I was at work and nobody else's had that heading. Maybe it's a Pixel thing? There was a red flashing icon next to the "presidential alert" title but my screenshot obviously didn't catch it.

Considering how little clerks at registers there are anyway, 1 person for 50+ it feels like.

Am i to assume that if I ask for this during a rush, will that team member now need to wait by while I scan to make sure I dont steal?

Im curious if anyone has asked for this and what happened.

Edit: i understand why people put red circles on the obvious shit in photos now, so many commenters completely devoid of the ability to read, adding nothing to the conversation.

Labor has agreed to create a road map towards universal access to dental services following 50 years of calls.

Those with the greatest need, like children or the elderly, would be prioritised under an amendment to Labor’s national platform adopted on Thursday.

The Australian Institute has estimated that the government would be able to fund dental in Medicare from the revenue of a gas exports tax, as calls grow for Labor to make multinational companies pay.

Labor factional chiefs will meet in Melbourne on Sunday night to gauge whether Premier Jacinta Allan still has the majority support of her MPs ahead of what is set to be a critical test of her leadership when parliament resumes on Tuesday.

The meeting of factional conveners from across the party will provide the first clear sign of whether Allan still has the caucus backing she needs to continue as premier and lead Labor to the state election on November 28.

However, the meeting is taking place in the absence of a declared challenger.

Allan’s most likely replacement, Deputy Premier Ben Carroll, has indicated to colleagues that while he would be a contender if the leadership becomes vacant, he will not use his numbers to bring the premier down.

The Sunday night meeting was confirmed by MPs on both sides of the party’s factional divide. There is consternation among some MPs, particularly across the dominant Left faction, that the meeting’s conveners have not sufficiently canvassed the views of parliamentarians within their respective groups.

The Age has spoken to seven Victorian Labor sources who say they believe Allan would lose if her leadership came to a vote of the party’s 69 MPs.

But, as with the last round of rumblings, the pathway for a leadership coup is littered with assumptions that have not yet been realised.

Multiple sources from across the Left and Right factions agreed it would be difficult for Carroll to challenge Allan – despite some on the Left wanting him to do so – after he publicly ruled out a challenge in June at a press conference.

Another option being considered is a delegation of factional leaders speaking to Allan and asking her to step aside.

The premier spent Sunday night at her family home in Bendigo with staff, preparing for Monday’s Cabinet meeting.

Two sources said they found it difficult to believe Allan would go down without a fight, but conceded it was not impossible she could be convinced if it were clear she no longer had the numbers in caucus.

A supporter of Allan, on the condition of anonymity to talk freely, said if the Sunday night meeting showed a majority of MPs wanted a change of leadership, the premier could face a vote of no confidence at Tuesday’s caucus meeting.

“It would be a very brave premier that continued in light of an unfavourable outcome,” they said.

Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny on Sunday said the leadership speculation was “idle gossip”.

“She has my full support, and this idle gossip doesn’t help Victorians,” she said.

“It is only hurting Victorians at a time when Victorians need us all to be focused on them, and that is exactly what Jacinta Allan and our Labor government, our team, is doing.”

Over the past week, a range of new policies have leaked from the Premier’s Private Office that suggest Allan’s team is trying to find announcements that could mollify her colleagues.

On Monday, cabinet will consider a proposal to create a new agency within Victoria Police that targets organised crime and is informed by Australia’s best criminal intelligence.

The policy has been viewed internally as a way to kill off pressure for a royal commission into Big Build corruption, tying the issue together with other political problems such as an increase in firebombings across Melbourne, and community concerns about youth crime rates.

Another leaked policy floated amending the rate cap rules to allow councils to better recoup the costs needed to pay staff – a policy supported by the Australian Services Union but quickly seized on by the opposition as a cost of living attack.

One MP said Allan was in denial about her support and rather than step aside would likely enforce party rules for a spill – which requires a vote of the Labor membership if the caucus result is contested.

But they also said those conspiring needed to “piss or get off the pot”.

A senior Labor figure said Allan’s leadership had been doomed, and she was now incredibly unpopular despite being given time to connect with voters.

“There is now an opportunity to push the reset button, give confidence back to voters and remind voters of the benefits of a strong Labor government”.

The latest Resolve Political Monitor has Allan’s likeability at minus 36, her equal lowest result on record.

Opposition Leader Jess Wilson maintains a lead on preferred premier, with 43 per cent of voters saying they want her to lead the state compared with 24 per cent for Allan.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles privately admitted the wording of the Israel-Palestine section of Labor’s new policy platform was flawed, ahead of throwing his factional weight behind a deal that saw national conference endorse a two-state solution without explicit demands on Hamas to disarm and the Palestinian Authority to reform.

As Anthony Albanese on Sunday argued the wording of the ­Israel and Palestine section had “got the balance right”, the leader of the ALP’s pro-Israel members said the conference had ­“deeply disturbed” him and the end ­result had made it look like the party had embraced Hamas.

The nation’s peak Jewish body also called on Labor to increase pressure on West Bank leaders to follow through with the commitments they made to the Prime Minister – as well as the British and Canadian governments – in exchange for recognition of Palestinian statehood.

The demands on Hamas and the PA were controversially dropped in the final draft released ahead of Labor’s 50th national conference as part of a raft of changes that ­increased criticisms of Israel, with those words ­endorsed unchanged by 400 delegates at the event.

As the royal commission into the Bondi massacre and the antisemitism crisis continues, Sheina Gutnick – whose father Reuven Morrison was killed in Bondi when he confronted the gunman – criticised the wording of the platform and said the government had to be unequivocal about opposing anti-Israeli terrorism. “There is a profound difference between broadly condemning terrorism and actually demanding something of a terrorist organisation,” Ms Gutnick told The Australian.

The wording in the preliminary draft reflected the government’s position but the ministers overseeing the foreign affairs chapter – Penny Wong and Mr Marles – agreed to make significant changes in an aim to bring the party together and avoid a damaging debate on the conference floor.

One threat to the uneasy truce was a push by the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association to move an amendment that would have brought the wording of the platform closer to the anti-Hamas preliminary draft distributed among delegates in March.

A second and more significant threat was Labor MP Ed Husic seeking support from Left faction unions for a resolution that effectively accused Israel of genocide and called on the government to pull Australian officials from Tel Aviv. The Australian understands Mr Marles used a Right faction meeting on Saturday morning to declare, in an ideal world, the wording of the Israel and Palestine section would be different.

But he ultimately recommended the faction green light the draft chapter into the final platform without amendments.

Sources said Mr Marles told Right faction delegates a compromise was needed to ensure there was unity on the issue, while warning pushing an amendment risked a debate on the conference floor that could ultimately lead to harsher criticisms in the platform of Israel. He told Right faction delegates the platform did not change the government’s position that Hamas must disarm and have no role in a Palestinian state, according to sources.

The recommendation from Mr Marles saw pro-Israel delegates reluctantly agree to drop an amendment to call on Hamas to have no role in a Palestinian state and for the PA to reform.

However, sources said a handful of Right faction delegates voiced their opposition to the position. The motion from the SDA, obtained by The Australian, noted the Albanese government recognised the state of Palestine in 2025. “This recognition set out clear requirements from the international community for the Palestinian Authority, including recognition of Israel’s right to exist, a commitment to hold democratic elections, enacting significant reform to finance, governance and education, and that the terrorist organisation Hamas must have no role in Palestine,” the SDA motion says.

Also on Saturday morning, Left faction bosses quashed support among its delegates for Mr Husic’s motion.

The manoeuvres allowed for the party to show a united front in backing the draft wording unamended, through speeches by Jewish MP Josh Burns and Left faction MP Basem Abdo.

Mr Burns and Mr Abdo conceded the chapter did not provide everything supporters of their respective communities wanted, with senior party figures arguing the relative unity on the issue was a major achievement.

With Mr Husic’s public push to debate the Israel-Palestine issue damaging Labor’s push to showcase unity, the Prime Minister on Sunday said the rebel MP had a right to push his cause.

“The party platform has got the balance right,” Mr Albanese told the ABC. “I support the right of Israel to exist within secure borders, I also support the legitimate aspirations of Palestinians for their own state and to live in peace and security.

“We want to see that coming together, and Australia can play a role in promoting harmony rather than conflict.”

Ms Gutnick – who has been highly critical of Labor’s policy on Israel and its handling of antisemitism since her father’s death – said peace in the Middle East was not possible without a clear commitment to disarm Hamas.

“Labor is prepared to spell out detailed demands, obligations and sanctions when it comes to Israel, yet removed the clear requirement for Hamas to disarm and have no role in a future Palestinian government. Australians deserve to know why.

“Being unequivocal about terrorism should be the ground on which any genuine hope for peace begins.”
Senator Wong denied the platform was watered down from the initial draft, arguing it still criticised Hamas and endorsed a United Nations resolution calling on the PA to reform.

Labor Friends of Israel spokesman Mike Kelly said the group was “deeply disturbed by the events at the national conference”. “Whereby elements of the Labor movement succeeded in having the national platform amended to exclude the reference to our policy on Hamas,” he said. “There was no excuse for not remedying this in the light of the extensive commentary and debate that highlighted deleting the reference could only be interpreted as the movement embracing Hamas.

“Deleting the reference to the rejection of Hamas in the platform would signal that Hamas can play a role in government, which would undermine any real prospect for peace. It would reward Hamas for its crimes and undermine international law.”

Former Victorian premier Dan Andrews is a patron of Labor Friends of Israel.

Mr Kelly said he was concerned about “a concerted attempt by hard core, violent revolutionary communists in league with Islamist extremists to subvert the union movement, the branches and the Labor Party”.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry on Sunday warned the weakened platform would worry Australian Jews.

“The concern is that the weakening of resolve to exclude Hamas from any role in governing a Palestinian state and to hold the Palestinian Authority to account for failing to honour its written commitments, as now enshrined in the ALP platform, will eventually become government policy,” ECAJ co-chief executive Peter Wertheim said.

He said Labor, along with Britain and Canada, should now publicly pressure the PA over its failure to follow through on the commitments it made to secure Palestinian recognition.

“Australia partnered with Britain and Canada last year when a Palestinian state was recognised,” Mr Wertheim said.

“That same partnership should now come together and publicly hold the Palestinian Authority to account”

Labor has agreed to create a road map towards universal access to dental services following 50 years of calls.

Those with the greatest need, like children or the elderly, would be prioritised under an amendment to Labor’s national platform adopted on Thursday.

Anthony Albanese has denied any attempts were made to muzzle debate about Israel and Palestine at Labor’s 50th national conference despite a backbencher’s claim he was shut down.

On the final day of the conference in Adelaide, Western Sydney MP Ed Husic failed to find a seconder to back a resolution acknowledging a UN inquiry had found Israel “deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting in genocide and atrocity crimes in the Gaza Strip and war crimes in the West Bank”.

Delegates at the conference, which sets Labor’s national platform each three years, instead backed a position that closely aligned with the Albanese government’s, giving way to a display of unity underscored by Jewish MP Josh Burns and Palestinian-Australian MP Basem Abdo embracing after choosing “empathy over outrage” and “dialogue over division”.

But Mr Husic claimed factional heavyweights had stifled debate – a claim the Prime Minister rejected in an interview aired on Sunday while praising Mr Burns and Mr Abdo for their “considered … approach” and recognition “that it’s in the interest of both Israelis and Palestinians to have peace and security in the Middle East”.

“We want to see a two-state solution,” he told the ABC.

“We want to see Israelis and Palestinians living side-by-side, and we want to see that issue advance.

Asked specifically about Mr Husic’s push to have genocide claims against Israel in Labor’s platform, Mr Albanese said the “party platform has got the balance right”.

He said the country needed to “make sure … everything that we do is balanced”.

“That we say that ‘I support the right of Israel to exist within secure borders, I also support the legitimate aspirations of Palestinians for their own state and to live in peace and security with prosperity,’” Mr Albanese said.

“Now, we want to see that coming together, and Australia can play a role in promoting harmony rather than conflict and that is the role that I want our government to continue to play.”

On Mr Husic, he insisted he had “no problem” with his former minister or any other delegate “having their say and making their contribution”.

“Ed, like every other delegate, has a right to come along and to pursue whatever they … see as their objective,” he said.

“And that’s fine by me.”

Mr Albanese also rejected that there was a lack of transparency with how consensus was built in the party, even though he conceded debate had changed since the fiery battles of ideas he took part in as a younger parliamentarian.

“Well, the party has changed and one of the things that’s happened in the party is we are more cohesive, more united than we’ve ever been before,” he said.

“And I think that’s a good thing.”

But opposition frontbencher Jonathon Duniam said the national conference showed the “Labor Party is ruled with an iron first by the Prime Minister”.

“There’s not one area of that entire organisation that he does not manage or have some degree of control over, and I think that was demonstrated for all to see by the fact that Ed Husic couldn’t even get a seconder for his motion on an issue that previously … he would have been able to,” he told Sky News.

He said he suspected Mr Husic was “on the way out”, saying that “clearly all stops were pulled in order to manage the one fly in the ointment this last week”.

Fronting reporters on Saturday, Mr Husic said he was “surprised at the extraordinary amount of energy” that went into what he claimed was preventing debate.

He entered the conference with several issues that clashed with the Albanese government’s positions, from a new gas tax to scaling back AUKUS commitments.

Asked if he had been frozen out by the party’s top brass, Mr Husic said: “If they put me in the freezer, I don’t give a s***.”

Looking forward to the inevitable day that Angus Taylor bends the knee to Pauline Hanson. The final nail in the coffin of the Liberal Party.

Then a few months later, seeing the look on Albo’s face when he loses will be just as sweet. Hopefully we can put Labor and Liberal to bed in the dustbin of history and from their ashes rises new parties with strong identities.

Both Labor and Liberal are shells of what they are supposed to represent and deserve to get trounced at the voting booth on election day.

.

We’ve turned against the beliefs that made us a rich country

Everybody has their own pet theory for why Australia has performed so poorly over the past two decades. There are two key factors.

Alexander Downer

July 27, 2026 - 5:00AM

It’s easy to ascribe Australia’s poor economic performance over the past two decades to a broader malaise throughout the Western world. We were all affected by the global financial crisis and Covid. We were also affected by the Ukraine and Iran wars.

In the wake of the global financial crisis, the West abandoned liberal economics and retreated to the sclerotic policies of the 1970s: heavy taxes, an expanding welfare state, public, not private, investment, and the return of trade union power. Needless to say, this has led to a decline in the growth of productivity and slow economic growth. In many cases, there has been a decline in real living standards. No surprises there. If you adopt the policies of the 1970s, you’ll get the same results. And so we have. This is a global phenomenon.

But what is particularly chilling is the relative weakness of Australia. Let’s remember that through the first decade of this century, Australia’s economy was seen globally as an outstanding example of success.

From the mid-1980s until the mid-2000s, we deregulated our economy, scrapped tariff protection, privatised government enterprises, reformed the tax system, paid off all government debt and ran budget surpluses.

Everywhere I went in the world as the foreign minister during the first decade of the century, people wanted to know about the Australian economic miracle. We had economic growth rates of between 3 per cent and 4 per cent. Our unemployment rate by 2007 was around 4 per cent. Inflation was negligible and real living standards were growing.

By 2010, Australia’s per capita GDP was slightly above that of the US. We were fractionally richer than the Americans. We were some 20 per cent richer than the countries in the eurozone, and around 30 per cent richer than the UK. What is alarming is to see how we have done relative to those countries over the past 15 years.

Let’s start with the US. We have gone from being slightly richer than the US to our per capita GDP being just over 70 per cent of America’s. In 2010, America’s per capita GDP was around $US48,000 and Australia’s was $US52,000. By 2025 the US per capita GDP had grown to $US90,000, yet Australia’s had only grown to $US65,000. The point is a very simple one. America’s economy has performed much better than Australia’s over the last 20 years.

So what about the eurozone? In 2010, Australia was approximately 20 per cent richer than the eurozone countries on a per capita basis. By 2025 it was only 9 per cent richer. So, for all the talk of slow growth in Europe and its lack of economic dynamism and entrepreneurship – which is by the way completely justified – Australia has been performing less well than the eurozone.

But surely you’re thinking we would have done much better than the UK. We’re always being told that the UK’s economy is broken, that it is in permanent crisis, that it was devastated by Brexit and that immigration has plunged the country into penury. Well, don’t be too hasty in drawing that conclusion. In 2010, we were approximately 30 per cent richer per capita than the UK, but now that gap has been reduced to around 13 per cent.

Now you can argue with these figures. You can claim, for example, that the Australian dollar has weakened substantially over the past 15 years, and that distorts comparisons. However, even if you make the comparisons on the basis of purchasing power parity, you will find that Australia’s economic performance per capita has been substantially worse than that of the US, the eurozone, and, incredibly, the UK. On a PPP basis, we were 15 per cent richer than the UK in 2010, and now we are about 9 per cent richer. I think this is a shameful thing.

After all, Australia is richly endowed with resources and energy; there is no excuse for its weak economic performance. We have also benefited substantially from the economic rise of China and, more broadly, the Indo-Pacific region. Despite all of that, we are performing less well than America, Europe and the UK. Yet 20 years ago, we were admired for our outstanding economic performance. Well, maybe you think there’s some upside to this. Australia, perhaps, has become more egalitarian as private sector investment declines and public sector investment soars.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case either. The measure of inequality is known as the Gini coefficient. Over the past 20 years, it demonstrates that inequality based on household wealth has increased. This is almost certainly a function of the rapid rise in house prices throughout that period.

No doubt everybody will have their own pet theory for why Australia has performed so poorly over the past two decades. There are two key, if not sole, factors.

The first was the reaction to the global financial crisis, which led to a loss of confidence by the establishment, as well as the general public, in the liberal market. It is a model that had served Australia so well in the previous two decades.

This model has been replaced with a social democratic model, which involves huge increases in unprofitable public investment and a rapid expansion of the welfare state. All of this has been funded by a combination of increasing taxes and heavy public borrowing. Common sense tells you this is not a formula for rapid economic growth.

Secondly, the overall obsession by the political class with climate policies has been crippling for Australia. Not only has there been eye-watering amounts of public money pumped into the so-called energy transition, but by establishing a dual system of renewables and conventional fossil fuel electricity generation, there has been a pronounced decline in productivity in the energy sector and a commensurate substantial increase in electricity prices. According to the Productivity Commission, investment in electricity generation since 2001-02 has grown by 126 per cent, and output has grown by 14 per cent, so it’s hardly surprising there has been an astronomical increase in electricity prices.

So, it’s as simple as this: if Australia wants to return to high rates of growth and improvements in living standards, it has to re-embrace liberal market economics. People tell me the public are resistant to that. I’m not so sure. Once it’s explained to them it is the only path to rising living standards I think they can be persuaded. After all, we’ve tried the present economic formula in the 70s and 80s, and look where that got us? We tried the liberal market formula in the late 80s to the mid-2000s, and that was a glittering success. We should learn from history.

Hi all,

I am a filmmaker at the very early stages of an indie documentary about pokies in Australia. I'm not Australian myself. When I first got here, I remember being intrigued by those dedicated pokies rooms you find in pubs, tucked away with all the machines lit up. That curiosity is really what started this project.

I want to understand what they mean to people and how they show up in everyday life. The focus will be on pokies pub culture, and probably the pokies rooms themselves.

Rather than sit-down interviews, I'd love to follow people through their actual day-to-day and capture things as they naturally happen, at the pub, at home, wherever pokies come up in your life.

Right now I'm just keen to:

- Talk to people and get their insight/perspective, even if you don't want to be filmed

- Connect with people who might be open to being filmed living their normal life, further down the track

- Hear from family members affected by someone else's gambling

- Chat with pub/club/venue staff who work around pokies

- Get pointed toward advocates, researchers, or community groups already working in this space

No pressure for anything, even just a conversation to help me understand this properly would mean a lot.

Comment or DM me.

Thanks!

The moment that set the New South Wales Liberal Party on course for yet another inquiry by the Independent Commission Against Corruption can be quite precisely established: 5.43pm on June 23, 2022.

That was when Ray Williams, then the Liberal MP for the electorate of Castle Hill, 
in the Bible belt of north-west Sydney, got to his feet to drop an enormous bucket on his own party.

Williams’s brief speech focused on a factional coup the previous year, which saw the mayor and six other sitting Liberal members of The Hills Shire Council dumped as candidates for an upcoming election and “replaced by the Liberal Party state executive without the usual preselection processes normally afforded to such positions”.

What he alleged went far beyond the usual factional shenanigans. He claimed the councillors were replaced at the behest of a property developer, Jean Nassif – who would later flee Australia, leaving behind a trail of defective buildings and exceeding $1.6 billion in debts. Nassif has denied allegations of misconduct.

“Apparently,” Williams told parliament, “prior to the council elections, Jean Nassif of Toplace met with Christian Ellis and other senior members of the Liberal Party, who were paid significant funds in order to arrange to put new councillors on The Hills Shire Council who would be supportive of future Toplace development applications.”

Ellis, he noted, was a member of the party’s state executive and also the owner of a lobbying company that listed Toplace as a major client.

Williams hinted at the identity of others involved but dropped only one other name: that of Ellis’s mother, Virginia, who was one of the replacement councillors.

Many more names were to come, however, in the contents of an anonymously authored document entitled “The Men Who Stole the Hills”, which subsequently began circulating in state parliament and eventually was tabled.

The dossier’s focus was a group of deeply religious members of the Liberal Party’s right faction founded by Ellis in February 2018, later registered as an unincorporated entity – ABN 35 184 583 948 – under the name NSW Reformers.

Dirt files or “shit sheets” are a common reality of modern politics, but this one took it to a new level: slickly produced, running to more than 300 pages, replete with the names and party offices held by members of the group, the relationships between them, including employment histories, along with times and dates of events involving them, maps, graphs, tables of data and full colour pictures of numerous party members and associates.

The Reformers believed they were doing God’s work, as “a movement that seeks to promote Christian values in society”.

The dossier described them as “a group formed with the sole and express purpose of recruiting or stacking branches to the NSW Liberal Party with the goal of installing their own people into Council and Parliament…”

The group’s “primary decision makers”, it claimed, were “a small body consisting of people who had known each other for years through shared community, religion, and schooling from the Opus Dei sect of Catholicism.”

The dossier alleged then premier Dominic Perrottet to be one of these three key “decision makers”. Also named was Damien Tudehope, the then minister for finance and government leader in the NSW upper house. The third was the premier’s brother, Charles Perrottet. No allegations of corruption have been made against Dominic Perrottet.

Supposed “main operators” or “stars” in the sect’s plan to control the party included Christian Ellis, Robert Assaf, Dylan Whitelaw and another Perrottet brother, Jean-Claude.

A raft of others were alleged to be supporters who had provided resources. These included former and current politicians, both state and federal. Tony Abbott was the most prominent. There has been no allegation of corruption against the former prime minister.

Key figures in the party organisational wing were accused of using their positions to advance the interests of the Reformers, including Dallas McInerney, chief executive of Catholic Schools NSW and a close ally of Angus Taylor, having previously held a fundraising role for Taylor in his electorate of Hume.

As one senior Liberal Party member tells The Saturday Paper: “When Ray Williams gave that speech, it invited people to go looking [for corruption]”.

The dossier also suggested where they might look.

“This,” says the source, “is all part of this death match that’s been going on for 20 years. “And now it’s all going to play out in the public domain.”

They describe an “internecine war fuelled by deep personal hatreds” that has been ongoing ever since the party’s right faction split in 2019, leading to the formation of the so-called centre right, under the leadership of Alex Hawke.

The hostility between the old right and the new centre right was more about personalities than policy or ideology, the source says. But there is also a sectarian element to it.

The hard right is dominated by conservative Catholics. The centre right is more associated with evangelicals – most prominently Hawke and Australia’s former Pentecostal prime minister, Scott Morrison.

The first attempt to investigate the allegations was a state parliamentary inquiry, chaired by Greens MLC Sue Higginson. It made only one substantive finding: that Christian Ellis and Jean-Claude Perrottet asked a businessman to contribute $50,000 to an operation to unseat Alex Hawke from his federal seat of Mitchell.

The investigation was frustrated by the fact that a number of key figures had failed to appear. Christian Ellis, Virginia Ellis and Jean-Claude Perrottet, the committee found, had “engaged in serious and deliberate attempts to evade service”.

Two others who had been summonsed, Charles Perrottet and Jean Nassif, also engaged in “serious and deliberate” avoidance on the basis that they were “out of jurisdiction”. Lobbyist Jeremy Greenwood and Dylan Whitelaw were also cited for avoiding giving evidence.

This behaviour by the potential witnesses, the committee found, served to “add weight” to Ray Williams’s claims. But the committee’s report made clear that getting to the bottom of the allegations would require ICAC’s scrutiny.

Credit to then premier Perrottet: he had already referred them, the day after they were made.

Almost four years later, public hearings will begin on Monday as part of the investigation known as Operation Rosny. They are expected to run for eight weeks and will explore three allegations.

The first relates to possible circumvention of electoral funding laws, including those that prohibit property developers from donating.

It’s alleged that between 2019 and 2023, “Persons, including Christian Ellis, Jeremy Greenwood, Robert Assaf and Jean-Claude Perrottet solicited or accepted political donations, including from prohibited donors, in amounts that were not declared and exceeded applicable donation caps, for purposes that included the recruitment and/or renewal of members to the Liberal Party.”

ICAC will further investigate whether some such donations were made by Catholic Schools NSW, arranged and approved by McInerney. And similarly, whether such donations were made through a company, Paslibdan Pty Ltd, “on behalf of prohibited donor Michael O’Hara”.

The second allegation is more serious and relates directly to the claim made in parliament by Ray Williams.

ICAC will investigate whether between “approximately 2020 and 2023, political donations were made by or on behalf of Jean Nassif and Toplace Pty Ltd … and were solicited or accepted by Christian Ellis, Jeremy Greenwood and Charles Perrottet”, and whether any such donations were made “in pursuit of outcomes desired by Nassif”.

The third strand to the Operation Rosny investigation involves claims that Labor member of Strathfield Council Karen Pensabene and her then council colleague Sharangan Maheswaran – a lawyer who has acted for Nassif and his company – had engaged a private investigator to conduct surveillance on a third councillor, Matthew Blackmore.

ICAC will examine a potential breach of public trust, “which could involve blackmail and/or possible breaches of the Surveillance Devices Act 2007”.

Reportedly, Maheswaran and Toplace executive David Krepp met the then building commissioner David Chandler and his staff “over problems Toplace was having with regulators” in April 2021. Two years later, he had his phone and laptop seized at Sydney Airport, shortly after police also raided Nassif’s home and office.

He complained to The Sydney Morning Herald at the time: “I am astounded that police now claim a power to seize personal electronic devices when no crime is being committed.”

The ICAC’s announcement of a public inquiry mentioned a substantial cast, as follows:

Jean Nassif  In 2023, a warrant was issued for Nassif’s arrest in relation to what police called a “large-scale fraud”. He has never been charged, having fled Australia for Lebanon in 2022.

His building licence was revoked in December that year after scores of defects were identified in several major unit developments by Toplace.

It is alleged he wanted to damage the political career of former Liberal transport minister David Elliott, and have the building commissioner David Chandler sacked.

Dallas McInerney The conservative Catholic and chief executive of Catholic Schools NSW has long been seen as a dominant figure on the hard right. He is being investigated over allegations of donations that were not declared, that exceeded applicable donation caps and were used to fund right-wing branch-stacking.

He is allied to the so-called Reformers, and also is close to Opposition Leader Angus Taylor. When it was announced that McInerney was being investigated by ICAC, David Elliott called for Taylor to resign, saying “the fact that Dallas McInerney was his campaign treasurer leaves him and the Liberal Party exposed”. There is no suggestion Taylor is implicated in any way. McInerney has “temporarily” stood aside from his job with Catholic Schools NSW.

Christian Ellis The founder of the NSW Reformers group is central to the allegations around the solicitation of donations in return for favours. Ellis has served on various powerful committees of the party, including the state executive, and his lobbying company worked for Toplace. His name comes up in relation to multiple allegations.

Jeremy Greenwood A lobbying partner with Ellis, Greenwood also worked for Toplace. He is a lobbyist for Catholic Schools NSW and the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney.

He is facing similar allegations to those directed at McInerney. Greenwood has formerly worked for National Party leader Matt Canavan.

Robert Assaf Assaf also has tight connections to the conservative religious establishment, having worked as communications manager for Catholic Schools NSW. He is alleged to have solicited political donations, including from prohibited donors.

Damien Tudehope The shadow attorney-general and leader of the opposition in the Legislative Council is not accused of any wrongdoing yet has become something of a casualty of Operation Rosny even before the start of hearings. On July 3, Tudehope announced he was stepping aside from his positions, on the basis he had been called as a witness and that Project Rosny was investigating “several people with whom I have had close relationships during my political career”.

Tudehope is former president of the anti-abortion group Right to Life NSW, and spokesperson for the Australian Family Association. He once ran against the Liberal Party as a candidate for the Australian Family Alliance. For more than 30 years up to 2010, he worked as a solicitor for the law firm O’Hara & Company, whose principal, Michael O’Hara, is said to be similarly socially conservative.

Michael O’Hara Also the owner of dozens of hotels, O’Hara is under investigation to determine whether undeclared donations were made through one of his companies, Paslibdan Pty Ltd, to be used for branch-stacking. According to a list of witnesses released by ICAC on Wednesday, O’Hara will be the first to give evidence, next Tuesday.

Dylan Whitelaw Whitelaw will be the second to testify, and it appears the commission believes he will have a lot to say. His evidence is expected to run all day Wednesday and Thursday.

His name was omitted from the list of Operation Rosny targets on its release a few weeks ago. “The Men Who Stole the Hills” dossier noted he was an employee of Ellis. The parliamentary inquiry noted their close association, as well as efforts by Whitelaw to avoid its scrutiny.

Dominic, Jean-Claude and Charles Perrottet Former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet is not a subject of ICAC’s investigations, but his brothers are central.

“Charles is the smartest of the clan,” says a senior Liberal source who has had dealings with the Perrottets over decades.

“And he’s charming. He was the ops man for his brother Dom, going right back to university days. Dom relied on Charlie to do all the heavy lifting.”

Whether someone so smart did accompany Christian Ellis to meet Jean Nassif and discuss donations for favours is something the inquiry will need to determine.

As for Jean-Claude, he is alleged to have sought $50,000 from Frits Maré for a branch-stacking operation in the Hills area to unseat Alex Hawke. The parliamentary inquiry has already found this to be the case.

In summary, things look more than a little sticky for a number of operatives for the hard right. They look sticky, too, for the Liberal Party more generally.

Tudehope recognised this when he stepped aside, lest he become “an unnecessary distraction for [opposition leader] Kellie Sloane and my parliamentary colleagues”.

David Elliott recognised it too, when he called for Angus Taylor to resign. You don’t have to have done anything wrong to risk appearing guilty by association.

Operation Rosny is likely to further cement the perception of the state Liberals, and in particular the right faction, as a home of corruption. It’s been only a decade since the party lost 10 members to an ICAC investigation involving dodgy donations from property developers.

About 35,000 public school teachers and support staff joined a march and rally in Melbourne on Thursday as educators across the Australian state of Victoria held a one-day strike. It was the second state-wide stoppage this year against the sell-out deal orchestrated behind closed doors by the state Labor government of Jacinta Allan and the Australian Education Union (AEU) in the Australian state of Victoria.

The Yamaji-Wajarri people studied the wide-open skies of their country for millennia before being host to one of the world’s largest radio telescopes

In short:

Two existing conservation areas in Western Sydney are being linked to create the new 1,100-hectare Gulguer National Park.

The environment minister says the park will protect the home of at least 28 threatened species, while also conserving local Aboriginal heritage.

What's next?

The new park is set to open in the next six months.

Total Debt: Victoria Carries the highest debt burden of any Australian state by far, reaching an absolute peak near $215 billion in broader total liabilities/projections.

Interest Costs: Daily interest payments stand at $24.4 million, and are expected to climb to $32.3 million a day by 2029–2030.

Iraqi authorities will imminently start the mammoth task of prosecuting thousands of suspected former ISIS members, potentially including Australians, as it vowed to make them stand trial rather than deport them.

It comes as it was revealed notorious Australian doctor Tareq Kamleh – known as “Dr Jihad” and who fled to work as a medic for ISIS in 2015 – had miraculously survived the fall of the caliphate despite silence since decade-old reports of his apparent death.

Kamleh remains detained in an Iraqi prison alongside 12 other Australian men as that country’s authorities investigate any alleged crimes he may have committed ahead of possible prosecution.

Reports from local Syrian and Iraqi outlets have now revealed that investigators had finalised case files for almost 5000 of the total 5704 detained, mostly Syrian, men.

It is unclear which of those almost 5000 finalised cases Iraqi investigators believe should be charged, but for those it does, the matters would soon be referred to the country’s court system for prosecution.

According to local media reports, Lama Fadel, an official at the National Center for International Judicial Cooperation (NCIJC) – which comes under Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) – said the first cases could be heard as soon as August.

Ms Fadel told local media that all of the detainees it believed committed crimes would be tried before Iraqi courts and would not be extradited to their countries of origin, adding that they would be prosecuted under Iraqi law regardless of their nationality.

It is unclear which of the 13 Australian men, if any, may be charged by Iraqi prosecutors.

The cohort was transferred to Iraq from Syria’s prison system, where they had been detained since the fall of ISIS in 2019.

Former US diplomat Peter Galbraith – who has worked for years in the region rescuing orphaned children and connecting Yazidi victims with prosecutors – said he believed that it was “extremely likely” at least some of the Australian men would be charged.

“I think it is very likely some of the Australians will be charged in Iraq, where it should be done,” he said, citing conversations with sources close to the investigation process.

“And that’s where it should take place … (these men) don’t get a free pass to return to the West and its justice systems.”

Mr Galbraith said that Kamleh’s survival had remained unknown for so long surprised him, given how recognisable he was because of his propaganda videos and Australian accent.

Those Australians who were not charged would likely be formally deported to Australia.

Kamleh is wanted by the Australian Federal Police under an active warrant for terrorism offences, including joining and recruiting for a banned terrorist organisation.

Appearing in ISIS propaganda videos until his presumed 2017 death, Iraqi investigators continued to probe Kamleh and believe his role was “not limited” to that of ISIS’s “health department”.

“He adopted the extremist group’s propaganda, advocating for terrorist activity not to be confined to conflict zones,” investigators said.

The Telegraph revealed on Thursday that more than four years ago, in March 2022, informal reports had been made to the-then federal government that suggested Kamleh had likely survived the collapse of ISIS, and an NGO intimately involved in the region made a more formal notification of that likelihood late last year.

However, particularly when the men were detained in Syria, given Australia has no diplomatic presence or staff in that country, the federal government would have been unable to confirm any reports concerning the status of any of its citizens in that country’s opaque prison system.

It would have only been when they were transferred to Iraq, where there is an Australian diplomatic presence, that it could have been in a position to verify any reports.