Purga exclusion zone declared after reports of shots fired at Ipswich Boonah Road
A rural area south-west of Brisbane has been shut by police after reports of shots fired.
Queensland Police Service (QPS) established the emergency declaration under the Public Safety Preservation Act in Purga on Monday evening.
It follows authorities being called to an address on Ipswich Boonah Road around 4:35pm, in response to reports of shots being fired.
QPS said initial investigations indicate no one has been injured.
The emergency declaration was triggered around 5:45pm and the exclusion zone encompasses Ipswich Boonah Road to the west, Hughes Road to the north, Eastfield Court to the east, and Carmichael Road to the south.
Members of the public are advised to avoid the area, and those within the boundaries are asked to remain indoors until further notice.
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ABC News
33 minutes ago
- ABC News
Dorinda Cox accuses Greens of racism in scathing resignation letter
In a fiery resignation letter, ex-Greens senator Dorinda Cox has accused her former party of racism and ignoring serious claims she raised, including disputed allegations of an assault at Perth Airport by a party member. The senator also denied in her letter ever bullying others, contrary to reporting, adding she herself had suffered an "unremitting" campaign of bullying over the past 18 months. Senator Cox spectacularly defected to Labor last week after sitting as a Greens senator for the past four years. Announcing her move to Labor, Senator Cox said her values were more aligned with the government — though it prompted calls from Greens senators to hand back the seat and left party leader Larissa Waters "disappointed". The Greens revoked Senator Cox's membership last week, after her announcement. In a formal resignation letter, Senator Cox said she was no longer bound by confidentiality obligations, and could put on the record how the Greens had "failed [her] as its last First Nations MP, and continue to fail First Nations people". "In my experience, the Greens tolerate a culture that permits violence against First Nations women within its structures. In this respect, the party is deeply racist," she wrote. "My reports to the party and parliamentary workplace services range from being assaulted at Perth Airport by a party member, which was ignored (indeed, I was advised not to report it to police), to incidents involving my staff who were isolated by the state and other MPs offices." The Greens have disputed that account. Senator Cox and former ACT candidate Tjanara Goreng Goreng reportedly made complaints against each other to police in 2023 after an altercation at Perth Airport over the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. Dr Goreng Goreng denied those claims she harassed or assaulted the senator to The Guardian, and has been contacted by the ABC. The senator also named incidents of rumours being shared within Greens networks as examples of a "toxic culture", where the party had sought to quiet her rather than address issues. "Recently, my children were approached by a former staff member who had publicly made serious allegations about me at a Greens event. This type of mobbing made its way into 'moderated' online meeting chats and the widely circulated meeting minutes of the [Australian Greens First Nations Network]. "The Greens failed in their duty of care for my staff and me, and disregarded the reported and obvious impact of what was occurring. The focus was solely on winning seats," she wrote. Ms Waters's office only learned of the complaint after being contacted by the ABC. In a statement, a Greens spokesperson disputed the claims by Senator Cox. "These claims are disappointing, unrepresentative of the support Senator Cox received and ignore the substantive work undertaken by the party to find a resolution to the complaints made both by and against Senator Cox, and to address the breakdown in her relationship with Greens' First Nations members," the spokesperson said. "The Greens are an anti-racism party, and pushing a senator to take complaints seriously is not bullying. "As the [Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission] and [Parliamentary Workplace Support Service] are the bodies created by parliament to address complaints from staff, they can continue to investigate ongoing matters. This is unchanged by the senator's decision to move to a party that continues to destroy First Nations cultural history through approving coal and gas projects." The ABC has been told former Greens leader Adam Bandt's office was closely involved in finding a resolution to the airport matter, but the other matters raised in Senator Cox's letter were unknown to the party and not understood to have been previously raised with the leader's office. Senator Cox suggested despite her internal struggles she had maintained her professionalism and loyalty to the party, but after the election lost confidence that her concerns would be addressed. The Greens senator apologised late last year after several bullying complaints in her office were reported in the Nine newspapers, citing "challenging conditions both political and personally", but added the reporting was missing context. In her letter, Senator Cox said, contrary to reporting, at the time of her leaving the Greens there were no "grievances" pending against her in the party's conflict resolution process and that none had been put to her during her time as a senator. "I have faced an unremitting campaign of bullying and dishonest claims over the last 18 months," Senator Cox said. Ex-Greens senator Lidia Thorpe claimed last week that she still had an active complaint against her former colleague that had sat unresolved for three years. A former staffer to Senator Cox told the ABC she was "deeply surprised" and "offended" by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's suggestion that complaints against Senator Cox had been dealt with. That staffer, who worked for Senator Cox for six weeks in 2024, said her brief time in the office had left her traumatised. Mr Albanese has repeatedly insisted the complaints have been examined and are in the past. An internal investigation by the WA Greens into complaints raised against Senator Cox has been dropped now that she has left the party. Senator Cox concluded her letter saying she was now free to do the role she was elected to do by the people of WA, and she remained focused on delivering "tangible outcomes for First Nations peoples and other Australians".
ABC News
44 minutes ago
- ABC News
Millions of Australians could miss out on refunds from financial misconduct
Millions of Australians sold dud insurance with their home loans, car loans or credit cards may be entitled to compensation but a looming deadline of June 30 could see many miss out. For decades, the big four banks, other lenders and insurers raked in billions from these policies, while paying out as little as 11 cents in the dollar, rendering these financial products effectively junk insurance. The products, known as Consumer Credit Insurance and other add-on insurance products, became a symbol of the financial misconduct exposed during the banking royal commission. They were routinely bundled with credit cards, personal loans, home loans and car loans. Sometimes with the false claim that the loan wouldn't be approved if the customer didn't take up the insurance. The products were marketed as protection in the event of an accident, illness or job loss. But in too many cases customers didn't understand what they were paying for, didn't need the cover, or were ineligible to claim. Some were even signed up without their knowledge or consent. The real scandal isn't just that these junk insurance policies were sold but that the industry got away with exploiting customers for so long. ASIC launched an investigation into the products in 2011, issuing warnings and recommendations that went largely ignored as evidenced by the continued mis-selling of the products over the next few years. It wasn't until the fallout from the royal commission's final report in 2019 that things started to change. To put the magnitude of the problem into context, over a 29-year period, it is estimated that more than 10 million add-on insurance products were sold in Australia, valued at billions of dollars, some believe it could be as high as $10 billion. To date, claims have been refunded through a combination of class actions, internal dispute resolutions with the institutions and complaints lodged with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA). According to ASIC, insurers have repaid over $270 million to customers who were mis-sold add-on car-yard insurance and CCI. It means billions of dollars is potentially still unclaimed by millions of customers. But that is now at risk. AFCA, the industry-funded external dispute resolution service, has imposed a final deadline of June for customers who were sold these products before July 2019 to lodge a claim. Originally set for February 2025, the cut-off was extended earlier this year. The deadline is based on AFCA's position that the banking royal commission, which handed down its final report in February 2019, should have alerted consumers to the widespread problems with add-on insurance. As a result, AFCA argues that most people should have been aware or reasonably aware of the issue from that point. The six-year limit reflects AFCA's standard rule for complaints: that they must be lodged within six years of the consumer becoming aware or reasonably expected to have become aware that they suffered a loss. In this case, AFCA is effectively using the royal commission as the trigger for starting that six-year clock. With less than three weeks to go before the deadline, there are growing fears that thousands, possibly millions of Australians with legitimate claims may miss out because they don't know they are eligible. A similar insurance scandal rocked Britain, where more than 60 million add-on insurance policies were sold between 1990 and 2010. Like in Australia they were bundled with loans, credit cards or mortgages, and sold to people who didn't need or couldn't use them. It culminated in financial institutions being forced to repay an eye-watering £48 billion ($99.5 billion) to customers, making it the largest insurance scandal and redress scheme in UK history. The product at the centre of it all, Payment Protection Insurance (PPI), became a household term for financial misconduct. The UK's financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), ran a high-profile public awareness campaign that included TV ads, urging people to check if they were eligible for refunds. The FCA eventually set a final deadline of August 2019, nearly a decade after the scandal came to light. In 2017, two years before the final cut-off, the UK regulator launched an additional national campaign to raise awareness about the looming deadline for claims. The campaign featured a robotic model of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator head urging people to act, with the now-famous line: "Make a decision. Do it now." The ad, funded by 18 of the worst-offending banks, building societies and credit card providers, ran across TV, radio and digital platforms, which helped get the message out. In stark contrast, Australia's deadline has arrived with little fanfare. Consumer Action Law Centre's chief executive said junk insurance, by its nature, is hidden, harmful and of poor value and the policies wrongfully enriched corporations at the expense of customers. "Even today, there are people becoming aware of their right to a refund of junk insurance premiums," she said. On AFCA's June 30 deadline, she said many affected customers very likely didn't watch the royal commission, or read their loan documents closely enough to know they were entitled to a refund. "There will be more becoming aware of their rights down the track," she said. Tonkin said if only a few people are claiming, there's no need for a strict deadline. But if lots of people are still coming forward, it shows the problem hasn't been fixed and should be extended. "At the very least, AFCA should retain a discretion to allow claims, particularly for consumers experiencing vulnerability," she said. And she said it should be incumbent on banks and other lenders that profited from junk insurance policies to be identifying customers who are entitled to a refund. The founder of financial refund service Claimo, Nathan Mortlock, estimates more than 5 million Australians were sold add-on insurance, estimated at more than $17 billion. Claimo has been processing thousands of claims for potential victims of add on insurance. Since A Current Affair aired a story last November about the looming deadline, Claimo said it has received almost 50,000 new enquiries. "That surge proves Australians were not previously aware. If they were, they would have come forward in 2019," he said. Some claimants received anything from a few thousand dollars to more than $20,000 with Claimo taking a 30 per cent cut. All up it has 70,000 cases, worth an estimated $67 million. "Millions of Australians may miss out on compensation they're legally entitled to, simply because they didn't know they were victims in time," he said. Mortlock said AFCA was supposed to protect consumers but by setting an arbitrary cut-off date and forcing people to prove they didn't know about the issue sooner, it's creating legal hurdles that most can't get over. Add-on insurance was the industry's dirty little secret for years. It first landed on ASIC's radar in 2011, at the height of the UK's own add-on insurance scandal. That year, the regulator launched an investigation into 15 financial institutions including the big four banks, CBA, NAB, ANZ and Westpac over the sale of consumer credit insurance (CCI), the most common add-on product. ASIC made 10 recommendations, but little changed. The products kept selling, the mis-selling continued, and the industry kept profiting at the expense of customers. In 2017 ASIC sounded the alarm again, raising concerns about the way the products were being sold. And in 2019, following the release of the banking royal commission's final report, ASIC released a fresh report that had reviewed the sale of CCI products by 11 financial institutions between 2011 and 2018 and found the sales practices and product design were still delivering "extremely poor value for money." It found that for CCI sold with credit cards, consumers received only 11 cents in claims for every dollar paid in premiums. Across all CCI products the average return was 19 cents, confirming the product was effectively junk. "Telephone sales staff used high-pressure selling and other unfair sales practices when selling CCI, and consumers were given non-compliant personal advice to buy unsuitable policies," ASIC's report said. Since the release of the report, the 11 lenders it focused on as part of its investigation, stopped selling CCI with credit cards, personal loans, or home loans. In a statement Emma Curtis, AFCA's Lead Ombudsman for Insurance, said AFCA wanted to make sure consumers know this deadline is approaching so it has been running ads on radio across the country, as well as print ads in major newspapers and online, to reach as many people as possible. "Under our rules, AFCA will generally not consider a complaint unless it was submitted within six years of the date the complainant first became aware or should reasonably have become aware that they have suffered a loss. The sale of add-on insurance has been the subject of significant media, regulator, industry and consumer advocacy campaigns and class actions for many years. AFCA is letting consumers know that we will generally consider complaints regarding the sale of add-on insurance sold before July 2019, provided they are submitted to AFCA by June 30 this year." She said AFCA will generally assess complaints lodged after that date as outside the six year time limit, unless the complainant can demonstrate that special circumstances apply, which we will assess on a case-by-case basis. ASIC said in a statement it had published numerous reports revealing that add-on insurance sold at point-of-purchase was often low value, commission-driven, and ultimately ended up in customers paying for coverage they were unaware of or did not need. ASIC's remediation update in 2022 found that there had been $5.6 billion in remediation for an estimated seven million Australian consumers for failures identified across the financial system. This included remediations in the insurance industry totalling more than $1.3 billion. Junk insurance was just one component of this, along with pricing promises failures and poor sales practices. It seems after years of financial misconduct the burden is on consumers, many still unaware they're owed a refund. With little fanfare and a deadline fast approaching, millions may slip through the cracks.
SBS Australia
8 hours ago
- SBS Australia
PM announces national roundtable to boost productivity
"That footage was horrific." Anthony Albanese has voiced his support for the Australian journalist shot with a rubber bullet while covering immigration protests in Los Angeles. The PM praised Nine correspondent Lauren Tomasi, saying she was clearly identified as press, and should not have been targeted. "And so, we have already raised these issues with the US administration. We don't find it acceptable that it occurred and we think the role of the media is particularly important." As the incident garners international headlines, LA Police chief Jim McDonnel has also expressed his concern. " I know the situation you're referring to with the member of the media. We saw that we're very concerned about that and we're looking into that." But Anthony Albanese stopped short of committing to raising the incident at the G7, where he is expected to meet with President Donald Trump on the sidelines next week. "Discussions I have with the president, are discussions between myself and the president." There's little doubt those discussions will turn to tariffs, as Australia seeks an exemption from US import levies, and seeks to promote free and fair global trade. Speaking at the National Press Club today Mr Albanese's big announcement was on economic issues, particularly productivity growth. "Making our way forward depends on what all of us can work together to achieve, and that's why I've asked the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, to convene a roundtable to support and shape our government's growth and productivity agenda. At Parliament House in August, we'll bring together a group of leaders from the business community, the union movement and civil society." He says the government wants to build the broadest base possible to support further economic reform. The move has been welcomed by the Australian Industry Group. Chief Executive Innes Willox says Australia's productivity performance has been woeful, even before the pandemic, and the summit is perfectly timed. Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry CEO Andrew McKellar also welcomed the news. "There are few more critical issues than productivity for the Australian economy. In the end, that's the only way that we're going to get sustainable increases in living standards going forward. So, from a business point of view, we're keen to participate. We will come with constructive ideas, suggestions how to improve productivity going forward. We want to see an ambitious agenda from the government. " Shadow Minister for Productivity and Deregulation Andrew Bragg blamed Labor for poor productivity and warned of the risk of another "Canberra talkfest". He says the Liberal Party is willing to be constructive but will judge the result on the volume of regulation removed and adoption of policies to promote private investment. Senator Bragg also called for an end to what he called "the war on small business". Andrew McKellar says he wants to see changes for small business too. " It's about doing things like cutting red tape, so making it easier for small business simply to comply, you know, to focus on doing the things that you know are better for business and better for people who are working in jobs. So, you know, it's not about working harder. It's about working smarter. It's about doing things simple, things like cutting red tape." The productivity roundtable has been quickly compared with the Jobs and Skills Summit Labor held in its first term, which received a mixed reception. Liberal MP for Flinders, Zoe McKenzie, offered this lukewarm reception on ABC Afternoon Briefing. "Productivity is absolutely a key issue in terms of the Australian economy at the moment, and may I say, has already been for years. We see a very sluggish Australian economy, multiple quarters of negative growth on a per capita basis, and the government's solution is a round table. Unbelievable. It's like the Job Summit 2.0, the next edition, the unions didn't get everything they wanted last time - they seemed to get most of what they wanted as far as I could tell - and now they go on in for more, but this time we're going to call it a productivity round table, and hope for the best." Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young was more positive - pushing for a greater focus on women's workforce participation. "Well one of the first and best things the Prime minister could do to boost productivity is to help more women participate in the workforce, and that would be by making childcare genuinely free, so that mums and dads can participate in the workforce, and know that their children will be cared for by good quality educators in an affordable manner." No doubt the unions and civil society will have their say at the roundtable too, if not before.
