As it happened: Brittany Higgins faces tense cross-examination in Lehrmann defamation trial; Israel-Hamas ceasefire extended

Coles expects its acquisition of two state-of-the-art automated milk processing facilities from Saputo Dairy Australia will be completed in the first half of next year after the competition regulator gave its blessing.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission announced on Friday it would not move to block the $105 million deal first announced in April between Coles and the Australian subsidiary of Canadian diary giant Saputo Inc.

The facilities are in Laverton North, Victoria, and Erskine Park, NSW. Both are close to Coles distribution centres.

Each has the capacity to process 225 million litres of milk a year and they are predominantly used to process Coles Own Brand two and three litre milk.

Coles chief executive Leah Weckert said the supermarket giant was pleased with the ACCC’s findings.

“Once completed, the acquisition of these state-of-the-art facilities will enable Coles to improve security of our milk supply and supply chain resilience and allow us to continue to build on the strong relationships we have developed with our dairy farmers,” she said.

Melina Morrison, chief executive of the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals - the peak body for Australia’s co-operatives and mutuals sector - was disappointed by the ACCC’s decision.

“As processing facilities are further concentrated in the hands of a few investor-owned dairy processors and retailers, there is less and less pressure on these businesses to share profits with farmers,” she said.

“That means farmers will have less capacity to reinvest in the sustainability of their own businesses.”

ACCC deputy chair Mick Keogh acknowledged the strong concerns raised by some industry participants about the acquisition.

He said the ACCC found that given the majority of the capacity at these plants was contracted to Coles, the acquisition was unlikely to result in a substantial lessening of competition.

The ACCC found other dairy companies such as Lactalis and Bega would continue to be competitors for raw milk in central NSW and the acquisition was unlikely to change this.

Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers has met with the treasurers of each state and territory in Brisbane in the lead-up to next week’s National Cabinet meeting.

The group discussed health, hospitals, the NDIS and the GST.

In a statement, Chalmers said they also discussed long-term options for zero-emission vehicle user charging and agreed to work on a “shared productivity agenda” for a more dynamic and resilient economy.

“In this challenging economic environment, it’s more important than ever for all levels of government to come together around some of the big economic and budgetary pressures that all of us are facing,” he said.

“We will continue to work constructively with the states and territories to make progress on these important issues.”

Major banks are “bullies” who are abandoning rural communities and leaving vulnerable customers at risk of financial scams, a Senate inquiry has been told.

Nearly 800 bank branches have closed in regional and rural Australia since June 2017, according to data from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA).

A long-running inquiry is examining the effect of closures on rural towns and considering possible mandates to keep a minimum number of country branches open.

When a bank shuts, customers are usually directed to a local post office for limited cash services through Bank@Post. Australia Post has told the inquiry there are about 1150 rural communities with post offices, but no banks.

The LPO group, which represents post office licensees, is pushing for the establishment of a government-backed postal bank using Australia Post’s vast regional network.

Co-chair Scott Etherington said three of the four major banks paid Australia Post for transactions, but post offices had to manage customers’ banking inquiries at no charge.

“How much longer should our members continue subsidising the banks?” Mr Etherington told the inquiry in Canberra on Friday.

“These bankers are not clever businessmen. They’re bullies.”

Elderly rural customers relied on face-to-face banking at post offices, often in fear of being caught up in scams or losing money, Mr Etherington said.

“They can’t afford for $5 or $10 or $1000, heaven forbid, to go astray because they hit the wrong button on their phone or hit the wrong thing on their web browser.”

Australia Post chief executive Paul Graham said though Bank@Post was also likely to decline as customers moved online, cash was important for regional communities and would not disappear soon.

The national postal service paid $90,000 last year to fly cash into remote towns such as Coober Pedy in South Australia and Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, where the last banks have shut down.

APRA data presented to the inquiry showed the number of banks in regional and rural areas reduced by 34 per cent in the past six years, along with 39 per cent in the cities.

AAP

The rights of defendants must not be overridden by national security concerns, a new report warns.

Australia’s Independent National Security Legislation Monitor Grant Donaldson was asked by the incoming Labor government last year to review laws covering how courts deal with sensitive information.

The concerns stemmed from the prosecutions of two intelligence officers known as Witness J (also known as Alan Johns) and Witness K, as well as lawyer Bernard Collaery.

Mr Donaldson said the NSI Act, as the laws are known, was important in that it enabled information to be used in prosecuting serious crimes, but came at a cost.

“The prosecutions of Alan Johns, Witness K and Mr Collaery ... illustrate this cost,” he said.

“Even though the NSI Act provides for greater disclosure by executive government to parties in court proceedings, it requires that court processes are more secretive.

“Overweening secrecy of executive government is replaced by secrecy of some extremely important work of courts.”

He said the NSI Act required the courts to “subordinate the administration of justice and a defendant’s right to a fair hearing, to the protection of national security”.

Mr Donaldson described the secrecy of the Alan Johns case as a “shameful tale”.

Johns was charged, arraigned, convicted on his plea of guilty, sentenced and served his term, without the public being aware of any of it.

Mr Collaery and his client, a former intelligence officer known as Witness K, were charged over allegedly leaking classified information about an alleged Australian spying operation in East Timor.

Charges against the lawyer were dropped by the federal government in 2022, following a long and protracted legal fight.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said he would consider the report’s 40 recommendations.

AAP

A third case has been filed to the High Court challenging the government’s emergency legislation placing strict conditions on the now 145 released detainees.

Representing a 30-year-old Sudanese man by the pseudonym RVJB, the ASRC states he arrived in Australia at 13 with his family from war-torn Sudan and faced convictions for offences when he was a young man and spent seven years in immigration detention.

The ASRC will argue the new law interferes with RVJB’s liberty, bodily integrity, privacy and dignity and show the law to be punitive and disproportionate - making it “unconstitutional in the same way the High Court found the government’s detention regime to be”.

“The conditions represent another drastic overreach of the Government’s powers and a serious infringement on people’s right to live with dignity,” the ASRC said in a statement.

“RVJB is now 30-years-old. He has demonstrated clear rehabilitation over years. He has not committed any offence since he was 22-years-old, and his most serious offending occurred when he was just 18-years-old. The Minister himself thought it was appropriate that he be released from held detention a year ago.”

Principal solicitor at the ASRC Hannah Dickinson said she has been working with RVJB for five years and has witnessed “expert after expert” assess him to not be a danger to the community.

“Our client has been trying to recover from the trauma of cruel and unconstitutional detention, and he’s doing all the right things to rebuild his life,” Dickinson said.

“Everyone should be treated equally before the law. Constitutional limits on government power are essential in a democratic society, preventing people being punished at will.

“These laws are of immense concern: we are acting fast to ensure they are properly scrutinised as soon as possible. In the meantime, we urge the Government to take a principled and careful approach, reforming the broken system to ensure legality, dignity, and justice, and to avoid the demonisation and politicisation of people’s lives that has plagued debate for years.”

Australia has condemned North Korea’s satellite launch as a reckless act that seriously undermines regional security and stability.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the November 21 launch violated UN Security Council resolutions on ballistic missile technology.

Senator Wong on Friday announced targeted financial sanctions and travel bans on a further seven individuals and one entity associated with North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction or missile programs and the satellite launch.

These sanctions were issued in coordination with new designations announced by the United States, Japan and the Republic of Korea.

“Australia is working with our allies and partners to slow the development of North Korea’s destabilising weapons programs and increase pressure on its procurement and revenue generation networks,” Senator Wong said in a statement.

“North Korea must comply fully with UNSC resolutions to abandon its unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner.”

Senator Wong said North Korea should engage in constructive dialogue and move towards permanent peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.

AAP

Commander of Operation Sovereign Borders Justin Jones says people smugglers will be manipulating information since the High Court’s decision that indefinite immigration detention was illegal.

Speaking to media on Friday afternoon, Jones said people smugglers were always trying to find ways to manipulate the media which is why they have begun an advertising blitz telling refugees they will not be settled in Australia.

“They’ve been manipulating information that’s been in the media since the caretaker period leading into the election last year,” he said.

“My instructions from the government are crystal clear to continue to implement and execute operation sovereign borders as originally intended.

“I have done that to the best of my ability and will continue to do so.”

Thanks for following our live coverage today.

If you’re just joining us, here’s what you need to know:

• A federal inquiry will examine a cancelled visa outsourcing project that cost taxpayers at least $92 million after years of political dispute over a bidder’s links to one of Scott Morrison’s closest allies.
• Brittany Higgins has denied that she went public with an allegation she was raped to affect the 2022 election, during cross-examination in Sydney on Friday in Bruce Lehrmann’s Federal Court defamation case against Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson.
• A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was extended for another day to allow more hostages and prisoners to be released.
• Multiple Gippsland towns are on flood alert as heavy rainfall in Victoria’s east travels down swollen waterways and Mallacoota remains cut off by a landslide.
• Up to 2000 NSW paramedics are upholding their threat not to renew their professional registrations, as pay negotiations with the state government continued to stall on Friday.

I’m handing the reins over to Sarah Keoghan, who will steer this blog into the weekend. Enjoy!