Australian news and politics live: Eye-watering amount ABC has spent on legal costs in Antoinette Lattouf case

It has been a firey morning at Senate estimates, with a complaint being made about how a government official was treated.

A witness in the environment and communications committee complained to the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service about how they were treated during Tuesday’s hearings.

Senators were briefed on the matter following the lunch break and returned to find a copy of the support service’s guidelines on their desks.

Committee chair Karen Grogan had to remind all senators “their obligations under the behaviour code for Australian parliamentarians to treat witnesses with dignity, courtesy, fairness and respect”.

“That includes not badgering, haranguing, harassing or raising your voice at witnesses, and not interrupting witnesses who are attempting to answer a question,” she said.

-- With Dominic Giannini, AAP

The ABC has denied it had mishandled the Antoinette Lattouf matter.

Under questioning from Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, Ms Kleyn rejected the assertion that management “can see that this whole affair shas been handled badly and resulted in quite a messy legal process”.

Ms Kleyn said: “I wouldn’t agree”.

“I think we are and will continue to reflect on this matter and we will learn what we can,” she said

“We defend our position that we did not unlawfully terminate a casual contract and we will continue to reflect and learn.”

Ms Kleyn had earlier also dodged questions about former chair Ita Buttrose disputing key evidence made before the federal court by outgoing MD David Anderson.

“Senator I would not be able to comment at all on the different witness statements,” Ms Kleyn told Liberal senator Sarah Henderson.

Labor has declined to clarify whether it would comply with the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visited Australia.

Asked by shadow attorney-general Michaelia Cash during Senate estimates whether Mr Netanyahu would be at risk of arrest in Australia, Trade Minister Don Farrell sidestepped the question.

“We have had a very long and close relationship with the state of Israel over a very long period of time…to the best of my knowledge we have not had any request from Mr Netanyahu to come to Australia, so it is something of a hypothetical question,” he said.

When pressed, Mr Farrell refused several times to state the Government’s position on the ICC ruling.

Ms Cash reiterated the Coalition position that, “we have made it very clear that he would be able to visit Australia.”

On Monday, Germany’s likely next chancellor Friedrich Merz said he had invited Mr Netanyahu to visit and would find a way for him to do so without being arrested under a warrant by the International Criminal Court.

“I think it is a completely absurd idea that an Israeli prime minister cannot visit the Federal Republic of Germany,” Mr Merz said.

Foundational work around Labor’s decision to phase out live sheep export in WA was outsourced to a string of east coast consultancy firms, Senate Estimates has heard.

New figures released by the Federal Agricultural Department on Tuesday showed interstate consulting firms were engaged in supporting the live sheep phase out panel and cataloguing submissions.

Canberra-based consultancy 1 and One, who was paid $89,000 for its role, was among firms listed but others received figures to the tune of $123,000.

An announcement in May 2024 by then-Ag Minister Murray Watt that the Federal Government would phase out live sheep exports by 2028 had angered many WA producers.

The agriculture sector also expressed frustrations at the Government’s initial $107 million transition support package to help the industry wean off live exports.

When Federal Agriculture Minister Julie Collins took on the portfolio in July, she committed an additional $32.7 million to help cushion sheep farmers from the decision.

The ABC has spent $1.1 million on external legal costs related to the Antoinette Lattouf lawsuit.

The journalist has taken the public broadcaster to court, accusing them of unfair dismissal after she was fired three days into a five-day casual role in late 2023 over her social media posts linked to Gaza.

With the court case still ongoing, the matter is a hot topic in Senate estimates on Tuesday afternoon, where ABC officials are being grilled by senators.

Acting managing director Melanie Kleyn said the broadcaster understood the $1.1m cost was “an impost on public funds”.

“The ABC has tried on multiple occasions to settle the matter,” she said.

Executives have also said the broadcaster does not always examine a potential employee’s social media activity before hiring.

They said that would be a massive HR resource it doesn’t necessarily have at its disposal.

Outgoing ABC Managing Director David Anderson is not appearing, with his colleagues telling the Senate he is on a “period of approved leave”.

His tenure expires next week, before Mark Hughes takes over.

Former defence minister Linda Reynolds and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher have clashed in a tense exchange at senate estimates over “damage wrought” in the wake of Brittany Higgins’ accusation of sexual assault.

“As this is most likely my last senate estimates, I just want to ask you minister, will you now apologise, not just to me, but to my staff and my family for all of the damage that has been wrought on them by you and by others in the Labor party,” Ms Reynolds asked.

Senator Penny Wong and Senator Gallagher became involved in the Higgins scandal after interrogating Senator Reynolds over the alleged sexual assault in an office at Parliament House.

Senator Reynolds has said the two inappropriately used parliamentary privilege.

Offering an apology of sorts, Senator Gallagher said: “I am sorry that you have been hurt by all of this.”

“I’ve gone back and had a look at the questions I’ve asked, and I believe the questions I’ve asked of you when you were a minister and accountable for what happened in your office were reasonable.”

Senator Thorpe told the room that she hates going to Parliament House but that she has to do it for her “people and for all our ancestors”.

Mentioning her protest during King Charles and Queen Camilla’s visit to her workplace in 2024, Senator Thorpe said: “It was my ancestors that threw me out into the middle there and told that king off, it was my ancestors that done that.”

Senator Thorpe shouted “you are not my king” at the completion of King Charles’ address in the Great Hall before being taken away by security.

“I am just the body, I am just the mechanism.,” Senator Thorpe added.

The Nightly’s Latika M Bourke reports Australian intelligence chief Andrew Shearer has labelled China’s unpredented warship presence off Australia as a “demonstration of Beijing’s increasing intent to project military power into Australia’s immediate region”.

Mr Shearer’s warning came as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was confronted on live television on Monday and told that he gave the public no confidence that he would encourage China to respect Australia’s autonomy.

China sent a task force comprising a destroyer, frigate and a supply ship to the Tasman Sea to conduct live-fire exercises between Australia and New Zealand on the weekend.

While the military drills are allowed in international waters, China did not provide sufficient warning for its drills, causing commercial pilots flying overhead to reroute — something the Government described as disconcerting and complained to China about.

Mr Shearer, Director-General of the Office of National Intelligence (ONI), said it was the first time that the Chinese had sent its Navy so far south and that it was a deliberate provocation aimed at testing and shaping Australia’s response.

Read the full story here.

Audio has surfaced of Senator Lidia Thorpe encouraging a room of Indigenous Australians to take on and “f**k the colony”.

“We need to start putting our own flags into our own land and f**k the colony,” Senator Thorpe told the room.

The audio, obtained by The Australian, captured Senator Thorpe’s address at a Queensland University of Technology anti-racism symposium in January.

“It’s the only way we are going to do it. We need to mobilise, we need to heal, we need to decolonise,” Senator Thorpe said.

“We need to take on the colony.”

A member of the Bali Nine who spent almost two decades behind bars has avoided punishment over a charge of joyriding in a stolen vehicle dating from before he left Australia.

Matthew Norman was convicted of attempted heroin trafficking and locked up in Bali’s Kerobokan Prison alongside eight others, two of whom were ultimately executed.

Following his release and return to Australia, the now 38-year-old was charged with riding in a stolen car, in March 2005, when he was 18.

On Tuesday, Norman pleaded guilty at Waverley Local Court in Sydney and the charge was dismissed with no conviction recorded.

Read the full story.