Evening News Bulletin 2 May 2025
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TRANSCRIPT:
Three people in hospital after a helicopter crash on the coast of Victoria;
A man sentenced for the killing of his former partner in New South Wales;
Coco Gauff makes her first final in the Madrid Open. A helicopter has crashed into the ocean near a popular beachside tourist town in Victoria. Three people on board have managed to swim to shore at Point Lonsdale on the state's Bellarine Peninsula, which is almost 30 kilometres from the regional city of Geelong. A man and woman have been airlifted to hospital with serious injuries. A second man has been taken to hospital via road ambulance where he's understood to also be in a serious condition. The Prime Minister's appearance in Devonport has been gate crashed by liberal volunteers. Most of the group of around 40 campaigners were silent and respectful, holding placards trumpeting the liberal's key pledge of a temporary cut to the fuel excise. But a few hecklers have called out the PM over the spending on the voice referendum. Mr Albanese has carried on to take selfies with Labor faithful and locals, but quickly walked out as the scene threatened to become more chaotic. Greens leader Adam Bandt has also hit the hustings on the final day of campaigning in the federal election, wielding a giant toothbrush to push the party's policy on dental care. He says Australia has enough resources to provide more support - which for the party means seeing dental being included in Medicare. "Last time there was a minority Parliament, the Greens got dental into Medicare for kids. This time we want to get it in for everyone. We're in a wealthy country, but people are skipping going to the dentist and the doctor because they can't afford it. People are skipping meals to pay the rents, and it shouldn't be that way." A WARNING THAT THIS STORY MAY BE DISTRESSING FOR SOME LISTENERS: A man has been sentenced to 22 years and six months in jail for the murder of his ex partner. Newcastle Supreme Court Justice Richard Weinstein has described Tyrone Thompson's murder of 21 year old Mackenzie Anderson as "brutal". Weinstein says the Crown submitted the seriousness of the crime was aggravated by previous domestic violence in the relationship, Ms Anderson's fear of Thompson and her attempts to end the relationship. But he has ruled that Thompson's significant mental health issues, the domestic violence he suffered as a child at the hands of his violent father, his difficult schooling and exposure to drugs had diminished his moral culpability. Ms Anderson's mother Tabitha Acret has said outside the court she is heartbroken over the loss of her child. "Throughout this week my daughter was often referred to as the deceased, a term that strips her of her identity, of personhood. I want people to remember that she was not just a statistic, her name was Mackenzie. She was a mother, a sister, a daughter, and a friend. And most of her all she was a human being and her life mattered." Authorities say it could take the entire day to clear debris from Sydney's M1 motorway after a truck spilled metal shards over a long stretch of road early this morning. Roads Minister Jenny Aitchison has called it an unprecdented situation, saying it's proving a difficult task to comb through small pieces of metal that could easily be lodged in crevices and tyre treads. New South Wales Transport Management Centre coordinator Howard Collins says over 700 kilograms of metal shards have impacted more than 300 vehicles, causing tyre damage to some cars. The manager of the trucking company responsible, Daniel Falconer, has apologised for the incident in an interview on 2-G-B Radio. "I say, we've been doing this for about three or four years, and we've never had a problem with it. The pins on the back of the trucks were locked with it's just a mechanical error of some sort. We don't know exactly how it's come out the back of the truck. It's just been seeping out, by the looks of it, over a couple of K's [[Kilometres]], he travelled 30 K's before he even got to the stage where it started coming out seems to be just an accident. We are very sorry for all the concern, all that we're just thank God that no, no one's had a major accident or anything." An exhibit featuring the world famous Terracotta Warriors is being brought to Australia next month. More than 225 Chinese artefacts - including the warriors - will be hosted in June at the WA Museum Boola Bardip. The pieces are from the period in history when China was unified under Emperor Qin Shi Huang. It's understood most of the objects have never been seen in Australia before, nearly half have never left China, and some of the more recently excavated pieces have never been on public display. Iga Swiatek has experienced her worst loss in five years, going down to Coco Gauff 6-1 6-1 in the Madrid Open semi-finals. Gauff will now face world number one Aryna Sabalenka for the WTA 1000 title in what will be her first Madrid Open final. She has told the Tennis Channel she is confident of her chances in that match after accounting for Swiatek so thoroughly.
"Honestly, today I just felt good out there on the court. And the last few matches even though like my first round started off tough I think it made me match ready for today and you know maybe it wasn't her best tennis but I think for me, I'm really happy with how I serve today. And then off the ground, I felt like I don't know I just felt good out there."
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News.com.au
2 hours ago
- News.com.au
‘Like winning lotto': $300,000-a-year public servant pensions under fire in super tax battle
Would a 90-year-old need a half-a-million-dollar per year pension to live on? As debate swirls around Labor's controversial superannuation tax changes, critics have set their sights on lucrative taxpayer-funded lifetime pensions paid to former high-ranking public servants and politicians which can stretch into hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Politicians who entered parliament before the October 2004 election, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and opposition leader Sussan Ley, are still accruing benefits under the Public Sector Superannuation Scheme (PSS), a defined benefit scheme which pays out an annual pension — indexed to inflation and calculated by a formula including the member's average salary and years of service — when the member leaves office or retires at 55. 'It's like winning lotto,' said veteran fund manager John Abernethy, founder and chairman of Clime Investment Management. 'These guys are giving themselves lotto wins and then complain about paying tax on the income.' Treasurer Jim Chalmers' proposed tax changes, known as Division 296, would double the rate from 15 per cent to 30 per cent for superannuation balances over $3 million and, most controversially, include unrealised gains on earnings on assets held by funds such as shares, farms and property. Labor first announced the crackdown on tax concessions for very large super balances in 2023, but the legislation was blocked by the previous Senate. The changes look likely to become law as a deal with the Greens looms. Only around 80,000 Australians, or 0.5 per cent of the population, currently have super balances above $3 million, but industry groups have warned that if the threshold is not indexed to inflation it could eventually capture the majority of Gen Zs entering the workforce today. The measure is expected to initially claw back $2.7 billion a year and nearly $40 billion over a decade. 'What we need to do is make sure that our superannuation system is fair,' Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said this week. 'That is what we are setting out to do.' Division 296 will also be applied to defined benefit pensions to ensure 'commensurate treatment' as high-balance super funds — although unlike super account holders, those eligible will be able to defer the payments until they retire. Interest will be charged annually on the deferred tax liability at the 10-year bond rate, currently at around 4.5 per cent. Treasury estimates that 10,000 members with defined benefit interests will be impacted by the new tax in 2025-26, 'representing approximately 1 per cent of the total population with DB interests'. The Australian Council for Public Sector Retiree Organisations (ACPSRO), which represents more than 700,000 retired public servants, has flagged a possible challenge to the new law, arguing it's unfair. ASCPRO notes that unfunded pensions, which do not receive the 'generous and open-ended taxation concessions' available under regular superannuation, are already subject to normal income tax. Recipients who will be captured by the $3 million threshold are already paying a marginal tax rate of 45 per cent on that income, and Division 296 will likely take their marginal tax rate to 60 per cent, according to ASCPRO. 'I'm not stepping away from the fact that these are very wealthy people at the top of the public service — either retired High Court judges, Commonwealth department secretaries, deputy secretaries — it's a very small percentage but it's the principle of the thing,' said ASCPRO president John Pauley. 'Nowhere has the government explained to defined benefit pensioners how they're benefiting from tax concessions at present and therefore why it's fair, just and equitable for this additional tax impost to be paid on top of the tax they're already paying.' A person in an accumulation scheme who would be affected by the tax has the option of moving their assets out of super into another tax-effective vehicle such as a family trust, Mr Pauley argues, whereas those receiving defined benefit pensions have no such option. 'You're at the mercy of the government of the day,' he said. ASCPRO also takes issue with deferred interest being slugged on future pension payments. 'There is zero asset sitting behind these schemes — if you're unfortunate enough to get run over by a car two years into your pension there is nothing there [to leave to beneficiaries],' Mr Pauley said. 'This is the ultimate self-licking ice cream for the government. They are wanting to make people pay tax, not on unrealised capital gains, they're wanting people to pay tax on a hypothetical gain on an asset which doesn't exist, either during the accumulation phase or during the pension.' Mr Pauley estimated that for the roughly one million households receiving defined benefit pensions, the average was only in the range of $50,000. 'Teachers, nurses, police officers, members of the Defence Force, the bureaucrats who do the day-to-day work of government,' he said. 'Yes there's a few who are on very high incomes who have access to a defined benefit pension, [but] this wasn't something that is optional for them. When you signed up to work with the public sector it was a part of your workplace contract.' Mr Abernethy, however, argues any overhaul of super concessions should also include going back to the drawing board on the $166 billion unfunded liability 'black hole', which has continued to blow out beyond forecasts as existing members continue to accrue benefits prior to retirement. 'Just pay out the bloody benefits today and cap it at $3 million, if the government is saying $3 million is more than you should have in super,' he said. 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'Then in five years I say, 'Look, mate, I'm only going to give you $90.' Am I going to get angry? I didn't contribute to it, you're just taking $10 off my cashflow.' Mr Abernethy, in an op-ed last month, outlined what he saw as the 'diabolical issues' with defined benefits. He cited the example of a high-profile former politician, senior ADF officer or High Court judge in their early 70s who receives a $300,000 defined benefit pension this year. Assuming 3 per cent indexation, Mr Abernethy pointed out that at 75 years old the pension rises to $327,000, at 80 it rises to $380,000, at 85 it rises to $440,000, at 90 it rises to $510,000 and at 95 it reaches $590,000. 'Think about the numbers and you see that over the 10 years to 85, the pension receipts aggregate to about $4 million, and over the 10 years to 95 it aggregates to over $5 million,' he wrote. 'Would a 90-year-old need $510,000 a year to live on? Therefore, is it likely that these funds would flow from the beneficiary to others in a type of living estate? Is that what defined benefit pensions designed to do and are they consistent with Australia's superannuation policy?' Defined benefit schemes were phased out after former Treasurer Peter Costello realised the payments would explode the budget bottom line in future years if not closed off. The PSS has been closed to new members since 2005, while the earlier Commonwealth Superannuation Scheme (CSS) was closed in 1990. The CSS is a hybrid accumulation-defined benefit scheme, with some benefits linked to final salary and others based on an accumulation of contributions with investment earnings. For military personnel, the defined benefit schemes are the Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefits Scheme, the Defence Forces Retirement Benefits Scheme and the Military Superannuation and Benefits Scheme (MSBS). Following the closure of the MSBS in 2016, all defined benefit military schemes are now closed to new members. The schemes are unfunded or partially funded, meaning the payments come directly from tax revenue, to the tune of about $20 billion a year. In 2006, the government established the Future Fund with an initial contribution of $60.5 billion that included the proceeds from the sale of Telstra. The Future Fund was originally supposed to start paying out pensions in 2020 to take the burden off the taxpayer, but successive governments have delayed drawing from the fund. In November, Labor ruled out taking a dividend from the fund until at least 2032-33, when the savings pool is expected to have reached $380 billion. The announcement came as the Treasurer directed the Future Fund to prioritise investments in renewable energy, housing and infrastructure, sparking warnings that he was politicising the independently managed sovereign wealth fund. Former Labor Climate Change Minister Greg Combet, who was appointed chair of Future Fund by Dr Chalmers in January 2024, said the decision to defer withdrawals 'provides the Future Fund with the confidence to provide more focus and resources to the areas of national priority identified in the new investment mandate that align with our risk and return hurdle'. In an op-ed for The Australian Financial Review, Mr Combet said 'as of today, the value of the Future Fund covers about 79 per cent of the estimated APS superannuation liabilities' — suggesting the liability had grown to about $290 billion. The Future Fund was valued at $237.9 billion as at December 31. The most recent federal budget estimates liabilities for civilian superannuation schemes, including the CSS and PSS as well as pensions for judges, at $166 billion in 2024-25, rising to $179 billion by 2028-29. Including military superannuation schemes, the total figure was $303 billion in 2024-25 and $341 billion by 2028-29. Treasury's PSS and CSS Long Term Cost Report, published last year, forecast that the unfunded liability for the schemes would peak at $190.5 billion in 2033-34 before declining to $62.4 billion by 2060. As of June 30, 2023, there were a total of 100,574 CSS members, including 1333 still currently employed, and 214,793 PSS members, 54,870 still employed. 'People who are in public service are entitled to a payout, but that payout should have been calculated and created with a logical and fair mechanism,' Mr Abernethy said. 'Saying to someone you get paid your pension based on your average wage when you leave, you tell us when you want to get it … that's not fair. You create these different tiers of benefits. Society's got to sit back and say, what's fair and what's affordable? Everyone's trying to get at fairness in the super system, but there's only so much money in the pot.'
Sydney Morning Herald
2 hours ago
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Time to pay the Deeming debt and focus on the job of opposition
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The Age
2 hours ago
- The Age
Time to pay the Deeming debt and focus on the job of opposition
If we accept that the fundamental aim of political parties is to win elections and then govern on behalf of their constituents, then there is a strong case that the Victorian branch of the Liberal Party no longer meets the definition. Having steadily improved in the polls under John Pesutto as the problems of the state's Labor government mounted, some predicted that Victoria's Liberals would turn the tide at federal level, winning a raft of seats and delivering Peter Dutton the prime ministership. Those lost in this pipe dream did not worry that the state branch was already reverting to the form of a circular firing squad, in which an ousted Pesutto and his nemesis, Moira Deeming, were expected to work together even as she pressed him for personally ruinous millions in court costs. Another member of the humiliated Team Pesutto, shadow health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier, then decided to angrily call out party colleague Sam Groth over alleged misuse of a taxpayer-funded car (which he insists was within the rules). The Victorian Liberal Party has lost six of the past seven state elections, stretching back to the defeat of Jeff Kennett in 1999. That first reversal came out of the blue, but ever since the state party has stumbled in the dark over its identity and leadership. For years, it seemed religious conservatives were determined to turn the party of the social establishment and capital into a Trojan horse for their agendas on abortion and homosexuality. At times – think Bernie Finn or Geoff Shaw – this looked like a simple case of the tail trying to wag the dog. Loading Deeming – who inherited Finn's Western Metropolitan seat – is the latest manifestation of this trend, with her eyes set firmly on an ideological destination to which her fellow MPs can either accede or be swept aside, and if that means remaining in opposition, so be it. At the height of his confidence, Dutton suggested intervention by the federal party in this mess. Such an undertaking seems laughable now, given that Sussan Ley is already up to her eyeballs in the battle to steer the Coalition's shrinking ship in Canberra and leading lights of the Victorian federal landscape, Josh Frydenberg and Michael Sukkar, have been discarded by voters.
