Hundreds of weekday train services in Brisbane will be cut back this week as workers at Queensland Rail take industrial action after negotiations on a new enterprise agreement stalled.
Queensland Rail said 300 fewer services would operate on the state’s southeast network in and around Brisbane from Tuesday, with the new timetable to be similar to a Saturday - meaning commuters can enjoy the weekend experience of frustration on a Tuesday.
Branch Secretary of the Queensland Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU), Peter Allen, spoke to ABC News this morning, saying the industrial action was not a strike, but limited partial work bans that “we have provided quite a lot of notice for”, and asked commuters not to take out any anger on station staff.
“We’ve got some really serious claims. Now, of course, we would like to see a wage increase that kept pace with inflation. Currently we are being offered below that, and in fact we would like to see Queensland Rail, through the Government, remove the claims that they have which would see our people go backwards,” Allen said.
“They want to increase the hours for some people, they want to reduce penalty rates for some, but we would also like them to consider our serious claims about safety at work when it comes to people who are experiencing trauma, the way that we can provide dignity for nursing mums, the way that we can make sure that people who work shift-work are treated fairly and have got at least some access to see their kids on their birthday from time to time, maybe experience the occasional Christmas. These aren’t unreasonable things, and so far we’ve been just getting a flat ‘no’.”
Queensland Rail chief executive Kat Stapleton told reporters on the weekend that she understood commuter frustration because she was “frustrated too”: “We want the unions to come back to the table and seriously consider the fair and reasonable and enhanced offer that we have presented.”
In other news, the major parties are once again spruiking fundraising dinners and drinks for their most loyal followers - and slugging them for thousands of dollars. A seat at Labor’s budget night dinner on Tuesday, 12 May, with the prime minister, treasurer and senior ministers, costs $5,500, up from $5,000 last year. The event is being held somewhere in the “Canberra CBD”, according to Labor sources. The Federal Labor Business Forum (FLBF) - a major fundraising arm for the party - will also host a more casual networking function for $2,000 per ticket. A top-tier membership to the FLBF costs more than $100,000 and gives holders about 25% off their tickets. Companies, including Westfarmers and Sportsbet, have reportedly held top-tier memberships. But privately, some MPs say they resent being “wheeled out” for these ritzy social galas.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers says next Tuesday’s budget will not extend the 26 cent fuel tax cut beyond June. But with Australia “hostage” to the wild swings in global oil prices amid the ongoing US-Israel war on Iran, the treasurer said there was “a range of contingencies” prepared to help support households and the economy from any escalating damage as a result of the Middle East conflict. As the Reserve Bank’s monetary policy board starts its two-day meeting ahead of tomorrow’s interest rate decision, Chalmers spruiked a responsible budget, saying the government will “save more than we spend”. “This budget will be our most responsible budget,” Chalmers told reporters in Parliament House this morning. But he also flagged that the global crisis triggered by the war would not distract the government from needed reform: “The budget will be calibrated for the conditions, but it will also still be consistent with our ambitions.”
The Reserve Bank could raise interest rates again on Tuesday, after lifting rates in February and March. Financial markets imply there is about a two-thirds chance of a third hike, after soaring fuel prices pushed inflation to its highest rate since 2023. For someone with an average-sized new mortgage of $736,000, paying a typical rate of 5.7%, a rate increase would add about $117 to their $4,272 monthly repayments.
The parents of Zack Schofield, one of six Australian activists detained by Israel last week after taking part in the Global Sumud Flotilla, have described their relief to hear from their son after he was released in Crete on Friday. Zack’s parents Joanne Jaworowski and Peter Schofield spoke to crowds gathered in Newcastle on Sunday as dozens of people paddled and sailed across Sydney and Newcastle harbours on Sunday in a show of solidarity with the Australians who were aboard the flotilla. “We were greatly relieved to hear from our son Zack ... Zack was on a borrowed phone, and only had a few seconds to tell us he was in hospital for medical review and that he loves us,” they said. “What we really want to know is why our government hasn’t publicly condemned the kidnapping our son and the detaining of him illegally on international waters - and also, when in heaven’s name our government will break their silence and business-as-usual as the genocide of Palestinians is perpetrated by our so-called ally, Israel. He shouldn’t have to do this: our government should be escorting boatloads of aid to Gaza shores, overland through Egypt and Jordan, breaking the illegal blockade of food and medicine with our true international allies. Please keep the pressure on our politicians to do the right and moral thing: break the blockade and free Palestine, so that our tender-hearted, unarmed civilians like Zack don’t have to do the work of governments to help the Palestinians.”
The Australian government is continuing to engage with the UK, France and the US on diplomatic efforts to open the strait of Hormuz, Penny Wong has said. Speaking to ABC News this morning, the foreign minister would not be drawn on Donald Trump’s comments that the US would be escorting some stranded ships out of the strait of Hormuz as a “humanitarian gesture”. “We all want the straight opened. That’s what global energy markets need, that’s what the Australian consumer needs so we do want the strait opened and oil to flow through the strait as it was prior to the conflict,” Wong said. “However, what I’d say on this. Obviously the US has made its intentions clear. We are engaging with the United Kingdom, France and the US on keeping the strait open or making sure the strait is opened. Those diplomatic efforts continue. What I would say is that we all have an interest in this being resolved. We know this has affected Australians at the petrol bowser, it’s affected our economy and it’s made our need to source fuel from elsewhere imperative, which is obviously why we have been - I was in north Asia last week, in Korea, Japan and China … We have certainly been engaging with the US and others about efforts to open the strait and to keep the strait open but obviously details of this will become clearer over to coming days.”
Treasurer Jim Chalmers and finance minister Katy Gallagher have been speaking in Canberra about the forthcoming budget. Gallagher said there will be “savings in every portfolio”. Asked about comments by the prime minister over the weekend that he was rethinking plans for universal childcare, Chalmers said people “shouldn’t lightly dismiss the steps that we have already taken”: “We’ve taken some very substantial steps already when it comes to the reform of early childhood education and care, probably more than any other government when it comes to affordability and access, and recognising that early childhood education and care is more than child care, it’s more than babysitting. And so we have substantially reoriented the way that this country thinks about early education. We’re very proud of that. And from the prime minister right down, there is an appetite to do more in that regard when we can afford to do so.”
The royal commission into antisemitism begins its public hearings this morning, with families of victims of the Bondi terror shooting to be the first witnesses called. The royal commission on Sunday published its witness list for Monday, with Sheina Gutnick - daughter of Bondi terror attack victim, Reuven Morrison - the first on the schedule. The first hearing begins at 10am, and will be live streamed. Also to appear on Monday is Alex Ryvchin, of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. The witness list for Monday has 12 people scheduled to appear, including three given pseudonyms. Each witness is listed as speaking about their “lived experience” of antisemitism. The first block of hearings, which will run from Monday until 15 May, will focus on historical and contemporary antisemitism, including lived experiences of antisemitism, and its impacts on Jewish Australians, according to information released by the royal commission. The commission said over the weekend that it had received nearly 6000 submissions to the inquiry, including nearly 2000 in the previous week alone.