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Sky News AU
an hour ago
- Sky News AU
WA Transport Minister Rita Saffioti blames Covid-19, Russian President Vladimir Putin for botched contactless payment upgrades
The West Australian government is under fire after it attributed blame for the botched installation of a contactless payment service for busses on Covid-19 and the invasion of Ukraine. Commuters in Perth were told that by 2019 they would be able to use bank cards to tap on and off of busses in the city. However, six years on, the system is well behind schedule and remains in the development phase. The delay prompted shadow transport minister Steve Martin to submit a question on notice, leading to the extraordinary attempt to shift blame from the state government. In response to Mr Martin's question a private secretary for Transport Minister Rita Saffioti claimed the delay was due to factors outside the government's control. 'The SmartRider Upgrade Project has been impacted by the global pandemic and the war in Ukraine, as well as software development issues,' the reply said. Mr Martin described the excuses as extraordinary. 'Is there anyone in the Cook ministry that is willing to take responsibility for any single delay, problem or budget blowout? With this mob it's always someone else's fault,' he said. 'What's the next excuse? The Minister's handling of the transport portfolio has become a farce.' A spokeswoman for WA's Public Transport Authority acknowledged the program had experienced 'some technical and resource challenges'. Those challenges included 'disrupted access' to a Ukraine-based software partner. 'This has been a complex task involving replacement of existing ticketing infrastructure while minimising impacts on Transperth operators and passengers,' the spokeswoman said. 'There has been significant testing of the new software and hardware to ensure that passengers receive the highest level of service.' WA is not the only state to experience major issues with rolling out a contactless pay system for public transport. An upgrade to the myWay platform is facing scrutiny in the Australian Capital Territory Assembly for a botched rollout which saw commuters unable to use cards, while the cost of upgrading New South Wales' Opal system has reportedly blown out to $738 million - up from $568 million. The Opal upgrade will also have taken five years to complete by the time it comes online in 2027. Similarly, in Victoria, an upgrade to the Myki card system has blown out to $680.3million.
SBS Australia
2 hours ago
- SBS Australia
Donald Trump says he believes Vladimir Putin is ready to make a Ukraine deal
US President Donald Trump says he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to make a deal on ending the war in Ukraine. Trump, who is scheduled to meet with Putin in Alaska early on Saturday (AEST) said he is unsure whether an immediate ceasefire can be achieved but expressed interest in brokering a peace agreement with Putin. "He really, I believe now, he's convinced that he's going to make a deal, he's going to make a deal. I think he's going to, and we're going to find out," Trump said in an interview on Fox News Radio. Earlier in the day, Putin said that the United States was making "sincere efforts" to end the war in Ukraine and suggested that Russia and the US could agree on a nuclear arms deal as part of a broader push to strengthen peace. Putin earlier spoke to his most senior ministers and security officials as he prepared for the meeting, a presidential advisor said in a statement. Follow-up meeting with Putin and Zelenskyy Trump also mentioned during the Fox interview that he has three locations in mind for a follow-up meeting with Putin and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, although he noted that a second meeting is not guaranteed. He said staying in Alaska for a three-way summit would be the easiest scenario. "Depending on what happens with my meeting, I'm going to be calling up President Zelenskyy, and let's get him over to wherever we're going to meet," Trump said. He said a second meeting featuring Putin and Zelenskyy, would likely dig deeper into boundary issues. Zelenskyy has been adamant about not ceding territory that Russian forces occupy. Trump said it would be up to Putin and Zelenskyy to strike an agreement. "I'm not going to negotiate their deal. I'm going to let them negotiate their deal," he said. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Trump will go into the talks hoping to achieve a halt to the fighting in Ukraine but that a comprehensive solution to the war will take longer. "To achieve a peace, I think we all recognise that there'll have to be some conversation about security guarantees. There'll have to be some conversation about ... territorial disputes and claims and what they're fighting over," Rubio told reporters at the State Department on Thursday. Prisoner swap Zelenskyy said overnight that Ukraine and Russia had carried out another prisoner swap. "A new exchange, 84 people," Zelenskyy wrote on social media. In the 67th exchange since the start of the war, Russian and Ukrainian authorities say both sides have exchanged 84 prisoners of war. Source: AP / AP Both soldiers and civilians are included, the Ukrainian leader said, thanking the United Arab Emirates for its help in organising the exchange that took place on the border with Belarus. The Ukrainian Staff for Prisoner of War Affairs said this was the 67th exchange since the start of the war. The Russian defence ministry confirmed the handover, reporting the return of 84 Russian prisoners of war.
News.com.au
2 hours ago
- News.com.au
Dueling interests for Trump and Putin at Alaska summit
US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin -- and, from a distance, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky -- have dueling interests going into a high-stakes summit in Alaska on Friday. - What does Trump want? - The Nobel Peace Prize. Trump has openly and repeatedly sought the world's most prestigious award, however unlikely many observers think it is that the Norwegian committee would bestow the honor on the divisive president. Trump has boasted of his deal-making skills and had vowed to end the Ukraine war within 24 hours, but his calls to Putin went unheeded even after Trump put heavy pressure on Zelensky to compromise, including by cutting US aid. The billionaire has also said that he sees business opportunities in Russia, which remains under Western sanctions over the war. Many European leaders fear that in a one-on-one meeting, Trump could fall under the sway of Putin, for whom he has voiced admiration in the past. At a 2018 summit, Trump stunned viewers by siding with Putin over US intelligence in denying that Russia intervened in the 2016 US election to support Trump. - What does Putin want? - To retain as much Ukrainian territory as possible. Russia failed in its goal of quickly seizing Ukraine in its February 2022 invasion but in recent months has made steady gains on the battlefield, leading Putin to believe he has an upper hand militarily. John Herbst, the former US ambassador to Ukraine, said that Putin already knows what a deal could look like -- a ceasefire, plus some form of security guarantees for Ukraine. "That doesn't give Putin what he wants, which is control over all of Ukraine. But it doesn't matter what Putin wants. If he can't get anything more, he may settle for what's available," said Herbst, now senior director of the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center. Putin suggested the meeting with Trump after the US president threatened new sanctions on Russia unless it moves toward a ceasefire. "The best-case scenario for Russia is… if they are able to put a deal on the table that creates some kind of a ceasefire, but that leaves Russia in control of those escalatory dynamics, [and] does not create any kind of genuine deterrence on the ground or in the skies over Ukraine," said Sam Greene, director for democratic resilience at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). - What does Zelensky want? - A seat at the negotiating table, and Russia out of Ukraine. Zelensky will not participate in Trump's summit with Putin -- a sharp shift from previous US president Joe Biden's insistence on "nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine." Trump has promised to involve Zelensky, possibly with a three-way summit -- if Putin agrees. But Trump has also again insisted that Ukraine needs to make territorial concessions, which Zelensky has refused. For Ukrainians, "It looks like it's two big powers that are just deciding the fate of Ukraine without any Ukrainians at the table," said Olga Tokariuk, also at CEPA. For Ukraine, the best-case scenario would be no agreement between Putin and Trump and the imposition of new sanctions on Russia, she said. But Herbst said Zelensky could accept a deal in which Russia controls what it has -- without formal recognition of its conquest. Putin in turn would accept "that his notion of taking more of Ukraine and restoring the Russian Empire is kaput," Herbst said. - Why Alaska? - Putin will be stepping foot on western soil for the first time since the war began. He faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court in The Hague, to which the United States is not a party. Alaska carries historic significance as the United States bought it from tsarist Russia in 1867. Russia has pointed to Alaska as it makes the case that it is normal to transfer land. Ukraine's borders date from the breakup of the Soviet Union, although Russia in 2014 seized the Crimean peninsula in an annexation unrecognized by nearly all countries.
