason Preston said Logos would cover employee wages and entitlements, as well as the closure of the Botany plant, which was mothballed in February 2023 and will not restart.

“The administrators will commence discussions with key partners to the Qenos business to determine the short-term future of the Altona plant,” he said.

A first statutory meeting of creditors must be held within eight business days after the administration begins and is expected to take place on Tuesday, 30 April.

Anthony Albanese says the powerful national security committee of cabinet will meet in Canberra on Wednesday afternoon.

Before travelling back from a campaign swing through Queensland, Albanese said he was briefed on Wednesday morning by the head of the Australian Federal Police and the ASIO director-general on the situation in Sydney, following the Bondi stabbings on Saturday and the attack at a western Sydney church on Monday night.

“That’s our priority,” he said. “My job as prime minister is to provide support to our police and our security agencies and that is what I am determined to do.

“We will, after an incident like Saturday, with the tragic atrocity and loss of life that occurred, there will be an assessment, I’m sure that not just the NSW government and federal government, but all governments will look at the findings of that, once that investigation has been concluded.”

He said violence and extremism had no place in Australia.

“Violence has no place in this country, our police need to be respected at all times, and people should allow them to go about their job.

“These are men and women who put themselves at risk in order to keep us safe, and we should respect them, I’m very concerned about the lack of respect that we saw on Monday night in Sydney.”

Queensland’s 2024 budget will be “difficult”, with state debt expected to grow to $188 billion in four years, the treasurer says.

Cameron Dick has outlined the government’s forward estimates with preliminary forecasts suggesting that by the 2027-2028 financial year Queensland’s net debt could reach $73 billion.

Gross general government debt that financial year could reach $128 billion and, when combined with borrowings, total debt could reach $188 billion. The state budget was effectively in balance when Dick provided his mid-year review in December on the back of a $4.3 billion surplus in 2021/22 and a record $13.9 billion surplus in 2022/23.

That was on the back of coal royalties supporting Queensland’s post-pandemic boom which had been forecast to boost revenue by $9.4 billion over five years.

Additional royalties from coal have pumped about $5.8 billion into the economy since being adopted in July 2022. But government coffers are set to take a hit over the next four-year electoral term, with the price of steelmaking coal falling 25 per cent and Queensland copping a reduction in GST from the federal coffers.

“The next state budget will be difficult,” the treasurer told parliament on Wednesday.

“On a proportional basis, these preliminary forecasts are consistent with the debt levels we were forecasting in 2020. At its greatest, total debt remains about one-third the size of Queensland’s economy.”

The government outlined $8.224 billion in cost-of-living concessions in last year’s budget, and Dick indicated the government would continue to deliver further relief when the June budget is handed down.

France’s ambassador to Australia, Pierre-André Imbert, has paid tribute to the families of the six victims killed during the “senseless act of violence” at Westfield Bondi Junction.

Jade Young, 47, was killed on Saturday alongside Faraz Tahir, 30, Ash Good, 38, Dawn Singleton, 25, Cheng Yixuan, 27, and 55-year-old Pikria Darchia.

“Our thoughts, compassion and solidarity are with the victims, their families and friends,” Imbert said in a statement released on Wednesday.

“That two French citizens, Damien Guerot and Silas Despreaux, attempted to prevent the assailant from approaching shoppers during the attack is commendable.

“I praise both men for showing courage in the face of violence and have personally conveyed my gratitude for their bravery to them.”

Guerot, a construction worker who faced down the knife-wielding Joel Cauchi with a bollard as he tried to move up an escalator, would be granted permanent residency by the federal government, his lawyer said yesterday. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Guerot was able to stay in the country as long as he liked after the Frenchman told Channel Seven his work visa was due to expire in a couple of months.

Richard Marles says defence will be given an extra $50 billion over the next decade as part of a shake-up of the Australian military as regional tensions are stoked by strategic competition between the United States and China.

Launching the first national defence strategy in a major speech on Wednesday, Defence Minister Richard Marles unveiled a boost to spending in the sector, citing the most challenging strategic environment since World War II.

“Almost two years into this job let me tell you that the centre of strategic policy is Defence funding. History will judge us not by what we say, but by what we do. And you can only do, if you properly fund,” he said.

The increase in spending will see an additional $5.7 billion over the next four years, and will take defence funding to 2.4 per cent of GDP by 2033/34.

The funding will include an $11.1 billion boost to speed up the delivery of the Navy’s surface combatant fleet and to expand the shipbuilding industry. Annual funding for defence will surpass $100 billion in a decade’s time.

“The inaugural national defence strategy sets out a clear and priority-driven approach to protecting against threats to Australia and our interests,” Marles said.

“The Albanese government is making an historic investment in defence and has taken tough decisions to reshape the ADF to meet our strategic circumstances and to keep Australians safe.”

The strategy has also called for a widening of the eligibility for the defence force to bolster recruitment.

It also recommended the potential recruitment of non-Australian citizens, as well as encouraging defence personnel to serve longer through retention initiatives.

The government released a defence strategic review in April last year, which found the Australian Defence Force was no longer fit for purpose.

Last year, the government announced it would cut plans to build 450 infantry fighting vehicles down to 129.

Hundreds of defence force personnel will also be moved from southern bases to northern ones as the nation prepares for a possible conflict in the Indo-Pacific.

Opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie said for the defence minister to pass the test of leadership, the new plans “must be more than just vague language, vague promises and vague time frames”.

“There must be real money, real commitment and real leadership,” he said earlier on Wednesday.

“Richard Marles must be honest with the Australian people about the threats and challenges we face.

“This must be matched with a meaningful increase in Defence spending and a clear strategy – real money, and a real direction. These are the metrics that count.”

A Sydney architecture firm has paid tribute to mother of two Jade Young, who was one of six people killed in the Westfield Bondi Junction stabbings.

Georgina Wilson Associates, where Young, 47, had worked for more than 10 years, remembered her on Wednesday as a “beautiful and warm soul”.

“I can’t even believe I am writing this, it doesn’t feel real. Jade was part of our GWA team for over 12 years. She was family,” the tribute posted on social media said.

“Anyone who knew Jade knew what a beautiful, kind and warm soul she was.

“We are completely devastated. All our love goes out to her family. We love you Jade.”

Young was killed on Saturday alongside Faraz Tahir, 30, Ash Good, 38, Dawn Singleton, 25, Cheng Yixuan, 27, and 55-year-old Pikria Darchia.

The operators of the Westfield shopping centre at Bondi Junction say it will reopen for a community reflection day on Thursday before normal trading from Friday with an increased security presence.

The centre would reopen from 11am to 5pm on Thursday for a community reflection day, with a dedicated space for people to leave tributes, a spokesperson said on Wednesday.

Westfield acknowledged security guard Faraz Tahir was one of six people murdered alongside Ash Good, Jade Young, Dawn Singleton, Cheng Yixuan, and Pikria Darchia.

“Our team member came to this country as a refugee from Pakistan seeking a safer life, and it’s with great tragedy and sadness that in our country … he hasn’t been able to experience that,” a spokesperson said.

“We’re working with [his] family, we’re working with all the victims’ families, in how we support, both financially and non-financially, in how they grieve and move forward from the tragedy that occurred here on Saturday.”

Former Coalition minister Linda Reynolds says Federal Court Justice Michael Lee’s judgment in Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation action against Network Ten “finally sets the record straight” about her involvement.

In finding on the balance of probabilities that Lehrmann raped Brittany Higgins in Reynolds’ Parliament House Office in March 2019, Lee also dismissed what he described as the “cover-up narrative.”

In a 324-page judgment handed down on Monday, he said allegations that Reynolds and her chief of staff Fiona Brown tried to stop Higgins going to police were “objectively short on facts, but long on speculation and internal inconsistencies”.

Indeed, he described it as “one of the most topsy-turvy aspects of this case.”

“It is the only alleged cover-up of which I am aware where those said to be responsible for the covering up were almost insisting the complainant go to the police,” Lee said.

In a statement to The Australian Financial Review on Wednesday, Reynolds said the decision “set the record straight with respect to the conduct of Ms Brown and myself and the demonstrably false narrative that has dominated headlines and ruined lives and careers”.

“For three years I have endured intense public scrutiny, vilification, vile trolling and have been demonised as the villain in a story of a political cover-up I have always known to be untrue.

“Fiona Brown and I have lost our careers, had our reputations destroyed and have had our health seriously and irreparably compromised.

“To say I am pleased with the findings in relation to Ms Brown, myself and the cover-up that never was, would be an understatement.”

Reynolds, who will retire at the next election, said she did not want to make any further comment about the matter, given she still has two separate defamation actions against Higgins and her fiance, David Sharaz, before the West Australian Supreme Court.

“I note as a matter of law that the findings by Justice Lee are not binding on Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz in respect of their defences to my actions in the Supreme Court of WA. I therefore remain committed to fully vindicating my reputation,” she said.

Australian Olympic doyen John Coates says he understands frustration about the pace of progress on some foundation issues setting up the 2032 games, but maintains he is happy with aspects such as in marketing.

Coates, who was appearing as a representative for the International Olympic Committee at a Senate inquiry, pointed out Sydney had no master plan until five years before the 2000 Games.

The inquiry is looking at preparedness for the 2032 Olympics to be held in south-east Queensland.

The state government in the past 12 months dumped ideas to refurbish the Gabba in inner Brisbane, junked a review recommending a new stadium at Victoria Park, and pushed for a revamp of existing facilities at Nathan in the city’s south, which hosted the 1982 Commonwealth Games.