News and politics live updates: Australia signs uranium export deal with India as PM, Modi boost defence ties

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The ABC has admitted to a Royal Commission that the public broadcaster made a “bad mistake” in incorrectly reporting that 14,000 babies were facing imminent starvation in Gaza.

ABC editorial director Gavin Fang addressed the repeated citation of an inaccurate United Nations statistic at the Royal Commission into Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion on Thursday.

His testimony came after criticism earlier in the hearing from Australian Special Envoy on anti-Semitism Jillian Segal that the ABC is “marking their own homework” and acting as “judge, counsel, and jury” as the hatred escalates.

The public probe was launched after the massacre of 15 people at Bondi Beach in December and this week focused on the role social media and traditional news outlets play in anti-Semitism.

At Thursday’s hearing, the inquiry reviewed the ABC’s Middle East and anti-Semitism coverage, including the broadcaster repeating inaccurate statistics which BBC originally reported.

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Elements of Anthony Albanese’s Left faction and Donald Trump have something in common - they both loathe central bank independence.

Ahead of Labor’s national conference in Adelaide later this month, Melbourne-based land rights lawyer Julijana Todorovic is co-sponsoring a motion to discourage the Reserve Bank of Australia from raising interest rates, hoping this will win back the voters flocking to One Nation.

“Labor recognises that use of interest rate rises to curb inflation is a blunt instrument which hurts workers and vulnerable Australians first and hardest, rather than the asset class which plays a greater role in rising inflation,” it said.

“Labor will consider the appointment of board representatives to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Board who have a variety of skills and industry experience, including worker representatives.”

This call is being made little more than a year after the Albanese Government’s Treasurer Jim Chalmers established a new, specialist Monetary Policy Board, made up mainly of economists and corporate leaders, to decide interest rates on behalf of the Reserve Bank.

The idea was to entrench the RBA’s independence, bolstered by expertise on price pressures and the labour market.

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Billions of dollars worth of Australian uranium will be exported to India after Prime Ministers Anthony Albanese and Narendi Modi signed series of agreements including on closer defence cooperation.

“Today we can confirm the signing of the administrative arrangement to enable uranium exports to India for peaceful purposes under the 2015 Australia, India, nuclear co-operation agreement,” Mr Albanese said.

“The arrangement facilitates Australian uranium exports to India to help increase the share of non-fossil fuel power capacity, providing an additional market for the Australian resources sector.”

Prime Minister Modi declared that the bi-lateral relationship had reached “new heights” following his meeting with Mr Albanese in Melbourne.

Bells were ringing at the Exchange Centre in Sydney on Thursday morning as the local bourse welcomed its newest entrants, led by FDC Consolidated, the biggest Australian float of the year.

The construction and fit-out company surged on debut, jumping 17 per cent to about $3.50 in its first minute of trade after selling shares at $3 each in a $400 million initial public offering.

The family-run Sydney group listed with a market value of $969m at its offer price, giving the ASX a rare near-billion-dollar float after several thin years for new listings.

Founder and chair Ben Cottle said FDC had started 36 years ago with “a simple belief that if you contribute to the success of others, success will follow”.

“This business was made by us — our people, our clients, our partners and our subcontractors. Now it’s made public,” he said.

The strong debut lifted the value of the Cottle brothers’ remaining stakes, though their shares are escrowed and cannot be freely sold for a set period.

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South Australian Sentator Kerrynne Liddle has hit back at police after authorities refuted her claim an elderly person had died due to Telstra’s triple-zero outage.

SA Police Minister Michael Brown said earlier on Thursday there was “no record” of the supposed death after Ms Liddle made the claim in a Facebook post.

“I have no idea why — I can only take face value that the information she has provided she believes to be credible and reliable. So she should be prepared to provide that information to the police,” Mr Brown said.

Ms Liddle later said she was “dissapointed” Mr Brown had questioned her “integrity”.

“On Wednesday, my office received a report that an elderly South Australian had died during the Telstra network outage that morning,”she said.

“After contact from Telstra, media and relevant authorities, my office advised the family to reach out to SAPOL directly. The grieving family did that today.

“Amid much public interest I prioritised the privacy of the family during this time. I stand with them.

“Our thoughts remain with the family.”

Telstra CEO Vicky Brady is expected to return home early from an overseas family holiday amid critisicm of her absence during the telco’s network crisis.

Mr Ackland told reporters Ms Brady would be back in the country and return to work on Friday morning.

“She is overseas with her family and she is making her way back home and she will be on deck tomorrow,” he said.

When asked why Ms Brady did not immediately fly home as the outage unravelled, Mr Ackland defended the CEO.

“She got on the first plane that she could get onto to get back,” Mr Ackland said.

“She... immediately changed her plans and got back as soon as she possibly could.”

Mr Ackland also defended the hours-long delay in notifying Communications Minister Anika Wells of the outage.

“We will always communicate with customers first when we see there is an issue,” he said.

“As soon as the incident reached that threshold we communicated within minutes to the minister.

“It was absolutely an evolving situation. We communicated what we knew.

“The situation evolved as the day went ahead.”

Michael Ackland has again apologised to Telstra customers and reassured Australians they can trust the telco while calling triple-zero despite ongoing dramas with the network.

“Mobile networks are complex and we will continue to work through further changes to ensure we have the most robust solution but customers can feel confident in calling triple-zero,” he said.

“Our backup system and welfare check process remains in place of course and we have not needed to complete a welfare check since that solution was put in place.

“While the broader outage was resolved yesterday, we continue to work closely with a small number of enterprise customers on residual flow-on impacts to their services.

“We’ll keep working with our customers until every issue is resolved and as they complete all restorations and verification processes that they need to complete.”

Mr Ackland issued an apology to Telstra customers impacted by the outage.

“I want to again apologise for the disruption, the issues this has caused to our customers and the broader community,” he added.

“We know how important it is to stay conected and we take this repsonsibility very seriously.”

Telstra CFO Michael Ackland has been grilled on the number of emergency calls that failed to connect during the nation-wide outage.

In an address to the media on Thursday, Mr Ackland revealed more than 600 triple-zero calls were not able to connect since the network went down on Wednesday.

“We did 639 welfare checks, which is where we see there is a failed call. Now that’s out of 33,000 calls that were successfully connected throughout the course of the day,” he said.

“There is still 170 that are with the police and when we hand those to police it is for them to comment and update on anything that has occurred there.”

When asked if the telco had failed the people who attempted to make those emergency calls, Mr Atkin conceded the number was “unacceptable”.

“Any, one call is unacceptable, one missed call, which is why we have the welfare check process in place so we are as rapidly as possible follwing up with people whenever there is a falied call,” he said

Australian Special Envoy on anti-Semitism Jillian Segal has told a Royal Commission that the ABC is “marking their own homework” and acting as “judge, counsel, and jury” as the hatred escalates.

Ms Segal opened Thursday’s hearing of the Royal Commission into Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion, which was launched after the massacre of 15 people at Bondi Beach in December.

She expressed concerns that the public broadcaster still did not properly understand anti-Semitism, had not rolled out education or adopted a key definition, and was painting Israel “in a negative light”.

Ms Segal argued the ABC’s internal processes could be improved, and noted that ombudsman Fiona Cameron is appointed by and reports to the board, and therefore remains part of the same organisation and culture.

“I just don’t know… how they think that they can set the rules, which are their standards,” she said.

“They can review them, which is their internal complaint system — it’s an ombudsman, but it’s internal, appointed by the board, reporting to a board.

“They can mark their own homework. They are, with respect, judge, counsel, and jury. They are all of it. I don’t think anyone accepts the fact that you can always mark your own homework.”

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